Bee Business For Sale!

[jdmidwest]

Not really, but it has been one of those years.  I kicked back and let the bees be themselves, I did not stir them up much this spring.  I let them work and thought they would make honey.  All things were right, I had drawn comb for them to fill.  I did not do splits to cut down their workforce.

Fall and winter losses had me down from a high of 19 hives to 12 going into the spring.  2 hives swarmed at the farm, a neighbor went in and caught them for his apiary that was just starting out saving me an early morning drive.

After the storm on July 6, I notice one of the hives at the house getting robbed out.  Carnage and a mess of dead bees in front of the hive.  I was too busy cleaning up limbs from the wind damage to have time to try to stop it.  Then last week, I noticed another hive getting robbed too, dead bees everywhere. 

Saturday, I suited up and waded in.  It was time to pull the harvest anyway.  Best I can tell on the 2 hives, they swarmed earlier and the replacement queen they made failed, bee numbers fell to point they could not defend then robbed.  I only had 2 hives at house that made honey, don't know what the rest were doing this spring.  6 hives left here.

Sunday, went to farm.  Suited up in the 100 degree temp and waded in.  Hives were healthy, 2 that swarmed did not make honey.  Other 2 made some, but not much.  4 hives there.

Overall harvest will be about 4 gallons, less than last fall.  We had a early wet spring.  Bees started swarming in March, over a month early.  June and early July was dry and nectar plants died off.  So there was not much for them to gather.  Hopefully we will have a good fall so they can store for winter.

I am going to make splits and hopefully build up some hive numbers.  My goal is still 25.  That little hiccup last fall with the surgery had my mind on other things.  My 3 year plan may lead to 5.

[snagged in outlet 3]

I find that fascinating.  I don't fully understand the terminology but it's very cool.

Thanks!

[WHARFRAT]

I have a beekeeper that works for me, and he is always extremely busy throughout the year.  If he is not out working the hives, (or helping someone with their hives), he's out giving talks with his club. 

It is very interesting, he's brought in observation hives, and nothing from the bee's go to waste. 

Unfortunately for me, I'm extremely allergic to bee stings, so I pretty much stay away.

[Flysmallie]

14 minutes ago, snagged in outlet 3 said:

I find that fascinating.  I don't fully understand the terminology but it's very cool.

 

 

Me too. It is very interesting. Plus I love honey.

 

Plans are created to be adjusted jd. As long as you enjoy it that's all that really matters. 

[jdmidwest]

Suited up this afternoon in the nice warm weather to make the splits.  I started taking a hive apart frame by frame and parting it out.  Got down to the second box and found that this hive may be without a queen or she quit laying due to the dry spell last month.  At that time, making new splits came to an end, I need eggs to make new queens.  And by this time the bees were boiling out of what was left of the hive and the boxes all around me.  And I was sweating in the heat.

I put things back together and picked up some of my mess.  I left alot of bees scattered around on the extra hives and frames I had pulled out.  Knowing my luck, the queen is probably on the ground down there somewhere in all of that confusion.  But they were pretty worked up and I started smelling bananas.  That is the alarm bell phermone they release when they really get angry.  First time I smelled that this year.  But third time in without any stings.

Back to drawing board.  Probably down to 5 hives now.  I guess I will just have to buy some queens and do splits that way.  I have just been trying not to introduce any foreign bees into the hives that may be carrying things that mine do not have.  The hives have been pretty pure, they have been created from the original 3 hives I started with and whatever local bees that the queens may have mated with.   But it may be time to bring in some new genetics.  I have not been impressed the past year with their performance.

[Al Agnew]

Bee keeping is pretty cool.  We have a friend out here in Montana that has several hives, and he brought three of them to our place last summer.  Out here you have to build a fence around the hives to keep the bears out, which he did.  Unfortunately, the bee keepers out here have been having a lot of trouble with whatever is killing honeybees, and the hives we had didn't thrive.  One died out completely, one barely survived til autumn, and the third didn't make much honey.  We're afraid that the caretaker at the cemetery next to our place may have sprayed some kind of herbicide that affected the bees, or else the alfalfa growers in the area sprayed something.   Anyway, he decided it would be best to remove the hives from our place, so we don't have any bees this summer.

Mary wanted to watch him as he opened the hives to inspect them last summer, so he brought her a suit when he came to the house.  She wanted me to photograph them, so I stood about 50 feet away and took pictures...until an irate bee flew into my ear and stung the crap out of me.

[jdmidwest]

Bee in the ear sucks. even worse if they get in and buzz around for a while before they sting. 

Herbicides should not be a problem, pesticides do. Many things cause them to die. 

[jdmidwest]

I went back down to the hives today after work to clean up my mess.  I was picking up the frames and boxes I had scattered around and found a big wad of bees on the box I had kicked off the stand.  I opened the top of the hive and gave the box a good shake, dropping a wad of bees that would fill a gallon jug.  I guess the queen was in the wad of bees.  She must have run in the hole in the inner cover and the rest started following her in like the pied piper.

Back to 6 hives now at the house.

[BilletHead]

     Well JD I suppose I should come clean,

The BilletHead is kind of in the bee business. I say kind of because it will be low key and if we end up with any honey it will be for our consumption. I do not know diddly squat about bees but am slowly learning. I really do not need another hobby but I am not too smart sometimes. Here is what I have stumbled into. The guy across the road has a farm. A hunting farm but some crop ground. He has become a pretty good friend. We share trail cam photos and share stories. He likes to raise and hunt big deer, myself now I really don't care just like to still be able to hunt one way or another. He has food plots and the deer he sees I see on this side of the road and vice versa. Win, win but I hope he gets all the big ones he wants.

  Now to the bees. One day he drives and stops right in the middle of the road in front of the house, gets out and i see him in white coveralls. As he comes into the yard I ask hey are you going to spray something ? Nope. Protecting yourself from ticks? Nope he says bee hives. Yep in the back of the truck are two hives. He said I am going to put these next to my clover patches. Neat I said. Then he said you know anything about bees? This time I said nope. Well I have a hive or two at home and I get all the honey I want. Do you want to work and mess with these? Yep I said. These are new colonies and may not get any honey this season. So I got a bees for dummies book. When they filled their main hive box and winters box on top of that. I added a queen extruder and a super. They are real gentle and have only had to give them a little smoke to calm them down.  I have an old rechargeable weed eater and have keep the areas around the hives mowed. They have been fun to mess with and we will see what happens next. No bee in the ear I hope :). One hive is strong with lots of bees and the other has less.

BilletHead

[jdmidwest]

Yeah, a convert.  The Bees for Dummies is a good book, I have read it in pdf.  Lots of others online to read too.  Find a local bee club and attend a few meetings.

Queen excluders are worthless in my opinion.  I never have any brood in my supers when I run 2 deeps.  I added a third deep this year  to the one I just tossed around because it was my only 10 frame hive and did not have another 10 frame super.  I did have some brood in the 3rd deep and the bottom box was empty with small hive beetles running around in it yesterday.  I don't use them.  They are in the pile of stuff I don't use.

Check your brood pattern in the weaker hive and make sure the queen is laying good.  They will probably be fine, hives all have their own personalities.  Don't give them more boxes than they can fill and protect.  If you have the dearth like we have had lately, they are actually using honey now, not storing it.

Its a fun hobby.  Always wear a suit or keep a veil on.  Face stings are the worst.  My foot still bothers me from last summer's sting thru the croc I took one morning.