Honey Bees

[Merle Hawggard]

I doubt we get any since all our hives were new and needed to build up. We have caught 3 swarms so far and still have the traps out.
We've had good rains and the sumac is only starting to bloom.
Chuck has been feeding the last 2 swarms syrup in an attempt to help them build comb.


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[H20fwler]

Started two new hives last month and they seemed to have taken off OK, have added a super to each. My two others are doing really good have put a couple supers on each, they are hitting the wildflowers like crazy. Looks like it might be a decent honey year here.

One of the hives bearded up trying to stay cool yesterday in the heat.

 

[Turkey Creek]

Since all 5 of ours were new packages and a limited amount of drawn comb to start with I am hoping for a medium super of honey maybe 2 if things go alright. I am going to add a 2nd super to a couple of the hives this week.

I started putting shims between the brood boxes and the upper honey supers, just enough of a gap for ventilation purposes in the heat. Not enough of a gap for the bees to enter or exit. It has eliminated the bearding almost entirely. Bees outside of a hive arent doing anything productive, figured I might as well try to keep them inside the hive.

 

[Troubles Trees]

My single hive split into 3 this spring. 2 swarmed as the picture shows both. I didn’t have any other boxes to put out and nobody locally I knew that would come get them. I still have a lot of activity in my box so they must have been pretty crowded in there over the winter.
I know very little about honey bees myself (have only 1 hive that was given to me) but do have a few online friends in the bee community to bounce questions off.
The 2nd picture was half our harvest in 1 summer, I split the harvest with the lady that gave me the hive. She struggled to keep her bees alive so donated the hive to me.
(Sorry if there are errors on this post, I had to login on my phone to post the pictures and every time I type the page jumps and doesn’t show me what I’m typing lol)

 

[Turkey Creek]

Added 2nd medium honey supers today to two of the hives. Also realized that one of our hives had swarmed, had to have been close to 3 weeks ago. Saw a few queen cells and one that was hatched. The coolest thing was that I could hear one queen "piping", I had never heard that before or at least had never realized until today what I was hearing. Hopefully the queen will get mated and get to laying soon to build the hive back up before winter. It should have dawned on me that something was up as it was the only hive that I hadnt needed to put the wedges in for ventilation and they hadnt been bearding. However, just in the last week they had drawn out the honey super frames quite a bit more so I guess I have a decent number of bees remaining in that hive for now.

 

[H20fwler]

Since all 5 of ours were new packages and a limited amount of drawn comb to start with I am hoping for a medium super of honey maybe 2 if things go alright. I am going to add a 2nd super to a couple of the hives this week.

I started putting shims between the brood boxes and the upper honey supers, just enough of a gap for ventilation purposes in the heat. Not enough of a gap for the bees to enter or exit. It has eliminated the bearding almost entirely. Bees outside of a hive arent doing anything productive, figured I might as well try to keep them inside the hive.

Giving the thin shimming a try in different spots, they are making a crazy amount of honey right now so if they keep bearding up I can sure live with it I don't sell any of the honey anyway just like having bees. Split a hive and started two more new nucs am up to six hives now.

 

[Turkey Creek]

I am reposting this here as I have had some bearding even with the above mentioned techniques I described. As we all know if you ask 10 different ( fill in the blank) you will get 10 different answers. They could all be legitimate answers and then maybe not be useful in anyone person's situation. I do know that with more info its easier to make a better attempt at solving a problem. This response to my question on a bee keepers Facebook group page got me this answer. Obviously if a hive has a lot of uncapped honey then bearding is probably going to be an issue in hot and humid weather even with increased ventilation. Bees give off moisture through respiration and the fewer bees in the hive the less moisture they have to try and remove from the hive.



"Bearding is to allow the proper air flow over dehydrating nectar and brood nest by getting their bodies out of the way. Water is deposited on the hot comb and then fanned to evaporate and cool down the hive as it is fanned out the front entrance. I want everyone to stop and think for a moment: if the bees are successfully keeping the hive at exactly 95 degrees day and night but the outside temps are anything but, you’ve just opened up your hive by venting and now they can’t exercise precise air and humidity convection and are competing with heat or cold from multiple entrances now. My suggestion is provide ample cool water near by, shade in the hottest part of the day (oversized plywood?) and no propping up lids and boxes. And that is not just my advice but the protocol I have seen multiple experienced beekeepers advise even in the hot south.
If you see a huge amount of bearding almost on a daily basis in the spring and early summer months all that let you know is that you have a very productive hive that could potentially be split but you would make that decision based off of an inspection, not bearding alone. It’s simply an outside observation."

 

[H20fwler]

That is some good info TC.
I have always thought that the bearding had to do with some kind of fanning the hive, I'll give them another look next weekend and see if I need to take shims out?
I know almost nothing about bee keeping and have Forest Gumped my way along so far. I like the pollination for my fruit trees and shrub plantings and we enjoy having them around...the honey is just a bonus.
Now I plant pollinator strips for them and that has been a win-win, wife and I both like seeing all the different wildflowers and we like giving honey as gifts to friends and family. Very fun project but takes some effort and I definitely have been stung plenty. It's a labor of love that I feel it is one part of being a good land steward for me personaly.

 

[Merle Hawggard]

We're up to 5 swarms caught this year. The one I found in a cluster and 4 that moved into the swarm traps I made.
I'm, confident pollination won't be an issue with the apples in the future.

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[Turkey Creek]

Should have a bit more honey than I thought we would end up with this year. Probably have 4 medium supers that look like this now.

 

[H20fwler]

Pollinator strip is coming along, we are expecting some rain in next few days that should make it explode with flowers next week. We have four hives are on the far side close to the woods.

 

[rocksnstumps]

Ok for all the bee experts, how far will they forage especially if they have some competition like lots of other hives nearby.

So was on my friends land just less than a mile from me and his neighbor with the small farmette on his border has just this summer added a bunch of hives. Gotta be 18 to 20 of em. Maybe he is just letting someone else put them there but it's a busy looking spot. Bees humming around everywhere. So these hives are not far, but how far is too far. Mostly corn and a few hundred yards of trees from hive central to my clover plots and some open areas dominated by goldenrod. Actually there is a 15 to 20 acre field in opposite direction from me that is probably a great bee destination however.

 

[Turkey Creek]

They will fly a mile with no problem. Though obviously the closer to the hive the majority of the nectar source is the more efficient the bees are in filling the honey supers.

Here is part of our 2020 spring honey. Just bottled it up this evening.

 

[SwampCat]

Ok for all the bee experts, how far will they forage especially if they have some competition like lots of other hives nearby.

So was on my friends land just less than a mile from me and his neighbor with the small farmette on his border has just this summer added a bunch of hives. Gotta be 18 to 20 of em. Maybe he is just letting someone else put them there but it's a busy looking spot. Bees humming around everywhere. So these hives are not far, but how far is too far. Mostly corn and a few hundred yards of trees from hive central to my clover plots and some open areas dominated by goldenrod. Actually there is a 15 to 20 acre field in opposite direction from me that is probably a great bee destination however.

up to three miles

 

[Turkey Creek]

I knew they would go a ways to forage but really had no idea that they would travel as far as they have been proven to travel. After doing some internet research I found some some pretty consistent info.

Interesting note is that 4 miles is the break even point. Farther than that distance bees will expend more energy than they can obtain from a load of nectar. Also a summer worker bees life is measured in the amount of miles they fly. Basically they work themselves to death. So the farther the nectar source, the less production a single field worker contributes to the hive.

 

[TreeDaddy]

I get a kick out of spinning my own with my little hand crank,3 frame tank

Much like raising baby trees from seed

Labor of love from start to finish

bill

 

[rocksnstumps]

Great, thanks for the insights gents. Guess I will watch for maybe more honeybee activity. Already see a fair number of smaller bees and bumblebees too.

 

[rocksnstumps]

Goldenrod is starting to bloom. Not all at once but where the patches are the most yellow seeing lots of honeybee activity right now. Guess the scouts have found the top of my hill

Did a hive count while with my friend the other day. The guy on his border had moved stuff around a little and had neatly grouped 4 hives in a square. There are are 12 square pods so talking 48 hives each consisting of four stacked boxes or levels. Lots of bee stuff going on!

 

[H20fwler]

We spun honey Saturday afternoon. Had a great time pizza/hot wings & beer plenty of help.
Ended up with nine five gallon buckets by the time I left.

 

[Troubles Trees]

We spun honey Saturday afternoon. Had a great time pizza/hot wings & beer plenty of help.
Ended up with nine five gallon buckets by the time I left.

Awesome bud!! I am on a much smaller scale with only adding my 2nd hive late this year (2 weeks ago) hoping to get next springs swarm into a home. My whole life I've never liked store bought honey, I tried it fresh out of the hive for the first time last year and holy cow! A world of difference, now I put it on many things lol on vanilla ice cream it almost tastes like caramel... almost.