$30 Dollar Bee

[jdmidwest]

Total wipeout this year.  10 hives lost to winter or something.  Tore into them this March when the weather got warm, mostly small clusters of dead bees with lots of honey to feed them.  When I was thru, I was left with one hive that seemed to be doing well and one with just a handful of bees.  I made a futile attempt to save them, but they failed.

Went to pick up a new fresh hive of bees on Monday.   Rained Tuesday afternoon, so I did not open my other hive.  I opened it yesterday and found the queen had died in it.  Picked up a new queen shown above in the little cage with her attendants and inserted her into the hive.  Hopefully, they will accept her, eat the sugar candy plug out of the end of the cage and release her.  Have 3 days to wait and see, a week or more to see if she has started laying.

 

[BilletHead]

                        Good luck JD,

     That was a tough hit for you this winter. My two long hives over wintered fine. We need to start a bee thread. I have six swarm traps out right now. One of my long hives swarmed here in the yard yesterday. I was home and caught the swarm on a short apple tree. They were around the trunk so i had to piss ant the bees and introduced then into a Layens hive I just finished. Looking good today and with this rainy cold weather I gave them some supplemental feed to get them through this system of weather events. My hive deal is different than your stack hives. Kind of fun and interesting. Might actually get some honey this season. We need bees they are important.  

[jdmidwest]

I have ordered some screen bottoms to give me a better look at mites and beetles in hive.

One keeper lost 45 of 50 this winter.  Commercial keeper that supplies my nice and queens said worst winter loss in long time.

[jdmidwest]

Beekeeping keeps getting tougher.  My new nuc has failed to produce an egg in the last week.  Something had happened to the queen before I picked it up in transport from Mississippi.  Going to pick up another queen tomorrow in the snow.

[oneshot]

Why isn’t there Wild Bees like there use to be? I know use to I knew where several hives were.

Weather has been mild I would think this would easy on them.

oneshot

[fishinwrench]

5 hours ago, oneshot said:

Why isn’t there Wild Bees like there use to be?

Because biologist's phucked it up.  

All bees were wild before they started in with their BS 

[BilletHead]

7 hours ago, oneshot said:

Why isn’t there Wild Bees like there use to be? I know use to I knew where several hives were.

Weather has been mild I would think this would easy on them.

oneshot

                There out there. Feral bees are everywhere. I want feral freebees I have a bee tree in our yard. I have swarm traps near two others in friends yards.   All of my hives new and old have or will have feral bees. Feral bees are more hardy to our weather conditions. The idea of what I am doing bee wise is hives that basically take care of themselves like they do in the wild. 

[jdmidwest]

European Honey bees were brought over on the Mayflower and are not native.  Native bees are smaller and not honey builders.  Or Mason or Bumble Bees which are larger.  Mason bees are a pest, bumble bees are getting scarce.

European Honey bees flourished and spread well.  The swarming from beekeepers kept them going and spreading thru the USA as they moved west.

But, the beekeepers brought mites in and the African Hive Beetles.  The same scourges that plague the beekeeper have spread to the feral bees in the wild.

But they are there.  I have hives out at the farm, but all of my domestic bees died this winter.  The hives are getting picked clean by the swarm hives out of my bees that are out there in the wild now. 

[jdmidwest]

51 minutes ago, BilletHead said:

                There out there. Feral bees are everywhere. I want feral freebees I have a bee tree in our yard. I have swarm traps near two others in friends yards.   All of my hives new and old have or will have feral bees. Feral bees are more hardy to our weather conditions. The idea of what I am doing bee wise is hives that basically take care of themselves like they do in the wild. 

Its a good thought.  But my mind has been changed by the commercial keeper that supplied me with my refresh bees this spring.  Many beekeepers are thinking like us and avoiding the treatment.  Its mites are spreading to the wild and other beekeepers.  His thoughts are we all should treat and maybe make things stronger. 

He also mentioned the genetics and keeping a good genetic profile in your hives.  He has selected his genetics and breeds for mite biting to cripple the pests.  You have to keep bringing a fresh queen into the hive every few years to keep the genetic trait strong in your hives.  If you let them replace the queen naturally and they breed with the local drones, the genetic traits get watered down.  The queen bee only lives for a few years, breeds one time and lays off the sperm till she dies.  They select several of her offspring to be a new queen, it flies out and either breeds with one of the original breed drone males or a feral male of another strain.  The traits change and the genetics break down.  Just like any other livestock breeder, you have to manage your genetics.

I am still going to run without chemicals this year, but am doing stuff to treat the bees naturally against the pests.  I am going to monitor them more and play with them again.  Its pretty easy with only 2 hives again, was a PITA with 10 or more.  Could not even fathom thousands like the commercial keeper.

[oneshot]

20 hours ago, BilletHead said:

                There out there. Feral bees are everywhere. I want feral freebees I have a bee tree in our yard. I have swarm traps near two others in friends yards.   All of my hives new and old have or will have feral bees. Feral bees are more hardy to our weather conditions. The idea of what I am doing bee wise is hives that basically take care of themselves like they do in the wild. 

I guess I don’t get out like I use to.

My Father in Law said he only had 1 hive on the place. Wasn’t long I found 6.

I bought 100 acres. He said there was no way anyone could make a living off 100 acres. I told him how. Oh you don’t want to figure that.

Actually I could make a living off 20 acres just matter how you look at it.

Anyway I wasn’t welcome on their place because I was eating everything.

oneshot