I had a unpleasant experience with earwigs trying to retrieve the mail and stepping on a hornets nest as a young one. I don't like bugs and they don't like me.

Clowns and earwigs don't last long in my little slice of life. I'll give bees a pass for the honey factor.

Exposed hive pics shared by MDC. A bee keeper near Springfield sent them in and claims it is around a month old.

https://scontent.fmci2-1.fna.fbcdn.n...Kg&oe=62B6D187

https://scontent.fmci2-1.fna.fbcdn.n...BA&oe=62B66200

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very cool, thanks for the update!!

Sure you have mentioned this---how does extreme heat affect the hives?

Looking at the color of the comb under that table, I believe that's a new hive. If that were close to me I'd love to get that, easy to get, new comb and it would be full of resources and brood(babies). What surprises me is that they chose to build under that table when there is obvious, visible bee equipment nearby. Those boxes would smell like old colonies and I'm surprised they didn't move into those if they were sitting there.

Extreme Heat. Honestly, I think bees handle heat better than colder weather. They can cool their hives with water that they bring in, and then they'll essentially build a bee fan to circulate air and keep the core temp at 94-95 degrees. They'll beard outside the colony to cool off too. Drought is one thing, but for honey production, I like the hot-warm dry days, because the bees can't really get nector or pollen from wet flowers.

Now, working bees in a suit sucks when it's hot. The bees can get crabby in extreme heat as well.

It's been a busy year so far and I'm looking at mixed results.

Yesterday I entered a "float" in the 4th of july parade and got a first place check to help pay for the candy(not nearly enough $ for that) but it should get me some pic time in the local rag for advertising.

I had caught another swarm in a trap and moved them last night to replace another hive that I lost(4 dead in June). It was a good, active, busy colony and I'm thinking they could be a good one next year.

My bees have been mean this year, not every colony but more than I'm used to, and they're meaner than hell. Last year I could have worked most of my hives in a tee shirt, this year I think you'd die. I mowed near them last week and they just balled up on me. I didn't have gloves and took a few to the hands and a couple of those bastards got up my sleeves. Wasn't fun at all.

I did too much "testing" last week. I've been talking with an area restaurant/bar and the chef is trying to come up with honey based shots. He's doing something like a reduction with bacon grease and crumbles, honey and a whiskey/bourbon. We tried several shots the other night...some i thought were good, a couple just got me drunk. Frank the tank.

I do have a cabin that has honey bees in a wall that I'm considering doing a removal(cutout) soon. I'll video that and it might be interesting as a time lapse for those interested.

I'm still hopeful that if it doesn't turn too dry and start a dearth, I'll be able to make some honey. My lofty goal for this year is 1000lbs, so we'll see.

Enjoy your summers and keep eating local honey.

Sounds to me that your bee's have become Africanized if they're becoming that aggressive. Or the other option is they just don't like you, but I doubt thats the case. You've always been a likeable person. Can you introduce an extra queen to the hives just so the worker bees can have more sex. That concept always works for me when I'm agitated.

Venting on social media proved costly for a Minnesota beekeeper, who now must pay $370,000 to a couple who sold him bees that later died.

A Traverse County jury made the award to Nancy and Keith Budke of Wheaton, Minn. The Budkes, in the bee business for more than 40 years, sold 75 Texas hives to Nick Olsen of Maple Lake.

When Olsen got the hives home from Texas, he found that the bees had died in transit. Olsen blamed the Budkes, claiming the bees were infected with several diseases. He took to Facebook and vented about the deal, saying the Budkes were "screwing" him, calling them names and warning others not to buy bees from them.

The Budkes sued Olsen for libel, bringing in expert testimony showing that the bees' health was normal and suggesting that Olsen's own handling of the bees likely was the cause of their death.

Traverse County District Judge Amy Doll ruled in favor of the Budkes and sent the case to a jury to decide damages. In a verdict issued late last month, the jury awarded the couple $105,000 for business losses caused by the libel, $240,000 for loss of reputation and $25,000 in punitive damages, for a total of $370,000.

It's the kind of case we can expect to see more of as social media continues to expand, said William McGeveran, a professor at the University of Minnesota School of Law.

"Social media makes it a lot easier to shoot your mouth off," he said. "And sometimes people aren't as careful when they're posting on Facebook or Twitter as when they're giving a quote to a newspaper reporter or writing an essay for a magazine.

"But what they say is just as public and the legal risk is just the same."

Criticism of public figures is protected by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling requiring "actual malice" for a defamation judgment. But regular people don't fall under that ruling, so posting false or defamatory statements about a neighbor or a local business means it's a lot easier to land yourself in legal hot water.

And while libeling your neighbor once might have required some extra effort — printing up fliers, say, or renting a billboard — now it's as easy as grabbing your phone in an angry moment.

"Historically, there were a lot of practical obstacles to defamation," McGeveran said. "Social media just obliterates those practical obstacles."

Olsen, who represented himself in the case, said he plans to appeal the verdict.

"All I can say is, I can talk about the case. I can't talk about anything else but I can tell you that a lot of it was based on lies," he said.

The Budkes' lawyer, Ronald Frauenshuh Jr. of Ortonville, said the award "should send a chilling message to people who abuse and bully on Facebook and say things that aren't true."

Calling the case "amazing" and "strange," Frauenshuh said the Budkes tried repeatedly to settle the matter, but Olsen "was just emphatic that he was the victim." In recent years, Frauenshuh said, he's seen many things on social media that made him shake his head.

"People post goofy things on Facebook," he said. "I'd see them and I kept saying to myself, 'This is open for lawsuits. You cannot say this in public and get away with it.' " He said the verdict was a welcome step in helping his clients repair their reputation.

"My goal is to help the Budkes regain some of their business," he said. "People have to be aware that these kinds of suits exist when you don't tell the truth on Facebook."

Staff writer Alex Chhith contributed to this report.

Bee keeping is such a roller coaster.

I checked hives to see if I needed to add the last honey supers to any of my hives. Harvest will be at the end of July or first week in August. I lost 4 in June, another one last week and have 2 more that don’t look to make it. About half of my hives are going to make honey this year. So frustrating after a spring and summer of hard work.

I had a couple of messages about a large swarm of bees on a water tower 100’ off the ground. It was 20 yards from a public swimming pool and really close to where a town festival was being held. I couldn’t climb and get them. I stacked a box with old stinky comb, an empty box under it for volume. I added some lemon grass oil, drizzled some honey on the bottom board for scent to draw them in…..that was my theory.

I left and had to be a couple of hours away, but got a message less than an hour away. The bees had moved into my box. I went back last night at dark, taped the opening shut…except for the part I accidentally didn’t. I climbed a ladder to get my box off of the water building and slipped and about dropped it. Bees started boiling spout as I put it in the back of my truck, and I left quick so they didn’t get to the pool full of kids and cause me a ton of bullshit.

I set them up today in their new home in my bee yard….tons of bees. It was a huge swarm. Replaces one of my dead if I can get enough honey in there before winter.


I’ve spent the late afternoon making my first batch of creamed honey. It’s quite a process to get started, but in 2 weeks, these starters will be ready and I’ll start making creamed h8 ey to sell. Plain, maple, cinnamon, lemon and raspberry flavored will be the product.

Pay the extra for your local re working their asses off to get it for you.

Thanks for sharing.

Today was a little exciting. I got a call that a tree trimmer had cut into a silver maple and had the shit kicked out of him by bees. The homeowner had gotten beat up and stung inside his nose. Tree trimmer stopped and owners needed help. It’s late in the season and a small chance of saving the bees but the guy was paying so I used some vacation time, loaded my equipment and my boy and went.

The limb was on the ground and it turned out the hive was inside. We cut it open with a chainsaw, vacuumed a lot of the bees and I removed the hive.

This is just cutting open a tree
https://rumble.com/v1dv471-cutting-open-a-bee-tree.html

This is opening the tree to access the bees
https://rumble.com/v1dv4b7-busting-open-a-bee-tree.html

I got them and put them in a hive in my bee yard and hope it replaces the one I found dead today(6 dead since June 1). Harvest will likely be next weekend.

Iowanian got some power saw skills too:thumb:

He and his family could live off the land. They would live off of crops, deer, fish, and wild boar. He would need a helicopter for the boar though.

I've cut and split enough wood in my day, that I only climb on a chainsaw when I need to....

The hardest part is determining the "ends" of the hive when you can't see it. I was able to see bees in 3 crack openings so started a foot or two above and below. Once you get cut into the log you can kind of "feel" when you're into the hollow portions and then I try to not go too much deeper so I don't run the saw through the comb.

Sometimes it works easier than others. If it's a standing tree and they're in the bottom of the trunk I can usually cut a "door" into the tree, get the bees and plug the cork back in.

With trial and error I've learned it's tough to get the queen from inside trees because there are so many tiny places to hide. When I'm about done, I'll spray some stuff called "honey bandit" into my smoker. It smells like almond extract and ironically(because almond growers pay bee people to pollinate almonds) and bees will run away from that. I use the same stuff in a fume board when I want bees to leave the honey supers when I am pulling them to extract(probably next weekend). The smoke with the bandit will often run the bees out that are hiding and we can vacuum those up.

Didn't see the queen yesterday, but I sure hope I got her.

Bee Keeping is...fun....

Yesterday I tried to beat the heat and went to the bee yards early to pull the honey supers(boxes of honey to harvest). I found more dead hives, that's 9 dead since June 1. The bees I cut out of the tree a week ago had absconded(left like a bad father who went out for milk)...and as usual, production appears to be down from my hopes and dreams.

I didn't get pics because I was doing this myself, but it's pretty much the same as posts previous years. I take a fume board(board with felt inside) spray it with honey bandit(smells like Almond extract, bees hate it and move down) and put that on top box. After a few minutes, you take that box off, put it on a stand and blow out as many bees as you can with a leaf blower. Then stack and bring to location for extraction.

About 3/4 of the way through I started getting work calls. I unzipped my hood to take a call and went back to it...however, i forgot to zip my hood back on, grabbed a box that was about face high and removed it. I suppose 25 bees immediately flew inside my veil. It could have been worse, but it wasn't the best experience in my life.

Today I'm getting my new extraction setup ready, and I'll begin extraction of 2022 honey today and tomorrow. I'll try to get some pics and videos of that if there is interest I will share.


Also....testing has revealed that I really enjoy the raspberry creamed honey with salty pretzel sticks.....great snack.

Keep posting
I’m very interested
Especially in the spun honey that was whipped up
My granny made that and I’d almost forgot about it until you posted about it
My mouth was watering, my friend
sec

This past week, I was able to harvest our honey for the year. We captured part of that process and I've put together a 1 minute overview that should give you an idea of how this happens.

https://rumble.com/v1ft4lh-2022-hone...4uowq&mc=346v4

I've bottled a couple of buckets already to fill orders. Each time we spin the extractor it's 20 frames, basically 2 boxes. In some cases there are 2 hives that make that and in some cases 1 hive can make 2 runs of honey. What I really noticed this year is the difference in the colors of the honey. From bucket to bucket there are several shades of difference in the honey. They're in the same apiary, in the same field with access to the same flowering plants. They just choose differently, or made most of their honey at different times.

The first creamed honey batches I made were ready today. I delivered a few small orders and dropped some strategic samples in those visits. People are going bananas and I think this is going to be a great seller when people figure out what it really is....I'm excited about that.

Now...yesterday.
My old scout broke down, my daily driver truck broke down and I went to do mite treatments at my second apiary in the evening....in the past 2 weeks, all 7 of those hives have died. All of them. Every hour of my summer of chasing, catching and trapping bees....****ed. The weekends I spent catching and cutting them out instead of at the lake with my kids....wasted. Today I got up at 5 am and took a kid in for a second knee surgery. Real banger of a week.

I'd lost 9, not I've lost 16 hives since June. I'm baffled. I'm going to call in some help to help me figure out wtf is going on, because it's demoralizing to work so hard at something and have it blow up in my face...in the summer....not even winter yet.

The excitement of the people sampling the creamed honey re-energized me a little and I bottled 2 buckets tonight and will make more tomorrow.

I was pretty pissed off about the number of dead colonies I'm having, frustrated to say the least.

Sunday afternoon I got a call about a swarm in a tree at a cabin my buddy I used to do bees with had owned. This is a good video of shaking a swarm into a box


<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://rumble.com/embed/v1dz2vz/?pub=14uowq" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</iframe>

It looked good, and as I went to put a piece of duct tape on the entrance to take them home, they boiled out of there like it was on fire and pinged me a couple of times before I could get back. They landed about 30 yards away in a cedar tree. I took a different box thinking they might not like the smell or something, and cut down branches and shook them again, and took them home. When I got home, I set them in the bee yard and removed the tape and they came out and gave me 6-8 arthritis treatments on my hands....and the next day absconded(left). Those bees did not want a home.

So to review, the last 2 cutouts and swarm capture I have spent time doing to attempt to replace bees....left. Waste of my time other than the videos for you guys to enjoy or hate.

Sorry man. I've had a one who sucks the penis of a 2022 also, FWIW.

count me as a believer in Iowans creamed honey. Ho-lee-shit! It’s heaven in a 1lb tub! I received a tub of cinnamon, and a tub of lemon….it was shipped usps and I got it 4 days later in great condition. I could spread it on a bagel right then, although I put both tubs in the fridge as soon as I got them. They’re not like raw honey, but a whipped confection to brighten every breakfast.

Bee Hole Honey Farm
Google it
If you don’t like it, I’m sorry, you’re a ****in jerkoff
sec

I harvested my honey yesterday. Just a note, the master beekeeper that is mentoring me told me that using a leaf blower’s pretty hard on the bees. He recommends just taking the slats out of the super and giving it one good shake over the hive and they will just get knocked off and then brushing the few that are left. Just my two cents

He’s right, but if you have more than a couple of hives it takes too long. In the big picture if you use fume boars first, you’re only blowing a small percentage of the out with the leaf Blower.


…and sec I’m glad you liked it. Which reminds me I need to get off my ass and go make some more today.

Do you have a online selling format?

I don’t have an online store but I do ship if people want to pay for that. Pm and I’ll share info

So i harvested my fist year honey today, 60 lbs. still gotta harvest my second hive.

That’s awesome I’d you got 60# out of 2 first year hives, let alone one. That’s great production.


I had a state inspector come down and try to figure out why all my shit is dying. He said in 40 years he’d never seem what’s going on at my second yard where all of them died. We found 2 more during inspections and mite testing with no queens and dying…..that’s typical.

I had a call of a falling down house and a tree down from a tornado that needed bees removed before they are burned. Wasn’t in the mood due to recent results and time of year, but my horizontal hive was dying and has honey so I did it. The tree turned out to be bumble bees…. The house had a shitload of bees in it. I had to chainsaw open the roof and soffit to get to them, but after 6hr of my estimated 2hr job I was t done and my bee vac wasn’t working. I had a box completely full of bees and estimate there were still 6~8# of bees clustered…and likely the queen. I put the hive box with the brood comb together and set it in the attic. I got a call today from the owner and it sounds like he thinks the bees went into my box….so hopefully I got them so it wasn’t another wasted Saturday.

Update time.
The bees I spent 6-7hrs above cutting out of a house before it burned....absconded a day or two later. Wasted day. The bees I got from the tree...absconded a couple of days later. The bees from the last swarm, absconded.

Body count. 21 dead hives. I've gathered them all up and have started the process of cleaning up the mess from the wax moths that infest dead and weak hives.

I've been getting ready for winter. I do still have 9 living hives that appear healthy right now. I put in entrance reducers(a smaller front door), added 2" spacers on top of the hives, a layer of newspaper and dry sugar. The idea is the dry sugar will absorb moisture, harden and be a back-up food source. I'll add again until snow flows.

On the upside, I'm as good at marketing my products as I am bad at keeping bees alive. Creamed honey is really taking off as people learn about it and I've spent quite a bit of time making that on weekends. Yesterday I was able to make about 50# while I watched the Chiefs game.

Anyway, good luck to the rest of you going into winter, and thank you to all of you that have reached out and given my honey a try. I do appreciate it.

I don’t always double post my picture, but when I do it’s for honey.

This is really good stuff.

Thank you!

Spring update time.

Everything that survived the slaughter of summer '22, is still alive heading into March. There is hope.

I'm doing some things differently this year and I'm regrouping.
This year, I'm again running 2 bee yards, and I'm going to do a 3rd that I use as a quarantine yard. Anytime I catch a swarm or obtain wild bees, they go to the quarantine yard, get mite treatments and after they stay healthy for 3-4 weeks, I'll move them to a main yard.

I've pre-ordered some nucs of bees from 3 different people. I have ordered a new variety of queen, the Cordovan Italian. I'm going to use half of those to replace queens in hives that were mean last year or didn't produce. The other half I'm going to use for splits. I've got queens coming from 2 other producers as well, and they're more of a "mutt" that has been developed by some people in the state.

My plan is to split everything I buy evenly. If I buy 4 from producer A, I'm going to run 2 in 10 frame boxes at home, and 2 in 9 frame boxes in the 2nd yard. I'm going to try to do a better job of tracking temperament, production etc and use this as a learning and growing year with the goal to get my hive numbers back up where I need them, and produce a lot more honey. I'm pretty good at selling it, now I've got to back it up with production and try to make enough money back to be worth the hours and stings.

Hopefully this year the juice is worth the squeeze.

If there is still interest, I'll keep posting and making a few videos again this year.

I'm planning on splitting at least one of my two hives. There was some "bearding" going on right before fall and I'm thinking it is getting a bit crowded. See how it goes.

What's the furthest NE Iowa HyVee or other place you're selling?

Keep it coming Iowanian.

The quarantine is a good idea.

Also, go whole hog on selective breeding these bitches. I want an "Iowanian line" like these cowboys out here.

Hey Iowa - just this morning on the news they had a story about people starting to draw maple to make maple syrup. Do you do that as well?

Also, does it sell in Fareway stores? I only go into a hy vee if I want to catch a dose of Ebolaids.

I don’t do anything with maple syrup. I need another time sucking side hustle like I need 2” less of pecker.

I tried to get into a couple of fairway stores but the managers were both assholes. They acted like I walked in carrying a bucket of hobo turds.

I’m looking to expand stores so if you’ve got connections I’d sure look at options.

Unfortunately I do not, just wondering

I worked through all my hives the other day. I had to remove the dry sugar setups from winter, pull the mite treatment strips I had on all winter and swap the top and bottom boxes. I did see some of my queens during the inspection and marked hives for strength and checked the volume of the brood to know if the queens were good. I had one hive that wasn't as strong as I would like and another that was mean. I'm going to smash both of those queens and replace them when my shipment of Cordovan queens arrives(or 3 days before).

Why do you flip/swap the boxes? The bottom box typically had brood and honey going into winter. They've eaten the honey and the bees have moved into the top box. That's where the majority of the eggs are being laid and resources are available in the spring. I clean the wax casings and debris from the bottom board and put the top box on the bottom, assuming that's where the queen and eggs are located. I put the bottom box on the top, because the empty cells are inviting to the queen to get busy laying and building up the hive, and their instinct is to work "up".

Things are blooming and the bees are busy. I've been feeding pollen substitute trying to get them built up quicker. I assume around the end of the month I'll make some splits, and will use the new queens i have coming on as many as I can.

Over the winter and spring, I told myself I wasn't going to do cutouts this year...too much work, too much risk of bringing in disease or mites. I made it all the way to April 11 before I caved and agreed to do a hive removal from a well pump house. I need the bees and I can get these from the ground. Other than snakes and electric wires near water, and bees, what could go wrong? It'll make good content to share here and other places I guess.

I'll try to get some videos of swarm captures and the cutout stuff to share soon.


Also, for my spring mite treatments, I purchased and am going to be trying Formic Pro for the first time. It's pretty nasty stuff and will kill the grass in front of the hives, but it will nuke those mite bastards.

We're in the thick of it now so it's time for an update. If I have time, I'll put together some clips from my queen installs that some might find interesting.

So far this season I have:
1. made some walk away-splits.
2. Made some splits from my hives with queen cells and frames from my strong hives.
3. Made splits with queen cells I purchased from another producer
4. Made 4 splits with Cordovan Italian queens I purchased this week.
5. Captured 1 swarm.
6. Failed to capture 1 swarm because it was already "moving inside" an upper story soffit before I got there.
8. I have swarms caught in 2 of 5 traps that I have out at this time and need non-rainy day to get those home.

7....I did a removal of bees the owner said were mean. They had old bee equipment underneath a deck next to a walk-out basement door. Apparently, bees had moved into the stack of boxes 3-4 years ago, but recently turned very aggressive.

When I arrived there were indeed bees everywhere. They had 4 stacked deep boxes that were bursting at the seems with bees. I was short on daylight, and cracked them apart to find that some boxes had no frames and were full of wild comb, some had 2-3 frames turned the wrong way and were a mess and 1 box with 7 frames. I mean they were FULL. They were heavy and angry bees exploded from rotted spots and gaps when I pulled the boxes apart.

I ended up making 2 stacks of 2, putting them on bottom boards and strapping lids on. These boxes had to weigh 250lbs per set. I struggled to get them into the back of my truck but did get them relocated.

For those of you watching the show for the crashes, this was your lucky day. It Turns out the elastic is bad on the bottom of my bee jacket. I don't know how many got under it when I was in the middle of that, but several. I assume I had 15-20 stingers to remove from my forearms and love handles area and no idea how many "half stings" through my gloves and pants but it was a lot. These bitches were angry.

In their new location, one of the boxes appears to be calm and likely has the queen. The other stack is pretty damn grumpy still and need a queen. I'm deciding if I'm going to get 4 queens, make each of those boxes their own hive with a new queen or just try to make 2.

I'm also picking some nucs up from 3 producers in the next week, so I'll have a big variety of new bee, different types of queens and will have a lot of things to compare and try to figure out what the best plan will be moving forward.

I just wish I had time to do all of the things I need to do.

Thanks for the update. I find this thread interesting despite having ZERO knowledge in anything related to bee keeping whatsoever. Stupid question of the day: how does one go about acquiring a new/additional queen bee? Do the bees somehow decide who is queen and promote from within? Is it a certain kind of bee that one breeds to be queen? Something else entirely?

Is the queen bee hot?

Here in Springfield I’ve received 2 swarm calls, but neither panned out.

Noticed today that one of my swarm traps caught a swarm, so I’m moving that hive back to the house tonight. A whopping 4 blocks.

Talked to a guy who’s been getting 8 swarm calls a day for a few weeks now.

Too much. The slow boat works great for me.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This isn’t stupid at all.

There are a few ways to get a new queen.
1. The bees decide the queen isn’t healthy or producing right. They release a pheromone that tells everyone it’s time to replace her. The build a queen cell that looks like a wax peanut. They add a special enzyme t some pollen and make something called royal jelly. They place that in the cell and then move an egg that is 3 days or younger. When the larva eats that royal jelly, a change happens and it becomes a queen. The queen can live 3_4 years instead of 6~8 weeks. She takes a couple of mating flights, mates with 15~20 drones and returns to the hive. This same process happens if the queen is killed with young eggs available, or when then decide it’s too crowded and want to swarm.

2. You can purchase a mated queen that a producer has tricked the above into happening on a larger scale. It’s pretty impressive to see how it’s done.

3. You can find queen cells in a healthy hive and place those into the hive in need. The first one to hatch hunts down the other cells and kills the competition. You can also purchase queen cells from producers which I also did this last week.

4. You can do a walk away split with 3 frames of bees and larva and the bees will make a queen with method 1.

I assume you’re talking about the angry hive I obtained Sunday.

I think there are 3 likely causes.
1. The queen is a bitch.
2. Varroa mite infestation has them bitchy, but the hive was strong enough I don’t think that’s it this time.
3. Something was irritating them. Likely a skunk was scratching at the entrance, annoying the bees and then eating them when they came out. This will make a hive mean and that’s my best guess.

I worked through some of my hives today and didn’t have time to get to those….tomorrow.

Lesson of the day. Today I checked the hives I added queens and cells to last week. I found 2 of the cordovan queens weren’t released yet…bees hadn’t chewed through the sugar cork to let them out. I used a small stick to push the plug into the cage…I saw worker bees get in, so that one will be out.

I was afraid I was going to smash or stab or injure the queen on that one, so on the last one I decided to pull a staple and open the screen to let that one out. As soon as I pulled it back, she jetted into the sky and flew away before I could do anything. A $35 queen just flew off and is probably gone. It’s possible she comes back but doubtful. I’ll check tomorrow. So dump. Should have known better.

I’m picking up 6~7 nuc boxes of bees Wednesday and will set those hives up.

Today I have a handful that are close to needing honey supers. By next week, we will be making honey to sell.

I'll never claim to be a good video maker, but here are some short clips I pasted together of a queen install.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://rumble.com/embed/v2l3898/?pub=14uowq" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</iframe>


Also, the angry bees mentioned above, were still very unkind yesterday when I worked on their situation. Now they can sit inside in the rain all day with formic-pro cooking the mites off of them and think about what they've done. If this doesn't work, I'm going to have to figure out how to find the queen in those messed up boxes and smash her and replace. Not dealing with bees as aggressive as these are.

This is a great thread

Did the bitch queen abdicate for good, or is she back?

I checked the hives with new queens last night.
1. the queen that flew to the moon, stayed there because she didn't come back. That's $35 oops and now they don't have a queen, so I'll have to solve that.
2. I did see a queen in one of my queen cell splits so that was a nice find.
3. the second purchased queen that wasn't quite released the other day, was still in the queen cage and it was full to capacity with workers. I don't know what to make of it, but there were a ton of bees on the cage. I ended up pulling the staple on the screen to let her out and it looked like the bees balled up on her. I couldn't tell if they were just so starved for a queen they were excited to see her, or if there is indeed another queen in there and they were trying to kill her. I puffed some smoke on them and they got off of her and I saw her run down into the box. I'll check again in a few days and see if she lived and is laying or if I wasted another queen.

I'm picking up 6 nuc(boxes with 5 frames that include a laying queen and some resources) that I'll install Wednesday. Maybe I'll take some video clips of that stuff so people can see it if they want to.

It's busy so more items to update.

I purchased some more Nucs and picked those up and got them into the yards Monday.

The "mean bees" seem to be a little nicer...not nice, but nicer since my treatment with formic pro. It's nasty stuff. I'm still watching and trying to figure out what to do with those hives.

I got a swarm Friday that was about 25 feet up a tree. It was pretty sketchy and I had to climb a ladder that wasn't quite tall enough, hand saw the limb, finish breaking it off without shaking the bees off the branch and carry them down the ladder to shake them into the box. All was going to plan, until the branch broke loose...and the ladder slipped and I was standing on a ladder that had 1 leg hanging on 1 branch, and my right arm was holding a branch with 15-20k bees. After pondering my options I decided to risk letting them ride to the ground and land on me if I lawn-darted myself onto the concrete. It was near a post office and a small crowd gathered and was videoing the event. The ladder wiggled a lot, but I managed to get to the ground without the ladder kicking out and shook them into a box without incident. Only me and the person who does my laundry know how close that was to disaster. Someone sent me a video of that, and while it's not perfect, my girls are making a "dumb ways to die" tik tak from that video. appropriate.

Last night, i got a call about 7:15. I was half an hour away but there was a large swarm in a tree at a rental property with a person allergic to bees living there. I hauled ass(the total speed limit officer) and got home, gathered a box and Mrs Iowanian and went to town to get them.

This closing chapter is where you wish there was a video....

It turned out they were 12-14' in the air, not 6-7'....it was close to dark. They were in a maple tree, so I was able to get a branch, pull it down, grab a higher branch, pull it down repeat. The plan was to grab the branch with the bees, cut it off and then do what I do. The plan worked great, right up until I had grabbed the final branch below the one with the bees and it broke off, sling shotting the branch and shaking off a large amount of bees into the air. I wasn't in a suit and I'd say it would be fair to suggest that 500-1000 landed on me. They weren't happy and I ended up getting 10-15 stings on my forehead and forearms and legs. I'll confess, I didn't keep my cool on that and danced around like a girl afraid of a snake. It could have been a lot worse.

After that, I put on my suit, had the Mrs put on a suit and went through the process again, cut the branch and shook a huge swarm into a box and took it to the quarantine yard just before dark.

I'm not sure of the total number I have now, but we're nearing 30 for sure. I do have honey supers on 4-5 hives and will add more later in the week. We're making honey now boys and girls.

I did my splits about three weeks ago. Did the walking method and moved two brood frames, the queen, and a few nectar frames to the nuc boxes and will let the old hives make a new queen. I opened them up ten days later and there were 35 queen cells in one hive and 11 in the other. I smashed all but 5 in each hive to spare the new queen from exerting too much energy hunting down and killing the others. So far so good. I'm opening them up next week to place some Formic Pro pads for varroa even though I didn't see any. I've found it's better to treat, mites or no mites, than risk it. Put the first supers on the original hives last week and will add another deep to each of the new hives I installed the nucs into two weeks ago.

A guy showed me a trick I'm going to start using now that you mention queen cells.

Drill a 1" hole in a 2x4 and make a 3 1/2" mark.
Cut a 3.5x3.5 square of 1/8th hardware cloth.
Lay the square over the hole, punch it through with a dowel rod.

It makes a mesh "cup" that you can put over those cells..and if you get in there when they emerge, you can save some of those virgin queens before they get killed. pull them, mark them, add them to a small nuc for a "reserve" queen. I'm going to start doing this, but didn't see any cells when I went through hives yesterday.

I wish you were closer...I'd love to have a frame of that many cells. that's awesome.

This is the first year I've used formic pro and I'm putting it on every single swarm I catch. My hives and the nucs I'm buying have been treated. The way it smells, I feel like I'm putting a nuclear waste patty in the hives, and the bees react like you just showed them a photo of their mama naked...they hate it.

Today has been a banger.

I got a call last night that there was a bee swarm on the local HS baseball field. I went and got it this morning, super simple.

I went to work for a couple of hours, phone rang with a swarm in town...left to go get my stuff and while I was loading it, 2 more calls came in.

The second was about 15' above the ground on an oak limb that was probably a foot around, so it couldn't be shaken. I had purchased a telescoping pole, and cut the top off of a 5 gallon water cooler jug, duct taped it on there and used it to scoop the bees off the swarm and dump them into a box. After about 3 tries I had about 75% of the bees, but they weren't happy with my method. within half an hour-45 minutes, the rest of the bees had joined them in the box.

The third was a simple shake into a box.

The last one is about 30' up a cedar tree at a local cemetery. I considered some sketchy ideas including climbing the tree and cutting the limb, extending a ladder and trying to use the bee pole mentioned above, but it was so bushy around them I didn't think it would work. I decided to bait a deep super with some old comb(and 7 new) and some lemon grass oil and put it on a taller headstone a few yards away. When I left, there were already quite a few bees exploring it, so I'm hoping to go back later and find them all in a box, so I can duct tape the entrance and get them out of there before memorial day traffic.

banger of a day, and only 1 sting....on the buttock.

Oh, and the mean bees I collected a couple of weeks ago....definitely still the devil and soon those queens are gonna DIE between my thumb and finger. I hate those bees.

I do most of my swarm captures using bait hives. Caught three so far, but one is very very small.

Someone alerted me to a hanging swarm yesterday and it was one of those “falling off a log” easy ones.

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0e2X...J70EvhOpIBHRcg


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

ROFL

I love you man.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DguZvOuW0AAbmzI.jpg

We're having a drought this year that seems to be slowing down production pretty badly right now.

Overall, my bees are healthy and doing ok, but I think I'm seeing a trend. The hives I treated with Formic Pro are really slowed down from where they were performing. I've heard from another place that they see a slow down in production and say it's very hard on queens. I'm not certain how much I'll use it, outside of high mite loads this fall. Not sure.

The 2 hives that had been super mean, seem to have calmed down and they're definitely making honey now. I'm still skeptical of their behavior but 2 trips in a row to check them, they haven't tried to make me die.

I'm exploring a couple of new products to make, and I purchased some propalis traps. I think that will sell for a good value and it's a way to get a sellable product out of hives that might not produce enough honey to pay their rent this year.

Hopefully a good rain comes soon and kicks the honey flow back into gear or it's going to be yet again, another learning year.

The drought is in your part of the world? I knew it was dry further north but I didn’t realize it was down there.

You know I’m firmly in the **** drought camp.

If your bees are at all dependent on clover fields, they're ****ed this year. It's been absolutely terrible and if it doesn't rain soon, there won't be a second cutting bloom.

The drought monitor map is a good 2-3 weeks behind on how fast we're drying out. The silage corn was rolling at 10 am this morning.

**** me. You’re dry too?

I’m sorry man. Drought is the ****ing worst.

What stage is your silage corn?

Down there? Does Iowanian not live in....Iowa?

He lives in Iowa. The part of the drought I've read about is in the northern cornbelt. I wouldn't call where he lives the northern cornbelt.

There is a pretty big ass are of the highest producing ground in the nation that is in a substantial drought. And it (probably - I can't ever remember when they tassel) getting crunch time for corn. Beans are salvageable yet, but we all play the farming game, but the cornbelt drives the boat.

NWS drought monitor:

https://www.climate.gov/maps-data/da...rought-monitor

On a different note. Drought is such a strange word. Easily rolls off the tongue but spelled so weird.

For that matter, so is tounge.

I'd call it V7 or a little more depending on where you are in the field. There are no brace roots yet.

Our conservation department is howling the "water your trees" siren. The vineyard across from my clover fields has cracks in it you can almost drop a chain down. I told the idiot he was at least a month behind on water and he's just now opening the tap. He appears to be better at drinking wine than making it.

Barf. Sucks man. Silage for your cows? You going to find roughage? Maybe if everyone’s corn burns up you’ll get plenty.

I’ll say it again. Droughts are the worst.

Small group of steers to finish in the feed lot and the cow herd. Unless it doesn't rain at all, I should be ok as I planted more than usual. Just won't really know how things will pencil out until insurance and .gov settles up and I see just how much corn isn't in the silage. First cutting hay here brought in 40% of normal and it's like that in a large chunk of the state. The guys without a silage crop in their operation who normally buy all their hay are going to be in a bind. At least the markets are making it a good time for them to scale back or quit.

Lol. Yeah I accidentally took a whiff of it and holy shit. Temoved The pads a week later, and I didn’t seem to be any issues with dead bees or anything like that. I’ve now added my second super to all the hives, and they seem to be doing well

77 mph wind knocked over one of my hives. Suited up to put it back together. They were super pissed off. No amount of smoke calmed them. I got it put back together and only got stung six times, lol. Hoping they will be ✅

"only" stung 6 times

I finished processing the 2023 honey crop.

This year I did a lot of testing and I think I'm learning some things. I ran 2 yards, one had 10 hives, the other had up to 25, but we've lost 7 of those so far this summer. Due to last year's losses, all by 7-9(can't remember) were new. These were spits, swarms, purchased nucs from varies bee suppliers. I tested Italian Cordovan queens(dismal failure) saskatraz, some others as well. I split all of them up between both yards and tried to place each producer, my own and queen options together. It was an odd year and I'm not sure what to think on some, because no supplier really dominated. Each had 1-2 hives that were very good, some that were average and lost/failed one.

I also purchased a simple harmony farms uncapper that was about $400 to try. You'll see it in the video I'm going to post. It definitely was much faster in the uncapping process, but I had so much small wax in the honey that it constantly plugged the filter when I was bucketing it. Next year, I'll add another layer of strainer to catch more of the wax earlier in the process but overall it was ok. Doesn't work well on thick comb, doesn't work well on thin comb. My recommendation is in the air until i've used it more.

Results...as always I'm not happy because I have higher expectations. the 10 hive yard was within 40lbs of the 25 hive yard(home). I'll have about 60 frames of comb honey as well as the raw.

I still have mite treatments and I think I'm going to start 1 yard with formic pro and then finish with OA vapor. The other I think I'll just do OA and see what happens. To save time, I think I'm going to splurge and purchase a lorab battery vaporizer which is about $500 but if it saves me 2-3hrs per treatment and i have to do 4-5 treatments this fall and more in the summer, it's worth it in reclaiming my time.

I tried to put together a short video of the process. I know I'm not good at this but i think it shows you a lot of the process.

<iframe class="rumble" width="640" height="360" src="https://rumble.com/embed/v36viz2/?pub=14uowq" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Im jealous of you extractor. Im only at 4 hives. If i keep growing, just maybe Ill splurge.

My extractor is an old 20 frame beast. Every time I turn it on I wonder if it’s a belt breaking or a bearing giving out in my future but so far it was a good investment. I’m doing 200-300 frames and I’m just not doing that with a 2-3 frame hand crank.

I’ve considered letting people rent my room to spin their honey….but by the time I’m done with mine I hate the thought of doing another frame.

I’ve decided to relocate my home hive to a higher ridge and face the hives south based on the production at my second yard this year. Being low in a bowl and a tree line a guy suggested the temperature stays lower down there in the. Owning and they’re in shade from the tree line after 430….so I’m losing production on both ends of the day. I buy that argument enough to try the change.

Your story of wind blowing them over is a concern though.

We've discussed in this thread the Thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.

In this installment, I'm going to present to you a tool I purchased that I only regret not purchasing a year ago. $500 seemed like a ton of money for an O-Acid Vaporizer when I had a $40 aluminum block on a stick with a glow plug to heat it. I've been doing some things to recover my time lately as I've determined my time has value.

I purchased the Lorab 18v vaporizer to hopefully speed up my Oxalic Acid treatments for varroa mites. It is AWESOME.

You drill a 1/4" hole into the back side of the hives, turn this on until it reads the appropriate temp. It has a plunger that you set the grams of desired treatment, you insert that into the vaporizer, stick the tube into the hole you drilled into the hive, hit the plunger and in 1.5 minutes....it's vaporized. You do place a towel or a cover over the entrance for 10 minutes....but I did all of my hives in about 2hrs. If I do 5 treatments, and save 2-3hrs per treatment...that's 10-15hrs of my time recovered in the fall and a couple of treatments in the spring.

I couldn't see this being worth the expense if I had 3-4 hives....but when you get over 10, it's a no brainer for me. It's awesome.

Now....I've been trying alterate methods as well. I used Formic Pro on one yard. I had 10 good hives when I started treatment with the Formic pro....and as of last night (2) had absconded...I have a friend who lost 6 queens or absconded hives out of 30.

In short, it might be really effective at killing mites....but that shit is hard on queens and bees hate it enough to leave. Going forward, I'll only be using that stuff on sick hives where I feel drastic measures are needed.

Now. the body count. So far, I've now lost 9 hives. That's too many dead bees for the end of summer. I'll do everything I can to get them ready for winter.

I'm also working on some new products...herbal remedy honey(infused with herbs for medicinal purposes) and also am looking at some new creamed honey flavors to include aronia and elderberry to target those health aware markets and make those berries palletable with the power of honey.

Mite treatments are done, it's about time for me to add spacers to the top of my hives so I can add dry sugar. As mentioned before, I choose dry sugar for 2 reasons. It absorbs moisture and hopefully reduces potential condensation, and it provides an emergency source of carbohydrates in the winter if they bees run low on resources.

I've been working on 2-3 new products. Recently I obtained some aronia berries and freeze dried, powered them and a working on some aronia berry honey products. Aronia is a super food people take for health benefits, but they don't taste very good, so I'm trying to fix that. So far, initial reviews are very positive in product testing in the area. I've been infusing some ghost peppers into honey to make a "hot honey" product and initial reaction to that has been surprisingly positive. I also started working with a certified herbalist a little bit and am looking at infusing herbs into honey for a "holistic" product niche market for hippies who want to buy a value added product.

Bump

How do you and they handle the snow and cold????

There isn’t anything I can do at this point. We have deep snow cold temps and roaring wind. I’m glad for my choices of trees blocking wind from the north.


if they’re healthy and have enough honey and supplemental sugar they will be ok. They will cluster around the queen and keep that ball temp in the low 90s. The problem would be if it stays this cold for a week or two and thy can move the cluster.

When weather breaks I’ll go dust the snow piles away from the entrances so they can get out if they need to.

On the upside when you inspect the healthy hives will usually have the entrance melted open from that interior temp. Unless it’s piled that’s a sign.

If it warms up to the 40s this month I’ll go crack lids and dump some additional dry sugar on them. Other than that…wait until spring, count the dead then….order bees and queens now and consider product development.

Raw honey helps me with my allergies. Lived all but 3 years of my life in Iowa. And the ear-nose-throat specialist have said since I was a kid that you should live in a different climate lmao.

Also helps me keep my blood sugar even keel. That and apple cider vinegar both help. And the honey helps with the bitterness of acv. I drink it hot warm or room temp in a quick made tea. Grab a glass and put lemon in water acv and raw Iowa honey. That’s a good once maybe twice a day drink I like. With cold or sinus congestion chest congestion etc. I use those 3 ingredients plus Himalayan/pink salt. Has a bunch of trace minerals in it. The only salt I use for anything. So water lemon acv raw honey Himalayan salt and thyme. Thyme opens the congested head or chest and breaks that shit up. Recently had what felt like a sinus infection with bronchitis on top of it for almost 3 weeks. Didn’t go to dr because everything was going around. The cvid both a & b flu strep sinus infections galore even walking pneumonia. It wasn’t a miracle cure but it does help. Quite a bit for me. Doesn’t replace antibiotics if you need them so use your own judgement. I buy the stuff 3 lbs at a time and now I’m going 5 lbs. last purchase was $9 per pound but that included shipping as it was 45 total for a 5 lbs jar. But it is much better than corporate store bought shit. And reading bits and pieces of this thread over the years you can see why with how much actually goes into it as far as how it’s worth the price. Iowanian if you got a website send me a pm and link. Don’t know how much you sell or if you sell directly or to a local or eBay. If you sell on Facebook I’m SOL as I’ve never had an account

I'll be eager to jump in line when the time comes.
The wife is from the Cali desert and every year her allergies get worse.

I'm also heavy into supplements and doing whatever I can to avoid prescription meds. I was able to get through my covid stretch with mullen, mushroom powders, and soups with herbs that have antiviral properties.

Never had a sinus or lung infection but had actual physical pain in all my joints and sense of smell and taste were off. I already had some kratom for the pains and aches so really only had a gross sense of smell and taste.