I have horizontal hives. With extra insulation on top. I finally have a hive that are native and not purchased. They are a bit meaner but are hardy as hell. My goal is to put out more hives and let native bees infest them. Time to tarp and strap the hives. I leave just enough space for them to get out. I use canvas tarps so they breathe in the winter.
I no longer use any chemicals in my hives, nor do I feed my bees. I do make sure they have ample water and that’s it.

I was too busy to post about bees this year….and too busy to take care of them in reality.

This fall, the state apiary guys put out word to expect to get wiped out…colony collapse pending…with multiple factors….timing of wet fall made treatment for mites tough…late, warm fall with large clusters of busy bees using winter resources…..

They weren’t wrong. 75% of my hives are already dead.

That’s about 3 years in a row when I’ve been completely kicked in the stinger with dead bees and starting over. With changes in job and a personal issue, this is the first year I’m not certain what I’m going to do. I’ve managed to build a name in the area, I’ve developed a couple of products that are selling well….but the time and expense of starting over every year, hard work and low profit margins…..

Bee keeping more than small hobby level is not for the weak of heart…that I can tell you.

I’ll always have some hives at least for friends and family but I’m not positive what I’m going to do with the store level part of this going forward. Bee keeping is about as humbling as anything you can do.

that sucks

Any of the beekeepers also raise chickens? Given the state of egg prices, I'd be interested in a Chicken Keepers Diary thread, but not sure it would gain steam.

Ideally I'd like two chickens though being a suburbanite, I don't know how practical it really is.

I’ve had chickens…got out a year or so ago….ill be getting back into the chickens this spring.

I’m sure free range chickens help some, but I’ve heard more than one person who have Guinea fowl roaming because they help control small hive beetles.

We had chickens for a while. It's a lot of work.

You just need a youtube channel, way more hives, and an unpaid intern from the local ag school. It doesn't even have to be profitable after the subscriber clicks take over.

That's how all the "experts" became the online expert in their niche.

Meh. If you want to run chickens, run chickens. But the people that I know that run chickens have way more money in the chickens than they would buying eggs. And a few of them are trying to do it on the cheap.

If you need a hobby fine, fire away. They're pretty easy if you can keep predators out. If you think you can save money on eggs, save money somewhere else. Livestock ain't it.

*** I may be unduly sensitive about the thing because I have a person in my life that blathers on about how they don't have to buy eggs and they're feeding their family and all this shit. And frankly I get sick of hearing about it.

Guineas make me laugh. Somehow they always hang out on the highways and roads and don't get ****ed up. The people that have them say they have them to eat snakes.

You just look at those things and you can see in their eyes they give no ****s.

That sounds like an old girlfriend we all once had

Back in the day the city of independence informed my uncle he had to get rid of all his stripper girlfriend's zoo animals because they were disturbing the neighbors... so we inherited half a dozen of them and some other weird shit.

We were raising rabbits, broilers, and eggs at the time so they were kind of cool at first because they acted like a guard dog and would scream and yell when any predator got near. Our snake problem under the layer house went away after we got them, but they didn't seem to keep the mice or rats at bay once the snakes were gone. The whole yard was completely void of bugs as long as they were around and we lived right across the road from a tick infested timber.

They weren't as bad as turkeys can be, but they were mean as hell in their own way. You had to be damn good to get one with the 4 wheeler without crashing. I shot one of the screaming bastards off the peak of the roof of the house one time and the damn thing didn't even die when it bounced into the front yard. He never stood up there and screamed above my bedroom window again though.

ROFL

I heard this on the radio this am. The butterflies are also disappearing.

Butterfly populations declining rapidly in U.S. with 22% disappearing in 2 decades, study finds


Butterfly populations declining rapidly in U.S. with 22% disappearing in 2 decades, study finds
By Sarah Metz

Updated on: March 6, 2025 / 8:35 PM EST / CBS News

Butterflies, known for their beauty and vital role in pollination, are vanishing from U.S. landscapes at an alarming rate. A comprehensive study, published Thursday in the journal Science, found that 22% of butterflies in the United States disappeared between 2000 and 2020.

The new research offers a stark warning about the potential future of these cherished insects.

"Losing one out of every five butterflies over 20 years should be a big wake-up call to people," said Dr. Eliza Grames, an assistant professor of biological sciences at Binghamton University and co-author of the study. "These declines are not stopping."

While butterflies are the most extensively monitored insect group in the U.S., most past studies have been limited by geography or focused on specific species, a news release on the study said. The researchers behind the Science study used data from more than 12.6 million butterflies spanning 342 individual species, drawing from 76,000 surveys across 35 nationwide monitoring programs.


https://www.cbsnews.com/news/butterf...science-study/

I think I am done. Between minus 30 wind chills and all of the ag chemicals and the diseases and mites and every damn thin else they don't stand a chance.

Bee keeping is not for the weak. It’s very humbling.

But….guys like you wizard are helping keep them going.

I’m not going to quit,…I’m just frustrated.

Do you even have any flowers around down there?

Lots of alfalfa. Unfortunately it is constantly sprayed with insecticide and roundup which slowly eliminates breeding. Pollinators a slowly dying out. Not sure where it will all end up

I have decided that I am going rouge. Going to move all my empty hives to various spots away from farming. Gonna make 30 gallon waterers an out 2 in each secret place. Visit once a month and see if the bees naturally find them. Sick of buying them and watching them die.

:(

Shits gonna break if you lose 80 % of anything. Much less the bees.

Hundreds of millions of bees mysteriously dying

The beekeeping industry is in crisis over the shocking and unexplained deaths of hundreds of millions of bees over the last eight months. It could impact all of the U.S., as bees are responsible for pollinating over a third of the nation's crops. Janet Shamlian has the story.
Mar 29, 2025

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Millions of bees have died this year. <br><br>It&#39;s &quot;the worst bee loss in recorded history,&quot; one beekeeper says: <a href="https://t.co/t9KT2VFGMC">https://t.co/t9KT2VFGMC</a></p>&mdash; CBS News (@CBSNews) <a href="https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/1906043679782862908?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 29, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/hundre...riously-dying/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...hs-record-high

It’s been a blood bath for a lot of producers but not all. I have a friend 20 miles away that had 90% survival this winter. I had 6 colonies survive the winter after a high of 35 last year. I’m going to go spend some time figuring out what he did differently.


I have 6, and drug home a lot of a tree knocked down in a storm a couple of weeks ago. Now that things are blooming I’ll find time to open that log up and move them to a manageable hive and maybe split into 2.

I was down, but I’m over it regrouped with a plan. When I see drones, I’m going to make as many splits as I can and build up to a number of hives I can manage well in limited time.

I went and looked at 2 places I planned to do cutout removals for free bees,.those wild colonies were dead too which is concerning.

One thing bee keepers are foot at, is making new bees. This is a setback….but building back from surviving stock should result in stronger bees

Iowanian
I find your bee keeping stories very interesting, please give us updates when you have time, Hopefully in the future I will have the time and motivation to try my own hand at bee keeping. thanks.

I lost two of my three hives. Weird. One of them was full of dead bees. The other was completely empty of anything at all. The third looks great and I just put my first super on it this past weekend to take advantage of the early blooming pears and dandylions. I might just stick to the one hive unless it gets way too crowded.

Are there bee autopsies? like....different things you can test to see why they died?

Should not have been too cold this year. I would guess fungus/disease.

Thanks.

I’ll try to make time to video any cutouts or swarm captures I do this year….if I have an assistant. Maybe I’ll get a go pro or something. If you’re interested I’ll keep sharing.

You can do it….i just recommend you attend a bee keeping class and or get a great mentor to get you going.

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Well, I got my first swarm call of the year today and happened to be back in town. I need a lot of these to replace losses, but I earned this one.

For those waiting to see me get my ass kicked s little bit, today is your lucky day. Took a couple of shots to the hand, one on top of my head and 2-3 right under my right eye. I look like an abused spouse right now.

Enjoy.

In other news, I’ve been ramping up the hot honey production….and due to requests, I’m making an extra hot batch right now. I’m using about 30 habaneros per gallon, and I’m going to put a dried Carolina reaper in each jar of that and leave it like a tequila worm.

So I post what you’ve all been waiting for since 2017….where I finally get my ass kicked on video…and silence.

I enjoyed it!

I’m not sure I could eat that much shit and go back for more.

Well if I did I might wear gloves and a bee protection. Iowanian is the Alex Honnold of bee keeping.

If I were smarter I would have due to weather conditions. I’ve gotten beat up a couple of times getting swarms but not usually. Besides it makes better videos when you’re in a t shirt like the real ones

I think the total was 6 stings, but the two under my eye had me lumped up like an abused spouse. The next day I had a doctor thing and that was a question they asked…..I just scratched my lumped eye and looked down. They knew better but I thought it was funny and that’s all that matters.



That said, I’m using suits more now. I am going to do a video stinging myself in the knee a few times on purpose soon….to see how it helps my aching joint. If I do t scream like a horror movie shower scene I’ll share that too

One thing about beekeepers, is they can't stop talking about beekeeping.

My buddy is one out in Grain Valley MO, has around 20 hives/boxes, and if I ask him anything about it, it turns into a long drawn out 2hr long story. Don't wanna be rude but stfu already lol.

Seems like a lot lighter damage than I would have expected based on what you were doing. Well done.

Have heard that people in the beekeeper industry are losing their asses right now. Massive unsustainable die offs and bankruptcies across the board.

A lot of bee keepers, including some of the huge 30k hive types lost close to 80% of their hives this winter. That’s why I’m hustling to get any swarms that come my way, rain or shine, suit or no suit.

Como is right though, bee discussions are trains. Once they get started it’s hard to stop.
I do use it as an ice breaker slot for business because people are usually interested. Once on an airplane, I taught 10 Chinese men who spoke no English when I spoke to some of them….one sees me watching videos of hive cutouts, and boom. They all speak English and surround me asking questions for a couple of hours.


Some have shown interest that I keep posting my story, or I’d be perfectly happy to keep it to myself.

Just know that you’re not alone
 

On this front….i just enrolled all of my hay ground into a pollinator program for planting this fall. I upgraded to the monarch butterfly program. The seed is expensive as hell but it should look pretty cool around here surrounded by fields of flowers all year except winter. The butterflies won’t hurt my sisters photo taking business….and I’m hoping my bees will produce a couple of hundred extra pounds of honey having that Buffett all around them.


#deplorable as hell but doing more hippy earth shit than the hippies talking about earth shit

I don't care what they tell you, do not spread some of those seeds unless you want narrow strips of weeds and flowers instead of even fields of weeds and flowers. I had golden strips of what looked like the drunken yellow brick road to nowhere from above.

A lot of the flowers go away after the first year or two as well. Red clover thrown on the last snow makes for an easy replacement from then on.