The honeybee thread 2023

[ness]

1 hour ago, BilletHead said:

Ugh thanks a bunch Ness.

I was stricken by two Stage 4 ear worms in the 70's that I still vividly remember. 'Midnight at the Oasis' and 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight'. I hope typing this doesn't trigger something because they were baaaad. C'mon Spooky!

[fishinwrench]

15 minutes ago, ness said:

I hope typing this doesn't trigger something because they were baaaad. C'mon Spooky

Reading it did.   

"Put your camel to bed" ....over & over. 

Thanks for that. 🙄

[ness]

48 minutes ago, fishinwrench said:

Reading it did.   

"Put your camel to bed" ....over & over. 

Thanks for that. 🙄

Absolutely terrible!

@Flysmallie is grumbling about the Beatles. He ain't heard nothing yet! I won't link -- that'd be inhumane.

[jdmidwest]

That ringing in my ears keeps the ear worms at bay.

[ness]

@BilletHead A really smart guy told me about "dearth" and I wondered if you're experiencing it down there with the drought?

How much honey this year? Based on my estimates, with a 25% loss assumption, I'd say you're probably looking at 6 5/8 to maybe as much as 6 7/8 gallons down there. 

[BilletHead]

     Ok @ness has called out for a report. 

    Here is what it is for those of you that are not just interested in Bass in particular Smallmouth, arguing about where jetboats should and should not go or anything that makes you are squabble about things. 

     In our area of the state, we are still in a severe drought. This led to a worse dearth. Dearth in beekeeping terms is this. A shortage of plants and flowers producing nectar. There is a time that the dearth is the norm but can be worse because of a drought. Well, if you look at the US drought map this severe band comes out of Kansas and right into Missouri where Pat and I reside. 

   Now to our Apiary. We lost three hives that got weak. From the statement above who really knows but could be part of the contributing factor. We lost 3 hives out of 12. All of these hives swarmed and right now in our beekeeping I am not intervening with mother nature. They might of not requeened or she failed to return on her mating flight. Might of been a bad queen. anyway these 3 hives began to get weak. One I caught early and had not problems just shook the bees out and closed the entrance. The frames with nectar were taken way down away from the existing hives and hung up for the other bees to clean up. frames were then frozen to kill any unwanted pests then put into storage. The other two hives I watched but did not get to them fast enough and wax moths worked them over some. Not total destruction. I did as the first failure and let them be cleaned up then froze. The damaged part of the comb was cut out and was trashed and what was good went to storage.  For those of you that don't know what the bees get in the spring nectar flow is what they live on during the dearth. So, I had a good early storage of nectar in the hives, but it soon disappeared to about nothing. We then had a two-inch rain in the right time for the fall nectar flow.  All of the sudden goldenrod started blooming big time everywhere. More than I seen last year. I did some googling and found out there is 23 varieties of goldenrod in Missouri. We are never too old to learn. to add to this some pop up at different times. So I started watching this happen. First it was the tall one. Then I noticed some in the timber after that short variety. Pat went down the road and dumped some water on some short ones to soak the ground then dug up a couple clusters and brought them home and planted in our flower bed. I thought good luck, but they made it and began to bloom. Towards the middle until now of the fall flow asters came out. again, in bunches everywhere. This is another good source of a nectar flow. I just let the bees be bees and do their thing. We are treatment free keepers. No chemical treating for mites like some other beekeepers do. We are working on just getting feral or wild bees that are actually becoming mite resistant. If I have a colony that become weak from mites, I really do not want them. We have feral bees in two walnut trees in our yard. All the time we have been here there has been a colony in those trees. How do they make it without being treated? I don't know but believe wild feral bees are becoming resistant to mite infestation.  Nature evolves to take care of its problems. If you treat that natural resistance is not going to happen.  I am not into making money out of this hobby yes, I sell some honey but will never see myself going out of the red into the blue in the rest of my lifetime.  My rewards are learning and getting the best product available from my area. Plus, we need pollinators.  I realize the European honeybee is an import and only pollinate certain things we really on. We plant our yard for native pollinators and for honeybee. One thing for sure there is much buzzing going on here.  So, I am telling you what the buzz is all about in BilletHeadVille. 

   Now to the harvest and going forward. We do a fall harvest only. Reason is just like this year as an example. The drought and Dearth. If I was to take honey early like some others, do I would have had to give sugar syrup to get the bees through the lean times. Again, this is a treatment for a problem. The bees use their own stores to survive. Another cost also. I only take the extra the bees don't need to winter on. We were able to take extra frames and extract 6.75 gallons honey from the strongest hives.

I weighed the buckets and came to approximately 85 pounds of honey. Last year we got 7 gallons. I did shift some frames from hive to hive to help the newer weaker colonies with less stores helping them make it through the winter. Fingers crossed all will make it. We have three that are pretty small. They started small as swarm catches. We will not know anything until next spring when it warms up. All my living space in the hives were shrunken down to minimal area so it will be easier for the bees to keep warm. That and all colonies prepare for winter by laying less in the fall and raising winter bees. Yes, this is a thing. 

 

 Again, the extracted frames are hung out well away from the hives and let the bees clean them up.

 

    So next year's plans. This winter I will make another couple of 20 frame Layens hives. for those of you that don't remember I am running long hives both Layens and long Langsdorf . Our bees build horizontally instead of vertical stack hives. Less stress and lifting heavy stuff. I don't bend anymore and do heavy things. All my work is at waist level. It cannot get much better than that. The long Lang hives use deep Lang frames I purchase like most beekeepers. The Layens are a double deep frame popular in many parts of Europe.  I only want so many hives here in the yard. The 20 frame Layens will take place of my first ones I built which were 14 framers. I replaced two of those last year. One I kept and one I gifted to a friend. When I do the replacement next Spring, I am going to take to a place just out of town where a lady asked me to put one in her yard. (We will so how that goes ).  

   Fun journey so far except!  I got stung in the face three times last Spring.  Swelled up big time. I got really sick to my stomach. Dizzy and turned really pale. Sweated like I never have before. I did not get the swelling in the throat and difficulty breathing.  All three times it finally passed except the swelling part. First time I had a witness and was close to town. He wanted to take me to the ER. Close enough I said no let's see where it goes. It passed and his wife is our doctor Pat works for. Doctor got really concerned. Well now I carry an epie pen when working bees. The second two times I got stung like I said let it play out, but pen was with me. Did not use it. Kinda a scary deal. I am more careful and getting stung other that the head area no problem.  Stupid is what stupid does that is me!

      

[jdmidwest]

Down south, it was goofy too.  Spring splits failed to make a queen.  I pulled honey as usual on first of July and did 3 more splits.  They failed to make a queen.

Overall, my 3 hives made about 15 gallons of dark honey.  We had a wet spring, cold and late frosts.  Then it turned off dry and we were at the border of the severe drought.  Then came the August floods and greened up here.  My hive are still pretty heavy going into the winter.  We had a good golden rod bloom here to get them thru.

The one swarm that my Hundred year old buddy caught at his place is doing fine at the farm in its double deep 8 frame hive.  Going into winter with 4 hives.  No losses this year since spring.