Corey Peterson
5 year old buck +
Are the supers still on your hives? If so I’d leave at least one super on each hive until the flow starts.
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Honey Bees
- Thread starter Peeps
- Start date
Are the supers still on your hives? If so I’d leave at least one super on each hive until the flow starts.
I would wait a little longer - maybe mid march - until the flowers really start to come out, and then harvest the honey. You probably have a mixture of spring, summer, and fall honey in those supers and going to be a little darker than pure spring wildflower honey. I would rob the honey, and put the supers right back on the hives. If only one hive, I would put the supers back on, let them clean them dry, then take the top two off and protect from wax moths and use them as needed when other supers get 1/2 to 3/4 full.
Mild winters are the biggest killer of my hives. Bees become active early - like now - and start building number earlier than the big nectar flow - and they are already getting low on their winter store of honey. They run out of last years honey and cant produce enough new honey with the early, lower quality nectar flow - and the hive dies.
H20fwler
5 year old buck +
It got up to 55 degrees for a day a couple weeks ago here and I noticed the bees were buzzing around searching. I keep top feeders in my hives and put a chick waterer half full of sugar syrup on top one of the hives with a bunch of pebbles in the fount to keep bees from drowning and help it not blow over for xtra food. Tried to leave them plenty of honey this year and have kept up with feeding so hopefully I don't loose half of the hives again this winter.
This week temps back down in the teens with sleet and snow, hope the girls are doing well.
This week temps back down in the teens with sleet and snow, hope the girls are doing well.
Turkey Creek
5 year old buck +
Checked our lone KS hive a couple of weeks ago and it made it through the winter and looked pretty strong. Bees were bringing in a little pollen and the queen was laying a bit. Put a sugar syrup feeder in the hive to hopefully get them to draw a few new frames and make some stores for the new packages of bees coming in a couple more weeks. We have some extra frames that we spun the honey out of last fall so those will be helpful in starting the new packages on as well.
Merle Hawggard
5 year old buck +
Our August swarm didn't make it. Undeterred as always I've been making swarm traps the last few days, hope to get one set out near an old house I know a hive is in tomorrow.
Anyone have any tips besides a few drops of lemon grass oil?
I'm sure they'll swarm this spring and would like free bees to go along with the 2 nucs Chuck and I have coming.
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Anyone have any tips besides a few drops of lemon grass oil?
I'm sure they'll swarm this spring and would like free bees to go along with the 2 nucs Chuck and I have coming.
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Catscratch
5 year old buck +
I'm curious about lures also.
I just got my first hive. It's a top bar. Hoping to get a native swarm to take over instead of buying bees.
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I just got my first hive. It's a top bar. Hoping to get a native swarm to take over instead of buying bees.
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H20fwler
5 year old buck +
Our August swarm didn't make it. Undeterred as always I've been making swarm traps the last few days, hope to get one set out near an old house I know a hive is in tomorrow.
Anyone have any tips besides a few drops of lemon grass oil?
I'm sure they'll swarm this spring and would like free bees to go along with the 2 nucs Chuck and I have coming.
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I have had zero luck trying to catch swarms with traps. Splitting hives has worked out very good though.
Merle Hawggard
5 year old buck +
Nuts.Our August swarm didn't make it. Undeterred as always I've been making swarm traps the last few days, hope to get one set out near an old house I know a hive is in tomorrow.
Anyone have any tips besides a few drops of lemon grass oil?
I'm sure they'll swarm this spring and would like free bees to go along with the 2 nucs Chuck and I have coming.
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I have had zero luck trying to catch swarms with traps. Splitting hives has worked out very good though.
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TreeDaddy
5 year old buck +
Nuts.
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I baited mine with Swarm Commander.....Will check them this weekend
Smells just like lemmon grass oil so I'm not sure what the advantantage is
Ive also read where using drawn comb and propolis works
bill
Merle Hawggard
5 year old buck +
Those look nice!
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TreeDaddy
5 year old buck +
Merle Hawggard
5 year old buck +
I set one out by the lake near my home, about 200yds from the old house the feral bees are in.
Plan on setting the other up at the farm tomorrow. I have several frames with comb and a little honey from the failed swarm we caught last August that I'm splitting between the 1st 2 swarm traps.
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Plan on setting the other up at the farm tomorrow. I have several frames with comb and a little honey from the failed swarm we caught last August that I'm splitting between the 1st 2 swarm traps.
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There is some info in this podcast that may be of interest to beekeepers, concerning varroa mites, pesticides, and overwintering.
http://regenerativeagriculturepodcast.com/positive-impact-of-diverse-insect-populations
http://regenerativeagriculturepodcast.com/positive-impact-of-diverse-insect-populations
