The bee keeper diaries

[redfan]

Both of the hives have made it through the winter and seem to be strong. They have been bringing in tons of pollen, so brood production if well under way. They love the water station I've set up about 20' from the hives. It's fun to sit there and watch them drink.
We've had days where the bees have been in full gather mode with some nice warm days, although it's been kinda chillish and wet for the last few days.

I pulled the windbreak on the 21st, and flipped the reducer to the 3" entrance a few days before that. I'd been having a little trouble with condensation in the right side hive, so hopefully with the increased ventilation it won't be an issue.

I plan on getting a couple of new queens and do at least 2 splits. I'm getting some hybrid queens called mite-maulers, but they won't be ready until May 1.
I'm set up for 3 more potential swarms/trapouts, and could probably scrounge up a couple more in a pinch.

edit:
I'm preparing half an acre for some bee forage, right in front of the hives. It's mostly sainfoin, with some other nectar bearing flowers mixed in.

[Buehler445]

Keep posting Iowanian.

[srvy]

Love the beekeeping diary. Keep them up hopefully.

[redfan]

Damn you, Groves!!
I've just spent the last couple of hours researching Warre' hives, and now I want to try it out. Shit man, my wife is gonna kill me (again).
Damnation dude, I was happy in my little Langstroth world. **** me

[Groves]

Originally Posted by redhed

Damn you, Groves!!
I've just spent the last couple of hours researching Warre' hives, and now I want to try it out. Shit man, my wife is gonna kill me (again).
Damnation dude, I was happy in my little Langstroth world. **** me

If you want to avoid death-by-wife, you can always just run some langstroth boxes in the warre method: Nadiring, no excluder, etc.

[ptlyon]

Originally Posted by Groves

If you want to avoid death-by-wife, you can always just run some langstroth boxes in the warre method: Nadiring, no excluder, etc.

Exactly. Whatever he said.

[redfan]

Originally Posted by Groves

If you want to avoid death-by-wife, you can always just run some langstroth boxes in the warre method: Nadiring, no excluder, etc.

I don't use excluders, so I think I might try that. I'm not spending $300 to buy new and making one isn't really feasible time-wise for me.

[Iowanian]

Near miss to start bee season.


I've been doing some burning this spring(CRP, Field edges, timbers) and last night decided to burn my timber to kill off some of the thorns and honey suckle. I was doing it alone but thought i should be pretty good as one neighbor had burned and had a mowed path, one side a pasture and I had burned quite a bit across the creek and a steep ravine.

Short version, I lit the timber and then went to the area i needed to control to keep the fire off of a neighbor property and worked on a back burn. My timber has a lot of dead and dry sticks and undergrowth that needed to go away to make it a healthier habitat.

A couple of hours into the burn I was getting pretty close to being done as the back burn fire and main line were about to merge in most areas, but had another area it had burned up a ditch and started so I put that out....but realized I was out of water. I was zig zagging through the trees and brush and noticed a tree had burned across the ditch and started on the other side of the creek and the fire was about 20-30 yards from my bee hives.

I had to drive about a half mile around through a neighbor to get more water and hauled ass down and put the fire out about 30-40' from my hives. I was "that close" to killing off the bees that hadn't died already, and based on activity I'm not sure one more of them hadn't died in the latest cold snap.

A lot of people are picking up the "packages(2-3lbs of bees)" this week....so bee season is here.

I've looked at a couple of trees to do cutouts already and now that dandilions are blooming I'll probably start doing some of those before swarms get hot and heavy towards the end of May. Should have some pics to share in the next couple of weeks.

[Iowanian]

I'm getting geared and ramped up for bee swarm apocalypse. We need to catch a lot of swarms so I hope the calls roll in.

I've been through my equipment, my remaining hives have been gone through and I've found my queens and so far so good.

I had 4 trees identified for cutouts. Two died over the winter, one that I looked at with an endopscope 3 weeks ago is gone and I went to cut one out at a cemetery and the mower guy had sprayed the hive and blocked the entrance with a rock and mud. If he'd have waited 2-3 days I'd have had them out.

On the bright side, I got a call last night asking me to go look at a dead walnut tree full of bees. Further investigation reveals that it is very likely next to the house of THE most insane woman in 7 counties. I once saw her eat a live, mud covered crawdad out of a bucket like a snickers bar. That could be interesting if I follow through.

Next three weeks should be more exciting in this thread if I'm lucky.

[Hog's Gone Fishin]

Originally Posted by Iowanian

I'm getting geared and ramped up for bee swarm apocalypse. We need to catch a lot of swarms so I hope the calls roll in.

I've been through my equipment, my remaining hives have been gone through and I've found my queens and so far so good.

I had 4 trees identified for cutouts. Two died over the winter, one that I looked at with an endopscope 3 weeks ago is gone and I went to cut one out at a cemetery and the mower guy had sprayed the hive and blocked the entrance with a rock and mud. If he'd have waited 2-3 days I'd have had them out.

On the bright side, I got a call last night asking me to go look at a dead walnut tree full of bees. Further investigation reveals that it is very likely next to the house of THE most insane woman in 7 counties. I once saw her eat a live, mud covered crawdad out of a bucket like a snickers bar. That could be interesting if I follow through.

Next three weeks should be more exciting in this thread if I'm lucky.

Holy Shit!

[Iowanian]

Today I needed a break from reality so my pal and I did a bee cutout. Actual,y 2 hives about 10' apart. They were 6' or lower so we could do the, from the ground and the owner was going to remodel so we didn't have gen have to put it back together again.

It went really well and took a total of 2.5hrs for both removals.

The best part, I found and caught BOTH queens. That is the tricky part of cutouts. No queen and they might fly off.

Sting total on the year: 3.
Fault: mine. Removed glove to take pics for you.


I will add pics here when I have time to convert them.

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by Iowanian

Today I needed a break from reality so my pal and I did a bee cutout. Actual,y 2 hives about 10' apart. They were 6' or lower so we could do the, from the ground and the owner was going to remodel so we didn't have gen have to put it back together again.

It went really well and took a total of 2.5hrs for both removals.

The best part, I found and caught BOTH queens. That is the tricky part of cutouts. No queen and they might fly off.

Sting total on the year: 3.
Fault: mine. Removed glove to take pics for you.


I will add pics here when I have time to convert them.

Good work. I killed off a half acre of grass to plant a pollenator strip. It probably wont grow.

[Iowanian]

Here are a few pics from today's two cutouts.

[redfan]

When last we left our intrepid apiarist, he(me) was patting himself on the back for successfully wintering 2 hives started from packages. The boxes were heavy, and presumably had enough honey to last until the early spring blooms started. Mother Nature and the Seasons had a different plan.
I don't know how the late Winter/early Spring weather went for the rest of the country, but around here it was pretty screwy. Winter held on for far too long and didn't really seem to want to leave. Consequently, it delayed the early blooms. It seemed everything was late in blooming this spring, white clover in particular.
One fine day in the beginning of April, I went out to the bee yard to check the hives. Much to my dismay, there were piles of dead bees in front of the hives. Thousands and thousands of bees, dead and dying on the ground. I pop the lids, same story: giant wads of dead bees on the bottom board. In the frames, clusters of dead bees with their heads in empty cells.
Well GODDAMMIT!! I mean what the ****?!?!? What the hell happened?!?!?! They were doing so good!!

What I've surmised during autopsy:
1. The lingering winter affected the spring bloom, delaying it by a few weeks.
2. There were some warm days, so the bees were active; not in a cluster. When bees are active, they have to eat. They ate all of their winter stores, and had nothing left.
3. Because there weren't any blooms, the bees weren't able to collect nectar to replenish what was consumed.
4. There were a couple of nights/days that were quite cold, we had several freeze warnings this spring. The bees starved then froze to death in their hives.

Whatever the causes, by the time I figured out what was going on, it was too late for one hive. It was a total loss for the best honey producing hive I had last year. Damn y'all, beekeeping ain't much fun when your hives die!! I was really down about the deadout, and thought about just having the one survivor hive this year. No splits, no nucs, and no new packages. Just the one hive and if it dies, it dies. **** this stupid shit, I suck at it anyway.
After spending a coulpa days ruminating about why I'm doing this beekeeping thing, and feeling bad about so many dead bees, I decided to go ahead and see about getting some package hives. Mind you, by now it's the 2nd week of April, and that's getting kinda late to decide. Still, I called up my supplier, and whaddaya know, he's got some packages that I can pick up that day! Okay then, I guess it's meant to be! I'll take 2 Italians, please.

Let's just see what happens this year!
I've already had some (mis)adventures with these package hives, but this post is already too damn long.

[Iowanian]

It's been a rough year for a lot of people I know.

I've also found the lack of swarm calls disturbing and 3 trees with wild bees are empty right now.

I was convinced my lost hives were due to the reasons you mentioned above, though mine were dead in a cluster on top of the frames. I saw something a while back that if your bees are dying on the ground in front of the hive it could be tracheal mites.


My dumbest gaff so far this year is sticking my hand into a glove that a few bees had crawled into while I was taking a pic. Stupid is as stupid does.