# Sticky  squarepeg 2015-? treatment free experience



## mathesonequip

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

just 72 hours of sub-freezing temperatures.. sounds good to me where do I sign-up?


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## Kamon A. Reynolds

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

Looking forward to it.post away


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## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

As I've said before sp...you're a good man. I like your threads and respect your honesty. It has been cold here too....by our standards....so far, so good.


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## beewitched

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

Best of luck on your endeavors squarepeg!

question: do you stay with the single deeps all thru the year, just adding medium supers? Also, when do you split them?


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## Eduardo Gomes

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

Best of luck for your project and plans squarepeg. Your " case study " will surely be useful for many of us. Thank you for your initiative.


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## shinbone

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

Looking forward to your posts!


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## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015*



squarepeg said:


> no desire to toot my own horn or otherwise.


Arrgh a new Sol! 

Ha Ha just kidding Squarepeg it will be a wonderful thread, I for one will very much enjoy it. It may well become a kind of TF flagship, and reference point. Above all, I hope it may shed some light for the likes of me, those who have followed the formulae prescribed so far, but failed anyway. Maybe new ideas and understandings will surface along the way.

I remember StephenG's thread from way back which was the best thing going at the time, unfortunately it has not been maintained, perhaps this thread will fill the gap.


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## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

Brrrrr Brrrrrr 

More Brrrrrr

I don't know what SP is getting, but we are still below 38 degrees here in NW Alabama. Bees are fine though.


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## WWW

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

I am glad to hear that all 18 of your hives are still peculating, I will be following your thread with interest, all my best to you squarepeg........


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

many thanks to all for the kind replies, and for easing my conscience about having this thread.

beewitched, yes i use a single deep with medium supers on almost all hives. i have two deeps when using a cloake board for queen rearing, and sometimes two deeps temporarily when combining.

ot, lol! may i enlist you as my accountability partner on that one? 

the next post will be my inventory of colonies at this time, along with their hive weights taken on jan. 4, changes in weights since october 31, estimated current lbs. of honey in hive, year of origin, and mite counts for three of them.

you will notice that 2/3 of them were just started this year. this is partly by design and partly by mistake. i have two yards and up until now one was used for honey and the other was used for nucs. i made the mistake of splitting all of my 2013 overwintered colonies into nucs that i sold this past year, wishing later i would have kept some of the overwintered queens for myself. i also split and requeened three colonies this year that i have had for several seasons because even though they were surviving they were just not producing. so we'll have to take into account for this winter that first year untreated colonies often do well until the second winter.

this year both yards and all hives will be managed for honey and nucs on a hive by hive basis.


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

*LEGEND:

HIVE: WEIGHT ON JAN. 4, CHANGE FROM OCT. 31 TO NOV. 30, CHANGE FROM NOV. 30 TO JAN. 4, (ESTIMATED LBS. HONEY IN HIVE), YEAR, MITE COUNT AND DATE TAKEN

#2: 95 +1, -2 (50) 2011 NUC 8.93% MITE COUNT 9/26/14
#3: 87 +5.5, -4 (52) 2014 SWARM
#4: 71 +.5, -4 (26) 2012 NUC
#5: 99.5 -4, -2.5 (54) 2014 SWARM
#7: 105 SAME, -1 (60) 2013 NUC 10.7% MITE COUNT 10/19/14
#8: 88.5 +3, +.5 (43) 2014 NUC
#9: 98.5 -3.5, +.5 (53) 2012 NUC 13.4% MITE COUNT 10/19/14
#10: 74 -1, -1 (29) 2014 NUC
#11: 84.5 -5.5, -4 (39) 2014 NUC
B1: 57 -1, +1 (22) 2014 NUC
B2: 56 -1.5, -.5 (21) 2014 NUC
B3: 57 +6 (HONEY ADDED), SAME (22) 2014 NUC
B4: 58 -5, +2 (23) 2014 NUC
B5: 62 -1.5, +.5 (27) 2014 NUC
B6: 56 +6 (HONEY ADDED), SAME (21) 2014 NUC
B7: 82 -1, +.5 (37) 2014 NUC
B8: 60 +1.5, +1 (25) 2014 SWARM
B9: 77 +3.5, -1 (32) 2011 NUC 
*

i hope this makes sense.


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## mrflegel

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

Thanks for starting this. I was thinking of starting a thread of the north ala beekeeps to keep track of what is going on in our area and here you beat me to it. 
mike


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

it's all good mike, nice to hear from you.


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## Eduardo Gomes

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

To me it is clear, thank you. You have 2 hives that do not swarm since 2011 (#2 and B9). In your case, and being productive colonies and resistant to mites , I would make them the center of my breeding queens program. What process do you use to assess the weight of the hives?


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

thank you eduardo. the older hives may have swarmed, but have been surviving without needing requeening by me since those years. yes, the ones that have survived the longest, swarmed the least, and produce the most honey are the ones i take my grafts from. i use a scale that is made for weighing fish to weigh first one side and then the other side of the hive, and then add the two.

http://www.beesource.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=3463&d=1352499946


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## Eduardo Gomes

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

I see. The place where you have your hives is very beautiful. You use medium beneath the deep. It is for storage of pollen?


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## Eric Crosby

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

Great thread SP I also look forward to reading your accounts. I'm Do have one question regarding what is currently,or historically at this time of year, happening in your colonies. have they already begun rearing brood. Or do they even stop for any period of time so far south?

Thanks EC


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

good question eric. the bees here close out their broodnest and go into overwintering mode by around the first frost which normally occurs around the end of october. if you look at the hive weights you'll see that there has been very little change in most of the hive weights from the end of october until now. since there has been no forage and very little stores have been used i interpret that as no brooding.

the exceptions are #5 and #11. these two are really strong colonies and continued to forage pollen even after the others stopped. i believe these two are leading the rest in their early brooding coming out of winter. that usually starts here around late january to early february and corresponds to the first tree pollens becoming available. fusionpower is near me and he is observing the first rounds of brood in some of his hives.


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*



Eduardo Gomes said:


> I see. The place where you have your hives is very beautiful. You use medium beneath the deep. It is for storage of pollen?


that's the idea, although i did not get that one put on in time for pollen storage. i also feel it is better to store it there for the winter instead of in my garage. in another month or so, the bottom super will be brought up and the empty comb in it will be checkerboarded with the honey super that is now on top.


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## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

I'll be looking forward to your thread. Always wondering what others are doing in our area. I'm really interested in your experiences as treatment free. I'm hoping to get to that point. Thank you!


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

hi gary, lamar county is not too far from here. let me know if you find yourself over this way and we'll visit the beeyard.


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## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015*



squarepeg said:


> ot, lol! may i enlist you as my accountability partner on that one?


I've been reading you long enough to know that nothing like that will be required.

A thread by someone who enjoys real success, but always speaks inclusively, courteously and does not respond to insults in kind, will be a great thing. Wish I had your self discipline in my tendency to shoot off my mouth sometimes.


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

mighty kind of you ot, many thanks.


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## AstroBee

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

You've probably talked about this before, but how will 2015 differ from what you've been doing in the past? Are there any significant changes you're planning? How are your colonies arranged, all in one yard or distributed? Regardless, thanks for taking the effort to publicly record your effort!!


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## Kidbeeyoz

*Re: squarepeg 2015*



squarepeg said:


> i had mentioned in other threads that i was considering chronicling my 2015 season here on the forum. the purpose for doing so is because there has been interest expressed for more detailed information regarding the real life successes and failures involved with keeping bees off treatments. so i begin this thread with that expressed intent, primarily for information sharing and educational purposes, with all humility and with no desire to toot my own horn or otherwise. the one selfish objective i have in doing this is the hope that some of you seasoned veterans will chime in with feedback and suggestions.
> 
> background: as stated in my tagline i started with bees in the summer of 2010. i started with stock obtained from a supplier who began breeding from feral cut outs in 1996 and has not used treatments the whole time. i still get some queen cells from him from time to time but mostly propagate my own queens via splits and grafts. i run all langstroth equipment, and most hives are a single 10 deep with medium supers. i use 5 frame deeps for nucs. foundation is mostly ritecell, although i have begun adding foundationless frames to the deeps. i generally avoid artificial feeds, but have made exceptions when indicated. the operation is a sideline business (llc) intended to produce supplemental income through honey and nuc sales.
> 
> 2015 goals: i seek to maximize the profitability of the operation to the extent possible while maintaining the colonies off treatments and avoiding artificial feeds.)


Great to hear you are avoiding artificial feeds. Seems are lot of beekeepers forget that the honeybee's natural food is pollen, nectar and honey. Robbing all the honey off the bees and feeding them some witches brew and pollen substitute, does not sit well with me.

Is Colony Collapse Disorder still happening in your country?


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*



AstroBee said:


> You've probably talked about this before, but how will 2015 differ from what you've been doing in the past? Are there any significant changes you're planning? How are your colonies arranged, all in one yard or distributed? Regardless, thanks for taking the effort to publicly record your effort!!


my approach is a work in progress and frankly i hope it always will be, but here are some ways 2015 will be different:

1. my bees are split almost equally between two yards, about 8 miles apart. rather than have a 'honey' yard and a 'nuc' yard like before, both yards and all hives will be utilized for honey and nucs in ways that make the most sense for each individual hive.

2. i am considering equalizing populations among the hives as we progress through the spring build up. my thought is to take frames of capped brood with adhering nurse bees from the largest and donate them to the smallest. this is to give each hive a chance to be productive, and may give me a shot at holding the strongest back from swarming.

3. swarm prevention is key to getting a decent honey harvest. i find that checkerboarding alone reduces my swarming by half, but i want better. i want to experiment with other methods and will likely utilize cut down splits on more of the hives than i have been. the sale of the cut downs will generate nuc income, and the nucs i keep can donate brood to the parent colonies during the month it takes for them to make a new queen.

as i said in the op, all feedback, comments, suggestions, ect. are welcomed

ps: i wish i could spend a season in suffolk looking over your shoulder ab, the progress you are making is noteworthy!


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*



Kidbeeyoz said:


> Great to hear you are avoiding artificial feeds. Seems are lot of beekeepers forget that the honeybee's natural food is pollen, nectar and honey. Robbing all the honey off the bees and feeding them some witches brew and pollen substitute, does not sit well with me.
> 
> Is Colony Collapse Disorder still happening in your country?


where i am located and in most years it is possible to get a decent harvest while leaving enough honey for the bees. i'm not an expert on ccd, but i don't think we have had many very confirmed cases reported for several years now. collapse is most often attributed to varroa and associated viruses.


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## beepro

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

I would like to see what kind of tf hybrids the Suffolk and the AL tf bees will make.
Will these hybrids do well when transplanted to other areas?


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## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015*



squarepeg said:


> 2. i am considering equalizing populations among the hives as we progress through the spring build up. my thought is to take frames of capped brood with adhering nurse bees from the largest and donate them to the smallest. this is to give each hive a chance to be productive, and may give me a shot at holding the strongest back from swarming.


This procedure will seriously mess up the breeding evaluations, not only this year but coming years too.


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## AstroBee

*Re: squarepeg 2015*



squarepeg said:


> ps: i wish i could spend a season in suffolk looking over your shoulder


Heck, if you can't do a season come up for a weekend! I think we'd both learn from each other. I'd give you a queen or two to take back home!


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*



beepro said:


> Will these hybrids do well when transplanted to other areas?


it's not been tried with the bees i am using bp, but my guess is that after a generation or two the genetics would meld with whatever is around. beyond genetics, it's possible that these hybrids have adapted to the weather and flora that is local to here and that may somehow impart some advantage to them. i am interested in seeing how they do elsewhere, my hope is to introduce them into ever increasing distances from here and see what happens.


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*



Juhani Lunden said:


> This procedure will seriously mess up the breeding evaluations, not only this year but coming years too.


i thought about that juhani and you are right. i'm hoping the number of colonies that require an extra frame of brood are few, and at this point my breeding program is very modest anyway.


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*



AstroBee said:


> Heck, if you can't do a season come up for a weekend! I think we'd both learn from each other. I'd give you a queen or two to take back home!


you gotta deal!!  and i would be happy to bring you some queens to try there. it would be great to visit your operation ab, perhaps we'll get an opportunity for that this year. i appreciate the offer!


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## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

Squarepeg: If I get a chance to visit, I'll let you know. Thank you.


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## minz

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

I said it before on the 2015 goal page that you were about the same size as I am and I think about the same climate. I hope to follow your model. 
Since you are just starting the thread could you give us a bit more detail on::scratch:
Your geography? For instance I am in a valley between two mountain ranges, one separates me from the Pacific Ocean and the other from the high desert, I sit at 500’. Wet winters, dry summers. Only (12) + 90 degree days per year, average winter temp 40 degrees.
Nectar flows: Example, major fruits start is Plums about mid March. All major fruit trees about the end of April. (March 1 for checkerboard based on traditional apple bloom). Major flow Blackberry, Mid June. Pull all supers in mid July, not another plant blooming until next year.
These are items that I feel have a major influence in how your management relates to ours that we could not get from looking up your location on Google.


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

hi minz, yes it does sound like we have similar conditions. i am on a ridgetop overlooking the tennessee river valley and there is a ridge on the other side of the river. i am at about 1300' asl, and the river is at about 600' asl. one thing i notice is that similar blooms in the valley happen one to two weeks before they do on the ridgetop. i think this helps to 'stretch out' the flows and may be of benefit. fruit blooms happen at about the same time here as for you. i try to get the supers checkerboarded by around late february, but i am really watching more than anything for strong foraging on the first tree pollens, which tells me that brooding is ramping up.


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## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015*



squarepeg said:


> i had mentioned in other threads that i was considering chronicling my 2015 season here on the forum. the purpose for doing so is because there has been interest expressed for more detailed information regarding the real life successes and failures involved with keeping bees off treatments. so i begin this thread with that expressed intent, primarily for information sharing and educational purposes, with all humility and with no desire to toot my own horn or otherwise. the one selfish objective i have in doing this is the hope that some of you seasoned veterans will chime in with feedback and suggestions.


I'll follow this with interest SP. Your operation is similar to mine in several key ways. I've just read through, and the only thing I'd want to comment on is your plan to balance up the hives and take other measures to reduce swarming. I'm with Juhani; I think this will seriously interfere with evaluations. I'm not sure quite how, or in how many different ways, and if you can somehow discount most of them. Can you tell us a bit about your thoughts on that issue?

Good luck with the project!

Mike (UK)


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## beepro

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

Yeah, like are you going to graft from the most mite resistant queens either the daughter or the mother queen?
Or it doesn't matter as long as it is the most resistant queen? Just wondering what is your selection criteria.


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## mbc

*Re: squarepeg 2015*



squarepeg said:


> it's not been tried with the bees i am using bp, but my guess is that after a generation or two the genetics would meld with whatever is around. beyond genetics, it's possible that these hybrids have adapted to the weather and flora that is local to here and that may somehow impart some advantage to them. i am interested in seeing how they do elsewhere, my hope is to introduce them into ever increasing distances from here and see what happens.


There are very few success stories about queens capable of doing ok treatment free continuing to do so when parachuted into different areas. Surviving tf populations are often characterised by stability, continuity and a certain amount of isolation, which to my mind points to synergistic ( sorry for the naff buzz word, maybe "holistic" would have been better, but still naff!) reasons for survival encompassing the bees themselves but also the varroa and pathogens all adapting to live together without catastrophic collapses to either species. 
Anyway, interesting thread, thanks squarepeg (cool moniker btw) I'll try and lurk without posting off topic in future


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

mike, i'm still giving thought to juhani's point and i remain flexible on it. as i said my approach is and hopefully will continue to be a work in progress. given the low losses that my supplier has had over many years and i am likewise experiencing so far, and to bp's question about selecting for mite resistance, i think these hybrids are to the point of looking to other metrics for selection. i'll have to admit that i've only sampled for mites a few times and haven't measured for vsh or anything else.

and to be fair i've only processed a few rounds of grafts. as i mentioned my breeding program is modest by most standards. very simply i have selected from the colonies that are the most long lived, have responded to swarm prevention measures (checkerboarding), and have made the most honey. i've deselected colonies that despite two or three years of survival off treatments were tending to stay small and swarmy and weren't earning their keep. these were dequeened and turned into nucs with grafted queens from the champion colonies.

mbc, thank you for describing more eloquently than i have been able what i feel i am observing here. i agree that with bees there are many important factors that come into play. for me this is what makes our efforts to understand what is happening both challenging and rewarding. no worries anyone about straying off topic on this thread, i've a bad habit of that myself.


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## Ian

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

Squarepeg, I like your forth coming nature in sharing your understanding of this beekeeping craft. 

And because of that id like to pick on a few details to help better understand what your doing. Alabama is a different beekeeping than Manitoba!

Treatment free aside, one of your objectives is to glean a Nuc and 100 lbs per hive as revenue. But supplemental feeding is zero. Do I have that right? Does Alabama have a staggered enough drawn out continuous flow to sustain hives which are managed to achieve those production targets?
When harvesting honey in this northern country, we never know what is in store three weeks in advance. The only way we are able to pull off the production we do is by having sugar at hand if flows don't materialize. But then, you would not get punished with 6 months of winter as we do.


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

many thanks ian, i very much appreciate you and the other professionals sharing your words of wisdom as well.

you are correct, i hope to average a nuc and 100 lbs. sold per successfully overwintered hive in 2015 without supplemental feeding. i am considering bending that rule this year and use some of latshaw's bee food to accelerate the build up coming out of winter. i have used syrup on rare occasions, usually to help a swarm that was caught late in the season get established.

our flow here is not continuous but rather bimodal. pollen and nectar become increasingly available starting about late february, peaking at our main flow in late april, and winding down to dearth by the end of june. july and most of august are pretty lean until the fall blooms kick in, and then we usually have a decent flow until late october and the first frost.

my three main reasons for not using syrup are:

1. i have supers on the hives year round and don't want to take a chance of having any syrup stored in them.
2. i believe that the honey diet may help with natural resistance to viruses and other pathogens.
3. i don't want to interfere with the colony operations that are tied to the natural ebbs and flows of pollen and nectar here.

#3 manifests itself in the ramping down of brooding that i see starting in late may that leads to a virtually complete brood break in july. it may also play a role in winter preps as the long-lived bees are made and the colony adjusts its population for overwintering. these considerations may have implications in the tf context.

i've found that there is plenty of spring honey for harvesting if i take only what gets capped and leave the uncapped frames for the summer dearth. since very little brooding is going on they usually don't use much over the summer. a lot of those frames get capped on the fall flow and are harvested then.

2014 was a worse case scenario here because spring came about a month late whereas summer came right on time. the colonies were smaller and didn't have as much time to make honey. then our fall was dry and we didn't get much of a nectar flow. a lot of the honey that was left after the spring harvest got used for the fall brooding. i also promised more nucs than i would have liked to have sold and missed out on some honey production because of it. but despite the uncooperative weather i managed to sell 13 nucs and close to 400 lbs. of honey, and i ended with three more colonies than the 15 that i started the season with.

if you look at the hive weights you will see that a fair amount of honey was left that could have been harvested on a few of the hives. i decided to leave it and i'll likely transfer some frames from the heavier hives to the lighter ones to promote a strong spring build up. some of that honey may end up getting harvested this spring if the bees don't use it prior to storing this year's nectar.

i'm hoping that 2014 was atypical and that most years will be like the years prior. the opportunity for better harvests is increasing as i get more supers drawn. i have had no problem harvesting 4 to 5 mediums off of strong colonies that were prevented from swarming while leaving them 1 or 2 supers for overwintering. i have been able to harvest 2 to 3 supers off of colonies that were artificially swarmed or 'cut down split' prior to the main flow. swarmed colonies have yielded little to no harvest which brings the average way down. here is where more 'tweaking' is needed.


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## minz

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

Again along Ian’s line of thought:
So you also have no blooms after June and no rain in the summer? (my intellicast for zip 98709 shows my monthly average to be 0.65” and 0.72” July August respectively (http://www.intellicast.com/Local/History.aspx?location=USOR0400) From your description (around Huntsville) http://www.intellicast.com/Local/History.aspx?location=USAL0287 puts your summer at about 4” of rain. I guess I am trying to figure out honey and colony health based on the blooms and how it relates to colony health and honey as a side of the business.
Sorry Squarepeg, I noted that you posted the Answer the same time I posted the questions!


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

our summer rains come from isolated thunderstorms and we usually get enough to keep the grass from turning brown but it can vary. after a good rain i'll see a day or two of strong foraging after which it drops back off until the next rain.

there are sporadic blooms throughout the summer which are generally enough to maintain the day to day nutritional needs of the colony but not enough for the storing and/or finishing of harvestable honey.


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## David LaFerney

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

I think what you are doing is great and I hope you are successful. My production goals are similar to yours even though I do treat and feed - so if your goals turn out to be realistic it will be a pretty convincing business model.

If it works out I would like to see you establish an outyard sufficiently remote to demonstrate that it is feasible for at least others in your region.

Good luck.


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

many thanks david. there are two new beekeepers that have my nucs from last year but they are located near here. i am going to try and find out if there are others who have bought bees from the supplier who are using this approach. i do know that someone came down from tennessee last year and bought several nucs from him. i am going to make an effort to see how they are doing in other locations.


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## beepro

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

It would be nice to find out who from BS here had bought nucs from him. Then
you can talk about their experiences with his bees. Is it only unique to your area or in general
that they can survive elsewhere.


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## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

I'll expand on the honeyflow characteristics a bit by stating that our spring flows in February are primarily for pollen, but an occasional surplus from maple can be stored. Early fruit bloom from pears and apples starts about the 25th of March and lasts to about the 10th of April with a week or two of variance depending on weather conditions. Beginning about April 15th we get our main flow which typically lasts 3 to 4 weeks tapering to a stop by May 20th. We have some smaller flows that fill gaps until Sourwood starts in early June. One year in ten, I get a super of sourwood per colony, however, there is enough to harvest and jar premium sourwood honey about 1 in 3 years, just not enough to fill a shallow super. Fall flows start around August 10th from goldenrod and meld into aster which can yield until November 20th. Most years we get about 30 pounds per colony from goldenrod and aster. I have never pulled fall honey because the goldenrod has an odd smell and the aster tends to crystalize. Overall average for the state is about 60 pounds. An active beekeeper who tends to business can produce 120 pounds per colony average.


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## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

Not Fusion power but I would agree with his sentiment about doubling State average by "tending to business", the same applies where I am. 

There's a lot of reasons why State averages are low, one being hives owned by non commercial beekeepers who have lost the love, and do little more than pull some honey from time to time. The hives are allowed to swarm and generally not run at optimum, doubling the average is a simple thing with some effort, and reasonable care for the bees.
Also if hives are in a fixed location and it's a good one, it can be possible to get more honey than a lot of the commercial beekeepers who may be primarily concerned with pollination, and may be forced by numbers to have some hives in less than optimal locations for honey production. But if there is a commercial beekeeper who makes most of his living from honey production, so is focussed on that, he will be hard to beat.

Where I am, average honey production is ludicrously low, something like 60 or 70 lb's per hive. You would wonder how anyone could survive on that, but it's partly because of high prices for Manuka honey, beekeepers are prepared to sacrifice somewhat to get pure, high quality honey. But if a guy with just a few hives set out to beat the average, with a little skill the average can be doubled, tripled, or more.

But interested to hear Fusion Powers answer he will probably have region specific information you are wanting.


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

next to having cooperative weather in a good location swarm prevention is the key to bountiful harvests. 

walt wright's checkerboarding resulted in a measurable improvement in swarm control with my bees. the colonies that swarmed anyway appeared to halt their expansion at a break between boxes and then proceeded to backfill and swarm. it seemed odd that they would flat out ignore the alternated frames of honey and drawn comb in the next super up, but they did.

after mulling it over with walt, we are going to try a modification to his checkerboarding this spring. rather than staggering the combs of honey in the two supers whereby there is an empty comb over a honey frame and vice versa, we are going to try putting honey frames over honey frames and empty comb over empty comb in the two supers. the hope is that this will promote broodnest expansion through the gap and keep the bees from getting 'stuck' at the break between boxes.

the inspiration for this modification comes from observations made on my over wintered five frame nucs last year. by april these nucs had built up to double deeps. when the upper deeps were placed, they had alternating frames of honey and empty comb. the bees expanded the broodnest all the way to the top of the upper deep, putting no honey reserve overhead, and no swarm preps were noticed even though other colonies were already swarming. these colonies were slated for splitting and i had already committed to selling some nucs so that's what happened to them at that point. i've wondered since what they would have done had i just started adding supers instead of splitting them.

i'm hoping that i will get a similar result with the modified checkerboarding of my medium supers this year as i did with the upper deeps as described above. in other words i'm hoping that the bees will brood to the top of the second super and not begin swarm preps. if that happens, and if i find that the deep at the bottom has lots of room for the queen to lay, i may try to exclude the queen to the deep, and as the brood hatches in the supers there will be room for nectar storage up there. additional supers would than be added as needed.


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## Lburou

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

Subscribed.

Squarepeg, in which growing zone are you located? I've also noted very small loss of hive weight up to mid February, largely due to small flows over winter here in growing zone 7b. On 23 December this year, I noted newly deposited, still uncapped nectar that was not there when the cold weather came in early December (easy to see in the mating NUCs I'm overwintering).

Look forward to reading your accounts.


----------



## Eduardo Gomes

*Re: squarepeg 2015*



squarepeg said:


> the colonies that swarmed anyway appeared to halt their expansion at a break between boxes and then proceeded to backfill and swarm. it seemed odd that they would flat out ignore the alternated frames of honey and drawn comb in the next super up, but they did.


If I clearly understand the description you make, my reflection brought me here: will be the age of the queens are not playing a decisive role in this equation? 

Does the drive to swarm should not be considered a continuum with two poles: from very low to very high? And the techniques of prevention and control of swarming be designed and implemented in accordance with the probable magnitude of the drive to swarm? If the beekeeper apply techniques more or less radical in accordance with that (eg . splits colonies with older queens and checkerboarding swarms with younger queens) likely drive see more tangible fruits of their management at the end of the season ?

The bottom line, based on this case you present is: to what extent our interventions in the nest structure and surrounding space are sufficient to offset a drive, often described in the literature and often observed by me in my apiaries, that older queens are more likely to swarm that younger queens? What is your opinion?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

lee, thanks for joining the discussion. i am also in zone 7b, and i have seen similar with regard to pollen and nectar coming in over the winter months here in past years, but none so far this year because we have not had much flying weather yet. next week looks to be promising for that, and hopefully i'll see the first foraging of this season. heres a link to a map of 'terrestrial ecoregions':

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Terrestrial_ecoregions_USA_CAN_MEX.svg

my location falls in #17, 'appalachian mixed mesophytic forests'. i see some differences in bloom types and bloom times between the ridge top here and the valley below, along the bluff line compared to along the river banks, ect. i am lucky in that there is a lot floral diversity within flying distance of my yards.

eduardo,

i have read with interest your comments regarding the age of the queen and tendency to swarm. i haven't been marking or clipping my queens so i can't be sure, but it appears that my colonies that do not swarm are requeening themselves every season by supercedure. i believe this because i found capped queen cells in colonies that did not swarm. i did witness this past year one of the colonies issue a very small swarm, much smaller than a reproductive swarm, and i assumed it was the old queen getting superceded and leaving with a handful of loyal workers.

it seems that the stock i am working with, (derived from feral cut outs and open mating with local ferals), are very good at swarming. perhaps this is part of how they are surviving varroa off treatments. occasionally a colony will issue multiple swarms, with a new record set last spring of five swarms issued from one hive! i am obviously deselecting those from the apiary, and as mentioned i am grafting from colonies that respond to swarm prevention management.

i believe i read that you have not been marking your queens. if this is the case how do you know how old your queens are and that they have not been superceded?


----------



## Eduardo Gomes

*Re: squarepeg 2015*



squarepeg said:


> i believe i read that you have not been marking your queens. if this is the case how do you know how old your queens are and that they have not been superceded?


Yes squarepeg you read that right. I do not mark my queens. At this point I must have only 20 marked queens who were the only ones I bought from portuguese breeders. On the issue that you put my answer is I do not know.

I know however what are the hives that have new queens (with one year or less): all hives that I divide in early spring 2014 and have raised a new queen, all the hives that swarmed, all nucs made by me ​​with a technique that I does not know the english designation .
I have about 250 hives with new queens. Of the remaining 150, about 120 have a queen who follows the procedures described above, but in the year 2013. And about 30 from the processes described above in the years before 2013.

These last 30 to me are my top queen, because apparently not swarm since before 2013. They most likely have superseded the queen without production breaks. At the time of production and swarming I see all colonies on a weekly basis. If they superseded the queen and I do not see falls in production and in the power of the cluster, is a sign that the old queen knew accept their daughter and knew live with it for a while. For me little more can we ask. Great genetics.

Colonies with queens referenced the year 2013 may have replaced the queen, being younger. I do not know. But because I want to increase my flock, with these 120 I will have a defensive approach: I will divide them. I will not waste any more time with them to control queen cells week after week. I will focus my attention on the 250 hives with the young queens, because even these also gives them the "fever", but usually with less aggressive and at the right timing manipulations, swarming can be controlled in most cases, and are hives with high yield potential. It is an approach with little technicality and that allows me to standardize interventions based on the age of queens. 

Squarepeg you do very well to go bringing this topic to debate, because the the swarming prevention is one of the pillars in the art of beekeeping, in my opinion.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

understood eduardo. i agree that it is wise to produce new queens from your colonies that have survived the most years and have given consistent production. i understand that you are looking for ways to assess mite resistance and use that information for breeding decisions as well. it sounds like you have a very workable plan in place for managing swarming with your large number of colonies. my beekeeping is on a much smaller scale and i do not depend on the bees for income. this makes it easier for me to experiment with different approaches and it is this experimenting that gives me the most reward. thank you for these and the many informative contributions that you have been making to the forum.


----------



## Eduardo Gomes

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

Thank you for your kind words squareped.

>my beekeeping is on a much smaller scale and i do not depend on the bees for income. this makes it easier for me to experiment with different approaches and it is this experimenting that gives me the most reward.>

I quite understand this feeling of you. It is a very rewarding scenario for the beekeeper that does not have to focus mostly on the production, to experience various management techniques and go discovering firsthand how they react their bees. And these experiences of small-scale beekeepers may even be a good school for the larger-scale beekeepers, that given the amount of hives that have and objectives targeted for production are not as liberated to do this good action - research.


----------



## Lburou

*Re: squarepeg 2015*



squarepeg said:


> ..... i see some differences in bloom types and bloom times between the ridge top here and the valley below, along the bluff line compared to along the river banks, etc. i am lucky in that there is a lot floral diversity within flying distance of my yards...


A lucky location that allows the bees to do the migration instead of the keeper.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*



Lburou said:


> A lucky location that allows the bees to do the migration instead of the keeper.


indeed lee, i am thankful for and humbled by the opportunity. 

i made an interesting observation on hive #11 today. this is the one that has used the most stores since late october. i found by stethoscope today that the cluster has moved up from the bottom deep into the two medium supers. i suspected that i might be seeing this happen after the poor fall flow prevented most of the colonies from getting much stored in their deeps. so far though it sounds like the rest of the colonies are still clustered in the deeps. looking forward to popping the tops soon, and plan on doing so on the first fair weather day.


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

Nearly 2000 views....squarepeg....you're on your way to stardom!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

it got just warm enough for cleansing flights today and i was able to get home in time to catch a little bit of it. #3 has lost cluster roar and a few bees from #9 were robbing honey from it. #3 was the only colony from 2014 that i would have described as a 'dink'. it was a caught swarm that never really took off. it's supposed to get warm enough tomorrow that i'll be able to inspect it. it's looking like a good candidate for my first loss this winter.


----------



## squarepeg

*our season began today,*

and pretty much nominally on time by the calander.

historically for my location the daily average highs and lows start gaining a degree or so per day coming out of winter and heading into spring starting tomorrow. i.e. spring is waning faster than winter is waxing. we've turned the corner and nature is paying attention.

as luck would have it today first foraging day after the solstice and i happen to be home for the day. and as luck would better have it walt wright was in town and was willing to mentor as we assessed cluster volumes and cluster locations within the stacks at the homeyard. 

it was one of those day that you know in your heart you will alway be thankful for.


----------



## squarepeg

*shook out #3*

my hunch about #3 (loss of cluster roar and getting robbed yesterday) was verified. upon inspection we discovered a very small cluster (not even a good handful of of live bees) with a queen. there was a small handful dead on the bottom board, and a few dead in cells. they were clustered at the top of a frame in the first super. they were utilizing open stores from a frame directly overhead in the second super. 

the queen was tiny and you almost couldn't even tell she was a queen. there were a few capped cells that i haven't looked into yet, and plenty of capped and uncapped honey, and beautiful frames of beebread. some of the brood frames from the deep were completely free of mite frass, and a couple of frames had a few cells with frass. frankly i'm surprised it wasn't full of frass. i'll quantify that in a future post after i've had a chance to examine the comb more carefully and pull those few brood out to examine them. 

the queen was pinched and the remaining bees were allowed to join neigbouring hives. the good news is that i have ten nice deep brood frames, a couple of which are foundationless, and two supers of honey 70% full. 

this poor ol' hive has been troubled from the start. it started as a small secondary swarm from one of my good hives. the virgin never got mated and was laying drones after three weeks so i pinched her and combined another swarm that i caught that had a pretty darn good laying queen. but the good laying pattern did not result in a good colony in the end. they never got ambitious and only drew what comb they had too and didn't really act like they wanted to become a nice big strong colony like their cousins in the yard. i actually had planned to dequeen it anyway and make splits, but truth is having those resources left over to boost my champions is more valuable to the overall operation.

this post is getting long so i'll save the metrics for the eight strong survivors for the next one.

cheers.


----------



## Eduardo Gomes

*Re: shook out #3*



squarepeg said:


> another swarm that i caught that had a pretty darn good laying queen. but the good laying pattern did not result in a good colony in the end


Sorry to hear that squarepeg. From your description it seems to me that this queen was a primary swarm (out with the old queen) and she had no power to take the hive further.

It happened to me a very similar situation with a swarm I caught at one apiary this year. At the beginning everything went well, almost filled the bee nest box, but then began to weaken. In September the bees try to make supersedure, but without success.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: shook out #3*



Eduardo Gomes said:


> Sorry to hear that squarepeg. From your description it seems to me that this queen was a primary swarm (out with the old queen) and she had no power to take the hive further.
> 
> It happened to me a very similar situation with a swarm I caught at one apiary this year. At the beginning everything went well, almost filled the bee nest box, but then began to weaken. In September the bees try to make supersedure, but without success.


exactly correct eduardo. this is my most common reason for overwintering loss - queen failure after the mating season.

this hive had three solid frames of brood in early august, but these were not overwintering bees. a small swarm issued from that hive after i saw all that brood. her replacement did not get mated, and there were no overwintering bees reared. in fact, there was no fall brooding at all and that explains why the hive was so heavy with stores when this weak hive should have been light like the rest of the hives this year. it may also explain why not much frass - no brood, no mites.


----------



## squarepeg

*cluster sizes and locations in stack*

on the remaining 8 hives that appear to be doing well at this point, the cluster size was pretty uniform at two and a half to three frames of bees. the two exceptions were #7 and #8 that had about five frames of bees each.

the other thing different about #7 and #8 is that the clusters were completey in the deep. the clusters in the other six were all over the place with most of them straddling the deep and the first super. one was a narrow chimney going up from the deep through the first super and part way into the second super.

they looked good and entrance activity was strong on all of them. no pollen was seen coming in at the home yard, but i saw a little henbit coming in at the outyard. we had a wind chill of about 46 today so no frames were pulled. it's possible that some of them are not queenright but they are otherwise poised to do well if the weather cooperates.

i'm going to pick up a camera tomorrow, and i'll try to post some photos from deadout #3.


----------



## JRG13

*Re: cluster sizes and locations in stack*

Square, do your bees usually overwinter with 3 frames of bees or so?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: cluster sizes and locations in stack*



JRG13 said:


> Square, do your bees usually overwinter with 3 frames of bees or so?


yep, surprisingly consistent in that regard. there are usually a few that are slightly smaller or slightly larger. last year i had one that was less than one frame coming out of winter. it built up slowly and superceded the queen when drones first appeared. it didn't swarm and i harvested 85 lbs of honey from it this year. this is hive #7 which now has five frames and is leading the pack, which just goes to show that each individual queen (along with the colony she produces) has the possibility of being dinky or phenomenal.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: cluster sizes and locations in stack*

we had the first decent flying weather here since the solstice these past two days. i saw no pollen coming in yesterday, but today a couple of the colonies managed to locate a little tree pollen and were bringing it in. i wouldn't call it a 'flow' yet, more like a 'trickle'. the pollen was pale dirty yellow, and i'm not sure what it comes from. i am seeing dark capping crumbs being hauled out of all the hives suggesting the first little rounds of brood have hatched. we also had some orientation flying today.

the countdown is over, we have ignition, and all systems are go!


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: cluster sizes and locations in stack*

First, thank you for all the great info in this thread. I was surprised about the comment about winter clusters only being three frames to five frames. I thought the cluster would be larger. Checked a couple of my hives during the warm spell we've been having and the clusters were about three frames. I was almost in a panic until I read your post about cluster size. Learned something very important that day! Thank you again.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: cluster sizes and locations in stack*

you bet gary. 

one of the great things about the forum is being able to compare observations with others in your area. are you seeing pollen coming in yet, and dark capping crumbs being hauled out at the entrances?


----------



## JRG13

*Re: cluster sizes and locations in stack*

2-3 frames is a small cluster but viable, but it's getting close to that cusp. Their saving grace is that 2-3 frames of bees can raise 1-2 frames of brood and quickly double in size. I only ask because I know some other TF keeps talk about grapefruit sized clusters for their bees for winter but they quickly take off come spring. I tend to get nervous when I see 2-3 deeps of bees shrink down to 3-5 frames of bees, I see that as a failure for me but colonies differ a lot in that regard but I think it also depends on how much pollen is available and how much the colony was able to store and where it's located within the cluster. I was checking a few yesterday, my unmanaged colony that swarmed last year and I put in a nuc which built up to 5x5 eventually, had about 9 frames of bees and 6-7 frames of brood and they're always the busiest bees in the yard.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: cluster sizes and locations in stack*



JRG13 said:


> I tend to get nervous when I see 2-3 deeps of bees shrink down to 3-5 frames of bees, I see that as a failure for me but colonies differ a lot in that regard ...


I see it as one of the honey bees' best tricks! Blow up a big population in spring and summer for breeding and energy-gatheing, let it down but not too fast to protect the stores, drop it to minimum to preserve as much energy as possible to build up next year. Time it nicely and go again. 

Mike (UK)


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: cluster sizes and locations in stack*

yes, this frugality may be part of the overwintering strategy adapted by these local hybrids. also our winter temps here probably average around 40 degrees which is said to be optimal for the least amount of stores consumed while maintaining cluster warmth. 

it is now the third day in a row of good flying weather and i am seeing a bit of an uptick in pollen coming in all but one or two hives. these may be queenless, or may they have more bees committed to the brood nest and less foraging at the moment. 

looking to do the first full bore inspections in the next few weeks. many thanks for the replies.


----------



## Eduardo Gomes

*Re: cluster sizes and locations in stack*



mike bispham said:


> I see it as one of the honey bees' best tricks!


I have the same opinion Mike. 
In the first and second winter I had hives, this phenomenon (shrinking population) made ​​me very worried. Would they get through the winter and grow back quickly to take full in spring?! In the following years I have learned to accept this reality and understand that this is what is good.

This year in early January, in some of my apiaries that are in the coldest region of my country, the cluster occupy 7 to 8 frames. I was a bit worried but the by the opposite reason. There will be a little too big? Let's see there for the beginning of March as if things will go.

Squarepeg what do you think that "dark capping crumbs being hauled out at the entrances" are?


----------



## JRG13

*Re: cluster sizes and locations in stack*

If it fits your management style there's nothing wrong with it, but it's not ideal during dearth's or where there's a lot of other bees around (like here). Honestly, it fits better with a hobbyist system, as you don't need to worry about swarming too quickly, but if you want to pollinate almonds, make splits, or raise queens early on, it doesn't fit those models very well.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: cluster sizes and locations in stack*

eduardo, i think the dark crubs are from the cappings first round of brood emerging. there are some lighter crumbs and white crystals too that suggest the uncapping of stored honey.

jrg, agreed. so far i've just let mine build up and ramp down on the natural flows with no artificial feeds and this is how they have responded. populations peak at about mid-april which coincides with swarm season and just precedes our main flow. i've considered protein supplements to get them bigger faster to have stronger splits by late march.


----------



## beepro

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

Feeding the nucs patty is the key to get them build up early just before the
Spring flow here. One pound of patty will give 2-3 frames of extra broods.
They're really good for building 4 or 5 frame nuc hives to replace the older
bees. The newly hatch winter bees will be fatter and build up faster too.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

it sure was nice to get those several warm days and see the first pollen coming in, but last night brought a little snow and the bees are hunkered down again.

i discovered this afternoon that b9 has gone quiet. i'm not surprised as the activity at the entrance a couple of days ago looked like passive robbing, i.e. skinny bees going in and fat bees coming out. i'll bring it in tomorrow and see what's what. 

that makes 2/18 lost to winter so far. all of the remaining hives have loud cluster roar except for one whose roar is decent but somewhat quieter. all were foraging pollen during the warm spell, which gives me a little hope that most are queenright.

the forecast is for another warm up toward the end of next week. i'll be taking inventory of the honey gleaned from the deadouts and plan to donate it to the lighter hives then.

i'm still debating whether or not to provide pollen sub this spring. on the one hand i haven't fed anything for a few years and i kinda like the idea of letting nature provide everything. on the other hand i would like to have as many bees in the boxes come splitting time. on a third hand there's not as much honey in the hives as usual for this time of year and my concern is an accelerated brood up could result in a more rapid depletion of those stores. the problem being if the weather turns sour that could lead to the need for emergency feeding, which i would prefer to avoid. we'll see how the honey reserves look after a brood cycle or two.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

we got up to the low 50's today but had a pretty brisk wind so there was minimal foraging. 

b9 was devoid of live or dead bees and a quick look revealed some capped drone brood in worker cells. i salvaged the honey frames from its supers and put the rest in the freezer for now. i'll look closely for mite frass ect. after a week or so of chilling.

i took the handful of honey frames i saved from last fall's harvest along with what was taken off of the two dead outs and made up supers with checkerboarded honey and empty comb. i ended up with just enough to give all seven of my story and a half hives their second super, and those were placed today. the location of the clusters in those was mixed with about half being primarily in the deeps, and the other half being split between the deep and the first super. cluster sizes were consistent with the others i reported in a previous post at 2.5 to 3 deep frames of bees.

i appreciate your feedback dar and from those of you who sent pm's regarding the use of pollen supplements. i'm really more pragmatic than philosophical when it comes to feeding. my belief is that the bees will do better overall if they are allowed to adjust their colony operations to the availability or lack of field forage, and that a natural diet promotes better immunity to pathogens. but production is important to me and my intention is to get the most out of my 'sweat equity' while balancing the desire to stay as natural as possible. 

i'm still undecided about supplementing protein. my plan is to play that one by ear depending on the weather and what i see the colonies doing as we transition out of winter into spring. if the weather cooperates protein supplements may not be necessary. if i see however that the hives are heavy enough with honey and we are in for a stretch of weather not conducive for foraging i'll likely put some patties on. 

i'll continue to avoid using syrup for stimulating spring build up and for replacing harvested honey, even though i realize i could take a bigger honey crop if i did. i might use syrup for a late caught swarm or to help get nucs through a dearth. but since i am planning on splitting early i want lots of bees for those nucs as well as leaving the parent colonies strong enough to produce a decent honey crop. so i'm ok with protein supplementation if needed to get my average colony strength up a little earlier in the season than it would be otherwise.

the pragmatist in me doesn't see feeding as necessarily good or bad and the truth is it has the potential to be either depending on how and when it is applied. the reasons for doing so or not are pretty much the perogative of each individual beekeeper. with this there's just not a one size fits all. 

thanks again everyone for your feedback and interest in my project.


----------



## Eduardo Gomes

*Re: squarepeg 2015*



squarepeg said:


> the pragmatist in me doesn't see feeding as necessarily good or bad and the truth is it has the potential to be either depending on how and when it is applied. the reasons for doing so or not are pretty much the perogative of each individual beekeeper. with this there's just not a one size fits all.


Very good point squarepeg, in my opinion. A pragmatic and eclectic approach, appropriate to current conditions, and whenever possible prefer a more naturalistic/organic approach as possible. Good luck!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

the forecast is promising for a long string of flying days starting on saturday. i've got a little henbit starting in the yard and tree pollen is abundant. i'll likely take the opportunity to checkerboard the supers in the 9 out of the 16 hives that i have not done so yet. 

all hives are a single deep with two medium supers at this point. honey frames will be taken from the two or three heaviest hives and given to the two or three lightest. i run 9 frames in the supers and my goal is to make all of the odd numbered frames empty comb and all of the even numbered frames honey. this is a slight variation on walt wright's method, but i want to see how it goes with straight lanes of honey and empty comb through the two supers instead of having the frames staggered in a checkerboard pattern.

i've got 5 empty deeps, 18 empty five frame nuc boxes, and 30 deep frames of drawn comb. i've got commitments for all of the nucs i can produce this year. i'm tempted to see if i can get all of those boxes full of bees on the natural flow without artificial feeds, but i haven't ruled out protein supplementation if it looks like i'm running short on bees. as always the weather will determine how quickly and how strongly they build up and i'll just have to play that one by ear.


----------



## MattDavey

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

Squarepeg, were you interested in trying "Opening the Sides of the Broodnest" as a comparison to just Checkerboarding on one or two hives?

(Works best if there are 3 drawn combs together in the middle of the new box.)

If you have brood up into a medium, you could do it with the medium supers.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

hi matt, i have been introducing some wired foundationless frames alongside the brood nest and have found that it does get the wax makers busy early in the season than they would otherwise. having the single deep with medium supers prevents me from moving a frame up from the bottom box, so a frame has to be removed and when done it is typically used in a split. so far all of my medium frames have had plastic foundation. i now have some foundationless mediums frames, but those are intended for comb honey.


----------



## MattDavey

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

Ok. It may actually work with a full sheet of foundation in the new frames. Others have reported that it worked fine.

I would just work with the medium frames.

Have you seen Lauri's frames where she cuts the plastic foundation in half vertically? She places the half sheet of foundation in the middle of the frame so that the worker comb is in the middle of the frame and drone comb is built on the outer edges.

I've just updated the link above with clearer steps.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

i have found that foundation frames get ignored and actually impede progress in the early season when manipulations for swarm prevention are most effective.

i like lauri's idea and will probably use it once i've gone through all of the factory made foundationless frames that i currently have. there is no way to fix a piece of foundation to them.


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## apis maximus

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

@squarepeg,

Great observation you share. I mean, the foundation frames. Same observation here.
Also, I did see the same concept in Lauri's take, and her very interesting take on those frames of hers. Plastic in the middle, but open on each side. Let the bees do some magic. And they, sure do. The bees I meant. Lauri too.

What I have noticed in the same lines...by mistake of course, is that when I took out a deep frame, from a deep box, with the intention of replacing it, I did replace it but by mistake I replaced it with a medium size frame. Fully drawn.

To my surprise, much latter in the spring (last spring) when they went to town on expanding, the comb they build as an extension to the bottom of the medium frame, looked almost the same like what you see in Lauri's pictures. Pretty cool actually.

Oh yes, since we are on TF...these are hives in a smaller yard that so far, I have not treated. 
Now, if making splits is a treatment, then I might be off topic. 
But I only split them because they were getting ready to swarm.:scratch:


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

many thanks am, and making splits is most certainly allowed under the 'unique forum rules'. 

my first attempt with partially foundationless frames was trying out the 'oliver drone trap' method of using a strip of foundation across the top and letting the bees draw drone comb underneath. i noticed that they pulled comb on those but ignored my (plastic) foundation in the early spring. 

i have since seen a pretty convincing demonstration that brushing on some melted wax onto plastic foundation gets the bees more interested in drawing comb on it, so i'll definitely be doing that with any new plastic foundation frames i introduce this year.


----------



## MattDavey

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

It was wax foundation when I was told it had worked...

Had another thought. Drilling a few large holes in the plastic foundation, at least 1 inch in diameter, should be enough to trigger wax making.


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## apis maximus

*Re: squarepeg 2015*



squarepeg said:


> my first attempt with partially foundationless frames was trying out the 'oliver drone trap' method of using a strip of foundation across the top and letting the bees draw drone comb underneath. i noticed that they pulled comb on those but ignored my (plastic) foundation in the early spring.


Thanks for your kindness and for clarifying dang rules. Me and the rules, don't go too good. Not all the time. That will lead to anarchy. Sometimes.

But now, you got me a bit confused and befuddled:scratch:. But do not feel bad at all. I feel the same way.

I noticed you mentioned the 'oliver drone trap' concept. Which oliver do you refer to? Oliver Andy or Randy Oliver? 
Are they kin or something?
The reason I mention my confusion is this dang presentation: *Varroa Management Using Drone Brood Removal*
Here:http://www.njbeekeepers.org/nwba/do...rroa_Management_Using_Drone_Brood_Removal.pdf


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

it was randy's concept, you can probably find it by searching his site. my bees drew drone comb in the foundationless portion alright. i ended up not removing any drone brood for mite control, but i did lose some by accident one hot day when i flipped a frame over and the comb fell out. this experience taught me that one must handle foundationless frames with care. i'm not making the oliver traps anymore, but rather full foundationless frames with a couple of wires running horizontally.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

we had a nice warm up here today and i got to observe the first all out foraging of the season. all hives in both yards were very active. the pollen was predominately pale dirty yellow and most foragers appeared to be coming in loaded with both pollen and nectar.

i opened up two hives for the purpose of moving up supers that were still on the bottom of the stacks from last season. i went ahead and pulled frames from the middle of the clusters and thankfully found both colonies to be queenright. i noticed that the first rounds of brood were emerging and the queens were laying eggs the around those patches. 

i thought about looking into some of the other hives mostly to determine queen status but i decided to leave them be since it was their first really good day of foraging and i liked what i was seeing at the entrances. my next move in the coming days/weeks will be to redistribute honey frames from the heaviest hives to the lightest and get the remainder of the supers checkerboarded.

i'm still working on getting a camera so i can post photos of the combs and bottom boards from the two dead outs. sorry for being a bit technologically challenged at the moment.

it was an awesome day for these bees and their keeper, many thanks for the opportunity to share.


----------



## minz

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

So you do not leave and empty ‘pollen box’ under the hive as per WW’s CB method?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

hi minz. walt's method involves moving the empty pollen box up this time of year and using those empty drawn frames to checkerboard with honey frames in the upper supers. when the first super gets full of brood during the early spring build up it then gets moved back down to the bottom. as the brood hatches that bottom super gets filled with pollen which is then used later for the fall brooding of overwintering bees.

i haven't been moving a super down on mine in the spring because of lack of drawn comb. i intended to move one down as i harvested honey last year but our shortened spring didn't allow me to harvest as many supers as i had planned nor get much more comb drawn.

i did move one down on a few hives toward the end of last summer when they became full of brood. our shortened spring resulted in the bees abandoning the deeps and moving their broodnests up into the open honey in the supers. i moved a super of brood to the bottom thinking they would stock the deep with fall nectar for overwintering. but the fall was too dry and not much nectar came in. the end result was that it was too drastic of a maneuver for the conditions and it set the colonies back. i am blaming one of my two losses on this mistake i made.

i need at least one more super of foundation drawn out per hive to have enough to move one down for a pollen box. if i can get this accomplished this year i will put the first supers harvested to the bottom. i've been disappointed by not getting more super comb drawn these past two seasons. i use rite cell, and my plan is to melt wax cappings and coat the foundation to see if it encourages the bees to draw it out more readily.


----------



## beepro

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

SP, why not use Lauri's partial foundation method and Matt's method to open up the hole in the nest? This should give you more drawn comb at the end of the season. Though it will take more of your time for this manipulation. Testing a few hives will let you know. On a short Spring and Fall flow I would feed them also.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

our forecast is for temps well below average with a chance of frozen precipitation for the next week or so. today is sunny with no wind and just cool enough to prevent foraging, but warm enough for the bees to break cluster and i'm seeing an occasional cleansing flight here and there.

i've still got good cluster roar in my remaining 16/18 hives that i went into winter with. one hive that received a checkerboarded super from a dead out was heard uncapping honey in that super, presumably moving it down to the broodnest.

i think this cold snap will be the test that will separate any marginal colonies from the survivors. i've got my fingers crossed and i'll be ready to start counting chickens in the next couple of weeks. i've been seeing orientation flights and the cluster roars seem to be getting stronger in all hives. i know two are queenright and will asses the rest when we warm back up.

so with a little luck i may squeak through with only 11% loss for the winter. i'll be happy with that considering the poor spring and fall conditions left my colonies light and small last year, and considering they were given no treatments or supplemental feed. those that come back strong will have proven themselves to me and i'll be looking to progagate from them.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

finally got the photo thing figured out. here's a picture of the bottom board from the dwindle down that i mentioned in post 72. this is the one that lost cluster roar and upon inspection i found small handful of bees still alive with their queen. my guess was a failed fall supercedure. a dead mite or two can be seen on the bottom board. the brood combs are still in the freezer but i'll get pics from those to post soon.

View attachment 15962


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

and here's the bottom board from the dead out i mentioned in post 91. this one went silent and appeared to be getting robbed. the capping crumbs on the bottom board confirmed robbing, and this one also had a few dead mites present on the bottom board. brood comb pics to follow soon.

View attachment 15963


----------



## rkereid

*Re: squarepeg 2015*



squarepeg said:


> here's a picture of the bottom board from the dwindle down that i mentioned in post 72. this is the one that lost cluster roar and upon inspection i found small handful of bees still alive with their queen. my guess was a failed fall supercedure. a dead mite or two can be seen on the bottom board.


When I have a colony dwindle down like this in the fall or winter, leaving a tiny cluster and the queen, it is usually from mite issues. I've had a couple years with quite a few of them.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*



rkereid said:


> When I have a colony dwindle down like this in the fall or winter, leaving a tiny cluster and the queen, it is usually from mite issues. I've had a couple years with quite a few of them.


understood. my quick inspection of the brood frames on that one didn't reveal much frass but i'll take a closer look soon and share the pics.

the other issue with mites and queen failure may have to do with dead viruses causing ovarian degeneration:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3026828/

seeing the late swarm issue from this hive moves me more toward failed supercedure. poor genetics too, this colony stayed dinky from the time i caught it throughout the whole season, inbreeding may have been a factor.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015*



rkereid said:


> When I have a colony dwindle down like this in the fall or winter, leaving a tiny cluster and the queen, it is usually from mite issues. I've had a couple years with quite a few of them.


How do you separate 'mite issues' out so confidently?

Bees that can handle mites - to a greater or lesser extent - can still suffer colony death from other causes. Mites might have played a role, but how can you tell just what sort of role. And, does it matter? They're gone. You're still a non-treating beekeeper. I just move on with the living.

Mike (UK)


----------



## jonathan

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

For mite issues read virus issues which shorten the life of the bees. This is especially critical over winter as some clusters dwindle to a point where they are no longer viable. A cold snap usually kills the small cluster or they die from isolation starvation.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*



jonathan said:


> For mite issues read virus issues which shorten the life of the bees. This is especially critical over winter as some clusters dwindle to a point where they are no longer viable. A cold snap usually kills the small cluster or they die from isolation starvation.


good summary jonathan, to which i would add that the small clusters can also result when those viruses cause brood disease that prevents the rearing of an adequate population of overwintering bees during the fall brood up. the summer bees gradually die off leaving the colony with a dwindled population that is not able to survive winter.


----------



## Lburou

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

Squarepeg, reading the link in your post #115 was like the dawn of a new day for my understanding of why some bees just never prosper. I lost three NUC sized colonies of bees this winter that just never did prosper. (Had never lost a hive during the winter before this one - have wintered almost 20 years in Wyoming, Alaska and Texas). Thanks for that link!


----------



## rkereid

*Re: squarepeg 2015*



squarepeg said:


> the other issue with mites and queen failure may have to do with dead viruses causing ovarian degeneration:
> 
> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3026828/


Interesting. I'll try to read that later today. That would be unfortunate since I've always been told viruses do not survive in the hive parts after a deadout, making all components reusable with no worries of disease.


----------



## barberberryfarm

*Re: squarepeg 2015*



squarepeg said:


> i'm hoping that i will get a similar result with the modified checkerboarding of my medium supers this year as i did with the upper deeps as described above.


Hi squarepeg! Thanks for starting this great thread! I implemented Walt's checkerboarding strategy with my 9 hives the 3rd week in January and hopefully I'll have better luck this year minimizing swarms. I'm also definitely interested in hearing if your modification to align the honey frames rather than offsetting them does a better job with brood expantion.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

nice to hear from you bbf. i had measurable success with walt's methods but not to the degree that others have had. we're not sure if it has to due with using medium supers instead of shallows, or perhaps my survivor mutts are what they are because they are good at swarming. another possibility is that they are more influenced by the break in comb between boxes than other bees.

when i offset the frames, some of my colonies simply stopped moving up into the next box, reestablished a solid band of honey in the uppermost box they were working, and proceeded into swarm preps.

the motivation for aligning frames came from observing that when given a second deep of alternating frames of honey and empty comb the bees brooded all the way to the top and did not reestablish a solid band of honey. these colonies did not begin swarm preps and had they been supered might have made a big crop. unfortunately they were slated for splitting so i'll never know.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

weighed the hives today and not surprisingly the bees are utilizing stores along with incoming fresh pollen for their early brood up. after the upcoming arctic blast i'll be moving a few frames from the heaviest to the lightest. there should be enough to go around and get them to consistent foraging weather. lots of pollen and nectar coming in today, along with moderately strong orientation flights.


*FEB. 14 HIVE WEIGHTS:

LEGEND:

HIVE: WT. FEB. 14, CHANGE FROM OCT. 31 TO NOV. 30, CHANGE FROM NOV. 30 TO JAN. 4, CHANGE FROM JAN. 4 TO FEB 14, (ESTIMATED LBS. HONEY IN HIVE), YEAR

#2: 85.5 +1, -2, -9.5 (30.5) 2011 NUC
#4: 67.5 +.5, -4, -3.5 (22.5) 2012 NUC
#5: 89 -4, -2.5, -10.5 (44) 2014 SWARM
#7: 95 SAME, -1, -10 (50) 2013 NUC, 10.7% MITE COUNT 10/19/14
#8: 76 +3, +.5, -12.5 (31) 2014 NUC
#9: 86 -3.5, +.5, -12.5 (41) 2012 NUC, 13.4% MITE COUNT 10/19/14
#10: 68 -1, -1, -6 (23) 2014 NUC
#11: 79 -5.5, -4, -5.5 (34) 2014 NUC
B1: 73 -1, +1, SUPER ADDED (28) 2014 NUC
B2: 67 -1.5, -.5, SUPER ADDED (22) 2014 NUC
B3: 71 +6 (HONEY ADDED), SAME, SUPER ADDED (26) 2014 NUC
B4: 68 -5, +2, SUPER ADDED (23) 2014 NUC
B5: 75 -1.5, +.5, SUPER ADDED (30) 2014 NUC
B6: 70 +6 (HONEY ADDED), SAME, SUPER ADDED (25) 2014 NUC
B7: 76 -1, +.5, -6 (31) 2014 NUC
B8: 72 +1.5, +1, SUPER ADDED (27) 2014 SWARM
*


----------



## jim lyon

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

In starting this thread, Squarepeg has shown his willingness to be quite open and specific in sharing his treatment free experiences. I, for one, find this invaluable and am interested in reading about them and perhaps learning something in the process. Let's respect this thread and move the bickering elsewhere.


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015*



jim lyon said:


> Let's respect this thread and move the bickering elsewhere.


 I've been following this thread, albeit quietly, for the same qualities you point out Jim. I hope the hijacker(s) will heed your request.


----------



## jonathan

*Re: cluster sizes and locations in stack*



JRG13 said:


> 2-3 frames is a small cluster but viable, but it's getting close to that cusp.


A small cluster in a large container has very little chance of overwintering due to the difficulties of thermoregulation.
On the other hand a small cluster in a small box has a fair chance if it has enough stores.
I have overwintered a few queens in double mini nuc Apidea boxes.
There would be a population of less than 1000 workers and a queen in these but they are viable because the small insulated box is easy to heat.
It has not been exceptionally cold this winter but the temperature is often a couple of degrees below freezing at night. A prolonged cold spell lasting several days often kills them off but they still have a better chance than a small cluster in a full size box.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: cluster sizes and locations in stack*



jonathan said:


> A prolonged cold spell lasting several days often kills them off but they still have a better chance than a small cluster in a full size box.


understood jonathan, especially if they are 'stuck' on brood. my colonies are being challenged by this very condition at this time. they are housed in full sized hives with insulation only at the top and they are brooding. my hope is that they moved enough stores into the broodnest area on the mild days preceding this cold spell to allow them to ride it out.

many thanks to jim and dan for those comments.


----------



## Sticky Bear

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

Excellent thread, I look forward to following this as well since I too have been treatment-free for 5 seasons and abstain from feeding. Good luck!


----------



## Barry

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

A reminder that this thread has a very specific focus and squarepeg sets the topic and direction the discussion goes. All the rest will be deleted.


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015*



Barry said:


> A reminder that this thread has a very specific focus and squarepeg sets the topic and direction the discussion goes. All the rest will be deleted.


Ohhhhhhh man! Nobody tell Sol that Barry has given squarepeg his own thread.


----------



## mbc

*Re: squarepeg 2015*



squarepeg said:


> the other issue with mites and queen failure may have to do with dead viruses causing ovarian degeneration:
> .


I heard an interesting theory that early queen failure could also be to do with virus infected drones infecting queens on mating. I thought it was a joke at first but it's not beyond the realms of possibility that some early supersedes could be down to std's.


----------



## AR Beekeeper

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

Yes, there have been studies that found DWV in the drone's semen and concluded that the drone can infect the virgin queen when they mate. This is why it is so important to control varroa in both the queen mother and drone mother colonies in your breeding yards. Low varroa numbers reduces the DWV titers in the colonies.


----------



## Tim KS

*Re: squarepeg 2015*



Lburou said:


> *Squarepeg, reading the link in your post #115 was like the dawn of a new day for my understanding of why some bees just never prosper.* I lost three NUC sized colonies of bees this winter that just never did prosper. (Had never lost a hive during the winter before this one - have wintered almost 20 years in Wyoming, Alaska and Texas). Thanks for that link!


I don't want to cause a problem here, but I am lost trying to find the link mentioned above. Is the post number a typo, or how can a reference to post #115 be made in post #104?

Just guide me to the link, please.


----------



## Barry

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

Well, it's going to be a few posts before the Lburou post since a bunch of posts have been deleted. I'm guessing it's post #100.


----------



## Tim KS

*Re: squarepeg 2015*



Barry said:


> Well, it's going to be a few posts before the Lburou post since a bunch of posts have been deleted. I'm guessing it's post #100.


Thank you, sir, that's what I'm looking for.


----------



## mbc

*Re: squarepeg 2015*



AR Beekeeper said:


> Yes, there have been studies that found DWV in the drone's semen and concluded that the drone can infect the virgin queen when they mate. This is why it is so important to control varroa in both the queen mother and drone mother colonies in your breeding yards. Low varroa numbers reduces the DWV titers in the colonies.


Turns on its head the idea that only drones in tip top condition get to do the mating, or it opens up more questions about some drones being carriers but asymptomatic, could this be inheritable and virgins with the same trait mating with such drones being dwv proof?


----------



## mbc

*Re: squarepeg 2015*



Barry said:


> Well, it's going to be a few posts before the Lburou post since a bunch of posts have been deleted. I'm guessing it's post #100.


Aha, I've come back to this thread after a bit and couldn't work out the references to bickering no matter how far back I read, all is made clear.
My own efforts at treatment "light" continue to be painful with some apiaries (yards) going down like dominoes with few survivors, so I'm following this thread with interest.
I haven't been able to make much rhyme or reason of which ones survive, a lot of it seems to be down to luck, with some really good colonies I was very hopeful for as future breeding stock falling in the unlucky group, quite depressing!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

we've been a week now with sub-freezing temps and the forecast is for continued cold with no flying weather due for at least another week or two. although i just confirmed cluster roar in all of the hives at the home yard i am concerned about it getting this cold for this long just as the bees are starting to brood up and at the time when they should be out working the early flows. i won't be surprised if the smallest colonies end up getting stuck on brood and losing contact with their stores.

the extended winter we had here last year resulted a measurable decrease in production. my sense is that this year's two to three week delay in foraging weather is going to put the bees a brood cycle or two behind, thus making it difficult for me to make strong splits early enough to still have enough workforce to exploit our main flow. 

i've not used any supplemental feeds these past three seasons and my preference is for an all natural diet, but since i have laid out production goals for this year and given the weird weather i've decided to provide protein patties to give them a boost until reliable field forage starts coming in. i'm going to give dr. latshaw's 'bag o' bee food' a try. 

as far as the thread goes, i was surprised to see that barry made it 'sticky'. i'm not sure what that means except that it stays at the top instead of aging it's way down the list. personally it's a little awkward for me. as i shared in the op i'm only doing this for information sharing purposes and not to draw attention to myself. i recognize that there are other notable contributors on the forum who are having success keeping bees off treatments and the willingness to share their experiences is appreciated by me and i'm sure many others.

as far as getting off topic goes i am as guilty as anyone. i really do enjoy getting feedback and having others compare their own observations to these. the nice thing about keeping any thread on topic is for the benefit of someone coming to it anew and not having to muddle through a lot of extraneous stuff. i have appreciated most of the replies and i hope that those of you with an interest will keep them coming. 

many thanks.


----------



## Barry

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i'm not sure what that means except that it stays at the top instead of aging it's way down the list. personally it's a little awkward for me.


You'll get use to it.  I did it because you're going through the trouble of chronicling your experience for all of us. In this case I think it deserves to remain at the top. 



> as far as getting off topic goes i am as guilty as anyone. i really do enjoy getting feedback and having others compare their own observations to these. the nice thing about keeping any thread on topic is for the benefit of someone coming to it anew and not having to muddle through a lot of extraneous stuff.


We all go off topic at times. I've decided in this thread I'm going to be a bit less lenient. As long as the discussion only goes one level off at times, I'll let it stay. But second level stuff gets deleted. This happens when one person makes an off topic remark (I'll let it stay) and then someone else decides to quote that off topic remark (I'll delete it) as grounds for them to expand on the off topic discussion and before you know it, it's not about your experience and what you're doing but now we're into causal chains, of which I got rid of right after the disco era.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



Barry said:


> ... of which I got rid of right after the disco era.


I kinda had you pegged as a disco dude B


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

i took a drive to the out yard this morning and discovered my third loss of the winter. it was b8, a 2014 caught swarm, and the hive i mentioned in an earlier post that i was hearing less cluster roar compared to rest. i'm finding the stethoscope to be a fairly reliable tool for identifying those colonies that are on their way out. 

i took a quick look inside and found a baseball sized group of bees in the first super that were tightly clustered and apparently frozen to death. all i could do for today was put the hive back together and close up the entrance. i'll be bringing it back home and getting it into the freezer soon. photos of the comb from this one and the other two will be forthcoming.

this makes 3 out of 18 this winter putting my losses at 16.6%. the first loss was almost expected as it was a colony that dinked along all season. the other two have a common denominator in that i moved a super of brood down to the bottom of the stack while they were in the middle of their fall brood up, a mistake that i shall not make in the future.

so that leaves me with 15 still kickin' and my sense is that the cluster roar has gotten louder in those in the past few weeks. i'm hoping this means that the first rounds of brood are emerging. i know that two are queenright, but i haven't had the opportunity to verify that in the rest. hive weights are good, and my protein supplement from latshaw's is on the way. it looks like the first opportunity for in depth inspections is a couple of weeks away.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

i retrieved deadout b8 from the out yard and broke it down today. as suspected it was a case of a small cluster getting stuck on brood during a cold snap. the volume of bees was more like grapefruit sized, there was a palm sized patch of spotty capped brood on both sides of the middle frame in the first super, and the queen was present.

there were stores in the second super, but no bees. here's a view of the top of the first super:

View attachment 16223


a side view of the middle frame:

View attachment 16224


and the other side:

View attachment 16225


with the bees brushed off:

View attachment 16226


the queen is center frame:

View attachment 16227


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

here's a frame of comb drawn without foundation:

View attachment 16228


in this case they drew the brood cells to the same size as the rite cell frame next to it with drone cells around the periphery:

View attachment 16229


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

i tried uncapping some of that brood to look for viral disease but it was still in the larval stage. no mites were seen in the brood and i couldn't find any frass. i think this colony was marginal but would have likely made it if we would have had more typical weather for february.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Links in post 128 don't work for me SP.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

i'm not sure why the photos don't show in 128 like they do in 127 ot, i see 'attachment #'s' and when i click on them i see the photos. i'll try again:

View attachment 16233


View attachment 16234


there we go.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

There we go!

Nice natural comb, looks exactly like my own ones.

Cells at 5.5, is that normal for you?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



Oldtimer said:


> Cells at 5.5, is that normal for you?


i don't have many of these yet, but the others i've measured were more like 4.9 to 5.1. i think the foundation frames have 5.4.


----------



## Eduardo Gomes

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Regarding the size of the cells I asked yesterday to Dr. John Kefuss if he was using small cells (4.9mm) and he replied that he was not using small cells.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Snow is 8 inches deep here and about the same at my Mother's place which is 15 miles from Squarepeg. Bees are buzzing strongly in the colonies I keep on the edge of my porch so no problems so far. I will check them carefully as soon as the weather breaks, this is the most vulnerable time for developing colonies as the first major round of brood emerges.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

i took a listen today before the snow started falling and still have strong buzzing in 15 out of my 16 remaining hives, with the other one not so loud and having more dead bees at the entrance than the others. that one is shaping up to be a good candidate for loss #4 this winter.


----------



## Barry

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> there we go.


Looks like 5.3 size to me. Can you verify exactly what size your ruler shows?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

yes barry, it's 5.3


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

we ended up with 8" of snow here. the forecast is for a gradual moderation in temperature with some potential for foraging next week. as fusion power points out the snow storm could not have hit at a worse time. the colonies are at their lowest point population wise and are going to stay stuck on the broodnest. getting through this will be a real test for them.


----------



## Eduardo Gomes

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I'm here from across the atlantic to hope that your hives overcome this difficulty. I am sure they succeed. Are wonderful and very resistant insects.

About 3 years ago I sold a few hives. The buyer asked me to provide him with a sample of dead bees to have them to do the health analysis to the bees. I did the harvest (there were about a 30 bees) put them in a small plastic bag for about 16h in the refrigerator. When I took them from the refrigerator the next day apparently were all dead. On the way, heated inside pick up, and came back to life. My mouth fell open .


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

many thanks for that eduardo. those that make it through will indeed prove their heartiness. we'll have to see what this set back means for the season in terms of my production goals. usually by now they are beginning to rear drones and i have made splits as early as the end of march. this will be a test of my ability to adapt as well.


----------



## Eduardo Gomes

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I am sure you will be able to respond appropriately.
I still have so much to learn, and more and more I hope they (bees) talk to me. And more and more I hope to be able to understand what they are telling me.


----------



## CessnaGirl

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I''l bee watching this thread with great interest. I have a very similar bee care history as SP.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

many thanks to all for your replies and interest in the thread. here are a few more pics:

b8 dead out cluster size:

View attachment 16250


the home yard after the snow storm:

View attachment 16251


ridgetop view of the tennessee river:

View attachment 16252


----------



## texanbelchers

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

It looks like Alabama is in the deep snow, not the deep South.

Thanks for all the updates; I'm vicariously learning through your posts. I've watched the storms slide north of us, but we have only seen near freezing a couple nights this whole winter.


----------



## sterling

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Nice pictures. Where abouts are you on the Tn River we fish up and down the river but I can't think of the number of the highway bridge where we put the boat in. It's below the steam plant.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

thanks. that sounds like 117 at stevenson, i'm south of scottsboro.


----------



## sterling

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

We fish some little club tourneys out of Goose Pond and stay in Scottsboro when we do. Beautiful country around the river there. Stevenson is where I was talking about. Do you ever eat at the Mudd Cr restaurant? Good eating there.
Maybe sometime when I'm going to be down that way we can hook up and I can buy one of your queens and test her out here in Mt Juliet.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



sterling said:


> Maybe sometime when I'm going to be down that way we can hook up and I can buy one of your queens and test her out here in Mt Juliet.


absolutely. let me know the next time you find yourself down this way.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Mudd Creek Barbeque was a treat since I was 4 years old. We stopped many times on the way to my Grandma's house in Pelham TN.

I shoveled a trail through the snow so I could feed the chickens and check on the bees. So far, all are buzzing noisily along. We wound up with about 10 inches of snow. Twenty miles south had 12.7 inches.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> So far, all are buzzing noisily along.


very nice dar. are you still at zero losses for the winter?


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I need to drive up to Rainsville and check the colonies at my mother's place, but the colonies here are all alive and well. We have 50 degrees and bright sunshine. There is still patchy snow on the ground, but the bees are flying freely. There is significantly more activity today than 2 weeks ago and this appears to be primarily young bees. I'm interpreting that the first couple of frames of brood hatched and the young bees are now orienting.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

pretty much the same here today dar, with mostly orientation and cleansing flights seen from all hives. 

i managed to put together a couple of checkerboarded supers out of leftovers from the deadouts and placed them on the two lightest hives at the home yard today. i also mixed up my first couple of latshaw patties and placed them in those same two hives. (excellent customer service btw joe, thanks for getting those to me so promptly)

i didn't see much increase in cluster size from about a month ago which is not surprising. both were still looking like about three frames of bees. i figure what little brood is emerging is pretty much offsetting attrition from the aging of the fall bees.

i've got four deeps worth of comb that have a decent amount of stores on them. i'm considering whether to save those resources for splits vs. going ahead and placing them on some of these colonies to grow into and then split. weather permitting i hope to take a good peak in most of the hives next weekend and give the rest of them a round of patties.

you are welcome to stop by dar when you find yourself over this way, and i would be interested in tagging along when you check yours out in rainsville. send me a pm if you would like to.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

we managed to get up to 70 here yesterday and i was able to observe entrance activity on my lunch break. thankfully all hives were foraging strongly with virtually all bees loaded to the max and entering the hives at several bees per second.

another winter storm pushed through last night bringing more freezing rain that has schools and businesses closed today, but temps are supposed to moderate this weekend and are actually looking pretty good for next week.

my hope is to get into all of the hives on saturday and/or sunday. i want to grade cluster size, check to see if the patties are being consumed in the two hives that received them last weekend, and place patties in the remaining hives.

i took the four the deeps i have been keeping in the freezer out to thaw this morning, and i am going to checkerboard the honey, pollen, and empty comb in those. if i find any hives this weekend in which the broodnest is confined to just the deep and has not yet expanded up into the supers, i'll place these checkerboarded deeps above the first deep and let them expand into them with the intention of splitting them off later.

here are photos of a couple of frames from the frozen deeps with natural comb on them. brood cell size in these two ended up about 4.9 mm:

View attachment 16401


View attachment 16402


----------



## Joel

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Great thread squarepeg, this on a level and depth we seldom get here....real world honest results. Nice job!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

i just got through taking a careful look at all of the frames from the four deeps that have been in the freezer. one of them was from a hive that went queenless late last season from which the bees were combined with a starter colony that needed a boost, and the other three were the deadouts that i posted about earlier in the thread.

i was able to find clear evidence of mite infestation in deadout b9 (post 79). what little capped brood that was left behind was examined and found diseased, and there was quite a bit of frass on multiple frames. i would say that varroa was a significant factor in the demise of this one.

in the other hives i was only able to find one small patch of frass on just one frame, with the rest of the frames being pretty darn clean like the ones in the photos of the two foundationless frames in the previous post. i'm not saying mites were not a factor at all in the collapse of those two, but for #3 (post 63) i'm looking at the primary cause as queenlessness most likely from a failed late supercedure, and for b8 (posts 126 & 127) it was a small cluster getting stuck on brood.

it's possible that the failed queen had issues secondary to viruses as we discussed earlier in the thread. it's also possible that the small cluster got that way from mite stress in the fall and the evidence (frass and sick brood) had been cleaned up. i really think that colony would have made it fine if it weren't for the weird weather we are having this year.

all of the remaining hives are acting and sounding good, but i've only been able to establish that two of them are queenright so far. hopefully this weather will straighten up so that the bees can get on with their business and i can get a closer look. i'm not sure what this delay in foraging is going to do for my season and the production goals i've laid out, i guess only time will tell.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



Joel said:


> Great thread squarepeg, this on a level and depth we seldom get here....real world honest results. Nice job!


many thanks joel, and to all of you for your interest.


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Really enjoy your thread!
We had 80 degrees here yesterday and it hovered at 30 degrees all day today, supposed to be 18 degrees, wind chill in single digits overnight. Yesterday the bees in all my hives were flying like crazy also. Some huge loads of pollen, light yellow, greenish gray, and whitish. The mouse guards were causing a lot of pollen to fall off so I removed them. I lifted the back of my lightest four hives from a check two weeks ago. Three of them were almost twice as heavy, one about the same. It's really surprising how much weight those three added with four or five good days of foraging. I'm looking forward to the forecast warmer weather next week too. Maybe I can do more than lift the IC and check sugar stores.
I'm using this thread to try some new ideas this year. Getting a lot of great info that I never thought about.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Bright sunshine and 55 degrees today had the bees out in force. They are bringing in olive green pollen. I did top checks - pull off the cover, verify colony position and access to stores - on the 7 colonies here local I found one dead. It was a 3 year old queen and relatively weak colony. they made a deep super of honey last year but went into winter just a bit weaker than desirable. The cluster had formed on the south side of the brood chamber and was unable to move to stores during the cold spells over the last month. I set the box up as a swarm catcher. I have plenty of spare equipment so may set 2 or 3 more swarm boxes up at that location. It is an area that has had numerous swarms from my bees over the last 10 years so there are ferals in the area.

Average cluster size right now is about the equivalent of 3 frames of bees. Most colonies were protecting a center core that looked to have a softball size area of brood. Overall colony strength looks good to very good though about 2 weeks later than usual. The extended cold weather has significantly slowed them down. This is the time when an 11 frame brood box shines. Fewer bees can cover relatively more brood which allows the colony to expand very fast.

I have decided to feed 5 colonies a bit of light weight sugar syrup to stimulate egg laying. They have enough stores to make it but I want to have them ready to split in 3 weeks. The timing will require getting them into high gear fast.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

many thanks for those kind words gary. i am basically copying the highlights of my bee journal in this thread, with a little commentary added.  i appreciate that you and dar are reporting your observations here as well. i think reports from others in my general area are helpful for contrast and compare. you are likely two to three weeks ahead of me in terms of weather and colony operations. i'll be especially interested to learn when swarming starts down there.

dar, thanks for the report. 1/7 is more than respectable in any operation. i would say that my 'average' is more like 4 - 5 deeps frames of bees as of this weekend, but they are ranging from still grapefruit sized clusters to pushing 10 frames. taking the conversion factor from small cell to standard cell it sounds like our colonies are averaging close to the same. 

i was intrigued by the variability i found in the cluster sizes. it appears that instead of a linear distribution of size from the smallest to the largest most of them fell into three groupings of size, i'll call them small, medium, and large, and there was roughly an equal number of hives falling into each of the three groups with a small number of outliers on both ends.

there were four colonies still at about 3 deep frames, suggesting to me that so far brood is emerging at a rate just enough to offset winter attrition. these comprise the small group.

there were four colonies that have grown to about 5 deep frames of bees. these were just at the point of clearing out the honey at the bottom of the first super and polishing the cells for the queen to lay in. there were no eggs there yet, but there should be soon suggesting to me that they are about to jump the gap and expand the broodnest into the next box. these are my medium sized colonies.

there were four that already had a frame or two of brood in the first super and these were obviously the leaders of the pack. these came at 7 - 8 deep frames of bees that were working the middle 6 or 7 frames of the both the deep and the first super. these are the large ones.

i had two that were very small. it happens that these were the lightest two going into winter and the two that received donated honey and patties last weekend. 

then i had one hive with 10+ deep frames of bees. the broodnest in this one was confined to the middle frames of the deep, and the first super was still mostly filled with honey. they were uncapping a lot of the honey in that super and moving it down. there was a little dome of emptied but not polished cells at the bottom of the super just over the broodnest. i deemed this one a good candidate to receive one of the recycled deeps that i mentioned in an earlier post. i placed that second deep right above the first one today. it had two empty brood comb frames in the middle, flanked on both sides with frames very heavy on both sides with bee bread, and those were flanked on both sides with honey. i'm hoping to encourage the bees to expand up to allow me to do an even split just before swarm season. this one is in a group by itself, very large?

what appeared to differentiate the size groups was the number of new brood cycles achieved. the very small two were just getting their first cycle done. the small group appeared to be working on their second cycle, the medium appeared to be getting ready for their third cycle, and the large were working on their third cycle. i suspect that the very large one was also working on it's third cycle, but had more bees to start with. it was one of my heaviest hives going into winter.

the protein patties placed in the very small hives last weekend appear to have nibbled at around the edges but haven't been consumed very much. it could be that these tiny colonies don't have enough brood to feed yet or perhaps they are more interested the fresh stuff coming in. i did place patties in about half of the others this weekend and left the other half without patties. i'll check to see whether or not they are being used in a week or so.

so it's looking like all colonies are healthy, queenright, taking advantage of the warm up (finally), and are working in earnest on strong early flows here. it's downright amazing to me that the majority of them have been brooding through the cold we've had here this past month. sorry for the long post.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

comparing the mite counts last fall to current colony size:

#2 had an 8.93% infestation on 9/26/14 and is currently in the 'large' group.

#7 had a 10.7% infestation on 10/19/14 and is also in the 'large' group.

#9 had a 13.4% infestation on 10/19/14 and was the one 'very large' hive.

this doesn't make any sense based on everything i hear and read on threshold infestion rates, and i'm not really sure what the explanation is. it's possible that the mites here aren't very virulent, the virus count is low, the bees are naturally resistant to the diseases vectored by the mites, or some combination of these and/or other factors that i haven't considered.


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> it's possible that the mites here aren't very virulent, the virus count is low, the bees are naturally resistant to the diseases vectored by the mites, or some combination of these and/or other factors that i haven't considered.


The value of testing. It may not show you why they thrive but it does eliminate one reason. It does not appear that they are somehow able to eliminate mites. So...if you share queens with someone outside your area and the resulting colonies fail you might suspect that you have reduced virulence of some sort in your area....and you will want to avoid bringing in outside bees. If the resulting colonies thrive it may be disease resistance.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

very good points dan, many thanks. one theory on the 'very large' colony with the highest infestation rate is they may have a higher than average propensity for robbing. i found this one robbing passively robbing out the hives that ultimately ended as my dead outs last month. another guess is that they may have been picking up mites from weak colonies after their fall brooding was done and prior to my alcohol wash.


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I might add that while those numbers hit my treatment thresholds, they aren't oppressively high. With those sorts of numbers I wouldn't be surprised to have colonies survive the winter but would expect that they'd be slow building up in the spring and by the following fall the numbers would indeed become oppressive...if the colony survived that long. Again....that would be in my beeyards.


----------



## JWChesnut

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> comparing the mite counts last fall to current colony size:
> it's possible that the mites here aren't very virulent, the virus count is low, the bees are naturally resistant to the diseases vectored by the mites, or some combination of these and/or other factors that i haven't considered.


http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~awhite/Miller2006_Evolution.pdf

This is a fundamental, often cited paper, on the dynamics of parasite-host tolerance. Has some interesting (modeled, not empirical) predictions on host infection following development of tolerance (higher prevalence and, surprisingly, higher mortality).


----------



## StevenG

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Squarepeg, I am sooo glad you're doing this report! It is a great addition to the body of work advocating treatment free. As Oldtimer mentioned early in this thread, I did a blog here ca. 2009 for a couple of years that tracked my experiences treatment free beginning in 2005. After that blog came to an end, like you, I did a thread report that continued my observations and reported on my successes and failures. 

I hope those who read this thread understand that you began with treatment free bees. So many folks do not understand this crucial factor in the success of being treatment free. 

You've mentioned the size of some of your clusters. I have had softball sized clusters, which I did not expect to survive, much less produce a surplus, become boomers that produced 80-100 pounds of surplus honey. 

Keep up the good work! I'm looking forward to reading your reports.
Kindest regards,
Steven


----------



## crofter

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

JWChesnut; I sure wish there was a dumbed down version that would convey the gist of that study to a garden variety beekeeper! Could you take a shot at explaining the implications?


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Squarepeg: Looked in my journals on swarm dates and wrote them down. 2012 only had three hives and saw one swarm, 07/05/12. 
2013 had three hives:
Swarms dates I noted (was working full time so know I missed some). Did not catch but two swarms.
04/30/13, 05/12/13, 06/06/13, 07/20/13, 07/21/13, 08/16/13, 08/19/13(this swarm was size of football, became boomer in 2014)
2014 came out of winter with six hives that were queenright, lost one that was queenless.
Swarm dates:
03/20/14 (in Mississippi-got swarm call from friend at work)
03/31/14 Swarm was huge, hived it
04/09/14 medium sized swarm, hived it
04/11/14 medium swarm, hived it
04/12/14 medium swarm, hived it
04/16/14 practice swarm, went back to original hive
04/17/14 medium swarm (medium swarms about 3 lbs)
04/23/14 practice swarm, went back to original hive
04/25/14 medium swarm, hived it
05/06/04 practice swarm, went back to original hive
05/07/14 3-4 lb swarm, hived it
05/11/14 size of football, hived it
05/16/14 small swarm, hived it
06/12/14 swarm flew over apiary from another source, did not cluster/did not catch
06/21/14 small swarm about size of grapefruit in top of tree, did not catch
06/30/14 medium swarm, hived it
07/21/14 small swarm, hived it (already looks like a boomer for this year)
08/19/14 size of football, hived it (looks strong coming out of winter)
08/27/14 small swarm, hived it
09/03/14 grapefruit sized swarm, hived it
09/07/14 football sized swarm, hived it
09/18/14 softball sized swarm, hived it
Three of the last six fall swarms died, the other three look like they are going to boom this year. I was behind the power curve last year building hives to house swarms so my swarm prevention methods fell by the wayside more or less. I plan on being more aggressive this year and try not to feed as much as I did last year so early (I was feeding in January).
I saw lots of orienting bees today (55-60F) so I had better be checking hives as soon as the rain stops this week or I'll be in the same boat as last year. Another note: two large swarms I caught swarmed themselves about 30 days later.
Sorry this is so long.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

thanks gary. your last year's dates are about 3 - 4 weeks before mine. i'll know to start paying especially close attention after yours start this year.


----------



## apis maximus

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



JWChesnut said:


> http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~awhite/Miller2006_Evolution.pdf
> 
> This is a fundamental, often cited paper, on the dynamics of parasite-host tolerance. Has some interesting (modeled, not empirical) predictions on host infection following development of tolerance (higher prevalence and, surprisingly, higher mortality).


Mr. Castanea, ( Latin for Chestnut), thanks for the link. Fundamental, is an understatement.
Wow, nothing but gold. Thanks again. 
Squarepeg...good to see you are still at it strong and steady. Much appreciated.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



JWChesnut said:


> http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~awhite/Miller2006_Evolution.pdf
> 
> This is a fundamental, often cited paper, on the dynamics of parasite-host tolerance. Has some interesting (modeled, not empirical) predictions on host infection following development of tolerance (higher prevalence and, surprisingly, higher mortality).





crofter said:


> JWChesnut; I sure wish there was a dumbed down version that would convey the gist of that study to a garden variety beekeeper! Could you take a shot at explaining the implications?


I'm thinking this will now be off-topic - perhaps worthy of a new thread?

There is a subsequent paper by most of the same authors which is more accessible. It also has an outline of the difference between the terms 'tolerance' and 'resistance'. I don't know know if the distinction is theirs or commonplace, but it seems to me that it might well be a useful one to us. 

The role of ecological feedbacks in the evolution of host defence: what does theory tell us?
Michael Boots, Alex Best, Martin R. Miller and Andrew White

http://classic.rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/364/1513/27.full.pdf+html

Abstract
"Hosts have evolved a diverse range of defence mechanisms in response to challenge by infectious
organisms (parasites and pathogens). Whether defence is through avoidance of infection, control of
the growth of the parasite once infected, clearance of the infection, tolerance to the disease caused by
infection or innate and/or acquired immunity, it will have important implications for the population
ecology (epidemiology) of the host–parasite interaction. As a consequence, it is important to
understand the evolutionary dynamics of defence in the light of the ecological feedbacks that are
intrinsic to the interaction. Here, we review the theoretical models that examine how these feedbacks
influence the nature and extent of the defence that will evolve. We begin by briefly comparing
different evolutionary modelling approaches and discuss in detail the modern game theoretical
approach (adaptive dynamics) that allows ecological feedbacks to be taken into account. Next, we
discuss a number of models of host defence in detail and, in particular, make a distinction between
‘resistance’ and ‘tolerance’. Finally, we discuss coevolutionary models and the potential use of
models that include genetic and game theoretical approaches. Our aim is to review theoretical
approaches that investigate the evolution of defence and to explain how the type of defence and the
costs associated with its acquisition are important in determining the level of defence that evolves."

Mike (UK)


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



beemandan said:


> I might add that while those numbers hit my treatment thresholds, they aren't oppressively high.


I take this back. I incorrectly read those numbers as counts....not percentages. If I were looking at alcohol wash numbers from a half cup of bees and was seeing counts around thirty....I'd expect some other issues. And I'd be a bit surprised if they survived a winter....or at least with a spring quorum.
Sorry for the mix-up.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

understood dan. here are the actual numbers:

hive #2: 25 mites on 280 bees for 8.93% infestation. 

hive #7: 27 mites on 252 bees for 10.7% infestation.

hive #9: 21 mites on 157 bees for 13.4% infestation.

the count on hive #2 might have been a little higher but i only washed once. on #9 and #7 i washed the samples three times and got a few more on the second wash and virtually none on the third wash.

these infestation rates are quite a bit higher than what most (except astrobee) are reporting to be problematic. i wouldn't make any grandiose claims based on such a small sample size, but since all three of these are coming out of winter in pretty good shape it suggests to me that they are some how coping with the mites as opposed to keeping the hives free of mites.

i'll sample all of the colonies in late summer as they begin their fall brood up.  my plan is to pay careful attention to the brood at that time and consider requeening/combining if i find any that are faltering in that regard.


----------



## ToeOfDog

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

Squarepeg:

For the past three weeks the pollen has gone from green to yellowish green. As of today it is more yellow than green. The pollen website says is Maple, Elm and Alder. Three weeks ago all of the incoming bees were carrying pollen. Now it is down to 50%. Driving down the street you can see Bradford pears whose buds have swollen so much it is discernible while driving over fifty feet away. I assume you are a week or two behind us. Spring has sprung. Enjoy.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

many thanks tod. mostly bright yellow here lately, my neighbor thinks it's one of the maple varieties. no bradfords here yet. we lost our red maple and elm blooms to the hard freeze. the henbit and daffodils have just started over the past few days. hope to do some inspections on sunday after the rain passes, probably going to give the very small colonies a shake of nurse bees from the larger ones.


----------



## barberberryfarm

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

squarepeg, I just checked my hives today after checkerboarding them (per your suggestion) in mid January using Walt Wright's strategy and all are LOADED with bees and brood without a sign so far of one queen cell. I want to thank you again for pointing me in that direction and for passing along your knowledge in this thread. Down here the wild plums along with the henbit and dandelions are in full bloom with the early fruiting trees just starting to open up. If you are interested I've been collecting pictures of the various flowering plants that bloom down here in central Alabama. If you use Facebook, here's the link to the album - http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=oa.432104336933022&type=1

Again, thanks for all your help and for this great thread!


----------



## ToeOfDog

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

Barberberryfarm;

Any drone brood?


----------



## barberberryfarm

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

Yes. I saw drone brood in all the hives.


----------



## ToeOfDog

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

Capped drone or not?? You're 55 to 60 miles south of me.

The Bradford pears started blooming today. Forsythia too.

You Facebook link isn't working.


----------



## barberberryfarm

*Re: squarepeg 2015*



ToeOfDog said:


> You Facebook link isn't working.


Try the link again and let me know if it works now.


----------



## erikebrown

*Re: squarepeg 2015*



barberberryfarm said:


> If you use Facebook, here's the link to the album - http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=oa.432104336933022&type=1


Works for me; great link, Ken! Thanks for sharing the pictures.

Erik


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

i was able to get into most of the hives today and even had the pleasure of having walt wright on hand to mentor. thanks walt!

most of the colonies have managed to build up despite the profound lack of foraging opportunities brought on by the crummy weather, although i have two or three that have some serious catching up to do.

i was hoping to shake some nurse bees into those smaller ones from the larger ones but i decided to give them another week or so and let some more bees emerge.

no drones were seen, but most of the stronger colonies have capped drone brood and it shouldn't be long before they start emerging.

the latshaw patties that i provided to half of the hives last week are being consumed. i'm guessing that the patties i made up were about 3/4 lb. or so. one colony nearly finished its patty and was provided with a second one. other colonies didn't use very much of their patty, but on average i would say that about half was consumed. there didn't seem to be a correlation between colony strength and amount of patty consumed. since i have it, i'll probably make it available to all of the hives until i see they aren't consuming it anymore.

this is the first year that i have had the bees abandon the bottom deep and start the spring build up in the supers. about a third of my colonies have done this. i attribute it to the poor fall flow and the deeps not getting provisioned as they usually do. i'm considering pushing these queens back down into the deeps below an excluder once it gets a little warmer and they are crowding out the supers.

my best colony of all was found at the outyard. here's the note i made on it today:

031515: STRONGEST COLONY SO FAR, DEEP AND SUPER1 FULL OF BEES, EGGS IN MIDDLE FRAMES OF SUPER2, CONSIDER OPENING THE SIDES IN DEEP WITH FL FRAMES, CONSIDER CUT DOWN SPLIT SOON, 25% PATTY USED


----------



## beepro

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

A little syrup goes a long way, SP.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

It is a beautiful sunny day here in North Alabama with temps about 80F. Bees are flying freely and collecting moderate amounts of pollen. I have peach and nectaplum trees in full bloom in my yard. I fed some old honey to 3 colonies here at my home to stimulate early brood rearing. With a bit of work, I hope to have them ready to split sometime next week.


----------



## MattDavey

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Great to hear the progress of the season and your hives there Squarepeg.

In regard to Opening the Sides, here's a couple of videos from Tom in California who used medium frames in a Deep. He only left them a week and they had already drawn out all the foundation and put comb underneath as well. You'll notice that previous to the the first video he had already put a deep frame with wax foundation beside brood in the top box and that had being drawn out and had brood in it.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=80CIEBM2oiI

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=clN9ZnXOZLc


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Squarepeg: I finally got into my hives yesterday and today. Have five more to check tomorrow. I'm having about half of my hives with brood and the queen in a medium over the deep this year also. Brood frames run from a minimum of one frame of brood covered almost on both sides to a medium 8 frame with six frames with brood and a frame or two in the medium above it. Two thirds have little to no drone brood and three had small patches about 3" in diameter. Two hives had lots across the bottom of one or two frames: about a foot long by one or two inches. One of those hives had two supercedure queen cells off the side of the frame about 2/3 up from the bottom. I only saw two queens but I think the others like to hide on the slatted racks I use. The average number of frames is three to five. Like you I saw no drones flying either day. Last year I had drones flying well before the middle of March. I think we're about three weeks or so away from swarms. 
I'm going to try reversing boxes a little more aggressively than I did last year. I also added a super to two of my booming hives. I moved up two frames of drawn comb and put two frames with starter strips in their place. 
Bradford pear, wild pear, fruiting pear, plums, peaches, and red bud starting to bloom here. Flowering cherry (yoshino), crab apples, and hollies shouldn't be far behind.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

many thanks all for the replies. i really appreciate being able to compare what is going on with my colonies with those of you around the southeastern u.s. it's that fun time of year when we go from months of stasis to you better not blink or you'll miss something.

in my last post i reported observations from what i found to be my best hive, (although i found another one even stronger today). i intended to also report what i found with my weakest one, but the status of that one was uncertain until today.

i pretty much had reached the conclusion that i was going to have to declare overwintering loss #4 based on what i saw in #10 last weekend. the tiny less than baseball sized cluster was situated on the middle frame in the top super. although there was a beautiful fat queen, and a three inch diameter two sided patch of capped brood with a good pattern of eggs around it, they were _tiny_! i estimated there to be about 300 bees or so, just enough for an alcohol wash.

i took away the deep and first super, put that second super that they were in on the bottom board and closed them up. i hoped to find some nurse bees in one of the other four hives that were receiving inspections that day but those hives had just enough nurse bees to cover what brood they had. i would have looked for nurse bees in some of the other hives but i had to get to the outyard before i ran out of daylight.

they spent the night in the single medium, and the next day at lunch i went home and switched places between that small hive and the stronger one sitting next to it which was a deep and two mediums. i really didn't expect that to work because of the big difference in appearance between the single medium hive and the three story hive, but low and behold the foragers from the big hive immediately started going into the little hive. i thought i had it made, but when i returned home that evening the foragers from the big hive had figured it out and went back home to their original hive.

so the next day i went home at lunch and found those nurse bees i wanted from another big hive in the yard. i shook about a medium and a half frames of nurse bees on spare bottom board that i placed at the entrance of the small hive, (forgot to smoke, :doh: ), and then waited until today to check them. fortunately the combine was successful and there are now many more eggs around the existing brood. there was also decent foraging. i went ahead and gave them another medium frame shake of nurse bees today.

so i'm ready to call it at 16.7% or 3/18 winter loss. that gives me 15 viable colonies to see what i can do with this season. my stated goal was to average one nuc and 100 lbs of honey per overwintered colony. we'll see how that goes.

one interesting side note about the weak colony that somewhat defies conventional wisdom, is that this small colony abandoned some capped brood on the frame in the first super just underneath the one they were on. i found about a five inch in diameter two sided patch of emerging capped brood that had appears to have gotten frozen during the last cold snap. the stores had been depleted around that patch of dead brood and i'm guessing that the small cluster chose to leave it in order to move up into the frame just over it where there was good stores. 

the survival instinct to keep the queen healthy at all costs appears to have worked for this colony. there's no doubt it would have struggled to grow after falling so far below critical mass, and would not be productive at all this year if i didn't help it with the nurse bees. i think they were a victim of - late start, poor fall flow, brutal cold snap at first brood cycle, winter bees dying faster than new brood to replace them. i'm hoping the queen turns out a good colony, she is from a graft mated last june from an 18 year old surviving tf colony my supplier has. it will be interesting to she how productive she can be in her first full season.


----------



## JRG13

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I find you have to change the direction of the original hive sometimes or the foragers will still go to it even though it's been moved, just out of curiosity, was the original strong hive still facing the same way it was?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



JRG13 said:


> just out of curiosity, was the original strong hive still facing the same way it was?


yes it was jrg. i think if i would have moved the big hive to the other side of the yard or to another yard it would have worked just fine, i made it too easy for them to find home. as it turns out even the 'big' hive is one of my smaller ones so i didn't want to mess with it too much. it currently only has about 4 frames of bees, but lots of capped brood, so it should double in population over the next week or two and expand nicely. that queen is also one of the grafts from my supplier.


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Very interesting thread sp. Thanks for the work that's gone into it and will go into it. I've been to sp's bee yard and he's just as nice and informative in person as he is on the forum. My only regret is that I haven't had time to visit more than the once or twice that I have. 

sp and I have predominately the same bees. I'd guess I'm 25 - 30 miles southeast of him. I did initially start with 2 Italian packages, but one turned into an LW and died out and I requeened the other with these TF bees late the first summer.

I also have one hive from another TF beekeeper that I got my first year. I don't know where his stock originated but he'd been keeping bees for over 20 years and has 40 or more hives. His opinion and one that I give a lot of merit to, especially after this winter, is that robbing bees of honey causes more problems than mites. This man keeps bees, just to keep bees. He doesn't eat honey and doesn't sell honey. He usually pulls a couple of supers off a year to extract for his mother and a friend. Not two supers per hive, but two supers total off 40 hives.

He typically comes through the winter with 95% overwintering success. He does no swarm prevention, no treatments, no feeding, nada. They're basically tree bees that live in boxes.

I pulled my honey late, my bees didn't put up much fall honey and I originally posted that I had 11 out of 15 hives make it through the winter. I actually lost 2 of those last fall. At any rate, when I posted that I had 11 of 15 survive that's what I had at that time. The week after I posted that we had 5 days of rain. No foraging weather at all. I lost 3 hives that week. The cluster size in 2 of them was football sized. The other was much smaller.

My brother and I bought a business the same summer that I started keeping bees, which was in 13. My bees have suffered because of my time constraints, but I have learned a lot, and I don't typically feed. I did learn this winter that the "heft" or weight of the hives is important. If they're light, they're going to die. The 3 hives I lost in March weighed the same amount as a double deep with drawn comb. There was not one cell of honey in those hives. I have kicked my own rear end many times for that stupidity. I was mad for a week about it. Regardless of how crazy things get at our shop, my hives won't starve to death next winter. If our fall flow is a bust, I'll feed them. Sugar is much cheaper than dead bees.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I helped a beginner do spring inspections of his colonies. He had 2 colonies from me and 5 that were purchased from one of his relatives.

1 - from me, medium colony, good queen, needed some feed. Was a late split from 2014.
2 - from me, strong colony, 3 frames slab full of brood, could use a couple of quarts of feed, can be split in a week.
3 - weak colony, shot brood pattern, needs new queen
4 - strong colony, good brood pattern, lots of drone brood, will swarm within 4 weeks if not split
5 - strong colony, good brood pattern, no drone brood yet, can be split in a week.
6 - Deadout, was a cutout from a house wall last year, made half a super of honey, died over winter.
7 - strong colony, good brood pattern, lots of drone brood, will swarm within 4 weeks if not split

The deadout was being robbed of a few frames of honey so he thought they were still a strong colony of bees. I showed him how to move the frames of honey into a couple of other colonies that could use them. We left the box in place with a small amount of honey in one frame to allow the robbing to end naturally.

The bees he got from a relative were treated bees and showed signs of varroa infestation, mostly in an erratic brood pattern. I recommended that he replace all of them with queens raised from mite tolerant stock. This can be done later this summer after the spring honey flow is over.

Overall, 4 strong colonies in rapid spring buildup, 1 medium colony, one weak colony, and 1 deadout.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> the survival instinct to keep the queen healthy at all costs appears to have worked for this colony. there's no doubt it would have struggled to grow after falling so far below critical mass, and would not be productive at all this year if i didn't help it with the nurse bees. i think they were a victim of - late start, poor fall flow, brutal cold snap at first brood cycle, winter bees dying faster than new brood to replace them. i'm hoping the queen turns out a good colony, she is from a graft mated last june from an 18 year old surviving tf colony my supplier has. it will be interesting to she how productive she can be in her first full season.


SP, I think the decision here, and onward, over how to rate this quessn is an interesting one. Its the sort of thing that exercises me anyhow. Given that she'd had since last June to build a colony that would safely overwinter her, I'd be tempted to replace her at the first opportunity on the grounds of insufficient vitality or something of that sort. As long as I had other queens with similar background in terms of resistance/tolerance qualities. 

Mike (UK)


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

mike, the reason i'm not giving up on the queen is because it may not have been her (or her genetics) fault. she came from a queen cell that was placed with three frames of bees in a nuc the first week of last june. she emerged, got mated, and started laying at the end of june, just in time for the onset of our summer 'dearth'. 

they somehow managed to draw some deep frames and grow into a 10 frame box despite the dearth. i gave them a super of drawn comb to fill on the fall flow but we didn't have much of one. the colony was small and the hive light going into winter. it received some honey donated from heavier hives but didn't get around to using much of it because of the dwindle. 

so this colony was started long after swarming season here, i.e. much later in the season than the bees would have naturally tried to establish a new colony. it was not fed, and was then subjected to a pitiful fall flow and a harsher than normal winter. it's still alive, (albeit barely), despite not been given a fair shot at getting established due to beekeeper and meteorological factors.

did they pass the test or fail? are those genetics worth saving and perhaps propagating? my answer is that i'm not sure at this point but i'm willing to give them a chance and see how it unfolds.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Yes, I'd be tempted to go with that too! Add in robbing of little ones... let them have a year to see what happens.

I can't help thinking though that the harsher test of nature knows better - only let the real fighters - and those who judge the seasons well - through.

Mike (UK)


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i found one of my stronger colonies capping honey with new wax at the top of the top box yesterday. they are starting to backfill the upper broodnest but are still expanding the nest downward into the bottom boxes. finding this showed me i was too late adding that third super and i expect they will ignore it for now and continue working down. in two or three weeks when all of that capped brood that is in there now has emerged this hive will very crowded with bees and they will likely go into swarm mode.


i posted this in another thread reporting last saturday's inspection of hive b5 at the outyard. i went back to it today prepared to find that third checkerboarded super i had just added being ignored and i was planning on working through the whole stack and rearranging frames. this colony is one of my two largest at this point and is the one that was a late summer combine last season.

my plan was to put the frames from the second super that the bees had begun establishing a solid band of honey at the top of to the top of the stack, and then rearrange the broodnest vertically through the middle of the stack after opening it up a bit with some empty comb.

but much to my delight and when i pulled the middle frame from that third super (which had empty comb in it when i placed it on saturday) i found it to be almost full of eggs on both sides. what this tells me is that this colony had not quite yet committed to making the top of the second super their stopping point for upward broodnest expansion. in the past i have found that if a colony doesn't cross the gap into the next box during spring build up it is very likely to swarm, so this was great news.

i simply put the frame with eggs back in and buttoned it up. this is one that checkerboarding may indeed keep from swarming although i don't have any more supers of drawn comb to give it and that may become an issue.

i also took the opportunity to grade a few of the other hives while i was out there. they are expanding nicely and following the general rule of thumb of doubling their population every three weeks or so. what were 2.5 to 3 frames of bees seven to eight weeks ago are now 10+ frames and growing. they should be in really good shape size wise for the arrival of our main flow in a few weeks, assuming the cold front that is is headed our way for the weekend that is supposed to put us down around freezing for a couple mornings doesn't mess things up.


----------



## beepro

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Are you going to make splits this season or just to maintain your
current hive position?

Any idea if we can get some of your queens too in limited supply?
I would like to try a few as well. Seems like the big hives are worth keeping. Amazing how
they can survive without any treatment. 
Without treatment OAV here my hives just died over the winter. Bad mites. Need some resistant queens to head
them for the expansion though.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

yes breepro, i'll be making splits. the first five will be put into service in my yards and bring my count back up to 20. i hope to make about 20 additional nucs and already have commitments for those.

i haven't sold loose queens before, and i'm not sure i will be in the foreseeable future. also i'm not sure how these will do in other parts of the country. so far those that are using them within 100 miles or so of here are having similar success.


----------



## beepro

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

It is good that you are expanding these good bee genetics, locally.
In other area it is only an experiment to see if it is possible to duplicate
their success. Being an experiment the outcome is different of course, but if
it is successful then the we can pin point that this genetic is stable enough to 
transport to anywhere in the world. After a certain year it should be stable enough to try.
I'm willing to try some in my yard to see how they do.


----------



## Dragiša-Peđa Ranković

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

It´s great.
It´s almost exciting as just watching hive entrance.
What are happenings in the box?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



Dragiša-Peđa Ranković;1240470 said:


> What are happenings in the box?


many thanks dpr. right now mostly what is happening is that the colonies are expanding their broodnests as they transition out of winter into spring, building up their populations in preparation for the time of year when they swarm and when most of the year's honey is made. they have expanded their numbers to almost four times what they went through winter with and will double again over the next month. the challenge is to try and keep them from swarming or at least split them if they cannot be prevented from doing so. nasdrovia!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

additional observations from today's inspections:

1. most of the latshaw patties have now been consumed. i believe that the patties i made up would have weighed .5 to .75 lbs. one colony has polished off two of them and six others have eaten one. the only colonies that did not consume the patties were the two smallest ones that got down to less than a medium frame of bees. i attribute the non consumption of the patties in those two to not very much brood to feed. not counting those two tiny colonies i had seven that were given patties and six that were not given patties and i can't really say that i'm seeing much difference in the build up between the two groups, perhaps because field pollen and decent flying weather has been available since the patties were given.

2. some capped drone brood that had been put in the gap between boxes was broken open during today's inspections. i looked carefully at about 20 drone larvae and didn't find any mites.


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Squarepeg, I watched the Birmingham weather at 6:00 pm and they are forecasting lows down there at 34 both Saturday and Sunday morning. I sure hope that is wrong. 

I read in another thread that checkerboarding could stimulate wax production. Have you seen this at your site before?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

brad, yes near freezing for a few hours is the forecast for sunday am., and we may be alright if there is enough wind blowing.

i have not seen checkerboarding stimulate wax production. for the most part new wax usually doesn't show until a little later in the season.


----------



## ToeOfDog

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i looked carefully at about 20 drone larvae and did find any mites.


Did find or didnt find mites?


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

You are seeing why I never feed pollen sub in spring. We have had near continuous pollen available since mid February.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



ToeOfDog said:


> Did find or didnt find mites?


thanks tod, that was a typo. i did not see any mites in the 20 or so drone larvae that i looked at.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> You are seeing why I never feed pollen sub in spring. We have had near continuous pollen available since mid February.


there were few flying opportunities from mid february to mid march, and as you pointed out in an earlier post the patties may have been more beneficial had they been placed earlier in the winter. at any rate i think i'm back to an all natural diet.


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> You are seeing why I never feed pollen sub in spring. We have had near continuous pollen available since mid February.


And while our locations are a bit different, I've never seen the need either. Mid March and I had full frames of pollen...both sides. Multiple frames in many hives. Some was a carryover from last season. The only reason I could imagine feeding a pollen sub was if I were sending hives to almonds.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

thanks for chiming in dan. what is your average colony strength at this time?


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I know you'll think I'm exaggerating....because I'm a bit impressed myself....but I can't remember the last hive I opened that had less than six frames of solid brood and to the last hive every one packed with bees....some three deeps. The spring of 2014 was the most amazing buildup I'd ever seen. This year is at least its equal. 
I've been splitting as much as the weather and my ability will allow but too many will still swarm, I'm afraid. 
Keep in mind that our weather is probably a couple of weeks ahead of yours.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

that's awesome dan, congrats! have you tallied your winter losses yet?


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I always add a disclaimer to my winter loss numbers. I cull hard late in the season.....my motto....just say NO to dinks. I lost about 5% during the winter. One was turned over during the worst of winter and I have no idea how long those bees were exposed. Several were hives I'd identified as likely queenless and kicked myself for not shaking them out in October. Year over year losses....what I consider a real measure.....a bit under 15%.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

understood dan, many thanks.


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Re winter losses....I should add that I lost 4 hives for unexplained reasons....disappeared, small cluster and such....a bit under 3%.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I got a call from Carpenter Apiaries earlier this evening that he will ship 10 queens to me either Monday or Tuesday. 5 of them are for a guy I got started beekeeping last year and will be used to make splits. he wants to have at least 10 colonies producing surplus honey this year. 2 of them will be sold to a guy I got started 3 years ago and will be used to make at least 2 splits from his 4 colonies. He sold honey last year and made enough money to have an appetite for more this year. 3 queens will be used to make splits from my bees with the intent of having colonies to sell to other beginners. I will also be making a few splits from my other colonies and letting them raise queens. I would like to have at least 16 colonies by fall and be able to sell 4 of them.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

interesting dar. the queens in the photos on carpenter's webpage are much more yellow that what i see with mine. i saw where you mentioned allogrooming in the other thread, i see this taking place from time to time at the hive entrances. tuesday is looking good weatherwise, i hope to get into a few and see how they're doing.


----------



## JRG13

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I got 6 queens from Bill on Wednesday, 5 regulars and one breeder, will see how they fare here.


----------



## beepro

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

It is fun to order new queens from the resistant breeders.
At the same time my concern is the AHB genetics having to dealt
with them in the past. I don't like it!
Anyone concern about the Carpenters queens. They are in FL you know.
How do they address the AHB concern? Anyone knows? Are you concern too?


----------



## beepro

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



JRG13 said:


> I got 6 queens from Bill on Wednesday, 5 regulars and one breeder, will see how they fare here.


JR, I see that like me every year you bought queens from all over.
How are the resistant queens from last year? How are they dealing with the mites so far?


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



beepro said:


> They are in FL you know.
> How do they address the AHB concern? Anyone knows? Are you concern too?


From what I've read Florida commercial queen producers are under some pretty strict oversight. As I understand it they are required to have samples of their queens genetically tested for AHB each year.


----------



## beepro

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Yes, I have read so.
But does that guarantee that the drones are not during the
queen's mating flight? Law is the law only the reality of the
bee environment aka DCA will tell.


----------



## shinbone

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> The deadout was being robbed of a few frames of honey so he thought they were still a strong colony of bees. I showed him how to move the frames of honey into a couple of other colonies that could use them. We left the box in place with a small amount of honey in one frame to allow the robbing to end naturally.


Fascinating stuff!

Whenever I get robbing, I shut it down as fast as possible. I had no idea there was any other option to consider, and I have never heard of allowing "robbing to end naturally." Could you explain the benefits of this method?


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Put it under the category "advanced beekeeping 106". If you remove all the honey that robbers are gathering, they will immediately shift attention to any weak colonies and sometimes overwhelm them. This can result in a cascade of dead colonies, especially if you are making splits. By leaving a bit of honey in the colony that is being robbed the bees tend to treat it more like a nectar flow that is ending. They collect all the available honey, search diligently for any that was overlooked, then go home to wait for the next flow. There are conditions where this would not be an appropriate management strategy, but in this case, it was one single dead colony in an apiary with 6 other colonies all of which were either medium or strong. We removed 3 medium frames full of honey, left one frame with about 1/2 pound of honey for them to clean out, waited 3 days and broke down the empty hive and set it up to become a split.


----------



## shinbone

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

A great bit of info! Thanks!


----------



## JRG13

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Beepro,

I worried about it for all of 2 seconds. The attendants that came with the bees were very gentle. I had to pry apart queen cages with a few hundred bees covering them and no issues. I'm still evaluating any claims to resistance. So far, nothing impressive, the VSH queens have great patterns but have been absolutely slow in building up. Will be making daughters from II breeders later in the year so won't know til next year on those.


----------



## beepro

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Thanks, JR.
I'll send in a request for a breeder too as not all batches will come out the same.
The drones saturation play a lot with the resistant characteristic.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

i took the opportunity today to look into all eight of the hives at the homeyard and overall i'm pretty happy with what i saw. all are queenright with lots of eggs and good solid laying patterns. 

i saw the first drones of the season crawling around in the strongest colony of the yard. that colony is two deeps and a medium full of bees and it will become my first split of the year most likely on sunday. 

the three smallest colonies got shakes of nurse bees from the three strongest, and i transferred one frame of emerging brood. the yard average population is about a deep and a half of bees.

there are a couple of hives with brood all the way to the top of the third medium super that haven't started using the single deep at the bottom yet. i'm thinking about moving the queens down to the deep below an excluder on these.

hardwood green up has just started and swarms are being reported about 70 miles to my south so i don't think it will be too much longer for us. the start of swarming here usually coincides with the tulip poplars getting buds on them and they are just now sprouting leaves. i'll be setting a couple of traps over the weekend.


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> the three smallest colonies got shakes of nurse bees from the three strongest, and i transferred one frame of emerging brood. the yard average population is about a deep and a half of bees.


I'm not being critical here but wonder about this. Are you propping up your three smallest colonies at the expense of your three strongest? Does this meet your vision of treatment free?


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

sp, a guy told me about a swarm about 15 miles SE of me today. It's off in the valley just SW of here. I wanted to go get it but he said a friend of his was coming to get it.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



beemandan said:


> I'm not being critical here but wonder about this. Are you propping up your three smallest colonies at the expense of your three strongest? Does this meet your vision of treatment free?


fair question dan. i don't hold such a strict vision of treatment free as has been espoused by some. for me tf means no mite killing chemicals or antibiotics. also for me it means no syrup except to prevent starvation, and this is because i want the colonies to brood up and down in response to the natural flows and dearths. i'll sometimes feed syrup to a late caught swarm, and i might consider using syrup for splits made later that i would like, but i usually have enough honey to spread around if a colony gets low on stores.

just as important to me as selecting and breeding for survivor traits is getting decent productivity in the process. i want a return on my investment of time and resources. giving a bee boost to these smaller colonies gives them a chance to give me something back in terms of honey production and/or frames of bees for nuc production. my goal is to get something out of each and every hive.

and i'm not entirely sure the queens and their genetics are to blame for those small ones being behind at this point. as mentioned in an earlier post these were late splits whose queens had just started laying at the start of last summer's dearth. they were not fed, and then we had the dry fall with not much nectar flow, which was followed by the long winter and the late spring. the fact that they are still viable is pretty darn amazing to me, and now i want them to produce as well.

my biggest obstacle to maximizing production has been swarming. i see the donating of nurse bees and brood from the strongest ones to the smallest serving a secondary purpose in that it will keep those colonies held back a bit and buy me a little time on the swarm prevention front. it's all one big experiment dan, and i know i am going against conventional wisdom on both sides of coin, but it's what seems to make sense to me at this time and we'll just have to see how it all shakes out at the end of the season.

i appreciate the question. i've been meaning to ask you what if anything you are doing at this time with regards to swarm prevention with all of your hives breaming over with bees?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



Brad Bee said:


> sp, a guy told me about a swarm about 15 miles SE of me today. It's off in the valley just SW of here. I wanted to go get it but he said a friend of his was coming to get it.


won't be long brad, got any traps set?


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

No, I plan on putting them up this weekend. Maybe I can get a few up closer to my hives before then.


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> my biggest obstacle to maximizing production has been swarming. i've been meaning to ask you what if anything you are doing at this time with regards to swarm prevention with all of your hives breaming over with bees?


With regards to productivity and my biggest challenge to being what I consider a responsible beekeeper ....this is my single biggest issue. I've split the daylights out of as many as I could access...weather and physical limitations. Those that seem hell bent on swarming...I'm pulling the queen in a split and leaving two to four similarly aged queen cells...or cutting all the cells and adding a new queen. At this point I would estimate that I'll be able (hope?) to keep 60% from swarming and 20% to a single swarm. And I may have to modify my numbers as reality sets in. The physical cost has been huge for me. After all I'm getting to be an old fellow and I am working seven days a week....and still lose sleep trying to figure out how to do it all. 
I truly don't feel like I'm bragging....but to the last one....they are grand this spring....and I am willing to jump through a lot of hoops to make the best of it.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

understood dan, many thanks. i'm glad to hear your hives are booming. if we lived closer i'd be willing to lend you a hand in exchange for some of those pearls of wisdom you have undoubtedly accumulated over the years. 

i am going to assess productivity at the end of the season by average lbs. of honey and # of splits sold per overwintered hive. do you have an estimate of what you are usually able to produce looking at it this way?


----------



## Barry

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

A reminder again that the title of this thread is *squarepeg['s] experience*. Let's stay on topic.


----------



## apis maximus

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

squarepeg,

Thanks for keeping it real. I missed the forum and your journey...but bees are calling. So is your experience. 
Thanks mr. barry the owner. You're too kind.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I've been going through my bees over the last 3 days and have some very interesting results.

One colony developed so fast and so strong that it swarmed. Fortunately, the swarm moved into an empty hive at that location so was not lost. I split the remainder and gave each half a ripe queen cell.

None of the rest of my colonies are anywhere near swarm strength, but most are just right for splitting with a new queen given to one and the old queen left with 2 frames of brood on the other.

One colony has only a single frame of completely unsealed brood. It is a numerically strong colony with plenty of pollen and stored honey plus fresh nectar. The only reason I can come up with for the slow start to brood rearing is that they are genetically predisposed to wait very late after pollen is widely available. What is interesting is that this was the most productive colony I had last year. I will follow it closely this year to see how it builds up and produces on the main flow which is due in 4 weeks. The queen is marked so I know it is the same as headed the colony last year. The bees are gentle, show no sign of varroa, but have more hive beetles than I like to see.

I helped a beginner split 4 colonies and requeen one that had a failing queen. This guy has enough colonies now that he is selling 2 to another guy who wants to get started. I've been tutoring them in hive manipulation and of course showed them both how to find queens and split their bees.

I helped another beginner split 2 colonies including one that has an exceptionally good queen derived from my stock.

There are now 4 beekeepers in the area using my mite tolerant stock.

SP, are you seeing signs of swarm prep? doing any splits yet?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

excellent report dar, many thanks. no swarm prep seen yet but i've been shaking nurse bees out of my strongest and donating them to my weakest. a guy i sold bees to last year put an excluder on when it warmed up a few weeks ago and found his deep packed out with brood and with several ripe queen cells today. he's going to split it tomorrow. i've got two that are very strong that i haven't been down to the bottom box yet that i hope to get into tomorrow before the severe weather hits. i'm considering taking the queens out of those and making three frame cut down splits depending on how they look. i've got another that is two deeps and two mediums that is pretty full of bees that i'll likely split evenly. the rest were still found to be in expansion mode with room to grow when inspected over this past week.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

it made it up to 80 degrees out in the beeyard today and i was reminded why i won't feel guilty charging $20/qt. for honey and $140 for a five frame nuc this year. 

i got into two hives that i had previously noted the bees working the top three medium supers but largely ignoring the bottom single deep. as mentioned, i have been considering pushing the queen down into the deep and below an excluder in these. 

in the first hive i checked i found that the top super had nectar/honey in all nine frames. this indicates that they are already busy filling the five frames of empty comb that had been checkerboarded with four frames of honey in that super when i placed it on the hive a couple of weeks ago. the four frames of honey had been uncapped and were apparently being used for brood rearing. in the lower two supers the middle 4 - 5 frames had mostly capped brood. there were clear empty cells around the edge of the nest with no eggs at all in them, and it did not appear that they were backfilling the cells where brood had hatched. i found that the queen had already moved down to the deep and there were lots of eggs and newly hatched larvae down there. how nice! at this time the colony is utilizing the central 70% of the hive all the way from the bottom to the top so it still has room to expand. i put it back together without moving anything around and will check it again for swarm cells and possible splitting in a couple of weeks.

the other colony i checked today was still ignoring their deep so i decided to find the queen and move her down. what a pain. i had to look through almost all of the frames in the three supers before i found her. this colony had most of the three mediums full of bees or the equivalent of almost two deeps of bees. no swarm prep was seen, but they had brood to the very top of the third super with no reserve of honey overhead. the queen is now in the deep below an excluder.

this was one of those 'do you really ever understand anything before you do it' experiences that laferney was talking about in the other thread. my idea for trying this was inspired by ian, who described his method of shaking the bees down into a deep of empty comb, placing an excluder, and then placing the deep they had been brooding in above it. shaking the bees down would have been a whole lot faster than finding the queen and that's how i'll do it next time. what i will also do differently, (and what i need to go back and do this weekend), is to rearrange the frames in the supers so that the fullest honey frames are in the very top super, the brood is centered in the bottom two supers, and the empty comb is flanking the brood, or something along those lines.

the other thing i managed to get done today is to set a couple of swarm traps. i'm also trying the swarm commander lure this year. i took a few looks at the traps as the day went on and didn't see the first scout, which confirms to me that swarm season has not quite arrived here yet, but i don't expect it will tarry much longer.


----------



## beepro

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Yes, I see David's question on the other thread. 
I thought Ian's hive rearrangement during the Spring flow is to
prepare them for the maximum number of bees to collect the honey and not to swarm by moving the queen to the bottom box to lay. Am I right? Many of the things that keepers do I still not completely 'know the anything' of it. But time will tell what the bees like to do with their home, right.
Are you trying to duplicate Ian's process and results with max honey production and possibly not swarm? As I remembered that he said at least 1 or 2 swarmed with his set up too?


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> it made it up to 80 degrees out in the beeyard today and i was reminded why i won't feel guilty charging $20/qt. for honey and $140 for a five frame nuc this year.


And why I buy sunscreen by the gallon...literally..... and always take plenty of water when I work bees.


----------



## beepro

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

That is why I have a home made veil with a big hat to work in the
full hot summer sun. It makes beekeeping a lot of fun without the extra
heat. Perhaps you should make one too.


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

squarepeg: checked 7 of my hives today, lots of drones in 5 of them, capped drone brood in all. I've been moving boxes and checkerboarding like you've been talking about and it seems to be working here. I haven't found any swarm cells yet and the brood frames are expanding in number weekly. I found four queens in the hives, I know the others are there because of the younger brood and the fact that the number of brood frames is expanding. I found two queen cells that appeared to be supercedure cells (middle of the same frame) two weeks ago but they have disappeared. I did find a large, fat queen in that hive and expanded brood frames when I checked today.
About half of my hives had the queen and brood at the top of the hive in the medium super at the middle of March and the rest were in the bottom of the hive in the deep. They all seem to be expanding at about the same rate now. I need to check my notes and see if the queens are related. Do you see any advantages to one over the other?
Like I said, no swarm cells yet but I've been adding empty drawn supers or deep as the hives get close to filling the top box.
Swarm season should be here any time. I've got two traps up where I know swarms have clustered before or near active bee trees so maybe I can get some new genetics.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

last night's storm front spawned tornados and we had one pass directly overhead but thankfully it stayed high up and we had no damage here. the cooler north wind that came in behind the front kept today's high temp at around 60, which allowed for some foraging but at a noticeably lessened pace that we were seeing with the 70+ temps in the days preceding.

today was spent melting last year's wax cappings and painting plastic foundations in the supers i hope to be placing soon. we also got some deep foundationless frames wired up and ready for use. i moved a hive from the outyard to the homeyard, mostly because it was the fourth hive on a stand that more comfortably holds three hives and i had an empty slot at home that was lonely for a hive.

dan, 10-4 on the sunscreen and keeping hydrated. i really don't mind taking a sting every now and then, but i do question my sanity when getting suited up in the heat and humidity that rolls in here around late spring and persists through summer.

beepro, you are correct, i am trying to maximize honey production and limit swarming.

gary, many thanks for the report. i'm not sure yet, but i'm thinking there may be an advantage to the bees brooding to the top of the top box during spring build up. i had a few do that last year, but they got split into nucs so i don't know if they would have swarmed or not. interestingly i did not find any swarm cells in those when i made the splits although swarming was well underway by then up here.

walt describes what he refers to as the 'overhead honey reserve'. the idea is that a colony is not likely to swarm without leaving a decent reserve of honey behind to insure the survival of the parent colony. a colony that has brooded to the very top has used up all of last year's reserves for brood rearing and now has to reestablish that reserve, and it may be that by the time they do that it is getting late enough in the season for them to abandon swarm ambition.

on the other hand, i have had colonies come out of winter with their broodnest in the bottom box and even with checkerboarded honey supers overhead they stopped broodnest expansion at one of the gaps between the supers and just ignored the supers above that gap. they then proceeded to reestablish the solid honey reserve at the uppermost box they got to and backfilled down to the point of swarming.

i've got several colonies at this point in both categories and i am watching them closely to see what happens. for the ones that have brooded to the top i am watching to see if the queen moves back down to the bottom on her own, and if not i will probably move her down there myself. for the ones with queens already in the bottom i am watching to make sure they don't stop at a gap, and if they do i will probably pyramid up frames from the lower supers into the upper ones to get them using all of the boxes.


----------



## JRG13

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Do you need to suit up?


----------



## JRG13

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Do you need to suit up?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



JRG13 said:


> Do you need to suit up?


i frequently walk right up to the hives and get my face within a foot or two of the entrances to see what color pollen they are bringing in and they just ignore me. opening a hive and pulling frames is an entirely different matter. i can usually go gloveless for awhile but sooner or later i'll take a sting to the hand and then put the nitriles on. i wear boots because the legs of the suit don't get all the way down to the ankles and socks only doesn't stop them. i use a little smoke and the colony as a whole generally remains pretty docile, i figure those cranky old guard bees are just doing their job.


----------



## JRG13

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Just getting perspective, I just find it interesting when people think they need a suit or work bees that require a suit on the smaller scale of hive numbers. Perhaps it's just creating that sense of comfort at times.


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

squarepeg: got word today that a beekeeping friend in Columbus, MS, about 20 miles west of me had a hive swarm on 04/03/15, Good Friday. It's about to begin in this area, within the next two weeks.
Columbus is about two weeks ahead of me when it comes to bloom times. I live in the hills while Columbus is flat, along the Tombigbee River.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I've caught 2 swarms, one from a colony of mine, one that came from the woods.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> I've caught 2 swarms, one from a colony of mine, one that came from the woods.


thanks for the report dar, nice to get one out of the woods. still no interest being shown in the traps i set the other day. up here on the ridgetop we tend to be a week or two behind on what happens in the valleys in terms of blooms ect.


----------



## MelissaWilkie

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I have chairs by my hives. That's one of my favorite places to sit and have coffee, or take a break. I sit within 2 or 3 feet of the entrances, just off to the side. I suppose when food is not so plentiful or they have more old bees to guard I may have to move back a little. But I like getting as close as I can to watch their behavior. :lookout:


----------



## JRG13

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Good luck with the traps Square, I think I'm going to set out a couple this week as well. Had a chance at a swarm a couple weeks ago, but it was gone by the time the owner got back home in the evening the day she told me about it....


----------



## laketrout

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

SP , If its been covered just refer me to the post , I'm sure I could learn from your swarm prevention techniques , it looks like its going to be on top of my list this spring . I believe if my memory is correct you worked with Walt on checker-boarding has that in itself been enough or are you reversing and opening the broodnest also .


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

melissa, i can relate. there's nothing like some quiet time observing the hives and regaining one's sanity.

jrg, many thanks. still no interest in the swarm traps as of today, and no swarm preps seen in any of the hives i got into this week although i'll be looking carefully at all of them this weekend.

laketrout, i had measurable success last year with walt's methods although i was lulled into complacency and a few of them swarmed on me anyway. so far so good this year, but we're just now getting to swarm season. i modified my checkerboarding this year by lining up honey frames with honey frames and empty comb with empty comb in the supers as opposed to staggering them in a checkerboarded pattern. i can already tell that this is the way to go for me as only one of the colonies failed to work all the way up to the top of the top box. for that one colony i decided to pyramid the brood in the supers up to the top and placed a foundationless frame down in the deep to encourage wax making. last year when i staggered the frames in a checkerboarded pattern about half of the colonies failed to keep moving up and stopped at a break between the boxes. they basically reestablished solid honey in the uppermost box they got to and then went on to backfill and swarm.

i made my first split of the season on tuesday but i failed to find the queen. it's looking like i ended up moving the wrong half (the queenless half) to the new position. judging by the entrance activity i'm guessing the half that remained at the original spot got the queen and all of the foragers. i'll be checking on those tomorrow and likely be taking corrective action.

i also discovered that the hive i mentioned moving from the outyard to the homeyard last weekend had a drone laying queen. there were three supercedure cells that had their bottoms chewed out, but no sign of eggs or virgins. i may have interupted the supercedure by moving them when i did. as it turns out that tiny colony i mentioned coming out of winter with only about 300 bees and a queen was up to about 6 - 7 medium frames of bees with a good looking brood pattern. it seemed like the perfect match so i combined the tiny colony in its single medium over newpaper and an excluder on top of the drone layer hive. i'll look below the excluder tomorrow and if there are no eggs in those lower boxes i'll move the medium nuc down to the bottom of the stack and remove the excluder.

more to come after this weekend's inspections, thanks again for the interest.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

another cool front passed through here yesterday and brought some rain, but it managed to get back up into the mid-seventies today with sun and a nice breeze. i've got about two hundred mature autum olive trees in full bloom right now and the bees like the nectar from those better than anything else available at this time.

i went into all six hives at the outyard today...

the first one was found mid-supercedure with the queen gone, five capped queen cells, and about five deep frames of capped brood. i have to recheck it in 2 - 3 weeks for eggs.

two other hives had capped brood all the way to the top of the third super and were making new wax. these were given a fourth super containing wax painted plastic foundation with a bait frame of partially drawn comb in the middle. 

two others were still expanding their broodnests up into the uppermost supers. 

one had stopped broodnest expansion at the middle of the first super, so i pyramided the brood into the next super and gave it a foundationless deep frame.

at the homeyard...

my suspicion about even split i reported from tuesday was confirmed. unfortunately the half that i moved to the new spot didn't have the queen and lost foragers so there were only about 4 frames of bees left and it was all they could do to cover the brood in there. i didn't even see any queen cells started. i decided to combine my second single medium 'nuc' with this queenless split and move it back to the original spot to regain the foragers. the queenright half was moved to the new spot.

tuesday's combine of the first single medium 'nuc' to the failed supercedure colony went well. i removed the excluder and moved the medium with the queen and brood to the bottom of the stack.

still no swarm preps seen or any scouts checking out my traps. i've got another even split to do tomorrow and a couple of others to check progress on. today's combine drops my hive count to 14, but tomorrow's split will bring it back to 15. 

there may be more splits to come if i catch any going into swarm mode, and i might get lucky with my traps. i still have four deeps with drawn comb in the freezer that are in need of a colony. all of my drawn supers are now in use so any additional supers added will be foundation. once i get them through swarm season my attention will be shifting to grafting and making up this year nucs, and then it's on to the honey harvest.

on average the colonies are not as far behind as i expected them to be with the late arrival of spring this year. if swarm prevention succeeds i'm thinking the harvest may end up pretty decent.


----------



## minz

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

What is the status of your apple blossoms (nectar management dates reference)? I thought we were about the same in climate but we have been about 30 days ahead of normal and well into the battle of the swarm. I would like to compare the growing degree days with swarming to get a better indication. I am at 4933 GDD this morning.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

hi minz, the apple trees in our yard shed their blossoms about a week ago. i'm at zip code 35771 if that helps you, i couldn't find a link for the gdd value for here. 

i just came in from getting into the last few hives for this weekend's apiary-wide inspections...

i found another hive that had brood all the way to the top of the third super (in other words brood to the very top of the hive) with some new wax seen. this make a total of five hives that have done this. four of those five hives now have a fourth super but those supers have only foundation. 

the fifth hive that brooded all the way to the top is the one that i pushed the queen down into the ingored deep below an excluder. i was mostly looking today for queen cells in the supers. i did not find any queen cells in them, only capped brood. what was interesting to me is that virtually all of the cells not containing capped brood were dry, except for a few here and there with beebread. in the deep, the colony had reestablished a beautiful new brood nest. i decided to remove the excluder. i'm feeling fairly certain that this one won't swarm and will be going into our main flow with a strong population and lots of room in the supers to store honey. i did not feel it would do anything with a fourth super at this time, but may add it later.

the hive that had two deeps and one medium that was slated for splitting today could not be split. it turns out that colony underwent a mid build-up supercedure, (successfully), and was only utilizing the middle halves of both deeps and not using the super. i consolidated the utilized deep frames into a single deep and checkerboarded two medium supers over it. there were about seven nice frames of brood and a good looking young queen laying a solid pattern.

all in all i have pretty much prevented any of the colonies from establishing solid honey overhead so far. the two that stopped expansion short of the top, i.e. the ones that i pyramided brood up and gave foundationless frames to draw, are the ones i feel are mostly likely to go into swarm mode. i'll be watching those closely and frankly won't mind to much if i have to take cut down splits from them.


----------



## Eric Crosby

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

SP I find it very interesting that despite the weather u had and your expectations u r finding that "on average the bees are not as far behind as you thought they would be." This is very interesting. 
also interesting from my perspective is that up here at the 49th parallel our bees are on average basically at the same stage as yours give or take a week or 2 ( west coast). Thanks for sharing SP


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

we had a lovely day here with temps in the upper 60's, light wind, and plenty of sun. i decided to take a break from the day job this afternoon and take a look into my hives.

there were two that i was especially eager to check because about a week ago i discovered that they had stopped their upward broodnest expansion and were starting to establish solid honey overhead. i learned last year that seeing this happen prior to our main flow is a reliable indicator that swarm preps are likely to follow soon.

my manipulations to these two hives last week were to move brood up into the next box and open up the nest with some empty comb. i also added a foundationless frame in the deep to encourage wax making.

the first one i got into failed to expand the nest into the empty comb i provided and were filling it with nectar instead. i found 10+ queen cells and a few of them were almost capped. there was no wax at all drawn on the foundationless frame. the hive was crowded and bees were covering all of the frames in the single deep and three medium supers. they had not yet started backfilling brood cells. although there were a fair number of cells polished up and ready for the queen to lay in there were very few eggs. i was able to find the queen and split out an artificial swarm of about 4 deep frames of bees. i left the two best looking queen cells and notched the comb below some eggs.

i had better luck with the other hive that was found in a similar condition and received the same manipulations last week. this one expanded nicely into the next box up and onto the empty frames of comb that i opened up the nest with. they had the new foundationless frame i inserted completely drawn with drone comb and were raising drones on it. i saw more new wax in this hive than any of the 13 hives that i looked into today.

the hives that had brood to the very top of the stack were given a fourth super of foundation in recent days. i melted some cappings down and painted the plastic foundation with the melted wax. i was amazed to see they have already reworked that painted wax into new comb and are even starting to add a little new white wax to it. i didn't go through these today but probably will soon if they don't get busy drawing that foundation out.

i'm calling today the start of swarm season here. i've got 2 traps set here and 2 traps set at the outyard. the locusts are just coming into full bloom which corresponds nicley to walt wright's timeline. i think i'm in better shape at this point than in previous years, but that may be wishful thinking.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

we are about a week or so into the start of swarm season here and not yet to the point of seeing new white wax being drawn. i caught a swarm yesterday in a trap set at the homeyard and it looks like they are going to stay. the bees are pretty dark and appear to be noticably smaller than most of my stock. i believe they came out of the nearby woods.

i mentioned pushing a queen below an excluder about 3 weeks ago after finding them filling the supers with brood and ignoring the single deep at the bottom, and then removing the excluder after about 10 days or so once they had started a new nest in the deep. i had been noticing rather strong orientation type flying that was almost swarm-like in appearance coming from this one so i did an inspection. what i found was that after removing the excluder the queen went back up and repopulated the supers with new brood. i found the central 5 - 6 frames in the deep and all three mediums to contain a lot of capped brood. there was only a small amount of open brood, and no eggs found. no queen cells were seen. i think they are mid supercedure and it doesn't look like they are going to swarm. i'll have to make sure they get a new queen off, but this one looks primed to capitalize on the main flow that is just around the corner.

i also mentioned finding a colony at the outyard a couple of weeks ago that was well into supercedure with nothing but capped brood and a handful of capped queen cells. i looked into it yesterday and found that all of the brood had emerged and there was no laying queen yet, although it may be a little early to be seeing one. i decided to donate some brood from the hive next to it and discovered that that hive must have just swarmed as the population was reduced with no queen and 10+ queen cells at various stages of development. i gave a frame of brood and with queen cells from the swarmed hive to the superceding hive for insurance, and made a note to check them both back later for a laying queen.

the caught swarm puts my hive count up to 16, and after catching a few more i'll be setting up a cell builder and try to get a round of 15 - 20 grafts off to use for nuc production. if i am successful at preventing swarming in my strong hives there should be plenty of bees to pull some splits from them. fingers crossed.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Have you seen any dwv this year SP?

Mike (UK)


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i gave a frame of brood and with queen cells from the swarmed hive to the superceding hive for insurance, and made a note to check them both back later for a laying queen.


Are you not concerned that if the supercedure hive has a new queen....that you may now have driven them to swarm?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



mike bispham said:


> Have you seen any dwv this year SP?


not the first one yet mike. last year at this time i had two hives spitting out a few.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



beemandan said:


> Are you not concerned that if the supercedure hive has a new queen....that you may now have driven them to swarm?


there's only about 6 - 7 deep frames of bees in that hive right now dan. the overwintered queen failed mid build up.


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> there's only about 6 - 7 deep frames of bees in that hive right now dan. the overwintered queen failed mid build up.


I guess I misunderstood. I thought there was evidence of a supercedure.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



beemandan said:


> I guess I misunderstood. I thought there was evidence of a supercedure.


looked more like supercedure than swarm, this was one of my 'smaller' colonies coming out of winter. here's my journal entry:

041115: QUEENLESS WITH LOTS OF CAPPED BROOD, 5 SUPERCEDURE CELLS, STILL ABOUT SAME NUMBER OF BEES, NO BACKFILLING BUT CANNOT RULE OUT A SWARM, CHECK BACK IN A COUPLE OF WEEKS


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> 041115: QUEENLESS WITH LOTS OF CAPPED BROOD, 5 SUPERCEDURE CELLS, STILL ABOUT SAME NUMBER OF BEES, NO BACKFILLING BUT CANNOT RULE OUT A SWARM, CHECK BACK IN A COUPLE OF WEEKS


When you gave them the frame with swarm cells, were the supercedure cells open? Gone? 
If they now have a supercedure queen...adding swarm cells will likely incite them to swarm and instead of 6 - 7 deep frames of bees...you will have 3. Just sayin'.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

three qc's were gone and two remained, but they should have hatched out by then so i assumed they were not viable. i would be be surprised if such a small colony went on to swarm at this point, but i guess it could happen. when i found them broodless, most likely queenless, and discovered queen cells on the brood frames in the hive next door it seemed like the thing to do at the time. the colony seems happier as foraging has picked up and they are bringing in pollen again. the downside is that this one is not likely to make much of a honey crop, so i may have to use it to draw out a super or to make up nucs with.


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i would be be surprised if such a small colony went on to swarm at this point, but i guess it could happen.


Overpopulation and crowding contribute to the impulse to initiate swarm cells. Once those cells are developed...the size of the population has no effect....pheromones are now in control. If there is already a queen and swarm cells....a swarm is likely. I've had colonies swarm themselves into oblivion...leaving only a handful of bees and the last virgin.
Good luck.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



beemandan said:


> I've had colonies swarm themselves into oblivion...leaving only a handful of bees and the last virgin.
> Good luck.


many thanks dan and those are very good points you make, i'm not disagreeing. i've seen that happen here once but it seems to be more the exception than the rule. again, fingers crossed.


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Well squarepeg, I've been trying all the swarm prevention procedures that I could. I thought maybe I would get through this year without one but today I had a hive swarm on me anyway. There were two clusters, both about the size of a volley ball about three feet apart about 12 and 15 feet up in a crab apple tree. I put them in two hives but evidently there was only one queen because the second cluster left it's hive and joined the second group. It had been sunny early but had clouded up and actually started to sprinkle before all the bees were in the hive. Checked the two hives that had been bearding heavily two days ago, one had no queen cells and was still packed. The other had significantly reduced population and several sealed and unsealed queen cells. It started raining again before I could make a couple of splits, I'll look at that tomorrow. 
The moral of the story is that I would have probably had a lot more swarms by now if I hadn't been following this thread. Thank you for the info!
By the way, the swarm felt like a five pounder! Combined, it was huge.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

many thanks for the report gary and for those kind words. it's great that you were able to recover the large swarm, one like that has the potential to yield some harvestable honey this year. i haven't been able to achieve 100% prevention like walt was able to, he says that alabama bees are too smart for his system.  i think i am getting making some progress though, and these next few weeks should either prove or disprove that.


----------



## Bob J

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

Lots of great stuff in this thread..... Much appreciate you starting it squarepeg.....;- )


----------



## rwurster

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

All my hives that have passed the 4 year mark TF have a few characteristics in common. They all came from an original mother hive and they all supersede every year, late in the year (Aug-Sep). People talk about hygenic behavior but late season supersedures seem to be a trait that is dominant in my mother hive, and all the daughter hives I have. I noticed today, after doing all my splits, that I have never lost one of the hives I have split off this singular mother hive, nor the mother hive. Lots of genetics have been traded in 4 years and these hives still keep going. None of the splits or mother hive have ever been in my treated with oav yard either. It seems the focus for survivability is on hygenics and beekeeper manipulation and maybe a swarming impulse to give a needed brood break to keep mites in check. 

This year as every year I'm knocking off hatche queen cells with my hive tool and it hits me that I have bees that supersede late in the year. My tf yard is absolutely dominated by them (along with the swarms and cutouts I did during the year). I have a hive by the back door of my house that drags out larvae and pupae at any sign of... anything. Both sets of genetics produce gangbuster populations, produce a surplus of honey, and both survive without being treated. All from survivor stock. Why emphasize hygenic behaviors (which work for a few generations) and forgo other traits which accomplish the same goal? I split before there's a swarming impulse and then I sometimes split again to test my luck  My production hives go 2 years and then get split. I like genetic diversity, however my yards are beginning to show which hives can survive long term and which can't. For the record, if a hive is dying of mites or (which hasn't happened to me yet) a disease, I will do something about it, which would mean a treatment of some sort. 

Maybe y'all are after the wrong traits or maybe not. Interesting how things play out in different apiaries. In my learning curve I've learned to mess with my hives as little as possible, apply management to control mites when necessary, and work bees like cattle and somehow I've managed to have bees that do what most people want bees to do and not only thrive but increase during my pollination season all the while sitting by other hives of treated bees fresh out of Cali and catching their drift.

Screw varroa, pesticides applied without consideration to pollinators is our worst enemy.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

locust is about finished here, tulip poplar and blackberry are about mid bloom now, and privet should be opening soon.

the top boxes on just about every one of my hives is a new super with plastic foundation. i reported coating the plastic foundation with my melted wax cappings before placing them on the hives. when i looked at these foundation supers last weekend about all i saw was that the bees had reworked the wax that had been painted on into the beginning of comb. 

this weekend i found the first new white comb of the season being drawn on the foundation in three of the hives. the most new comb was seen in the two queenright splits that i made, not surprisingly as these colonies were put back into establishment mode and didn't have a lot of drawn comb to work with.

the third hive drawing new comb is the one that i pushed the queen down below an excluder into the ignored single deep at the bottom of the stack, (after finding brood all the way to the top of the three checkerboarded medium supers). i reported removing the excluder nine days later after finding a new nest had been established in the deep. i then reported finding new brood in the supers to go along with the new brood in the deep a week after that and that no swarm preps seen. (in other words when i looked last week there was brood all the way from the deep up through all three medium supers with no backfilling or queen cells).

this hive has a huge population right now. its orientation flights look and sound like a swarm is about to issue. i'm hoping that seeing them drawing out that new comb in the foundation super is a sign that they have given up swarm ambition. i'm wondering if having to cover all of that brood is part of what may be keeping them from swarming.

in most of the other hives that were not drawing foundation yet, i did see new white wax at the tops of the frames in the boxes just below the foundation supers, so i'm thinking it wont' be long before they move up and start drawing the foundation. i'll breath a little easier on my swarm prevention once i see that happening. 

at any rate it appears that we are transitioning out of spring build up and into our 'main flow' at this time. i hope i don't jinx myself, but so far i haven't seen any swarms issue from my hives, whereas in previous years i would have already caught a half dozen by now.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015*

I put supers on 5 colonies today. Three of them are relatively weak splits but should build up enough to make at least one super of honey before the flow ends. I have 5 more colonies to work with of which one needs a couple of supers.


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Enjoying the thread sp. I know we have talked before about the strong swarm impulse with our bees. I haven't had a swarm yet and may not, but time will tell. Have you given any thoughts as to what course to take on hives that don't swarm and don't get the brood break to help with mite loads?

I saw my first bee with DWV here today in a split I made last week. I was checking on the status and number of queen cells the split had started and saw the bee crawl out onto the upper rim of the nuc.


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

SP: Had a second swarm four days ago, about a three pounder. I had made a split off that hive about three weeks ago but they built up even more. After the swarm, (I saw this one coming out of the hive) I tore the hive apart, made another split, destroyed all queen cells but two capped and one uncapped and consolidated brood together, super on top with room for nectar.
I had another split that had one good swarm cell in it. When I checked it after about two weeks, the swarm cell was gone but there were 7 emergency cells on a frame that evidently had younger brood than I could see. (I have since started wearing glasses when I inspect.) It's an 8 frame deep that only has about five frames of brood. Do you think I should destroy all the emergency cells but two or is it too small to swarm?
Lots of new comb in most hives and the privet has started blooming everywhere here. Lots of frames being drawn out also. Tulip poplar is about half way through bloom here also. I've been putting supers on every hive, almost out of supers.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

dar, thanks for the report.

thanks brad. i'm not sure about the brood breaks. i was able to prevent swarming in about half of my hives last year, and i didn't notice any difference in overwinter survival between those and the ones that did swarm. all of the colonies will take an even bigger brood break during the summer dearth.

gary, tough call on what to do with the cells. it does sound like that 8 frame deep is going to get pretty crowded when those 5 frames of brood start emerging. have you already made as many splits as you want or need? can you swap out some of that capped brood with empty comb from your other hives?


----------



## JRG13

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Wonder if it's genetic. Oddly, none of my hives have ever shown swarm prep, even when crowded at times, except one. They were a swarm that moved into some equipment at the house in March 2013. They seem to want to swarm every March or April, but once they get it out of their system, they seem fine the rest of the year. I still have the original queen after fetching her out of the trees last year and having to nuc her this year after finding them with about 15 capped queen cells a few weeks ago.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



JRG13 said:


> Wonder if it's genetic.


i would guess yes jrg. they are very good at swarming and somewhat resistant to proven methods to convince them to do otherwise. i think it's an important part of their survivor 'package' and likely why they managed to persist through and beyond the varroa invasion. for some reason they really don't like to become too populous as was exemplified by the small winter clusters that we discussed earlier, and seems to also be the case with them wanting to swarm vs. getting too big in the spring. i've found they'll just ignore supers of drawn comb placed overhead once they have established the top of their 'working level' and then ultimately enter into swarm preps. i do think i'm getting close to a work around for that between the modified checkerboarding and the moving the queen down below an excluder onto empty comb, but we've got a couple more weeks to go before i want to go out on a limb and call it just yet. i will say that i've got more populous colonies right now than i've ever had and we are entering our main flow. my hope at this point is that they stay that way. if they do i think i'll be able to report a respectable honey harvest and there should also be plenty of bees available for making up nucs to sell. again, fingers crossed.


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

sp, I went through my 2 strongest hives today and saw some back filling of the brood nest in one hive. My best queen was in one of the hives and although I saw no definitive swarm prep, I got anxious and pulled her and 3 frames out and placed them in a nuc. I don't want to risk losing her in a swarm. She's a daughter of an AJ queen that was raised and mated here last year. For the large hive, I picked 3 good frames with eggs and larvae and notched those frames. I've never tried pulling a queen at the onset of a flow but have read about that procedure several times. I'm anxious to see if that hive produces more honey than the other strong hive that I left the queen in.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

good move brad. i believe those splits will draw you more new super comb than leaving the colony intact would have. don't be afraid to add frames of capped brood from your strongest to the ones that may need a boost. if we have gotten past what walt refers to as 'reproductive cut off', gradual backfilling from the top down and broodnest reduction is what is expected. i'm seeing new wax being drawn and i'm hearing the tell tale roar of nectar drying in all of the hives, both of which are other indications that colony operations have shifted into 'let's start putting up as much honey as we can for fall brooding and overwintering'.


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

SP: I went into that split and cut out all but the best two looking queen cells. I checked my first swarm and they have almost drawn a whole deep (starter strips plus two drawn frames) so I put a second deep on, seeded it with a newly drawn frame. The Privet is coming on strong so I think they will draw the second deep.
I had caught a second swarm three or four days after the first, they had drawn about 2/3 of the frames out. So far that's all the swarms I'm aware of. I can smell nectar being fanned late in the afternoon also. Lots of new wax in every hive I've checked. I've got a few more supers to put on this week, hopefully they will get drawn out before the privet stops.


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

sp, the hive that I removed the queen from was roaring before I took her out so they are fanning nectar as well. I can't find the queen in that other hive to save my life. After the flow I may shake them through an excluder.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

from my notes regarding swarm issue and bloom dates 2012 - 2014:


032812: LOCUST
032412: APPLE, BLACKBERRY
031812: DOGWOOD
031012: AUTUM OLIVE
030312: PLUM, PEAR, REDBUD
022812: BRADFORD PEAR
021912: RED MAPLE
012412: JUNIPER 

7 swarms from 040812 to 042612


051713: PRIVET AND HONEYSUCKLE
042713: TULIP POPLAR AND BLACKBERRY
041413: APPLE 
040913: DOGWOOD AND AUTUM OLIVE 
032713: PEAR 
031213: PLUM
030813: BRADFORD PEAR 
022113: RED MAPLE

14 swarms from 041613 to 052713


042314: TULIP POPLAR
040614: AUTUM OLIVE
040214: DOGWOOD, APPLE
032414: REDBUD, PEAR
031514: PLUM
031314: BRADFORD PEAR
022014: RED MAPLE

13 swarms from 041914 to 052114


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I found a hive preparing to swarm today. I've never seen so many queen cells. Too bad it wasn't a queen I wanted to propagate from.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

i popped the tops on all of the hives today and was pleased to find a lot of new comb drawn and the first honey of the season getting capped.

10 of the colonies are now drawing foundation in their top supers.

4 of the colonies haven't started drawing foundation yet but are capping honey with new white wax just below the foundation frames and hopefully will move up soon.

2 of the colonies do not have white wax at the top, have fewer bees, and are likely in trouble due to failed supercedure or post swarm requeening. they'll get a full inspection this weekend, and likely get combined to form one big double or triple deep hive which will be set up as a starter/finisher for grafting.

my 'pride and joy' colony, (the one i experimented with pushing the queen below an excluder into an empty deep), has already drawn and partially filled one super of foundation and is working on a second one. it is now a single deep with five medium supers.

so far i've only observed one swarm issue. it was out of reach to collect but did check out my traps before moving on into the nearby woods.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

the privet is wide open now and the tulip poplar hasn't quite finished but it is waning. i've not seen any scouts checking out my swarm traps for over a week now and by my journal we should be nearing the end of swarm season here.

i popped the tops at the home yard after work today and i was truly surprised at what i found. we have not had any rain in over two weeks and the ground is dry as a bone. i really thought the drought would dampen our nectar flow, but it hasn't appeared to do so.

supers that were all foundation less than a week ago are now drawn out and getting honey processed in them. i'll be placing the last two new supers from my inventory tomorrow. it will be the first time in three seasons that i've had all of my supers in use.

13/16 hives are producing nicely. the other 3 are hives that either swarmed or failed at supercedure. it's almost been long enough to check them for laying queens and i'll be doing that toward the end of the week. i'll be removing supers from them and giving them to hives that have already filled theirs. i'll also be combining those to make up a double or triple deep for queenrearing, and then splitting that hive back down into nucs once the cells are ripe.

all in all it looks this may end up a pretty good season.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

we are now 3 weeks without rain here and 2 - 3 inches behind seasonal norms. i didn't notice much of an effect of the dry weather on nectar storage or new wax production until these last 5 days or so, but it is obvious that progress in the hives has slowed dramatically and we are in a bit of a dearth at this time. we have a decent shot at getting some rain over the next week or so and if we get it i'm hoping that will turn it around.

i mentioned in my last post that 13/16 hives have been producing nicely and that the other 3 may have issues. i got into them yesterday and today and discovered that all may not be lost with these 3.

one of them is the colony i found getting ready to swarm and went ahead and split the old queen out of, only to have it issue a small swarm anyway. i was concerned about this hive because i wasn't seeing any honey getting capped at the top of the 3rd super. turns out they were capping honey in the lower 2 supers. they have a new queen now and retained a decent sized work force. their queenless period coincided with the onset of our main nectar flow and this resulted in the the single deep and three mediums getting very full of honey. there should be a decent harvest from this one despite the split and the swarm.

the second iffy hive was a failed supercedure that i donated some capped swarm cells to about a month ago. it is also queen right and had its two supers about 75% full and getting capped. i gave it a third super full of honey but in need of finishing from the queenless hive described next.

the third iffy hive was one i found post swarm about a month ago that failed to requeen itself. there was no sign of laying workers, and still about a deep's worth of bees in the hive. they had about 2 supers worth of honey stored but it wasn't getting capped. those two supers were removed and put on other hives to get them finished. i then combined a swarm that i caught 3 weeks ago with this queenless hive and gave it a third deep of drawn comb. if the combine works out this now triple deep hive will serve as a starter/finisher for grafting.


----------



## sterling

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Square did you get any rain today. Weather rader showed rain in your area.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

we got light sprinkles throughout the day yesterday and today but not enough to settle the dust, but a nice little soaker just went through here over the past hour or so. 

after a few days of lackluster foraging, the bees were really getting after something this afternoon and i haven't a clue what it was. they were coming in so heavy their abdomens were tilting back at an angle and they were falling to the ground as they slowed up to enter the hive.


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

The rain this year has surely been feast or famine. Mostly feast. It never ceases to amaze me how fast it can go from muddy to dusty with this poor soil on Sand Mountain. I'd guess we've had about an inch of rain in the past 2 days. I was surprised and disappointed to see that my hives that were busily and quickly making pretty white comb last Saturday had completely stopped. Even in my nucs. There was some wax on new foundation that I had stuck into brood boxes last weekend but it was being covered with tan, stained wax that they were chewing off somewhere in the hive. 

The sweet smell of privet still fills the air here so I hope the bees will go back into comb drawing mode.

I think I will put frame feeders in my nucs today to see if I can get them started back to drawing comb. As we've talked about before, getting enough drawn comb to make manipulations with takes several years. I still need a tremendous amount.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

understood brad. last year my late season nucs were able to get the better part of a deep drawn without syrup even though they were made up about the first of june. they were then given drawn supers and some honey from the established hives to overwinter with.

this year's nucs will be coming on even later and it's very possible that i'll need to use syrup with them to get the new frames in those deeps drawn.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I've had about 2 inches of rain in the last 36 hours. There will be more just about every day next week. Fortunately, I got most of the garden work done while it was dry. 

Bee wise, the daily rain is going to interfere with the honey flow. Privet is the source of most of the nectar coming in. It is highly sensitive to moisture availability. As the soil dried out over the past 3 weeks, privet had been reduced to almost nothing. Today, it is flowing freely but rain is preventing foraging.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

privet has finished here, the early variety of sumac is about to bloom, and i expect summer jasmine to start soon as well. i'm still seeing some new comb being pulled out on foundation frames and there is a lot of honey getting capped already. it looks like this year going to yield a much better harvest than the previous one. 

i set up my starter/finisher hive with a cloake board today, and if all goes according to plan i'll be grafting next friday. i've got 18 empty 5 frame nuc boxes that i hope to have starter colonies in soon. i'll need 3 of those for myself to get my hive count back to 20, and i have interested parties lined up for the rest.

my stated goals at the beginning of this thread were to harvest 100 lbs. average and sell 1 nuc for each overwintered hive. i came through winter with 15, so that means 1500 lbs of honey and 15 nucs. at this point i don't think i'll quite get there, but i should be close.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> at this point i don't think i'll quite get there, but i should be close.


One thing I've learned over the years with bees is that the show is never over till the fat lady sings.

Last season was shaping up to be a disaster with constant bad weather in my area through most of the normal flow season and bees starving. I was preparing for the worst, then suddenly weather came right and an insanely heavy last minute flow happened, by seasons end it was all about the same.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

many thanks for the encouraging words ot. the biggest variable for me is going to be whether or not we get a decent fall flow. that will mean the difference of harvesting another super per hive or not. 

i'll be thankful for what i end up with regardless, and i've learned a new trick or two this season that have the potential make the next one even better.


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I'm with ot on this. I tell beekeepers all the time....'never underestimate your bees'. I can't tell you how many times I've gone to pull supers that I expected to be empty only to find them full and capped....and a load of bees looking up at me like....'where have you been?!'


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

that's awesome dan. just walked through the yard and they are really getting after it today, not sure what 'it' is though.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

022615:

View attachment 18467


052315:

View attachment 18468


at first light today i relocated a couple of swarms that were caught last week, one from the home yard to the out yard and vice versa. they are already bringing in pollen and nectar.

the bees in starter/finisher reoriented to the upper entrance pretty quickly as well.

a friend (flatrockboy) who bought a couple of nucs from me last year is harvesting honey today from a couple of splits he made a little over a month ago. hopefully he'll post some photos.


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> not sure what 'it' is though.


Me either, unless it's some late blooming privet. My mother has about 10-12 Abelia shrubs or bushes and the bees have them wrapped up. I know they are getting something else, somewhere though. 

It seems as though white wax making is over or mostly over though. I wonder if the uncapped honey in my hives will get capped? I have a lot of uncapped honey. Any insight on that?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



Brad Bee said:


> Any insight on that?


tough call brad. i'm saw a fair amount of new wax yesterday compared to last week's check. i wouldn't throw in the towel as long as the foraging continues as strong as it has been. eventually that will slow down and you'll have lots of unemployed field bees hanging out and possibly bearding at the entrances. it's pretty well over when you see that.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

There is another flow that will start in about 2 weeks. I usually get a lot of honey capped from it.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

dar, this season is shaping up to be a better one for honey compared to last year for me. i'm not sure if it's the field conditions or the decrease in swarming i'm getting. how is your season comparing to last year's.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Difficult to compare for me, I split too many of my colonies this spring. Overall, it is shaping up to be a decent year for honey production, but nothing like what I've had in the past. Can't expect too much with 8 splits going from a dozen colonies at the start. If I had split in Mid March, I would have had a honey crop from the splits. As it is, I made 3 up about April 1st and another five 2 weeks ago. That doesn't leave quite enough time for a full honey crop from a 3 frame split.


----------



## barberberryfarm

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

For me down here near Montgomery, I split all 8 of my hives the end of March and just pulled 100+ lbs from 6 of the original hives, with a lot of uncapped honey remaining. Last year at this time I pulled just 50+ lbs from the same 6 hives. Two things different from last year: (1) it didn't get down into the low 30's the first week in May and (2) the rains didn't come during the privit season washing a lot of its nectar and pollen away. Next up is hopefully a strong chinese tallow tree flow to go along with the everflowing clover that grows all over down here.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

many thanks dar and bbf.

i inspected the two swarms that were caught in traps about a week ago. the smaller of two is about 3 deep frames of bees and the other is about 5. both are queenright with a nice pattern of eggs and drawing new comb nicely.

i mixed up some latshaw patties and gave them to the caught swarms. i also put a pattie at the top of the starter/finisher hive. although there is still a lot of nectar coming in i've seen a slow down on pollen, so i figured the patties wouldn't hurt.

there hasn't been any interest in my remaining two swarm traps since last weekend. i believe we are transitioning out of swarm season here and i'll be taking them down in a couple of weeks to retrieve the drawn comb frames for use in the new nucs.


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i believe we are transitioning out of swarm season here and i'll be taking them down in a couple of weeks to retrieve the drawn comb frames for use in the new nucs.


I wouldn't jump the gun. I was cutting some swarm cells today....and I'm guessing that we are a week or two ahead of you.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

understood dan, thanks. we had less swarming here this year compared to previous. i'm guessing it may have had something to do with the poor flow last fall, smaller winter clusters, and the late arrival of spring. are you noticing less swarming this year?


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> There is another flow that will start in about 2 weeks. I usually get a lot of honey capped from it.


Of what? Sumac?


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> are you noticing less swarming this year?


I wish.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



beemandan said:


> I wish.


interesting. we may have to give the modified checkerboarding some credit.


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> interesting. we may have to give the modified checkerboarding some credit.


That's one possibility. The populations in mine were enormous coming out of winter....and they built up like gangbusters. I never even considered any sort of equalizing...they were all so huge. I won't suggest another possibility in deference to this particular forum and nature of the thread.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

yep. most of mine were only between 2 and 3 deep frames of bees in late february. 

due to the lack of fall nectar and no feeding last season's wintering bees were brooded mostly on what was left of last spring's honey stores. my gut feeling is that the bees established their cluster size balancing using those stores for brooding vs. leaving enough for overwintering and that left the colonies smaller and the hives lighter than usual. 

at the same time going untreated and having mite counts north of 10% could very well have played a role. 

most didn't swarm this year, which is a first, and built up to where i've got 4 or 5 medium supers above a single deep. that's perfect for me as i really wouldn't want the hives to get any taller and have to climb up on something to work the top boxes. 

i hope i can replicate this in the years to come.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> there hasn't been any interest in my remaining two swarm traps since last weekend. i believe we are transitioning out of swarm season here and i'll be taking them down in a couple of weeks to retrieve the drawn comb frames for use in the new nucs.


I picked up 3 yesterday, including a very heavy swarm that flew into a box 15 feet from my front door! Interesting the 'calm before the storm' - the increasingly intense 'inspection' of the last few days ended abruptly; then suddenly the air was full of bees!

I have lots of interest in bait boxes, but I think I'm a bit behind you. Apple and rape (canola) is just winding up; the horse chestnut is still going strong. I reckon I must have a ton of honey on the hives - I'm regretting not making better stands for some of them!

I'll take the spring crop over our 'June gap' (though the field beans run then), then lime, sweet chestnut, clover and odds and ends. 

Mike (UK)


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

we've settled in to a wet weather pattern here with rains coming pretty much daily. i'm not sure if that's good or bad but i'm still seeing progress being made in terms of new comb and honey in the top supers on most hives compared to last week.

today was grafting day here. i went to my 'pride and joy' hive to get some larvae which was not an easy task considering there are now five supers heavy with honey above the single deep. unfortunately that hive was found broodless except for a little bit of capped brood. i'm not sure if they went queenless or are just ahead of the rest in terms of starting the summer brood break that is typical of this stock.

so i went into my back up hive which is queened by a half sister to pride and joy's queen. i found the perfect frame of larvae and the grafting went smoothly. luckily i managed to get the grafts into the cloake board hive just as today's frog strangler of a rain started to fall.

as far as pride and joy goes, i'm leaning toward queenlessness. they didn't really get super defensive when i ripped the hive apart, but the activity at the entrance is 'jittery' and less organized, whereas most of the other hives have increasing numbers of foragers gathering at the entrances and they are washboarding.

the good news about this hive is that there are about 4 supers worth of mostly capped honey in it and i'll be bringing 2 supers in tomorrow to begin this season's harvest. i'll reevaluate the queen status next week and will mostly likely end up harvesting the remaining honey. i'll then use the bees and the deep frames to make up 3 or 4 nucs to put what by then should be (hopefully) ripe queen cells.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i went to my 'pride and joy' hive to get some larvae which was not an easy task considering there are now five supers heavy with honey above the single deep. unfortunately that hive was found broodless except for a little bit of capped brood. i'm not sure if they went queenless or are just ahead of the rest in terms of starting the summer brood break that is typical of this stock.


That's the problem I had last year. I've just done my evaluations, and will start unloading the crop from my selected parent hives shortly. That'll give me honey to sell (I've just run out) and make the desirable eggs and brood more accessible. 

I know that some have built 'chimney' nests right up through the supers this year, so I'll be shuffling the combs as I unload, and making up a cell initiator on these hives sites straight away. The resultant queens will re-queen my (too many) weak hives and make some nucs.

Mike (UK)


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Got your honeycomb melter ready to fire up?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



Oldtimer said:


> Got your honeycomb melter ready to fire up?


i'm preparing the extracting room (my garage) today. i'll be saving the wax cappings for melting down later, i've found that it really helps to paint melted wax onto new plastic foundation the bees taking to it and drawing it out.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Ha sorry SP I'm sure you got your extracting under control. Following his post on his crop and harvesting, I was enquiring re progress on the Bispham Comb and Honey Melter espoused in this thread some time ago. Always interesting to follow up later and see if ideas became reality.

http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...ar-for-melting-out-honey-directly-from-frames


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

ah, thanks for the clarification ot.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I advise procrastination. We have had so much rain that average honey moisture levels are above 25% in all of my colonies. Removing honey any time in the next 30 days will just cause headaches. Also, there is a decent flow on which the bees are using to fill some frames and draw combs for the broodnest.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

understood dar. i take the extra step by drying out the honey inside for 48 hours. i bring it into the garage which is serviced by our central a/c unit thus dropping the humidity, plus i put the supers on top of a floor fan turned horizontally and place a small space heater next to that. refractometer readings typically are +/- 17% even when the humidity outside is high.

this hive still has a few frames of foundation that are being worked and i'm hoping that concentrating the bees on those will move that along, but if they are indeed queenless i don't expect that will happen.

the first 70 lbs. of this year's harvest is now in the garage and drying. fortunately all of that (and more) is already presold. i am looking forward to calling my patrons, they have been waiting patiently for some time now.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

looks like 18 out of 20 'takes' on yesterday's grafts, which is exactly the number of nuc boxes i am trying to fill. i'll be happy if i get 15 queens mated. i'll be keeping 4 or 5 of them for myself, and have found good homes for the rest.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Excellent. Bothg on the graft takes, and on the distribution of queens.

Are any of those queens going to a commercial? That is the part I would be interested in. If it went to someone keen enough he could spraypaint the hive so as to know which one it is.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

many thanks ot. none going to a commercial. so far there are six of us (soon to be eight) working with this stock and remaining off treatments/artificial feeds. we are pretty much hobbiest/sideliner in size, and all but one are pursuing propagation of the stock via queenrearing/splitting ect.

i had hoped to make a few queens available to the baton rouge bee lab for study this year but i am not going have any surplus for that and the breeder that i first got mine from is having to rebuild his numbers this year as well. if it turns out there is something special about their genetics i was hoping the lab might be able to make them available on a larger scale to commercial breeders.

in the mean time we are focused more on spreading the stock in ever increasing distances from the three counties in northeast alabama where they seem to be thriving. some of mine will be headed north across the state line into tennessee when they are ready.

i've only done one round of nucs each of these past two seasons and those were done toward the end of the flow. i discovered a modification to checkerboarding that promises to get the colonies bigger than i need them and earlier in the season. if that pans out i'm going to try for two rounds of nucs next year.

thanks again for your input and your interest.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> in the mean time we are focused more on spreading the stock in ever increasing distances from the three counties in northeast alabama where they seem to be thriving.


Sounds like a great plan for now, if they're good, spread 'em around!

Pity none could be spared for Baton Rouge but anyway if you spread them, and they are good so keep spreading, in the end it may amount to the same thing. Another thing that could speed things up would be offering brood combs with eggs to other beekeepers to do their own grafting, that way your own resources are not overly tied up with queen raising.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



Oldtimer said:


> Another thing that could speed things up would be offering brood combs with eggs to other beekeepers to do their own grafting, that way your own resources are not overly tied up with queen raising.


exactly. another plan that did not come to fruition this year was to get an incubator and produce large quantities of cells for others to plant in their splits. i'll make another go at that next year.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

first batch of the season drying in the 'honey house':

View attachment 18673


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> I advise procrastination. We have had so much rain that average honey moisture levels are above 25% in all of my colonies. Removing honey any time in the next 30 days will just cause headaches. Also, there is a decent flow on which the bees are using to fill some frames and draw combs for the broodnest.


Dar, what is blooming in your area, Sumac?


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

sp, I will have some queens headed to Mobile in the spring.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



Brad Bee said:


> sp, I will have some queens headed to Mobile in the spring.


very cool brad. maybe we could swap a colony or two later this summer. i should have my starters up to about 10 frames by then.


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

We can do that. Winter culled the original queen I got from the other TF guy. I only have one daughter left from her. I've had her for a year. She did fine last year but has not been a great performer this year. I don't know if I'm going to cull her and lose the lineage, or try and raise a few from her and see if they fare better with a different years drone crop.


----------



## jim lyon

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Love to try some of your stock SP, wouldn't be hard to mark them. I'd be glad to swap you in kind as well. A late March to early April time frame would work best for me.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

At last! This is what I have been waiting for, a sympathetic commercial beekeeper who will give these bees a genuine trial under commercial conditions. Also, his hives are not contaminated with harsh chemicals. Hoping this will proceed and I will follow with interest.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

brad,

sorry to hear about losing the other lineage. since both of us have queens that are now several generations down the line from the original supplier our queens should have acquired a good mix of the survivor genetics from our different localities. they therefore have the possibility of helping to introduce genetic diversity into our respective yards. going forward i think it would be a good idea for us to swap queen cells and allow the queens to mate outside of the area in which they were conceived. i did this last year with a dozen of the supplier's cells and it may just be a coincindence but there's not a laggard in the whole bunch.

jim, 

i very much appreciate your interest and i'll do my best to see what i can do. even though i'm in alabama my location is in the extreme northeast corner and on a ridgetop at that. spring came late this year it was late march before we had drones flying. in fact i had a failed supercedure early in the season for that very reason. i know that you have been breeding from your best stock for some time now and i would love to see how these perform side by side with yours.

ot,

i hope this doesn't sound snooty but i'm really not that motivated by the bit of outside income that the beekeeping sideline brings in. for the time spent and the sweat equity it takes to produce honey and propagate bees i could earn better by spending more time at the day job. beekeeping provides me with an escape in which i can regain my sanity, and the real rewards for me are the satisfaction the honey patrons express when getting the quality product and when i see other beekeepers getting good results with the bees i sold them. if it turns out that i can bring something worthwhile to the beekeeping community at large with these genetics that would be the icing on the cake.


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> brad,
> 
> sorry to hear about losing the other lineage. since both of us have queens that are now several generations down the line from the original supplier our queens should have acquired a good mix of the survivor genetics from our different localities. they therefore have the possibility of helping to introduce genetic diversity into our respective yards. going forward i think it would be a good idea for us to swap queen cells and allow the queens to mate outside of the area in which they were conceived. i did this last year with a dozen of the supplier's cells and it may just be a coincindence but there's not a laggard in the whole bunch.


Sounds good to me. If not for a trip scheduled I'd graft another round of cells this week and we could swap some now. The ones I just pulled yesterday should have started hatching today and finish up Wednesday. I think out crossing is something that should be done more with bees. Bees don't breed like other "livestock" so it isn't an apple to apple comparison but linebreeding if done to extreme causes too many problems. That is one reason that I have been active in trying to find other treatment free bees to try out and breed from if they pan out. Even though I lost the primary queen from the other TF beek, those genes are now mixed in my bees. I got 3 queens from Carpenter Apiaries this year. One was superseded as soon as she started laying (literally they drew out queen cells from the first eggs she laid) but I will evaluate how the other 2 queens do for the remainder of the year and over the winter before putting them into a breeding rotation or allowing them to raise drones.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

i looked in on the queen cells yesterday evening and found that they were all capped. i put hair roller cages on them to protect them in case a stray virgin should wander up from below, keep them from getting too much burr comb, and to make transporting them easier when it comes time to place them.

i'm planning to make up the nucs on saturday each one getting three frames of bees with a nice mix of brood and stores. i should have enough drawn comb for each one to get four frames plus one of foundation. the queen cells go in on sunday.

the 2 supers that were harvested on saturday are now extracted and bottled up. i usually get just under 6 gallons per two supers but this batch yielded 6.5 gallons plus a half pint or somewhere just shy of 80 lbs. the hive those 2 supers came off of still has 3 more supers on it of which i think i'll still be able to harvest between 1 and 2 of them.

there are 12 additional honey producing hives with between 3 to 5 supers on them that i haven't been into yet other than to check progress on the top super, and these hives are feeling by heft like they are getting pretty full.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

(forgot to mention that the refractometer reading on this batch of honey was 17.4%)


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

sp, do you leave one full super on each hive? This is the first year I've started out the spring with a single deep and I don't want to rob them too short but would obviously like to get as much honey off as I can.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

what i have been doing is harvesting all of the fully capped frames along with a few almost fully capped frames and leaving behind the frames that are not fully capped. sometimes this means moving some frames around from one hive to another. it has worked out by doing this that there is usually at least a super of honey left on each hive after the spring harvest (to go along with the outside frames in the deeps that are full of honey). because the bees are brood breaking through the dearth and perhaps because we get some mini-flows here and there not too much honey is consumed through the summer. 

last year dry weather caused a poor nectar flow in the fall and a lot of the honey that was left in the hives after the spring harvest ended up getting used for the brooding of the wintering bees. in previous years there has been enough nectar coming in on the fall flow to allow the bees to not only brood up with it but also finish off and cap a lot of what was left in the spring. when that happened i harvested what was capped and left the uncapped behind for wintering stores. the poor flow last fall caused me not harvest any honey then and i ended up giving honey to the lighter hives from the heavier ones. (thanks mike bush)

it turns out that not much of the wintering stores get used during the winter (again because there is no brooding) but rather on the following spring build up. i try to leave a super of honey on for overwintering, not because they'll starve without it, but because it promotes a strong build up coming out of winter. again, this usually means redistributing frames among the hives to get all of them equalized in that regard.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

A colony here in north Alabama needs 1 shallow super full of honey for overwintering (25 to 30 pounds). They also need at least 6 frames full of honey in the brood nest (about 20 pounds). I have successfully overwintered colonies in a deep brood chamber but usually have to feed in early spring. The problem I have with leaving a shallow super of honey overwinter is that it gives a ready made honey dome which drives heavy swarming the next spring. I have had better results by running in double deep brood chambers, then splitting them to two singles in mid March giving a new queen to one and letting the old queen head up the other. The singles are given another deep each just as soon as early fruit bloom hits, usually about March 25th. If I am targeting maximum honey production, I feed the colonies from the time they are split until the main honey flow starts. This is stimulative feeding which can get foundation drawn out but should not be enough to store surplus.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

i just got in from spending the better part of the day getting things ready for making up nucs tomorrow, checking on the progress in all of the top supers, and harvesting more honey. our flow is slowing down here but most of the hives are still making some progress on getting their top supers filled, with a couple of notable exceptions.

one of the exceptions is the 'pride and joy' hive that i reported last week supspecting it might be queenless and it turns out that it is. it was the one from which i harvested the first two supers and wanted to use for grafting. it still had three supers on it two of which were heavy with half capped honey. the third super was about half drawn foundation with just a little nectar stored in it.

so i shook the bees out of those supers and put them on other hives to get finished. i then placed a second deep with 10 frames of foundation on it to temporarily give them some room. the good news is that the bottom deep is almost wall to wall with beebread and there are still lots of bees which is just what i needed and all of that will be used for making up nucs tomorrow.

at the outyard i pinched the queen in what has been a mediocre performing hive and will use those bees and frames for the nucs as well. this one together with 'pride and joy' and the three deeps of bees and frames in the cloake board hive should give me enough drawn comb and bees to make up some decent nucs.

i ended up giving one of the almost ripe queen cells today to a swarm that was caught a few weeks back and went queenless. that leaves 15 more queen cells at day 8 post grafting in the finisher for the nucs.

two more supers were harvested today and are now in the garage drying. last week's batch has already sold out. tomorrow is splitting day, and sunday will be extracting and placing queen cells day.


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

SP, and Dar, thanks for the answers.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

the 15 remaining ripe queen cells were placed in nucs today and now it's all over save letting mother nature take her course. fingers are crossed for a high mating percentage.

i extracted another 6.5 gallons of honey today and the plan is to continuing harvesting a couple of supers each weekend. casual inspection of the hives suggests that should probably take the better part of the summer.

i shouldn't have much to report for a few weeks at which time i'll be seeing how the mating went. again, many thanks to all for the feedback and interest in what we're doing here.


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Appreciate all the great information passed on by all on this thread. Hope the mating goes ok and all 15 are barn burner queens. So far, all the virgins in the half dozen or so splits I made this year have mated, returned to their hives, and settled into the brood rearing mode.
On another note, Sourwood blossoms showing in this area now.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

i didn't think i would have anything forum worthy to post until it came time to check out the nucs for mating success but...

over this past week i had a hive starting to put out a pretty good sized beard at the entrance when none of the others were doing so. this particular hive was one of my average strength hives earlier in the season that was kept from swarming and had built up to a single deep and four mediums.

i tried putting an (fifth) super of extracted comb on top to see if it would relieve the bearding but it did not. i then decided that this would be the hive to harvest next 2 supers from and while i was in there i could inspect it to determine queen and brood status. if i found them queenright and with brood i planned to split out a few frames to make a nuc with the old queen and let the parent colony make a new queen.

what i found was that they had all four supers full of capped honey except for a small band of emerging brood at the bottoms of the middle frames in the first super. the new super of empty comb on the top had some fresh nectar in it. the deep had the equivalent of 7 frames of brood of all ages.

i managed to find the queen on my second pass through the deep frames and made up the nuc. i regret now not preparing a 10 frame box and making a bigger split. 

we have 2 more supers of honey now drying in garage to extract on sunday, the first two batches have already sold out.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

We have a steady low level nectar flow ongoing. I checked a colony today and found them drawing comb and filling it with nectar as fast as they draw it. This is in a medium strong colony with a new queen. I need to add another super to at least one colony that has filled 3 supers so far. Other colonies need to be checked for space.

One of the beginners I am working with asked me to come over and check some of his colonies tomorrow. He is worried they have not built up fast enough. They were made up as 3 frame splits with a new queen about April 3rd. By now, they should be booming with bees. Tomorrow will tell the tale of what happened.


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Dar, what nectar source are the bees using? Nothing is coming in here.


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I'm seeing bees bringing in light orange pollen and nectar. Sourwood looks like it's blooming but I haven't stopped along the road to watch for bees. I have some Chinese Tallow that's starting to bloom also. Sumac is a couple weeks away. Not sure what the bees are working here but they are flying like crazy every day.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Clover for one thing is producing a steady flow, also possibly a bit of sourwood. I'm not too worried about what is coming in, I just want it to continue for another 2 weeks to get these combs drawn out.

I checked the bees for the new guy who is just getting started. He has 3 colonies headed with 3 month old queens from Carpenter. One of them is being superseded, one is medium strong, and one is a strong 1.5 story colony. He has 5 other colonies of which I inspected 3. Two had swarmed and are just now recovering. They won't make a honey crop this year. One was a colony I sold him last year that is probably going to produce 2 shallow supers of honey. Another that I had sold him has built up to a medium strong 1.5 story colony but is unlikely to produce a surplus. He sold 2 colonies to get two other people started with bees. Long story short, he needs a strong fall flow to get them ready for winter and his honey crop will probably be 2 shallow supers from 8 colonies. This is not a very good outcome given that he started the year with 7 established colonies and made 3 splits.

I have a reasonably good crop on 3 colonies with 3 full supers each. I may get a shallow super each from 3 more colonies. The rest were split 2 or 3 times which pretty much eliminated the possibility of a crop. My best colony is going gangbusters with bees and brood in 2 deeps and 3 shallow supers.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

the pollen here is light creamy yellow and i'm seeing new nectar getting stored. i don't have any idea what they are working. they are also busy bringing in water. traffic at the entrances is less than half what is was during the main flow, but the bees are busy inside processing honey. the only ones not keeping busy was the hive i reported bearding and made the split from.


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I guess I'm on the short end of the stick over here. I'm not seeing any pollen being brought in, and no nectar either. Total dearth conditions. There are several pastures around that have white clover in them, but we haven't had enough rain to keep the nectar flowing. The Sumac is in bloom but there's not enough of it around to make a difference. 

I pulled honey yesterday and much of it was uncapped. I left most of the uncapped frames on the hives, but did extract some of them. I could shake no nectar from them. Cells in several frames had been uncapped by the bees for feed. I could tell the caps had been chewed off. My best hive had 3 complete and fully capped medium supers and another medium full, but uncapped. All poor honey harvest hives will be requeened with a queen from my best performing queen as soon as possible.

I hope good things will be seen next spring with my 2 Carpenter queens. One of them was superceded as soon as she was released from the push in cage so I will have a Carpenter cross to evaluate as well.

I pulled 225 lbs of honey from 5 hives. Close to 100 lbs of that came from one hive. That's pretty pitiful for the other 4.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

how did it taste brad?


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Very good. I have 2 distinct types of honey. The later honey is much lighter in color than the older honey. I figure the newer is predominately clover, and the older is likely tulip poplar. I separated about 4 gallons of the lighter honey for the beekeeper to eat.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

nice.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

we just finished up a 3 week stretch of +/- 100 degree heat index days that was finally broken by the cool front that pushed through here yesterday. we had several nice rounds of soaking rain and this morning's low was 58. so today's inspection of this year's starter colonies took place with temps in the mid 70's, plenty of sunshine, and a cool north breeze. to top it off i had the pleasure of wcubed and flatrockboy accompanying me in the bee yards, thanks fella's!

we started at the homeyard and found that all 6 out of 6 grafts had emerged and got mated. patterns were solid, and most colonies had already capped the first round of brood and were expanding the nest around that capped brood. needless to say i was feeling pretty stoked but then we made our way to the outyard...

at the out yard i found only 6 out of 11 with mated queens and brood. there were 2 cases in which the queen failed to emerge and those 2 cells were empty except for what was left of a shriveled up larva, (i know jim, i should have candled the cells before placing them, and i will do so next year!) there were 3 cases in which the queen had emerged but was no where to be seen and there were no eggs or brood, so lost during mating i suspect. 

here's the talley on the making increase for the year:

20 grafts
14 viable cells
11 mated queens

not anywhere near the 11 out of 12 i got last year, so it appears that i've either used up all of my beginner's luck or the law of averages has caught up with me.

i'm keeping 6 of the new colonies to fill up the empty slots in my two yards and i have the other 5 sold. this is 10 less nucs sold for the season than my stated goal at the beginning of the thread. no excuses, but we were about a month late out of the gate this year due to winter dragging on and i couldn't make splits as early as i have been. that plus i had only 1 swarm (that i know of) from my hives this year. in previous years i was getting a dozen or more swarms and caught most of those to fill the empty slots in my yards and make splits. the good news there is that successful swarm prevention has me looking at what might end up being a record honey production year. oh well, it's beekeeping.

i've harvested two medium supers every weekend for the last five weekends and i think i'm only about a third through bringing in the surplus spring honey. by surplus i mean that i'll be leaving at least a super of honey on each hive for the bees. assuming i harvest 30 supers that will still leave me somewhat behind my stated goal for the season unless the fall flow comes through, and if it does i may exceed my goal.

for those of you that have been following the thread you may recall my mention of the 'pride and joy' hive. that hive is now gone and i've tallied this year's production from it, but this post is already too long so i'll let that be my next one.


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Appreciate the update. Sorry the grafts/number of queens wasn't higher.
We got 1/2" of rain Saturday night, a lot less than we needed. Enjoying the cooler temps though. Hope we get some of the rain being forecast for Tuesday through Thursday (50% chance each day here). Sumac heads are forming fast but need rain.
I've had a couple hives that swarmed last year that are superceding their queens this year. That seems a little strange since they didn't swarm this year. Have you or anyone else seen this happening?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

yes gary, i have noticed that colonies that don't swarm will oftentimes supersede their queen, and sometimes when they do a very small swarm will issue with the old queen.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> it appears that i've either used up all of my beginner's luck or the law of averages has caught up with me.


I think that's farming (in the traditional sense); and its when industrialists try to iron the ups and downs that the trouble starts. You have to live with it, and budget for the bad years. Round here there's a lot of cherry orchards. these were traditionally a dodgy crop - some years rain would destroy them on the trees, some years you got an average haul, you got a great crop once every 4 or 5 years that would make a small fortune.

Mike (UK)


----------



## Arnie

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

This is a great thread. Thanks for sharing so much info.

It seems to me after reading this and a lot of Micheal Bush's writings that the lynchpin of treatment free beekeeping is the genetics of the queens. Is that your feeling also?

Right now I treat with OA vaporizer and that's it. I'd like to go completely TF but I am afraid since I only have a few hives that I would not get any survivors. I help my friend with his bees and between the 2 of us we only have 8 hives. He tried not treating and he lost all his hives. But I'd like to give it a shot by raising a few queens from one of his really strong hives. He didn't do anything to it last year and it's taking off like gangbusters this year.

Thanks for the thread, squarepeg. Well done!


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> yes gary, i have noticed that colonies that don't swarm will oftentimes supersede their queen, and sometimes when they do a very small swarm will issue with the old queen.


I did see a swarm about the size of a softball in an apple tree one evening. I didn't try to hive it because it was starting to rain and almost dark. The next morning I tried to hive it but it went airborne, landed on top of another hive, and proceeded to start going into the hive through the hole in the inner cover. I took the top off, trying to catch the queen before she went into the hive but no luck, she was a goner.
Thank you for that info, I wouldn't have connected the two. I was wondering why such a tiny swarm would leave a hive and what the story was concerning it.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



Arnie said:


> the lynchpin of treatment free beekeeping is the genetics of the queens. Is that your feeling also?


i'm not sure. while the genetic contribution from the queen is certainly important my feeling is that it takes the right combination of multiple factors for having success with keeping bees off treatments.

it seems likely that the genetic contribution from the drones is just as if not more important. i believe the chances of getting desirable traits are increased due to the multiple matings of the queen with different drones. if one is lucky enough to have feral bees surviving year after year in their mating areas the queens they rear stand a good chance of catching some of those genetics that promote that resistance.

another common denominator among successful treatment free operations (although not 100% common) is that most tend to leave the bees enough honey to meet their nutritional needs and avoid feeding syrup. to what degree diet imparts natural resistance to disease is not well understood at this time, but intuitively it makes sense that the bees' immune system might be bolstered when feeding on the trace nutrients that are in contained in honey. it could be that some locations are able to provide better nutrition than others based on what plant life is around, and weather is a big factor as well. 

so i don't think it's as easy as requeening from stock that has proven successful off treatments if that is what you are asking. randy oliver has tried this in his operation only to find that resistance fades with each succeeding generation once the daughter queens hybridize with the local stock.

i appreciate your kind remarks, many thanks.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



GaryG74 said:


> I didn't try to hive it because it was starting to rain and almost dark.


the rain and the sunset did you a favor gary, there probably wasn't much of a future for that one.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

SP, It could also be that feeding sugar syrup puts a strain on the bees that is effectively one more nail in the coffin. In other words, leaving honey on the colony does not require the extra stress of inverting and maturing syrup. Perhaps a combination of both extra nutrition and less stress is the reason leaving honey for winter is a survival factor.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> Perhaps a combination of both extra nutrition and less stress is the reason leaving honey for winter is a survival factor.


makes good sense dar. i believe that some have found that syrup can be better than honey for bees overwintering in the extreme northern climes, due to lessened solids and several months without cleansing flights. but for most of the rest of us honey seems like a better bet. 

i'm finding that about 1.3 medium supers of honey is what i need to leave for overwintering. when checkerboarded in supers, the bees will use most of that up on the spring build up and be good to go for the main flow.


----------



## Arnie

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Thanks SP.

I wasn't suggesting that having a queen/drones with good genetics was the only thing, rather, I was thinking that the good genes were a jumping off point, more of a foundation on which to build the TF practice.

Now I can add to that the idea of leaving them more honey (and resist the urge to feed them in the spring to give them a treat), along with small cell foundation/foundationless. The foundationless scares me a little but I might try to get there next year. Good clean fresh wax sounds like a great idea.

I'm thinking of trying to raise a few queens from the couple good hives we have if they make it through another winter in good shape, then adding a few survivor queens to the mix to strengthen the diversity.

Trying to wrap my head around it, and come up with a plan. 

Thanks

Now I'll go back and read through this thread again; it's a lot to digest in a short time.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

understood arnie. perhaps you could ask around and see if you can locate anyone in your general area having success with keeping bees off treatments. if so, try to get some bees from them and mirror their methods. if you are near any areas that are heavily wooded and away from large beekeeping operations, setting out swarm traps next spring in those areas might yield some resistant stock.

as far as the comb goes most of mine is drawn on mann lake's rite cell plastic foundation, although i am gradually introducing foundationless frames into the middle positions of the single deeps. in the early spring however, most of the brood is up in the supers and i'll continue to maintain the rite cell frames in those.

i would like to state for the record that i am not against the use of treatments by those who would otherwise lose their bees if they did not treat. i really didn't know anything about any of this when i got my start. it was just luck of the draw that i found myself in an area and with stock that allows for it to happen. 

varroa is a formidable pest and i realize that those with big operations who depend on bees to support their families may not have the luxury to approach beekeeping like i do. that it is working here and in other places ought to be good news for everyone concerned. hopefully as time goes on all of our bees will get better at dealing with mites. 

i don't believe there is any magic formula, i've mostly been trying to let the bees teach me.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

at the beginning of the thread i laid out production goals based on the number of overwintered colonies i started the season with and those goals were to average 100 lbs of honey and one nuc sold per overwintered colony. i went into last winter with 18 colonies and came through with 15. therefore to meet my goals i would need to produce 1500 lbs. of honey and sell 15 nucs this year. 

as the season progressed i performed an early split, performed 2 combines, and caught 3 swarms. this left me with 12 colonies tasked with producing honey and the remainder used for queenrearing and splits. 

the new queens and splits allowed me to get my hive count back up to capacity with 21 colonies now occupying all of my available slots. i was left with 5 surplus nucs that will be transferred to their new owners over the next week or so. it would have been possible to have gotten closer to my goal for nucs sold this year but it makes more sense to keep enough to fill all my slots as the income potential per hive is far greater than the price of a nuc.

swarm control went much better this this year and honey production is the best i have been able to achieve so far. 1500 lbs is the stated goal but i won't know if that is reached or not until october or so and it will depend on how good of a fall flow we get.

the one hive i do have numbers on (the pride and joy hive) doesn't exist anymore as it went queenless toward the end of the main flow and ended up getting used for splits. this one had built up to five medium supers above a single deep and yielded 4 supers of harvestable honey for just over 150 lbs. it also was used to make 3 nucs but one of those was used to replace it so it only yielded 2 nucs. i'm averaging $7.50 per pound for honey this year and nucs are bringing $140, i'll let you do the math.

although it was lost, (and i didn't get to graft from it), this hive produced above the average stated goal and managed to draw out two new supers of foundation in the process. not all hives are going to be this productive, but this one will help to round up the average when i look at how the apiary did as a whole at the end of the year.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

here's wishing all of you a safe and happy 4th! 

a couple of my splits have graduated from 5 frame to 10 hive bodies this week. although i tend to avoid using syrup this is the one circumstance that i feel it is helpful. since i am selling off the surplus nucs so goes all of those drawn frames of comb. since we are now past our main flow and not seeing much new comb drawn it will be necessary to supplement these starter colonies with syrup to facilitate the drawing out of additional comb.

my intention is to provide syrup until i get at least 8 of the 10 frames drawn in the single deeps. at that point i'll stop feeding, provide an medium super of extracted comb, and put a frame of honey in the middle of it. i'll monitor that frame and if i see it go dry i'll give another to make sure there is always feed available.

my goal is to end up with at least two medium supers of drawn comb over each single deep by the end of season, (most hives will have three supers), with about 12 medium frames of honey on each hive in addition to what they have in the deeps. this is where a significant fall flow will allow for a bigger harvest and vice versa.

the one or two left over foundation frames in the deeps will get removed early next spring and replaced with foundationless frames just outside of the broodnest to encourage early wax making.


----------



## jim lyon

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Congrats on a great year.....so far SP. Any plans for doing any sort of mite counts on your production hives later this summer or fall?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



jim lyon said:


> Congrats on a great year.....so far SP. Any plans for doing any sort of mite counts on your production hives later this summer or fall?


 a sincere many thanks jim, that means a lot to me coming from you.

yes, i'll likely take counts any that look suspicious toward the end and some of the others to get a representative sampling.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

we've been under a heat advisory here this weekend due to heat indices in the 105 to 110 range. i've been limiting any bee work that requires suiting up to the first hour or two of the morning. 

last summer at this time the bees were pretty much just staying bearded at the entrances on most days, but this year there has been pollen coming in practically every day since our main flow trailed off and they aren't bearding until the end of the day. i'm even seeing a little new nectar being stored in the nucs i placed grafted cells in on june 6th. i tried putting small protein patties into a couple of the nucs but they didn't use them so i took them back out.

i've provided some of the nucs with a quart or two of syrup mostly to facilitate brooding, but i've decided against keeping unlimited syrup on them and trying to get new comb drawn this year. instead i'll give the nucs some deep frames from the established hives and let all of the hives winter with the outside frames in the deeps being foundation. i'll rotate these foundation frames out in early spring and replace them with foundationless frames to encourage early wax making.

the nucs stayed at about three frames of bees for a while as the first rounds of brood were basically replacing the older bees as they aged out, but in the last couple of weeks the nuc populations have increased to about 5 frames of bees. they are being transferred from the 5 frame nuc boxes into 10 frame deeps and given those frames with stores from the big hives. they'll next get a super of extracted comb and if needed i'll then be able to give them some non-harvestable frames of honey from the big hives. hopefully we'll see some new stores put in those supers off of the fall flow (if we get one) but if not i think i'll have enough honey to go around.

i'm continuing to harvest a pair of supers per weekend and the count is now up to 14 harvested medium supers which have yielded 525 lbs. i've got four hives that i haven't harvested from yet and a few more supers to get off some of the ones that i have already been into. my goal of 100 lbs. average per overwintered hive (1500 lbs.) isn't likely to happen even with a good fall flow, especially if i have to use a fair amount of that honey on this year's starters. it will be interesting to see how it all tallies up in the end.

thanks again for your interest.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I extracted honey 2 days ago and let it settle. Today I bottled a few gallons and started selling. I'm getting $14 per quart, buyer supplies the container or $15 per quart if I buy the jars. I could probably get a bit more for it, but this is enough for me.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

that's an attractive price for your customers dar. i'm staying sold out at $20/qt. and $10 for a 1 lb. squeeze bottle. i'm selling about equal numbers of both. most of the folks on my customer list are now supplied and i expect to start building a little inventory with the next batches. it will be nice to get a weekend or two break from the harvesting/extracting/bottling.

i've seen no dearth in pollen here at all this summer, how about you?


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I'm a little south of Dar and I'm still getting lots of yellow and some orange pollen in the mornings up until about 1030-1100 AM. They are bringing in nectar still: Aralia (Devil's Walking Stick), a little Sumac, Sourwood, and Kudzu are blooming right now. I can smell something light frangranced and sweet being evaporated in the hives late in the afternoon.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

i appreciate the report gary. i'm also seeing a little new nectar being stored here and there and no uncapping of any spring honey. this has been the least 'dearthy' summer that i have observed so far.

i had two nucs in which the queens did not get mated and these were combined with two other nucs that did get a mated queen. these were placed in a ten frame box straight away. i figured since these had the benefit of extra bees, stores, and comb they would not need feeding. 

what i found out was that the nucs that began in 5 frame boxes and received a quart or two of syrup had a lot more brooding and have actually pulled ahead of these 10 framers in terms of population. 

i am now feeding the 10 framers with frames of uncapped honey from the established hives and it will be interesting to see if they pick up the brooding vs. continuing to take their cue from the relative dearth in nectar.

i think i see now why last year's nucs which were also made up late in the season failed to put on much weight in the fall. i believe it was because they didn't build up much of a work force through the summer. 

on the other hand all of those nucs survived the winter with the help of resources they received from the established hives and the dead outs along the way. when the numbers are tallied at the end i think we'll see that most of them went on to be very productive colonies, thanks in part to more effective swarm prevention this year.

going forward and if i produce nucs this late in the season again i'll provide them with syrup until they get a decent population established. i'm going to try do my queenrearing earlier in the season from now on and avoid late starters though, as it's sure no fun working them in this heat.

i'm hoping that i can parlay what i learned from the 'pride and joy' hive this year into getting super big populations earlier in the season that can afford to shed 2 or 3 frames of bees for nuc making without hurting production. i think this will also keep me from getting more supers stacked up than i am comfortable working.


----------



## ToeOfDog

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Like most intelligent people I have been getting inside by 10 or 11 in the morning and going back out after 5 or 6. Lots of pollen coming in today. At 7 a.m. 40% of the incomers have stuffed pollen bags. It is Light yellow to medium orange and all mixes in between. Saw the bees working white Crepe Myrtle which we have in abundance. The high today was only an index of 98* so I went out at noon and they were still hauling pollen. Had a little rain a couple hours ago so the temp fell to 82*. The wetness was gone in an hour. At 3 the traffic is lighter but they are hauling pollen. I was planning on inspecting today but I have learned not to when it looks like rain. I got two kisses for just checking the entrances.

Been trying a little experiment based on high ceilings in unairconditioned houses. A empty deep is placed on top of the inner cover to allow a space for hot air to go and also an insulation space. These boxes always have a frame or two worth of bees in them. The experimental hives seem to have less bearding but not much. 

Local Honey prices are dependent on the local equilibrium of the supply and demand curves but if ya'll keep giving it away my locals may start travelling to your areas.<GG>

And for the locals, I went hiking recently in Yosemite National Park when the actual high was 106*F. Then came home it was in the mid 90's and couldn't breath. We need the Feds to buy a huge dehumidifier.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

at 2/3rds the way from solstice to equinox we are seeing temperatures and humidity moderating a bit here and my sense is that we are on the cusp of our fall nectar flow. the early goldenrod is showy at this time but as others have reported the bees don't seem too interested in it. 

most of my hives have had a medium super of empty comb at the top of the stack for at least the last month or so. although we generally get pretty 'dearthy' here from mid-july to mid august i am finding a little bit of new nectar being stored and processed in those top supers and i am not seeing the uncapping of the spring honey that i've yet to harvest.

i've been taking a break from harvesting these past few weeks and focusing my attention on tending to this year's starter colonies. these make up 10 of my 21 hives. 5 were started as nucs with this year's grafts, 1 is a caught swarm, 1 is a caught swarm that failed to requeen and got a graft, 1 is a caught swarm that become my starter/finisher and was then split up into nucs leaving a nuc, 1 is a split with queen from a monster colony just after our main flow, and 1 is a split with queen from a colony that was about to swarm.

these starters are growing nicely and are now in a single deep with one medium super. resources have been donated from the established hives so that now all of the starters have 7+ deep frames of comb and a full medium of comb with 2 or three partial frames of honey.

i finished setting up my last starter this way today by providing it with a couple of deep frames of drawn comb. i found it to currently have about 6 deep frames of bees along with close to 3 deep frames of solid capped brood that will be emerging soon.

the deep frames of comb that are going to the starters are the end frames donated from the established colonies and those are being replaced with foundation for now. they will be rotated out in the early spring and replaced with foundationless frames to encourage early wax making as part of swarm prevention.

interestingly the established colonies only have a little capped brood in them at this time with very few eggs or open brood. they have slowly allowed their population to decline since the end of our main spring flow (as evidenced by the gradual disappearance of bearding) and are now brood breaking until the fall flow kicks in.

next weekend it's back to harvesting. so far i have extracted and sold a little under 600 lbs and i'm feeling confident that there's a few hundred more to go especially if we don't have drought conditions this fall.

so far i haven't seen any dwv or crawlers and the brood in the hives that i've been into looks healthy. the real test on how well they are handling the mite load will be around the corner once the brooding of the overwintering bees commences. i doubt that i'll sample any of the starters, but plan to take counts on a few of the established colonies.


----------



## MattDavey

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Hi Squarepeg, 

Thanks for keeping up the updates.

You mentioned "foundationless frames to encourage early wax making as part of swarm prevention". I lost track on which hive was which, but did you find that the hives that started wax making earlier, didn't swarm?

Also, are the larger hives ones that started making wax earlier?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

hello matt, glad to see that you are still following along. 

my observations are more like what walt has reported which is that new wax appears to be starting at about the same time in all of the colonies whether large or small. my guess it has something to do with abundent nectar availability, warming temperatures, and i believe that walt may be correct with his hypothesis that the colony operations shift gear and wax making begins in earnest once they have given up on swarming.

the thing i noticed more than anything about the colonies that didn't swarm is that they expanded their broodnest all the way to the top of the top box and had no reserve honey overhead. in my case this meant encouraging them to brood up out of their deep through 3 checkerboarded medium supers and pretty much abandon the deep. once they hit the top backfilling ensued but the queen had that empty deep at the bottom to lay in and that's where the broodnest was moved to. by then new wax was being made and they readily drew out new supers of foundation at the top.

i have only added foundationless frames early in the season on a few occasions and i don't recall how much or how little difference it made in those instances. i have found that they will draw foundationless frames before doing anything with foundation though, and i'm hoping that getting them started drawing comb on them earlier will help the cause. 

we're only talking about a couple of frames per hive, but all of the starters and a few of the established colonies now have 2 or 3 frames of foundation in their deeps that will get rotated out next spring when the time is right. i'm guessing that time will be when they nearing the top with brood and start moving back down into the deep, which happens to be about the time here that they either swarm or don't. that's also when another super of foundation will get added on top.

once the season is over and the production tallied, i hope to start a new thread on the topic of what happened here with respect to swarm prevention this year and what that has lead me to want to try next year. of course you are just now coming out of winter there and probably just a couple of months away from swarm season. i'm looking forward to hearing about how things go for you.


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I'm looking forward to your new thread. I learned a lot through the present one.


----------



## MattDavey

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Thanks Squarepeg, will keep in contact.

My next project is to try making Short Deep frames and equipment. Frames are at right angles to standard Langstroth hives. So they are 4" shorter than standard frames. A half width box has 6 frames and a standard box 13 (or even 14 frames if you have a few narrow frames.)

Why? Because I make my own equipment anyway and would like to work with lighter boxes. Only the bottom box will be a full size box with a partition in the middle, Michael Palmer style. Frames are easier to handle with just one hand. It also means a half width box is a better Nuc with 6 frames.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

very cool matt. i like the way you think 'inside the box'.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

i'm taking a break from bee work this weekend, but very happy with what i noticed as i took a stroll by the hives today. we've had ground soaking rains for about the past week or so and the vegetation has perked up nicely. 

i'm seeing multiple foragers per second entering the hives with mostly nectar but a respectable amount of pollen as well. the pollen de jour is light creamy yellow, with a little rusty orange and medium tan mixed in. i haven't smelled any goldenrod yet.

all 21 colonies are looking good from entrance observations and still no dwv, crawlers, or piles of dead bees on the ground. 

my inventory is almost sold out so it's back to harvesting supers next weekend. most of the customers that bought from the first batches requested to be notified at the end of the harvest so they could buy again before its over. the plan is to harvest a couple of supers per weekend while watching what gets stored up on the fall flow.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I helped a local beekeeper take honey off his bees today. He had a decent crop of 6 medium supers from 4 colonies. The honey was of excellent quality and flavor. His bees were in excellent condition but with one colony that did not produce any honey and obviously needs to be requeened. His bees are all from my line with the exception of one colony with a Carpenter queen.

I finished removing honey from my bees last weekend. From this point on, the focus is on getting them ready for winter.

SP, I have small amounts of goldenrod nectar showing up. It looks like this is going to be a very good year for the fall flow. Are you seeing similar large amounts of bloom?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

many thanks for the report dar.

this year's honey is indeed exceptional for some reason and several of the folks that bought from me went out of their way to call me back and tell me that it was the best they ever had.

i've been seeing nice stands of goldenrod for a couple of weeks now, but no bees on it and i haven't noticed the tell tale aroma coming from the hives. i agree that the prospects for a decent fall flow are good especially with all of the beneficial rain we have been getting.

the 9 starters i have are storing nectar in their first super and will likely get a second super as they become available with the harvesting. i'll keep harvesting a couple of supers every weekend from now until i've taken what i can and still leave each hive about 14 medium frames of honey.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

just got back from the outyard from which i harvested a couple of more supers. that yard is made up with mostly of last year's starters and majority of them did respectably well this year. it sure was nice working in the cooler temps and lower humidity that has worked its way down here over the past week or so. 

i popped the tops on a few that i have not been into for almost three months at which time i placed a 4th medium super with foundation only. since that was then about the end of our main spring flow i was expecting to find those supers still foundation and planned to remove them today. to my surprise most of the frames were at least partially drawn out and a few were getting nectar stored in them.

this confirms what i have been suspecting about this summer not being as 'dearthy' as past summers have been. that along with what is shaping up to be a decent fall flow has got me a little more optimistic about this year's honey yield. i'm pretty sure i've got 6 to 8 more supers of harvestable honey to go, and perhaps a few more if they do a good job filling up the extracted comb that i have put back on the hives.

at this time they seem to be working the summer jasmine pretty hard. the later variety goldenrod has yet to bloom but should be starting in the next week or two. thanks again for your interest.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I`m a little shy posting here, being a beekeeper for one year only.

I used my weekend holidays to read this thread. I will do it all over again taking notes.

Last year I started a diary of my first colony ( kept mainstream, treated, natural comb) and had to realize they would die in winter in spite of treating because the pressure of mites was too great.
So I watched with a kind of morbid fascination how the bees went into a decline, describing whatever I saw and taking pictures of mites on bees, DWV and later of dead bees stuck in cells looking out.

This year I had the privilege to start new with SC-colonies, regressed some 6 years ago , treated with only oxalic acid for 3 years and now 3 years treatment free, with the help of my mentor who gave me his best hives.:thumbsup:
Think he knew of my enthusiasm! Don`t know how I deserve this!
I will do every possible thing to keep them healthy.

squarepeg, thank you so much for giving this informations freely, I´m sure they will help me on my way!
my thanks to all other people posting, too and to Barry for his work. Great forum!

sp, 
what I learned from you is how important ist is to describe management more. This I will do next year.
Sibylle


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

many thanks for those kind words sibylle!

congratulations on acquiring what sounds like could very well be some special bees. i am looking forward to hearing how these do for you. if you have success with them and if time allows i would encourage you to consider propagating the heck out of them and making their genetic footprint larger over time. good luck!


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> congratulations on acquiring what sounds like could very well be some special bees. i am looking forward to hearing how these do for you. if you have success with them and if time allows i would encourage you to consider propagating the heck out of them and making their genetic footprint larger over time. good luck!


Thank you. You are my inspiration.
:applause:


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

our fall flow is well underway with very strong foraging of pollen and nectar by all hives. the later variety of goldenrod is now in bloom but i've yet to see any bees on it and have not noticed 'the smell'. i've also started to see just a few devitalized drone pupae with shriveled wings and stunted abdomens being drug out of a couple of the hives indicating the presence of mites and their associated viruses.

i'm still harvesting honey and if the fall flow continues like this for another month or so i may be harvesting well into november. i'm not counting my chickens yet but it's looking like i may end up with close to a half ton of harvestable honey this year. 

i've decided to take mite counts on several of my longest lived colonies and any others that may look suspicious as we get more toward the end of the fall brooding in mid october or so.


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## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

SP, Sericea Lespedeza is in full bloom here and the bees are working it pretty hard early in the morning. Goldenrod is barely started, though it is blooming, it is not yielding much nectar. I have a few aster plants blooming which is very early, it usually does not show up until late September. The bees are working the aster a little.


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

i appreciate the report dar. the foraging these past few days reminds me of may. they are getting out at first light and staying after it up until dusk. the peak hits around mid afternoon with too many bees per second entering the hives to count. i can hear them fanning nectar in the supers and i'm just starting to hear that crackling sound that i associate with the working of wax, presumably from some capping going on.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

i took a drive over to the outyard this morning and harvested 2 more honey supers. the hives over there seem to be foraging more strongly than at the homeyard for some reason even though the two yards are only about 8 miles apart. i've still got a couple of my 12 production hives that i haven't pulled from yet, and i'm reasonably sure i'll be getting a small second pull off most of the others. this morning's harvest puts me at 18 supers so far yielding approximately 700 lbs.

3 of the frames i took this morning had a row or two of capped drone cells centered up at the bottom of the frames. i decided to go ahead and bring them in anyway because they were nice fat fully capped frames and i needed to remove a super from that hive. i took a tweezer and pulled out the drone larvae which were all +/- purple eye stage. as i pulled them i inspected for varroa and was able to find 7 mites on 164 larvae. 3 of the larvae had 1 mite and 2 of the larvae had 2 mites. the larvae appeared to be developing normally.

this particular colony was started late last summer, overwintered well, and was not split this year. i believe this one responded well to early season checkerboarding and did not swarm. i say this because it drew out and filled 2 additional medium supers of foundation bringing it up to 1 deep and 4 supers in size and it's on track to yield 80 to 100 lbs. of harvestable honey. i'm not sure if they took a brood break this summer or not because we never really got too dearthy here (and i didn't look).


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

i had forgotten that this colony received a queenless combine last september, and there is an error in my previous post, this colony only drew out and filled 1 additional medium super of foundation instead of 2. here's the journal for those who may be interested:



HIVE #B4

(2014 GRAFT FROM A.J.’S 18 YEAR OLD COLONY MATED AT OUTYARD)



091115: HARVESTED SUPER3, 7 MITES FOUND ON 164 PULLED DRONE LARVAE, NEW SUPER3 FAIRLY HEAVY AND GETTING CAPPED, SUPER2 WITH BEAUTIFUL SOLID WORKER BROOD IN MIDDLE FRAMES, CAPPED HONEY IN OUTSIDE FRAMES

082815: SUPER4 DRAWN WITH SOME CAPPED HONEY AND NEW YELLOW WAX

081415: DONATED 2 FRAMES HONEY TO B2 AND 1 FRAME HONEY TO B8, MIDDLE FRAMES OF SUPER4 HARVESTABLE

060515: FILLING AND CAPPING MIDDLE FRAMES OF SUPER4

052915: POSSIBLY A LITTLE PROGRESS ON SUPER4

052215: SUPER4 WITH COMB DRAWN BUT NO NECTAR YET, HEAVY PROPILIS

050915: REDUCED SUPER4 TO 9 FRAMES

050715: DRAWING SOME WAX BUT NOT READY TO REDUCE TO 9 FRAMES

042115: REWORKING WAX ON PAINTED FOUNDATION

041115: BROOD TO TOP OF SUPER3, ADDED SUPER4 FOUNDATION, NEW WAX AT TOP OF SUPER3

032415: EGGS SEEN ON BOTH SIDES OF MIDDLE FRAME IN SUPER3! NO MANIPULATION DONE, STILL EXPANDING

032115: SUPER2 FULL OF BEES WITH NEW WAX AND CAPPING HONEY AT TOP OF SUPER2, ADDED CHECKERBOARDED SUPER3, GO BACK AND MANIPULATE SOON

031515: BOTH SUPERS FULL OF BEES, BROOD TO THE TOP, QUEEN, CONSIDER PUSH DOWN BELOW EXCLUDER, PATTY HALF GONE

030715: PLACED PATTY, GOOD POPULATION, BROOD AND EGGS IN SUPER1

012515: GAVE CHECKERBOARDED SUPER2, BEES FULLY COVERING MIDDLE 7 FRAMES IN SUPER1

103114: 63 LBS.

092514: SWAPPED 4 FRAMES DRAWN COMB FOR FOUNDATION IN SUPER, COMBINE APPEARS TO HAVE GONE WELL

092214: POSSIBLE ROBBING VS. USURPATION ATTEMPT, EGGS, BROOD ALL AGES IN MIDDLE FRAMES OF SUPER, REDUCED ENTRANCE, COMBINED WITH QUEENLESS #6

081614: GAVE SUPER1 MIXED FRAMES

080114: Q, LOTS OF CAPPED BROOD, ADDED HONEY FRAME AND POLLEN FRAME, 1.5 FOUNDATION REMAINING, FLW FRAME 1/3 DRAWN 

072414: DID NOT PULL FRAMES, NOT MUCH ON FLW FRAME, 3 FRAMES FOUNDATION

070414: TRANSFERRED TO 10 FRAME BOX

062214: Q, GOOD PATTERN

060114: NUC STARTED WITH 2014 AJ GRAFT FROM 18 YEAR OLD COLONY


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

i mentioned in an earlier post that i was beginning to see a few devitalized drone pupae being hauled out of a couple of the established hives. that is continuing and the number of those is remaining pretty low. as of today i noticed the first couple of workers crawling with deformed wings. i've also been taking a quick peek at a brood frame or two in the hives that i've pulled honey from recently and so far have seen nothing but healthy looking solid capped brood.

it's now crunch time for these colonies in terms of brooding up the long lived bees for overwintering. their survival (or not) will depend on how much (or little) of an impact the mites/viruses have on them producing a strong enough population to get them through until the mid-winter tree pollens arrive.

i'm satisfied the impact is low at this point due to the low numbers of affected brood i'm seeing but i'm also keeping a careful watch for any sharp increase in those as well as any overt signs of dwindling such as diminished foraging and/or attempted robbing. if any colonies are found in the death throes of varroasis they will be euthanized before the mites can be spread.

i've got four more hives that need another super of honey harvested from them which will take me the next two weekends. after that i'll be assessing the weights of the starter colonies and giving them frames of honey from the established hives if needed to get them up to winter weight. that's when i'll also be doing more detailed inspections and getting mite counts on the longest lived colonies.

at some point we'll reach the end of the season and i'll be tallying up the results and comparing them to the goals laid out at the beginning. thanks again for the interest.


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## jfmcree

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Are you doing anything about the mites in the meantime?

thanks, Jim.


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

hi jim. i've haven't done anything for mites since starting in 2010. early on i thought about identifying colonies with high mite counts, killing the queen, killing the mites, and requeening from better stock. since winter losses were averaging less than 20% i didn't get motivated to do that, deciding instead to give the bees a chance while drawing the line at not allowing dwindling to the point of an inevitable rob out. losses became easy to make up by catching swarms and making splits.

the first mite count i took was in 2013 and on a dwindled hive that was probably on the verge of getting robbed as it was down to a very small population of bees with just a little sick brood but still queenright. the infestation rate on that one was near 100%. i took it away from the yard and shook it out but determined afterward that it would have been better to have put in the freezer and done away with those colony collapsing mites.

last year i took alcohol wash samples on three hives that ranged from about 9% to 14%. all three of those overwintered and the 14% hive ended up being one of my best producers this year.

with my winter losses, i've only found a lot of mite frass and diseased brood a couple of times. most of the losses have looked more like the queen failed at some point, which could also be mite related as a high virus load is known to damage the queens' ovarioles.

i wouldn't go so far as to say that one should just ignore mites or that they are a non-issue. i think i am fortunate to live in an area where feral bees are thriving and to have found a supplier who has been propagating bees off treatments since 1996. he started this line by cutting down 5 bee trees that he observed thriving when everyone else's bees were dying off after varroa hit here.

i remember discussing the strategy of treating and requeening colonies with michael bush. he commented that he had observed colonies recover from mite infestations and sick brood. i think i have seen this for myself now. the colony last year with the 9% count had a very spotty brood pattern in the fall but it ended up making it through winter. 

that particular one is my longest lived colony having survived 6 winters so far while maintaining a continuous queenline. i have grafted from it a couple of times. it has consistently been a good honey producer up until this year, but i think that was because the queen got superceded during the spring build up reducing their numbers so they couldn't capitalize on our main flow.

sorry for the long winded answer, i guess a simple 'no' would have sufficed.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

we are cooling off nicely here and fall flow is in full swing. i went over to the outyard today to put the entrance reducers back in. i'm hoping this will encourage more brood activity and provisioning of the deeps, as well as discourage robbing once the flow trails off. here is a photo of the outyard:

View attachment 21097


the hives are corralled because they share that pasture with a horse. the hives with multiple supers are last year's starters that overwintered to become production hives this year. the left two on the front row have yielded two supers each and are still heavy with honey. the middle two have yielded one super so far and are also heavy. the second from the right is one of this year's starters, the one one the far right has not been harvested from yet, and the three in the back are this year's starters.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

In an attempt to associate correlation with causation, it is obvious that corralling bees increases honey production.  

I'm seeing a significant fall flow too SP, so much that a colony that needs to be fed to pack some stores for winter is taking feed about 1/2 cup per day from a top of the hive jar feeder. Normally, they would suck a jar full down in 2 or 3 days. I checked local flowers and see a lot of blooming smartweed (heartsease) and quite a bit of sericea Lezpedeza. Goldenrod is just getting going good here, a couple of weeks later than your area.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

great to hear that dar. the bees here are still favoring a white pollen over the yellow goldenrod pollen about 5:1. the nectar smell around the hives is a sweet floral and i haven't appreciated any of the goldenrod smell yet. they are packing it in like crazy, it looks more like may then september! most of the starter hives have managed to put up over a half medium super of honey so far and i've given a couple of them their second super. it's just the opposite compared to last fall.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

we've had a cool and rainy weather system over us these past few days that has put a dent in foraging. today is cool and wet enough to keep the bees completely shut in for the first time. i took the opportunity to take a walk through the yards looking for dead larvae/pupae at the entrances and hefting the hives for estimating weight.

i did find a couple of hives with a dozen or so devitalized brood at the entrance, and a couple more hives with just a few there. the most dead were seen with my longest lived colony that is going into it's 7th winter and with one of last year's starters that dwindled down to a handful of bees last winter but still managed to survive. not surprisingly there were none seen with any of this year's starters nor most of last year's starters. 

the two hives with the most dead at the entrance were not productive this year and are light to heft at this time. i suspect they are in trouble and if the weather breaks tomorrow i'll inspect them and take mite counts. 

the rain has prevented me from harvesting the last two supers that i know i want to bring in for the past couple of weekends. hopefully the weather will allow for that tomorrow as well.

most of the remaining hives are feeling good to heft today and there are three hives that were almost too heavy to lift. there may be an opportunity for more harvest from these depending on how many frames i'll need to transfer to this year's starters in order to get them into shape for checkerboarding next february.

the goldenrod is now past peak and starting to wane here and we are just a few weeks away from our average first frost date.


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

We've had that cool, cloudy weather over us most of the week also. High temps have been around 58F-60F and a cool wind of about 10-15 MPH. Forecast to warm back into the low 80s next week so foraging should pick back up. Golden rod is in full swing here, Bone Set going by but sunflowers, aggeratum, and asters just starting good. I haven't checked the weight of all my hives, but the ones I have checked are heavier than this time last year. I shouldn't have to feed as much like last year.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

it warmed up enough today to allow the bees get foraging good again and i took the opportunity to inspect a few of the hives at the homeyard. i went into a couple of established hives that i had noticed hauling out more dead brood than the rest and i took mite counts on those two. i also looked into one of this year's starter colonies that didn't seem to be hefting as heavy as its cohorts.

*hive #2* is my longest lived colony and the only one that did not come from the tf supplier that i got the rest of my bees from. this one was orphaned on my property during the winter of 2009 along with a few others and was the only one to survive past the first season with me. 

it has been a great colony over the years having yielded some splits and 100+ lbs. honey harvests. i have grafted from it a couple of times and a few other of my colonies originated from this one. for the past two seasons this colony has not been productive however and as bad as i don't want to i may end up making nucs with it should it survive until next season.

today's inspection revealed that the top (third) medium super is about 70% heavy with stores. a nice looking queen was found with brood on the middle frame of the second super. the pattern was solid with the bees uncapping and removing larvae from about 5-10% of the cells. 

i washed 18 mites off of 246 bees for an infestation rate of 7.3%. this compares to 8.9% measured in october of last year, and i believe this year's brood looks healthier than what i saw last year.

all in all the colony was in better shape than what i expected based on the amount of brood removal i was seeing at the entrance and by the heft weight of the hive. it might just make it again, which would be 7 consecutive winters with the same queenline.

*hive #3*, which sits right beside hive #2, is from one of last year's starters. this one got down to a handful of bees coming out of winter but was then combined to requeen another colony that failed to supercede its queen at the end of march this year.

the top super on this one was not quite half full of honey. the middle frame of the next super down had just hatched larvae and older larvae all in a solid pattern. i saw solid capped brood on the frames to either side of that middle frame but i didn't pull them to see how many cells were getting uncapped.

i washed 26 mites off of 306 bees for an infestation rate of 8.5% on this one. here are photos of the 2 samples:

View attachment 21362


View attachment 21361


after determining the colonies were queenright, seeing that the brood looked half way decent, and getting my samples i didn't go any deeper into these two hives. i suspect that neither of these colonies have provisioned their single deep at the bottom very well at this time, but i want to see what they do with the remainder of the fall flow and will likely just keep things arranged the way they have it for overwintering.

*hive #6*, the starter that i looked into today is hived in a single deep with one medium super at this time. there are only about 7 frames drawn in the deep and the super has 9 frames drawn. i'm guessing there's the equivalent of about 10 deep frames of bees in there. the super is about a third full of stores. a middle frame of the deep had a good pattern of eggs and young larvae, and i could see solid capped brood on the adjoining frames but did not pull them. this one will likely get some frames of honey from the bigger hives at the end of our fall flow.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> ...and as bad as i don't want to i may end up making nucs with it should it survive until next season.
> 
> *hive #3*, which sits right beside hive #2, is from one of last year's starters. this one got down to a handful of bees coming out of winter but was then combined to requeen another colony that failed to supercede its queen at the end of march this year.


Nuc was made from the Hive#2 in May? How many brood frames? Was the original queen left in the hive or not?


Hive #3 had very few mites in the beginning because it had only a "handful of bees" after winter. The combined hive had also very little mites because it was queenless for a long time.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



Juhani Lunden said:


> Nuc was made from the Hive#2 in May? How many brood frames? Was the original queen left in the hive or not?


no juhani, hive #2 was not split this year, but did have a brood break in may when the overwintered queen failed and they successfully superceded her. i believe the queen failing just as we were coming into our main flow was the reason this colony didn't produce much honey this year.



Juhani Lunden said:


> Hive #3 had very few mites in the beginning because it had only a "handful of bees" after winter. The combined hive had also very little mites because it was queenless for a long time.


yes, one would think that hive #3 would relatively fewer mites for the reasons you give juhani, but both hive #2 and hive #3 have the most devitalized brood being hauled out of them compared to all of the hives in both of my yards. this is why i wanted to inspect those two and take the mite counts.

of note is that our summer dearth was not as harsh this year and i don't think my colonies had as much of a mid season brood break as they usually get.


----------



## Barry

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> foundation is mostly ritecell


Do you still primarily have Ritecell in your hives?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



Barry said:


> Do you still primarily have Ritecell in your hives?


yes barry. the supers are all rite cell. the deeps are mostly rite cell but as i replace frames in those deeps i'm introducing foundationless frames. at this point there are at most 2 or 3 frames of foundationless in the deeps. the size of the cells in the centers of those frames varies but tends to be 5.0 mm +/- .1 mm.

the bees tend to winter in the deeps, but advance the nest up through the my checkerboarded supers during the spring build pretty much abandoning the deeps. during the main flow the supers get backfilled and the nest is moved back down. from then until now the nest is split between deep and the first supers.

so i think its fair to say that most of the brooding is still being done in the 5.4 rite cell.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

i mentioned a few posts ago that i still had a couple of hives with 4 supers on them that needed a super removed to get them down to 3 supers for overwintering. i had the opportunity to do that today and all hives are now down to their wintering volume.

i was only able to harvest a total of 9 frames (6 from one and 3 from the other) that were nice, fat, and capped; so i ended up removing 9 frames of empty comb as well. there were more frames that were mostly capped that i suppose i could have taken but i decided to leave them for now.

doing this left one of the hives with the top (3rd) super empty and the other 2 supers well over half full. the other hive has honey chimneyed up the middle frames of all 3 supers. 

there was still some capped brood in the middle frames of the first super in both hives. that brood was solid and healthy; and those frames were getting backfilled with nectar as the brood emerged.

my plan is to leave the hives as is until the fall flow plays out and we get our first frost. i'll then weigh all of the hives and redistribute honey frames so that all hives are in good shape for winter. i have three hives at the out yard that are almost too heavy to lift that i believe have all 3 supers pretty full at this time. there may be additional frames for harvest there but not until the bees all have what they need.

the goal is to end up with about 10 - 12 frames of honey in the first two supers on each hive, probably organized something like this, where h = honey and e = empty comb:

e e h h e h h e e

e h h h e h h h e

this honey along with what they have stored in the deeps should be more than enough for overwintering and still leave them plenty for brooding back up on the first pollen flows in late january/early february. additional frames of honey for the surviving hives may become available from any hives lost over winter.

that leaves that third supers empty for winter. i am considering moving those to the bottom and then bringing them back up in late february for checkerboarding, but i might get lazy and just leave them on top instead.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Just back from Mexico and need to look at my bees and prepare them for winter. I've got one weak colony that has a young and productive queen but has not stored enough honey for winter. I'll feed them a gallon or so of half honey half sugar syrup to ensure they have enough for winter. I don't normally feed, but this colony was a late swarm and I'm interested in seeing how they perform next spring.

I also need to perform full fall inspections which are invaluable in determining if a colony needs anything to successfully winter.


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I had a visitor from somewhere near Huntsville at the market yesterday. Says he runs around 200 hives and has been treatment free for over a decade. Said his production averages are equal to or higher than the local average. Said the usda came out and took bee and comb samples a few years ago. The usda folks took mite counts and he averaged less than 4 mites/100 bees....in the fall. Must be something in that north Alabama water.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



beemandan said:


> Must be something in that north Alabama water.


it may be the water dan. 

if you happened to have gotten the gentleman's name please send it to me via pm, i would be interested in giving him a call and perhaps paying him a visit if he's agreeable.

i took an extracted super over to the outyard today to place on one of this year's starters and took a quick heft of a few hives over there.

i was pretty amazed to find that they are by far much heavier than the one's here at the homeyard.

i'm not sure if the forage is better over there or if it has to do with the fact that there are only 9 hives in that yard vs. the 18 hives total between myself and my neighbor over here.

i shared this observation with my neighbor and found out that he too had noticed that his hives here didn't put up as much honey as a couple that he has in another location. we both agreed to move some of our hives from here to our other yards for next year.


----------



## Arnie

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Ya know, sp, the hives in my backyard gather a lot less honey than the ones just a few miles north. Just not enough forage here at home, and it doesn't take much distance.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Got a few colony checks in today. Colonies on average are in good condition with plenty of aster coming in. We've had enough rain to keep the flow going.

I need to start getting things ready for next spring. The current plan is to split out 10 new colonies to sell specifically to get beginners started with mite tolerant bees.


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## biggraham610

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Squarepeg, 
I have been following this post, and it has been great. I wish you the best of luck this winter, and in the spring, God Willing do believe through better record keeping i will record my journey the same. Thanks. G


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

we got down to almost freezing this morning and tomorrow morning looks likely to be our first frost of the year. the goldenrod is pretty much done and the aster is waning by the day. there is still moderately strong foraging going on with pollen and nectar coming in, but i'm not sure what it is coming from. 

there have been very few dwv, crawlers, or dead brood seen since my last post, and no obvious robbing.

i decided to place my foam insulation boards between the inner and outer covers today as well as get hive weights in both yards. i discovered that some of my bigger hives have outgrown the capacity of the scale i've been using so i'll have to get another one.

here are the hive weights from today. >120 means that the hive weight was more than the scale could measure. it's likely i'll get to harvest more honey from these. the '#' hives are at the homeyard and the 'B' hives are at the outyard.

legend: hive #, weight, (year started), (# of medium supers over single deep), note


101715: ADDED FOAM INSULATION TO ALL HIVES

HIVE WEIGHTS:
#1 78 (2) (2015) NEEDS 3 FRAMES 
#2 108 (3) (2009) GOOD
#3 88 (3) (2014) INSPECT, DEEP ABANDONED?
#4 77 (2) (2015) NEEDS 3 FRAMES
#5 >120 (3) (2014) HARVEST?
#6 58 (1) (2015) GOOD POPULATION, NEEDS 3 FRAMES
#7 111 (3) (2013) GOOD
#8 50 (1) (2015) SMALL POPULATION, COMBINE?
#9 99 (3) (2012) GOOD
#10 67 (2) (2015) REMOVE SUPER, INSPECT, COMBINE?
#11 98 (3) (2014) GOOD
#12 106 (3) (2012) GOOD
B1 >120 (2014) (3) HARVEST?
B2 91 (2014) (2) GOOD
B3 >120 (2014) (3) HARVEST?
B4 >120 (2014) (3) HARVEST?
B5 >120 (2014) (3) HARVEST?
B6 >120 (2014) (3) HARVEST?
B7 96 (2015) (2) GOOD
B8 97 (2015) (2) GOOD
B9 79 (2015) (2) NEEDS 2 FRAMES


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Our golden rod is about done here also. Wild sunflowers are going fast with no rain, low humidity, and daily wind. Asters are still holding on. Is the pollen you're seeing gray to brownish? Probably Ageratum (also called Mist Flower) Eupatorium coelestinum L. It has purple flowers and is in the same family as Joe Pye Weed and Boneset. We've had a lot of it this year and the bees cover it up. The wild sunflowers, what I call swamp sunflowers, (narrow leaved sunflower, Helianthus angustifolius L.) have a yellow pollen. 
Looks like your hives are about ready for winter. I've got a little more moving of frames/supers and I think I'll be ready. I left my foam boards on all summer, thinking they might help keep the heat out. That and the slatted racks seemed to cut the bearding a lot. I have one hive that doesn't have the SR that bearded all summer. I've got the materials so I hope to have the SR on it by next week.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Sp, I'm seeing a lot of heartsease (aka smartweed) in bloom. Where it is available, the bees work heavily in the early morning. It will be knocked out by frost. Aster is another story. Frost in some years just seems to put it in high gear. This is especially true of the pale purple/blue aster, not so much of the white.


----------



## Michael Palmer

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> This is especially true of the pale purple/blue aster...


Would that be Heart-Leaved?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

gary, yes the pollen i'm seeing is gray to brownish. glad to hear that yours are about ready too.

dar, it seemed that this year's fall flow was especially good especially compared to last year's which seemed very poor. did you you notice this as well, and how would you rate this year's fall flow compared to an average year?

michael, thanks for following, and thanks again for inspiring me to make up nucs in the spring and weigh the hives in the fall.

...now to google those plants that gary and dar mentioned and see if i can locate any around here.


----------



## JohnBruceLeonard

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Squarepeg, I wanted to add my tardy thanks to the many messages of gratitude you have already, and rightly, received. This thread is truly a wealth of information for starting beekeepers like me, and it has done much already to influence my plans for the coming year. It is a privilege to gain such detailed insight into the year-long workings of so knowledgeable and _thoughtful _a beekeeper. Thank you for the time you have taken to publish your results - and really, I can only imagine how _much _time it has taken.

Needless to say, I wish you all the best in coming months. Though having seen something of how you work with your bees, fortune, in your case, will likely be secondary to skill.

John


----------



## bucksbees

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



JohnBruceLeonard said:


> A lot of great words


I too have learned tons of useful information from what you have done, Thank you.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

wow. my heartfelt thanks to jbl and buck for those very kind comments. there's no greater satisfaction in life than to be appreciated for your efforts. again, many thanks!

with a newly purchased scale i was able to get out today and reweigh the 6 hives that were too heavy for my old scale.

i was very happy to find that 2 of those 6 were heavy enough to harvest another super off of each hive.

this brings my season total to 23 supers harvested which should put me a little shy of 900 lbs.

looking at all of the hive weights across both yards i believe that most are about where i want them to be at this point. there are a few with a little more weight than needed and a few that are a little light, but redistributing about a super's worth of frames should put them all at nominal.

so with these two supers harvested today i'm calling it on the honey harvest for this year. i'll be doing some tallying and try to put together a summary of what the apiary did in 2015 for the thread.

all in all the colonies are looking to be in great shape, helped along no doubt by the exceptionally good fall flow we had this year.

i have two starters that are a little dinky but they are queenright with healthy brood. actually these would have been more like average among the starters last year and i attribute the difference between the years on a good vs. bad fall flow. i think these two are overwinterable, but may end up getting combined with other hives that end up queenless in the interim.

walt is going to make his way down tomorrow and the agenda is to go deep into a few hives that weren't terribly productive this year and are finishing the season a little on the light side compared to the rest. we'll also use the opportunity to move honey frames from the heavier to the lighter ones.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

last week's harvest is now bottled and all but a few jars have been sold, so it's finally time to go through the journal and crunch the production numbers for 2015. 

i started the thread at the first of the year with 18 colonies and lost 3 prior to spring leaving 15 to start the season with. my stated goal was to average 100 lbs. of honey and 1 nuc sold and per overwintered hive. as we shall see i came up short of these goals.

and the tally is...

honey harvest: 876 lbs. for a 58.4 average per overwintered hive
nucs sold: 5 for a .33 average per overwintered hive
total sales: $6713 for a $447.53 average per overwintered hive

in addition to the honey and the nucs...

hive count was increased from 15 to 21 hives
19 medium supers of foundation were drawn out
17 lbs of wax cappings were saved for melting down and painting next year's foundation

of the 15 overwintered hives only 13 were used for honey production. the yield from these ranged from 0 lbs to 146 lbs and the average was 67.4 lbs.

the other 2 overwintered colonies along with a couple of caught swarms were split for nuc production. i was able to propagate 11 new colonies, keeping 6 and selling 5.

all in all it's hard not be be pleased overall with the season despite not hitting the goals. sales were up 34% from last year and i think i'm getting a handle on swarm prevention. with the additional drawn comb, new lessons learned, and assuming good overwintering and cooperative weather i am optimistic that the apiary could bring in 10k - 12k next season.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

addendum: i meant to include in the tally above that an average of 38 lbs of honey per hive was left for the bees to overwinter on based on the 798 lb apiary wide estimate garnered from taking hive weights.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

SP, suggest you consider purchasing a few outside queens for next spring, or alternatively, I might be able to swap a mite tolerant colony for you to raise from. I have a couple at Rainsville that are long term survivors and have produced a consistent yearly crop of honey.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

that would be awesome dar. my best colonies this year were crosses made last year by getting grafted queen cells from my original supplier over in dekalb county and letting them emerge and mate here. i'd love to swap a colony and get some grafts from it, many thanks!


----------



## biggraham610

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Goals are hard to achieve, we set them high on purpose. When i look at your numbers, I think you had a fine year. Keep up the good work SP. Congratulations. G


----------



## JohnBruceLeonard

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I'll heartily second biggraham's sentiments. You have every right to be pleased with your year. The 34% increase in sales alone is nothing to frown at, to say nothing of the increase in knowledge, which for any beekeeper must often be worth more than money. Well done, squarepeg.

John


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



JohnBruceLeonard said:


> I'll heartily second biggraham's sentiments. You have every right to be pleased with your year. The 34% increase in sales alone is nothing to frown at, to say nothing of the increase in knowledge, which for any beekeeper must often be worth more than money. Well done, squarepeg.
> 
> John


Its good progress SP, well done. Comb building takes a lot of energy away from honey production. You'll get better figure when you have more comb.

Mike (UK)


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

It is a drizzly chilly late fall day just warm enough at 61 degrees to finish up fall inspections. I went through 7 colonies today. One is the colony that I've been feeding for the last 2 weeks. I gave it another 2 quarts of syrup. The hive is heavy, but they need a bit more to be sure they make it. I found one more colony that was not quite as heavy as I like so I gave it a quart of syrup. The rest of the colonies are lead heavy and have enough bees to make a decent cluster. I have 7 more colonies to go through but will probably try to get them tomorrow. The rain is just a bit too much to do them now.

I have one colony with a shallow super full of honey and a second deep brood chamber 3/4 full that will be my insurance for next spring. If I find a colony in trouble, I will have a few frames of honey to add to them. Otherwise, all colonies are going into winter in a single deep brood chamber well supplied with sealed honey and a couple of partially full frames in the center to cluster. I know this would not be enough in northern climates, but I've found that it works pretty well here. My bees overwinter with small to medium size clusters which reduces need for honey.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

excellent report dar. i would liked to have used this weekend to move some honey frames around but it didn't work out.

i've likewise identified a few hives that are much heavier than they need to be but also have a few of this year's starter colonies that could use a few extra frames of honey. i should be able to get them all weighed again over the next couple of weeks and find a fair weather day to move some honey from the haves to the have nots. 

the established hives have a single deep with 3 medium supers above but only 1 - 2 supers of honey in those supers. most of this year's starters have a single deep with 2 supers, and a couple of starters are a single deep with only one super. the plan will be to divert any resources from dead outs over the winter to those smaller hives.

i didn't have any trouble after leaving an empty super at the top of the stacks last year. i really don't want to bring those empty supers in or move them down to the bottom so i'm just going to leave them out there again and see what happens. that way those supers will be right where they need to be come the end of february or so when that empty comb will get checkerboarded with what honey remains at that point.

i'm working on analyzing this year's notes for my three most productive hives as well as for the three least productive hives and hope to post the results soon. many thanks again to all you who are showing an interest in this thread.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

summary of journal notes on the three least productive hives:

*#2* orphaned here 2009, .5 super honey harvested, no comb drawn, no splits, queen failure mid main flow, successful supercedure, .5 super honey donated to this year's starters

*#7* 2013 caught swarm, .5 super honey harvested, no comb drawn, split made with queen prior to swarming, swarmed anyway, new queen mated successfully, .5 super honey donated to this year's starters.

*B1* established 2014 with graft, .5 super honey harvested, no comb drawn, no splits, queen failure prior to main flow, supercedure not successful, received queen cell, .5 super honey donated to this year's starters.

common denominator for three least productive hives was queen issues not allowing colonies to capitalize on main flow.


summary of journal notes for three most productive hives:

*old #8* established 2014 with graft, 4 supers honey harvested, 2 supers of foundation drawn, 3 splits made, went queenless toward end of main flow and was used for splits.

*B5* established 2014 with graft, 3 supers honey harvested, 2 supers of foundation drawn.

*#5* 2014 caught swarm, 2 supers honey harvested, 2 supers of foundation drawn, 1 split made after main flow, .5 super honey donated to this year's starters

common denominator for most productive hives was second year colonies that did not swarm.


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I had one 2nd year queen that got superceded early this year. They made some really nice queen cells and I split them up and got some nice nucs out of them. Point is how do we make gains out of failures? Personally, flexibility and having plan A, B and C for a hive is what I'm trying to learn. Recognizing the problem, then doing something with the bees depending on when the problem was recognized. Also starting nucs early gives me the ability to do some combines and still get honey crop if I catch a supercedure early. One way or another, they are going to make honey or bees. The only real failure should be collapse from mites/disease and that is just nature doing some selection for me.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

thanks for the reply lharder and you outline a very sound approach.

i used a couple of colonies that i felt didn't have much of a chance to make a honey crop this year along with a couple of caught swarms to produce this year's nucs.

the reasons that the nonproductive colonies discussed above weren't used for splits were:

#2 is my longest lived colony and gets a little deference for that reason.
#7 was next in line for splitting but after old #8 went queenless and used for splits i didn't need anymore bees for nuc production, (plus #7 produced over 100 lbs. of harvestable honey last year).

B1 was also from a queenline that i am interested in propagating and so i let the supercedure play out. here's how it went:

042615: STILL QUEENLESS, ADDED FRAME WITH QUEEN CELLS AND BROOD FROM B2
042115: MOSTLY NECTAR COMING IN, NOT MUCH POLLEN
041115: QUEENLESS WITH LOTS OF CAPPED BROOD, 5 SUPERCEDURE CELLS, STILL ABOUT SAME NUMBER OF BEES, NO BACKFILLING BUT CANNOT RULE OUT A SWARM, CHECK BACK IN A COUPLE OF WEEKS
032415: SUPER2 EMPTY, HONEY MOVED DOWN, 5 DEEP FRAMES OF BEES, 5 MEDIUM FRAMES OF BEES, PATTY ALMOST GONE, NO MITES IN EXPOSED DRONE LARVAE 

i assume the supercedure queen was lost to mating, and by the time the new queen began to lay it was too late to capitalize on our may nectar flow.

if i had a larger operation and more time for the apiary i would keep some spare nucs/queens on the side for making sure all production hives are primed and ready to make a honey crop on the main flow a la the palmer sustainable apiary approach.


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I think I just added another rule to my list. If I am interested in propagating from a queen line, do it sooner than later, before the bees supercede her When they do, I could cut out the supercedure cells if caught in time, start new nucs with them, and combine the original hive with a nuc with the original queen's daughter. 

I'm impressed with how you are documenting your experience. This year was just a "get as many hives going as possible" year so I would have something to work with. I originally wasn't going to do much documentation, count mites, etc, rather using just survival/honey production as metrics. However, I can see the value of having some statistics as a useful way to broaden our understanding of tf bees/mite/virus interactions. It wouldn't affect management per se, but useful to present to an inspector for instance, or other beekeepers with limited tf exposure. I have a decent enough background to set up a decent statistical model so I guess I should. Who knows it may be a useful metric in my neck of the woods.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I took advantage of the warm and calm day today to remove the feed jars from the colony that was getting an extra bit for winter and then went around putting entrance reducers in most of my colonies. This may not seem very important, but if you have mice - and there are plenty of them here - and you don't use entrance reducers, you WILL lose colonies to mouse damage. This time of year bees can be more difficult to work because the temps are in the 60's and there is not much forage available. I took 4 stings while working. This is why I carry a gallon of water with me whenever I visit an outyard. If you get stung once or twice, use the water to wash the area and remove the sting scent. This reduces the chance of getting more stings in the same area.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



lharder said:


> I'm impressed with how you are documenting your experience. This year was just a "get as many hives going as possible" year so I would have something to work with. I originally wasn't going to do much documentation, count mites, etc, rather using just survival/honey production as metrics. However, I can see the value of having some statistics as a useful way to broaden our understanding of tf bees/mite/virus interactions.


I think its very helpful to know which queens are heading thriving colonies that have managed their own mites for several years. they are the only ones you really want to be taking genes from. So as soon as your numbers and methods outstrip your memory its time to start record keeping. Marking queens is the next step, so you can be sure its the same queen - they haven't swarmed and/or superceded while you weren't looking. I haven't got that far yet. 



lharder said:


> It wouldn't affect management per se...


For me that's the most important thing - it should direct management, given that breeding is the first essential act of husbandry.

Mike (UK)


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

"For me that's the most important thing - it should direct management, given that breeding is the first essential act of husbandry."

But not if the information is irrelevant. Counting mites may well be. Survival and honey production are what are called first order information. Things we suppose to affect these things are 2nd order. Guess wrong on 2nd order things, then genetic information is lost.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



lharder said:


> But not if the information is irrelevant. Counting mites may well be. Survival and honey production are what are called first order information. Things we suppose to affect these things are 2nd order. Guess wrong on 2nd order things, then genetic information is lost.


Using first order information to guide the production of the best queens is simply essential husbandry. 

Mike (UK)


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

some of you may recall my reports from back in march about finding two of my colonies that had dwindled down to a small handful of bees yet were still queenright and had healthy brood.

there was some discussion about whether or not those bees were worth expending any effort or resources on but i chose to nurse them along to see what would happen. 

both of those tiny colonies received a couple of shakes of nurse bees a week or so apart. one of them ended up getting used to requeen the queenless half of planned split, and the other one ended up getting used to requeen a colony that went queenless after a failed supercedure.

the planned split colony ended up yielding 2.3 supers of harvestable honey and drew out 3 new supers of foundation. this one is finishing the season strong and heavy.

the failed supercedure colony yielded 1.5 supers of harvestable honey, donated .5 super of honey to starter colonies, and drew out 1 super of foundation. this one is finishing the season strong with bees but not as heavy with stores as most of the rest. it has also been a little more defensive than average and will probably be split up for nuc production next year.


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

It just goes to show that sometimes those small clusters or small swarms have a strong will to survive. I've had a couple of small fall swarms turn into monster hives the next spring, and one small cluster in a wax moth infested hive make a strong recovery and be a monster hive too.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

that's awesome gary. 

for me it shows that we can't always blame the queen for a colony's woes. in the case of these two it was my fault for making up nucs late in the season last year and not giving them a little syrup to get started on. this year's nucs were also made up late but they got 2 or 3 quarts of 1:1 spaced out at weekly intervals to get them brooding quicker. that plus the fact that this summer was not as dearthy and our fall flow was stellar has this year's starters in much better shape going into winter than last year's.


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I'm not sure if you can judge a nuc in the fall for future vigor. I've had indifferent nucs in the fall build strong in spring and vice versa. I've also weakened hives with my own stupidity/inexperience. Once they got a bit of help, they built up fine.


----------



## Lburou

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> ...for me it shows that we can't always blame the queen for a colony's woes...


The pathways of life lead us to grasp new concepts and incorporate them into our philosophy, only to find other gaps in our education. That is how we grow Squarepeg. I'm still enjoying the account of your path, thanks for your effort to enlighten us with this account of your travails.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

very true lee. i appreciate the kind words.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

it's a rainy november sunday here and there hasn't not much to do in the beeyards lately. we had our first hard freeze last weekend so i decided to weigh all of the hives again in order to compare to the weights taken earlier in october.

as expected the hives have only lost a few pounds each. the average amount of honey per hive at the home yard is 26 lbs., while the average at the out yard is 42 lbs.

so far i still have strong cluster roar in 21/21 hives with no fall collapses. if things go like they have in previous years i'll probably lose a few to queen failure by the time we get to late february.

by using honey left over from any dead outs and redistributing honey from the heavier ones to the lighter ones i should have enough to get the survivors properly checkerboarded in time for the spring build up.

i'm still seeing a little pollen coming in but not much. it is bright yellow and blood red. i'm guessing the neighbors may still have some ornamentals in bloom.

i'm not seeing many dead bees getting hauled out of any the hives except for my longest lived one. this colony is entering its 7th winter and i'm finding a few devitalized/dwv workers at the entrance. this one is also foraging much more pollen than the rest presumably trying to outbrood the virus. it will be interesting to see if they can overcome.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

What are your temps right now?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



Juhani Lunden said:


> What are your temps right now?


it's been a little warmer than average lately, and swinging up and down depending on what side of the front we're on. average here for this time of year is highs in the mid 50's and lows in low 40's (fahrenheit).


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i had mentioned in other threads that i was considering chronicling my 2015 season here on the forum. the purpose for doing so is because there has been interest expressed for more detailed information regarding the real life successes and failures involved with keeping bees off treatments....
> 
> 2015 goals: i seek to maximize the profitability of the operation to the extent possible while maintaining the colonies off treatments and avoiding artificial feeds. my specific goals this year involve having every colony 'earning its keep' by providing harvestable honey and/or nucs. i would like to average one nuc sale and 100 lbs of honey sold for every hive that survives winter, and then end up with around 20 established colonies and a handful of nucs going into next winter.


so here we are about to round the corner with the winter solstice just a week away, although one might be easily fooled in that regard given the unseasonably mild weather we are having.

i wanted to take the opportunity to thank all of you for allowing me to have this sounding board and sharing my experiences with you. i have very much appreciated and enjoyed the feedback, and my hope is that the thread has been true to its intent.

a quick recap of 2015:

1. went into last winter with 18 colonies.
2. lost 3 over the winter leaving 15 (16.7% loss)
3. increased to 26, sold 5, leaving 21 going into this winter
4. harvested and sold 876 lbs. of honey, left about 800 lbs. of honey for the bees
5. got 19 more medium supers of foundation drawn out.
6. realized just shy of $450 income per overwintered hive

although sales were up by about a third compared to last year i did come up short of my stated goals. still, i think these results are more or less comparable to what contributors utilizing more conventional beekeeping methods are reporting. i'm expecting to do a little better next year (assuming good weather) by applying lessons learned and having more drawn comb.

there's been some discussion in other threads about colonies with high mite loads getting less productive after their 1st year. there have also been some posts about how untreated colonies are more likely to collapse after they get beyond their first year.

although i don't have very many colonies nor very many years with them after looking over my notes i can't say that i am noticing this trend. i'm not sure what is meant by a 'high' mite load, but when i have sampled for mites in the fall i typically have gotten about +/- 10% infestation. 

when i went back in my journal and looked at my winter losses over the past 3 years the majority of losses were seen with caught swarms not making it through their first winter, usually from losing their queen over the winter. as far as production goes 2 out of my 3 most productive hives this year are now going into their 4th winter.

i do however find this an interesting consideration and one that i'll definitely be tracking going forward.

and speaking of going forward, i guess this wraps it up for the '2015 experience'. i'm happy to continue reporting if there is interest. again, many thanks to all for sharing the year with me, it's been fun.


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Appreciate the summary for 2015. I enjoyed following your updates through the year. I would be interested in you doing the same for 2016 if you have the time. Enjoy the holidays!


----------



## JohnBruceLeonard

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



GaryG74 said:


> Appreciate the summary for 2015. I enjoyed following your updates through the year. I would be interested in you doing the same for 2016 if you have the time. Enjoy the holidays!


I warmly second GaryG's sentiments, squarepeg. Thanks for all the energy you've put into this. It has been of _great _interest and value.

I had a question for you about your observation on winter losses. You said that the majority of your losses were due to queen failure in caught swarms. I take it that the swarms which did _not _lose their queens during their first winter fared better? Are these swarms that originated in your own colonies, do you know, or did they come as well from other sources?

Thanks again, squarepeg.

John


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



GaryG74 said:


> Appreciate the summary for 2015. I enjoyed following your updates through the year. I would be interested in you doing the same for 2016 if you have the time. Enjoy the holidays!


many thanks gary. your reporting from mid state on blooms and swarms gave me a valuable heads up on what to be expecting soon up here in the northeast corner. all the best to you and yours!!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



JohnBruceLeonard said:


> I had a question for you about your observation on winter losses. You said that the majority of your losses were due to queen failure in caught swarms. I take it that the swarms which did _not _lose their queens during their first winter fared better? Are these swarms that originated in your own colonies, do you know, or did they come as well from other sources?


thanks again jbl for your thoughtful comments.

here are my hive years and losses:

2010 4 hives, 0 losses
2011 10 hives, 0 losses
2012 18 hives, 6 losses
2013 19 hives, 4 losses
2014 18 hives, 3 losses
2015 21 hives, 0 losses so far, but the next 2 months will tell the story.


to be honest i had not carefully analyzed my losses until just before making the post last night. i wanted to see if there was a trend there implicating a greater likelihood of loss with each successive year. as stated i am not seeing such a trend as of yet.

i was somewhat surprised to see that many of the losses were colonies that didn't make it through their first winter and can pretty much attribute that to beekeeper error.

i'm sure that most of the caught swarms issued from my hives but there were a few of them that may have come out of the nearby woods or a neighbor's hives. several of those caught swarms were pretty small having been the second or third swarm after the primary swarm.

in addition to finding that a lot of my losses were caught swarms, i also discovered that i had a few nucs i started over the years that didn't make it through their first winter. 

what finding this reinforces for me is something i had already chalked up to a lesson learned this year. as a general principle i have been avoiding feeding syrup. what i confirmed for myself this season was that it's better to give a starting colony a little bit of syrup through the summer dearth. this helps to keep it brooding until the fall flow starts ensuring that the colony is at sufficient strength and able to adequately prep itself for winter.

what i had been doing in previous years was just giving starter colonies frames of honey from the established hives. the problem was that the starter colonies didn't want to use the stored honey to brood up on like they do when presented with syrup. 

my interpretation is that had i given those caught swarms and nucs that were lost a little syrup through the dearth period they might not have been lost to winter. on the other hand many more of those swarms and nucs survived than did not survive, so maybe i ended up with the ones whose frugality and decision making at the colony level makes them even better survivors.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

to those of you who sent questions via pm, those were good questions and i'll answer them here on the thread soon.


----------



## johngfoster

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

SP, I've really appreciated reading through this thread. I'm planning to start my first hive or two next year, and am hoping to do it treatment-free. We are in a generally colder climate here in NW MT, and our packaged bees don't get delivered until beginning of May. However, it has still been quite inspiring and educational to read this thread. I would really appreciate you doing it again next year.


----------



## JohnBruceLeonard

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

squarepeg, thanks very much for the response, and your reflections on the effects of summer feeding, which were of much interest, and, as always, were refreshingly without partiality or the taint of _a priori_ conclusions.

"maybe i ended up with the ones whose frugality and decision making at the colony level makes them even better survivors." That's a question that has given me some unrest. How do you decide when beekeeper intervention is to the benefit of the hardiness of your bees, and when it is instead to their detriment, insofar as it props up weaknesses which should better be eliminated, or obstructs the development of strengths which are needed? It is a difficult call indeed, and a great part of the reason that husbandry is such challenging work.

Thanks once more, squarepeg. Shall look forward to any and all updates, thoughts, or epiphanies,

John


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



> when it is instead to their detriment, insofar as it props up weaknesses which should better be eliminated


When the bees do something stupid like maintaining a huge colony population over winter, it is better to let them eat all their stores and die. When the beekeeper does something stupid, it is up to the beekeeper to prevent his actions from killing the colony. Split a colony in July around here and the mid-summer dearth will usually kill the bees by the time the fall flow starts. It is up to the beekeeper to feed the split so his action does not kill them. Bees are not normally inclined to swarm in July so they won't normally make this mistake. Beekeepers on the other hand will do things to increase the number of colonies including making splits when there is not enough forage to maintain a small colony that has limited resources to start with.

Take this to the extreme and you get beekeepers who do not treat for varroa. If the bees are stupid - i.e. not able to suppress mites - then the bees die. If the beekeeper treats them, it props up their weakness.

Your question gets straight to the heart of treatment free vs treated beekeeping. Fortunately, each beekeeper gets to decide what is appropriate to maintain their colonies of bees.


----------



## clyderoad

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

so smarter bees are frugal, winter with smaller populations, and suppress mites.
stupid bees are the opposite. got it.


----------



## JohnBruceLeonard

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> Your question gets straight to the heart of treatment free vs treated beekeeping. Fortunately, each beekeeper gets to decide what is appropriate to maintain their colonies of bees.


Agreed entirely, Fusion_Power - though as with any responsibility of any importance, it is _fortunate _we may decide, without being for that _easy_. Indeed, it can indeed be agonizing. We who are still at the early part of our development in beekeeping are equally fortunate to have individuals such as you and squarepeg, from whom we might learn.

John


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

i was asked offline if i might summarize the lessons learned in 2015. i'll try, here goes:

1. i feel like i made measurable progress with respect to swarm prevention. i attribute this progress to implementing a minor tweak to walt wright's checkerboarding technique. this resulted in broodnest expansion all the way to the top of the top box and the elimination of the overhead honey reserve going into swarm season. this also resulted in the deep hive body at the bottom of the stack becoming empty as the bees moved up to the top, thereby giving them plenty of room to move back down as the supers got backfilled on the main flow. this is what i'll be looking for going forward, and i'll be ready to intervene if i catch a colony stopping broodnest expansion before getting to the top. i also want to experiment next year on a few more hives with pushing the queen down into the bottom deep below an excluder once they have made it to the top of the stack.

2. i had much better luck getting new supers of plastic foundation drawn this year. part of that luck is a spin off from preventing swarming. also this year i followed the advice of others who have been reporting that painting the foundation with melted cappings wax made a big difference in getting the bees going on drawing it out. i believe it did help a lot and i'll continue doing so. the other thing i learned about supering is that for me the best results are seen when putting the new super at the top of the stack. the best timing here is when the bees start capping honey with new white wax at the very top.

3. i learned that it's probably better to use a 10 frame deep instead of a 5 frame deep for swarm trapping. i had scouts checking out the 5 frame traps on a regular basis during swarm season but no takers. after switching those out to 10 frame deeps it wasn't long before i caught a couple swarms. unfortunately by then it was at the end of swarming time here. i feel that i misssed out on some opportunties to get more bees that could have been used to increase nuc production. 

4. as mentioned above, and since i tend to make up my nucs a little later in the season than might be optimal, i found that providing a little syrup is a good idea to encourage new colonies to build up during our summer dearth. this year's starters were given a quart per week for a few weeks once the queens got mated and started laying. this summer didn't seem as dearthy as some we have had, so that probably helped too, but the starters this year are much stronger and heavier with stores than they have been in previous years.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

i was also asked offline what i do if i get an infested hive.

like all hives mine are infested as well, but i'll assume the question was meant to ask what i do if i discover a colony collapsing from varroa.

as it turns out i've only had one hive so far found with a super high infestion and in the death throes of varroasis. i reported it here:

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?275857-autopsy-of-a-dead-out

the majority of my 'dead outs' have occurred between mid january and mid february and not all of them are completely dead. some still have a frame or so of bees but no queen and perhaps evidence of laying workers. i've had a couple of cases where i found a runty queen that wasn't laying which i assumed was a virgin that failed to get mated.

most of the time with these dwindled colonies i don't find a lot of mite frass nor does the remaining brood look sick. for this reason i believe the primary reason for collapse was queen failure, recognizing that queen failure can be secondary to high viral loads.

i've had a couple of dead outs that were clearly a case of a small cluster getting stuck on brood and freezing to death, but again not a lot of frass nor sick brood found. one could propose that the reason for the small cluster was a high mite load in the fall, and i recognize that is a possibility, but some of these were late starters that probably should have been fed.

other than the collapse from varroasis that i linked above, i've had 2 dead outs for which i believe mites were the primary cause. these had lots of frass and the remaining brood was found diseased.

for the hives that still have some bees but no queen and no sign of disease i'll shake the bees out and let them try to rejoin other colonies. the equipment along with any unused stores are brought in and put in the freezer for at least a few days and then reused as needed.

if i should ever have another case of fall collapse from mites like the one linked above, rather than shaking it out like i did in that case, i'll bring it in and put it in the freezer - bees, mites, and all. this is to keep what might be especially virulent strains of mites and viruses from ending up in other hives.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

here is yesterday's almost solstice sunset:

View attachment 22307


it's a pan shot so distorted in the middle, actually 180 degrees from left to right.

official solstice here in monday night at 10:49 pm.

the plan is to weigh the hives in a couple of weeks to identify the have's from the have not's and then pick a nice day in january to move a few frames of honey around if needed.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



> i'm happy to continue reporting if there is interest.


Please do! 

Happy holidays and good luck to you.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

like most of the eastern u.s. we have had an unusally warm december here in alabama complete with tornados and flooding over the past few days. all but just a few days of the month have been flyable and very active foraging of pollen and nectar has been observed for all hives. all 21 of 21 have very strong cluster roar.

i took hive weights today and not surprisingly the average weight per hive is up over two lbs. from the average weight taken on november 26. average honey per hive right now is 36.3 lbs or right at the equivalent of one medium super. the range is 20 - 61 lbs., and i anticipate having to move a few frames from the heaviest to the lightest before winter is over. i'm feeling like there should be enough honey to get most hives properly checkerboarded at the end of february or so.

we are supposed to settle into more seasonable temperatures starting next weekend and the outlook is for us to average near normal temps for the remainder of the season. these next couple of months will be the true test for the colonies but i'm optimistic at this point. time will tell if this unusual december gave them a little boost or merely set them up for difficult times later in the winter.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

we're back to more seasonable temps here on the eve of the new year and the bees are hunkered in with the next opportunity for a cleansing flight probably a week or so away.

i've been reflecting on some of the feedback given here especially with respect to making these genetics more available to others. i've had a few discussions with several of the other beekeepers in the area working with the same or similar stock about ramping up queen and nuc production for next year.

i know of a dozen or so of us keeping bees off treatments ranging in experience from newbees to a few years to many years. the results and experiences among the group are pretty much the same as what i have reported here in terms of survival and production.

my vision for next year is the formation of a loosely organized cooperative from this group. the idea is that we work together to help each other make enough splits and queens to get all of our numbers up to nominal with surplus to spare. all i have spoken with so far have been receptive to the idea.

what i think makes the most sense and what i hope to see happen with the surplus is getting it into the hands of those who are also interested in managing them off treatments as well as having an interest in eventually propagating more colonies from them. i'm thinking if we can find such like minded folks and start pushing the boundaries geographically from our immediate area we'll be able to see how well or not these bees do further and further away from here.

so we'll see how it goes and whether or not anything becomes of this plan vs. it ending up just another well intentioned pipe dream. at any rate i've enjoyed sharing my year with you; and to everyone who has replied, sent pm's, or viewed quietly from the side...

here's wishing you a happy, healthy, and prosperous bee year in 2016!!


----------



## Arnie

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

That is a spectacular idea!! It's the logical next step in the TF world.

Hats off to you and I would love to support you in some way. If I could buy some queens and install them in a TF apiary wouldn't that be a great experiment? Then I could raise queens here. Colorado could use some resistant genetics. We lost a bunch of hives trying for a TF approach a few years back. Had to give it up after total losses.

Happy New Year, SP.


----------



## JohnBruceLeonard

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Really an excellent idea, squarepeg. Would that I lived nearer to you and all those who might be involved! I agree with Arnie that this is the most reasonable development of treatment free beekeeping.

Thanks once again for all your fine reporting, squarepeg. Happy new year to you.

John


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

we've moderated back to more seasonal weather here over the past week with daily highs hitting about 50 and morning lows dropping to about 30. historical average temperatures are about that until about mid january and then we start warming slowly as the days get longer and longer.

i've been using the stethoscope about once a week or so to make sure there are still live bees in the hives. a couple of days ago i found one had gone quiet at the outyard. i went over there today to bring it home and inspect.

there were about 200 dead bees, no queen, and no brood. there was about 40 lbs of capped honey in the hive with an almost full medium super and quite a bit in the bottom deep as well. there was no sign of robbing. there was pollen in the hive but a lot of it had already started to mold. i looked very carefully for mite frass and was only able to find a tiny crumb here and there.

what was interesting and this a first for me was that the middle 6 frames in the bottom deep were absolutely loaded with raw nectar. this confirms that our very unusual 'december flow' this year was both pollen and nectar. this hive actually gained 6 lbs in weight from the end of november to the end of december. i was able to shake most of the raw nectar out and all of the frames are now in the freezer.

i did find a single queen cell that appeared to have been emerged from properly. my interpretation is a failed supercedure late in the season resulting in queenlessness. the full month of hard foraging probably hastened the death of the remaining bees, but they were goners anyway.

that puts me at 4.8% loss so far for this winter, with 20 hives remaining.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

In a normal supersedure the new queen is made and got laying before the old queen is despatched. So this hive is a case of the queen dying, then a requeening attempt.

For me, pre varroa I lost no queens in winter. Now I do lose some. Can be old, young, seemingly healthy, doesn't seem to matter it's just a fact of life now. I keep nucs through winter to combine with any hives I find queenless during the no drone season, it is warm enough here to work bees right through. Hives that lose queens in winter may have a low mite load in fact normally do as they are treated in fall, but since this has only happened since varroa I put it down to associated virus damage.

Re the no frass, if the hive has been broodless for a while you won't find any cos the bees would have cleaned up those empty cells.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

makes perfect sense ot, many thanks.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Cheers. Still following with interest, and envious of your results!


----------



## ToeOfDog

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Peg, you are 80 to 90 miles north of me. Suggest you take a look inside your hives and not the dead one. It got into the low 60's today so I took a look because of the warm Nov and Dec to check the reserves. They are well over a month ahead of schedule. I have full deep frames of capped brood. Not palm patchs.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

what struck me the most was how 'wet' is was inside the deadout hive from all of that raw nectar that came in last month. it shook out of the frames just like water. it's much too cold and damp for that nectar to get processed now and i'm sure there's lots of it in all of the hives. i suppose the cold will keep it from fermenting but i'm concerned about the excess moisture.


----------



## biggraham610

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Been a crazy year here as well SP. I had all hives with good sized orientation flights on Christmas eve. Mine have all lost a little weight, but not much more than normal. i hadnt thought of the wet nectar, as I do not know what they would have been getting it off of. Its cooling off now, and all hives have sugar as backup, it should also help wick extra moisture if wet nectar is in the mix. Glad you are having success, my only loss so far was from a first year package and was expected. So far, all else is well. 
As far as the queens, keep me in the loop, I would love to add some of your genetics in the yard. Happy New Year. G


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Finding fresh nectar is often reported during winter months when it is actually honey thinned down for use. When bees have a few days to fly, they collect water and bring it into the hive to mix with honey, making what appears to be fresh nectar in the combs they are covering. Please keep this in mind before attributing winter surplus and verify that it is actually fresh nectar the bees are bringing in. I am not saying this is what SP found, we did indeed have both pollen and nectar coming in through December.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



> my vision for next year is the formation of a loosely organized cooperative from this group. the idea is that we work together to help each other make enough splits and queens to get all of our numbers up to nominal with surplus to spare. all i have spoken with so far have been receptive to the idea.


Squarepeg this is wonderful!

I`m in such a group myself , as a newbie and having a small apiary there is nothing better.
My neighbor will join in all probability next spring, spreading tf beekeeping to a bigger area.
So I hope I will be able to give 2 splits to him, if enough colonies survive winter.
We will be supported by my mentor.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

the middle of january is somewhat of a turning point on the calendar with the bees and their yearly cycle here in northeast alabama. it's usually when the first tree pollens start to become available and when the bees typically start brooding up again after a couple of months of brood break. this year is different because there was pollen and nectar available for nearly the whole month of december along with flying weather and brooding. it will be interesting to see what effect if any that has on the upcoming season.

i still have 20/21 colonies surviving at this point with strong cluster roar in all but one of them. the outlier hive still has roar but noticeably less robust than the rest. with a little luck i may be able to start the 2016 season with several more hives than what i started with in 2015.

i've learned that a dozen or so good producing hives can yield enough honey to keep me busy and make the venture worthwhile. assuming i only loose a couple more colonies over the next month or two that should leave me several additional hives to play with in terms of splitting and queenrearing.

the plan is to get a strong cloake board hive set up early and start grafting once there are drones flying again. the strong producers will be dedicated for honey production and the less productive hives will be split up into about 15 or so five frame nuc boxes to receive grafts. these will be managed as five frame colonies for the whole season by selling off splits and queens from them. 

assuming decent weather i'm thinking 10k in revenue for the season is reasonable, with about 80% coming from honey sales and the other 20% from nucs and queens. i shouldn't have much in terms of expense this year other than replacement frames and containers. i was considering the idea of tracking my time spent on the endeavor but i thought better of it.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Setting goals is a huge part of beekeeping and seems an appropriate step at the beginning of the year. My goals this year:

Increase the number of beekeepers in the immediate area running mite tolerant bees from 4 to at least 10

Produce at least 2000 pounds of honey - I have huge local demand

Convert most of my production colonies to square deep 11 5/8 equipment

Produce enough queens to send a few to people who can trial them for mite tolerance traits

Stretch goal is to convince Maxant to produce a modified uncapping/bottling tank targeted at sideliners


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> My goals this year:
> 
> Increase the number of beekeepers in the immediate area running mite tolerant bees from 4 to at least 10


i'm with you on that one dar. it makes good sense to increase the genetic 'footprint' of managed bees that are tolerating mites off treatments. as of now there are 7 of us that i know of with bees propagated from the line i have along with a few that have committed to getting started with them this year. i am encouraging these folks to incorporate making increase with surplus for sale as part of their plan and most are receptive to that.



Fusion_power said:


> Produce enough queens to send a few to people who can trial them for mite tolerance traits


likewise here as well. i was disappointed that we weren't able to get a few queens down to baton rouge last year for study. i'm making that a priority this year. you and i have discussed doing some swapping this year, hopefully we can make that happen. best of luck to you in 2016!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

View attachment 22680



we were fortunate and caught just the tail end of winter storm jonas here. even so the frozen precipitation was enough to make most of our backroads impassable until tomorrow afternoon.

as of the last listen i'm still hearing cluster roar in all of the remaining 20 hives, (after tallying my first and only winter loss so far a couple of weeks ago). this cold snap will be a real test for these colonies' overwintering abilities.

the latest outlook from the climate prediction center is for normal to above normal temps going forward from here. it's looking like we might have decent foraging weather for a few days coming up around the end of next week.

i'll be looking for tree pollens coming in over the next month or so and i might set out some dry latshaw protein mix that i've been storing in the freezer since last season.

i anticipate the first thorough inspections and checkerboarding manipulations being about a month away.


----------



## Orion7

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I've just started reading in this thread so forgive me if you have already covered this, but what type bees do you have. Are they Russians? Or do you have a multitude of breeds?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

hi orion7,

i think the best way to describe these bees is 'locally adapted hybridized survivor mutts'.

the bees i started with came from a supplier who has been propagating them off treatments for about 20 years. he started with 5 colonies that he found surviving in trees back in the mid 90's when varroa was cleaning out most of the apiaries in the area. 

there has been a fairly strong beekeeping presence in alabama going back for many decades, and over those years i imagine queens of many different strains have been brought in and issued swarms into our local habitat. also, researchers have identified feral bees that date back hundreds of years and prior to the import of what are now being used by the commercial bee trade.

my thinking is that if indeed hybridization is a good thing in terms of having beneficial traits getting expressed then the population here should have had ample opportunity for that, and perhaps that is part of why they are successful and thriving in our heavily wooded areas. i'm assuming that feral survivor drones are contributing to my grafted queens during mating season.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

the sun came out, the wind died down, and the ice on the roads melted. i made the rounds with the stethoscope and it looks like all of the colonies survived winter storm jonas, so no additional losses and the hive count remains at 20.

temps are supposed to be bumping 60 next weekend and i'm thinking i'll probably thaw out that super of honey retrieved a couple of weeks ago from the one dead out hive and spread it around to those that are a little bit on the light side.

i may pull a frame or two while i'm in there and see what they are up to if anything in the broodnest.


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Checked my hives Thursday and today by listening, watching the entrances, and lifting hives. I'm down to 32-8 frame hives and 1-5 frame nuc. The nuc I lost had a virgin queen in November and the cluster covered about two and a half frames. I'm thinking it either froze or got robbed out but there was only 3 or 4 dead bees in the nuc. I've been expecting that one to be a casualty. The rest of the hives were flying good today (it was 52F this afternoon) and every one had a good hum to the hive. Eight or nine are a little light so I'm going to put some frames of honey on a couple and sugar on the rest. If we can get a week of 50F or so the maples, elms, and alders should have some pollen available. The bees were bringing in maple pollen in December but the cold weather shut it down.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

sounds like pretty low losses for you so far as well gary. that's really great to hear and thanks for the report. i'm thinking we'll be turning the corner weather wise here over the next few weeks. hopefully most of our hives will be queenright.


----------



## biggraham610

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I got the snow off of the entrances of all hives I could access today. the temps got to the mid-upper 40s and there was evidence of casualty hauling on the hives I was able to visit later. The temps are supposed to be decent for the foreseeable future during the day. I wont be able to get to my main yard for a few days. i think all entrances are high enough to be clear, or close to clear of snow cover. They all have adequate ventilation from the tops regardless. still, would like to clear the entrances. G


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

We had a good flight yesterday and are due to have nice flying weather from Thursday to Monday. If the temperature goes up to 65 as forecast, maple, willow, and alder will bloom within a week. This is about 2 weeks earlier than normal for the area.

I spoke with two local beekeepers who want to expand their colonies this year. I will be working with them to get their bees into shape to split by mid-March.

My plans are crystallizing into getting at least 15 colonies established in new 11 5/8 deep square hives. I will be making my own frames and purchasing the rest of the woodenware. All told, I expect to put about $1500 into new equipment and about 500 hours of my time building and assembling equipment and managing the bees.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

hi graham, has the warm up and rain melted all of your snow yet? hopefully all of your colonies are making it good so far. i'm guessing your are just far enough north of us to make your winter last a little bit longer than ours.

thanks dar, it didn't quite get warm enough up here on the ridge for flying yesterday with snow still remaining in the shady places. i notice a week or so difference between first blooms on similar plants in the valley compared to the ridgetop. the upcoming weekend is looking pretty good alright and i'm hoping to get into a few hives.

the plan here is to start cranking out queen cells as soon as there is drone availability. there are six apiaries in addition to mine already utilizing the same resistant stock all gearing up to make early splits to receive these cells. the goal is to increase everyone's hive count at least up to nominal and hopefully beyond with surplus for sale.

i'm looking forward to hearing about your experience with the new equipment.


----------



## ToeOfDog

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Had to add a hive body to the 5 frame nuc yesterday. The brood up from the extra warm Nov and Dec packed the hive body. It's the last week in January and I was worrying they may swarm this weekend when it gets up to the 70's. The last week of January!


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I have 3 of 5 going through their second winter flying strong yesterday. The swarm I caught is also doing well. A 1 day opportunity with temps around 13 C. Not bad as these are from commercial Saskatraz stock with one local queen thrown in. Looks like I will have some 2nd year stock to work with. It was great working in the yard with all that activity around me. The green house is getting prepped for starting my peppers and tomatoes. 

At my nuc yard I had 18 or 26 with evidence of bees when I last checked their stores. Some were started late in September, with some last minute combines before the flows shut down. Also had some problems with moisture in combo with newspaper (mountain camp emergency sugar set up) wicking it in. I've given them extra protection from the cold spring rains that are sure to come. Some look really strong.


----------



## biggraham610

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Yeah, SP, its finally about gone. It was nice rolling in mid week and seeing all of the housecleaning the home hives had done. Easy to see on a foot of snow. Its too cold and windy for flying today, while I am off for the wknd, but it is supposed to be near 60 this weekend. Expect to get a real assessment of things. I am highly encouraged. My mite/mite related problem losses in the past have all come in the fall/early winter. The boxes here I popped to take a look into Tuesday, had nice clusters and plenty of insurance sugar on top telling me they still have plenty of natural stores. G


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Beautiful Friday here with bright sunshine and temperature about 55 degrees. My bees have been flying since 9:30 a.m. and are bringing in very small amounts of yellowish green pollen. It is not quite warm enough to pop lids, but will be in the mid 60's tomorrow. My plans include purchasing wood to make frames, cleaning up the greenhouse, refurbishing equipment, and building some queen mating nucs. I don't know about Sunday yet, but may make a trip up to Rainsville. SP, If I decide to make the trip, I'll call and set up a meeting.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> Beautiful Friday here with bright sunshine and temperature about 55 degrees. My bees have been flying since 9:30 a.m. and are bringing in very small amounts of yellowish green pollen. It is not quite warm enough to pop lids, but will be in the mid 60's tomorrow. My plans include purchasing wood to make frames, cleaning up the greenhouse, refurbishing equipment, and building some queen mating nucs. I don't know about Sunday yet, but may make a trip up to Rainsville. SP, If I decide to make the trip, I'll call and set up a meeting.


perfect. i hope to spent some time mid-day on both days moving honey around and peeking for brood. i'll pm my cell #.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Turned out to be 60 degrees by afternoon so I opened up one colony that I was worried about. Inside, I found a nice yellow/orange queen with a palm sized patch of brood and adequate stores. This is exactly the state I expect them to be in at this time of year. With the warm temps, the morning flight turned into an overwhelming afternoon forager outing. There is not much pollen available but I can tell from their behavior that they are going wherever needed to find what they can. A bee that has flown a long way in search of vittles lands on the entrance, then sits there grooming and recovering.

I'll wait a few more weeks to do a brood equalization. There are 3 colonies that are ahead of schedule with several frames of brood, 1 with a single good frame of brood and part of another, and 2 that have just started the first round. I will check the outyards tomorrow.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

nice.


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Noticed three colors of pollen coming in today: light yellow, gray, and greenish gray. Saw two drones on the front of two different hives. Had a big robbing spree going on at one hive I had put a robbing screen on yesterday. I had slid the top back to cover the gap in the inner cover but evidently it slid forward when I tightened the ratchet strap, bees were going in at the top of the hive. I closed down the entrances on several hives that looked like they were being tested by the robbers and put robbing screens on six hives that were last year swarms that wintered in a deep and a medium. The larger hives didn't seem to be bothered by robbers, looked like normal activity at their entrances--no frantic crowds or tussling.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

drones? your not all that far south from me gary, hmm.

i don't see robbing very often here, and most of the time i'll find some issue with colony when i do.

do you have italians?


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I do have Italians. Most of the queens are dark amber so I wonder if there is some carnie blood there. 

The two hives they have been hitting were late June swarms last year, one had a hard time keeping a queen although the hive had a laying queen in October. Both hives were quiet compared to several of the other hives when I listened to them a few days ago.

I treated with MAQS in September and had a good mite knockdown but I still wonder if it's mite related. I didn't see and DWV or stunted bees. They may have just lost their queens. If the robbers will hold off, I plan to do a quick check on both hives this weekend to see if I can find the queens.


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> I'll wait a few more weeks to do a brood equalization.


I've heard of many beekeepers who equalize their brood in spring. I believe I've even seen squarepeg refer to it. I do not practice it...and have brood rearing all over the spectrum in early spring but it all seems to work out by the nectar flow. 
In particular with tf beekeeping do you not think you are propping up less vigorous colonies? Do you weigh that in when choosing breeder queens? If you don't equalize...what are the consequences?
Just honest questions....no opinions on my part.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

good morning dan. i've not equalized brood per se, but did have a couple of colonies coming out of last winter that had tiny clusters. those two received shakes of nurse bees at the entrances to help them have enough bees to get rolling. both ended up being used to combine with colonies that went queenless early in the season. one ended up remarkably productive and the other one not so productive. 

i believe it's sometimes hard to know how much of it is the queen's fault and how much of it may be other factors. in the case of these two, they were late 2014 splits that were not fed during the summer dearth but somehow managed to overwinter albeit they came out small. that they made it at all may be more of a good sign than a bad one.

as far as selecting breeder queens, these two would be way down on my list of choices as there are so many more colonies with better track records to choose from.


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Good morning to you too sp.
I'm not trying to belabor this...but it is a curiosity for me both with tf and conventional.
An extreme example of mine is one of my hives in the NC mountains. Last spring one of the hives came out of winter with an extremely small cluster...hardly larger than a softball. And in early March a patch of solid brood slightly bigger than an old fashioned silver dollar. By season's end that hive was right in the middle of the honey production numbers for that yard.
If one uses those apparently under average winter population numbers....and equalizes early...might they not be missing some potentially desirable traits?
I will be interested to see how that hive looks when I can finally get across the river and open it up this year.
Probably not the right place to be posting this. My apologies. I don't want to derail the thread...I just saw fusion power's comment and was responding to that.....


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

it's all good dan. i too have heard of others equalizing brood. juhani has also pointed out that moving brood around may introduce bias when it comes to selecting for traits. i suppose if one weren't into the queenrearing side of things it could be beneficial to equalize. perhaps it would give consistency making supering easier and might reduce swarming in the stronger ones. i'm also interested in dar's rationale for utilizing this practice.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I'm trying to incorporate Brother Adam's methods into my beekeeping. He says that equalizing is one of the big factors in getting a good honey crop because there are very few dinks in bees that have been equalized. I know from experience that an undersize colony will not perform in the spring flow.

I too have some weak colonies that are that way because they were later splits made in July 2015. Fortunately there are only 2 or 3 to deal with. I'm also going to help two other local beekeepers work their bees this spring so they can hopefully maximize their honey crop. I don't know what shape their bees will be in and won't find out until we do spring inspections. If they need equalizing, we will do it at that time.

I will be selecting breeders only from those colonies that come out of next winter 2016/2017 in the right condition for spring. For example, I have 3 colonies that already have 2 or 3 frames of brood. This is too early in the season for that much brood, it leads to pollen stress and using up winter stores too early. An ideal colony at this time will have a palm size patch of brood in a cluster the size of a soccer ball. Moving brood around won't help and won't hurt in regards to mites. As I've said many times, I totally ignore mites. If the bees die, good riddance. Fortunately, very few of my bees die. In fact, I'd say that most of my bees are thriving.

I selected breeders for this spring last year. One of them is in a colony in one of my apiaries nearby and is a Carpenter queen I purchased last year. One of them is my long term stock here at my home. Two of them belong to one of the other beekeepers I'll be working with and are my stock that have proven performance for 2 consecutive years. If any one of the 4 fails over the winter, no problem, I have 3 to work with and that is enough.

You didn't ask, but perhaps should have, how do I determine which colonies to requeen and get rid of the genetics? Any colony that comes through winter too strong or that comes through too weak is a candidate to remove from the gene pool. I want good wintering in a cluster about the size of a soccer ball. Honey production is another, if a colony makes less than twice the average, they are not good enough and need to be replaced. As stated, I do not worry about mites, but if I saw an otherwise good potential breeder with visible mites, I would cull her. If I can go through a colony and see zero phoretic mites, that is a good sign she is breeding material. If I can then uncap a patch of drone brood and find very low mite counts, that is an even better sign. Zero counts as very low. One counts as very low. More than 1 and I will probably cull her. Excess stinging is tough. Some of my best stock must have trained for battle in Africa. Fortunately, I've been able to trim this trait down so that there is only one hot colony left in my bees at this time. The major fault I need to work on is swarming. My bees are reliable swarmers sometime in early April just before the main flow. I have been controlling swarming by brood manipulation for a few years now. It is time to put some effort into genetics to find lower swarming tendency.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i too have heard of others equalizing brood. juhani has also pointed out that moving brood around may introduce bias when it comes to selecting for traits.


Brother Adam had equalisation as a routine work. Main reason was as Fusion Power said to maximise honey crop. He had a late crop, so all dinks would be in good shape if given some extra in spring. I suppose he somehow took this into account in his evaluation.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I purchased the wood to build 11 1/4 frames today for $324.86. While I was out, I visited one of the beekeepers I will be working with this spring. He has 7 colonies of bees with 2 medium strong, 3 slightly weak, and 2 that need feeding. His bees are mostly from swarms last year. They need a lot of work to get ready for spring.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

it warmed up a bit today but there was a stiff breeze coming right through the beeyard that was making it just a little too cool to do full hive inspections.

i popped the top on the 3 lightest hives and added honey frames retrieved from the one dead out so far. 

2 of the 3 had nice clusters of bees split between the deep the first super. the other one was small with only 4 medium frames of bees situated in the very top super. 

i pulled a couple of frames from the small one and saw a nice plump queen but no eggs or brood. there was still a little honey in the hive but no pollen. i mixed up and placed a latshaw patty on this one.

even though december was pretty warm january has been cold and didn't allow for many flying days. it shouldn't be long though before those first tree pollens start coming in that usually kickstart the first rounds of brood coming out of winter.

i'm hoping to get to the outyard tomorrow and pull some honey frames from a few hives that are much heavier than they need to be. i'll probably go ahead and checkerboard those hives while i'm at it, and the honey i pull will get used to checkerboard the other hives over these next few weeks.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

it warmed up an extra few degrees today just enough to allow for the first all out pollen foraging of the season. as expected they were bringing in lots of that dirty pale yellow pollen that i associate with the first tree blooms and the start up of late winter brooding. this puts me a couple of weeks behind what fusion power is seeing which is normal and due to the difference in elevation between the ridgetop here and the valley below. 

it was encouraging to see lots of pollen going into 19 out of the 20 hives today. it gives me hope that most of them have adequate populations and are still queenright. 

there was 1 out of the 20 that was busy fending off would be robbers at the entrance and not as much pollen was making into that one. it still has strong cluster roar and hive weight but this entrance behavior has me wondering if it has queen issues. too bad the day job didn't allow for me to inspect it today.

unfortunately we cool back down for the next couple of weeks after a storm front blows through tomorrow and i suspect that will quash the foraging for fresh pollen for awhile. i'm hoping to take a peek at that one that was preoccupied guarding the entrance soon and may give it a latshaw patty, as well as take a peek at the other dinky one that got a patty on saturday.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

it is just a little too cool today for all out foraging but nonetheless it turned out to be a great day for this beekeeper.

i had the distinct pleasure today to have been paid a visit by our forum's own 'fusion power'.
it was my first opportunity to meet with dar and discuss bees. needless to say this fellow knows his bees!

but the icing on the cake was the double deep full of dar's select mite resistant bees that he brought along with him to place in my homeyard.   

the idea is for me to get grafts from it this season and add some diversity to the stock that i and others are working with over here on this side of the state. sincere thanks dar!!

i made the rounds yesterday with the stethoscope and heard strong roar in all 20 colonies so no additional losses yet keeping me with just the 1 out of 21 lost this winter.


----------



## biggraham610

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Great News SP. Keep up the good work. Springs around the corner. G


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

we had enough snow fall today to prompt school and business closures so i got the afternoon off from the day job. the forecast is for another week or so of cold temps, after which it looks like we could break out into wide open foraging weather. this should allow for a nice ramp up in brooding on the early tree pollens and the start of the spring population explosion.

i've spent the afternoon pondering how to utilize the colonies this year and assuming most of them make it through the rest of winter it looks something like this:



020916: THINKING AHEAD

#1 SECOND YEAR PROVER

#2 2009, LONGEST LIVED COLONY, NOT PRODUCTIVE LAST 2 SEASONS, GIVE ONE MORE CHANCE TO PRODUCE

#3 DINKY OUT OF LAST 2 WINTERS, MARGINALLY PRODUCTIVE LAST YEAR, USE FOR SPLITS/CLOAKE HIVE

#4 CAUGHT SWARM, ORIGIN UNKNOWN, USE FOR SPLITS/CLOAKE HIVE

#5 2014 SWARM FROM #1, GOOD PRODUCER 2014, POSSIBLE GRAFT DONOR

#6 SECOND YEAR PROVER

#7 2013 SWARM FROM SWARMY HIVE, PRODUCTIVE IN 2014, SWARMED IN 2015, USE FOR SPLITS/CLOAKE HIVE

#8 SECOND YEAR PROVER

#9 2012, HISTORY OF GOOD PRODUCTIVITY, DINKY OUT OF WINTER LAST YEAR, POSSIBLY GRAFT FROM THIS ONE

#10 SECOND YEAR PROVER

#11 2014, DECENT PRODUCTION, USED FOR GRAFTING LAST YEAR

#12 2012, DECENT PRODUCTION

B1 FROM SWARM CELL, DECENT PRODUCTION, USE FOR SPLITS/CLOAKE HIVE

B2 DAR’S DOUBLE DEEP: PLANNED EVEN SPLIT, GRAFT FROM THIS ONE

B3 2014, MARGINAL PRODUCTION

B4 2014, GOOD PRODUCTION

B5 2014, EXCELLENT PRODUCTION, GRAFT FROM THIS ONE

B6 2014, VERY GOOD PRODUCTION

B7 2015 CAUGHT SWARM, USE FOR SPLITS/CLOAKE HIVE

B8 SECOND YEAR PROVER

B9 SECOND YEAR PROVER

the second year provers are last year's starters from grafts that are now in full size equipment and will be given a chance to see how they do production-wise. 

my selections for grafting have to do with colony longevity, production, and good response to swarm prevention (checkerboarding).

the lesser producing hives (usually because of swarming), the two caught swarms, and the one started from a swarm cell are going to be used for splits. the idea there is to deselect for swarming tendency.

i anticipate being able to do full inspections and getting the hives properly checkerboarded around the end of the month. pretty much on schedule for a typical year in our neck of the woods.


----------



## biggraham610

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

This year it will be my mission to keep notes like you SP. Looks like I will be coming out of winter strong and with my hands full of experiments. G


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

The big news today is that I have flying drones from one colony. This is the earliest I've seen drones ready to go. The colony they are in is a particularly strong double deep Langstroth. At this rate, they will be ready to swarm in 3 weeks. This is incredibly early for the area.

The bees are also bringing in huge loads of yellow pollen to all colonies. This is a welcome sign since it means the queens are laying.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

good report dar. the double deep colony that you brought up last weekend may be ahead of all of mine, as judged by it was the only one generating enough condensation for water to be running out of the entrance this morning. it got just warm enough today up here today for cleansing flights only, no pollen. tomorrow looks a little more promising.


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Just about every hive bringing in pollen today, mostly small loads, but some large loads also, of gray, light yellow, and greenish gray. Elm trees are starting to really show blooms some have a lot open, red maples blooming again too. Got up to 62F here today but cool weather forecast by the weekend. By the middle of the week back into the 60s so pollen collection should pick back up. Right now all hives are active so maybe I won't lose any more this winter.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

that's definitely a good sign gary, and as usual i can expect to see what you are seeing a couple of weeks afterward. i appreciate the report.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

i just caught an error in my post #514.

it has to do with hive #5, and it should have read 2014 swarm caught from _*#2*_, which is my longest lived colony, and why i am considering it a possible graft donor even though it was a caught swarm. in 2015 #5 managed to yield 95 lbs. of honey, draw out two medium supers of foundation, and yield one split. so a good producer for here plus it issued from a colony that may soon have 7 winters under it's belt.

as far as #2 not being productive these past two years: in 2014 i split the queen out prior to the main flow (to take grafts from) and left the parent colony to raise a new queen. that set the colony back and 2014 was an off year for honey here anyway. in 2015, and after observing that that colony was not drawing foundation at the beginning of the main flow like all of the others were, i inspected and found a brand new post supercedure queen that had just started to lay and there was no brood in the hive. so they were broodless leading into and thus unable to capitalize on the main flow. in 2013 this colony yielded just over 150 lbs. of honey and yielded a split so it gets an honest chance to be productive one more time before being considered for splits.

many thanks to those of you in the surrounding area sending the pm's and expressing interest in trying these bees. my hope is to start cranking out queen cells when nature presents the first opportunity.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

we have overcast skies today with 60 degrees and a light breeze. i've been seeing tree pollen coming into all of the hives on the days that are fit for flying and have not had any more losses since the last report.

i did the first of the season full inspections on 4 hives today at the homeyard, 3 of which i suspected of having small clusters and being light on stores, and the 4th to start getting it ready to be the cloake board hive for queenrearing this year.

all 4 were found queenright and appear to have started brooding a couple of weeks ago. the first round was capped and there were a couple of rounds laid around the first with eggs and larvae of various ages. all solid patterns, all healthy looking, and all with a nice amount of jelly in the cells. cluster size is +/- 3 deep frames of bees which is pretty much typical for these bees at this time of year.

even though there is ample field pollen available right now the flying weather hasn't been great and the forecast is for more of the same so i provided these hives with latshaw mix patties plus a little extra sugar added.

manipulation wise i ended up taking the two checkerboarded supers off of what is going to be the cloake board hive and gave one super each to the smaller hives that needed them. i replaced those two supers on the cloake board hive with a second deep that is being recycled from the only dead out so far this winter, and that second deep was set up with alternating frames of honey and frames of empty comb.

last year i provided patties to all of the hives at the outyard and none at the homeyard. the outyard outproduced the homeyard by a measurable margin. there were fewer hives at the outyard competing for resources so that may have been a factor, but they are starting spring heavier and possibly stronger (judging only by cluster roar at this point) on average than those at home. so this year i am going to try giving patties to just the homeyard and none to the outyard and see what happens.

i'll continue making my way through those first of the season inspections as time and weather permit, thanks again for your interest.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

in posts 472 and 477 i reported finding quite a bit of raw nectar in the one dead out hive so far this year. we had a much warmer than normal december, and apparently there was a nectar source that allowed for what i estimate to have been a couple of quarts of nectar to be stored.

i'm assuming the dead out colony was already queenless at that point, and the dwindling population along with the sharp drop in temperature in january didn't allow for the drying of this nectar.

i shook out as much of that nectar as would shake out before putting the frames in the freezer, again it was an impressive amount, but the frames were still somewhat 'wet' even after shaking them out.

this was the deep that got placed on what will likely end up being a cloake board hive this season. after placing it yesterday and making my post i went back out to take a walk through the yard. 

what i found was that the hive that received the 'wet' deep had gone in nectar drying mode as was obvious the loud roar and the bees fanning at the entrance. they are still at it this morning, but not as loud. 

i'm hoping that tasking them with this 'work' doesn't end up setting them back somehow, and that the residual raw nectar wasn't somehow 'spoiled' even though it did not have a fermented smell to it. time will tell.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

it got nice enough today for the bees to fly and for me to do a few more first o' the season inspections.

i had one hive at the homeyard that i noticed wasn't 'roaring' as nice as all the rest when i made my last few rounds with the stethoscope. inspection today revealed a drone laying queen. cluster size was about the same as what i am finding with most of the other colonies, which is between 2 and 3 deep frames of bees. no mites were found in the dozen or so capped drone brood and no frass was found on the comb.

the failed queen got pinched and added to my collection of her predecessors in an alcohol bottle for future swarm trap lure use. there was a decent amount of honey still left in the hive and i was able to put together 3 more checkerboarded supers with that honey, and these supers were given to 3 of last year's starter hives which needed one more. the bees were shaken out and quickly assimilated into other hives.

i count this as a winter loss and that puts me at 2 losses out of 21 going into winter. i've got a couple of more at the homeyard and all of the hives at the outyard to go, hope to get 'em inspected this weekend.


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Supposed to be high 50s-low 60s tomorrow so if no wind, I'm going to get as many hives inspected and checker boarded as possible and try to finish the rest Sunday. It's been 25-30 MPH winds for the last 3-4 days.

Sorry to hear about another lost hive. I think the rest of mine are going to make it. Almost every hive had large orientation flights yesterday and today. Pollen (and I'm assuming nectar) is going into every hive in large quantities. Just about any direction I look, the elms and maples are covered in blossoms. I saw some red buds blooming in Columbus, MS today. They are usually a week or two ahead of this area. 

I checked one of the bee trees today and the bees were flying good and taking in pollen. The land owner said I could put up all the swarm traps I want so I'm going to put up two about 100 feet in different directions from the tree tomorrow. I think the swarm season is going to be a couple weeks earlier this year. Last year the first swarm was around the last part of March/first part of April (from that bee tree).

Right now I'm at two loses out of 34, so maybe my luck will hold.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

that's excellent gary, thanks for the report!


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Temps hit 63 degrees today with bright sunshine and light wind. The bees were flying heavily with extremely heavy pollen collection. The number of bees flying is at least double the number that were flying 4 weeks ago. Colony buildup is proceeding very fast.

I've been sick the last 3 days and did not get anything done with manufacturing the new Dadant depth frames. I'm significantly better today and hope to be able to work up another round of frame parts tomorrow afternoon.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

sorry to hear you've been ill dar, but glad to hear you are feeling better.

yes, today was the strongest foraging so far this season of both pollen and nectar, and tomorrow's weather is looking as good or better. the red maples in the valley are just starting but they haven't bloomed up here yet.

i was able to inspect and checkerboard 6 more hives today. all were found queenright and on their 2nd or 3rd round of brood. i've got 5 more hives to work with tomorrow and that will wrap up getting all of them good to go for the spring population explosion.

i'll try to put together a summary of what i am seeing and post probably tomorrow evening.


----------



## ToeOfDog

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

What a strange Winter!!

Shelby County, Feb 28. High today is about 70*F. Red maples blooming this week. Inspected today. I have a hive with EMERGED drones walking the comb. All hives have capped and uncapped drone frames. Two other local reports of capped drone. We are running a month early.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



ToeOfDog said:


> I have a hive with EMERGED drones walking the comb. All hives have capped and uncapped drone frames. Two other local reports of capped drone. We are running a month early.


sounds like you are a few weeks ahead of us down there tod, which is about right. more about drone brood in the next post.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

we had sunny skies with temps in the mid sixties and a lovely southwest breeze. it was a perfect day for the bees and for this beekeeper. i finished my coming out of winter inspections and checkerboarding manipulations on the last few of my hives today. getting to be out there was just what the doctor ordered for my bad case of cabin fever.

the good news is that 19 out of the 21 colonies that i went into winter with are viable, queenright, and brooding nicely on the tree pollens. average population is running about the equivalent of 3 deep frames of bees. 

i don't have any tiny colonies like the 2 last spring that got down to just a handful of bees, but i have a couple that are only about 3 medium frames of bees. my two largest colonies are pushing about 6 deep frames of bees.

i'm not seeing any drones yet, but i did break through some bridge comb on one hive that had some just hatched drone larvae in it.

all hives are now properly checkerboarded with 3 medium supers over the single deep, except for 3 of last year's starters which only have 2 checkerboarded supers at this time.

i'm not calling winter over until we have drones flying, and if any of these queens should fail during the next month or so those colonies will be tallied as losses, but at this point it looks like 2 losses out of 21 for 9.5%.

i spoke with the guy up in tennesse that got three nucs from me last summer and all three of his are queenright and have brood at this time. i'm waiting for a couple of other keepers that got bees from me two summers ago to do their inspections, but they are also reporting no obvious losses and strong pollen coming into all of theirs. we have about 50 colonies between the 4 of us and i'll try to share our combined overwintering success rate once i hear from them.


----------



## hillbeekeeper

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Drones walking around here. Talked to a guy in southern Tennessee and he has them, too.


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

It was 72F here this afternoon but had a 20-25 MPH gusting West wind. I did some hive maintenance like cleaning mite boards but didn't go into any hives today. Bees were flying like crazy, tons of pollen coming into the hives. Got one hive checker boarded yesterday with two mediums. Deep on the bottom had about three frames of bees, medium above had about six frames plus a medium above that (before checker boarding) with lots of bees on the seven frames of honey left over from winter. Hives are coming out of winter in lots better shape than last year. If the wind will die down I could get the rest inspected.
Put up two swarm traps near a bee tree yesterday afternoon, the bees in the tree were bringing in lots of pollen too. Caught a swarm from that tree last year, hope to repeat this year, maybe do a double if I get lucky.


----------



## Paridoth

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Just want to say this thread is amazing and so interesting. I'm loving the detailed reports and thought provoking discussion. I am starting two hives in eastearn Missouri as soon as my packages arrive. I am hopeing to be treatment free and raise my own Queens. I love the detail you keep and share with us and hope to keep records as good. With any luck I'll soon be growing my hives as well as you have.


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Inspected seven hives yesterday. On average, each hive had at least four frames of brood, on both sides. Most had about 60% coverage of the frames, but a couple had frames with 90% or better on each side plus a couple had hand sized patches of drone brood. One hive had started up into the medium with brood on the bottom 1/4 of two frames above the four with brood in the deep. Several had about 6-8" circles where brood had emerged in the middle of a solid patch of brood.

Bradford pears and some of the wild pears are starting to bloom now. Saw a couple of the flowering (pink) plums blooming also.

Every hive was queen right, only one hive where I didn't see the queen but it had uncapped brood (and some cross comb on several frames).

Looks like things are about to bust loose.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



GaryG74 said:


> Looks like things are about to bust loose.


yep. 

good report gary, many thanks.

i've got a little more patty mixed up and i'll probably use it up on a few at the homeyard, but the way the pollen is flowing and with the exceptionally good weather forecast i don't think they really need it.

as stated, all of mine are inspected and checkerboarded and there won't be much to do over the next month or so, other than maybe to move a couple of frames of capped brood and nurse bees from a couple of biggest colonies to a couple of the smallest ones.

i plan on inspecting dar's loaner colony this weekend. it will be interesting to see how much ahead his double deep 11 frame small cell hive is compared to mine. i may have to super them to buy a little time before they can be split.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

it was another nice day here today and i managed to get some bee work done.

i inspected dar's double deep loaner hive (brought here to get grafts from) for the first time and it's looking really good. there are about 6 - 7 deep frames of bees with the broodnest in the lower deep and lots of healthy brood. they have just started polishing cells in the lower part of the upper deep preparing for the queen to lay. this colony is about the size or maybe slightly larger than my two largest at this point. the plan is to make a cut down split with it once we have drones flying.

i moved a small colony that i had concerns about being too small from the outyard back home. it was still queenright and had a 3" patch of brood surrounded by eggs, but the population was only a little less than a medium frame of bees. it received a deep frame shake of nurse bees at the entrance today, and will likely get another shake next week.

i finished putting what patties i had already mixed up out at the homeyard. most of the colonies have expanded their broodnest up into middle frame of the next checkerboarded super above where they were at last inspection.

i found a couple of colonies placing nectar in the empty comb frames in the next checkerboarded super above their broodnest. i'm not sure if they are staging nectar there in anticipation of expanding their nest up or attempting to reestablish solid honey overhead. i'll have to keep an eye on these.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

today was dedicated to going into all of the hives at the outyard to see what kind of progress they have made as compared to 2 weeks ago.

it was gratifying to find them all growing nicely and expanding as hoped into the checkerboarded supers. i'm not going to call it on winter losses until i see drones flying, but if all goes well it's looking like 19 out of 21 are going to make it.

there is one colony over there somewhat smaller than the rest having only about 6 medium frames of bees. all looked well with the queen and her laying pattern, so they received a couple of shakes of nurse bees from a very large colony in the yard that is already approaching 2 deeps worth of bees, (in a hive that has about 3 deeps worth of volume). 

the rest of the colonies are averaging 5 - 7 deep frames worth of bees with lots of capped brood. the stronger ones now have capped drone brood but no drones were seen flying or crawling around in the hives yet. 

that strongest one will be at swarming strength soon and may have to be split. most of the rest are about where i think they should be at this point in the season. that smallest one will get another boost or two.

i've decided to alternate weekends between homeyard and the outyard, thereby giving 2 weeks between inspections. mostly what i am looking for at this point is upward expansion of the broodnest. if i find a hive in which upward expansion has stopped i'll be watching more closely and be prepared to take action if necessary.

a good friend of mine discovered an overwintered colony of bees in the hollow of a cedar tree behind his house about a month ago. i went over there and checked them out. they look small and dark compared to my bees. i'm going to prepare a swarm trap tomorrow and take it down there.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

My bees are looking very good for this time of year. I checked two of the larger colonies today and found both of them nearly full of bees. Neither had swarm cells though both have cups built and ready. I'll have to split these two sometime in the next week.

The main flow starts in about 5 weeks. Regular flights and pollen collection started the last week of January which is about 2 weeks earlier than normal. It is now the 2nd week of March and most of my colonies are building toward swarm strength. I checked 2 of the strongest colonies today and found double Langstroth brood chambers nearly at capacity and brood in 7 to 8 deep frames. There is abundant drone brood in both colonies, but only one has flying drones. Neither colony has started swarm cells though both have cups built. One of the colonies exhibits strong VSH traits, the other strong allogrooming. Both are on my list to requeen this year because of queen age.

I decided to see just how much drone brood has to be uncapped to find a varroa mite. After uncapping 127 drones, I found one mite. The colony I found it in is a pure Carpenter queen from Carpenter Apiaries. Mite tolerance is not quite as good in the Carpenter bees as in my line, but early spring buildup is fast and honey production is good to very good. Carpenter bees tend to be strong allogroomers. This particular mite was probably overwintered and was beginning its first reproductive cycle in the drone cells. There is no way to track the source of the mite, it could have overwintered in my colony, or it could have been brought in by a forager.

So what does 1 mite in 127 capped drone cells work out to? I estimated there were 1500 drone cells in the colony. That is about a dozen mites total. I can't state that this represents all the mites in the colony, there could still be some in the worker brood. I took time to diligently search newly emerged cells for the telltale white spots from mite infestation. There were no detectable white dots anywhere in the worker cells. I inspected 3 frames of worker brood each of which had at least 20% recently emerged cells. I wore glasses with magnification lenses to ensure nothing was missed. I also looked carefully for under size workers or any workers with deformed wings and found none in either colony.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

great report dar, many thanks.

i also went into your loaner hive yesterday. it's up to about 8 deep frames of bees. there is brood in both deeps. i went ahead and moved all of the undrawn frames to the outsides of both deeps and opened up the nest a bit. i've used this colony to provide a couple of shakes of nurse bees to the only small one i have at the homeyard. 

i anticipate being able to split your hive soon. the queenright half will stay at home to make it handy for grafting. the queenless half will be moved to my only empty slot over at the outyard and be allowed to make a new queen.


----------



## Lburou

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Squarepeg, you asked for a report on my carpenter queened hive some time ago. Last year it made 87 pounds of honey (a poor year here, many people in my Club didn't make that much honey with five hives). Lots of nice white drone larva with no mites last week, but in truth, it did get one dose of OAV in the fall (apologize for that report in this forum, but it's important) after a 3% mite count at the end of its second year. That hive with carpenter descendants came through winter with two 8 frame deeps and a medium full of bees. They were a little defensive after rain confined them to their hive for 28 days last spring, but in all, a very good hive.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

many thanks for that report lee. dar's loaner hive is descended from his line of bees with some carpenter drone contribution. i'm happy to get some of that genetics mixed in with my own.

is 3% your treatment threshold or do you treat all of your hives in the fall?


----------



## Lburou

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> is 3% your treatment threshold or do you treat all of your hives in the fall?


I backslid, Answered offline to keep it treatment free here.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

understood.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I finished spring inspections on my last 5 colonies today. Four were medium to well built up but decidedly aggressive. This was expected given a gray drizzly cool day. One colony is a star performer from last year that looks set to repeat this year. It was in a 2 1/2 deep setup with at least 100 pounds of honey last fall. I removed the shallow super and swapped upper and lower Langstroth deeps to get the brood nest on the bottom. There are 7 frames very full of brood. This colony has a queen purchased from Carpenter last April. It made a tad over 100 pounds of surplus honey in 2015. There are no signs of varroa infestation though I am certain that I would find a few mites if I looked very close and pulled drone brood. This colony is one of the best breeding prospects I've seen in years. This colony is very gentle with no stinging despite an unfavorable day, the bees are highly prolific, and they produced an outstanding honey crop.

Tasks to be done at this point include moving all my colonies into square Dadant depth equipment with expansion of the brood nest and adding supers as needed.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

we had another nice spring day here in northeast alabama and i took the opportunity to check on all of the 12 hives located at the homeyard. we still don't have any drones flying but i saw several crawling around in a couple of the stronger colonies. there have been no reports of swarms here yet, but i went ahead and set traps at 3 different locations over the past week.

my main objective today was to assess how well or not the colonies were expanding their broodnests up through the checkerboarded supers. i was pleased to find that 8 out of 9 were expanding upward through the supers as hoped.

4 of the colonies were found with brood in the middle frames of the very top super. these will be receiving a fourth super of wax painted plastic foundation soon. none of last year's colonies swarmed after making it to the top of the top super with brood and ended up very good producers. fingers crossed.

the other 4 had made it to the second super and were still showing signs of upward expansion. while i was in these hives i opened up the sides of the broodnests with frames of empty drawn comb and recheckerboarded the top supers. these still have a chance to make it to the very top with brood but will have to be watched.

i found only one colony that was defeating the checkerboarding by filling the empty comb frames in the top 2 supers with new nectar. i dealt with that by locating the queen into the bottom deep below an excluder. there were already 2 frames of brood in the deep, and to those i added a few frames of drawn brood comb and one foundationless frame. i'll check this one weekly and keep adding empty comb to the first super above the excluder while moving the full frames up.

the tiny colony that i have been giving shakes of nurse bees to is up to about 6 medium frames of bees with excellent brood and is just starting to expand up into the next super. it got another shake of bees today. we're still at least several weeks at before our main nectar flow, and i'm thinking i can get this one up to production strength by then by gradually adding bees from the strongest hives.

the other two hives are the double deeps, one on loan from fusion_power for grafting, and the other one slated to become my cloake board hive. dar's loaner got split in two today. the cloake board hive is only a week or two away from becoming a strong starter/finisher, the timing of which should be just about right for when i want to start grafting.

all of my colonies are queenright, expanding nicely on what is turning out to be an excellent early flow, and have the means to requeen themselves if necessary. i'm calling it on overwintering having lost 2 out of 21 for a 9.5% loss this winter.


----------



## snipercsa

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Would you mind explaining the defeated checkerboarding? What were they doing "wrong" and how the fix fixes? 

I have very little empty comb so I am down the path of foundationless brood box with single drawn come in the center, box placed above brood box. I have a couple with their third brood box added and is ~checkerboarded with about 4 FL frames and an assortment of drawn frames. I also added FL frames to the 2 and 9 position in the bottom two boxes.


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## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Great update, sp.

Finished checker boarding my hives Thursday. Tons of adult, flying drones here plus drone brood in just about every hive. Most every hive has brood in the second box. Have one hive without a queen, put a frame of young brood into it yesterday. One hive with 3 year old queen is declining rapidly. It was a deep and a medium, deep was empty and bees only cover two frames in the medium. Reduced it to just the medium, but it was a dink last year so it's going away when I get the time to shake them out. Rest of the hives are going gang busters, will do second check in about two weeks when it warms up again. I used up all my drawn comb so it's foundation from this point forward. 

Indications are that swarming is starting soon, several people have scouts looking for holes in the homes. I set up a swarm trap at a house where I've caught bees three years in a row. 

Fruit trees (peaches and later pears) starting to bloom, plums and early pears already gone here. Yellow poplar flower buds showing but still small, leaves coming out and enlarging.


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

i'll try snipercsa.

walt wright's checkerboarding is a swarm prevention method that involves breaking up the overhead honey stores with empty drawn comb just prior to the spring build up. the goal is the keep the bees expanding their broodnest upward through checkerboarded supers. what you want to see is the bees putting brood in the empty super frames while using the adjacent honey frames to feed that brood, and then putting brood in the now emptied honey frames. 

i have found that if i can get them to brood to the top of the top super (thereby not allowing for solid stores overhead) the colonies don't swarm. i have also found that they are likely to start drawing wax painted plastic foundation placed above that top super containing brood. when that happens i feel that it's a pretty good sign that the colony has abandoned swarm ambition. the brood in the upper supers gets replaced with honey on the main flow as the broodnest recedes to the bottom of the hive.

by defeating the checkerboarding i mean that rather than brooding up through the checkerboarded supers, the colony simply fills up the frames of empty comb with fresh incoming nectar, thus reestablishing solid honey stores overhead, and those solid stores overhead prevent the upward expansion of the broodnest.

with solid stores overhead, the bees will eventually start backfilling the broodnest as the population expands and the nectar flow picks up. the net result is a swarmed nonproductive hive.

i am attempting to defeat swarm ambition in the 'stubborn' colony i discussed above by placing the queen in the deep below an excluder and giving her lots of room to lay in the deep. adding foundationless frames down there will give the wax makers something to do. keeping empty drawn super frames just above the excluder will give the colonies a place to store the fresh incoming nectar.

if all else fails with this colony and i find backfilling of the broodnest in the deep, that queen gets pinched and the colony gets split up into nucs to receive grafts from productive colonies that have a track record of responding favorably to checkerboarding.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

many thanks gary, good report. not many scouts checking out my traps here yet, but it won't be long!


----------



## Riverderwent

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



GaryG74 said:


> One hive with 3 year old queen is declining rapidly. It was a deep and a medium, deep was empty and bees only cover two frames in the medium. Reduced it to just the medium, but it was a dink last year so it's going away when I get the time to shake them out.


Just a thought to consider. Sometimes a queen may have good, or interesting, genetics but was not well mated. Perhaps, she was mated a little out of season or there were too many virgins for the available drones at the time. Given the season, you could let the "dink" hive requeen itself with an emergency queen from its own brood and see how the new queen does.



> Fruit trees (peaches and later pears) starting to bloom, plums and early pears already gone here. Yellow poplar flower buds showing but still small, leaves coming out and enlarging.


You have a good grasp of the local flows and flora. How did you come by it? (SP, good thread. Thank you for indulging the hijack.)


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## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

The dink hive doesn't have any uncapped brood or eggs. It's been an under performer for the last two years and only has about 1 1/2 frames of bees. I hoped it would turn around this year but it's not going to happen, looks like.

Watching the local plants to see what's blooming, what has bees on it, and watching the returning foragers for pollen. I have a chart that gives trees and shrubs, approximate bloom dates, and pollen colors to match with what I see blooming and what pollen (color) is coming in. Raised in the country and spent most of my life in outdoor hobbies helped with the observations. I have several guides/books on plant, wildflower, and tree/shrub identification also.

The chart came from a BeeSource thread by tommyt, 01-24-2014, "re: Pollen loads this time of year?"


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## snipercsa

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Thanks SP for that. I think I am clear on it now. I have not had time to read the checkerboarding references. Everything else I've read online about it left me puzzled as to the point of it. 



squarepeg said:


> i'll try snipercsa.
> 
> walt wright's checkerboarding is a swarm prevention method that involves breaking up the overhead honey stores with empty drawn comb just prior to the spring build up. the goal is the keep the bees expanding their broodnest upward through checkerboarded supers. what you want to see is the bees putting brood in the empty super frames while using the adjacent honey frames to feed that brood, and then putting brood in the now emptied honey frames.
> 
> i have found that if i can get them to brood to the top of the top super (thereby not allowing for solid stores overhead) the colonies don't swarm. i have also found that they are likely to start drawing wax painted plastic foundation placed above that top super containing brood. when that happens i feel that it's a pretty good sign that the colony has abandoned swarm ambition. the brood in the upper supers gets replaced with honey on the main flow as the broodnest recedes to the bottom of the hive.
> 
> by defeating the checkerboarding i mean that rather than brooding up through the checkerboarded supers, the colony simply fills up the frames of empty comb with fresh incoming nectar, thus reestablishing solid honey stores overhead, and those solid stores overhead prevent the upward expansion of the broodnest.
> 
> with solid stores overhead, the bees will eventually start backfilling the broodnest as the population expands and the nectar flow picks up. the net result is a swarmed nonproductive hive.
> 
> i am attempting to defeat swarm ambition in the 'stubborn' colony i discussed above by placing the queen in the deep below an excluder and giving her lots of room to lay in the deep. adding foundationless frames down there will give the wax makers something to do. keeping empty drawn super frames just above the excluder will give the colonies a place to store the fresh incoming nectar.
> 
> if all else fails with this colony and i find backfilling of the broodnest in the deep, that queen gets pinched and the colony gets split up into nucs to receive grafts from productive colonies that have a track record of responding favorably to checkerboarding.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

you are very welcome snipercsa. the topic of checkerboarding has become very confused as there are other uses of that term that refer to very different manipulations. 

i'm getting good results with walt's method here, although i've made a slight modification to it by stacking honey frames over honey frames and empty comb frames over empty comb frames. plus, if find that the bees are not uncapping and using the honey frames next to brood i'll rearrange a little by putting a frame of empty comb between the brood and the honey frame. i'll also move a couple of frames of brood up to the next super if i find the bees are failing to cross the gap on their own.

what i like most about checkerboarding is that all i have to do is see what's happening at the top of the working level. most inspections are as easy as pulling one frame, usually the middle one in the highest box they are working, looking for upward expansion of the broodnest, and peeking down into the hive to see what's on the adjacent frames. if all is well i replace the frame, close the hive, and record 'beautiful!' in the journal. 

i'm glad to see that you are following the thread snipercsa, and i am still hopeful that we can 'seed' some of these genetics over there in hazel green. when you are reading here that i am grafting let's exchange pm's again and see if we can time it so that my ripe queen cells coincide with your splits.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Hi you all!
Opened up my hives the first time, if you want to know, look into "today in the apiary".

An experienced young beekeeping friend and me opened our own german treatment-free-bee-forum , so in the future I`m only reading here and will post my success or failures sometimes, but will not be present often.

Thanks for all the information, especially from you squarepeg, and good luck to all nice people here.
Sibylle


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

great to hear from you sibylle! i saw your post in the other thread and it sounds like your bees are wintering well so far, congratulations!

if you get the opportunity please make a post on the 'treatment free member listing' sticky thread so that others from germany can find you if needed. if possible include a link to the german treatment-free-bee-forum.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

winter loss record so far:

2010 4 hives, 0 losses
2011 10 hives, 0 losses
2012 18 hives, 6 losses 33.3 %
2013 19 hives, 4 losses 21.1 %
2014 18 hives, 3 losses 16.7 %
2015 21 hives, 2 losses 9.5 %

my range for colony longevity is 1 year to 7 years, with the average now being 2 years. the average would be a little higher if i wouldn't have sold off all of my 2013 overwintered nucs in 2014, (won't make that mistake again). the colony with 7 winters is one that was abandoned on my property the year before i became involved with the bees. 

another reason for the average being low is that in the past two years i have culled several 3 and 4 year old colonies. the reason for culling them was primarily because they were too swarmy and not productive. they were split into nucs and requeened with grafts from the best performing colonies.

it may be wishful thinking, or perhaps just beginner's luck, but i think i am seeing positive trending with regard to survival, swarm prevention, and production over time. fingers crossed for this season.

i talked to the supplier that i first got bees from and he informed me that he still has 2 colonies going strong that he originally collected from tree cut outs in 1996. these two colonies have been in existence since then and made it through this past winter.

i'm intrigued by the longevity of those two colonies, and i hope to see the average age of my colonies grow with time, but that will take a few more years.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

we are having a very strong early flow here, much more than what i remember seeing in previous seasons. all of the colonies are building up nicely and all but one is on track to be in good shape for the start of our main flow which should begin in the next 2 to 3 weeks. i have just one small colony which will be getting a boost of capped brood frames with adhering nurse bees between now and then, and i think it may still end up being productive in the end.

so far no evidence of swarm preps in any of the hives and no scouts checking out the swarm traps. i'm seeing just a little bit of honey getting processed and starting to get capped at the top of the working level in some of the stronger hives. we now have drones flying and i feel like swarming in the area could start at any time.

all of this incoming nectar has resulted in the colonies not having to uncap and use as much of last year's honey in the checkerboarded supers for their spring brood up. i've had to move some of the honey frames out of the way and move frames of empty comb in to keep the broodnest expanding in some of the hives, i.e. opening up the sides of the broodnest with empty drawn comb. in a couple of hives i moved frames of brood up into the next box to get them across the gap if they were failing to do so on their own.

i have 4 colonies that are now capping brood at the top of the top box after having brooded all the way up through the checkerboarded supers which is what i am trying to accomplish. these received a super of wax painted foundation this weekend. i don't expect to see new wax drawn right away but i'll be watching for that and when i see it i'll have decent confidence that those colonies will have given up on swarm ambition. most of the others should be in about the same shape in another week or two. fingers crossed.

i have a few colonies that failed to expand their broodnest up into the checkerboarded supers. instead of brooding into the empty comb frames these colonies simply filled them up with all of that incoming nectar. they now have the queen in the bottom deep below an excluder with empty drawn comb above the excluder. the plan is to harvest frames of brood from them to donate to the one weak hive and for use in making up mating nucs. i'll feed back in foundationless frames to replace the brood frames that i remove.

my only double deep hive got set up with its cloake board today. it now has the bottom deep with several frames of open brood, a couple of empty brood comb frames, a couple of foundationless frames, and frames of pollen and honey. the cloake board is just above the bottom deep and i put a medium of empty drawn comb above the board for nectar storage. the upper deep is above that empty super and now has several frames of capped brood, one frame of open brood, a couple of empty comb frames, and frames of pollen and honey. i hope to start grafting next weekend or shortly thereafter.

(sorry for the long post)


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Can you please give your momentary temperature and what to expect the next 2 weeks?
Is your flow wild cherry?
Thanks,
Sibylle


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

hi sibylle, here is a link to our current weather:

https://weather.com/weather/today/l/34.58,-85.99

you can look at the 10 day forecast to get an idea of the pattern.

i have wild cherry trees in the area but they have not bloomed yet.

our apple trees have swelling buds on them at this time.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Great!
Weather`s nearly the same here, a little bit colder. Frost at night.
I haven`t seen any drones yet.
Well, I will wait until my mentor tells me to look at the brood.
Still new at this!

Thank you, this link is essential to my understanding of your journal.


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Seeing the same here. A couple of hives that had mediums of drawn comb (nectar and pollen) below the original brood now have brood in them. The queen went down as well as going up to lay more brood. Most of the hives I checked yesterday have brood in three boxes, at least four frames of brood in every box, some boxes with 7 frames of brood in 8 frame boxes. Tons of flying drones as well as lots of drone brood. The drawn comb I put in for checker boarding is either filled with nectar or brood like you're seeing. I haven't seen any queen cells here yet.

Flowering now: Wild (black) cherry starting, willows, early apples, crab apples, water oaks, flowering cherry, azaleas (wild, deciduous and tame varieties), a type of cherry laurel, white clover, the yellow flowers/weeds (butter cups?) in the damp areas are still blooming, dead nettles and more henbit starting to bloom.

Like you said, this looks like the best Spring flow in a while. All hives have been having huge orientation flights daily, it sounds like a swarm when they are orienting.


----------



## RBRamsey

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



GaryG74 said:


> Flowering now: Wild (black) cherry starting, willows, early apples, crab apples, water oaks, flowering cherry, azaleas (wild, deciduous and tame varieties), a type of cherry laurel, white clover, the yellow flowers/weeds (butter cups?) in the damp areas are still blooming, dead nettles and more henbit starting to bloom.
> 
> Like you said, this looks like the best Spring flow in a while. All hives have been having huge orientation flights daily, it sounds like a swarm when they are orienting.


Ditto Gary...

Plenty of flying drones in several of the hives, and we are still seeing brood expansion.

We put syrup on most hives about 3-4 weeks ago and they used very little, maybe 1 pint each. Honey reserves were low at the time. They are filling frames with nectar and some comb is being drawn now.

We had a pseudo swarm Saturday from hive #3. We caught the swarm and boxed it. No queen was in the swarm, and no swarm cells in the hive. We split the hive removing the queen into a 5 frame nuc. Later, the swarm returned to hive #3.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Cleansing flights are over, now the brood rearing has begun. The need for water is every day bigger.

Here recent video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zJex2l_158


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

nice! long winters are certainly a challenge for the bees and their keepers. congrats and thanks for sharing juhani. we are just now entering swarming season here which also means it's queen rearing time. today is slated for assessing all of the hives, and i hope to give a summary report later on this evening.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I went through 4 colonies yesterday evening and found 1 in the middle of supersedure. They had 2 emerged queen cells and half a dozen more immature cells. I harvested 4 of the immature cells and removed the clump of drone comb they had been built on. The colony was nowhere near swarm strength, had cells started over a period of about 10 days, and had eggs and larvae in a couple of combs. The remaining 3 colonies are nearing swarm strength which means I need to take action now to keep them out of the trees. I plan to pull a nuc out of each of them sometime over the next week.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Checked my hives yesterday and today.
Pulled some combs at the sides to see if they are queen right.

What a surprise! 4 of 8 have big brood areas already and draw comb like crazy, they have the first drones flying! Much stores left and they are bringing in a lot of pollen. 
I took out some drawn empty foundations to give them something to do with new ones. I desperately need drawn comb.

All hives are queen right. 
The AMM original queen from the canary island used the warm winter weather to start brooding in January, this hive has 5 frames brood already in spite of having been split two times last year.

My favorite small colony which stayed on 3 brood frames throughout the year and brought in much nectar is healthy and has 3 brood frames! (Once again)
They had the most beautiful brood nests last year.

I see no sick bees and took the picture of one of my carni queens. She walked straight to the drone cells.
The strongest hive got a second deep with checker boarded comb-foundation to give them something to work on.

Those who breed in the top deeps will be checked in 2 weeks and if the bottom deep is empty I will change top to bottom.
But not now, I`m still careful to not squash my young queens.
The queen you see in the pic is my mother carni troisek one.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



SiWolKe said:


> The queen you see in the pic is my mother carni troisek one.


Wow, what a carni! So much yellow, that you either have wrong hive in picture or the queen has been changed.


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

squarepeg,
I had one hive that I tried to checker board but had run out of drawn comb so put a medium of mostly foundation on top. I thought it might not work. That thought was confirmed today at 1130 AM, about a four pound swarm that I hived. Checked the hive and found three capped queen cells and three uncapped cells. Moved two frames of brood, one with one capped and one uncapped queen cell, to a queen less hive and left the rest in the original hive for now. One of the capped cells was really nice and big, about 2" long, that I left in the original hive.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

great reports all, many thanks!

today's highlights from the homeyard:

1. all colonies still in expansion mode with brood at the top of the top box and no backfilling. frames used to open up the broodnest all now have brood in them.

2. with the exception of a couple of smaller sized colonies, most are getting close to filling up the single deep and 3 mediums with bees (the space equivalent of 3 deeps)

3. threre is lots of incoming nectar but most of that going for brooding and just a little honey starting to get stored in the upper corners of the top box. 

4. last year's uncapped honey is not being used anymore and has been moved to the outsides of the upper supers.

5. those colonies given a 4th super of wax painted foundation are mostly ignoring them so far, but the stronger colonies are just now starting to rework the painted on wax into the beginning of new comb.

6. no white wax was seen in any of the hives. several of the foundationless deep frames i opened up the sides of the deep brood nest with are about half full of newly drawn drone comb, but that new drone comb is light brown colored.

7. for tomorrow, going to combine frames of capped brood with adhering bees from stronger colonies to the 2 small one's mentioned above. 

8. this coming up thursday will be grafting day #1 for 2016 if everything works out.

9. the first 10 day old ripe cells might be ready for placement on 04/16/16.

10. verified presence of caught swarm in trap reported in another thread. going to give it a couple of more days before retrieving and inspecting


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Juhani, I looked forward to your comment!



> Wow, what a carni! So much yellow, that you either have wrong hive in picture or the queen has been changed.


She`s the daughter of a pure bred troiseck carni mated at mentors place by mellifera, ligustica and carni drones, so it`s entire possible she is a little yellow.
And her girls are mixed, like you see.
It was a little test I put in for you!
You passed! If I ever will need a queen I will buy from you!

Who cares, she is carni to me and her colony looks great.
I know, you are a queen-breeder and have another view about this.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

trying out an incubator this year:

View attachment 23724


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

gotcha!!

View attachment 23742


turns out what i thought was a caught swarm the other day was just a fairly large contingent of scouts 'protecting' the trap until swarm day today. they have even been spending the last few nights in the trap as confirmed by stethoscope. this is in a friend's backyard, not far from where he discovered an overwintered feral colony in a cedar hollow.


----------



## Arnie

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Sweet! I love swarms, especially when they move right in and you just have to take them home.
Well done.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

highlights from this past week:

1. still no swarm preps seen in any of the hives. most are still expanding into the empty frames of comb i've been opening up the broodnest with. 

2. a couple of the stronger colonies have run out of room to expand at the top of the top box and are allowing the brood to emerge. neither new eggs nor nectar is being put in the emerged cells yet, and i suspect the broodnest is now being receded downward into the lower boxes.

3. there is still no new white wax and the honey in the upper corners isn't being capped yet

4. the wax painted plastic foundation supers don't have any new comb getting drawn yet, but there are some bees in those supers reworking the painted on wax into the beginning of new comb.

4. the first grafts of the year were taken on thursday from my longest-lived (7 winter) survivor colony.

5. today i inspected the swarm caught last monday that presumably came from a cedar hollow in a friend's back yard. there are about five deep frames of bees and a beautiful large dark queen. they have already completely drawn out 2 deep foundationless frames and have them full of eggs with a few of them now hatching. i'm going to let them fill up the 5 over 5 deep frame hive and then split them 3 or 4 ways to accept some of this year's graft's, keeping the original queen of course!


----------



## DaisyNJ

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

@SP two deep boxes worth of foundation less or two frames of foundationless ? Cool and congrats on the capture.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

daisy, it was just 2 deep foundationless frames that they had drawn by day 5 post capture.

many thanks!


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> daisy, it was just 2 deep foundationless frames that they had drawn by day 5 post capture.
> 
> many thanks!


Swarms are brilliant comb builders - they are set up for it. I feed them thinnish sugar and go on feeding them and encouraging them to draw, because good comb is an apiary greatest asset (after great bees), and a limiting factor for expanding operations.

Mike (UK)


----------



## dtrooster

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

nice thread man


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

many thanks rooster, welcome to beesource!


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Have had two swarms here, from related queens. These hives are always the first to swarm, got three more related to the same mother hive. Watching them closely with all the rain we've had lately, I expect swarming to resume this weekend when we get clear, warm weather again. 

Yellow poplar started blooming here this past weekend, should start in your area soon.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I found queen cells with eggs today. This is the first round of obvious swarm preparation.


----------



## MattDavey

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> 6. no white wax was seen in any of the hives. several of the foundationless deep frames i opened up the sides of the deep brood nest with are about half full of newly drawn drone comb, but that new drone comb is light brown colored.


Interesting...thanks for the reports.

They sound like they preferred to recycle wax rather than make wax. (Or are eating a dark honey.)

I've seen that in Autumn (Fall) but not Spring. Maybe there was not quite enough nectar coming in for wax making. (I have also wondered if pollen quality/quanity impacts on wax production.)

What happened with the deep frames you removed to make room for the foundationless frames? (Sorry if I missed that.) I move the frames to the box above and they often get emptied out. Maybe this acts as an artifical flow.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



MattDavey said:


> Interesting...thanks for the reports.
> 
> They sound like they preferred to recycle wax rather than make wax. (Or are eating a dark honey.)
> 
> I've seen that in Autumn (Fall) but not Spring. Maybe there was not quite enough nectar coming in for wax making. (I have also wondered if pollen quality/quanity impacts on wax production.)
> 
> What happened with the deep frames you removed to make room for the foundationless frames? (Sorry if I missed that.) I move the frames to the box above and they often get emptied out. Maybe this acts as an artifical flow.


you're welcome matt. there appears to be a lot of nectar coming in but up until now most of it has been utilized for brood rearing and not much has been stored. for so much new comb to get drawn i am assuming the darker color is more a function of the nectar type vs. wax getting recycled, but it's hard to know for sure.

i started out using the hive configuration of a single deep and medium supers since that's what all of the experienced beekeepers in my area were doing. because of that it's not possible to move frames up in the way that you do. the frames that get removed are taken out and repurposed elsewhere in the apiary. 

while there are occasions when having all the boxes and frames the same size would be advantageous, i've learned to make the most of the arrangement. i've found the supers effective for checkerboarding and managing upward expansion through the spring build up, and the deeps good for swarm catching, splits, and nuc production.


----------



## sakhoney

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Hey all - Bees will recycle wax - I have seen them stripping wax off of spare supers I had out in the yard and also picking up the "crumbs" on the bottom boards. But if there's fresh honey coming in they should change over to wax building. Also remember - its a certain age of bee that produces wax.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

highlights from this past week:

1. the first new white wax is starting to be seen in several of the hives, and 2 colonies have started drawing new comb on foundation. 

2. the stronger colonies are starting to backfill emerging brood cells at the very top of the hives.

3. still no sign of swarm preps or scouting of my traps, but swarming is being reported in the area. 

4. i was able to put some queen cells into the hands of a couple of other beekeepers. the second round of grafts was taken on friday and will be moved to the incubator toward the end of this week.

5. the swarm caught on april 4 has almost filled the 5 over 5 deep with new comb and a 3rd story was added yesterday. when the first rounds of brood start emerging and all 3 boxes are full of bees i'll split it as many ways as i can to make more nucs.

6. i found one colony that had apparently lost its queen for some reason about 5 - 6 days prior judging by the age of the brood and emergency cells. i went ahead and made splits with it and placed its supers on other hives. this is the first hive of the season that was diverted from honey production to nuc production, (other than the cloake board starter/finisher hive).

7. it's possible that i may have some surplus queen cells available on sunday a week from today. pm me for details if you are interested.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I checked a very strong colony today and found a full super of uncapped honey. This colony barely made it through winter as a split made last June. Now they are bursting at the seams and hauling honey in faster than any of my other colonies. I pulled a small split out with one good frame of brood. They will get a queen cell tomorrow morning after being queenless overnight.

I now have 8 colonies in the square Dadant depth hives. One was a swarm caught 2 days ago. The other 7 were entire colonies with Langstroth 9 1/8 frames moved into the deeper boxes. I still need to make Dadant depth frames to give to all but the swarm. A quick check of the swarm today showed 6 of 10 1/4 deep frames drawn to 1/2 cell depth with honey and a few patches of eggs. The speed of a swarm building comb is incredible. This is just 2 days from being put into the box.


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Checked nine hives here today. All my checker boarded boxed are almost full of nectar, new frames drawn and filled (some capped), tons of bees in every hive, and running out of frames and boxes! Caught a secondary swarm right at dark, about the size of a grapefruit. Will put a feeder on it tomorrow.

I can't believe how fast the hives have drawn comb, in about three weeks starter strips are now fully drawn frames almost filled with nectar, some are even capped. I put Snelgrove boards on three hives that had queen cells and had started back filling the brood nest.

Two of three queen less hives that I put young larva or queen cells in have new queens and new larva, so that operation is going well.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

great report dar. the grafts i took on friday were from your loaner colony, and there were 16/20 'takes'.

i'm beginning to develop an appreciation for these colonies that come out of winter small. they seem to get to just the right strength at just the right time.

do you have supers of foundation on any of your established hives at this time, and if so are they drawing comb in them yet?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

way to go gary! i'm hoping we'll be seeing something similar up here in the next few weeks or so.


----------



## biggraham610

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Been offline, havent even had a chance to review the thread. Our spring has been nuts. Apparently a couple warm weeks end of Feb, sent a couple of my production hives into swarm mode. weather since has been a drag, cool, and wet. Some nice days in the middle of the week and of course, wet and cold on weekends. i got into them finally last weekend, one of my biggest hives were polished and broodless swarm cells, abound. I cut a few out, and left a couple. Hive swarmed/reswarmed twice this weekend, caught them both, first stayed put for 3 days, second, absconded same day. I re-caught the first this evening just before dark. re hived them, with a drawn comb and a couple drops of hbh. Hope they stay put. Came out of winter with 14/15. Rehived several of the strongest nucs, last weekend, the rest are due to be put in full size hives mid week.............. frost looks like it may have stunted/killed the poplar bloom..........whew........ hands full........ crazy spring.........and the Turkeys are finally gobbling like they should.............................G


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

highlights since the last report:

1. our main spring nectar flow has kicked in and the colonies appear to have shifted gears from build up mode to wax making and honey storage mode.

2. i had a swarm issue yesterday from one of the few colonies that wasn't producing new white wax yet. it was one of only 2 colonies out of 14 that swarmed last year. i had it earmarked for splitting and requeening this year but i got too busy with other stuff and it didn't get done. it was still very strong after the swarm but i culled all of the dozen or so swarm cells from it, and divided it up up into three deep nucs for requeening. i was also able to give a medium super of capped brood from it to a smaller production colony that needed a boost, and its 3 remaining supers of partially full of honey went to other colonies to fill.

3. the second round of grafts became ripe this weekend and a few more beekeepers received some of them. i have kept 11 of the 26 cells for myself and they are now in nucs going through the mating process. i also have a couple of caught swarms that i am going to keep splitting for more nucs. those who were inquiring about getting nucs this year can send me a pm for details if you are still interested.

4. 3 colonies have started drawing comb on their second super of foundation already. i'll be checking the supers tomorrow evening and adding more as indicated. if i find any colonies that aren't making new white wax at the top they will be suspect for swarm ambition and get a thorough inspection.

5. the weather is looking good for taking another round of grafts on friday. some of those cells have been spoken for but there will likely be some extra ones. pm if interested.

6. it's a very busy time for the bees and their keepers! many thanks for taking the time to follow this thread.


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Great report sp! Sounds like you are ahead of the game again this year for the most part on swarm control measures. Im going to have to pick your brain on how you're getting multiple supers drawn out this early. The ones I've put foundation on are still working on their first super to draw out. Are you using foundation in your supers or running foundationless?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

many thanks brad. yes, this is the earliest in the season i've ever since wax making. i'm using the wax painted rite cell in the supers. the next round of grafts is going to be from one of the early wax making colonies.


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

In our area that's surely a trait to select for. I'm trying wax painted Ritecell in supers for the first time this year. I need to check on a hive I put a box of it on this past Saturday and see how they are coming on it. I staggered it with frames with wax foundation to see which they would prefer. I need to add a few foundationless frames to make it a better test.


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Meanwhile up in Canada...

I have come into spring with 18 hives, 4 second year survivors, 14 overwintered nucs. Went into winter with 6 2nd year hives and 26 nucs. That after lots of handholding this spring.

I have a nuc and a 2nd year hive that have gone queenless, I expect the nuc to start laying in about a week, the 2nd year hive in 2. The second year hive I think I inadvertently destroyed a supercedure cell during inspection which set them back. I gave them a frame with eggs. Drones are flying and there are lots of drones in some hives.

I have a couple more nucs that are building slowly but the rest are doing reasonably to very well. 

I took apart one of my strongest hives in my home yard yesterday and put 17 medium frames of brood above an excluder, soon to be snelgrove board. I thought one of my hives in my outyard would be the cell builder but this one is a better candidate and much more convenient. I found queen cups with jelly. Perhaps my timing is good to raise a bigger batch of queens starting 10 days from now?...

Overall I'm a bit disappointed in the nuc survival this winter, but am pleased with how productive things have become this spring. Hopefully I've learned a few things and will kill less bees next winter.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



lharder said:


> Hopefully I've learned a few things...


good report lharder, and from your posts it sounds like you are learning a lot. many thanks for keeping us updated.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Hi all,
we have a crazy spring, weather almost as unpredictable as in winter.
My bees are developing wonderfully but it´s still very cold and wet so they have a hard time.

The first drones were thrown out yesterday and not let in again, they are not sick, but my thoughts are that they used too much food, since I´m not feeding and the foragers cannot fly often.
As you know, I´m not very interested in honey production but in the ways nature works and bees adapt to nature, so I´m observing what happens ( well, I will not let them die, surely but they had much food left from winter).

My strongest Carnica hive ( Carnica Peschetz line, not a very robust line I found out, inbreeded) has the chronic paralyze virus, well I think so noticing K-wings and trembling bees, bees that cannot fly, on the entrance boards.
Not many and yesterday I noticed many young bees doing their orientation flights and the sick bees were thrown out.

They are not much varroa infested, so this line must be susceptible to illness. What I should have in mind also is that this colony is the only one I have which was not splitted, which was totally harvested before I got them ( and feeded with sugar sirup) and swarming was prevented.

They are just now trying to overcome this, if they are not successful I will do some management and change the queen to one of my best Carnica mutt colony using egg comb .
They are located some distance from the others, thank god, I followed the advice of Erik Österlund to keep distance between my hives until I will have more resistant stock to select from.

When I opened up to check thoroughly the first time I saw that the hives are very strong and I have to extend soon.


Visited again today and found I had to act immediately. Opened up the hive and tossed all bees on the ground so the sick ones could not fly back.
The bees had already realized their situation and built queen cells, one was capped and some filled with larvae.
If there are no sick bees in a few days I will let them have their own queen and see how it will develop.
There are new drones flying from all hives so mating will be possible.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

cliffsnotes update since last post:

1. we're still in our main flow here although the poplars have finished and the privet is peaking, which i believe means that our flow will be waning over the next few weeks. i'm seeing quite a bit of honey already capped but noticing that wax making and nectar storage is slowing down a bit.

2. i've still just had the one swarm (that i know of). i've been able to hear a virgin or two piping in a couple of the hives that i am thinking are related to supercedure. activity at my swarm traps has been virtually nil until today, as i noticed a few scouts checking out the trap at the homeyard.

3. i had a hiccup with the queenrearing after losing the last batch of grafts to a virgin in the builder portion of the cloake board hive. i thought it was a stray that drifted in but it turns out the queenright section superceded and the virgin ended up returning to the builder portion. pinching her left the hive queenless, so i requeened by combining one of my nucs with a newly mated queen. i'm planning on taking another round of grafts tomorrow. (i know oldtimer, i should have had a backup hive for cell building!  )

4. i obtained permission to locate some hives at what i am going to call my 'overflow yard'. almost all of my equipment is now full of bees or will be after the next round of nucs is made up so i am at capacity until the nucs are ready for customers to pick up.

5. i am also at capacity in terms of my time available to manage the apiary so i don't anticipate growing any larger this side of retirement. this will likely be the last round of grafts i'll make this year and then the attention will be redirected to the honey harvest.


----------



## tpope

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*








Here is one of the queens that I got from Squarepeg this year.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



tpope said:


> Here is one of the queens that I got from Squarepeg this year.


she's a beauty tony. many thanks for sharing the photo. but i must give credit where credit is due, that queen is the result of a graft taken from fusion_power's 'loaner' hive, (which i went ahead and acquired from him after seeing how darn good they are!).

i ended up with several of those daughter queens for my own yards and am very happy for it. we got jipped out of having even more of those to spread around when the queenright half of the cell builder superceded and the virgin returned above the excluder only to wipe out a whole round of grafts.

i'll be grafting more of those next season for sure!


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Keep a close eye and see what traits show up this fall. Her background includes both allogrooming and VSH traits. Depending on the drones she mates with, she should show extremely low levels of mites. Also, the more of your hives express those traits, the less problems will show up from varroa. The mother queen was selected for high honey production.


----------



## tpope

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Oh boy! I look forward to the diversity.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

The AMM hybrid bees used the rainy and cold weather to do VSH.
I`m lucky, all my splits from the AMM mother show this trait.

I`m not sure what happens with the Carnicas. The sick hive is healthy again and breeds a new queen. I`ve not noticed if some pupae is thrown out, but maybe it`s eaten by birds or snails.









Last week I sent a bee home to a friend of mine who will make a split of his Elgon-Carnica-small cell mutts for me to have more diversity.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Today I caged 3 queens for GaryG74. While I've sold several colonies and a few nucs over the last 7 years, this is the first time I've sold queens. He got stock from 3 backgrounds, 1 carpenter derived queen, 1 queen from my line with a very gentle mother, and 1 queen from my line with a mother that produces relatively aggressive bees. Between the three, he should have enough genetics to get a treatment free line established.

I have queen cells in a starter colony that are due to emerge tomorrow so later this evening I will move queen cells to each of the nucs that are now queenless so they can start another queen.

The genetics for treatment free are going to be spread far and wide!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

way to go dar! great report and many thanks. 

tpope picked up a couple of cells from here today and that marks the end of queenrearing for me this season. 

i'm washing jars this evening and getting ready to pour up my first batch that was harvested this past weekend. this year's honey is tasting _really_ good.


----------



## tpope

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> Today I caged 3 queens for GaryG74. While I've sold several colonies and a few nucs over the last 7 years, this is the first time I've sold queens. He got stock from 3 backgrounds, 1 carpenter derived queen, 1 queen from my line with a very gentle mother, and 1 queen from my line with a mother that produces relatively aggressive bees. Between the three, he should have enough genetics to get a treatment free line established.
> 
> I have queen cells in a starter colony that are due to emerge tomorrow so later this evening I will move queen cells to each of the nucs that are now queenless so they can start another queen.
> 
> The genetics for treatment free are going to be spread far and wide!


I am sooo jealous of that package of diversity. I would show up on your doorstep if the opportunity were to present again...


----------



## tpope

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> way to go dar! great report and many thanks.
> 
> tpope picked up a couple of cells from here today and that marks the end of queenrearing for me this season.
> 
> i'm washing jars this evening and getting ready to pour up my first batch that was harvested this past weekend. this year's honey is tasting _really_ good.


I had a taste of that honey today myself. Very different from what I get in my area. I really liked it.
Got the cells nestled into strong nucs this afternoon with high hopes for them. I gotta say that making up nucs in the rain was an experience... Use more smoke... I did get to see just how gentle my bees are in this situation.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Hi all.



> I`m not sure what happens with the Carnicas. The sick hive is healthy again and breeds a new queen.


My acts came too late, I had to eliminate the colony. One week cold weather without flying did it. The queen was sick, too.
Since the former queen came from an inbreeded line, I`m not very disappointed. 

Made some more splits, now I got 13 hives.
This week my new queens will fly to mate. 

Did some shots of VSH being done in a carnica hive. This queen was bred last year in my apiary.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Double post


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

since the last update:

1. we still have a flow here and i saw noticeable progress in the supers over this past week, but my sense is that our main spring flow is trailing off. we've been short on rain and i'm seeing more 'unemployed' workers hanging out at the entrances at the end of the day. it looks like we may be in for an exceptionally long and dry dearth this summer.

2. i think i'm ready to call it on swarm season for this year. out of the 16 colonies that weren't split, 3 swarmed. the first one was a 3 winter survivor that was slated to be split anyway due to not responding to swarm prevention the past couple of years. that one got split just after swarming to yield 3 nucs. i believe the second one was a supercedure swarm as it was pretty small and there were a couple of deeps worth of bees left behind. this one is still going to produce 2 or 3 mediums of harvestable honey. the third was found after the fact at the outyard and production on that one appears to have been impacted but i'm not sure by how much yet.

3. i had two other colonies that probably would have swarmed but i happened to catch them prior to. i culled the swarm cells from them. it only took one culling with one of the colonies and they gave up. with the other it took two cullings. these two are going to be great producers this year.

4. i'm calling it on queenrearing for the year and used the upper portion of the cloake board hive to make up a few nucs for the last batch of cells. we (myself and a few others who got cells from me) are waiting to assess mating success on that last batch and i plan to give a summary of how all of that ended up in a later post.

5. this is my third weekend for bringing in honey and it looks like i'll be busy harvesting for at least a couple of months, (i'm a slow poke on that and just harvest 2 supers a week). depending on how much of a dearth we end up with and how much of this spring honey ends up being used to by the colonies to get them through the dearth, it's looking very possible that i may be close to that 100+ lb./hive average harvest i've been hoping for.

6. many thanks to all for following and contributing to the thread.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I'm doing end of flow checks on hives, particularly those with new queens. Most of these were set up to mate queens though they are in Lang singles.

1 colony has 4 very nice looking mature queen cells. I will move three into nucs this evening. This was a mating colony from which GaryG got the first queen, then I set them up to produce some queen cells. I will leave one cell with them.

3 colonies have mated laying queens with the oldest up to 3 full frames of brood, the youngest has a 1 inch patch of eggs, the other has 1 frame with several inches of brood.

1 colony had no eggs or brood but buzzed like a queen-right hive. I'll re-check it next week to verify there is a laying queen.

1 established colony that I had moved into one of my new square deep hives had shrunk to 3 frames of bees and had laying workers. I shook them out and transferred a queenright colony into the equipment. I got 8 frames of honey to use for winter feed. This was not a significant loss, I have 2 daughters from her. The colony I placed in the new box had 6 nice frames of brood and a young laying queen. They now have 8 Dadant depth drawn combs to work on.

1 colony had gone queenless and shrunk to barely a frame of bees so I shook them out and started re-using the equipment for hives that needed drawn combs with honey.

1 colony is in new equipment and has drawn 3 new combs. It is queenright with a 2 year old marked queen. I will raise a round of queens from her later this summer.

I still have 7 colonies here at home to go through. Three of them were set up to mate queens, the other four are honey production colonies. When I finish with these, I have ten more colonies to go through in two other locations.


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Meanwhile in Canada...

I'm not sure how to even report this, sometimes the bee yard is a very dynamic place. 

I have 16 hives in big boxes that are queen right. One of those had a queen issue, but has raised 2 queens and new is in a 2 queen system with emerging brood. Did they do it soon enough to make some honey? I used snelgrove boards to raise my initial set of queens from my 2 year survivors. As they successfully mate, they will be converted to a 2 queen system. with the old queen on top where I can make more queens from them. Hopefully also make a good honey crop. I have one 2 year survivor in this set up, and have 2 more in process of getting mated queens. All in all will have 4 2 queen setups in my yard. 

I have one bigger hive that is in supercedure mode. Probably won't produce anything but another queen.

I had 2 more overwintered nucs that went queenless before they had a chance to get going. 1 dink still hasn't resolved itself (went laying worker), the other raised a queen from a donated frame and has emerging brood. It will stay in a nuc box. 

And finally I have 10 newly started nucs with queens. The first bunch will have emerging brood in about a week. 5 more are in process of getting a queen mated. A couple may end up in 2 queen systems if the queen above the snelgrove board fails. I had 3 failures so far that were combined into a 5 over 5 set up and given a couple of frames of brood, one with eggs and young larvae. 

2 are by themselves in a new yard that is now operational with bear fence. 

The main flow hasn't started yet according to sources, but I think its on its way. We are getting lots of rain recently (thankfully), the linden trees are about to bloom. The hives are as well prepared as they can be, having made lots of comb already. There is this sense that all hell is about to break loose.


----------



## snipercsa

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

SP, 

What drives the decision to call an end to queen rearing? Because of the end of the main flow or because you start to see fewer drones? Curious because my nucs last year were probably June nucs... could be why several did not winter well and others overwintered but did not "rebound".


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Queens can be produced until August with ease and until late October if you choose to take steps to maintain drones and feed hives enough to stimulate brood production. I expect the biggest reason SP is wrapping up is because he has other fish to fry for the next several weeks.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

i agree with dar and in previous seasons i would just now be starting with my grafting. he is also correct regarding my decision to call it for the year having to do with time constraints.


----------



## snipercsa

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Adoption Announcement:
I've adopted 2 more SP queens in nuc form. Good strong nucs, big beautiful queens. These to go with a successful queen cell adoption a month or so back. 

Now if we could just get some rain.....


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

many thanks snipercsa! i really appreciate the interest that you and the others have shown for trying out these bees in different locations. i am very much looking forward to see how they perform for you.

i am knee deep in the honey harvest at this time. all indications are that this year's production is going to exceed those from previous years by a comfortable margin. i'm guessing that's due a combination of factors including having more drawn comb, keeping swarming to a minimum, and ideal spring weather.

the plan is to tally up my 2016 results toward the end of the year and compare them to 2015 report.


----------



## Harley Craig

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> many thanks snipercsa! i really appreciate the interest that you and the others have shown for trying out these bees in different locations. .


If you ever want to try your bees out further north let me know. I got some bees from MS this yr and will see how they over winter, if they do and I have available equipment next yr, I'd be interested in giving yours a shot.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

many thanks harley, and i very much appreciate your interest in giving these survivors a shot up there in illinois. as you will see from the report presented below, i'm pretty small scale when it comes to queenrearing, primarily due to time and equipment constraints.

i just heard back on mating success from the folks who got queen cells from the last batch i grafted about a month ago. here's how the numbers came in for this year:

# of grafts taken: 80 (4 batches of 20 grafts each)
# of cells finished: 35 
# of cells failed to emerge: 1
# of successfully mated queens: 23

the poor percentage of finished cells to grafts is because one whole batch and part of another batch fell victim to rogue virgins, and on yet another batch i believe i let the grafts get too dry and only half of them 'took'.

i sold 21 cells and 12 of them resulted in mated queens for 57% mating success. the cells that were sold were transported in heated containers, but some of them traveled for an hour or two and it may be that the trip was hard on the cells. at any rate 6 more beekeepers now have colonies headed by queens grafted from here and mated in their own yards.

i kept 14 cells for myself, and 11 of them resulted in mated queens for 79% mating success. of the 11 new queens that i ended up with: 4 were sold in nucs, 3 were used to requeen colonies that failed to make a new queen after swarming or supercedure, and 4 are heading new colonies bringing my hive count up to 23.

the 25+ cells that i lost to rookie mistakes would have been used to make up a few more nucs to sell, some would have been sent down to baton rouge for study, and i would have likely sold a few loose queens.

the biggest obstacle i have with generating lots of queens (other than being challenged time wise as most of us are) is that i don't have any of the small mating nucs. my grafts go into 5 frame nucs containing 3 frames of bees and that's a lot of resources to tie up for a month or so while waiting for mating and evaluation of first brood. 

perhaps when i get to the other side of retirement i'll look into producing larger numbers of queens and adopt methods similar to what mike palmer and lauri miller are using. with the lessons learned this year i think i'll be able crank out a few more per season, but not than many more.

fortunately those who got some of this year's queens are interested in propagating from them and the hope is that with time we can get more of these genetics into the hands of more beekeepers. fusion_power is doing much the same with his line of resistant bees and i believe he was able to get a nice number of new queens out there this year.


----------



## Knisely

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Bravo, guys. I applaud your work to establish colonies that can take care of themselves. There's enough diversity in the Apis mellifera gene pool, and enough riding on successfully overcoming the problems from Varroa infestation, that I'm optimistic your (and others) efforts will succeed in creating the bee populations of the future here in North America.


----------



## Jovian

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I have to give a big Thank You to everyone who contributed to this thread, particularly to squarepeg, for doing this and the moderators for the filtering out the chaff. This thread has been a huge help to me as someone who is doing research to start a couple hives in spring of 2017. I am near most of yall being in Madison County of AL so reading all the times when things happen more or less locally has been huge help as is just the general flow of activity in a year for the area. I have joined the local club (MCBA) and hope to find some more treatment free people there maybe using topbars and to look for a mentor. In any case please keep up the good work it has been invaluable and something unobtainable through a book. I hope to be able to meet everyone at some point, learn everything I can, and personally deliver my gratitude.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

sincere thanks to knisely and to jovian for those kind and encouraging comments. 

i feel fortunate to be located in an area that has a thriving feral population of honeybees. the supplier that i originally procured some nucs from tapped into this resource about 20 years ago.

i believe the drone contribution from them is playing an important role in the successes that fusion_power and i are having in the present day. 

here is another example of a beekeeper who is reporting promising results after a few years working with stock obtained by catching swarms from feral survivors in the ozark mountains of southern missouri:

http://tfb.podbean.com/e/treatment-...e-36-horizontal-hives-with-dr-leo-sharashkin/


----------



## Jovian

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

That pod cast was a little hard to listen to at first but was filled with great info. Interesting he said you could get away with only 2 inspections per year. Also the only place i have heard of for that type of a hive. (Layens)


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

There are lots of reasons the Layens hive is rarely used outside of Spain. Study hive design and study the bees and their way of building comb and you will soon conclude that most of the hives designed over the last 200 years are impractical at best and seriously detrimental at worst. IMO, the hives most worth considering are the standard Langstroth, the modified Dadant, the Rose hive, the Warre, and the Kenya topbar hive. The bees will live and thrive in just about any cavity that has enough space for their needs. The beekeeper has to consider cost, management, source of supply, etc.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

yeah, the accent forces one to have to listen closely, and an hour is pretty long for a lot of folks to take time out for. fortunately leo did most of the talking. just kidding sol, sort of. 

it was of special interest to me because it's not often i encounter another operation outside of my local area with that many similarities to my own.

examples are working primarily with stock derived from feral survivors, avoiding artificial feeds, minimal intervention, being located in a mountainous area with large expanses of wooded lands, being thankful for the opportunity to be located in such a place, and feeling just fine about sending a swarm or two back out into woods.

i too enjoy the darker, stronger, more 'bready' honey that comes from comb that has had brood and pollen in it.

the big difference between my approach and leo's is the hive configuration. i can see a lot of advantages to keeping bees in those long hives though, especially if one wasn't terribly concerned with honey production for profit. 

for me though, and with the goal of seeing a return on investment of time and money, being able to use an extractor and repurpose the comb overrides not having to deal with stacking the boxes.

if i give up the sideline business aspect of beekeeping some day and just want to piddle around with a few hives i'll likely give those layens hives a hard look.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> There are lots of reasons the Layens hive is rarely used outside of Spain.


hmm. can you be more specific dar?


----------



## Jovian

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I'm also curious as to the reasons. Also Fusion_power as I am preparing to get my first hive in the spring I am very much interested in hive design and the pros and cons of each so if you have any recommend sources I would love to know them. I will also be googling more. Up to now I was leaning towards a KTH or a Tanzanian Topbar that was sized to fit deeps (for interchangeability). My only concern with Tanzanian would be the attachment of comb to the sides (if just a top bar was used) I don't see a Layens being much different other than dimensions and the reasons given for those seems logical. Not attacking or anything just trying to learn while it is cheap to change my mind


----------



## Jovian

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

SP. As I am finding out the style hive is definitely dependent on your goals as a beekeeper and I feel logically so. Best tool for the job kinda thing.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

The Layens is used as a one-frame-at-a-time hive. It is usually made to fit about 14 of the large frames. When a frame is full of honey, it is removed and extracted and returned to be re-filled. This makes the process of extracting a constant repeat of the cycle. By contrast, top super type hives such as Dadant and Langstroth are intended to keep adding boxes until the beekeeper is ready to extract. This frees up the beekeeper to tend to other tasks of which there are an abundance in spring. In simple terms, one beekeeper can manage many more Langstroth or Dadant hives than Layens. There is also the factor of brood being laid in combs where honey is stored making comb sorting an issue.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



Jovian said:


> Interesting he said you could get away with only 2 inspections per year...


yes, and second only to hive configuration this would be another way in which leo and i approach beekeeping differently.

it gets down primarily to swarm prevention, which has measurable secondary ramifications for honey production.

like leo, a lot of my early stock came from catching back swarms from my own hives, and there were quite a few of those in the first years before i had enough comb built up for effective swarm management.

virtually 100% of my colonies swarmed, and catching most of those back allowed me to replace what few winter dead outs i was having as well as increase my hive count each year without having to purchase more bees.

the problem was that i ended up with stock that was extremely good at swarming. so much so that despite walt wright's oversight we were only able to keep about half of my colonies from swarming even after i acquired enough comb to properly checkerboard.

after a few years of grafting queens from productive colonies that responded favorably to swarm prevention, along with coming up with a few tweaks to walt's methods, i've been able to enjoy a swarm rate of only about 15% these past 2 seasons.

leo on the other hand is not so interested in how many pounds of honey on average his hives can produce. he also believes that allowing the bees to swarm is healthy for the colonies and keeps them better balanced.

feral survivors are known to be good at swarming, which is probably a big part of how they got to be feral survivors. my guess is that leo's stock would be exemplative of this trait and this should be taken into account should one attempt to work with his or similar stock.

if i wasn't doing this for more than just the fun of it i wouldn't care if every hive swarmed every season. i might even take a little comfort in knowing that i am adding some good genes to the local pool. 

and i certainly am not trying to be critical of leo or anyone else who practices beekeeping in this way. i actually think it's pretty cool...

but unless you are looking to just get a little honey for yourself and maybe your family and friends going into these or any other type of hive only twice a year isn't going to cut it. this definitely would not be a good approach for those in an urban or suburban settings where swarms might become a nuisance to one's neighbors.


----------



## Jovian

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Fusion Power wouldn't this be the same then with a kenyan or other topbars hives? Or alternatively make the layens longer. As long as there is room to accommodate the season and management style , which i guess, could be a problem if its not long enough but aside from that. What am I missing?

Squarepeg. It does seem that with bees they mesh and mold themselves to whatever amount of management you want with a give or take on the rewards. That said what are the thoughts about simply having more hives and taking less from each hive. Is the extra production worth the extra effort on each hive? To me I see it as a Roi type thing with time spent being the investment and honey and wax etc being the return.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Jovian, this is significantly diverging from the intent of this thread. If you would like to discuss hive design, there is a forum for that and you can open a thread for the purpose.

SP, I'm going to be in an interesting situation next spring given that the Dadant hives don't checkerboard vertically, they will have to be managed horizontally.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

It rained almost constantly for six weeks now with some breaks of sunny weather or thunderstorms and hail.

I have 5 AMM and AMM hybrid colonies now, the queenless ones have raised their queens successfully and they are mated.
The hive, which superseded in autumn last year I did not split.
I took out 3 frames of honey.
I never feeded them because they found enough despite the weather.
The hives are very gentle , I think they are content with my management 

The Carnicas still have some trouble.
I have 8 colonies, made 4 splits. One has a nice new queen, the others lost theirs on mating flight.
One had laying workers, I give them a egg and young brood comb every week to force the pheromones, now they have queen cells, but I`m not sure about them.
One I left without queen because I want to introduce an elgon queen F1 bred by my beekeeper friend in south germany if they are still not queen right end of week.
The third has many capped queen cells, I will wait and see.
I took out 6 combs of honey, both filled the top Dadant completely.

I will make a split with a second elgon F1 too to improve the genetics n my apiary and I will have another split my friend does for me with a carniolan queen he bred.
The elgons pure bred queens he bred from are one coming from Erik Österlund and one from Josef Koller.
They are on small cells and build beautifully, they defend the hives against other bees and do grooming and VSH. I hope, the F1 got some of those genes.

I`m really excited. It`s the first time I will put some queens into a hive and I hope I do it right.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> feral survivors are known to be good at swarming, which is probably a big part of how they got to be feral survivors. my guess is that leo's stock would be exemplative of this trait and this should be taken into account should one attempt to work with his or similar stock.


Here in the UK, in my experience, this isn't the case, and I think it might be something of a factoid - a theory about how ferals beat varroa that's come to be accepted as true. Most of my bees have come from feral swarms, but as long as I give them space my swarm rate is - I think - fairly low. I think bees generally tend to expand a nest to a good size as a first strategy, and depending on local factors, this might take a few years. Then they might swarm or 'swarm out' - I've picked up 4 swarms of decreasing size from a chimney colony in recent weeks. But if they are cramped they'll swarm just as soon the brood chamber is filled with honey - they can't do anything else. 



squarepeg said:


> if i wasn't doing this for more than just the fun of it i wouldn't care if every hive swarmed every season. i might even take a little comfort in knowing that i am adding some good genes to the local pool.


My primary method of doing that is via large drone populations. Unlimited brood nests mean those that can, do... a beautiful neat natural mechanism, which, if stymied, is sufficient alone to account for local ill health,

Mike UK


----------



## Jovian

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Fusion_Power I agree we were getting massively off topic. I have started a couple of new threads one about hive managment differences and one about swarm (prevention) and production for those interested and my apologies to others for the diversion. Please keep the info coming SquarePeg, SilWoKe, mike and others its all good stuff and I am learning tons.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> SP, I'm going to be in an interesting situation next spring given that the Dadant hives don't checkerboard vertically, they will have to be managed horizontally.


fascinating concept dar, following your posts closely and looking forward to future reports.



SiWolKe said:


> I think they are content with my management


I think so too sibylle, sounds like you are making excellent progress!



mike bispham said:


> Most of my bees have come from feral swarms, but as long as I give them space my swarm rate is - I think - fairly low.


my stock is primarily a line that has been propagated from feral cut outs over many years, and i'm fairly certain there are a significant number of feral colonies in the nearby woods contributing drones at mating time. my collaboration with the late walt wright led us to conclude that these bees were above average with regard to swarm propensity. i've got a couple of seasons now with decent success at prevention however thanks to having more drawn comb and coming up with a couple of tweaks to walt's methods.



Jovian said:


> I am learning tons.


that's rewarding to me to hear jovian, many thanks. there are so many variables involved and choices to make when it comes to beekeeping. you may not get exactly the same results as others do when trying this or that. in an odd way that has been what i've enjoyed the most so about it far, i.e. the challenge. at some point you've got to just try things and see what happens. i think the best thing to do is to decide what it is you want to get out of beekeeping and work backward from there.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

this week's update:

we have been upgraded here from 'severe drought' to 'extreme drought', but somehow the bees are still managing to find pollen. i see it coming into all of the hives mostly in the morning hours but all through the day and right up until dusk.

we started seeing a shortfall in rainfall starting in late april, and i believe our main spring flow and new wax making was cut a little bit short because of it. still, we had an excellent spring with no late frosts rendering most days flyable and that allowed strong foraging throughout. the result was strong early build up and decent wax making along with good honey yields.

the long range forecast is not very promising for improvement on drought relief for the next 2 or 3 months unless we are lucky enough to get a tropical storm move in and dump a lot of rain. therefore the prognosis for a good fall flow remains somewhat guarded at this point.

my take is that the drought resulted in keeping what would have likely been an exceptional year into becoming what is looking like will end up being a pretty good year. i think the drought may have also closed the window a bit earlier on what shaped up to be an opportunistic season for swarming.

my management since about mid may has been mostly harvesting honey. i've brought in 18 medium supers so far and i think i'm about half way through with the harvest. this puts me on track to surpass last year's take of 23 supers. again, much depends on how much of the current honey stores will be needed for fall brooding and overwintering.

other than harvesting honey about all i'm doing is watching the entrances for pollen coming in and evidence of robbing. some of this year's starter hives were getting harassed by a few 'would be' robbers so i screened down those entrances and that solved that.

at the outset of this thread i stated that my reason for starting it was to compare and contrast my results in terms of survival, production, and profitability to what folks are getting utilizing more conventional methodology. the best i can tell so far is that the results are pretty much comparable.

many thanks to all for following.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Some update.
I have 14 hives now, made one more split out of an AMM-Buckfast crossover hive which surprised me because it had 16 brood combs and I don`t want to use a ladder to check the top.
Some 100 000 bees were in and 100 of them tried to make me look like dolly buster  but thank god I wear protection.

This year I prevented swarming by splitting early in year. As you maybe recall, they came out of winter very strong and my strong splits therefore had 6-9 brood combs Dadant size.
I harvested 60 pounds of honey from the queenless, but now had to use 2 pounds to make honey syrup to feed.

One of my AMM hybrid hives build 4.8mm cells on a swedish 4.9 foundation. These I will give a frame with a 4.9 foundation stripe to check how large they will build natural comb.

We have much varroa infestation this year, but so far I`m not seeing defect wings. I sorted out some old comb and since there was worker and drone brood on it I pulled out -30 pupae of each to check for mites.
In the drone cells ( I have drone corners on every comb , 10%) I found one or two mites in almost every cell.
In worker comb I found 4 mites.
So I think, Dee is right and so far my mites are not selected for worker comb.

Thank you all for kind words.
My thanks especially to Michael Bush and Erik Österlund for supporting me per e-mail. 

Thank you, squarepeg for continuing this thread.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

There is a decent amount of nectar coming in at present. I didn't expect a flow at this time of year, but the honey frames don't lie. I estimate the strongest colonies have pulled in 5 pounds of nectar above daily needs over the last week. Queens have increased egg laying as a result. I checked a few colonies today expecting to have to add frames of honey to a couple. It was a nice surprise to see brood frames with plenty of larvae and lots of nectar. One hive was even building a small amount of comb on a frame they had started a month ago.


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

What's blooming Dar?

My alfalfa field is blooming. First time I've ever seen it bloom en masse. I saw no bees working it, I suspect it isn't producing any nectar due to our severe drought. The only "wild" thing that's blooming over here is passion flower/maypops. It would take a lot of them to produce any measurable amount of nectar.

Reckon your bees have found a hummingbird feeder stash?


----------



## Jovian

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I went to the farmers market in Madison AL today. No one was selling honey and the word was no one had been there for two weeks due to the drought.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

that's interesting dar and certainly good news. the few i looked into this weekend also had little bits of nectar deposited here and there but nothing like several pounds worth. i was happy to find that they weren't uncapping any honey.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

hmm. wouldn't you know and as if on cue...

i just strolled down to the beeyard and for the first time in weeks the colonies are not bearded up at the entrances at this time of day.

there is strong foraging going on at this moment, and the direction of flight is straight from the ridgetop here toward the river in the valley below.

i suppose the vegetation along the river banks may be shielded from the effects of our extreme drought condition. 

i'll betcha the jasmine is starting down there.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

things have been pretty much status quo here over the past couple of weeks with the bees eking it out through our dearth and me poking along with the honey harvest. foraging has diminished to just about nil over the past week or so, and i was wrong about the jasmine as it hasn't started blooming yet.

the 2 supers i brought in this morning bring the year to date total to 22 supers harvested. this is approaching last year's total harvest of 23 supers and i'm estimating that i've only taken about 2/3rds of what is harvestable this year so far.

so it looks like this year's tally is on track to exceed that of last year and it's possible we may end up with a little over a half ton of honey harvested. the other good news is that i've not seen robbing nor any other outward signs of disease or dwindling.

best regards to all following the thread, many thanks once again for your interest, and special thanks to you barry for hosting this first class forum.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> the 2 supers i brought in this morning bring the year to date total to 22 supers harvested. this is approaching last year's total harvest of 23 supers and i'm estimating that i've only taken about 2/3rds of what is harvestable this year so far.
> 
> so it looks like this year's tally is on track to exceed that of last year and it's possible we may end up with a little over a half ton of honey harvested. the other good news is that i've not seen robbing nor any other outward signs of disease or dwindling.


That's a good average SP. Can you go over your methods/management for us briefly? In particular are you replacing old queens? 



squarepeg said:


> ... special thanks to you barry for hosting this first class forum.


Hear hear

Mike UK


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



mike bispham said:


> That's a good average SP. Can you go over your methods/management for us briefly?


thanks mike. my stated goal at the outset of the thread was to realize an average of 100 lbs. of honey and one nuc produced per overwintered hive. i fell short in 2015 and will likely fall short again this year but i am seeing production trending in the positive direction. 

in a nutshell management consists of checkerboarding supers in late winter for swarm prevention, dequeening swarm prone and less productive hives and using them for splits, grafting queens from the most long lived and productive colonies to give to those splits, and avoiding artificial feeds.



mike bispham said:


> In particular are you replacing old queens?


i am finding that a failing queen during the period leading up to our main spring nectar flow is second only to swarming with regard to decreasing the honey yield from a given hive, presumably due to the impact that has on the work force at the critical time.

also, i've noted that the few winter losses i experience appear to be do primarily to queen failure occurring outside of the mating season. therefore it is likely that providing new queens at the end of the season has the potential for decreasing winter losses as well as bolstering production the following spring.

at this point however i am more interested in colony longevity and especially the ability of a colony to sustain it's own queenline year after year, so for that reason i am not replacing old queens.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> at this point however i am more interested in colony longevity and especially the ability of a colony to sustain it's own queenline year after year, so for that reason i am not replacing old queens.


Thanks SP. It sounds like its all working for you! I don't track my queens, and I wonder how many poorly performing hives are just worn out queens. Certainly I've had some suddenly burst into life which may be due to succession. Or it may be just a late building strategy.

Mick


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

We've had rain (1/2" to 1" average) every 7-10 days for the last month and sumac and/or something else is blooming. Every time I work the hives, nectar spills out. I've also had three small (grapefruit sized) swarms in the last 10-14 days. Supersedure swarms? Unfortunately, I usually just find the swarm and never see which hive they come from.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Sumac is blooming but there is not enough here to make a difference. I'm waiting on Goldenrod which should start in about a month.

I'm continuing with change-out to new equipment including adding frames with foundation. I'm hoping most of the frames will be drawn on the goldenrod flow. I have enough frames already drawn to winter the current colonies so I'm just trying to get enough frames ready for next year. I am cycling Langstroth depth frames out and storing them above one colony set aside for the purpose. Many of those frames have honey stored so may wind up as winter feed.

It is impressive to work some of these colonies. When they are strong, the frames are full of bees and the hive is full of honey surrounding the broodnest. The largest hive inspected so far has 6 Dadant depth frames each roughly 2/3 full of brood.


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Just a quick update-

Just extracted the 1st 100 lbs of honey of the season. Lots more where that came from. My nuc count is now 35 with 13 more with queens still in process. My goal was 40 so it looks like I'm going to make it. All queens were raised by my bees this year and have been pleased with the quality and the % mating return is starting to get pretty good. 6 out of 6 for the last batch. Very few runts which will get removed and combined this year. I guess I'll wait till next year to introduce some interesting genetics. 

The year hasn't been without its hiccups. The hives that were snelgroved, then made into 2 queen hives in my back yard haven't really caught fire. They are only now starting to put on weight, missing most of the flow. Perhaps they were just too available to support nucs that needed it. Too bad as the honey in the city is extraordinary. 

So now its just harvesting/extracting honey, and trying to get the nucs up to overwintering strength of at least 2 5 frame medium boxes, preferably 3. In this regard I am considerably ahead of the game compared to last year. Some are already near full strength and I will have to take out combs of bees out to keep them from swarming. Later/smaller nucs will be boosted. I'm also realizing that I've filled my bee yards. I may try to get another one going before I become creative with the current setup.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Can you tell me how many pounds of honey this is?


> 100 lbs. of honey


I can`t find a reliable conversion table.
Thanks, Sibylle


----------



## JohnBruceLeonard

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



SiWolKe said:


> Can you tell me how many pounds of honey this is?
> 
> I can`t find a reliable conversion table.
> Thanks, Sibylle


Sibylle, "lbs." is shorthand for "pounds," so there is no need for conversion: the figure that lharder provided is already in pounds. If you are looking for conversion to kilograms, it works out to about 45 kilos.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Thanks JBL.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Update:

Since all my carniolan bee colonies originate from one mother I wanted to have more genetic diversity.

I`m very happy to announce my success introducing 2 foreign queens into one big queenless hive I splitted into two parts.
This was the first time in my beekeeper`s life I did this.

They are elgon F1, crossover elgon-carniolan, bred by a sc beekeeper friend who is not treating.

All my hives except one or two splits which started without foragers now have stores of honey I estimate to 40 lbs each so maybe I will be able to harvest again some surplus.
At home I have 30 frames of honey stored I will use for those, which need more before winter. 
This I will put on top end of august so they fill this frames completely ( they are filled half ).

My aim is to go into winter with one deep box full of strong winter bees on 4-6 brood frames and 40 lbs of honey stored in top box.

But I don`t know yet about the varroa situation. People tell me we have much infestation. I`m not seeing any problems but I will start my supervising with the sugar shaker next week to know what`s going on.
Sibylle


----------



## estreya

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

"checkerboarding supers in late winter"

Why doesn't this result in chilled brood? Is it done before the first egg of the season is even laid?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

hi estreya.

'checkerboarding' is a term that has different meanings depending on whose using it.

i am using the term to describe a swarm prevention management technique described by the late walt wright whose beesource name was 'wcubed'. walt has several good articles in the 'point of view' section on the forum, and you get to that by clicking on 'beesource' at the upper left corner, and then on 'articles'.

at about late february here the bees are about 1 or 2 brood cycles into their new build up coming out of winter. this is when i checkerboard honey supers over a single deep.

at that time of year the cluster is usually in the bottom deep and i do not disturb it. above the single deep i'll typically have 3 medium supers that are half full of honey frames and half full of empty drawn comb frames.

going into winter the 3 supers are set up like this, where e = a frame empty drawn comb and h = a frame of honey:

e e e e e e e e e
e e h h e h h e e 
h h h h e h h h h
single deep on bottom

in late february or so, especially when i am seeing the early tree pollens coming in and know that brooding has begun, i rearrange the frames in the supers like this:

e h e h e h e h e
e h e h e h e h e
e h e h e h e h e
single deep on bottom

this encourages the bees to expand the broodnest upward into the supers, taking advantage of the heat rising up from the cluster and empty cells for the queen to lay in that are flanked by food on both sides. in most cases they will brood all the way up to the top of the top box.

by the time they have expanded the broodnest to the top they have pretty much abandoned the deep at the bottom, and this happens to coincide with the onset of our main spring nectar flow and prime swarm season.

since there is no solid reserve of honey overhead and because there is lots of room now in the deep for the queen to lay, rather than swarming most colonies will start to backfill the supers and migrate the broodnest back down to the deep. this is also when next wax making starts here and when i can reliably place a super of foundation on the top of the stack and expect to get it drawn and filled.

this past spring was somewhat different than previous ones. because we had an exceptionally mild winter followed by really good early spring weather not all of the honey left over from last year was consumed during the brood up period.

that honey started getting in the way of broodnest expansion so i had to move some honey frames to the outside and move empty comb frames to the inside (opening up the broodnest) to keep the expansion going.


----------



## Lburou

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> e e e e e e e e e
> e e h h e h h e e
> h h h h e h h h h
> single deep on bottom


SquarePeg, thanks for your explanations...What is the purpose of the third 'empty' super going into winter?

Also, what are your average first and last frost dates? Your growing zone?

TIA...


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*



Lburou said:


> SquarePeg, thanks for your explanations...What is the purpose of the third 'empty' super going into winter?


you are welcome lee. i leave them out there mostly to keep them from taking up space in my garage, and because the bees can do a better job protecting them from wax moths than i can. plus they are right there where i need them come february.

i've got enough drawn comb now that some of the hives will actually have a fourth (and empty) super on them. i'll probably leave a few extra frames of honey in those hives and checkerboard all four supers when it's time.

walt liked to move a super to the bottom of the stack once he had one with brood in it during the early spring build up. he found that it got packed with pollen, and that the colonies utilized that pollen during the fall build up. he left that bottom super there over the winter, and then brought it up in february to use the empty frames for checkerboarding.

i've thought about trying this, but laziness got the better of me.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

first frost is late october to mid november
last frost is early to mid april
plant hardiness zone is 7b


----------



## estreya

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Fascinating, Squarepeg. Thank you for the thorough reply! This all seems very advanced to me. This year, swarming was an issue. So next year, i'm taking steps to try to avoid that. Mind you, i love the increase in colony numbers (all but one swarm was captured and re-hived), and hopefully, they'll all be strong and overwinter well. But i can't have this kind of swarming next year or i'll simply have too many hives to manage effectively.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

update:

i am continuing the weekly routine of bringing in 2 supers on friday morning, sending last week's harvest to market on saturday, extracting on sunday, bottling on thursday, ect. ect. total harvest so far is 28 medium supers averaging just over 37 lbs. per super.

i hit a milestone today with regard to the honey harvest. the 2 supers i brought this morning put this year's yield at just over a half ton. this puts me already ahead of last year's take of 876 lbs.

i'm estimating there are still several hundred pounds more to harvest out there. i have four hives that i have not harvested from yet, one that still has 5 supers on it and three that have 4 supers. plus i'm pretty sure there is more to take from several of the hives that have already yielded over 100 lbs. this year.

i've been leaving 1 - 2 supers of honey for the bees at this point in the season until we see how the fall flow goes.

it's looking like there should be a nice bump in the averages and overall tally when we get to the end of the season and compare to last year's numbers. fingers crossed. thanks again for your interest in the thread.


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

That's awesome SP. You said you're leaving 1-2 supers on your hives. Is that 1-2 and the deep or are you counting any mediums as brood chamber? I know you're like me and don't run QE's as a rule.

28 supers so far... How many hives is that off of?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

many thanks brad. 

all honey production hives have a single deep at the bottom. 

i'm leaving 1 - 2 super's worth of honey for each colony, but all hives except this year's starters have a total of 3 - 4 supers above the deep. i.e. i'm putting the extracted comb back out on the hives. 

by the end of the season even the starters should have at least 3 supers over the deep.

i haven't been using excluders all that much except in the cell builder hive, but i'm actually putting them on now as i go with the harvesting. backwards i know. the reason is i want to make sure the colonies do their fall brooding and winter preps in the deeps. the excluders will get removed as we approach the end of the fall flow.

i've taken 1 - 3 supers from 11 hives so far, and anticipate going back to most of those to take another super or two, in addition to harvesting from those 4 hives mentioned above.

if i had to guess i'd say there's about 18 more supers to harvest, which is somewhat dependent on how much or little of a fall flow we get.


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Wow, congratulations on the milestone. Those are some impressive numbers indeed.


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Congratulations on a very good season!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

sincere thanks nordak and beemandan.

i think it was a combination of a good spring here, having more drawn comb, and having decent success with swarm prevention. 

all but one of the production colonies was tasked with drawing another super of foundation and a couple of those even drew out two. so now i've got almost a full complement of drawn supers for the number of hives i'm managing.

dan, caught your thread about the sourwood flow, fingers crossed it produces well for you!


----------



## Jovian

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Hope the fall shapes up just as good as the spring for you sp


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

thanks jovian. i suspect the beginning of fall brood up isn't too many weeks away. 

this year's summer dearth has been longer and drier than in previous seasons, which leads me to believe the colonies were able to enjoy more of a brood break, although i've not attempted to confirm that due to the heat and time spent on the honey harvest. 

but if so it will be interesting to see how much if any impact the mites are going to have this year.


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

A nice result SP. Basically the same number of production hives as last year?

About 15 % ahead of last year in a worse year forage wise, and you still have some to harvest. 

Excellent.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

i started this season with 19 overwintered colonies vs. starting last season with 15, plus average yield per hive went up. many thanks lharder.


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Square peg, I can't tell you what a great read this thread has been & still is. I'm a new keep, going TF, & im reading this thread like a great beekeeping book. You really should publish this. I haven't finished reading every page yet but I will. I just had to jump in & tell you what a difference it is making with going into my first winter with the bees. The conversations, the point on point discussions have made my time on BS (that doesn't sound rite, does it worth every minute, & there's been so much to gather from the forums. Great job with your colonies & this thread!!! Seriously.....id publish;-)


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

so many thanks redhawk for your kind and encouraging words. it's nice to know that this chronicle has been a help to you and hopefully you will have great success with your beekeeping adventure!

i must say however that the good experience i am having with these bees is mostly due to factors that i don't really have much control over. i happen to reside in an area that is pretty bee friendly.

what i mean by that is the habitat supports a viable feral population that did not get wiped out when varroa invaded and the survivors are here for the trapping of swarms and their drone contribution. the weather is favorable and the forage is diverse and abundant.

needless to say i feel quite blessed to be keeping bees under these circumstances. i was lucky when getting started to procure bees that were already being propagated and for many years off treatments, so i didn't really have to do a whole lot other than learn how to stay out the bees' way as much as possible. 

i am also grateful to a handful of local beekeepers for helping me out in the beginning by being generous with their time and advice, as well as the many good folks here on beesource who were extremely helpful by sharing experiences and points of view.

i was especially influenced by the late walter wright for providing me with a keener insight into colony operations during their yearly cycle, by michael palmer for influencing me to learn queen rearing and nuc production, by randy oliver for providing me with the most up to date scientific understanding of the issues involved, and by michael bush for providing on his site what i feel is one of the best all around sources of information regarding general beekeeping on the web.

the terrain around joelton looks pretty favorable redhawk. hopefully you were able to get some decent stock to start with. it's about a 2.5 hour drive between us, but if you are interested in trying some queen cells from here next year give me a shout when the time comes and we'll try to make that happen.


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

I totally agree, squarepeg. There are so many that have contributed to this chronicle that I should thank as well. To all of you, thanks!!!! For a 1st year keep, this thread is an endless coverage of issues that dedication to the art of beekeeping demands. Knowing the colony as a dynamic member of our planet, it's a lesson of many times no more than maintaining a static participation in the Colony's lives. Just a question of balance & a very rewarding one. 

I know your country there & have enjoyed my times thru there. I'm hoping you're correct on your impression of mine, because besides my humble little apiary, I've bee blessed with having the opportunity to place 2 colonies at a very nice county park, Beaman Park. Fairly new park that's maintains hiking trails along with very well, but modestly done, nature center. 
I have to say I have started with strong sock, & my observation last Thursday showed a bottom deep in my 1st hive loaded with brood.....again. 2nd deep is deep in sores. They're bringing in orange pollen I'm guessing is touch me nots. This hive is 2 deeps loaded with bees plus a medium super that is beginning to get crowded. My 2nd hive is a 10 day old cut-out that has made the transition into deeps, is now bring in the same orange pollen. I'm pleased with & humbled by merger start. 
I have had a great mentor, a long time keeper in our area. My only concern there is he does sometimes treat, & as I take it he won't call his stock TF. Other than that, he knows bees & their behaviors & I have a great respect for his knowledge of bees & beekeeping. However, my conscience will not let me even begin to keep bees without at least giving TF my complete concentration. The bees are the best teachers after all. I would like anyone's & everyone's honest opinion on how best to tell him I'm going to continue enlarging my apiary, but beginning to move to feral sock. I don't want our relationship to suffer because of my decision. Besides sharing his wealth of knowledge that has been pretty dead on, he started me out with a terrifically strong queen right nuc. 
And I definitely intend to take you up on your offers of a visit at your colonies & will be looking for queens as well


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

it sounds like you are off to a terrific start redhawk.

hopefully your colonies will winter well and give you the resources to make lots of splits next season. my view is that one needs somewhere between 10 - 20 colonies to have enough depth for the selection process to work itself out. trapping swarms, especially if there can be some degree of confidence that they are originating from feral colonies, is a good way to incorporate survivor genetics into your apiary.

then its a matter of letting the winnowing process cull out the ones that don't have the right stuff, along with starting new colonies with queens grafted from the most productive and least swarmy ones. it takes a few seasons but i've seen measurable progress in the short time that i have been at it, and so i believe it can be the same for you.

i haven't seen colonies collapse in the fall due to high mite infestation nor have i had a hive fall victim to robbing. what few losses i've had took place through the winter months and most of those looked more like queen failure, although i have seen a little mite frass and devitalized brood from time to time in some the dead outs.

i think you'll want to have a plan in place in the event that you have a colony succumb to mites prior to winter, particularly if a colony is weakened to the point of getting robbed out thereby allowing the mites to be spread to nearby colonies. there are several options available for dealing with such a scenario, including the use of treatments as a stop gap measure followed by requeening when possible with better genetics.

thanks for joining the discussion, and i look forward to following your progress.


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

Think I can officially call peak queen as my last batch of queens (10 out of 12) have capped brood. 

I went into winter with 26 nucs and 6 bigger hives. When the dust settled in the spring I had 12 new production colonies from the overwintered nucs and the 4 production hives in my back yard. 

As of now I have 44 nucs. I am way ahead of the game compared to last year as I was still trying to raise queens till the end of August. I also bought 4 queens last year, but have raised all my own queens this year. 

I have also made my 4 hives in my yard 2 queen hives. A strategy to transition those hives from older queens to younger. My last original Saskatraz queen got superceded the other day. I took out the queen cells as I had a nice daughter underneath her. So now I have 3 2 queen hives. I also have a overwintered nuc that went queenless in spring. I gave it a frame of brood and they raised a queen. Now in 5 medium boxes. 

So from 16 (17) to 52 queens if my finger and toe counting method works. Now its attrition time till next spring. Hopefully my "improvements" results in better survival. I am ahead of the game from last year in terms of queen return, I was still trying to get nucs queen right at the end of August. I am also going to tweak the winter config as I had weather moisture issues last year with the nucs.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015 treatment free experience*

nice report and great to hear you are making progress lharder, many thanks for keeping us posted.


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Good stuff, lharder. I have decided to forego any expansion for the remainder of the year as I don't have the resources from a supply standpoint. Bills to pay and all that. Given my overwintering success in the past, I don't see it as a set back, more of a limiting factor. Going to see where I'm at in Spring and go from there. I'll get there someday. Until then, I will live life vicariously through you guys who are going all out. This is a great resource, and gives me lots of ideas for the future. Keep up the great work!


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Believe me Nordak, there was a lot of box and frame making this past winter to prepare for this bee season. I'm sure the neighbors were wondering if a day would go by without that %#$%# table saw starting up.


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Haha, I would imagine so. Probably heard it in your sleep. I may just have to get resourceful and start dumpster diving again for wood. Plenty of scrap wood out there I can find. That's the good thing about TBHs, fairly easy to cobble together.


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Nurseries often cobble together makeshift crates for shipping shrubs. Check in some big box stores during the growing season and they will let you take them away. If I'm in the area I will drive by and see if there are empties I can take. Most of my nuc boxes are made from this stuff.


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Nordak, keep an eye on construction projects in your area. Many a material is delivered on site & left on pallets until used up & then the pallets will be tossed or toast, depending on the time of year .


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

lol Started catching up & forgot what I wanted to post. Got in to look at my first hive today before the bottom fell out. Still 2 deep, 1st busting with brood & the 2nd deep with 7-8 heavy frames of stores, mostly capped honey. I've had a super on top of those with a qe below the super. Lotsa bees in the super but no drawn comb. I took that off today & was going to try your like kinds stacked, squarepeg, but I knew I wouldn't have time with thunder rolling in. It's not too late to try that method of moving ( coaxing) them up into the next box, is it? The touch me nots are in bloom & the girls in both hives are loading up. Great bloom for us here. Sounds like there's been some good to great harvest on here! Congrats, y'all!!


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Thanks for the ideas lharder and Redhawk. I used to get a lot of wood from the Tractor Supply dumpster here, but they contracted with a wood recycling joint, which is good. Seems like most places I check have done the same, so I will keep my eye open for construction sites and check with the nurseries. I did manage to piece together a TBH today with some left overs and coroplast. Looks a bit like Frankenstein's monster, but the bees won't mind.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

redhawk, i'm not sure if i understood your question, but if we are talking about coaxing them up to draw new comb on foundation, it is my experience they will not likely do that this late in the season. most new comb gets drawn out during the main nectar flow in the spring.

the coaxing up into the next box i was talking about was with the expansion of the broodnest upward coming out of winter. this is facilitated by checkerboarding frames of empty drawn comb with honey frames above the broodnest. doing so helps to prevent swarming and results in better honey yields.

i use a single deep at the bottom with medium supers above to get this accomplished. my opinion is that double deeps are not needed with our milder winters here in the south. 

i would consider letting your bees finish out the season and make their winter preps in the double deeps, and then split them into singles next spring to prevent swarming and increase your hive count.


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Thanks, SP. talking about the same thing. I understand now. I'll plan on splitting the deeps next spring. And am I understanding to you use nucs to build up drawn comb for future use? Guess I'll just let these 3 boxes of bees do their thing & get ready for the fall flow. Can't believe the amount of bees in this hive. Going to be a busy winter in the wood shop


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Redhawk said:


> And am I understanding to you use nucs to build up drawn comb for future use?


not so much, although nucs are given foundation to draw as are most of the hives during the peak wax making time. for here that is about from early may to mid june and coincides with our main spring nectar flow.

nucs are made up with queens grafted from my best colonies. those grafts are given to splits made from caught swarms and nonproductive hives. i'll use what nucs are needed to replace winter losses and to requeen colonies that go queenless. any surplus nucs get sold and there are usually a few of those.

with the no artificial feeding approach and with such a short wax making season the biggest challenge for me has been to accumulate a full complement of drawn comb. it's taken several seasons but i'm almost there for the number of hives i have.

it's that drawn super comb that is most needed for swarm prevention via checkerboarding which also translates into a good honey yield.


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I may have missed it but...did you guys ever get any feedback from the queens you sent to Baton Rouge? ....or maybe my old brain has snapped a synapse....and you weren't able to send any. I don't recall with certainty. Just curious.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

no dan, i didn't get to send queens to baton rogue (again) this year. i was plagued by rogue virgins getting at a couple of my rounds of grafts this season and as a result fell way short on queens from what i had hoped to produce. i'll be taking heed to oldtimer's suggestion next year by setting up more than one builder/finisher hive, and renewing the goal of getting enough cells/queens produced to meet everyone's needs as well as for a few to go to the bee lab.


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I understand how things can go awry. Happens to me nearly every day.
I just couldn't recall and if you'd sent any I was interested in the report...if you had.
Better luck next season.
Thanks for the reply.


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



beemandan said:


> I understand how things can go awry. Happens to me nearly every day.
> I just couldn't recall and if you'd sent any I was interested in the report...if you had.
> Better luck next season.
> Thanks for the reply.
> 
> Same here, Sp. I hope I got my name on that list of queens going out next year. I've been looking at the foliage map & honeybeenet's spring nectar flows & we're pretty close on the foliage & run the same on the flow believe it or not. For sure not on flow starting dates but plant wise I'm sure we are. Could be a good test in gradual migration verses extreme foliage & climate. I,, be setting up 2 hives in a county park (200 + acres)near here plus I plan to have 8-10 hives on our property. I've been setting up my record keeping & journal to extend yours because I see in yours a system that I want to build on.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

absolutely redhawk. i sold a few nucs to a guy near dunlap, tn a couple of seasons back and his have been doing really well. the most economical way for you is to get ripe cells from me. hopefully you'll have some overwintered survivors ready to split about the time the drones start flying again next spring.


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Sure hope so. The two I have are both strong right now, still pulling in pollen & nectar, so I'm hoping that they stay this strong for the fall flow. That should give me quite a bit of store for over wintering. I'm getting close to having read this entire thread & haven' seen ( or can't remember any mention of our hive setup over than the single deep & supers on top. Do you use slatted rack, screened bottom, etc. or just solids?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

no slatted rack, solid bottom, single deep at the bottom, medium supers, inner cover with 1.25" screened notches front and back, telescoping top cover, bottom entrances with size adjusted for season, pink insulation placed in between inner cover and top for overwintering, syrup and pollen subs almost never used.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

oh, and i should have added that most of my comb was drawn on mann lake's rite cell foundation, with a few foundationless frames mixed in.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Amazing success, squarepeg!



> i must say however that the good experience i am having with these bees is mostly due to factors that i don't really have much control over. i happen to reside in an area that is pretty bee friendly.
> 
> what i mean by that is the habitat supports a viable feral population that did not get wiped out when varroa invaded and the survivors are here for the trapping of swarms and their drone contribution. the weather is favorable and the forage is diverse and abundant.


To realize this and use it with deference is what I like about you.:thumbsup:

Working with almost opposite area conditions I still learn much. Your enthusiasm gives much joy to me.

Conditions here are:
We have no ferals to improve our stock.
We have bee colonies around which are sick and weak from treating and exploiting and which infest our hives with many mites. And the mites are virulent.
Our weather has been unpredictable for some years now, so you always have to guess your next steps.
This year we lost many queens on their mating flights.

I`m lucky my colonies still thrive and my bee yards expand. 
Every time I visit I`m happy. Some must been fed, but all except the one I had to eliminate because of CPV still are able to cope with the situation.
The 2 elgon queens I introduced to improve genetics are accepted and started to have nice brood.
All hives are splits, so I`m content to have a small honey harvest to use for myself and to use as gifts to my supporters.

I visited a member of my forum 2 weeks ago and looked at his hives. He has 3 apiaries, some 35 colonies. He stopped treatments 4 years ago and his bees just do fine. 
He never introduced queens. He regressed to small cells using wax foundations of his own wax. He leaves them honey to feed on but feeds syrup if necessary.
He never thinks much about his managements, just keeps cool.
Not much losses, even if you see some virus sickness like defect wings in his hives. The bees do VSH.
He´s got production hives and nucs in his bee yards.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

so many thanks sibylle for your kind and encouraging comments. i'm really looking forward to following your progress especially given the less than ideal circumstances you are operating with. we have others on the forum who are facing similar challenges that i'm sure are paying close attention to your posts. thanks again for that great report.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I've worked harder on bees this year than any year in my life. That is because I have converted entirely to square Dadant depth hives. Between assembling boxes and making my own frames, I have about 1000 hours tied up in bee work so far. I'm happy to say that as of today I have all of my colonies moved into the new equipment.

Next week is the beginning of a new effort to breed better honey gathering bees. I've purchased 8 Buckfast queens from Ferguson in Canada. As soon as they lay a few eggs, I'm planning to raise a dozen queens so I can go into winter fully stocked with 28 colonies and each with 2 queens. With luck, they will be ready next spring to do some more breeding. My intent is to cross them with my mite tolerant bees and then backcross again so the mite tolerant traits are expressed enough to keep the bees alive without treatments.

I took off a deep completely full of honey earlier and have it extracted and settling. I still have 6 square shallow supers to pull. Barring incident, they will yield another 200 pounds of honey. My honey crop is not as good as I would have liked. Too much time and effort went into drawing all new brood combs. I'm estimating 35 to 40 pounds average for the year. On the positive side, it is very good quality table grade honey. I can sell every bit they made.

Goldenrod should start blooming any day now. The bees have made it through a tough mid-summer dearth and are ready for something fresh to eat.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

i checked on a couple of first year colonies yesterday and almost could not believe what i saw.

these were started in mid april with three frames of bees in 5 frame deeps that were given queen cells grafted from my longest lived (7 winters now) colony.

by mid may there were nice patterns of capped brood in both. at that time i transferred them to 10 frame deeps with all frames drawn and gave them a medium super of foundation.

by mid june the deeps were about full of bees, but only about half the super frames had comb started on them. by late june there had been no further progress on the foundation. i chalked that up to being the end of our spring flow and onset of our summer dearth, not to mention we were in severe drought conditions, and i really didn't expect to see any more comb drawn this year.

i decided to put a second super of extracted comb over the foundation supers on june 30th, and that's how i left them until yesterday. what i found was that they had somehow finished drawing and filling the remaining foundation! not only that but the empty extracted supers were also full. several of the frames were fully capped, and overall about 50% of the honey in all of the supers was capped.

how they did that during the past month and a half i have absolutely no clue. those two colonies are by themselves in my 'overflow yard', so they have the whole place to themselves. the comb was off white and the honey was pretty dark. there wasn't any red coloring to suggest hummingbird feeders. i guess they could have robbed their way to success. another possibility is that there are large soybean fields nearby that were in bloom over the past few weeks.

i went ahead and gave both hives a third super of extracted comb to see if they can fill those on the fall flow. hard to believe it, but these starters may end up yielding some harvestable honey this year.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> I'm happy to say that as of today I have all of my colonies moved into the new equipment.


very nice dar! best of luck to you with the new hive configuration and breeding program. thanks for the update.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Many thanks, squarepeg.

Dar, it`s the same with me having established my colonies now into the dadant square deeps. I use 12 frames with a divider, so I have room to work. Never squashed a queen, never had to take out a frame while working being in fear of loosing the queen on the ground and I realized, they used the space left next to divider to climb on top and fill in honey which is all right with me because then I don´t have honey filled ladders when separating the deeps.

I would like to use one deep as only brood box and have honey on top, but it may be that they need the space of two deeps to breed as some did this year.
I will do some experimenting next year concerning this and try natural comb.

As you all know, I have 2 bee yards. One is 400m above sea level , one 600 m, so that means the same plants are blooming 2 weeks later in the second area even if I only have to drive 20 minutes to get there.

The AMM are in the early blooming area. There, rain prevented them from using most of the flow and they have no stores. I fed them and now a flow starts with soybean fields and much wild flowers.
The Carniolans had been lucky to be able to use the same plants having nice weather. So they have good stores and even surplus.

Well, I don`t know, if the race is important too, but they are all hybrids now. The AMM are hybrids with buckfast.

It`s amazing how nature influences what`s going on. So it`s good to journal beekeeping in order not to make false conclusions.


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> I've worked harder on bees this year than any year in my life. That is because I have converted entirely to square Dadant depth hives. Between assembling boxes and making my own frames, I have about 1000 hours tied up in bee work so far. I'm happy to say that as of today I have all of my colonies moved into the new equipment.
> 
> Next week is the beginning of a new effort to breed better honey gathering bees. I've purchased 8 Buckfast queens from Ferguson in Canada. As soon as they lay a few eggs, I'm planning to raise a dozen queens so I can go into winter fully stocked with 28 colonies and each with 2 queens. With luck, they will be ready next spring to do some more breeding. My intent is to cross them with my mite tolerant bees and then backcross again so the mite tolerant traits are expressed enough to keep the bees alive without treatments.
> 
> I took off a deep completely full of honey earlier and have it extracted and settling. I still have 6 square shallow supers to pull. Barring incident, they will yield another 200 pounds of honey. My honey crop is not as good as I would have liked. Too much time and effort went into drawing all new brood combs. I'm estimating 35 to 40 pounds average for the year. On the positive side, it is very good quality table grade honey. I can sell every bit they made.
> 
> Goldenrod should start blooming any day now. The bees have made it through a tough mid-summer dearth and are ready for something fresh to eat.


I'm following your transition with interest. That was a huge job to transition all at once. Most interested in how your system works next year when everything is rolling. I'm going to slowly try out these hives and boxes over time and get a sense of how they perform relative to langstroff 8 and 10 framers. I think I can start using some of the management ideas right off the bat. I'm interested in how wintering goes and management coming into spring. I guess you will be doing some extraction of excess honey from those big frames in the spring to get them back into brood rearing? 

I'm going to start off with making some of those jumbo frames. Then will let nucs fill them out worker comb this next summer (I'm foundationless mostly). So it looks like I'll be doing some wiring and reinforcement that wasn't necessary with medium frames. If I get some nice frames drawn out, then I'll make some big boxes for the following spring and slowly try the system out. In the meantime the current setup is producing lots of good comb. Gonna be a fun experiment.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

update:

i lost 2 colonies at the homeyard this week that appear to have been queenless for some time. 

i noticed attempted robbing on one of them monday afternoon, so i screened down the entrance and purposed to inspect this weekend. reducing the entrance seemed to stave of the robbers at first, but by wednesday afternoon there were hundreds of bees trying to force their way in. 

i decided to brave the heat after work that day and went into the hive. not surprisingly i found it queenless and broodless. the robbers had just gotten started uncapping some of the honey. there were a few wax moth larvae and some minor damage but most of the frames are in good shape and will be usable next season.

i had already harvested 2 mediums supers from this colony and there were 3 more good frames still left for harvest at the shake out so the honey yield for this season ended up just over 80 lbs., plus i got another super of foundation drawn out from them. 

the day after shaking out that hive (yesterday) i noticed some skirmishing at the entrance of another one a few slots down the line. i got into that one today and found it was also queenless and broodless. the robbers hadn't had time to uncap any honey in this one and there were no wax moth larvae. i shook this one out as well

there were still 2 supers of nice looking capped honey in that second hive that are now in the garage awaiting extraction.  that brings the yield for this hive up to 3 supers this season for just over 100 lbs. 

both of the shake outs had several partially filled honey frames that are now in the freezer and will be redistributed where needed to bring hives up to winter weight. my hive count was reduced from 23 to 21.


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

So, must be the season for robbers. If you are considering these as lost colonies, did you loss all your bees in the battle? If not can't you requeen & restock with the fall flow? My neighbor keep had her hive robbed 2 days ago. I went thru hers & never found the queen. My hives were healthy yesterday & this morning I went to my best hive only to find the evidence of robbing. It's rained most of the day but I did get to pull unneeded supers off & check the stores. They'd been emptied. Is the queen usually lost during the robbery? Forecasting rain until Sunday, but I'm anxious to get in to check for her & the brood.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

hi redhawk.

what i have been observing with these feral derivatives is that they appear to have a low propensity to rob and they appear able to stave off robbing attempts until they get to a ridiculously small population.

both of these colonies got down to their last deep frame or two of bees before the robbing ensued. i have had other cases where colonies dwindled and didn't get robbed even after getting down to just a handful of bees.

it may be a trait of this 'strain' of bee that i'm working with and if so that would contribute to having less issues with mites in two ways. first would be _if_ they are very good at not allowing strange bees into the hive that would cut down on mites drifting in with outside bees, and secondly _if_ they are not too eager to engage in robbing it would cut down on a rapid infux of mites that occurs with the robbing out of a hive collapsing from varroa.

all that is jmho and pure speculation on my part but it continues to be a consistent observation over the seasons.

so the few remaining bees in both dwindling hives were pretty much aged out and in my view not worth the effort to salvage especially in this heat and so late in the season. i was happy to have not lost the honey and will have no problem finding a use for the drawn comb next year.

after losing these two i'm back to 21 hives which is what i went into last winter with.


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> what i have been observing with these feral derivatives is that they appear to have a low propensity to rob and they appear able to stave off robbing attempts until they get to a ridiculously small population.


Hey SP, sorry about your losses. 

I just mentioned to someone today that in 3 years, I have never witnessed a robbing event with my bees.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

My bees rarely engage in robbing, but when they do, that colony is doomed. I too have had a few colonies go hopelessly queenless this summer. I kept a couple of nucs producing queen cells and have been fortunate so far to catch the queenless colony in time to give a mature queen cell. One huge clue something is wrong is when you see a lot of hive debris at the entrance. A strong colony keeps it swept clean. A weak or queenless colony will let it accumulate.

I received 8 Buckfast queens this morning and spent 2 hours setting up 2 queen colonies for them. I'll finish the rest of them tomorrow. I will also be doing alcohol wash mite surveys to verify I am not putting a new queen into a hive that has measurable mite infestation. This will be the first time I've tested multiple colonies for mites in about 10 years.


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> I received 8 Buckfast queens this morning and spent 2 hours setting up 2 queen colonies for them.


Good luck on the new queens. Will be interested in hearing your experiences with them.


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Sorry to hear about your loses Sp & Dar. Mine took me by surprise to say the least. My inspect last week showed lotsa bees, great brood pattern, 2nd deep loaded with pollen, nectar, capped honey, & my queen was starting to lay in the 2nd deep. Foraging was about at a stand still & I was watching to see what they would use up of the store before fall flow. You two have a lot more in hives than me & I can see you could have Paula robbing Pam her next door neighbor, but in my case, since my neighbor was hit 2 days prior smells of a feral colony. Any chance I might do some good setting out a swarm trap or two? Hate to think my only option is defensive maneuvers. Thanks.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Redhawk said:


> My inspect last week showed lotsa bees, great brood pattern, 2nd deep loaded with pollen, nectar, capped honey, & my queen was starting to lay in the 2nd deep.





Redhawk said:


> My hives were healthy yesterday & this morning I went to my best hive only to find the evidence of robbing. It's rained most of the day but I did get to pull unneeded supers off & check the stores. They'd been emptied.


are we talking about the same hive here?


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Yep. Afraid so. But I still have one deep with close to 10 frames of bees left so I'm going to requeen if I can't find her. I'll miss her. I was really looking forward to bringing in some of your stock & hopefully some of Dar's & see how they'd mix because I really like what I was seeing in her.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

hmm. sorry about your colony redhawk. that's pretty bizzare and i'm afraid i can't offer any reasonable conjecture as to how it could happen based on my experiences.

with respect to propensity for robbing, there was discussion about that on another thread and a few folks mentioned noticing that commercially bred italians seem to be especially prone to rob. 

i recall reading other comments to that effect but i don't recall where i saw it. i've not kept any other type bees besides these that i have been reporting about. do you have a feel for what other beekeepers in your area are using?

if you happen to get into the hive this weekend and find that the bees are capping emergency queen cells, the most likely explanation is that something happened to the queen during your last inspection. 

robbers seem to seek out and pick on queenless hives.


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

The only neighbor I know with bees is the other one that was robbed & we both have Italians. I have seen hives at a place that I don't often go by but thought I'd check with them asap & introduce myself. Just been my first summer in 3 years that I could actually get out & do anything & my catch up to do list is written on a roll of Charmin, 12 roll pack. You could very well be correct about an accident during last inspection. I have gotten in the habit now that if all else looks good, I'll close up when I see eggs & larvae. A few weeks back I was getting concerned about the spotty brood & went to my mentor & he suggested going back in a week & if I found no new eggs or brood I'd need to requeen. That next week (actually 9 days) on inspection I found the same frames laddened with uncapped & capped brood. And the was actually two weeks ago & I didn't go in this past week because I felt good about how they were doing & was concentrating on requeening my month old cut out. Which I'm happy to say went great. I check in on them Wednesday, after waiting 7 days, & saw she was out with eggs & larvae shining so bright it was almost blinding! Even had capped honey. Yes, I'm closing that one down first thing in the morning.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

i performed a late evening inspection on the hive i had set up earlier in the season with a cloake board for queenrearing. here is my journal entry:

082316: FOUND DARK COMB CRUMBS ON GROUND BELOW ENTRANCE MORNING SUGGESTIVE OF WAX MOTH DAMAGE, FOUNDATIONLESS BROOD FRAME IN DEEP FOUND WITH COMB HALF REMOVED PRESUMABLY AFTER SUCCESSFUL WAX MOTH ERADICATION, SPOTTY BROOD BEING REMOVED IN 2 FRAMES IN SUPER1 AND 1 FRAME IN DEEP SUGGESTING DRONES LAID IN WORKER CELLS, ONE OPEN SUPERCEDURE CELL FOUND, 2 FRAMES IN DEEP WITH SOLID PATTERN BROOD ALL AGES FROM JUST HATCHED LARVAE TO CAPPED, DID NOT SEE QUEEN AND TOO DARK TO SEE EGGS, SUPER1 NOW 2 BROOD FRAMES IN CENTER WITH REMAINING FRAMES MOSTLY FILLED AND PARTIALLY CAPPED, SUPER2 WITH SOME UNDRAWN FOUNDATION AND PARTIALLY FILLED FRAMES, SUPER3 NOW CAPPED AND READY FOR HARVEST, SWARM CLOUD ABOVE HIVE AFTER INSPECTION THAT CLUSTERED ON THE SIDE AFTER CLOSING HIVE UP AND BEGAN TO REENTER, HARVEST SUPER3 THIS WEEKEND


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

How exciting beekeeping is!

The queenless hive I set up at the beginning of may now finally has a laying queen. Since I do no queen rearing yet I followed the advise of MB and donated egg comb or brood comb with eggs every week after the first queen got lost on mating flight. So they did not dwindle away to a handful of bees and had the chance to raise a queen again.
This new queen is really black she came out of a supersedure cell of the mother carniolan hive I still have. This mother colony was one of two coming from a location where they met with AMM drones.

So now every hive I got has a mated queen. That means I have 14 colonies now, starting last year with 4 and 1 loss so far.

We have some nice weather now and a good flow so I hope the bees are able to forage for stores now. Two weeks ago I donated combs with capped honey to the AMM because they had absolute nothing stored because of the rainy weather and good breeding.

To prevent robbing I closed up the entrances to admit only 3 bees at one time, but the main problem are wasps. The defense is much better this year than before, but the smaller hives still need me to help.
I quashed some fruit 300 m away as a wasp trap and this weekend I want to install some wasp nest dummies to drive them away.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

update:

after shaking out the two queenless hives last week i realized that i had a couple of stacks of equipment with drawn comb and good stores in them and not enough room in my freezer to keep it protected.

so i purchased a couple of nucs yesterday from beesource member 'fatscher' who resides in the next county over (madison) who has been treatment free since 2008 and also does his own queenrearing selecting for survivability and production while working mostly with locally adapted stock.

phenotypically these bees are indistinguishable from mine. they were placed yesterday evening after sundown and opened up first thing this morning. in less than 2 hours they were oriented and gathering pollen. great looking bees.

this adds more diversity to my yard and brings my number of queenlines to 5:

1. original survivors from the hives 'orphaned' on my property in 2010
2. 20 year old treatment free survivor stock purchased from a supplier in dekalb co.
3. fusion_power's stock
4. a swarm collected from an overwintered bee tree this year
5. fatscher's stock


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Sounds like a great addition to your queen genetics.

On another note, looks like the Fall flow starting here. We've had a little rain off and on, so Golden Rod and Bone Set are starting to bloom. Ageratum, thread leaf sunflowers, and asters are forming bloom heads and should be blooming soon. Watching the hives in the early morning sunlight, I can see numerous foragers leaving the hives, going high and over nearby trees. Lots of cream, white, and light yellow pollen going into every hive in the morning and some almost all day long.


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Sounds like you guys in Alabama are having a pretty nice year so far. Hope our fall flow starts soon. Had to requeen my No. 1 hive yesterday. This is the hi pave that was robbed out last week. Found the queen yesterday & watch her for awhile. She was just moving around on two different frames, not doing anything really. Pulled all brood box frames. No eggs, no larvae, or capped brood. Had to pinch her. Had the new queen set a side while I worked the hive & turned around & there were bees all around her. Not aggressive at all but more like "are we glad to see ya!". Wasn't going to place her in after I found the old queen but since she hadn't built up any brood during the past week I figured her pheromone level was at zero so why not get them a new queen now. Hope I didn't screw it up.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

update:

i went back into the hive yesterday that i reported about in post #713. this is the one that successfully defended against a wax moth infestation and only lost about a half deep frame of comb. 

i went back in to replace that half frame of comb with a full one and take a closer look at the brood in better light. i found a good pattern of eggs and brood of all ages, but what i noticed was that the larvae were pretty dry and that pupae were being uncapped and getting cannibilized. 

what was also obvious is that there isn't much bee bread in the hive while at the same time there is a honey super capped and ready for harvest.

this was the hive that i set up with a cloake board for queenrearing earlier in the season. after my last round of grafts, i took three splits from it along with pollen and honey frames thereby removing the second deep hive body and getting it back to a single deep with medium supers.

apparently the parent colony wasn't able to restock the pollen frames since the splits were taken, and i believe the colony is now suffering from protein deficiency. so despite the risk of small hive beetles i mixed up and provided about a half pound of latshaw patty today.

the 2 medium supers of honey i brought in this weekend brings me up to 36 supers harvested so far this year. this compares to my total of 23 supers for all of last year. 

i think there are easily about 10 more supers out there that i can harvest while still leaving the bees enough to winter on, but whether or not there will be a fall flow this year is uncertain at best so we'll have to see.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Very interesting experience, squarepeg. Thanks for sharing!

I had this problem of queens getting lost on mating flights. 
Now I had a surprise!!
I found two laying queens now in one hive and got kind of panicky not having knowledge about this circumstances before.
Well, I got some information about this from MB and now I`m really excited to experience this kind of behavior myself.
I´m likely to have two queens in this hive until spring. 
Since they look different I will know which one will make it.
As MB says, beekeeping is an adventure.
:applause:


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Glad to hear it for both of you, Sibylle & Sp!! Keep up the great work & the posts of. I'm taking notes!:applause:


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

i journeyed over to the outyard this evening with the intent of placing an extracted super on a hive that i presumed had one more harvestable super of honey on it. the plan was to place the empty on this evening and harvest one back off on friday morning.

what i found was that this hive was almost completely out of stores. it had three supers on it and the top two were bone dry. the first one above the deep was maybe about a third full and they were uncapping and using the honey in it. needless to say i didn't place the empty super.

i did a quick heft of a few of the other hives at the outyard and they all felt adequately heavy for now. turns out the light hive had the biggest beard of bees hanging out at the entrance as compared to all the rest. it was too late and too dark to inspect for brood, but i don't believe it's queenless and there was no sign of robbing.

i'm thinking that this colony didn't get the memo on being frugal through the summer dearth and didn't take a brood break. i may give it a few frames of honey if the dry weather continues and i certainly won't be grafting queens from it.

we have the late variety of goldenrod just coming into bloom and the bees should be bringing in pollen and nectar using it to to brood up and putting away new stores. i fear the extreme drought is making the goldenrod and other fall blooms unproductive as i am seeing very little foraging taking place.

the plan is to take a hiatus on harvesting, pray for rain, and go ahead with obtaining weights on all of the hives to see who are the haves and have nots. i'm hoping that this light one at the outyard is just an outlier because i was planning to bring in about 8 more supers, which if i can will put me right at doubling last year's harvest.

so heads up to those of you in northeast alabama, northwest georgia, and southern middle tennessee...

be mindful of your honey stores as it's time for the late season brooding of the overwintering bees and there may be little if any fall flow this year.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I've been struggling with raising queens because of shortage of nectar. I've kept an eye on stores so I know my bees are not in that bad shape. The good news is that I walked by several colonies this morning and heard a very satisfied buzzing and smelled fresh nectar being turned into honey.

On the bad side of things, I've seen thousands of hive beetles and hundreds of thousands of wax moths over the past 4 weeks. Someone in this area let their bees collapse. The excess pests are showing up at my place because of the colonies I have located here. When I say "hundreds of thousands", I am not exaggerating. The air is so thick with wax moths at night that I could walk out with a dip net and fill wash tubs up with them.


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Gezzzz. I was hoping to hear better news from down there. But, Sp, a double over last year is still pretty pleasing! We are finally drying out but the blooms need rain. Hardly any pollen going in but they have done a great job storing so far. Dar, as a newbie & having my first go with wax moths this year I can truly sympathize. Are you doing anything to combat them or letting the colonies take them on?


----------



## Lburou

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> ...I am not exaggerating. The air is so thick with wax moths at night that I could walk out with a dip net and fill wash tubs up with them.


Dar, that is a horrific image you describe. We always have wax moth pressure, but never anything like that. What can you do?

Thanks for the caution SquarePeg, I'm going to use your experience to be extra vigilant in an unusual fall here with very little honey harvested.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

dar, glad to hear you've got some flow down there in hamilton. i'd be interested in what you see over in rainsville the next time you are over this way. same here on the moths! i had thousands flying in the little field between the hives and the catfish pond about a week ago. they are dying off now, but i've never seen so many in the 20 yrs. i've been up here. i lost about 3 medium frames of comb to moths in one of my queenless shake outs a couple of weeks ago. i think i got them into the freezer before any made it to adulthood. i'm not seeing any more beetles than usual this year as compared to previous years.

redhawk, glad to hear you've got a flow going on.

lee, sorry to hear about the harvest. was it because of too much rain during the spring? i have friends in cedar hill and what we notice is that your weather is usually what we get about 2 days later. this year all the rain seemed to get 'stuck' by you and didn't make it here.


----------



## Lburou

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> ...lee, sorry to hear about the harvest. was it because of too much rain during the spring? i have friends in cedar hill and what we notice is that your weather is usually what we get about 2 days later. this year all the rain seemed to get 'stuck' by you and didn't make it here.


Squarepeg, we had a nice early spring with a good build up, then flooding rains...then six weeks of mostly dry, 100 degree weather.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

it's still very hot and dry here although the forecast has the intransigent high pressure that's been plaguing us finally weakening. tomorrow we'll get the first of what looks like several frontal passages over the next week or two which should moderate our temps nicley and bring the chance for some much needed rain.

i was able to observe a few hours of decent foraging earlier in the day but then it shut back down. apparently there are some plants producing despite the extreme drought. 

i checked the one remaining honey production hive today from which i have not harvested yet and found it very heavy with honey. i went ahead and brought in 2 supers from it to extract this weekend. 

the nice thing about that is that i won't have any production hives with zero yield this year. all have given up at least 2 supers, and quite a few are at 3 supers with the possibility of a 4th. i believe there is still more out there that i can harvest, but as mentioned i want to get some hive weights and see what happens with the weather before bringing much more in.

it appears that fall brooding has begun and i have seen solid patterns of healthy brood in the few hives that i've looked into lately. usually when fall brooding starts i see a few devitalized larvae getting hauled out of at least some of the hives but i haven't seen any yet this year, nor have i seen any dwv or crawlers.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> the nice thing about that is that i won't have any production hives with zero yield this year. all have given up at least 2 supers, and quite a few are at 3 supers with the possibility of a 4th.


Is that performance despite your bees having to build all alternate combs SP? (your chequerboarding system). 

Here in South Est Kent we have an Ivy flow on. I'm going to be extracting today to give me good comb to fill - as things are they're having to repair or build comb.

Mike (UK)


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

hi mike. i am utilizing the 'other' method of checkerboarding, and so my bees did not have to build all alternate combs. i alternated honey frames and empty comb frame in the supers in late winter to encourage upward expansion of the broodnest as described by the late walter wright. 

i get new super comb drawn by placing a super of wax coated plastic foundation at the top of the stack, and new deep comb drawn by placing a frame or two where ever it makes sense to put it.

i haven't quite got to the point of making my final tally and analyzing my notes for the season in terms of making a best guess as to why production is close to double this year compared to last year. i'll be doing that in another month or two. 

i suspect the reasons are several and include a mild winter, a few more colonies to start the season with, a perfect spring, decent success with swarm prevention, a little equalization of colony strength to capitalize on our short season of main nectar flow, and rectifying a couple of failed queen issues early enough as to not miss production this year.

i'm also getting to bring in some honey from hives that were not slated for production this year, i.e. caught swarms, the cell builder hive, and some of this year's starters.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I closed up my hives for winter, so now here is the update:

2015: I started with four hives mite resistant small cell stock. Went into winter with 8 colonies, all survived.

2016: One hive was not resistant, I had to eliminate it because my acting came too late. CPV, in spring.
One I tossed into grass because it had laying workers. 
Fall starts now with 14 hives. One queen was raised 2013 it`s possible she will not make it. For now she is prolific. This hive is mite infested, but not virus infested.
One hive is small, but I donated a brood comb from my strongest colony.
One queen is 2 years old, three are one year, nine are from this year.

I´ve got 1 AMM and 5 AMM-buckfast hybrids, 6 carniolan mutts and two elgon F1

All hives show the VSH. No colony is virus infested for the moment.

Harvest was 40kg surplus from 3 queenless carniolan hives. 20kg I´m just now using to feed.
I left 15-20 kg in each of the hives then. They used all storage.
I have to feed all AMM and three at the carniolan apiary. 3 colonies are content with their own stores. This are the ones I harvested.

Except the hive I made two parts of and introduced the new queens to, and the one small which had been queenless for some time, the others are very strong, almost double strength compared to last year.
Im feeding now and then I hope I have some survivors.

Next year I will change my managements to have more storage and harvest. Could have been the climate this year, though.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



SiWolKe said:


> I closed up my hives for winter, so now here is the update:


way to go sibylle! sounds like you are making good progress over there, many thanks for keeping us posted.


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Congrats, Sibylle!! Does sound like you have had a successful year! I am working our Nashville Area Beekeepers Ass. booth at our state fair & met a really nice gentleman from Germany while there yesterday. Had a great time talking with him. Not a beekeep but was very aware of the bees & much that is going on with them. He couldn't name your type of bees there but knew that they are different from ours over here. And Mike, I met a couple today from England here on vacation & taking in our state fair. It's a pleasure to be part of a forum as this & have the opportunity to actually meet people from the countries that are represented here & talk about bees, even if they are nothing more than moral supporters of what we do. And to tell them I am on a forum with people from their homeland just brings a great big smile. I'm beginning to believe that bees may very well be the new international language.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Squarepeg and Redhawk, thanks for your kind words. 

It`s squarepegs thread but I´m grateful to be accepted here. I learn much and people are nice.

Squarepeg, I have a question I would be happy to have your answer to:

My bees were very strong in spring and the moment I saw drones fly I made my strong splits. I splitted in half every hive.
All hives had much honey storage in June. I took the surplus and had some combs stored from the laying worker hive.
In July they suddenly did use all stores. Weather was unpredictable, but they could fly.
Now I perhaps made a mistake: I fed the combs to them.
This could have forced breeding too much. I wanted strong colonies, but I want them to have their own stores winter coming (without harvest).
Seems to me I disturbed balance, now I have to feed.
If they will forage enough now I don`t know, we have a flow but a draught is coming and friends tell me such strong hives still need much food.
You can see the density here, pict. 86m/c :
http://www.vivabiene.de/g20-Arbeitsweise-SiWolKe-p3.html

Do you or others have some advise to give a clue how I could handle a situation like that?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

i'll try to answer your question sibylle, but i'm only able to give you my best guess on what i think your observations mean. differences in locations and strains of bees make it difficult to contrast and compare experiences but...,

i think it has to do with the tendency or not of your bees to down regulate brooding during times of reduced forage, i.e. take a 'brood break'. for some strains this is a very pronounced behavior, while with other strains it is not.

at my location we have a very generous nectar and pollen flow that starts in mid february, peaks in early may, and is pretty much over by mid june. then we have a couple of months or so of summer dearth during which there is some forage but very little. forage availability picks back up in late august and lasts until about late october, which is what we call our 'fall flow', but it is much less of a flow than what we have in the spring time.

the bees i am working with take a brood break during the summer dearth. because they are not brooding they require very little food to sustain the colony, and what little comes in during the summer is pretty much sufficient to take care of that. the side benefit of the brood break is that the mites are not able to reproduce during that time, some mites will die of old age, all mites are rendered phoretic, and the bees have the opportunity to remove them if they have that trait.

i rarely see the bees uncapping stored honey during the summer or even in the fall when brooding picks back if the fall flow is adequate. i am just now harvesting honey in some of my hives that has been there untouched since may.

i think there is a difference between having capped honey in the hive (either by leaving it there after spring or putting it in as you did) and providing syrup for feed. i believe that syrup can mimic a nectar flow and may interfere with a colony's sense of what is going on in the field, i.e. it may confuse a colony into thinking there is a strong flow and cause a change in the modulation of brooding or even lead to swarming at a time when conditions are not suitable for swarming.

that your colonies ate through stored honey during the summer makes me think that you may also have a dearth season there and that your bees did not take a brood break. the only thing that comes to mind as far as a recommendation is if possible i would try to select my next queens from colonies that did not eat through their stores during the summer and demonstrated the ability to brood break.

i hope this helps.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i hope this helps.


Oh yes, very much!
Next year I will feed no strong hives. I will watch this. You confirmed my own thoughts.
Thank you very much for answering.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> The only thing that comes to mind as far as a recommendation is if possible i would try to select my next queens from colonies that did not eat through their stores during the summer and demonstrated the ability to brood break.


I'll second that, and add some thoughts that I think are consistent with a bio-evolutionary perspective. 

First, while it would be expected that bees would adapt locally to forage availabilty, it will pay to preserve some variation in the local population to cater for climatic variations from year to year. Some years the early builders will flourish, sometimes the late. Local agricultural variation may well mess with this adaptation. 

Second, yes, feeding will interfere with local adaptation - though it may not be a critical thing. A lot depends of what other bees are about. Again, if there is gross agricultural variation, your bees are already being confused in terms of building strategy.

Third; brood raising is immensely energy intensive. Its not just the business of raising and maintaining temperature, and the activity of feeding larvae; assembling proteins is hugely costly in energy terms. Bee-making uses lots of fuel - as of course does comb-making.

With that in mind, its possible I think that the ideal scenario is one where early energy is used to build a large foraging force, and the decks then cleared for the main flow with a brood break. I'm starting to think that's what brood brakes are primarily about, rather than mite control. 

Finally: what is in my view probably the honeybee's best trick is worth factoring in. The Honeybee creates a large workforce each year, uses it to assemble/repair/extend its pantry, and to stuff the pantry full. It then raises fresh bees and... this is the neat trick... shrinks down to a fraction of its maximum size, comprised of new long-living bees. The small overwintering cluster can get by on a fraction of the energy the maximum population would need. Then its back to appropriately using the stored and incoming energy to build toward reproduction and/or the main flow in that locality. 

That annual rhythm governs all the colonies activities. That's the grain to work with. 

Mike (UK)


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Thanks again for this great lecture.
Mike, I`m glad I finally saw the light!

I have a new acquaintance who will teach me many things and what`s strange, we talked for 3 hours tonight and he tells me just the same.
He is not "famous" but he is treatment free for 24 years now. He had his ups and downs but in the end it was possible. He even has no small cells but uses 5.3 foundations. But he told me his bees change the cells ( in broodnest he never sorts out a comb ) to 5.0mm in broodnest.
He has some hives he never opened for years now. Just looks at the entrances and took some honey out.
Now he wants to support and mentor me. I´m so glad!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

update: 

i harvested 2 more supers today from a second year colony that has become my first one ever to yield me 5 supers of honey in one season. this is a second year colony grafted here from a graft taken from a 20 year old surviving colony owned by a long time tf beekeeper located in a neighboring county.

these 2 supers bring my yearly total to 40 as compared to 23 supers harvested last year. i'm averaging a little over 3 gallons per per super which puts me just under 1500 lbs. as compared to 876 lbs. taken last year.

we haven't received enough rain to support a good fall flow and some of the hives are a little lighter than they would be otherwise. i'll not be bringing any more honey in until i'm sure there is enough to go around for overwintering.

i'm still not seeing any devitalized brood getting removed, dwv, or crawlers. i'll be starting fall inspections soon to assess brood health and stores. outward signs have been looking good with no attempted robbing seen and steady pollen going into all hives.

i started the season with 19 colonies, 15 were dedicated to honey production, the others were used for queenrearing and splits, i sold a couple dozen queen cells, i sold 4 nucs, i trapped 2 swarms, i acquired 3 colonies from other tf beekeepers, i lost a couple colonies to queen failure, and the current hive count is 22.

it may be a month or so before i can do a final tally for the season like i did for last year. there may not be much to report until then but i'll share any news as it comes along. once again many thanks for your interest in the thread.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Congratulation, squarepeg 

You make more honey with less hives than those around me with treated hives and big production colonies. And leave honey too. Amazing!


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

That's awesome, SP. Congratulations man. I'm hoping once I get through this variability period, I can start concentrating on production. For now, I'm just really pleased things are looking as good as they do. I did harvest about 40 lbs. of honey between two TBHs earlier this week, that's something I would not have been comfortable doing my first two years. It's progress.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I plan my strategy for next year.

I would like to have more, but smaller hives. For now to me it`s not important to have a strategy to harvest but a path to bee colonies surviving and be able to select the best. But to have bees which store enough and even surplus is one selection trait, too, for sure. If not only for them to survive a draught.

I realized the splits I made this year were so strong they filled two dadant deeps in no time and I´m not able to work such big hives, with 3 dadant deeps (two for brood, one for honey).
I read bees like space that`s about 40l. This could be one of my deeps with super on top for honey. I will try this even if I want to stay with my unlimited brood nests and no queen excluder.

I would like to keep them in a more natural way with a better balance between brood, stores and bee density. So not to manipulate too much and see, which ones are the best on their own.
Maybe a small queen breeding experience, too to have some queens as reserve or to give away.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

double post


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Congrats, Sp! Great job! I can only hope for some day. I have been working our association booth at the state fair & what an experience. So many people aware of & supportive of the bees & so many ready to take up the task. If only 10% Follow thru if will be impressive. And many want to go TF as well. And I even met several people from northern Alabama that said they are ready to start beekeeping. Hope they can find you, Dar, & The rest of the keeps on here from down there.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

update:

i got a call from flatrockboy (3rd year beekeeper who started with splits from my yard in 2014) the other day and he told me about finding 3 of his 11 hives virtually empty of honey stores. he went ahead and gave those a couple of gallons of syrup, and we decided to obtain weights on all of our hives this weekend.

my hive count is currently at 22, with a mix of mostly established colonies and a few starters from this year. my numbers came in at:

range: 20 - 90 lbs. of honey per hive (actual numbers, not rounded)
average: 43.6 lbs. per hive.
target overwintering honey per hive: 48 lbs.
approximate total honey in all hives: 960 lbs.

earlier in the year i expressed my concern about the potential for us seeing a longer and deeper summer dearth here, and that has come to fruition.

mine are in decent shape at this point, and the forecast is for moderating temperatures and rain. there may be a chance to harvest a few more supers if the flow picks up.

the target of 48 lbs. per hive for overwintering is well above what is needed to get the colonies through, but having the extra allows them to build up nicely in advance of the relatively short main nectar flow in the spring and early summer, which then translates into a much better honey crop. (many thanks to the late walt wright for that insight)


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

That's great stuff, SP. Thanks for the update.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

SP, sounds like another one of those learning moments. Balance stores for winter so that all colonies have enough.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> the target of 48 lbs. per hive for overwintering is well above what is needed to get the colonies through, but having the extra allows them to build up nicely in advance of the relatively short main nectar flow in the spring and early summer, which then translates into a much better honey crop. (many thanks to the late walt wright for that insight)


Yes very well above. This is the most important advise not only to your area and honey production but to those people too, who have much rain in spring.
Bees die in spring, is the saying here. It´s not always the varroa starting this.
My target is 20-35kg more weight depending on hive strength.


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## crofter

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Those weights are probably very similar to my target for wintering. I have not calculated the stores weight separately but look for a total hive weight (minus top cover) of ~125 - 130 lbs. for a double deep or 150 for a triple deep which would be similar amount of net stores.

SP, how do you arrive at your weights? I am curious what you calculate to be the weight of equipment and bees; not sure if my figures are correct but the end result gives good success.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

i have single deeps with a variable number of medium supers.

for the bottom board, deep, inner cover, top cover, full of empty comb: 26 lbs.

for each medium super full of empty comb: 13 lbs.

example: a hive with 1 deep and 3 medium supers weighs 104 lbs. 

104 - 26 - 39 = 39 lbs. of honey in the hive

i compensate for the weight of the bees and pollen by taking slightly conservative readings off of the spring scale. the left then the right sides are weighed and then added together. there can be as much as 10 lbs. difference between left and right. i'm looking for an approximation of how much honey is in the hive and for comparison from one time to the next.


----------



## crofter

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i have single deeps with a variable number of medium supers.
> 
> for the bottom board, deep, inner cover, top cover, full of empty comb: 26 lbs.
> 
> for each medium super full of empty comb: 13 lbs.
> 
> example: a hive with 1 deep and 3 medium supers weighs 104 lbs.
> 
> 104 - 26 - 39 = 39 lbs. of honey in the hive
> 
> i compensate for the weight of the bees and pollen by taking slightly conservative readings off of the spring scale. the left then the right sides are weighed and then added together. there can be as much as 10 lbs. difference between left and right. i'm looking for an approximation of how much honey is in the hive and for comparison from one time to the next.


I have been guesstimating a bit more for equipment but all in all I am probably shooting for only about 10 pounds more stores than you. Considering that I am about 1,300 hundred miles due north of you that is amazingly similar consumption! I know some who get by on quite a bit less but their wintering success is not so hot.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

understood frank. 

what i am noticing is that on average 10 lbs. or so is what actually gets consumed from late october to mid february or so. a lot of the remaining 30+ lbs. gets turned into brood food during the build up from mid february to mid april, and what does not get consumed becomes part of my spring harvest.

i think our average temperatures during winter are just cold enough to result in minimal consumption during most of it. plus, i think i am working with a strain of bees that knows how to be frugal.

a few years back we had an unusually warm february followed by an unusually cold and wet march. brooding started up a bit ahead of schedule only to grow populations that were unable to forage for a month. they were about out of food by the first of april and i was preparing to feed but the weather broke and it all worked out.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

update:

well our temperatures finally moderated down from the 90's to the 70's but we still haven't got any rain to speak of. The goldenrod has come and is now waning and i don't see or smell any evidence at all of any nectar from it getting into my hives.

although the milder temperatures have allowed me to suit up and start my fall inspections the persisting dearth is making it very difficult to keep a hive opened up for very long as the yard becomes frenzied within just a few minutes after popping the top off the first hive.

mostly what i have been able to get accomplished this weekend is the moving around of stores from the haves to the have nots based on last week's taking of hive weights. i'm also swapping out hive bodies that are in need of painting and replacing them with freshly painted ones.

the colonies are smaller than usual for this time of year. the few that i have gotten into are brooding, but there are only about the equivalent of a couple of deep frames of brood in them, which is about half or less of what i usually see at this time of year.

it's interesting that the colonies are not uncapping honey to promote brooding. walt used to say that the bees consider their capped honey as 'sacred'. i now see exactly what he meant by that.

i suppose it wouldn't hurt to put some syrup out to make up for the lack of nectar flow to promote brooding, but none of the colonies are in danger of starving and i believe i'll just allow them to adjust brooding as they see fit. this year's weather is really putting them to the test in so far as getting everything exactly right.

i'm predicting higher winter losses this year, partly because not all the colonies may get it exactly right in terms of balancing population and stores, i.e. they may not generate enough wintering bees to get through until spring.

the other reason i predict higher losses is that i have seen any drones in going on 3 months, and doubt that i'll see any more until march of next year. i've already lost 2 colonies this summer because of not successfully superceding a failed queen. there will likely be more to come before next spring.

hindsight is 20/20, but i probably should have kept a few of those nucs i sold this year. either way, i know how to bounce back should there be more losses. this winter's 'survivors' will definitely earn that title. hive count remains at 22.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i suppose it wouldn't hurt to put some syrup out to make up for the lack of nectar flow to promote brooding, but none of the colonies are in danger of starving and i believe i'll just allow them to adjust brooding as they see fit.


According to my present way of seeing things, this is the time (perhaps a bit late) to promote brooding _if you want fast build up next spring_

I get paid a pollination fee according to the size of my colonies, so it will pay me to feed now. There's the further possibility that a good fruit blossom will push the colonies up to make good use of the misc. trees and rape that follows. But a cold spring might mean I'll have large hungry colonies to deal with...

I'm also thinking that those colonies without brood at the height of a flow are the ones that can get the most in - they can have all hands on deck. So encouraging attunement along those lines would be a good thing. (This might be a deeper reason for natural brood breaks...?) 

Feeding syrup can undoubtedly make a huge difference to the crop, and as I want to be a full time beekeeper I'm taking that road. But I'd like to do it without unduly upsetting forage attunement. I suspect, given the vagaries of climate here and the different crops available, the best I can do is encourage diversity. 

We're having a nice ivy flow, which has boosted an otherwise disappointing year crop wise. 

Mike (UK)


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



mike bispham said:


> According to my present way of seeing things, this is the time (perhaps a bit late) to promote brooding _if you want fast build up next spring_


hello mick.

there's no doubt in my mind that you are spot on in this regard. but you know me, always trying to rub against the grain and attempt the unconventional...

i've not ruled out putting out a little yard feed before it's over. i hope to assess a few more of the hives over the next few weeks and have my fingers crossed that we get some rain while we still have some fall blooms. i've got a month or two to play...

here's a few reasons why i am considering holding back with the syrup:

1. allowing the colonies to adjust brooding in response to the ebbs and flows has served me well so far. they've always got it right so far and i don't want to interfere with that.

2. since there won't be any chance for successful supercedure until spring it may play better to not 'push' the queens any harder than the colonies perceive they need to.

3. smaller colonies coming out of winter actually work better for me. swarm prevention is easier, and i've placed a height limit on my hives to the equivalent of 4 - 5 ten frame langstroth deeps. 2 or 3 frames of bees in february are plenty enough for a good honey crop come june.

4. i want my survivor stock to be able to pass all kinds tests besides managing varroa on their own. those that modulate their operations under these conditions and are successful are all the more better bees in my book.

as for attunement, brooding peaks in my colonies just prior to our main spring flow (and peak swarm issue) and then gradually declines taking the colonies into their brood break during our summer dearth season.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Not much to say here in West Alabama except that today I see goldenrod full of bees. This is the first time so far that the bees have worked it more than just a few hours early in the morning. They are bringing in abundant pollen so that is one huge relief in terms of wintering.

Otherwise, the onslaught of hive beetles is finally subsiding. I had to break down 3 nucs and combine two fair sized colonies that went queenless in order to prevent beetle damage. The rest of the bees are looking pretty good. I am deliberately feeding 4 large colonies to get some frames drawn and stores put up for winter. I want to be able to pull frames from these if any of the others are short. I want to hit spring with colonies ready to build in a hurry. That is best done with a medium strength colony with plenty of winter stores.

An unknown beekeeper in this area let his hives collapse unleashing an incredible number of wax moths and hive beetles on the rest of us. I had to keep all colonies and nucs strong to prevent beetle damage. I walked out about 10:00 pm a month ago and had tens of thousands of wax moths covering the wall and roof of the overhang behind my house. I know for sure they did not come from my bees.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

nice report dar. there was a nice line of showers the other day that developed just past me here but i believe it dumped pretty good on rainsville. flatrockboy has some hives not far from yours and he checked on them today, said they were stinking pretty good with goldenrod.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Some stands of aster are at 20 to 50 percent bloom. Bees were working it pretty hard late in the evening. Most were gathering pollen with maybe 20% foraging for nectar or both nectar and pollen. Goldenrod is on the decline, I would estimate 40% or more of the flowers are past the point of secreting nectar. I still see plenty of bees on the flowers, but they are not getting much from them.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

update:

the extreme drought persists here and there's no question that it has seriously impacted our fall nectar flow. normally at this time in the season the colonies are well into their fall brood up with multiple frames of brood and are adding pounds of honey for overwintering.

in contrast the few hives i've been into over the past couple of weeks have only small patches of brood and there is very sparse new nectar. it's clear that they are not going to uncap any of their spring honey to facilitate brooding, although i really wish they would.

with the forecast looking pretty bleak for any appreciable rain for at least the next couple of weeks and with the calendar ticking away in terms of our fall blooms and approaching first frost, i've decided to simulate a nectar flow by putting out yard feeders.

i'm using 1:1 acidified with vitamin c in an inverted 5 gallon bucket. the hope is the incoming 'nectar' will encourage the colonies to ramp up brooding and get a decent overwintering population in place over the next month or so.

i've mentioned in previous posts that my colonies have demonstrated the trait of frugality. this trait manifests itself in terms of taking a brood break during our summer dearth and getting through the 'winter' months with consuming very few pounds of stores.

i suppose any trait taken to an extreme has the potential to be detrimental. in the case of this 100 year drought, being too frugal with stored honey is proving to put my colonies at a disadvantage.

the colonies are refusing to use their stores even though they have 40 - 50 lbs. of honey available directly above the brood areas. i'm guessing that this 'strain' is adapted to and expecting a fall necar flow to initiate their pre winter build up. this is the first year since i've been keeping bees that we didn't get one.

while there appears to be very little nectar coming in, the bees have been bringing in pollen on a fairly regular basis. i'm seeing decent frames of bee bread in the hives so i'm not planning to provide a pollen supplement at this time.

i considered just letting the situation play out as a test to see how the colonies might balance conserving stores vs. using them to get a wintering population in place. after finding the small broodnests in several of the hives and seeing that they are not using stores i decided to go with the yard feeders. i suppose we'll see how this pans out come next spring.

many thanks once again for your interest in this thread.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I was in Rainsville today Squarepeg and can confirm your dire outlook. Squash in the field in front and watermelons in the field behind my mother's place are severely stunted and look like they won't produce more than maybe 30 percent of normal. The grass in her yard is brown and dry. Rain is badly needed. Here where I live is a bit better, we had a decent rain 3 weeks ago.


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Sorry to hear it Sp. We were doing pretty good up here until a week ago. Checked some frames then & pollen, nectar & healthy looking brood. Yesterday very little nectar left or late brood but still some pollen. Had to put some syrup out. Can't watch them starve. Plenty of blooming going on but no blooming rain.


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## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Winter started one week ago with cold temperature and frosty nights.
We will have a long winter, not like last year when the bees were able to forage until november.

I visited mine today, they are content, their hives filled with honey since middle of september.
I feared they would have too much and therefore too small brood nests, because I fed some with honey syrup ( I´m still not very experienced) but now I realize I did the right thing.

Only a handful dead bees with all hives to be seen, two damaged bees. So the bees are still strong enough to clean their deadfall and the old ones to die outdoors.
Sound of hives is very nice if listening with my stethoscope.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

nice report sibylle, thank you. we are about a month or so away from frosty nights here. i'll weigh my hives again when we get to that time but i think they are mostly set for winter when it comes to stores. our winter is relatively mild with an occasional flying day, but i usually check about once a week or so with the stethoscope, and if any go quiet i'll bring the frames in and protect them for use in the spring.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Luck to you, squarepeg. 

Hearing sounds like "BBSSSST-BSSBBSSSTTT" I know they have a problem. Everything`s fine so far.
I look forward to the older queens making it. Well one colony has two queens inside ( the supersedure queen too) and I never culled out any supersedure cells so the decisions were theirs. I trust them. 

Now I will order new material ( I´m not a carpenter myself...), melt Wax and do some foundations for me and others. Meet with tf beekeepers to talk bees.


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## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

double


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Goldenrod is brown and mostly gone. I don't see any bees working the stand behind my house. Aster is just now hitting peak bloom but is getting attention from the bees only in early morning. I'd say this fall flow has been as poor as I've seen. I am still preparing hives for winter mostly by moving frames of bees and honey to one side of the hive. I'm going into winter with more small clusters of bees than normal. This is mostly a result of late season splits as I built numbers of colonies for next spring.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> I'd say this fall flow has been as poor as I've seen.


the fall flow has been pityful to nonexistent here dar. here's today's photo of the pond just down from the beeyard:

View attachment 28575


there are about 60 adult catfish that have buried themselves up in the mud just below that 8" of 'puddle' still left. 

jackson county was upgraded last week to 'exceptional drought', the worst designation on the scale, and the forecast is for it to persist. we've had no rain here in over a month although a cold front is coming through tomorrow night and there's a decent chance we'll get some...

but if not those catfish are goners. the bees on the other hand appear to be doing well from what i can gather observing the entrances. so far this year not a single dead pupa/larva has been thrown out, nor have i seen the first dwv or crawler.


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## tpope

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

That pond... Dang! Wow. I know that Dad and I discussed digging ours a little deeper but it's not that bad. Maybe some rain tonight.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

hi tpope. the rain front is moving through here as i type and it's looking like we might get an inch or more out of it. hallelujah.

i'm not sure what is producing it, but both yards had an uptick earlier today in the foraging of white-grey pollen.


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

tpope, have you had a chance lately to take a peek at your colonies started with the queen cells from up here?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

we ended up getting just under an inch of rain thursday night, enough to possibly buy the catfish a few more days, but we've no more rain in the forecast for at least another week...

i went into the 2 hives today that are located at what i am calling my 'overflow' yard. these 2 hives have not been provided with a yard feeder like the hives in my two main yards have.

the colonies looked strong with 10+ deep frames of bees and both have a queen. the workers have nice areas of cells in the broodnest polished up and ready for the queen to lay in, and there are nice frames of bee bread flanking those areas, but there's no brooding going on at all.

i'l likely put the feed bucket out over there and give them a few days of 'nectar flow' as that is what it looks like to me they are waiting for. i find it odd that they won't use any of the 40 lbs. of honey overhead.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i find it odd that they won't use any of the 40 lbs. of honey overhead.


I find it very promising. If the bees are in good physiological condition, and because of that have the ability to start the colony expansion in the coming spring, it is only of advantage if they do not make brood at this moment.


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Juhani Lunden said:


> I find it very promising. If the bees are in good physiological condition, and because of that have the ability to start the colony expansion in the coming spring, it is only of advantage if they do not make brood at this moment.


it is promising that this strain of bees is frugal with their stores and ceases brood rearing in response to dearth conditions. my concern is that they have been in extreme dearth conditions for several months and it's not clear to me that they have produced the long lived diutinus workers for overwintering. 

the bees i saw yesterday look great and i couldn't find a single speck of mite frass in the comb. indeed the upside to this extended brood break is that it has denied the mites the opportunity to reproduce as well.

i can't be sure, and i won't know until february, but seeing how little stores there are around the broodnest area itself, and not seeing the normal fall brooding underway, and with our first frost just around the corner, and with the fall blooms almost gone already...

i'm thinking that a simulating a little 'nectar flow' is in order. i haven't fed my bees in any significant way since the first year, and in this case it isn't to prevent starvation or because i over harvested...

but not having any nectar coming in during the fall just isn't normal around here. i honestly don't think providing a little bit of artificial 'nectar' is going to make or break the situation, but it does appear to me to be a prudent step, and it will be interesting to see if it changes anything from the colonies' point of view.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Be careful with feeding. They may start raising a round of brood which then forces consumption of honey that was needed for winter stores. There is a balance between needing winter bees and needing stores to make it through winter. I've had best results from providing a lot of syrup at one time so that they don't go overboard with brood rearing. The stimulus of having feed available for a short time does not trigger as much brood production as having a smaller amount available for longer periods.


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## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I have a new acquaintance who works together with this institution:

http://www.bees.unibe.ch/index_eng.html

He told me of an experiment, which tested the extended live span of winter bees when being inactive. They discovered some bees which lived as long as 18 months.


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## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

In Finland winterbees are raised in September. They hold until May, massive broodrearing starts end of April.
It is the lack of brood rearing and access to pollen stores which makes them longlived.
Without a queen hive dwindles somewhere mid June, so that shows how long they hold. 

But of course Finnish climate has made them that way. On the other hand your spring starts much earlier. I would find it very hard to believe that they would not hold until your spring, January?


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## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

First pollen is usually February 10th though it has been as late as the 25th or as early as the 1st. We have fruit bloom sometime about March 25th and the main flow starts about April 25th. It is pretty much over by the first of June. A few years, we have had a decent flow in June from Sourwood.


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

snickeringbear, 100% agreed. i am providing a one time/few days worth of 1:1 using a yard feeder. i weigh my hives more or less monthly throughout the winter months and find that very little honey gets used until they start brooding in late winter. plus i anticipate a few losses along the way and the honey from those gets redistributed to any light hives.

sibylle, that's very interesting and thank you. here is another interesting read when it comes to long lived overwintering bees:

"So the European honeybee, in adapting for the long winters of temperate climates, has figured out ways to store energy in the form of honey for the winter, and protein in the form of vitellogenin. This allowed the species to maintain a large social population year round, despite the vagaries of nectar and pollen flows. Amdam (2003) states: “the vitellogenin-to-jelly invention…made possible the establishment of a very simple and flexible ambient condition-driven mechanism for transforming a nurse bee into a bee with large enough protein and lipid stores to survive several months on honey only.” When broodrearing is curtailed in fall, the emerging workers tank up on pollen, and since they have no brood to feed, they store all that good food in their bodies, thus preparing themselves for a long life through the winter. These well-nourished, long-lived bees have been called “fat” bees (Sommerville 2005; Mussen 2007). Fat bees are chock-full of vitellogenin. Understanding the concept of fat bees is key to colony health, successful wintering, spring buildup, and honey production."

from: http://scientificbeekeeping.com/fat-bees-part-1/


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Juhani Lunden said:


> I would find it very hard to believe that they would not hold until your spring, January?


it can vary with the weather juhani, but the first rounds of new brood coming out of winter up here on the mountain are in mid february or so. the problem is i'm not sure how old the bees are currently in the hives, i.e. i don't think the overwintering bees have been made yet because there has been no flow and no honey has been used.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Winterbees are the last bees, which have no brood rearing duties. No matter when they emerge. One year there was a very hot summer in Finland, all flowers were gone in early July. Many hives stopped brood rearing then, two months earlier than normal. Wintering went just fine.


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Juhani Lunden said:


> Winterbees are the last bees, which have no brood rearing duties. No matter when they emerge. One year there was a very hot summer in Finland, all flowers were gone in early July. Many hives stopped brood rearing then, two months earlier than normal. Wintering went just fine.


that's really good to hear juhani, many thanks. 

my understanding is the last rounds of brood are fed a richer jelly than what is fed earlier in the year, and this results in larger vitellogenin stores in the diutinus bees, which in turn gives them the ability to be longer lived.


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## clyderoad

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

sounds like feeding should be considered a treatment.


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## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Thanks, sp, that I read about, too.
High density of hive population will mean winter bees, raised in summer, which are privileged to be inactive for a long time.
As I understand it bees which are not treated have a longer life span. So why worry?
Maybe your girls just enjoy their holiday.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



clyderoad said:


> sounds like feeding should be considered a treatment.


Only so far as you disturb the natural development in my opinion.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> my understanding is the last rounds of brood are fed a richer jelly than what is fed earlier in the year,


I´m not sure if that is true. I think that when brood rearing gets smaller towards autumn this results that the winterbees may get some more royal jelly, but the most important factor is that the last bees to emerge consume a lot of pollen and honey and get about 25% more weight than summer bees. They consume pollen, but there are no brood needed to be fed, so they get fat.
This happens automatic, no extra instincts("richer royal jelly" is such) are needed.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Juhani Lunden said:


> I think that when brood rearing gets smaller towards autumn this results that the winterbees may get some more royal jelly, but the most important factor is that the last bees to emerge consume a lot of pollen and honey and get about 25% more weight than summer bees.


that makes sense juhani, my plan is to read back up on the topic this winter. my 'concern' for now is that there hasn't been much brood rearing to speak of since early summer. 

honey and pollen stores are in place and i suppose it's warm enough here for the colonies to do a little brooding as needed throughout the winter.

plus i've learned these past two seasons that tiny overwintered colonies, i.e. a mere handful of bees with a laying queen, can become productive units provided with nothing more than a few shakes of nurse bees to give them momentum.

i think it's possible to be purist to a fault. i mentioned in an earlier post considering putting the apiary to the test, and i mentioned this morning that i don't see this limited feeding as 'make or break'. i believe i have some valuable stock out there and the weather this year is off the charts.

on the other hand if i were selecting for bees able to withstand exceptional droughts that come around once per century it would make more sense to forsake the feeders.  

many thanks to all of you for the great comments.


----------



## clyderoad

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Weren't you able to collect a record crop (nearly doubling honey harvest per hive) earlier this 'drought of the century' year? leaving more on the hives could have enabled them to make some summer and winter bees perhaps, and you'd be feeding less now. Old bees and colonies failing to maintain population mass have a rough time over the winter. I'd consider combining some here, that way they'll at least be some to work with in the spring.
on another note: I suppose one should reduce the harvest numbers by how much syrup was fed back to get a more realistic idea of production.


----------



## moebees

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> t
> on the other hand if i were selecting for bees able to withstand exceptional droughts that come around once per century it would make more sense to forsake the feeders.
> 
> many thanks to all of you for the great comments.



Are these droughts something like the 500 year floods we get every 10 years now? The climate is a changing my friend.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



clyderoad said:


> Weren't you able to collect a record crop (nearly doubling honey harvest per hive) earlier this 'drought of the century' year?


yes, honey production almost doubled this year with 15 production hives compared to 12 last year. the drought didn't begin until after the exceptional spring flow we had was over. i've still got about 3 more gallons of honey in the bucket to bottle up and about 3 cases left to sell, after that i'll present the 2016 tallies for comparison to 2015.



clyderoad said:


> leaving more on the hives could have enabled them to make some summer and winter bees perhaps, and you'd be feeding less now.


sounds good in theory clyde, but actually 2 or more supers of honey have been left on on every hive all through the summer. only recently have i moved some honey from the established hives to this year's starters getting them all to about 1.5 medium supers of honey in addition to what is in their single deeps.

my colonies don't make summer bees. they brood break during our dearth and then make winter bees on the fall flow. as i mentioned, this is the first year since i've had bees that there was no fall flow.

i guessed you missed my comments that i wasn't feeding to replace harvested honey, and that i was surprised that the colonies weren't using their stored honey to brood with.

the small amount of light syrup i put out in yard feeders is only going to average out to be less than 2 quarts per hive and was given because of nectar dearth and to facilitate a little brooding. whether it does or not remains to be seen.



clyderoad said:


> bees and colonies failing to maintain population mass have a rough time over the winter. I'd consider combining some here, that way they'll at least be some to work with in the spring.


probably more of a factor with your winter up there than it is down here. these survivor bees have shown me that they know how to stay viable coming out of winter with a laying queen and about as many bees as are sacrificed doing an alcohol wash. better not to pinch any queens as each one coming out of winter laying has the potential to head a 100+ lb. production hive.



clyderoad said:


> on another note: I suppose one should reduce the harvest numbers by how much syrup was fed back to get a more realistic idea of production.


ok. we can take the 80 lbs. of sugar away from the three quarters of a ton of honey i harvested this year if you would like.


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## AvatarDad

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



moebees said:


> Are these droughts something like the 500 year floods we get every 10 years now? The climate is a changing my friend.


Unfortunately, this is true. The last 5 years in Georgia have been drought, drought, drought, flood, drought. I've been watching the plants in my neighborhood undergo selection (i.e. "die") this year. This year was the worst one so far. Still no sign of rain.


----------



## clyderoad

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> ......


Seems like I ruffled some feathers.


Doesn't sound like they need any intervention to survive given all the positive characteristics they possess and ample stores on the hive.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

it's all good clyde, thanks for chiming in.

you and the others are probably right about it not being necessary to put the syrup out. 

i am just trying to apply a small offset to the exceptionally poor forage availability the colonies are experiencing here at the time when they are usually brooding their overwintering population.

my read of the brood frames yesterday was that they were waiting for fresh nectar, but admittedly it was just a guess.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



moebees said:


> Are these droughts something like the 500 year floods we get every 10 years now? The climate is a changing my friend.


i spoke with my beekeeping neighbor earlier this evening. back in the 70's this neighbor and his partner were one of the bigger suppliers of package bees to canada. the partner, who is now 87 years old and still keeping bees, was born into a beekeeping family and has been around bees since he was old enough to get stung.

this old timer shared with my neighbor that in all those years of beekeeping here he has never seen a year even remotely close to this one, referencing the drought and the effect it has had on the colonies.

i also received a text from one of the leading members of our local organization who runs a sideline operation a little larger than mine that includes queen rearing and nuc sales. he too is reporting that his colonies are not brooding and that he is supplying syrup as well.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



> my understanding is the last rounds of brood are fed a richer jelly than what is fed earlier in the year, and this results in larger vitellogenin stores in the diutinus bees, which in turn gives them the ability to be longer lived.


 Feeding brood is the primary means of "fat" bees using up reserves. Any time a bee does not feed brood, it will live longer. Foraging is the second heaviest sink for energy. If summer bees do not have to forage, they will live longer. The key problem to address is whether or not there are enough bees to successfully overwinter. Your stock and mine are very similar in this regard, they will overwinter with a softball size cluster so long as they have enough honey. I have been selecting for colonies that overwinter with soccer ball size clusters because they will make a honey crop and can donate brood for a split or to boost weak colonies. Soccer ball size is in the "sweet spot" for colony size so long as they are matched with enough honey for winter. Not posting this for you SP, you have already figured it out, it is for newbies reading this thread.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

thanks for that informative post dar. the octogenarian mentioned above is gf, who i believe you mentioned getting some of you first bees from in a previous post

flatrockboy found a few of his hives out of stores a few weeks ago and placed in hive feeders. he's going to inspect them today and see if they've begun brooding.


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> thanks for that informative post dar. the octogenarian mentioned above is gf, who i believe you mentioned getting some of you first bees from in a previous post
> 
> flatrockboy found a few of his hives out of stores a few weeks ago and placed in hive feeders. he's going to inspect them today and see if they've begun brooding.


Sorry to hear the conditions in your area, SP. Hope you guys get some relief.

If it's any consolation, I've got a hive whose queen appears to be shutting down, and we're not in drought conditions. They are very frugal bees, though, and have a hive full of honey.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I trust sp to make the right decisions.

The acquaintance I mentioned above lives in alpine area and his season is short. 



> with soccer ball size clusters because they will make a honey crop and can donate brood for a split or to boost weak colonies. Soccer ball size is in the "sweet spot" for colony size so long as they are matched with enough honey for winter.


His clusters sometimes are 500 bees and the queen in spring, but he watches out for enough food, too. The first pollen....they explode.


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I re-read that and realized I made it sound as though my queen wasn't shutting down. She appears to be shutting down is what I mean to write. Sometimes there is a disconnect between my fingers and brain.


----------



## tpope

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> tpope, have you had a chance lately to take a peek at your colonies started with the queen cells from up here?


They are looking good from the outside. I need to get into all my hives and take inventory. Golden rod and fall asters have made a small flow.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

so at about noon on sunday i placed a yard feeder at the 'overflow yard' that is currently holding 2 hives. i went back later on sunday saw there were no takers at all. i looked again at lunch today and about a half hour ago on my way in from work, and still there's not the first bee taking interest in the feeder.

i may be wrong about how deep of dearth we are in. there has been a little uptick in pollen and nectar coming into the hives at all 3 yards for the past couple of days. could that little bit of rain we had thursday night has made enough difference? could it be that the vegetation along the creeks and rivers is still producing? i'm really pretty clueless at this point.

at any rate, if they don't go for the syrup by the end of the day tomorrow i'm bringing the feeder back in. (and adding those 8 lbs back to the honey yield clyde!  )


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

SP, we got a significant up-tick in aster honey production. I can see the extra in several hives. The bees may not have found your feeder. I would get a few bees onto a small lid full of syrup and then carry the lid to the feeder. They will usually start taking it after that.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

sb, many thanks for that report. i thought about trying what you suggested but i was encouraged to see that they were finding (and possibly preferring) natural forage. up until this past weekend's inspection, i had already purposed in my mind to let these 2 colonies be 'tested' and not give them syrup, so if they are still ignoring the feeder and if we appear to be getting some kind of flow i'm going to remove the feeder.

flatrockboy call me last night and the hives he has at section that he found empty of stores a few weeks back and provided in hive feeders to have emptied those feeders and are brooding. the hives he has near a flowing creek in rainsville are foraging strongly right now, are heavy with stores, and are brooding. turns out there is a flowing creek running near my 2 hives at the 'overflow yard'.

perhaps the dropping temperatures, tiny bit of rain, and uptick in nectar flow are the cues the colonies have been waiting for to turn the corner on their summer dearth brood breaking and begin their fall brood up. it's been a strange season this fall that's for sure.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

so the 2 colonies at the overflow yard found the feeder just after lunchtime today and collected most of the syrup in it by the end of the day. they'll have it finished tomorrow, and for the rest of the season all my colonies will have to make do with their stored honey and whatever else nature may provide. perhaps we'll get a repeat of last year's mysterious december nectar flow.


----------



## Riverderwent

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> last year's mysterious december nectar flow.


dandelions


----------



## razoo

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

What a fascinating read! All 40 and a bit pages of it!

@sp, I wonder if your feral survivor stock are Russian bees? 
Small winter cluster size, explosive spring build up, shut down brood rearing when no flow, less robbing, mite resistant. 
All seem to be traits you have described which line up with the chart on this page you referenced: http://scientificbeekeeping.com/choosing-your-troops-breeding-mite-fighting-bees/ 
(Yes, I also read most of the links you referenced!)
I also found a similar description of Russian bees on this page http://www.russianbee.com/Russians.html which also describes the tendency to swarm. 

Initially I had hoped to find on this thread how to raise bees treatment free. At first I was disappointed when I realised you didn't utilize any specific IPM methods, but simply relied on good stock to start off with. After reading I see that you, and others, have already done all the hard work and reading your thread gave me confidence that with the right stock in the right area, keeping bees can indeed be done treatment free. 
I will be looking for a source to purchase mite resistant queens for next year. Since I am a good bit north of you I believe I need to go with northern raised queens, though I don't really know if it makes that much difference or not.


----------



## Riverderwent

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



razoo said:


> I will be looking for a source to purchase mite resistant queens for next year. Since I am a good bit north of you I believe I need to go with northern raised queens, though I don't really know if it makes that much difference or not.


A good place to start is to buy a nuc from someone who does feral bee cutouts. Ask them for a colony from an old cutout. Plan on making splits and pushing out drones until the survivor traits become prevalent in your immediate area. Try to locate your bee yard near a swamp or forested area where there are likely to be more feral bees than managed bees.


----------



## Riverderwent

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



razoo said:


> I will be looking for a source to purchase mite resistant queens for next year. Since I am a good bit north of you I believe I need to go with northern raised queens, though I don't really know if it makes that much difference or not.


A good place to start is to buy a nuc from someone who does feral bee cutouts. Ask them for a colony from an old cutout. Plan on making splits and allowing your colonies to raise drones until the survivor traits become prevalent in your immediate area. Try to locate your hives where there are likely to be more feral bees than managed bees. That could be near a swamp or forested area or in an older urban area.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Horizontal mite transfer is the major impediment to keeping bees treatment free. One way this happens is when drop a mite on a flower, then another forager visits and the mite hitches a ride. When a colony robs another that is collapsing with mites, massive numbers of mites will return with the robbers. To keep bees treatment free, horizontal transfer must be severely restricted. I saturated this area with treatment free genetics in 2006 and 2008 by pushing my bees to swarm putting about 50 feral colonies into the woods. The result is bees that can make it treatment free and ability to mate queens in this area with near 100% of flying drones from treatment free colonies. As a bonus, I catch a few return swarms from the woods every year.

To be clear, treatment free bees are not a panacea, they won't cure all the problems. What they can do is produce honey while keeping mite levels very low. If you can achieve saturation of the area with treatment free genetics, they become self-maintaining.

Re the bees SP and I have being Russians, no, they are derived from mite resistant feral stock that showed up in Northeast Alabama about 15 years ago. They show strong traces of the old Apis Mellifera Mellifera genetics that were common in this area 50 years ago. I deliberately crossed with drones from Dann Purvis' stock in order to stabilize high level resistance. Dann's stock was about 50% Russian. This makes my bees about 25% derived from Russian stock.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

hi razoo, and sincere thanks for your kind comments. it's very gratifying to know that you found it worthwhile it invest the time to scour through the whole thread!

the majority of my colonies at this point have queens that originate from the 20 year tf supplier who started with a handful of tree cut outs. i have a few colonies now that are derivatives of fusion_power's bees, a few that are derivatives from a feral swarm i caught this year, and a couple that came from a friend who has be tf since 2008.

i believe the 'local' strain around here is highly hybridized from all kinds of strains that have been brought into the area over the decades, and likely include some a.m.m genetics as fusion_power alluded to. they tend to be colored somewhat on the darker side and not very yellow.

the mitochondrial dna testing that was performed on samples from the 20 year tf stock came back c1, which means on the queen side they are derivatives of italian and/or carniolan stock, but they do tend to share a lot of the traits that the mite resistant russian bees do as you point out.

i agree with the points david and dar made and those would be good things to incorporate into your plan if you can. i think your best bet is to locate someone in your general geographical area already having success keeping bees off treatments and try to get bees from them without too much concern over what 'strain' they may be.

your second best bet is to locate feral bees in trees and buildings as near to you as possible this fall and try trapping swarms and doing cut outs on the survivors next spring.

thanks again for your interest and best of luck to you with your beekeeping.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

oh, and i have a few colonies that originate from a colony that was 'orphaned' on my property in 2010. i still have that colony and it is my longest lived with 7 winters under its belt. i have grafted from it for the past 3 seasons and the daughters have not disappointed. these bees were very yellow in 2010 and very heavy propolizers. after a few generations they are as dark as all the rest and don't propolize quite as much.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

This is a general caution for anyone who has bees in a drought ravaged area. I last saw conditions similar to this in 1988. Lack of pollen in the fall left many colonies of bees unprepared for winter and many of them dwindled the next spring. I used the few strong colonies to provide frames of sealed brood for weaker colonies, kept a bunch of frames of honey that were used to feed the bees the next spring, and managed to move a few frames of pollen to colonies that desperately needed them. Please be alert to your bee's condition this spring, you could lose them or have a colony that is so weak it can't produce a crop of honey.


----------



## Riverderwent

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i believe the 'local' strain around here is highly hybridized from all kinds of strains that have been brought into the area over the decades, and likely include some a.m.m genetics as fusion_power alluded to. they tend to be colored somewhat on the darker side and not very yellow.
> 
> the mitochondrial dna testing that was performed on samples from the 20 year tf stock came back c1, which means on the queen side they are derivatives of italian and/or carniolan stock, but they do tend to share a lot of the traits that the mite resistant russian bees do as you point out.


This study published in 1994 has some interesting findings regarding the relatively high percentages (37%) of A.M.M. in feral populations in the southern U.S. I would be interested to see whether and how much the percentage has changed as a result of varroa since the samples were taken for this study. www.researchgate.net/profile/Nathan...8ae2fac4718fd66.pdf?origin=publication_detail


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Riverderwent said:


> I would be interested to see whether and how much the percentage has changed as a result of varroa since the samples were taken for this study.


good question david and thanks for the link. many of the old timers around here talk about those 'german black bee' swarms they used to catch. they had a reputation for being temperamental but good honey producers. 

i haven't heard of anybody seeing whole colonies of those kind of bees since i've started, but most all my colonies have a small percentage of almost solid black bees in them. my guess is that many of them got wiped out when varroa first hit, and those that survived became hybridized into the overall population.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

i'm guessing you've seen this already, but this is probably the most up to date review regarding genetic diversity:

http://scientificbeekeeping.com/wha...fference-between-domesticated-and-feral-bees/


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Here is a PDF link to a study done by R. Magnus that includes a map to show location. Study was mid 2K I believe.

http://www.comp.uark.edu/~aszalan/szalanski.pdf

This was the study for 'O' lineage. Scratch that. Still interesting though.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

The short answer is that the old german black bee no longer exists except as heavily hybridized stock with mostly Italian lineage. The colony I found in 2004 that heavily expressed the traits were larger slightly rounder bees, very intense foraging activity even at low temperatures, intense swarming tendency, and a strong inclination to sting. Over the years since, I have worked the stinging trait down quite a bit. I am working on swarming. The positives are that these bees need no treatment for varroa and are otherwise pretty good at taking care of themselves.


----------



## moebees

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13592-015-0355-0

This would tend to indicate that the genetics of feral bees in and around Arnot forest have not changed significantly. At least have not been influenced by crossing from managed hives. This may be due to the low number of managed hives in the area. But it does tend to refute the idea of all the feral hives dying off and replaced by swarms from managed hives. 

This presentation by one of the co-authors of the of above study is interesting. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDQNoQfW-9w


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Still some drones around.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

many thanks for the photo sibylle. i have almost forgotten what drones and green grass look like as the drought has caused it to be several months since we've seen either one here. 

all i am doing at this point is strolling by the hives and observing what is going on at the entrances. foraging has curtailed to virtually nil. the good news is that there has been no robbing nor any diseased bees nor lots of dead bees on the ground. 

it appears that the colonies are holding their own. perhaps one silver lining to not having a robust fall brood up is that it may allow any queens that are close to failure to last a little longer and make it until we have drones again in the spring.

about the only thing left for me to do management wise is to place the foam insulation boards in between the inner covers and telescoping tops when the first frost arrives. that, and check hive weights again to see if redistributing honey stores among the hives is necessary.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Good idea SP.

I remember a year out of Dee Lusbys diary when she had no flow all year long because of a drought.
As I remember it she had survivors enough. Bees are tough and know what to do. Yours will live longer because of tf.

:applause:


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

"On this week’s map, most of the region saw deterioration in conditions as the dry pattern persisted. Georgia Climate Division CD 1 (Northwest), CD 3 (Northeast), and Alabama CD 2 (Northeast) all recorded their driest 60-day periods on record."

from: http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu (toggle 'the southeast')


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Well, let nature have it´s own way. You did your best.

In Germany there are the first beekeepers now , commercials, who store their bee hives in a cold storage depot. They try to enforce a brood brake.
Treating 2 times or more with AS and one time with OS , culling out brood, caging the queen, all in vain because of the changing climate.
The mites are stronger than ever.
30 years treatments and fighting the symptoms. Now they are desperate.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



SiWolKe said:


> Well, let nature have it´s own way. You did your best.


thanks sibylle. i'm actually more optimistic than not about the prognosis for my colonies.

they have shown the ability to get lean and mean through times of dearth by brood breaking and conserving stores. it will be interesting to see how this exceptional change in weather plays out over the next few months.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

the last bucket of honey is now bottled up and mrs. squarepeg will likely get it sold at market over these next couple of weekends.

i've tallied up the honey yield at 1488 lbs. for the year. this number was arrived at by adding up the quarts and one pound squeeze bottles that were prepared for sale, putting that figure in terms of gallons, and multiplying each gallon by 12 lbs.

so every 12 one pound squeeze bottles and every 4 quarts were counted as one gallon and the total gallons were multiplied by 12 to get the total yield at 1488 lbs., which compares to a total of 876 lbs. for last year.

i harvested 20 batches of 2 medium supers each for a total of 40 medium supers containing 9 frames each. this puts the average honey per medium super at 37.2 lbs.

i am slightly underestimating here because with all 20 batches anything less than a pint at the end of the pour was not counted in the total yield. those few pounds went for personal use, gifts to landowners, samples for the market, ect.

so that puts this year's average yield at:

78.3 lbs per (19) overwintered hives, compared to 58.4 lbs. last year
99.2 lbs per (15) honey production hives, compared to 67.4 lbs. last year

here are the actual yields from each 2 super batch:

091616: HARVESTED 2 SUPERS FROM #1, 5.875 GALLONS
090916: HARVESTED 2 SUPERS FROM #B4, 6.25 GALLONS
090216: HARVESTED 2 SUPERS FROM #B5, 6.0 GALLONS
082616: HARVESTED 2 SUPERS FROM #5, 6.125 GALLONS
081916: HARVESTED 16 FR. FROM #12 AND 2 FR. FROM #8, 5.375 GALLONS
081216: HARVESTED 2 SUPERS FROM #B1, 6.0 GALLONS
080516: HARVESTED 2 SUPERS FROM #B9, 6.375 GALLONS
072916: HARVESTED 2 SUPERS FROM #6, 6.375 GALLONS
072216: HARVESTED 2 SUPERS FROM #11, 6.375 GALLONS
071516: HARVESTED 2 SUPERS FROM #1, 6.625 GALLONS
070816: HARVESTED 2 SUPERS FROM #2, 6.75 GALLONS
070116: HARVESTED 2 SUPERS FROM #B8, 6.125 GALLONS
062416: HARVESTED 2 SUPERS FROM #8, 6.5 GALLONS
061716: HARVESTED 16 FR. FROM #3 AND 2 FR. FROM #12, 5.625 GAL
060916: HARVESTED 2 SUPERS FROM #9, 5.75 GALLONS
060316: HARVESTED 2 SUPERS FROM #B2, 6.0 GALLONS
052916: HARVESTED 2 SUPERS FROM #B3, 5.875 GALLONS
052616: HARVESTED 1 SUPER EACH FROM #9 AND #11, 6.625 GALLONS
051916: HARVESTED 1 SUPER EACH FROM #6 & #12, 6.75 GALLONS
051316: HARVESTED 1 SUPER EACH FROM #5 & #1, 6.5 GALLONS

once all of the honey is sold i'll have the total sales and average income per hive to report and compare to last year's.


----------



## bucksbees

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Sweet, even in a drought, that makes the output all the more impressive.

How much of that do you credit to the checkerboarding in the spring?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



bucksbees said:


> Sweet, even in a drought, that makes the output all the more impressive.
> 
> How much of that do you credit to the checkerboarding in the spring?


many thanks buck. 

we had a mild winter followed by an exceptionally good spring and most of the honey got produced before the drought started. the drought killed our normal fall flow and its commensurate weight gain otherwise i'm confident i could have gotten a few more hundred lbs. harvested for sale.

having more drawn comb allowed for proper checkerboarding which resulted more effective swarm prevention and imo had everything to do with getting the better yields.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

flatrockboy and i helped each other weigh all of our hives today. 

what i found with mine is that they were very similar in weight to what was measured 6 weeks ago, only loosing a couple of pounds per hive on average.

the estimated honey left for the bees this year is 870 lbs. which averages to 39.5 lbs per hive. this compares to 798 lbs left last year averaging 38 lbs. per hive.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I am jarring up the last of the honey for this year. Most of the bees are ready for winter though I need to check a few colonies still. The local demand for honey is excellent, I can sell it much faster than the bees can make it.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

we've still had no rain here and the catfish pond is within a few days at best of going completely dry.

i collected the samples for the stephen martin/randy oliver dwv a vs. b study today and will be shipping them out in monday's mail.

the five colonies i took the samples from were my longest lived and i found them strong with bees and stores. i didn't look for brood.

we're down to our last few quarts and one pound squeeze bottles from this year's honey harvest. i expect them to sell out quickly at next weekend's market after which i'll post the final tallies for 2016.

about all that is left for me to do with the hives this season is place the styrofoam insulation boards underneath the telescoping covers.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> we've still had no rain here and the catfish pond is within a few days at best of going completely dry.


Just the opposite here, rain, stormy, snow, cold nights.
Poor catfish!

Had a loss today and I still muse about what happened.
September the hive looked strong and healthy, in fact they were the healthiest of the beeyard. Now a handful of bees left and a dead queen. Still looking intact( but dead ). Some ten capped cells left, I pulled out the pupa they looked intact.
No brood. Some 60 pounds of honey inside but brood area free. Some mites on the floor boards but not many.
The queen was a new one. I had 4 new queens and 3 were lost on mating flight. This one came back, but maybe she was not prolific. There were no supersedure cells though.
Queen failure?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

hi sibylle, and sorry to hear about your colony.

queen failure is one possibility. 

look at this link, scroll down to the pictures of the white guanine deposits left behind by varroa mites, and see if your brood frames have much of that:

http://scientificbeekeeping.com/first-year-care-for-your-nuc/

when i have a loss like that and cannot find diseased pupae or guanine (frass) i tend to think it is more likely queen failure than mite collapse.

i find it encouraging that the hive was not robbed out by your other colonies. it is my opinion that a lower propensity for robbing is a trait beneficial for mite resistance.

are you going to harvest a little bit of that honey?


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> hi sibylle, and sorry to hear about your colony.
> 
> queen failure is one possibility.
> 
> look at this link, scroll down to the pictures of the white guanine deposits left behind by varroa mites, and see if your brood frames have much of that:
> 
> http://scientificbeekeeping.com/first-year-care-for-your-nuc/
> 
> when i have a loss like that and cannot find diseased pupae or guanine (frass) i tend to think it is more likely queen failure than mite collapse.
> 
> i find it encouraging that the hive was not robbed out by your other colonies. it is my opinion that a lower propensity for robbing is a trait beneficial for mite resistance.
> 
> are you going to harvest a little bit of that honey?


Thanks for the link.
No, nothing like that. I was looking with a magnifying glas to see if there are eggs, but no and no.

Don´t be sorry. Every setback and loss is important for learning about bees ( sorry you bees, I did my best).
I already know about some mistakes. Too much space (ventilation problem), check once again in late fall ( if queenless or queen failure), maybe I should do some monitoring to know what´s going on.

The fact that there is no robbing calmed me down because I believe there is no need to rob, I left them all honey, used the surplus only.
I don´t know if this is a trait. 

I would like to use the honey combs for those in need.
But the edges are a little mouldy. Not much, just the empty cells. So I stored them and will watch them. If the mildew gets more I will cut it out and harvest the honey for feeding the bees.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

understood sibylle. when i find a colony dwindled like that with no signs of varroasis my interpretation is probable queen failure. it's possible that something happened to the queen on or about your last inspection in september. there may have been an attempt at supercedure but the cells could be torn down by now. if the queen was unmarked you may have discovered the replacement queen. 

when the population gradually dwindles due to attrition it is hard to notice it from the outside. my first clue to to a colony being queenless is usually seeing the entrance getting challenged by robbers. even with good stores in your other hives, and assuming there are other colonies within flying distance of yours, that no robbing took place bodes well with respect to the local population there having a low propensity for robbing.

another clue to queenlessness is when i see no pollen going into a hive when much pollen is going into the other hives.

here is a study that discusses how severe viral infections can have an impact on the queen:

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0016217

it's a little bit technical, but it describes how queens can fail if there is too much virus present. these viruses can be transmitted from drones during mating, and of course it is impossible to control for that if one uses open mating.

i respect your attitude about the lost colony, that is how i think about losses too.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



> have been an attempt at supercedure


This could be possible. The queen I found could have been an unmated one. The youngest pupa I saw were 2 weeks old maybe.



> However, a large survey of queens showed that in general, DWV and VDV-1 infections had little impact on the health and functional status of the queen, at least in the tissues and at the titres encountered here, suggesting that in most cases the pathology can be compensated for at functional level. This suggests that the accumulation of viral particles in queen ovaries above a certain threshold may lead to the pathological symptoms we observed in some cases, although other factors could also be involved in this phenomenon, including as yet undescribed (viral) pathogens or the accumulation of chemical toxins through the large quantities of food ingested by the queen during its life and the presence of many chemicals residues in pollen


This is a problem of today`s farming and environment because of the contaminations. DWV is not very much present at my location, but could be with the foreign drones. I had one hive with paralyze virus though so this can be present in a subliminal form for sure. And I don´t know about the wax, which comes from my former mentor, who lives in an area with much spraying.

I´m not very happy with this beeyard circumstances this year. I hope some survive. I have to change some things with my managements. The other apiary is in much better condition. 
But who knows what will happen? I´m fully aware that it may be I have to start all over again.

It´s a consolation to my fears to be allowed to discuss these problems and feelings with people like you, squarepeg, and the others who are with me.
Many thanks again!


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I checked 4 colonies on my land today. They have barely stayed stable during the fall flow. All 4 were broodless which is not that unusual, but the size of the colonies is too small to be normal. I estimate cluster size about 60% of normal for this time of year. These colonies have had very little done to them since I took honey off back in late July and early August. I left enough to get them through winter anticipating additional stores from the fall flow. I am writing this year up as the worst fall nectar flow I've seen in 47 years.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

pretty much what we are seeing over this way as well dar. does finding the smaller clusters change your overwintering management in any way?


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I am pushing colonies together so they share heat. I kept one box full of honey for insurance. Any colonies that need a boost will get a couple of frames. Otherwise, I'm leaving it up to the bees to know what to do.


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Same up here. The governor issued a "No Burn" law for all of Tn. The top soil is turning gray. I'm combining my two hives. Seems my cut out from this summer is doing great (all things considered) while the nuc of Italians aren't doing so well. I'm definitely working towards the feral colonies for my yard(s).


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

the intransigent high pressure ridge that has been diverting the rain to our north for the past few months is finally giving way. we've a chance for rain tonight and again on wednesday. the longer term outlook is for a return back to seasonal norms.

there are still a few catfish in the pond with their dorsal fins now exposed:


View attachment 28990



i'm crunching the numbers for the 2016 season, and should have those ready to post this weekend.

thanks again for your interest in the thread.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

2016 tally (compared to 2015):

overwinter losses - 9.5% (compared to 16.7% last year)
19 overwintered colonies (compared to 15 last year)
15 hives dedicated to honey production (compared to 13 last year)
honey harvest - 1488 lbs. (compared to 876 last year)
average lbs. honey per production hive - 99.2 (compared to 67.4 last year)
average lbs. honey per overwintered hive - 78.3 (compared to 58.4 last year)
4 nucs sold (compared to 5 last year)
17 queen cells sold (this is first year selling queen cells)
total sales - $11,253 (compared to $6713 last year)
average income per overwintered hive - $592 (compared to $448 last year)

costs were pretty minimal this year and went mostly to containers and a few new honey supers. 

my original goals were for an average of 100 lbs. harvested and one nuc sold per overwintered hive. as we can see i haven't quite achieved that yet but am trending in the right direction so far.

it's unclear at this point how much of an impact the drought is going to have on overwintering this year, but if most of the colonies make it to spring 2017 i'm leaning toward scaling back a bit on the honey production and trying to scale up a bit on the nucs and queen cells.

the forecast is for our first hard freeze on monday morning which is almost a month later than typical for here. i've placed insulation boards between the inner covers and tops, hive weights are good, and i have good cluster roar in all 22 hives. 

it's time for the bees and their keeper to take a few months off, they've earned it.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Square...
Thanks for putting the numbers in perspective.
gww


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Congratulations on your success, SP. That's phenomenal success in very adverse conditions. I hope you guys get some relief soon.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Great! Thanks for sharing!
Enjoy!


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Congrats, Sp!! You & the girls have done a great job!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

"there is a season (turn, turn, turn)..." the byrds

for us black friday also happens to be the opening day of duck season, and right on cue i was awakened at first light by reports coming from 12 gauge semi automatics in the river valley below.

now that the bee season is wrapped up here and the colonies have been put to bed so to speak for the winter, i've spent some time perusing my journal in hopes of gleaning fresh insight and seeking whatever new lessons may be learned.

i'm finding what i believe to be some forum worthy stories to tell and my intent is to share those with you as we slog through the next few months in anticipation of getting back into our hives. 

i'll start with this week's installment by conferring rather honorable mention regarding a colony that was brought to me in early march by fusion_power. dar graciously approached me last winter with the offer to bring over one of his hives so that i might obtain some queen grafts from it. talk about an offer one can't refuse!

dar arrived at my home yard in the first week in march with a double deep hive, 11 frames per deep and small cell comb. the cluster size was about 6 frames of bees which was about 50% larger than what i was seeing on average in my hives. this supports dar's observation that the 11 frame small cell configuration allows for a faster build up coming out of winter as compared to the 10 frame large cell configuration that i am using.

my intent with this hive was to split in half once we had drones flying, graft queens from the queenright half, and allow the queenless to requeen itself. i wanted to make sure dar's good queen didn't swarm before i had a chance to graft from her and have a back up queen just in case.

with the cluster being significantly larger than those in my yards, with swarm prevention in mind, and because i had a couple of colonies that came out of winter as tiny microclusters, i used dar's colony to get shakes of nurse bees from to donate to those two small colonies. in all i shook out about 4 frames of nurse bees prior to splitting.

by the third week in march i was seeing the first emerged drones and lots of capped drone cells in most of the hives so i split dar's hive in two. the queenright half stayed home for grafting and the queenless half was taken to the outyard.

the queenright half was given a super of foundation a week later, and to my very pleasant surprise i found it already drawing new comb by the following week. this was the first colony in both yards to draw out foundation and by several weeks prior to any of the rest.

the queenless half failed to get a new mated queen and ended up getting a cell grafted from my longest lived (7 winters) colony, and that graft emerged and was successfully mated. 

two separate attempts were made at grafting from dar's colony, but unfortunately those attempts were partially foiled by rogue virgins. i ended up with 4 of my 22 colonies now headed up by dar's line. 9 queen cells grafted from dars were sold to other beekeepers but i don't have reports on their success yet. 2 nucs with dar's queens were also sold and they were doing well as of the last report.

the final tally for the the queenright half of the split is what is so noteworthy. despite having donated 4 frames worth of shaken nurse bees, having been split in half, and donating the two frames of brood from which grafts were taken from to other colonies:

this colony managed to yield 3 medium supers (approximately 111 lbs.) of harvestable honey, draw out 2 complete supers of foundation, and still have 45 lbs of honey left for overwintering despite the exceptional drought that killed our fall flow.

needless to say i'm impressed with that performance and dar deserves kudos for his efforts at selection to arrive at stock that not only has varroa resistance but is quite productive as well. many thanks dar for giving me the opportunity to work with and propagate from your bees!


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Not speaking of this particular colony, but in general:
Be careful to judge a colony varroa resistant, if 
- nucs are made from it
- a lot of bees are shaken from it
- if it stays a long time queenless

All of these happened in this hives case. But as said; not saying they are not resistant. Just a notation.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Good to hear that SP. Please remember that they have a very high tendency to swarm to go with that rapid spring buildup. Hopefully those 4 queens will be equally productive next year. Did you note any of them being more aggressive than normal?

Juhani, my bees have not been treated since 2005. They will have very low mite levels any time of the year, but especially over winter.

I worked a couple of colonies today by putting modified bottom boards on so I can run them as 2 queen colonies next spring. One colony was lead heavy with at least 60 pounds of honey stored for winter. The other was a bit light with about 30 pounds of honey. I moved 2 combs from the heavy colony to bring both of them to about the same level of stores. The colonies were well developed for the end of November with 5 frames of bees on a 60F (15C) sunny day. All colonies were foraging bringing in rather large amounts of bright yellow/orange pollen.

I have all of my bees in the new square Dadant depth hives now with one very weak nuc that may not make it and the rest at least 3 frames of bees and with enough stores for winter. The fall flow was mostly NOT. My bees collected enough honey to rear a little brood but not to put up winter stores. Overall, my colonies are much smaller this winter than I am used to seeing. Most would be 5 frames of bees going into winter. By my count, I have 4 colonies that would run 5 frames of bees and the rest are about 2.5 to 3 frames. I'm reasonably sure they will be good to go next spring. From this point forward, I won't do much to my bees except monitor for problems.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

understood dar. the next test will be to see how your line responds to swarm prevention in comparison to the rest. neither your original colony nor any of the daughter colonies were noted to have any issues whatsoever with temperament.

juhani, i agree with your point about judging varroa resistance in the context of frequent splitting ect. i do not use splitting for varroa control. my goal is swarm prevention with no splitting for the majority (at least 80%) of my colonies and those are dedicated for honey production.

colonies not responding to swarm prevention are split as many ways as possible and repurposed for nuc production.


----------



## Riverderwent

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> this colony managed to yield 3 medium supers (approximately 111 lbs.) of harvestable honey, draw out 2 complete supers of foundation, and still have 45 lbs of honey left for overwintering despite the exceptional drought that killed our fall flow.


Your success is a credit not only to Dar's bees but also to your beekeeping technique.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

i really appreciate those kind words david. in this case there wasn't much management involved as compared to the checkerboarding of my overwintered colonies for example.

i wasn't surprised the queenright half didn't swarm, but i wasn't expecting it to perform like it did. 

back when i was doing cut down splits to make increase i had a similar result once or twice, but that was more the exception than the rule.

i'm especially excited about the early wax making and i'm hoping that i see similar in the daughter hives. my observations support the late walt wright's contention that once wax making begins the chances for swarming go down.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Yesterday the two hives which still had small patches of brood ( they broke cluster one week ago and did a cleansing flight, so I was able to take a look, pulling the floor boards) throwed out a handful of dead bees.
Half of those were damaged by varroa disease.
All mites left are now in the small brood areas, I hope the winter bees live long enough to start again some brood.

The others seem to do breaks.

Still music in 12 hives, one is very silent, I don´t think this will make it. This is the one which let wasps in.

No fall flow, very humid weather, long winter, not many cleansing flights, too much space to climate with my two deeps....I hope some survive.


----------



## AvatarDad

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Ahhh... that is so sad to hear. But, we cheer for the musical hives. 

I thought all mine were done for, but my carnis surprised me with a late fall comeback. I'm hoping to get through my first winter with 1 of 3. 2, if I am luckier than I deserve.

we are rooting for you, Sibylle!


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Best wishes to you, AD!

I´m reading Tom Seeley just now and it´s interesting what he says about the swarming. 
The old queen`s new colony will need so much energy to start again, building comb, breeding and storing for winter that 75% loss the first winter is the average. ( Without varroa, for sure).

Our bees have our help but this s consolatory to me if I have losses. It´s just normal and I have to accept it.
The problem is, that people will say it´s the tf. That´s ok if it is.
But some of my managements are to blame, too.


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Sorry to hear that, Sibylle. Sounds like you still have a good chance for a great start next spring. I'm afraid my two aren't going to make it. My first ever nuc purchase had 11% varroa count today. My cut out had really been doing great but not looking so good now. But I'm not giving up til they turn out the lights.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I caught myself looking into our bee journal to buy a whole apiary ( 8 hives of carnis) if my carnis crash.... and start again but change my way of beekeeping much more. To the natural side, of course.
So if my bees read my thoughts, they probably survive.. and show me.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I admire your optimism Sibylle. The sad reality is that it takes several years to concentrate enough mite resistance to keep bees without treatments. It is usually better to find mite resistant queens if treatment free is the objective.


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I humbly agree, Dar. If I have to wait until I can pull in a couple of swarms, that's what I'll do. And picking up a couple of queens from more resistant stock is necessary if I really am going to make it tf. I was told that varroa wouldn't be an issue the first year of my nuc but obviously they weren't that strong. And I'm like Sibylle, I know my first year of management needs lots of work. I've learned a lot this first year from, reading, the great people in this forum, like you, SP, Sibylle, & the list goes on. I've learned becoming a Stewart to the bees is like raising children. No matter how many books your read, you have too see every colony as its own personality.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> I admire your optimism Sibylle. The sad reality is that it takes several years to concentrate enough mite resistance to keep bees without treatments. It is usually better to find mite resistant queens if treatment free is the objective.


When I started again last year I started with 3 "resistant" queens. The one "resistant" pure bred carni queen`s hive died of a local paralyze virus. The second is still alive. The third is the AMM, still alive. The next is the daughter of the second, still alive.
The breeders I got them from were treatment free for years.
The carni hive which died two weeks ago died of queen failure or my squishing her. It was the daughter of the daughter of the second carni queen, bred this year.
Now I have 2 more queens, Elgon F1 ( Erik is honest enough to give no garanty for resistance.) which are still alive. I wanted to have more genes.

So if the colonies die in spite of my spending so much money on resistant stock, my time with "resistant" queens will be finished and I´m starting again with mutts.
I´m aware of my mistakes. These have to do with space management and splitting methods. So if they freeze I´m to blame. But if it´s varroa disease the queens are not resistant and I need to breed my local adapted queens. I don´t want to buy 20 queens each season. 

It´s as simple as that.


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Redhawk said:


> I was told that varroa wouldn't be an issue the first year of my nuc


I found this to not be the case my first year when I captured a swarm in April of what appeared to be Italians. I'm pretty sure they came from the one beekeeping neighbor I was aware of. He has since either moved or lost all of his hives. All of the bees were uniform in color, a pretty light golden. They were wonderful bees. Extremely productive, super gentle. I worked this hive veil-less, never stung me once. Come September/October, they were crashing hard. Requeened and miraculously they made it, which is a testament to just how productive they were up until the crash. 

Sibylle, hang in there. It's rarely as bad as we think. If I had a hive that couldn't defend against wasps, I'd say it was one that needed to go.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Nordak said:


> Sibylle, hang in there. It's rarely as bad as we think. If I had a hive that couldn't defend against wasps, I'd say it was one that needed to go.


True.
I´m still trying to get used to losses. Crazy, since 12 and ? are alive right now. 

But this is squarepegs thread and I don´t want to be too talkative here.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



AvatarDad said:


> we are rooting for you, Sibylle!





Fusion_power said:


> I admire your optimism Sibylle.





Nordak said:


> Sibylle, hang in there.





SiWolKe said:


> I don´t want to be too talkative here.


it's all good sibylle, i very much enjoy your posts, and i am with the others about wishing you all the best with your efforts.

what i can gather from reading your posts here and on the other forums, is that you are in a location where there are not many treatment free beekeepers. if i am not mistaken it is even against the law there to keep bees off treatments unless you subject your hives to monitoring, and if disease is discovered then treatments become mandatory. it is also my understanding that no feral colonies are believed to be surviving out in nature.

so when i say you are to be commended (sorry, i know you don't want compliments) what i mean is that these are very difficult circumstances under which to pursue a treatment free approach, and i think you deserve credit for attempting it.

i believe your reporting is very helpful for those of us trying to understand why bees are able to succeed off treatments in some locations but not others. there has been a fair amount of debate about whether it is even possible in locations such as yours. 

some have suggested that it is not possible to maintain a treatment free apiary when surrounded by only treated nonresistant bees. others have suggested that can be possible when the appropriate management is utilized.

so yours is a very interesting story, one that we can all learn from, and very deserving of a thread all its own. i encourage you to consider starting one here on the subforum so that we may all more easily follow your progress.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Oh, my.
Squarepeg. I´m lost now, don´t know how I deserve this. I don´t feel I´m important, more a nuisance 

I´m still on my way and don´t know if it will be possible under my circumstances. What I know is that there will be losses and maybe high losses or a new start. But this happens to us all.

It would be an honor to me starting my own thread but I´m afraid a little bit of being attacked too much. Beekeeping under my circumstances is soul-wrenching labour and I need all the moral support I could get.
For now I can shut down the forum the moment I´m not able to take this, but when I start a thread I will feel responsible to go on, no matter what.
Let me think about this, please.

Thank you for your kind words.

@ Barry. Please forgive me for saying this. It is a most wonderful forum for getting informations and you are doing a great job. The worlds becoming more and more uncivilized, but that´s the fault of minority groups, I hope.


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Yes, Sybille. I agree with SP. This is my first year keeping bees & with attempting ft coming out of the starting gate, your posts are so close to what I'm going thru be it on a much smaller scale. Your posts are very helpful & give me hope. I admire your courage & strength to maintain your colonies treatment free.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Thanks for your kind words, Red.

Ok.
I could start a thread here but if I do I want it to be sticky. It would be much work for me. I would not want it to be somewhere lost in all threads if I do no post for some days in summer.
I write a diary like that in german in my own forum, this would be like that, only people here would be able to see the picts.

I would post my failures and success in all honesty. It would not be a scientific diary or a diary from a future commercial beekeeper. I humbly only want bees to survive without treatments and work practical. This is to be accepted and not made fun of.

An alternative would be a link to www.VivaBiene.de where I can post a translation of my diary. The diary would be published without log-in necessity.

SP please tell me what you and Barry decide.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

:applause:

it's not for me to decide about the sticky thread, as i am not a moderator.

for me, i just started the thread and after a while barry decided to make it a sticky. to be honest i was a little uncomfortable with that at first, but barry encouraged me to 'get used to it' and i did.

as far as getting to my thread quickly, i find it easier to just click on my user name at the top of the page. that gives me a list of my most recent posts to which i can navigate to with one click.

as far as vivabiene, for me i have to use google translate which is not secure. my only other option is to purchase a commercially produced translator.

as far as getting attacked, that is not likely to happen in the current climate, and if it does the moderators are good to take care of it.

it's important that you choose to do what is in your heart to do, and if you are not comfortable chronicling your experience here sibylle then no worries.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



> as far as vivabiene, for me i have to use google translate which is not secure. my only other option is to purchase a commercially produced translator.


Ok. Then I will start a new diary thread on VivaBiene, in english. It´s not possible to use a translator, I realized, when i tried it the other way around. Too many special beekeeping terms.



> as far as getting attacked, that is not likely to happen in the current climate, and if it does the moderators are good to take care of it.


Yes it changed a lot. After I logged in I often cried. I got some posts on e-mail before Barry was able to delete them. I needed the forum`s information, though, so I stayed. People saw me as a braggart, as i was a newbie, even an informed one, I can understand that now. 
It´s better not to have privilege here. I don´t need no jealousy.



> it's important that you choose to do what is in your heart to do, and if you are not comfortable chronicling your experience here sibylle then no worries.


Ok. I´m a moderator on VivaBiene but not an administrator. I will ask my friend, who is, if it´s possible to publish my picts. Otherwise people could visit the Bildergalerie, where picts of my work are published.
So, if people here want to see what I´m doing, they may push the link from now on.
Enjoy!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



SiWolKe said:


> I will start a new diary thread on VivaBiene, in english.


thank you for doing that sibylle, and i look forward to following your diary there.

i saved your pm with instructions on how to register, i will try again.

best of luck with your 'peoples'!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

... and by the way sibylle, i am saddened and disappointed to hear that you received disrespectful emails from members here. it sounds like barry dealt properly with those emails, and hopefully with those members as well.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Not mails. They posted in the forum and I had activated the message function.

No problem. Delete and fast forward!
It´s past and it´s the same everywhere. We had to delete two members, too, some time ago. They left.


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> best of luck with your 'peoples'!


Lol!


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I'm sorry for your bad experiences here, Sybille. But I do hope you stay. I've been to vivabiene several times hoping to find an option for English. I would like to see how beekeeping is done in other parts of the world. I've been reading Brother Adam's "In Search of the best strain of bees". i wish I could speak German. I tried the goggle translated too, & I was even about to try to join if I didn't trust the translation. Be great to visit you there & see what the Beekeepers are discussing etc.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

clicking on the link at the bottom of sibylle's posts will take you to the german site. you will find a couple of threads started in english there at the top of the page. registration is not required to read them, only if you want to post.


----------



## tpope

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

To give some feedback on the queen grafting that SP did.... 

I live 2 hours away. I used a homemade, portable, incubator/brooder to transport the queen cells home.

I received 3 of the queen cells grafted from Dars' line. All hatched. I found that 2 mated and returned to lay. SP replaced the one queen cell with one from his line of genetics and I was able to get a second from the same line. Both hatched but only one returned to lay.


----------



## Ravenseye

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Sibylle, 

As a moderator i hope you stay on as well. Note that threads..... even non sticky ones.... can take on a life of their own. Participation keeps them active. I know that this particular area can be "active" but it also yields great insight.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



tpope said:


> To give some feedback on the queen grafting that SP did...


it's great to hear that you ended up with 3 new colonies from those cells tpope, many thanks for the feedback!

yes, the first ones you got were grafted from dar's. the second ones were actually grafted from a 2016 swarm that issued from an overwintered feral colony living in a tree at a friend's place. those looked so darn good to me (small, dark, and foraging in cool temps) that i decided to give them a try, i ended up 4 new colonies of those for myself.

it will be very interesting to see how they overwinter and produce next year after having been mated with your local population there. thanks again for keeping us posted.


----------



## tpope

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I too look forward to how my bees from many sources overwinter... I really need to spend the time to write out my past experiences with bees and add in your influences along with others to my efforts.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

indeed tpope. i'm convinced that genetic diversity is a good thing and hybrid vigor is most likely responsible for what i am observing up here. i'm looking forward to the day i can drive down to visit your apiary and bring some of your genetics back home with me.


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> clicking on the link at the bottom of sibylle's posts will take you to the german site. you will find a couple of threads started in english there at the top of the page. registration is not required to read them, only if you want to post.


That's how I always go to vivabiene, but I haven't seen anything in English. I thought I was there just last week but I slept since then, so......Thanks, SP. Nice to hear about the success with your grafting. :thumbsup:


----------



## Riverderwent

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



SiWolKe said:


> Ok. Then I will start a new diary thread on VivaBiene, in english. It´s not possible to use a translator, I realized, when i tried it the other way around. Too many special beekeeping terms.
> 
> 
> 
> Yes it changed a lot. After I logged in I often cried. I got some posts on e-mail before Barry was able to delete them. I needed the forum`s information, though, so I stayed. People saw me as a braggart, as i was a newbie, even an informed one, I can understand that now.
> It´s better not to have privilege here. I don´t need no jealousy.
> 
> 
> 
> Ok. I´m a moderator on VivaBiene but not an administrator. I will ask my friend, who is, if it´s possible to publish my picts. Otherwise people could visit the Bildergalerie, where picts of my work are published.
> So, if people here want to see what I´m doing, they may push the link from now on.
> Enjoy!


Sibylle, such shared experiences as setting off to sea and keeping bees are the threads, great and small, that intertwined compose the cord of our common history. We do now face the challenge of steering bees in the face of the storm of a novel louse from foreign parts sometimes against a tide of criticism. But I for one am glad that this interesting and important occasion is the very time that I have been been given to raise these little honey making bugs. I would encourage you to see and to enjoy the opportunity that is at hand to persevere and perhaps to succeed. Consider using feral mutts, such as they are in your area. Your contributions to Beesource matter.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Thanks, David.
I´m not leaving! I will go on posting my comments sometimes.
You all are invited to share my experience on VivaBiene.


----------



## Barry

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> so yours is a very interesting story, one that we can all learn from, and very deserving of a thread all its own. i encourage you to consider starting one here on the subforum so that we may all more easily follow your progress.


I concur!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Barry said:


> I concur!


there you have it sibylle. to be honest, it would be easier for us english speaking participants to interact with you here. i can't help but feel that your thread will achieve 'sticky' status very quickly, and if it does not i will request moderator privileges so that i can make it sticky myself. please?


----------



## Barry

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I'm more than happy to give someone moderator privileges who can manage a "hot" forum as this.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



> . to be honest, it would be easier for us english speaking participants to interact with you here. i can't help but feel that your thread will achieve 'sticky' status very quickly, and if it does not i will request moderator privileges so that i can make it sticky myself. please?


Ok, but I want you to take part in Viva, too, because I have an english member thread there and I need comments from you and Fusion. OK? You need not much time for that, because we are only 42 members and only 2 posting there, me and Nordak.

Barry, you are the best moderator ever, as I told you a year before. You still are. Thank you.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



SiWolKe said:


> Ok...


awesome, thank you, and yes i'll take part in viva.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I second the recommendation to make SquarePeg moderator for the TF forum. It looks to me like he has found that legendary square hole to fit in.

Sibylle, I will contribute on Vivabiene so you have an argumentative hardheaded beekeeper to disagree with.


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> I second the recommendation to make SquarePeg moderator for the TF forum.


:thumbsup:


----------



## JRG13

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Nah, better to take off and nuke the forum from orbit...


----------



## Barry

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I've already offered SP to run this forum. Perhaps with enough pressure, he'll cave this time!


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> I second the recommendation to make SquarePeg moderator for the TF forum. It looks to me like he has found that legendary square hole to fit in.
> 
> Sibylle, I will contribute on Vivabiene so you have an argumentative hardheaded beekeeper to disagree with.


That´s the most wonderful thing I heard from you, FP, since being in this forum! Much better than being ignored! Ha! I look forward to this!:lookout:

And: SP for moderator :thumbsup:


----------



## J.Lee

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Sibylle's own thread! Sounds like the best thing since sliced bread. Looking forward to it.


----------



## Riverderwent

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Barry said:


> I've already offered SP to run this forum. Perhaps with enough pressure, he'll cave this time!


Are there any openings for subforum poet _laureate_. I know someone who is often terse when not using verse, and, though little he knows, can use flowery prose. Just saying.


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Congrats, Sybille& thanks for bringing it here!! Barry's a great moderator, but sp gets a :thumbsup:


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

meanwhile back at the homeyard...

i had mentioned in earlier posts that i haven't noticed any devitalized pupae or dwv being hauled of any hives this fall, and i attributed that to the extended brood break and big decrease in the normal amount of fall brooding that resulted from the exceptional drought we experienced here this year.

over the past week or so i have seen a few diseased and dead workers removed from my longest lived colony that has been surviving here untreated since 2009. we're talking about a couple of dozen dead bees or so, some with dwv, some with stunted abdomens, and so far this is the only hive that i am seeing this with.

in past seasons, i would notice this in about 20% of the hives, it coincided with the onset of fall brooding, it was mostly drones with a few workers, it cleared up on it's own after a week or two, and those colonies survived winter and were productive the next season.

i have not seen any drones since july and the impact on this particular colony has been on worker brood. i'm guessing this brood was reared starting about a month ago, which would be just after i supplied syrup in a yard feeder for a couple of days.

as luck would have it, this is one of the colonies that i obtained samples for the martin/oliver dwv a vs. b. study, so it will be interesting to see what the virology shows in comparison to the other samples.

this colony yielded 3 supers of harvestable honey this year and was left with about 45 lbs. for overwintering. there were just under 10 deep frames of bees in it at last inspection about a month ago, and as of today has one of the strongest cluster roars in the yard.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

What you just described is my trigger to replace a queen. I replaced a queen this past spring that had a few visible small bees and a couple with DWV. It can't be done this late in the year, but next spring I would carefully evaluate whether the other traits outweigh the mite concerns.

Did you by any chance include one of the queens from my stock in the samples sent?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> ...but next spring I would carefully evaluate whether the other traits outweigh the mite concerns.


understood dar. this one has been getting special preference in that it is the longest lived and has been a good producer.



Fusion_power said:


> Did you by any chance include one of the queens from my stock in the samples sent?


did not. the samples i sent were from my longest lived 5 colonies, all of which had 2 winters or more under their belt.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

late summer/early fall mite counts on this particular hive were 8.9% in 2014 and 7.3% in 2015.

i didn't take any mite counts this year because the added stress of the exceptional drought had me pretty much not disturbing the colonies any more than necessary.


----------



## Riverderwent

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i didn't take any mite counts this year because the added stress of the exceptional drought had me pretty much not disturbing the colonies any more than necessary.


You should get rid of that queen by mailing her to me this spring.


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Riverderwent said:


> You should get rid of that queen by mailing her to me this spring.


:no: No way, Jose!!! Not til I get a daughter from Sp. Sp, when do you expect the results to come back on the tests? Will the test results affect how you approach management of all your colonies or just this one?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Redhawk said:


> Sp, when do you expect the results to come back on the tests? Will the test results affect how you approach management of all your colonies or just this one?


my understanding is that all of the samples that randy has collected are getting sent to england next month for virology studies.

the results won't affect my management so much, but if it turns out that in my colonies the more virulent dwv a has been displaced by the less virulent dwv b...

that would suggest that creating nucs by splitting my colonies may be a better way to propagate resistance (tolerance) as compared to just providing queens or queen cells to place in a colony with an unproven background.


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> that would suggest that creating nucs by splitting my colonies may be a better way to propagate resistance (tolerance) as compared to just providing queens or queen cells to place in a colony with an unproven background.


A colony such as mine???


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

it may be part of why jrg sees varroasis when he imports resistant queens and introduces them to his own splits. the idea is that if it has something to do with the microbes, you may be better off getting a split off survivor colony than simply requeening with a graft from one. i'm just speculating here.


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> it may be part of why jrg sees varroasis when he imports resistant queens and introduces them to his own splits. the idea is that if it has something to do with the microbes, you may be better off getting a split off survivor colony than simply requeening with a graft from one. i'm just speculating here.


Still too new I guess to place who jrg is, but I was thinking that moving resistant queens gradually within a similar eco region would be a more executable approach than just placing them in totally foreign environments. If we're talking microbes of the local stock based on regional floral.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

jrg is a contributor here who like randy oliver is finding that importing resistant queens into the southern california region doesn't necessarily result in resistant colonies, especially after the first supercedure or two.

the bees do pick up microbes from the environment and pass them around to each other in the hive. a commercially produced package of bees comes 'preloaded' with whatever microbes are present, which may possibly be different than say the microbes present in a surviving feral colony.

if true, catching a swarm from an overwintered feral colony or purchasing a split from untreated managed colony _might_ improve the odds for stocking a tf apiary over simply introducing a resistant queen into colony that doesn't have that history.

what i can say is that i've been selling a few nucs each year since 2012, nucs that were made from splits out of my overwintered colonies, and queened with grafts taken from the better performing colonies. so far those colonies are doing just as well in the hands of other beekeepers as they have been doing for me.

i've not sold any loose queens so far, and only started this year selling ripe queen cells for folks to try out in their own splits. we'll have to wait until next year to see how the colonies started with those cells do.


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I can understand that & looking at the eco regions across the us, in our region from my area down to yours is very close with little deviation. Looking at California's eco regions as a whole, you need a small book & a large map to know where you were at any given time. I counted 15 areas, I think. And there, they are really diverse. I think this region is a far better testing ground for do what's best to help the bees better take care of themselves. And with what all I've been reading about the feral stock down there & what Dar has been able to do leads me to believe that all ingredients are there.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> it may be part of why jrg sees varroasis when he imports resistant queens and introduces them to his own splits. the idea is that if it has something to do with the microbes, you may be better off getting a split off survivor colony than simply requeening with a graft from one. i'm just speculating here.


Just my thoughts. And speculations.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

i think that as more is learned it's likely that we'll discover some ecoregions are more conducive to supporting a feral population than others, with perhaps some variation within the ecoregions depending on land usage. it makes sense that if an area can support a feral population, then by extension one should be able to manage bees off treatments.

i suppose to the degree that the microbial make up in a hive is influenced by local floral i can see your point. 

what is not well understood is how much or how little the movement of bee colonies with migratory operations as well as the shipping of packages over long distances might influence the microbes within a local population, i.e. to the degree that varroa, shb, various microbes, ect. are spread from colony to colony.

even less understood is how the application of any of the miticides alters the microbial make up in a hive, and how altering that make up in the majority of a hives in a given population has on the overall population. 

these considerations may be playing a role in why apiaries that are more or less 'isolated' seem to fare a somewhat better when managed off treatments than apiaries that are more 'exposed'.


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I agree. As we were talking about it last summer, the similarities between your ecoregion, hardy zone, & forage are close but not exactly the same. It would be interesting to know how your stock would fir with just a slight deviation as opposed to a major change in any or all the variables. I would think a gradual expansion of a very strong feral stock would be much more successful than transferring that same stock randomly around the country. It's kind of like woodworking. On more difficult cuts, it's the old phrase, "sneak up on it", meaning got at it in small increments. I know Dar has mentioned that he believes his original feral stock was of the old German bee that was previlant in his ares but I can't remember what bees you said made up your feral stock. I'm doing a little local searching to see what most of the old time keepers have found in their swarm catches. Could be interesting.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

In this link it is written about a constancy of microflora (in intestines mostly) from feral and managed colonies from areas separated by 289 km.
This is not much distance in the US but a great distance here.

The micoflora is growing with the consumption of special plant´s pollen and kept at a certain level by the consumption of nectar ( enzymes and antibiotica).

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1574-6968.1997.tb12678.x/full

Could be in this case the microflora changes with the flora of your environment.
A foreign queen`s intern bacteria should change with feeding but a migrated hive would take the microflora with it for some time.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*









Some -16 C temperatures, but now just under freezing point C.
In situations like this the shape and size of the cluster is clearly visible on the 5 cm polyurethan roof.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

i made the rounds yesterday during my lunch break checking for cluster roar with a stethoscope. one of the hives at the outyard was quiet and will most likely be the first winter loss this year. the plan is to bring it home this weekend and give it a look through to see what's what.


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Winter is coming early this year. Down in the teens tonite & this is February temps. Hope it's the one & only.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

swarm prevention 2016:

those of you who have been following may recall that i attempted a modified version of walt wright's checkerboaring technique last year that resulted in less swarming and improved honey yields.

the modification involved stacking medium supers over a single bottom deep with honey frames over honey frames and empty drawn combs frames over empty drawn comb frames like this:

e = empty drawn comb, h = honey

e h e h e h e h e
e h e h e h e h e
e h e h e h e h e
bottom deep

i have found that if i can get the colonies to expand the broodnest all the way to the top of the top super and prevent them from establishing solid honey overhead prior to the main flow the chances for swarming are greatly reduced.

when they move the nest up to the top like that the deep gets abandoned and becomes full of empty comb. when the main flow kicks in backfilling proceeds from the top and the nest migrates downward into the deep.

i went with this manipulation again this year to see if the results could be repeated. for the most part and with some additional manipulation as described below, the results were as good or better than last year. (see post #839)

out of 15 hives that were set up for honey production i witnessed only 2 that swarmed and there was one other that i believed to have swarmed based on observations made after the fact.

2016 was a more difficult year with respect to swarm prevention, mostly because we had a mild winter. we even had a nectar flow in december that resulted in the colonies gaining several pounds of of new stores on average. early spring was characterized by excellent flying weather throughout and no late freezes.

this caused the colonies to consume much less of the checkerboarded honey during the population build up period, so that honey actually got in the way of rather than facilitated brood nest expansion.

as a result i had to do more moving of frames of honey to the outside and frames of empty comb to the inside, i.e. open up the broodnest with empty comb. in some cases, i moved a frame or two of brood up to get them started in the next box, i.e. pyramiding.

there were a couple of colonies that failed to respond to these measures. this was evidenced by the refusal to expand the broodnest up and out in the upper boxes, and the insistence of using the incoming nectar to establish solid honey overhead...

with these two colonies i ended up shaking the queen into the deep below an excluder. i then went back later and harvested frames of brood from them to donate to a couple of other colonies that came out of winter as microclusters. the result was that these two did not swarm and they along with the boosted microcluster colonies were all productive.

then there were two colonies that i found making swarm cells late in the main flow and after already moving their nests down to the deep. these two had already put up a lot of honey at that point and i didn't want to split them...

so i went ahead and culled all of the queen cells from them. one of the colonies did not make any more queen cells and didn't swarm. the other one made queen cells again, i culled them again, and they didn't make any more and didn't swarm. unfortunately the one that i culled twice ended up going queenless, which was a shame because it was one of my longer lived colonies with 4 winters under its belt.

lesson learned: every year is different and you have to literally roll with the flow. sorry for the long post and thanks again for following.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

SP, re the two colonies that made late queen cells, I've seen this several times over the years. It is almost always caused by the old queen nearing failure. I usually pull the old queen into a nuc on top of the hive and let the bottom proceed with raising a queen. Most of the time, they do not swarm. If the bottom fails to produce a queen, I re-unite the old queen giving them another chance.

we had 24 degrees F last night which froze water for the first time this year. Today's high is forecast at 40F which is too cold for most colonies to fly. Gradual warming through Monday should get us back into the mid 60's.

I'm going to do a few colony checks Monday if the weather permits. One colony is relatively light on stores. I have a few frames of honey reserved just in case.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

understood dar. there were a handful of colonies this year with queen cells that i didn't disturb because it looked more like supercedure and as it turned out it was.

with these two there were approximately 20 cells found and in various stages of development when i culled. the queens were found still laying and with good patterns, so i felt like it was more likely swarming than supercedure.

the one i culled twice still had the queen and eggs so i felt like they still had the capability of supercedure. i didn't discover it queenless until two months later so they may have tried and failed.

removing the queen and leaving a couple of cells would have been a good option and one i did not consider, many thanks.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

squarepeg


> lesson learned: every year is different and you have to literally roll with the flow. sorry for the long post and thanks again for following.


I sure don't mind proceedure filled long post. I am new enough that good post of proceedure and out come of those proceedures helps me with my lack of practical experiance.
Thanks for posting.
gww


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> ...there has been interest expressed for more detailed information regarding the real life successes and failures involved with keeping bees off treatments. so i begin this thread with that expressed intent, primarily for information sharing and educational purposes...


gww, many thanks for that comment. if the information being shared here is helpful to you and others then i am truly gratified.



squarepeg said:


> i'll take this opportunity to offer my many thanks to the fine contributors on the forum who have been a huge part of the learning process for me...


i have the same appreciation for the many others here on the forum who are helping me along the learning curve and my hope is to be able to 'pay it forward'.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> ...one of the hives at the outyard was quiet and will most likely be the first winter loss this year.


with the help of flatrockboy, (many thanks man!), we brought the quiet hive home today and inspected it.

it was quite obvious that this one succumbed to varroa mites.

this was a first year nuc that i had kept for myself. the queen was introduced as a virgin after emerging in the incubator. she got mated and started laying in early may. 

this particular nuc was the least impressive of all of the ones i made up this year which is why i still had it. it has been my practice to sell off the very best looking nucs first and keep whatever is left for my own use.

this one never really did take off like its cohorts and ended up with the lightest stores of all my hives at just under 30 lbs. of honey, most of which is still in the frames.

there was not quite a half cup of bees frozen in a small cluster. there were about a dozen cells of worker brood with perforated caps, and the brood removed from them was obviously sick and decomposing. 

there were 2 new empty queen cups and no queen was found.

the brood comb was loaded with frass, more in fact than i have ever found before. there were only a couple of dead bees on the bottom board but lots of dead mites were found down there.

there was a small amount of wax crumbs on the bottom board over to one side and some of the honey from that outside frame had been removed. it's likely that it was those robbers that i heard in the hive when i listened to it a week prior.

the comb and stores are now in the freezer, and the hive count is reduced from 22 to 21.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

In the interesting exercise arena, I kept a queenless nuc way late in the season. They hatched a new queen about 2 weeks ago. I'm waiting now to see if she manages to mate and lay worker eggs. If so, this will be the latest I've ever successfully managed to get a mated queen. There are still a few drones in a couple of colonies and we have had 3 days with conditions amenable to flying. This is a very small nuc with barely 1 frame of bees. If she makes it, I'll pair her with another colony in a 2 queen nuc setup so the shared warmth enables her to stay alive over winter. I shook the bees off of the 3 frames yesterday and deliberately killed all of the hive beetles. I have no idea if this will help them make it through the spring, but I'm sure that @150 hive beetles would have been a problem later. I don't normally mess with hive beetles, but thought perhaps this small nuc would need every advantage possible.

We have had 2 decent days of weather just above 50 degrees. The bees were foraging bringing in bright orange pollen in limited amounts. Virtually all of my bees have quit brooding and have only adult bees in the hives. The exceptions to this are the Buckfast colonies a few of which have palm size patches of brood. I suspect this extended winter broodless period is one reason my bees survive mites as well as they do. That the Buckfast maintain small amounts of brood suggests one more adaptation my bees have that the Buckfast don't.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

those few degrees difference between hamilton and here are making it just cool enough for an occasional cleansing flight only in my yards the past few days. no new pollen seen in a while here.

please let us know if that queen gets mated, very interesting exercise indeed dar.


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Sorry to hear that SP. Any theories on why this hive had such high mite counts?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Nordak said:


> Any theories on why this hive had such high mite counts?


no theories. 

i've only seen it play out like this one 3 or 4 times along the way. most of my losses look like straight up queen failure.

there was no mistaking it was mites this time. the poor little colony apparently didn't have the right stuff and i'm satisfied to have them winnowed out.


----------



## Eduardo Gomes

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> swarm prevention 2016:
> the modification involved stacking medium supers over a single bottom deep with honey frames over honey frames and empty drawn combs frames over empty drawn comb frames like this:
> 
> e = empty drawn comb, h = honey
> 
> e h e h e h e h e
> e h e h e h e h e
> e h e h e h e h e
> bottom deep


A very detailed and enlightening post. Sp do you use 9 frames in the bottom deep?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

very nice to hear from you eduardo, thank you for the kind words.

i actually use 10 frames pushed hard together in the deep because i find it easier for breaking them loose and removing for inspection.

the main reason i have 9 frames in the supers is for fatter honey frames which makes the uncapping easier.


----------



## Eduardo Gomes

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

In my productive hives I also only use a single deep. Most of my supers are 8 frames. 

I have used the W. W. conventional model for chekerboarding but I will rehearse your model.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

excellent. please let us know how this works out for you.


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Sorry to hear it, sp. you know if the robbers were from one of your hives? I'd imagine they made off with a few mites don't ya think? Dar, with the weather conditions we've bee having (below our norms) it's hard to imagine queens & drones in mating flights. Do keep us posted.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Redhawk said:


> I'd imagine they made off with a few mites don't ya think?


hard to say... 

not finding dead bees on the bottom board or outside the hive makes me think that the little bit of robbing took place after all the bees and mites in the hive were already dead. none of the wax crumbs had been moved from where they fell below that frame.

this colony has likely been dwindling for some time now. i manage to swing by the outyard once or twice a week, and haven't noticed that this hive was receiving any special attention from the other 8 hives located there.


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Great observation. I do believe you could give Sherlock Holmes a run for his money!


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i think that as more is learned it's likely that we'll discover some ecoregions are more conducive to supporting a feral population than others, with perhaps some variation within the ecoregions depending on land usage. it makes sense that if an area can support a feral population, then by extension one should be able to manage bees off treatments.
> 
> i suppose to the degree that the microbial make up in a hive is influenced by local floral i can see your point.
> 
> what is not well understood is how much or how little the movement of bee colonies with migratory operations as well as the shipping of packages over long distances might influence the microbes within a local population, i.e. to the degree that varroa, shb, various microbes, ect. are spread from colony to colony.
> 
> even less understood is how the application of any of the miticides alters the microbial make up in a hive, and how altering that make up in the majority of a hives in a given population has on the overall population.
> 
> these considerations may be playing a role in why apiaries that are more or less 'isolated' seem to fare a somewhat better when managed off treatments than apiaries that are more 'exposed'.


Thought about this some more. Compared with the expression of virus transfer through ticks, for example, in germany the south is much more affected. Why is that? Must be the climate and microfauna in this case.

So transferring this to mite populations there must be different kind of mites or virulence of mites.
I believe there is some scientific research but I do not remember.

If you are isolated enough and there is not much mite exchange it may be that every location develops it´s own kind of mites.
These the bees adapt to if you breed your own stock but if you bring in new colonies they have to start the adaption all over again and maybe some input can be lethal and destroys the resistance of your whole apiary.

So maybe it´s better to sell packages instead of established hives? Or sell queens to put into an established hive?
Less mites and more time given to adapt just like it is with swarming, when a swarm starts nesting in a new location.

If you start an apiary with established hives of foreign bees, what will happen to the (established) ferals near you? Do they adapt to the virus you bring in? 

This could be the problem of migrating with bees, too.


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

The adult honey bee hosts up to 109 (actually 10 to the 9th power. It didn't copy right) bacterial cells, consisting of 8 abundant phylotypes making up to 95% of the total bacteria that appear to be specific to social bees [6]. The maintenance of this stable and distinct microbial community depends on the nutrition and social lifestyle of these insects [7,8], environment [8,9] and ontogenetic stage [5,10,11]. This dynamic system has also been shown to follow seasonal trends [12,13]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4358834/

Haven't finished reading this but Sounds like they are of the same mind. 
We carry millions of microbe & many are beneficial. And we know that our environment & foods we eat can affect the balance. And I can't believe that the fumes created by oav, Formica acid, etc. don't affect the balance,I.e., treatment creates stronger pest & weaker bees.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

a tale of 2 microclusters...

with the solstice around the corner we find ourselves here in a fairly typical winter weather pattern with highs around 50 and lows around 30. we've had some decent rains over the past few weeks and the catfish pond is rebounding.

i've been going back through the 2016 journal and reviewing the season. i mentioned in previous posts having a couple of colonies that did not respond to swarm prevention (actually there were 3) for which i shook the queen down into the empty bottom deep below an excluder.

i also mentioned 2 colonies that came out of winter as microclusters having not many more than a handful of bees but with laying queens and solid patterns. those microclusters were first boosted with shakes of nurse bees from the most populous colonies. they were later each combined with 4 frames of capped brood and adhering bees from the colonies not responding to swarm prevention.

in the end one of the microclusters ended up yielding 148 lbs. of harvestable honey and drew out 2 supers of foundation. the other one yielded 111 lbs. of harvestable honey and drew out 1 super of foundation.

2 of the 3 colonies that did not respond to swarm prevention were split up for nuc production. the other one was managed for honey production, ended up queenless, got combined with a nuc, drew out 1 super of foundation, and yielded 74 lbs of harvestable honey.


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I appreciate your review and analysis of issues during the year, as well as your ups and downs. Your thread is always a good read and a source of learning for me. Keep up the great work in 2017.

Glad you're getting rain in your area. We're still about 10" below normal on this side of the state but another band of showers is headed our way, supposed to get a couple of inches this weekend.


----------



## Eduardo Gomes

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> a tale of 2 microclusters...
> 
> i also mentioned 2 colonies that came out of winter as microclusters having not many more than a handful of bees but with laying queens and solid patterns. those microclusters were first boosted with shakes of nurse bees from the most populous colonies. they were later each combined with 4 frames of capped brood and adhering bees from the colonies not responding to swarm prevention.
> 
> in the end one of the microclusters ended up yielding 148 lbs. of harvestable honey and drew out 2 supers of foundation. the other one yielded 111 lbs. of harvestable honey and drew out 1 super of foundation.


It is these aspects that make us feel very satisfied with our work. Great work.


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Great work, sp. you made a smart decision with regards to those micros. I was thrilled yesterday to see mine making cleansing flights.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

'tis the night before the night before Christmas...

and i hope this post finds you and yours healthy, in good spirits, and with your (northern hemisphere) colonies successfully biding their time through the winter season.

at this time of year the average high temperature here is about 50 with an average low of 30. yesterday was one of those clear sky and light wind days we sometimes get while in between frontal passages and it warmed up to almost 60.

it was a perfect day to make the rounds and see what's happening with the colonies. i use these kind of days to watch the activity at the entrances, listen to the strength of the cluster roar, check for robbing, ect.

what i found was that all of my remaining 21 colonies are still alive keeping me at still just 1 loss for the winter. there were a couple of hives with a little less robust cluster roar than the rest. several of the hives were quite noisy inside with the sound of honey getting uncapped. no pollen was seen coming into any the hives.

there has been an uptick in the removal of aged out dead bees these past couple of weeks, with some colonies removing more than others. my hope is it won't be too many more weeks before we see the first tree pollens coming in that will support the first rounds of new brood.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Square
Again you post had usefull info that I had ask about in other threads. Like the hive sounds.
Thanks for posting.
gww


----------



## RBRamsey

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I am wintering 20 hives this year. 3 of the hives are weak. I am going to move these 3 into a queen castle for the rest of the winter, and the colonies on top of one of the stronger hives for warmth. They all were products of late micro swarms.

I was interesting to see the number of bees at the watering trough. You would think they had moisture in the hives with the high humidity we have.

Christmas day is forecast to reach 75 degrees. I will open a few hives that feel a little light, and have a look.

Merry Christmas


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



RBRamsey said:


> I was interesting to see the number of bees at the watering trough. You would think they had moisture in the hives with the high humidity we have.


yes, same here rbr. my interpretation is that these past 3 weeks of mostly cold and wet has resulted in the colonies using up a lot of the stores they had around where they are clustering. with the opportunity for flying the bees are bringing in lots of water and using it to dilute stored honey, most likely to reposition it for clustering.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



> I was interesting to see the number of bees at the watering trough. You would think they had moisture in the hives with the high humidity we have.


 One of those little trivia items you pick up after a lot of years is that bees have water needs during winter too. If the temperature is cold enough, the bees metabolize honey to produce water. The chemical reaction is 1 sugar (C6H12O6) plus 6 oxygen (O2) yields 6 Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and 6 water (H2O). What happens during mild winter weather? The bees do not have to metabolize as much honey to keep the cluster warm therefore they run short of water. The result is thirsty bees hitting the water source eagerly collecting and hauling it back to the hive to store in cells beside the cluster. They usually dilute honey with the water though I have seen them put plain water into cells a few times.

I checked 8 colonies over the last 2 days and have 3 that are short of stores. I was checking colonies that I though might have problems so these 3 are all the problem colonies that I have. They have enough to make it to February, but will not build up unless I give them a few frames of honey. I kept a couple of boxes of honey in combs ready to sit into the hives that need it. Otherwise, I have healthy clusters of bees that should start small patches of brood in about 2 weeks.


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> They usually dilute honey with the water though I have seen them put plain water into cells a few times.


I'm not positive, but I think I might have seen this very thing last week when I quick checked one of my TBH nucs. I was scratching my head trying to figure out where they found nectar at this time of year. It was an area about the size of a baseball where most were clustered. I had no idea they would do that. 

So far, all are wintering fine, knock on wood. 

Sounds like good news on your end SP. Great job!


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Happy christmas, Squarepeg.
Thanks for everything!

Best wishes to you!
Sibylle


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Happy Holidays, Sp & to all who are contributing & flowing this great thread. I was hoping for a "normal" winter but it's been anything but. Temps have been in the teens for a number of nites with some days not even reaching 32. It's usually a light jacket time here until January. And tomorrow in the 70s. Hope to see them again. But my girls are hanging on. I suppose bees are like many creatures of the wild. They know weather better than we do. They prepare for what's coming.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

2016 is fast waning and i'm getting more optimistic by the week that the record setting drought may not have had any serious impact on my colonies' overwintering success.

as of today i am still at only 1 loss out of 22 colonies with very strong cluster roar in the 21 remaining. the hauling of out of aged out bees that i reported in a previous post has pretty much stopped and my interpretation is that most of the bees remaining in the hives are diutinus or long lived bees.

i also reported hearing quite a bit of uncapping noise in a handful of hives. i was a bit concerned that there might be passive robbing going on in those but i have pretty much satisfied myself that no robbing has been taking place. it appears that these colonies have now rearranged their stores and positioned themselves in the warmer uppermost part of the hives to ride out the rest of winter.

i've been mustering up what little modicum of discipline i have left and gotten back into my excercising routine, focusing mostly on the trunk area with an abdomen and back routine using light weights and high reps. i found a good return on investment of time and energy having done this last winter and then ending up processing three quarters of a ton of honey the old fashioned way.

cheers!


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Get the bees to start exercising and more honey supers might be needed.

I've been planting pecan trees and building frames. At this point, I have 19 square deep boxes full of frames sitting in the greenhouse. Twelve of them are wired and ready for foundation. Seven either have foundation or drawn combs that were removed from colonies as I set them up for winter. I have 30 shallow supers full of frames with a few scattered drawn frames among them to help the bees move up and draw foundation. I ordered 28 pecan trees of which 10 are now planted. The rest will be here over the next 6 weeks.

The colonies I have checked are all in decent condition. Three colonies will need a bit of feed. I kept 1 deep brood box with frames of honey for this purpose. These are colonies that were split late in the season so did not have time to build up to full strength for winter. I have plans in place and equipment prepared to raise queens starting in late March. By Mid April, I hope to have 20 to 30 queens in nucs mating. This will depend on weather, but should be feasible if I can make the time.


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Congrats & happy new year to all! I hope to be further into mulitiple colonies this time next year. I'm spending this winter in the wood shop prepping for next spring. I hope I get an opportunity to try moving yours & Dars gene pool a couple hundred miles north up here next spring. I have been researching but seem to have answers all across the board on this. I'm preparing to pick up some swarms next spring. My understanding of the swarming instinct is that if it is a first swarm of the season most likely the old queen is among them. Being that the old queen most likely hasn't much left in the pheromone department, is it wise to replace her asap? I'm hoping I can ply it by ear, giving the stronger queenright swarms a chance with their queen while taking no chances with weaker & obviously queen-less swarms & introducing a newly mated queen asap. Sp & Dar, too, how did you handle your first swarms with regards to establishing a queenright colony? I know you've found exceptional farole stock in your part of the country & I hope & think I should have some success with that as well. Are those queens worth saving? Even if they may be in their last season?


----------



## JRG13

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

The first 4 swarms I caught in 2013, the queens lasted 3 years or so...


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

redhawk, i wouldn't worry about the queen that comes with a caught swarm. if she isn't up to par any colony worth it's salt should recognize that and replace her. how large of a hive count are you shooting for this year?


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Redhawk, the way I look at that is if the bees swarmed, especially an early spring swarm, that queen must be doing something right. Like JRG, I've got a queen going into her third winter now. Hopefully she'll stick around long enough I can get some more daughters from her next year.


----------



## Riverderwent

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Redhawk said:


> Being that the old queen most likely hasn't much left in the pheromone department, is it wise to replace her asap?


No. That's really the last thing I would do. My bees are much better judges of a queen's fecundity than I am. Give the queen and the hive a full opportunity to show you their ability to survive and produce.



> Are those queens worth saving? Even if they may be in their last season?


Absolutely. Old horses win shows. I would mainly want a chance to test her genetics. Like Mr. Peg said, if she needs replacing the bees will take care of it.


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Thanks, folks. I think this is the first time I've seen Beekeepers in agreement! I didn't want to requeen if I didn't have too. lol Sp, I'd like to take 10 colonies into winter 2017, but I'll be happy with 8. I have 3 locations for yards with one being limited to 2 colonies. I won't be expecting any surplus honey coming my way but I can live with it. Having 2 colonies this year has taught me a lot & also limited me a lot. Needless to say My woodshop is busy this winter.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

it's pretty cold for here this morning with the wind chill factor at -2 degrees f. the forecast is for subfreezing temps for 2-3 days and then moderating back to the low 60's by the end of next week.

here's a synopsis of the 2016 season:

1. overall the best year so far with improvements made in winter survival, swarm prevention, average honey yield per hive, and average income per hive.

2. second consecutive year with the modified checkerboarding management keeping swarming to less than 20%.

3. lessons were learned with respect to queen rearing and nuc production, i.e. need to be more vigilant for rogue virgins and have more than one cell builder hive. using an incubator for cell finishing worked out great.

4. i learned that 15 production hives averaging 100 lbs per hive is about all the honey harvesting that i have time for this side of retirement.

5. for diversity's sake i brought in and propagated stock from fusion_power and from a feral swarm that issued from a bee tree in a friend's back yard.

i was concerned that the record setting drought that killed our fall flow this year was going to have an impact on overwintering success but so far it doesn't appear that it will. we're not out of the woods yet but only a few weeks away from fresh tree pollen coming in and new brooding starting up.

i think for 2017 i am going to keep track of the hours spent working the bees and harvesting honey to get feel for whether or not i want to expand or contract the operation going forward.

i'm going to focus more effort into the queen rearing and nuc production this year, and i think i have a decent shot at my original goal of averaging 100 lbs. of honey and one nuc sold per overwintered colony.

the two year anniversary of the thread is coming up. once again i would like to say many thanks to barry and to all of you who are following and offer me encouragement along the way. here's wishing everyone great success in 2017!


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



> i had mentioned in other threads that i was considering chronicling my 2015 season here on the forum. the purpose for doing so is because there has been interest expressed for more detailed information regarding the real life successes and failures involved with keeping bees off treatments.


No serious failure so far! Congratulations!:applause:


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Congratulations SP! Quite a list of accomplishments. I've learned a lot from your thread, and look forward to following where the journey takes you in 2017.


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i think for 2017 i am going to keep track of the hours spent working and harvesting honey to get feel for whether or not i want to expand or contract the operation going forward.


Just please don't include the hours spent writing the Chronicles of Squarepeg. It would definitely put you in the red. Congratulations for another great year & many thanks for all you have done for us here. Here's to 2017:thumbsup:


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> 4. i learned that 15 production hives averaging 100 lbs per hive is about all the honey harvesting that i have time for this side of retirement.
> 
> i'm going to focus more effort into the queen rearing and nuc production this year, and i think i have a decent shot at my original goal of averaging 100 lbs. of honey and one nuc sold per overwintered colony.


Great progress SP! I'd love to know more about your methods, because that sort of average is way above mine. I think partly that's because I'm very hands off - if small colonies want to splutter on I let them, and that pulls down my averages. And I've been growing lots of comb again this year, and took a nuc or two off each of my bigger hives. Perhaps now I have more colonies in full size hives equipped with comb yield will improve. Can you summarise your method for us? 

Allbest for 2017 and thanks for a great thread,

Mike (UK)


----------



## JMHoney

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

SP-

I have been lurking around the forum for a couple years and I keep coming back to read this one. I have enjoyed reading about your journey the last couple years. I myself am TF. Its a very hard path we have chosen. I cannot talk to many other beekeepers because they will look upon me being stupid and neglectful. I dream of a day where the the bees are healthy and the hive free of chemicals, just the way God intended it to be. 
I appreciate you showing the rest of us how it is done. Thank you so much for your dedication to this thread and your willingness to teach what you do.

Thanks again,
JMHoney


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

i am humbled and flattered by the kind remarks everyone, many thanks.

i mentioned in a pm yesterday that when it comes to beekeeping a little bit of luck goes a long way.

plb recalls in another forum a saying from his first mentor, "a know nothing beekeeper can do well in a good location, but even an expert will not do well in a poor location". 

i feel blessed and thankful to have the opportunity to work with these bees at this location, and this motivates me to be a good steward with what i have been given.

mike, the key to high honey yields is swarm prevention which is certainly made easier as one acquires more drawn comb. my approach for the past 2 seasons is pretty well summarized in post #912.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> mike, the key to high honey yields is swarm prevention which is certainly made easier as one acquires more drawn comb. my approach for the past 2 seasons is pretty well summarized in post #912.


Thanks SP. I'm going to try to manage a little more deeply for honey this year, and I'll take account of what you do.

Mike (UK)


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

in contrast to last week's subfreezing temps we find ourselves today in the high 60's with a sunny sky and light winds. these swings are typical for here and are driven by which side of the jet stream we happen to find ourselves on.

the colonies are taking advantage of the flying opportunity. i'm seeing lot's of foraging and the first pollens since last fall are coming in. the colors of the pollens are light yellow and orangish-tan. all 21 remaining out of the 22 from last season are making a good showing. 

what this means in terms of colony operations is that the first rounds of new brood will be underway. we will undoubtedly have more subfreezing temps so this represents a critical time through which the colonies will have to get it just right.

assuming normal weather this will put on me on track for checkerboarding the supers in about a month or so. this is when i'll do my first inspections mostly to determine queen status and cluster size.

i've been finding a few chewed up bees on the ground and had to break out the trusty 'tuff trap'. so far 2 opossums have been extradited to the river valley below.


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> so far 2 opossums have been extradited to the river valley below.


I knew that skunks would eat bees but wasn't aware that opossums did.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

yep. it's ended up being a skunk a couple of times as compared to over a dozen opossums so far.


----------



## Redhawk

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

We've had pretty much the same here as far the as weather goes. Saw a number of them taking cleansing flights on Wednesday. Since then it's been raining off & on & they're calling for rain for the next week. Had a skunk last summer. I took a 2' piece of 2x12, filled it with 16ds & laid it in front of the entrance. No more critter problems.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

we've had 3 straight days of foraging weather with the early tree pollens and tree nectars coming in. flatrockboy and i got together and weighed all of our hives today. all of mine were sitting good with a couple of them actually gaining a little weight on the first flow of the year. i did witness some robbing in one of the hives that started later in the day today. i think i got it stopped but i'll have to inspect the colony getting robbed to make sure it is queenright.

here are the results of of today's weighing. the first number is the estimated number of lbs. of honey in the hive, and the second number is the change from the last weighing done on nov. 5th:

011517: HIVE WEIGHTS:

#B1 43 +3 
#B2 93 -5
#B3 33 +2 
#B4 32 +2 
#B5 35 -5
#B6 30 UNCHANGED
#B7 (SPACE)
#B8 40 +4 
#B9 62 +7 
#1 43 -5 (3) 
#2 33 -9 (GETTING ROBBED TODAY)
#3 (SPACE)
#4 63 -1 
#5 35 -2 
#6 51 -1 
#7 46 -4
#8 35 -5
#9 30 -3
#10 35 -3
#11 42 -3 
#12 38 +4 (ROBBING #2 TODAY)
#D1 (SPACE)
#D2 24 +1
#D3 35 -8


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

What do you think you have blooming? There's nothing going here yet, but you are close to the river. Maybe silver and red maples will get cranked up in the next month. Henbit is going to be really late due to the drought. None came up in the fall. It's up now but still very immature and small. The only thing being brought into my hives are what little there is to rob out of dead outs in the yard and pollen sub. I went into all my hives yesterday and for certain based off color the only thing being stored as pollen is pollen sub.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

a red maple at flatrockboy's house had open blooms at the very top. there are some elms that bloom early too but i'm not sure which kind.

i've been seeing them coming in with abdomens swollen but not a single bee getting water down at the pond. flatrockboy inspected a couple of his hives today and found fresh nectar in them.

last december (2015) it stayed warm and flyable most of the month and the hives gained several pounds each on average.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

My bees are bringing in lots of bright yellow pollen. This is a change from the gray and orange pollen they were collecting a month ago. I'm going to guess there are a few maples that have bloomed. If temperatures stay high as forecast, we will have willow in full bloom within the week.

I had a single colony at a location by itself that is now dead. I had fed them a gallon of half honey half syrup back in the fall. That was apparently not enough. They died about 2 weeks ago during the cold spell when they ran out of stores. I should have checked them a month ago and added a frame or two of honey. They were from a late fall split that was hit hard by failure of the fall nectar flows. On the positive side, that queen had little or no breeding value. I was planning to replace her as soon as I can raise queens this spring. Looks like I get to replace her and the entire colony with a split from one of my other hives.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

many thanks for that report dar. 

last year's drought made it very difficult for first year colonies to get established. i've talked to several beekeepers recently that have found some of their first year colonies dead out from starvation. i was fortunate to have surplus drawn comb and honey frames to outfit the starters that i kept for myself.

i'm really hoping that the hive getting robbed today is not queenless and that i can salvage it. it has had one of strongest cluster roars through the winter so far and despite being robbed it was bringing in pollen today.

it turns out that one is my longest lived colony (this is its 8th winter) and one that i have grafted from several times. it responded to swarm prevention last season and yielded just over 100 lbs. of harvestable honey.

it is in a single deep with 3 mediums and the cluster is almost to the top. that leaves a lot of unguarded space below. i'm not sure if the robbing event is indicating weakness of the old hive or a high propensity to rob by the other.

if it's still getting picked on tomorrow i'll move it to the overflow yard that only has two hives on it and give it good inspection as time and weather permit.


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

"it turns out that one is my longest lived colony (this is its 8th winter)"

That's an impressive run and one to be proud of for certain. Hope you can get the robbing under control, SP.


----------



## razoo

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



> "it turns out that one is my longest lived colony (this is its 8th winter)"


Indeed, very impressive. 
Any idea how old the queen is in that hive?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Nordak said:


> That's an impressive run and one to be proud of for certain. Hope you can get the robbing under control, SP.


many thanks nordak. the fellow i got most of my first bees from has two colonies that have been going for just over 20 years now requeening themselves all along. i am intrigued by this and my hope is to see if that will happen for me.

but that fellow doesn't practice swarm prevention like i have been, and i've wondered about what impact if any keeping the majority of my colonies from swarming might have on survival. 

i went from virtually all of my colonies swarming in the first years, to 50% of them swarming in 2014, to less than 20% of them swarming in 2015 and 2016. 

my thought is that without the brood break and removal of some mites that go hand in hand with swarming i might have more issues with mites.

the other concern is that colonies that don't swarm or supercede during a season go into winter with an older queen, and she will be more likely to fail than a first year queen at a time when there is no chance of getting replaced. it turns out queen failure is the most common reason for me to lose a colony.

however in looking at winter losses last winter and so far this winter i'm not seeing any difference with respect to survival after getting better with swarm prevention. in fact the percentage loss is continuing to improve with each year but winter isn't over here yet.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



razoo said:


> Any idea how old the queen is in that hive?


no razoo, i haven't been marking them.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

SP, I strongly advise moving the colony that is being robbed tonight if you can. I've seen colonies robbed at this time of year and it never ends well. Robbing screens don't stop it. Most of the time, the queen is killed within a week if not sooner, presuming she is not already dead.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

understood dar. i've got flatrockboy on yellow alert for after work tomorrow. the hive is presently weighing 98 lbs. in the meantime the entrance is reduced so that one bee can barely squeeze through. i'll close it off completely in the morning if the robbers are back.


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

"my first bees from has two colonies that have been going for just over 20 years now requeening themselves all along. i am intrigued by this and my hope is to see if that will happen for me."

Oh man, that's awesome. That reminds me of an older gentlemen I met my first year that had a hive that claimed they were the same bees his Dad had, "German Blacks" he believed. His grandson wanted me to check the hive out, but the inner cover was so propolized to the hive I broke it trying to pry it off. The frames were no better, so I fixed the inner cover and put it back together. I asked the grandson if his grandpa would let me put a bait hive up around his place, he told me to ask him myself. I did, and he kind of eyed me suspiciously and said he'd have to think about it. Never heard from him again. Obviously those weren't the original bees, but they had been there a long time by all accounts and appearances. I still dream about those bees, lol.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

i've shared the story of that supplier a few times but perhaps not since you've joined the forum nordak.

this fellow grew up in a beekeeping family and helped his dad with the bees. when he left home he got away from beekeeping for a few years. then varroa invaded. he was aware that beekeepers in the area were losing their bees left and right. he decided he would go and check on some of the tree bees he and his dad had observed together located in the nearby woods. low and behold he found that 5 of those feral tree colonies were still kicking. he had the presence of mind to collect those colonies and brought them home to start breeding from them. that was just over 20 years ago and the 2 colonies i mentioned above are from those original 5.

over the years this fellow has sold numerous queens and nucs although these past two years he has not been able to for various reasons. he was way too generous with his pricing and most of those queens and nucs went to folks utilizing conventional methods. at this point there are a handful of us who have this stock, keeping them off treatments, and trying to propagate from them as best we can. the good news is that they came from a feral population that is alive and well in the area and there are more where they came from.

i suspect from your posts nordak that you have a similar resource in your neck of the woods.


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

That's an amazing story. I don't think I've ever heard that whole story, thanks for sharing it. I know of a couple of beeks like the guy I mentioned that are kind of leave them alone beekeepers. One gentleman that is semi-close that raises Russian bees (probably mutts by now) according to my neighbor that sells off his swarms every year. I got put on his list years back but never got a call. Another guy I talked to after stopping by his place to see if he sold bees said he got all his bees from swarms from his Dad's place and didn't treat, but didn't sell bees either. After years of searching and not having the funds for package bees, decided I'd try to catch my own. Looks like it worked out.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

at lunch today the hive that was getting robbed yesterday was still getting picked on a little bit although the tiny entrance was making it nearly impossible to the robbers to get in.

unfortunately it was also making it nearly impossible for the pollen laden foragers to get back in as well

so at dusk flatrockboy and i took it to the overflow yard and brought one from there back home. 

i'll be looking for an opportunity to inspect the robbed hive asap, and closely watching the robbing colony to see if it's attention turns toward any of the others.


----------



## tpope

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I would consider depleting the robbers resources somehow. Since they probably have little brood, maybe moving them during the day so that the foragers have to beg into other hives or else a weaker one that could use a boost. Use their honey to feed a hive that needs it.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

i rarely pinch a queen tpope but if this colony doesn't have a conversion experience i may make an exception. 

the robbers are outside genetics i brought in as a trial at the end of last season, not from my stock. 

not that i've haven't had robbing before, but it has been rare, and i've wondered in a few cases why there wasn't robbing when there deserved to be.

generally speaking the main strain i have has demonstrated a low propensity for robbing and i believe that may be part of their mite resistance strategy.


----------



## tpope

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I wasn't suggesting that you end this now... Just use it to your advantage


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

understood tpope, and not a bad idea really. i prefer to let them show me their true colors. they will either have the right stuff or the wrong stuff. eliminating them before they make drones would be better in my view. most likely this would take the form of pinching the queen and combining them with a queenright microcluster should i have one this year.

my neighbor brought in some pol lines a few year's back. they were easily distinguishable from my stock by their markings. these pol lines were somewhat useful for showing me which of my hives were queenless by their robbing of them. thankfully they mited out in less than two years.

we have pollen and nectar flowing right now as opposed to dearth conditions. the robbing colony is not hurting for stores. it's going to bother me big time if i find nothing wrong with the hive that got robbed. if the robbing colony is demonstrating a high propensity to rob i'm of the mind to deselect for that trait.


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I guess I'm going to have to move to either Jackson or Marion counties. Here in ever so lovely Marshall county there is nothing blooming, nor anything producing nectar. I watched several hives today and the only pollen looking thing being brought in was Mann Lakes Bee-Pro. I didn't see any wet nectar in the hives on Saturday.

sp and Dar, you two must be paying the preacher more than I am.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Brad Bee said:


> sp and Dar, you two must be paying the preacher more than I am.


i doubt it, but we do make sure he turns it in.


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i doubt it, but we do make sure he turns it in.


That's got to be it!


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



> if the robbing colony is demonstrating a high propensity to rob i'm of the mind to deselect for that trait.


 Robbing behavior is directly correlated with propensity to collect nectar. Selecting away from it can result in bees that don't make much honey. I'd suggest finding out if there is a problem with the colony that was being robbed. If it is weak or queenless or anything else wrong, that is the colony that needs to be worked on. Then make a decision about the colony that is robbing.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I sometimes think my best yielding hives are simply the best robbers. Other than keeping entrances small I don't interfere. I take the view that Nature is pretty selfish. Its a dog-eats-dog world and may the fittest thrive and send her genes forward in greatest numbers.

Robbing may spread infection, but letting yourself be robbed equally asks for it. Bees that lack a healthy defence instinct don't qualify as worthy of saving, unless to requeen.

I think big hives tend to rob little ones as a matter of course. Big dogs take food from little dogs - because they can. I'm going to start keeping nucs at a separate site this year. Less natural selection for the fittest, but more nucs for sale. 

Mike (UK)


----------



## razoo

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> not that i've haven't had robbing before, but it has been rare, and i've wondered in a few cases why there wasn't robbing when there deserved to be.
> 
> generally speaking the main strain i have has demonstrated a low propensity for robbing


I've long suspected that you don't have Italian bees. 
You sure you don't have Russians there?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



razoo said:


> You sure you don't have Russians there?


i'm not aware of anyone running 'russians' per se. i believe that the population here is a very hybridized mix of whatever folks have been bringing in over the years mixed with whatever has been surviving in the woods over the years.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

They are not Russians. The bees SP is working with have a big dose of A. M. Mellifera genetics from the old black bees that were common in that area prior to varroa. They have a natural tendency to collect nectar instead of robbing but don't push that too far. They will rob other bees in the right circumstances. Italian bees are born robbers.


----------



## clyderoad

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Haven't those bees been sent off and genetically tested? I think I remember a post about the backround of those bees, maybe not though.
Looked briefly but can't locate what I thought was posted.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



clyderoad said:


> Haven't those bees been sent off and genetically tested?


yes clyde, the university of arkansas ran mitochondrial dna tests on samples taken from my yard and the from the supplier mentioned above.

the results were 'C1', meaning the the queen lines are italian or carniolan. perhaps some day we can get more comprehensive typing done to see how much of what is in the 'mix'.


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Yes, that would be an interesting project to see a more complete accounting of bee race mixing. 

On another subject. Have you considered doing some other sampling besides mite counts to see whether they are present in your population? Some traits such as mite biting can be assessed relatively easily. 

The price of biotech keeps coming down. Lots of garage labs springing up. I wonder if at some point a beekeeper can begin to do his or her own genetic/protein and other molecular work at some point.


----------



## JRG13

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I wouldn't give much consideration of the mitochondrial testing. It can give an idea of the race, but it only gives you the current queen mother line's possible heritage. You could back cross an Italian queen line to carniolan until it was >98% carniolan, and then run mDNA on it to find out it's Italian, which it was at one point but not anymore.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

lharder, with respect to mite counts i've only taken 5 samples after purchasing the wash jars back in 2013. i don't use sticky boards. i found 100% infestation in a queenright colony that had dwindled to less than 1000 bees back in the fall of 2013. i shook it out wishing after the fact that i would have put it in the freezer instead. i sampled 2 in 2014 and 2 in 2015, and those came in somewhere around 8 - 14%. i didn't sample in 2016 due to time constraints plus i was feeling the drought had all of my colonies stressed to the point that i really didn't want to mess them. 

with respect to paying attention to other traits i think that might be worthwhile but again time constraints aren't allowing me the opportunity do that this side of retirement. perhaps some day that will change. in the meantime i'm going do my best to take a couple of nucs down to baton rouge this summer and let them analyze them to compare and contrast with the stock that they are developing down there.

jrg13, you make a very good point about the mitochondrial dna being limited as to what it tells us about a particular strain. the most interesting thing about the research on the mitochondrial dna of bona fide feral colonies is that examples of amm and others were found, meaning that there are feral survivors in the wild that can't trace their origins back to commercially bred bees, and therefore must have been there pre varroa and continue to survive using only natural resistance.


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I hear ya on time constraints. That is my conundrum as well. I certainly won't be sampling every colony. I just want to get a sense of what characteristics are present on a population basis, and maybe a sense of what percentage of colonies have given characteristics. Perhaps the better performers and a random selection of the others. I'm also thinking of some sampling schemes where the analysis is done in winter to reduce summer work load.


----------



## Eduardo Gomes

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Mr. John Kefuss told me when I visited him in 2015 that he cuts 10 cm square of honeycomb with brood in the hives that will serve as matriarchs, he freezes them and then when he has time and with a forceps and a magnifying glass opens the alveolus/cells and verifies if it has mites, if it has only the mother, if there are daughters, if there are the male.

However, if I understood correctly, he does not use the data to assess whether bees have any mechanism to reduce the mite's fertility. He only uses the data to know the rate of infestation.


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Another way could be to sample some traits one year, and others the next. 

I can see I may have to free up some freezer space.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

we've had almost a week straight of good flying days and i'm seeing increasing numbers of foragers returning to all of the hives laden with pale yellow pollen. i'm thankful that the colonies got this early protein boost after not having a fall flow.

i suspect they are beginning their first rounds of brood and there will be some risk any small clusters getting stuck on brood should we find ourselves with an extended cold spell. so far i have not identified any as being 'small' based on cluster roar by stethoscope.

the hive getting robbed last sunday was moved the next day swapping slots with a hive from my overflow yard. so far all is looking well for the robbed hive with lots of pollen going in. the robbing colony has not turned it's attention to any of the others at the homeyard. 

i decided against breaking into the hive that was getting robbed as it would have only served to satisfy my curiosity with no real recourse should i have found it queenless or otherwise. it still has decent cluster roar.

with all the pollen seen going in i don't have any colonies giving the outward appearance of being queenless although i won't be too surprised if i find a couple that way next month when i do my first inspections.


----------



## RBRamsey

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

sp, I found 2 colonies queenless last weekend. 1 was still strong 10 full frames of bees, but no queen and no brood. They had good honey and pollen stores, and mean as hell. The other was weak. It had about 3-4 frames of bees with little stores.

I ordered 2 queens from Hawaii on Monday, and they arrived on Wednesday. They both appeared to be in good shape. I put them in the hives Wednesday evening. I contemplated whether to combine them with others, or try queens. Because of 70 degree days all week, I went for queens. I'll find out after the rains if the gamble paid off.

Also, I lost 2 dinks during the last cold spell. Before Christmas, I put three dinks a 3-way queen castle with sugar bricks, and placed them over a strong hive. I figured some residual heat from would help. All 3 were from late micro swarms. The cold got them. The clusters were dead on the frame.

2 hives lost to size and stores. I knew going in to winter they were a little light on stores and bees, but I thought they had enough. I checked them about a month ago and they maintaining the bees and stores. This weekend when I checked, it looks like they were robbed out.

I lost 1 hive to mites. All was dead, and they left behind plenty of honey and pollen. The bottom board was littered with dead bees, mites, and some beetles.

That's 5 losses so far this winter with 1 being a full strength hive.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

many thanks for the report rb. last season was a challenging one for starter colonies for sure.

i may have spoken too soon in my last post. i discovered a hive a few moments ago with less than impressive cluster roar that is probably housing a microcluster at this point.

it's the primary swarm caught from a friend's bee tree last season.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

after about a week-long midwinter warmup and much pollen coming into the hives we've now cooled back down to more seasonal temperatures. 

we were fortunate to receive enough rain that our drought intensity has been downgraded another notch to d1 or moderate. the catfish pond was filled to within a couple of feet of spilling.

i've got one colony that wasn't foraging pollen like the rest last week and i suspect it has gone queenless. i'll begin inspections at the next warm up with that particular hive being first on the list. 

brooding for build up should be well underway by now and i'll be looking to see how that is coming along. should i find any microclusters they'll receive a shake of nurse bees from the bigger colonies, and the next step after that will be to checkerboard the supers.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Today was warm enough for all colonies to fly. They were bringing in a lot of greenish colored pollen indicating the willows have started to bloom.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

great to hear that dar! 

today was one of those rare times that i worked through lunch but generally speaking there haven't been many foraging opportunities up here on the mountain for the past week or so. 

i made the rounds on saturday and was able to hear bees buzzing in all of the hives. this keeps me still with just the one loss back in early december. 

the forecast for this coming weekend is looking favorable for taking the a first look into some of the hives.


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Thanks for the updates SP. I was pleased to see most of my hives with bees flying at 45 and sunny on Saturday. Tomorrow is supposed to be near 70 here but very windy. I'll have to check the weekend weather. All I've seen is warm tomorrow, rain Wed, and cold Thursday and Friday.


----------



## tpope

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Your up on the mountain comment makes me ask, what's your elevation? Seemed that you had fog most of the day. We had a nice afternoon with high clouds and a light wind at 1132 feet here. Bees were into the red maples and my mahonie.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

most of what i've seen lately has been short flights to the pond for water, presumably for diluting honey and making brood food. 

we're at about 1350' tpope, and i believe it was foggy/drizzly/breezy for most of today up here.

looks like some risk for severe weather tomorrow, then a cool down, but shaping up for a nice weekend. washed last year's grime off the bee suit so i'm good to go.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Hive checks today showed up to 3 frames of brood in several colonies. I put feed jars on 4 colonies that are being prepared to raise queens. I won't start queens for at least another month, but I want the hives that raise them to be going through the roof strong. The feed is half sugar syrup and half dark honey kept from last year. 

Overall condition is excellent as a result of the steady pollen flows over the last month. There were a couple of frames half full of pollen in each colony I inspected. Most colonies have started on the second round of brood, meaning that the first patches of brood hatched and the queen laid back in those cells again. I started to take a picture of a blue dot queen with an outstandingly good brood pattern as a 2 year old. She will be used as a breeder later this year.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

wow, 3 frames of brood! that's awesome for this early in the season dar.

i've got a couple of hives that are giving exceptionally strong cluster roar compared to the rest and it's obvious by the entrance activity that those have a stronger field force as well. 

i doubt i'll be getting into most of mine for another week or two at which time i'll be checkerboarding the supers.

depending on how windy/rainy it becomes during mid-day tomorrow, i'm hoping to inspect a couple of colonies that appear to be not as strong (judging by outward appearances) that might be queenless or perhaps have dwindled down to tiny clusters.


----------



## R_V

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

following


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

welcome aboard rv. 

weather conditions today weren't quite what i was hoping for to make those first incursions into the hives and tomorrow is looking even worse. fingers crossed for next weekend.


----------



## R_V

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Thanks.
Looking forward to joining the experience.


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> welcome aboard rv.
> 
> weather conditions today weren't quite what i was hoping for to make those first incursions into the hives and tomorrow is looking even worse. fingers crossed for next weekend.


No doubt that the weathermen lied to us again. SP, since you've met me I think you'll get a kick out of this.... My wife is a science teacher and she has been very involved in further education and other learning opportunites. She had a dinner meeting in Huntsville once, with a group of scientists. Spouses were invited. I was rubbing elbows with some high society folks.... The guest speaker was the head of the National Weather Service in Huntsville. He gave his presentation then took questions from the audience. One person asked what the literal definition was for a given chance of rain, for instance what did it mean when they predicted a 75% chance of rain? I raised my hand and asked the speaker if he wanted me to answer the question for him. He smiled and said that he would indeed love for me to answer it. I grinned and said, "if you live in Marshall, Jackson or Dekalb counties and the Huntsville weather office predicts a 100% chance of rain, it doesn't mean a dog gone thing, because they're never right." The whole room erupted in laughter and the speaker even laughed. He did agree with me. He said that because of the mountains the weather prediction was very hard to do.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

after applying the second coat of paint to a set of new supers today i strolled out the hives to see what was going on. i could hear the buzz from 20 yards away and arrived to observe the first yard wide orientation flights of the season. nice!

dar, i meant to ask did you see any drone brood during your last inspections?


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Sounds great SP. Looking forward to the updates.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I saw a few drone cells with eggs in them in one hive SP. Bees usually start drones on the third cycle of brood.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i could hear the buzz from 20 yards away and arrived to observe the first yard wide orientation flights of the season. nice!


:thumbsup:


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

The bees were showing very heavy flight activity today. Pollen collecting was higher than I have ever seen in February. More important, there is a slight nectar flow which is showing up as whitening of combs in the strongest colonies. Of the 4 colonies I put feed on, 2 were empty, 1 was half empty, and the last was 1/4 empty. I gave full 1/2 gallon jars to the two that were empty. As previously noted, these are intended to raise queens in about a month.

I drove to Huntsville yesterday and saw numerous pear trees in full bloom. This is at least 2 weeks earlier than average. I need to visit the bees on my land and see if they need anything.


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

We've had a couple weeks of good weather in Jan and Feb. Like Dar, most hives had huge orientation flights today. Tons of greenish pollen and light yellow pollen going into the hives. I haven't had to feed with all the nectar going in. Red Maples have been blooming for several weeks, dandelions and elms are blooming now along with pear trees. I've seen one apple tree near Columbus, MS blooming already. All hives are heavy from incoming nectar and the ones I checked last Friday had 3 or 4 frames that were over half full on both sides with capped brood.


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

OK, I'm jealous. I'm still waiting for a good cleansing flight this winter. Got up to 4 C or so today and a few bees came out and there were some brown specks in the snow. I got about a foot of snow a few days ago. In a couple days its supposed to get up to 12 C. Here's hoping its not too rainy and windy.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

it was exceptionally nice at mid-day here; temps in the 60's, sunny skies, light winds, and foragers out in full force; i.e. the day i've been hoping/waiting for to start my first inspections of the season. here's the cliff notes version of what i saw:

*hive d1:* this was my longest lived colony (this was it's 8th winter). it was the one that i reported was getting robbed a few weeks back and subsequently moved to the overflow yard. 

turns out it was queenless after all and finally went quiet with less than 300 bees found frozen in a small cluster. there was no brood, no dead queen, a very small amount of mite frass, no mites on the bottom board, and most of the stores apparantly ended up in the one other hive in that yard sitting next to it.

this colony was prevented from swarming last season and yielded just over 100 lbs of harvestable honey. this was my last inspection on it:

093016: QUEEN, EGGS, LARVAE ALL AGES, SOLID PATTERN, LESS THAN 10 FRAMES OF BEES, DONATED ALMOST FULL SUPER TO #8, SUPERS 3&4 PRETTY MUCH EMPTY, SUPER2 PRETTY FULL, SUPER1 WITH OUTSIDE FRAMES FULL, MIDDLE FRAMES POLISHED AND READY FOR BROOD

this colony was also one of the five that i took samples from for randy's dwv a/b study. 

i am expecting to find a few colonies queenless coming out of winter because last year's drought meant no drones reared since early july. i've got more to inspect but so far this is the only one found queenless. this dead out is my second one this winter, putting me at 2 losses out of 22 hives.

*hive d2:* (the other one at the overflow yard) 5 - 6 deep frames of bees, queen, eggs, open and capped brood including drones, broodnest just now expanding into the first super, checkerboarded the supers. 

this is typical/average for here at this point in the season.

*hive #10:* microcluster with less than 1000 bees, queen, eggs, open and capped brood, broodnest at the top of the deep, checkerboarded the supers, received 2 medium frame shakes of nurse bees from #12.

i'll check this one on a weekly basis and as long as it remains queenright i'll continue building it up with shakes of nurse bees and perhaps eventually frames of brood.

*hive #12:* very strong colony, about 10 deep frames of bees, queen, eggs, open and capped brood including drones, broodnest expanded up with 4 frames of brood in the first super, donated 2 medium frames of nurse bees to #10, checkerboarded the supers.

this is one of fatscher's nucs and is way ahead of where my colonies usually are at this point. i'm not sure i'll be able to keep this one from swarming without splitting more bees out of it.

after that some clouds rolled in and the wind picked up so i called it a day. tomorrow's forecast is for rain, but sunday is looking good to resume inspections. i've only got one more hive that i am semi-concerned about at the the outyard. it has strong cluster roar but isn't bringing in as much pollen as the rest.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

i meant to mention that i broke open a couple dozen or so drone cells in the process of removing boxes today. i looked carefully for mites and wasn't able to find any.


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Sorry you lost your longest running colony, but what a run what it was. Sounds like you're in great shape, SP.


----------



## tpope

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Capped drone... when are you planning to start grafting this year with our fine variable weather? I have been pondering the same myself. Swarm season will be early in my opinion. That said, how many days will be flight days for virgin queens?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

good questions tpope. i've yet to inspect all of my hives but i'm looking to get my starter/finisher (cloake board hive) in the pipeline as soon as practical. agree that swarming may be earlier than typical this year, several of the blooms are a few weeks ahead of 'normal'.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

thanks nordak, i'm feeling good about it at this point.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

From capped drone cells to sexually mature drones takes 22 to 25 days. That means SP can start queens in 2 weeks if he chooses to do so. I would watch the weather carefully since it can mess up early matings.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

hive d1

did you find out the reason for the robbing?


> i'm not sure if the robbing event is indicating weakness of the old hive or a high propensity to rob by the other.


do you find this important?


> but that fellow doesn't practice swarm prevention like i have been, and i've wondered about what impact if any keeping the majority of my colonies from swarming might have on survival.


could that have happened?


> the other concern is that colonies that don't swarm or supercede during a season go into winter with an older queen, and she will be more likely to fail


But in spite of that, very good success in your bee yards!

Dar:


> I would watch the weather carefully since it can mess up early matings.


Very good advise. Do you all graft at different times or breed queens at the same time in year?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

hi sibylle.

chances are good that hive d1 had already gone queenless and this is what caused it to become a target for the robbers. almost always when there is robbing i'll find that the hive getting robbed is queenless.

it turns out that it was only hive #12 doing the robbing, (the stronger than normal colony described above), perhaps because it already had a strong contingency of foragers compared to the others which likely still had their small winter clusters.

at this point i am going to say that more effective swarm prevention does not appear to result in higher queen failure. my losses have continued to be about the same or even lower since having better success at swarm prevention.

it's possible that this queen failed just after brooding in the fall, but there were no drones around due to the very bad drought we had last year, and so supercedure would not have been successful. 

of course there is no chance for mating if a queen fails during the winter months. this is what i think is happening with most of my overwinter losses.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Thanks, SP!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



i've been getting excellent cooperation from the weather man these past 2 weekends as the nice days have coincided with my time home from the day job. 

i was able to get deep into all of the hives and assess their status coming out of winter as well as get them properly checkerboarded for the spring build up. the first flying drones of the season were seen today.

i've been wondering all winter about how much impact last year's record setting drought was going to have on the colonies. after completing the inspections today i see no indication that the drought had any impact at all.

populations are ranging from 3 - 10+ deep frames worth of bees with solid brood patterns and expanding broodnests. this is pretty much what i usually find when i do my first inspections in late february. i was unable to find any mites in the several dozens of drone cells broken open during the manipulations.

i've already reported having 2 winter dead outs, the first one back in december which appeared to be mite related, and the second one last week that appeared to be queen failure.

there were no more dead outs but i did find one other colony queenless and broodless last week. i couldn't find any supercedure cells. there were still 2 - 3 deep frames of bees present in loose cluster and they were polishing up the middle of the nest area as if anticipating a queen. 

i suppose i could have given this one eggs and brood from other hives and let it make a new queen, but i decided instead to use it to combine with a queenright microcluster that i found last week. so i am counting this as loss #3, and since we have drones flying i am calling it at 3/22 on winter losses.

here is my loss history so far:

2010 4 hives, 0 losses
2011 10 hives, 0 losses
2012 18 hives, 6 losses 33.3 %
2013 19 hives, 4 losses 21.1 %
2014 18 hives, 3 losses 16.7 %
2015 21 hives, 2 losses 9.5 %
2016 22 hives, 3 losses 13.6 %

the 2 or 3 biggest colonies are almost too far along for this early in the season and will likely be split via the artificial swarm method sometime in the next few weeks utilizing the equipment and stores reclaimed from the winter losses.

thanks again to those of you who are following here, and here's wishing everyone a productive 2017!


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Nice!


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

SP, can you break out the individual queens re condition of colonies?

I've got one queen that has turned drone layer. She is not dead, but she is about to be. I have a small colony with 2 frames of bees and a healthy young queen. Combining them should make a good colony for spring honey production.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

good question dar. 

judging by the brood patterns i feel like all of the queens are in good shape at this point. my take on the variation in colony size is that the bigger ones had more bees coming out of winter and were able to capitalize on the warm spell (and early pollen flow) we had last month. it might be that some are more genetically predisposed to early build up.

the two colonies that had your 11 frame small cell deeps were unable to properly provision the deep last fall because of the drought. one of those two has a few frames of brood in the deep but is expanding the nest upward into the checkerboarded supers. the other one began their brooding in the supers and the deep is abandoned.

as far as pedigree goes one of the big ones is a nuc i acquired from fatscher at the end of last season, one is a graft from my (now gone) 8 year old survivor, one is a graft from the feral swarm i caught last year, and one is derived from the 20 year old tf stock from dekalb county...

i.e. not much correlation to pedigree.


----------



## Riverderwent

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> populations are ranging from 3 - 10+ deep frames worth of bees with solid brood patterns and expanding broodnests. this is pretty much what i usually find when i do my first inspections in late february. i was unable to find any mites in the several dozens of drone cells broken open during the manipulations.


I'm pleased to hear this. One small step for bees, one giant leap for beekind. Bees are resilient creatures and in some locations seem to be making fair progress on the varroa front. Well done.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



> will likely be split via the artificial swarm method sometime


Do you use this method as IPM or what is your intention?

You journal is great and shows your success. 
You prevented the crash with your managements, seems to me 2012/2013 was the hot year?
But there are many different parameters working.

Thanks for going on with this diary and congrats! :thumbsup:


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Artificial swarming is just a way to prevent the bees from building up so strong that they swarm. I have to pull a few frames of brood from my strongest colonies so they don't reach their peak until the main flow has started. Sometimes the brood can be used to strengthen weaker colonies. Most of the time, I use it to increase the number of colonies.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Ok,
I thought you do checker boarding and expansion of hive for swarm prevention and use the strong hives to be production colonies.
But maybe you do both strategies together since your strong hives are not weakened and the queenless likely bring more honey?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



SiWolKe said:


> I thought you do checker boarding and expansion of hive for swarm prevention and use the strong hives to be production colonies.
> But maybe you do both strategies together since your strong hives are not weakened and the queenless likely bring more honey?


yes, but i feel that these colonies are so strong already and the main flow is more than a month away. mostly i don't want to have such a tall stack of boxes to work. 

it won't be much longer before there are too many bees in those hives and like dar suggests they will likely swarm. so i will remove the existing queen and a few frames of bees leaving the strong parent colony to make a new queen.

also from the winter losses i have boxes of comb and surplus honey for 3 hives that are taking up space in my garage at this time. i would rather have the bees using and protecting those resources.

it's not every year that i am able to make early splits like this, but when it is possible i find that both the queenright and queenless splits are able to produce harvestable honey, but not as much honey as if they were not split and prevented from swarming.

one of my goals for this season is to fill up every box i have will bees, so nature is being accommodating for this.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Nice!
Thanks for the explanations.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



> mostly i don't want to have such a tall stack of boxes to work.


 This is one of the reasons I switched to square Dadant. The stack of supers will be 25% shorter than comparable Langstroth.


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

sp, are you going to let the splits make their own queen or are you going to provide them with a ripe queen cell?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

these splits will happen before grafting time gets here, so i'll leave the parent colony strong and let them raise an emergency queen. they will be checked a month later and if no laying queen they'll either get a frame of brood and a grafted cell or be split further for nuc production.


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Are you going to place a frame of soft comb into the brood nest prior to splitting to allow the queen to lay eggs in comb that is reworkable for the bees, or notch cells to give them a good place to make queen cells, or allow them to make emergency queen cells on dark comb? I'm interested in your methods used to make queens when you don't graft them.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Brad Bee said:


> Are you going to place a frame of soft comb into the brood nest prior to splitting to allow the queen to lay eggs in comb that is reworkable for the bees, or notch cells to give them a good place to make queen cells, or allow them to make emergency queen cells on dark comb? I'm interested in your methods used to make queens when you don't graft them.


I´m interested too.


----------



## jimmye

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I'm also interested. Please feel free to elaborate further.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

the first few years i was doing splits i wasn't aware of the concern about having soft comb and didn't do anything special. i didn't notice the bees having any problems in particular building queen cells back then, however most all of my comb was relatively new.

after learning about the notching method i have only had a couple of occasions when i was trying to get emergency cells drawn. i did notch some cells and it seemed to work fine. i plan to using the notching again with these upcoming splits.

i've never done this, but if i wanted to make extra queen cells without grafting, and if it was a little later in the season when new wax was getting drawn, i like mb's idea about putting a foundationless frame and removing the queen 4 or 5 days later. read about that here:

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesafewgoodqueens.htm


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

:thumbsup:

I've used the notching method several times and have always had nice fat queens from it.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

we had sunny skies, light wind, and temps in the low 60's here today. it was a perfect day to get back to the outyards and see how the colonies were responding to the checkerboarding performed 2 weeks ago.

everything looked as expected with the broodnests expanding nicely upward in most of the hives. the colony sizes are getting noticeably larger. i'm even seeing some of the early nectars getting stored which is a little unusual as most of that is generally used primarily for brooding.

i have 2 colonies that are superceding their queens at this time. it's their first chance to do so since the end of last spring after not having any drones flying since then due to the drought.

i have one monster colony which is headed by a 2016 graft made from what was my longest lived colony. this one is slated for splitting just as soon as i see a few more drones flying. here is today's journal entry for it:

030417: VERY STRONG, 7 FRAMES OF BROOD IN DEEP, 4 FRAMES OF BROOD IN SUPER1, FILLING SUPERS 2&3 WITH NECTAR, OPENED UP NEST IN SUPER1, PUT FRAME OF BROOD IN MIDDLE OF SUPER2 FLANKED WITH EMPTY COMB FLANKED WITH OPEN FEED, 14 FRAMES OF BEES, BEAUTIFUL QUEEN, NEED TO SPLIT WHEN MORE DRONES FLYING, SUPER3 HAS MIDDLE 3 FRAMES EMPTY FLANKED WITH OPEN FEED, SUPER4 PARTIAL FRAMES OF LAST YEAR'S CAPPED HONEY WITH HEAVIEST TO THE OUTSIDE.


----------



## tpope

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

It's great to see ones bees making use of the combs they were provided.
If the bees are making queens... why do you want more drones?
I do not have a colony as large as your monster but will soon be grafting.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

those two are making queens because the old ones failed rather than it being prime time for making new queens. it's not quite the season for swarm preps here yet but i don't think that will be too many more weeks away. 

it would probably be ok to split it now, as there should be more drones by the time mating rolls around, but i would prefer to be a little further along into the spring if i can get away with it. 

that monster hive will be overflowing with bees in another couple of weeks, which is going to be before our main nectar flow hits, and i'm not sure i can keep it from going into swarm mode.

plus, i might go ahead and get some grafts from this queen and it will be handier to have her in a smaller hive.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I went through the 4 colonies here at the house today and filled 3 of them up with frames. The Buckfast I plan to raise from is on 6 frames and booming. Does that sound a bit odd? Well it is 6 Dadant frames which is equivalent to 8 Langs in terms of brood capacity. I opened up the 3 colonies to full width and put enough partially drawn frames in to permit them to expand.

I need to get out to my other apiaries tomorrow afternoon and do the same thing to them. I'm looking forward to the main flow with this much room to expand. This is the first time in my life that I have had so many boxes and frames ready to go this early in the year. I have 3 times as much equipment as I have bees to put it on.


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Sounds really good, SP. Hope your supercedures go well.

I did a round of grafting today, 13 total, and I think it went really well. I have one hive that has brooded up early and strong, so most of the nurse bees came from it for the swarm box, which doubled as a bit of swarm prevention. I swapped places with another hive so the foragers from that hive could continue to feed cell starter/finisher. It's packed to the gills, hoping for some great results. Going to check acceptance in the morning. There are plenty of drones, so mating shouldn't be a worry.


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Duplicate post.


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

This is the first time in my life that I have had so many boxes and frames ready to go this early in the year. I have 3 times as much equipment as I have bees to put it on.[/QUOTE]

That must be nice. I am way behind as I've had too much admin type work to do this winter. Luckily I made far too much last, so still have a stock pile. But I have to get a move on very soon. I've decided not to do deep frames this year as I already have too much on the plate. However, I am going to try a side by side queen set up on a square dadant footprint. One separated bottom board, 2 queens side by side in 3 or 4, 6 frame medium boxes, put an excluder on both, then square dadant medium supers on top.


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Nordak said:


> Sounds really good, SP. Hope your supercedures go well.
> 
> I did a round of grafting today, 13 total, and I think it went really well. I have one hive that has brooded up early and strong, so most of the nurse bees came from it for the swarm box, which doubled as a bit of swarm prevention. I swapped places with another hive so the foragers from that hive could continue to feed cell starter/finisher. It's packed to the gills, hoping for some great results. Going to check acceptance in the morning. There are plenty of drones, so mating shouldn't be a worry.


Looking forward to seeing how it goes for you. Is this your first grafting attempt?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

many thanks nordak.

it's shaping up to be a good season so far lharder. i started grafting a round or three per season back in 2013.

dar, following your experience with the dadants with great interest.


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



lharder said:


> Looking forward to seeing how it goes for you. Is this your first grafting attempt?


Hey lharder,

This is my (technically) third attempt. The first two later in the season last year were not great. A combination of poor knowledge and grafting skills. Went into this round with much more understanding on such matters as strong cell builders and being able to see what you're doing while grafting. While seemingly elementary concepts, I did not grasp the importance of every step and having a good game plan. Haphazard attempts, essentially. I'll know how I did in a couple of hours.


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

4 of 13. Not great. Got another bar loaded and will see how that goes. Not sure if the problem is with the grafts or the starter feeling as though they don't have the resources. If this attempt is similar, I'm thinking it's the latter and will adjust accordingly. I'll get there someday.


----------



## Michael Palmer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Nordak said:


> 4 of 13. Not great. Got another bar loaded and will see how that goes. Not sure if the problem is with the grafts or the starter feeling as though they don't have the resources. If this attempt is similar, I'm thinking it's the latter and will adjust accordingly. I'll get there someday.


Ok, so something is wrong. You should be getting 10+ cells from 13 grafts. How are you setting up the cell builder. Where are you getting your nurse bees? How are you harvesting the nurse bees. How many frames of nurse bees? When you transfer the grafts to the finisher, how many have been accepted. How strong is the finisher? How is the finisher set up? Where is the loss happening? In the starter or the finisher? Are you feeding the finisher, or is there a good flow on? 

Are you attempting to raise cells when the conditions aren't right?

Lots of questions. Something wrong at any stage means results that are less than acceptable.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

jmho, but nordak is a little bit north of me and i believe it is marginally early for cell building, at least in terms of the colonies aren't doing it unless it's a have to.

the main flow hasn't kicked in yet and the temps are still a little on the cool side. we are still not seeing hardwood green up. could this be a factor michael?


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Hey Michael, I'll post how I set up the cell builder in the Queen Rearing forum as to avoid hijacking SP's thread. I sure do appreciate your response and hope you can follow me over there.


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I think you're absolutely right, SP. I'm going to try and feed to see if I can salvage the cell builder. I'll post over on the Queen sub-forum and hopefully experts like MP can help me figure this out. I do think it's a problem with the cell builder.


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I originally didn't comment about your grafting Nordak, but I think MP and sp have it pegged. I think you're a little early. I went through 9 hives yesterday and only saw a handful of drones in the hives. I saw quite a bit of dark capped drone brood, so in a couple weeks there should be plenty of drones here for queen making. I have successfully eliminated my hot hive making queens by requeening last year and not raising any queens last year either. I'm looking forward to picking back up on what grafting experience I learned 2 seasons ago. I think I'll wait about 2-3 weeks to set up my first round.


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Thanks Brad. I've still got lots to learn on the queen rearing front. It might have been then drones that fooled me into thinking it was time. Lots out here at the moment. Live and learn.


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Nordak said:


> Thanks Brad. I've still got lots to learn on the queen rearing front. It might have been then drones that fooled me into thinking it was time. Lots out here at the moment. Live and learn.


If you've got lots of drones, then they should be okay. I didn't mean to imply that a lack of drones would cause a poor take in your cell builder. You can try another round of cells later today or tomorrow to see if it was your technique, timing or something else. I know until I got better at picking younger larvae, faster at grafting and more conscious of keeping the larvae warm and moist, my number of "takes" was horrible.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

i'm seeing more drones by the day. what i haven't seen yet is a drone having returned from flight with its pinga missing. in fact the drones really aren't flying much at all.

last week when i looked at my one double deep hive (that will be used as a starter/finisher) it was about 75% full of bees and had 6-7 frames of brood. the first thing i want to see before starting to graft is that hive full of bees. i'm guessing it will be strong enough in another 2-3 weeks.

the other thing i want to be in place prior to grafting is for the other hives to get big enough to make decent splits from. i have a few that are slated for busting up into nucs because they either didn't respond to swarm prevention or were not as productive as the rest or both. these have a little ways to go before they will have the number of bees to get enough splits from.

i mentioned a few colonies that were way ahead for this time in the season that i was considering splitting. 3 of those have been donating nurse bees to the 3 smallest colonies and that has held them back enough that i may not have to split them prior to grafting, or i may pull a single split from them when grafting time gets here.

the monster colony i mentioned a few posts back is in a yard all by itself and i'm definitely going to split the queen out of that one. the plan is to bring her back to the homeyard for taking my first round of grafts.


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Great point, SP. Lots of drones and lots of flying drones is an important distinction to make.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

following...much to learn...


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

it was weather perfect here today and i had an extended lunch break today so i decided to see how my double deep (soon to become a cloake board hive) was getting along.

i found it very strong with both deeps full of bees plus about a half of the first of two medium supers with bees and some nectar getting stored there. almost all of last year's honey has been consumed and turned into brood.

i counted almost 10 frames of nice looking brood and i went ahead and opened up the nest with 2 frames of empty comb placed in each deep, centering up the nest and moving the pollen/nectar frames to the outsides.

i feel that the colony is probably strong enough at this point to do a decent job at starting/finishing some cells, and should be even stronger in another week or two at which time i'll likely be taking my first grafts.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I went through the 4 colonies here at my house. Three are breeder queens, the fourth will be a cell builder when they are ready. All 4 are slowly building with typical timing for the main flow to start in 6 weeks.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

we received about a half inch of snow during the very early morning hours today but the ground was too warm for it to accumulate.

the current temp is 44 with sunny skies and a light breeze. some foragers are flying from all hives. they are making short flights and gathering water from the still damp ground and the nearby catfish pond. 

(the pond reached full pool toward the end of february after going almost dry last fall, but hasn't overflowed yet).

i assume the water is being used to dilute stored honey for consumption and brood feeding as it is too cold to venture far enough out for nectar. all hive still have honey as i've made two manipulations since mid february to accomplish checkerboarding and equalize honey stores among the hives.

my biggest concern at this point is the two colonies that are superceding their queens. the queen cells are at about emergence at this point, the weather for the next week or two is marginal for mating, and there are still not many drones flying.


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Yeah, I'm not holding out much hope at this point for the 8 grafts that took in my starter and the couple I stuck in mating nucs. Had a round of sleet and got as cold as 28 last night. Going to be cold all week. We'll see. The bigger worry is I opened up brood nests last week, along with depleting a couple of hives of a portion of nurse bees for the starter before that. Figure I'll be seeing some chilled brood being pulled from hives this week. Should have known better. You said it yourself, too early.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

nordac
I am guessing that my hives are fairly built up cause we were about 20 degrees last night and it is only not quite 40 degrees and my bees are flying like crazy. You would think they would all be covering brood if it was needed and not flying. They are not hauling anything out of the hive. I also have a week of cold coming but there must have been a round or two of brood hatched out cause the colonies were not that big going into winter.

Good luck
gww


----------



## Nordak

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Thanks gww. I went out to look around. Saw some bees flying, more than expected. Some of the less populous were staying in. I didn't notice any larvae being pulled out, next warm day I'll check them out. Maybe it's not as bad as I'm thinking.


----------



## stlkeeper

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> the current temp is 44 with sunny skies and a light breeze. some foragers are flying from all hives. they are making short flights and gathering water from the still damp ground and the nearby catfish pond.
> 
> (the pond reached full pool toward the end of february after going almost dry last fall, but hasn't overflowed yet).
> 
> i assume the water is being used to dilute stored honey for consumption and brood feeding as it is too cold to venture far enough out for nectar. all hive still have honey as i've made two manipulations since mid february to accomplish checkerboarding and equalize honey stores among the hives.
> 
> We got about an inch from that same system last night. My bees were doing the same, making short flights to collect water today. They were all over my backyard. I couldn't figure out why they where staying so close to the hive but that makes complete sense that it was to cold to venture out any further for nectar. Great observation!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

many thanks stlkeeper. the breeze shifted from northerly to southerly about midday and it made up to the mid 50's so we ended up with a few hours of nectar and pollen coming in.

the forecast is for hard a freeze on wednesday and thursday mornings. i've got a couple hundred mature autum olive trees that are just about at peek bloom and providing good nectar. i'm hoping the hard freeze doesn't bite them and the other blooms too hard.

after that it looks like pretty smooth sailing and hopefully i can start grafting in a couple of weeks.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I made a trip out to my land today to check on the colonies there. Three colonies are in very good condition and three are weak. Temp was too low to do detailed inspection so all I did was brief health checks by pulling the top. I filled the three strong colonies up with frames with foundation and a few that were drawn combs. The strongest colony had 10 frames of bees and appeared to have 6 frames of brood. These are Dadant size frames so 10 frames of bees is roughly the equivalent of 12 Langstroth frames.

I have not started queens yet, in part because the bees are not strong enough and in part because the cold weather over the next 2 weeks will be very unfavorable for mating.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

sounds like what i am seeing dar with some very strong and others not so much. those smaller ones look to be on track to be just right by the main flow without much concern over swarming. the bigger ones will probably be yielding some frames of bees for splits.

i've been seeing more drones venturing out but still returning to the hives with all of their anatomy intact.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

the temps are moderating back to flying weather after a couple of mornings making down into the low 20's. it looks like the autumn olives and many of the other blooms squeaked by with no obvious freeze damage and the bees were working them in full force today.

drones were returning to the hives today for the first time this season missing certain parts of their anatomy indicating that mating season is just getting underway here. seeing that gives me a little hope for the two colonies i have at mid supercedure from which virgins should be flying by now.

i prepared a couple of swarm traps today and hope to have them set by this weekend. i'm also planning to get into all of the hives over the next few days and see what's what. i may go ahead and make a split or two when it comes to the strongest colonies.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I saw signs today that a 2015 queen is in the early stages of failure. She will probably make it through the flow, but will likely be superseded mid-summer. I am planning to breed from her so I will set up some cells this weekend. With a bit of luck, I will get a new queen into her colony before she goes into decline. What did I see that suggests she is failing? There were 3 or 4 drones in worker cells scattered on 5 frames of brood. This is almost always a sign a queen is running out of sperm.

I checked the colonies here at the house and saw excellent progress in the last week. Each colony has increased by 1 frame of brood.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> What did I see that suggests she is failing? There were 3 or 4 drones in worker cells scattered on 5 frames of brood. This is almost always a sign a queen is running out of sperm.


good observation and tip dar, i saw something similar in one of the colonies that is superceding at this point.



Fusion_power said:


> I checked the colonies here at the house and saw excellent progress in the last week. Each colony has increased by 1 frame of brood.


nice! there is a hint of hardwood green up starting in the valley below me, and with the temps moderating it should be progressing up the hill over the next couple of weeks. i'm guessing tulip poplar bloom to be about a month or so away.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I worked 5 colonies yesterday. 1 was laying worker so I shook them out and placed a nuc with a young queen in the hive position. I had expected to find this colony in poor condition and had carried a nuc and set it up beside the colony. Yesterday was the first chance I had to do the combine. I had 1 exceptionally strong colony with 12 frames of bees and about 8 frames of brood. A second colony had 6 frames of brood and 8 frames of bees. I pulled 2 frames of capped brood and one frame of honey and pollen from this colony and used it to strengthen a colony that had a good young queen but low numbers of bees and only a palm size patch of brood. The last colony had 3 frames of brood but does not look like it is building up as fast as I would like.

1. 3 frames brood, not building up as fast as desired, healthy and has a decent queen
2. Very strong hive with 8 frames of brood and 12 frames of bees, will swarm if I don't take steps to prevent
3. Weak colony with palm size patch of brood, gave them 2 frames of brood and bees and 1 frame of honey and pollen
4. Laying worker, shook them out and replaced with nuc with young queen.
5. 8 frames of bees and 6 of brood, pulled 2 frames of brood and one of honey/pollen to strengthen #3

My goal this year is to eliminate dinks. Poor queens get combined with good queens. Good queens with weak colonies get a few frames of brood to build strength. I hope at the end of the spring flow to have a decent crop of honey.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

good report dar, thanks man.

i'm doing similar here, donating bees to the smallest few from the largest few.

i had two colonies that went into supercedure mode a few weeks back and they are looking good from outward appearances, i.e. no robbing, lots of pollen and nectar coming in, not a lot of unemployed workers hanging out at the entrances, ect.

it will soon be long enough to open those up and verifying a new laying queen, at which time they probably get a boost of brood frames from the bigger hives.

i've been experimenting with more aggressive swarm prevention this year in terms of doing more opening of the broodnest and pyramiding brood up to the next unused box. 

(i know walt, i really shouldn't do that, but i wanted to learn for myself just how much i can push them and get away with it, please don't be too disappointed in me) 

so far i don't appear to have pushed them too hard and broodnest expansion is looking really good. all of last year's honey has been consumed, and all available incoming pollen and nectar is going to brood with virtually nothing getting stored. if i didn't know better i might be concerned that these colonies are on the brink of starvation.

last year i found that three medium supers over a single deep was enough volume to get the broodnest to the top of the third super and then see it recede down into the deep without the colony swarming.

(i have 9 frames in my 10 frame supers, and i'm letting the outside 2 frames be stores, leaving the middle 5 frames for brood. with 3 supers that roughly 10 deep frames of broodnest area).

this year i have four mediums over a single deep to work with. a few days ago i found one hive with the broodnest to the top of the fourth super. brood was being left to emerge in the first super with no new eggs getting laid in the empty cells.

with this one i went ahead and moved the queen down below an excluder to the completely empty deep to start a whole new nest and rotated the mostly empty bottom super to the top. the brood in the supers should be emerged by the time the main flow hits. 

after a week or so i'll check on that queen and make sure there aren't any queen cells started in the supers, i'll also consolidate any brood that's left by then into the first super or two.


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> all of last year's honey has been consumed, and all available incoming pollen and nectar is going to brood with virtually nothing getting stored. if i didn't know better i might be concerned that these colonies are on the brink of starvation.


sp, I'd like to know more about your line of thought with this. Definitely not questioning you, I just want to learn what you know about this. 

I do have some hives that were overwintered as 5 over 5 nucs that don't seem to be gaining any nectar. My term for that is, living hand to mouth. They have very little stored nectar and like I said, aren't gaining any ground. With the current weather, I'm not concerned about them starving, but if we had 3-4 days of no flying weather, I'd be real concerned that they'd starve.

My boomer hive from last year overwintered in 2 deeps with a fully capped super of honey on top of that and a half full super on top of that one. When I checked them last week, they had consumed all the honey in the top deep, the left over super and had started on the top deep. They'll be okay.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

except for those few days of cold weather, there's been very strong foraging for nectar and pollen and it appears to be picking up by the day. 

so it's partly that we are in a really good flow right now, and partly because i'm trusting that the bees know what they are doing. they could be storing nectar but they are not, who am i to question their strategy?

now i may be a little overconfident, or perhaps i'm indirectly selecting for bees smart enough not starve in the middle of a flow. 

seriously, my understanding is that they can live for a long time on the reserves in their fat bodies, and what they will first do in a pinch is stop feeding brood followed by cannibalizing brood. at this point the colonies are full of young bees that are full of vitellogenin, so the 'stores' are in their fat bodies. 

i do realize that colonies are lost this time of year after too much early brooding and then getting caught by bad weather. i am assuming that this survivor stock may be better than average with respect to modulating their brooding up and down. of course i've been messing with them in that regard by opening up their broodnests...

so it may turn out that walt had a real good point.


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Well, yes I never considered them cannibalizing brood as a food source. It would be, so I guess they wouldn't starve with a hive full of brood. I've been trying to keep them from getting to that point. I've starved enough bees in the past to be good at it and I'm trying to break that habit, without causing them to swarm. 

I haven't fed my big hives in about a week. I'm feeding nucs, and a couple of splits. I also did my first "wall" cutout today. In an old abandoned house. I have turned down several cutouts in nice houses, but since there was nothing that I had to protect or preserve I decided to go ahead. I had them in a box in about an hour and got 8 nice deep frames of brood comb, a queen and some bees. At any rate, I'd bet there wasn't 1/2 cup of open nectar in that hive, and not one ounce of honey. There wasn't a whole lot of capped brood in the hive, but there was a good bit of open brood. Maybe they survived the last cold snap by eating what brood they had.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Brad Bee said:


> Maybe they survived the last cold snap by eating what brood they had.


perhaps, but i'm guessing the cold snap didn't last long enough for it to get to that point. 

it's kind of like how very little honey gets used during the winter months. adult workers don't appear to need much food unless they are having to burn calories to keep the cluster warm in very cold weather or having to make jelly to feed brood.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

squarepeg secret weapon #4: autumn olives


View attachment 31835


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

a friend was asking me offline if i am noticing any swarm preps in my hives yet. i thought i would share the reply here:

maybe but i don't think so.

over the past week, i've discovered multiple queen cells in 5 of my stronger hives. by stronger hive i'm referring to colonies of bees covering the equivalent of 20 or so deep frames. after seeing the first cells, i tried to be very careful removing and replacing frames as to not distrub them any more than necessary. the hives were closed back up and will be left undisturbed for the time being.

although we are at the beginning of prime reproductive swarm time at this location, i'm interpreting these queen cells as supercedure instead of swarm cells. i have their nests wide open with a volume equivalent of 10+ deep frames, and outside of the nest areas there is just as much empty comb not being used yet as there is comb with bees on it. 

in terms of stores in these hives there is just enough beebread and open feed to support brooding. nectar processing and wax production had yet to start in earnest, however just last night and for the first time this season i could easily hear the colonies drying nectar and even heard the first wax working taking place in the supers.

what i saw in these hives is that almost all the brood was capped with mostly empty cells in between that were not getting laid in. i found a scattering of eggs and open brood as one would expect to see with queen failure. so right or wrong, my interpretion is that they are replacing their worn out queens and likely don't have the motivation to swarm.

i sometimes see the old queen leave with a small swarm of loyal followers post supercedure, her final escort i suppose. it's nice when a colony seamlessly supercedes, and even nicer to have a freshly mated queen for the year.

walt believed that a colony engaging in unlimited broodnest expansion, and reaching the upper limit of what their queen's laying ability, might be inclined to start supercedure because queen couldn't keep up. this appears to be my experience for over half of my colonies that are managed for broodnest expansion coming out of winter.

some of these may indeed issue a small swarm but most will not. honey production is less on average with superceded colonies when compared to colonies that remain queenright throughout the buildup.

i believe we are just coming up on swarm season here, and anticipate the next thing i'll be seeing is the bees putting up this year's honey crop starting at the top of hive and working down. if we're lucky the backfilling won't make it to the broodnest before the main flow is over, but i may have to remove a frame or two of bees from the strongest ones for splits and put back empty comb or a foundationless frame in their place.


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I checked ten hives yesterday, one had five queen cells (probably supersedure since three year old queen who was still in the hive). The second hive was a fall swarm that exploded this spring, it had 10 queen cells. Did not find the queen in the hive so may have already swarmed. Two or three of the cells were capped, the rest in various stages of growth. 

Swarm season progresses. Checker boarding has helped, no other hives have had queen cells yet and all hives still have room for expansion.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

good report gary, many thanks.

in the hive with multiple cells and no queen found, was the broodnest getting backfilled with nectar? are you going to split this one? and...

are you seeing any new white wax getting drawn and/or any new honey getting capped yet?


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

There was some backfilling. I've put a Snelgrove Board on the hive to divide it.

I'm seeing both new wax at the tops of frames in several hives and some newly capped honey. Fruit trees are blooming and yellow poplar has leafed out, should be blooming in a couple of weeks. Right now bees are working hollies, oaks, and a yellow flower (wild mustard?) that has started blooming, along with other things like willows.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

nice! thanks again gary.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

today's inspections:

#9: 36 days since supercedure egg was laid. small queen found laying spotty drone in worker brood, pinched, received 2 nice looking capped cells from #8 and 2 frames of mixed brood with adhering nurse bees from #11. recheck in 3 - 4 weeks.

#12: nice. broodnest to capacity and centered up in supers 1- 3 with no backfilling, storing nectar in super 4. pushed queen down into empty bottom deep below excluder.

#11: bees crowding 4 supers. queen still laying good pattern, about a dozen swarm cells ranging from egg to 2 day old larva. culled all of the cells and pushed queen down to empty deep below excluder.

#4: smaller colony, broodnest only about 9 medium frames, may have superceded but no cells found, very defensive, requeen when grafts come in.

#8: perfect. 10 days post shaking queen down to empty deep. middle frames in deep wall to wall new brood. brood emerging in supers and nectar getting stored. found 2 perfectly drawn emergency cells in super 4, placed them in queenless #7.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

we are well into our main spring nectar flow here with lot's of new white wax being seen and the first of this year's honey crop starting to get capped.

i was concerned that the record setting drought we had last year was going to result in a higher number of over winter queen failures, primarily due to the fact that virtually no drones were reared hear since last july.

but rather than seeing queens failing over the winter, most of the colonies made it through until the spring build up during which a much higher percentage of colonies have/are superceding their queens than usual.

it could be that some of those supercedures have to do with the aggressive opening up of the broodnests that i am trying this year, as well as the generous donating of nurse bees from the bigger colonies to the smaller ones.

at this time all of the colonies are in good shape, most have their full compliment of supers, and all i'm doing now is keeping a check on the top of the stacks for progress being made.

swarm prevention appears to have been very successful but we are not completely out of the woods yet. the two swarms i have caught are very small, with one being only one deep frame of bees and the other being between 2 and 3 deep frames of bees.

i believe these small swarms are the superceded queens with their contingent of loyal followers, and i don't think their parting will cause much impact on honey production from those hives.


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Our fruit trees are just beginning to bloom. 

I have 4 hives in my yard. A 3 winter survivor/boomer, a daughter beside her, a strong overwintered nuc from a Saskatraz supercedure cell and a not so strong nuc that is just beginning to build with some help in the form of nurse bees. 

My 3 year survivor is in 5 medium boxes, solidly inhabiting 4 and has about 14 frames of brood in 3 boxes, and are beginning to pack nectar in the top box. Today I will reverse them and put 2 empty boxes of comb above the brood nest, one new. I think they will swarm if I don't do something now. As soon as the weather warms up a bit, I will be using a snelgrove board on them. Her daughter is just behind her with about 10 frames of brood and one less box occupied. The overwintered nuc is in 4 medium boxes already and has a beautiful yellow queen. Finally the little guy has about 4 partial frames of brood. Just getting going in one box, with an empty underneath. Not bad build up considering our cool spring. Our day time max temps are still in the 60's.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

sounds good lharder. consider putting a box of empty comb underneath as well. i am finding that having room for the downward expansion of the broodnest is relieving swarm pressure as well.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

another option to consider and what i might try if i had all mediums, is to put both empty supers on the bottom below an excluder, and put the frame that has the queen on it in the middle of the super just below the excluder.

with 10 frame equipment you could probably leave the excluder in place all season, with 8 frame equipment i would remove the excluder after 2 weeks. the supers above the excluder will provide room for nectar storage as the brood emerges from those frames.


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

If I could go back in time I'd be running all 8 frame deeps.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I'm thrilled with the results so far using the square Dadant deeps. Inspections take about half as much time as before. I've figured out how to control swarming with minimum effort. Most of it gets down to pulling a nuc out of the strongest colonies early in the season. I have two colonies already intended for breeding that have not started swarm cells and therefore are very good candidates to raise queens from. The main flow is on with heavy daily nectar intake.


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> another option to consider and what i might try if i had all mediums, is to put both empty supers on the bottom below an excluder, and put the frame that has the queen on it in the middle of the super just below the excluder.
> 
> with 10 frame equipment you could probably leave the excluder in place all season, with 8 frame equipment i would remove the excluder after 2 weeks. the supers above the excluder will provide room for nectar storage as the brood emerges from those frames.


When I snelgrove them I will be doing essentially this.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

ah, i forgot you had a snelgrove up your sleeve...


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

dar, you have me envious as i now have 5 supers getting heavier by the day that have to be removed if i need to get to the brood box.


----------



## Riverderwent

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> all i'm doing now is keeping a check on the top of the stacks for progress being made.


+1. Its tricky for me because most things are two or three weeks ahead this year, and I don't know whether that means that things will shut down earlier or the season will just be spread out longer. For example, I wonder if Dutch clover just keep blooming or shut down early?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

same here david, i'm hoping i haven't over supered. i have been pleasantly surprised however in years past to find progress being made in the supers long after seeing much of anything in bloom around here. fingers crossed.


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Clover will keep blooming if the rain holds up and temps don't get 95 degrees until they're supposed to.

sp, did you guys get rain last night? First here in nearly 2 weeks but we got over 2 inches.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

we've been getting some very nice rains here since saturday afternoon, it's drizzling at this moment.


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> ah, i forgot you had a snelgrove up your sleeve...


I have too many things up my sleeve. I take everyone else's good ideas and try to implement them all, badly.


----------



## bucksbees

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I agree Brad Bee, went with an all 8 frame deep setup. Easier on the back, the bees fill out better, and able to exchange frames where needed.

According to forecast for my area, we are expecting 1-2 days of weekly showers till the end of June. Upper 90's are predicted to hit mid July. This should greatly extend my season, along with helping with summer solstices grafting and splits at that time. 

As for swarm prevention, all hives that I was able to reverse and checkered using Walts and yours method are doing great. I have a side issue with those hives making superseder cells being so tall now 4-5 deeps high, but the queen still laying wall to wall. Enj gave me some pointers and going to do that today.

My TF hive is doing great. The queen has built up from an over wintered nuc to 3 deeps. This coming weekend I will make walk away splits from her and see how her daughters do. From what I can tell from this hive is the bees are smaller, slightly more defensive but not overtly, the oil tray underneath is getting replaced due to large numbers of dead hive beetles and mites. I think they are grooming them, and they fall through the screen bottom into the oil tray.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

i went out at lunch today to add a 5th honey super to a couple of hives and found that the frames in the middle of their 4th supers were almost completely capped.


----------



## crofter

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Lucky devil! Mine are just starting to lay drones and are several weeks away from needing their FIRST supers!


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I went through the 3 colonies here at my house today. All are hauling in nectar and each has one shallow super pretty well full. I gave one colony a square deep to build comb. One thing I am short on is Dadant depth combs. That colony shows an unusual trait, the queen is still laying heavily even in the middle of a major flow. I only have about 250 drawn combs at this point and want to add at least 200 more on this flow.

One colony with a Buckfast queen has drones in a few worker cells, a sign I interpret as running out of sperm. I want her to last long enough to raise at least 20 daughters so am doing weekly inspections to ensure she stays on the job.

The last colony is a blue dot queen I raised 2 years ago. She is laying fairly well and has brood in 9 combs. I found a single queen cell with a 2 day larva which I moved up to an upper box so the bees will finish the cell. I want to raise more from her but will gladly take this one as a freebie. They had not started queen cells up to now and this is in the middle of the main flow. It is most likely a supercedure cell. In 2 or 3 weeks, I will raise at least 10 queens from her.

I also have a nuc here with a newly emerged virgin queen. They have been hauling in nectar like the others.

So how are the square Dadant boxes working? Overall very well. I notice some "chimneying" where the bees work above the brood nest instead of expanding to the side. I have been moving drawn combs to the outside and foundation into positions 2 and 3 or 12 and 13 to get more wax drawn. I am turning the supers 90 degrees to get the combs drawn evenly. All told, this looks to be a good year for honey production.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

i was asked this in a pm a couple of days ago, and i thought i would post my answer here on the thread:



> In the past I have over wintered nucs that were around 8 deep frames. Have you ever overwintered the traditional 5 frame nuc? If so, how many of the frames were honey and how many were empty for the cluster and brood rearing?


a few years ago i did take a handful of five deep frame nucs into winter. my best recollection is that about half or a little more of the space was filled with honey.

4 out of 5 were still making it by january, but they were transferred into 10 frame equipment as it became available due to dead outs.

i've since decided that i would just go ahead and have all of my colonies in 10 frame equipment going into winter, mostly because i like the inner/telescoping cover arrangement with insulation in between, and because now that i have a surplus of supers it's very easy to feed honey should a colony become light.

if i didn't sell out all my nucs i might consider keeping a couple of 5 over 5's on hand to replenish the winter dead out or two that i usually have, but i would want to have them into 10 frame equipment no later than the end of february/early march so i could manage their spring brood up via checkerboarding ect.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I've overwintered for years with 3 1/2 frames of honey. It works fine until the spring buildup when the bees need a lot more to hit peak before the main flow. Fortunately, we can feed if needed sometime in mid February. This wouldn't work so well further north.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

progress report:

our main spring nectar flow is in full swing, foundation is getting drawn, swarming is winding down, honey is getting capped, and harvesting is just around the corner.

here is a tally of how the 19 overwintered colonies are performing at this point:

12 of 19 are in full honey production mode with 11 of the 12 making excellent progress filling 5 (ten frame) medium supers, with the other one being the leader of the pack and filling 6 supers.

4/12 are making somewhat decent progress with 4 supers. i believe they are a little behind the others because of early season supercedure and/or may have issued small swarms.

1/19 is a double deep starter/finisher that is my only hive so far this season that i've actually confirmed to have swarmed and should have a new queen laying this week.

1/19 superceded early this spring and before enough drones were available. it superceded a second time and now has a laying queen. it's too small to capitalize on the main flow and will be used for splits.

1/19 is the 'lemonade' hive that i accidentally killed the queen on april 1. i did a 50/50 split on this one and will be checking for mated queens in a few days. these splits are strong and if queenright will be used to draw new honey supers, and if not queenright will get combined to get a starter/finisher in the works.

i've caught a couple of small swarms and they are being used to draw comb for now and will contribute to nuc production when the time comes.

honey production is shaping up to be as good or better than last year's and my hope is to produce 15 - 20 nucs before the end of may. if this happens it will have me close to the original goals i laid out at the beginning of the thread.


----------



## Riverderwent

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Still the best.


----------



## Brad Bee

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Good report sp. Sounds like another good year for you, congrats.

I figure we have about 14 days left on our flow. Privet is way past mid bloom point, Tulip poplars will be winding down starting this week, blackberry is done and we are pretty devoid of white clover blooms this year. There's normally white clover in most lawns, and 2 large pastures within flying distance but I see very, very little this year. I guess the drought last year wiped most of it out. I'm hoping it's just dormant. As you know, early to mid May would be a full month early for our flow to be over. I'm hoping that the recent heavy rains will cause the hopefully dormant clover to pop out. If not, it's going to be a long summer. 

I planted 4 acres of Hubam clover, but got it in later than I should have. I tried to time it with the end of our normal flow, but over shot my mark. 
It's germinated and it's grown enough that I can see a green tint to the soil from 100 feet away, so hopefully we will keep getting rain and it will produce by late June.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Willow has started and bees are eagerly getting pollen and nectar from it. 10 cm snow last Sunday, but it´s all gone. Unfortunately cold weather is coming back next week. Maybe some snow on Monday.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

it's very nice to hear from you juhani, thanks for posting.

there sure is a striking difference in how the seasons play out in the northern vs. the southern latitudes. 

down here we will soon be finished with our main spring nectar flow and harvesting honey soon, whereas i see that you and the contributors in the extreme northern u.s. are just now reporting the first pollens coming in.

is your flow fairly continuous from spring until fall and without a prolonged summer dearth?


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Looking good Juhani .


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> is your flow fairly continuous from spring until fall and without a prolonged summer dearth?



Fairly, but there is a proverb in Finland that, "Finnish summer is short but not very snowy" saying, and trying to joke with our very short summer, that the summer can be sometimes so cold and rainy, that bees make their crop in one week.








It is just now the hottest day of spring and +16C, young bees are flying, so the brood rearing has been going on for some time.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Oldtimer said:


> Looking good Juhani .


Thanks OT!

By the look of the flying there seems to be two weaker ones, the rest propably fairly uniform, all are collecting pollen. No dead ones. I haven´t opened them jet, just checking weights. No light ones.

I´m so glad of being able to take pictures of flying bees today, because it is my 40th Anniversary day as a beekeeper!


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Juhani Lunden said:


> I´m so glad of being able to take pictures of flying bees today, because it is my 40th Anniversary day as a beekeeper!


Nice! Congrats!


----------



## Riverderwent

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Juhani Lunden said:


> I´m so glad of being able to take pictures of flying bees today, because it is my 40th Anniversary day as a beekeeper!


Happy b'day.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Riverderwent said:


> Happy b'day.


Thanks Riverderwent and Sibylle!

Correction to my previous post: many dead ones in the Mini-Plus hives, most of them to hunger! This has not happend to my for 20 years or so. These units consumed, for some unknown reason, more sugar than the big hives (4x the volume and unisolated, Mini-Plus hives are styrofoam)
More in my diary.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Juhani, when I have seen small colonies that do not winter well, it is almost always traceable to the genetics of the queen. Would you mind posting about the background of your queens, particularly about the queens of the mini-nucs that died?

7 pounds of honey or matured syrup would fill one Langstroth frame. I expect my bees to winter on 2 or 3 such frames. If that is all they have over winter, they may need feeding by February or March.

Is it possible your bees in the mini-nucs had too many old bees late last fall? I've seen colonies composed of mostly old bees begin brood rearing too early in spring with the result that they starve over winter.


We have had 2 consecutive days of rain and low temps during the middle of the spring flow. Today is 10C with misting rain. Very few bees are foraging as compared to Monday and Tuesday. I have a good crop of honey on most colonies and have several splits with newly mated queens. Tomorrow I should be able to remove 5 or 6 queen cells from my best producing and longest lived queen. Overall, this is shaping up to be a very good year for honey production.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> Juhani, when I have seen small colonies that do not winter well, it is almost always traceable to the genetics of the queen. Would you mind posting about the background of your queens, particularly about the queens of the mini-nucs that died?
> 
> 7 pounds of honey or matured syrup would fill one Langstroth frame. I expect my bees to winter on 2 or 3 such frames. If that is all they have over winter, they may need feeding by February or March.
> 
> Is it possible your bees in the mini-nucs had too many old bees late last fall? I've seen colonies composed of mostly old bees begin brood rearing too early in spring with the result that they starve over winter.
> 
> 
> We have had 2 consecutive days of rain and low temps during the middle of the spring flow. Today is 10C with misting rain. Very few bees are foraging as compared to Monday and Tuesday. I have a good crop of honey on most colonies and have several splits with newly mated queens. Tomorrow I should be able to remove 5 or 6 queen cells from my best producing and longest lived queen. Overall, this is shaping up to be a very good year for honey production.


Did you read my last diary up-date? Mostly answers to your questions


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> Juhani, when I have seen small colonies that do not winter well, it is almost always traceable to the genetics of the queen. Would you mind posting about the background of your queens, particularly about the queens of the mini-nucs that died?


LOL you won't find much fault with Juhani's queens, as a queen breeder he is fanatical, and he puts incredible effort into producing top genetics. That Finnish attention to detail mindset.
Juhani and I met up for a coffee in New Zealand, it was a wonderful hour or so, he's one of those guys that soon as he starts talking you just hang out to pick up any pearls of wisdom that he casts your way. He also spent time working bees commercially, 2 years I think, he's a very well rounded beekeeper.
If he lost any bees in winter I doubt there would be many people could have got a better result, but Juhani is not bothered by losses if he can see them as a winnowing process towards better bees.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Oldtimer said:


> Juhani and I met up for a coffee in New Zealand, it was a wonderful hour or so,


Yep, that was great, I really enjoyed it, hope to see you in Finland soon! 

Rest of your post is such praise that I dont dare to comment...


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



> LOL you won't find much fault with Juhani's queens


 Not faulting, trying to draw him out to describe in some detail what he is doing and the queens he is breeding from. As I stated, the only time I had problems wintering was when I was using pure Italian queens. They would brood up in winter and use all their honey up before spring was sprung. That problem disappeared when I started using Buckfast bees in 1989 and has stayed gone with the mite resistant bees I keep now.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> Not faulting, trying to draw him out to describe in some detail what he is doing and the queens he is breeding from. As I stated... when I started using Buckfast bees in 1989...


I started to use them at about the same time. Official pedigrees by the European Buckfast Breeders Association are since year 2000. However all breeding lines are documented from early 1990´s. There were one or two free matings before the start of my isolation apiary Haukkamaa 1995:
http://perso.unamur.be/~jvandyck/homage/elver/archiv.html#JL

If you roll the page upwards, Brother Adam is in the United Kingdom page.

Without mating control there is almost nothing left of 1989 breeders genes, as you well know.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Juhani Lunden said:


> Without mating control there is almost nothing left of 1989 breeders genes, as you well know.


What methods of mating control do you use Juhani?

Mike UK


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



mike bispham said:


> What methods of mating control do you use Juhani?


Isolation mating station, some years 2 stations in use, 1995-2014. 10km isolation to any other hives, mine or others. No wild bee population in Finland.

2015-2016 (and 2017 and in the future) insemination.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Thanks Juhani.


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> Juhani, when I have seen small colonies that do not winter well, it is almost always traceable to the genetics of the queen.


How did you determine this?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

i received this in a pm today, and thought i would share it and my response here on the thread:



> I have a question, I hope with your other worldly knowledge you can help me. With the discovery of a neighbor that is treatment free, with over a decade of casting swarms, and drones, the area should be all standards be considered a TF zone. I have added VSH into the mix for the past two years along with a few of my own treatment free hives.
> 
> My question is this, if I raise queens from this stock, hatched after summer solstice, and make them into nucs, then into hives, going into winter, treatment free, then move them to production row, during the winter. Then only hit my production hives with 1 treatment of MAQS to ensure max worker force for honey production, would the queens and hives not used in honey production be considered TF, and can be sold as that? And honey produced be advertised as coming from hives only treated by organic componds?
> 
> Then when the flow has stopped, break down production hives after summer solstice, into a series of 3-4 nucs for new queens, and the old queens in a nuc moved to a second yard, thereby making the breeding yard a TF yard during the mating time of the new queens, make those queens legit TF queens?


my response:

the bottom line is that there is no universally accepted definition of 'treatment free'. what i would consider doing if i were in a situation similar to yours is simply disclose what you are doing and let your buyers decide.

we have a supplier in my area who is new to beekeeping himself, but has launched a bee supply business through which he is supplying bees, (imported packages and queens), and equipment that he is making himself in his woodshop.

he is advertising 'all natural' and 'organic', but the stock he is importing and his colonies are being treated with oxalic acid. unfortunately, many new beekeepers don't understand the nuances between these descriptors and 'treatment free'. 

personally, i feel like it is a little bit deceiving to not fully disclose exactly what management practices are being used in such a way that it is abundantly clear what is and what isn't being done.

i haven't used the first mite treatment since i started in 2010. i can tell folks buying my bees that my colonies are demonstrating the ability to survive multiple winters with a very low percentage of losses, that they are producing honey yields above average for my area, that they can be managed successfully to prevent swarming in a high percentage of the colonies, and that they are not so aggressive as to be difficult to work.

it's certainly up to you, but it sounds like you are very close to being able to be successful going off treatments all together. have you considered allowing the winnowing process to play out and see what happens with your productivity?


----------



## camero7

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



> personally, i feel like it is a little bit deceiving to not fully disclose exactly what management practices are being used in such a way that it is abundantly clear what is and what isn't being done.


Totally agree, I treat with OA vapor and am very open and honest about it. I tell my customers they will need to treat. If they choose not to [several have and have been moderately successful] that is on them.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Square
I think if I ever sell any bees, I am going to tell them I am a bee haver and not a bee keeper and if they buy them they are going to have to figure out how to keep them alive. I defanatly can not tell them what to do cause I won't know myself.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

As I understand it he will treat production hives with MAQS to ensure they will do OK, then end of season break them into nucs but move the units with the production queens away, then sell the nucs next season as treatment free.

If I understood right then no, they are not legit TF.

Despite differences in definitions, I think any buyer being told the bees are TF would expect they come from a line of bees that have not been supported by treatment for several years.

I agree with SP's point of full disclosure, however in this case I think the vendor will say they are organic, been mated in a seperate yard etc, and in the purchasers mind will end up seeming like they are TF, as in Dee Lusby TF.

Bottom line they got treated, or they didn't, in this case they did. If the bees are genuinely TF the vendor could quickly esatblish a full apiary that never gets treated and sell from that. If he cannot establish such an apiary his bees are not TF.

Why am I, a treater, saying all this? Just, I'm a bee seller and I never set purchasers up to fail. I see other bee sellers that do, and it angers me, it's akin to stealing their money.


----------



## bucksbees

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I thought I was having a private conversation, but since it has been moved out here, this is my reply to squarepeg:

Thank you for responding,

I understand the need to put out what a persons management practices are, so the buyer either of bees or honey knows. I fully support, I think we are all repensintives of either the TF or very close to TF by organic compounds means, and do not want to hurt our niche market system. I know that we are all made out of different cookie cutters, but am hoping for a base line standard to advertise from. 

I have thought about going completely off all treatments, but I am boot strapping equipment building from honey sales. Once I reach a threshold of having 20 production hives, and 20 nucs/hives, then I would be in a more finically stable point to be able to.


Oldtimer, no sir, any queens that were in the hive when treated, would always be considered treated by me. They are being moved reduce their presence, those could be sold as late season treated nucs.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

OK well anything I said was not meant to be personal, because when I said it nobody knew who wrote that question.

But you can sell your bees as treated bees. What's the TF claim for, to get an extra price point? Take that price point once the bees are genuinely treatment free. Being theoretically treatment free for 6 months or a season is not what the buyer thinks TF means.


----------



## bucksbees

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

The main stock remains treatment free, the daughters that get move to honey production get treatment. Then when the production hives get brooking down, they get queens grafted from queens that were never treated.

In my mind it looks like a pipeline system. The need is for also real world test of treated hives from TF stock, and to see if a single treatment allows for a higher honey out put. With the TF stock in the same yard, it can give an apple to apple comparison, along with mite checks to see where thresholds mite be at.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Oh i see. So the queens being sold in the nucs are from a line of bees that have not been treated for several years? If so then yes, they could be sold as treatment free.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Call me a purist. If they have been treated or the combs have been treated or if treatments are used in any way in the production of the bees, they are treated bees to me. My primary concern is with genetics because treating a group of bees biases the genetics so that bees that would have died instead live and produce drones. I want all of the susceptible colonies to die therefore I use no treatments at all in my bees.


----------



## bucksbees

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Oldtimer, yes, those queens from several years, will be the TF stock. 

Fusion, I understand the sentiment and appreciate your viewpoint on the genetics. However the bees that get treated are being treated for honey production, they are not being treated to keep alive. The winter was the culling. Any that died would be written off, and those that came out weak would not be used for breading, those queens get culled, and a queen cell from the better lines get used. I fall more into the soft bond system, I can't in my cheap mind ways waste useful worker bees whose genes will not get passed on and combs for a hard bond approach. 

TF has so many variations in approach.


----------



## msl

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

if your stock isn't good enuf to use in your own production hives with out resorting to treatment, why would they be good enuf for use in mine? 
I can by stock that makes honey with treatments any were. I can buy stock that can be managed organically any were

there is more to TF stock then simply "not being dead" 
the expectation is the stock will do well with out treatments, and has a few years history of doing so under you management, not just that the queen has never been treated.

heres an add over at Treatment free queens 


> I plan to be offering treatment-free nucs this year. (Denver) Let me know if you’re interested.
> 
> I’m not sure how many I’ll have available, but they’ll all be treatment-free, foundationless, on medium langstroth frames, will be from lines that have spent at least one winter in my apiary (i.e., they may be the actual queen that overwintered in my apiary or, more likely, one of her daughters) and come from stock that I’ve gotten from swarms and cut-outs. I believe most of them were feral for at least a year before coming to me, based on the appearance of the bees


Propagating and selling stock that hasn't even proved out for a year? to BYBK in downtown denver ? Uggggg, ya thats going to end well


----------



## bucksbees

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



bucksbees said:


> The need is for also real world test of treated hives from TF stock, and to see if a single treatment allows for a higher honey out put. With the TF stock in the same yard, it can give an apple to apple comparison, along with mite checks to see where thresholds mite be at.
> 
> However the bees that get treated are being treated for honey production, they are not being treated to keep alive.


People can buy bees anywhere. If I say these bees I raise TF produce 70lbs without treatment at 10% mite level and produce X amount with treatment at mite X%, and I have notes of mite levels, hive pop, brood patter comparison, and anything else; it adds to the validity of what I am saying.

Already today we have 2 post talking about possible shady TF dealers. All we really have is our word, and want to make sure mine is golden.

Edit: I hope I am making myself clear, if not I can try and rethink the approach and explain my concept from that direction.


----------



## msl

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

A fair answer!


----------



## bucksbees

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I was 5 years away from concept design, 5 years from working out a system, I have read and reread TF post for a while now. The meat and taters I have are being converted to helping me set my system up. 

I hope if I can setup my summer solstices splits and grafts this year, then I will be set to start up with my winter culling the winter of 2018.


----------



## Riverderwent

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



bucksbees said:


> I hope if I can setup my summer solstices splits and grafts this year, then I will be set to start up with my winter culling the winter of 2018.


I would make the summer solstice splits particularly strong in your area (and mine). I have had relatively poor results with less than very strong summer splits. But a lot of what I do is one off, like not feeding syrup or patties. My problems may relate to the life cycles of varroa and bees and to how post solstice queens increase brood rearing despite the shortening numbr of daylight hours post solstice. Or my problems may be something as simple and controllable as beetles. Lead the way.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I bought so called "resistant" bees from someone who had them for 2 years from a professional breeder and who said I don´t have to monitor, they should be resistant.

In my location they showed that they are not resistant, but better than local treated stock. Otherwise I would not have any survivors going into my third season.

I appreciate bucksbees approach and would rather have his bees and know about his managements, so to know how to proceed.

I believe any bees, treated or not, bred or not, whatever race or mutts, have to adapt to local circumstances first and overcome the crises. Beekeepers mistakes included.


----------



## bucksbees

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

River, my splits get a gallon of syrup, they have in the past taken a month to take it all.They also get a frame of honey and a frame of pollen. I use solid bottoms with splits with a reduced entrance. While I rather be lucky than good, I would like to move more to being good at it instead of lucky, I can always improve to good, I can never get better then lucky.

Siwolke, local mutts is what I have in mind. Based off of Randy Olivers pic http://scientificbeekeeping.com/scibeeimages/fig-01-9.png I am in zone 48. It covers a large area, it also gives me more confidence that I know of at least 3 TF, or borderline TF people in that area.

I want to do right by other beekeepers, do right by my customers, do right by the bees and their genetics. 

Not going to lie guys, the idea of the winter 2018 culling makes me nervous. A 100% lost would be horrid, but I would still have all the equipment.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



bucksbees said:


> I want to do right by other beekeepers, do right by my customers, do right by the bees and their genetics.


:thumbsup: Do right by other beekeepers is the hardest


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



SiWolKe said:


> :thumbsup: Do right by other beekeepers is the hardest


My question: do they do right by you? 

I just go ahead and do what I think is right. My neighbour does the same. We both know we have moans about each other.

Mike UK


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



bucksbees said:


> River, my splits get a gallon of syrup, they have in the past taken a month to take it all.They also get a frame of honey and a frame of pollen. I use solid bottoms with splits with a reduced entrance. While I rather be lucky than good, I would like to move more to being good at it instead of lucky, I can always improve to good, I can never get better then lucky.
> 
> Siwolke, local mutts is what I have in mind. Based off of Randy Olivers pic http://scientificbeekeeping.com/scibeeimages/fig-01-9.png I am in zone 48. It covers a large area, it also gives me more confidence that I know of at least 3 TF, or borderline TF people in that area.
> 
> I want to do right by other beekeepers, do right by my customers, do right by the bees and their genetics.
> 
> Not going to lie guys, the idea of the winter 2018 culling makes me nervous. A 100% lost would be horrid, but I would still have all the equipment.


I would be real happy if more keepers around me had your approach or any approach to mite/virus resistance. I consider myself TF, but I tell customers that my product is in no way a finished product and that having my bees merely increases the odds of better survival. I wouldn't mind if they treated unless they had a good understanding of TF methods (and its pitfalls), made some increase and wanted to be part of the solution. But I don't push it on them. Having more of my bees in the community improves my situation even if they aren't actively selected.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



mike bispham said:


> My question: do they do right by you?
> 
> I just go ahead and do what I think is right. My neighbour does the same. We both know we have moans about each other.
> 
> Mike UK


As long as they give you an egg if your wife wants to bake a cake and has not enough of them...


----------



## bucksbees

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Mike UK, I get your point, for me, its no man is an island. I have already talked with them, and it looks like its going to be a queen trading system being setup. The TF nehbor, has never done splits nor raised queens, he is going to come over and learn some on making increases. Like Siwolke says, might need an egg in the future. 

lharder, thank you, my original plan was to use one of my out-yards as the TF yard, and build them up but do it slowly over the course of 5 years; but with the new information, it advances my game plan, changes locations, and called for me to figure out what to call things. 

My second season TF hive has grown to a third deep. It is still below 2% mite level. The queen will lay from the edge of the frame, top to bottom, and side to side. She gets cells grafted from her in about a month.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

yours is an interesting story buck. many thanks for choosing to share it here on the forum. it really sounds like the bee population in your area has a lot of potential. 

please feel free to start a thread chronicling your experience here in the tf subforum, and it's no problem to discuss how you are using organic acids in your quest to transition to treatment free. we are looking forward to hearing about your progress.

meanwhile back at the homeyard:

the main spring nectar flow is still in high gear here although i don't anticipate too many more weeks before it wanes and we find ourselves entering our summer dearth period.

i brought in my first 2 super 'batch' of honey this weekend, and it looks like i'll be in harvest mode pretty much every weekend from now until fall. 

i've had 3 hives swarm and several more that superceded without swarming. all but one have managed to successfully requeen themselves. 

the colony that ended up queenless was going to be my queen rearing cell starter/finisher. it got requeened it yesterday by getting combined with a queenright caught swarm.

i'm planning on setting up another starter/finisher hive next weekend, and hope to get in a round of grafts in the following weekend.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I saw drone pupa being hauled out of hives today. The spring flow is pretty much over. We may still get a bit of honey from clover and sourwood, but the big one is finished.

I'm raising queens and trying to get nucs established for winter.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> I saw drone pupa being hauled out of hives today. The spring flow is pretty much over. We may still get a bit of honey from clover and sourwood, but the big one is finished.


Dar, is this a sign of reducing brood amount before a drought or mite resistance with your bees?

How many drones are around for mating?


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

There are thousands of drones in the hives so mating won't be a problem. My bees prepare for the summer dearth by getting rid of drones. I don't know if it affects their mite resistance but it is a distinctive survival trait in an area with a spring flow, summer dearth, and fall flow. The colony that is doing the most drone pupa removal produced about 100 pounds of honey so I am considering hard whether to use the queen in breeding. The only significant negative is that I had to remove queen cells several times up to the start of the flow. Once the main flow was under way, they went to work and gave up on swarming.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

we've been getting fairly regular rains here which have helped to keep the flow going although it's obviously waning and the week to week progress in the honey supers is dropping off.

i'm in full tilt harvest mode which for me means bringing in 2 supers each weekend, extracting, bottling, and getting the honey to the customers. i'm finding that i'll spend approximately 8 hours spread out over the weekend to do this which translates into $500 - $600 in retail sales depending on how many of what size are sold.

i mentioned in an earlier post that i was going to track my hours this year to get a feel for what kind of return on investment i am seeing. so far i've logged 110 hours since january 1.

it's shaping up to be a banner year for honey and i wish i could say the same for nuc production but i believe it's too late now to proceed with that. 

i saw a lot of supercedure this spring which i am attributing in part to last year's drought and that kept me from getting everything set up as planned for grafting and making splits.

to those of you who pm'ed me about getting nucs i regret to say that it's not going to happen this season. 

in hindsight, i see now that i missed a good opportunity for new queens and splits. as part of my swarm prevention manipulations this year i moved the queen down to an empty deep below an excluder. i then went back and culled the queen cells that were started above the excluder not knowing that i wasn't going to get to graft this year.

for next year, those cells will get used to start nucs and if there are enough of them i may not even have to mess around with grafting and setting up a cell builder hive. lesson learned.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> it's shaping up to be a banner year for honey and i wish i could say the same for nuc production but i believe it's too late now to proceed with that.


Same here, and with good swarms coming in regularly I'm tempted to leave splitting be to maximise honey production and focus on re-queening laggards. If queen-raising goes well in the next few weeks that'll be the time to take some nucs off, or split up some larger hives. 

mike UK


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> we've been getting fairly regular rains here which have helped to keep the flow going although it's obviously waning and the week to week progress in the honey supers is dropping off.
> 
> i'm in full tilt harvest mode which for me means bringing in 2 supers each weekend, extracting, bottling, and getting the honey to the customers. i'm finding that i'll spend approximately 8 hours spread out over the weekend to do this which translates into $500 - $600 in retail sales depending on how many of what size are sold.
> 
> i mentioned in an earlier post that i was going to track my hours this year to get a feel for what kind of return on investment i am seeing. so far i've logged 110 hours since january 1.
> 
> it's shaping up to be a banner year for honey and i wish i could say the same for nuc production but i believe it's too late now to proceed with that.
> 
> i saw a lot of supercedure this spring which i am attributing in part to last year's drought and that kept me from getting everything set up as planned for grafting and making splits.
> 
> to those of you who pm'ed me about getting nucs i regret to say that it's not going to happen this season.
> 
> in hindsight, i see now that i missed a good opportunity for new queens and splits. as part of my swarm prevention manipulations this year i moved the queen down to an empty deep below an excluder. i then went back and culled the queen cells that were started above the excluder not knowing that i wasn't going to get to graft this year.
> 
> for next year, those cells will get used to start nucs and if there are enough of them i may not even have to mess around with grafting and setting up a cell builder hive. lesson learned.


You are one step from using a snelgrove board to make splits, raise some queens and control swarming. The advantage is that all the brood is in the top boxes with easy access, you can cull the cells or use them, and use the top box itself to raise a queen. I just had an inspector go through my hives and she really liked the look of my queens raised mostly with snelgrove boards. 

Also the top box is packed with nurse bees when you harvest your first cells. Go through it remove all cells, then place a frame with grafted cells in it.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



lharder said:


> ...the top box is packed with nurse bees when you harvest your first cells. Go through it remove all cells, then place a frame with grafted cells in it.


hmm. that option had not occurred to me, many thanks for the suggestion lharder.

the flow here is winding down and more and more unemployed foragers are simply hanging out at the entrances. progress hasn't stopped completely in the supers but my sense is that it will be soon.

i need to correct a report i made in an earlier post in which i said i had three colonies swarm this year. more thorough inspections revealed that only two colonies swarmed and the other one i thought swarmed was actually a failed supercedure. 

i haven't seen scouts visiting my traps for going on a month now so i'm comfortable calling it on swarm season here with only 2 out of 19 swarming, although i shouldn't count the colony i accidentally made queenless and split in two, so really 2 swarms out of 18 colonies that were not split for 89% swarm prevention success.

the harvesting is proceeding as time and weather allow with 10 supers brought in so far, and looking on track to meet or beat last year's tally of 40 supers.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Squarepeg, There is a weakness with the system of keeping bees from swarming. There will be a large number of older queens in the hives next spring which will supersede and therefore produce less honey. Please think of ways to get more young queens into your hives over the summer and fall periods. I think it will reward you with higher production and less difficulty caused by old queens.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> Squarepeg, There is a weakness with the system of keeping bees from swarming. There will be a large number of older queens in the hives next spring which will supersede and therefore produce less honey. Please think of ways to get more young queens into your hives over the summer and fall periods. I think it will reward you with higher production and less difficulty caused by old queens.


While I agree this, I personally worry that not letting the best queens have their runs reduces apiary health over time. You need to let them show their colours year after year to truly know their qualities. So systematic requeening on an age basis seems problematic for me, and another example of management designed to maximise productivity short term without taking into account long terms goals.

With that said I'm all for requeening the slowcoaches - from the long-tested best colonies, although they might be good genes superceding... so again I'm unsure.

I think I'll go on having poor averages that creep up year on year as I learn how to breed toward productivity and manage for yield without compromising that aim.

Mike UK


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Also I don't see how a queen being superseded means the hive will produce less honey?


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



> Also I don't see how a queen being superseded means the hive will produce less honey?


 Timing!

We see supersedure in early spring, usually late March through the end of April. A queen that is producing fewer eggs than normal won't field a large enough force to harvest nectar on the main flow. Our main flow starts about the 20th of April and ends 4 weeks later. With this short window to harvest a crop, it is critical that the queen be in top laying condition from the middle of March until the flow starts. If she fails after the flow, no harm done, but my experience is that the spring buildup is the trigger for supersedure.

I can give an example of a colony that had a 1 year old queen of mediocre performance last year. Her colony built up reasonably early this year and was set to make a decent crop of honey. Her laying tapered off in Mid April and they started supersedure cells a week later just as the main flow started. They made some honey during the early flow, but there were not enough bees in the hive to sustain the effort in the last 2 weeks. The end result is about a half super of honey. As I stated, supersedure is a major problem when it comes to producing honey.

MB, pick the best queens and give them an opportunity to do their job for at least 2 years. I would describe it like this. Each year, from 20 colonies pick the best 4 to evaluate for 2 complete years. Evaluate them again after the 2nd year and raise queens from the best performers to requeen all the colonies in the group except the 4 picked for evaluation this year. Repeat this process to continually select the best performers and maintain young productive queens in most of the colonies.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Based on what you say FP, you have found failing queens are a problem to you for producing honey. Not supersedure.

Supersedure costs virtually nothing, but furnishes the hive a new queen.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

OT, what reasons do bee colonies have to supersede in your eyes?

Seeley wrote in his book empty comb and a good flow triggers honey production. But he said nothing special in concern to queenless hives.

After splitting my queenless were the honey producers, but I can´t compare to production hives, having had only one and it was a producer.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



> Based on what you say FP, you have found failing queens are a problem to you for producing honey. Not supersedure.


 Bees don't supersede good laying queens.


----------



## clyderoad

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> Timing!
> I can give an example of a colony that had a 1 year old queen of mediocre performance last year. Her colony built up reasonably early this year and was set to make a decent crop of honey. Her laying tapered off in Mid April and they started supersedure cells a week later just as the main flow started. They made some honey during the early flow, but there were not enough bees in the hive to sustain the effort in the last 2 weeks. The end result is about a half super of honey. As I stated, supersedure is a major problem when it comes to producing honey.


Some popular methods used by many for swarm control is to pull a queen from the hive just before the main flow, or pull all of the brood. It's done in the same time frame with regards to the flow as in your supersedure example. Production does not suffer.

If your example queen failed during buildup (6-8 weeks prior to flow) then the workforce would have been effected for the flow, but she didn't as you have said- her laying tapered off mid April with the flow beginning a week later. A queen failing that close to the flow is no different than a queen failing after the flow, no harm done.
Timing is not the issue as far as I see it as the field force was already established.


----------



## crofter

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I dont know exactly what the ancestry of my bees is but probably some combination of Carni/Russian/Caucausian. If you get a week of really foul weather those queens will often severely cut back laying; perhaps the bees think the queens are going bad and start supercedure cells. Usually they get torn down when nectar and pollen start coming in again. I have found eggs again from the old queen but a supercedure continues. It can leave you scratching your head about what is going on. They usually have a number of queen cups ready to go at all times. 

Local conditions and different breed combinations sure can make a person wonder how someone else has such different observations about what bees do, and why!


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Clyde, she was laying very few eggs by mid April. A colony check the end of March showed 2 frames of brood which should have been 6 to 8 frames by mid April. The mid April check showed only 2 frames of brood. So when I say her laying tapered off, it was in the critical period from April 1st to the middle of the month. As I stated, they made some honey the first part of the flow, but the population did not start to build up until the new queen started laying in mid May. The main flow ended just about that time. The key is that I could not tell anything was wrong at the end of March and by the time I checked again mid April, there was nothing I could do to get them strong enough to make honey on the flow.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

pre-main flow supercedures (queen failures) can definitely compromise honey production in this area not unlike swarming does. the timing is such that everything has to be just right to capitalize on our short lived main spring flow and there are no second chances.

in earlier posts i have identified queen failure as the leading cause of overwintering losses for me, and this year queen failure during the build up period (resulting in supercedure) is eclipsing swarming as the main reason for reduced honey production.

i usually see a couple of early season supercedures but this year it happened in a much larger percentage of the colonies. i believe this is partly because of last year's drought resulted in an extended brood break and lack of drone rearing which may have prevented colonies that would have otherwise done so from superceding last fall.

requeening every fall would likely be a reasonable approach to reducing overwintering losses as well as reducing early spring supercedures. from a production and profitability standpoint it would make good sense and if i were beekeeping to pay the rent and put food on the table i would consider doing so.

dar makes a good point about how effective swarm prevention might be contributory. also, i was much more agressive this year with opening up the broodnests and that may have triggered some of the colonies to supercede due perhaps to the queens not being able to keep those very big nests laid up with eggs.

several of this year's supercedures were relatively 'seamless' and did not exhibit a very noticeable hiccup in honey production, whereas a couple of them were like the one dar describes and got too far behind be productive, and there were a couple that ended up queenless and had to be combined with caught swarms. 

most the supers from those nonproductive hives got diverted to the strongest colonies and got filled nicely by them. these hives were taken off 'honey production' and were given a second deep recycled from winter dead outs.

i ended up with four double deep hives that were all going to be used to make up 5 frame nucs until my queen rearing plans fell through. i'll likely now have a quite a few deep frames of honey to extract from them before the harvesting is over.

i'm not sure how much of a 'trait' seamless supercedure is or isn't, but for now i'm taking mike's approach and happy to have those that superceded yet remained productive in the mix, while at the same looking to those less productive colonies as resources for making up nucs.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



SiWolKe said:


> OT, what reasons do bee colonies have to supersede in your eyes?


Very good question SiWolKe, and I wish I knew the full answer but I don't.

Because what every beekeeper "knows", is that supersedure is caused by an old or failing queen. Or at least that is the common wisdom. But I don't think all the mechanisms are fully understood. Because there are cases where queens get old and die without being superseded, and there are cases where perfectly good laying queens get superseded. 

So if we talk about bees natural, pre varroa behaviour, old queens were mostly superseded as the nectar flow was coming to an end, although it's not a firm rule, they could get superseded any time during the season. So how do the bees know to do it? Common wisdom is that as the queen fails she emits less queen substance so the bees build a queen cell. But that is not the full story, it is more complex and involves the whole hive. We know this because perfectly good laying queens can be superseded when other factors are at play in the hive. For example, newly installed packages will commonly superseded perfectly fine laying queens a few weeks after they are installed. It is assumed this is because the age range of adult bees, and possibly bee larvae, is out of balance somehow, causing the bees to think they need a new queen. Commercial beekeepers will sometimes put a comb of sealed brood in the hive 2 weeks after install, which appears to address this imbalance and prevent the bees deciding to supersede. Alternatively, the supersedure cells can be killed by the beekeeper, and after a few weeks normal balance is restored to the hive and the bees stop trying to supersede the queen.

However a swarm, which in a way is similar to a package, almost never tries to supersede. So the question is why the difference? It could be the bees in the swarm are a different age mix to a typical package, or it could be the bees just know they swarmed and their instinct is supersedure is not needed even if the age mix is unbalanced. 

So to me, although most beekeepers know what happens from practical observation, I do not think all the mechanisms that bring supersedure or prevent supersedure are fully understood. What we can see, is that it is not only about the queen. There is a whole of hive chemistry at play.

If we move forward in time to the post varroa era, queens fail much faster, are replaced much faster, and their failure can take the bees by surprise. So for example back in the 1970's I worked in a 4,000 hive outfit, even with that number of hives winter queen failure was almost unknown. Now, I run only around 300 hives and have queen failures every winter resulting in either a combine, or a dead hive. I attribute this to varroa and associated viruses interfering with the time frames by which queens fail. ie, in fall when there is still time to supersede, the bees think the queen is OK so don't, but by winters end she has failed and there are no drones to effect a successful replacement.

Another matter, in the previous posts there is some misunderstanding of terminology. Queen failure is just that, queen failure. Which is different to supersedure, which is the planned production of a new queen by the bees to replace the existing one, which is done while the existing queen is laying eggs and she is not disposed of until after the new queen is mated and laying normally. The terms "supersedure", and "queen failure", are not interchangeable, they are two different things. Supersedure is a seamless process that causes no disruption to a hive at all.

And that is different again to the emergency replacement of a queen that died without being superseded, forcing the bees to raise emergency queen cells. That is not supersedure that is emergency requeening. 

I'm using those terms in the way a commercial beekeeper would use them, and it's important. Because if commercial beekeepers are talking to each other about a particular hive, they have to use the right words so the other knows what is going on in that hive. So for example, if 2 beekeepers are working a yard and one said to the other, this hive has a failing queen, but the other took that to mean it had superseded, the 2nd beekeeper would think it had superseded so all is well, when in fact the hive has a failing queen so there is a problem needing to be fixed. Therefore correct terminlogy should be used, and is used in that way by the professionals.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Great post, OT, thank you very much.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

It will be a new and disturbing thought to our local professional beekeepers to see the silent supercedure as a strategy of the bees to get rid of a virus infested queen ( or a insecticide infested queen).

The average managements here are culling of swarm cells, supercedure cells and queen cups with the result of a queenless hive in summer often.

This superseding could be an evolutionary adaption progress to help with survival. Those who do not adapt through supercedure are eliminated in winter time.

Who knows, maybe it will become normal and must be accepted that superseding once or more times in a season is the bee`s answer to this new threat.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Well for me anyway I like supersedure. Just have to keep good drones in an area and let the bees handle the rest.

The thing with my previous answer is it's not really an answer, more it was questions, stuff I don't know. That's one reason beekeeping is addictive, always more stuff to investigate, or try to learn. If we really understood just what mechanisms are involved in supersedure it would be a great tool. That, and understanding swarming.


----------



## Eduardo Gomes

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Oldtimer said:


> and there are cases where perfectly good laying queens get superseded.


I have observed in my hives that sometimes bees build supersedure cells in the presence of a new queen with a magnificent laying pattern.

Thanks OT for the great info/reflections you posted.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

many thanks ot for the gentle tutelage and helping us along with the subtleties and nuances that only those having the many hive years such as yourself can bring.

indeed, many of the hives i discovered supercedure cells in appeared not to be having queen issues in the least. for the ones that showed up just prior to swarm season here i had to scrape up an extra dose of self assurance that i wasn't seeing swarm cells. thankfully it turned out that i wasn't.

it is difficult to know if perhaps the colonies were sensing that their queen was around the corner (at least prior to it becoming obvious to me) from failing and therefore initiated supercedure or whether my expanding their broodnests beyond the laying capacity of the queen somehow prompted it. 

my best guess is that the supercedures that occurred early (i.e. not long into the build up period and before i had started aggressive manipulations) were most likely the former, while those occuring after build up was well underway just prior to swarming and the onset of our main flow could have been influenced by the latter.

as mentioned, the record setting drought last year undoubtedly resulted in more aged queens on average across the apiary. i was actually expecting more queen failures through the winter months because of it but luckily most of the queens were able to make it until drones became available again.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Oldtimer said:


> Which is different to supersedure, which is the planned production of a new queen by the bees to replace the existing one, which is done while the existing queen is laying eggs and she is not disposed of until after the new queen is mated and laying normally.


Great post OT! This is just a marvellous example why BeeSource is worth following. Professional talking from long experience.

One thing came to my mind. As OT wrote there are unknown factors, and race is one of them. With my buckfast bees (20 years ago) supersedure as descriped by OT above was VERY unusual. I don´t know the reason. Failing queens were not uncommon. 
Then I bought, as a trial, Italian stock bees, only 6 if I remember. Two years later I was doing harvesting and getting hives ready for winter. I had replacement queens for these two year old queens (they were little bit too mixed up and giving me stings). After doing one or two hives I discovered a second laying queen in the hive, just by accident. The next hive had one too! In fact, after checking the ones I already put new queens in, they all or maybe 5 of of them had two laying queens! 

I had heard many times older beekeepers, having Italian bees, telling how they love their bees supersedure quality. It was only after this incident I realized how handy it really can be for a commercial beekeeper. For me it was near causing the loss of 6 young isolation mated buckfast queens.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I thought quite a bit before replying because there are parts of OT's post that I agree with and others that I strongly disagree. Any queen that is not laying at her maximum potential leading up to our spring flow is costing money in terms of lost honey revenue. Any colony that swarms prior to or during the spring flow has similar results. I agree that there are other circumstances where a colony will supersede such as a newly installed package. I also agree that the triggers for supersedure are complex with colony balance the most obvious external sign. But when we are talking about a normal overwintered colony that supersedes during the runup to the spring flow, we are talking about a colony with a failing queen and that costs money! There are no circumstances where I can see supersedure as a good thing as compared to having a young healthy laying queen with good genetics. The fundamental trigger of supersedure in this case is a queen that can't lay enough eggs. The colony recognizes that there is a problem and initiates queen cells. Once the cells are sealed, the colony is highly likely to swarm. I have not seen a colony go through normal supersedure at this time of year. It always leads to either a colony that swarms or a colony that declines to the point they can't possibly produce surplus honey.

There are clear genetic differences between races of bees. Italians in particular are very likely to supersede. When I kept Italians 30 years ago, I routinely had instances of 2 queens in a colony by the time I harvested honey in July. I don't see this happening very often with the bees I have now. Most of the time, they supersede just prior to the main flow and swarm swarm swarm.

Brother Adam had a good bit to say on this subject. He replaced supersedure queens "any time they are found". He was working with highly selected genetics and practiced yearly requeening. The only colonies that were not requeened yearly were those that were being evaluated for breeding potential. He kept about 400 colonies of bees and kept queens 2 years in about 5% of them for this purpose.


TLDR: I don't believe there are any circumstances where supersedure is desirable in a colony of bees kept for honey production.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> I don't believe there are any circumstances where supersedure is desirable in a colony of bees kept for honey production.


Sure it is!
Requeening a hive is supersedure by the beekeeper to have more profit. Brother Adam did just that! No offense meant, Dar. I´m not totally against profit , I just want the bees to survive.
If you are able to correlate both, fine.

Supersedure by the bees might have other reasons, maybe just the survivability.

It´s just the timing that´s different.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

to dar's point the colonies that superceded this spring were consistently less productive than their cohorts that did not supercede (or swarm). i'll present a more detailed tally of that when the season draws to a close.

i assumed the set back had to do with a lessening of the work force caused by a queen starting to falter due to the relative gap in brooding created until the new queen was up and laying.

perhaps the balance of sub castes drops below optimal in these situations, and where dar and i are keeping bees the opportunity for a big crop has past by the time things get back in balance.

we have less than two months from when the colonies shift gears from population build up mode into hoarding mode (mid april) and then our summer dearth sets in (early june). this couple of months is the only time of year when the nectar flow is strong enough to support new comb getting drawn.

it appeared to me that the drawing of new comb and the capping of cured honey was effectively 'put on hold' during these supercedures.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> The colony recognizes that there is a problem and initiates queen cells. Once the cells are sealed, the colony is highly likely to swarm. I have not seen a colony go through normal supersedure at this time of year. It always leads to either a colony that swarms or a colony that declines to the point they can't possibly produce surplus honey.


OK well your problem is failing queens, declining hives, and swarming.

We know this because you say you have not seen a colony supersede normally at that time of year, so clearly, your problem is not supersedure at that time of year. It is failing queens, and swarming.

Supersedure normally happens towards the end of the flow, is a seamless process whereby the bees, at the ideal time and in a planned way, produce a well fed and cared for, young queen, raised in ideal conditions, as nature intended. It causes no disruption to the hive, in my bees I encourage it.

If you see lots of queen cells, that's not supersedure, it's swarming prep. That may be the confusion.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

OT, there is no confusion on my part. I had Italians years ago and saw the way they supersede. When bees supersede in the spring here, they almost always trigger swarming even in a colony so weak it can't make a crop of honey. I agree with you that the fundamental cause is queen failure. I disagree that supersedure is a good thing. It is causally linked with colonies that produce little or no surplus. The sequence is simple. A queen lays enough eggs to fill 2 or 3 frames with brood, then can't maintain egg laying for a larger colony. The bees recognize there is a problem and start queen cells. The colony gets to fruit bloom and then the start of the main flow with half a dozen frames of bees and 2 or 3 frames of brood plus some sealed queen cells. They swarm with the old queen. If they don't swarm with the old queen, the colony is so weak during the main flow that they make very little surplus. Either way, the crop of honey is lost. Contrast this with a young healthy queen that can sustain egg laying in 14 to 18 frames up to and partway through the main flow. That colony will make 150 pounds of surplus honey.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> OT, there is no confusion on my part. I had Italians years ago and saw the way they supersede. When bees supersede in the spring here, they almost always trigger swarming even in a colony so weak it can't make a crop of honey. I agree with you that the fundamental cause is queen failure. I disagree that supersedure is a good thing.


You have strange bees if supersedure triggers swarming!! 

Maybe this confusion between Fusion Power and OT has something to do with the fact that I have always wondered why Brother Adam so strongly advised that he is never accepting a queen that has been done by supersdure process, because they are inferior. 
Inferior queen from the best looking cell with well nursed queen larvae?? Maybe the reason was that they were freemated and not from Dartmoor mating station. But has always made me wonder did he mean something else too.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

My AMM built huge brood nests even as a split.
The original queen comes from an island where the temperatures are similar to FP and SP conditions.
So far they produced no surplus like my carniolans. The carnis, a race local here, produce the most surplus even having less brood, building comb and having a smaller work force.

That depends entirely on the health situation ( mites, virus). Speaking of Brother Adam, he worked before varroa destructor but had the tracheal mites. So he bred more resistant bees because IMO he wanted less losses ( more profit) and a bigger honey production force.
So he did exactly what bees in the evolutionary process do themselves, only faster, being able to requeen with more resistant bees.

The AMM used all stores for nursing, in summer, when we had a drought, which is not common here, they were so dry I believed they starved and fed them,which was a mistake, preventing a brook brake before winter breeding and helping the mites.
As I see here FP and SP have this brood brake. 

This could mean an entirely different strategy by the bees. A very short period to expand the brood and an incentive to multiply ( and swarm in the end).
Do this and establish a new colony before the drought, then breed again in fall, no problem if there is fall flow and a short winter.

As I understand what SP posts his managements are very much triggered by preventing a swarm.
A skilled beekeeper could use this to his advantage.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



> But has always made me wonder did he mean something else too.


 Yes, he meant something else. He documented it but in such a way that you have to read and re-read his writing to see it. With his highly selected queens, he was moving the genetic mean of his bees so far in the direction of higher production potential that a supersedure queen was almost guaranteed to be inferior. His logic was impeccable.

Alastair, Please don't think I'm challenging or attacking your position. We learn from discussing and disagreeing. You are 100% correct that the fundamental problem is queen failure. I can understand your acceptance and encouragement of supersedure. It is not desirable in the conditions here where I keep bees. That does not mean it is undesirable in your conditions.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

i'm fairly certain the cases of supercedure i'm reporting here were not swarms.

the colonies were still in aggressive build up and broodnest expansion mode and responding very nicely to my swarm prevention manipulations; there were less than a handful of queen cells and they were all the same age; this happened prior to our main nectar flow and normal swarming time here; there were no rapid losses in population noticed; and no swarms were observed nor scouts seen checking out my traps.

given that it's about a month from egg to laying queen, and another few weeks before the new queen's brood is emerging, it's reasonable to assume that production might be impacted with early season supercedures as dar suggests given the short duration of our main flow.

in the example dar gave he counted up frames of brood and used that metric to draw the conclusion that the queen was not keeping up. i didn't count frames of brood so i can't say for sure, but as i noted the existing queens were still laying nice patterns when the supercedure cells were produced.

out of the 10 or so hives in which this happened here this season the impact on production has been somewhat variable based on initial observations, again most likely depending on the timing in relation to our main flow and just how 'seamless' the supercedure was.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

it's been a fairly uneventful week up here as we continue to make our way through this year's honey harvest, uneventful that is except for the dispatching of two mature rattlesnakes that found their way into the beeyard.

i believe they were a mated pair, the larger of which having 10 rattles and the slightly smaller one having 7 rattles.

the rains have been regular and although the nectar flow has waned a lot from it's peak last month we are still seeing some decent foraging for pollen and nectar.

i decided to join mrs. squarepeg this morning at the local farmer's market as some of the regulars there were doubting my existence and had nicknamed me 'the phantom beekeeper'. 

it was interesting and i had the opportunity to field the typical inquiries with respect to beekeeping ect. it was especially nice to hear how much the folks were enjoying our honey.

we sold out in less than 2 hours and headed back home. i then finished washing up the balance of the extracting equipment readying it for tomorrow's processing of the 2 supers that have been 'drying' in the garage since yesterday morning.

this batch puts us just over 500 lbs. so far, with several hives remaining to pull from for the first time, and with most of the others still holding another super or two of harvestable honey.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

the smaller of the two snakes after beheading with my 20 gauge:

View attachment 33946


----------



## Michael Palmer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Oldtimer said:


> Supersedure normally happens towards the end of the flow, is a seamless process whereby the bees, at the ideal time and in a planned way, produce a well fed and cared for, young queen, raised in ideal conditions, as nature intended. It causes no disruption to the hive, in my bees I encourage it.


Absolutely OT. I see it all the time, as I don't practice annual re-queening, and keep good production records. Seamless supercedure is an important trait that many beekeepers can't appreciate with their constant re-queening and bees that are swarm crazy.

Once, in August on the Autumn flow, I shook 50 colonies through a queen excluder. 17 had multiple queens. 

In '15 and '16, I used a breeder queen gleaned from a colony that had been established in 2001. Production records showed that colony was a top producer in her apiary, every year. They seemingly never swarmed...honey crops too big for that. Never re-queened by me, yet they continued to thrive. Why? Intelligent supercedure. 

So, I think that bees re-queen them selves in two ways. Swarming and supercedure. I know which one I want.


----------



## Cloverdale

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> the smaller of the two snakes after beheading with my 20 gauge:
> 
> View attachment 33946


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



> as I don't practice annual re-queening


 Beekeeping based on annual requeening has a different dynamic than colony replacement via nucs. Perhaps of value, compare colonies that produce surplus over 100 lbs vs colonies that do not supersede and do not swarm and index to queen age. I may be wrong, but expect annual requeening to change the dynamic for you as well as me.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> I may be wrong, but expect annual requeening to change the dynamic for you as well as me.


Artificially, or via supersedure?

The artificial way is good, the natural way is somehow bad?


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

As I said, the way to prove it is to keep records of queen age, supersedure, swarming, and production. One or two years should suffice to prove that 1 year old queens are more productive than 2 year old queens. Comparison of purpose reared queens (meaning both queen mother and drone mother are known and selected) vs supersedure queens will prove whether they are worth the effort or not.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

mmh.
But how can you compare this if swarm prevention is a common practice in spring?

Maybe the queen is at her best the first year only because she is forced to build big amounts of brood?

Maybe the second year this queen stops to be prolific and is superseded inside the hive instead of being able to swarm and start again all over to establish a colony?

This would mean you have to requeen because of your man made manipulations? 
The purpose of selection not used.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



> This would mean you have to requeen because of your man made manipulations? The purpose of selection not used.


 Potential breeder colonies would be retained and evaluated similar to the way Brother Adam evaluated about 5 percent of colonies for 2 years. The purpose of checking for swarm preparations is to identify colonies that don't prepare to swarm. I had 2 colonies that did not do so this year. One was a Buckfast queen purchased in 2016 that did not swarm this year. The other was a queen I raised in 2015 that did not swarm for 2 consecutive years. I want to have most of my queens descended from these two queens for next year. At the current rate, I will only have about 25 to 30 queens from these breeders retained in my hives.

I do not have any candidates for breeder colonies next year but hope to identify a couple by evaluating swarm preparation and honey production next spring.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Cloverdale said:


>


that was mrs. squarepeg's reaction as well. 

in the few short years that i have been keeping records the most productive colonies so far have mostly been headed by queens that were reared after the spring build up in the previous season.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Thanks for the informations.

Are rattlers edible? Did you grill it SP?


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

And I certainly did not know they form mated pairs


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



SiWolKe said:


> Are rattlers edible? Did you grill it SP?


i've heard they are good to eat but no we donated these to the local turkey vultures.



Oldtimer said:


> And I certainly did not know they form mated pairs.


just a guess on my part ot, based on the observation that they were in close proximity and one was measurably longer and thicker than the other. i didn't bother to probe them.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Very interesting. We don't have snakes here in NZ, or bears for that matter, a lot of your wildlife sounds very exotic to us over here


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Oldtimer said:


> ...a lot of your wildlife sounds very exotic to us over here


"The southern Appalachian Mountains are one of the most biologically diverse regions in the temperate world. Biodiversity is extremely high in terms of both the variety of different species and the abundance of each species..."

from: http://highlandsbiological.org/nature-center/biodiversity-of-the-southern-appalachians/

thanks ot. it is indeed an interesting ecoregion for wildlife. my sense is that we have especially good habitat for fostering a feral bee population, and that population appears to have developed the capacity to coexist with varroa mites.

i believe this to be the single most important factor contributing to the successes those of us are having managing our apiaries off treatments around here.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I inspected 7 colonies of bees today. I expect to harvest about 200 pounds of honey from them as soon as the weather cooperates.

1 medium strong colony with a new supersedure queen with 4 frames of brood and 7 of honey. This colony did not make a surplus on the spring flow but looks like they may have some extra over the next few weeks. This one had a bad queen coming into spring but did not get strong enough to swarm.

1 queenless hive that had swarmed and then lost the new queen that hatched. They were still reasonably strong so I gave them a frame of eggs and larvae to start cells. I will give them a mature queen cell. The brood is just to tide them over until the cells are ready in 3 days.

1 very strong hive that has made at least 80 pounds of surplus honey and is still hauling it in.

1 strong colony that did not make a surplus on the spring flow because they started as a weak colony but now looks like they may make 40 pounds or perhaps a bit more.

1 medium colony that has freshly emerged queen cells. There are no signs of swarming but looks like the queen was replaced. They will have plenty of honey for winter but no surplus.

1 very strong colony that was a split from a colony that was on the verge of swarming. They have an excellent laying queen and may make a bit of surplus if the weak flow continues.

1 colony that started supersedure cells, then swarmed even though they only had 5 frames of bees. They lost their replacement queen and were given a queen cell a month ago. Today they had 3 frames of brood and appear to be developing fairly well. They will not make any surplus and may not make enough for winter.


The main spring flow ended a month ago. We are getting an unusual but welcome minor flow that is being prolonged by regular rainfall. It is a very weak flow that the strongest colonies are taking advantage of and harvesting surplus even to the point of drawing combs. Some of the nectar being harvested is from clover. There may be a bit from sourwood. Either way it is light colored good flavored honey.

I still have quite a few colonies to inspect and have not yet extracted any honey. I am raising queens to carry as many nucs as possible through winter. I need to breed from the best queens to address problems mentioned above.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Dar, please tell your hive arrangements. Are those mostly on one deep?


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Doing mid winter checks atm and today found this. (it's winter down these parts)

The old queen with a little paint still on her, lower in the pic, has done 2 summers, last summer this hive was run in one brood box and made 4 deeps of honey. This is an area where low priced honey is made so 3 deeps totalling around 150 ish pounds were harvested and the 4th full deep of honey was left on for winter feed. Nice gentle bees too, so pleased with the performance of this hive. 

So now it's mid winter and i found this. The old queen now a bit worn looking but still active, and a beautiful new queen beside her. Unfortunately the pic I snapped has turned out rather blurry but the new queen is a real beauty, still young, likely raised 2 or 3 months ago after the flow finished, I expect to get 2 good summers out of her, same as her mother has done. This is a great example of what bees can do, if we let them. 

This is why I encourage supersedure in my bees. New queen for free, raised under ideal conditions, big fat and healthy, no interruption to the hive, at a time there are lots of drones around for excellent mating, and no work on my part. What's not to like?

At this time the hives have very little brood so the new queen is shrunk down. But check the size of the thorax. Once she goes into full lay she'll become a monster. These are the queens I like .


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



> Dar, please tell your hive arrangements. Are those mostly on one deep?


 Two of the strong colonies have double deeps to draw combs. The rest are single square Dadant.

I'm gradually setting up hives with 2 queens as I get mated queens to put in them. The strongest colonies are being used as cell builders. When the cells are ready, I split the strong colony into nucs to get queens mated. The average strong colony produces between 7 and 15 queens and has enough brood and bees to set up at least 10 nucs.

I'm really impressed with the ease of raising queens using square Dadant hives. Pull the honey crop off a strong hive leaving it with a single box full of combs. This packs a huge population of bees into a small space which is ideal conditions for getting cells drawn. Remove 3 frames of bees with open larvae and the queen and put into a nuc. This gets almost all the open brood into the nuc. Leave the parent hive alone for 24 hours, then give them a frame of eggs and young larvae with slots cut across the face of the comb so they can freely build cells. This frame has an abundance of eggs and young larvae which attracts nurse bees that construct the queen cells. I feed them for 6 days until the cells are capped using a 1/2 gallon jar with a single hole in the lid. They usually take 2 or 3 jars of feed which just happens to set up most of the frames in the brood nest with abundant stores to make nucs. On day 8 from giving the eggs, carefully check the rest of the frames for any queen cells and remove them. I don't usually find many. Day 11 or 12 is time to make up the nucs. I pull a frame of brood with bees and put into a separate hive then shake in another frame of bees to make a relatively strong single frame nuc. Give them one of the queen cells which they made and let them do the rest. The advantage of this method is that it turns a strong colony into about 7 nucs with mated queens and with enough stores to get through the summer. I'm getting about 7 mated queens out of 10 nucs set up.

I don't have to graft larvae using this method which saves a lot of time and trouble. I get an abundance of good quality queens. The bees don't tear open the cells as can happen when giving a cell to a recently made queenless nuc. A mated queen will turn the single frame nuc into a 2 or 3 frame nuc within a month. The only weaknesses are that hive beetles can be a problem if the nucs are not made strong to start with and the nuc may have to be fed to get through the summer dearth.

I've got to get busy and set up hives for the next round of cells that are due to come off in 2 days.


----------



## Cloverdale

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Oldtimer said:


> Doing mid winter checks atm and today found this. (it's winter down these parts)
> 
> The old queen with a little paint still on her, lower in the pic, has done 2 summers, last summer this hive was run in one brood box and made 4 deeps of honey. This is an area where low priced honey is made so 3 deeps totalling around 150 ish pounds were harvested and the 4th full deep of honey was left on for winter feed. Nice gentle bees too, so pleased with the performance of this hive.
> 
> So now it's mid winter and i found this. The old queen now a bit worn looking but still active, and a beautiful new queen beside her. Unfortunately the pic I snapped has turned out rather blurry but the new queen is a real beauty, still young, likely raised 2 or 3 months ago after the flow finished, I expect to get 2 good summers out of her, same as her mother has done. This is a great example of what bees can do, if we let them.
> 
> This is why I encourage supersedure in my bees. New queen for free, raised under ideal conditions, big fat and healthy, no interruption to the hive, at a time there are lots of drones around for excellent mating, and no work on my part. What's not to like?
> 
> At this time the hives have very little brood so the new queen is shrunk down. But check the size of the thorax. Once she goes into full lay she'll become a monster. These are the queens I like .


Oldtimer, that is just a really GRAND image! Beautiful and magnificent just doesn't make it here. That one frame image can teach so much to beekeepers. I started following this thread and have a question or two...I was always told that the swarm queen is better than the supersedure queen, but the scenario for a supersedure is just so much better, and the queen seems to be great too. So what we should do is just let the hive take care of it, let the queen keep laying until the hive thinks it's time fir a new one? And, a hive that is in swarm mode and puts swarm cells and supersedure cells, are they all considered swarm cells?


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Thanks dar for explaining, seems to me a good method, does it work with putting in honey combs instead of feeding syrup? A top box maybe with two or three honey combs, a divider and the rest of box space closed with a board?

Next year I will try the miller frames and could combine this with your methods. Give the miller frames to the best queen to lay eggs in and use it.

Great pict. OT!
Last year i had two queens in a double deep arrangement, the old was in the bottom box laying, the new one started in the top box. They build a cell, I did not plan it. It was a surprise to me.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Cloverdale said:


> So what we should do is just let the hive take care of it, let the queen keep laying until the hive thinks it's time fir a new one?


Yes and no. In the natural way of things, that was how it worked. But now things are not natural, we have varroa mites and the pathogens they spread, that flog out bees and queens, and cause queens to fail faster than the bees expected and the bees can be caught unawares, without a replacement. So what I do is encourage supersedure by making the conditions that encourage it, ie, in fall which is the natural supersedure time, hives with 2 year old queens are allowed to pack out the brood nest with honey and varroa mites are kept low so the bees are feeling good. 2 year old queens in fall, healthy bees and a packed brood nest, these are conditions that encourage bees to supersede. 
FP says his bees are different, so don't just take my word for it, that's just how it works for me.



Cloverdale said:


> And, a hive that is in swarm mode and puts swarm cells and supersedure cells, are they all considered swarm cells?


Yes they are swarm cells. If it's spring and the bees are intending to swarm, and building multiple queen cells, all queen cells built are swarm cells. Kill them, or split if you wish. Only if you see some obvious problem with the queen you may choose to allow one of the swarm cells to hatch and take over but this must be done in a way that does not allow the hive to swarm. 

The key differences between swarm cells and supersedure cells is not so much placement of the cells on the comb. It is the time of year and how many queen cells are built. If bees are planning to swarm, they show their intent by building many queen cells, maybe a dozen, or more. This is because bees will send out multiple swarms if they can. If bees are superseding they just build one queen cell, sometimes 2, or very rarely 3. If they are building more queen cells than that, consider it preperation to swarm, or, the queen is dead and it's emergency cells.

But nowdays with varroa mites and the disruption they cause to a hive, the lines for diagnosing the running of a hive can be a bit more blurred than they used to be as the bees can be messed with by viruses and behave abnormally.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



> . But now things are not natural,


They would be if we did not have prevented this by treating.

It´s a man made situation but circumstances always change even in nature, and adaption follows.


----------



## Cloverdale

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Oldtimer "FP says his bees are different, so don't just take my word for it, that's just how it works for me."
I'll have to go back and find that. Thank you for answering those two questions.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

The difference which I have stated is that my bees often supersede in early spring. The bees get to the start of the main flow and already have queen cells so they swarm. I've had fall supersedure and one of my breeder queens was just superseded which is in the spring but after the main flow. My bees don't normally swarm after the main flow even if they supersede.

My general complaint against supersedure is that the genetics of the resulting queen are not known. I am basing that on Brother Adam's warning that supersedure queens are not to be relied on i.e. that supersedure queens are not the result of a dedicated selection program. The key difference is that a person practicing annual requeening with improved genetics should not rely on a supersedure queen. Alternately, a person who does not practice annual requeening will in one way or another rely on annual supersedure in about 1/3 of the colonies managed. It is my intent to requeen annually with the exception of a percentage of colonies being evaluated as breeders.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

it's looking like the handful of colonies that superceded this year just prior to or early into our main spring flow are going to be somewhat productive this year despite the set back in brooding, thanks in part to regular rains that appear to be extending the flow here for longer than is typical.

i talked a friend of mine (flatrockboy here on beesource) a couple of days ago and he told me how one of his colonies has drawn new wax and filled a new super in just the past 2 weeks which is almost unheard of here this late in season. he's thinking this hive might go past 200 lbs. of harvestable honey for the year.


----------



## Cloverdale

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> The difference which I have stated is that my bees often supersede in early spring. The bees get to the start of the main flow and already have queen cells so they swarm. I've had fall supersedure and one of my breeder queens was just superseded which is in the spring but after the main flow. My bees don't normally swarm after the main flow even if they.
> My general complaint against supersedure is that the genetics of the resulting queen are not known. I am basing that on Brother Adam's warning that supersedure queens are not to be relied on i.e. that supersedure queens are not the result of a dedicated selection program. The key difference is that a person practicing annual requeening with improved genetics should not rely on a supersedure queen. Alternately, a person who does not practice annual requeening will in one way or another rely on annual supersedure in about 1/3 of the colonies managed. It is my intent to requeen annually with the exception of a percentage of colonies being evaluated as breeders.


Thanks, so much to think about regarding management options. :s


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I made up the first 2 queen colony for winter yesterday using queens raised from my picked breeder queen with no swarming in 2 years, good production, no mite problems, and low stinging tendency. I have 7 queen cells in nucs from the same breeder.

I am debating getting a few queens from Carpenter to set up an apiary with those genetics for mating next year.


----------



## camero7

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



> I am debating getting a few queens from Carpenter to set up an apiary with those genetics for mating next year.


I only have one Carpenter queen left [**** blizzard], but it is extremely defensive when worked, I could not have it in a populated area. Today I added a super and couldn't take my jacket off until I had driven about 4 miles, that after waiting and walking a ways down to road to get rid of them. Don't know for sure if the queen is a superscedure or what. queen is exceptional with great patterns. I'll test for mites in a week or so but they sure look good.


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



camero7 said:


> it is extremely defensive when worked, I could not have it in a populated area.


I considered trying some as well.....until I saw where he was located.


----------



## camero7

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I had 5 new Carpenter hives in 2 story nucs going into the winter... they weren't that bad, but they were still small hives. This baby is 2 story full of brood and deep super on top. Lots of bees. Would be a disaster if I had them at home. If mite counts aren't good, I'll requeen it this fall.


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



camero7 said:


> I had 5 new Carpenter hives in 2 story nucs going into the winter...


Add to the potential for defensiveness....the ahhhh...more tropical genetics might make overwintering in the north a bit more difficult. Same reason I choose not to buy from the Weavers...either clan.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I've been extracting honey a bit each night for a few days now. I estimate between 15 and 20 gallons in the settling tank and still have about 5 more gallons in the extractor. I still have honey to remove at one apiary. The crop is not as high as I would like, but it is much better than it has been for the last 5 years.

The honey in the extractor is a bit darker colored than is in the settling tank so I will let it wait a couple of days until I can jar up the tank before moving the honey from the extractor.

Next task is to install 10 Carpenter queens that will arrive tomorrow. I plan to have one apiary dedicated to Carpenter queens so I can use it for mating next year.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

nice report dar, thanks for sharing.

it's shaping up to be a good honey year here as well. if we are supposed to be in our summer dearth you wouldn't know it by the pace of foraging taking place. i guess it's these regular rains that are keeping the flow going. 

i'm approaching the half way mark based on last year's numbers with about 700 lbs. brought in so far. the two hives that i harvested a super each from this morning have filled and started capping the extracted supers i placed on top of them about 4 weeks ago.

flatrockboy is reporting similar with his hives being kept near section and rainsville.


----------



## Riverderwent

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



> if we are supposed to be in our summer dearth you wouldn't know it by the pace of foraging taking place.


Same here. Flows were early. The onset of the dearth seems to be running late.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I set up a local guy with a nuc from one of my hives that was on the verge of swarming back in April. The nuc had 2 frames of brood, 1 of honey, and a ripe queen cell in a Langstroth deep with 10 frames. We checked them today. They have completely filled the deep and bees are hanging out all over the front of the hive. I'm going to carry him a shallow super tomorrow so he can give them some more room. This should give perspective on just how much honey is coming in on the weak flow we are currently seeing. This is impressive given that they built all the comb off of starter strips. Rainfall is definitely prolonging the flow and increasing the crop here.

I got 7 of the Carpenter queens installed in hives today and will do the remaining 3 tomorrow. I am not opening the candy hole in the queen cages because the bees will release the queens too soon. This means another visit tomorrow or Monday to check status and turn the queens loose. I'd rather do it slow than take a chance on losing these queens.

I am setting these up with 2 queens in each hive with a divider. I have some Buckfast queens that are mated and laying that I am also setting up as 2 queen hives for winter. I had too many problems getting mated queens from virgins in 2 queen setup so switched to mating with 1 queen in a hive and then combining 2 of them to make one double colony for winter. Big hint for raising queens, spread the mating nucs out at least 10 feet apart!


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Just returned from beehives. The main crop is about to start, gave them some boxes to store it. Did some powder sugar tests of possible breeder hives. Mites dropped from 5 hives(300 bees): 2, 2, 2, 5 and 9. Average 4 is the lowest ever.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Juhani Lunden said:


> Just returned from beehives. The main crop is about to start, gave them some boxes to store it. Did some powder sugar tests of possible breeder hives. Mites dropped from 5 hives(300 bees): 2, 2, 2, 5 and 9. Average 4 is the lowest ever.


I always thought you profs rely on alcohol wash only.


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Our inspector used powdered sugar. Very simple to do and fast. Have a jar with a line marked for 300 bees. Lid with number 8 mesh. Put bees from brood area in to line, add a couple table spoons of icing sugar through the mesh. Let them roll around in it for a while. Shake, shake shake. Then shake the sugar out into a bowl.

Not as accurate as a alcohol wash, but I think would give a good indication of problems. I'm going to do all my hives late July and force a brood break/then requeen for those having the worst problems. Come spring time, in combination with survival and production, I should/could have some interesting information to work with. BTW Juhani. That sounds like a very promising result. I heard an interview with Dr. Keufuss (sp?) and it sounds like he is very successful in bringing down mite numbers with his methods. He now has to buy mite susceptible queens to have mites to work with.


----------



## camero7

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



> Not as accurate as a alcohol wash


 So why go to the trouble if you won't get the best results? smh


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I wanted to do the counting with my sugar shaker but after discussions here on BS I believed them not accurate.

So I´m doing brood samples now, using blue eyed pupae or older imagos ( where mites produced young ones already) . I froze samples from different places on combs and from both drone and worker brood in early spring and now I want to count those and the actual samples and compare. 
I want to look with my scope too , if they are bitten. On the board I see mites or not, so this is no option. They are there, I know this.. And they are not always in the phoretic stadium. 

IMHO the alcohol wash is not accurate, too. How do you know you have used the right bees or the right time? Could be they are just now hiding because just now many cells are freshly capped.
And I need to look for the queen. 

Opening cells, counting how many mites are in and observing hygienic behavior or not is much more informative.
My bees have drone brood still, I want to see if the mites are going into the drone brood. If more worker brood than drone brood is infested.....

Iharder,


> I heard an interview with Dr. Keufuss (sp?) and it sounds like he is very successful in bringing down mite numbers with his methods.


Please refresh my memory what his methods are exactly.


----------



## Cloverdale

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

I attended a workshop with Randy Oliver and we compared alcohol wash with powdered sugar shake.They were pretty much equal. The trick is to let the bees with the sugar on them sit about 10 minutes so the mites get hot and drop off.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Cloverdale said:


> I attended a workshop with Randy Oliver and we compared alcohol wash with powdered sugar shake.They were pretty much equal. The trick is to let the bees with the sugar on them sit about 10 minutes so the mites get hot and drop off.


Aha, thanks. Good to know. So maybe I do that too.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

The flow is officially over. I found one of my Carpenter queens in a nuc being robbed out by stronger colonies in the apiary. I had to bring the hive back to the house and drastically reduce the number of combs to get them to the point they can survive. Fortunately, the queen is still there with a decent cluster of bees. Our next flow starts in early to mid August.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> The flow is officially over.


same here dar. 

i'm seeing a little bit of pollen and a whole lot of water being brought in. most of the bees are bearding on the outside of the hives by the end of the day. 

i'm watching carefully for signs of robbing as it would be a sign possible queen failure. so far so good.

i had one colony that swarmed earlier in the season and whose population is now relatively small. i found it without eggs or brood a few weeks ago, but did see what appeared to be a young queen and they were polishing cells for her. 

this past weekend was my third and final inspection before giving up on that queen but thankfully i found a small patch of solid worker brood. i guess they were taking a brood break.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Square


> i'm seeing a little bit of pollen and a whole lot of water being brought in. most of the bees are bearding on the outside of the hives by the end of the day.


Is this sorta the guage you use to tell a shift in the flow?
I have been looking for ways to judge what is going on flow wise and can't quite get a handle on it.
Thanks
gww


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Around here I see pollen coming in pretty much year round. Nectar is a whole different story. 
One clue here is my hummingbird feeder. During a nectar flow I have to empty it every few days to keep the syrup from spoiling. Today....the hummers empty it a couple of times each day.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

gww, yes that's pretty much how i gauge it along with not seeing much blooming in the field. 

dan's observation sounds like another good way to judge it.

the regular rains gave us about an extra month or so of nectar this season compared to 'normal'.

we will likely to stay in nectar dearthy until goldenrod and aster which as dar mentioned starts usually about mid august or so.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Square
I have not seen any of the hive bring any pollen in for quite some time. I have seen them start to use the bird feeder in my back yard in mass for about 2/3 weeks. We had decent rains. The bees were still hitting yard clover but it is getting less.
Thanks for the help.
gww


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

update:

we're still getting regular rains here and i'm acutally seeing a little nectar getting stored in the extracted supers that were placed back on top of each hive. it's been really amazing to see this.

this is the first year for me that i've not seen outright dearth at this time in the season. i'm also seeing that most of the colonies not taking much of a brood break this year. time will tell if that is going to be a factor with mite resistance later this fall/winter.

the honey harvest is progressing as usual. i believe i've past the half way point and approaching about a 1000 lbs. bottled and sold. if the rains continue and the fall flow is robust this may end up new personal best in terms of honey production.

summer loss:

while at the outyard late wednesday afternoon i noticed crumbs of brood comb were piling up at the entrance of one of the hives and there wasn't a beard of bees on the front of it like all of the others had.

i discovered that the colony had dwindled down to nothing. there were very few bees in the hive and most of those were probably robbers that had not yet gone home for the day. 

most of the honey was gone, the bottom board had a thick layer of chewed up wax all the way across, and there lots of wax moth and hive beetle larva present.

no dead bees were found inside or outside of the hive and there was no capped brood left behind. i'm guessing it was a failed supercedure and the remaining bees either aged out or drifted into the neighboring hives.

there were still two or three frames of honey that had been uncapped by the robbers but not yet emptied. out of the five medium supers of drawn comb there were three supers worth of frames that did not get damaged, and about half of the frames in the single deep at the bottom are still in good shape.

i try to swing by the outyard at least once if not twice a week if nothing more than to observe what is going on at the entrances. this one had not previously showed any signs of trouble from the outside.

between the day job, being busy with the honey harvest, and the oppressive heat this time of year i'm limited as to when and how much i can work the hives. had this one been at home i would have likely at least recognized the robbing event and might have gotten the frames in the freezer before the moths and beetles had their way.

this loss could have been avoided by making the colony queenright before it dwindled, but i've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that since mating success is never 100%, and since i can't do deep inspections on a regular basis or watch the outyards every day... 

i'm going to have a loss like this every now and then. last year i had two.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

We are finaly getting dry in MO. Share some of the rain.

Sorry for the loss. 

It is too hot to worry much.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> this is the first year for me that i've not seen outright dearth at this time in the season. i'm also seeing that most of the colonies not taking much of a brood break this year. time will tell if that is going to be a factor with mite resistance later this fall/winter.


That will be interesting indeed. Not just out of interest's sake, but knowing how much of a factor brood breaks are, and how much of a factor everything else is, would be a practical guide as to the likely success of transferring your bees to other locations. IE, if they can still handle mites OK with no brood break, then success will be much more likely at other locations where flow patterns and brood breaks are on a different schedule.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



gww said:


> It is too hot to worry much.


for sure. my nominal hive count is 20 and i did have 3 'spares' until losing this one so i am still 2 above nominal at 22 hives. i believe most of the honey from the lost colony ended up in the other hives at that yard so no worries there. losing drawn comb is never good but i've finally built up more than i need to be able to checkerboard all the hives next season.



Oldtimer said:


> That will be interesting indeed.


yep. i am finding solid patterns of healthy capped brood just below the honey dome while in the process of pulling off supers for extraction. most hives at this point are a single deep on the bottom with 4 or 5 medium supers, and i am finding the top of the broodnests in the first or second super. i haven't looked, but i'm guessing the deeps have a lot of beebread in them at this point.

the colonies started as small clusters that started brooding in late january/early february. at this time most of them are sporting some pretty impressive beards by the end of these hot and humid days.

i'm watching for dwv and crawlers but with the exception of only one hive there haven't been any overt signs of viral diseases. i had one hive that i noticed a dozen or so crawlers out in front of for two or three days along with a single dwv bee, but that went away and all appears normal again.

i skipped mite counts last year but i'll try to do a few later in the season once all the honey is in and it cools off a bit.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Square
I had one hive that had a few dead bees right in front but have not really seen anything deformed if my eyes would even be good enough plus I did have one nuc for sure robbed out. 

The bees are funny cause they don't seem to all start foraging at the same time. This makes me think that it is more water runs then getting nector.

I am not in your situation with drawn comb. I have one comb that is two frames thick and full of honey and I have just been waiting for them to cap it. The bees don't seem to be drawing comb and I have started to think about leaving it and dealing with it next year. Checker boarding is not in my near future.

I also will be interested in what old timer mentioned. I know that riverderwent mentions that he relies on summer brood breaks pretty heavy also.
Good luck
gww


----------



## trishbookworm

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Square do you mind sharing a pic of your brood pattern? In books, and bee presentations, we see these pics of solid brood, no holes, of course the rainbow of pollen above... but that is not the case in my hives. For the record, my hives are mainly first year splits - in the expansion mode from 2 to 6 this year. I don't see a big difference in the established queens and the new queens.








I think I just attached a pic...

Maybe I should start a "bare your brood" thread? 

I have been counting the number of bees bringing in pollen, number coming in per 10 seconds, for this season. I am finding that the number coming in every 10 seconds does not relate to how many bees are in the hive. A large hive can have a "rate" of 15 bees/10 sec, and a hive that is 1/4 the size can be 10 bees/10 sec. So the in-and-out can be surprisingly deceiving. 

gww I would take note of the ones who hold off on starting foraging. That is actually a good thing-well, ultimately only if it links up to survival or honey production! If there's nothing to be found on a given day, and foragers just stop looking, the hive will "spend" less nectar/honey on flight and lose fewer bees to predation. Those are good traits if you are looking for bees that are responsive to environmental cues.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Trish that brood you pictured looks pretty normal to me. If your brood is more spotty than that, there is probably an issue of some kind. Doesn't necessarily mean imminent queen failure, some queens lay spotty all their lives, but it is inefficient use of brood nest space and must eventually affect hive productivity.

Some folks will jump in and say spotty brood is hygiene and therefore good, and that might be the case, but there are other problems that cause spotty brood that are better fixed.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

IMO there are many reasons for spotty brood.

- on big frames like I use the bees store nectar between brood cells to the immediate use ( energy to cool down or heating)
- the use of foundations result in more empty cells because the wire is not exactly imbedded
- the forcing onto small cell foundation goes against nature ( normally different cell sizes on comb) so the cells which are not even size are not used
- disturbances in laying modus ( wasps, smoking, working the hive...) cause the queen to hurry from comb to comb, so egg age on one comb differs, spots are where bees already emerged ( different ages of pupa on comb)
This could be a result of big frames too.
- hygienic behavior
- queen issues
- honeyed broodnest

I have yet to see a correlation between spotty broodnest and hygienic behavior. The losses I had were from both types of brood seen in hives. The first to die were those which had no entrance defense.
I shocked my co-workers yesterday telling them I don´t care much about any hygienic behavior because to me the active fighting against mites BEFORE they could damage pupa is what I want to propagate.
This would mean too that the discussions about cell size foundations could end and natural comb accepted.

View attachment 34768

View attachment 34769

View attachment 34770


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Attachments not working


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

..........


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



SiWolKe said:


> I have yet to see a correlation between spotty broodnest and hygienic behavior.


Having gotten a number of vsh queens over the past three years…I will tell you that I have. Whenever I’ve put any of those queens into a nest with high varroa infestations, the first brood looked great, but keep in mind that the nurse bees were from a non vsh donor hive. A month later and it became noticeably spottier. Six or seven weeks and it looked awful. Some didn’t survive the season. Those that did,didn’t have a decent brood pattern until the following spring. And ‘decent vsh brood’ patterns, in my experience are similar to your third photo.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

My first AMM hive had a survivor VSH queen introduced.

These spotty comb picts are from them:
First: VSH or hygienic behavior ( mites or other brood disease, not sac brood, this they had once but it was a patch pattern). 
Second: flow induced 
Third: different ages later the comb looked very spotty.























The colony had perfect patterns without spots also. Depended on the situation. They did not survive the second season.
When IMHO I saw hygienic behavior I always observed some larvae or pupa still present in opened cells, not onlyy empty cells.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



beemandan said:


> And ‘decent vsh brood’ patterns, in my experience are similar to your third photo.


The pict comes from a hive which has difficulties to draw the small cell size foundations.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

trish, i haven't done much in terms of taking photos during inspections but i would say that the picture you posted is pretty much the same thing i'm seeing, i.e. pretty solid patterns with the occasional and random empty cell.

generally if i see a spotty pattern it is associated with a failing queen and i'll find supercedure cells present.

as far as vsh i don't think i'm seeing much of that. sometimes at the end of summer and when fall brooding starts i'll have a colony or two removing drone larvae, and that typically lasts a week or so and then stops.

excellent posts all, many thanks for contributing here.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

summer is starting to wane here with the commensurate shortening of days and the plant life appears to be responding accordingly, i.e. the fall blooms are coming in.

regular rains are facilitating that process very nicely.

this was the first summer beekeeping for me during which i did not see an abrupt halt to field nectar or 'dearth conditions', to which the colonies typically respond by shutting down on brooding until the first fall blooms arrive.

in addition to not getting the usual bimodal nectar flow (mainly spring and fall with an extracted summer dearth), most of the colonies didn't completely take a summer break in brooding. 

it's likely this nonstop brooding has also allowed varroa to take advantage in terms of reproduction. on inspection the brood frames i'm seeing look perfect and no outward signs of a viral impact are being seen.

in just this past week, there has been a noticable uptick in both pollen and nectar foraging, bearding has virtually stopped, and it appears that the fall ramp up in brooding is getting underway.

i'm a little past half way on the honey harvest with 30 supers harvested. i'm shooting for 50 supers this year in order to beat last year's 40.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

20% increase of honey at those numbers is nothing to sneeze at.
Good job
gww


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

thanks gww, it's been fun watching it all play out. we've got our fingers crossed for no surprises between now and the first hard frost.

in the meantime the harvest continues and i watch for signs of queen issues, diseases, and pests. i'm also repainting a fair number of hive bodies that date back to the first seasons and making sure all of the hardware will be ready for winter.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

Very nice, squarepeg!

Fingers crossed you have no issues. Do you just watch or do alcohol washes?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

right now just watching at the entrances and taking a quick look at the brood patterns in the hives i am taking honey from.

i've done a few alcohol washes in the past just out of curiosity and because some of the nice folks on the forum here were interested.

i hope to get alcohol washes on all of the colonies this fall after the honey harvest is over.


----------



## Jadeguppy

I just finished reading all 127 pages. Very interesting. Thanks to everyone. I think tf is the way to go. Helping nature adjust to varroa by selecting for resistance may take time, but the long term payoff is worth it. I bought my first nuc late spring 2016. It is a strong hive this year. Unfortunately I messed up the split, so I only have one hive. They had a large beard until a few days ago. Now they are very active. I hope to pull another super this weekend. The guys I know locally feed syrup in winter/spring, but that seemed unnatural to me so I left a super if honey on them last winter. You all have helped me believe it was the right decision. I haven't treated them, but several people suggested oa this fall just in case.
I hoped to get tf queens from a guy in central Fl this coming spring, but I have no idea how the hurricane will impact them. I'm in NW fl.
Anywho, thank you and keep info coming.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

welcome aboard jadeguppy, and many thanks for the kind words. 

i'm still in harvest mode here and also putting in some time repainting some of my older hive bodies.

the 2 supers of honey brought in this weekend bring my total harvest for the season at 38 medium supers.

the 2 supers i'll bring in next weekend will put me equal to the 40 supers harvested last season, and it's likely with the good fall flow that i'll be able to bring in several more.

i lost 1 colony over the summer due to queen failure, but the remaining 22 appear healthy, strong, and are bringing in copious amounts of pollen and nectar.

i'm finding nice solid patterns of healthy capped brood in the hives as i harvest honey, and i'm not seeing any crawlers, dwv, or devitalized pupae (yet).


----------



## Jadeguppy

Sp, if I recall, you are getting a solid 30 pounds per med. super. My first super gave a bit over 15#. Do you find newly drawn comb gives less honey due to being filled while still shallow?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

correct jg, my average poured up honey per meduim super has been consistently just above 37 lbs. since i started tracking it in 2015. i'm running 9 frames in 10 frame boxes.

a perfect batch (2 supers) yields a little over 6.5 gallons, but not all batches are perfect.

it probably helps that i'm pulling individual frames vs. taking off entire boxes. i'll usually leave the outer 2 frames which tend not to get filled as well in favor of some heavier inner ones. 

i.e. i do my best to see that the 18 frames brought in for extracting are as full as can be.

the other thing is that i'm fairly thrifty at recovering every bit of honey literally down to the last spoonful, which typically goes into my mouth. 

i haven't noticed a difference between newly drawn comb and comb from previous seasons. 15 lbs. seems a little light for a super, i would expect to get that much out of 4 perfect frames. are you using 8 frame boxes? were the frames completely full?


----------



## Jadeguppy

I'm running 10 frame langstrom. Many of the frames we're barely able to be cut by the knife. Everything capped. I plan to pull another super soon. The hurricane may cause me to wait a week. I hoped the shallow cells were due to drawing new comb. Hopefully it isn't a trait of these bees.

Side note, I was just told Spanish needle is blooming along with vines and wildflowers. That must be what got them busy again.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

understood jg. they will draw the cells deeper if you space out 9 frames in a 10 frame super and they will be easier to uncap. some say you actually get more honey doing this than with 10 frames because there is one less 'gap'.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Squarepeg
I am foundationless and usually start with 11 frames and by the time they are drawn out and filled I am down to nine. I adjust as they draw and move stuff around that gets too fat. Every frame that I have ever crushed and drained give me exactly a quart with out letting it sit and drain but just squeezing what I can out of it and so right at 2 gal and a quart to 2.5 gal per medium super. Of course, I have only harvested once and so relie more on your experiance then mine. I do have a question for you though. Have you ever waited untill the bees are in cluster to pull a super?
Thanks
gww


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*



gww said:


> Every frame that I have ever crushed and drained give me exactly a quart with out letting it sit and drain but just squeezing what I can out of it and so right at 2 gal and a quart to 2.5 gal per medium super.
> 
> Have you ever waited untill the bees are in cluster to pull a super?


so i'm getting 1.3 quarts per frame. maybe the difference is that my frames are completely full top to bottom, side to side, and all the way to each corner. plus they are already spaced out before any capping gets done.

all of my harvesting so far has been completed long before it gets cold enough for clustering. the way i harvest it has to be warm enough for me to be able to shake the bees off the frames and let them fly back in.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

Squarepeg
Thanks for the answer. 
gww


----------



## AvatarDad

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

SP are you making any hurricane preparations this weekend? Any of your outyards in low lying areas?

The Georgia Bee association meeting last year was right after Matthew hit Savannah, and there were quite a few stories. Looks like we'll have some more stories for this year's meeting next month.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

thanks for asking. 

all three of my yards are on top of sand mountain and the sites have very good drainage. 

the wind will be more of a concern but we get a lot of that anyway up here on the ridge top. so far the pair of 4" concrete blocks that i have on top of each hive have kept any from getting blown over.

it looks like the current path is going to take the storm right across your area, best of luck to all of you over that way.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2016 treatment free experience*

ad, just flipped on the news and it looks like the latest models have the storm veering to the west, away from you and right over us. we'll see what happens.


----------



## Jadeguppy

Looks like it won't downgrade as quickly. What types of winds can a hive handle? What is the best way to secure them?


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

ratchet straps are effective if the hive is on a stand that is solidly anchored. They can be purchased at most hardware stores or at Walmart for about $1.50 to $3.50 each.

SP, if it looks like a full scale hurricane is coming your way, you might consider straps too. I've had hives blown over in a severe storm in the past even when they had cinder blocks on top.


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## Jadeguppy

F.p. I have plenty of ratchet straps. Stand is 2x4 on cinder blocks. If we get tropical storm or high winds, I'll probably put it on the ground. Our area of Florida is only expected to get the outer edge of the storm thankfully.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

thanks dar, i should would hate to see the hives toppled before i have a chance to finish the harvesting.

i'm getting pleasantly surprised by how much honey i'm finding that was put up during the months of july and august. empty supers that were put on around the middle of july are now full and starting to get capped.

the major (later blooming) goldenrod flow hasn't even started yet. most of the pollen coming in is off white, sometimes with a faint tinge of pale yellow.

it looks like i may end up with several 150+ lb. producers this year.


----------



## Jadeguppy

Sp are you using spacers for the 9 frame supers?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

no spacers, just eye balling it works fine.


----------



## Jadeguppy

Squarepeg, since you don't like to feed sugar water, how many frames of honey do you find a nuc uses overwinter?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

a few years ago i took a few 5 deep frame nucs into winter but they ended up getting transferred into full sized hives that became available from dead outs before spring arrived.

i've since learned that my losses are low enough that it isn't necessary to overwinter nucs so i haven't tried it again.

generally speaking i find that my colonies consume very few pounds of honey during our 3 months or so of 'winter'. i've been weighing my hives just after our first hard frost and then monthly after that. what i typically see is that no more than about 10 lbs or so of honey gets consumed before the first nectars start coming in around mid february or so.

having said that i try to leave is about 45 - 50 lbs of honey on each hive. this has turned out to be the right amount for checkerboarding the supers and most of that gets turned into brood food thereby facilitating a strong build up leading up to our main nectar flow.

down there on the gulf coast you probably have the ability to inspect your hives and feed just about year round. i think i would just keep my eye on them and as long as there is a frame or two of honey in there you should be fine. 

but check around with some local folks who have been at it for a few seasons for some 'closer to home' advice.


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## Jadeguppy

Ty sp. That sounds very similar to what I did last winter and planned to try again. As you mentioned, I may be able to do less, but I can check in the spring to see how it went. I like that you leave honey instead of feeding sugar water. Just sounds more natural and healthier.


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## Jadeguppy

Squarepeg, I recall that you use a deep on the bottom with mediums on that. How many mediums high do you tend to go?


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

6 mediums on top of the single deep is as high as i've been and as high as i care to get. by the time you get to #5 and #6 a step stool is required and that's no fun.

most of my hives will have 4 supers going into this winter and a few will have 3. once i get up to 4 per hive i'll stop adding more to the apiary and basically move them around as needed.


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## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

I visited squarepeg this afternoon. We looked at a few colonies external only, talked about bees and beekeeping, and watched a spectacular sunset. I'll try to post a few photos of the sunset later.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

I visited squarepeg this afternoon. We looked at a few colonies external only, talked about bees and beekeeping, and watched a spectacular sunset. I'll try to post a few photos of the sunset later.


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## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

I´m looking forward to the sunset photos!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

it was great to visit with you dar and that was a decent looking sunset. go ahead and post your photo when you can.

choking down the entrance did the trick on that hive garnering attention from would be robbers during your visit. all of that nonsense we were observing at the entrance was over and done with by the next day.

i went into that hive late the next day with the intention of removing the two empty supers on top of the stack. what i found was that the second one down from the top was about a third full of stores, and the the third one down had lots of solid capped brood in the middle frames.

so i put it all back like it was and i'm taking a little comfort in that the colony may not be queenless after all. i suspect i initiated the robbing attempt by putting on an extracted super and that super didn't fit tightly against the one below it, causing the aroma from the sticky frames to permeate out.

very glad to hear that things worked out to your satisfaction with your transition to the square dadant's. i'm jealous knowing that you have a spare queen in all of your hives.


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## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

I walked by one of my nuc colonies a few minutes ago and the smell of goldenrod was overwhelming. The bees are finally gathering fall stores!

Links to all of the sunset pictures are below. I did not use photo editing software so they are as taken. The view is from the side of SP's home looking out across the Tennessee river valley.

http://www.selectedplants.com/miscan/DSC01345.JPG
http://www.selectedplants.com/miscan/DSC01346.JPG
http://www.selectedplants.com/miscan/DSC01347.JPG
http://www.selectedplants.com/miscan/DSC01348.JPG
http://www.selectedplants.com/miscan/DSC01349.JPG
http://www.selectedplants.com/miscan/DSC01350.JPG
http://www.selectedplants.com/miscan/DSC01351.JPG
http://www.selectedplants.com/miscan/DSC01352.JPG


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## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

How wonderful, thanks for sharing!
This almost looks like my area!


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## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

Wow. What a wonderful place to call home!


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

many thanks to all. i try to give thanks on a regular basis for ending up getting to call a place like this home.

the remnants of hurricane nate are supposed to track right over us in about 24 hours bringing some much needed rain and paving the way for the first 'cool' weather of the year.

we haven't had a decent rain for about 3 weeks and the goldenrod is now past peak and waning fast. i suspect the dry weather is going to result in a less than robust amount of fall nectar in the hives.

in the garage is now drying what will likely be my last harvest of 2017 honey. if so that puts me at about 15% over last year in terms of number of supers brought in. i won't have a talley on the lbs. harvested until get it all poured up.

the last of entrance reducers were put on today. i've got some freshly painted hive bodies that i need to swap out for some deteriorating ones on the next nice weather weekend we get.

my plan is to weigh up all the hives and see where i stand in terms of stores. i've got 4 hives with swarms caught this year that have double deeps (because they didn't get split as planned) plus a couple of supers. i've also got some drawn deep comb in the freezer. i might harvest a few deep frames of honey from those and replace them with the drawn frames.

it's possible there may be another medium or two i can harvest if i don't have to redistribute that honey to hives not quite heavy enough to go into winter with.


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

the goldenrod here has gone to seed and foraging activity has curtailed to almost none signaling that our fall flow is for the most part just about done.

flatrockboy and i made the rounds today weighing up all of our hives. it appears that the yards are in decent shape overall with some hives in need of a few frames of honey while other hives having extra frames to spare to those in need.

target overwintering lbs. of honey for me is 50 - 60 lbs. that's more than is actually necessary for survival. leaving that much gives me enough to checkerboard 3 or 4 supers prior to the beginning of the late winter brood up. i'm finding this approach supports nice growth while helping with swarm prevention and ultimately providing decent honey yields. 

although i believe i could safely bring a couple more supers in for extracting i'm calling it on the honey harvesting for the season. i'll be tallying up the 2017 numbers and posting them soon.

here are today's hive weights:

legend: hive#, (number of medium supers over a single deep), gross weight, estimated honey stored, disposition

(2D, 2S) = 2 deeps, 2 medium supers
(2D, 3S) = 2 deeps, 3 medium supers



#1 (4), 146, 69, HEAVY 
#2 (2D, 3S), 156, 72, VERY HEAVY
#3 (4), 116, 39, LIGHT
#4 (3), 118, 54, GOOD
#5 (4), 111, 33, LIGHT 
#6 (4), 135, 58, GOOD 
#7 (2D, 3S), 153, 69, HEAVY
#8 (4), 128, 51, GOOD
#9 (4), 156, 79, VERY HEAVY
#10 EMPTY SLOT
#11 (4), 166, 89, VERY HEAVY 
#12 (1), 65, 27, SMALL COLONY, WATCHING
#D1 (2), 80, 29, LIGHT
#D2 (4), 135, 58, GOOD
#D3 (4), 145, 68, HEAVY
#B1 (4), 102, 25, VERY LIGHT, WATCHING 
#B2 (2D, 2S), 113, 42, LIGHT
#B3 (4), 156, 79, VERY HEAVY 
#B4 EMPTY SLOT 
#B5 (4), 136, 59, GOOD
#B6 (4), 136, 59, GOOD 
#B7 (2D, 2S), 128, 57, GOOD
#B8 (4), 134, 57, GOOD 
#B9 (4), 160, 83, VERY HEAVY


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## Jadeguppy

What do you use to weigh them?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?275835-2-man-hive-scale

except the digital fish scale has been replaced with a veterinary spring scale similar to this:

https://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail...MIwaHitaPz1gIVjwBpCh19PQzNEAQYAiABEgJ_IPD_BwE

left then right sides are weighed individually and then added together.


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## Jadeguppy

How are you distinguishing between gross weight and honey weight?
I have two nucs ordered for late Feb, early March. Would you suggest holding onto honey for them, feeding the sugar water to promote comb building, or just let them build up on their own? I'm thinking that the fall flow may have been good enough that I didn't pull enough honey earlier. Hopefully this hive will survive another winter and be used for full production with already drawn comb next Spring.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

i'm estimating the lbs. of honey by taking gross weight and subtracting 25 lbs. for a deep, bottom board, inner cover, and telescoping top; 13 lbs for a medium super, and 20 lbs for an extra deep.

the total estimated honey left this year comes up to just over 1100 lbs. this compares with 870 lbs. left last year and 798 lbs. left in 2015. 

i anticipate that some of the honey i am leaving will get extracted over the winter should there be any dead outs, as well whatever gets moved up and out of the way of broodnest expansion next spring.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

as far as what to do with your nucs jg, i think that depends on what the local conditions are at the time. i would tend to give them honey if there is not enough nectar coming in to support colony operations. once the flow starts the honey can actually get in the way and make swarm prevention more difficult and it is better to give them empty comb to work with.

i prefer not to feed syrup and allow the bees draw comb on the nectar flows. i noticed your query into small cell foundation on the other thread. another approach might be to use foundationless frames instead. 

some folks including myself have observed the bees will draw foundationless frames earlier in the season than they will draw plastic foundation. you will tend get smaller cells with foundationless than with standard foundation and the wax making will help decrease swarm ambition.

since the nucs will come with drawn frames it would be easy to insert foundationless frames in to or on the sides the broodnest. you just have to make sure the hive is perfectly level left to right.


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## Jadeguppy

Good point. I inserted a foundations frame about six weeks ago and have several more. Do u use a starter strip?


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

i've used a popsicle stick on some and bought the kelley's frames that have a ridge built in already. both did fine.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

i finally got the last of the 2017 honey harvest poured up. i ended up with 1686 lbs. extracted from 46 supers which is about 13.3% over last year's pull. i had an average of 36.7 lbs per super and 88.7 lbs. average per overwintered hive.

i've got a couple of cases of honey yet to sell and after that i'll put together a post comparing the 2015, 2016, and 2017 seasons in terms of overwinter losses, % swarm prevention success, average honey yield per overwintered hive, average honey left for the bees per hive going into winter, average nuc production per overwintered hive, and average income per overwintered hive.

thanks again to all for your interest in this thread.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

Nice work!

Although I did not achieve success with my own TF attempt, it is hugely encouraging to see others who are. There is hope!


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

much appreciated ot, that means a lot coming from you.

i've got a plan in place to make much more increase next year. honestly i need to scale back on the honey production as harvesting 23 weekends in a row required more effort than i can comfortably expend this side of retirement.

i've been wanting to get some of this stock down to the research facility in baton rouge, la for a few years now but have yet to make that happen. for next year, and if all goes as planned, and once i have all of my 24 slots with queenright colonies on them, the next three nucs that come on line will be offered to the bee lab if they are still interested.

in addition to that i want to reach out to my state's leading agricultural university over the winter and see if their entomology department might be interested in doing some analysis as well.

nothing would make me happier if the study of how these bees are thriving off treatments in some way advances the understanding of mite resistance and ends up benefiting the beekeeping community at large.


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## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

Square
You need to find a way to get to the other side of retirement. You might single handedly save the world. I am impressed with your increase this year and your ambition to share. I am hoping you keep posting so I can keep trying to find things from those post to steal and use for myself.
Cheers
gww


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

thanks for following along gww. i wouldn't be able take credit if things do happen to pan out because most of the bees i started out with came from a guy who was already tf for 15 years, and he couldn't take credit either because all he did was collect a few colonies he found surviving in the woods and started propagating from them.

a lot of credit for my decent honey harvests goes to the late walt wright who fortunately for me took an interest and taught me how to get a handle on swarm prevention. 

back in post #1089 i mentioned my secret weapon #4 as being autumn olives. no one asked about that but what i was referring to was how important of an early nectar source those are and how i see very rapid build up during their bloom that gets my colonies in good shape to exploit our main spring flow.

secret weapons 1 - 3:

location, location, location

i can't take credit for that either. i just happen to reside in a very bee friendly part of creation; i'm thankful i've been put here; and my desire is to be a good steward with what i've been given.


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## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

Square
I don't know about my bees but one was got from someone who does not treat and has kept for awhile. I can't say about location but oldtimer mentioned from my posting stuff that maby mine sucks. I have another spot to try but am such a hermit that I have not taken advantage of it yet. Plus I am just slow to change period. I do keep track of what you do including some other help you have given me in other places that I might or might not listen to but am very glad to have a chance to listen to. I don't know if I will hang tough one more year where I am or branch out and try dads.

I find it very hard to know when flows are and are not. I would get one of those things that give constant weight gain and loss to the hive but I am to cheep and so have to do it the old fassion way by just trying to watch. Two years of watching and I am still not confident of what (flow wise) is happening and when.

Just keep pegging away is my motto, plus spending a lot of time trying to steal others good ideals.
Cheers and good luck this winter.
gww


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

Thanks for the many valuable hints and may all your ideas be successful, just as your present work shows only good.

The beekeeping must always orientate itself to the environment, is my experience, and it may be that in some places only 2-4 colonies flourish and elsewhere much more.

If you are lucky enough to start with more resistant bees, it is still the ability and work of the beekeeper to maintain this resistance.

For myself, I can say that swarm prevention is a huge problem here and can not be practiced, or must take other measures that will weaken the bee colonies very much.
But still, it is good to keep track of how far you can go without a treatment in the "conventional"  apiary and it is nice to be able to witness your enthusiasm and plans.

I am anxious to see whether you will ever migrate or will artificially feed the hives without it being necessary.
For the bees, I hope that you do not plan to do this, but it would be interesting to draw conclusions on the resistance when such measures are applied.

In any case I would like to thank you for the great work you have done, beekeeping, forum support and data collection.

I thank you also for the great interest in our poor Central Europeans  and your participation in our work, your help and encouragement we received in our forum where you are a honored member.


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## Eduardo Gomes

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> back in post #1089 i mentioned my secret weapon #4 as being autumn olives. no one asked about that but what i was referring to was how important of an early nectar source those are and how i see very rapid build up during their bloom that gets my colonies in good shape to exploit our main spring flow.


This statement caught my attention because many of my apiaries are surrounded by olive trees.

squarepeg if I understand well, you see in them a source of pollen and nectar, right?

My observation does not confirm this, but it may be that the olives here are of different sub-species.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

sibylle, many thanks for your very kind comments. as you know i follow the story of you and your friends with great interest. 

i do not foresee migrating bees in my future. as far as feeding goes the record drought we experienced last year showed me that these bees know how to be very conservative with their stores. i also learned that the workers can live for a surprisingly long time when they are not brooding or foraging.

there are two circumstances for which i might consider supplemental feeding:

the first is when we have an early warm up in mid winter that starts earlier than normal brooding , which is then followed by an extended cold and rainy spell that keeps the bees from foraging. it's possible under these conditions that even when leaving an adequate amount of honey they can run out. so far i have avoided starvation by moving frames of honey from heavier hives to lighter ones, but i would not hesitate to mountain camp some sugar in a hive if needed.

the second circumstance is with a swarm caught late in the season and not having drawn comb to put it on. in this case it makes sense to provide syrup temporarily until about a deep of comb has been drawn and this sets the colony up for better overwintering.

i prefer to avoid syrup and pollen subs primarily because i want the colonies to adjust their operations to what is going on or what they may be anticipating will be going on in the field and not 'confuse' them by simulating a flow. i also suspect that a natural diet may be imparting some benefit when it comes to natural immunity to pathogens.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

eduardo, it's nice to see that you still follow the thread.

'autumn olives' are not olives at all but small berries with a very high antioxidant content.

"Their content of the carotenoid, lycopene, is some seven to seventeen times higher than that of tomatoes."

from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaeagnus_umbellata

i have about 200 mature trees. they bloom early in the season and are a preferred nectar source for the bees.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

i just now learned about this recent addition to the entomology department at auburn university here in alabama:

http://agriculture.auburn.edu/news/the-bees-knees/

i'll be reaching out to dr. williams very soon and explore the possibility of getting auburn and its resources involved in taking a look at the bee population up here.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

additional info regarding dr. williams and writings since joining auburn:

http://enpp.auburn.edu/geoffrey-williams/

https://auburnbees.com

can't wait to read what dr. williams has written about swarm prevention.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

had to search to find part 1 of 'season of the swarm':

https://auburnbees.com/2017/04/12/season-of-the-swarm-part-1-what-the/

parts 2 and 3 are accessible from the links above.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

Square
I didn't see any opening of the brood nest except just to add space. The articals seem to be pretty generic and basic. Still very helpful to reread stuff like this. 
Cheers
gww


----------



## Eduardo Gomes

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> eduardo, it's nice to see that you still follow the thread.


Yes I continue to follow your thread but not as much as I would like.



> 'autumn olives' are not olives at all but small berries with a very high antioxidant content.


squarepeg I apologize for my confusion and thank you for your clarification.

All the best for you and your bees!


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*



> from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaeagnus_umbellata
> 
> i have about 200 mature trees. they bloom early in the season and are a preferred nectar source for the bees.


That´s great! I planted two of them last year to see if they will grow, they like my location but the deer liked them too  as food.

Squarepeg, these links are interesting, even if I´m not with Dr. Williams as he sees the swarm as disease distributors. But maybe sometimes they are. 
I see swarming as helpful but would like to catch the swarms before they die without a nesting place. Honey harvest is another matter...:scratch:

I´m curious what kind of feral swarms your location has. 

Do you know who he worked with in switzerland?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*



SiWolKe said:


> I´m curious what kind of feral swarms your location has.


i think the bees around here are highly hybridized from what has survived since the time of the settlers along with escaped swarms from whatever has been brought in by beekeepers throughout the decades.



SiWolKe said:


> Do you know who he worked with in switzerland?


i do not sibylle. i only learned about dr. williams this morning. i've sent an email to him to see if he and his team are interested in investigating the bees here. fingers crossed.


----------



## Jadeguppy

I was just looking up autumn Olive and it is a potential invasive species in Florida. Bummer. Do you know of any similarly bee helpful plants that are native?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*



Jadeguppy said:


> I was just looking up autumn Olive and it is a potential invasive species in Florida. Bummer. Do you know of any similarly bee helpful plants that are native?


they have not become invasive up here jg. it was actually a biologist from our forestry dept. that suggest i plant them to help the wildlife, song birds mostly. (this was before i had bees)

i'm not sure what is recommended in florida, but that would be a great question for your state apiarist.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i only learned about dr. williams this morning. i've sent an email to him to see if he and his team are interested in investigating the bees here.


dr. williams replied to my email this morning. he said that he is interested in learning more about these bees and coming up to see them. 

i'm hoping we'll be able to bring the resources of auburn's entomology department to bear on learning how it is that they are thriving and producing off treatments.

if so, the donation of nucs to the baton rouge bee lab will become a plan b.

here's a snippet from the email i sent:

"The reason for reaching out to you Dr. Williams is to ask if you and your team have an interest in taking a look at these bees. I am personally curious as to the mechanism that allows these bees to thrive off treatments. My suspicion is that it has mostly to do with favorable habitat, (Jackson County is approximately 2/3rds wooded lands); a presence of a thriving ferals that provide survivor traits via their drones; and that the floral diversity is exceptional up here, (along the lines of what you report in your recent Ecology and Evolution paper)."


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

:thumbsup:


----------



## tpope

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

That's good news...


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

i had my first 'winter' loss of the year this weekend and it appears to be mite related.

it was hive #B1 at my outyard and if you look back to post #1293 that one was found very light on stores and was being 'watched'.

it turns out that two weeks ago i replaced the hive bodies on the bottom deep and the first two supers on that one because of wood rotting issues. after doing so i very much regretted not having swapped out the boxes prior to the onset of dearth conditions.

the problem was that the time it took to transfer frames into the new boxes allowed the foragers from the other 7 hives to get all over those exposed frames. i found a lot of dead bees on the ground the next day from the fighting that ensued. lesson learned.

while in the hive i noticed it was light on stores and that there was a very spotty pattern of only capped brood. there were no eggs or open brood seen and i did not see a queen. there were no dwv or crawlers seen.

while making the rounds this past thursday i noticed wax crumbs and cappings at the entrance. i hefted the hive and it felt like it was completely empty. there was no cluster roar heard with placing my ear to the hive and knocking. 

i brought the hive home the next day. there were no dead bees or mites found on the bottom board, but there was a moderate amount of mite frass found in the brood comb. uncappping and removing brood revealed abnormal development which was most likely virus related.

my interpretation is collapse due to varroasis. this was a two winter colony that struggled through a couple of supercedures earlier this season but finally got itself queenright after we were already well into our main spring flow. i did manage to harvest about 60 lbs. of honey from it back in august and i was happy to have gotten the frames into the freezer prior to any moth or beetle damage.

i'm assuming that most of estimated 25 lbs. of honey that was in the hive at weighing ended up in the other hives at that yard along with some of the mites. it will be interesting to see if mite issues show up in those other hives going forward, although i'm reasonably sure most of the overwintering bees have already been reared for the year.

it's been 5 years since the last time i had a colony mite out in the fall like that. that puts me at 1 down and 21 still roaring. 1 of those 21 isn't roaring very loudly and that is #12 at home which is the other hive that i am 'watching'. that one also had supercedure issues this year and ended up a little on the dinky side by late season.


----------



## tpope

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

I feel your pain. It sucks to loose a colony that way. But reality is that they don't all survive and sometimes it's the mites that are the cause. I agree with you, where's the effects of the robbed out hive going to be felt... or not.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

exactly tpope. 

it's possible had i not disturbed them they might have made until cold weather with a good chance that the mites would have died out with the bees before any robbing could have occurred. 

i'd say at least half the population died altruistically defending the stores after my replacing of those hive bodies.

on the brighter side a lot of mites should have been trapped inside the capped brood and those wouldn't have gotten get transferred.

i might take the time to count what percentage of that capped brood has a mite or mites, or perhaps see if auburn wants to examine it.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

I had a couple of hives that seemed lite at my last winter feeding at the end of sept. I looked today as it was warm enough for some bees to be out and probly eating more of those lite stores. I did not fill my hives to quite as heavy this year and hope that doesn't bite me. I saw the same pressure at honey harvest when having the hives open too long and figure that might be part of the liteness of a couple of the hives. Some had some dead bees in front also. I have seen no crawlers that were not already dead in front of the hives. Anyway, 9 hives with one that is probly about 2 frames of bees (warre that never built up) are still flying from the entrances. The year is not over yet though. From you description, when I do have my first autopsy which I believe is comming, I will probly see the same.
Sorry to hear about yours.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Jadeguppy

It is odd hearing you guys talk about bees not flying. I'm curious to see how much longer my season lasts. They are pulling in a lot of pollen from two different sources. One is bright orange, the other white. Very busy hive. I've fumigated the past two Sundays with oa and will be doing it again today. I'm thinking I will be pulling at least one super of honey this fall/winter. The odd thing is that I don't see bees on flowers as I walk the neighborhood. I wish I could track where they are going.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*



> i might take the time to count what percentage of that capped brood has a mite or mites, or perhaps see if auburn wants to examine it.


Thumbsup again :thumbsup:


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

SP, one of those management techniques you and I could likely benefit from is to set up a "hospital" yard that only has weak or problem colonies. There is less robbing pressure because there are no strong colonies. I could do this very easily at a site 2 miles from here.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

that's a great idea dar and actually how first my outyard and then my overflow yard got started. those colonies ended up bouncing back and now both of those yards have production hives filling the slots.

obviously it's much easier to stop robbing early in the process when keeping an eye on the hives here at home. it had only been a few days since i last visited the outyard holding this dead out, but as you know it doesn't take long once it starts.

if this is only going to happen once in a blue moon i guess i'll keep rolling the dice and see what happens. so far the provocation of the mites gettting 'bombed' to the other hives hasn't ended up causing a noticeable problem, but i'm open to the possibility that could change at some point...


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

here in northeast alabama we are receiving a bit of snow today with the temperature just cool enough to allow for a little accumulation.

the last of this year's honey harvest got sold yesterday so i've been doing a little number crunching for the thread. here are the tallies for the past 3 years:

*LEGEND: 2015, 2016, 2017

OVERWINTER LOSSES:

3/18 = 16.7%, 2/21 = 9.5%, 3/22 = 13.6%

OVERWINTERED SURVIVORS AT START OF SEASON:

15, 19, 19

LBS. OF HONEY HARVESTED:

876, 1488, 1686

ESTIMATED LBS. OF HONEY LEFT IN HIVES:

798, 870, 1102

SURPLUS NUCS SOLD:

5, 4, 1

SALES:

6713, 11253, 11,630

INCOME PER OVERWINTERED HIVE:

448, 592, 612

2017 BEEKEEPING EXPENSES:

1185

HOURS WORKED IN 2017:

264

2017 NET INCOME PER HOUR:

39.56*


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

Square
In your hours, does that include selling the honey and harvest and clean up and such?
Very good either way.
Cheers
gww


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

many thanks gww. 

harvest and clean up are included. a fair number of hours logged and a fair amount of the expense incurred this year was for assembling and painting new boxes as well as repainting some old boxes. i should be all set in that department for a few more years to come.

most of the honey gets sold at my place of business and i didn't add any hours for that. mrs. squarepeg made a few trips to the farmer's market (which she was in the habit of doing most weekends anyway) and i didn't include those hours either.


----------



## Jadeguppy

Congratulations and thank you for the awesome update. Your posts provide me a lot of hope.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

That´s great. Will you post this in my forum in the english speaker thread? I will translate. Thanks.
We are all interested in how you do!


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

Squarepeg
Thank you for answering my questions. Again, you impress me and I also thank you for posting actual numbers. It show the possibilities for people like me who are lost most of the time.
Thanks
gww


----------



## tpope

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

Nice numbers. Thanks for sharing.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

thank you jadeguppy, siwolke, gww, and tpope for the kind words; and thanks to the many of you following for your interest in the thread.

i've had my second 'winter' loss for the season. this colony and the other one i reported dead out a few posts ago were the two dinks that i identified while obtaining hive weights as being weak in population and light with honey stores. robbing did not occur with this one.

both losses appear mite related with spotty diseased capped brood and moderate amounts of mite frass in the brood comb.

in the meantime i was lucky to acquire a couple of late season starters from the 20 year tf supplier from whom i originally purchased nucs. i wanted these to bring in some 'fresh' genetics as well as to get bees into a couple of empty hives of drawn comb and extra honey i had on hand.

this puts my present hive count at 22 and when i checked yesterday i heard robust cluster roar in 21/22 of them. 

the remaining 1 hive had faint cluster roar indicating it is alive but has dwindled to microcluster size. this one ended up very heavy with honey at the end of the season, (83 lbs. left after harvesting 123 lbs. from it over the season). 

i'm guessing this one was heavy because it robbed the first hive that i found mited out in early november, so it may have gotten 'mite bombed' as well. another possibility is that it experienced queen failure late in the season. if it is queenright and makes it another month or so i may be able to get it going again with donations of nurse bees from stronger hives once they start brooding again.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> both losses appear mite related with spotty diseased capped brood and moderate amounts of mite frass in the brood comb.
> 
> in the meantime i was lucky to acquire a couple of late season starters from the 20 year tf supplier from whom i originally purchased nucs. i wanted these to bring in some 'fresh' genetics as well as to get bees into a couple of empty hives of drawn comb and extra honey i had on hand.


Sorry for your losses, well nature selects and you did not have the summer brood brake. Still very good performance so far.
Good idea to use some fresh genetics.  from the old source and not make an experiment of introducing not proven stock.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

Square
It is supposed to be 57 tommorrow and I will see what is flying. So far if no change tommorrow, I am still at nine but have no ideal why. I have two dinks and don't hear big cluster roars from any of them. My warre is so small it just seems impossible that it is still alive. I am seeing dead bees in front of some hives compared to others. I think they are from sickness and not robbing but time will tell.
Sorry for your loss. Can't win them all.
Cheers
gww


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> ... i heard robust cluster roar in 21/22 of them.
> 
> the remaining 1 hive had faint cluster roar indicating it is alive but has dwindled to microcluster size. this one ended up very heavy with honey at the end of the season, (83 lbs. left after harvesting 123 lbs. from it over the season).


the hive with faint roar went quiet over the weekend so i brought it home for autopsy. 

the dead microcluster was a small handful of bees with a tiny runt of a queen still present. there was minimal frass in the comb and when i pulled out the few capped brood remaining the bees appeared healthy and normal.

this one looks more like late season queen failure than varroasis. i now doubt that it ended up heavy with honey from having robbed out the one mite collapsed hive in the same yard. 

it was more likely queen issues that kept this colony from brooding up the winter cluster which resulted in more honey left in the hive.

if it gets warm enough tomorrow i'll recycle the honey recovered to a couple of other hives that could use a little more.

this dead out puts my winter losses at 3/24 or 12.5% so far, (2 appear mite related and 1 appears queen related), with 21 still humming pretty good.


----------



## Jadeguppy

When do you expect build up to start? If I recall, they were swarm strength at the end of January last year. Will you be putting out swarm boxes?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*



Jadeguppy said:


> When do you expect build up to start? If I recall, they were swarm strength at the end of January last year. Will you be putting out swarm boxes?


not exactly jg. the first rounds of brood coming out of winter are barely underway by late january. swarming here is usually from mid to late april until about early june or so. yes, i'll be putting out traps once i see capped drone cells in the hives, usually late march or so.


----------



## Jadeguppy

Hmm, I thought it was early, wonder where I got that thought from. One of the locals said he will have nucs ready at the end of February, start of March.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

I'd move the normal swarm time back a couple of weeks. I have documented large swarms on April 1st and 5th. A couple of years ago, I had a swarm on March 25th. This was in colonies that had not be artificially induced to brood up early. In other words, they had not been fed.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> I'd move the normal swarm time back a couple of weeks. I have documented large swarms on April 1st and 5th. A couple of years ago, I had a swarm on March 25th. This was in colonies that had not be artificially induced to brood up early. In other words, they had not been fed.


So they had not been supered and were crowded?


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

I was running Langstroth double deeps at the time. There was plenty of space - or so I thought - for a large colony. The bees thought otherwise. Early swarming correlates with heavy fruit bloom here. Fruit bloom in the past started about April 1st. Now it is starting 2 weeks earlier lasting from about March 15th to 30th.

I've never put supers on before the 10th of April. This is probably an error on my part. I will be making splits and distributing supers in March this year. One side effect of converting to Dadant square deeps is that I now have plenty of equipment to load colonies up with boxes whenever needed.


----------



## JoshuaW

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

SP, I am strongly moving to adopting Walt's Nectar Management technique in 2018. I do have a few questions for you, if you don't mind. I run singles-and-a-halfs.

So, regarding Walt's Nectar Management technique:
Do you do the Pollen box?
Do you find the queen generally in the second box, or does she like to chimney up?
What is your experience getting foundation drawn?
And did you experience the 30-80% increase in honey production that Walt claimed for his area?

That should do it, for now.
Thanks for all your hard work!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*



JoshuaW said:


> I do have a few questions for you, if you don't mind.


i don't mind at all josh, thanks for your interest and for the kind words.

i've not been doing the pollen box maneuver primarily due to laziness on my part but i am considering trying it on some hives this upcoming season.

what i see is the broodnest chimneys upward into 3 or 4 checkerboarded medium supers and the single deep at the bottom of the stack typically ends up abandoned. the broodnest nest then migrates back down to the deep as the brood in the supers emerges and that comb gets backfilled with honey.

(sometimes i'll move the queen down to that empty deep below an excluder once the broodnest reaches the top of the supers).

i don't see foundation getting drawn at all here until we reach our main nectar flow in early may. it gets drawn much better when i coat the plastic foundation with melted cappings wax. i have tried putting a foundation super at various levels in the stack and found it works best to have it on the very top at least until the bees start drawing it out, at which point i might move capped honey up and the unfinished super down.

my honey yields went up nicely once i got a handle on swarm prevention and my averages are somewhat better than what i hear others reporting in the area and what i see published for alabama. you can see the production tallies from 2015 to 2017 in post #1331.

prior to checkerboarding i was experiencing swarming with almost 100% of my colonies. the first year walt came down to help we checkerboarded per his instructions and swarming was reduced to 50%. i added the some tweaks to walt's method in 2016 and 2017 and got swarming down to about 15%. 

one tweak i added was stacking honey over honey and empty comb over empty comb when i checkerboard the supers. i also mess around with the broodnest some (please forgive me walt  ) by opening it up with empty comb and pyramiding a frame or two of brood up to the next super if needed.

swarm prevention by these means pretty much depends on leaving enough honey and having at least three medium supers (preferably four) of drawn comb per hive which took me a handful of seasons to accumulate. prior to getting all of that comb drawn and being able to checkerboard, i had my best results by performing an artificial swarm a couple of weeks prior to the main flow.


----------



## JoshuaW

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

SP, I'm going into 2018 with 36 colonies; I projected three supers each but I have to get the new foundation drawn in at least two. I also have some Honey Super Cell that I plan on cutting down to mediums for honey storage, so that can relieve some "drawing pressure". I don't have that box of honey that Walt mentions having on top to checkerboard. Right now most colonies are in singles, with several in medium-under-deep configuration; I'm thinking the best way to start in my equipment situation is to add one or two empty supers (depending on colony strength) when the elm is in full bloom, right before maples start to open. Then stay one step ahead, as per Walt's instructions. When the queen moves into the first super I'll put that on the bottom as the pollen box and add supers as necessary...

Whadda ya think?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*



JoshuaW said:


> Whadda ya think?


i'm really not sure josh. 

4 or 5 seasons ago we had a very warm february followed by a very cold march. the colonies built up early and then burned almost completely through their stores when the cold weather prevented them from foraging.

they got so light that i was going to mountaincamp some sugar on them but then the weather broke and they were able to restock the hives with fresh forage.

at that point i had three supers of totally empty comb on most of the hives and i thought i had it made with respect to swarming. i was wrong.

what happened was the first super got filled and the upper two supers got ignored. the deeps got backfilled and they all swarmed. in other words the bees reestablished enough solid honey overhead to suit them and it didn't matter that there was all of that empty comb above.

more than anything the upward expansion of the broodnest was stopped and colonies shifted operations in a downward direction and that set the stage for swarming just prior to the main nectar flow. perfect timing from the bees' perspective.

i've no experience with honey super cell and don't know of anyone who has used it so it's hard for me to weigh in on that. i think you'll just have to try what you can, see what the bees do, and make adjustments from there.

if yours brood up into the first super of super cell moving it to the bottom wouldn't hurt, but it's more likely that they will start storing nectar there instead. if so i might try inserting a new super of supercell between the deep and the one they are filling or checkerboarding the two.

do whatever you can to keep them from establishing solid honey overhead for as long as possible and be watchful for backfilling in the broodnest.


----------



## JoshuaW

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

Understood. Thank you! 

Do you mind outlining your harvesting principles using Nectar Management? Do you wait until the honey is capped? Do you move a lot of frames around to keep the nectar dome from becoming established? Or do you take what you can all at once?


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

Some of those situations are when use of a queen excluder can actually help with swarming.

If I do a box reversal I'll put the box with the most brood on the bottom, but then also take any non brood combs out of it and replace them with brood frames from the other boxes. This helps prevent the chimney effect.

With the scenario of adding honey supers then allowing brood in them which then gets filled with honey as the flow comes on and the brood nest is pushed back down, this is one of the triggers for swarming, brood nest being pushed back down. If an excluder is used then empty boxes can safely be added above it in the knowledge the broodnest cannot move into them. They can remain empty until the flow starts at which point they are ready to be filled with no forced movement of the brood nest. If a lower honey box is full and bees not looking like moving up, an empty super can be placed under the full box but over the excluder, safe in the knowledge the queen can't lay in it. Of course pre flow the bees should not be allowed to have all the brood jammed up right under the excluder, brood should be kept mostly in the bottom box with some room in the top brood box if possible, so the bees feel like they have some room.

Bees, like all living things, have a strong urge to reproduce, which for bees means swarming. Our job is to make them think they still have things to do, before it's time to swarm.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

yes, i wait until the honey is capped, and by the time there is a super or more of capped honey ready for harvest the opportunity for effective swarm prevention has already passed.

the moving of frames starts in late february or so when i'll checkerboard the 3 or 4 supers. manipulations continue through march and april and take the form of opening up the broodnest with empty comb and pyramiding a frame or two up the the next super if needed.

for these manipulations i'll only go down the the top of the working level and most of the time it only takes a few minutes to move a few frames. a lot of the time i don't have to do anything if i already see broodnest expansion occurring at the top, which is evidenced by the clear band of polished cells between the top of the brood and the nectar overhead as walt describes in his manuscript.

i've found the best case scenario is to get the broodnest to the top of the top super with no honey dome. this usually coincides with the onset of our main nectar flow when there a shift in colony operations from using most of the incoming nectar for feeding brood to nectar storage and drying as well as new white wax making. 

at that point it isn't necessary to move any frames other than to harvest capped honey. the supers get filled and capped from the top down and the broodnest recedes nicely downward into the empty deep. the queen never runs out of room to lay and the colony gives up on swarming for the season.

i prefer to bring in 2 supers per weekend, usually a super each from two different hives. i average 6 - 8 hours spread over my 3 day weekend from the day job pulling the supers, extracting them, washing the containers, pouring it up for sale, and getting the equipment clean for the next batch. 

my 20 or so hives had me harvesting honey 23 weekends in a row this year. many of the harvested supers from the first half of the season were returned to the hives to get filled a second time.


----------



## JoshuaW

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

OT that explains why last year my singles under an excluder didn't swarm when all the other ones did. 

Square, thank you. That really helps fill some gaps in my planning for next season.

My understanding of the Nectar Management technique is that the bees are tricked into naturally expanding until it's too late in the year for them to swarm; we trick them into thinking their job isn't done yet by not allowing a dome of honey to form above the polished cells. Then the colony switches over to long-term storage of honey, at which point the broodnest naturally shrinks to a size that maintains the foraging force.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

You are exactly right on the nectar management part, although a single under an excluder is pushing things a bit swarm wise, there may have been many other aspects to your management that prevented swarming


----------



## JoshuaW

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

SP, What are your thoughts/observations about pollen storage in the middle of the broodnest?

I'm having trouble believing that it's an indication of swarming. Drove myself crazy last year when I saw it.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

about the only time i notice a lot of pollen in the middle frames is when a colony has gone queenless.

most of the time i find the classic honey in the very outside frames, next pollen frames, and brood in the middle frames.

when i'm opening up the broodnest in the supers during spring build up (running 9 frames in 10 frame supers), i'll add empty frames of comb (preferably that have already had brood in them) to the middle and try to achieve 5 frames of brood flanked by a frame of pollen on each side which are flanked by a frame of honey in the very outside frames.

three medium supers arranged this way gives about 9 deep frames equivalent for brood, and four supers arranged this way gives about 12 deep frames equivalent for brood. (all the while leaving that empty deep at the bottom for the colony to migrate the broodnest down to after they have reached the top).


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*



JoshuaW said:


> SP, What are your thoughts/observations about pollen storage in the middle of the broodnest?
> 
> I'm having trouble believing that it's an indication of swarming. Drove myself crazy last year when I saw it.


Primorski bees have a tendency of storing pollen in the middle of brood nest, even under the brood near bottom bar. IMO this is because they regulate the amount of brood they want. This regulation leaves empty space here and there, which is filled with pollen. In any case Primorski bees act in this matter in a way I had ever seen before.

As far as I have seen it has nothing to do with swarming.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

(with some coaching) i've been playing around with randy oliver's mite model.

from my journals i've entered typical numbers for frames of bees and frames of brood at semi-monthly intervals throughout the year.

i found that when using the 'default' colony characteristics a six week mid summer brood break was not enough to keep the colony from crashing.

however when i 'dialed in' a minimal amount of 'mite resistance' the colony remained sustainable.


----------



## msl

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

:thumbsup:
As more people start to use it I think this is going to be a great tool to help us under stand the why/how things work/don't work when it comes to TF.


----------



## Scott Gough

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*



msl said:


> :thumbsup:
> As more people start to use it I think this is going to be a great tool to help us under stand the why/how things work/don't work when it comes to TF.


I agree with your statement about understanding the how/why things work/don't work. I played with the model some and it is very interesting to analyze what is going on. There are so many variables that can be adjusted in the model just like in real life. It is awesome to see how one variable will affect the model. I am sure Randy spent a lot of time on it and I think he did a great job.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

'bomb cyclone' _grayson_ has given us subfreezing temps for the past few days and a thin layer of ice has formed on the catfish pond. no snow however and the forecast is for moderation back to seasonal averages.

i'm still at 3 winter losses out of 24 with strong cluster roar in 20 of the remaining 21 and faint roar in the other 1. we'll likely start getting warm day opportunities for inspections in another month or so.

skipping nuc production in 2017 led to having more harvestable honey than i had time to process. i suspect that i'll have a few supers worth of capped honey left from last season getting harvested along with this year's crop.

i am decreasing my hours at the day job as i ease into a sort of semi-retirement. my plan for 2018 is to scale back a bit on honey and focus more on nuc/queen production. i'll be shooting for the sale of about 1500 lbs. of harvestable honey and 30 nucs.

thanks again for your interest, and here's wishing all of you a healthy and prosperous new year!


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

Sounds like an interesting year coming up. I can't wait to see how it goes.
Cheers
gww


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

Excellent, and enjoy your semi retirement!


----------



## Eduardo Gomes

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> 'bomb cyclone' _grayson_
> i am decreasing my hours at the day job as i ease into a sort of semi-retirement. my plan for 2018 is to scale back a bit on honey and focus more on nuc/queen production. i'll be shooting for the sale of about 1500 lbs. of harvestable honey and 30 nucs.
> 
> thanks again for your interest, and here's wishing all of you a healthy and prosperous new year!


A good year for you sp. 
Enjoy these extra hours as best you can. 
Good luck with your bees and strength to achieve the goals you want.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

We hit 42 degrees with bright sunshine today. I saw 2 colonies out flying and a few bees coming out of a couple of other hives. We have had a solid week of sub freezing weather with some nights down to 10F. Both colonies that were flying were hauling out dead bees. All told, not bad after the cold temps.

Any hives with two queens will be divided into separate hives. I have a few empty hives set up for splits when spring gets here. My goal is to hit 40 colonies by this fall. Three colonies are extra strong so will be first candidates to split.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

duplicate


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

seeing similar here dar. buds on the maples and elms are swelling nicely as well. i believe we are just around the corner from the first tree pollens becoming available.


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

I used to be a bit envious about others early spring. I have too many other things to do so a couple more bee free months is really useful


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

the first months of the season are the fun times. nothing much to do except reversals, checkerboarding, watching the colonies build up, ect., and the weather makes it superb to be working outside. 

by june the heavy lifting in the heat and humidity ramps up. outside work is limited to the early morning hours. i've been regular with trunk and back exercises this winter while biding time for the flows to start.

i've decided to push the envelope on nuc production this year and see just how many i can make. it will be interesting to see what that does to honey production. 

i'm hoping that taking small splits from most of the colonies will keep me from having to put more than 4 or 5 supers per hive yet continue to average 3 supers (just over 100 lbs.) per hive.

i'm also hoping that taking the splits helps me improve on the 85% success rate for swarm prevention i've gotten these past 2 seasons.


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

Though lifting boxes off to steal a couple of frames of bees and brood can be tiring. Been there. I tried selling nucs last spring. It turned out ok, but it left me without those strong early nucs to take brood from. Much easier to go through an early strong nuc to steal brood from than a big hive. I guess that is why M. Palmer has his brood factories. It is possible to restrict a brood nest to the top 2 boxes just so you have easy access to them. That brings other problems. 

So this year I'm going back to keeping all my nucs, and selling excess overwintered ones. The problem with this though is I want to keep the best ones, and am hesitant to sell the more mediocre ones. I had a few last year that survived with very small clusters. I shook some nurse bees into them and they recovered nicely. However, I suspect they will have trouble surviving their second winter. Time will tell. 

I am in a different place than you in regards to stock stability. Maybe I shouldn't be selling nucs and queens yet. Just focus on honey and setting up a favorable mating situation for my bees. Its getting better. I have 2 sites close to each other, so I am starting to dominate the drone space there, hopefully.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*



lharder said:


> I have 2 sites close to each other, so I am starting to dominate the drone space there, hopefully.


:thumbsup:

if the bees cooperate with my plan the broodnests should already be near the top in the majority of my hives when splitting time comes. this is because i am encouraging them to brood to the top by checkerboarding and pyramiding. a frame or three of bees can easily be taken from these supers and become the start of 5 frame medium nucs.

i also ended up with four colonies that have two deeps at the bottom (instead of just one deep like the others). these were caught swarms that were given deeps to draw out and used for splits last year but didn't get split. 

these doubles will get used as cloake board hives for queen rearing and then split aggressively once the cells are ripe enough to become the start of 5 frame deep nucs.


----------



## msl

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

SP whats your plan for queens? (lol NM you posted while I was typing... are you grafting or using natural cells)
lharder what is your drone production plan? Drone frames, or are you foundation less ?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*



msl said:


> SP whats your plan for queens?


on the singles with supers i'll shake the queen down into the empty deep below an excluder once the broodnest reaches the top of the top super. i'll be able to harvest some queen cells from those supers about a week later. (variation of snelgroving)

on the doubles i'll be placing grafts once they get set up with the cloake boards.


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*



msl said:


> SP whats your plan for queens? (lol NM you posted while I was typing... are you grafting or using natural cells)
> lharder what is your drone production plan? Drone frames, or are you foundation less ?


I'm foundationless. There are plenty of drones around. The only trouble is that those sites are 25 k away and most of my queen rearing will take place there this next year. Not nearly as convenient as my back yard.


----------



## GregB

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

Hey, guys, can you outline the strategy for the local drone dominance, point by point?

My local challenge is that so far I am just trying to secure the initial foot print.
My own TF bee population very small and still only establishing (and not even really TF yet).
I need to be strategic with my limited resources to be able to push back the "treated drones" from mating the queens I will be trying to put up.
So I am willing to hear from those who are doing it. 
TIA.

One practical question right away - how many minimum hives per square mile will I want to run to have a reasonable # of my drones covering this square mile?
(I know about DCAs and all that; but need to start asking the questions from somewhere - hence the square mile approximation).

PS: if there is a better discussion for this, please just move my question.


----------



## msl

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

Unless your in isolation, or realy large with many yards spread out in the general area, I feel your fooling yourself if you think your dominating anything.
Here is Larry Connor's take on the subject for the little guy 
http://www.wicwas.com/sites/default/files/articles/Bee_Culture/BC2006-06.pdf
http://www.wicwas.com/sites/default/files/articles/Bee_Culture/BC2003-12.pdf 
I have what I think may be a iso yard or alt least one I can domate at some point, miles of grassland with few trees and no manged hives in flight range.. I may drop off some mating nucs out there and see if they fail to mate... but is almost 2 hours each way....so I need to be realy bleaveing what I have is something special.... and all my stock in my main yard was derived from swarms with in flight range, so I am banking on the local drones for now.


----------



## GregB

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*



msl said:


> Unless your in isolation, or realy large with many yards spread out in the general area, I feel your fooling yourself if you think your dominating anything.
> Here is Larry Connor's take on the subject for the little guy
> http://www.wicwas.com/sites/default/files/articles/Bee_Culture/BC2006-06.pdf
> http://www.wicwas.com/sites/default/files/articles/Bee_Culture/BC2003-12.pdf
> I have what I think may be a iso yard or alt least one I can domate at some point, miles of grassland with few trees and no manged hives in flight range.. I may drop off some mating nucs out there and see if they fail to mate... but is almost 2 hours each way....so I need to be realy bleaveing what I have is something special.... and all my stock in my main yard was derived from swarms with in flight range, so I am banking on the local drones for now.


Well, it has been argued that small cell drones out compete the large cell drones (not getting into the theory details, but just stating such theory exists and I like it).

The drone "dominance" in raw numbers is not required.
What is required is dominance in the # of drones that mate with a queen. 
OR, at least significant % of desired drones to mate with the queen so to affect the queen output significantly enough. 

I don't have large bee yards nearby (good!) but rather several small/hobby yards sprinkled about. 
I don't even know where they are at, I just catch their swarms. 
So that's the context.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

GregV


> Hey, guys, can you outline the strategy for the local drone dominance, point by point?


if you would have studied this squarepegs diary from the beginning or the diaries of the others posting sticky or read some other informations, using the advanced search you would have your answers.


> I don't have large bee yards nearby (good!) but rather several small/hobby yards sprinkled about.
> I don't even know where they are at, I just catch their swarms.


How about starting your own thread?
Sibylle


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*



GregV said:


> One practical question right away - how many minimum hives per square mile will I want to run to have a reasonable # of my drones covering this square mile?
> (I know about DCAs and all that; but need to start asking the questions from somewhere - hence the square mile approximation).


Is there anyone in your state who could do inseminations for you? That might be the easiest way of controll in the beginning.

When you get to 50-100 hives you might be able to have some control with free matings.


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*



GregV said:


> Hey, guys, can you outline the strategy for the local drone dominance, point by point?
> 
> My local challenge is that so far I am just trying to secure the initial foot print.
> My own TF bee population very small and still only establishing (and not even really TF yet).
> I need to be strategic with my limited resources to be able to push back the "treated drones" from mating the queens I will be trying to put up.
> So I am willing to hear from those who are doing it.
> TIA.
> 
> One practical question right away - how many minimum hives per square mile will I want to run to have a reasonable # of my drones covering this square mile?
> (I know about DCAs and all that; but need to start asking the questions from somewhere - hence the square mile approximation).
> 
> PS: if there is a better discussion for this, please just move my question.


I don't think there is general answer to this question. The number of hives is limited by forage and each area is different. Without knowing the DCA's your queens are going to, the best you can hope for is to set up a perimeter of hives around your mating area. If you have an idea where your DCA's are, then you can be more strategic, and if you know where the queens are going then you can be even more strategic. 

All hope is not lost though. If you have neighbors that raise their own queens, then with time, your survivor drones will have an effect on their stock. Remember that paper where having mite resistant bees are modeled to be more profitable even in a treating situation. So your bees TF bees will add positive things to a neighbor's apiary and will be selected for. Also you may have a measure of resistance in the local population. One of my best queen was from a local swarm cell. Lasted 3 winters. In this situation, you may have poorer survival, but make enough nucs and you can still expand the number of hives you have. I believe that is the situation I am in. Finally if the beekeeping mainstream starts taking mites seriously (there are some hints of it), then hopefully there will be a slow conversion to bees with resistant qualities even if they are treated. That will also make it easier for the tf keeper. 

As long as you can have more bees every year, you can start deploying them more strategically as time goes on, knowledge accumulates and circumstances allow.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

it helps that a friend of mine and myself are the only beekeepers located for many miles from our location. 

it also helps that we are blessed with feral survivors in the surrounding woods, some of which are likely swarms that we have allowed to escape over the years.

fusion_power has reported that he purposely allowed swarms to escape for (i think) a few seasons as a means to populate his locale with resistant bees.

i've inserted foundationless frames here and there and those ended up getting drawn mostly drone comb. i try to have one or two drone frames in every hive.

without a doubt controlling the paternal side of the equation is the most challenging part of breeding queens.


----------



## GregB

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

Thanks for the advice, guys.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

journal entry from today on my homeyard hive #5:

012118: NOTICED LOSS OF CLUSTER ROAR LAST WEEK DURING HARD FREEZE, FOUND DEAD OUT TODAY, CLUSTER SIZE = LARGE GRAPEFRUIT, LOW ON STORES BUT CLUSTER IN CONTACT WITH OPEN HONEY, 2 QUEENS (ONE OF THEM INTERCASTE OR RUNT VIRGIN), NO BROOD, LOTS OF FRASS IN BROOD COMB AND MANY DEAD MITES ON BOTTOM BOARD

this one looks like varroasis to me with a clean genetic dead end to this colony as well as the mites that were infesting it. i say good riddance and the slot will easily be filled with another promising contender in the upcoming months. 

this is loss #4 out of 24 putting me at 16.7% winter loss this year.

the last couple of days have been the first decent flying days since the solstice and we have had a couple of several day long hard freezes during that time.

19/20 of the remaining colonies are looking pretty strong judging by cluster roar with stethoscope and entrance activity. the other is sounding and looking a little less robust and may go down as loss #5 before winter is over.

one of my strongest colonies discovered a neighbor's mahonia and was gathering bright yellow pollen from it. the early tree pollens which tend to be a dirty pale yellow haven't started yet but i don't think it will be too much longer until we start seeing it.

the 2018 beekeeping symposium is coming up on february 3 in clanton al:

http://www.aces.edu/home-garden/beekeeping/

i usually don't make it to these meetings but will attend this one for the opportunity to meet dr. geoffrey williams from auburn university and talk to him about our experience up here with managing bees off treatments.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

Square...
Win some and lose some. Sorry for the loss but it sounds pretty good anyway. I put my ear to a few and now know why I keep my tv turned up so load. Couldn't hear much. I did see some flying myself and so still have high hopes if I can keep some of them from swarming later. I have lots of equitpment built if I can't keep them in thier own box and will have as many hives as you or more but lots less honey to extract. I am prepared either way. Thanks for the update.
Cheers
gww


----------



## AvatarDad

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

It is somewhat of a blessing to lose the bees and the mites in mid-winter like that, with no robbing. As you say, a "clean genetic dead end" to both. Nice.

This is our 3rd day at 60 F in N Georgia, and the bees were pinging the Mahonia like crazy today here also. For a moment I thought robbing was going on, but it was just foragers in a traffic jam trying to get back into the hive through the propolized entrance and through a cloud of orientation flights.  Cheered me right up!


----------



## Amibusiness

Juhani Lunden said:


> When you get to 50-100 hives you might be able to have some control with free matings.


Hi sp. Thanks for the thread. Just finished reading from the top. (it took me a few days.) Lots of interesting info from all! I run about 40 tf colonies and am still trying to stabilize losses. My genetics are based on cutouts (survive well without intervention but are a little agressive and not super productive), swarms (possibly some ferals, definitely some from neighboring apiaries) and some Sam Comfort queens. When my losses are more than folks at the bee club who treat, they look at me knowingly and ask if I'm still going to be tf. So reading your thread gives me renewed resolve to stay the course.
On most colonies I need to make sure they get a brood break or run a higher risk of mite crashing in early winter. I pick my best colonies to get cells from and put them in 2 (deep) frame mating splits and let them grow into nucs. (Depending on summer dearth I may have to feed later splits but try for the most part to feed honey. I mountain camp in late winter when needed. I don't stimulate in spring and stay away from soy (fake pollen) and corn (fake sugar).) I feel like I need to get a better handle on local drones. I have located some slightly more isolated yards that have ferals around but few beekeepers for 1.5 miles. In my part of the Hudson valley (NY) that is the best I can do. I offer my bees for cheap to neighbor's to try to stem the flow of imports.
Juhani, how would you go about saturating drone population with 50-100 colonies? Small drone outyards, just let the numbers do their work, all mating in one central yard...? (are you in Lahti area? I lived in Tampere for 15 months about 15 years ago but was (sadly) not actively beekeeping. I would have loved to come over and see your operation. Terve!)
Many thanks to all; wishing you all a healthy, productive year!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

(i had a few questions about checkerboarding sent to me via pm. i'll share those here along with my responses).



> Why do you think lining the frames over each other worked better with the mediums vs alternating in the checker pattern?


i'm not really sure why lining the frames over each other works better.

when i checkerboarded like walt about half my colonies responded like walt's did and the other half filled up in the empty comb with new nectar and swarmed.

walt and i weren't sure why but conjectured that might be due to the difference in size between mediums and shallows or possibly the traits of my bees were a little different than what he had used.

it's likely that my improved success at swarm prevention had as much to do with the implementation of opening the broodnest and pyramiding brood up to the next unused super as it did with lining the comb up in that way.



> What is your configuration entering winter?


here is what i try to get in place for my wintering configuration;

h = honey, e = empty comb, broodnest is already in the bottom deep, and the first 2 supers look like this:

e e h h e h h e e
h h h h e h h h h 

and then i winter a couple of empty supers above those first 2 mostly because i don't have room in my garage to store them. i guard against shb problems by having a beetle blaster trap in every box.



> So you also move brood and pyrimad along with using CBing? So not true WW cb?


correct. i was not able to achieve the near 100% swarm prevention like walt did by just doing the one time cb manipulation. being taught by him how to observe colony operations and the principles behind them proved invaluable however. since he didn't live too far from me a lot of his timeline matched mine.

in addition to opening up the nest and pyramiding, with some colonies i'll move the queen back down below an excluder into what becomes the abandoned deep once the broodnest expands up to the top of the 3rd or 4th super.

i'll still had one or two colonies each year that went into swarm mode despite my best efforts. with these i had success stopping swarming by culling queen cells once or twice. this year i am ramping up nuc production so if i find swarm cells i'll just make as many splits as i can if i find swarms cells, most likely culling the cells and replacing them with grafts from less swarmy colonies.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

dang. it looks like i've got some serious predation going on at my outyard. i'm not sure if it's skunks or opossums but i've not seen any where near this many chewed up bees before.

i usually have to deal with predation now and then as we go through winter. in the past it's only been a wad or two of bees and only out in front of just a hive or two.

this time there are dozens of wads and they are in front of all of the hives. i've had a trap set for the past 4 nights but so far no luck.

we've had alternating bitter cold then mild weather and there are the usual hauled out corpses when the mild days roll around. the best i can tell the predators are chewing up those hauled out bees and i haven't found any claw marks on the entrances...

but i can't be sure if they are getting at the live bees or not. one hive has gone quiet over there as of today and i am somewhat concerned about the rest of them. dang.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Hoping it goes well, getting close to the finnish line for one more year and it would suck to have a bad surprize. 
Good luck.
gww


----------



## Buzz-kill

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Putting guards in front of your hives would be more effective than trapping.


----------



## AvatarDad

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

The biggest problem with treatment free beekeeping is that the bees are

so
darn
tasty!



Seriously, SP, I hope things work out. I would love to see some night-vision infrared video of the culprits. I'm just trying to lighten the mood. I sure am glad I am not fighting skunks in this weather!

Mike


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

Fingers crossed to luck.


----------



## Michael Bush

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

>this time there are dozens of wads and they are in front of all of the hives. i've had a trap set for the past 4 nights but so far no luck.

Sounds like skunks. I'm sure the root problem is mites...  Did you count the mites? Other solutions to skunks: Top entrances, asprieggs (Egg cracked open with three asprin crushed and mixed into the egg, left in the shell), waiting all night with a .22, live trap with egg, or tuna.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

How does the asprin thing work? Poison to them?


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*



Michael Bush said:


> Sounds like skunks. I'm sure the root problem is mites...


Any time you encounter a similarly inappropriate and ridiculous comment suggesting mites you should challenge those comments in that thread. That way it actually serves a purpose.


----------



## GregB

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

SP, mammal depredation is well prevented by these (see pic).
I modified these for my own use (integrated both bee robbing and skunk prevention into one screen). 
They helped on my remote yard last summer.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

 boys will be boys.

good news. i swept the ground clean yesterday and as of this morning no new wads. still nothing in the trap.

considering putting out spike boards if it happens again.


----------



## Buzz-kill

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> boys will be boys.
> 
> good news. i swept the ground clean yesterday and as of this morning no new wads. still nothing in the trap.
> 
> considering putting out spike boards if it happens again.


you might consider coiled barb wire in front of the hive. I am trying that for my skunk problem. Can't give you results yet but I like it because it doesn't interfere with the entrance.


----------



## Buzz-kill

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*



Michael Bush said:


> >this time there are dozens of wads and they are in front of all of the hives. i've had a trap set for the past 4 nights but so far no luck.
> 
> Sounds like skunks. I'm sure the root problem is mites...  Did you count the mites? Other solutions to skunks: Top entrances, asprieggs (Egg cracked open with three asprin crushed and mixed into the egg, left in the shell), waiting all night with a .22, live trap with egg, or tuna.


I think you have nailed it MB. Must be mites.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

o.k already, were getting borderline off topic here, eraser at the ready, enough on the 'must be mites' please.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

One thing though "boys", I'd still like to know how the asprin in an egg thing works, if someone could fill me in?


----------



## AR Beekeeper

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

Oldtimer; Three to five aspirin mixed in 2 raw eggs and placed where the skunk can eat it is reported to kill the animal, by what method I don't know. I have never had occasion to try this, I have always had a trap on hand, or have been lucky enough that traffic on the highway took care of the problem.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

Thanks, interesting. I would have never imagined! I'll be careful about taking asprin and eggs at the same time LOL.


----------



## Michael Palmer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

I used to use eggs with zinc phosphide. Rodent poison I got from the orchard. Killed skunks dead. Dogs too. I don't use it anymore.


----------



## johno

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

A veterinarian ( I hope I spelled that right ) once told me to never give aspirin to a dog as it will burn a hole in its stomach and kill it. Maybe there is something in that for skunks and other critters.
Johno


----------



## Jadeguppy

Poisons kill indiscriminately. They also cause terrible pain. Traps are much more humane. Many wildlife rescue will loan them out. E fence and sometimes herbs work too.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

amibusiness, welcome to the marathon thread. i should have t-shirts made up for those who make it all the way through.  

i'm happy to answer any questions. juhani may have missed your remarks to him, you might want to send him a personal message.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

is the pendulum swinging?

i found 4 new deadouts this weekend bringing my total winter losses to 8 out of 24 for a 33% loss so far. this is already measurably higher than i've been seeing for the past few years. here are my winter loss rates from the beginning:

2010-11, 4 hives, 0 losses, 0% loss
2011-12, 10 hives, 0 losses, 0% loss
2012-13 18 hives, 6 losses, 33% loss 
2013-14, 19 hives, 4 losses, 21.1% loss
2014-15, 18 hives, 3 losses, 16.7% loss
2015-16, 21 hives, 2 losses, 9.5% loss
2016-17, 22 hives, 3 losses, 13.6% loss
2017-18, 24 hives, 8 losses, 33% loss so far

here are my journal notes on this year's deadouts:

#B1: 110217, QUEENLINE 2, 2 WINTERS, 44 LBS HARVESTED, EXPOSED DURING DEARTH WHILE REPLACING HIVE BODIES AND SAW SPOTTY CAPPED BROOD WITH NO EGGS, DID NOT SEE QUEEN , ROBBED OUT, MODERATE FRASS, NO BROOD OR DEAD BEES, NO MITES ON BOTTOM BOARD

#12: 112517, QUEENLINE 4, 1 WINTER, STRONG OUT OF WINTER, NURSE BEE DONATOR, NO HARVEST, STRUGGLED WITH SUPERCEDURE, LATE SEASON DINK, NO BROOD, MINIMAL FRASS, NO MITES ON BOTTOM BOARD

#B9: 123117, QUEENLINE 2, 2 WINTERS, 163 LBS HARVESTED, HONEY AND NURSE BEE DONATOR, EXPOSED DURING DEARTH WHILE REPLACING HIVE BODIES, LESS THAN BASEBALL SIZED CLUSTER STUCK ON BROOD IN CONTACT WITH STORES, A FEW CAPPED BROOD WHICH APPEARED HEALTHY, MODERATE FRASS AND MITES ON BOTTOM BOARD

#5: 012118, QUEENLINE3, 2 WINTERS, 139 LBS. HARVESTED, GRAPEFRUIT SIZED CLUSTER, LOW ON STORES BUT CLUSTER IN CONTACT WITH OPEN HONEY, 2 QUEENS (ONE OF THEM INTERCASTE OR RUNT VIRGIN), NO BROOD, LOTS OF FRASS IN BROOD COMB AND MANY DEAD MITES ON BOTTOM BOARD

#B2: 012618, 2017 CAUGHT SWARM ORIGIN UNKNOWN, 0 WINTERS, CLUSTER LESS THAN ONE HANDFUL, QUEENLESS, A FEW CAPPED DRONE BROOD IN WORKER CELLS, MINIMAL FRASS, NO MITES FOUND ON BOTTOM BOARD

#B6: 012618, QUEENLINE 5, 1 WINTER, SMALL COMING OUT OF WINTER AND RECEIVED NURSE BEES, 141 LBS. HARVESTED, BASEBALL SIZED CLUSTER STUCK ON BROOD SEPARATED FROM STORES, QUEEN, EGGS, FAIRLY SOLID PATTERN, MODERATE FRASS AND MITES ON BOTTOM BOARD

#D3: 012618, QUEENLINE 2, 2 WINTERS, 94 LBS. HARVESTED, SMALL COMING OUT OF WINTER AND RECEIVED NURSE BEES, LATE SEASON CRAWLERS AND DWV, GRAPEFRUIT SIZED CLUSTER, NO QUEEN FOUND, NO BROOD, MINIMAL FRASS, COULD NOT FIND MITES ON BOTTOM BOARD

#3: 012618, QUEENLINE 1, 1 WINTER, 39 LBS. HARVESTED, NURSE BEE DONATOR BUT THEN STRUGGLED WITH SUPECEDURE, ALMOST VOLLEYBALL SIZED CLUSTER, DID NOT FIND QUEEN, 3” PATCH OF SOLID CAPPED BROOD, STUCK ON BROOD AND SEPARATED FROM STORES, MINIMAL FRASS AND VERY FEW MITES ON BOTTOM BOARD

it's turning into a longer colder winter than we've had in a while and the tree pollens haven't even started coming in yet. i've had losses from all three yards, from all five queenlines, and from first year starters to colonies that have survived one or two winters. a few of these might have made it through a milder winter and had forage been available earlier.

the least impacted so far are my colonies derived from the 'original' colony that was orphaned at my home back in 2010. these have been my favorite to graft from over the years as they have been scoring the highest with respect to survival, swarm prevention, and productivity. it turns out they are also heavy propilizers. i didn't do much grafting in 2016 and none at all in 2017 but have already decided to ramp that up this year.

33% loss is approaching the point where it's more difficult to be cavalier with saying 'good riddance' but not so bad as to make recovery too onerous. it's been almost too easy so far and i've enjoyed getting by with a very minimalist approach. i've also already been putting about as much time into beekeeping as my current schedule allows, but that is subject to change in 2020 or so. 

should losses approach 50% i feel it would be more economical to invest the time to do regular monitoring for mites, dequeen highly infested colonies, wait for all brood to emerge, use an organic acid to knock down mites, and requeen with more promising stock. it would also make more sense to overwinter a handful of nucs.

sorry for the long post and thanks again for your interest.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Yes the pendulum is swinging.

But your bees have enough history to say that as a group they will make it. Pendulums swing, don't worry about it.


----------



## Buzz-kill

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

It seems like it has been a harsher winter than normal over much of the country and may be some of the explanation for your losses. It also could be normal statistical variation. If you throw out the first two years because your hive numbers were much lower than the later years you have 6 years of data where the numbers are comparable. Of those 6 you had losses every year so that trend is obvious. The losses this year are exactly the same (percentage basis) as one other year but no higher. It would be difficult based on this information to say this year is an outlier. Since the two largest loss years are opposite ends of the time period it would also be unfair to conclude that this represents a trend. I would not conclude that your management practices have anything to do with the higher losses this year. It is much more likely normal variation and I would wait to change things only if more data reveals a trend or increasing losses.

But perhaps I am more sanguine about 33% losses because around here we would think that was pretty low.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Square...
You made a comment earlier that you were worried about a whole yard. I am more with oldtimer and buzzkill but with out the experiance that they have under thier belt. I would say that there are also chances for anomalies to happen for every one and in the end only time will really tell. You have several years under your belt, to me it would take several of the other kind to really consider a shift but everyone gets to decide what they can take. I do think one or two years after being happy for so long might be fine but maby not add up to the truth of the matter even if you changed and things looked better. However, it it made you satisfied, in the end that is what counts and if after a couple of years it did not get better, you might kick youself for sticking to it. I think knowing for sure is hard though.
Good luck
gww


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

It is a sticky wicket, isn’t it? 
If I’m reading your journal entries correctly, all of these losses are relatively young colonies. How are the older ones doing? 
Have you brought in any outside genetics in the past two or three years?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

ot, sincere thanks for the encouraging words!

bk, agreed. i've been reflecting about a few factors that might have made some difference this year, more about that in a later post.

gww, my 'outyard' is the one that i've been seeing heavy predation and was concerned. it also had a mite collapse with robbing prior to cold weather setting in which could have 'bombed' the remaining hives. 4 out of 8 colonies in this yard are now gone for 50% loss, by far the worse of the three locations.

dan, of my remaining 16 colonies:

6 are in their 4th winter
5 are in their 2nd winter
3 are caught swarms in their 1st winter
2 are summer nucs now in their 1st winter

yes, in 2016 i brought in outside genetics from two other treatment free beekeepers and from a feral swarm issued out of a tree in a friend's backyard.


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> yes, in 2016 i brought in outside genetics from two other treatment free beekeepers and from a feral swarm issued out of a tree in a friend's backyard.


Groan! I truly believe that if I had bees that I thought were genuinely able to coexist with mites.....you couldn't pay me enough to risk diluting that gene pool ....regardless of the source.
But....that's just me.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

point well taken dan. lharder has made the case a few times in his thread about the wisdom in not importing outside bees, but more in the context of avoiding the introduction of novel viruses ect.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

beemandan


> Groan! I truly believe that if I had bees that I thought were genuinely able to coexist with mites.....you couldn't pay me enough to risk diluting that gene pool ....regardless of the source.
> But....that's just me.


I am thinking I might go the other way with this. I might not want to bring in enough that it could over load my stock but even in the old days it was considered good to bring in some other good stock to widen the gene pool.

I just read the study done in north carolina where they gene tested the bees and it was shown that the bees with presure on them with less veriation did better then the treated bees with more variation but the bees with presure on them with more variation did even better. 

I am not sure we are smart enough yet to know just what the bees use to live well with mites. I do think that more things for the bees to use gives them a better chance and that the things that are working for the bees will come more to the forefront based on what is facing the bees. Nature is not constant and the mite switching host is proof of this and since new things can come, having a bigger tool chest would seem to help. 

So I don't know if bringing in enough to upset the apple cart is that good but bringing in enough to widen the tool chest seems better then a bottle neck that you have what you have and if something new happens, the bees have less to work with to counter the new. 

I am sure there is a line that tilts to far one way or the other when making these decisions and don't claim I am smart enough to know what that line is but do know my thoughts on the matter at this point.
Cheers
gww


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Typically a large genetically diverse pool is preferable to a narrow one. But….from everything I’ve seen, successful tf beekeeping appears to be limited to specific locations. As in squarepeg’s area….he has worked with local bees. By all indications there is enough genetic diversity in that area for those bees to survive and thrive. If whatever makes them succeed is diluted by non local genes….it would be a serious loss. 
Again….in my opinion.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Beemandan
I for sure don't say that I have an answer or have any intention of argueing with your point more then it just being a thinking point. I know I don't know much and would say that even figuring out if it is some change in the bees or some mutation in the wether or virus that is causing problims. Or if any change would be seen quick or take some time to level out. There probly is a right answer but I by no way think I am providing it or could point to a differrent one as being wrong. I just know that I am going to keep bringing home swarms (no matter where they come from) and keeping any bee that lives to the next year. So it fits with my view that wider is probly better cause I am not (in my own yards) going to only make bees with what I already have. I think it is going to be better and have studies from people that don't know how the bees are fighting the mites or the mechinism they are using.

I think I will have more bees there then the swarms and such that follow and hope the studies are right but am not saying my opinion carries more weight then yours cause I really don't know and am just thinking about it and doing what I do. I am hoping that adds up to more of an expansion of the gene pool then an delution but can't say I know. I am just thinking about it and putting out only an opinion also. I do know that I don't "know" though.

Cheers
gww


----------



## Ruthz

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Thanks SquarePeg for this thread, I have learned a ton. But I was wondering if you could point me to a source on Walt Wright's method. Is it explained somewhere? I've search beesource, but haven't found the reference. I know you differ a bit, so I was hoping to learn about the original. Thanks!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

you are very welcome ruth. a lot of walt's stuff can be found in the 'point of view' section here on beesource:

http://beesource.com/point-of-view/walt-wright/

i'll reach out to walt's daughter and find out what is the status on availability of his manuscript entitiled: "nectar management, principles and practices". this is my favorite of all his works. 

fair warning: you may have to read through walt's writings a few times before it starts to sink in, at least i did.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



Amibusiness said:


> Juhani, how would you go about saturating drone population with 50-100 colonies? Small drone outyards, just let the numbers do their work, all mating in one central yard...? (are you in Lahti area? I lived in Tampere for 15 months about 15 years ago but was (sadly) not actively beekeeping. I would have loved to come over and see your operation. Terve!)
> Many thanks to all; wishing you all a healthy, productive year!


Terve!

Tampere is only 85 km south from my place.

I would try to arrange all colonies in the most isolated place there is near you, and place them in relatively small apiaries 2-3 km apart, and do the queen matings in the middle of that circle. I would allow all bees to raise as many drones as they want to. 

It is a good idea trying to get the beekeeping neighbors to go TF too. BUT you need to explain the risks, the possibility to lose all hives.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> yes, in 2016 i brought in outside genetics from two other treatment free beekeepers and from a feral swarm issued out of a tree in a friend's backyard.


Was this not your original source, the tf beekeepers?
The feral swarm is another matter, I´m not sure this was a good thing.

It´s not my place to say but I don´t believe the pendulum swings. 
IMHO if it would have you might have a real crash like I had 2016/17.


----------



## Slow Drone

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



Oldtimer said:


> Yes the pendulum is swinging.
> 
> But your bees have enough history to say that as a group they will make it. Pendulums swing, don't worry about it.


I'd have to agree with Oldtimer here. Up my way some beekeepers are having normal losses some are having some devastating losses only a couple TF the rest treat. So far the reports I'm getting on queens I raised this year none have been lost yet but then again spring isn't here yet. All of mine are doing well but I lost 50% in one yard do to my negligence. Note to self pull all feeders before cold weather moves in!


----------



## Michael Bush

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

I'm not fond of poison, so I haven't tried the aspriegg but have talked to many people who found it effective. I assume they bleed to death or die of salicylate poisoning. My concern is what else might eat the poison, but if you make sure it's where only a skunk sized animal could get to the egg, it might be useful.


----------



## Amibusiness

Many thanks, sp, for honestly documenting and inspiring, as well as hosting the conversation. Did your predation problem go away or did you manage it somehow? I have 9000 volts just above the grass (lowest strand of bear fence) that seems to keep the skunks away.
Kiitos, Juhani. That's very helpful. Hopefully my neighbors will cooperate


----------



## Buzz-kill

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*



Michael Bush said:


> I'm not fond of poison, so I haven't tried the aspriegg but have talked to many people who found it effective. I assume they bleed to death or die of salicylate poisoning. My concern is what else might eat the poison, but if you make sure it's where only a skunk sized animal could get to the egg, it might be useful.


I find the practice of poisoning to be disgusting even if it can be targeted to a specific animal (almost never the case). There is also no reason for it when they can be kept from the hive entrance with barriers.


----------



## Michael Bush

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

>There is also no reason for it when they can be kept from the hive entrance with barriers.

That's why I went to top entrances. I got tired of shooting skunks, missing sleep and not making much of a difference. It was easier to just change the entrance.


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

Red Maples are starting to bloom in west Alabama. I watched bees working on one yesterday. They were all over it. The elm buds are swelling also, should be blooming soon if we don't get any more unseasonably cold weather.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2017 treatment free experience*

good report gary, many thanks. it got warm enough here yesterday for several hours of busy foraging during which i also observed the first tree pollens of the season coming in.


----------



## Amibusiness

Oh, I am jealous of your short winters. We had sunny and 35(F) yesterday so the colonies were quite active and cleansing. A few bees on the manure pile (does anyone know what they get from it?). The red and silver maple buds are swelling but pollen is a long way away. We had a bit of snow this morning. It is another strange winter with significant temperature fluctuations. 2 weeks ago was 60F for a day and now heading towards 0 F....


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



SiWolKe said:


> Was this not your original source, the tf beekeepers?


my 'original' colony was one that i inherited in 2010 when the beekeeper we allowed to place some hives on our property passed away. (these are the ones that have been my my most frequent choice for grafting new queens).

i added to that original colony by purchasing some nucs in 2011 from a local supplier who had been tf since 1996 after he started with 5 feral colonies he collected from trees. i added a few more colonies in 2016 from two other beekeepers who have been tf for 10 years or more both of which had a mix of local genetics plus some genetics from outside sources, along with the feral swarm i caught.



Amibusiness said:


> Many thanks, sp, for honestly documenting and inspiring, as well as hosting the conversation. Did your predation problem go away or did you manage it somehow?


you are very welcome and i appreciate those kind words. i have determined that most of the wads of chewed up bees were from the corpses hauled out of the hives. i'm still seeing a few wads at both my homeyard and my outyard and so far have trapped and relocated one opossum at the homeyard.


----------



## Jovian

Well just finished catching up on the last 30 or so pages since I was last able to read the page about a year ago! Work had me on a out of state trip every other week for half the year, I had a couple family members pass and we bought a new home and got rid of the old one. Amidst all that it was my first years trying to Beekeeper. I was able to do a cut out in mid to late February for my first colony. The queen didn't make the cut out and they did make a emergency queen but she never returned from her mating flight and I tried giving some more brood to them to no avail. Finally in late May or so I was able to give them a queen cells who did make it. Well that queen turned out to be a dink and never laid well. The colony unfortunately parished in October when I believe I accidentally killed the dinky queen in moving homes and while they raised a new queen again she either did not return from the mating flight or was not mated well. Over the whole year they barely built a full deeps worth of comb despite constant feed (internal feeder). 
I was also able to catch a one really late swarm in July. Unfortunately that was right before I had to leave for a family emergency. They were in a full deeps worth of frames so I thought they would be fine and had decided to leave them. When I was able to get back about 3 weeks later they were no more, all the bees were gone and what they had built for Combs ( about 5 deeps worth) were barely intact remants from what I m still not sure but likely either wax moths or shb. That was my year.
I am moving to tbh this year as I make all my own equipment and the cost and speed of building equipment is cheaper and faster. And am in the process of repurposing my equipment from last season. My hope this season is to catch more swarms than I did last year and more cutouts and get them to survive the year. With the hope I can get some to overwinter so I can follow MP philosophy for a sustainable apiary though I might take that more in the expansion model ue to the low colony numbers I will be dealing with. Hopefully it will be a better season as far as calls go and luck at trapping. If that doesn't work out I am seriously considering getting packages for next season so that I have something to start with and when finances are in better shape. 

SP as always great thread with tons of valuable information. Is there any other plants/Trees that you have planted that seems to be a really big help for the bees besides the autumn olives? I have some goumis which are closely related to the autumn olives and now that I got some land wondering if there is something else that would be particularly helpful. I am planning on adding some black locust, tulip poplar, basswood and thinking some witch hazel


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

hi jovian, it's nice to hear from you and many thanks for the kind words.

i can relate to how life's commitments can make getting everything accomplished we would like to with our bees very challenging at times.

as far as trees and plants go there is a great expanse of hardwood in my immediate area. my understanding is that the elms and maples are what provide the first pollen and nectar starting in mid to late winter. i hope to analyze pollen samples some day to find out exactly which ones.

the autumn olives have turned out to be a fabulous nectar source in the weeks leading up to our main nectar flow and that nectar is what appears to allow population growth to really grab a gear.

there are many things in bloom during our main flow including locust and privet, but conventional wisdom is that the tulip poplars are what are responsible for the bulk of the harvestable honey put up during that time.

the sumac blooms a little later in the season and is one of the last things we have before entering into our summer dearth period.

i've heard that plots of yellow clover and buckwheat are good sources during that dearth period but i've no personal experience with those myself.

here's something you may want to take a peek at if you are considering getting away from langstroths:

http://www.horizontalhive.com/index.shtml


----------



## Jovian

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Thats good news with the Autumn olives as They also provide nitrogen to other plants and produce a edible berry so I was hoping to put a bunch on the new property. I knew about the red maples providing for the early pollen and didn't know that the elms were a signficant source till I read this thread. I had also hoped to prep planting areas for a year or two with some buckwheat clover, alfalfa mix so good to know that will help prop up the bees during the dearth. I will let you all know how that turns out.

Its funny you point out the site horizontalHive as that style is what I had last year and while I like the design a lot and would have probably stayed with that design if I still lived in WI or MN I found the hives to be extraordinarily heavy and bulky (I used all 2x lumber) way larger than what in my limited experience I think the bees here will fill out and the frames were incredibly difficult to get properly straight. It can all be reasonably done with screws for spacers and the hives were never meant to be moved of course but I felt that with the ease and speed of construction of the TBH vs a Layens (Mine where double deeps so I could interchange equipment with most beeks here in the usa) I was better off with the TBH particularly with the problems I had last year which drove home the point of having a sustainable apiary which requires lots of nucs, cell builders etc.


----------



## laketrout

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Just picked up on the Autumn olive topic just a heads up that it is a very invasive plant and once you start it its very hard to get rid of and it will take over even if mowed . 

https://www.nature.org/ourinitiativ...es/indiana/journeywithnature/autumn-olive.xml


----------



## Jovian

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



laketrout said:


> Just picked up on the Autumn olive topic just a heads up that it is a very invasive plant and once you start it its very hard to get rid of and it will take over even if mowed .
> 
> https://www.nature.org/ourinitiativ...es/indiana/journeywithnature/autumn-olive.xml


So is Bermuda grass which is completely useless from a Bee perspective, the locally Native Black Locust is invasive but useful and you could say Honey Bees are invasive foreign pests driving out the natives It's all a matter of perspective really Invader, Naturalized, Native all from what date. That said I do understand what you are saying Laketrout and yes it can be/is a concern. In my book, if I can find a "native" that will take the place and serve the same functions I will likely use that. But if a "Non native" that has already been brought over provides a use that I can't find otherwise, Like a early nectar flow to give the pollinators a head start AND I can manage it then I don't see a problem in using it either. For the same reason I may consider planting some chinese popcorn tree as it extends the honey season on the back end in northern alabama I believe.

So in the case of the autumn olive can it be controlled my main concern is can it be controlled? I have heard mixed reports on it and will be doing more research in this regard. SP I am curious as to your personal experience in being able to control the spread of your Autumn Olives has it been a problem for you in our climate?

I found a picture of my double deep hive from last year just after I put my the cutout in. Hope you enjoy.


----------



## johno

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

We seem to be wandering off the thread a little but I would agree with Jovian about Autumn Olive. I found a autumn olive on the property I use it is about 12 feet tall and in the spring is covered with bees for about 2 weeks so I collected berries in the fall and tried to propagate them with no success, Invasive? However I took cuttings from that tree in the next spring and all the cuttings took root. I have also purchased some Russian olive trees and hope they will take off and provide blooms when we get to the summer dearth. Now I wish that choke cherries would be deemed a foreign invader as they are a real pain. I have a tendency to believe that these so called invasive plants are natures answer to the urban sprawl and modern farming methods anyhow.
Johno


----------



## Jovian

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

I have made another thread for the Autumn Olive discussuion here http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...natives-to-Autumn-Olive&p=1601400#post1601400 so that we can not completely sidetrack sp's wonderful thread.


----------



## Amibusiness

We have some Autumn olive around here, it's not too bad yet. In the long run, though, if left to fruit the birds will spread it beyond our ability to contain it. The Service Berries are not quite as prolific as Autumn olive but seem to be a good native replacement: flower early for bees, produce food and habitat for others. I'm not sure if they are in N Alabama. A problem, as I see it, with invasives is that by crowding out natives they reduce biodiversity. Taken to an extreme this leads to monocrop and less food for bees. 
Example: Japanese knotweed is a bamboo like perenial on annual growth. The bees can make an unlimited amount of honey off it in the fall (when we have other native options for forage). If left unchecked there is not a single other flower growing the whole year under it. Normally wet and untended areas around here are quite diverse, especially helpful for our summer dearth as the wet areas bloom longer. So in the fall the knotweed can lead to a cash crop but taken anually it slows the colony down and can lead to them needing to use up lots of stores or feed over the summer.
So for a commercial, for whom honey is more valuable than corn syrup, knotweed could be a blessing. For a hobbyist, especially a tf one who tries not to feed If possible, it can cause more hassle in the summer than it's worth. I think this will be the case, in the long run, with all non-native invasives. They are brought in with the best of intentions (usually economic) and eventually lead to major extermination attempts (carried out by volunteers, but if monetized would be worth a ton). 
Having said all that, I'm not sure how invasive Autumn olive is in Alabama, certainly Indiana appears to be taking it seriously. 
I hope this is seen as helpful and not a further derailment of the thread!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

i planted the autumn olives 25 years ago per the recommendation of the state dept. of ag. biologist who was assigned to the state forestry dept. in conjunction with what is called the 'alabama treasure forest' program. they had me plant a row of them (approx. 200 trees) along about a quarter mile of roadside to provide a protective hedge as well as the nutritional benefit.

it turns out the autumn olive berries have one of the highest concentrations of lycopene (a strong antioxidant) found in nature which is helpful mainly to birds but other species as well. i planted mine many years before the bees were brought in so the added benefit of being a strong nectar source was an unanticipated bonus.

subsequent biologists who have been up since that first one are now mentioning the invasive characteristic of autumn olives, but to be honest after 25 years i am not seeing this. i'll find the rare volunteer coming up at the base of another tree presumably after having been excreted there by a bird, but this amounts to no more than a handful of those per year.

even around the mature row i don't find many volunteers coming up but i do keep it mowed around them. perhaps the invasiveness has to do with soil type ect.

actually i wouldn't mind if they were more invasive than what i am observing, especially if i could somehow get them to replace the very invasive and less beneficial chinese privet.


----------



## clyderoad

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

the invasive nature of autumn olive is that it creates new stands some distance from the parent. 
those nice little berries the birds eat are soon spread far and wide to germinate and out compete most native bushes/trees/plants.


----------



## Jovian

Thank you for your responses all good info to consider. I have seen service berry before and will have to look deeper into it


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

we made it up into the low 60's today with sunny skies and a moderate breeze. it was the best foraging day we've had since the solstice. i saw a lot of dirty pale yellow pollen (elm or juniper?) and a fair amount of bloody red pollen (henbit?) coming in to all but 2 of the hives. i'll be watching those 2 closely and they will most likely be first on the list for full inspections over the next few weeks.

i called my friend who has been tf for 22 years to tell him about my winter losses and to see how his colonies were doing. he told me that he found a couple of 4 frame nucs he made up late last season had run out of stores and starved. 

he was concerned about another handful of those nucs being on the verge of doing the same and unfortunately he didn't have the time or resources to bail them out. we decided to marry his nucs with my empty hives and honey brought in from this winter's dead outs.

there were 5 nucs that my friend verified had live bees in them last thursday night and i brought them home on friday morning. i went around midday friday to mountaincamp moistened sugar on them before leaving for the symposium in clanton and found that one of the five had already succumbed.

i took advantage of the nice weather today to transfer the nucs into 10 frame deeps containing some frames of honey. almost all of the mountaincamped sugar had been consumed. all 4 had queens but there was no brood yet.

this puts the hive count up from 16 to 20, but i won't be surprised if i find the 2 not bringing in pollen are queenless.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Square...
I know we have covered this and you mentioned just shaking them out is probly best with the queenless. However, you don't think since you have the four nucs that putting one over a double screen for two weeks and then new paper combine would hold some kind of bennifit?
Cheers
gww


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

yes, if i find one has gone queenless but hasn't yet become laying worker i would likely newspaper combine should i find a tiny queenright colony. if laying worker i'll shake it out.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Hope to hear about it. Maybe the hives just have lazy scouts.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

In a commercial breeding situation I used to work for, time was critical obviously, in fall the last queens would be sold then we would end up with several thousand nucs many of which still had bees, and here and there would be the odd queen. The nucs used frames that could fit in a standard lang box. Shame to waste the bees so while collecting and sorting gear for winter storage, we just slammed the queenless ones into ones that had queens, and transferred frames into lang boxes making units that were winterable. Despite the roughness of the whole thing, for the most part it worked, in the great majority of cases the queens were not killed and the hives made winter.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



gww said:


> Hope to hear about it. Maybe the hives just have lazy scouts.
> Cheers
> gww


perhaps. it might also be that there was plenty of beebread left from the fall. sometimes with small colonies they are too busy keeping brood warm to turn foragers loose. 

there's no robbing going on as is typical when a hive goes queenless, but i've been fooled before. i'd be happier if i saw a lot of pollen going in but will withhold judgement until i can look inside.


----------



## brockspringsfarm

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Sp, I have been reading through this thread from start to finish and have thoroughly enjoyed it. I have been transiting to tf for the past couple years only treating those that look as if they won't make it because of high mite counts, and no making queens from them. You are very lucky to have your start with established tf hives. Everyone treats round in my area. My bees are Italian based and so are the feral swarms that I catch. I think that is one of my problems because there is no brood break to help out with keeping the mites in check. I am lucky to live in a very rural area ( with similar climate as you) , with the closest beekeeper pushing 10 miles away. I have slowly grown and plan on expanding to 25 hives by fall. I typically have to treat half my hives because of high mite count. I have stated all this to ask if you thought if I could benefit from introducing some new world carniolans into them mix and adding plenty of drone comb to those hives? Thanks for chronicling your tf journey and documenting everything so well. Staci


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

welcome to thread staci, and i really appreciate your kind comments. murphreesboro looks like a really good location on the google terrain map. 

i believe your approach is very sound and i am glad to hear your are making progress. i hope if you have time that you'll start a thread here in the tf subforum and keep us posted on your experiences.

if you expand to 25 hives, i would consider keeping 8 hives or less per yard. isolating them as much as possible from other apiaries makes good sense.

i think a brood break during the summer dearth is an important factor in mite tolerance/resistance. we didn't get much of a dearth in 2017 compared to most years and i think it made a difference.

trying nwc would be something to consider. it is reported that they modulate brood rearing in response to flows better than the italians, but i am unable to confirm as i have no personal experience with them.

if i'm not mistaken there are a few long term tf apiaries in your neck of the woods you could consider sourcing some queens from. perhaps some of our arkansas members will chime in with suggestions.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Staci
These have come up in previous discussions. I don't know more then what they advertize.
https://www.frosthoneybeefarm.com/
Cheers
gww


----------



## BlueRidgeBee

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

SquarePeg I’m in full agreement with having multiple sites with a limited number of hives in each place. 

My main yard was about a dozen starting winter (tf and doing quite well since 2011) but have taken a drastic hit this winter unlike ever before. Clusters started nice size but dwindled down too small to take the weeklong snaps down to single digits we had this winter. Some had mites per autopsy and some had none. Very puzzled on several of the dead outs while others were self explanatory.

I am so thankful I have a few random hives in other sites as they are still strong so I won’t be starting from near-scratch. Going to look at different sites more carefully this year. Wouldn’t be able to keep equipment completely separate but something sure made a difference at the two sites this year and it wasn’t management. 

Ps. I got some excellent tf selected stock from Ed Levi in Mountain Home (?) AR in 2013. I understand he is selling his biz this year. I’d be interested to find out who is buying it and if they are still working on selecting.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

i've been giving some consideration as to why i am seeing an uptick in winter losses this year. here are a few factors that i think may be relevent:

wet summer. our main flow peaks in mid to late may with a gradual tapering off such that by the end of june there is very little if any nectar available. this dearth can last until mid to late august or even longer if we have drought conditions. this results in a good month or more of cessation in brood rearing which puts a dent in mite rearing as well.

in 2017 we had regular rains all through summer and supers were filled during july. if there was a dearth it was very brief. i didn't do many inspections during the summer but i'm guessing we didn't have much of a brood break.

longer colder winter. this has been the longest and coldest winter that we have had since i started keeping bees. i think i've been lucky in the past and have had a few colonies that got very small make it through by having good enough weather with forage to start brooding not long after the solstice. not the case this winter.

better swarm prevention. i've mentioned in previous posts that i wouldn't be surprised if i started seeing more issues with varroa now that i am keeping most of my colonies from swarming. not swarming means not getting the reduction in mites that leave with the swarm as well as not getting the relative brood break associated with swarming.

domino effect at the outyard. the biggest percentage loss was at my outyard. for the very first time i had a mite collapse prior to cold weather setting in along with the associated rob out. lesson learned. i'll be installing robber screens to the hives located away from my home that can't be watched on a daily basis.

outside genetics. in 2016 i brought in and did a little grafting from 2 outside lines of tf bees and one caught feral swarm. it's possible i may have brought in more virulent mites and/or viruses along with them. percentage-wise these lines suffered more losses than my 'original' line did. 

only one of this year's losses was from that original line which also scores high in terms of not swarming and honey production. i'll graft hard from these this year.

pendulum swinging. with the small number of hives i have it's really hard to say if what i am seeing is nothing more than chance occurrence and what is to be expected. my average losses are still at or below what are reported in the usda stats and the bip survey.

my strategy going forward is to increase effort into propagating more nucs with from my best colonies keeping several on hand as 'spares'. i don't mind putting up with a reasonable amount of winnowing, but it's a real pain having to deal with a lot of empty equipment until splitting time. i'll also try to see if i can identify and deal with colonies at the end of the season not showing promise for making it through winter.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Autumn olive is invasive north of Tennessee. Our hot humid climate seems to be the limiting factor in spread here in the deep south.

SP, do you have any information on the age and condition of the queens in the colonies that went dead-out? My experience is that younger queens always fare better than older queens.


----------



## brockspringsfarm

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Sp, thank you for the encouragement. I agree with you that a brood break in summer and winter might be one of the keys of surviving colonies. Not only for the reduction in mite load but also I have found that quite a few of my losses occur in early spring due to starve outs caused by too high of brood production during the cold spells we typically have in Feb.

When I make splits this spring I will be taking part of those to a friends place about 6 miles north of me. I also have a friend about 10 miles east that has a place for hives as well. Plenty of people have offered a corner of there pastures for hives but round here I have to be careful where I put them. Army worms are a serious pest in the fall and many farmers spray for them. I haven't lost a noticeable amount of bees if only one farmer in the local area sprays but don't want to risk it if multiple farmers do. Most of my honey is made off of privet, clover, maples, and flowering weeds in clear cuts. 

Thanks gww for the link, their web site states that they are booked for 2018. They have Italians and look as if there doing it right. 

BlueRidgeBee, I will look up levies company and see what I can find out. I checked my hives last week during a warm spell, all are queenright, most have multiple frames of brood, two are dinky and gave them a frame of honey from a all but honey bound hive. 

Sp, I am going to try checker boarding them this year. I typically only swap boxes and split for swarm prevention but it cuts down on the honey production. On the splits that i make i am also going to try your one deep two med box configuration. I am a small framed lady and work my bees by my self most of the time; i think this will save my back in the future. 

The girls are bringing in green yellow pollen and the elms are about to bust open. We have had a harsh winter too so there is not as much Henbit as normal. Thanks again for the suggestions y'all, and good luck, Staci.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

dar, thanks for the clarification on autumn olives. (dar is a professional horticulturalist running a nursery for his day job).

with respect to the ages of the queens in the dead outs i didn't have them marked so i can't say with certainty. most colonies were kept from swarming but at the same time most colonies tend to supercede every year. (i need to get better about marking queens).


staci, we've only had a few scattered short days of tree pollens coming in here so far. i've not yet done my first inspections of the year but i would be very surprised to find more than just a small round or two of brood.

frugality with stores and the modulating of brood rearing up and down depending on the flows are traits that i observe with my bees. i believe those traits are an important part of their ability to survive and be productive while being managed off treatments.

with regard to checkerboarding i'm finding that a minimum of 3 and preferably 4 medium supers are what it takes here to consistently have success at swarm prevention. beyond those checkerboarded supers most hives will end up having a total of 5 or 6 supers over the single deep as the season progresses.

i have my hives on stands that puts the bottom board at about 6" above the ground. even with them set that low i have to use a stepping stool to add and remove supers above the 4th one. i do stretches and excercises to keep my trunk and back in shape, but dealing with full supers of honey in this way puts me at the limit of what i think i can do without risking back injury.


----------



## brockspringsfarm

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Sp, how do you store all of the extra supers with wax? Do you use moth crystals to keep wax moths out of them? I have read that if the frames are exposed to light the wax moths are not a problem but I haven't tried this. I bought a 12 x 20 storage building wired and insulated for a steal. I plan on making it my honey house with sheds off of it for woodworking and super storage ( getting everything out of my carport and kitchen). Maybe installing racks on the inside for frame storage. I really don't want to have to bomb the whole building with moth crystals nor do I want chemicals in the wax. 

It seems as if all of the bees that I have helped work around here, including mine, are not very thrifty in the winter time. Most people here still have the misconception the dark bees are bad and requeen them with Italians.

I wish we lived closer I would get on your Nuc waiting list. Most of my hives already have multiple frames of brood, and these are not partial frames. Its still in the high 20s to high 30s at night, 40s and 50s during the day. I typically swap boxes mid Feb and make heavy walk away splits in early march once drones are flying for swarm prevention. It has been much cooler this winter so I figure were a couple weeks behind.

I am making extra catch boxes and will put them where I know there are bee trees so that maybe I can get some better blood in my hives. It would be nice to buy one of yours and get a good start with the right bees, but I'm pretty sure my husband would crawfish if I mentioned going on a road trip for bees.

Thanks again for sharing your wisdom, Staci.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

brockspr..........
Earlier in this thread, squarepeg mentioned that he stored the supers on top of the hives.
Hope I got this right.
gww


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

gww is correct in that i have been keeping the empty supers on top of the hives. i do this primarily because i don't want them taking up space in my garage and i feel the bees can do a better job protecting them than i can.

i do have concerns that i am pushing the envelope to some degree. most of my single deeps are now wintering with 4 supers, and i have 3 double deeps with 3 supers each on them.

that's a lot of space to protect given that colony size at this time of year is typically 2 to 4 deep frames of bees. but so far no issues that i can tell.

i have a beetle blaster trap in every box and styrofoam insulation between the inner cover and telescoping top. there is about a super and a half of honey on average in each hive, mostly in the lower supers. 

i'll likely be doing the first inspections and checkerboarding the supers in about 2 - 3 weeks. 

i'm going to give some thought on how to store supers inside going forward. i don't want to use moth crystals. a huge walk in freezer would be nice but that's not likely to happen. i've also heard about folks storing frames outside in the open underneath a lean to but have no experience with that.

i'm going to research using some kind of mosquito netting. i'm thinking first a few nights in the freezer and then a good wrap of netting might do the trick, especially if there is netting a wax moth can't chew through.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Hi Squarepeg,

I don't have problems with bugs in my supers as long as I take most of the lined cell frames out. I'm toying with the idea of going over to queen excluders to keep the upper stories clean, and using CO2 or another gas to do the bugs in. This would involve plastic wrapping of the stacks, and an intermittent gas feed.

Mike


----------



## SansTX

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Squarepeg -

Thanks for this great thread. I’ve read it from start to current and have learned a lot. I checkerboarded my hives early this month based on what I learned here and am looking forward to seeing how that experiment helps with swarming this year. 

I’m curious to your use of of the single deep for your winter cluster and early brood. Do you see that size as integral to the way you manage or is it just economics or tradition? You mentioned pyramiding the brood nest up when needed - is that exchange only within your medium supers or do you also pull deep frames up and let them overhang into the deep box? 

I’m currently running all mediums for interchangeability but my winter cluster tends to be very small and I’m wondering if that would change with a larger frame size (other factors could be the tendencies of the bees I’m running or my mismanagement). I know hive box size can be a tedious debate, but I would like to know why you use that configuration.. 

Thanks again!

PS. If Walt’s "nectar management, principles and practices” manuscript surfaces, I’d like to read it. His articles here on beesource are on my list to read as well.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

mike, good to hear from you. your idea has merit and i'm adding to my list of considerations. many thanks.


sans, welcome to to the thread. it's gratifying to know that the information here is useful to others. i hope you'll keep us updated on how the checkerboarding works for you.

the use of a bottom deep was by tradition as that's what everyone else was using around here when i started. i don't see why you shouldn't see similar results running all mediums. are you using 8 or 10 frame boxes?

i don't pull up deep frames and let them hang into the deep. 

pyramiding typically involves moving one frame of brood up to the next super and flanking it with drawn comb on both sides, and flanking those frames of empty comb with frames containing beebread and/or open honey if available. 

i'll do this when i get 5 frames of brood in the super housing the top of the broodnest. i replace the one frame of brood i pyramid up with a frame of empty comb, (preferably one that has already had brood in it), and put that empty frame in the middle flanking it with 2 frames of brood on both sides.

there are some variations to that manipulation that i'll do depending on what i find going on exactly. the goal is to get the brood nest to occupy the middle five frames of 4 supers, after which the queen can be moved down to the now empty deep below an excluder, (or a couple of empty mediums instead).

with regard to walt's manuscript i am in communication with his family and we hope to have it available here on beesource on his 'point of view' page soon.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

we've had a few really nice days lately with the temps approaching 70 and enough break from the rain for the bees to tank up on the first tree pollens. most of what has come in is from what i believe to be winged elm, and the first red maples look like they may be opening up at the top.

i used the remaining honey brought in from dead outs to checkerboard 8 supers and gave them the 4 overwintered nucs i acquired from a friend a couple of weeks ago. i'm seeing pollen going in to all 20 hives and there's no robbing going on. i'm optimistic that all may be queenright and brooding.

my strongest colony (based on cluster roar and entrance activity) is a four winter survivor and it had a large orientation flight today which is the first one i've seen this year. that colony most likely started brooding several weeks ago. this one has been stubborn when it comes to swarm prevention these past 2 years making it necessary for me cull swarms cells twice both seasons in order to change its mind.

if it weren't for the swarm tendency i would consider grafting from that one because it's been a good survivor, an upper tier honey producer, and it consistently comes out of winter strong. instead i'll split the queen out as soon as drones are flying to start a new colony and let the parent requeen itself. perhaps future queen daughters won't be as stubborn.

i'll be doing my first inspections in another week or two along with reversals and checkerboarding as needed. i'm so glad that we are finally turning the corner here, it's been a long winter.


----------



## ABruce

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

I just cam in from plowing the driveway, We have another 8 inches arrived yesterday. About 30 inches on the level. And no warming till the first of March. Its nice to warm by the fire and read your journal and think we can not be far behind. 
Its been a long winter here too!


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Good wishes for a successful season for you 
Sibylle


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

The bees were collecting very large amounts of pollen yesterday. I need to do a quick check to see that all have enough honey to make it through to fruit bloom in 2 or 3 weeks.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

I've had some unusual colonies over the years, but I've never had a colony ready to swarm in February. Today I saw a colony that is ready to swarm. We have very heavy pollen and some nectar coming in. Callery pear, plum, tulip tree, and several other early spring blooming trees and shrubs are in full bloom.

I'l split the strong colony Monday if all goes well. Won't be able to get to it tomorrow and did not have time to do it today because I saw it too late in the evening.


----------



## clong

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> with regard to walt's manuscript i am in communication with his family and we hope to have it available here on beesource on his 'point of view' page soon.


I look forward to seeing Mr. Wright's manuscript. I've read everything he wrote - twice. Regarding checkerboarding, I did it Feb 15th based on "5 weeks before redbud bloom". I hope that wasn't too early. 
The maples are just budding now here in Virginia. His writings suggest checkerboarding can't be done too early, but I hate to double the hive volume during cold weather.

I too, have greatly profited from this thread. Thanks, Squarepeg, and so many others.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

dar, did you find that condition in one of your dadant deeps housing 2 colonies for the winter? 

i looked in a few of mine on friday and found the first rounds of brood capped that was surrounded by open brood which in turn was surrounded by eggs. no drone brood yet.

i was surprised to see how much new nectar was in those hives. apparently there is more coming in than they can use or process at this point. 


clong, many thanks for your kind words. 

so far i haven't seen any drawbacks from checkerboarding early or having extra hive volume during winter. please let us know how it goes for you.

i'm giving walt's family some space right now. they have indicated a willingness to provide a pdf of the manuscript to beesource. i'll reach back out to them in a couple of weeks if i don't hear anything.


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Our Bradford pears, saucer magnolia, and red buds have all burst into bloom over the last couple of days. Checking my hives for space, I've had to reverse several and add extra boxes (medium over double deeps). A few are ready to checker board. Ive been smelling nectar being cured (red maple and elm probably since they are blooming like crazy) for the last week. I haven't found any swarm prep yet but I won't be surprised if I do find it. Most hives have had five or more frames of brood and I've seen almost every hive having orientation flights, some having fairly large flights. Things are about to explode here if the weather stays warm.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

excellent report gary. i really appreciate the heads up, many thanks!


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

SP, I was up at Rainsville today. The drive up from Scottsboro to Tac-O-Bet was loaded with redbuds in full bloom.

The hive that is bursting at the seams will blow your mind. It is a DOUBLE square Dadant hive. I lifted the lid to take a peek and it was wall to wall bees. This hive was too big to squeeze down into a 2 queen colony so it overwintered in a full size hive with a box of honey/pollen on top. From the looks of it, that box of honey and pollen is now bees and more bees.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> The hive that is bursting at the seams will blow your mind. It is a DOUBLE square Dadant hive.


wow. that hive could have went to almonds! 

from which queen line is it?


----------



## brockspringsfarm

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Fusion and Gary, it looks like yall are a week or so ahead of me. My fruit trees, red buds and flowering quince are swelling but not bloomed yet. I have my first dandelion blooming in the yard. SP, I checked my bees yesterday and they are a little ahead of you. It looks like they are on their second round of brood with plenty of capped drone brood in all of the hives. I have one hive that needs to be requeened that have plenty of drones running around. Im hoping they will seamlessly supersede. She is small, didnt do well last year, and has spotty drone brood throughout her two and a half frames of brood. 

I was lucky and looks like all of mine are going to make it. I overwintered 3 single deeps, all of my hives have open screened bottom boards, and it got down to the single digits with highs in the teens for a few weeks this winter. I didnt know if the three were going to make it, but they are going to town. One of the overwintered singles is a candidate for producing queens. It was a split last year, produced 2 and a half supers of honey, overwintered in a deep, and already has 6 frames of capped brood. Its only flaw is in the end of January when I first looked at them this year it already had 3 full frames of brood, that means she was still laying during the cold snap. But I have not fed it besides putting maybe a half a pound of dry sugar on the top bars in January. It probably didnt need it because it still has 2 frames of capped honey, but i put dry sugar on all the singles in January just in case we had another round of bad weather. 

I supered all of my hives yesterday and put the queen in the bottom box in three of the double deep hives and swapped the rest of the double deeps (just an experiment after reading all of walts articles about swarming and nectar management, i typically swap boxes if shes in the top). I typically split heavy when the drones are flying to prevent swarming but it really reduces my honey crop. Since the single deeps overwintered so well, i am going to split after the honey harvest in June to see if i can get a better harvest but still double my hive count. 


By the way MannLake is having a really good sale starting on 1 March for any of those that needs anything.

Staci


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

staci, great report and it sounds like you and your bees are doing really well! please consider starting a thread and keeping us posted with your progress. i am especially interested in things like what percentage of your colonies are coming in with mite counts low enough as not to require treatment. 

walt's checkerboarding technique really made a difference for me with swarm prevention and improving honey yields. unlike walt however i find that i need to do a little opening of the broodnest and pyramiding during the build up period to keep upward expansion going until we turn the corner on swarm ambition.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

i caught a break this afternoon as the cold north wind calmed and conditions became favorable to go deep into a hive for the first time this season. this colony is the four winter survivor i mentioned in an earlier post that i felt was the strongest of the bunch based on loud cluster roar all winter and pace of foraging observed on the warm days.

it turns out this one is similar to one dar mentioned in his post as it would have made grade for almonds as well! 

the population is already approaching the equivalent of 20 deep frames of bees and has 6 - 7 frames of solid healthy brood. this is at least double the average size i expect to see at this time of year. there was just a little bit of drone brood getting capped and no sign whatsoever of swarm preps. 

the colony overwintered in a single deep on the bottom with 4 medium supers. it was left with 89 lbs. of honey, (about 40 lbs. more than usual because i got lazy at the end of last season), and there still about 45 - 50 lbs. in the hive.

the deep has been abandoned and the broodnest was occupying the middle frames of the first 3 supers. i opened up the broodnest with empty drawn comb and checkerboarded the 4th super. 

in another 2 - 3 weeks i'll go back and move the queen down to the deep below an excluder. since this one has been somewhat swarmy i'll go back in a week or two after that and split the queen out with a few frames of bees leaving the parent to requeen itself.


----------



## brockspringsfarm

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

SP,Im proud you finally got to get into your hives good. It has been a weird spring here too. February broke the record as the rainiest February ever. Ive got two questions for you.
How do you weigh your hives? 
I am experimenting with yours and walts method of nectar management in a few of my hives. What did you do before you had enough drawn comb to checkerboard with? Ive got some drawn comb but not enough, and i have no honey in med frames. I have single deeps, and double deep hives. IF you had no med frames of honey, only enough drawn empty frames for two boxes per hive, but plenty of undrawn foundation, and foundationless frames how would you manage the hives this time of year?

Thanks for sharing your wisdom with all of us, Staci


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



brockspringsfarm said:


> How do you weigh your hives?


here is a thread with photos. the digitial fish scale has been replaced with a veterinary spring scale.

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?275835-2-man-hive-scale




brockspringsfarm said:


> What did you do before you had enough drawn comb to checkerboard with?


i did a sort of 'cut down split' or 'managed swarm' whereby i split the out queen, a frame or two of brood, and a frame or two of stores. it took a few years to get up to 3 or 4 supers of drawn comb per hive.




brockspringsfarm said:


> Ive got some drawn comb but not enough, and i have no honey in med frames. I have single deeps, and double deep hives.


you can checkerboard the honey/comb in your upper deeps. 




brockspringsfarm said:


> IF you had no med frames of honey, only enough drawn empty frames for two boxes per hive, but plenty of undrawn foundation, and foundationless frames how would you manage the hives this time of year?


walt used to say "do the best you can with what you have". inspect them often, watch for crowding and backfilling, split when indicated, and with foundationless frames you might try this as a prevention method:

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?307836-Results-of-Opening-the-Sides-of-the-Broodnest




brockspringsfarm said:


> Thanks for sharing your wisdom with all of us, Staci


wisdom is probably an overstatement, but you are very welcome staci.


----------



## Eduardo Gomes

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

sp very marginal to the subject but I am sure you will not mind satisfying my curiosity: WW treated the hives against the varroa mite?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

yes eduardo. walt harvested all of his honey in bulk at mid summer and then applied treatments at that time. i am not sure what treatment he used.

he also fed syrup at the end of the season as needed in order to get his single deep and the shallow super above full of stores. 

his colonies were much larger coming out of winter than what i observe, which very likely contributed to how his stacks got so high, and may have to do with working with a different strain of bee.


----------



## Eduardo Gomes

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Thank's squarepeg. WW worked with ligustica?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



Eduardo Gomes said:


> WW worked with ligustica?


i'm not sure eduardo but it's a safe bet given the high levels brooding and productivity. there were many beekeepers in walt's area and he stocked his yards by catching their swarms.


----------



## Eduardo Gomes

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> he stocked his yards by catching their swarms.


and in the hands of WW these same swarms swarmed little… the impact of swarm/honey management.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



Eduardo Gomes said:


> and in the hands of WW these same swarms swarmed little… the impact of swarm/honey management.


So is the swarming urge genetic, a natural behavior of a vigorous hive or a result of management?


----------



## Cloverdale

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



SiWolKe said:


> So is the swarming urge genetic, a natural behavior of a vigorous hive or a result of management?


The swarming urge is genetic and can be managed to swarm but for what reason I don’t know. From what some have told me using swarm cells as new queens for a new colony will give you a swarmy colony, hence, I believe, WW management protocol makes sense because SP mentioned he stocked his yard with swarms he caught. Just my opinion on the last part.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



SiWolKe said:


> So is the swarming urge genetic, a natural behavior of a vigorous hive or a result of management?


all of the above i believe sibylle.



Cloverdale said:


> WW management protocol makes sense because SP mentioned he stocked his yard with swarms he caught.


yes, walt was trying to maximize honey production and got tired of seeing his potential crop fly away. he figured out that there wasn't a consistent or effective way to prevent swarming when running double deeps in our neck of the woods. this lead him to the method of using a single deep and checkerboarded supers.

i also used swarm catching as a way to increase my hive count in the first few seasons and i was experiencing virtually 100% swarming, (but luckily managed to catch most of those). the last few seasons i've gotten swarming down to about 15%. 

i'm not sure if the improvement is due to acquiring enough comb to properly checkerboard or if it has something to do with breeding from colonies that responded well to swarm management. perhaps it's a little of both.


----------



## Cloverdale

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

I went back to my notes; 2016 lost 11 hives to AFB, had 6 left which all overwintered to 2017. We had a great hive (Polski) which we made about 5 hives from with swarm cells. Caught 4 swarms plus made 3 hives with queens from Ferguson’s Apiary. Anyway, all my hives made with swarm cells swarmed last year except for the 4 caught swarms. I attribute that to using swarm cells for queens ( the Ferguson’s Buckfast all supersededin 2016, one absconded, left with 2) plus we had some wacky weather, a ton of rain and they kept backfilling the boxes. I started
checkerboarding too late. Of the 13 overwintering now I have 3 hives from 2016; one Buckfast, one top bar that I have never treated but had superseded, and a Min.Hyg. line. And no AFB has shown up since.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Cloverdale


> 2016 lost 11 hives to AFB, had 6 left which all overwintered to 2017.


Wow, what a hard knock. You are still at it so that shows your metal.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Cloverdale

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



gww said:


> Cloverdale
> 
> Wow, what a hard knock. You are still at it so that shows your metal.
> Cheers
> gww


Yes, all the equipment and killing my bees was horrible. I do unlimited broodnest so most hives had two deeps plus 4 + supers. The splits were little, one deep & medium. Plus I had just bought Buckfast queens and had to put them in a friends yard. BUT, out here in NY we have a non-profit program called NY Bee Wellness, which will have a workshop once a year in different parts of the State for learning and passing on your knowledge. That year we had a workshop at Cornell and it was on AFB with Randy Oliver, Megan Milbrath, Al Avitable and others. It was great; Pat Bono is the one who started this, who is a Master Beekeeper, and a very nice lady.


----------



## clong

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Squarepeg,

Here's what I'm seeing with checkerboarding so far:

This is my third winter, and the first with hives surviving beyond January. So far, two of four hives have survived. Both were checkerboarded with two medium 8-frames boxes containing alternating comb/honey frames aligned vertically. I guess they are chimneyed, instead of checkerboarded. This was on Feb 15th. 

The first hive, "Lick Run", had a big orientation flight on Feb 18th. The weight of the hive has declined from 130lbs to 123lbs over the last 7 days. It has 2-3 times the traffic of the second hive, "Elijah". Elijah had a big orientation flight on March 3rd. I suspect that Elijah is 3 weeks behind Lick Run. I've been looking into the top of each hive 2-4 times/week. I can see 12-40 bees in the top of the hive, but the cluster is still down there somewhere. I have avoided opening the hive because I understood that one should not open the broodnest with Walt Wright's CB/NM method. Is that correct?

On a warmer 60+ F day, should I tip all of the boxes and look for the cluster and swarm cells on the undersides? Also when should I add honey supers? Do I wait until I start seeing hundreds of bee in the top checkerboarded box?

Thanks.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

clong, how many 8 frame mediums do you have below the 2 checkerboarded supers and where is the top of the broodnest in that stack? 

are you using 7 or 8 frames in each box?


----------



## clong

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

There are 2 8-frame mediums below the checkerboarded boxes. All boxes have 8 frames each. Before adding the 2 boxes, I believe the cluster extended a little bit into the lower box. The cluster extended to the top of the frames. Both hives had bees in 4-5 seams. About 5" diameter cluster when 20 F.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

perfect. one other question, are using using foundation or foundationless frames?

i'll get back with a reply when i get home from work this evening.


----------



## clong

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Squarepeg,

All foundationless.


----------



## clong

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Squarepeg,

All foundationless.

I just took a look at Lick Run. Looking down in between the frames, there appears to be several hundred bees spread throughout the top box.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

i'm getting the picture clong. 

i definitely agree with what you've done so far, and i think you'll find that your 'chimneyed' supers are going to make it very easy for the bees to expand their broodnest upward. :thumbsup:

i've been thinking about answers to your questions above, but i need to know what your goals are for this year with your 2 colonies,

i.e. do you want to split them and make increase back up to 4 or more colonies, are you planning to harvest honey and if yes, are you going to try extracting vs. crush and strain vs. comb honey, and how do you feel about working a hive if it gets up to say 8 to 10 supers high?


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

clong
Are you using drawn comb in all your checkerboarding or do you have some empty foundationless in there anywhere? Just curious.
Cheers
gww


----------



## clong

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

The goal this year is to make gallons of tulip poplar honey.  The priority will be to make honey to pay for all the startup costs over the last couple years.

For increase, my thoughts are to split out the queen in each hive in April or May, along with resources. I'll let them make their own replacement queens. Any other increase will have to come from captured swarms. Incidentally, both of the survivors this year are captured swarms.

I have an extractor, and I have two of those wonderful honey-on-tap things - Flowhives. I plan to get a stack of pancakes as tall as the hive, and drizzle honey all over them.
Seriously, I am comfortable with tall hives. I might try making some comb honey as well.


----------



## clong

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

gww,

All drawn comb. I wonder if I should put a couple of empty frames along the edges to allow the bees to make drone comb? Or, are they just jamming it in between the frames somewhere?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

perfect. here are my thoughts clong:



clong said:


> I can see 12-40 bees in the top of the hive, but the cluster is still down there somewhere. I have avoided opening the hive because I understood that one should not open the broodnest with Walt Wright's CB/NM method. Is that correct?


yes and no. opening the hive and opening the broodnest are two different things. you'll definitely need to dig into your hives and pull frames to know what's going on. looking down from the top doesn't really tell you much at all and by the time you are able to see swarm cells from the undersides it's way too late to do anything about it.

opening up the broodnest means inserting an empty frame (either drawn comb or foundationless) in between 2 frames of brood. walt believed doing that was disruptive to the colony, set them back, and was counterproductive to maximizing honey production. i find that without combining a little opening of the broodnest (with drawn comb in my case) i don't have as effective swarm prevention and that too can be counterproductive to honey production.

bottom line: you'll need to pull frames to see what's going on. walt did a lot of that and that's how he figured all this stuff out. he was keen on putting the broodnest back the way he found it. i have had better luck with moving things around a bit.



clong said:


> when should I add honey supers?


by pulling frames you will be able to tell where the top of the working level is. by now you should find that there is brood in what was empty comb in the first checkerboarded super and they should be using the honey on the adjacent frames to feed that brood.

you don't have to worry about adding another box until the working level gets up into your second checkerboarded super.

do you have any more drawn comb? if not i have some ideas on how to use foundationless frames to facilitate growth and thwart swarm ambition.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Clong
Squarepeg answered the question with his saying to put some in the brood nest every so often. I was just worried if you were mixing drawn empty comb and foundationless that you might end up with a mess. If you have that much drawn comb to checker board two boxes, you have already been at this a little longer then me and it would proby be me asking you questions. I would listen to squarepeg though.
Cheers
gww
Ps I had to give my exta comb from what I extracted to other hives so they could hold enough stores to make winter. I am comb starved.


----------



## clong

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Squarepeg,

I believe I have 6 frames of comb, I'll have to check. The rest of the drawn comb is blackish, and reserved for traps.

I'll plan on going in on the next warm snap. Friday will be 52F and sunny. Before and after that, it looks like < 50F and cloudy. Is 52F warm enough for a quick look?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



clong said:


> I believe I have 6 frames of comb, I'll have to check. The rest of the drawn comb is blackish, and reserved for traps.


that blackish comb is what i like best for opening up the broodnest with, but it's also good for traps that's for sure. 

for traps i always spray bt aizawai on the comb to keep wax moths from destroying it.

for now we'll look to use those frames of empty comb all the way to one side of your checkerboarded supers to move in toward the middle when the time comes. that should get us by until it gets warm enough for your bees to start drawing new comb on foundationless frames.

it's likely you'll be making your splits before the colonies go into swarm mode anyway.



clong said:


> I'll plan on going in on the next warm snap. Friday will be 52F and sunny. Before and after that, it looks like < 50F and cloudy. Is 52F warm enough for a quick look?


it's hard to be quick when you are looking through several frames in several boxes for polished cells, eggs, new larvae, ect. i like it to be more like 60 and without a cool wind. you are set up really good for the time being, no rush.


----------



## clong

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



gww said:


> Ps I had to give my exta comb from what I extracted to other hives so they could hold enough stores to make winter. I am comb starved.


gww,

It sounds like you have good problems for the time being. Too many bees, and too little available comb. I've had 7 hives perish over the last two seasons, so I have available comb.


----------



## clong

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> it's hard to be quick when you are looking through several frames in several boxes for polished cells, eggs, new larvae, ect. i like it to be more like 60 and without a cool wind. you are set up really good for the time being, no rush.


Ok. It looks like the next warm-up will be mid-March. I'll wait until then.

Thanks for the guidance.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

one of the frequent questions that comes up with regard to checkerboarding is when is the appropriate time to do it. walt always tried to find a decent weather day in late february or so. since my location is not far from his that turns out to be about right for me too.

more important than the calandar date is what is going on inside the hive. it particular it's good to shoot for when the bees are getting their first rounds of brood off. walt's feeling was that it's better to checkerboard too early rather than too late.

the synching of nice weather with my days home from the day job have not been working out very well this year. the cold and rain this weekend are again preventing me from getting into the remaining 7 hives for their first pre-spring inspections and checkerboarding.

on the other hand i have 6 hives that were nucs transferred into full size hives with checkerboarded supers in december and january. then there are 7 hives were checkerboarded at the usual time in late february and early march.

so i'll have hives roughly a third that were checkerboarded early, a third that were done about the usual time, and and a third that were done late. it will be interesting to see if what differences if any develop between them.


----------



## Jeff L

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> that blackish comb is what i like best for opening up the broodnest with, but it's also good for traps that's for sure.
> 
> for traps i always spray bt aizawai on the comb to keep wax moths from destroying it.


Squarepeg, what is that you are spraying on the comb? Is there any need to clean the comb before adding it back to a hive?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

some info on bt here:

http://www.7springsfarm.com/bt-agree-wg-bacillus-thuringiensis-var-aizawai-5-lb-bag/

(not specifically approved for use on bee comb, no cleaning prior to bees taking charge of comb in swarm traps)


----------



## clong

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> for now we'll look to use those frames of empty comb all the way to one side of your checkerboarded supers to move in toward the middle when the time comes. that should get us by until it gets warm enough for your bees to start drawing new comb on foundationless frames.
> 
> ...
> 
> it's hard to be quick when you are looking through several frames in several boxes for polished cells, eggs, new larvae, ect. i like it to be more like 60 and without a cool wind. you are set up really good for the time being, no rush.



Squarepeg,

By the time I get home today, it will probably be 58 degrees, and likely somewhat windy. I would like to check my checkerboarded hives, but I'm not sure how thorough an inspection I can do today. 

Is it more important to get a good early peek into the broodnest in marginal conditions, or to wait another 10 days until the Spring warm up really commences? (I hope) This year it seems, winter won't let go.


----------



## clong

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

I compromised. It was 60F when I started, but temp dropped fast. I did a shorter inspection just to see where the broodnest was in each hive. I checked two or three frames in each box. Both hives had no brood in the bottom box.

As a reminder, each hive wintered in two boxes. Two checkerboarded boxes were added to each hive, for a total of four.

Hive #1: About 5-6 seams of bees in boxes 1-3. It had little closed brood, but large numbers of bees. From the appearance of the closed brood remaining, I would guess these frames were mostly full of brood that has already hatched. I didn't see any larvae. I'm not sure about eggs. I forgot to look for drones. I wonder if the cold weather has slowed down the queen's laying. The queen was up in the first checkerboarded box (box #3) along with closed brood. The box was almost completely empty of honey. Checkerboarded box #2 still had 2-3 frames worth. There is a small winter patty on top.

Hive #2: This one had 3-4 seams of bees in boxes 1-3. Quite a bit of closed brood. 2-4 frames of brood in boxes 2 & 3. The queen had laid quite a bit in the 1st checkerboarded box, but was back down in box #2. In this hive I saw closed drone brood and drones. I didn't notice any larvae, although I did find new eggs. I don't have a patty in this one right now.

I have two questions:

Would it be unusual to find a lot of closed brood, but no larval stage brood?
It looks like the next 7 days are highs from 43-52 F until March 24th. Should I put a 1/2 winter patty on hive #2?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

clong, i'm in pretty much the same boat in terms of the weather keeping me from going deep into the hives. this weekend is looking promising for me to get my remaining 7 hives checkerboarded.

i don't think it's too surprising that you didn't find much open brood today. the lack of good flying weather has put a dent in fresh pollen coming in and that's going to slow brooding down a bit.

i don't have very much experience with patties so i can't offer much there. i prefer to let the colonies adjust what they do based on the weather and field conditions. my guess is that it probably wouldn't hurt but it probably isn't necessary.

after your weather moderates and that capped brood has a chance to emerge consider pyramiding a frame of brood up to your 4th supers, and insert a frame or two of empty comb in the middle sections of the 2nd and 3rd supers.

shoot for having the middle 6 frames in supers 2 - 4 having brood in them and the outer 2 frames on both sides having stores. this will give you the equivalent of 12 deep frames for brood.

it wouldn't hurt to rotate your empty bottom supers up to the top. depending on where that gets you over the next month or so you can continue to pyramid brood up to the new empty 4th super, or if new white wax starts showing up that 4th super will become a honey super and you can start adding foundation supers above it.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

I got all colonies inspected today except the Buckfast cross colony here at my house. Three colonies need some feed. They don't have enough to build up with. One colony was very strong with hundreds of mature drones and 12 Dadant frames of brood. I split them with 5 frames of brood in the split plus shook off the bees from 3 more frames.

I found one queenless colony. I gave them a frame of young brood from one of the best colonies. With plenty of drones available, they should be able to raise a queen.

SP, the exceptionally strong colony from 3 weeks ago was descended from one of the BWeaver queens. Interestingly, they are very gentle and easily worked. I have 3 or 4 other colonies with similar genetics that are hotter than I like.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

excellent report dar. 

i've got a couple exceptionally strong ones like that too along with a couple that are so small they can't afford to send out many foragers. 

one of those strong ones was actually pulling a little new wax after those 70 degree days we had a couple of weeks ago.

i'm hoping to get into most of mine this weekend and will probably take the opportunity to shake some extra nurse bees into the tiny ones. i've got a lot of extra honey out there that i can move from the haves to the have nots as needed.

there should be plenty of field nectar available if the weather will allow for foraging. glad to hear about the drones. i've got at least one colony that is superceding their queen at this time.


----------



## JoshuaW

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

SP,

Our weather here has been so unsettled and chilly (even with the maples in full bloom) that I really don't know if adding the first super would be a great idea until the first round or two of brood come off to stabilize the colony more.

Any thoughts on adding space in chilly, iffy weather??


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

hi josh.

are you talking about adding a super of drawn comb or a super of foundation?


----------



## JoshuaW

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Drawn comb.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



JoshuaW said:


> Drawn comb.


hi josh, i just now saw your post.

i've been bringing my colonies through the past few winters with 1 or 2 supers of empty drawn comb on top with no obvious problems. 

i do have some insulation between the inner cover and telescoping top cover plus a small vent cut into the front and back of the inner cover.

if you have bees in your uppermost box at this time covering half or more of the frames i would definitely consider adding a super of drawn comb.

i would avoid placing a super of foundation at this time because we are not seeing any new comb getting drawn yet and a super of foundation would likely get ignored, thereby giving the beetles a place to hang out unguarded.


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

SP: Ihave a friend in Columbus, MS who has had two hives swarm, one each of the last two Saturday's. Checking my records, the swarms I've caught the last three years were on either 02 or 04 April. Swarm season is here.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

many thanks for that gary. that should put us a couple of weeks away here. 

i made up my traps yesterday and placed one of them. 

no pre-swarm activities seen in my hives as of yet.

however the weather has not been conducive for working the hives on my days home from the day job and i am overdue getting into a few of them.

the tulip poplars here are just now sprouting leaves and our first swarms usually issue just prior to the poplar bloom.

interestingly enough easter sunday has coincided with the onset of swarming for several of the preceding years.


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

The yellow poplar have budded out here and the apple trees are blooming. Plums and peaches were earlier. We've got a few adult drones already and the amount of drone brood is increasing. I haven't seen any queen cups or queen cells but, like you the weather hasn't cooperated and I haven't gotten into all of my hives for about two weeks. The most recent inspections, last week, didn't show any swarm preparations.


----------



## clong

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Here in Central VA, the trees have been in stasis the last couple weeks. Many of the red buds in the suburbs are half-bloomed, awaiting the warm up. Last night was 27 F. On the brighter side, my transplanted WV bees are flying heavily even at 48 F. Also, my daughter spotted a bee in the middle of the yard, loaded with bright red pollen. I had never seen that before. After watching the hives, dozens of bees were spotting hauling in the red stuff. We think that it is henbit, or purple deadnettle.


----------



## Amibusiness

Good morning everyone. Happy spring from the north.... Our snow is almost all melted. Maple sugaring is almost finished. Skunk cabbage pollen was coming in on Monday (5 days ago). Early spring bulbs (scila, crocus) are beginning to bloom. Daffodil buds are just visible. Spring is in the air. Squarepeg, I'm wondering when your dandelions bloomed this year and when they normally bloom? Thanks


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

good morning amibusiness! 

dandelions bloom to some degree all through the winter here especially when we happen to get a temporary warming, but they bloom much more during the month of march and are starting to wane now.

i'm finally getting a good weather day for working the hives that is coinciding with being home from the day job.

hope to have an update for the thread soon.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

update:

this spring has been a challenging one in terms of the weather not cooperating. there have been very few hive workable days corresponding to my days home from the day job. 

fortunately the cooler and wetter weather has also prevented my colonies from getting ahead of my swarm management. as of last weekend i'm finding most are still in brood expansion mode and not showing any pre-swarm indications such as backfilling.

i didn't have any microclusters coming out of winter this year. i have two colonies that superceded their queen just as the build up was getting underway and they are small enough as to require a few frames of additional brood to get up to production strength in time for our main spring flow.

there were two others that superceded but had developed nice size prior to doing so and they should be fine as is with no worries about them swarming.

i had 3 hives that were caught swarms last year that went through winter as double deeps with a couple of medium supers. those got split in half back to singles last weekend by moving the old queen out and letting the parent hive make a new queen.

i've pushed the queen down to the empty deep below an excluder in two hives so far. queen cells were harvested from the supers of the first one last week to start two medium nucs. the other one will be ready to do the same with over the next few days, and i've got 2 or 3 more that should be ready to move the queen down over the next week or two.

so after starting the season with 19 overwintered colonies, the current count is 23 production hives and 2 nucs. swarm traps are set as well as we should be just around the corner from swarm season.

it looks like the extra honey left on the hives last fall will have to get harvested in order to make room for the new. i've got a few supers worth staged at the top of the hives that i'll likely be bringing in to extract soon.

i left one hive in a double deep configuration to use with a cloake board. i'm going to try to get in a little grafting in along the way as well.


----------



## tpope

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

It must really suck to be extracting now... NOT! Good to see you using medium nucs. Sometimes ya gotta dance with the girl ya brung. 
Queen cells are a bit difficult to remove from plastic foundation but when you can move the whole frame they sure are a quick start to a nuc. Buttt, I am beginning to appreciate prying a nice queen cell off of a bar from my grafting efforts.

I am seeing that the unsettled weather has not been causing any build up problems that might lead to swarming here too. I had to work in the rain this afternoon to move queen cells.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

many thanks t. 

i think i'm going to like harvesting cells from the supers like that. i don't believe splitting out a few medium frames of bees is going to make much of a dent in the production potential for the donor hive.

it's gratifying to hear that you have queen mothers from a couple of these lines worthy of getting grafts from. good luck with the mating!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

good morning folks (or good evening depending in which hemisphere your reside) 

yesterday was the warmest day we've had this spring with temps reaching about 80f. but as is typical when that happens this time of year severe weather follows and that is our forecast for today.

i mentioned finding 4 early supercedures in recent weeks. 3 out of the 4 now have laying queens. the 4th has a queen, but she isn't laying and is malformed. the joint between her thorax and her abdomen looks like a narrow black thread, very strange. i gave that colony a frame of eggs to try again.

my intention was to set up my cloake board hive yesterday and proceed with the first round of grafts next week. unfortunately i found that colony superceding their queen and i didn't want any part of that going on in the cell builder. 

the old queen in that hive was still laying a nice pattern and there were almost 10 frames of brood. i split out the old queen with 4 - 5 frames of mostly capped brood while leaving the supercedure cells and open brood.

my plan b for grafts is to assess the production potential of all hives over the next week or two and identify one not likely to produce a big honey crop. i'll steal some frames of capped brood from the strongest and put together another double deep with the cloake board.

i brought in 2 supers of last year's capped honey that didn't get used over the winter and was getting in the way of new nectar storage. 

my swarm traps have been out for a couple of weeks now and i've not seen any scouts as of yet. likewise there are no signs of pre-swarm activity, (i.e. backfilling), in any of my hives. i'm seeing a little new wax here and there but it's the same color as the existing was and not the new white variety.

yesterday's split filled the only remaining empty slot on my production stands bringing that count to 24. i have a couple of medium nucs that i'll be checking for mated queens next weekend.


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Did I see any mention of what your goals were this year?

Any plans to sell nucs and queens?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> 2015 goals: i seek to maximize the profitability of the operation to the extent possible while maintaining the colonies off treatments and avoiding artificial feeds. my specific goals this year involve having every colony 'earning its keep' by providing harvestable honey and/or nucs. i would like to average one nuc sale and 100 lbs of honey sold for every hive that survives winter, and then end up with around 20 established colonies and a handful of nucs going into next winter.


these were the goals i laid out in the opening post of this thread lharder, and the goals remain pretty much the same.

i've not yet reached those goals but have been getting successively closer with each passing season since 2015, especially in the honey production department.

the nuc production goal was foiled in '16 and '17 by time constraints brought on by having a demanding day job, family commitments, uncooperating weather, ect. 

i've made some adjustments and this year is looking much better with respect to nuc production. selling loose queens will have to wait until my retirement from the day job which is set for little less than two years from now.

buried in the thread somewhere is another goal i set of wanting to see income of $500 per overwintered hive. that goal has actually been exceeded and it looks like $750 is a more reasonable number assumming one nuc can be produced and sold per overwintered hive.


----------



## Cloverdale

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Square peg said: ” I mentioned finding 4 early supercedures in recent weeks. 3 out of the 4 now have laying queens. the 4th has a queen, but she isn't laying and is malformed. the joint between her thorax and her abdomen looks like a narrow black thread, very strange. i gave that colony a frame of eggs to try again.”

I found bees like that in a barn cutout a few years ago; I think it was caused by varroa, similarly like deformed wings. Deb


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

that's what i was thinking deb; some kind of virus, a genetic defect, perhaps a partial sting from a competing virgin, ect.

i mentioned it to the supplier i got some of my first bees from and he said he saw a queen like that several years ago. very weird looking.

when i found this queen she was trying to sting a worker, and that worker was trying to lay an egg in a cell. just after that another worker shared some food with the deformed queen.


----------



## Cloverdale

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

I saw this in drone bees and some workers if I remember correctly. At that time it was my first cutout and HOPED the queen was sucked into the bee vac box  I shake my head now at some of the ridiculous things I did when I started beekeeping.


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> buried in the thread somewhere is another goal i set of wanting to see income of $500 per overwintered hive. that goal has actually been exceeded and it looks like $750 is a more reasonable number assumming one nuc can be produced and sold per overwintered hive.


I first thought a goal of 750/hive was pushing it a bit. I am seeing no where near those numbers. But I'm also in rapid expansion mode and making mistakes so I am creating inefficiencies on my part and the part of the bees. But looking at the strength of my colonies this year makes me a bit more optimistic re potential. In this sense my efforts in weeding out the laggards seems to have paid off. I still have expansion plans in the works as I work towards making my little nexus of tf bees. But I can see how when I have enough sites, enough comb and improved bees through selection, that there would be enough stability to have a productive apiary. We'll see once my apiary matures whether I can have mortality rates similar to yours. Its trending in the right direction.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



lharder said:


> We'll see once my apiary matures whether I can have mortality rates similar to yours. Its trending in the right direction.


I too am some way off that. I suspect a lot of it is plain skill! Also willingness to feed to advantage. But I know too that expanding means comb building (at least it does for me), and that eats energy. I'm aiming at more efficiency this year

Mike UK


----------



## Jadeguppy

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Squarepeg, it sounds like the weather is causing issues all over. We had a bad thunder storm Saturday night and I found one of my hives in two parts, upside-down. Of course, that was when I was planning to try to pull two frames for a nuc. I've been running into weather and when I'm home issues too.

Question: How many locations do you currently have the 23 hive at?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

homeyard: 12
outyard: 9
overflow yard: 3
room for mating nucs at homeyard and outyard


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

The yellow polar and privet have started blooming here. One of my hives that had no queen cells 7 days ago swarmed today. After hiving the swarm I checked the hive. They had made 8 queen cells, capped 6 of them, in the 7 days since I last checked them. The first swarm this year was three weeks later than last year.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

many thanks for the report gary. 

i had a swarm move into a trap at my outyard on saturday and brought it home at sundown yesterday.

i'm going to peak in when i get home this evening and slip in a frame with some honey on it because all of this rain has limited foraging.

it sounds like a pretty small one in there and i'm thinking it may be one of those 'supercedure swarms' where the old queen leaves with a small number of loyal followers.

i'll know more after i take a look.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

so the swarm did turn out to be pretty small, probably just over a deep frame of bees.

no queen, no eggs.

i'm guessing it left the parent colony with an old superceded queen that kicked the bucket before she could lay any eggs in the trap. 

another possibility is they left with a virgin queen that got lost on her mating flight.

luckily i had a new queen just coming into lay in a five frame medium mating nuc that was a little short on bees so i newspaper combined the small swarm with them.


----------



## Jadeguppy

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Nice save. How many new hives/nucs have you made this year?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



Jadeguppy said:


> Nice save. How many new hives/nucs have you made this year?


thanks jg. 

i had several caught swarms from last year in double deeps that were planned for splits last year but that never happened and so they got split in half this year. 

i also had 2 colonies that built up super strong very early in the season and i decided to artificially swarm them as well.

then i've made up some 5 frame medium nucs with queen cells that were made in the supers after i moved the queen down to the deep below an excluder.

so i guess if you add those up i have 10 new colonies, but it hasn't been quite long enough to verify successful queen mating in all of them yet.

i moved the queen down into the deeps on 4 more hives this past weekend and expect to harvest cells from them this coming weekend, hopefully enough to make up 10 more nucs.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Square
How many brood combs do you use to start a five frame medium nuc with? What is your expectation of comb to be drawn out by them by winter if you don't sell them?
Thanks 
gww


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

sometimes it's just the brood on the frame that has the queen cell on it unless it's light on brood and then i'll add a second frame of mostly capped brood.

i am using the five frame mediums primarily as mating nucs. 

they will be used as is to combine with established hives that fail at requeening themselves or sold to someone who wants a medium nuc for growing into a full sized hive.

any surplus five frame medium nucs that i keep will get a 5 frame deep box added underneath the medium when more room is needed. 

the next step would be to replace the medium box with another 5 frame deep box and make it a 5 over 5 deep.

whatever nucs i don't sell will be on hand to transfer to a full sized hive (single deep with 3 or 4 medium supers) over the course of winter in the case of a dead out.

that's the plan anyway. time constraints have been getting in the way these past few seasons with respect to getting nucs made. so far so good this year though.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Square
Thanks. I am running all medium equiptment myself. I was just trying to guage how many brood frames I might get by with and still have the split grow into something big enough to winter here. I am thinking if I did it early and in ten frame medium equiptment, I might get by with 4 medium brood frames and a queen cell but that might be pushing it on the small side. Tomorrow is supposed to be 68 out and I will probly take another look. Dandilion full bloom and some tree bloom.

My hives seemed light stores wise and I don't know how fast it is going to break lose but saw some swarms on the Missouri thread and so figure I am pushing it to the edge. I am pretty sure four mediums and a laying queen would probly do it compared to some of the tiny swarms I caught that made it.

Thanks for the answer
gww


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

gww, I work with medium 5 frame nucs. I start with 2 frames of brood and a frame of honey. By the time a queen is mated, I feel the medium box is too small, they have already made a frame or 2 of comb, and they are bearding on the outside of the box in the heat. To avoid absconding I add an empty box underneath them and they seem much happier. Early nucs can for sure fill 3 5 frame medium boxes even when I am stealing frames of brood for later nucs. I am going to a system of 6 frame nucs for the early ones. 2 of them side by side can be supered with a dadant sized box with excluders. They are in 2 6 frame boxes. I make sure they have 2 empty frames in each of those boxes. Removing one for either other nucs, or throwing one into the dadant super. They are really good comb factories. Any honey in the brood nest gets removed and put into the super. I think this will result in even a honey crop some years.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

lharder
Thanks for the post. I built a bunch of five frame medium nucs but hate them. I am using oak and they seem top heavy when I stack them and so I have just been doing everything I do in ten frame equiptment. It probibly slows them down due to it being harder to control heat and cooling. I was looking for what was min amount of brood to have a chance for a nuc to build up to having a chance of wintering. I was able to winter a single medium hive last year that did have all the combs drawn in it. You post was helpful.
Thanks
gww


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

1 - 2 frames of brood is what you end up with with five frames. 

if produced at the right time (just before the main flow) i believe a five frame medium nuc could grow to overwintering size given the opportunity and conditions to support that.

i made up 10 five frame medium nuc boxes last winter. all ten currently have new queens processing in them. 

over the past 3 weekends i've harvested 2 or 3 nucs with cells per hive from 4 different hives.

i'm culling about half of the queen cells and leaving the best looking ones, usually 2 or 3 cells per nuc.

mating success has been good so far this year with the bigger splits and supercedures, we'll see how we end up with these.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Square...


> over the past 3 weekends i've harvested 2 or 3 nucs with cells per hive from 4 different hives.


If one of my hives decides to make swarm cells wether I like it or not, this was sorta the plan I was thinking on. If they all decide they want to swarm at the same time, I will just make bigger splits and try and seperate the age groups or pull out the double screen board.
Cheers
gww


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



gww said:


> lharder
> Thanks for the post. I built a bunch of five frame medium nucs but hate them. I am using oak and they seem top heavy when I stack them and so I have just been doing everything I do in ten frame equiptment. It probibly slows them down due to it being harder to control heat and cooling. I was looking for what was min amount of brood to have a chance for a nuc to build up to having a chance of wintering. I was able to winter a single medium hive last year that did have all the combs drawn in it. You post was helpful.
> Thanks
> gww


I use a side by side system like m palmer. It adds lots of stability to the system. It does contribute to overwintering success. You can see that broodnest on both sides sharing heat with each other and probably contributes to build up. I hear ya about single 5 framers by themselves. My 6 framers are already much better. In my zone 6, 10 medium frames seems enough to overwinter.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

lharder
I think I am going to just keep using the ten frames as single stand alone rather then come up with another system, at least till I push it to where I start having failures. I have watched some good vidios on using the split ten framers. I am not that ambitious yet and am just going to try and learn a little more about just keeping bees till I am more comfortable in trying more things. One thing about everything being exactly the same (equiptment wise) if I don't confuse myself and I am pretty easy to confuse. It all looks really easy till I try and do it. Thats why I have all those 5 frame nucs that I have decided I don't like.

Thanks for the advice and thank you squarepeg for letting me have your thread for a bit. I learn on it and thank you for keeping up with it and answering my questions and I will leave it alone for now till you write the next interesting thing that makes me want to know more.
Thanks
gww


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



lharder said:


> I use a side by side system like m palmer. It adds lots of stability to the system. It does contribute to overwintering success. You can see that broodnest on both sides sharing heat with each other and probably contributes to build up. I hear ya about single 5 framers by themselves. My 6 framers are already much better. In my zone 6, 10 medium frames seems enough to overwinter.


I think I'm going to try that route this year. Do you try to seal between the nucs to stop the draft carrying the heat away? 

On the splitting side I've been using the Simms method - anyone else come across that?

Mike (UK)


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

I've been insulating the nucs as a group of 2 during the winter so no need to seal. I imagine a seam of tape may work. During the spring and fall, putting single lid on them to keep the rain off helps as well. Maybe important in your climate.

This winter is the first I've used the 6 frame nuc box with 2 of them the footprint of a square dadant. I think the overwintering is superior to my 5 frame setup so far and am real happy with it. I use a wide divided bottom board with them.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

late april sunrise on the homeyard:









at this file size the nuc stands are barely on the other side of the pond.

caught up for the first time this season. calling it a day of rest today.


----------



## tpope

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Are your Autumn Olives blooming? Privet has not started here yet. Poplar is also late this year.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

the autumn olive has been finished for a week or two but they really put out this year and fueled a robust build up despite the weather being marginal.

all but a couple of the big hives in the picture would have needed 6 - 7 supers had i not pruned some splits out of them.

this way most shouldn't end up with more than 4 supers with a few maybe having 5 on them at once.


----------



## tpope

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

I figured that mine were still too young to bloom this year. Time to start the fertilizer.

I hear you about the need to super or remove some brood and food for splits. I have been contemplating this myself today. I am going to give some drawn deep comb to a couple of strong hives to have them fill me some feeding frames.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

one of the benefits of pushing the queen down below an excluder is that it lets you rotate supers full of empty comb down to just above the excluder. i've done that on a couple so far and will continue as needed as they fill up the supers on the main flow.

that, and it's nice to have the queen isolated and making lots of brood on deep frames for splits. i checked one yesterday that had the queen moved down on april 1. there were nine almost full frames of brood with a whole lot of it capped.

for that one i removed the feed frame on the end, a frame full of capped brood and bees, and a shake or two of nurse bees to make up a nuc receiving a cell from another hive.

i replaced those two frames with 2 frames of empty brood comb placed on either side of the middle of the deep. in a few days that deep will be literally wall to wall brood.

i'll need to harvest more brood from that deep in the next couple of weeks to more splits with or possibly bee bomb another colony with to make it productive this year.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Thanks for the pict, wonderful landscape!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

thank you sibylle. i'm blessed to be able to keep bees in such a location. the forage is very diverse and abundant.

i'm not surprised the feral population survived and recovered nicely from the varroa invasion here. we have perfect weather for both winter and summer brood breaks along with a relatively short and mild winter.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Yup, working in that location will certainly be good for the mind!


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

it's good medicine alright. many thanks ot.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

We have an exceptionally strong blackberry flow on right now. I drove through Birmingham earlier today and saw lots of Chinese privet in full bloom. This usually means a week from now we will have full bloom in North Alabama. These flows are 2 weeks later than normal, a result of the colder than normal spring.

I've gone through all colonies over the last week and am adding supers daily.


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## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

I might of missed it, but how did you come out of spring FP? 

I just got an email from a Quebec bee equipment supplier. They are bringing in some stuff from France and were wondering if I wanted to order dadant excluders. This from a brief conversation. Very impressive. I looked at the supplier (in French) and they listed 10 frame dadant and 12 frame dadant excluders, and langstroff as well. Whats the difference between a 10 frame dadant and and langstroff?


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Dadant hives are commonly available in 8, 10, 11, and 12 frame versions. The 12 frame hive is square and aka the Brother Adam hive. The others are rectangular with the width reduced appropriately, generally 1.5 inches less width for each frame. The standard dimensions are 18 5/16 inches both ways for the square Dadant. The approximate interior width of each size should be something close to:
12 = 18 5/16
11 = 16 13/16
10 = 15 5/16
8 = 12 5/16

I put quite a bit of time into studying the various sizes to see if there were any advantages. Overall, the square hive stacks up better ... pun intended.

My bees are looking pretty good. I have a few weak colonies and a few very strong colonies. I have one colony that has to be split this week to prevent swarming. Otherwise, it is super time.


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## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

and my 10 frame boxes have internal widths of 14 3/4 Thanks.

I am switching to some square dadant size. I have some hives on pallets on a hill side with ant protective stilts. Lots of aggressive wood ants. So they are off the ground. The Dadant size will result in lower stacks.


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## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Update from west Alabama: Had my second swarm, that I saw, yesterday. I was checking hives today and found two more that had capped queen cells, no apparent queen in residence, and less bees than the last time I checked them. Assuming those two also swarmed, while I wasn't home. 

The privet and yellow poplar look like they are about half way through their flow. Blackberries are still going strong and my chestnut trees are putting on immature blooms but are a couple of weeks from blooming. Black gum and sour wood are starting to develop blooms too.

If the weather and the different flows keep going like they are now, most hives will have between 1 1/2 and 3 mediums filled per hive before everything is over


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

thanks again for the heads up reporting gary. i am consistently seeing what you do 2 to 3 weeks after. it's nice to have that crystal ball! 

i've only had one swarm issue from my hives that i am aware of. it's possible that i may have had others and missed seeing them but i honestly don't think that i have.

oddly enough, the one that swarmed came from a split i made on march 31st containing the overwintered queen. it swarmed on may 4th. i guess i made the split a little too strong.

i managed to capture the swarm and it's now in a 5 over 5 deep nuc. it has a nice looking dark queen that is still laying a good pattern.

i almost hate to say it because i don't want to jinx myself, but i'm guessing that we have turned the corner on swarming here for the season. all of the colonies are going full tilt filling up the supers and drawing lots of new white wax.

if so, this will be the least amount of swarming i've had in any season so far.


----------



## AvatarDad

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



GaryG74 said:


> and my chestnut trees are putting on immature blooms but are a couple of weeks from blooming.


Are these legacy American Chestnuts? That's another of my hobbies/charities... American Chestnut Foundation. If yours are blight-resistant, you should get them in the database. 

They are trying to back-cross American Chestnut trees with the Chinese to try to get blight resistant genes in an American hybrid.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

As also for me though I am not a member of ACF. I am a lifetime member of Northern Nut Growers and have several acres of black walnut and pecan trees planted. Check out growingfruit.org if you want to chat about trees and such. 

Back on topic, I have one Dadant hive with double brood chambers and noticed today that the bees have packed it out with honey. I'm putting 2 more supers on it tomorrow.


----------



## R_V

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



> off topic Chestnuts story
> As a kid we had two of these in our backyard.
> So back in the late 70's I had several girls believe me when I told them that the Chestnuts on the tree were actually porcupine eggs.
> And when they were ready to hatch they'd fall out of the tree, break open, and the little porcupine would scurry away.


Back on topic, I have two Lang 10 frame hives with 2 deeps and a medium each, and one that's two deeps I plan to add a medium in the next week or so.


----------



## brockspringsfarm

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Here in southwest Arkansas the privit is about 4 days into its blooming where I am at, the blackberrys are in full bloom as are the red buckeyes and the clover is continuing due to plenty of rain. I have 4 hives in your 1 deep multiple medium configuration SP and have noticed the queen being pushed down to make room for all of the nectar coming in. So far no swarming and it surprisingly looks like it might be a good honey production year. I agree with the consensus that everything seems to be 2 weeks behind. 

I have a question for all of you more experienced BK. I am wanting to increase my comb amount. What is the best way to get them to pull out plastic foundation. I have been a raising bees for 4 years and it seems as if i never have enough drawn comb. I typically intermingle the empty frames with the full frames and they do a decent job of drawing them out. I was just wondering if yall have any tricks up your sleeves to maximize their wax production.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Just over a week bees in Finland have been collecting pollen form willows like mad, last days the temperature went up to + 25 C! 
I checked the Mini-Plus nucs today. They had collected good reserves of willow pollen and nectar. Normal hive had 2-3 frames of capped brood plus many open brood frames indicating well how important starting point willow blooming is here. More so this year, while last summer was so cold and rainy, the practically had no stores of pollen in the end of last season.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



brockspringsfarm said:


> I have 4 hives in your 1 deep multiple medium configuration SP and have noticed the queen being pushed down to make room for all of the nectar coming in. So far no swarming and it surprisingly looks like it might be a good honey production year.


excellent. i have a friend in the area running a dozen or so hives that is also managing in this way. in most cases we find that the broodnest gets moved down with no further manipulation needed.

i am forcing the queen down below an excluder in more of my hives this year, mostly so i can harvest some queen cells and start nucs with them.

around here if we make it to privet bloom without swarming it's pretty rare to see swarms after that. 



brockspringsfarm said:


> I am wanting to increase my comb amount. What is the best way to get them to pull out plastic foundation.


that's been one of the more challenging issues for me as well. the window for geting foundation drawn is pretty short here, usually no more than about a month or so.

the most i can usually hope for is one or maybe two supers getting drawn per hive. that is more likely to happen with a strong non-swarmed colony during the time new white wax is seen in the supers and the first honey is starting to get capped.

i've found that using a roller to paint melted cappings wax on the plastic foundation helps a lot. i put it on fairly thick but not so thick that it fills up the cells. usually within a day or two the bees will start reworking the painted on wax into comb, even before the flow picks up enough for them to start drawing on it.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

status report:

on a scale of 1 to 10 i'm assessing the state of affairs with my apiaries at 9 at this point. it would be a 10 except we haven't had a decent rain in over 2 weeks and the temps have been well above normal so we are very dry. i'm seeing a noticeable slow down in progress in the honey supers. the forecast is for a shift to a more wet weather pattern over the next few days so all may not be lost.

the making of increase has gone well this year despite getting foiled again on a grafting attempt after discovering that the colony i was depending on to build the starter finisher with decided to supercede their queen.

even so i was able to make 18 new colonies just by splitting doubles that were left over from last year back into singles, catching 2 swarms, and harvesting queen cells that were made in the broodnest after pushing the queen down below an excluder.

so far mating success has been 10 out of 11, and i've got 5 more to check next weekend. i've already used one of the new colonies to salvage a production colony that failed at supercedure and it's looking like i'll be using another next weekend to do the same. 

the 2 caught swarms have been sold. one of them had an almost black queen that i am fairly certain is from a feral colony in the nearby woods. the other was seen to issue from a 4 winter survivor with a history of excellent honey production.

at this point all of my equipment is full of bees and i believe my hives are adequately supered for the remainder of our main flow. praying for rain.


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

The weather here is getting iffy. Really warm weather with a large snowpack. The rivers are already at capacity and we are 10 degrees C warmer than usual for the next week. Doesn't forbode well for the coming season as well. Floods followed by forest fire was what we had last year and we may get it again.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> I'm putting 2 more supers on it tomorrow.


if memory serves me dar you had square shallow supers made to fit on your square dadant deeps, and you were going to place those shallow with the frames at 90 degrees to the deep frames.

how is that working for you so far and are you stacking more than one super per hive?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



Juhani Lunden said:


> Just over a week bees in Finland have been collecting pollen from willows like mad...


sounds like you have a couple of months more winter than what we have down here juhani.

best of luck to you with your 2018 season!


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

A low-pressure weather impact crosses Germany and brought the desired rain and a temperature drop of almost 15 ° C tonight.
Some of my new queens have certainly hatched, I hope that the mating flights still work well.

Iharder....I hope the weather gets a bit temperate this year in Canada, good luck!

Squarepeg.... thanks for the update, it is wonderful to see how carefree you can keep bees free off treatments and that would be my wish here for Central Europe. 

Fusion_power...I am also interested in whether the square honey supers work.


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Sibylle:

Re: carefree beekeeping. Those were similar to my thoughts when I read sp's post. A good environment coupled with working with what nature is already doing gives healthy bees well attuned to their environment and beekeeper. 

I think this is where we need to get back to in all aspects of our lives. Life affirming vs making compromises. Life tends to give back if you work with it making for a rich life.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Leroy you almost make me abandon any thoughts of IPM again  

I started my "Fort Knox" project, it´s called "BeE Connected project", 5 persons take part, all bond test so far. We supply among ourselves with queens, nucs and splits. Much less fear of losses now.

But we are on our way to the base of knowledge about bee behavior now first and improve methods and hives. That to know how many losses really are mite losses. 
The carefully start commercial beekeeping strategies step by step.

The good environment we have not, or do we? We have to find out or search for other solutions.

This all needs time to develop, so we must be patient.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



lharder said:


> A good environment coupled with working with what nature is already doing gives healthy bees well attuned to their environment and beekeeper.


yes, as it turns out that's really about all i had to do.

still, it would be nice to understand the mechanisms involved. dr. williams and a colleague from switzerland who studies resistant bees are scheduled to visit here next month. i am hoping we can come up with a plan to turn a scientific eye toward what is happening with these bees.

i recognize that the experience here may be more the exception than the rule and that it doesn't happen exactly this way in other locations. as stated from the outset i am hosting this thread for information purposes only with the caveat that your milage may vary.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Square


> i recognize that the experience here may be more the exception than the rule and that it doesn't happen exactly this way in other locations. as stated from the outset i am hosting this thread for information purposes only with the caveat that your milage may vary.


However, it does seem to work in more places then a lot of bee keepers are willing to admit. So far so good for me and there are several more that I don't think have bought a bunch of resistant queens but more just started keeping bees and they did not die. They may not have even had a plan to go treatment free but more just got bees or caught a swarm and just did not treat and it worked. Of course, I don't discount the horror stories either.
Cheers
gww


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



SiWolKe said:


> We have to find out or search for other solutions.


i am fascinated by the story of that search sibylle, many thanks for keeping us updated in your thread.

i am cautiously optimistic that you and your friends will make progress over time.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



gww said:


> However, it does seem to work in more places then a lot of bee keepers are willing to admit.


perhaps, but it's really hard to know for sure.

for those of you who took the time to list yourself on the 'treatment free member listing' thread,

and if you haven't already done so please consider starting a thread here and sharing your experience with us.

perhaps by comparing notes we can look for common denominators and move our understanding forward.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Yes the square supers work great. I only turn them at right angles to get the bees to evenly finish the super. From the perspective of managing the bees, the new hives are working well beyond expectations. I have zero swarms so far this year though I had to intervene with two huge colonies to prevent swarming. One problem I am dealing with is having too many old queens in the hives. This results in less than optimum hive strength for the flow.

Similar weather conditions holding here SP though we had one good rain about a week ago. The flow has slowed to a trickle. I took off enough burr comb yesterday from a hive that had a missing comb to squeeze out a quart of superb fresh honey. I put on 10 more supers yesterday though that won't do much good unless the predicted rain gets here Wednesday.

Re adding supers, I don't have to add as many as with Langstroth equipment. I put on one or two supers where in the past I had to put on 3 or 4. The most I've put on at one time this year was 3 supers on a single very large colony.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

We have had two good rain storms over the last 3 days with about 2 inches total rainfall. I think this will prolong the spring flow similar to last year. Time will tell. One hive has about 150 pounds stored so far. Several have not made any surplus yet though there is a good chance they will put some up over the next few days.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

we are finally receiving nice rains here as well dar. 

unfortunately all that did for the tulip poplar and privet was to wash the spent blooms off. so this rain came too late for the bees to get all that they might have gotten otherwise from those.

last year we continued receiving regular rains all the way through july and the nectar kept flowing. the sources for that nectar weren't obvious to me.


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

We have black gum and persimmon blooming here. I haven't seen any sour wood blooming yet but I'm not sure how much nectar we get from it here. My chestnuts have started blooming so that will add to the nectar flow too. Sumac not blooming here yet. 

We've had several light showers here over the last three days, usually 1/4" to 1/2" each.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

thanks gary. persimmons blooming here also and the sumac not too far from it.

similar rains here over the past 3 or 4 days with mostly sun today and a very noticeable uptick in foraging activity.

maybe those handful of supers with foundation will get drawn after all.


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> yes, as it turns out that's really about all i had to do.
> 
> 
> i recognize that the experience here may be more the exception than the rule and that it doesn't happen exactly this way in other locations. as stated from the outset i am hosting this thread for information purposes only with the caveat that your milage may vary.


Systems would gravitate to this scenario if we let it. Its our interventions, whether from our misunderstanding of the disease dynamic, or for economic reasons, that leads to dysfunction. The special exceptions in natural systems would be rare, not common. Perhaps at the edge of the natural range of honey bees where the added stressors of introduced pests leads to permanent range reduction. Its our job to remove the factors that interfere with system functioning. It doesn't mean there aren't epidemics, but their severity and frequency are much reduced. This is why we need good baseline data of disease dynamics of where there is NO human interference. I'm pretty sure it would be much lower than in human managed systems. 

Bee health is a function of good diverse habitat, reduced bee movement between regions, allowing natural selection to regulate the system, raising bees from strong hives. Perhaps hive density and transfer of hive materials between hives is an issue (certainly at distance), but I think that bees are always in each other's business and this is a peripheral issue for small apiaries. But certainly correct stocking is important to reduce competition.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



lharder said:


> Systems would gravitate to this scenario if we let it.


perhaps, especially with smaller scale beekeeping like you and i do.

my sense is that with industrial scale operations (which happen account for 95% of all colonies kept in the u.s.) and given the extreme colony densities along with horizontal transmission the system is not likely to gravitate nor would it be economically feasible trying to let it.




lharder said:


> This is why we need good baseline data of disease dynamics of where there is NO human interference. I'm pretty sure it would be much lower than in human managed systems.


yes. unfortunately at this point in time the number of populations sustaining themselves without interference is pretty small. it's great that you and your colleagues have taken the first steps in quantifying some of those baselines. i'm hoping to be able to do the same if the researchers planning to visit here in a few weeks are interested.




lharder said:


> Bee health is a function of good diverse habitat, reduced bee movement between regions, allowing natural selection to regulate the system, raising bees from strong hives. Perhaps hive density and transfer of hive materials between hives is an issue (certainly at distance), but I think that bees are always in each other's business and this is a peripheral issue for small apiaries. But certainly correct stocking is important to reduce competition.


agreed. i believe there is already enough evidence to suggest it is doable for the 95% of us (smaller scale) beekeepers managing the other 5% of the colonies not engaged in industrial operations. 

the challenge with that is getting folks on board with taking what would likely be a more painful (at least in the short term) approach, especially when it turns out that the experience you and i are having is more the exception than the rule.

this gets us back to turning a scientific eye on what is happening where there are successes. if the mechanisms can be elucidated and if they are transferrable my sense is the approach would become more attractive to others.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Square


> especially when it turns out that the experience you and i are having is more the exception than the rule.


I really wonder if this is really true that it is more the exception then the rule? I know you can not make much out of surveys like bee imfomed and others take but it is hard to denie that those surveys consistantly show that more then 50 percent of survey participates use no mite control product. I really wonder if it is more the exception then the rule. Granted, what people consider success is all over the board and comes down to the person doing it and is much harder to quantify.
Cheers
gww
Ps, If you look at sideliners only, the loss rate on the bee informed survey that says half use no product is only 3 percent differrent then those who use a product. I realize loss rate is only one part.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



gww said:


> I really wonder if this is really true that it is more the exception then the rule?


you make a good point gww and the truth is i really don't know for sure.

my first hand exposure to what other people are doing is limited to what i know is going on with my local organization (about 60 beekeepers) and what i read here on beesource.

it would be great if we could get more testimonials from others here on the forum, which is why i encouraged others to report their experiences a couple of posts back.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Square
I only go to maybe two club meetings a year and could not tell you who does what. I only really know what one does and he does not treat. What I do see is that a bunch of those at the meeting lose a lot of hives. I see a few regulars and there is always a couple of new people that have not got hives yet but are about to or have them on order.
Cheers
gww
Ps Our meeting would be from ten to fifteen in attendance at any one time. Small rural area, small number of people.


----------



## Jadeguppy

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Squarepeg, what type of disease management do you do in the summer and fall?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



Jadeguppy said:


> Squarepeg, what type of disease management do you do in the summer and fall?


the only management i am doing in the summer is harvesting honey. 

in the fall i make sure every hive has enough honey for wintering and put insulation between the inner cover and telescoping outer cover.

the only 'disease' i notice in late summer/early fall is when the colonies come out of their mid summer brood break and begin the rearing of the overwintering bees.

at that time it's not unusual for me to see a few devitalized pupae being discarded and an occasional crawler or dwv. i'll typically only see this with 2 or 3 of the hives out of the 20+ or so that i have.

this stops on it's own after a week or two and i haven't noticed any differences with overwintering for these colonies as compared to all the rest for which i don't notice anything.


----------



## Jadeguppy

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Interesting observation. Have you ever fed splits through the summer to help them build up? I assume this would not allow for a brood break and wonder how well they will overwinter.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



Jadeguppy said:


> Have you ever fed splits through the summer to help them build up? I assume this would not allow for a brood break and wonder how well they will overwinter.


no, i make my splits during the spring flow (when colonies are naturally 'splitting' anyway via swarming) and not during the summer dearth period. 

i avoid artificial feeds so not to 'confuse' the colonies and let them adjust their operations based on field conditions. the brood break is a good example.

i am also inclined to believe that the all natural nutrition may be bolstering the bees' natural immunity to viruses ect.


----------



## snipercsa

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Thought I'd give you a little update on my yard which has some squarepeg stock. Seems my yard/area is about a week or two behind what I see in your posts.

One of the nucs I got from SP it over winter then failed and failed to re-queen. It was a late winter failure before spring buildup kicked off. The other is my strongest hive. I haven't been able to find the queen recently and her brood area was shrinking fast. The hive was backfilling -below- the brood area and above the pollen stockpile. So I shuffled the stack to put the nectar frames above brood as well as a box with a mix of undrawn frames right above the brood. The hive had other plans and began laying in the 5th box which had drawn comb. I found a capped QC on a frame full of nectar in the lower boxes and found 3-4 frames with capped QC in the fifth box. It's a 6 box stack with all used but one. Full hive inspection and never found the queen. So I left a couple of QCs in the hive and split out 3 frames with QCs. 

Meanwhile, also over the weekend I caught 3 swarms. Actually 2, but the first one had 2 virgin queens in the cluster. Wish I knew which hives they came from. I suspect the 2 VQ swarm came from one of my strong nucs that is offspring of the SP hive. 

My yard has about 8-9 medium boxes between 3-4 hives being filled with honey which is the best I've ever had by far. They are all reluctant to draw comb so there is a lot of backfilling taking place. If I checkerboard supers with undrawn foundationless, it just causes a mess because they are drawing out honey cells in to the "zone" of the foundationless frame. My plan is to use these swarms to draw as many frames as I can get out of them. I found that a packed, strong nuc draws the best and fastest foundationless frames for me. Opening up the broodnest of a hive works but seems a tad slower.


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> perhaps, especially with smaller scale beekeeping like you and i do.
> 
> my sense is that with industrial scale operations (which happen account for 95% of all colonies kept in the u.s.) and given the extreme colony densities along with horizontal transmission the system is not likely to gravitate nor would it be economically feasible trying to let it.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> yes. unfortunately at this point in time the number of populations sustaining themselves without interference is pretty small. it's great that you and your colleagues have taken the first steps in quantifying some of those baselines. i'm hoping to be able to do the same if the researchers planning to visit here in a few weeks are interested.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> agreed. i believe there is already enough evidence to suggest it is doable for the 95% of us (smaller scale) beekeepers managing the other 5% of the colonies not engaged in industrial operations.
> 
> the challenge with that is getting folks on board with taking what would likely be a more painful (at least in the short term) approach, especially when it turns out that the experience you and i are having is more the exception than the rule.
> 
> this gets us back to turning a scientific eye on what is happening where there are successes. if the mechanisms can be elucidated and if they are transferrable my sense is the approach would become more attractive to others.


I don't think there is a population in North America that is truly remote enough to be an absolute baseline. Maybe some remote valley with no beekeeping or only tf beekeeping with only local bees? We have lots of remote valleys here, but uninhabited ones tend to be too cold for feral bees. But I guess some other less satisfactory baselines are possible.

It may be possible for a static mid range operation of a 1000 hives or so, with their own queen rearing. Or even larger as long as movement restrictions were in place. Especially if a region itself was committed to local self sustainability. Imports of anything are prohibited except under special circumstances (ie import of genetic material to fill a hole in the local genetics). 

Studies seem to be indicating that horizontal transmission is inevitable for colonies within flying distance. I'm guessing there would be a common set of viruses and other pathogens in near neighbors with bees having similar solutions to them. Would be good to know how pathogen complexes look like spatially over different scales to get a sense of the dynamics involved. Lots of basic biology to be done. 

I'm looking forward to hearing about your visit with the scientists and if anything is initiated.


----------



## Jadeguppy

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Thanks for the feedback sp. I am in need of splitting over the summer, but would also like to be chemical treatment free. However, I want to go into the winter able to absorb the hive loss that will come for the first few years of selecting queens. Do you think by starting with mating nucs that have little to no brood in them will provided enough of a brood break while the queen hatches (plan to make them up just short of hatch date), mates, and starts laying? I will probably need to feed.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



lharder said:


> I'm looking forward to hearing about your visit with the scientists and if anything is initiated.


:thumbsup:


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



Jadeguppy said:


> Do you think by starting with mating nucs that have little to no brood in them will provided enough of a brood break while the queen hatches (plan to make them up just short of hatch date), mates, and starts laying?


with so many different factors involved jg it's really hard to weigh in on that. 

you will learn a lot by experimenting and seeing what happens.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Jade


> I am in need of splitting over the summer, but would also like to be chemical treatment free. However, I want to go into the winter able to absorb the hive loss that will come for the first few years of selecting queens.


Every one has differrent view on these types of things. Some say split and play the numbers. I mentioned a split when I first got my bees to the guy I got one of the hives from cause I was worried about mites and his suggestion to me was that he had better luck with strong hives making it through winter. So I waited and did my splits in spring instead (because the bees wanted to swarm). I had zero death and the bees were in swarm mode come spring. 

I have seen exactly the oposite advice where it is suggested that you split and do it often. I have read of disasters from both where the stongest hive was the one that died or all 18 weak nucs died over winter. The only expermenting I have had the guts to do so far is splits in spring and trying for as big as I can get before winter. 

You may try both if you have to try something and see which works best for you. 
Cheers
gww


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

the rains we received a week or so ago have revived the nectar flow to some degree but it is obviously slower going than it was earlier this month.

still i'm seeing weekly progress in the supers and several of the ones with foundation are getting drawn and filled.

i brought in the first two supers of this year's honey for extracting this morning and was pleased to see that the third super down on that hive appeared full and capped from the top.

here we go!


----------



## Amibusiness

Gww and jade: just to point out that strength and size are not synonymous. I am in upstate NY and have overwintered some 5 deep frame NUCs. They need to be strong to survive, meaning packed with young, healthy bees, as well as enough stores to see them through. Similarly, the double deeps need a good sized cluster of young, healthy bees. I find I am able to play the numbers (split) and have strong colonies. Come spring, the NUCs are booming and in swarm mode often before the double deeps. And in either case, the weak ones have trouble. I hope that makes sense. Happy beekeeping.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Ami.....
When you are playing the numbers with your splits, what are you looking for as far as timing IE: time of year? Flow?
Thanks
gww

Ps Square..., I hope I am not taking advantage of your good will by asking these questions in your thread.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

good morning everyone. 

no worries gww, the thread has stayed mostly on track from the beginning and we don't mind a little diversion here and there.

i went out today to add a couple of 'bait' frames with a little comb on them to encourage comb building in a foundation super that had been on for over a week and not received any attention as of this past thursday,

but in just the 48 hours since looking last i found the middle 4 frames were being worked so i left it alone. 

it's getting dry again but our chances for rain are decent today and for the next week or so and if we get it i suspect the flow will continue.


----------



## Jadeguppy

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

I'm not thrilled about the tropical storm heading this way, but a boost to nectar is always welcome. I think you are slated to get it midweek. Maybe we will get lucky and the storms will continue to come through during the night.


----------



## Amibusiness

Square: it's amazing how quickly it goes when everything aligns....
Gww: I generally split in the spring and summer before dearth. Flow helps. I find the best queens are from swarm cells (i have not found this to increase swarming: from 30 overwintered colonies I have had 3 start making swarm cells this year.) If they don't swarm and I think they need a brood break for mites I will split them in June / towards the tail end of flow. I want to split them early enough so they will draw 3-5 combs. I overwinter as nucs, many in 4/4 double nuc boxes. Early splits (May and June) need brood removed so they don't swarm. July splits may struggle to build up enough without feed. Our dearth is mid July to goldenrod bloom in late August. Last year, however, there was a very small trickle in some yards all through the summer, others dried up as usual. I want them to be booming nucs in fall so they overwinter well but not so packed that they swarm on goldenrod flow. It's a tricky balance. Sometimes they grow to 4/4/4 in September. Much bigger than that and it's not a nuc any more. I have gotten honey off them. This year I'm experimenting with some to put queen excluded over both and let them share honey supers, instead of transfering them into their own units. So far so good. Not sure if it scales up but for a hobby it's working well. And the nucs are very easy to manage and remove brood to make more nucs. I hope that helps.... Cheers


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

The flow has tapered down, but is far from over here. I had a strong hive that was not working as much today as usual so I opened them this afternoon to find out why. They were plugged out with honey. This hive has a square deep brood box, a square deep used as a honey super (to get some combs drawn), and a shallow extracting super. The deep full of honey will yield very close to 120 pounds. The shallow will be about 40 pounds more. That is 160 pounds of honey on one hive. I put 2 more supers of foundation on today. If they fill up just one more shallow, that will be 200 pounds which is getting close to record territory for me. We will see.

The problem with the above is that good honey crops are not made by having one or two exceptional colonies. It is from having lots of colonies that all produce an above average crop. I've got to go through the rest of my bees when the weather is clear and see if they need anything. At least two more colonies are going to have very high production and maybe a dozen more will have a decent crop.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Amib........
Thank you for that very detailed answer to the question I asked you.
Cheers
gww


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



Amibusiness said:


> I run about 40 tf colonies and am still trying to stabilize losses. My genetics are based on cutouts (survive well without intervention but are a little agressive and not super productive), swarms (possibly some ferals, definitely some from neighboring apiaries) and some Sam Comfort queens. When my losses are more than folks at the bee club who treat, they look at me knowingly and ask if I'm still going to be tf.


i confess i had to go back and reread your post amibusiness and i must have been distracted at the time to have missed this.

the forum is lacking with solid reports from folks managing bees off treatments up in the northeastern part of the country.

i wonder if i could twist your arm into hosting a thread like this one and sharing your story with us.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

I checked the "plugged out" colony this afternoon. Two days after giving them 2 shallow supers, the bottom super is fully drawn and half full of honey. The top super is 1/4 drawn and has some cells with a bit of honey, especially in the center frames. I removed 2 frames full of honey and put up 3 quarts of chunk comb honey.

I am going to check on the colonies on my land in a few minutes. At least one of them is in need of another super.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

excellent report dar, many thanks.

with your swarm prevention success and square deeps you'll be swimming in honey if this keeps up. 

if we get the several inches of rain the tropical storm is supposed to bring i believe our flow will continue to support progress in the supers.

most of my hives are now too heavy to heft from the back. i'm fairly confident that i'll exceed the 52 mediums harvested last year.

i'm going to have to figure out how to extract more than 2 supers a week or i'll be at it until Christmas.

since our locations, management, and bee stock are basically the same it will be interesting to see how our averages compare with using the different hive types.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

start of season supercedure (drones flying, but only a few) recovers to become productive with a little boost from a bee bomb:

cliff'snotes version:

two winter survivor loses queen after first spotty round or two of brood coming out of winter, supercedure successful with new mated queen starting with a small colony and terrible foraging conditions (basically non existant for a month), received shakes of nurse bees and five medium frames of brood with nurse bees from a strong hive, as of today they have filled and capped almost 3 supers of honey and are still making progress on a 4th even though the nectar flow is waning.


(i make my journal entries in reverse order because i am most interested in what i saw last time)



*HIVE #3

2016 GRAFT FROM CHARLES BEE TREE SWARM MATED AT BART’S 
2017 - DONATED 4 MEDIUM FRAMES OF NURSE BEES, DREW OUT 2 SUPERS FOUNDATION, HARVESTED 3.11 SUPERS, LEFT 79 LBS., POSSIBLE BREEDER
2018 - SUSPECT EARLY SUPERCEDURE, RECEIVED SHAKES OF NURSE BEES AND 5 MEDIUM FRAMES OF CAPPED BROOD, 


060118: NEW COMB AND FILLING ON ALL 10 FRAMES IN SUPER4, SPACED OUT TO 9 FRAMES

052618: DRAWING AND FILLING MIDDLE FRAMES OF SUPER4, CHECK FRIDAY FOR SPACING

052418: JUST STARTING TO CAP SUPER3, NO PROGRESS IN SUPER4

051818: NOT READY TO SPACE OUT

051318: NEARLY WALL TO WALL BROOD IN SUPERS 1&2, NO QUEEN CELLS, SUPER3 OVER HALF FULL, ADDED SUPER4 FOUNDATION WITH BAIT COMB, 3 DEEPS WORTH OF BEES

050418: INSPECTED OUT OF CONCERN AFTER SEEING LARGE PILE OF DARK WAX CRUMBS HAULED OUT, STRONG COLONY APPARENTLY DEFEATED A WAX MONTH INFESTATION WITH SEVERAL FRAMES PARTIALLY AFFECTED, BOTTOM BOARD FULL, SCRAPED, 12 MEDIUM FRAMES OF SOLID HEALTHY BROOD, SHOOK QUEEN DOWN TO DEEP BELOW AN EXCLUDER, BROOD NOW IN SUPERS 1&2, NOTCHED JUST HATCHED LARVAE ON 2 FRAMES, REPLACE OUTSIDE FRAMES IN DEEP DUE TO ENTOMBED POLLEN, SUPER3 MOSTLY EMPTY WITH SOME COMB TO REPAIR, ADD FOUNDATION SUPER AS NEEDED

041318: HARVESTED 6 FRAMES OF LAST YEAR’S HONEY, MADE SUPER WITH QUEEN SUPER1, MADE DONATED CAPPED BROOD SUPER2, MOVED EMPTY SUPER1 TO SUPER3

040918: GIVEN 5 MEDIUM FRAMES OF CAPPED BROOD FROM #4, SUPER4 MOSTLY FULL WITH SEVERAL HARVESTABLE FRAMES

040118: SAW QUEEN WITH GOOD PATTERN OF EGGS AND BROOD, STILL SMALL AS IF SHAKES OF NURSE BEES NOT STAYING, CONSIDER BEE BOMB FROM #2

033118: GAVE 2 DEEP SHAKES OF NURSE BEES FROM #7

032418: SHOOK FRAME OF BEES FROM #2 AT ENTRANCE, A LITTLE FIGHTING, GET NURSE BEES FROM OPEN BROOD FRAME NEXT TIME, SOME POLLEN GOING IN AFTER SHAKE

032318: SMALL COLONY WITH LESS THAN 3 FRAMES OF BEES, SPOTTY CAPPED BROOD, A FEW EGGS AND JUST HATCHED LARVAE, PROBABLE YOUNG QUEEN SEEN AND OBSERVED LAYING, SUSPECT RECENT SUPERCEDURE, NEEDS SHAKE OF NURSE BEES, REMOVED EMPTY SUPER4

021618: BROUGHT HOME FROM BARTS AFTER POSSIBLE ROBBING SEEN
*


----------



## snipercsa

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

In following your discussions of checkerboarding supers, which seems to count heavily on drawn comb, and watching your reports on various colonies having supers full and working on the next ones..... I have a question.

My supers start to get filled so I add more space, do a little checkerboarding (sometimes with empty foundationless frames since I have no spare comb yet), and I add a box. I try to keep it mixed up between the new box and the one below in terms of attempting checkerboarding. It's difficult because they tend to extend comb out in to the FL frames. What I see a lot is when the flow starts to wane the boxes tend to stay full of uncapped honey. For example, I have a strong hive with 5 boxes where I am giving space with that 5th to help with the backfilling of the brood area. They end up with 3+ boxes of uncapped honey and are reluctant to cap it. 

How can I "convince" them to cap the honey without crowding them too much to cause swarming? The more space I give, the more they just spread out the honey including backfilling, and not much of any is getting capped. Have you seen this in your hives and if so what do you do?


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Snipercsa

I am not squarepeg and am a new beekeeper that only knows the min and some of that might be wrong. I am close to your situation in that I have no extra comb and am foundationless. So I just thought I would throw out a few observations that I have had so far.

1. I seem to get my wonkyest comb when the flow is not on super hard but stuff is just trickling in.

2. If I can find comb that has the most capped honey on it, that is where I like to put my empty frames between. So the bees normally cap from the top of the frame towards the bottom and I find most of my fatness (not all) starting on the top of frames or at the ends of the frames. 

3. Early in flow I really like to pull up brood as bait to start supers as it gets the comb started out right and when the brood hatches, they fill with honey.

4. One time I had a super that was about 30 through 50 percent capped and I under-supered that super. The bees quit capping that super and started working on the super below and I eventually had to move the super back down to get it capped so I could extract. The moral of the story to me is that they cap the lowest stuff first. So if your brood box is not tainted with some bad chemical, sometimes it is easier to pull the side frames of the brood nest that are capped and replace them with uncapped stuff.

5. Some of the fat stuff I get, I move around and crunch up against stuff so the bees cut it back down or I remove frames from the super and fix it when I extract. If some becomes so fat that it is attached to two frames and I can not divide it to save at least one frame worth of comb, I just crush and strain it (this has only happened twice).

I hope some of this helps and or at least does not hurt.
Good luck
gww


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



snipercsa said:


> The more space I give, the more they just spread out the honey including backfilling, and not much of any is getting capped. Have you seen this in your hives and if so what do you do?


I think that's efficiency - they are maximising the surface area of the honey to maximise the rate at which water can be drawn off. And possibly just leaving it there once it is sufficiently concentrated because there is a good chance that's the most efficient move - why waste energy moving it if that turns out to be unnecessary?

I'm not sure how that helps. This may: I allow uncapped honey into my extractor. It doesn't seem to cause any problem.

Mike (UK)


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



snipercsa said:


> How can I "convince" them to cap the honey without crowding them too much to cause swarming?


excellent question. this is where it gets tricky.

what is working pretty good for me is to use checkerboarding/opening the nest/pyramiding primarily through the spring brood up period.

once i see that the colonies have 'turned the corner' on swarm ambition, (what walt wright referred to as 'reproductive cut-off'), i'll stop the swarm prevention manipulations and just work from the top.

what i am looking for is new white wax at the top of the top super which in no time becomes capped honey.

(it doesn't hurt that for most of my hives at this point there is an empty deep of drawn comb at the bottom of the stack for the colony to migrate the broodnest down into as they backfill what was brood frames in the supers)

if i need to add a super and don't have any more comb i'll just add a super of foundation on top. if i have it i'll place a 'bait' frame of partially drawn comb in the middle of the foundation super to get them started.

with foundationless you could just move one or two frames up into a new super. it's much less effort and you avoid the problems you mentioned in your post.

if these rains continue for a while you still stand a good chance at seeing that honey getting capped.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

update:

a quick peek at the top supers today revealed that our flow is just now ending and we are transitioning into the summer dearth period here.

harvesting is in full swing and it appears that we'll get another decent honey crop this year. 

my guess is that the final talley will fall a little short of last year's because spring came a few weeks later and the dearth is arriving a few weeks earlier as well.


dr. martin's visit:

i was honored to have auburn's dr. geoff williams up last weekend for a visit. we spent the time looking into a few hives and reviewing my journals. 

although studying natural resistance isn't dr. william's research focus he was intrigued to find that our population is doing well in that regard. 

he commented that he and other researchers are frequently approached with claims of good survival and production while managing off treatments but that the claims don't always pan out.

it was gratifying to me that dr. williams was satisfied there does appear to be something special going on here in that regard. he plans to share what he learned here with his colleagues and perhaps we'll get an opportunity to gather some data at some point.


dwv study results:

as mentioned in jwchesnut's thread i received the dwv results from dr. stephen martin taken from the samples randy oliver collected from me in 2016. here they are again:

"Apiary result

Type A = 99.83%, Type B = 0.07%, Type C = 0.10%

Total infection = 1.31 x 1011"

(that last number is supposed to be 10 to the eleventh power, maybe rader can fix this one too)

so my viral load is 'high' and predominantly type a.

(obviously i am not able to blame my successes on super-infection exclusion).

the 'apiary result' was obtained by combining the results of five colonies submitting for virology studies.

of those five colonies i from which i obtained samples only one died out over the winter. the other four survived winter and went on to make a good honey crop in 2017.

apiary wide losses were 3 out of 22 that winter for 13.6%

i've sent in a request to dr. martin's team for the individual viral loads for each of the colonies sampled, to which i received a reply saying they could make that available to me at some point in the future.


----------



## Jadeguppy

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

That is exciting to hear. I hope it helps move the research forward into a log-term solution.


----------



## Richinbama

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Looks like our dearth is about to hit too. 
Making last splits for spring now, and looks good for the moment. I'll be doing full hive inspections tomorrow, fingers crossed the queens hatched and mated with eggs !!!???


----------



## tpope

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Exciting news!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



Jadeguppy said:


> That is exciting to hear. I hope it helps move the research forward into a long-term solution.


indeed. what i shared with dr. williams is my desire to figure out how this is happening here and my hope that we can learn something to benefit beekeeping at large.




Richinbama said:


> Looks like our dearth is about to hit too.


yep. your new colonies are at risk for starvation and robbing. it sounds like you are paying close attention to them which is good.




tpope said:


> Exciting news!


thanks t!


----------



## Jadeguppy

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Squarepeg, With dearth hitting and my having been splitting, I'm wondering what your thoughts are on feeding? I'm thinking of feeding small splits, but wondering if the benefits of the splits will be outweighed by the lack of nutrition from sugar. However, someone said there is research that shows they do just as well on sugar. I do find that hard to believe and wish I knew where to find the paper so I could read it for myself. If I do go the feed route, I wonder if an open feeding station would decrease robber issues. I started with two nucs in March and am up to 9 queen right, some only three frame. I hope to have enough to make it through the winter with 10 hives ready for production. Thoughts?


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> indeed. what i shared with dr. williams is my desire to figure out how this is happening here and my hope that we can learn something to benefit beekeeping at large.


:thumbsup:

Please tell about the results you already have ( the Virus Type) on VivaBiene too and update on the following reseach. 
Many thanks!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

jg, do the experienced beekeepers in your area speak of dearth conditions in the summer? we usually experience that up here but i'm not familiar with the flows in the panhandle of florida. i would ask around about that.

i'll be making up a few late nucs myself over the next couple of weeks mostly because i have a chance to get some queen cells from a 22 year tf beekeeper. my plan is to use surplus honey from my other hives to guard against starvation.

the paper i think you are referring to about syrup being as good or better than honey has to do with overwintering bees in the extreme north. it turns out when bees are not able to take cleansing flights for many months the lack of solids in syrup makes it easier on them.

i don't have much experience with feeding nucs so i can't really weigh in on the yard feeder question. my gut feeling is that they would tend to attract robbers more so than discourage them.

if i had to feed a nuc syrup i would probably look into using a frame feeder. if you anticipate a pollen dearth as well you'll need to consider providing protein sub as well, with extra attention to not letting hive beetles take advantage of it.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



SiWolKe said:


> :thumbsup:
> 
> Please tell about the results you already have ( the Virus Type) on VivaBiene too and update on the following reseach.
> Many thanks!


i would be happy to share that on viva sibylle. is there already a thread on super-infection exclusion, ron hoskins, or dr. stephen martin's research for me to post it in?


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Please share it in the english speaking member thread so it will not be overlooked. I can move it later if we need it somewhere else.
I´m translating then.
Thanks!


----------



## Jadeguppy

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> jg, do the experienced beekeepers in your area speak of dearth conditions in the summer? we usually experience that up here but i'm not familiar with the flows in the panhandle of florida. i would ask around about that.


Yes, one of the ppl on here is about an hour from here and mentioned dearth conditions. I think they are still bringing in some here, but not as much. Everything has slowed. Last year it stopped and the bees bearded all day.



squarepeg said:


> i'll be making up a few late nucs myself over the next couple of weeks mostly because i have a chance to get some queen cells from a 22 year tf beekeeper. my plan is to use surplus honey from my other hives to guard against starvation.


I'm considering this option, but I've already been stealing a lot this year.



squarepeg said:


> the paper i think you are referring to about syrup being as good or better than honey has to do with overwintering bees in the extreme north. it turns out when bees are not able to take cleansing flights for many months the lack of solids in syrup makes it easier on them.


That is good to know. It doesn't apply to me then.

How many medium frames of honey do you fine yours need to build up a colony during the summer?


----------



## Robbin

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



Jadeguppy said:


> Squarepeg, With dearth hitting and my having been splitting, I'm wondering what your thoughts are on feeding? I'm thinking of feeding small splits, but wondering if the benefits of the splits will be outweighed by the lack of nutrition from sugar. However, someone said there is research that shows they do just as well on sugar. I do find that hard to believe and wish I knew where to find the paper so I could read it for myself. If I do go the feed route, I wonder if an open feeding station would decrease robber issues. I started with two nucs in March and am up to 9 queen right, some only three frame. I hope to have enough to make it through the winter with 10 hives ready for production. Thoughts?


Hi JadeGuppy,
We have very long dearths here, got to be careful when taking honey to make sure you leave enough. Generally speaking our fall flow is light, thou we have had some big ones. I tend to take what honey I'm going to in the summer and leave whatever they collect during the fall to overwinter with. I think they do just fine on sugar and often feed nucs. I prefer to keep honey frames in a freezer and put it in a nuc when I start it up, but I often feed in the fall just to be sure or feed swarms I caught and put in a nuc during the dearth. I've had nucs and hives starve that refused to store up anything, probably not good bees to keep anyway. I feed both ways, internal and open. I prefer open at least 100 feet away from my hives. I've got lots of room and keep my permanent open feed stations 100 yards from the hives. If you can't get at least 100 feet, don't open feed. 
Very weak nucs don't do well open feeding, so I've got interior nuc feeders for those, but try not to feed that way unless I'm opening feeding. If a weak nuc feed is discovered, it's history. If the big hives are busy with the open feed, it's safe to put feeders in weak nucs. I've got enough property that I separate my nucs from the main hives and I've got a permanent feeding station in the middle of the nucs and another about 100 yards on the opposite side of the main hives. So the hives never cross the nucs or the nuc feeding station while going back and forth to their feeder. So much for my thoughts on nuc feeding.  Good luck!

Still haven't gotten my breeder queen.


----------



## Robbin

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Jadeguppy
We still have mamosa trees blooming, but that's about it. We're going into the dearth, very little flow going or left. The robbing season is here, be careful, only open hives you really have to. 
Don't inspect just to inspect. I don't like this time of year, bee keeping isn't fun when it's 70 when the sun comes up.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



Jadeguppy said:


> How many medium frames of honey do you find yours need to build up a colony during the summer?


as mentioned i don't usually start nucs during the summer dearth so that's another tough one to answer. 

i've got enough drawn comb to make up about a half dozen 5 frame deep nucs. i'll be giving each one about a deep frame of brood, about a deep frame worth of honey, about a deep frame worth of beebread, (leaving about 2 deep frames worth of empty comb), about 3 deep frames worth of bees, and a ripe queen cell.

over the 5 frame deep nuc box i'll put a 5 frame medium nuc box. most likely the five medium frames will be partially filled and/or uncapped frames that weren't nice enough to harvest collectively having about 2 - 3 medium frames worth of honey. 

the honey i am providing is mostly for insurance against starvation and not so much for building up. i'm not expecting too much brooding in these nucs until the fall flow kicks in.

for what it's worth the 22 year tf friend i'm getting the queen cells from typically overwinters 4 frame deep nucs that he starts late like this and doesn't feed them or otherwise. he lost a few of these nucs due to starvation this year because winter dragged on so long. i picked up a few of them from him in january and put them into dead out equipment/stores i had on hand and they have done beautifully for me this season.

it seems like you would have it a little easier than us in that regard with the milder winters down there on the gulf coast, but i would pay most attention to robbin and others who are keeping bees closer to where you live.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

we are getting regular rains here putting us a few inches ahead of average for the year. this is resulting in a milder summer dearth so far and i'm actually seeing a little nectar getting stored in the extracted supers after putting them back on the hives.

we're pretty much in harvest and sell mode at this point, although i lucked into getting 6 queen cells from my 22 year tf friend last weekend. 

i was able to pull splits for those cells from a couple of nucs and some other smaller colonies that missed out on our main flow due to queen issues earlier in the season.

the new queens should be emerged by now and i'll check in a couple of more weeks for mating success.

if all goes well i could end up with 24 colonies in full size hives along with five nucs that will winter in 5 over 5 frame deeps and be available for 'spares'.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

You are walking in tall cotton.
gww


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

i appreciate that gww. one nice part about that is that almost all of my equipment is occupied with bees and not taking up space in my garage. 

i'm very thankful, especially since most of what is making this happen here is due to factors i don't have any control over.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

It is funny squarepeg, I get scared if all my equipment is full cause I am afraid something will happen and I won't be ready for it. Of course I have no extra comb and store my stuff out side just like if they were full. I think your way is better cause even if you do lose something like a swarm, you are maximizing what you do have.

What I got most from you last post though is, it sounds like you have really good friends.

Cheers
gww


----------



## SansTX

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> once i see that the colonies have 'turned the corner' on swarm ambition, (what walt wright referred to as 'reproductive cut-off'), i'll stop the swarm prevention manipulations and just work from the top.


Squarepeg - Do you find you need to do anything to prevent late season swarms during the fall flow? Or do you think that "decision" by the bees has already been made and the spring checkerboarding/manipulations prevent fall swarming also?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

hi sans,

we occasionally see a small swarm issue here late in the season. those tend to be very small as in just 2 or 3 handfuls of bees. my guess is they are most likely the result of a late season supercedure with the old queen leaving along with a small contingent of loyal subjects.

that said, and what goes against recommended best practices due to the risk posed by small hive beetles and wax moths, i am returning my extracted supers to the hives and leaving them on over the winter months.

(i do this because i don't have enough storage space and i feel the bees can do a better job at protecting them than i can).

so there's quite a bit of room available to prevent overcrowding and for nectar storage in the event we have a bumper fall flow.

most hives going into winter are a single deep at the bottom and 4 medium supers, leaving about a super and a half's worth of honey in the bottom 2 supers.

i think if the bee's instincts are serving them well it would be unlikely for them to go into swarm mode when winter is approaching.


----------



## Jadeguppy

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Squarepeg, just to try translating to an all mediums situation, you essentially leave three full mediums of brood and honey on for winter stores? Do they use that much honey by the spring flow?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

what i found by weighing my hives monthly starting at the first frost was that very few pounds (10 or less) of honey get used through winter.

perhaps that has something to do with our average temperature being close to what has been shown to be optimal for the least amount of stores consumed by a wintering cluster.

most of the honey left in the fall gets used for brooding during the build up period coming out of winter.

most of the early nectars don't get stored but also go to supporting the build up.

as we approach our main spring nectar flow (and prime swarm season) the colonies have grown from the equivalent of 3 or 4 deep frames of bees to the equivalent of +/- 25 deep frames of bees.

this is when the colonies 'turn the corner' and go into all out honey making mode including new comb building if needed.

this main flow might last a couple of months or so, and then we enter our summer dearth period. another corner is turned and the colonies cut way back or even stop brooding. my bees get frugal again and very little stored honey gets used during the dearth even when nectar availability is almost nil.

the next corner turned is in the fall when the brooding of the overwintering cluster takes place on the fall blooms, and once that has been completed they are back to coasting through the winter months.


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

sp: I've had two of those small, "supersedure" swarms in the last week. One about the size of a softball, the second a little larger. I saw the queen in the larger one and she looked like a mated queen, she was larger than a virgin queen, just looked slimmed down to fly.

We must have something of a flow still going here, I can smell honey being processed when I walk by the hives late in the afternoon. The hives are also bringing in large quantities of bright orange pollen. The forager flights are still huge, I can see large quantities of bees heading out from the hives and flying off to the east and southeast, toward a timbered creek area that has several beaver ponds. I know button brush is blooming now but I'm not sure what else is blooming now besides crepe myrtles and the last of the mimosa trees.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

that's interesting gary, thanks for the report.

i think what nectar coming in here is pretty much being consumed to meet the day to day needs of the colonies. 

i'm guessing most of the calories are being spent gathering water and cooling down the hives.

i'm not seeing very much new nectar being put up in the hives i am harvesting honey from.

i'm seeing a little bit of bright yellow and bright orange pollen coming in, but not sure of the sources.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



Fristm said:


> I looked at the most recent posts back a few pages and didn't see any stats or mention of testing for mite loads. Do you test? And if you do, what do you find the hives that survive average mite load wise?


hi fristm, 

i haven't been checking mite loads as a matter of practice but have taken a few samples out of curiosity and out of interest by some of the members on the forum.

i took the counts late in the season using alcohol wash and found infestation rates in the neighborhood of 8% to 15%.

the colonies i sampled survived winter and went on to produce a good honey crop the next year.

i'm nearing retirement from my day job and hope to spend more time quantifying mite resistance with my bees. i'll likely take 5 or 6 of my longest lived hives and do monthly inspections to obtain the data necessary to plug into randy oliver's mite model. 

the goal is to determine the 'r' value and see how that compares to other bees for which that has been done.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

update:

i had decent mating success with 5 out of the 6 cells mentioned in post #1637 resulting in laying queens.

my friend is doing another round of grafts and i might try making up a few more nucs.

the honey harvest continues with my usual 2 supers per week. i'm at 22 supers so far with a couple of hives that haven't been robbed yet and more honey in the others that still needs be harvested.

i'm predicting a somewhat lower yield this year compared to last year. i attribute this mostly to making many more splits as well as getting virtually no rain to support the tulip poplar bloom.

if all goes well i'll be going into this winter with 24 full sized hives and 10 or so nucs.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> if all goes well i'll be going into this winter with 24 full sized hives and 10 or so nucs.


:thumbsup:

So now in germany you would be a commercial tf beekeeper paying tax


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

I did a quick check today of a colony that started the year in bad shape. They had 2 frames of bees and were queenless and nearly out of honey in mid march. I gave them a half frame of mostly sealed brood along with eggs and larvae. They raised a queen and built up to a very strong colony as of today. The bottom box (remember, this is a square Dadant box) holds about 50 pounds of honey and 9 frames of brood. When I distributed supers in late April, I had an extra so I set it on top just on the off chance they might make some honey. Well when I opened them up today, the super had 10 frames of sealed honey. It just goes to show that you can't entirely predict what bees can do with a mediocre nectar flow.


----------



## Jadeguppy

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

squarepeg, that sounds like above average returns of mated queens. Where are you going to put all the extra hives?

Fusion, must be nice to happen upon that much extra honey. I'm hopeful that next year goes like that for me. How heavy are those supers when full?


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

A full shallow square super weighs about 52 pounds and will extract about 39 pounds of honey. I'm running them with 12 frames once drawn out so the combs will be thicker.


----------



## Jadeguppy

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

fp- Shoot that is almost equal to my total take this year. Your back must be much better than mine to lug those around.


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

I run some all medium square dadant size boxes. I put them over excluders on my 6 frame nucs, and one site on a hill side with stands. The short wide hives are just easier to deal with. At this point of the season I am very reluctant to deal with them as those top boxes of honey are heavy. I have some at home that are in 5 medium boxes and one is about to get a 6th. I have one overwintered nuc that is filling 6 boxes already.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

I am 58 years old and can easily toss a 50 pound bag of chicken feed on each shoulder and carry them to the barn. That does not mean I choose to carry heavy loads when common sense dictates otherwise.

I worked out the weight of a square medium prior to building equipment. I also verified the size super Brother Adam used i.e. 6 inches deep. I did not build square mediums because the total weight full of honey would have been nearly 70 pounds. That is past my cutoff point. I can handle a square shallow with few problems. I chose not to try to handle a super that weights 70 pounds.

There are few occasions that I have to handle a full square deep. There is one on a colony behind the house that needs to be removed and extracted. I will pull 7 frames and put them in another box to carry inside for extraction. Each deep frame weighs about 9 pounds. Why did I use a square deep as a super? I needed frames drawn.


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Yes, they are heavy and will be using the divide and conquer strategy of moving frames to smaller boxes. I prefer moving 8 frames of honey around.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> When I distributed supers in late April, I had an extra so I set it on top just on the off chance they might make some honey. Well when I opened them up today, the super had 10 frames of sealed honey.


nice. we're looking forward to see how your harvest ends up this year after switching to the square dadants.

i'm at a little over a half ton extracted at this point but i can already tell i'll be coming up somewhat short of last year's haul. i'll speculate as to the reason(s) why i think that is in a later post and once i get the final tally in.



Jadeguppy said:


> squarepeg, that sounds like above average returns of mated queens. Where are you going to put all the extra hives?


85% mating success is about what we usually get around here and i think that's in the ball park of what others have reported.

the extra colonies will be overwintering as 5 x 5 nucs, (many thanks for the inspiration michael palmer!), with a deep lower box and medium upper box.

i am using migratory covers and the plan is to push them hard against each other once cold weather arrives. i'll then cut a single piece of styrofoam to make one big insulated telescoping cover for the group.


----------



## Jadeguppy

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Interesting plan. I've been wondering how much heat is conserved by putting the hives against each other.


----------



## rkereid

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> the extra colonies will be overwintering as 5 x 5 nucs, (many thanks for the inspiration michael palmer!), with a deep lower box and medium upper box.
> 
> i am using migratory covers and the plan is to push them hard against each other once cold weather arrives. i'll then cut a single piece of styrofoam to make one big insulated telescoping cover for the group.


square- I have no trouble wintering double and triple 5 frame medium nucs here in the mountains of VA at 2100' elev. I can't imagine that you are as cold, or colder, in winter than we are. The first couple years that I was wintering nucs I did as you describe, pushing all together and insulating the top. It's been eight years since I stopped doing that, and there is no difference in survival. I do worry when it gets down to -15 F for a day or two, but a healthy cluster always deals with it. I do use a single piece of foam insulation on each one, just as I do on production colonies.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

that's good to know rkereid, i appreciate the feedback.


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

I'm starting to see Golden Rod blooming in Lamar County. We haven't had a good rain here in over a week so I don't know how much nectar in the early Golden Rod at this point. We're supposed to get showers starting the middle of this week. Boneset is starting to head up for blooming soon also.

I've had to add feeders to several hives, mostly this year's swarms. They have lots of bees but are pretty light at this point. All hives are bringing in light yellow pollen along with some orange pollen.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

i appreciate the report gary. i'm seeing small patches of what i believe is the earlier blooming variety of goldenrod but not yet the later blooming variety that turns the roadsides and fallow fields completely yellow.

i'm optimistic that if this rainy weather pattern continues we may end up with a decent fall flow.

i've given my nucs a few frames of honey but they haven't used it, rather i'm seeing just a little bit of new stores in the empty frames i provided.


----------



## clong

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Squarepeg,

I saw the first goldenrod here in Richmond, VA area on Aug 1st. I don't think I 've seen it that early before. I can't really tell if my smaller hives are accumulating nectar, but on a couple of the larger ones, they are still producing new white comb, and depositing new nectar. I'm not sure how.

How can you tell the difference between "early" goldenrod, and later golden rod?


----------



## rkereid

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



clong said:


> Squarepeg,
> 
> I saw the first goldenrod here in Richmond, VA area on Aug 1st. I don't think I 've seen it that early before. I can't really tell if my smaller hives are accumulating nectar, but on a couple of the larger ones, they are still producing new white comb, and depositing new nectar. I'm not sure how.
> 
> How can you tell the difference between "early" goldenrod, and later golden rod?


I've heard that there are about 17 different varieties of the solidago family in Virginia, but here- https://vnps.org/princewilliamwildflowersociety/botanizing-with-marion/goldenrods-falsely-accused/ , they say there are 38 varieties in the state. In my experience in the western part of the state, it rarely produces measurable nectar. Pollen is a different matter though, as it obviously produces plenty of that. 

The first golden rod and wingstem is just starting to bloom here. I'd say it will be full on in about 10 days. We have a lot of knapweed blooming now and there is usually a little excess stored in the good forage locations.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

all goldenrod looks pretty much the same to me. it's just that a few bloom early but most bloom a month or more later.


----------



## AHudd

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

We only have two kinds of GR around here as far as I'm concerned. Short/early and tall/late. 

Alex


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

the late season goldenrod is just starting to open up here. we're short on rain at this time but it's looking good for early next week.

i harvested a couple of supers today and i'm thinking that this batch or maybe one more will be the last for 2018.

i haven't tallied yet but it's looking like the harvest will be about 20% less than last year, mostly due i believe to having made quite a few more splits this season.

all 24 slots have production size hives on them and there are 5 nucs in reserve.

the nucs are 5x5x5 with a deep on the bottom and two medium supers.

a couple of of the production colonies were superceding as of a few weeks ago so i'll have to check out the queen status on them soon.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

i've got one hive at the outyard that i noticed dwv and crawlers on the ground last week. i went into it today and took off a super of honey and a super of empty comb leaving it with a deep and 2 medium supers.

i found it queenright with eggs and brood all stages. the pattern was somewhat spotty and it appeared that about 20-25% of the brood was being affected by the viral load. the current population is pretty much filling the deep and 2 remaining supers with bees. 

this colony was a small overwintered 4 frame nuc that i acquired in february and was on the verge of starvation. i transferred it to 10 frame equipment with stores and it built up to be one of my strongest hives this year producing 100+ lbs. of surplus honey.

since this one is at the outyard i am not able to keep an eye on it on a daily basis. i had higher than average losses there last winter after having my first ever mite collapse and rob out prior to cold weather setting in.

the colony is too big and has too much brood to euthanize without making a mess and i don't want to take a chance on another domino collapse over there. so what i did is reduce the entrance for now and ordered a robber screen and some thymol. 

this will be my first occasion to use a mite treatment. if they survive winter i'll requeen them in the spring.


----------



## beemandan

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Whatever you do, I would not move any of the hives or bees from that outyard to my home yard.
They may have a more virulent virus or mite and importing it to your home could have disastrous consequences.
Just my opinion.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



beemandan said:


> Whatever you do, I would not move any of the hives or bees from that outyard to my home yard.
> They may have a more virulent virus or mite and importing it to your home could have disastrous consequences.
> Just my opinion.


100% agree dan. 

if i move it at all it will be to my 'overflow' yard that has only 3 hives. i drive by it going to and coming home from work making it easy to check there more frequently. i've been using this yard for smaller colonies recovering from having went queenless ect.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

I would take out and freeze all capped comb. This is no problem now in your climate zone. Shift the queen next year if they survive.
If you do thymol, remember to to it twice. Next time after ten days.You can do both IPM.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

I have had many cases over the years when a lot of dying crawler appear in front of the hive. Sometimes this hive survives, many times it does not. I have done nothing. Other hives seem not to be infected. But this is how it is by me, cannot be sure this happens elsewhere. Anyway, virus resistance is such a crucial factor in TF bees that there has to be selection pressure for that too. This year I even inseminated one deformed wing queen, just for a test. Bees replaced her soon after egglaying started.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

sibylle, the broodnest in this hive is split between the middle 5 frames of the bottom deep and the middle 5 frames of the first super. it would be cumbersome to remove those frames for freezing, plus most of the brood is looking fairly healthy at this point. i'm thinking that 2 or 3 rounds of thymol will be enough to rectify the situation, but i've no experience with this so only time will tell.

juhani, it is not unusual for me to have a couple of hives showing a few crawlers and dvw late in the season when the the fall brooding starts up. what i usually see is that after a couple of weeks i don't see diseased bees anymore and the majority of those colonies survive winter and are strong the following season.

part of me is tempted to let this one play out in the same way. my reasons for using thymol this time is because i now have two new beekeepers with hives within flying distance from this yard and since i can't monitor the hive on a regular basis i am taking this precaution in part to be responsible to them.

this, and because 5 out of my 8 losses last winter happened at this yard after a fall mite collapse and subsequent rob out that happened in over a 4 day period that i wasn't able to go by to check the yard.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> my reasons for using thymol this time is because i now have two new beekeepers with hives within flying distance from this yard and since i can't monitor the hive on a regular basis i am taking this precaution in part to be responsible to them.


Personally I wouldn't do it. Local treating beekeepers don't take account of the effect their actions have on me, and I see no reason not to return the favour. I'd offer them replacement queens, and perhaps nucs if they suffer losses. 

Mike UK


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

hi mike. one of the other beekeepers is also treatment free in his second season and he got his bees from me, except for an imported queen last year late in the season.

the other one is a first year beekeeper and to whom i haven't spoken and i'm not sure where they sourced their bees or what their mite strategy is or isn't.

again, my other rationale is not ending up with a garage full of dead out equipment this winter.

i just go home from a look see at the outyard and i only saw one crawler today. the robber screen and thymol should arrive about the middle of next week. i'll start with the robber screen and hold off on the thymol. 

i planned on doing alcohol washes before and after treatment. if i stop seeing diseased bees and the mite count is reasonable i'll probably delay or forego treatment.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i'll start with the robber screen and hold off on the thymol.


:thumbsup:

But be quick with the robber screen and build one yourself until the shipping arrives. Take a wire mesh and screw it on somehow or think of something. A plastic tube or whatever. Small entrance!
Good luck!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

thanks sibylle. i think we are ok for the time being. we have a flow going on and that colony is over two deeps of bees strong. the big entrance is screened down to 2 bees.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

i ended up with about 5 - 6 of these:



*#4


2018 AJ GRAFT MATED AT BARTS


082818: NEW WHITE WAX GETTING PULLED ON MIDDLE FRAMES OF SUPER1, ADDED SUPER2 WITH A FEW PARTIAL HONEY FRAMES

081818: NUC COMPLETELY FULL OF BEES, TRANSFERRED TO 10 FRAME DEEP AND SUPER1, NOT MUCH OF DONATED HONEY USED, SAW QUEEN WITH SOLID HEALTHY BROOD

081818: BROUGHT HOME TO BECOME #4

072118: GAVE MEDIUM SUPER WITH 2 FRAMES HONEY

071518: QUEEN AND OPEN BROOD, NOT MANY BEES

062418: GAVE CELL FROM 2018 AJ GRAFT

062318: DEEP 5 FRAME SPLIT FROM #D1 TOOK TO BARTS*


our dearth wasn't that bad this summer. this nuc was given all drawn comb and a little bit of honey from other hives. no syrup was used.


----------



## Cloverdale

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



Juhani Lunden said:


> I have had many cases over the years when a lot of dying crawler appear in front of the hive. Sometimes this hive survives, many times it does not. I have done nothing. Other hives seem not to be infected. But this is how it is by me, cannot be sure this happens elsewhere. Anyway, virus resistance is such a crucial factor in TF bees that there has to be selection pressure for that too. This year I even inseminated one deformed wing queen, just for a test. Bees replaced her soon after egglaying started.


Juhani, one of my experiences with the crawlers is nosema cerana, which is not viral but spores. Different from n.apis, during winter they seem OK, then the spore load increases into summer. (millions). The hive activity looks “normal”, but when inspecting there is not much stores, brood can look spotty. One of the guys on Bee-l did an experiment with n. cerana and posted the paper he wrote; I believe Randy O. helped him a little. I don’t know if the paper has been posted “officially” yet. What I did learn, and do, is you can freeze your equipment (not frames) and it will kill the spores, so you can reuse the boxes. Deb


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

window screen and a stapler for a quick robbing screen. This is what I'm doing for hives with higher mite counts or virus expression. If they survive, they will be requeened next year. A minor episodic loss is helpful in creating some additional selection pressure. They are to be expected. It is a refining moment and should be looked at as useful in identifying stronger genetics. Meanwhile if you have time, you could do a series of mite counts on nearby hives and compare that with a series of mite counts where the hives seem healthy at a different location. I have had failures, but strong nearby hives seem to shrug them off for what its worth.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

for the hive i mentioned in post #1668 having crawlers and dwv i haven't seen anymore on the last 3 trips over there, nor have i seen any with the other 29 hives.

the high heat/humidity persists here and i'm waiting for the weather to moderate so i can get inside the hives and assess colony strength and brood health.

i'll be getting a mite count on the crawlers/dwv hive, as well as any others that look suspicious.


lharder, i agree that periodic events are part of the program and good stock should have a high degree of resilience to them.

i believe my stock is demonstrating that, but last year's 5/8 losses at the outyard after the collapse/robbing event showed me that there may be an upper limit and even proven stock is not bullet proof.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



Cloverdale said:


> Juhani, one of my experiences with the crawlers is nosema cerana, which is not viral but spores. Different from n.apis, during winter they seem OK, then the spore load increases into summer. (millions). The hive activity looks “normal”, but when inspecting there is not much stores, brood can look spotty. One of the guys on Bee-l did an experiment with n. cerana and posted the paper he wrote; I believe Randy O. helped him a little. I don’t know if the paper has been posted “officially” yet. What I did learn, and do, is you can freeze your equipment (not frames) and it will kill the spores, so you can reuse the boxes. Deb


Hi Deb

To my knowledge Nosema (normal or cerana) is not a problem in summertime. Massive amount of crawlers come always in end of summer by me. Have not seen such an event for many years though.

Our winter lasts 6 months, freezing temperatures to -30 C, lasting sometimes for weeks. All my beekeeping gear is in cold storage outside, so there should not be a problem with nosema spores spreading around.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

we continue to be stuck with above average temperatures and lack of rainfall, although there is a slight chance my corner of the state will get a little precipitation this afternoon off the remnant of hurricane florence.

we have acres and acres of goldenrod in full bloom which should be getting exploited for pollen and nectar but i'm only seeing a small amount of goldenrod pollen coming in and still not smelling the nectar. the same thing happened here two years ago when we were experiencing historical drought, i.e. the goldenrod bloomed but apparantly did not produce.

a little rain may save the day on the goldenrod and other fall blooms, but if not i'm certain there is still more than enough stored honey in the hives to get them set for winter.

the robber screen and thymol arrived mid-week and i went to the outyard to install the robber screen on the hive exhibiting dwv and crawlers at sundown yesterday. my thinking is that the foragers will adapt to it better if i put it on when all the bees are inside, thereby making it necessary to first exit the hive through the new entrance.

unfortunately when i arrived the colonies were heavily bearded at the entrances so i decided to wait for a cool down or a rain. judging by the size of the beards the colony with diseased bees still appears to have the largest population in that yard. i observed only one crawler on that trip after not seeing any on the previous few trips.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

summer is lasting longer than normal here and our temperatures are only now starting to moderate.

it's also been very dry with not enough rain to support a good fall flow. the goldenrod is well past peak and i'm only seeing a spattering of its nectar being put up in the hives.

the last couple of times i've opened up hives resulted in somewhat of a robbing frenzy in the yard although it settled down pretty quickly afterward.

i placed a robber screen on my one hive with dwv and crawlers last weekend. it took several days for the foragers to adjust to it. i was worried about the hive overheating due to not enough water getting in fast enough but luckily we had some cloudy/rainy days and the temps dropped a bit.

here is the robber screen i got:

https://www.mannlakeltd.com/10-frame-moving-robbing-screen

with the poor fall flow my plan is to not harvest any more honey until we reach the first frost or so and i have made sure that all 24 full sized hives and 5 nucs have what they need for wintering.

as of now i believe all are queenright and with the exception of the one with dwv and crawlers all that i have inspected recently have solid healthy brood patterns.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

I shut my hives down for the year and am done till spring. I do see some pollen coming in and hopefully a little nectar goes with that cause my hives are not heavy. My bees are not as interested in hives that I open as they were earlier and I only have reducers on (no screens) The rains picked up here to about perfect after a very dry summer and we have just cooled down though we are starting a three day hot spell with the hottest day being 88 degrees.

Thanks for the report, it is nice to compare with what I have going on. In spring, we can see what it means and maybe compare the effects. I have ten mostly full size hives (three are not quite there). I am expecting good things and prepared for bad.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Jadeguppy

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

sp, glad to hear yours are doing well. We are only about a week into goldenrod here. I'm happy to see the hives busy. I'm surprised that you have had such a dry summer. It has been wet here.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



gww said:


> I shut my hives down for the year and am done till spring.





Jadeguppy said:


> We are only about a week into goldenrod here. I'm happy to see the hives busy. I'm surprised that you have had such a dry summer. It has been wet here.


many thanks for the replies and to all who are following here.

gww, i'm waiting for the first hard freeze or two at which point i'll weigh all the hives and then redistribute honey from the have's to the have not's. it's possible there may remain enough surplus honey to the point of being able to extract a couple more supers.

jg, the goldenrod is waning quickly here and the shortage of rain has resulted in the third year in a row with not enough of a fall flow to make a dent. i think there was enough pollen and nectar coming in to support the fall brood up but not enough nectar to add significant weight to the hives.


----------



## Jadeguppy

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

I just checked mine and the strong hives are adding stores, but the smaller ones are using them up as fast as it comes in. Looks to be some good pollen coming in as well. This week we are in full bloom. We probbly have another three weeks until we get our first chill. It is usually Halloween or shortly after when I have to break out the jackets at night. Being so close to the Gulf of Mexico creates a micro climate. I was out there this week and the heat coming of the water is noticeable. I figure I only have a few weeks left to get a swim or dive in without a thicker suit.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Square


> gww, i'm waiting for the first hard freeze or two at which point i'll weigh all the hives and then redistribute honey from the have's to the have not's. it's possible there may remain enough surplus honey to the point of being able to extract a couple more supers.


I fed each about two gal and they will still be light after the first frost is my bet on mine and so it will be tough love time. It may bite me that I take the easy way out rather then weigh the hives and know for sure but spring will tell the story. The feeding is harder then what you do but my bees do not forage as well as yours up to now. I still have hopes and as I get a bit more experience with managing and maybe (if I ever make the move) when I add another location to compare with where I have my bees now, I will know more if it is bees or location causing the honey gathering excess shortfall.

My bees have did well, so far as it goes to not dying though and this will be their third winter and so spring should be interesting.

I hope you get back to your normal loss rate or even better and will be around watching what you have to say come spring.
Cheers
gww


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

are you still all mediums gww?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

the weight i'm shooting for is about 40 - 50 lbs over tare weight.

for example the equipment i have results with a deep, bottom board, inner cover, and telescoping top weighting about 25 lbs. when filled with 10 frames of empty drawn comb.

a medium super with 9 frames of drawn comb weighs about 13 lbs.

so if i weigh a hive that has a single deep with 3 supers and it weighs 120 lbs. that means the bees, beebread, and honey weigh about 56 lbs, with probably about 45 lbs. of that being honey.

that's a super and a half's worth of honey which is a whole lot more than necessary to get a colony through winter here.

i find that from the end of october to the end of february most colonies here will consume no more than 10 lbs. of honey.

they then will go through the rest pretty quickly starting about the end of february. the remaining stored honey is used to support the rapid spring build up when the first fresh pollen starts coming in.

i have seen colonies that looked like they were on the verge of starvation in march because i couldn't find more than a couple pounds of stored honey. that's usually not a problem for the colony though unless the weather deteriorates for an extended period.

i suppose if it got too bad for too long they would cannibalize brood to get by but i've not seen that happen yet.

i don't think you'll be in trouble anytime soon gww. if they run out of food it probably won't be until they start brooding up coming out of winter. 

if they get too light you can always put damp sugar on newspaper using an empty super for a rim. hefting and taking a quick peek on the nice days is probably all you need and not bother with a scale.

for me getting the weights is useful for redistributing honey among the hives and instead of mountain camping for emergency feeding i know which hives are heavy enough to donate honey from if needed coming out of winter.


----------



## Riverderwent

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i'll weigh all the hives and then redistribute honey from the have's to the have not's.


 Should those commie bees learn about _Honeybee Democracy_.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Square


> are you still all mediums gww?


I am still all medium. Like last year, I have a few hives that were not very big and so I gave them combs from the few extracted supers I had and gave them a little sugar water to fill those combs. I have three that have only two medium boxes worth of comb and the rest have three. So hive wise of bees, the comb in some is bigger then the hive had grown to.

Last year was the longest winter with no warm spells that I have seen since getting bees and I believe as far as flying days go, even till middle april there were very few flying days. I do not believe last year was what is normal.

I am repeating what I did last year and hoping to get a little more natural early build up with possible early flows which with out lots of honey in the hives, the bees built up slow this year. I wanted to slow them down from the year before when it was swarm city here but not as slow as last year. As it is a guess of what this year will be, I think if it is more normal, the lack of honey in the hive won't bite me so bad and build up will be better. It is a bit of a dance when you have no extra comb to give them in spring to end up with lots of bees but enough room that swarming does not happen before they start drawing comb.

If my bees did not gain in the last 2/3 weeks since I fed them, they will probably be lite but I think will make it even in spring but maybe slower building depending on flying weather with the early tree nector/pollen.

From Oct to warmer days, I normally do not check. Those warmer days have been as early as feb first year and as late as april last year. In a few more years of getting my feet on the ground, I will have more knowlage on actions to take to improve earlier build up for bigger chance at flows.

I do know it is kind of a stupid way to keep bees based on feel and by calander rather then more looking and weighing but this way fits my nature better. When I play it too close and lose some bees to starvation, I will be kicking myself in the butt but so far I am just loseing the flow potential or ending up with more hives due to swarming. The bees do just keep living though, knock on wood.

My hives still had empty comb and felt light even after the bit of feed I gave them. Next spring, I will watch and see what adjustments I might make to improve. Since the years are all different and I keep bees a little by feel and look and fingers crossing for luck, I don't learn quite as fast and it is going to take some years to get the proper feel.

I do watch you and listen to your advice and put it to what I see and might get good at it some day.

I am about out of free sugar and want to get to managing with out supplementing at some point but this spring summer seemed to be very short with the plants blooming late and the bloom seeming not to last very long though my fall astors were gone last year at this time but not this year.

I don't know if some of it is my bees or my area or my management as far as harvest goes. I do understand that stores in the hives makes spring bees but also that it makes swarming and the puzzle is fun but hard to figure out and will take me some time. I have time and am not yet good at selling honey anyway and as long as some bees live and I can improve a little here and there, I am not in a big hurry to be perfect though I don't want to go backwards. Bees look good anyway.
Cheers
gww


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

understood gww.

i agree that your build up would be slower and therefore swarm pressure would be lower with less honey reserve carried over from the previous year.

swarm prevention is tough when you don't have a surplus of drawn comb. i believe you are using foundationless frames and if so are you having any luck getting comb drawn early in the season?

if you don't want to mess with selling honey making early splits and selling off nucs might be a way to knock back swarming while generating a little profit from the operation.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Square


> if you don't want to mess with selling honey making early splits and selling off nucs might be a way to knock back swarming while generating a little profit from the operation. ​




I think they build comb fair in early spring if early is considered about beginning of may. It just does not last very long and pretty much ended mid june this year. The bigger hives can get close to 20 frames drawn and the little hives are more like 10/13 frames drawn. This is just kinda a guess as some hives do a little better than others. 

So even using the big hives supers, it seems to take about two years for the hives from the beginning to be at the full three box set up that I want for a brood nest, if any of that makes sense. I was in the hives every 5 days last year (which probably slowed the bees down) and it was still hard for me to gauge flow and comb building at the time but I know what I started with and what I ended with. I thought they were set to do a little better but this year they seemed to start a little slower before taking of and then peaking.

I think that selling bees might be easier then selling honey but I would have to come up with equipment and I can not make my self buy it yet and I am too slow of a builder to try and make it. I also wonder about selling foundationless frames to new people and so don't want to ruin my reputation selling people things they may not be happy with. I like the foundationless but have never tried anything else and so infrastructure/supply net work would have to be addressed.​

For now I am just learning and do not know which way I want to jump. My instinct tells me that if I don't just sell packages, that I would have to buy different equipment and get some bees started on it. If I make honey, it does not hurt me so bad if I take a week or two to build a hive cause they will last for years but if I sell that would never work. I am wishy washy and so just add a little as I go while I am deciding which way to jump. 

This may seem like I don't want to do anything but I do want to get something from my bees. I just don't mind if it takes me a little time to try things to figure out what I want to get from them. I have not orderred 1000 frames and foundation yet and that is my bottle neck for selling bees but I might someday.

Just call me mister indecisive. 
Cheers
gww

Ps My only real plan this winter is to build about 25/30 more medium boxes and frames so I have enough supers to put on the hives and still put any swarms/splits in my unused hives with out running out of equiptment.


----------



## Amibusiness

Thanks for the continued updates, square. This summer I got swamped with other work and so could not follow up on the splits until fall. Still behind now! This means that I did not get them enough room to expand and store, so I am feeding more colonies than usual....
Gww, given that you are short on comb, selling nucs would slow your expansion down. You could sell packages but that also reduces comb production, though not as much. If you are confident you can catch most of your swarms, keep feeding them empty frames to draw in the brood nest until they swarm. If many would get away, try artificial swarms on your main spring flow, ideally just when cells start to get laid. Leave queen with one comb in old location (with forragers returning) and move all brood and nurse bees a few feet over. I try to get all brood with plenty pollen consolidated in the bottom box(es) and use bee escapes to pack the remaining bees in out of the top boxes (which get removed) so the population is dense and the queen cells get well fed. Check up on the old queen several times to make sure they are drawing straight. Make a few splits out of the nurse bee half before queens emerge.
I do this when I have an old queen that could use stimulation. I add as much comb as I can and they need before and during swarm season. When I make the split there are a few extra supers of honey which I remove from the top while cells are being drawn. If there is still enough flow ahead I have been able to get the old queen to draw 20 new combs and fill a super of combs added for honey after the drawing is done. She also usually shows a better brood patern than before. The new splits draw a few combs and get a few combs as they expand. Any splits from first half of main flow can draw and produce a super of surplus. From the 2nd half they expand enough to be able to overwinter on fall flow. This is a slow way of splitting (maybe 4 or 5 out of each artificial swarm), but a great way to increase comb and get an old queen laying lake a new one. Then sell overwintered nucs next year. I hope that made sense!
Result/example: 1 great colony that is breeder quality comes out of winter in 3 8 frame mediums. She yields 3-4 supers at artificial swarm at mid flow. She draws 15 -30 frames and yields another super by fall. 4 new splits with no artificial feed. With no extra comb the honey production would be less as I can't maximise efficiency when it is needed.... So about 100# honey and 5 colonies going into winter; or less honey and 2x the comb you had before....
Happy beekeeping everyone!


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Amib........
I caught most swarms cause they landed in the same tree but the line of hives is getting longer and further from that tree. I am around all the time and so chances are good though. I may not be in an area with as long of a flow as you have as it dried up by june 18th this year and I am too lazy to feed much. Growing slower and keeping some of the hives from swarming should get me some extra comb, eventually.

I do use the fly-back type of splits you speak of though not as aggressively as you speak of. I tried it a little later at near end flow this year and had to combine all but one back due to queen not returning. The ones I did the year before earlier worked great with all queens returning while using swarm cells rather then making them make emergency cells.

Square...
I think this year will be interesting for me. If my memory is correct, you did not sustain any losses until your third year and this is my third and we will see if any virus or such has built up at my location. The bees look good now.

Cheers
gww


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



gww said:


> I think they build comb fair in early spring if early is considered about beginning of may. It just does not last very long and pretty much ended mid june this year. The bigger hives can get close to 20 frames drawn and the little hives are more like 10/13 frames drawn. This is just kinda a guess as some hives do a little better than others.


useful observations there gww. that's almost exactly the same time frame and comb building capacity that i see here with most new comb getting drawn on the main nectar flow.

forcing foundationless frames into the middle of the broodnest a couple of weeks earlier than seeing new wax in the supers will result in comb being drawn a little bit earlier than that, but it will end up almost 100% drone comb. this is a good way however to get drone comb if one is trying to flood a local area with a desired drone contribution.




gww said:


> I think that selling bees might be easier then selling honey but I would have to come up with equipment and I can not make my self buy it yet and I am too slow of a builder to try and make it.


my nuc customers to bring their empty boxes to my location and we simply transfer the frames from my boxes to theirs. half of what my price on a nuc is has to due with the buyer getting good drawn comb, brood and stores.




gww said:


> I also wonder about selling foundationless frames to new people and so don't want to ruin my reputation selling people things they may not be happy with.


if anything you should charge extra for naturally drawn comb. 




gww said:


> My instinct tells me that if I don't just sell packages, that I would have to buy different equipment and get some bees started on it.


i would consider simply splitting out the overwintered queen, a couple of frames of brood, and a couple of frames of stores. do this just prior to swarm season. sell a nuc for each hive leaving the parent hives good and strong to make their new queen.

you won't need any more boxes, but you will need some frames to replace the ones you remove.

this accomplishes nuc sales, swarm prevention, you still have a good chance at getting some honey and maybe even more honey compared to a hive that swarms once or twice, you'll get a bit of a brood break, and you'll have nice young new queens that won't have to support the big spring build up and these young queens will have a better shot at getting through winter.

its easy to fix the ones that fail to get a mated queen by giving frames of eggs and brood. it's also possible to make more than one nuc per hive if desired because there are usually more than one queen cell made after splitting out the old queen.

you won't get rich, but your apiary is big enough that if you don't mind doing work you could produce and sell 10 or more nucs per season. not trying to get into your business but just a little food for thought.

cheers.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Square
Get into my business any time you want. Sometimes I even listen. I was mostly worried about the foundationless collapsing when being moved by a buyer. And it is the frames that cause me trouble as far as my bottle neck. I made frames today. I worked maybe 5 hours and got around 40 frames cut but not put together. That give you an ideal of the speed I work at though if I bought lumber and did not have to plane my boards, I might speed that up a bit. I have been on the internet and almost pulled the trigger on a thousand frames but could not make myself spend the money.

I have thought that making bees and selling might be easier then selling honey but have not decided to jump that direction yet. I thought just like you said of just taking the queen and letting what was left make new. I am thinking I would have to do it before the buyer showed up cause I can not count on always finding the queen even looking.

I was mostly wanting to make all the boxes so that if I got lazy and kept all my bees, I could at least get some comb drawn and be in a better position next year. Making that many would give me enough boxes for the 20/22 tops, bottoms and stands that I have made to each have at least 5/6 mediums with them. Then my options are open to make honey,capture swarm, make splits or even sell a few. Then I may not know what I am going to do but would be prepared to do it on whim. Silly way to keep bees huh.

The only reason selling foundationless scares me is cause one time I moved a swarm and the comb collapsed but it was brand new comb and very bumpy driving.
Thanks for the suggestions and sorry if I have did talked too much about me on your thread.
Cheers
gww


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



gww said:


> Get into my business any time you want.


ok, since you asked. 




gww said:


> I was mostly worried about the foundationless collapsing when being moved by a buyer.


not so much a problem for a medium sized frame, especially once the comb gets attached most of the way around.




gww said:


> And it is the frames that cause me trouble as far as my bottle neck. I made frames today.


take the $150 you get from the first nuc and buy 50 assembled frames.

if you sell 8 frame medium nucs you'll have about $24 of assembled frames invested in each one.




gww said:


> I am thinking I would have to do it before the buyer showed up cause I can not count on always finding the queen even looking.


your hives are small enough and the broodnest at that point in the season is small enough that you'll find her if you keep looking. consider an eye exam to find out what it takes to get you seeing clearly at 12 - 14 inches.

i think it's better for the buyer if they can see the strong treatment free overwintered colony that their nuc is coming out of. you'll have no problem finding buyers for nucs like that.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Square...
What is funny is that my daughter is an eye doctor. I said I was going to wait till she could check them but she has been a doctor now for several years and I still have not had my eyes checked. 

I do have a question. If I make up an eight frame to sell as a nuc. What would be the fair comb make up as far as brood, honey and how many extra shakes to get enough bees in it to make it good to go?

Cheers
gww

PS every time I sell something bee, my wife gets the money.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

i'm blessed to have an eye doctor in my family as well gww. it takes my very best corrected vision to be able to do a proper inspection especially when it comes to locating eggs, assessing brood health, and finding the queen.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Square...
I can not see eggs. I edited my last post while you were answering. I did have one question on fairness.

I do have a question. If I make up an eight frame to sell as a nuc. What would be the fair comb make up as far as brood, honey and how many extra shakes to get enough bees in it to make it good to go?

Thanks
gww


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

8 medium frames is equal in space to just over 5 deep frames but there is slightly more frame cost associated with the mediums.

i think a strong nuc would be 7 - 8 frames of bees with 4 decent brood frames and 3 - 4 frames of mixed: honey, beebread, and a little empty comb.

a split like this made at this time of year is ready for the buyer to add a second box to.

go see your daughter. if you are old enough to have cataracts and they are keeping you from seeing eggs let her send you to a reputable surgeon.

part of the nuc sale should include you showing the buyer a solid pattern of freshly laid eggs so there is no doubt the queen they are purchasing is getting the job done.

let your wife have all of the bee money, but make her buy you some new frames.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Squarepeg
Thank you for the answer.
gww


----------



## Amibusiness

Gww, I'm up north so I'm interested if square says something different. But in case others are in the same boat:
It depends on what is available to forrage and how early / late the nuc is made. 3-5 or 6 brood w/ pollen, 0-1 pollen, 1-3 honey. Shakes if cold. Adhering bees if warm and likely to swarm. Nucs swarm before the queen cell is capped (at about 9 days). So if customer gets bees home, installs them, maybe even bribes them to behave with some feed, and comes back in a week, you want to be sure that queen is still there. Otoh, there should be enough bees that the colony can become a boomer and brood can be kept warm. 
Make some nucs next spring as though youd sell them but keep them to observe and make adjustments. You could fill all your extra boxes with nucs. Its great fun. Mike Palmer says it best, youd just need to adjust for mediums.
Happy beekeeping everyone!


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Amib......
The first year that was warm early, the bees forced many splits on me by swarming or wanting to swarm on april 13th. When it goes bad like that, it takes lots of boxes. Last year was different and things slowed down where the bees were not ready for splits early. I hope to have it closer to in the middle this year so I get to make some decisions.
Time will tell.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Amibusiness

Yes, each year is different. We had one year where they went from 0 to 60 quite early. I moved 3 deep frames with queen cells to a 5 frame nuc box with 2 empty frames, no added feed. This was during my first round through the hives in late April or early May. I kept the queen cells in case I came across queenless or drone layer hives. On May 8th they swarmed with virgin queens....
Some observations from a treatment free apiary in upstate NY: the year started 3 weeks late but caught up in a hurry. We finished pulling honey beginning July while increasing our colony numbers about 300%. I was not able to work the bees in August so we lost some late splits and did not get enough comb on the ones that did get mated, resulting in several colonies that were too small to take full advantage of the fall flow. Many of the queens are shutting down about 2 weeks earlier than normal and mite symptoms (pms) are more pronounced in the weaker hives than they have been in the past. My goal is to keep them alive until it is cold enough that they will not get robbed until they are dead (December). That way the mites will die as well, instead of spreading to other colonies. 
I am not in as stable a spot as square. We have foreign (not tf) colonies brought in to our neighbors' every year by the dozen. So we split to stay ahead of the mites. Each year I pick some promising stock to not split so we can refine the survivor genetics. However, I need to be able to get some isolated mating yards so I don't have to contend with a steady stream of outside influences....
Happy beekeeping everyone!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

nice little exchange of information their folks, many thanks for the replies and to all following.

this evening marks the first evening cool enough to require a sweatshirt outside since last spring.

a brisk north wind following a strong cold front is pushing the coolest/dryest air through my area since last spring.

finally.


----------



## GregB

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



Amibusiness said:


> ... My goal is to keep them alive until it is cold enough that they will not get robbed until they are dead (December). That way the mites will die as well, instead of spreading to other colonies. ....


Just screen them all preventatively and don't worry when they are going to die
The sooner the better - more honey left for you.

I think square does the preventative screening, if I recall (or was it lharder?).
I suppose I too should just screen the suspects as soon as I feel something wrong with them. 
Let them just die behind the screens.

We finally got our first near freezing wind - I hope it just stays this way cold and keeps the bees inside and call it done for the year.
Everyone would be just healthier now to stay inside and no more flying and robbing each other.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



GregV said:


> I think square does the preventative screening...


after regretting not screening one hive last year that ended up mite bombing most of the yard it was in,

i've got one hive (out of 29) screened at this time because of the high number of dwv and crawlers it was spitting out.

i was considering pinching that queen, letting all the brood hatch out, and then euthanizing it by freezing...

but i haven't seen a diseased bee in almost 2 weeks and there are no diseased pupae being drug out. it appears at this point that the colony is strong enough to make it into winter.

the screen is for insurance. i have some thymol but not likely i'll use it. winter may take of business for me and if not i might get a nice surprise.


----------



## GregB

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> after regretting not screening one hive last year that ended up mite bombing most of the yard it was in....


You know - leave and learn.
I recently understood the same mistake I made last year - a very strong June swarm started spitting out DW bees en mass (sometimes in late August/early September I recall).
A classic bomb.
Did not like those bees much anyway (they did too much head butting, kinda like the Russians - alas, was not much mite resistance in them; they were the worst of the bunch as it turned out).

Thinking back - I had to screen them immediately, right then and there, as soon as I saw those crawling bees on the grown.
It was a total no-brainer, I but did not know any better just yet.
I figured I let them be as they were - well, that was the moment to screen them in - I missed that very obvious part.

1-2 weeks later they "absconded" (as people like to say) and the hive was robbed out clean (mostly by my own bees - that I know as some colonies were unusually busy during that time late into the night - well, they were robbing out a crashed hive). So, the timely screening that particular hive would have helped to maybe have more surviving hives and have some honey harvested too.

This year I have no obvious hives to be screened yet (well, did screen a couple of the weakest nucs just lately).


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Square...


> but i haven't seen a diseased bee in almost 2 weeks and there are no diseased pupae being drug out. it appears at this point that the colony is strong enough to make it into winter.


I do wonder if you and greg are talking about the same kind of screening? You seem to be referring to robbing screens that allow the hive to still function. I could be getting it wrong, but it seems greg is talking about screening the hive shut completely so they can not abscomb or leave at all. 

It may just be my reading skill causing this and so if one of you wants to clarify when it was not needed, I apologize.
Cheers
gww


----------



## GregB

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



gww said:


> Square...
> 
> *I could be getting it wrong, but it seems greg is talking about screening the hive shut completely so they can not abscomb or leave at all. *
> 
> Cheers
> gww


Gww - no.
I mean exactly a typical anti-robbing screen that allows the colony to function normally.
But function *from behind the screen.*
This is to protect the healthy colonies from the sick colony. 
The sick colony is in partial "quarantine" that way. 
If they die (or abscond, whatever), the mites stay inside the hive and are contained.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Greg
That is why I apologized if I was getting it wrong, thanks for clarifying. 
Cheers
gww


----------



## GregB

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



gww said:


> Greg
> That is why I apologized if I was getting it wrong, thanks for clarifying.
> Cheers
> gww


Gww, not a problem.

This screening idea brings me again to thinking of just screening all hives as a default design feature (big and small hives, no difference) and call it done.
Since I have 5 active yards, I just have no time to go around and check on them often.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

i'm not sure the robber screen can be considered 100% effective at stopping a mite bomb. robbers have a way of finding their way in once they figure out there is no longer resistance. (thanks sibylle).

if anything it might prolong the event long enough for the beekeeper to take action (for me this means euthanize) or for winter to take care of business.

as it turned out i think that placing the robber screen when i did may have actually 'spread' a few mites because the pollen foragers who couldn't figure out how to get back in were drifting over and entering the hive next door.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i'm not sure the robber screen can be considered 100% effective at stopping a mite bomb. robbers have a way of finding their way in once they figure out there is no longer resistance.
> 
> as it turned out i think that placing the robber screen when i did may have actually 'spread' a few mites because the pollen foragers who couldn't figure out how to get back in were drifting over and entering the hive next door.


Yes the robber screens give the weak hive some time to mobilize their defense. As long as they are able to defend you will see the watchers ( and if the genetics allow defense) getting alert despite the stress of fighting mites.
The robbers need some time to get in compared to a screenless hive when robbers go in immediately as a staedy flow or as a cloud of "war bees" killing everything in their way before the weak hive realises the dangers.

Plus, you need small entrances and if your hive is very weak or bred for no dfense make the entrance to the screen as small as possible too. Kind of frustrating to the robbers to weave before the mesh and frustrated scouts might not come back!

Right before a crash there is no defense and after a short time the robbers go in. Bees are very clever and patient if it comes to get their advantage. 
I would never ignore a hive which crashes while season is still going on. Take it away or euthanize quickly. 

>>as it turned out...<<< not if you have a small distance between hives and not much if you have some brood combs still. I observed the foragers drawn to the mother hive, they never tried the other ones after having some slowing down because of the screens.
But the foragers must be used to the screens which means to put them there when it rains or in the evening after traffic is over.
Perhaps, if you have the possibility squarepeg, place the entrances into different directions or move the hives apart a little bit and mark the entrances with geometric signs. Paint them on! I will do that next year as addition. Helps much! I remember Bernhard Heuvel posting this management once.

Norbert Dorn sees the robbing as a combining of two colonies  but I would not go so far to see in in a positive kind of way because it´s a "hostile takeover"!
And I don´t want to do accelerated bond in my own beeyard with my own colonies myself but it might boost colonies which are already resistant like yours seem to be.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Worked on this post for some time so I hope I got it right now!


----------



## GregB

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

I suppose if you have mild fall and winter with many flying days, bees eventually find a way into an empty screened hive.
Unsure if that matters - mites are dead in a matter of days once the colony is dead.
So, the screen needs to mitigate robbing only for few days. Later it does not matter.
But, indeed, in a mild climate robbing is a potential issue through the entire winter.

In my climate, late fall, winter, early spring are flightless anyway.
This is a real winter around here, guys.

In fact, I use the empty hives as storage boxes - full of honey frames and just comb all way all until mid-spring. 
All entrances are open (screen from mice are built-in - that is given).
No insulation for the best possible ventilation. I want it windy in those storage hives.
After a couple of hard freezing nights (so the yellow jackets are gone), I will do the same again.
Once the honey frames are cold, bees have no interest in them even during an occasional flying day - they don't care to rob very cold honey much.

Oh, btw, I guess I already know of one pending storage hive - a strong commercial swarm will crash (I hope they do it soon because I am out of honey).
Fallen mites are visible on a bottom board all over.
Reduced all entrances to a single 0.5 inch still open but not even concerned of robbing much.
No screens. 
They are very strong still to be robbed, but likely will crash in later October/early November - no flight season to worry about.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

we've had a couple of light frosts over the past week or so. the goldenrod is pretty much finished except for the odd patch here and there that came in later after have been mowed earlier in the season.

there is still pollen coming in but dry conditions limited nectar production and not much weight was added on the fall flow.

i've called it on the honey harvest and weighed the hives yesterday. average estimated honey in the 24 full sized hives is just shy of 40 lbs. per hive and the 4 nucs are averaging about 20 lbs. each.

the plan is to equalize stores over the next few weeks as weather allows and get my foam insulation placed between the inner covers and telescoping tops. 

the hive spitting out dwv and crawlers has stopped doing so and the robber screen remains in place on that one.

the harvest is somewhat less this year with more splitting done. hive count was increased by 50% and i sold a couple of caught swarms.

final tallies will be posted after i get a chance to crunch the numbers.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Thanks for the update.
gww


----------



## GregB

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> ...
> 
> *the hive spitting out dwv and crawlers has stopped doing so* and the robber screen remains in place on that one.


This is interesting in that one of my nucs did the same - spitting dwv bees for a time, loosing bees and larva, and I was not hopeful for them.
Well, those queen-less Italians were in the middle of introduction to them a Russian-mutt queen and that was the critical period.
The Italians should be 100% rotated out by now and I hope the new Russian-mutt population maybe controlling the mites better.
I also gave them a boost from one of the more resistant hives (a frame of bees).
Fingers crossed as they seem to be holding. 

Unfortunately, the sister nuc of the same configuration (commercial Italians/Russian-mutt queen intro) just went under.
These puppies just abruptly crashed to mites even though I thought they were doing much, much better.
So, the hare/tortoise story appears to repeat itself.


----------



## 1102009

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



> the hive spitting out dwv and crawlers has stopped doing so and the robber screen remains in place on that one.


I had to look at the link again to see the configuration of your robber screens, because weather will start some dead bees dropping and the bees must be able to pull out those when they break cluster.
Therefore I took off my screens and installed mouse guards, but yours have the entrance on the bottom which should create no problem for the bees. But check please, not to have them suffocating.
My screen openings are to the sides and now and again I want to check my small entrances to free them of dead bees if I have to. I cannot with screens on so I have to take the risk. 

We have cold weather starting, first snow, temps 2-4°C, flow is over, clustering starts. It will get warm again but I hope the robbing urge is over if there ever was one. The hives are heavy, they are humming.
I have a gut feeling that 4-5 tf and the 4 colonies package bees might survive but you never know under my circumstances. It has been a strange year. Too much honey and not much breeding.

Strange too was that despite the high mite drops of some I did not see any high number of crawlers. But they must have been there. It may be that the bees killed them and took them away from the hives, so I did not see them.

Your managements are similar to those I saw when I visited in sweden, so I believe you are doing just fine. I still have to improve mine a little bit I fear.

Luck to you, squarepeg.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

i was asked offline about my winter preps. here is how i replied:

for the most part i do not disturb my hives unless there is a specific task that needs to be done.

for example i have not examined the broodnest in over half of my hives since over 6 months ago when i was doing my swarm prevention manipulations. this is not so much a boast but reflects the fact that i have more hives than i have time to look after properly.

this probably makes me not so good a beekeeper. some of the problems i encounter, with queenlessness being the most common one, could be avoided by being remedied earlier. 

i can usually tell by watching the entrances when queenlessness happens and before the moths and beetles take over; and i try to keep a few nucs on hand to repopulate those empty hives.

i have taken more care this year to reduce my entrances at the end of the season and have placed a robber screen on a couple of hives. i am doing this after having higher than normal losses at one of my yards last year. 

i have mentioned how lucky i feel to have bees that require very little intervention yet give me good survival and honey production.

my winter preps are very simple. about the time of the first frost i weigh my hives and calculate how much honey is in each one. i then transfer frames of honey from the heaviest ones to the lightest ones to make sure all have adequate stores to make it until the first nectars start coming in, which is usually a month or so after the winter solstice here.

the only other things i do are place insulation between the inner cover and telescoping top to prevent moisture from condensing on the ceiling inside the hive; and i make sure the small screened vents at the top of the hive are not propilized.

during the winter i will listen for the cluster roar inside the hives with a stethoscope. if one goes quiet i will bring the equipment in, put any from it honey back into other hives, and protect the empty comb for use in the spring.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

we've had a couple of hard freezes but this weekend was nice with sunny skies, light winds, and temps in the low 60's. i took advantage of the weather and finished up redistributing honey from the heaviest hives to the lightest ones.

here's my journal entry for hive weights and actions taken:

*102718: HIVE WEIGHTS: 

HIVE#, (# SUPERS), GROSS WT., #'s HONEY, (ACTION TAKEN)

#B1, (1), 55, 16, (ADDED SUPER 1/2 FULL HONEY)
#B2, (2), 76, 24, 
#B3, (3), 108, 43
#B4, (4), 88, 10, (REMOVED 3 EMPTY SUPERS, ADDED SUPER 1/2 FULL HONEY) 
#B5 (4) 103 25 
#B6 (4) 135 57 
#B7, (3,) 83, 18, (REMOVED EMPTY SUPER, ADDED SUPER WITH 5 FRAMES HONEY)
#B8, (4), 128, 50 
#B9, (3), 96, 31 
#1, (4), 100, 22 
#2, (4), 140, 62 
#3, (4), 151, 73, (REMOVED 1 SUPER WITH 7 FRAMES HONEY) 
#4, (3), 96, 31 
#5, (4), 176, 98, (REMOVED 2 SUPERS WITH 11 FRAMES HONEY)
#6, (4), 123, 45 
#7, (2), 63, 11, (ADDED SUPER WITH 5 FRAMES HONEY)
#8, (4), 112, 34 
#9, (4), 134, 56 
#10, (3), 106, 41
#11, (2), 80, 28 
#12, (3), 86, 21 
#D1, (4), 140, 62, (REMOVED 1 SUPER WITH 5 FRAMES HONEY)
#D2, (3), 84, 19, (REMOVED EMPTY SUPER, ADDED SUPER WITH 5 FRAMES HONEY)
#D3, (3), 126, 61, (REMOVED HALF FULL SUPER AFTER WEIGHING)

NUCS #1 THROUGH #4 (RECEIVED 2 FRAMES OF HONEY EACH)*


----------



## Jadeguppy

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

sp, is that medium supers in addition to a deep brood box? For some reason I'm thinking you went to all mediums.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

yes, all hives have a single 10 frame deep on the bottom with 10 frames topped with medium supers having 9 frames.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

i.e. the *(# SUPERS)* in the journal entry doesn't include the single deep at the bottom.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

made the rounds today with my stethoscope. 

still hearing good cluster roar in 28/28 hives

so far no fall collapses or robbing events.

one of the two hives showing dwv and crawlers earlier this fall and having robber screens installed is having a higher than average number of dead bees at the entrance, while the other one appears to have overcome the infestation.

i plan to go into the one with more dead bees at the entrance soon and if it appears too far gone i'll stick it in the freezer.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

It was above 50 degrees here today and I had bees at the entrance of all ten of my hives. I have a few hives with several dead bees in front of them on the ground and even on the landing board but this did not seem too out of line to me as I have seen it before. Thanks for your update.
gww


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

yes, a few dead left at the entrance after the bees have been cooped up for more than a day or two is normal and expected.

it's more like several dozens of dead with the 'problem' hive. i'm not very optimistic about that one.

and i don't have 100% confidence in the robber screen. i'm trying to come up with an isolated spot to move that hive so i can check it out.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> and i don't have 100% confidence in the robber screen.


Neither. in my view if robber screens are needed, there is in fact some other issue that needs solving. I'd agree with moving the hive to a safe place and checking.


You never see commercial beekeepers use robber screens, and they do not lose thousands of hives to robbing.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Square
I have a couple of hives with several dozen dead bees in front. I only have three hives that have concrete board in front where this is easy to see and the rest are grass and harder to tell even if the bees were there. Still, the bees seemed active and I feel pretty good about it and have seen that kind of death before and it has been cold for several days in a spell.

Time will tell, of course.
Good luck
gww

Ps Oldtimer, I mostly just reduce the entrances down to a couple of inches, I have never used a robber screen yet though I have seen robbing before. Most of the time because I did something dumb to cause it.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> and i don't have 100% confidence in the robber screen


I have never owned one. In fact I have considered robbing of the weaks may be beneficial, putting pressure on the living ones. For ages other beekeepers in this area have been surprised when I tell them that I very seldom have robbing. 

This autumn one hive was robbed, but just after it had small handfull of bees, so all major transport of mites, if any, had occurred long before that. Stores came to good use. Easy pick up and transport into warehouse.


----------



## jim lyon

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

I consider fall robbing a necessary culling weak of hives. Spring robbing of nucs, on the other hand, is something I am quite careful to guard against.


----------



## JWPalmer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

It is worth keeping in mind that robbung screens are more necessary in some areas than in others. We do not get a fall flow here so the dearth starts at the beginning of July and lasts about six weeks. After that we see a little nectar for another six to eight weeks. If we are not feeding heavily at this time, robbing becomes a serious issue. I find the robber screens like BM used to sell and ML still does, to be very effective, especially for nucs. Full sized hives typically get an entrance reducer only.


----------



## GregB

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Just to put it out there...

Robbing tendencies are coming along with particular bee races/populations/genetics.

I routinely watch/read how the native Russian AMMs have very little trend to rob the others; this is how they formed historically due to the conditions (but also they are weak fighting back the robbers - a claimed weak spot of the AMMs). Many keepers in Northern Russian regions are complaining how the imported southern races very aggressive robbers and often overcome the local AMMs during dearths (Yellow Caucasians are good example of this; very notorious robbers).

So, very often people bring to BS totally opposing observations/conclusions (including the needs for the screens). 
This is normal and a local issue.
Different bees/different populations/different local ecology should be explaining some differences.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

2018 tallies:

LEGEND: 2015, 2016, 2017,2018

OVERWINTER LOSSES: 3/18 = 16.7%, 2/21 = 9.5%, 3/22 = 13.6%, 8/24 = 33%

OVERWINTERED SURVIVORS AT START OF SEASON: 15, 19, 19, 16

LBS. OF HONEY HARVESTED: 876, 1488, 1686, 1169

ESTIMATED LBS. OF HONEY LEFT IN HIVES: 798, 870, 1102, 1004

NET INCREASE IN HIVES: 6, 3, 5, 12

SURPLUS NUCS SOLD: 5, 4, 1, 2

SALES: 6713, 11,253, 11,630, 7079

INCOME PER OVERWINTERED HIVE: 448, 592, 612, 442


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Square
Thanks for the update.
gww


----------



## Jadeguppy

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Are the losses based on the winter start year? Any idea why you are having such high losses this year?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



Jadeguppy said:


> Are the losses based on the winter start year? Any idea why you are having such high losses this year?


no, they are based on the winter end year jg.

this winter won't arrive for about another month, but so far no fall losses.

i wrote about last winter's high losses here:



squarepeg said:


> is the pendulum swinging?


(click on the little blue box with arrows to get to the whole post)

factors contributing to the drop in production for 2018 are:

fewer hives to start the season
poor rainfall during the main nectar flow
more splits made
swinging of pendulum

in the 'more splits made' made department i had 5 overwintered colonies in double deeps that were slated for splitting in 2017 to receive grafted queens, but that didn't happen.

those five doubles were split into singles prior to the main flow in 2018 and the queenless halves were allowed to make their own queens.

so 10 of the then 21 production hives were splits and not as productive.

i also made one or more small splits (3 medium frames of bees) out of several of the other six 2017-2018 winter survivors 

in 2017 none of the hives were split and most were prevented from swarming. that and more favorable weather are why i believe the honey harvest was higher.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

i found one of my nucs quiet by stethoscope today after hearing cluster roar in it last weekend. here are the journal notes for this one:

DN-E - 2018 AJ GRAFT MATED AT BARTS

062318: SPLIT FROM DN-G TOOK TO BARTS

062418: GAVE CELL

071818: COMBINED WITH Q/8, CONSIDER SPLITTING AGAIN

072118: SPLIT AND BROUGHT HOME DN-Q TO RECEIVE MATED QUEEN FROM AJ

072218: GAVE MEDIUM SUPER WITH 2 FRAMES HONEY

083118: SUPER1 NOT CROWDED BUT NEW WAX SEEN, DID NOT LOOK AT BROOD, ADDED SUPER2 EMPTY COMB, SUPER1 IS JON’S BOX

092918: SOLID HEALTHY BROOD IN DEEP, EGGS SEEN, SWAPPED OUT JON’S BOX, STARTED ROBBING FRENZY ON NUC G, LIGHT ON STORES, SOME GOLDENROD WAX SEEN IN SUPER1

111118: MORE ACTIVITY AT THE ENTRANCE THAN THE REST SUGGESTING PASSIVE ROBBING, NOT BRINGING IN POLLEN LIKE THE OTHERS, MAY BE QUEENLESS

120718: FOUND DEAD OUT, HONEY GONE, A FEW CAPPED DRONE BROOD IN WORKER CELLS SUGGESTING QUEEN FAILURE, VERY LITTLE FRASS SEEN

i am going to alcohol wash the dead bees to see if i can find any mites. this is my first loss so far with 27/28 still humming pretty good.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Square
Bummer, looks like you seen it coming but it was too late to respond.

Good luck with the rest.
Cheers
gww

Ps Couple days ago, mine were all still humming, time will tell.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

many thanks gww.

the nucs were made up somewhat later in the season and i was concerned that the best opportunity for mating had already passed, but i thought i would give it a shot.

glad to hear all of yours are still going and good luck to you as well.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Square
I made four extra hives in late june and all but one had to be combined back due to no queen either making it back or being formed well enough to even try. Made them during a derth and made them use what was in the hives to try and make queens. When I made splits with swarm cells early, I had 100 percent success. It was still worth it and a learning experience for me.
See you in spring.
gww


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

LOL, love your notes. 

I would love to keep such detail!


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

squarepeg:

I finally made it through to the end thus far of your amazing chronicles in TF beekeeping and I am sincerely appreciative of all the insights and lessons-learned you (and others) have shared in this thread. As a fledgling "bee owner" this forum has served as quite an education. At the risk of taking advantage of your generosity, I wonder if you might be willing to offer some feedback on a few fundamental aspects of your management over this winter as time allows? If you prefer not to, I certainly understand. Presumptuously (and in no particular order):

When you received the colony from Fusion_power I understood you to say that it was on narrow frame (1-1/4") spacing and appeared to be one brood cycle ahead of your stock. Did you ever explore adding an 11th frame to your deep and/or a 10th frame to your CB'd super set-up to evaluate how early brooding compared?

Thank you again for investing the time and energy to share your experience and "pay it forward". 

Sincerely, 

Russ


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

good morning russ, and sincere thanks for those kind words.

you should get a t-shirt or cap for having completed the marathon read. 

my thanks also to the others who have contributed to this thread along the way!

questions are welcome and i will do my best to provide answers.


the colony that i acquired from fusion power (dar) came in a double deep with each containing 11 narrow and mostly drawn small cell plastic frames. 

when i made my first inspections in early march of that year, i found dar's colony to have about 6 frames of bees in it. i had a couple of other colonies with a similar number of bees, but dar's may have been the largest and among the top 20% in terms of late winter population.

after working with the plastic frames a bit i found them somewhat flimsy and brittle compared to the wooden frames i was used to. i've since ended up culling all of them and given them away for others to use in swarm traps.

i'm satisfied with the average strength i am getting with the set up i am using, especially since i have finally gotten a handle on swarm prevention, and i'm not interested in growing hives larger than a single deep and 5 or 6 medium supers. this year i only had 2 colonies swarm, and those were relatively small swarms that didn't affect my harvest too much.

if one were wanting to grow skyscraper hives like walt did and tim ives does, or if one was wanting to make a split or two from each hive and still get decent production, then i could see how using the narrow spacing to get the earlier build up like dar reports would be an advantage.


great question russ, and we are looking forward to hearing about your experience with keeping bees off treatments. best i can tell the area around boaz isn't quite as wooded as we have here, but you are relatively close to the river valley with some wooded expanses nearby.

going forward, if you have a specific question about something i wrote about in this thread, a post # would be helpful to allow me to more easily find and reread it. thanks again for your interest.


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

squarepeg:

Thank you again for your willingness to share your insights- I am sincerely grateful. 

If you made some SP tee shirts, I would gladly buy one .

Your thoughts concerning relative colony strength make good sense and I can conceptualize why you are purposely avoiding a very aggressive early Spring build-up. Seeing some of the pictures of Walt working his hives off step ladders is certainly intimidating to me.

Ironically, my interest in narrow frames is based on my limited experience this past season. In short, I bought two regressed packages, caught two swarms and made two nucs, standardizing all my set-ups on eight frame mediums based on the sagacious writings of Michael Bush. While I made more mistakes than I care to admit to, one thing I observed is that colonies in 8 frame mediums can get rather tall, even before you get to surplus honey on top. The two packages in particular drew out 4-1/2 and 5-1/2 boxes of foundation respectively (and a handful of narrow-frame foundationless) so it got me thinking- maybe higher brood density would be preferable in this particular set-up... 

Secondly, I surmise that my area is similar to Walt's in that much of our early season nectar opportunities are from hardwoods, and having a higher brood density *might* afford more opportunities to capitalize on this.

As of now, I watched with macabre fascination as both packages succumbed to varroa and one nuc indirectly to wax moths (one of my enumerable mistakes this year). So, while it may be sheer coincidence, the current survivors are all attributed to the caught swarms- two full-sized colonies and one nuc headed by a late-season usurpation swarm from one of the caught swarms.

I do not want to hijack your great thread, so please do not hesitate to steer me out of the weeds. 

Thanks again for all the great information and your willingness to help out.

Russ


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

you are very much and always welcome to contribute here russ!

although i feel like the story is important enough that i wish you would consider starting a thread to chronicle your unique journey.

the other reason for not considering closer frame spacing is that my bees are brooding in the supers prior to filling the supers with the honey crop. the 9 frame spacing is much better when it comes to harvesting.

it sounds like the caught swarms are showing some promise. i'm guessing you'll attempt to catch more this upcoming spring, and may have to split from the 3 that you have if you haven't accumulated enough drawn comb to properly checkerboard.

i can see how using 8 frame equipment would be problematic for me in that it would mean an additional box or two per hive. at 5 - 6 supers i am already having to using a stepping stool to work the top boxes. i refuse to work heavy supers off of a step ladder.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

i was able to wash 13 mites off of 1 cup of bees from the dead out nuc e.

so 13/600 is a little over 2%.

the ultimate cause of death was starvation. this came about because queenlessness lead to the passive robbing of all the honey in the hive.

there weren't many more than about 1000 bees left. my interpretation is that some of the population likely drifted into neighboring hives while the rest aged out, leaving this small number to starve and freeze.


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

squarepeg:

Thank you for the helpful feedback. I would certainly be glad to document my efforts, but I'm not sure there is much I can add to this august group yet- maybe a few unique ways to do things wrong? 

One of the advantages of early dead-outs is it affords me surplus comb for checkerboarding this Spring, so I hope to give it a go providing the swarms overwinter. I also hope to look for the next warm day to add additional stores above both hives to have both stacks at 5 medium boxes total- currently one is clustered in the second from the bottom and the other is already near the top.

Which is a nice segue to another question if you don't mind- in a couple of your early season musings, you have made a passing reference to reversing boxes, but given that I understand that you largely follow Walt's approach, I don't expect you are using this term in the way it is commonly applied in a two deep brood nest set-up?

If I understand your normal operations, the only broodnest manipulations (nucs and splits aside) you are typically employing is periodically pyramiding brood frames up to help coax along expansion, and then sometimes moving the box with the queen to the bottom of the stack below a queen excluder when they are not responding favorably to checkerboarding?

Alternately, I am curious if you sometimes find the cluster at the very top of the stack when you prepare to checkerboard, so you in-fact move this box immediately above your deep prior to checkerboarding the remaining stores?

Thanks again for your sharing your experience.

Russ


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

absolutely correct russ.

by reversal i mean moving the super with the first rounds of brood coming out of winter, which on occasion happens to be the top most super, to the position just above the deep. at that time the remaining supers are checkerboarded above that one.

moving the queen down to the deep below an excluder is done once i see upward expansion of the broodnest has ceased. signs of this include: 1) when there is no longer a band of open cells between the very top of the broodnest and the honey above, 2) there is backfilling of emerged brood cells with nectar, and 3) nectar instead of eggs are showing up in an empty frame of comb that i have moved to a middle position.

likewise the queen gets moved down should the broodnest reach the top of the 4th super. this is the best case scenario as it means there is a very large broodnest occupying almost 20 medium frames (the space equivalent of 13 deep frames) of bees. 

making the queen start a new nest in the deep while backfilling the supers as the brood in them emerges is what tends to result in my biggest honey yields per hive.

i am liking this maneuver more and more and will likely perform on it on virtually all hives going forward. the reason is that it works so well to prevent swarming which bolsters honey production, plus it oftentimes yields a small nuc or two should the bees make emergency cells in the supers after the queen is moved down.

yes, the resources from the deadouts will be just what the doctor ordered for you to try the methods discussed here. i'm looking forward to seeing if your bees respond in the same way.

if you decide to try the excluder maneuver it will be easier for you with all mediums. all you will have to do is move the frame with the queen on it down and let 2 mediums of empty comb take the place of my empty deep.

there is always something to learn when we share our journeys with each other. my hope is that more of the folks who posted on the 'tf members listing' will do the same.


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Squarepeg:

Now that is very insightful, and this movement of the first rounds of brood is not something that I have picked-up in your notes. So this is kind of like a modified "pollen box" maneuver as advocated by Walt, but with a slightly different objective? To further clarify, you are moving the top-most brood box down to just above your single deep simultaneously with your checkerboarding operation regardless of where in the stack that brood happens to be?

If I understood your most current post on the subject, your current typical overwintering set-up is as follows?

#5 Empty Medium
#4 Empty Medium
#3 Medium configured- e e h h e h h e e
#2 Medium configured- h h h h e h h h h
#1 Deep- typical pollen / bee bread / honey and broodnest

Assuming this is correct, the only time you would perform the reversal is if you found the cluster and first rounds of brood in box #3?

For those of us in more northern climes who might need to provide more stores (and following your management) would complete the reversal anytime we found the cluster in boxes 3 - 5 during the checkerboarding operation?

I am intrigued by the process of moving the queen down into the bottom deep, and I am wondering if you have ever tried undersupering (i.e. nadiring) the stack when you have this "problem"? I watched a video of Dee Lusby working her bees early in the season and noticed that she did one of two maneuvers with hives brooding in 4 deeps: she either completed a walk-away split, or she put a box of empty drawn comb on the very bottom of the stack and put the rest of the boxes back into their previous stacking order.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

walt told me that his bees most often overwintered in the deep and that's where he expected them to be coming out of winter. he fed syrup in the fall to make sure the deep was heavy with stores. bringing the pollen box up gave him the empty comb to checkerboard with.

yes, the first rounds of brood are typically limited to being in one of the supers and regardless of its postition that one is moved down to just above the deep at the late february or so manipulation.

that 'typical' overwintering set up is pretty much how most of my hives are looking at this time, although there are a few with some honey in the 3rd super up, and there are a few with only 3 supers instead of 4. this is subject to change over the winter should i have some dead outs in which case i'll place the resources as it makes sense.

occasionally the broodnest will be in the deep coming out of winter in which case i'll checkerboard the supers above the deep. in these cases the deep is usually abandoned as the broodnest moves up through the supers taking advantage of rising heat and stored honey getting turned into brood food.

if i were running all mediums i would probably put the first super with brood in the #2 position just above an empty super, (to give a little relief from the cold drafts coming into the entrance), and then checkerboard above that one.

what i notice is even without pushing the queen down below an excluder most colonies will move the nest down into the deep on their own and not swarm, but the ones that don't do that basically ignore the empty deep and will likely go into swarm preps. pushing the queen down below an excluder gets around that as well as yielding some nucs.


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

squarepeg:

I am impressed with your insight and appreciate your approach. To clarify, when I was speaking of the "pollen box" maneuver, I was referring to the second early season manipulation I understood Walt was performing after checkerboarding where (if I interpreted correctly) he moved the top-most brood box down below the deep to allow the colony to hatch-out the brood and back-fill with early season pollen for raising winter bees? It seems like your efforts (coinciding with CB'ing) might be seeking to affect a similar outcome along with possibly encouraging further upward expansion while setting the stage to "anchor" the cluster closer to the bottom of the stack as the broodnest recedes rather than ending up with lots of empty volume below?

Generalizing this concept a bit (and related to the previous under-supering inquiry), I am curious if you have ever attempted to add additional volume either within or directly below the active broodnest, or have all your early season manipulations (reversing aside) typically been above the nest?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



Litsinger said:


> I was referring to the second early season manipulation I understood Walt was performing after checkerboarding where (if I interpreted correctly) he moved the top-most brood box down below the deep to allow the colony to hatch-out the brood and back-fill with early season pollen for raising winter bees?


yes, you interpreted correctly. my apologies for not thinking about that when i replied earlier.





Litsinger said:


> It seems like your efforts (coinciding with CB'ing) might be seeking to affect a similar outcome along with possibly encouraging further upward expansion while setting the stage to "anchor" the cluster closer to the bottom of the stack as the broodnest recedes rather than ending up with lots of empty volume below?


i think the early manipulation sets the stage to optimize what the bees are trying to accomplish, i.e. expand the broodnest upward into last year's stored honey taking advantage of rising heat and moisture.

walt's pollen box maneuver probably did more to anchor the nest to the lower part of the stack than what i am doing. i'm ok with the deep becoming abandoned because by the time the queen fills that empty deep with brood (after moving her down) most colonies have turned the corner on swarm ambition and are in full tilt honey processing mode.




Litsinger said:


> Generalizing this concept a bit (and related to the previous under-supering inquiry), I am curious if you have ever attempted to add additional volume either within or directly below the active broodnest, or have all your early season manipulations (reversing aside) typically been above the nest?


yes, i refer to 'opening up the broodnest' and 'pyramiding'. i want to see the middle five frames in each super dedicated to brood. these middle five frames of brood are typically flanked by frames with lots of beebread on them, and the two outermost frames are typically mostly honey.

once there are five frames of brood i'll take one (or two) out and move it (them) up (pyramiding) to the next box and replace it (them) with a frame(s) of empty comb (opening up the broodnest).

if the bees start putting beebread in the 3rd frame in from either side i'll take the honey frame on the outside and move it up, slide the remaining two feed frames over, and put a frame of empty comb in the middle.


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

squarepeg:

Thank you again for your excellent and detailed feedback. It is most appreciated. Personally, I had thought through how CB'ing helped facilitate upward expansion (and Walt did such a great job explaining it), but I had never considered how the relative position of the brood nest versus these stores would be a limiting factor. In other words, it is quite obvious when you think of it, but there is no room for upward broodnest expansion when the nest is already at the top! Thanks for making that connection for me.

I do apologize- I did pick-up on you making mention of pyramiding up and opening the broodnest (and my question may reflect a profound ignorance), but if one sees having brood lower in the stack relative to stores as a benefit for upward expansion, have you ever pyramided or opened-up the nest by going down instead of up? I am wondering this because it seems to me one of the anecdotal challenges of maintaining larger overall hive volumes (especially with all mediums) is to convince the colony to set up late-season preps in the bottom. it sounds like your colonies typically make it into the bottom deep on their own, but I am curious if you've ever tried baiting or opening the broodnest down instead of up?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

i haven't considered that since it is already 'open' down below.

to save time and energy, once the first and then subsequent supers become 'set' with their 5 frames of brood, i typically only deal with the very top of the bees' working level.

it's really very efficient and i like not having to remove and replace any more boxes than necessary.


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Thank you, Squarepeg. I was in no way second-guessing your broodnest expansion approach as you are successfully doing what so many of us aspire to do. I was just curious if you had tried different methods of managing the expanding broodnest and how they compared in terms of response with what you are doing now. Part of my rationale for asking is I wonder if you seek to actively renew brood comb in a semi-systematic manner, or do you only replace according to need? I am curious now with so many years of TF beekeeping experience under your belt, do you see benefit in having new brood comb, old brood comb, or no discernible difference?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

no worries russ, i didn't take that it way at all.

you ask excellent questions, cause me to ponder, and if our exchange is helping you and others following along then it's all good.

i am not stuck on how i do things, i sincerely hope that i never stop learning, stop discovering new and better ways...

the only methods i have tried are what i have described so far, which basically involve starting with walt's checkerboarding and making a few modifications.

i do not rotate old brood comb out, and i do not see any discernible differences between old and new. 

i do strive to use comb that has already had brood in it when selecting frames to open up the broodnest with, only because i'm guessing the workers will be more likely to prepare that comb for the queen to lay in.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

I have always thought that bees know themselves what is best, and I just add room when they need. The queen is moving in every direction in order to find place. So are the bees when finding place for pollen and honey. In fact I would not move the place of frames or boxes once they are set up. Why? because I want to minimize the harm I do when inspecting a hive.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Juhani


> I have always thought that bees know themselves what is best, and I just add room when they need. The queen is moving in every direction in order to find place. So are the bees when finding place for pollen and honey. In fact I would not move the place of frames or boxes once they are set up. Why? because I want to minimize the harm I do when inspecting a hive.


I think I agree with you but am starting out with out drawn comb and have had bees ignore added space if I did not move some frames already drawn and preferably with brood in it. I also think the empties (not drawn) that I slip in place and in the brood nest does trick the bees into wanting to fill the gap rather then swarm. If I ever get extra drawn comb above what is already in the brood nest, I am going to try the not moving anything and just add space with drawn comb and see where it goes.

Right now, I find I move quite a bit of comb around in the brood nest just to get the bees to recognize new added space.
Cheers
gww


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

yes, you make very valid points juhani. i do strive to minimize my inputs not only to keep from interfering with the bees but also to maximize my return on investment of time.

my stock can best be described as dervivatives of our local strain of naturally resistant wild-type or feral bees. there has been some selection over the years for survival and productivity but i doubt that selection has changed their basic traits very much.

true to form, these bees are very good at swarming. what i learned was just providing space for them was not enough to keep them from swarming. bascially they just ignore added space even it contains empty drawn comb.

walt was gracious enough to take an interest in me and made several trips down to help me learn his methods. his checkerboarding decreased my swarm rate from 100% to about 50%. but even at 50% i realized the loss in honey production was more than i was happy with.

adding opening the broodnest and pyramiding dropped my swarm rate to about 15%, and even the colonies that swarm get so darn large before swarming i still get some harvestable honey from them.

for the past two years my inputs have decreased to quick inspections and manipulations during the build up period to check on broodnest expansion, and the one time shake the queen down below an excluder.

the making up of nucs has been streamlined to going back and finding emergency cells in the supers a week after the queen has been shaken down. 

then late in the season there is the weighing of hives and moving honey from the heavy ones to the light ones as needed.

for many of my hives i haven't been into the deeps since last spring. maybe that makes me a not so good beekeeper, but it's how i have to make the best use of my time for now.

the majority of hours invested are spent harvesting and selling honey followed by equipment maintenance.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Yep, understand you both perfectly, if swarming is a problem then maybe something like that helps, not sure put maybe. I have been working so long with bees which hardly ever swarm, so I really have little experience on that. 

This is hard to understand. Even experienced commercial beekeepers who have not had the opportunity to get their hands on the best buckfast stuff available in Central Europe deny what I say, just shake their heads...
Bees left in congestion for half a summer, no swarms.

Earlier I used Demaree method.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Juhani
I have only bought one hive. Last year, the guy I had bought from had a knee operation and could not work his bees. Very early, he just stuck all his drawn supers on his three hives. He lives 1.3 miles away from me as the crow flys. His genetics should be the same as mine. He got 400 lbs of honey off of three hives by not touching them except maybe to put a little saved pollen in them when he supered them early. 

I (on the other hand) had eight hives and no drawn comb and played with my hives to keep them moving up. It was really cold late in spring for both of us. My bees brooded up quite slow and showed no inclination to swarm (unlike the year before when we had more warmth earlier) but still took baiting to move into new boxes. With eight hives, I only got 10 gal of honey.

The other guy with the bees that did nothing but add space, said it was his best year ever on honey production.

My hives have proved to me they will swarm when conditions are right and his hives show what is also possible when conditions are right. From a work perspective, I would like to just add space with out moving stuff around and have seen it work for one other guy at least once. I am new and learning as I go and may have it down a little better in several more years then I have it now.

I like the ideal of not messing with the brood nest more then messing with it but have never got ahead on comb enough to really experiment due to using the extra drawn stuff on hiving swarms and splits. At some point I am going to have some hives die and give me some extra comb to work with and I can experiment more. I am close to making extra comb now if I can keep the hives together and control swarming and don't try and expand. This is the first year that I have several hives that are going to start spring with the brood nest of three mediums being drawn already.

Next year I may have enough drawn supers to try it your way and see how it goes. 
Cheers
gww

Ps I also destroy about 20 percent or so of my extracted comb while extracting. Foundationless does fair but I do lose some of it in the extractor. It is pretty soft when new.


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Squarepeg, Juhani and gww- I sincerely appreciate the excellent feedback you all provided regarding broodnest manipulations during expansion. It sounds like there might be a lot of variables (some of which might change from year-to-year) that represent the "right" answer depending on your stock, location and goals? I certainly don't want to sidetrack squarepeg's outstanding thread, but I am grateful that he has been willing to explain in a very detailed fashion what his typical manipulations look like- and judging by his results year-over-year, it looks like it is working quite well. That said, his encouragement for several aspiring TF beekeepers to chronicle their efforts might be just the place to document how various methods work by comparison in our apiaries. I for one (with all medium equipment) am curious about trying to implement a method to semi-systematically cycle brood comb up and out in a foundationless setting. I am going to start by seeing if I can keep bees alive through the winter however .


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Have they been selected for non swarming Juhani?


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Squarepeg:

If you don't mind, I'd like to toss one more line of questioning your way, and then I'll cool my heels for awhile.

Sometime last year (I apologize I don't have the post # handy), there was an extended discussion about supercedure. While I don't want to reignite the argument, i am curious as to what opinions you have formed (if any) regarding whether checkerboarding seeks to induce early supercedure?

If I interpret Walt's writings correctly, he directly attributed early-season supercedure to checkerboarding and saw this as a positive development- allowing for a fresh queen to take over the extensive egg laying responsibilities. As such, while I am not certain if he sought to actively encourage it, he certainly did not seek to slow expansion in an effort to "save" the queen?

So it appears that Walt saw early-season supercedure as a good side benefit of CB'ing, but reading your chronicles I get the sense that for you it is at best a necessary evil and at worst the cause of a lost production and a few failed hives along the way? I am making bold here, so please do not hesitate to correct me if I misinterpret your findings.

Part of my reason for asking is that my perspective (limited as it is) suggested that an early season supercedure I observed possibly suggested that the colony felt the queen was no longer up to snuff after an explosive build-up even though the brood pattern looked great and there were eggs laid up into the 4th eight frame medium box.

Alternately, another colony completed a late-season supercedure that seemed from the outside looking in to be more of a planned changing of the guard.

Maybe asked another way, do you attribute cb'ing to early season supercedure, and if so, would you prefer your supercedures to happen after the main flow all things equal?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

again, very good questions russ.

i think walt observed and reported that colonies prevented from swarming will oftentimes supercede their queen. i can report that my experience has been pretty much the same.

i don't think that walt or i qualified those supercedures as 'early season' however. in my case the supercedures i see appear to happen with equal probability throughout the season.

the ones that have the most impact on honey production are the supercedures that are not very seamless and/or happen prior to or just at the start of the main nectar flow.

as you observed a smooth changing of the guard (and perhaps even having two queens laying for awhile) is nothing more than a hiccup to the colony.

on the other hand if the old queen peters out well before the new queen gets going, or if the first supercedure queen isn't too good and has to be replaced again, the impact on honey production can be quite measurable.

i mentioned that what few swarms i get tend to be relatively small considering the size of the colonies they issue from. they are certainly nothing close to being half of the population. 

i conjecture that those swarms happen like that when the old queen isn't quite shot yet but gets superceded, perhaps because she can't keep up with laying into a really large broodnest, and the smaller swarm issues with her and a contingent of loyal subjects.


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Squarepeg:

Thank you for the detailed clarification, and I do apologize for misinterpreting your observations. One final point of clarification on this point, and I'll leave you be for awhile:

Given that your swarm prevention success is so high now with these large broodnests, do you then expect annual supercedure in these colonies absent other interventions (splits, nuc building, etc.) such that the practical result of cb'ing is that most of your successful production colonies are typically operating with a queen less than a year old?

Thanks again for sharing your insights- you should write a treatise on this subject with a working title, "Nectar Management Volume II".


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

yes, i've about come to the conclusion that it's rare for me to see a queen go through two complete spring build ups.

others have reported how later season queens make for productive colonies the following spring and i see this as well. this is likely because those queens have plenty of pep left in them while at the same time aren't likely to run out of gas before the main flow has come and gone.

likewise it is observed that swarm queens oftentimes get superceded once the swarm gets settled into its new home. if most colonies (left to their own devices) issue a swarm every year then most colonies would tend to be operating with a queen less than a year old.

part of the reason that queens don't seem to be lasting as long as they once did may have to do with damage to their ovarioles shown to be caused by exposure to viruses.


----------



## Litsinger

Squarepeg:

Thank you very much for all the detailed and actionable information. I sincerely appreciate you sharing. I'll suspend the inquisition for now...

Thank you again for your help, and have a great week.

Russ


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



Oldtimer said:


> Have they been selected for non swarming Juhani?


Low swarming has been since Brother Adams early days one of the 4 major criteria in buckfast breeding.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



Juhani Lunden said:


> Low swarming has been since Brother Adams early days one of the 4 major criteria in buckfast breeding.


that's interesting juhani. what are the other 3 criteria and are the criteria ranked in order of importance?


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

1. Fecundity( brood area minimum 9-10 Dadant frames)
2. Industry or foraging zeal
3. Resistance to disease
4. Disinclination to swarm


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

many thanks for the reply juhani. 

how does this criteria ranking compare to what you are using?


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> how does this criteria ranking compare to what you are using?


In this varroa resistance project no real breeding goals, but survival, can be spoken about. What is interesting though , that when Luca Consigli mates them with other buckfast material, the F1 turns out to be something astonishing, in his words, best what he has seen. But Luca treats his hives, and so does actually most of his and Kefuss customers too. The varroa problem is so severe in Central Europe, that all means need to be taken. Treating beekeepers need better resistance in their fight with mites.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

understood juhani, and thanks again. luca's experience with your stock speaks highly of your efforts. congratulations on moving the ball forward with your breeding program.

one thing that strikes me about brother adam's criteria is that all 4 factors are somewhat interrelated. 

for me it's:

1. survival (accomplished by practicing hard bond)
2. fecundity (accomplished by using smaller nonproductive colonies for splits when i graft)
3. favorable response to swarm prevention management, which invariably leads to...
4. good honey production

by the way, it is my hope is that with much hard work and perseverance i might be able to join you with the distinct honor of being nominated as a real mensa candidate.


----------



## Litsinger

squarepeg said:


> by the way, it is my hope is that with much hard work and perseverance i might be able to join you with the distinct honor of being nominated as a real mensa candidate.


Now that's funny!


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



Litsinger said:


> Now that's funny!


Maybe, but didn´t open to me, but after all I am Real...


----------



## Litsinger

It's sarcasm- a form of speech we Yankees have perfected.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

as we turn the corner on the solstice today the weather provided a decent opportunity (sunny skies, light wind, high temp 50 degrees f) to make the rounds with the stethoscope and check for cluster roar.

i discovered one of my colonies at the homeyard had gone quiet since last checked 4 days ago. this is one i haven't been into since late august, at which time there was solid healthy brood noted.

i missed getting around to removing harvestable honey on this one so it was one of my heaviest hives at the fall weighing. most of that honey was found intact when i broke the hive down today with no sign of even passive robbing seen.

i found less than a thousand bees mostly on the bottom board. i couldn't find any frass in the brood comb. i'm guessing they have been queenless for some time and what frass might have been there had gotten cleaned out. i was able to find 3 mites on the bottom board, and i'll alcohol wash the dead bees to see if i can find any more.

i've mentioned before that i believed my bees have a low propensity toward robbing, and that perhaps this is part of why they are having reasonably good success in terms of coexisting with varroa. this hive more than deserved to have gotten robbed, but for some reason it didn't happen.

there were well over 2 supers of mostly capped honey left behind. i used that to make up 4 supers placing empty comb in middle frame and the outside frame positions, and then gave those supers to other hives that were a little on the light side.

that makes 2 losses out of 28 colonies so far. the two colonies that received robber screens earlier in the fall because of spitting out dwv and crawlers are still humming pretty good.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i found less than a thousand bees mostly on the bottom board.


there ended up being right at a half cup of dead bees on the bottom board so about 300.

i washed 11 mites off of those plus the 3 on the bottom board for 4.7%.


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i'm guessing they have been queenless for some time ... the two colonies that received robber screens earlier in the fall because of spitting out dwv and crawlers are still humming pretty good.





squarepeg said:


> there ended up being right at a half cup of dead bees on the bottom board so about 300. i washed 11 mites off of those plus the 3 on the bottom board for 4.7%.


Interesting observations, Squarepeg. I read about your idea to install robbing screens on hives exhibiting crawlers, and thought this seemed like a smart idea to largely contain the problem from potential robbing transfer.

Based on the dead-out you tore down today, do you have any guess as to why they went queenless? 

I assume that you did not find a dead queen in the 300 bees on the bottom board?

Given the relatively low numbers of bees I might have thought it was an absconding event if it had been a hive in my yard, but then you noted a relatively low mite percentage (at least against your previous markers)- so do you surmise this is a simple case of queen mortality and that the remaining bees were simply the last ones standing?

Thanks again for all your help. Merry Christmas to you and your family.

Russ


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

the queen was a 2018 cell i harvested from a colony that exploded coming out of winter to fill three 10 frame mediums by the first week in march. 

they failed to respond to my swarm prevention manipulations and started backfilling the broodnest by mid-march so i shook the queen down to the deep. 

a week later there were more than a dozen 'swarm' cells in the supers and this queen came from one of those cells.

drones were just starting to fly at that time so it's possible this queen didn't get mated well.

she was not among the 300 in the dead out.

so far about half my winter losses look more like late season queen failure with no obvious varroa signs whereas the other half typically have the tell tale signs of heavy frass in the brood comb along with diseased brood that failed to emerge.

viruses have been shown to cause damage to the queens' ovarioles, so some of the queen failures may be secondary to having a high mite/virus load.

the old queen that got shook down ended up getting superceded about a month later and her replacement(s) were lost to mating. i ended up shaking the colony out and letting other hives finish off the honey supers.

many thanks for the holiday greetings russ, and i wish all the best for you and yours as well!


----------



## trishbookworm

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

I also saw hives which did not respond to swarm prevention manipulations in my hives in late spring (May-early June for us), and backfilled the brood nest. Also those hives were fall swarmers. And they were sisters. Since I have top bar hives (hold up to 25 Lang deep combs), and Dadant deeps, it is possible that the hive design led to unpreventable swarming. But I am blaming the father(s), in the hopes it is a heritable trait that came from the drones in the surrounding area. I will not be using those queens next year as a queen source, nor as a drone source. Just something to think about for what you note for your hive/queen notes - her sisters may have the same swarmy tendencies. 

Very interesting about the lack of robbing, I have had the same thought that such behavior should be favored because robbing can result in lack of genes being spread to offspring. I wish there was a pre-robbing behavior, or another behavior that was predictive of swarming, so it would be possible to filter queens for that trait without triggering a riot.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

yes trish, this colony was about the only one i had left that wasn't responding well to swarm prevention manipulations.

it was a 4 winter survivor going into this spring, and i've gotten decent honey yields from it over the years, but i found it necessary to cull swarm cells from it twice in 2016 and then once again in 2017. (this is the only colony i've ever culled swarm cells from)

i've never had a colony get that big so early in the season. they appeared to have had swarming on their mind from the get go.

since this colony was a good survivor and a good honey producer i've been putting up with the swarminess in the hopes that the next queen daughter might produce a colony with less swarm ambition,

but now that line is gone and to be honest i'm not losing any sleep over it.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

i received this question via pm:

"I want to try your checker boarding method with one or two of the stronger hives. When do you usually do it and how soon before early swarms is that for your area?"

my answer:

"it's usually around late february give or take when i checkerboard the supers. what i am looking for is a handful of good flying days leading up to the manipulation with lots of pollen coming in. this is what gets my bees to come out of their winter break and start the first rounds of brood."

this precedes prime swarm time here by about 2 months.

we'll credit the late walt wright as checkerboarding was 'his' method, to which i have made a few modifications to.


----------



## Jadeguppy

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Thank you for the info. Pollen appears to be the timing predictor that may be transferable to different environments. I'll have to look up that one for my area. Don't recall off top of my head. 

I wonder how timing on checker boarding will vary if offering pollen patties and sugar. I also wonder how much of a long term benefit it is to feed for production hives or ones used for splits. Any thoughts?

Temps right now have stayed 45 and above at night, with 60s the lows later this week. Highs in 60s-70s this coming week.

Last look, the clusters were still strong in the nucs and fulls.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

i would say anytime you have an active broodnest you can checkerboard above it. this will encourage the upward expansion of the broodnest.

i find it necessary to deviate from walt's recommendation not to disturb the broodnest, which means i'll open up the nest with empty comb and pyramid brood up to the next unused box.

then you just have to watch for signs that they are no longer expanding upward. the first sign is the lack of polished empty cells between the top of the brood and the bottom of overhead stores. the next sign is the backfilling of emerged brood cells with nectar.

when you see these signs it's time to monitor closely for swarm cells, split, move the queen down below an excluder to an empty box or two of drawn comb, or perhaps start feeding supers of empty comb just above the broodnest.


----------



## Jadeguppy

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Does checker boarding with empty frames do any good? I have one with three boxes and one with two, so I'm trying to decide how to checkerboard them. No comb that isn't already in the hives.

Since most of mine will be building up next year, does check boarding help promote comb production? In the past I've just let them do their thing, but I want to try speeding it up this year.

"when you see these signs it's time to monitor closely for swarm cells, split, move the queen down below an excluder to an empty box or two of drawn comb, or perhaps start feeding supers of empty comb just above the broodnest."
I thought the check boarding kept that from happening and they just push the queen down?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



Jadeguppy said:


> Does checker boarding with empty frames do any good?


unfortunately no. walt observed and my experience agrees that new comb doesn't get drawn in a big way until the colony turns the corner on swarm ambition. for me that ends up being about the beginning of may or so. prior to that the bees tend to ignore empty frames.

if you want to use foundationless frames you might have better success using matt davey's 'opening up the sides' technique:

https://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?307836-Results-of-Opening-the-Sides-of-the-Broodnest




Jadeguppy said:


> Since most of mine will be building up next year, does check boarding help promote comb production?


insofar as if you prevent swarming and the colony turns the corner on swarm ambition, a strong non-swarmed colony on a strong flow can build incredible amounts of new comb.




Jadeguppy said:


> I thought the check boarding kept that from happening and they just push the queen down?


most will push the queen down if there is enough unused drawn comb down below. for me that means an empty ten frame deep with drawn comb at the bottom of the stack.

a few don't do that on their own so i've started moving her down there below an excluder if upward expansion stops or if they brood all the way to the top of the top box. doing this has the added side benefit of being able to harvest emergency cells that are sometimes made above the excluder to start small nucs with.


----------



## Jadeguppy

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Thanks for the link. That looks promising for my nuc build ups.


----------



## Riverderwent

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Merry Christmas, Square. Thank you for modulatin’ the TF forum.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



Riverderwent said:


> Merry Christmas, Square. Thank you for modulatin’ the TF forum.


same back to ya david and to everyone else following along! 

i appreciate the willingness from you and the others who make the effort to report here and provide the forum with real life tf experiences. sincere thanks!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

the weather here this time of year cycles between warm/rainy and cold/sunny.

today was one of those days of warm/mostly sunny just before the rain comes in which will eventually be followed again by cold/sunny.

it got up to about 60 degrees f and the bees took advantage to make cleansing flights.

no pollen seen coming in, but the buds on most trees are starting to swell.

i still have 26 out of 28 colonies surviving with good entrance activity seen today.

no robbing was observed and that makes me hopeful that most if not all are still queenright.

i expect to see the first fresh pollen coming in about a month from now weather permitting.


----------



## R_V

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

I'm still seeing orange pollen come in down here.
All 4 still rocking. 
The one that started as a nuc looks weakest. 
The package from the same supplier (www.vidaliabees.com), the strongest. 
The two caught swarms look good.

on a sad note, last month a neighbor two houses down had a tree fall. As the guys were cutting it up they discovered bees inside. By the time the neighbor between us contacted me, the tree men had already poured gas in it and lit it on fire. 
They had the 5 to 6 foot section with the bees separated already. All I would have to of done is stand it up, seal off the holes and move it to my yard. It was below freezing that day so they weren't flying.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

great report rv!

sad about the bee tree, maybe your caught swarms came from them?

glad to hear your bees are doing well, have a great 2019!


----------



## R_V

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

thanks, you too


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

the weather today provided a brief respite from the rain and the cold. we had sunny skies, light wind, and a few hours with temps in the low 60's.

i took advantage of the opportunity and transferred one of my three remaining nucs from 5 frame equipment to 10 frame equipment. basically the nuc inherited the resources left behind from the dead out i reported in post #1784.

the population in the nuc was good, probably 3 - 4 deep frames worth of bees. there was about a 3" patch of capped brood with a narrow ring of open brood around it on the frame the queen was on. there was still plenty of mostly capped honey in the nuc.

today was the first big pollen foraging day since the solstice, with henbit being the pollen du jour along with a little dandelion on the side.

i still have cluster roar in 26 out of 28 hives i went into winter with, although there are a couple of hives in which that roar is less than robust.


----------



## Jadeguppy

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

squarepeg, that sounds promising. Are you going to get any of the arctic blast that is suppose to dip down mid-Jan and into Feb?


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## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

many thanks jg. i won't be surprised if we have more subfreezing temps before it's over. it's a critical time for the colonies as they will tend to stay stuck on their early broodnests.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

one of the two hives i mentioned last in last week's post as having 'less than robust' cluster roar went quiet this weekend.

i suspected as much when it was the only one not bringing in henbit pollen during a brief warm up we had here last week.

this was one i brought home from the outyard in early november after discovering it only had about 10 lbs of surplus honey at the fall hive weighing. 

i inspected it after bringing it home to find a very small colony of probably no more than 3 deep frames of bees, which is much smaller than average for that time of year.

the queen was present but small and runty, and there was no brood at all.

i suspected a failed queen, but i couldn't be sure because that's about the time of year the colonies close out the broodnest anyway. i went ahead and gave it some surplus honey donated from other hives.

this one should have been a target for robber bees but it did not get robbed. all i did was reduce the entrance down to 1 or 2 bees.

this colony was an overwintered nuc that was made up very late during the 2017 season. i acquired it from a friend in february who knew it was on the brink of starvation and didn't have the time to save it.

i mountain camped some sugar on it and after a couple of weeks i was able to transfer it to 10 frame equipment with honey stores from an earlier deadout.

it built up well and yielded 2 supers of honey for me. i'm guessing the queen crapped out late in the season and that prevented them from putting up stores on the fall flow and brooding up a winter cluster.

i was able to wash a few mites from the 300 or so dead bees that were left. the brood combs are still in the freezer so i haven't inspected them for frass yet.

this one would have been a candidate to have taken the loss in the fall and combined it with another small colony, but i don't use that approach. i would rather try to get the additional laying queen through to late winter, and then bolster with bees from the bigger colonies.

that makes 3 losses so far out of 28 colonies taken into winter.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i'm guessing the queen crapped out late in the season


Sounds that way to me. 



squarepeg said:


> this one would have been a candidate to have taken the loss in the fall and combined it with another small colony, but i don't use that approach.


Nor should you. I've never believed in dumping a hive with unknown problems into a healthy one.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

many thanks for the reply ot.

how's your summer going so far?


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Far as the actual bees go, much better than the last 2 seasons which were not too good. Price of honey, not so good, the boom in the NZ industry over the last 15 years has finally hit top, local oversupply has had a drastic downwards effect on prices of non manuka honey, i think some businesses will fold, mostly new comers to the industry. Only a small part of NZ made honey is manuka. Typical boom and bust scenario. I didn't breed any bees for sale this past season, other than a few for bee clubs and stuff, as i thought this scenario was about to hit. And sure enough, there's now a lot of cheap hives being dumped onto the market, with few takers.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

understood ot. nice job on the forward thinking 'inside the box'. 

glad to hear you are having good year.

still a month or two before we get to play again with our bees here.

i'm reasonably optimistic i'll see the pendulum swing back in my favor this year too.


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> this one would have been a candidate to have taken the loss in the fall and combined it with another small colony, but i don't use that approach. i would rather try to get the additional laying queen through to late winter, and then bolster with bees from the bigger colonies.


Squarepeg:

Just wanted to comment that I found this approach insightful- another tip to go into the archives for future reference.

Have a great day.

Russ


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

thanks russ. had i been more on top of timely inspections i would have likely determined there was a queen issue with this one earlier during the fall brood up.

if i satisfied myself there were no health issues with the queenless colony, i would have combined one of my 'spare' nucs with it as to make best use of that 10 frame stack with stores on that particular apiary slot.

as it is the slot is empty and i have to contend with protecting the equipment and stores until the next warm day i have home from the day job. on that day one of my remaining two nucs will inherit the equipment, stores, and slot.


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## Amibusiness

I always enjoy reading your updates, square. Thank you.
Oh, to be in a warm climate..... My son and I spent the morning checking all the bees and adding honey to the light ones from dead outs. We can crack the cover and quickly add a super before too many bees fly out. The ones that do don't make it back because they freeze. We certainly aren't cracking boxes let alone moving nucs into full sized equipment! On the other hand, with mouse guards in place, our comb is secure until mid June. I have to bring boxes in to warm so the wax is not so brittle that it breaks when we scrape frames. We do still have a few small hive beetles but any that overwinter don't seem to be viable in the spring....
Update: I was too busy with the day job this fall to complete winterizing in a timely way: mouse guards went on late and I had to clean some nests out. I was only able to feed (or add honey to nucs from other colonies...) a small portion of the colonies that needed it and lost several booming nucs to starvation. I was blown away by how many bees were in two 8 frame deep nucs (4/4 resource hive). That must mean they died early in the season before any winter attrition set in. I hope to be more organised next year! In general my dead outs are due to mites (15% loss) and queen failure (10% loss), both of which result in dwindling before death so these boomer nucs were surprising to me.
We have another 2-3 months before pollen, so a long way for these ladies to go. With any luck our early winter will lead to an early spring and we won't loose too many more.... Brood nests shut down by mid October in 2018....
Happy new year and happy beekeeping everyone!


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> thanks russ. had i been more on top of timely inspections i would have likely determined there was a queen issue with this one earlier during the fall brood up.
> 
> if i satisfied myself there were no health issues with the queenless colony, i would have combined one of my 'spare' nucs with it as to make best use of that 10 frame stack with stores on that particular apiary slot.
> 
> as it is the slot is empty and i have to contend with protecting the equipment and stores until the next warm day i have home from the day job. on that day one of my remaining two nucs will inherit the equipment, stores, and slot.


There's a feel I get from this sort of thing - that its unhealthily controlling. Its like the amateur with one or two hives who only want to keep them alive, and will do everything he can to do so. Its a wrongheaded approach. Its suited to controlled breeding settings, but in open mating settings it goes against the principle of natural selection.

I hasn't to add, I do the same sort of things. But I try to avoid them if I possibly can. I always have one and a half eyes on the health needs of the deme, and work hard to not undermine it. It needs to be challenged, and that means unevenness and casualties. Mollycoddling the weak is a no no in my apiary.

It seems to me that aiming at fulfilling a quota of hives is the wrong sort of target, as it encourages the preservation of weakness.

Mike (UK)


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

many thanks amibusiness and great to hear from you.

if you are still at about 40 hives and have a day job getting a little behind on management is very understandable.

25% loss in the far north is pretty darn good in the treatment free context and easily recoverable from. congrats on your success.

we appreciate your update, and here's wishing you and yours an excellent 2019 as well!


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



mike bispham said:


> There's a feel I get from this sort of thing - that its unhealthily controlling. Its like the amateur with one or two hives who only want to keep them alive, and will do everything he can to do so. Its a wrongheaded approach. Its suited to controlled breeding settings, but in open mating settings it goes against the principle of natural selection.
> 
> I hasn't to add, I do the same sort of things. But I try to avoid them if I possibly can. I always have one and a half eyes on the health needs of the deme, and work hard to not undermine it. It needs to be challenged, and that means unevenness and casualties. Mollycoddling the weak is a no no in my apiary.
> 
> It seems to me that aiming at fulfilling a quota of hives is the wrong sort of target, as it encourages the preservation of weakness.
> 
> Mike (UK)


Pushing the nuc creation envelope has bit me with lots of failures of late season nucs. This year I didn't push as much and next year all the nucs will be made by the end of June. Its nice to be at the consolidation size of apiary rather than expansion. Less work overall building boxes and more time with bees.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

hi mike. sorry i didn't see your post until just now, we cross posted. nice to hear from you too and i'll respond when i get a break from the day job.

lharder, the common denominator among my 3 losses so far this winter is that the queens were mated very early or very late in the season, certainly before and after there were lots of drones flying around.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



lharder said:


> Pushing the nuc creation envelope has bit me with lots of failures of late season nucs. This year I didn't push as much and next year all the nucs will be made by the end of June. Its nice to be at the consolidation size of apiary rather than expansion. Less work overall building boxes and more time with bees.


I got it the other way round. My nucs took ages to mate, but once there they took off. I did combine a few slow ones that I thought had probably been getting robbed. 

I get a lot of trapped bees from my own hives, and I'm happy with that. They are often old queens I expect, but hopefully they'll be replaced. But I want to nuc production swinging.

Like you I hope to be switching effort to consolidation, but lots of my gear is in poor shape, and I'll (hopefully) be short of lifts this year. Plus more nucs wanted to cope with the (hoped for) increase, so its more box bashing ahead for me!

Mike (UK)


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



mike bispham said:


> There's a feel I get from this sort of thing - that its unhealthily controlling. ... Its a wrongheaded approach.


His approach has worked rather well for him thus far. No?


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



Oldtimer said:


> His approach has worked rather well for him thus far. No?


Its food for thought. As we know, sometimes things - bad things as well as good - unfold slowly, and mysteriously. Its good to keep an eye out for where the dangers might lie.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Dangers real, perceived, theoretical, imagined. EOD we determine what is working by the results.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

I'll add to that note about lack of drones by stating that I have had problems with queens mated when older drones were available. There is a sweet spot with drones 60 to 90 days old (from the egg being laid) where mated queens tend to survive and produce longest. This may be associated with older drones either having less viable sperm or being more likely to be infected by viruses such as KBV/DWV,HBV, etc.

It is also a numbers game. Queens that mate with more drones are distinctly more prolific over their life time. I've seen queens that laid a good pattern for about 6 months and then were superseded. This was almost always from matings the end of March or in early April when new drones were just emerging but not yet sexually mature.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

hi dar, great to hear from you.

when you have time please post a blurb about how you allowed swarming for a season or two with the goal of establishing more colonies grafted from the mite resistant swarm you caught.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



mike bispham said:


> It seems to me that aiming at fulfilling a quota of hives is the wrong sort of target, as it encourages the preservation of weakness.


we were discussing a colony that was likely hopelessly queenless at the time of the fall brood up. there's not enough mollycoddling in the world to do much for that mike.

i have built up to 24 'slots' for full sized hives that are spread out over 3 yards. a modest operation but all that i can handle as long as this is just a part time pursuit for me.

i ended my season with all 24 slots occupied with what i 'thought' were viable colonies plus 4 nucs set aside as 'spares'. one of those spares went queenless and is gone. two other spares are inheriting equipment and stores from two other deadouts so far this winter. that leaves me one more spare with not much winter to go here.

my point was that if i would have known the colony was hopelessly queenless i would have eliminated it or perhaps combined it with one of the nucs while transferring said nuc into the equipment and resources occupying that slot.

i don't mollycoddle, but i do my best to avoid ending up with unoccupied equipment taking up space in my garage over the winter.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Square


> i don't mollycoddle, but i do my best to avoid ending up with unoccupied equipment taking up space in my garage over the winter.


Thats funny. Me, every time I get close to running out of empty equipment, I build more. I don't make splits when I get close to filling up. I have this fear from my first year where I thought I was way ahead on equipment and my bees just kept swarming. 
Cheers
gww


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

 understood gww.

no more new hives for me for awhile. i am having to build a few new boxes here and there to replace some of the failing ones that date back to the first years.


----------



## clong

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> ... opening up the broodnest means inserting an empty frame (either drawn comb or foundationless) in between 2 frames of brood. walt believed doing that was disruptive to the colony, set them back, and was counterproductive to maximizing honey production. i find that without combining a little opening of the broodnest (with drawn comb in my case) i don't have as effective swarm prevention and that too can be counterproductive to honey production.
> 
> bottom line: you'll need to pull frames to see what's going on. walt did a lot of that and that's how he figured all this stuff out. he was keen on putting the broodnest back the way he found it. i have had better luck with moving things around a bit.
> 
> by pulling frames you will be able to tell where the top of the working level is. by now you should find that there is brood in what was empty comb in the first checkerboarded super and they should be using the honey on the adjacent frames to feed that brood.
> 
> you don't have to worry about adding another box until the working level gets up into your second checkerboarded super.
> 
> do you have any more drawn comb? if not i have some ideas on how to use foundationless frames to facilitate growth and thwart swarm ambition.


squarepeg,

I know this refers to an old part of the thread, but spring is rapidly approaching...

I am assisting a newbee who is coming into spring with two good hives. One of them is stronger than I've ever seen. Each has two 10-frame medium boxes with comb and stores. He doesn't any other spare comb. I am confident that the cluster in the strong hive is straddling across both boxes.

How would you go about using foundationless frames to thwart swarming as hinted at in the last sentence above?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



clong said:


> How would you go about using foundationless frames to thwart swarming as hinted at in the last sentence above?


here are a couple of links to matt davey's discussion on how to 'opening the sides' using foundationless frames:


https://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?293602-When-to-Open-the-Sides-of-the-Broodnest

http://daveybees.wikidot.com/openingthesides


basically you would add a 3rd super and move up some frames from the lower supers into the top one, and replace the moved frames in the lower supers with foundationless or partially foundationless frames.

i've no experience doing this myself clong, but other than splitting there aren't any other effective swarm prevention options that i know of when one doesn't have any empty drawn comb to work with.


----------



## clong

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> basically you would add a 3rd super and move up some frames from the lower supers into the top one, and replace the moved frames in the lower supers with foundationless or partially foundationless frames.


squarepeg,

I wondered if that was it. Thanks again.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

If this is done before the flow the bees will hardly build any combs. Unless syrup is fed, which will get them building comb but can also encourage swarming.

However as the guy has no drawn combs he has few options.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

IMO, when you have no drawn comb to work with, it is better to split the colony to prevent swarming. As Oldtimer stated, feeding syrup will get the comb drawn, but is highly dependent on local pollen flows. Bees are very reluctant to build comb in early spring until there is a very strong flow coming in and/or there is an extreme shortage of comb for brood. Splitting forces the colony into a situation where they have to draw comb to continue brood rearing while reducing population below the swarm trigger point.

SP, from your request, I found a highly mite resistant queen in 2004 that wintered exceptionally well. This was in a swarm caught just north of Rainsville, AL. Traits were strongly suggestive of A.M.m. background genetics. I purchased queens from Purvis which produced drones and raised queens from my mite resistant queen. Then in 2006 and 2008, I deliberately pushed my hives to swarm releasing about 40 or 50 swarms into the area. From that point forward, I've had feral bees in the area as a buffer so that queens get mated with mite resistant drones most of the time. Why not in 2007? We had a freeze April 7th 2007 that killed most of the spring bloom resulting in zero swarming.

There are about twenty beekeepers in this area of which I am acquainted with ten. Only one of them uses commercial queens and treats for mites. One guy got started with bees from my stock but brought in some commercial queens a few years ago. He is now down to colonies raised from my queens as the purchased queens were too mite susceptible. How do I know there are about 20 beekeepers in this area? A few years ago, Kelley mailed out their catalogs in bundles. Since my name was at the top of the bundle, I got the package and opened the bundle to find the names and addresses of all the beekeepers in this area. I carried the catalogs to the post office and they distributed them the next day.


----------



## GregB

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> ... I deliberately pushed my hives to swarm releasing about 40 or 50 swarms into the area. From that point forward, I've had feral bees in the area as a buffer so that queens get mated with mite resistant drones most of the time.....


So, setting up several own "propagation" yards within 5 miles radius should emulate this same situation - overlapping drone coverages should emulate the feral population. This assumes running a set of desired colonies configured to mostly a single function - propagation.
Even a couple of small hives per a propagation yard should be sufficient.


----------



## SansTX

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

Square peg -

You’ve mentioned pushing a queen down with an excluder on a few hives. Can you talk a little bit about when that happens and what you see in those hives that makes you add an excluder?

I’m running all 8 frame mediums with Beeweaver queens. Last year I tried your modified version of Walt’s swarm prevention methods with a few hives with promising results (zero swarming). However, those hives produced a ton of brood, and not much honey. I’m considering adding an excluder into the procedure this year and am curious when you add that with your methods. 

Thanks.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

hi sanstx, nice to hear from you, and good to hear about your swarm prevention success! 

i'll have time to give a proper answer to your question when i get in from work this evening.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



SansTX said:


> ...those hives produced a ton of brood, and not much honey. I’m considering adding an excluder into the procedure this year and am curious when you add that with your methods.


while good news you prevented swarming it's all for nought without the commensurate honey crop.

i've not experienced that here so far. perhaps it has to do with differences in strain of bee and/or the nectar flow pattern.

the timing of shaking the queen down below an excluder has to do with identifying when the bees have stopped expanding the broodnest.

with my single deep and medium supers i am encouraging the colony to expand the broodnest up through the supers by checkerboarding, opening the broodnest, and pyramiding brood up to the next box.

the ideal situation is to keeping expansion going until the nest reaches the top of the top box, and the top box is typically 3 or 4 medium supers up from the bottom deep. if i get the nest to the top, that's when i'll move the queen down to the deep and that deep will always be nothing but empty comb at that time.

sometimes the bees will stop upward expansion before getting to the top of the top box. the first indication of this is when you no longer see that band of empty polished cells between the top of the broodnest and honey stores above.

other signs of the stopping of broodnest expansion are when empty frames of comb placed in the middle of the broodnest or empty frames of comb placed on the sides of brood frames pyramided up don't get eggs laid in them, but rather nectar is deposited in that empty comb instead; as well as seeing the backfilling of emerged brood cells with nectar toward the top of the broodnest.

if these things happen before the broodnest reaches the top of the top box then the queen is moved down to the deep at that time.

at my location, all of this happens to coincide with the onset of our main spring nectar flow, (and the beginning of prime swarm season). as the brood in the supers emerges all that room becomes available for honey and it's not uncommon for me to have to add a 5th and 6th super.

by the time the deep ends up almost completely full of brood, the main flow starts winding down and brooding also starts winding down. so it just so happens to work out perfectly for here.

with all mediums all you would have to do is move the frame of brood with the queen on it down. i would suggest putting that frame with her on it in the middle of one of your 8 frame mediums, with all of the other frames empty comb, and putting that box just below the excluder, and then place another 8 frame medium full of empty comb on the bottom of the stack.


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> ... and then place another 8 frame medium full of empty comb on the bottom of the stack.


Squarepeg:

I enjoyed reading your description of the process you employ to move the queen down below an excluder- in the very last sentence you mentioned adding an empty box of comb to the bottom of the stack- is this your method of employing the "Pollen Box" maneuver that Walt spoke of?

Thanks again for all your help-

Russ


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



Litsinger said:


> is this your method of employing the "Pollen Box" maneuver that Walt spoke of?


no, i haven't been employing the pollen box like walt did.

i was suggesting this here to accomplish getting about a ten frame deep's worth of space with empty comb in place below the excluder for establishment of a whole new broodnest.

i my bottom deep most of the pollen got put into the outside frames.


----------



## GaryG74

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

We had a sunny day with temps in the mid 50s yesterday after clouds and rain for almost a week. The bees were flying good so I watched the entrances for awhile. I saw three colors of pollen going in: light yellow, Gray/brown, and a creamy tan. Looked like pollen from alders and maple at least, not sure what the creamy tan is. I checked the sugar on top of six light hives. One had built comb inside the feeding shim and there was brood in part of the comb. If the forecast cold this coming Monday doesn't kill the blooms, it looks like we may have some nectar and pollen in quantity soon.


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*

I do something similar to sp. I get a couple of boxes of medium empty frames and shake the bees into them, unless I happen to find the queen, then shaking stops. At this time a snelgrove board can be implemented for hives you want to raise queens from. 2 boxes on bottom for new brood nest, excluder, 2 empty boxes or partially filled boxes, snelgrove board, 2 boxes of brood. Direct traffic into that top box until queen cells are capped, then start diverting below.


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2018 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i was suggesting this here to accomplish getting about a ten frame deep's worth of space with empty comb in place below the excluder for establishment of a whole new broodnest.


Thank you, Squarepeg- I understand and now, and I see that I over-complicated what you were explaining. Thank you for clarifying.


----------



## SansTX

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Thanks Squarepeg. I appreciate the response. Depending on how the season goes, I may try pushing down the queen in a few hives to see how my bees react.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

i racked up another loss last weekend. this is one of the two hives that ended up getting a robber screen attached in late october afteri noticed dwv and crawlers issuing from the entrance. i've been removing the robber screen once or twice a week over the winter to rake out the dead, which have been far more numerous with this one as compared to all the other hives.

the colony finally got down to maybe 500 bees and the last cold snap did them in. the queen was present and there was about a 3 inch patch of solid capped brood on both sides of the middle frame in the second super above the deep. there was no honey anywhere close to that patch of brood.

in the deep there was scattered capped brood on the outer portion of what would have been the late summer/early fall broodnest. apparently they were so weakened by the virus epidemic that they didn't even bother cleaning those out.

there was surprising little frass found. i'm guessing the viruses involved were especially virulent, and the mite load must have reached a very high percentage as the population dwindled.

thankfully robbing was prevented and i'm guessing there wasn't much drift as there have been very few flying days over the past month or two. 

this colony was one of the overwintered nucs on the verge of starvation that i acquired from a friend this past february. it yielded one super of harvestable honey and was left with 43 lbs. of honey at the fall weighing. most of that honey is still there and the equipment and stores will be donated to an overwintered nuc i've got sitting on the side for a 'spare'.

the hive right next to this dead out is the other one that received a robber screen because of dwv and crawlers. i did inspect that one at the time and the brood pattern didn't look too bad with only about 20% of the cells empty. there has not been the high number of dead hauled out from it, there is very strong cluster roar, and i removed the robber screen.

this one makes 4 out of 28 lost so far this winter for 14.3%. cluster roar is strong in the remaining 24 with pollen coming into all of them on the last flying day we had. noaa is giving a high probability of colder than average temperature here for the next 3 months.


----------



## JWPalmer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

SP, where on the noaa website do you find that info? Best I can come up with is the 8-14 day probability chart.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



JWPalmer said:


> SP, where on the noaa website do you find that info?


http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov

it's been updated since i last looked. the newer outlooks aren't as 'chilly' as the ones that prompted my statement above.


----------



## JWPalmer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Thanks for the info. Certainly shows the southeast cooler than average for the next month. Wonder how that will affect my queen rearing plans for March.


----------



## Jovian

Thanks for that link so that will be very useful in many things


----------



## Amibusiness

SP, another loss is too bad on the one hand. Sorry for that. On the other, if those genetics aren't up for the task in your area you won't need to worry any more about those drones at your dca....
Have you been following the noaa long range forecasts for a long time? If so, how accurate are they in your area? Thanks. Happy beekeeping!


----------



## mischief

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

I'm puzzled as to why these bees did not shut down their brood rearing seeing as you are in winter now. Yours are a lot colder than mine.
Is this normal for your area?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Amibusiness said:


> ...you won't need to worry any more about those drones at your dca....
> 
> Have you been following the noaa long range forecasts for a long time? If so, how accurate are they in your area?


yes, and if there happened to have been anything particularly more virulent about those mites and viruses we have possibly deselected them as well.

i've been paying attention to that noaa site for a few years now. overall it has been generally reliable, but it's forecasting weather and always subject to change.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



mischief said:


> I'm puzzled as to why these bees did not shut down their brood rearing seeing as you are in winter now. Yours are a lot colder than mine.
> Is this normal for your area?


i'm at a relatively southern latitude so the winters are somewhat mild here. the bees do shut down their brood rearing in late fall, but we are close to the time of seeing the first tree pollens coming in, and this is when the first small rounds of brood coming out of winter get reared.

i think this poor colony started up using stored beebread and out of desperation due to such a small population. occasionally i'll get a colony that actually makes it through with a couple of handfuls of bees, and these can be bolstered with donations of nurse bees from stronger colonies.


----------



## Jadeguppy

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that it doesn't stay much below normal. I'm ready to get going. We had some flying today, but not a lot.

Interesting that only one of the dwc hives has collapsed. At least they won't be offering subpar genetics this year.


----------



## Amibusiness

Yes jg. I'm ready to get started as well, but up here we have a low of minus ten and high of seven Fahrenheit one day this week.... Good luck with the cooler temps. Up here the cold is one of the survival traits the bees need to have. I read some descriptions of very small colonies coming out of winter in Alabama that would never make it up here. On the other hand, small hive beetles are only a real issue for us in suppers removed for extraction and I start noticing wax moth larvae in July and they are finished in October. The only thing we need to protect comb from between October and June is mice and bear (bear of course are only interested in larvae and honey, so I've never had a problem with empty comb....). Happy beekeeping everybody!


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

So far, I do not have any losses this winter. I combined a few weak colonies last fall which was effective.

Good thing is that we had about 60 degrees yesterday 2019/01/27 and the bees were bringing in quite a bit of pollen.

I'm in the process of planting a bunch of pecan trees. With a bit of due diligence, I found 40 Avalon trees from a nursery in southwest Georgia. Avalon is the most recent release from UGA. I also have about 100 seedlings that I grew last year.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

that's outstanding dar! many thanks for the update.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

We had a few days in the mid 70's over the last week. My bees are starting the year off with a bang with lots of early pollen.

I had to transfer a colony from Langstroth equipment to Square Dadant today (hive I helped set up for a friend who since died). I had a full box of honey kept so I could avoid spring syrup feeding so I pulled it off a strong colony and moved 4 frames with bees and brood into it then set it in place of the empty Langstroth hive. I found an abundance of pollen plus 4 frames of brood with about a hundred cells of young drone larvae. The hive is now settling in and appears happy with the new abundance of honey to produce brood.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

it's been raining almost nonstop here for the past couple of weeks and that is preventing my colonies from taking advantage of the early flows as well as keeping me from getting deep into the hives to check colony status.

i made the rounds today with a stethoscope and heard good cluster roar in all 21 remaining hives, including the one i reported previously that hasn't been bringing in copious amounts of pollen like the rest.

i've got a few supers in the garage partially filled with honey that i plan to donate to surviving hives at the first opportunity. it's also time to reverse where needed and checkerboard the supers to facilitate the spring build up.

at this point i have lost 7 out of 28 colonies for a 25% loss. i'll give more detailed descriptions of the post mortems in a later post, but it's looking similar to previous seasons with about half looking like queen failure and half looking like varroasis.

a good friend who has been tf since 1996 and from whom i acquired some of my first bees is having a better winter than i am. he is reporting no losses so far out of about 35 colonies.

so it looks like i'll be starting 2019 with about my nominal 20 production hives. with a little luck at swarm trapping i should have all of the 24 production slots filled and making honey this season. i also hope to get all 18 of my story and a half five frame nuc hives full of bees and ready to take into next winter.


----------



## Jadeguppy

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

At least you were prepared for the losses. When will you start on the 18 nucs?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Jadeguppy said:


> When will you start on the 18 nucs?


it's according to how it goes with the bees and the weather jg.

some of the nucs will come from harvesting queen cells out the supers after pushing the queen down below an excluder. this usually happens just prior to the main flow here say late april or so.

other nucs will come from making splits from caught swarms, which also tend to come late april and into may. i've got about 8 ten frame deeps worth of drawn comb on hand to put the caught swarms on and that should facilitate the making up of the nucs.

i hope i have time for a round or two of grafts, but if not i can get cells from my tf friend mentioned above.


----------



## MattDavey

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

It's great to hear how you are doing.

I was wondering if you would be interested in trying Opening the Sides of the Broodnest on one of your hives this year and compare it to your Checkerboarded Hives.
It sounds like it would be time to start doing that in your area in a couple of weeks.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

many thanks for the kind words matt, and thanks also for your contributions to the 101 subforum.

fortunately i now have pretty much a full compliment of drawn comb to support swarm prevention in all of my production hives.

the other issue is that my spring build up is taking place in the (langstroth) medium supers i have over the single bottom deep. the nest moves (or gets moved) down to the deep as the main flow kicks in and the supers then become filled with honey.

so the comb in the supers is built on full sheets of plastic foundation and that makes them a little more user friendly when it comes to running them at high speed in the extractor.

were i just starting out and didn't have drawn comb, and especially if i was using all the same size boxes i would absolutely implement your osbn technique. kudos on coming up with it!

unlike walt's experience, i am finding i have to sometimes augment the checkerboarding with opening up the broodnest (with empty drawn comb) and pyramiding brood up to the next box to keep upward expansion going. 

this means i am having to deviate from the tenant of not disturbing the broodnest, but i am finding it can be done will no ill effects if one is judicious with the manipulations.

i'll have to pass for now on the side by side comparison, but fortunately for your method it looks like a fair number of folks will be giving it a go and reporting the results.


----------



## MattDavey

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Thanks Suarepeg.

I understand completely. Knowing how many hives and how much equipment you want is a good thing to stick to. This hobby can get away from you if you let it!
Thanks for your contributions also, I appreciate it.


----------



## bkcrrtnps

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> So far, I do not have any losses this winter. I combined a few weak colonies last fall which was effective.
> 
> Good thing is that we had about 60 degrees yesterday 2019/01/27 and the bees were bringing in quite a bit of pollen.
> 
> I'm in the process of planting a bunch of pecan trees. With a bit of due diligence, I found 40 Avalon trees from a nursery in southwest Georgia. Avalon is the most recent release from UGA. I also have about 100 seedlings that I grew last year.


I havent had any losses yet but our weather has been extreme up here in Iowa compared to yours this winter lol


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

update:

the weather has not been cooperating this year in that most of my days off from work have been cold or rainy or both. i am very behind the curve in terms of getting into my hives and frankly have only gotten deep into about half of them.

it looks like my losses this winter are going to be 9 out of 28 for 32.1%. i say looks like because i am assuming the ones i haven't inspected yet are queenright. i believe they are ok because of the heavy pollen foraging i am seeing with them.

the two that had dwv and crawlers last fall and got the robber screens didn't make it. fortunately they did not get robbed out either. a couple of others looked like varroasis as well with dwindled clusters frozen on spotty brood. four others looked more like queen failure with no queen, few bees, no brood, and very little frass. one was a nuc that was likely queenless before winter arrived and probably shouldn't have been counted.

in a couple of hives that i worked these past two weekends i discovered i missed the boat on getting them checkerboarded. these two are suprisingly strong colonies occupying better than 2 ten frame deeps worth of frames and having their broodnests primarily in the deeps. they both had a solid honey dome overhead and were already putting up new honey. i decided to split the queens out of these two and made two nucs.

other hives i worked still had their broodnests in the supers and were not using the deeps yet. i was able to reverse, checkerboard, and open up their nests. i'll give them a couple of weeks or so and then move the queen down to the empty deep below an excluder.

i went ahead and set out 4 swarm traps this weekend, one at each of my yards and another in a friends back yard. the one at my friend's is where i caught a swarm from a feral tree colony a couple of years back. they were small very dark bees. i still have that swarm and of couple colonies grafted from them. they have been really good honey producers.

after making the splits my hive count is one above nominal with 21 colonies at this time. i have empty deadout equipment on hand to fill up my 3 remaining unoccupied 'overflow' slots. these slots should have bees on them soon via caught swarms and/or if i have to split another strong colony or two.

i also have 18 empty nuc hives on hand and i hope to get all those all filled with bees this season. fingers crossed.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Good luck this year
gww


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> in a couple of hives that i worked these past two weekends i discovered i missed the boat on getting them checkerboarded. these two are suprisingly strong colonies occupying better than 2 ten frame deeps worth of frames and having their broodnests primarily in the deeps. they both had a solid honey dome overhead and were already putting up new honey. i decided to split the queens out of these two and made two nucs.


Squarepeg:

Great update- I always enjoy reading your posts as I learn something almost every time. If you don't mind me asking, I assume you are removing the queen from a colony that you missed early manipulation on to stave off swarming and maximize your surplus honey potential?

If I understand your process described above, you are removing the queen (and the requisite frames of brood and stores) and putting these into a queenright nuc?

Then, you are leaving the booming hive queenless to buy some time (and let them pack away nectar) while they raise a new queen?

Thank you for taking the time to describe your efforts- it helps immeasurably.

Russ


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> update:
> 
> the weather has not been cooperating this year in that most of my days off from work have been cold or rainy or both. i am very behind the curve in terms of getting into my hives and frankly have only gotten deep into about half of them.
> 
> it looks like my losses this winter are going to be 9 out of 28 for 32.1%. i say looks like because i am assuming the ones i haven't inspected yet are queenright. i believe they are ok because of the heavy pollen foraging i am seeing with them.
> 
> the two that had dwv and crawlers last fall and got the robber screens didn't make it. fortunately they did not get robbed out either. a couple of others looked like varroasis as well with dwindled clusters frozen on spotty brood. four others looked more like queen failure with no queen, few bees, no brood, and very little frass. one was a nuc that was likely queenless before winter arrived and probably shouldn't have been counted.
> 
> in a couple of hives that i worked these past two weekends i discovered i missed the boat on getting them checkerboarded. these two are suprisingly strong colonies occupying better than 2 ten frame deeps worth of frames and having their broodnests primarily in the deeps. they both had a solid honey dome overhead and were already putting up new honey. i decided to split the queens out of these two and made two nucs.
> 
> other hives i worked still had their broodnests in the supers and were not using the deeps yet. i was able to reverse, checkerboard, and open up their nests. i'll give them a couple of weeks or so and then move the queen down to the empty deep below an excluder.
> 
> i went ahead and set out 4 swarm traps this weekend, one at each of my yards and another in a friends back yard. the one at my friend's is where i caught a swarm from a feral tree colony a couple of years back. they were small very dark bees. i still have that swarm and of couple colonies grafted from them. they have been really good honey producers.
> 
> after making the splits my hive count is one above nominal with 21 colonies at this time. i have empty deadout equipment on hand to fill up my 3 remaining unoccupied 'overflow' slots. these slots should have bees on them soon via caught swarms and/or if i have to split another strong colony or two.
> 
> i also have 18 empty nuc hives on hand and i hope to get all those all filled with bees this season. fingers crossed.


So a little higher losses than usual this year. I would be happy with 30 percent losses of hives with more than 2 plus winters at this point. My overall goal is annual losses of about 20% that you usually experience.


----------



## Jadeguppy

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

That feral hive sounds like it was a great catch. I have no doubt that you will have those 18 nucs filled by winter. Best wishes!


----------



## Amibusiness

Thanks for the update, square. What do you plan on doing with the 2 quenless parent colonies? They will make several queens and may after swarm with the first (few) virgin queens if they feel crowded.... Happy beekeeping everybody!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



gww said:


> Good luck this year.


many thanks gww, and congrats on your overwintering success!


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Squarpeg


> many thanks gww, and congrats on your overwintering success!


So far, and thank you.
gww


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Litsinger said:


> If I understand your process described above, you are removing the queen (and the requisite frames of brood and stores) and putting these into a queenright nuc?


yes, that is correct russ. i made up nucs with the overwintered queen and 3 frames of mostly capped brood. the main reason i made these splits was to get bees on the deadout equipment that was taking up space in my garage and becoming a chore to rotate in and out of the freezer.

honey production is typically less when splitting like this as compared to a strong colony that is prevented from swarming, but production is better than if same colony swarms and afterswarms, plus the hive count benefits as compared to when a swarm escapes to the woods.

the risk is whether or not the parent colonies are successful at requeening themselves. it's a little earlier here than peak mating season. i'll typically go back a month or so after the splits to check for a laying queen.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



lharder said:


> So a little higher losses than usual this year. I would be happy with 30 percent losses of hives with more than 2 plus winters at this point. My overall goal is annual losses of about 20% that you usually experience.


yes, a bit of an uptick in losses these past two winters. 20% or less is where i think i should be for most winters. i'm leaning toward taking a more careful look at the colonies in the fall and culling those that don't have a promising chance of making it through winter. that, and i want to take a higher number of nucs into winter to have plenty of 'spares'. 

i'll post a more detailed breakdown on this winter's losses soon.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Jadeguppy said:


> That feral hive sounds like it was a great catch. I have no doubt that you will have those 18 nucs filled by winter. Best wishes!


many thanks jg! been following your thread as well, hope you have a great 2019!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Amibusiness said:


> Thanks for the update, square. What do you plan on doing with the 2 quenless parent colonies? They will make several queens and may after swarm with the first (few) virgin queens if they feel crowded.... Happy beekeeping everybody!


thanks for the reply ab. these splits were made before conditions in the hive became crowded and before swarming has started in my area. my experience so far with doing splits this way is that only a few emergency cells are made and swarming is not an issue.


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> yes, that is correct russ. i made up nucs with the overwintered queen and 3 frames of mostly capped brood. the main reason i made these splits was to get bees on the deadout equipment that was taking up space in my garage and becoming a chore to rotate in and out of the freezer.
> 
> honey production is typically less when splitting like this as compared to a strong colony that is prevented from swarming, but production is better than if same colony swarms and afterswarms, plus the hive count benefits as compared to when a swarm escapes to the woods.
> 
> the risk is whether or not the parent colonies are successful at requeening themselves. it's a little earlier here than peak mating season. i'll typically go back a month or so after the splits to check for a laying queen.


Squarepeg:

Thank you for your reply- your approach is always well-reasoned and logical to follow. I sincerely appreciate you posting here for novitiates like myself to learn from! Best of success to you this year.

Russ


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

you are welcome russ and it's gratifying that you and others are following along here.

had i not needed to use the deadout equipment and fill in the empty slots in the yards, and having missed the opportunity for checkerboarding ect., i would have isolated the queen into the deep below an excluder. then, i would have gone back to harvest deep frames of brood to make splits with grafted queen cells.


----------



## Jadeguppy

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

SP, please remind me when you do most of your splits/nucs. With two unexpected drops in temps miraculously corresponding with mating flights, I'm considering waiting until mid to late flow to do more splits and grafts.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Jadeguppy said:


> SP, please remind me when you do most of your splits/nucs.


if possible i like to do them during prime swarm time, which in most years runs mid-april to mid-may up here. i like to see drones with evidence of having mated returning to the hives.

grafted cells started/finished in a cell builder are preferred. if an emergency queen has to be made, i want the queenless colony to be strong, and well provisioned or on a good flow. i.e. i avoid making small queenless splits and having them raise their own queen.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

from my journals going back the past month or so:

(condensed and summarized)

my overwinter losses were 5/28 deadout with no queen present and no brood started that apparantly suffered queen failure before the first coming out of winter rounds of brood were started, and 4/28 apparant varroasis deadout with small clusters frozen on spotty brood away from stores.

the remaining 21/28 colonies all had decent to excellent cluster roar by stethoscope and were on a strong early pollen/nectar flow.

032419: HIVE #5 NOT FORAGING POLLEN FOR WEEKS AS OTHER COLONIES ARE DOING, FOUND MICROCLUSTER, QUEEN PRESENT, SPOTTY BROOD PATTERN, LARVAE DYING AND TURNING YELLOWISH WHITE, EUTHANIZED

i assumed the discolored larave and spotty pattern were chilled brood and an untimely (for the colony, not the mountain) cold snap.

this ended up becoming a long story, so i'll have to post it a piece at a time.

if you haven't seen my recent posts in 'diseases and pests' they are here:

https://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?354293-EFB-options


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Squarepeg:

I am so sorry to hear of your misfortune- I read through the 'EFB thread' and my heart goes out to you. I can only imagine how frustrating this must be, representing the last 9+ years of your diligent efforts of selection. Based on the progression of the EFB through your yard, are you anticipating having to start over from ground-zero?

Again, my sincerest sympathies to you- knowing your hard work and dedication to apiculture, I have every expectation that you will come out of this better and stronger than ever.

You have been such a helpful and generous resource here on Beesource- while I don't know what it would be, please know I would be honored to be of some help to you through this. 

Here in Kentucky, Kentucky State University maintains a mobile bee autoclave that they allow folks to use to sterilize their woodenware- does Auburn or UA offer a similar option?


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Squarepeg
Good luck and thank you as always for letting us live through your experiences and try to learn with you. If this was a movie, it could be titled, the good, the bad, and the ugly. You are popular because you allow honest involvement and opportunity for some of us to learn "it all" along with you. 
Cheers
gww


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

sincere thanks again to all for the well-wishes.

i found a place that does irradiation in south carolina, but they stopped doing bee equipment because it made too much mess in their unit.

russ, i am assuming the autoclave you are talking about uses high heat and is only good for woodenware and not comb?


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> russ, i am assuming the autoclave you are talking about uses high heat and is only good for woodenware and not comb?


That's right, Squarepeg. Here are the details on the unit- while I cannot be certain, I put in a call to my contact at KYSU to see if they can make the autoclave available provided the woodenware were brought to Frankfort. Not an ideal solution for sure, but might be worth looking into? 

https://kysu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/BeeAutoclaveFlyer_SF18.pdf


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

i very much appreciate the willingness to help russ, but it's the 100+ deep and 250+ medium frames of drawn comb that i am most interested in trying to salvage.

unless someone knows of another resource, irradiation in pennsylvania is the only option i have come up with so far, and one that is not going to be doable for me.


----------



## Jadeguppy

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Have you tried contacting the universities in the area?


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i very much appreciate the willingness to help russ, but it's the 100+ deep and 250+ medium frames of drawn comb that i am most interested in trying to salvage.


I certainly understand, SP. If it comes to it, I received positive feedback from Kentucky State regarding a 'Field Days' event they are planning for the third week in June as a possible back-up option.

You have likely already explored this, but I saw that Alabama A&M has a CIM lab:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Howard-J-Foster-Center-for-Irradiation-of-Materials/187556381286792

Also, I wonder if if might be fruitful to contact the Alabama Department of Public Health to see if they can steer you toward a commercial irridiation facility in the state? 

http://www.alabamapublichealth.gov/radiation/


----------



## Gray Goose

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> yes, a bit of an uptick in losses these past two winters. 20% or less is where i think i should be for most winters. i'm leaning toward taking a more careful look at the colonies in the fall and culling those that don't have a promising chance of making it through winter. that, and i want to take a higher number of nucs into winter to have plenty of 'spares'.
> 
> i'll post a more detailed breakdown on this winter's losses soon.


squarepeg, what is your "winter NUC configuration"? 5 over 5 in deeps? About how many inches of honey from the top down do you feel is right for your area? Thanks GG


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

many thanks for those leads russ! good finds. i started chasing them down this afternoon but haven't gotten anything solid yet.

gg, if i take a nuc into winter it's usually in a five frame deep with one or two five frame mediums on top. four or five medium frames of honey is usually enough to see them through until brooding begins, but our winters down here are a little different than yours. 

so far what few nucs i've overwintered ended up getting moved into 10 frame equipment complete with stores supplied by winter dead outs, although i am in the process of rethinking some of that moving things around stuff...


----------



## Gray Goose

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> many thanks for those leads russ! good finds. i started chasing them down this afternoon but haven't gotten anything solid yet.
> 
> gg, if i take a nuc into winter it's usually in a five frame deep with one or two five frame mediums on top. four or five medium frames of honey is usually enough to see them through until brooding begins, but our winters down here are a little different than yours.
> 
> so far what few nucs i've overwintered ended up getting moved into 10 frame equipment complete with stores supplied by winter dead outs, although i am in the process of rethinking some of that moving things around stuff...


I was going to make some 6 frame NUC boxes for over wintering, but I am reconsidering, now thinking, of making a 2 frame thick Styrofoam follower, with 1/4 inch plywood glued on, for durability . Then use the center 6 frames of a 10 frame, with 2 1/2 inches of insulation on each side. then I can just use the 10 frame gear I have, instead of building more special stuff. Can then just pull the foam followers out and add 4 frames to each box, to the survivors, in the spring to promote them to production somewhat in place. I need the depth, of somewhat the same ,1 deep and 2 medium, or 2 deep and 1 medium, the bees move up all winter. I would also do 2 mediums over 1 deep but want only 6 or 7 frames wide. Short stacks just seem to top out against the lid by spring. Ok , thanks for the input squarepeg.
GG


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Litsinger said:


> You have likely already explored this, but I saw that Alabama A&M has a CIM lab...


it didn't show up with any of my searches russ, i'm so grateful you found it.

i spoke with a principle at the facility today and although they haven't processed any bee equipment through in the past he seemed very interested in trying to help.

he's checking into the logistics and supposed to get back to me. fingers crossed.


----------



## clong

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> it didn't show up with any of my searches russ, i'm so grateful you found it.
> 
> i spoke with a principle at the facility today and although they haven't processed any bee equipment through in the past he seemed very interested in trying to help.
> 
> he's checking into the logistics and supposed to get back to me. fingers crossed.


Once you mention "its for the bees", most people are eager to help. We are all pulling for you.


----------



## Gray Goose

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



clong said:


> Once you mention "its for the bees", most people are eager to help. We are all pulling for you.


consider take or make a pad so you do not get propolis all over their gear, maybe they change their tune after a couple cleanings.
Propolis is nasty stuff to get off the car seats of some of my jeans.


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> he's checking into the logistics and supposed to get back to me. fingers crossed.


I sincerely hope for your sake that it works out, making the best of a trying situation. I'm with CLong- we are rooting for you to come back better than ever.


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Here I believe we have to wrap boxes in plastic to keep everything clean. Also doesn't work so well with full frames of honey. There is also a minimum volume, about 400 boxes. It is generally a group effort for small beekeepers.


----------



## thezoeman

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Squarepeg - I met you last summer @ a flea market near Mentone. I was then in my 1st year of beekeeping, & by a stroke of luck asked you if you treated for mites.  

Because I was hearing so much about how you have to treat all of your bees or they WILL die. I would watch youtube videos of people doing these treatments wearing respirators & gloves and think if this stuff is that dangerous I do not want to put it in my bee colony and I don't want to be around it. 

You told me a little about your operation and to look up this thread. I did just that and just finished reading each post yesterday. 

I am sending you some good vibes, hoping that things will swing positive in your direction in the near future.

Thanks for doing what you do so that a newbie like myself can follow along and learn.

Neal Sellers


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

i remember meeting you in mentone neal, thanks for checking in.

hope all is going well with you, your family, and your bees!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> this ended up becoming a long story, so i'll have to post it a piece at a time.


i mentioned in post 1878 finding a very dwindled colony with lousy looking brood on 03/24/2019, and i felt it was too far gone to shake nurse bees into so i put it down.

there were a few more colonies that were on the small side and showing what i misinterpreted as chilled brood that did receive shakes of nurse bees during that same time frame. when i went back into these a couple of weeks later i found that added the nurse bees didn't help, the populations were continuing to decline, and the brood was sick with most not making it to capping stage. these were also put down.

then i had a few that came out of winter just fine, were doing a nice job building up, and had populations reaching the equivalent of 12 - 15 deep frames of bees. with these i noticed the populations quicky declined to about half that amount over a 2 - 3 weeks period between inspections. 

i don't recall noticing any issues with the brood patterns with these until seeing the numbers decrease but to be honest i may not have been looking closely enough. by the time my efb test kits and antibiotics arrived most of these had dwindled so badly that they were not worth trying to save and so they were put down as well.

drifting appears to be a big factor as most of the efb losses were in hives sitting next to each other. i had 5 in a row at my outyard succumb. 

i've got two efb positive colonies that have been removed to an isolated 'hospital' yard. one that has probably dwindled too small to recover but has been shook swarmed and given terramycin. the other never got smaller that about a deep and a half's worth of bees, did not get treated, and is building up its numbers again.


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> ...drifting appears to be a big factor as most of the efb losses were in hives sitting next to each other. i had 5 in a row at my outyard succumb.


Squarepeg: It is sobering to consider how quickly and voraciously EFB spread through your yard. I appreciate you posting details as time allows for us all to gain insights. Hopefully you are making progress on getting your infected woodenware and comb irradiated?


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Yes this had been very unfortunate, but the education value is huge. Thanks for sharing your experience.


----------



## Gray Goose

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Thanks for the info SP, new Yard in the plan will have 100 feet of separation between hives.
It is nice to learn from others documented happenings.


----------



## Jadeguppy

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Squarepeg, What percent of the hives int he efb yards have been infected? It is disheartening how fast it spread.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Jadeguppy said:


> Squarepeg, What percent of the hives int he efb yards have been infected? It is disheartening how fast it spread.


about half at the homeyard, half at the outyard, and none at the overflow yard.

it apparently spread from hive to hive due to drifting. it's unbelievable how the colonies that were building up very nicely on a strong pollen and nectar flow collapsed so quickly.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Litsinger said:


> Hopefully you are making progress on getting your infected woodenware and comb irradiated?


the unit at al a&m is only capable of shooting a narrow beam and won't work. the principle is reaching out to his contacts to see if there are any other options.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Gray Goose said:


> ...new Yard in the plan will have 100 feet of separation between hives.


the dozen or so hives at the home yard will have about 100 feet average separation. 

at the outyard the hives share a pasture with a horse and are kept inside corral fencing. these 8 hives will be arranged in a square all facing out with a hive on each corner and one in the middle of each side. there will be roughly 10' between each hive and the all entrances will face 45 degrees away from its neighbor.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

I know drift happens. But was surprised just how much when something happened that drew it to my attention.

A carload of beekeepers showed up at my house one time, wanting to see how to mark a queen. Didn't want them practising on actual queens so i scooped up 30 or so bees from a hive entrance and took them to the shed for the guys to try themselves out on. Once the bees were marked they were released.

There were 4 hives, each 2 to 3 yards apart. A week or so later I worked them, and to my surprise, although all the marked bees had come from just one hive, I found marked bees in every hive.


----------



## Jadeguppy

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Wow, that is scary to think about. We use different colors to help decrease drift and have been thinking more and more about having sides in a formation similar to what you mentioned Squarepeg. We have moved some that way and it looks like I will be moving more that way. I wish I had the space you do to spread them out. Maybe after you get them set back up strong, you can mark a bunch of foragers like Oldtimer mentioned and see where they end up. I'd love to know the results and may just try it in my own yard.


----------



## crofter

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Spreading them apart and giving them different orientations etc. would help limit spread of disease from one colony to another, but not do much if the colonies found an outside common source. The beekeeper can be the worst common source! How many of us are careful enough to ensure we dont move any infected material. Think gloves, wrists of beesuits, your boots, besides the obvious hive tool. Heck I was swapping frames and combining weak hives at a stage where hindsight now tells me there was brood problems that should have jumped out and smacked me in the face.


----------



## Litsinger

squarepeg said:


> the unit at  al a&m is only capable of shooting a narrow beam and won't work. the principle is reaching out to his contacts to see if there are any other options.


Squarepeg: Here is hoping you make a suitable contact that presents an opportunity to save your comb.

Thank you for allowing us to learn from your experience.


----------



## Riverderwent

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Wish you well. Sorry for your economic loss. I respect your attitude and perspective.


----------



## Cloverdale

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i mentioned in post 1878 finding a very dwindled colony with lousy looking brood on 03/24/2019, and i felt it was too far gone to shake nurse bees into so i put it down.
> 
> there were a few more colonies that were on the small side and showing what i misinterpreted as chilled brood that did receive shakes of nurse bees during that same time frame. when i went back into these a couple of weeks later i found that added the nurse bees didn't help, the populations were continuing to decline, and the brood was sick with most not making it to capping stage. these were also put down.
> 
> then i had a few that came out of winter just fine, were doing a nice job building up, and had populations reaching the equivalent of 12 - 15 deep frames of bees. with these i noticed the populations quicky declined to about half that amount over a 2 - 3 weeks period between inspections.
> 
> i don't recall noticing any issues with the brood patterns with these until seeing the numbers decrease but to be honest i may not have been looking closely enough. by the time my efb test kits and antibiotics arrived most of these had dwindled so badly that they were not worth trying to save and so they were put down as well.
> 
> drifting appears to be a big factor as most of the efb losses were in hives sitting next to each other. i had 5 in a row at my outyard succumb.
> 
> i've got two efb positive colonies that have been removed to an isolated 'hospital' yard. one that has probably dwindled too small to recover but has been shook swarmed and given terramycin. the other never got smaller that about a deep and a half's worth of bees, did not get treated, and is building up its numbers again.


Square peg, you probably know this and I haven’t read any further to see if this was mentioned, paragraph 3 sounds like a nosema cerana spore infection. Your climate is different from mine, but I believe that the colony comes our of winter good, then declines; they don’t bring in much nectar. You can try treatment but will not rectify the problem like you can do with n. apis. You can shake out the bees put them on new frames and use new boxes. The old boxes you can freeze and will kill the spores, but frames need to be destroyed. You wont know that your bees are sick except by observation and using the microscope. The spores are almost identical to n. apis spores. Check out Randys site, he has another article other than the titled nosema cerana articles tucked into Sick Bee’s. Deb


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

like nosema _mellissococcus plutonius_ (efb) lives in the gut and competes with the bee for food, essentially starving the bee to death.

i did observe what appeared to be otherwise healthy bees crawling around on the ground in a very weakened state in front of a couple of the affected hives.

mite counts by alcohol wash performed on a few of the affected hives were less than 1%.

i don't have a microscope, but may send samples from the two colonies at the hospital yard to beltsville if they are interested.

copy of letter sent to them here:

https://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?354293-EFB-options&p=1724373#post1724373


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i've got two efb positive colonies that have been removed to an isolated 'hospital' yard. one that has probably dwindled too small to recover but has been shook swarmed and given terramycin. the other never got smaller that about a deep and a half's worth of bees, did not get treated, and is building up its numbers again.


i went back to the hospital yard today for a one week follow up check on these two hives.

the dwindled colony has consumed about half of its quart of terramycin syrup. there is about one deep frame's worth of bees left. they are drawing comb on the foundationless frames that they were shook swarmed onto. the new brood has a solid pattern and none of the 3 - 4 day old larvae look sick. it appears this type of efb is sensitive to terramycin. at this rate the remaining syrup should be consumed in another week or so and should be enough to complete the recommended 15 day treatment.

the untreated colony is in a deep with one medium super which are still pretty full of bees but i appears the numbers have dropped slightly from last week. there is no new white wax work in the super and the brood is still somewhat spotty with more dying larvae seen. the premixed terramycin/powdered sugar should arrive in the mail tomorrow and i'll go ahead and give this one 3 treatments with it 5 days apart.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Well SP you are a Dr, so all the best with this.

Something i'm grateful for is we do not have EFB in my country, but i hate to think what would happen if it arrives, likely our bees have no immunity to it.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

i appreciate the well wishes ot. 

to be honest this is one heck of a mess and being already pressed for how much time i can commit to the bee operation makes it even more so.

i've come up with what i feel were my shortcomings and how the problem was exacerbated by them. the factors outside of my control that come with no longer being isolated from imported colonies of bees succumbing to the inexperience of beginners are another thing.

we'll see how this year plays out and then what shows up next year. i guess it's a good thing i'm not a farmer because i'm not good at swallowing this much loss of time and money, not to mention the loss of what i still feel like is pretty special livestock.

in the end this episode will either take me up another rung on the learning curve or leave me satisfied to scale way down and piddle with a couple of colonies for personal use.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

It will take you up another rung SP, even though right now it's a totally horrible experience.

How do i know? I've been there.

I came out of beekeeping retirement 10 ish years ago and with just a few hives started up another bee breeding business. Then a few seasons later just as it was getting up to a good number of hives and a nice small business, i got hit with AFB in multiple hives at multiple sites. 2 commercials near me had major problems and had hives robbed at multiple sites, and myself and a few other beekeepers were collateral damage. 

That put an instant stop to me selling any bees. I've never been depressed before, but i felt like just walking away from the whole thing. The next 2 years were a burn fest, certain apiaries i got to hate going to as odds of finding afb were high. The initial hives showing infection were burned, then as more showed up over the next 2 years they were burned, and i had no income for 2 years, just expenses.

But then light started to show at the end of the tunnel. And now i've been completely afb free for several years, life is good again. It will be for you too.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

wow. 

you know ot it's hard to be graceful when someone who can't possible know says 'i understand'.

but when coming from someone who definitely knows it means everything.

many thanks old friend.


----------



## Cloverdale

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

i did observe what appeared to be otherwise healthy bees crawling around on the ground in a very weakened state in front of a couple of the affected hives.

Again, this sounds like n. cerana AND maybe one of the paralysis viruses. I’m with OldTimer on this; I, too, had an outbreak of AFB in 2016 with the burning of 11 hives, some supered 5 high. (yes did get depressed it was awful) After recovering from that, last year the apiary had PILES, not a scattering or carpet, of dead bees under their entrances on the ground. This was on only 3 of 13 overwintered hives, in addition one of which has n. cerana. I watched the U.K. National Honey show videos and saw that my hives had CBPV. Classic symptoms, weather related, lots of rain and more rain. All 3 overwintered OK this year and have built up. The n. cerana I should have put down last year, but I made the mistake of thinking they would just dwindle away but they didnt, they swarmed! Ugh. I am saying this because hasn’t Alabama had a lot of rain recently? The CBPV can be encouraged to proliferate by the bees being restricted to their hives by rainy weather. I do hope that Beltsville will be interested. Just a thought...
PS I am not just thinking CBPV, I’m thinking of the other viruses that are harder to diagnose


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

'preciate the feedback deb.

i accept the notion that there could be compounding secondary infections, but the preponderance of the evidence points to efb as the primary issue, including what appears to be a quick turn around with the test colony on terramycin.

should we have reason to not trust the vita field test results?


----------



## lharder

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Oldtimer said:


> I know drift happens. But was surprised just how much when something happened that drew it to my attention.
> 
> A carload of beekeepers showed up at my house one time, wanting to see how to mark a queen. Didn't want them practising on actual queens so i scooped up 30 or so bees from a hive entrance and took them to the shed for the guys to try themselves out on. Once the bees were marked they were released.
> 
> There were 4 hives, each 2 to 3 yards apart. A week or so later I worked them, and to my surprise, although all the marked bees had come from just one hive, I found marked bees in every hive.


I would like to see what would happen if robbing screens were in place on all hives.


----------



## Cloverdale

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> 'preciate the feedback deb.
> 
> i accept the notion that there could be compounding secondary infections, but the preponderance of the evidence points to efb as the primary issue, including what appears to be a quick turn around with the test colony on terramycin.
> 
> should we have reason to not trust the vita field test results?



Not at all. I’ve only it once. 
What has happened though is a colony that I thought had EFB, and treated one day with Tera. until I realized it was PMS, did look better with just that one day of treatment. I don’t like treating unless I have to. Colony has recovered and overwintered well. I’m not sure if TM is supposed to help with PMS? Actually I don’t remember if it was Oxyt. or ™


----------



## BigBlackBirds

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> 'preciate the feedback deb.
> 
> i accept the notion that there could be compounding secondary infections, but the preponderance of the evidence points to efb as the primary issue, including what appears to be a quick turn around with the test colony on terramycin.
> 
> should we have reason to not trust the vita field test results?


Just some thoughts on EFB. Havent seen it in ages but I've got years of experience with it from way back. It is quite common in migratory bees in pollination but on big strong commerical colonies it historically cleared up without any issue once the bees were set down where there's a wider pollen source. In addition to the stresses of moving bees, cool wet weather never seems to be a good combo either. In this day and age, EFB seems to co-occur often with other issues going on. It seem to be even more common in pollination operations now and it seems to take longer to clear up. From what I've heard, Terramycin will generally clean it up in short order. Upside is that its not AFB and in the grand scheme of things its not really that scary. But I havent seen it take down colonies early in the year like you had happen. Maybe early use of TM would have changed that though. It is interesting how quickly it can spread to some colonies yet how it has little to no impact on other colonies. Very much like both AFB and varroa.


----------



## crofter

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

I could be dealing with different issues this season. I still have not ruled out suffocation causes on 5 hives. 4 dead and one queenless but raising brood from a healthy hive with no symptoms of efb showing up. I would like to repopulate that comb but will test that water very cautiously.

Question; will the test kits detect EFB on material such as pollen or honey or does it have to be from diseased larvae? There was not one speck of brood open or capped from the hives that perished this past winter.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

not sure about that frank but i'm guessing it has to be larvae.

i'm waiting for a response from the bee lab in beltsville to see if they can grow _mellisococcus plutonium_ from comb/pollen/honey samples.

the folks in the u.k. have apparently been able to to that according to the video presentation on efb typing linked in the efb options thread:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0B9o4GHq7U&feature=youtu.be


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



J.Lee said:


> Sorry to hear about your lost hives to EFB. Hope things get better for you. I am in my eighth season treatment free. I run only VSH. I was wondering how close those other beekeepers you mentioned were to you. I fear I may be losing some of my isolation as well. Got one guy 2 and 1/2 miles away as the bee flies. Should I be worried? Also have you considered add some VSH to your yards? They are also known for resistance to disease as well as mites. Just trying to help. Take care and good luck.


2.5 miles is borderline. in my case the new beekeepers are 1 - 2 miles away.

start watching closely, look very carefully at the open brood especially if the capped brood gets spotty. 

consider having a test kit or two on hand, i ordered mine from mann lake. be thinking about what you might do if you end up with efb.

many thanks for your kind words j!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

i had another nice conversation with the principle at alabama a&m university's radiation lab this evening. (many thanks again russ for the lead)

thankfully he is as eager or more than i am about coming up with the means to sterilize bee hive equipment and comb using radiation.

he has researched the problem and is leaning toward building an x-ray device as opposed to using radioactive material, citing advantages in cost, safety, licensing, ect.

fingers crossed.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

No experience with irradiation it is not available for beekeepers here. But i do recall a post by someone, possibly Roland, who regularly got gear irradiated. Whoever it was, said it was quite noticeable when the irradiated gear was re stocked with bees, how well they did compared with the rest of the bees on normal used gear. Just the absense of all those bugs that accumulate.


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> he has researched the problem and is leaning toward building an x-ray device as opposed to using radioactive material, citing advantages in cost, safety, licensing, ect.


Maybe this opens a door for research in ways to effectively decontaminate comb in a non-destructive manner? Thank you for keeping us posted on your progress.


----------



## Jadeguppy

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

I wonder what their definition of cost effective is. It would be great to have something we can diy for our own hives. I hope you two are successful!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

we'll see. certain frames will avoid irradiation, as they qualify for thermal treatment:


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

What typically happens with an EFB infestation?

For example, if a commercial beekeeper had a large outbreak, are they able to cure and eradicate it using drugs, or what?


----------



## Litsinger

squarepeg said:


> we'll see. certain frames will avoid irradiation, as they qualify for thermal treatment:
> 
> View attachment 48551


It hurts to look...


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

what some did (and some still may do if they stockpiled) prior to the ban on prophylactic antibiotics was to dose every colony in every yard with terramycin in the spring prior to placing honey supers, and then dose them with tylosin in the fall after removing honey supers.

i was a little bit shocked (but not really) hearing our state apiarist blow off the seriousness of efb when i reported my rapid and widespread collapses. most of the internet searches for efb tend to describe a less deadly entity that isn't anything like what i am seeing.

i think it gets down to which one of the several dozen genotypes of efb it is. that, and _mellisococcus plutonius_ is adapting and evolving as well. we may come to learn that removing the prophylactic treatments is enalbing the bug to exert more of a whammy that the bees haven't had to cope with before.

that, and with the movement of bees from pollination contracts in southern california to package bee farms in georgia to beginners' back yards all over creation may be providing an opportunity for nasty strains of efb to pop up here and there, especially considering among beginners having colonies collapse (and get robbed out) happens not infrequently.

a good friend in the next state over found two hives sitting side by side with efb last week. he also has seen an influx of beginners starting with and then losing imported bees in recent years.


----------



## crofter

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

A local group of beekeepers is meeting with one of the owners of the local veterinary clinic to fill us in on how they will respond to the new regulations regarding prescribing for honeybees. The clinic has sent people away on course to get up to speed on bee related issues. I am interested in knowing whether they will insist on their hands on inspection of colonies, or will prescribe antibiotics on the basis of the beekeepers pictures, descriptions, and perhaps the test kit results. 

For AFB I dont think anything but fire will be prescribed. For EFB I dont know what really is envisioned by the powers that be. Hopefully I will know more after the meeting next Friday.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Jadeguppy said:


> It would be great to have something we can diy for our own hives.


many thanks jg. here's an article about using ozone to diy:

https://agresearchmag.ars.usda.gov/2014/mar/honeycombs


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Litsinger said:


> It hurts to look...


yep. my homeyard and outyard are ghosts of what they were and could have been...

the overflow yard, (only three hives) is kicking butt. one of those is filling 8 supers and another is filling 7 supers. the third was an artifical swarm split that is doing a pretty darn good job on filling 4 supers.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

SP, how many colonies do you have at this time?

Also, are you going to have to purchase a large amount of new equipment? I suspect you will need a few hundred new frames.

Albert Zook has very competitive prices and sells pre-assembled hardware including frames with foundation.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i was a little bit shocked (but not really) hearing our state apiarist blow off the seriousness of efb when i reported my rapid and widespread collapses. most of the internet searches for efb tend to describe a less deadly entity that isn't anything like what i am seeing.
> 
> i think it gets down to which one of the several dozen genotypes of efb it is. that, and _mellisococcus plutonius_ is adapting and evolving as well.


In following some of the gossip from some of the USA commercial beekeepers i have been hearing exactly that, for several years now. Some of them are saying they believe EFB has got a lot more deadly than it used to be.



crofter said:


> For AFB I dont think anything but fire will be prescribed. For EFB I dont know what really is envisioned by the powers that be.


Fire is a good tool for AFB, because despite being deadly as it is, AFB is not actually that contagious. IE, it is common to find AFB in somebody's apiary, and despite that they have used the same hive tool to work that hive as others, once the infected hive is destroyed, the others do not develop the disease. (Well sometimes, anyway). Whereas the reading i have done describes EFB as very contagious.

So using fire to eradicate an AFB infection can mostly be done at not too much cost, ie, long as the beekeeper has not been too tardy detecting it, most outbreaks could be contained by just burning a small % of hives. Whereas with the contagious nature of EFB, whole apiaries could be infected, and burning would be a very expensive option.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Oldtimer said:


> Whereas with the contagious nature of EFB, whole apiaries could be infected, and burning would be a very expensive option.


it's pretty clear to me that this disease spreads quickly and easily by the simple drifting of bees from one hive to it's neighbor. it also appears pretty certain that the bacteria can survive in dead out equipment for some time and lead to infection if that dead out equipment is used.

the economic loss for this year is already approaching 10k and climbing in lost honey and nuc sales. i may end up having to destroy almost 10 years of accumulated drawn comb and there's no way to put a dollar value on that.

this hit just as the colonies were hitting full stride on their spring build up. it was eye opening to see how quickly colonies that were 2 - 3 ten frame deep langs worth of bees dwindled down to less than 1 deep worth of bees.



Fusion_power said:


> SP, how many colonies do you have at this time?


i have 7 colonies getting heavy with honey and appearing strong based on entrance activity and hive roar. these have anywhere from 4 to 8 supers above a single deep and have not been inspected since the onset of the yard collapses.

i have 5 colonies that have dwindled down to nuc size or less that have received their first rounds of terramycin, and 2 other colonies to be inspected today that from outward appearance will probably be in the same boat.

i haven't decided if or to what degree i will rebuild. some of that will have to do with whether or not i can sterilize my equipment.

efb sucks big time.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> it's pretty clear to me that this disease spreads quickly and easily by the simple drifting of bees


The disease I´m having must be a different one ( or different strain?). What I´m having does not spread. I can easily keep an infected colony in the yard for weeks if not months and no other colony is infected.


----------



## Litsinger

squarepeg said:


> yep. my homeyard and outyard are ghosts of what they were and could have been...


Again, my sincerest condolences SP. I really hope that the final disposition in terms of salvaged colonies and woodenware is better than anticipated.

So prior to the outbreak you had +/- 21 production colonies? If my math is right based your recent reply you have 14 colonies which are showing signs of pulling through? 

Just trying to wrap my mind around what your percentage demise is looking like.

Also, if I recall correctly you have a few hives that you haven't treated for EFB? Is this as a result of a negative test result, outward observation or both?

Thank you again for being willing to share this sobering commentary.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Juhani Lunden said:


> The disease I´m having must be a different one ( or different strain?). What I´m having does not spread. I can easily keep an infected colony in the yard for weeks if not months and no other colony is infected.


juhani, are you obtaining laboratory or field test confirmation that these colonies are positive for efb? (vita field test kit used here)

do you have the opportunity to have your samples dna sequence typed so that the 'strain' might be indentified? (we can not get that here to the best of my knowledge)


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Litsinger said:


> If my math is right based your recent reply you have 14 colonies which are showing signs of pulling through?


22 colonies prior to the outbreak. current hive count is 14. half are looking ok by outward observation and have not been inspected or tested. whether the other half that have been confirmed efb postitive pull through or not is yet to be determined.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> juhani, are you obtaining laboratory or field test confirmation that these colonies are positive for efb? (vita field test kit used here)
> 
> do you have the opportunity to have your samples dna sequence typed so that the 'strain' might be indentified? (we can not get that here to the best of my knowledge)



As I wrote earlier I have sent honey samples for a test, not an a regular basis, just now and then, no AFB, hel-of-a-lot EFB. 

There are no kits (Vita field or else) available to buy here.

As far as i know there is no service available for identification of different strains.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Square
If it is any consultation to you? You will get more honey on one or two of the hives that you listed how many supers you have on them than I will off of all ten of my hives. Something about when given lemons, make lemonade. Hoping the best for you under the circumstances.
Cheers
gww


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Juhani Lunden said:


> As I wrote earlier I have sent honey samples for a test, not an a regular basis, just now and then, no AFB, hel-of-a-lot EFB.


of you saying juhani that honey from your apiaries was sampled, and from those samples the lab was able to grow efb from a high percentage of the samples?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*









i had purposed to take down my swarm traps a couple of weeks ago because i felt we were past swarm season here with the summer dearth just around the corner, plus i wanted to see if the 8 year old bt aizawai i used on the comb in them had prevented wax moths for the past 2 months.

but i didn't make time for that and as luck would have it this swarm moved in on tuesday. it came out of one of my non-efb infected hives, a single deep with five supers full of honey that could have used another super or two, but i didn't have any supers not exposed to the efb and just left it as is.

they got crowded and even though it would be an iffy proposition for this swarm to establish before winter left to its own devices they sent it out anyway.

i'll use it as a provacative test to see if some of the comb i've cleaned up from the efb hives will infect the colony. 

tomorrow morning i'll take a look at the newly hatched larvae to see if any shows signs of efb. if not, i'll put 5 frames of cleaned up naturally drawn brood comb that is no more than a year or two old into what is currently the empty bottom 5 frame deep.

should be interesting.


----------



## Jadeguppy

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Gotta love finding that on your trap. I'm interested to know about the efb. BTW, did the beek nearby that most likely brought it into the area properly treat everything?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Jadeguppy said:


> BTW, did the beek nearby that most likely brought it into the area properly treat everything?


i found out after the fact that there are 4 'new' beeks within flying distance of my yards. the worst case is one that has lost all four of their colonies for the past 3 years in a row and don't know why. 'they just left.....'

sheesh.

i'm asking our state's apiary protection unit to look into it.

i'm also reaching out to our local club that for the most part is propping up these new beekeepers, and will be asking them to explain to beginners that keeping an eye out for collapse and doing whatever it takes to prevent robbing is the bare minimum expected when you take on the responsibility of 'having' bees.


----------



## Riverderwent

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> ... even though it would be an iffy proposition for this swarm to establish before winter left to its own devices they sent it out anyway.


Do y’all have a June Tallow tree flow? It sounds like this queen comes from good stock.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

yes, good stock david. probably very similar to what you have. tallow i don't think we have here.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

an excerpt from an email i sent to one of the collaborating scientists:

"At this time I have 14 out of 21 multi-winter treatment free survivor colonies that became infected, The remaining 7 colonies do not appear to be affected and have already put up record for me (over 200 lbs. per hive) honey crops.

I have isolated 5 apparently healthy colonies to 2 yards, a third yard has a mix of 4 small infected and 2 large apparantly healthy colonies. A fourth yard has 3 small infected. Of the 15 affected 8 are now dead (euthanized after getting to small to save) 7 are receiving oxytet. It’s too early to know if the oxytet is going to work, and most of the colonies receiving oxytet have dwindled to less the 2 deep Langstroth frames in size"


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i'm also reaching out to our local club that for the most part is propping up these new beekeepers, and will be asking them to explain to beginners that keeping an eye out for collapse and doing whatever it takes to prevent robbing is the bare minimum expected when you take on the responsibility of 'having' bees.


Good luck with that, over here, despite massive education attempts, i still find people leaving deadouts to be robbed constantly. They often have no idea why the bees died, but make no attempt to bee proof them.


Slight aside, re your "the bees left" comment, over here when hives died, the beekeeper regardless how little they knew, would say they died. But now people are reading the internet and overseas sites, there are more and more mostly new beekeepers saying "they left".

The problem with social media is there is just so much information, much of it conflicting, that new beekeepers are forced to pick and choose what "sounds right" to them, which is not always what is actually right.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Oldtimer said:


> Good luck with that, over here, despite massive education attempts, i still find people leaving deadouts to be robbed constantly. They often have no idea why the bees died, but make no attempt to bee proof them.


understood ot, oh boy understood.

i feel i owe it to community, but i'll likely send word through someone more active with the local club and who will be more diplomatic than i about it.

but i am already embracing this as the 'new normal'. and i guess that puts me now in the same boat as most people posting here.

one strategy going forward is to spread my colonies out and get them as isolated from any others as i can.


----------



## Jadeguppy

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

I hope you have good results with your inspector. I suspect there are a lot of 'bee havers' in my area and some of the older guys emphasis that. Constant calls regarding swarms. We even went to one meeting and never went back due to the 'ok to just let your hives continually swarm each year' attitude, which we find irresponsible. Those bees are going somewhere and most likely causing people monetary losses.
I noticed this weekend that some of my hives have large bees in them. My hives are on natural sized comb and smaller. I have no way to know where the drift is coming from. The possible solution that keeps running through my mind is to put robber cages on all the hives, but I don't know if that would work. For those that just let their hives continually die off, I wish the companies pushed robber cages as part of the initial package. At least the rest of us may be better protected.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Unless you own an island, the best you can do is respond to what your bees tell you. As to controlling all around you, try it if you feel like putting a lot of good time to a hopeless cause. Even if it is the other guy and you have to live with it for a bit, they won't last that long if all die every year. If they are not receptive to you if you actually try and help them, you might just make them a small amount better and make them last a bit longer then they should but a leopard will not change his spots. 

They may want help though and that would be a win. I don't use robber screens and the only hive I ever had die, I did let it get robbed out but it was also only about three combs total in the hive. If I thought it had honey in it, I would probably try and close it up cause I am greedy and would want it for myself but my boxes have so many worm holes and chewed corners that they may be impossible to make bee proof. I am not going to stop bee keeping because of this.

I think it is part of the reason some have successes doing things different then others who can not do the same. It is somewhat dependant on what is going on around you. That being the case, then it is subject to change for the better or the worse. Ted Turner bought ten square miles of land. He could probably control those around him but most of us can only respond.
JMHO
gww

Ps If somebody's hive swarms, I hope they pick my trap for a home.


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



gww said:


> Unless you own an island, the best you can do is respond to what your bees tell you. As to controlling all around you, try it if you feel like putting a lot of good time to a hopeless cause. Even if it is the other guy and you have to live with it for a bit, they won't last that long if all die every year. If they are not receptive to you if you actually try and help them, you might just make them a small amount better and make them last a bit longer then they should but a leopard will not change his spots.
> 
> They may want help though and that would be a win.


GWW:

While I can completely identify with both sides of the isolation question, I appreciate your attitude of seeking to continually educate and advocate. While I know this can be hard and often underappreciated, it seems to me that the better relationships I have with the beekeepers around me, the better off my yard will be in the long-run. That said, there will be some who will not be open nor interested to any advice and faced with that reality, we ultimately have to plan our beekeeping efforts with the assumption that there will be dead-out or absconded volumes which will be in our foraging radius that might negatively impact our operation. 

Yet, we hope for positive outcomes. As it says in Ecclesiastes: _He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap._


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

(post from another thread copied here for future reference)



Fusion_power said:


> While fewer colonies spread across more landscape makes some sense, there is a point where it becomes uneconomic. Brother Adam was in favor of a hive stand that held 2 colonies. This has huge advantages when managing bees as there is another colony nearby if brood is needed or to facilitate other manipulations.


i agree with that dar, but for now and until i see if and how my yards recover from the efb outbreak, there won't be any moving of any resources or equipment from one hive to another. 

the exception to this is that after this season's honey is harvested from what at this point appear to be hives unaffected by the efb, i plan to remove one frame of brood, one frame of stores, and a couple frame's shake of bees to make up nucs.

it make take another season or two to see if recovery is possible. once i get the hives more widely separated and decrease the # of hives per yard, and if irradiation or some other means of equipment sterilization does not become available, i'll be moving to a strict destruction by fire approach for any that i find efb in.

i've got a least one affected hive that appears to have a terramycin resistant strain of efb. it continues to dwindle and has affected larvae after 2 weeks of treatment. this colony will likely get euthanized next weekend and the frames sent off for analysis.


----------



## Gray Goose

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Litsinger said:


> GWW:
> 
> While I can completely identify with both sides of the isolation question, I appreciate your attitude of seeking to continually educate and advocate. While I know this can be hard and often underappreciated, it seems to me that the better relationships I have with the beekeepers around me, the better off my yard will be in the long-run. That said, there will be some who will not be open nor interested to any advice and faced with that reality, we ultimately have to plan our beekeeping efforts with the assumption that there will be dead-out or absconded volumes which will be in our foraging radius that might negatively impact our operation.
> 
> Yet, we hope for positive outcomes. As it says in Ecclesiastes: _He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap._


Also keep in mind the "untended" colonies. last fall I had 3 calls for removal quite late. One in a Garage wall and one in a deer blind wall, One in the stall wall of a barn. It was early October and I really did not want to go thru the work only to have it be too late to have them make the winter. All 3 are dead this spring. So the rob outs could be any where, known or unknown. If we are "lucky" they are dead out from Varroa, However if there is an EFB tree some where, this out break could pop up from time to time until it is completely destroyed. Could be another swarm moves in and sets up and gets reinfected. There are some scenarios that are not appealing. a Apiary site could be ruined.
Be Vigilant
GG


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

I can not remember for sure where I read it now. I read something in effect that efb will pop up bad and then be gone for good the next year. I do remember it was using data for areas and not apiaries. I did take it that it is not impossible for it to leave with out intervention. Show up that way too. I don't write this to discount problems or experiences that people are having. I don't question other other peoples experiences cause they are the ones that do know. It is just something I read due to a day of searching due to this thread.

I do agree with gray goose that it is a touchy thing trying to blame others for things that happen when many things could cause it. Doesn't mean it is impossible that some ones hive could be the cause but knowing for sure is harder. I do believe that if it is another bee keeper that it will take care of its self with time one way or the other. That may not help the pain but a guy has to decide where he is going to spend his time and running investigations might be more time consuming then taking care of the problem best you can and keeping your fingers crossed. It is a small comfort that there are bad diseases in nature (not just bees) that do seem to run their course and then fade back into the background. There are always exceptions but the odds seem to be fair that bad spells can be overcome.

Squarepeg is ahead of the game in that he has recognized some things he can do in the future to mitigate future efb problems. A hurtful lesson to be sure but proof of a beekeeper who is continuing to improve his skill at the art of bee keeping and taking us along for the ride where we may also benefit.

I do know that I am a hermit and keep my stuff how I keep them and when approached by anyone on how I do things, my first assessment is are they trying to boss me or really trying to help me. I love people who intention is to try and help me but still make the final decision. I do have the ability to cut my own nose of to spite my face is somebody approaches me and I perceive the intent that they are trying to exercise some type of authority over me. I could even be wrong and the wrong approach could make me do even more wrong. I do love people who in their hearts are wanting to help me though. I have had both types of neighbors.

I do also agree with gray goose that things could happen that are out of control that could ruin apiary sites.

Still, except for nuclear disasters and its waste, most things are a cycle of things that eventually pass with continual changes up and down but not staying completely static.

I appreciate the chance to learn through you guys. Thanks for posting your actions and progress.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Gray Goose said:


> Also keep in mind the "untended" colonies.


Good point, GG.


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



gww said:


> Squarepeg is ahead of the game in that he has recognized some things he can do in the future to mitigate future efb problems. A hurtful lesson to be sure but proof of a beekeeper who is continuing to improve his skill at the art of bee keeping and taking us along for the ride where we may also benefit.


I concur with this sentiment- there is much to be learned from SP's experience, and I expect he will emerge an even better beekeeper than he already is as a result.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

so many thanks for the replies and kind words everyone.

(part of my post from another thread posted here for future reference, the swarm is the one pictured in post #1945)

"my caught swarm is approaching 2 weeks since moving in to the swarm trap with no signs of efb. the swarm ended up covering the better part of 10 deep frames and in less than two weeks has them almost completely full of brood and stores. the capped brood is completely solid and the open brood is 100% pearly white.

i added a second deep yesterday with 10 frames of empty comb. 15 of the 20 frames in that hive are frames from efb deadouts that i have sanitized to the best of my ability. some goes for the hive bodies, inner cover, telescoping cover, and entrance reducer.

if i see no efb once this colony fills the second deep with bees, my plan is to make as many nucs from it as i can. i'll do this by introducing a foundationless frame to the middle of the broodnest and then split the queen out a week later. a week after that i'll make as many nucs as i can with the emergency cells."


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

update:

virtually every spare moment these past couple of months has been spent cleaning up the mess created by the efb outbreak. most of that time has been spent trying to salvage equipment and drawn comb by washing and bleaching what i could. i'm not sure how effective my 'disinfecting' regimen will be and i guess only time will tell should i get around to repurposing what i have cleaned up.

there was a fair amount of last year's capped honey unused in some of the supers along with a little bit of this year's not quite yet cured nectar. i used the extractor to remove that honey and came up with about 10 gallons or so. it ended up with a water content of 19.1% - 19.4%. this honey is getting used for cooking and mead making.

the beebread was a little more difficult to remove. the air compressor did a decent job of that on the frames that only had a few cells but it involved removing patches of comb around the beebread. i just gave up on frames that contained a pretty good bit of beebread and they were thrown on the burn pile.

all in all i ended up 'salvaging' about 300 frames of drawn comb and burning about 300 frames. most of the hive bodies that were in decent shape got cleaned, along with some of the other miscellaneous pieces of hardware.

i've got one more short stack of stuff to clean up, need to give my garage one more good scrubbing, and then i'll be shifting over to honey harvest mode.

during the period between late march and early may 15 out of 22 colonies became infected with efb. five colonies were euthanized prior to receiving the test kits and terramycin. 10 colonies were treated by shook swarming, terramycin, or both.

of these 10 colonies 6 did not respond to treatment and are now gone. 2 others appear to have turned around and now have healthy solid patterns of open and capped brood, but these 2 have populations of less than 5 deep frames of bees. there are 2 treated colonies doing 'ok' with good brood patterns that have about 10 deep frames of bees.

i'm watching these treated colonies for signs of efb rebloom and if that happens it's straight to the burn pile with everything except for the hive bodies.

that leaves 7 strong colonies plus a swarm caught out of one of those that is also looking good at this time for a total of 8 hopefully 'good' colonies. they have quite a bit of honey to harvest on their tall stacks and then a winter to make it through.

we'll see what's left come next spring in terms of my stock as well as my motivation about whether to rebuild the hive count or not.


----------



## Gypsi

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

EFB is a tough battle to cleanup. I was fortunate, I harvested all honey, melted the wax off the frames for candles, bleached what was left and if it didn't look worth saving, campfire. I only saved 2 of my colonies and one belonging to a neighbor, but that is all I had alive when I had the inspector out to see what was wiping my bees out. 

Good to have a solid flow in the year following efb. Inspector called it bored nursebee syndrome


----------



## Jadeguppy

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Good to hear that you are getting some harvest this year. If you decide to, which I think you will, you can bounce back. Are you going to do any post main flow splits?


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Hoping the best for you and that there is not a rebloom.
Good luck
gww


----------



## Gray Goose

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Squarepeg, When you are in the thick of it it is not fun. Let a winter unwind the stress. Most of the bee keepers I know would just bounce back, fast or slow, but having bees is soon a big part of your life. I was taken out by bears 2 times, once in 82 and again in 97, I will not lie to you I did skip a year or 2 but , however, I soon got back in. yesterday just checked the 8 NUCs I have and it was nice to see some queens and watch the progress. I kow have 4 smaller Apiaries so even if a bear got 1 I have other resources to rebuild. We all get Knocked down once and a while. Its how we handle the getting back up that makes like interesting. Good luck with your progress. If you do need to burn it all, look at it as a time to maybe go long hive or to 8 frame, I always wanted to do different stuff but all the wooden ware dictated I stay the path. Once knocked off the path , a different path is a viable option. I'll be rooting for you.
GG


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Gray Goose said:


> Once knocked off the path , a different path is a viable option. I'll be rooting for you.
> GG


GG:

This is wise advice in my humble opinion- not allowing an adverse situation to forever define our efforts, but certainly to guide our decision making and (as you astutely point out) present us opportunities to make decisions that otherwise were not available to us. I suppose that is the idea of making lemonade from lemons.

SP:

I am really glad to hear that it appears you have arrested the disease progression and that you have a solid base of colonies to build back from. Best of success to you as you rebuild.


----------



## GregB

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Gray Goose said:


> Squarepeg, ...... I'll be rooting for you.
> GG


+1.

Well said: "Once knocked off the path, a different path is a viable option". 
It works too.


----------



## Gray Goose

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



GregV said:


> +1.
> 
> Well said: "Once knocked off the path, a different path is a viable option".
> It works too.


Nothing like a clean slate to dream of,,,, if I started beekeeping today how would I do it?

After the toast to the old way of course and the burring of the ashes.

Some doors need to close to open others, after burring my first born and the funeral, I was "adrift" To describe it nicely, I eventually settled down and made something of the rest of my life, Humans are very adaptable. We are the sum total of all our experiences, some I could have done with out , but I would be a very different person.

Hopefulyl we see "squarepeg 2020 -2024 next experience".
GG


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

many thanks to all for the replies and encouraging words. i am thankful for my good friends here on beesource and for the empathy received in response to my ranting and venting as of late.

this weekend marks a turning of the corner in that i've finally finished cleaning all of the equipment i am attempting to salvage plus i brought in the first batch of this year's honey to extract.

i euthanized another of the 4 treated colonies on thursday because it continued to have very spotty brood and had dwindled down to less than 2 deep frames of bees.

the 3 remaining treated colonies are holding their own and have solid patterns with no diseased larvae present. there will be no honey harvest from these this year and it remains to be seen if they overwinter, build back up, and don't rebloom with efb next spring.

the two supers i brought in this morning came off a hive that managed to fill 8 medium supers above their single deep. the top two supers i harvested were 100% full and capped and suspect the remaining supers are pretty much the same. getting to see that provided a nice little morale boost.

most of the other non-affected colonies have tall stacks on them as well and they are too heavy to heft right now; so i'll be getting some harvest but probably half or less than what i have been getting these past few seasons.

i won't be doing any more splitting this year but rather focus my efforts in getting the honey harvested and sold. we are in our summer dearth here and i'm thinking it is better to leave the remaining colonies strong for now and split what survives winter next spring.

i won't be changing too much in terms of management going forward. mostly i'll be spreading out the placement of the hives to cut down on drift, have fewer hives per yard, be somewhat less aggressive with opening up the broodnests during the build up period, and be much more conservative with respect to moving equipment and resources from one hive to another.

after slogging through what for me was a nightmare scenario, my hope is that the 8 colonies that somehow survived the efb epidemic without being treated remain hearty; and that propagating from those gives me good resilient stock going forward. it's one of those time will tell propositions...

thanks again everyone.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Sounds good. Breeding from survivor bees. :thumbsup:


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Oldtimer said:


> Sounds good. Breeding from survivor bees. :thumbsup:


many thanks for that ot, and for the valuable contributions you make here on the forum.

these are true survivors with several having multple winters under their belt as well as being exceptional honey producers.

the 'breeding' program is likely to take a very modest form, at least for the next year or two. by that i mean about all i am planning to do is perform artificial swarms on each hive in the early spring. fortunately there are a couple of folks in the general area with 100 or so hives each that are putting a lot of effort into queen and nuc production.

i plan to keep the strict quarantine in effect for another season or two in terms of producing and selling nucs to make sure i'm not seeing efb anymore. i'm pushing retirement from my day job back another year or two and need to avoid getting over-extended with the bee operation.

the upside is by keeping the count from exceeding 20 hives i'll be able to pay better attention to the colonies to include focusing more on mite counts ect.

it's looking like my bees may get included in a new study being put together by researchers in switzerland who are taking a careful look at proven mite resistant populations. 

my understanding is these researchers will be looking at infestation rates and mite reproductive success while running full genomic testing and trying to uncover snp's that may be part of a genetic substrate for mite resistance.


----------



## JWPalmer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> it's looking like my bees may get included in a new study being put together by researchers in switzerland who are taking a careful look at proven mite resistant populations.



That is too cool! :banana:


----------



## Jadeguppy

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Please share the findings as you learn of them.


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Jadeguppy said:


> Please share the findings as you learn of them.


SP:

I agree, and I appreciate all the information you have provided to-date. The National Honey Show video you posted over in the Pests/Diseases forum was very instructional as well.

Good luck with your rebuilding effort. I appreciate you letting us come along for the ride.

Russ


----------



## GregB

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



JWPalmer said:


> That is too cool! :banana:


 +1

In fact, more such populations should be studied.
We are beyond needing a proof such bees exist.
Sure they are - study them already.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

yep, i am excited about the swiss study. what the researchers are looking for are mite resistant colonies that have survived 2 winters off treatments, and they want 10 colonies per sample.

because of my efb losses this year we'll have to pool my colonies with those of a couple of friends nearby who started their apiaries with my bees.

i've let the researchers know that there are others here in the u.s. who have stock like this and might be willing to provide samples.

send me a pm if you are interested.


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> yep, i am excited about the swiss study. what the researchers are looking for are mite resistant colonies that have survived 2 winters off treatments, and they want 10 colonies per sample.


SP: 

This is an intriguing opportunity. I do hope that there are plenty of folks willing to participate.

Thank you for your continued advocacy on behalf of the TF paradigm.

Russ


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

I've just caught up with your woes, Squarepeg, as a result of searching for info about how to deal with my own EFB outbreak. Bad luck, and I hope it all goes well from now on.

To add to the positives, I like the (alleged) observation: the Chinese have one word for 'Catastrophe' and 'Opportunity'.

I'm hopeful that my experience of EFB has given me a much needed whole new sense of direction.

All the best, and Hi to Everyone,

Mike (UK)


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

great to hear from you mike, and thank you for the well wishes. 

sorry to hear that efb showed up your operation. were your samples sequence typed, and if so what was the result?

we are terribly behind in our understanding and approach to that pathogen here in the u.s. as compared to the u.k.

also, we've been highlighting efb experiences in the 'diseases and pests' subforum, and would appreciate hearing your story there if you are so inclined.

best of luck to you as well!


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> Were your samples sequence typed, and if so what was the result?


Yes, I'll try to get the detail. From what I know they were typical of the area, and especially the hotspot from which my infection is thought to have come.



squarepeg said:


> we are terribly behind in our understanding and approach to that pathogen here in the u.s. as compared to the u.k.


I'm not sure things are all that much better here - though that stance is of course a reflection of my evolutionary perspective. The main material difference as far as I can see is that we're not allowed to use antibiotics. But the official position is|: EFB can be eliminated, and that is the goal and the underlying drive behind policy. I think that's a fundamental mistake, and that that mistake leads to perpetuation of the problem is exactly the same way varroa treatment does. 



squarepeg said:


> also, we've been highlighting efb experiences in the 'diseases and pests' subforum, and would appreciate hearing your story there if you are so inclined.


Could you send me a link?

Cheers! 

Mike UK


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



mike bispham said:


> Could you send me a link?


https://www.beesource.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?241-Diseases-and-Pests

recent reports of efb outbreaks are being 'stickied' for now in an attempt to bring awareness to what may be an emerging threat here in the u.s.

we don't have sequence typing available in the u.s., but the melissococcus plutonius here appears to be morphing into a very contagious and highly virulent strain that can quickly spread and take down whole apiaries in a very short time.

one dynamic that is contributing to the spread of efb in the states is the insatiable demand for package bees created by the exponential growth of new beekeepers here. some of this demand for packages is being met by shaking surplus bees left over after almond pollination (where exposure to all pests and pathogens is high) and shipping them all across the country.

the prophylactic use of antibiotics was officially banned here starting in january 2017, and one concern was that removing this suppression of the bacterial foulbroods might result in a resurgence of it, so this may be contributing the increase in outbreaks as well.

the majority of my colonies have been able to deal with the varroa mite just fine over the years, not 100% of them but a high enough survival rate to be easily sustainable.

these colonies were no match for the efb that spread quickly through them this spring.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> https://www.beesource.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?241-Diseases-and-Pests


Thanks, I'll take a look but what I have to contribute might be best suited to the NT forum...



squarepeg said:


> recent reports of efb outbreaks are being 'stickied' for now in an attempt to bring awareness to what may be an emerging threat here in the u.s.
> 
> we don't have sequence typing available in the u.s., but the melissococcus plutonius here appears to be morphing into a very contagious and highly virulent strain that can quickly spread and take down whole apiaries in a very short time.


Or... it may be that a normally easily managed bacterium is meeting bees that have no natural defences, with the usual results. It may be a changed bacterium, and/or a changed microfauna package. But the questions: why are the bees so vulnerable?

Rhetorical question: what happens when you 'protect' a wild animal systematically from a specific predator?

Answer: it loses its defences.

You can see where I'm going with this I'm sure.



squarepeg said:


> one dynamic that is contributing to the spread of efb in the states is the insatiable demand for package bees created by the exponential growth of new beekeepers here. some of this demand for packages is being met by shaking surplus bees left over after almond pollination (where exposure to all pests and pathogens is high) and shipping them all across the country.


Well, yes. absolutely, local is best. But the question is what do you do for the best long-term outcome when an organism for whch your bees seem to have little defence becomes endemic to your region?



squarepeg said:


> the prophylactic use of antibiotics was officially banned here starting in january 2017, and one concern was that removing this suppression of the bacterial foulbroods might result in a resurgence of it, so this may be contributing the increase in outbreaks as well.


Undoubtedly antibiotics are (for you) a big part of the problem. Can you see why I'm not saying this on the open forum? 



squarepeg said:


> the majority of my colonies have been able to deal with the varroa mite just fine over the years, not 100% of them but a high enough survival rate to be easily sustainable. These colonies were no match for the efb that spread quickly through them this spring.


They won't be. Yet. The question is can you get them adapted to the new environment?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



mike bispham said:


> But the questions: why are the bees so vulnerable?
> 
> Rhetorical question: what happens when you 'protect' a wild animal systematically from a specific predator?
> 
> Answer: it loses its defences.


i would argue that we've denied our 'domesticated' bees one of their major defenses by placing colonies in close proximity to each other in our apiaries.

unless and until we decrease our colony density to about one colony per square kilometer we shouldn't expect our bees to fare as well as their unmanaged cousins in the wild.

melissococcus plutonius is not part of the bees' normal flora and is not present in healthy populations. fusion_power mentioned strains of bees able to produce antimicrobial enzymes that eliminated the bacteria from brood food, but i haven't been able to find a reference for that yet.

part of my strategy going forward will be to spread my hives out as much as possible in the yards, have fewer hives per yard, and have at least a mile or more separation between yards.

also, after seeing that antibiotic treatment is a waste of time and money, is only marginally effective, and renders any treated colonies unfit for honey production for the season; my approach going forward will be a strict and immediate destruction by fire for colonies and equipment that test positive for efb.

i can't say if the handful of survivors i have left are still here due to natural resistance or just dumb luck. it may be that efb will crop up in those next spring. if i lose everything than i will likely be done as a sideliner producing honey and nucs for the public, and resort to catching swarms from the woods enough to keep a few hives for personal use.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i would argue that we've denied our 'domesticated' bees one of their major defenses by placing colonies in close proximity to each other in our apiaries.


We've made it easier for the disease to spread by doing that, but bees in the wild are happy to move in next door to each other. Not, probably, in nicely aligned identical looking boxes! Yes, eliminating drift will help. 



squarepeg said:


> unless and until we decrease our colony density to about one colony per square kilometer we shouldn't expect our bees to fare as well as their unmanaged cousins in the wild.


 I disagree, see above.



squarepeg said:


> melissococcus plutonius is not part of the bees' normal flora and is not present in healthy populations.


Clear WRONG here. In any population adapted to it, that organism is simply one of the ever-shifting species of gut microfauna. There are populations of bees that are considered 'carriers' (woo!) They are simply adapted populations. For sure individuals from them represent a threat to unadapted apiaries. 



squarepeg said:


> fusion_power mentioned strains of bees able to produce antimicrobial enzymes that eliminated the bacteria from brood food, but i haven't been able to find a reference for that yet.


We're right smack in the same frame we were in when varroa struck. No-one knows what the mechanisms are - though facilitating drifting and swapping frames about etc will help the organism spread. But some don't get it. Breed from them, by the bucketful. Winnow out the failures. Take your loses. Don't, whatever you do, help individuals that will go on to put genes in the next generation. You know the routine. 



squarepeg said:


> part of my strategy going forward will be to spread my hives out as much as possible in the yards, have fewer hives per yard, and have at least a mile or more separation between yards.


Yes, I'm going down a similar line.



squarepeg said:


> also, after seeing that antibiotic treatment is a waste of time and money, is only marginally effective, and renders any treated colonies unfit for honey production for the season; my approach going forward will be a strict and immediate destruction by fire for colonies and equipment that test positive for efb.


 yes



squarepeg said:


> i can't say if the handful of survivors i have left are still here due to natural resistance or just dumb luck. it may be that efb will crop up in those next spring. if i lose everything than i will likely be done as a sideliner producing honey and nucs for the public, and resort to catching swarms from the woods enough to keep a few hives for personal use.


Or to build into a varroa and efb resistant sideliner operation, ie a normal healthy operation, not a sick twisted one. 

Good luck to the good ship Natural Selection Management and all who sail in her!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



mike bispham said:


> ...but bees in the wild are happy to move in next door to each other.


not when given a choice, and finding that is more the exception than the rule.





mike bispham said:


> Clear WRONG here. In any population adapted to it, that organism is simply one of the ever-shifting species of gut microfauna.


this is counter to what i have found in my literature search, but i'm happy to look at any citations showing melissococcus plutonius in part of the normal healthy bee gut flora.





mike bispham said:


> Take your loses.


my losses this year were painfully expensive and emotionally unacceptable. i have no proof, but the most likely source for my efb was neighboring new beekeepers that imported colonies and did not take steps to prevent collapse and robbing.

assuming the continued introduction of novel pathogens and hive densities required to make a sideline operation worthwhile it seems _super_natural selection would be necessary for equilibrium to be achieved.

this was a real time drain on me this year, time i really didn't need to lose. but the threat posed by these novel pathogens as well as the dilution of the locally adapted and resistant gene pool bothers me even more.

i fear we are living in a 'new normal' here and it saddens me. i'm ok with putting forth a reasonable effort to propagate from what is left of my stock. time will tell how that plays out. it's not an obsession for me and i'll know when to say when if it comes to that.


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> not when given a choice, and finding that is more the exception than the rule.


 (Living together) My swarm fill my empty hives all the time. Right alongside full ones. So often that its clearly the norm.



squarepeg said:


> this is counter to what i have found in my literature search, but i'm happy to look at any citations showing melissococcus plutonius in part of the normal healthy bee gut flora.


(EFB adapted bees have low levels of MP)

When you're looking at the organism as a disease its hard to see it as just part of the microfauna. Just as when you are looking at varroa as a fatal pest its hard to see it as just another parasite. But - we know - it can be.

That's what an EFB 'carrier' is. Its been cast as a dangerous baddie. But its just one of the millions of species of bacteria that live in a bees gut all the while its causing no problem. Its a hell of a threat to bees with no defence to it of course.



squarepeg said:


> my losses this year were painfully expensive and emotionally unacceptable. i have no proof, but the most likely source for my efb was neighboring new beekeepers that imported colonies and did not take steps to prevent collapse and robbing.


Could be. Moving species around is always trouble. Ask the natives of the American continent what happened when Europeans moved themselves there.



squarepeg said:


> assuming the continued introduction of novel pathogens and hive densities required to make a sideline operation worthwhile it seems _super_natural selection would be necessary for equilibrium to be achieved.


And that's a great way of saying genetic husbandry, based on a firm understanding of the principles of natural selection for the fittest strains and the mechanisms of co-evolution. When you're talking livestock, genetic husbandry is always the answer.



squarepeg said:


> this was a real time drain on me this year, time i really didn't need to lose. but the threat posed by these novel pathogens as well as the dilution of the locally adapted and resistant gene pool bothers me even more.


I've lost 20 or so hives from a total of 80 overwintered. Its pretty much my own fault, and a great opportunity to learn and build something better. Less emotional cost. Don't worry about the local population: it'll bounce. Worry about more unresistant bees being bought in and diluting the gene pool.



squarepeg said:


> i fear we are living in a 'new normal' here and it saddens me. i'm ok with putting forth a reasonable effort to propagate from what is left of my stock. time will tell how that plays out. it's not an obsession for me and i'll know when to say when if it comes to that.


There's lots of new normal to be sad about! I was not just sad but furious when varroa arrived, and more so when I was told everyone would be treating, thereby leaving pretty much no room for adaptation to occur. I only had two or 3 hives. I'm constantly mad about climate change and the destruction of species.

As Einstein (is said to have) said: "I'm not sure if the universe is infinite, but the stupidity of man definitely is" Or something of that sort.

I've found having a plan is the way to stay cheerful. I might not succeed, by trying keeps me happy!

Mike (UK)


----------



## JWPalmer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

A. Einstein is attributed with the saying, "Two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I am not yet completely sure about the universe.” 

Cheers


----------



## GregB

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> unless and until we decrease our colony density to about one colony per square kilometer we shouldn't expect our bees to fare as well as their unmanaged cousins in the wild.


Like I stated before - I feel this is not about the density as if by bee choice (even though similar density is often dictated by natural habitat - just no suitable cavities nearby is often found; also - near distance "blindness" will often prevent outgoing swarm from "seeing" a good home immediately next to the old one). 

This is about minimizing the horizontal transmission of the pathogens (where the density plays some role, but only a partial role).
This is about distinct identification of the nest sites (distance being only a component of the formula), which in turn minimizes random horizontal bee movements due to nest site confusion.

Indeed, given a suitable habitat, wild bees will maintain much higher density per the area unit (km/mile).
Since this is a norm in nature to have very distinct nest sites (even if close to each other - the individual trees are very unique), this minimizes very significantly horizontal pathogen transmission.
Simply put - bees do not get easily confused where the home is, when NOT given a choice of bee hive rows upon rows (but rather unique, easily distinguishable trees, for example).

Why, here is even a paper that says exactly that of the wild bees:


> The densities of up to *12.5 colonies per km2* observed for this study...


Source (get the PDF - a great read)
https://academic.oup.com/ee/article/34/3/610/364785


----------



## mike bispham

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

I think to make life difficult for EFB while simultaneously breeding toward resistance has to be the way to go. The trick is not to relieve the breeding pressure too much - unless I guess you are happy that local ferals are doing the hard work for you. 

I think I'm lucky in having one site that has suffered high rates of EFB infection for a long while. Yet some colonies will thrive there. 3 miles away its rare. That means its prone to waves of infection because its resistance is low.

On densities: these are a different kind of honeybee, but the principle is the same. The population in any one place will build toward capacity until disease through contact becomes a limiting factor. Then there'll be fewer for a while. https://youtu.be/f13rpcIji5E?t=102 

When varroa hit being at a distance supplied an advantage. But that's not necessarily the normal state. 

Mike (UK)


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

all points well taken mike, thanks for taking the time to contribute.




mike bispham said:


> EFB adapted bees have low levels of MP


do you have a link describing these efb adapted bees? my searching has come up short.





mike bispham said:


> Worry about more unresistant bees being bought in and diluting the gene pool.


many hundreds of nonresistant colonies are being imported into this and surrounding counties every year. it's hard to know how much of an impact this may be having on the genetic landscape.

but enough about my woes mike. i've restickied your thread. i hope you will update us there about your experience and approach to dealing with efb.





GregV said:


> Simply put - bees do not get easily confused where the home is when NOT given a choice of bee hive rows upon rows (but rather unique, easily distinguishable trees, for example).


good point greg. i feel strongly that the layout of my apiaries very much contributed to the speed and degree of efb movement through the colonies.


----------



## GregB

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



mike bispham said:


> On densities: these are a different kind of honeybee, but the principle is the same. The population in any one place will build toward capacity until disease through contact becomes a limiting factor. Then there'll be fewer for a while. https://youtu.be/f13rpcIji5E?t=102
> 
> Mike (UK)


Notice on this exact video - how well distributed and distinct in 3-D space these colonies are (very closely located, and yet - distinct).
No rows. 
No uniformity.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> the prophylactic use of antibiotics was officially banned here starting in january 2017, and one concern was that removing this suppression of the bacterial foulbroods might result in a resurgence of it, so this may be contributing the increase in outbreaks as well.


Re that SP. Some years back it was often said on Beesource that a colony with EFB could be cured by introducing a new queen, and people often reported success with that. This would imply that certain bees were resistant.

Likewise, it was often said that EFB would appear in a hive, then sometimes disappear by itself, also implying some bees could resist it.

Now that this much more viralent strain has appeared, are there any bees at all, that show proven resistance?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Oldtimer said:


> Now that this much more viralent strain has appeared, are there any bees at all, that show proven resistance?


i think if there was an efb resistant strain of bee the europeans who are light years ahead of anyone else on this would be aware of it.

on the requeening to cure efb approach, my feeling is that folks reporting success with that are not getting lab tests to confirm efb, and are instead dealing with pms that looks like efb.

there is nothing in the current literature suggesting requeening will do a darn bit of good with confirmed efb, nor does it make any sense whatsoever that it would.

however, if you back far enough in the literature, say 100 years, you can find some support for the requeening method:









from:

https://books.google.com/books?hl=e...ural resistance to european foulbrood&f=false


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

The black bees common in the southeast 50 years ago were distinctly susceptible to EFB and AFB. Italians as a general rule were resistant to EFB but susceptible to AFB. The oft given advice for EFB was to requeen with a good Italian queen. I could speculate that the varroa resistant bees we are keeping now have an innate susceptibility to EFB. One thing I remember very well from articles in the 1960's was that spring manipulations that stress a colony set the stage for EFB.


----------



## Amibusiness

I have seen people diagnose as efb when it was actually sacbrood. So for that anecdotal evidence without a positive test the requeening could well show positive results! Though I agree, sp, if it were really efb I don't see how it could help. Aparently the bees respond to sacbrood by starting to forage earlier in life so as not to pass on the virus to other brood (as much....). This is a pretty cool adaptation / recognition on their part. Plenty of cool tricks the ladies have -- I hope they develop new ones as fast as we create "new normals" that are challenging for them.... Happy beekeeping everyone!


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Thanks SP, and that's an interesting reference. 

So in your personal opinion, you don't think EFB has become more viralent, but that it always has been so?

As an aside, the "black bees" they are talking about, back then, were largely AMM's, or strains of AMM's, that despite their aggression and toughness in some ways, were very prone to brood disease. Few of these bees exist now having been especially prone to varroa mites. Other AMM strains still survive.

At the time it made a lot of sense to requeen these hives with Italians, once the strain was introduced. There is some discussion of this in the writings of Jay Smith, who was one of the pioneers of requeening these hives with Italians.

EDIT - Thanks FP and Amnibusiness, both your posts appeared after i posted.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



mike bispham said:


> what I have to contribute might be best suited to the NT forum...


What is the NT forum?


----------



## Amibusiness

No treatment? If I'm reading you correctly Mike. Aka treatment free....


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Oldtimer said:


> So in your personal opinion, you don't think EFB has become more viralent, but that it always has been so?


to the contrary, i think it's quite probable that efb is morphing into more virulent strains. large holding yards providing unlimited host tends to drive evolution toward greater virulence. decades of prophylactic antibiotic use may also have resulted in more virulent adaptations.

the next round of studies to be coming out of the u.k. will compare and contrast the different strains of efb and how amenable or not they are to various forms of treatment.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> One thing I remember very well from articles in the 1960's was that spring manipulations that stress a colony set the stage for EFB.


my next search project will be to locate and read those articles if they are still available.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

If EFB is evolving to more viralent, it is likely the USA and UK strains will be different. If Mike Bisphams bees have thrown the disease off, it is likely a low viralence strain. It will be interesting to read his account of his EFB experience, once he posts it.

Or has he already posted it somewhere if so is there a link?


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Agree also that in theory anyway, non treatment should favor less viralent diseases, and treatment plus management favour more viralent.

My own reasoning is this. In a wild unmanaged population, a disease that is very infectious, plus quickly kills it's host, is in danger of exterminating it's host, and thereby exterminating itself. A less viralent strain that allows long term survival of it's host, can also continue to live, itself.

But in a treated and man managed population, there will always be new hosts, the human managers will ensure that. So a disease variant most likely to prosper in this situation would be highly infectious, and highly viralent. Because that variant could spread quickly, and kill it's host quickly, ensuring spread by robbing. The less viralent and less infectious, would be taken out by treatment or the human management, before getting to spread much.

That's my thoughts on the matter, all just theory though, bearing in mind that sometimes real world trumps theory and fools us all. i'm no scientist.

I'm also dreading what will happen if EFB ever reaches my country. Our bees have never been exposed to it, and that may be true even going back thousands of years before they even reached our shores.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Oldtimer said:


> If EFB is evolving to more viralent, it is likely the USA and UK strains will be different.


perhaps. worldwide 35 different efb strains have been identified. 19 of these 35 have been found in the u.k., some more virulent than others.

i invited mike to share his efb experience on his 'natural selection' thread. i hope he accepts.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Oldtimer said:


> That's my thoughts on the matter, all just theory though, and sometimes real world trumps theory and fools us all. i'm no scientist.


you are in good company ot. randy oliver has been making pretty much the same point for some time now.


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> if i lose everything than i will likely be done as a sideliner producing honey and nucs for the public, and resort to catching swarms from the woods enough to keep a few hives for personal use.


SP: 

I really do appreciate you chronicling your efforts and attendant results in dealing with EFB here. Selfishly I hope that your survivors comprise a stable foundation for your rebuilding efforts as I would really miss your insightful contributions here in the context of your sideline operation.

Best of success to you in coming back.

Russ


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

the last volley of posts strayed a bit off topic and were move here:

https://www.beesource.com/forums/sh...-not-treating-for-mites-opinion-thread/page13


----------



## msl

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

"One thing I remember very well from articles in the 1960's was that spring manipulations that stress a colony set the stage for EFB"

Saw that 1st hand, had a overwintered nuc built in to a strong full sized hive and did a fly back split and they built like crazy, day 20 post split they were rocking and mostly filled the hive, came back day 30 and the hive was just destroyed by efb. 
It was in a top bar hive so they built from the front to the back, and you could read it like book... a wrecked comb or 2 of brood (1st to hatchout and been re layed in) 2-3 combs of sold capped brood, a few of a bit spoty capped brood, 2 or so realy spotty and then the open larva was just wrecked. 
best I can figger is the split being done with forgers, the bees aged out and disrupted the bee to brood ratio


----------



## Amibusiness

Msl, was that this year? What did you do about it? Did you find that anything worked? Did it spread? Good luck to all recovering and happy beekeeping!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

same questions as amibusiness, plus did you run a efb test or send samples off?

i can understand how aggressive manipulations that spread the nest too thin can be a stressor. it's more difficult to understand how efb can occur unless the offending pathogen is present.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

we are experiencing our typical summer dearth conditions here and for some reason the scattered rain showers are somehow managing to avoid my little corner of the world. even so the colonies are managing to find a little pollen here and there with a couple of different colors seen coming in during the morning hours.

last week i noticed one hive that had very little activity at the entrance and not much roar heard when placing an ear to the hive. i suspected that this one may have gone queenless and this was confirmed yesterday when i went into it.

this is a hive that managed to evade the efb outbreak and one that i had already harvested three medium supers of honey from. i found another 3.5 supers of capped honey still remaining that is now drying in my garage. there was no brood whatsoever, no sign of laying workers, nor any efb scales seen.

what is remarkable is that despite there being only a few dozen bees remaining in the hive it did not get robbed nor was there any wax moth or hive beetle infestation. it was probably dumb luck, and at this point i'll take it, but finding this supports my hunch that my bees have a low propensity for robbing, and perhaps are above average in fending off the moths and beetles.

losing this one drops my hive count from 11 down to 10. 7 of these did not get treated for efb, appear strong from entrance observations/listening to hive roar, and are yielding harvestable honey. the other 3 are a couple of months post otc treatment, appear to be ok from entrance observations, and are very light on stores.

so far 12 medium supers of honey have been harvested and i think i'll be able to bring in a handful more supers. once it cools off a bit and the fall blooms start i'll be taking a careful look at how the fall brood up is going in all the hives.

many thanks again to all following for your interest.


----------



## crofter

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

That sounds like very encouraging news about the EFB. I agree with your hunch about different bees inclination to rob. I can get away with things with my bees that would set off a robbing frenzy at my sons place.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

True low robbing bees would also be less likely to contract diseases like EFB, perhaps it's another thing we should be breeding for.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Disinclination to rob does not equate with disinclination to drift. I read an article a few years ago that drifting bees may be more important for disease spread than robbing bees.

While SP states he is in a dearth, my historic records for that area (I grew up less than 20 miles from his home) show that early August has a mild nectar flow from heartsease. Bees also usually produce cream/yellow pollen from the flowers. This has never been enough of a flow to sustain a colony, but it is usually enough to suppress robbing.

A. M. Lamarckii (the Egyptian bee) is arguably the least inclined race to drift. They also have very good hygienic behavior and do not gather propolis. For these reasons, I would love to be able to bring in some queens to see if the traits could be concentrated into a breeding line.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> I read an article a few years ago that drifting bees may be more important for disease spread than robbing bees.


Got a link?

It would be interesting to look at the article and see what kind of distances they are talking about, apiary circumstances, and other variables that they based their findings on.

For example, in my view anyway, drifting between hives in the same apiary would account for a much larger number of transfered bees than would robbing (assuming a properly run apiary). But if we are talking a neighbouring beekeeper a mile and a half away who has foul brood dead outs, I would say robbing of those hives by my bees, would account for a lot more disease transfer to my own apiary, than would drift.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

The article was in Bee Culture about 40 years ago so I'm sure it is not available online. You summarized it very well that drifting within an apiary is a problem. Seeley did some work to determine how much drifting occurs in colonies and iirc found that some drifting occurs with colonies separated by distances of a kilometer or more.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> Seeley did some work to determine how much drifting occurs in colonies and iirc found that some drifting occurs with colonies separated by distances of a kilometer or more.


Was that the 40 year old article, or a more recent one that you have a reference for?


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Seeley's work is much more recent, within the last 20 years. I have his book Honeybee Democracy. That is probably where I read about drifting at the kilometer distance.

The Gleanings article was more specific looking at drifting within an apiary and showed that drones drift far more often than workers but that marked workers from a single hive wound up in nearly every hive in an apiary. The apiary had spacing of less than 5 feet between colonies and was not palletized.

In another interesting bit of trivia, queens were found to preferentially fly 1.5 miles or more to mate. A few of them flew up to 5 miles. Inclement weather shortened the distance with some queens mating above the apiary they flew from when temperatures were below 70 degrees.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> The Gleanings article was more specific looking at drifting within an apiary and showed that drones drift far more often than workers but that marked workers from a single hive wound up in nearly every hive in an apiary. The apiary had spacing of less than 5 feet between colonies and was not palletized.


Weird. Sounds virtually identical to an accidental experiment i once did, and reported here on Beesource.


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



mike bispham said:


> I've lost 20 or so hives from a total of 80 overwintered.


So you are back down to 60 hives again?

I think this demonstrates the failure of the hard bond method Mike, and the relative advantage of a more "soft bond" approach.

Because a few years back you claimed you were collecting 30 + swarms and cutouts annually. That you have been doing that all these years and still only got 60 hives, and you don't have records which ones died or are survivors, indicates that had hive numbers not been constantly replenished by swarm and cutout collection, you could potentially be down to zero bees by now. It's in the maths.

Good argument, in my view, for a soft bond approach, where useful characteristics can be selected, rather than lost.

Having said that, I'll admit hard bond has worked for some. But for others it has not, and is clearly not working in this example.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



> Having said that, I'll admit hard bond has worked for some. But for others it has not, and is clearly not working in this example.


 This gets down to needing relative isolation so mating is limited to resistant genetics and starting with queens with some level of resistance. So long as there are survivors, there is something to breed from. Caveat that there has to be enough breeding population to avoid issues with inbreeding. I would not characterize this as "not working", rather "not working as intended".


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

the persisting ridge of high pressure that is allowing for record high temperatures across the southeast is making for a rather uncomfortable end to summer here. it also is resulting in my location registering moderate drought at this time. i am pretty much in centered in the tan colored area up the the northeast corner of the state:

https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?AL

this has resulted our yards and pastures starting to turn brown, some of the trees shedding their (brown) leaves early, and the ponds turning into puddles again.

i'm seeing a few different types of pollen coming in including goldenrod but haven't caught a whiff of goldenrod nectar, and i doubt seriously that there is much nectar of any type coming in.

the plan is to sit tight until after the temperature moderates a bit and we get a shower or two before going through the remaining 10 colonies plus one added nuc to see what's what.


----------



## Riverderwent

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Fusion_power said:


> This gets down to needing relative isolation so mating is limited to resistant genetics and starting with queens with some level of resistance. So long as there are survivors, there is something to breed from. Caveat that there has to be enough breeding population to avoid issues with inbreeding. I would not characterize this as "not working", rather "not working as intended".


There are some pre-varroa studies indicating in part of Louisiana and, I believe, other areas, that the gene pool of managed bees was different from the gene pool of feral bees. I am fairly confidant that the gene pool of my bees more or less mirrors that of local feral bees. If the local feral bees are becoming more varroa resistant and tolerant, then my bees are as well. I don't know exactly how this relates to Mike Bispham's, Oldtimer's, and your comments, but I can't help but think that it does relate.


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

As the background population becomes mite tolerant, the managed colonies gain tolerance to the extent that their genetics are derived from the ferals.


----------



## Amibusiness

Sorry to hear you have a bummer fall flow, sp. We have quite the opposite in upstate NY. Summer dearth was wonky / early (i thought I gave up most of my honey to splits) then flow came back during normal dearth time and went right into heavy and early fall flow (mostly goldenrod and knotweed). I pulled my supers early so they could backfill broodnest for winter before nectar dries up. Too early, it turns out; now they are on the cusp of swarming....
Happy beekeeping everybody!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

the 'moderate drought' i mentioned in my last post post has now been upgraded to 'severe drought'. still no rain here and still having record setting heat indexes at 100+ degrees f.

i've lost 2 more colonies as of last weekend. one of them was queenless and broodless with a handful of old workers remaining. the other was also queenless with just a handful of bees but still had a little bit of brood which tested positive for efb. neither of these hives had been robbed out.

down to just 8 colonies that are dealing with severe drought as they prepare for winter.


----------



## Litsinger

Squarepeg:

Thank you for the update and I am sincerely sorry to hear about your continued woes. You mentioned the EFB status of the second queenless colony, but do you assume the first queenless colony was as a result of EFB too? I imagine with no brood there is no way of determining conclusively?

Will you also destroy the woodenware associated with these colonies, or have you found a way to non-destructively sanitize?

Its awfully hot and dry here too... here's hoping that God sees fit to send the Southeast some rain soon.

Best of luck with your remaining colonies- I do hope you are planning to rebuild.

Russ


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

many thanks russ, i really do appreciate the sentiment.

no way to be sure in the one that was broodless, as you point out nothing to sample. i lean toward queen failure because i would expect to find at least a little spotty capped brood if it was efb.

yes to the burning the frames, especially those containing dead brood and bee bread. 

i will attempt to disinfect empty super comb with bleach as previously described, not knowing for sure if this is going to work or not, it's just that there is so much of it.

if efb shows up next year in a hive that has been given any of this disinfected comb everything gets destroyed and not given a second chance. no more antibiotics for me as my success rate was poor with it and there remains the issue of the bacteria lingering in the honey and beebread, as well as the problem of having a contagious colony around.

we'll see if i have anything to rebuild with come next spring. luckily i have access to splits from multi-winter treatment free stock from about 4 other beekeepers if i need it, plus i have the opportunity to place swarm traps in relatively isolated spots where only feral wild types live.

if the efb continues to show up i'll just keep burning and likely decrease my footprint to just a few colonies for personal use and enjoyment. i am too risk averse to invest again the time and money to be a sideliner when all it takes is a stray bacteria to clean me out.


----------



## Arnie

I've been off the forum for a while but i always enjoyed this thread.

Sorry to hear about this turn of events for you. If anyone deserves to be successful it's you, sp.
You work hard with your bees, keep careful records and you.have always been impeccable in your courtesy and grace dealing with posters here.

Take care, brother and best of luck to you. I hope the bees turn it around next year.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

sincere thanks for that arnie, it means a lot to me.

i'm keeping an open mind about going forward with no firm expectations one way or the other.

i am grateful that i was able to pass some of this stock on to a few other folks along the way and that they have propagated more from those...


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i will attempt to disinfect empty super comb with bleach as previously described, not knowing for sure if this is going to work or not, it's just that there is so much of it.


This has been tried here as an AFB cleaning attempt, (even though it's illegal here), not successful because it is very difficult to get the liquid into every cell.
BTW not me doing that but I have fed syrup by injecting it straight into comb and from that I know how hard it is to get thorough penetration.



squarepeg said:


> if efb shows up next year in a hive that has been given any of this disinfected comb everything gets destroyed and not given a second chance. no more antibiotics for me as my success rate was poor with it and there remains the issue of the bacteria lingering in the honey and beebread, as well as the problem of having a contagious colony around.


Rather than burn, could it be possible to set up a seperate quarantine yard and lump all infected gear into a few hives and dose them solidly with antibiotic over an extended period till things are cleaned up. Once sure infection is wiped out, normal hive microflora could be restored by introducing frames from untreated hives?



squarepeg said:


> we'll see if i have anything to rebuild with come next spring.


I am certain you will. What's more, these will be the survivors. 

With such bad infestation around you, might be that the beekeepers involved will get discouraged and give up their hobby, thereby solving the problem.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Square...
You had a very high per hive profit margin before this bad spell. Agriculture can be a gripe sometimes. Even the experts of old had big set backs. You will be retiring someday and if you are like me at all, the future might take little turns one way or the other. When I first retired, I had quite a few little projects that kept me quite busy for the first few years. Now I am a bit more relaxed (though hot spots of activity still happen here and there). 

This was a bad set back but I doubt will end your interest in bee keeping and so for the rest, watch for opportunities and go with the flow and see where you end up. I don't say this to be preachy or to discount the real issues that have had to be faced by you. I think you have did great even with the hurtful set backs and I know I have profited from this thread. I am sure the people that promote that giving is better then receiving does not hit home very well when facing what you are going through but do say that you have at least the fact that you have given and that is something.

I am hoping that good times for you again are right around the corner.
Cheers
gww


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Oldtimer said:


> This has been tried here as an AFB cleaning attempt, (even though it's illegal here), not successful because it is very difficult to get the liquid into every cell.


yes, thats my concern ot. the frames i am cleaning have no honey or beebread in them. the thinking is that efb cannot survive if exposed to oxygen, so you wouldn't expect any to survive on empty comb. efb does not produce spores like afb does.

i was fairly successful with filling the empty comb with a garden hose nozzle set on 'mist' mode. i then shook out the water by hand, followed by blowing the comb 'dry' with compressed air. i then used a fan to air dry them overnite. the next day i used a bottle sprayer with very concentrated bleach set on 'mist' mode, and feel i was fairly successful getting bleach into the cells. after another night of drying on the fan the comb received a spray of bt aizawai and will remain that way until next spring. i almost 'dare' any anaerobic bacteria to survive on that comb until then.





Oldtimer said:


> Rather than burn, could it be possible to set up a seperate quarantine yard and lump all infected gear into a few hives and dose them solidly with antibiotic over an extended period till things are cleaned up. Once sure infection is wiped out, normal hive microflora could be restored by introducing frames from untreated hives?


perhaps. i'm not confident i could find a place where i could be sure that there were no other colonies, including wild type ferals, that wouldn't be exposed so i probably wouldn't risk it. i think if someone wanted to salvage an efb infected colony the best way would be to feed it oxytet syrup for a week and then shook swarm it onto all new equipment and burn all of the old. the problem is that the bacteria can live a long time at the bottom of a honey cell or a beebread cell. too much trouble if you ask me.





Oldtimer said:


> I am certain you will. What's more, these will be the survivors.


that would be a nice scenario ot. 





Oldtimer said:


> With such bad infestation around you, might be that the beekeepers involved will get discouraged and give up their hobby, thereby solving the problem.


from what i hear the beginning beekeepers who imported colonies from out of state and let them collapse, (no way to prove it but in my opinion the most likely source for the efb), have decided not to keep bees anymore. 9 out of 9 of my colonies that were located near them are gone as are all of their colonies. i most likely transferred the efb from that yard to my home yard during some movement i did in the early spring.

so far no one else in the area has reported efb. part of my strict burn regimen has to do with containing it as much as possible going forward. fingers crossed.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

lots of wisdom in what you say there gww. so many thanks for that!


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Well, all the best


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Oldtimer said:


> Well, all the best


i know that is heart felt ot. many thanks for weighing in and for all your encouragement and support along the way.

just past the spring equinox for you, how are your colonies looking so far?


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Mine, bit of a mix to be honest. Some came through weaker than normal, there's also some overly strong ones. Once I would have balanced them out, but now because of the increasing number of pathogens around I no longer balance the hives unless one is below critical mass to make a crop. That's one of my swarm control tools gone, so instead I've just taken off a load of packages from the strong ones which have been sold locally. The main flow where I am should start in 2 or 3 weeks, some hives are very light but I'm trying not to feed sugar, fingers crossed they scrape through till incoming nectar is greater than consumption!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

understood ot. the nice thing about the smaller ones assuming they make it is that they are less likely to swarm and can make a better crop than a strong one that ends up swarming.

also understood about not moving bees and resources around because of pathogens. sadly i'll be avoiding that as well for the same reason. it will be a hard decision about what to do with resources from winter dead outs, i.e. whether to repurpose them or not.

hope you have a great season!


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i will attempt to disinfect empty super comb with bleach as previously described, not knowing for sure if this is going to work or not, it's just that there is so much of it.
> 
> i am too risk averse to invest again the time and money to be a sideliner when all it takes is a stray bacteria to clean me out.


Squarepeg:

Thank you for your reply- I failed to remember you outlining your disinfection technique. I do hope for your sake that this will work out.

I can only imagine how much time you have invested in your apiary over the past nine years, so I can appreciate that it is difficult to contemplate rebuilding- especially when "all it takes is a stray bacteria" to erase so much of the hard fought gains.

I think I speak for many when I say I am pulling for you and am hopeful that with good friends and and a few good feral swarms you are able to rebuild better than ever.

Let's also hope that your eight remaining colonies represent genetics that can survive anything that nature throws at them.


----------



## Riverderwent

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Litsinger said:


> I think I speak for many when I say I am pulling for you and am hopeful that with good friends and and a few good feral swarms you are able to rebuild better than ever.
> 
> Let's also hope that your eight remaining colonies represent genetics that can survive anything that nature throws at them.


Well said. Squarepeg, I wish you well. You strike me as a man with the judgment and strength to rebound from this in one way or another.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

ya'll are awesome.


----------



## Juhani Lunden

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Arnie said:


> I've been off the forum for a while but i always enjoyed this thread.
> 
> Sorry to hear about this turn of events for you. If anyone deserves to be successful it's you, sp.
> You work hard with your bees, keep careful records and you.have always been impeccable in your courtesy and grace dealing with posters here.
> 
> Take care, brother and best of luck to you. I hope the bees turn it around next year.


+1 :thumbsup: 
I have always appreciated your calm and thoughtfull writings, which tell me of a person with great wisdom. As someone already said, I´m sure you will have survivors. As long as there is one left, there is hope. Been there, done that... 



squarepeg said:


> no more antibiotics for me as my success rate was poor with it and there remains the issue of the bacteria lingering in the honey and beebread, as well as the problem of having a contagious colony around.


That is a good decission. Personally I would not be burning boxes, or frames.


----------



## gww

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Juhani


> Personally I would not be burning boxes, or frames.


I have to admit that I would only burn for afb and would probably try to bull through everything else but have not lost half of my hives yet. I believe that will come someday and I will put it to the test though. 

I also say that since I am not facing it, the above is what I believe now but might be different when facing the pain. I don't think so but am not sure.

I do like your saying, paraphrased by me: "I'm just a hard headed bee keeper that decided to quit treating".
Cheers
gww


----------



## Gray Goose

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> if the efb continues to show up i'll just keep burning and likely decrease my footprint to just a few colonies for personal use and enjoyment. i am too risk averse to invest again the time and money to be a sideliner when all it takes is a stray bacteria to clean me out.


Hi squarepeg re: "when all it takes is a stray bacteria to clean me out" Or a Bear (wiped out by bear 2 times) or a really nasty winter (2 weeks of -15 or colder, bees could not reach the feed) Or Mites. I have burned it all 1 time. I understand the feeling,,, just resist it, with bees sometime you get dealt a bad hand. For me I have been to zero hives come spring 4 or 5 times. Trust me once you know "how to make increase" the recovery is faster each time. A burn down is also a great time to consider different equipment/ways. If you like the keeping Just roll with it. I now have bees in 4 places, At times 1 place can be down to Zero but catch a swarm , pull a couple splits from another Apairy and you are back in the Saddle. If you are the type that a stray Bacteria can sideline, I guess I may have misjudged you. This is a learning opportunity, and equipment change opportunity. If I get wiped out 2 or 3 more times , I will still have bees. It is in the blood for me. I'll be rooting for your speedy recovery.

GG


----------



## camero7

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> many thanks russ, i really do appreciate the sentiment.
> 
> no way to be sure in the one that was broodless, as you point out nothing to sample. i lean toward queen failure because i would expect to find at least a little spotty capped brood if it was efb.
> 
> yes to the burning the frames, especially those containing dead brood and bee bread.
> 
> i will attempt to disinfect empty super comb with bleach as previously described, not knowing for sure if this is going to work or not, it's just that there is so much of it.
> 
> if efb shows up next year in a hive that has been given any of this disinfected comb everything gets destroyed and not given a second chance. no more antibiotics for me as my success rate was poor with it and there remains the issue of the bacteria lingering in the honey and beebread, as well as the problem of having a contagious colony around.
> 
> we'll see if i have anything to rebuild with come next spring. luckily i have access to splits from multi-winter treatment free stock from about 4 other beekeepers if i need it, plus i have the opportunity to place swarm traps in relatively isolated spots where only feral wild types live.
> 
> if the efb continues to show up i'll just keep burning and likely decrease my footprint to just a few colonies for personal use and enjoyment. i am too risk averse to invest again the time and money to be a sideliner when all it takes is a stray bacteria to clean me out.


Hi Square, 

As you know I am not treatment free. However, 2 winters ago I lost every hive - still not sure what the problem was. That was after a previous disastrous winter. My solution was to burn everything and start with fresh equipment. Last winter I had 100% survival. So, whatever was killing them is hopefully gone. Anyway, I think burn everything from infected hives is the solution. JMO


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

juhani, gg, and cam - many thanks for the replies.

the strain of efb that ended up in my apiaries is extremely contagious and highly virulent. it spread very quickly and collapsed what were strong colonies in just a brood cycle or two. shook swarming and/or oxytet didn't do much to faze it.

that the bacteria can persist for long periods of time on the frames even after the colony is gone presents a risk not worth taking. i don't have access to irradiation so destruction by burning is the only thing that really makes sense.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> it's looking like my bees may get included in a new study being put together by researchers in switzerland who are taking a careful look at proven mite resistant populations.


as it turns out the swiss researchers are coordinating this with an entomology professor at auburn university. this professor and his team are personally responsible for collecting the samples. for this reason there will only be samples taken from a handful of apiaries here in alabama.

i wasn't aware of this when i first learned about the request for samples and posted about it here. my apologies for the confusion to those of you who sent pm's expressing a willingness to provide samples.


----------



## Gypsi

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

I burned my frames as a precaution, melted comb from plasticell (plastic is quite toxic to burn) and gave the wax to someone making furniture polish just to be sure. Sorry for your losses


----------



## R_V

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

What temperature kills it? 
Have you thought about hot wax dipping your equipment or a Kiln that can be turned down
I read here somewhere that hot wax dipping was hot enough (250°-350° F) to kill AFB so it may also kill EFB.


----------



## crofter

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



R_V said:


> What temperature kills it?
> Have you thought about hot wax dipping your equipment or a Kiln that can be turned down
> I read here somewhere that hot wax dipping was hot enough (250°-350° F) to kill AFB so it may also kill EFB.


It would be wonderful if there were a dependable method (short of radiation) that would dependably kill 100% of the infective bacteria on comb. The hive bodies, top and bottom boards, excluders etc, can be reused after a thorough scraping and scorching with hand held propane torch. The big obstacle to recovery is lack of drawn comb.

I used a lot of partial foundations and crosswired foundationless for quicker drawing and needing plenty of drones for mating splits. I have 5 complete double deep colonies stored for another year before I dare risk repopulating them.

What say SquarePeg; would you risk reusing them? Ever?


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



crofter said:


> What say SquarePeg; would you risk reusing them? Ever?


to be determined frank.

i've actually got a very strong caught swarm in a double deep right now with 17 of the 20 frames having come out of efb infected hives and then disinfected with bleach.

i'll be moving that hive to another yard soon and once moved it will get a thorough inspection looking carefully for any sign of efb.

most of the comb i have saved (and disinfected) is drawn on medium frames and for use in honey supers. i'll likely give those another spray of bleach before trying them out next spring and seeing what happens.


----------



## crofter

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

I think you should be good to go with those frames as honey supers. If the bacteria survive that degree of sanitation and still infect, it is a mean enemy indeed. I m

I think I will stick with my down sized half a dozen colonies; I wouldn't be up to suffering the kind of loss you have been dealing with.

Best!


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

it's been awhile since updating the thread, mostly because there hasn't been anything noteworthy to share.

today was once of those warm (mid-sixties) days we see here just before the passing of a strong cold front along with it's associated storms and big drop in temps on the backside.

the three (of 12) remaining colonies at the home yard were bringing mostly a chocolate brown pollen with the occasional bright yellow. i've no clue what plants are producing those.

the outyard has 0 of 9 colonies remaining, the overflow yard has 2 of 3 remaining, and i have a single colonies placed one each at two new locations.

this puts me at a total of 7 survivors at this point (down from a hive count of 28) with all of winter still to go, along with the promise of receiving one of fusion_power's spares.

it is interesting to note that the strongest of the colonies at present is a caught swarm that was given almost 2 deep supers worth of drawn comb that was washed and bleached after being recovered from efb infected hives.

the plan is to see what is left if anything coming out of winter, destroy any colonies and equipment in which efb shows up, and split agressively in an attempt fill up all the empty boxes taking up space in my garage and carport.

i'll likely ramp up the swarm trapping next spring as well. i'd like to end up with 10 - 15 strong colonies (20 would be nice) spread out between 4 - 5 yards to take into next winter. i'm not expecting much of a honey crop for 2020.


----------



## Amibusiness

Good to hear from you sp. Glad your bees are still trucking along.
This spring due to "excessive" work I missed several swarms out of production colonies, which I thought amounted to my honey crop. I went along with my plan for the year to split a lot. So I had loads of nucs and no production colonies by July. Then during our July / August dearth we had a flow instead. So the earlier splits that were starting to get big made a crop anyway.
So here is to hoping you have some good, healthy colonies to split from in the spring, catch some nice local swarms, and get a surprise honey crop as well. "You never know with bees"
P.S. 60s? We did not get above freezing today and it looks like winter is coming. Some predictions for tomorrow are a foot of snow. Have a good winter everyone!


----------



## Jadeguppy

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Sorry to hear your numbers are so low. Hopefully this spring will be bountiful and we will both be splitting like madmen.


----------



## Litsinger

Good update, SP. I was glad to see your post. Dealing with the same weather front here.

When you have the time and interest, I would be interested to know what the 'new normal' will look like for you going forward?

I assume based on some previous responses that you may have lower colony numbers per yard but more yards?

Any other structural changes you are contemplating as a result of your experience with EFB?

I am glad you are planning on gearing back up and best of success to you in the rebuilding effort.

I sincerely hope you and your family had a great Thanksgiving. 

Russ


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

many thanks for the replies and continued interest everyone. 

russ, my plan is to carry on as described above with guarded expectations as to what the outcome will be. the 'new normal' will be determined by whatever success or lack thereof i have at propagating the survivors and obtaining resistant stock via swarms caught from the nearby woods.

time will tell how it all plays out. i'm prepared to accept the outcome either way. it will be 100% no treatments going forward with a strict destruction policy on any foulbrood should it rebloom.


----------



## Amibusiness

Sp, Did you already write about what made you decide not to use treatments for efb if you get reblooms and do you know a post number? I have not seen it in mine yet but assume I will get hit and plan to have a plan. Input from a tf perspective, esp one with experience with the more virulent strains of efb that seem to be becoming the new normal, seem to be lacking in wider lit, besides this post.... Best,


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Amibusiness said:


> Sp, Did you already write about what made you decide not to use treatments for efb if you get reblooms...


i'm sorry ab, but i can't remember if or where i may have already posted about it. mostly i wasn't impressed with the effectiveness of the oxytet as most of the colonies i treated went on to collapse despite treatment. 

that, and after seeing how quickly and easily the infection spread to neighboring hives i've decided that it's not worth the risk of further spreading while waiting for the treatments to kick in.

not to mention that the bacteria can remain viable in the honey and beebread for a long time, leading to the need for subsequent prophylactic treatments which we are supposed to be phasing out.

plus i like being able to tell my honey customers that no chemicals of any kind have been introduced into the hives.

combining oxytet with shook swarming and isolation from other colonies might be an option if it wasn't so much trouble. it's more palatable for me to follow the successful swiss model and just burn everything.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

a copy of the letter i sent to the swiss research team today:

"Hello *****,

Here is some background about the bees from Northeast Alabama USA that ***** obtained samples from in early November 2019.

These bees are best described as locally hybridized survivors that appear to be exhibiting tolerance and/or resistance to varroa. This apparent tolerance/resistance manifests itself in anecdotal observations of bee colonies both managed (by beekeepers) and unmanaged (feral wild types in trees and other structures) that are able to thrive year after year despite being untreated for varroa.

Environmental factors that are likely helping to make this possible include:

Geographical Location: This area includes the southern most extent of the Appalachian Mountain Range. Biodiversity here ranks among the greatest on the planet in terms of numbers and quantities of species. This results in high quality forage almost year round. There are still very large tracts of land that are wooded here providing ample nesting opportunities to support a wild type feral population.

Weather: The climate here is described as humid subtropical. We do have distinct seasons and get below freezing at times in the winter, but our average mid-winter temperature is about 40 F. It is rare to go more than 2 or 3 weeks through the winter without an opportunity for a cleansing flight, yet it is cold enough that brood rearing will usually shut down for 1 - 2 months. We also will usually get a shorter break in brood rearing during our summer dearth period.

Lack of Large Commercial Beekeeping Operations: Unlike some of the other states located in the southern United States, the state of Alabama does not allow large commercial migratory beekeeping operations to move their colonies into our borders. This may help to buffer our local population to some degree against genetic dilution and the introduction of novel pathogens and pests. We do receive a large influx of package bees each year that are imported from other states.

My experience with these bees started in 2010. I purchased nucleus colonies from a nearby beekeeper who had been propagating queens and colonies sans treatments since about 1996. Over the years I propagated more colonies from these and was enjoying low winter losses and good honey production. Last year however an epidemic of European Foul Brood found its way into my apiaries and resulted in the loss of all but a handful of my colonies.
Because of this I was not able to provide samples for your study. Instead, the samples ***** collected from here came from ***** and ******. Both of these beekeepers started with splits and/or caught swarms that came from my apiaries. In addition, both beekeepers collected additional swarms and/or removed unmanaged colonies from structures near by.

Here at some details regarding the individual samples that ***** collected:

From ***** (Started beekeeping in 2017)

D2 - Swarm caught in 2018, origin unknown, survived one winter, may have issued a very small swarm in 2019.
D1 - Swarm caught in 2017, parent colony obtained from *****, survived 2 winters so far.
A3 - Swarm caught in 2017 and requeened with Wolf Creek Apiaries queen, survived 2 winters so far.

From ***** (Started beekeeping in 2014)

J-1 Entering 4th winter. Split out of the first cut-out we did as new bee keepers. Been a very good honey producer. 300 bees/ 51 mites

J-3 Entering 2nd winter. Caught swarm from a swampy, wooded area, where we have caught 11 swarms in the past 5 years. Average honey producers. 300 bees/ 41 mites

J-7 Entering 3rd winter, cut out from between floor joists of a split level home. Biggest colony I’ve ever seen, much less caught. Have remained very strong with huge numbers during honey season, and big honey producers. 300 bees/ 27 mites

J-8 Entering 2nd winter. Caught swarm from the same spot as J-3. Big propolis makers and quite fiery when we harvest or spend extra time inside the hive. Also good honey producer. 300 bees/ 18 mites


As you can see the mite counts are relatively high and above what most beekeepers would experience as economic threshold. These mite counts are consistent with what I have found when taking samples over the years. Perhaps this is suggesting more tolerance than resistance? Perhaps it suggests that the vectored viruses are less virulent? Would it be possible for you to run virology studies on these samples? Could it be that the favorable weather and the presence of pollen almost year round is allowing the bees to maintain greater fat body mass, thereby mitigating the issue of mites depleting those fat bodies? 

I hope this information is helpful ***** and if there is anything else we can provide please let us know.


Best regards,

*****"


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

The hardest thing I did was burn 2 colonies that had AFB. I diagnosed it myself but had the state apiary inspector come out and verify that it was AFB. I only had 5 colonies at the time. The two I burned were the best with the most honey on them. That was in 1976 when I was 16 years old. Lesson learned: don't accept a gift of old combs from a friendly beekeeper who prophylactically treated his bees twice a year with tetracycline.

Will be interesting to see the test results.


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> ...the 'new normal' will be determined by whatever success or lack thereof i have at propagating the survivors and obtaining resistant stock via swarms caught from the nearby woods.


Thank you for the response, Squarepeg. I am sincerely hoping that this coming year exceeds your expectation, and I will be watching your efforts with great interest.

Thanks again for your reply, and have a great week.

Russ


----------



## Amibusiness

Here's to a successful and happy new year, sp (and all). I hope all's well and look forward to your early buildup updates. Cheers!


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> it is interesting to note that the strongest of the colonies at present is a caught swarm that was given almost 2 deep supers worth of drawn comb that was washed and bleached after being recovered from efb infected hives.


Interesting indeed.

Back when you said you would treat combs with bleach i was thinking wow, major mistake.

But, seems you have made it work.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

many thanks ot. 

we'll have to see what happens over time and with more attempts at repurposing the bleached comb into more hives.

the last time i checked all 7 of 7 colonies that made it to winter after surviving the efb outbreak still have decent cluster roar.

i am expecting to see the first tree pollens of the season coming in any time now. my first inspections/manipulations typically occur mid to late february depending on the weather.


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> ...the plan is to see what is left if anything coming out of winter, destroy any colonies and equipment in which efb shows up, and split agressively in an attempt fill up all the empty boxes taking up space in my garage and carport.
> 
> i'll likely ramp up the swarm trapping next spring as well. i'd like to end up with 10 - 15 strong colonies (20 would be nice) spread out between 4 - 5 yards to take into next winter. i'm not expecting much of a honey crop for 2020.


Squarepeg:

I was thinking of your recent post about your 7 colonies doing well thus far and wondering what your general approach would be to rebuilding your apiary this year based on the goals above and an assumed 7 colony base to work with?

Please don't feel rushed to reply, but if you are willing I am interested to know your strategy to go from 7 to 20 this year.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

thanks for the question russ, 

and even more thanks for the great job you are doing keeping us updated on your thread, as well as thanks for the overall contribution you are making to the forum at large.

i'll perform cut down splits on all colonies that survive and are strong enough to do so. i'll place a half dozen or so swarm traps out as compared to the 2 or 3 that i usually place. if time permits and we have exceptional spring build up i might do some grafting and extra splitting.

dar has a surplus hive left over in langstroth equipment that he has earmarked for me, and a couple other friends who have built up apiaries from nucs obtained from me have offered splits as well.

if i didn't already have all the empty equipment to fill with bees i would probably be happy with 10 - 12 colonies to play with while still on this side of retirement.

the bigger unknown in terms of growing the apiary back is how many colonies may end up with efb reblooming and have to be destroyed? 

i'm holding on to my 'goals' rather loosely these days, and have purposed myself to be decidedly content with however things work out. time will tell.


----------



## Gray Goose

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

SquarePeg
good plan on "i'm holding on to my 'goals' rather loosely these days, and have purposed myself to be decidedly content with however things work out. time will tell."
When I want what I have I am a lot happer. Only if I desire What I do not have and maybe cannot have do I get down in the dumps.
So One of life secrets has shown itset to you, Desire what you have and then be happy. Who knows One of the swarms in the 3rd, 4th, 5th Decoys you place is a great swarm to get you back on track. One you would never have caught unless you were in this boat today.
All thinks have a reason.
GG


----------



## Fusion_power

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



> All thinks have a reason.


 So true.


----------



## JWPalmer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

A wise man sets goals that are attainable and be achieved with a reasonable amount of effort. Attaining those goals provides a measure of contentment and satisfaction that cannot be otherwise obtained. Lofty goals and unreasonable expectations sound good but are the basis of pipe dreams and a prescription for diappointment. It is good to see that you are well established in reality. Best of luck this Spring.


----------



## Litsinger

squarepeg said:


> thanks for the question russ,
> 
> ...
> 
> i'm holding on to my 'goals' rather loosely these days, and have purposed myself to be decidedly content with however things work out. time will tell.


Thank you for your reply, SP.

I ask given that I imagine your general approach, guided by your past experience may prove helpful to many of us should we encounter a similar circumstance down the road.

I do appreciate the ethos of holding loosely to goals and appreciate the sentiments of GG, Fusion and JW. 

That said, I am also reminded that Louis Pasteur once opined, 'Chance favors only the prepared mind.'

Best of success to you this year- I fully expect to be reading about your 20+ colonies getting Winter prep'ed 9 months from now.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

we made it into the low 60's with fair skies and light wind today which set the stage for our first big day of foraging on the late winter pollens, (elm, maple, wild and domestic plum; also henbit and daffodil).

it appears that 6 out of the 7 colonies i took into winter (sans mite treatment) have made it through to this point and are looking fantastic judging by entrance activity.

unfortunately the one loss was the 'experimental' colony that received the frames from efb deadouts that i 'sanitized' with bleach. 

that colony was a 2019 caught swarm that built up to become my strongest colony going into winter with no sign of efb rebloom in the fall. it had cluster roar up until about 2 weeks ago and then went quiet.

i found it to be queenless, broodless, virtually no mite frass, and almost all of the honey it had in the fall was still there along with a little uncured nectar that must have come in through the winter. 

we got into a severe drought at the end of last summer and drone production was ended early in the season. my guess is the old swarm queen petered out and the attempt to replace her was unsuccessful. 

so i wasn't able to get a good read about how effective or not my comb sanitation worked, but i'm guardedly optimistic about it.

a few weeks ago i was fortunate to receive a 2019 split from dar, aka fusion_power. this colony is also looking good judging by entrance activity and it puts me back to a total hive count of 7 to work with going into this season. thanks dar!

i'll be doing my first inspections, reversals, checkerboarding, ect. on the next warm day i'm free from the day job. the plan for this year is to split aggressively and fill up as much of my empty equipment as i can. fingers crossed we don't see much if any efb rebloom.


----------



## Litsinger

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> it appears that 6 out of the 7 colonies i took into winter (sans mite treatment) have made it through to this point and are looking fantastic judging by entrance activity.


Squarepeg:

Glad to hear that you have six good overwintered colonies to form the foundation for your rebuilding effort. I am sincerely glad to read that you are now in a position to hopefully get back to your +/- 20 hive baseline.

I do hope you will continue to chronicle your rebuilding effort this season. I for one hope to learn how experts like you go about increasing apiary numbers.

Best of success to you this year.

Russ


----------



## Oldtimer

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> i found it to be queenless, broodless, virtually no mite frass, and almost all of the honey it had in the fall was still there along with a little uncured nectar that must have come in through the winter.


I am now having winter queen failure in around 3% to 4% of hives, leading to deadout or nearly dead by first spring check.

I always breath a sigh of relief checking these hives and finding no dead brood or scale. At least i know it was not any kind of foul brood that killed the hive.


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

many thanks russ. it may be possible to approach the +/- 20 hive count this year assuming making a cut down split on all the surviving colonies plus trapping a few swarms, and assuming not having to euthanize any with with efb rebloom.

many thanks ot. given no queen, no brood, stores intact, virtually no frass, no scale, making it through winter with cluster roar until just a couple of weeks prior, and ending up with only a few dozen frozen workers in the end...

my interpretation on this one is most likely queen failure late last season with gradual attrition due to the aging out of the remaining workers.

my sense is that the prior disinfection of those combs was effective and that efb wasn't a factor with this dead out, but to be on the safe side i'll go ahead and burn the frames containing bee bread and extract the honey. i'll then give the emptied comb a good rinse and bleach treatment before using again.


----------



## Gray Goose

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

Thanks for the Update squarepeg. When you make bleach water, what ratio do you use? I have some dead outs that have some bee poop on them I was wanting to rinse.
thanks
GG


----------



## AR1

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Gray Goose said:


> Thanks for the Update squarepeg. When you make bleach water, what ratio do you use? I have some dead outs that have some bee poop on them I was wanting to rinse.
> thanks
> GG


Bleach is really cheap. I'd make it pretty strong. It evaporates away so no residual to worry about.


----------



## msl

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



> It evaporates away so no residual to worry about.


bleach is usually 3-6% sodium hypochlorite and water .. the sodium hypochlorite does not evap


----------



## Gray Goose

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



AR1 said:


> Bleach is really cheap. I'd make it pretty strong. It evaporates away so no residual to worry about.


Sorry AR1, I am a bit of a Analytical, so "use lots" can be a confusing starting point 
So lets say I use a 5 gallon bucket for dipping, that is 20 Quarts. would 20 to 1 using 1 quart bleach be "enough" "too much"
I agree the bleach cost would not be an issue, I would hate to ruin 100 combs in the spring , to me, that would be a big cost.

For those who do this bleach wash/dip, kindly offer your "ratio" As well do you "dip" or "Soak"
My initial idea would be to scrap, soak for 2-4 min, shake and dry, leave out in the open air for 2 days, then ready for use. However this is a guess, as I have not done this before. I have, in the past, just let the bees clean up the comb, but if I can assist them and kill off some germs maybe it is worth the extra time.
GG


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Gray Goose said:


> When you make bleach water, what ratio do you use?


pretty strong, mixing 50% bleach, 50% water and using a fan to completey air dry.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*

"would 20 to 1 using 1 quart bleach be "enough" "too much" - sounds about right  I bleach and put in the sun after insuring the comb is clear of honey and beebread / pollen using a warm water spray. I typically soak for an hour or so, sun for two days or more.

Ps, sometimes I use wood bleach too - really!


----------



## Gray Goose

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> pretty strong, mixing 50% bleach, 50% water and using a fan to completey air dry.


Ok Thanks , wow 50-50 that is strong.
GG


----------



## squarepeg

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



Gray Goose said:


> ...wow 50-50 that is strong.



misting it on with a bottle sprayer, hard to know how complete my coverage is...


----------



## Riverderwent

*Re: squarepeg 2015-2019 treatment free experience*



squarepeg said:


> and it puts me back to a total hive count of 7 to work with going into this season.


Glad those bees came through, and you’re here on Beesource.


----------



## squarepeg

sincere thanks for the kind words david.

it will be interesting to see how these next few months play out.


----------



## Riverderwent

squarepeg said:


> sincere thanks for the kind words david.
> 
> it will be interesting to see how these next few months play out.


What’s left of us will be taking care of what’s left of them, if the Lord tarries.


----------



## squarepeg

amen to that david.

what's left of me would not be worth much were it not for the encouragement of you and others.

many thanks to all for that. hopefully i'll be able to pay it forward someday.


----------



## squarepeg

update:

i would first like to extend well wishes to everyone following the thread with hope that you and yours are remaining safe and healthy as we slog through the pandemic and all that it entails.

thankfully we are well here and life goes on. our governor's orders have kept me home from the day job for going on a month now. in the mean time i have been able to make a round or two through what's left of my apiaries.

wintering went pretty well with 7 out of the 8 hives in my possession making it through. the one loss previously reported on 03/01/20 in my post #2072 appeared most likely due to queen failure.

the first two hives were inspected about 3 weeks ago at what i had been referring to as my 'overflow yard'. this was the only yard out of three that did not experience efb last year. these were my strongest colonies having close to 2 ten frame deeps worth of bees each. i split the out the queens from these two using 'artificial swarm' or 'cut down split' method thereby increasing the hive count by 2.

the next two hives i checked were donated late 2019 splits, one from our very own fusion_power and the other from a 20+ year tf friend residing in the next county over. both of these looked good coming in at about ten deep frames worth of bees. both of these had nice solid healthy brood patterns, and dar's was even making good progress building new comb down from starter strips on foundationless frames.

the next two hives were 'recovered' from efb after terramycin treatment last year. by recovered i mean that the brood patterns returned to normal and there were no visible sick larvae after treatment. these did not produce harvestable honey last year but were able to put up enough stores for overwintering. 

i found that efb had rebloomed in both of these with less than 10% brood making it to capping stage and they had dwindled to less than a few deep frames worth of bees. I euthanized both by shaking the bees into a bucket of soapy water, decreasing the hive count by 2, and burned all frames containing brood and beebread. there was about 1 medium super worth of honey that i'll extract, and then wash and bleach those frames along with the other frames with empty comb.

the last hive was also one that was treated last year with terramycin and was situated right in between the previous two described above. this one was weak with only about 5 deep frames worth of bees, but there were almost 3 deep frames worth of mostly capped brood having a fairly solid pattern. there were no eggs or uncapped larvae, and a single queen cell showing recent emergence. i did see what i believe was the new virgin queen appearing long and thin as if not mated and laying yet. i closed this one back up and will check back in a couple of weeks.

i've set out 4 swarm traps in the general area, and thanks to the generosity of neighbors i've secured permission to locate hives on several more properties. all of the new sites are located on a circular route that i can drive in less than 30 minutes. the plan is to forgo honey production, split aggressively, and build back up perhaps to 20 or so hives again, locating no more that 3 or 4 hives per yard.

many thanks again for all the well wishes from the forum, to dar and my friend for the 2 donated hives, and to all of you following for the continued interest. as of this post the hive count remains at 7.


----------



## JWPalmer

Thanks for the update SP. It sounds like you are back in control and you have enough healthy colonies to meet your goal. Truly a shame the two hives did not remain EFB free after the treatment. At least you caught it before it spread.


----------



## Cloverdale

I, too, am happy to hear your apiary is gaining strength again. Hopefully it will be a good year for us all.


----------



## Riverderwent

squarepeg said:


> i would first like to extend well wishes to everyone following the thread with hope that you and yours are remaining safe and healthy as we slog through the pandemic and all that it entails.
> 
> thankfully we are well here and life goes on.


Thank you for the well wishes, and I'm glad you are well.


----------



## crofter

SP;

It seems that strain of EFB you lucked into is particularly persistent. I sure hope you see the end of it with those two hives.


----------



## Oldtimer

squarepeg said:


> the next two hives were 'recovered' from efb after terramycin treatment last year. by recovered i mean that the brood patterns returned to normal and there were no visible sick larvae after treatment. these did not produce harvestable honey last year but were able to put up enough stores for overwintering.
> 
> i found that efb had rebloomed in both of these


Sorry to hear that, however that is very useful information for the rest of us. Not a disease to be trifled with.


----------



## gww

square....


> many thanks again for all the well wishes from the forum, to dar and my friend for the 2 donated hives


Good on dar.:thumbsup:
Cheers
gww


----------



## Litsinger

squarepeg said:


> many thanks again for all the well wishes from the forum, to dar and my friend for the 2 donated hives, and to all of you following for the continued interest. as of this post the hive count remains at 7.


squarepeg:

I am truly glad you are back on stable footing and now can hopefully begin looking forward to a growing apiary.

Kudos to fusion_power for spotting you a couple colonies- maybe he'll make you into a square Dadant proponent!


----------



## squarepeg

a long time (24 years) treatment free friend of mine who resides in the next county over called me up and said he had an extra 15 ripe queen cells looking for a good home.

he didn't have to ask twice.

i had a double 10 frame medium hive with 9 frames in each body that i went to for my first splits. this one started out as an artificial swarm i made up with five medium frames of capped brood and the queen split out of my strongest hive on march 27. 

all 18 frames were covered with bees today with about 10 frames having capped brood. the queen was gone and there were a few supercedure cells already capped. i made up 6 strong five frame medium nucs from this one double medium hive.

it was perfect timing for those queen cells. they were nice and long having been produced during our peak flow. hopefully most of them will get mated.

the additional 13 frames given to the artificial swarm were drawn comb that i had washed and bleached after removing it from efb infected hives last year. so far so good on that deal.


----------



## Cloverdale

Excellent! Something positive to appreciate.


----------



## Litsinger

squarepeg said:


> a long time (24 years) treatment free friend of mine who resides in the next county over called me up and said he had an extra 15 ripe queen cells looking for a good home.


That's what I call a good friend- glad to read that you are off to the races and well along your way of being back up to 20 colonies by year's-end.

Russ


----------



## tpope

Cool beans squarepeg. You need any help?


----------



## squarepeg

i appreciate that t.

not much anyone can do at this point other than cross all fingers and all toes that the queens get mated.

the last hive remaining that had efb last year was found rebloomed as of last weekend and was summarily burned.

that makes a 100% loss of two yards having 12 hives each starting last year about this time and ending last week. efb sucks.

all that's left are the 2 hives from the 'overflow yard' and the splits that i've made from them this year, along with a late 2019 split i acquired from the 24 yr tf friend last fall.

unfortunately fusion_power's gifted hive caught efb from the one mentioned above and had to be burned as well. i'm truly sorry about that dar.

hive count = 10 at this time, 4 of which have laying queens with the other 6 in the process of getting a queen mated.

to be honest the cv19 has thrown me for a huge loop with regards to the day job and i really haven't had much time to even think about bees.


----------



## Litsinger

squarepeg said:


> that makes a 100% loss of two yards having 12 hives each starting last year about this time and ending last week. efb sucks.
> 
> ...
> 
> unfortunately fusion_power's gifted hive caught efb from the one mentioned above and had to be burned as well. i'm truly sorry about that dar.


This is painful to read, squarepeg. I am truly sorry for your troubles, and do hope that your current colonies serve as a stable basis for your rebuilding efforts.

It is sobering to see how everyone (and almost everything) has been impacted by this pandemic. I do hope you are able to get your business successfully re-engaged.


----------



## Amibusiness

Hi SP. I hope you are all well and your bees are stronger for the pandemic they have been through. I miss your updates.... All the best!


----------



## squarepeg

received this via pm today:



> Hi square, I am glad to see you are still posting. I've been concerned about the folks down there getting deluged. Not to mention current health concerns. I hope you are all well and still have bees to play with and rebuild from! You also deserve a big thank you for keeping our posts and community civil!
> Wishing you the best.


to which i replied:



squarepeg said:


> nice to hear from you!
> 
> thankfully all is well with me and family, and i hope the same is true for you and yours.
> 
> i was left with 2 out of 28 colonies after efb wiped me out. a friend donated a third colony last fall. from those three i made splits and now have 10 colonies.
> 
> the pandemic did result in me having to focus all attention on my business, and so the splits have been pretty much been left to fend for themselves. i make the rounds from time to and make sure the entrance activity appears normal and that i don't see robbing ect.
> 
> many thanks for the kind words.


----------



## Litsinger

Squarepeg:

Glad to see your post tonight and to hear that your rebuilding effort is progressing in earnest.

I sincerely hope that your day job is also returning to some normalcy and I wish you all the best of success in your Winter preps.

Russ


----------



## Oldtimer

Funny you posted, the thought ran through my head today i wonder how SP is doing, I was going to look you up and post, then i go to Beesource and the thread is running again.

Wow I didn't realise you ended up losing all but 2. You have done very well building that back up to 10. 

What's happening with the other beekeepers near you, are they sorting themselves out EFB wise?


----------



## tpope

Spring time is coming on the mountain... A few warm days and the pollen will flow.


----------



## Litsinger

SP:

I know you are still lurking around here on Beesource, and I sincerely hope all is well with you and your family.

At the risk of being presumptuous, I am curious how things are going in your operation these days?

I hope work is getting back to a more manageable level for you and you are finding some joy in beekeeping.


----------



## squarepeg

the nectar flow has tapered off quite a bit over the past week or so, and as of today i am no longer hearing the rice krispy sound of honey getting capped in the supers. so I'm thinking they have pretty much finished off most this season's honey. i'm planning on harvesting a couple of supers off my strongest hive tomorrow in the cool of the morning.


----------



## Litsinger

squarepeg said:


> ... i am no longer hearing the rice krispy sound of honey getting capped in the supers.


@squarepeg:

Glad to see your post and hope to see more updates in the future. Were you finally able to purge the EFB menace from your operation?

I think you've used the rice krispy analogy before and it's a good one- I can't think of any better way to describe that sound.

Have a great weekend.

Russ


----------



## squarepeg

many thanks russ, ot, and dan.

if i recall correctly, (confirmed) efb resulted in the loss of 24 out of the 28 colonies i had in 2019. 2 of the 4 remaining were at an outyard and not exposed. the other 2 of the 4 remaining 'seemed' to recover from efb after application of OTC, but then efb recurred in them the following spring, so i euthanized them.

i ended up burning almost all the frames from the infected hives, all except for the frames that contained completely empty comb. those frames were washed and subsequently used in splits and caught swarms i have acquired since then. 

so far i have not seen efb recur, but truth be told unexpected family obligations have prevented me from going through my hives very much this spring. all has looked well from the outside and in terms of population and storage of honey. 

i hope to make up some nucs to overwinter following the honey harvest, and that will involve more thorough inspections and assessments of colony health.


----------



## Litsinger

squarepeg said:


> i ended up burning almost all the frames from the infected hives...


Very sobering to read, SP. Glad to see that your operation is recovered and you are back to surplus collecting.

As Victor Hugo famously opined, _Perseverance, secret of all triumphs!_


----------



## AR1

squarepeg said:


> i ended up burning almost all the frames from the infected hives, all except for the frames that contained completely empty comb. those frames were washed and subsequently used in splits and caught swarms i have acquired since then.
> 
> so far i have not seen efb recur, but truth be told unexpected family obligations have prevented me from going through my hives very much this spring. all has looked well from the outside and in terms of population and storage of honey.


A hard story. Best of luck this year.


----------



## johno

Best of luck Square, remember " If at first you don't succeed " you should not try sky diving.


----------



## squarepeg

as luck would have it a rare summer cool front pushed through here yesterday, markedly dropping our temperature and humidity, and taking us from over a week of 105f+ heat indices to a low of 58f, 45% relative humidity, and cool 10 knot breeze out of the north.

when i saw the forecast friday night i decided to postpone my first harvest in 4 years another 24 hours and spent saturday inside prepping the honey room instead. I went out just after sunrise this am and what is normally a sweaty job was instead the most fun i've had in a long time.

i also decided not to go into my strongest hive as planned, but instead attempt to get a super each off of my two smallest hives. both of these swarmed a couple of months back resulting smaller populations and little to no bearding during our hot spell like their bigger cohorts were showing.

to make matters better what i found in the first hive was that every single frame of the top two supers were wall to wall capped honey. the third super down was solid capped honey all the way across the top but i did not pull any of those frames to look.

easy peasy. closed it up and i was done for the day. so it's 48 hours in the dry room and then extraction. i wouldn't doubt if this ends up being the best honey i've ever harvested. mrs. squarepeg says she already knows it is.


----------



## Litsinger

squarepeg said:


> my first harvest in 4 years...


 Glad you're back in business, SP.

As Louisa May Alcott's father Amos Bronson Alcott is quoted, _ 'Success is sweet and sweeter if long delayed and gotten through many struggles and defeats.'_


----------



## squarepeg

i appreciate that russ. we are very thankful and strive to give the praise, glory, and honor to whom it is due.


----------



## Tumbleweed

squarepeg said:


> as luck would have it a rare summer cool front pushed through here yesterday, markedly dropping our temperature and humidity, and taking us from over a week of 105f+ heat indices to a low of 58f, 45% relative humidity, and cool 10 knot breeze out of the north.
> 
> when i saw the forecast friday night i decided to postpone my first harvest in 4 years another 24 hours and spent saturday inside prepping the honey room instead. I went out just after sunrise this am and what is normally a sweaty job was instead the most fun i've had in a long time.
> 
> i also decided not to go into my strongest hive as planned, but instead attempt to get a super each off of my two smallest hives. both of these swarmed a couple of months back resulting smaller populations and little to no bearding during our hot spell like their bigger cohorts were showing.
> 
> to make matters better what i found in the first hive was that every single frame of the top two supers were wall to wall capped honey. the third super down was solid capped honey all the way across the top but i did not pull any of those frames to look.
> 
> easy peasy. closed it up and i was done for the day. so it's 48 hours in the dry room and then extraction. i wouldn't doubt if this ends up being the best honey i've ever harvested. mrs. squarepeg says she already knows it is.


Square peg, I’m late to the show, but just curious, why hasn’t there been a harvest in 4 years?
Good luck with the harvest this year, I’m still waiting on the girls to cap my first super.


----------



## squarepeg

Tumbleweed said:


> Square peg, I’m late to the show, but just curious, why hasn’t there been a harvest in 4 years?


thanks tw. i was all but wiped out when efb showed up in the spring of 2019, and other life comittments did not allow for enough time to rebuild.


----------



## Tumbleweed

squarepeg said:


> thanks tw. i was all but wiped out when efb showed up in the spring of 2019, and other life comittments did not allow for enough time to rebuild.


Ah, sorry to hear that, again, good luck going forward.


----------



## Litsinger

squarepeg said:


> ... honor to whom it is due.


It is good to keep an eternal perspective


----------



## squarepeg

just finished bottling up the second batch of honey. it's really pretty and yummy too.

a batch for me is 2 medium supers, 9 frames per super. this was a good batch, 6.125 us gallons.

this batch was harvested from one of several splits i made last year from an overwintered colony that had gone into swarm mode, making use of the swarm cells.

this split started out with 2 medium bodies, later got a third medium, and even later got a fourth medium. it was my first time to set up an all medium hive, not by design but rather by default.

life got in the way from me practicing swarm prevention this year and this overwintered split swarmed this spring, i was able to catch the swarm.

this hive holds the record for how long i went without opening up a hive. it was one year and two months since i placed that fourth super on it last year, and that was the last time i went into it.

my hope is that the plate isn't as full next spring, 'cause i really would like to get back to queenrearing and propagating more of this stock.


----------



## Litsinger

squarepeg said:


> ... it was one year and two months since i placed that fourth super on it last year, and that was the last time i went into it.


SP:

Just when you have time, I'd be interested to read about what adjustments (if any) you are planning for your operation as you both build-back and presumably have more time for bees with your retirement.

I seem to recall in the dim recesses of my mind that you were planning on spreading your hives farther apart to minimize drift and maybe exploring 'Darwinian' approaches?

Do you still plan to continue executing checkerboarding as a rule? 

Do you feel that early season manipulations we're contributory to your EFB troubles?

Happy Independence Day to you and your family.

Russ


----------



## squarepeg

Litsinger said:


> SP:
> 
> Just when you have time, I'd be interested to read about what adjustments (if any) you are planning for your operation as you both build-back and presumably have more time for bees with your retirement.


definitely making adjustments to the operation as well as life in general russ, many thanks.

efb showed up in the spring/summer of 2019 leading to the loss of 26 of 28 colonies and most of their drawn comb.

the most bitter pill to swallow with that experience was the loss of the queenline i had spent several years selecting from the best of my best treatment free survivor stock.

as life would have it and since 2019, i didn't really have the time, and frankly even if i would have had the time i'm not sure i had the motivation to jump right back into building the hive count back up.

i retired from the day job in october 2021 with 5 colonies that were still kicking despite little to no management, (other than keeping a close eye to the entrances and ear to the hive body). I had 100% overwinter survival and had planned to build back up this spring to about a dozen hives along with an additional 4 or 5 nucs for resource hives. but as it turned out the family needed me more than the bees did and that didn't happen.

the only management i did this spring was to make one split from the most populous hive in late march using the artificial swarm method, and then subsequently caught 2 swarms that issued from hives i didn't get a chance to artifically swarm. one of the swarmed parent colonies failed to requeen itself, so i gave it a frame of eggs from another hive. they failed to requeen again so i shook out what few bees were left and put the comb in the freezer.

so the current hive count is 5 + 3 -1 = 7

six of those seven are giving me at least two supers of honey for harvest each this year. the one not giving harvest is a small swarm that was caught late in the season this year. 

i get about 35 pounds or so per super, and $10 per pound at the market. so with the six productive units the farm will gross about 4k. maybe that will keep the irs off my back since we haven't been able to show income since 2018, while at the same time still taking deductions.



Litsinger said:


> I seem to recall in the dim recesses of my mind that you were planning on spreading your hives farther apart to minimize drift...


yes. i've got them placed so that each one is in a unique spot. at home none are sitting side by side each other.

i have 2 hives at what used to be my 'overflow yard', the only 2 in 2019 that did not get exposed to efb because they were too far away, from whence all my current colonies were derived, and those two they share a stand. but other than that i have mine spread out as far apart as i can get them.



Litsinger said:


> ...and maybe exploring 'Darwinian' approaches?


it might be fair to say that my hives have been managed darwinian style since 2019, except instead of allowing them to swarm naturally, and when i had the time, i performed artifical swarms to gain colonies. it wasn't that i intentionally adopted the approach, it was more by default than by design. still, it's kinda cool to know that my bee stock can respond very well to that (lack of) mangagement.



Litsinger said:


> Do you still plan to continue executing checkerboarding as a rule?


not as a rule, and perhaps not again. checkerboarding combined with opening up the broodnest and pyramiding, and shaking the queen down to an empty deep when the broodnest reaches the top of the stack, allowed me to harvest 2 to 3 more times more honey per hive. it's downright amazing, thank you walt! crazy production is not as important to me now, and i'm too old to climb up a step stool and pull off a full 8th super stacked over a single deep.



Litsinger said:


> Do you feel that early season manipulations we're contributory to your EFB troubles?


no, although i'll concede it's remotely possible. i feel certain that the source of infection was imported colonies that were located a mile or so from my outyard. i brought it to my homeyard when moved a couple hives from the outyard to the home yard.

the strain of efb that devasted my apiaries was a very quick spreader, highly virulent, and showed some but minimal response to otc. in fairness however, i only shook swarm 2 of the 26 colonies that were sympomatic or exposed, because i didn't understand at that time m. plutonius can live in food stores for a very long time. if i knew then what i know now i would have just euthanized them all and burned any frames capable of containing the pathogen.



Litsinger said:


> Happy Independence Day to you and your family.


thank you kind sir! the very same to you and yours, and to all the readership here on beesource as well!


----------



## Litsinger

squarepeg said:


> definitely making adjustments to the operation as well as life in general russ, many thanks.


SP:

It is good to have you back on the boards, and I sincerely appreciate your reply. If there is one thing I have taken away from participation in this forum, it is that we all have a bit of a different value proposition relative to our working with bees, and even our own goals and objectives change over time. I do appreciate you sharing your lessons-learned and new aims for this season in life and I'll look forward to your continued updates.

I am also sincerely glad to read that despite the stark challenges that EFB brought you are still in the bee business - hopefully the two colonies that serve as the basis for your current colonies have the same 'survivor-stock' background that your previous line did and you can quickly get back to the dozen colony count.

With all you have read and now experienced in your TF journey, what advice would you give to those considering a TF experiment? Has your run-in with EFB changed your perspective on any of this?

In my very humble opinion, we need more long-term TF practitioners willing to share both the successes and failures that they have experienced along the way (knowing this is a largely thankless effort) so that we can all gain a more nuanced and well-rounded view of what works, what doesn't and the inherent challenges of walking a proverbial tightrope without a safety net...

Thanks again for your input and advise you've offered to many along the way. I'll look forward to your continued contributions here on Beesource.

Russ


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## squarepeg

i really appreciate those kind words russ, many thanks.



Litsinger said:


> SP:
> 
> If there is one thing I have taken away from participation in this forum, it is that we all have a bit of a different value proposition relative to our working with bees, and even our own goals and objectives change over time.


yes sir, very well said.



Litsinger said:


> ...hopefully the two colonies that serve as the basis for your current colonies have the same 'survivor-stock' background that your previous line did and you can quickly get back to the dozen colony count.


they do have it and there are now seven colonies that look and act the same as the stock i have come to know. 'quickly' is not part of my vocabulary in this endeavor, rather it will unfold as is does. 

the other factor to consider here is the drone contribution from feral (unmanaged) colonies existing in the nearby woods. i believe that population was impacted by the 2019 efb beedemic, as evidenced by the lack of success with swarm trapping, but with this year i am seeing bees coming and going from the nearby woods again, making me think the 'wild' bees are rebounding as well.



Litsinger said:


> With all you have read and now experienced in your TF journey, what advice would you give to those considering a TF experiment?


honestly russ my advice would be the very same i posted at the beginning of my journey. namely:

'locate a beekeeper(s) in your general area having success keeping bees sans treatments, source your bees from there, and mirror their management.'

of course this isn't possible just anywhere. i was blessed in that the nucs i purchased to replace my very first hives (that were lost to afb) just happened to come from a beekeeper in the next county over with 20+ years success sans treatments.

i say blessed because finding a source like that is not only more the exception than the rule, but also blessed in that i didn't even know about treatment free until after getting those nucs. the truth is that as a doctor i was prepared to diagnose and treat as needed.

it was only after finding out this suppier hadn't been treating that i decided to give my purchased colonies a chance to 'do it own their own' under my care, and as providence would have it they performed the same with me as they did the supplier.



Litsinger said:


> Has your run-in with EFB changed your perspective on any of this?


if you mean adding mite treatments to my management, no that hasn't changed. i treated the confirmed efb with otc in an attempt to save the queenline, but have since discarded the large amount of otc left over from that and will never use it again.

i am open to the use of extended release oxalic acid as randy oliver is working toward getting epa approval. jmho, but i accept it as proven, safe, and available even now with waiver. this treatment makes sense when tf isn't realistic; and even when tf is realistic but the beekeeper is only keeping 2 or 3 hives, isn't motivated by selection, and is motivated to minimize losses.

but for myself, (and always subject to me changing my mind), i'll continue to let winter cull the colonies not able to make it to spring on their own, using the left over comb and stores to support the next spring's nuc production, using queens selected from the best of my best.


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## Litsinger

squarepeg said:


> 'locate a beekeeper(s) in your general area having success keeping bees sans treatments, source your bees from there, and mirror their management.'


@squarepeg:

Thank you for your detailed feedback, and I do apologize for my delay in reply.

I do appreciate your perspective, and I am encouraged to see that the fundamentals remain constant as you build back.

I will look forward to your continued updates, and thanks for all the help and advice you've offered over the years.

Russ


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## squarepeg

i just posted this in the 'extended release oxalic acid' thread in the 'diseases and pests' subforum, but i want to put it here also for posterity:

"most of the time my bees get a month or two brood break during our summer dearth, during which time all varroa goes phoretic. my bees are also agressive allogroomers and are able to clear most of the mites before their fall brood up.

during their longer winter brood break, (yes i have a real winter here on my northeast alabama ridgetop), they are able to clear close to 100% of the mites with some exceptions, but in most cases the colonies come out of winter with essentially no mites.

the few that don't comply with that mode of operation usually succumb to winter. winter losses (except for efb 2019) average less than 20%. dead out resources are spread around the apiary where needed.

now that i have time i'll be doing mite checks and requeening those few that didn't get the job done as far being self treating for mites. before requeening a colony due a high mite count, i would apply this extended release oa as a clean up before introducing the new queen."


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## GregB

squarepeg said:


> before requeening a colony due a high mite count, i would apply this extended release oa as a *clean up before introducing the new queen*."


Makes sense.
I killed too many worthy queens by dropping them directly into a boiling mite-soup.


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## GregB

squarepeg said:


> before requeening a colony due a high mite count, i would apply this extended release oa as a clean up before introducing the new queen."


Since I am experimenting with the OAD for the moment, I can tell that the dribble is a convenient measure if to re-queen (because you'd most likely will go through brood-break (bb) anyway or enforce the bb by choice).

IF using the OA strips (freely hanging type) - I know of at least one testimony where the person decided to switch from the strips to the show towels between the boxes.
Reason - "brood along/under the strips died and the queen refused to lay near the strips".


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## squarepeg

actually greg, the dribble method would be less labor intensive and perhaps as effective. i haven't taken the time to read up on randy oliver's latest. he was a big dribbler (his only mite treatment) until he evolved the extended release. it may be extended release is more effective in the long run, i don't know.


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## GregB

squarepeg said:


> actually greg, the dribble method would be less labor intensive and perhaps as effective. i haven't taken the time to read up on randy oliver's latest. he was a big dribbler (his only mite treatment) until he evolved the extended release. it may be extended release is more effective in the long run, i don't know.


Just looking at the instruction of the media preparation makes me want to move on.

With my 20-30 unit on hand (at the moment) and mostly running smaller colonies - a quick dribble timed at the right moment is an easy choice.

Surely, there are good use cases for the media too - the media may scale better on higher colony counts/larger colony sizes.
I can see how highly mite-susceptible bees may also benefit from longer term media - if you insist on mite-susceptible bees for any good reason (honey production, temper, etc).


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## squarepeg

the media has the advantage of riding the colony through a brooding cycle.

if you don't have the luxury of a broodless period, then i agree dribble is the way to go.


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## squarepeg

it's been awhile since i've updated so here goes.

i'm a year now since retiring from the day job, and my intention for 2022 was to focus on queen rearing and agressive splitting hoping to fill as many as possible the empty boxes still remaining from the 2019 efb wipe out. but as it turned out a handful of unplanned family committments took priority which limited my ability to follow through with those intentions.

to recap: i lost 26 of 28 colonies in 2019. covid significantly impacted my operations at the day job, and about all i have done since then is make a few splits and catch a few swarms. i've stopped keeping detailed notes so most of my reporting here is from memory.

i went into winter last year with 5 colonies that were pretty much unmanaged in 2021 with minimal honey harvested. i had a chance to split one of those this spring, and caught 2 swarms from others i didn't get to split in time, bringing me up to 8 colonies. 4 of those went queenless during the season and dwindled, leaving me with the 4 colonies i have at present.

i was able to harvest a little over 400 lbs of honey which sold quickly for just under $10/lb. i also harvested about 100 lbs. of 22% honey from the queenless hives, half of which was sold to a nearby meadery and half of which is now turning into mead here at home.

after seeing how quickly efb was able to spread through my two main yards in 2019, i decided to spread out the hives and not keep them adjacent to each other in straight rows. i also have quite a bit of 1/2 inch pink foam on hand so i attached it to the sides and backs of the 4 remaining hives for this winter, (leaving the fronts without insulation), to go along with the piece i have been using all along that goes in between the inner cover and the telescoping top. these are the only management changes i have implemented at this time.

the colonies are looking good at this point. they have pared down winter clusters comprising 3 - 4 deep frames of bees, stores are good, no crawlers or dwv seen, no robbing seen, and all in all they appear 'happy'. so we'll see what i have left to work with come spring.

if life allows, i would like to get some of these empty boxes i have filled up with bees. i'll be pushing drone production, queen rearing, and hopefully the bringing in of proven outside stock for crossing up with what i left.

wishing all of you successful overwintering!


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## nailbender0259

I have just finished your posts, and I am very pleased that you have posted all of this knowledge, trials, and triumphs for all of Beesource. I think that it would be worth anyone's time to read through and glean the lessons learned here. 

Very best of luck with your continued journey with the bees.


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## Litsinger

nailbender0259 said:


> think that it would be worth anyone's time to read through and glean the lessons learned here.


Definitely a +1 on this!


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## squarepeg

sincere thanks nb and russ, and to all who have been gracious in sharing the journey with me. looking forward to putting the new bee suit into service!


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## Riverderwent

SP, I’m glad to see your post and to get an update. To me, that’s really good production from four hives. Did you need to feed them going in to this winter? Are your current hives from those two surviving hives and swarms caught nearby?


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## Litsinger

squarepeg said:


> looking forward to putting the new bee suit into service!


My kids got me a new veil in recognition of my 42nd trip around the sun- looking forward to it being warm enough to need to use it!


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## squarepeg

Riverderwent said:


> SP, I’m glad to see your post and to get an update. To me, that’s really good production from four hives. Did you need to feed them going in to this winter? Are your current hives from those two surviving hives and swarms caught nearby?


many thanks david, and very glad to see you still here as well. 

i was happy with the production, having plenty of drawn comb helped that, and i did leave enough honey behind for the bees to winter on.

yes, all of my current hives are derived from the two that were isolated from the 2019 efb outbreak. i believe the outbreak also impacted my local feral population because i haven't caught any swarms coming out of the nearby woods since then.

two of the current colonies have survived 3 winters already, one is this year's artificial swarm split from a colony already surviving 2 winters, and one is a swarm i happened to catch from a hive already surviving 2 winters.

my focus next spring will be striving to improve the quality and quantity of queens, hopefully mixing in some of fusion_power's genetics, and trying get the hive count up to a dozen or so along with a handful of resource nucs.


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## squarepeg

Litsinger said:


> My kids got me a new veil in recognition of my 42nd...


beautiful family russ, thanks for sharing, and happy birthday! 🤪


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## squarepeg

as we turn the corner with the solstice today...

the arctic blast many of you have been reporting recently is making its way down to my neck of the woods. the forecast is for single digit temps on friday and below zero wind chills. it's been twenty years since we have temps like this in december.

all three colonies in the home yard have strong cluster roar by stethoscope this morning, and the one hive at the outyard did as well a few days ago. this arctic blast will be their first real test.

i was blessed last winter in that 5 out of 5 colonies survived to splitting/swarming strength, zero losses.

hive count is only 4 at this point after queen losses this past season my ppb didn't catch in time to remedy. fingers crossed that i will find queenright survivors upon first inspection should we get a warm enough day in february.

season's greetings to all, wishes for health and prosperity in 2023 and the successful overwintering of your colonies!


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## ursa_minor

squarepeg said:


> as we turn the corner with the solstice today...


So now the days start getting longer, we are on the upswing. Below zero for you guys is really low, here's hoping the bees feel it coming and cluster up well.


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## Tigger19687

Wow SP ! Here in MA we will get almost 60 and rainy on Friday.
While we now will have longer days it will b our coldest times coming Jan through Feb here. I can only hope for a Lot of rain this winter and not so cold.


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## Litsinger

Merry Christmas, SP.

Thanks for continuing to be the intrepid leader and patient moderator of the TF subforum. Glad to read you are meeting with some success as you build back.

Like you, we're bracing for cold weather (for us). People are panic buying propane, diesel and of course bread, milk and eggs.

This Friday's high is predicted at 12, but then next Friday is currently predicted at 61 - that's crazy Kentucky weather for you.

I sincerely hope you and your family have a most joyous and blessed Christmas and an abundant 2023.

Russ


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## AR1

Litsinger said:


> Merry Christmas, SP.
> 
> Thanks for continuing to be the intrepid leader and patient moderator of the TF subforum. Glad to read you are meeting with some success as you build back.
> 
> Like you, we're bracing for cold weather (for us). People are panic buying propane, diesel and of course bread, milk and eggs.
> 
> This Friday's high is predicted at 12, but then next Friday is currently predicted at 61 - that's crazy Kentucky weather for you.
> 
> I sincerely hope you and your family have a most joyous and blessed Christmas and an abundant 2023.
> 
> Russ


-10 F right now according to the internet. It was -3 as I drove to work last night.


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## squarepeg

happy new year everyone!

today here in northeast alabama is one of those warm days before the rain days before the cold days, and the bees are taking advantage of it.

it made it into the mid 60's with sun and a gentle breeze. lot's of foraging activity seen with 4/4 hives, several different colors of early tree pollen coming in, and abdomens full of what i think is nectar as the water down at the pond is being ignored. 

makes me think all four are still queenright. still a lot of 'winter' to go. more 'seasonal' weather moving in toward the end of the week with highs in the low 50's and lows in the low 30's. hopefully the storms between now and then don't overdevelop.


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