Honey Bees

[Merle Hawggard]

Swarm box #2. I set it out around 12 today and had bees checking it out by 2.
I'm sure they were after any honey that was left in the old comb, but at least they found it.
When I left I had about 15 around it that I could see.

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[TreeDaddy]

good looking traps

keep us posted

bill

 

[Troubles Trees]

I got a 3 tier hive with a super and bees given to me last year and did really well considering I don't know anything about bees. By saying I did really well I mean they are still alive this spring and we went from an empty box to all 4 full over the summer. We took only the super and spun some honey, man is that stuff delish!! We left the rest for the bees to make it through the winter.
Anyway, I would like to give the bees as much help as I can. They are surrounded by goldenrod all summer, what can I plant to give them food "all season"? Dandelions seem to be the first flowers after winter but I didn't think to grab seeds last year to plant now.

 

[ksgobbler]

They hit the elms pretty hard this time of year.

 

[TreeDaddy]

I got a 3 tier hive with a super and bees given to me last year and did really well considering I don't know anything about bees. By saying I did really well I mean they are still alive this spring and we went from an empty box to all 4 full over the summer. We took only the super and spun some honey, man is that stuff delish!! We left the rest for the bees to make it through the winter.
Anyway, I would like to give the bees as much help as I can. They are surrounded by goldenrod all summer, what can I plant to give them food "all season"? Dandelions seem to be the first flowers after winter but I didn't think to grab seeds last year to plant now.

clover and fruit trees.....

habitat management and beekeeping go together like PB & J !!!!

bill

 

[Merle Hawggard]

Things are heating up down here. I saw a swarm coming out of the old house near me earlier this week and had Chuck come over after work to box them up. We drove them to the farm that night. The black locust trees are blooming so I hope they get to work right away.
Today he gets a call from his in law's. They had abandoned their house after a swarm, they believe, flew down the chimney.
He's headed over now to see if we can get that swarm too.

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[H20fwler]

Got to love those bee's!
They are fun to work with.

 

[Turkey Creek]

We ordered 3 new packages of bees this spring. They are entertaining and break even for us, not a money maker at this point. All 3 packages arrived dead the first go around, seems FedEx thought they should leave a pallet of bee packages setting outside during a rainstorm overnight on the shippers end. By the time they got to us they were almost all dead. The shipper replaced them as well as a few hundred other packages that FedEx managed to "exterminate". Our new, replacement, packages arrived in great shape the 2nd time around. The had great weather to orientate yesterday. Pretty well locked in their hives today due to rainy weather. Checked the hive top feeders and one colony had sucked their feeder dry already, probably 1/2 gallon of sugar syrup. Weekend weather looks good, so hopefully things will be up and running strong for all of them.

 

[Merle Hawggard]

TC
What strain of bees did you go with?
We have 2 nucs of Russian bees coming sometime in early May to go with whatever swarms we catch.

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[Turkey Creek]

Italians. I havent tried any other strains thus far. At some point I probably will. I would like to get to the point we can do our own splits and just buy new queens on ocassion as well as catch a feral swarm now and then.

 

[SwampCat]

I bought two queens last spring and started my own nucs in medium supers. Middle of summer last year, I added another medium super to each hive. Both hives came out of winter in good shape. About a month and a half ago, I took all medium supers from each hive and put each of them on a “deep” hive body, making four hives consisting of a deep and a medium super. End of June, I will take each medium super and put them on another empty deep, and put four empty medium supers on the established deeps. All walk away splits with only buying two queens last spring. Will go from two nucs last spring to eight nice hives at the end of summer.

 

[TreeDaddy]

I bought two queens last spring and started my own nucs in medium supers. Middle of summer last year, I added another medium super to each hive. Both hives came out of winter in good shape. About a month and a half ago, I took all medium supers from each hive and put each of them on a “deep” hive body, making four hives consisting of a deep and a medium super. End of June, I will take each medium super and put them on another empty deep, and put four empty medium supers on the established deeps. All walk away splits with only buying two queens last spring. Will go from two nucs last spring to eight nice hives at the end of summer.

Did you find the queen in each original nuc prior to splits?
Were the deep hives empty?

bill

 

[SwampCat]

Did you find the queen in each original nuc prior to splits?
Were the deep hives empty?

bill

no - I didnt find or look for any queens. Just did “walk away splits” - make the splits and walk away. I did look to make sure there were eggs and larvae in all the boxes. The deeps I gave them had frames of drawn comb - which really reduces the amount of wait time. There is capped brood in all hives now, so I know they made queens where needed. I would say this method is about 75% successful for me. If I dont find eggs or larvae - I will buy a queen to add to them. I have an old hive right now that swarmed a month and a half ago and is now queenless. I ordered four queens - to be here Thursday and will add one of the queens to the older queenless hive and make three nucs.

 

[TreeDaddy]

 

[Merle Hawggard]

Our Russian nucs came in Saturday. Both looked very strong and they were bringing in pollen by the afternoon. We added a feeder to both of them since the weather isn't looking all that great next week.
Chuck inspected our swarm hive and they had about filled all the frames, lots of eggs and brood. He added another box to give them room to grow.

Blackberries are in full bloom so hopefully we'll get these 2 off to a good start.

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[Turkey Creek]

We have 5 hives going, all just started this year from 3 lb packages. We will see what the summer brings. Nothing but rain and cool temps for the next week, getting tired of that broken record. Only surviving hive we had from last year has lost its queen and had laying workers take over. Dumped them yesterday in front of a couple of other hives and hopefully some of those workers will be put to use by those hives. They have all been sucking down the syrup pretty fast. Going to pull that except on one hive in a couple more weeks and leave it as a brood, frame drawing, and honey storage hive. Hope it can supplement the needs of the other hives as they grow on the real stuff and help those other 4 hives with winter stores (supplemental sugar syrup - honey frames ) as we head into next winter.

 

[Merle Hawggard]

I caught a swarm in one of the traps sometime in the last two weeks.

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[H20fwler]

I caught a swarm in one of the traps sometime in the last two weeks.

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Nice!
I have never had any luck with the swarm traps and I always seem to be a day late when someone tells me they just had a wild swarm at their house or out in a field.

I have had really good luck splitting hives and getting them going. I have had to do that the last two years just to get back to even no matter if the winter is mild or cold.
Just split two hives yesterday so I'm back up to four!

 

[Merle Hawggard]

We got them down and moved to the hive stand at the other farm. Strapped it down for now. Sunday Chuck and I are meeting to move them over to their permanent box.

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[Corey Peterson]

How’s everyone’s bees making out? Here in NH we are in middle of a drought so it looks like we will have a long summer dearth if this keeps up. I’ve got five production hives and one of those double hives with a swarm on one side and a split on the other. Looking like I’ll end up with 1 med full of honey from each of the production hives which is about 1/2 of what I’d normally get.