I had intended to pull honey supers and process today but family obligations prevented that. This week or next Saturday will tell the tale.

Different story today.
I decided to mow before the Chiefs game. I was mowing around a little used kids sand pile. As I turned the mower I felt some burn on my belly and head. It f ing happened again. 150 yards from my bee hives, I bumped a railroad tie full of bumble bees. I smacked a couple off of me but ended up ejecting from the mower. I was half way across the yard karate fighting the team of bumble bees that would not kicking my ass. That's when the wife and a kid come out onto the deck laughing at me before realizing what was happening.

They were in my hair hammering my scalp. They were on my shirt putting pin holes in my belly.....and the sonnabitch that stung me up inside my left ear hole. I hate that bastard. They basically stung me until I slapped them to the ground with my hands. I've got at least 10-15 lumps on my scalp, a few on my belly and one in my damn ear hole. The ear I see still a terrible place to get stung.

In a fit of rage I put on my bee suit, a can of hornet spray, grabbed a torch and a can of gas. I sprayed them out of the air, I tossed a burning rag near the area they were coming,out of the ground and then tossed a few cups of gas on them. I split the tie apart saw the nest, raked out the eggs and dumped more gas on it.

What are the odds of getting my ass kicked two years in a row by hives of asshole bees ing own yard......I do t care if they are pollinators. Bumble bees can all go to hell.

The tale of the tape 2019


I pulled honey supers and processed this weekend. For those keeping track, 4 stings. One got down my boot, one on the wrist and one on each cheek.

I always have higher expectations going in. This year I ended up with 8 boxes of frames ready to process and 4 that weren't ready so I removed those and let the bees rob them back out.

I ended up with a little over 200lbs of honey and about 50 pieces of comb honey to sell.
I am trying some different sizes and styles of bottles this year. Some 2oz for purses or kids or sporting event pick me ups, and some fancy murth jars with comb to upsell to soccer moms.

I did find some mites in a couple of drone larvae I inspected and I put treatment strips in yesterday.

We bottled about half of it yesterday and I've got the comb in the freezer for another day and am ready to sell and make a little cash for the summers work. I'm going into fall with healthy hives that I hope make it through the winter. I've targeted 2-3 as ones I want to split in the spring.

Those Muth jars are the only ones I use. Gorgeous.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...c7e4b4a67c.jpg


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Nice work boys.

Began harvesting on both my hives. On one I used a bee escape to clear bees. On the other there were so few bees in the box that we just took it.

We crush and strain instead of extract. I’ll start that the next few days.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...81815826eb.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...0f792aa4e9.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...927997ec1a.jpg


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Groves, are you concerned at the lack of bees on the one hive? Also what's a bee escape? It looks like there's a lot of honey there.

Not concerned at all. The vast majority of the bees are lower in the hive.

A bee escape is essentially a “one way” door for bees. I used an 8-way, but there are many other styles. It’s one method of emptying a box of its bees so that you can return them to the main part of the hive with little fanfare.

I reckon there’s 30lbs per box. Our hives are smaller than typical langstroth hives.



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It's interesting to see the difference in the type of hives you run, the comb..

I d be I tersted to see some pics of your crushing and bottling process.


This week I was talking with a news reporter who inquired about doing a story on hobby bee keeping and would like to follow me around a little next year.

The bee keeper diaries
 

https://www.facebook.com/grovesthegr...1008632410129/

If you’re wanting to see that process, here is a harvest from last year.


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The bee keeper diaries
 

Here’s what a 40-45lb tub of honeycomb looks like before it’s crushed and strained. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...e754b14693.jpg


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Here's the difference between spring and summer honey in my area for this year. Spring is always lighter.

Bees and I don't get along.

The tipping point was when, as a kid, I had a bee somehow in my shoe, and under my shirt, at the same time, and was stung by both of them. At that point, it felt personal, and despite not having allergies I've carried an irrational fear and hatred of them all through my life. As such, despite being a man of science who logically understands the important role bees play in nature, if I had the opportunity to wipe out all bees on the planet I'm not sure I could avoid the temptation to push the button.

The reason I'm chiming in here is because I heard some interesting stories recently regarding the alternative, when bees are wiped out. In several areas of China, bees have indeed been driven to extinction. As such, farmers are currently employing what might best be described as "human bees", or manual pollinators. When researching the story, what they found was that the manual pollinators actually did a Better job than bees, and fruit yields in the area were up by 30%. Initially, this also was accompanied by large economic growth due to rising demand for low wage labor.

However, as China has increased in economic prosperity, wage increases have made it so that it's increasingly unprofitable to hire those manual pollinators, causing economic hardship. Where things will go from there remains to be seen, but it's interesting just that humans were able to pick up the slack, and I wonder what tools and automation might be developed were this to become a big problem in the USA.

Regardless, I'm thankful some folk care enough to keep bees around and care for them, even if personally I'll likely kill all the ones I encounter. I won't however poison the land around my home with pesticides and especially not that vile filth Round Up, so I do my part to not drive them to extinction, even if ultimately those who will determine their fate are large agricultural grow operations rather than individuals.

I will toss out as a random final tangent that the label "organic" is meaningless in the vast majority of states, including yours, as it carries no regulatory weight. So if you want to fight back against the poisoning of our soil which is driving bees to extinction in more ways than just beekeeping, don't buy "organic", buy instead that which is specifically and explicitly labelled as "pesticide free", as that actually means something.

I think you could have just kept all this to yourself instead of posting it in a pretty cool thread. I for one am rooting for the shoe and shirt lurking bees after reading it.

Fact check: Round Up isn't a pesticide. :)

The active ingredient in Round Up is Glyphosate. In addition to killing weeds (intentional), and its likely carcinogenic properties (probably unintentional), it has been demonstrably linked to bee deaths (maybe unintentional). Just search "Glyphosate Bee deaths" and you can find your pick of article or study around it, it's well established at this point.

As the definition of a pesticide is "a substance or agent used to kill pests", I'd argue that even if that is not its Intended or primary purpose, it certainly qualifies as one, depending on whether or not one views bees as a pest :-)

However I'm not trying to argue semantics, which is why I listed it as a separate and standalone entry next to pesticides. That being said, you do raise a valid point in that depending on how it's legally classified, unless food is labelled as "herbicide and pesticide free" rather than just "pesticide free", it may still contain RoundUp, something I hadn't previously considered. More reason for diligence in knowing what food you're buying and consuming, I suppose.

Also in case it wasn't clear, I will restate- I love the fact that some folks are beekeepers, and think it's very important for the reasons I previously stated. So my primary purpose was just to say keep up the good work, congrats on you, even if it'll never be for me, the future could be very dark and complicated if bees fade away.

I tried an experimental setup in most of my supers this year: 8 frames in a 10 frame box.

The idea is the bees will build out the frames more to fill the open space. More honeycomb=more honey. For the most part it worked. I had some monster frames of honey that would barely fit in my extractor. I think I'll try 9 in a 10 next year.

I got some wild looking comb that was great for doing chunk comb honey, a first for me.

Roundup may be used as a herbicide, but let’s not pretend it’s harmless when ingested by bees or animals.

We only keep bees so our family has good lead-free honey not from China. We sell our surplus to locals. Only had 35lbs or so to sell. Gone in a day.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...ca91cbe0be.jpg


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1) Those jars are indeed very pretty, and very nice composition and lighting in this and some of your other shots. Do you do photography on the side as well?

2) When you say "Only had 35lbs to sell", is that an implication 35lbs is unusually light, or are you just saying you have a small operation for personal consumption? If the former, what's a normal harvest? Regardless, what time period of harvesting does that represent? A month? A year? Or do you irregularly harvest based on personal need so it varies too much to meaningfully say?

You should start a I hate bees thread and leave this one for beekeeping and people interested in reading about it. Just a suggestion.

I replied to someone who responded to me, with information pertaining to two of the primary reasons beekeeping as a hobby has been growing in popularity- the real and perceived threat to the health of bee populations and its potential economic and ecological impact, and secondarily as a source of honey, in an era where people are more concerned about the source and safety of their food than they previously were. I also included specifically a callout to the fact that I concur with the importance of beekeeping as a hobby or business source and am glad folks are engaged with it.

Remind me again, what exactly did your post contribute to the topic at hand? Maybe just start a "I hate GiantOctopodes" thread and leave this one for beekeeping and people interested in reading about it, just a suggestion.

On topic, for those who do produce and sell honey, what kind of price do you normally sell it for? Has the rising popularity of beekeeping impacted your sell price at all, if you've been doing this for a while? According to the US Department of Commerce the national average price for organic honey has dropped considerably in the past year or so, but that being for national averages it obviously primarily reflects drops in price from large scale operations, and I'm curious if that has also impacted the local market.

Actually I replied to the wrong quote my beef is with the bee's and I dont get along. Seemed out of place for the topic.

I had a very good year of production, but I'm working to double my hives next year with all wild/swarm/cutout colonies.

I've added more sizes to what I sell from 20oz up to 5lb jugs but I'd prefer to sell 12oz all day long. The comb honey has been worth adding to my stable of products but it sold in a flurry and then slowed down. It's not a huge target audience, but I'm doing things like cutting some up and leaving places to share so people that are curious can try it.

I'm going to bottle more of the glass muth jars for the holidays, throw in a sliver of comb and wrap them with some seasonal colors or something so I can upsell to soccer moms wearing the "basic b" outfit.(tall fuzzy boots, stretch pants and a long sweater)


Also of note......I've got a daughter that boys have decided may be of dating age, but she's not 27 so they can all F off. The good news is they are from another town and have told her I'm "scary and terrifying". I like that. I Love that.

One in particular has been asking her out....I told her to tell him that he had to take my bravery challenge to prove he's worthy. I said if he sat bare ass on one of my open hives for 30 seconds I'd allow it.

See, I'm not inflexible.

1. Those are Muth jars, based on a late 1800s design. I like em. I definitely do not do photography on the side, but you're very kind to think so.

2. Beekeepers have tended to lump themselves into one of three categories.

Hobbyists: Can have any number of hives, but don't rely on income. They're playing around, even if they're serious. This is me. I have between 1 and 8 hives at any given time, and even though I sell honey, it's not meaningful income. I just like my hobbies to pay for themselves!

Sideliners: These are people for whom beekeeping is a side gig, and quasi their second job. These are the guys still figuring out that a hobby that becomes a job is not as fun.

Professionals: These guys are all in. They make their living with bees. They could rent out their hives to almond or apple orchards, or they could just have a bunch of hives in a bunch of places. All types of people.

I'm definitely a hobbyist, and right now we have two hives. We run smaller hives than most people, so our "boxes" weigh less. My 35 lbs was taken from two boxes, one from each hive. The boxes weigh a bit more, but I do keep some honey. That's what I'm doing all this for. The excess is just a bonus.

A typical langstroth medium honey super might have 30lbs of extractable honey, where mine gave me about 18lbs. My old back appreciates the difference.

It is possible to harvest at many different times of year, but we harvest in the Fall. So that would be per year.

Once I had a hive blow over in February, so we "harvested" that one in February. Likewise I had a hive too small to defend it's considerable honey stores on some warm December days once, and so my boys and I retrieved it at night when the other bees "weren't lookin'!" That was a Dec "harvest" of sorts.

We follow the methodologies in this book. Here's the pdf if anyone wants it.
http://www.users.callnetuk.com/~heaf...ng_for_all.pdf

The hive is easy to build and relatively no-fuss. Here are the plans.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/395scssvk6...erial.pdf?dl=0

I've also been helped by this book which shares how to know what's going on inside from observation.
http://www.biobees.com/library/gener...20Entrance.pdf

I'm a big fan of freedom, which means I don't care how other people keep their bees. They can use common hives or weird ones. Traditional methods or new-fangled.

We don't treat with chemicals, but plenty of friends do. Their choice. I love this country. Winter is a great time to build a hive. Why not you?

What do y'all do with your beeswax?
 

The wife has used some to make lip balm, and I decided to make some candles. I bought a morel mushroom mold from Mann-Lake and made these little 1oz candles. They burn for about an hour.

I haven't done anything with wax yet. My plan has been to melt it into toilet paper rolls to make wax "crayons" to apply wax to new frame foundations. I don't know where I saw that but its' something I've considered doing and probably will this winter.

I do like the idea of candles and lip balm maybe to sell some.

Yesterday I snuck off for a while and put in some version of candy boards....I just pressed wet sugar onto wax paper and let it dry. I didn't do any elevated moisture boxes or anything. I did have a couple that were too thick and the top didn't want to shut tight, so I had a little smashing to do.

I also had some thin foam core insulation boards that i cut in half and wrapped around the hives to help them a little with wintering.

I'm hopeful to keep these bees alive and healthy as I like what I have and am planning to do some splits in the spring if they make it.

that's the last task I really plan to do this winter other than I'll feed a little more sugar water if it warms up.

All bundled up for winter
 

Here is my setup for winter. I also put a couple of pennies under the telescoping lids for a little ventilation; makes a nice little airflow gap.
Hopefully I can make it to spring with everybody intact and viable.

That's interesting and looks like it would keep the wind off of them.
It's probably colder here but I think that would help here too.

Are you feeding?

Good luck with the wintering.

Yeah it's a damn fine windbreak. Not too shabby for some free found material. I think those are old garage door panels; 2" foam insulation sandwiched between sheet metal. Whatever they are, I have access to a giant pile of 'em. I could put up a decent winter shelter for livestock in a matter of minutes.

I pulled the feeder boxes off right before we had this last little temp dip. They were still sucking down a gallon a day. If we get a nice warm(55-60) stretch for a few days, then I'll put on some more feed.

I'm kinda getting into this candle making thing. I bought a couple more molds to make some bigger ones. The wife loves that I'm finally cleaning up all of the random chunks and comb I've got lying around. I told her that was the plan all along, I just needed to get enough wax to make it worth the time. Yeahhh, I'm not really a slob!! (Yes, I am.)

Happy New Year, beeks!!
 

I hope everyone's hives are wintering well. Maybe you got to take a look during this warm stretch we recently had (it was warm in NW MO by end of Dec standards) like I did.
I put feed boxes on the 2 hives I took honey from. They each drank about a gallon in three days.
It was 67 here on Christmas day and all off the hives had bees flying. I didn't see any pollen being brought back, so those were most likely cleansing flights. There isn't much blooming this time of year.
We just got 1.5" of needed rain, and temps are staying warm for the next few days. We've yet to see this brutal winter I heard we we're gonna have, but I wouldn't mind seeing some cooler temps for Jan.

May the new year bring everybody healthy hives, tons of flowers, and a great nectar flow!

It's cold as hell today, but a couple of weeks ago we had a warmer one and the bees were out. I did a hive check and have 1 dead. Not positive but I'm assuming it was mites as it looked like numbers had dwindled and there was a small ball dead at the top.

It was a strong hive in the fall and had plenty of honey.

I'm debating about buying some pollen for early spring to try to get them started quick and try some splits.

I know nothing about bees or beehive but I thought you guys might find this story funny.

A Physician from work also dabbles in bees and I guess he left ?lure or something to attract queen to a new hive in his car overnight with the windows rolled down, let's just say he drove to the hospital in his beekeeper get up, I just wish he would have gotten pulled over by the cops.

well it made me giggle anyways.

Monti

Month, I think your friend is full of shit. Bees aren't active overnight and wouldn't have swarmed in after dark. He's pulling your leg.

It was nice today and my bees were active. We had a Warm day a week or so ago and I went down and dumped some dry sugar on top of the inner covers. I had pulled the dead hive apart and there wasn't a drop of honey in it, and as many dead bees as I found head down into empty cells, I'm. Ore convinced they starved out and not mites. I had caught that swarm in late July and I probably didn't supplement them enough?

Given that I decided to dump some dry shushed to them as the candy was gone. I had also bottled a couple of buckets and left those supplies down by the yard to clean them up and get a little food.

For those counting I did get my first sting of the year. I had a hooded sweatshirt and one guppy under the hood and got me on the forehead. Didn't hurt bad.

I had a couple of Gallon glass jars I had dry sugar in...and the damn coons got into those.


I'm pondering feeding them a little corn syrup to make sure they have enough to eat before dandelions pop? Dumb?

Dad used to put fly bait in a pan-and put it in the sweet corn patch. They would eat the bait. Coons don't have a 'get full' reflex. Just saying you could put it there and elevate your 'bee food'


Also heard that bees fall for the 'fake spring' we are having. It warms up too soon-the bees go out to look for food-it cools off again and the freeze. Just not fair.

It could be but he isn’t really the type to make jokes or make stuff and my wife did see his vehicle at the hospital full of dead bees later that day but who knows

I don't think it's so much the getting cold again that gets them. My belief on what kills bees late, and it happens a lot...we have a warmup and the bees become more active. They become more active and they eat more of their food stores when they are limited, and there aren't available pollen or nectar to find. A late dandelion bloom is very detrimental.

Oh yeah, feed 'em when you can. They won't drink syrup if they don't need/want it/too cold.

On Sat(2/29) I put a gallon each of 2:1 on 2 hives I thought might be light. Both had very little taken. In the past, I've had hives drink more than a gallon a day at this time of the year (if it is warm enough).

All of my hives were bringing in maple pollen (I think - I suck at pollen ID) like mad over the weekend, so they'll be broody soon I hope.
When I first came up to the hives n Sat, I noticed a bunch of pollen sacs lying on the ground. I had left my mouse guards on and they were knocking off the pollen as the bees would enter. So no more mouse guards.

I hope everyone's hives have made it through so far, and I hope we can soon start to see the nectar flow.

I had a friend tell me not to feed syrup(liquids) until average temps are 50?

My bees have been active so I hope they're finding something, I'm out of pollen patties.
I'm sure I'm behind you in nectar flow but i wouldn't think it would have to be warm too many more days before trees start budding and some dandelions pop.

I just hope it doesn't do the warm early march, my fruit trees blossom, freeze thing again.

I did go check a couple of trees I had found bees in the fall and was going to cut out early but they're both dead. Hope that's not a sign for how bees fared in the wild this year.

Your friend is not wrong. We're having a warm spell this week and I'm leaving these on until the weekend. This was the last of the heavy syrup and I'm too cheap to waste it.

My hives are looking strong and I was going to do some splits....but we had snow...Friggin snow...probably freeze off all the fruit tree blossoms and other flowers and set things back.

It's supposed to warm up this weekend so I'll try to make 2 splits and flip my hive boxes around. For those that don't know, you swap the top and bottom boxes so they'll use the empty food comb to lay eggs in the bottom box.

I checked a couple of trees at a cemetery and they are full. One should be an easy cut out the other might be tougher and I might try a trap out. Those bees were a little aggressive and I had 3-4 fly into my hoodie and got me on the back of the neck.

Total stings for the year 1+3/4...that's up for the year and probably my fault because I'm trying to be a little more brave and use less cover this year.

I'm also planning to work up the swarm traps and get them out to some new locations this year.

If you're interested in reading I'll keep doing this thread another year, and I do enjoy seeing what you other guys are doing with your bees.

Have any of you made your own bee vacuum? I'm leaning towards making a bucket vac using some pvc, 2 ball valves and a small shop vac that I have. I'll post some pics when I'm done if I do go this route, but I'm probably going to do it.

That said, I've borrowed one from my bee pal and I'm probably going to tackle a removal from a grain bin this afternoon. The bees enter through the grain dryer hole and the hive is under the drying floor, probably in the cinder blocks. I went to look early in the week and didn't have enough tools to get to them. This will be a new one and then I think I'm going to do a tree cut out.

I've got 7-8 swarm traps out and If I can stumble into some queen cells I think I'm going to split a couple of my hives.

Caught my first swarm of the season a few weeks ago. Self-installed Into an old hive.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...5668b844d0.jpg


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"This is why we don't do cutouts".....I've heard that a dozen times from the guys I started out with and now very few of them will do a cutout.

Yesterday's cutout at a grain bin(under the dryer floor) could have gone....better.

I took my 9year old boy to help, spend some time together away from the quarantine house and the siblings, and for man skill training. I figured half hour drive, an hour or two to do the removal and half an hour home. A new keeper met me on site to see it done.

It was a shit show from,the beginning. The floor was double layer of 3/4" plywood over a metal subfloor and a tangle of 4x4 posts, metal beams and double stacked cinder blocks.

The boy jumped right in and I had him running a bee vacuum at the entrance and he did great. He climbed into the bin with me and helped me with tools cutting and opening the floor...that took almost 2hrs....he got hit and tired so I put him in the truck to listen to the radio and relax while I worked.

At some point the bees started getting mean....mean....I have a generator and a vacuum running and can't hear well, then I do and see the boys head peeking over the hole in the bin.....and he's getting mauled by bees...he'd gotten out without his suit on and wanted to ask me a question...and they jumped on his face like he snitched on a prison gang. I pulled several stingers from his lips, nose and ears..and hands. Yeah, I feel like a real dick...my responsibility to keep him safe. Had the mrs come get him and got some medicine in the poor kid.

I finished the work....and yes I got the shit kicked out of me too, no idea how many hits I took but a lot.

7hrs later, a box of angry bastards are in my bee yard probably preparing to abscond.

That was not my best day doing this.

Now I get to decide if I'm going to do a tree removal today....

Yeesh sorry iowanian.

Good luck, beekeepers

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Swarms of giant Asian &quot;murder hornets&quot; have been spotted in North America for the first time.<br><br>They earned the nickname because a series of stings can be deadly. <a href="https://t.co/KeZYtbRUQb">pic.twitter.com/KeZYtbRUQb</a></p>&mdash; UberFacts (@UberFacts) <a href="https://twitter.com/UberFacts/status/1256670099072786443?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 2, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>


https://i.imgur.com/rFUASlJ.png

Got my first swarm of the year last week. I've been chasing this sucker since 4/18!

I was going out to the yard to check everything when I roll up on a swarm about the size of my hand. Couldn't have been more than a pound of bees. What a cute little swarm. I've never seen one that small! It was about 6' off the ground in a little sapling behind the hives. Got a 5 frame nuc box and put it in there, only took about 5 minutes. Easiest one ever!
Then I looked up.

About 25' up in a pine tree was the biggest swarm I've seen with my own eyes, at least 30 pounds. I put a double deep in the tractor bucket, but couldn't get it high enough for them to be interested. They hung out for a couple of days and then were gone. That's the way it goes sometimes.

A couple more days pass, and I get a call that there is a large swarm in the neighbor's tree, not too high up. I went out the next day and there was a tiny swarm in a pine tree about 6' high. They wouldn't let me get within ten feet of them before they started bouncing off my chest. Then I noticed the neighbor has a mature walnut tree that had some bees checking out what looks to be a gash in the trunk about 35' high. I wasn't about to rent a cherry picker and go get them, so I let them be.

The very next day, I'm rolling into the yard and son of a gun if there isn't a swarm in damn near the same place but a little lower to the ground. This might be the same swarm (more than likely), but now it's about half the size. I have a big crate that I'm planning on using for storage, and I moved it right under the swarm. The crate is about 9' tall and when I stood on top of it the swarm was just over my head, but I could reach it. I used a hand pruner to cut off the branch the swarm had attached to. I put the branch over the hive box (I took out five frames to make a little room for the cluster) and they proceeded into both boxes. I put a feeder box on them right away but when I checked the next day they weren't taking it. The flow must be good enough. They've been on top of the crate ever since. I plan on moving them in a few days to another yard I'm setting up half a mile away.

Persistence pays off. Nice.

The boy is tougher than gorilla cum...looked like hell today. It said it didn't hurt and was normal all day. Looks pretty good now, and while he didn't want to go with me today said he would again.

I caught a swarm in a trap in my apple tree today that likely came from my hives. I went down to look through and ended up putting honey supers on 4 already. That's way ahead of schedule here.

I couldn't decide about the bees from yesterday...they stayed and looked like they were working but were agitated. I found queen cells in one of my hives that had t been chewed open(some had) and I took a frame from that hive and stuck 3-4 more queen cells into the comb and stuck it into the new hive to be sure there was at least a chance at a queen in there. Not ready to dig too deep in that box yet. If they act sketchy I will consider buying a queen for them.

I noticed scouts at another trap so that's looking positive. I'm on the fence but am wanting to try the treecut out maybe tomorrow..we will see.

Happy bee hunting!

Saw some videos of those bastards. One video showed a couple dozen taking down a hive of 30,000 bees in hours.

Mantis wins

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Praying Mantis eats Murder Hornet <a href="https://t.co/CNXQAetp0g">pic.twitter.com/CNXQAetp0g</a></p>&mdash; Nature is Metal (@NaturelsMetal) <a href="https://twitter.com/NaturelsMetal/status/1258249812106973184?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 7, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

I'm planning to take tomorrow off to help a buddy do a cutout and he's going to help me do 1-2 trees. I jokingly asked my boy if he wanted to go(after last weekends ass kicking) thinking he'd tell me it kiss his ass. He shocked me and said "if it's in our town I want to go".

Hopefully tomorrow goes better and I'll get some pics. Chicken house and cedar tree removals.

I would expect nothing less from an Iowanian, your whole family is tough from the experiences you've shared on here.

I’m looking forward to an Iowanian road trip to Washington state and the eradication of killer hornets from our continent. I’ll chip in $20.

Apparently you just need some mantids. Damn, metal indeed.

Before I started beekeeping, I saw a mantis snatch a bee as it flew by. Ate the head first like in the video. Out by the hives, dragonflies will take them in mid-air with zero chance for the bees. They eat their fill and move on. The insect world is harsh/bizzare/amazing.

I went with a friend and taught him how to do a cutout yesterday.

It was an old chicken house and when we arrived, I had low expectations. There was no inner lining in the building walls or ceiling....so no cavity for a colony to live. We were told the children said they were in the floor, so I immediately assumed it was a 30 mile drive to find yellowjackets.

I stuck a pry bar into the floor and gave it a shake, and honey bees began to pour out of the eye sockets of an animal skull where the wall and floor met, as well as another spot 2 feet away. Jack pot but ominous signs.

After that it went smooth. I cut out a section of the floor, pulled it up and exposed the comb. We removed the bees with a vacuum and I cut away the comb. On the second to last comb I found and caught the queen. Then I found 10 gallons of older capped comb honey...but I'm not eating honey under an animal enclosure. He fed that back to his bees and some fancy grass eating hippy pigs. Successful relocation but we didn't thave time to get mine done. No big deal, it was good.

Old stanky comb and very little brood so I'm convinced a swarm had moved into an old dead hive.

Do you have any idea of how old that comb might be? In the pictures it looks like they just picked up the blueprints and continued building where the old workers quit.

That's exactly what happened I think.

It's hard to tell for sure but I'd guess that really dark comb is more than 3 years old. The light colored stuff is new. Comb is al,
Most white when built and gets stained from pollen etc, but the darkness comes from a "shell" that is left by each larvae as it grows into a bee. The same cell isn't used multiple times, it builds up and gets dark.

I can tell you if you try to melt that old stuff for wax there is a lot of nasty crap to remove and it stinks

The bee keeper diaries
 

Friend of a friend had a swarm enter their rotating composter. It would have been easiest to retrieve asap, but the homeowner was hoping they would leave on their own.

Fast forward a few days and now they wanted me to come get em.

Bees in a swarm cluster are gentle. Nothing to defend. Newly housed bees are often not as friendly. New home to defend.

These were friendly thank goodness. Scooped em out one handful at a time. Did see the Queen at one point, but she was fast and not interested in the sunlight. Couldn’t see if she went into the box or not.

She must not have, cause all the bees we did put into the box went back to the composter by morning.

So we scooped again. Golf ball size of a comb has been built overnight.

We got her this second time and we took em across town to our place.

Made a new floor and gave em one additional box to grow into.

All is well, but it was just a few pounds by the time we got to em.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...0e29b3f33.file
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...35316392f.file

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5abbyl5abt...c3aca.MP4?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/69ei3co6rd...F9047.MP4?dl=0


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That's awesome Grove.

I took off a little early friday and did a cutout in a big old cedar tree at a cemetery, I figured it would take an hour or so, but it took closer to 4 since I was alone, and I'm not confident I got a queen. I got most of the comb but there were a lot of holes in the inside of the rotted tree for her to hide.

I checked the cutout I did a week ago and I had put queen cells in there but no sign of eggs yet, so i probably need to buy 2 queens.

While I was working hives saturday, I saw a swarm cluster....a big cluster in a cedar tree. I'm sure they swarmed from one of my hives but I got them and it was easy...put a box under them, gave the tree a shake and I was done in 10 minutes.

Saturday afternoon I helped a friend bait and set a swarm trap. His grandmother used to keep bees and had equipment. I had agreed to help her get bees this year because she wanted some...but she passed away. My friend still wants them to honor her, so I set him up. While there, I saw in the barns that his grandmother had kept hives for Mason bees in every barn......It's not a honey maker, but I'm intrigued by that and might consider putting one together for the native pollinator.

Did a quick check of 2 of my traps and I have a swarm in one of them that I'll go get tonight or tomorrow if it rains.

I bottled 5 gallons friday night.

I'm going from bee poor to running out of equipment pretty fast. Time to spend some money I guess.

Cutouts are so much harder...take so much more time.....and so much less chance of a queen I'm giving that second thought unless they are easy.

Happy Bee hunting.

I've been on a mini-rampage. I've done an additional cutouts, caught another swarm in a trap and got another swarm last night. I've got more bees than I have equipment, so I think I'm going to buy 8 more hives of equipment from one of the guys on my old bee team that is out of the mood.

2 of the cutouts I did, including the one my son got his ass kicked didn't have signs of queens, and I couldn't even find the queen cells I put into those hives? I found that odd, but couldn't see a queen, the bees were agitated and no eggs or brood. I had one hive that has more bees than chinamen in china it seems. I pulled a couple of really full frames of brood that had queen cells on them and installed those to try again to queen the two cutouts. If I don't see sings of queens in 10-14 days I'll buy some.

The hive that was my strongest and best producer last year has really slowed down this year. I'm not sure if the queen is old or if it's just weather related. Still early so I'm not freaking out save one thing.....There have been a lot of black ants in that hive on top of inner cover. Any suggestions on ant control?

Not quite up for a bee keeping hobby at this point, but I'm interested in getting a few solitary bee houses around the gardens. The frames are easy enough to build yourself with scrap wood laying around, but I'm not sure about the tubes. Some products on amazon say they are cardboard, but that seems strange unless you have a really long awning on the roof. Any thoughts on the inserts (wood substitutes, no concerns with elements/weather)?

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon....AC_SL1500_.jpg

My friend that has hives on my property always uses ground cinnamon sprinkled on top of the inner box for the ants. He said the cinnamon acts like little razor blades on ants. It seems to work, I never see ant activity when he gets in the boxes.

I'll try that Renegade. Thanks for the tip, I'd not heard it before.

La, Those are Mason bees. I've recently became interested in trying to do something for them as well. In a little bit of research and something I saw at a friend's farm I've seen a few different ways to make those. They can be very small hives made of everything from straws to wooden 4x4 drilled out in pattern.

I like the drilling out idea. Are both ends of the tubes/holes open, or do the bees just have one entrance and exit? Every picture I've seen only shows the front angle.

Google search DIY Mason Bee house.

There are a lot of different designs.
the holes should be 5/16
cover with hardware cloth to prevent birds from getting them.

I've seen designs that look like bird houses with the tubes like you have above, small logs just drilled out, or scrap wood glued together and drilled. Some drill from the end of the grain and some from the sides.

https://www.hobbyfarms.com/make-a-mason-bee-house/

Thanks, that looks good. Just one entrace/exit per "nest," at least six inches deep.

I put a couple of mason bee houses on the north side of the shed a couple of years ago. They really took off this year in the early spring. It's fun to watch them flying around. The ones I put up were a gift, and they're not as deep as they should be. They need to be at least 6" deep because the female eggs are deeper in the hole than the males. If they aren't deep enough, you'll get too many males and not enough females. Males die after mating, and the females are the ones that do the bulk of the pollenating.

Off the wall question: I'm in PA for the last couple weeks and have been noticing a huge spike in the bumblebee population this spring.

Has anyone else noticed this or is this locally isolated?

I have more ash wood logs than I'll ever use for recreational purposes, so I want to drill the holes into those. I'm fascinated by this idea from hobbyfarms.com that the builder is advised to decorate with a colored symbol to orientate the bees to the correct nest.

Cinnamon is more of a scent-acid-type repellant similar to cayenne.

The “little razors” type is diatomaceous earth.

I usually let my hives co-habitate with the ants unless severe. You can do the borax-sugar mix or you can put the feet of you hive stand in containers that have oil in them.

Lots of methods with varying levels of effectiveness and hassle.


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Dumbass was busted here for stealing hives. Some guy put a gps in his and they tracked him down. He had several I guess
sEc

I read about that today. He'd been stealing hives in 3-4 counties and had hit the same spot a couple of times. The crafty bastard who owned them did put a Gps tracker in a hive I. The same spot that it was stolen and they tracked the guy to his house and I think found like 18 hives.


I wouldn't have those gut of that, but he might have stepped in a hole in the ground or something.

Glad thy caught him...this is far too much work and expense to have some shithead steal them.

I’ve been putting small hives at friends houses around town as bait hives/swarm traps.

Had a hit in one this week, we went to make sure all is well. Those swarms build out SO quick.

Always love involving the friends. Brought 4 veils cause they had a friend over.


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Missouri man arrested, accused of stealing beehives

The Associated Press 23 hrs ago

NEW CAMBRIA, Mo. — Police in northern Missouri have arrested a New Cambria man accused of stealing a dozen beehives over four counties.

Ricky Elam was arrested Wednesday following the execution of a search warrant near his home that turned up the stolen beehives, television station KTVO reported. Authorities in Macon, Linn, Schuyler and Randolph counties said they had fielded numerous reports of stolen hives over the last year.

The search warrant was issued after a beekeeper in Macon County installed a GPS tracker in one of his hives after experiencing a theft, authorities said. On Wednesday, that hive was stolen and traced to Elam’s property, according to deputies.

Elam was charged Thursday with one count of felony stealing, two counts of felony receiving stolen property and four counts of misdemeanor receiving stolen property. He was being held in the Macon County Jail on $15,000 cash-only bond.

https://www.columbiamissourian.com/n...a4d916d79.html

I know this guy and this news was so ****ing funny and so very not surprising.

Apparently the dipshit was an employee of a small bee farm, convinced the owners to start him up, and then started stealing from them and their customers. What an asshole, stealing from hardworking people like that.

His punishment should include sitting bare ass for a couple of minutes, on an open hive on a rainy day.


I'm fairly annoyed today. Yesterday afternoon I went down to check my hives and my bets have had swarmed and a large ball was on an easy to reach limb. I went up to shop to get a box to put them in, and returned ten minutes later. They were gone. Lost my best producing queen and probably 6-7lbs of bees. Can't believe they left so quick. Looked all around my farm and adjacent and they're gone.

I removed bees from a cemetery tree next to where Memorial Day ceremony is held. Within a week I think another swarm moved into that tree. Part of the deal was I had to have bees gone tomorrow. I sprayed them which I hated but do t have time. Need to go finish them off today between rains and I'm going to block entrance on another tree tonight so people don't get stung tomorrow.

I've been on a bee rampage the past couple of weeks.

Friday after lunch I got a call from a local golf course that had a swarm in a tree. I went to get that a guy live streamed as I did it. They were around 10' up a branch but I was able to shake them into a box. After I had shook the branch, what must have been the REST of the swarm came flying in which was somewhat chaotic but It was cool.

I took those home and was hiving them and before I was done had another call a lady had a swarm on the trunk of a tree outside her house. That one I placed a box of comb frames on the ground under it, made a bridge with an old comb and then used a brush to "encourage" the bees to go into the box.

I've tripled my hives so far this year. I know I have 2 traps that have bees in them, and I've got a tree I'm going to try a trap out on. I don't really want to screw with it but its outside the front door of an older couple who are adopting a young child from their shithead kid and they are fearful for her. I've never done a trap out, but have gathered materials to do it. The basic process for this is to make a screen/1/8" hardware cloth "cone" about a foot long that gets about as narrow as the end of your pinky finger at the end. It has flaps on the bottom and you'll staple it over the hole in the tree and make it tight so that bees can get out, but not back in. I'll either screw a box to the tree near that location or put it on a hunting ladder stand next to it so the bees have a place to go. I'll put a frame of brood in it to encourage the bees to tend them, with the idea that the hive will eventually empty enough that the queen will come out to see what's going on...and then I'll seal the entrance to the tree.

I've also decided I'm going to build a top bar hive. I've bought materials and will probably start that tonight.

In short, it's going pretty well this year and I should have some pics of new things to share.

On a side note, I learned from a large bee keeper why the bees that beat up my son are so mean....verroa mites. I've tried to requeen them with cells twice, which they chewed out, and bought a queen that died within the 1hr drive home....I'm going to use these to build comb until they die off....F those bees.

So the mites made them crazy or what?

Good to hear the bees are doing well this year. But wasn't the concern about the population decline connected to some type of mite?

On a side note I have quit trying to get the clover out of my yard. The bees around here seem to love it. Of course I still mow but the clover flowers come back for a few days before I need to mow again. It's the bee's buffet!

Treb, white/sweet clover is one of the best honey making flowers in the midwest. When the white flowers show up in your yard, you know the bees are making honey. When they dry up when it gets too hot, you're not.


https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019...t-deadly-mites

verroa mites are a threat to honey bees for sure, but there are ways to control them in colonies if you're watching/testing. A lot of the big boys use an alcohol wash, where they take a half cup(300 bees) and wash them with rubbing alcohol(which does kill them) and then do a mite count. They'll use the findings of that to determine if treatment is necessary. There are several chemical products and "strips" that treat for mites....and vaporizing oxalic acid to fumigate the mites. You can really only do this when there aren't honey supers on the hives. I'll fume mine after I pull off honey at the end of August.

From what I understand some species and hybrids are more hygenic and better at dealing with them naturally. They spread by going down into a cell with a new egg and attaching to larvae, so once I have no larvae in a hive they're basically no longer an issue for those bees. I am concerned that they may have spread to some other hives, but I'll treat them in early September and move on.

I was talking to a guy who has 3500-4000 hives and he's the one that immediately identified my mean bees as having Verroa. I guess they're just agitated from having the mites on them, I suppose like having a leach on your balls or something would make you grouchy. In my case, they were mean as hell when I got them, stayed mean, and they've not accepted new queen cells even when they don't have a queen. I'm just going to let these old bitches build comb and honey until they die out. I've got enough bees caught that it's not a loss other than the 9 hours and 50+ stings I've got invested in the colony.......I'll freeze the honey(and they're making a lot) and then use it to strengthen up some of the swarm hives to get them producing, or for resources for late swarms I might get.

I've been threatening to do it, and I've got most of the materials to try a horizontal hive. I'm planning to build 1-2 of these over the next couple of nights and put one of the colonies I have in traps in it and see how it goes.
https://horizontalhive.com/how-to-bu...th-plans.shtml

I have just built and installed a horizontal hive.
I used the plans for the hive from https://horizontalhive.com/how-to-bu...th-plans.shtml
only I used flow hive frames for easy harvesting and added an enclosed screened bottom.
The 3rd pic is bur comb that I am going to have to harvest from an A frame top. From now on it's flat tops only.