|
AFK SWARM OF BEES posted:I don't think it's a bogeyman, I just don't want to use it. Personal preference, really. I'd rather feed my bees sugar. Same here. But if someone was all like, hey, have some HFCS FOR FREE, I'd be okay with it. It's generally not cost effective for the small scale beekeeper. nesbit37 posted:^^^Are you sure about 8lbs of sugar per gallon? I was told 5lbs, which makes more sense since you can't fit an entire gallon of water into a 1:1 mixture in a gallon container. Even though it dissolves that sugar still takes up some space in the container. Yeah, he's right, but it doesn't really matter. What's important to remember is that in the spring, you feed LIGHT sugar syrup with a high water content. This has the dual role of imitating nectar and thus encouraging the bees to draw out comb and make babies, AND providing the bees a lot of water to help keep the hive cool as it heats up outside by evaporating the water in the syrup. In the fall, you feed heavy sugar syrup (16lbs of sugar per gallon, 2:1) so that they have to do less work to evaporate the water out and store it for winter. Regarding the queen cage, tack an index card to the long AND skinny side of the cage and hang it between two frames in the middle of the hive. You can also use rubber bands! It should be oriented so that the entrance with the candy is horizontal (which helps prevent it from getting blocked) and the side with the mesh faces the comb. You'll violate bee space for the couple of days until the queen is released and you remove the cage, but it's better than killing bees.
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2011 23:28
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 18, 2024 03:53 |
|
|
nesbit37 posted:^^^Are you sure about 8lbs of sugar per gallon? I was told 5lbs, which makes more sense since you can't fit an entire gallon of water into a 1:1 mixture in a gallon container. But 5 lbs of sugar isn't a 1:1 mixture.....water weights 8 1/3 lbs per gallon.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2011 01:04
|
|
|
You don't even have to manually let out the queen. When you first install the bees, take the queen box and look inside and make sure she's facing away from the candy. When she is, quickly remove the candy and stuff in a small marshmallow. It takes the bees two or three days to dig through the marshmallow and by then they've accepted the queen (if they haven't done so already). Also we just get a big rubber band and use it to strap the queen cage to a frame. There's just enough space between two frames (with no comb drawn) for it to fit with a little gap for air, and without pushing the frames too far apart. Also we don't bother dumping out the bees. Instead, remove about five frames and put the bee box right into the deep. You can take the box out the next day and most of the bees will already have left it; put the box in front of the hive and the rest of the bees will make their way inside. This is how Beekind taught us and it worked great, very low-stress. They've got videos on Youtube if you want to see it done in a video. start here.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2011 01:11
|
|
|
Millions of ways to do this stuff. I was taught to attach the queen cage to the frame, be it by nails, staples, duct tape or rubber bands and then once she has been accepted to pop the quick release and set the cage on the top of the frames with the inner cover on top for a minutes to let her crawl out. The reasoning being you can better control exactly when she gets out instead of them chewing through a marshmallow/sugar at their own pace. As for the whole sugar water thing, I guess it doesn't matter that much, but if you have a gallon container and you put 8 lbs of sugar in it are you still going to be able to get 8 lbs of water in there as well? I was told 5lbs of sugar and it has worked so far, but if 8lbs of sugar all fits great.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2011 01:32
|
|
|
I use a larger container to mix the stuff. Or make less than a gallon at once. Forgive my sarcasm but is this really that imposing of a challenge to overcome?
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2011 05:15
|
|
|
Or just stop doing all this ridiculous statute/imperial conversion and mix 1kg of sugar to 1kg of water. Which is one litre. HOLY poo poo METRIC SYSTEM.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2011 11:33
|
|
|
Sorry, I wasn't trying to be argumentative. It was more just for my own curiosity if 1 gallon of water by weight plus 8 pounds of dissolved sugar would actually all fit in a 1 gal by volume container (I haven't measured the water I add just the sugar and fill up to the containers capacity). Back to the bees! I didn't take any pictures yesterday, but last Sunday there was a lot of traffic from the hives. They seemed to be bringing in a lot of pollen as well. I saw at least 4 different distinct colors in their pollen baskets, and it looks way cooler in person to see it packed into cells than it does in pictures.  I haven't had any burr comb yet with the inner cover flipped so I am going to keep it that way for time being. 
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2011 12:50
|
|
|
Am I stupid for thinking that I could keep bees in nebraska? We obviously have super harsh winters and I have no idea what we would do with them in the cold months. Any suggestions? This sounds awesome.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2011 19:32
|
|
|
The bees I have are from Minnesota stock. I am sure you would be fine in Nebraska.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2011 19:35
|
|
|
avan posted:Am I stupid for thinking that I could keep bees in nebraska? We obviously have super harsh winters and I have no idea what we would do with them in the cold months. The (former) largest commercial beekeeper was located in Montana, so I think you'll be fine. I would suggest getting a northern bred or adapted queen. Like nesbit mentioned, Minnesota Hygienic stock is extremely hardy for an Italian based breeding line. Alternately, pretty much any Carnolian breed would be appropriate for your climate. Olivarez has a New World Carnolian line going that I have heard nothing but good about.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2011 19:58
|
|
|
When opening hives and sliding those frames out, do you squish bees in the process? I never see dead bees in the photos but it seems like it'd be impossible to handle the hives without squishing a few.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2011 22:03
|
|
|
hayden. posted:When opening hives and sliding those frames out, do you squish bees in the process? I never see dead bees in the photos but it seems like it'd be impossible to handle the hives without squishing a few. It happens, but you try to avoid it. You want to assume that the queen could be anywhere, just like you always assume that a gun is loaded, and squishing bees releases alarm pheromones which tend to get the bees worked up. Take frames out evenly and smoothly and you avoid doing too much damage. When you're ready to start putting stuff back together, you can smoke the bees down, push them out of the way with your fingers (they don't mind), or flick them off with a bee brush. Flick, not brush. When I'm putting hive bodies back in place, I like to SLIDE them on gently from the back. It requires you to be on top of burr comb and propolis removal, but I find that it squishes fewer bees than just plopping it down right on top.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2011 22:24
|
|
|
Why do some flowers close up at night? There are some orange ones in my neighborhood that are very popular with bees and this morning when I walked by they were all closed up tight. I figured that if they stayed open night pollinators like moths could have a go at them. Maybe those colors don't work at night.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2011 00:56
|
|
|
Dick Trauma posted:Why do some flowers close up at night? There are some orange ones in my neighborhood that are very popular with bees and this morning when I walked by they were all closed up tight. I figured that if they stayed open night pollinators like moths could have a go at them. Funny, I remember a type of primrose that blooms only at nighttime/evening. It grew all over the place in Central Texas/Texas Hillcountry.  I used to see moths and other bugs around it.Atlanta's getting whalloped by some serious storms, so no "come pick up your bees!" call tonight. Maybe next week! /sigh
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2011 02:04
|
|
|
While I'd love to do beekeeping I don't really have the time for it, and worry that my interest in doing it would wane over time. But dear lord I love honey, and the thought of having it fresh keeps the dream alive in my mind. With that in mind, does anyone here sell their honey online, or be willing to talk over PM? I've been looking to get some honeycomb, and/or honeycomb immersed in a jar of honey, and I can't find much online that doesn't seem over priced.
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2011 16:01
|
|
|
ShotgunWillie posted:The (former) largest commercial beekeeper was located in Montana, so I think you'll be fine.
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2011 20:46
|
|
|
Hooray! We installed our package of bees last night! While we were picking up our bees at Beekind, we got a chance to ask a couple of questions of the master beekeeper guy and a bee flew into my wife's hair and she got stung behind the ear. Tonight we decided it was infected. Wound up in the ER. Nothing serious but she gets antibiotics for a likely mild case of cellulitis. Anyway she doesn't care. We've got our bees again and it's amazing and weird how happy that makes us.
|
|
#
?
Apr 18, 2011 10:01
|
|
|
THERE'S BROOD IN MY TOP BAR. Still a very low number of bees, but it's not dying like I was afraid. As soon as I saw sealed brood, I closed up the hive and reduced the entrance since they're going to be in siege mode until they can build up their numbers some more. Would there be an advantage to putting a feeder in the TBH since they're so weak? The langstroth I'm letting fend for itself since it's flower season, but the TBH is pretty low on bees.
|
|
#
?
Apr 18, 2011 14:43
|
|
|
Raskolnikov2089 posted:THERE'S BROOD IN MY TOP BAR. I would think so, just based on what I was told. I mean, they have a lot of wax to build in there, right? I don't remember where you are, but assuming its typical spring they need to eat and keep making wax on those rainy weeks. My teachers have said to feed non-stop until they finish out all of the frames of 2 deep boxes on a langstroth. We were told to not be surprised to still be feeding come mid June. I don't know what the equivalent is in your top bar, but would imagine you would want to do the equivalent. I know there is disagreement on this, like everything in bee-keeping. Some of it I am sure is geographicly related, but then some is so counter to what others here. I remember Leperfish's instructor telling him to only feed till they go through 14 pounds of 1:1 sugar water mixture. I don't know how far that got his bees in California, but my hives have already gone through almost 10 pounds of sugar (not counting the water weight) each and they haven't finished filling out a single deep yet.
|
|
#
?
Apr 18, 2011 14:51
|
|
|
I'm in Texas, it's been warm for awhile now. I wonder on that front, this is the 2nd year for our hives and while there are lots of bees about, they don't build comb all that quickly. The deep and medium on our langstroth is finally almost filled with comb, but the super we added 3 weeks ago to give them more room (sooooo many bees) doesn't have any comb on it yet, despite being filled with bees. Do they have more resources to devote to building comb if they have a food source nearby or something? I'm not sure why it's taken them over a year to finally fill out the medium hive body, and am afraid a new super will take as long. The *only* reason I'm hesitant to give them feeders at this point is because I don't like the honey that comes from sugar water. But on the other hand if it gives them the ability to build up comb and make more honey later in the summer, it might be worth it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 18, 2011 17:55
|
|
|
This is Philadelphia specific, but for our area, from what the experienced keepers have told me, that once the first dearth hits the bees don't really build any more new comb on foundation. In fact, they have said to not put any new supers (as in all foundation) on a hive after mid-June around here because at best they won't fill out and at worse they will take the wax of the foundation to use elsewhere, ruining it. The philosophy I have been told about feeding till they have the comb drawn out on those two deeps is it keeps those young bees who produce wax flush with it so they can make comb till that dearth when they stop for whatever reason. If they don't get those 2 deeps drawn out they are going to have a hard time surviving through the Philadelphia winter just because they don't have space to store enough honey. I don't know how well this will all work out, but I trust the people who tell us this and they are very experienced. I'll let you know how it pans out for us seeing as its my first year. I don't know if any of this applies to you in Texas or not. nesbit37 fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Apr 18, 2011 |
|
#
?
Apr 18, 2011 18:06
|
|
|
Feeding syrup does stimulate comb building. If your hive already has its main hive body built out, you don't need to feed to get them to build out the super - they should be big enough at that point to do it themselves. Last year I started with empty frames and the bees went through about two gallons of syrup before we stopped feeding. That's about 16 pounds of sugar. This year, we're giving our new package the already-built frames from last year, and our master beekeeper said to feed about half that - they'd sock it all away in the cells immediately so we should expect them to "consume" the syrup very rapidly. The bees will be out gathering nectar on warm days but will stay inside when it rains. If you have a lot of cool or rainy weather then you are the only source of food. A small struggling hive does not have to be fed - they'll probably slow way down on laying, though, and not grow much, if they have to fend for themselves. So feeding is a good way to help them recover. Of course you can always open up the hive and inspect the frames to see how much they've got stored. If the stores are full then stop feeding regardless, you don't want them crowding out the brood chamber with syrup and thereby reducing their ability to maintain or increase population. All of this pertains to a Langstroth hive. I don't know anything about top bar hives really, besides what I've read in this thread, so I don't know if any of this advice should be different for them.
|
|
#
?
Apr 18, 2011 18:08
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:Feeding syrup does stimulate comb building. If your hive already has its main hive body built out, you don't need to feed to get them to build out the super - they should be big enough at that point to do it themselves. I don't think the point of feeding as much syrup as I have been told is because it stimulates wax building but that it insures the calories are there so they can create wax. I didn't mention it before, but this was specifically for hives with only new frames that are not drawn out.
|
|
#
?
Apr 18, 2011 19:00
|
|
|
Basically those two things are the same thing. A ready supply of food helps the young workers start producing lots of wax from their wax glands, which stimulates comb building. Likewise, being well-fed means the hive can spend less resources out gathering nectar and therefore more time building comb. In the wild, a swarm will establish a new hive with no food at all, so they're capable of doing this on their own; but a swarm might be larger than the number of bees you get in a package, and they may produce no surplus honey the first year. Feeding ensures you get a big, healthy, rapidly-growing hive in the spring. With a hive with drawn comb, feeding still helps them get started, but they'll tend to just drop the wax if they have no need of it (you can see the tiny little scales of dropped wax in the bottom of any hive).
|
|
#
?
Apr 18, 2011 19:47
|
|
|
Just finished painting my hive and only need to finish with the stand and then pick up my bees saturday.
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2011 02:36
|
|
|
Inspection day! Its been 16 days since I put the packages in my 3 hives. The two outer hives are doing great! I am really worried about the middle one that killed its first queen, however. It has way fewer bees, like maybe 2/3 less than the other two hives. I did see eggs, but only a very small number. I didn't see any larva so unless I missed them that means the queen has only been laying for a couple of days. I figure all I can do at the moment is wait a few more days and check back to look for more eggs and or larva. Even if the hive turns out ok it will be at least a week behind, so I will probably have to put a frame of brood in from one of the other hives to strengthen it. Does anyone have advice on doing that? I imagine all I would have to do is brush all the bees off the frame (and make sure the queen isn't on the frame) and then stick it in the middle of the weak hive. Anyway, pictures!  This is the first hive I opened up. Its doing fabulous. 6 frames are filled out, though for some reason they are only filling out frames to one side of the hive. I moved a couple of frames around to see if I could them to break habit.  This is the outermost frame on the hive that the are currently working on. Tons of pollen and some stored sugar water.  A nice close up shot of some of the pollen. Lots of colors, and I have no idea what plants it all comes from. There is a nice fat drone in the picture as well.  This is one of the middle frames. Tons of capped brood!  My first big mistake. I violated bee space. This is from the outermost hive. I didn't put one of the middle frames back in tight enough so they built another section of comb between the two frames.  This is all of the wax I had to cut away. Luckily they hadn't really stored much in it. I am sorry bees for making you waste your building efforts!
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2011 23:28
|
|
|
That brood pattern looks amazing. So many capped cells! A friend sent me this link to a story about a couple who died from stings from Africanized bees: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/21/killer-bees-kill-couple-texas_n_852287.html?ref=fb&src=sp. That's not even a honey bee in the top photo (looks more like a bumble or carpenter bee!) and the quote at the bottom says "[they] were likely Africanized honey bees, better known as 'killer bees.'" Noooo, they're NOT better known as "killer bees!" Way to perpetuate fear and make it hard for beekeepers to get support! Also there's this mention that the "swarm" overtook them, but then juxtaposes it with "disturbing a hive while cleaning." Ugh  Very sad that they died due to the stings, but once again the fear about 'killer bees' gets smeared around some more. (edit for grammar)
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2011 12:02
|
|
|
Hey so I am in the middle of the city, with a relatively spacious back yard (maybe a half acre) is it legal for me to keep bees? I want to do this so bad. Who would I contact in my city to see if it is legal, and to see if they are a state that is looking to pay people to keep bees? I am super interested in this as a hobby and I just dont know where to start.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2011 20:58
|
|
|
You're going to have to check local laws and ordinances. It would probably be easiest to find the closest bee keeping organization and give them a call/email. They should know right away. You can certainly do it, I am keeping bees in (almost) the middle of Philadelphia. If its legal or not for you, and if you can do it without pissing off your neighbors, is a different story though.
|
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2011 21:03
|
|
|
avan posted:Hey so I am in the middle of the city, with a relatively spacious back yard (maybe a half acre) is it legal for me to keep bees? I want to do this so bad. Who would I contact in my city to see if it is legal, and to see if they are a state that is looking to pay people to keep bees? I found this info by digging around on my county's web site for agriculture zoning laws. But it's a crapshoot whether you'll find what you need that way. You can probably get the info by calling your city hall. Just be aware that you may have regulations at the county or even the state level as well. Nesbit37 is right though, the best-informed people will probably be the local beekeepers.
|
|
#
?
Apr 23, 2011 01:51
|
|
|
Bees are in, got 4 frames and the feeder in the hive. Im going back tomorrow to remove the feeder and the box the nuc came in and then clean stuff up a bit. Got stung once on the ear but I did just about everything I could wrong and am happy I got it over with right away.
|
|
#
?
Apr 23, 2011 23:59
|
|
|
Got my bees today, too. Am I the only one who felt really depressed that there wouldn't be any more times (at least with this colony) you can just go in there, have bees all over you, and no worries about stings? They're already getting a bit more territorial already; after a few hours, one or two would buzz around my head when I'd get too close (I had fun just going back and watching them), and just a bit ago one started running into me, so I hightailed it out of there. It was so neat seeing them come back from foraging and tell all the other bees around the hive where the food source was, though. I'm really looking forward to opening the hive up to set the queen free on Tuesday, it'll be sweet to see what they have gotten accomplished already.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2011 01:40
|
|
|
nesbit37 posted:Inspection day! Another potential problem and possible contributor to the weakness of the middle hive is that you have all of the hives in a flat-fronted row. You have Italians, which are relatively bad at spacial orientation. When Italian hives are placed in a straight row, foraging workers tend to "drift" to the hives on the end. Try staggering the hives, or placing them at an angle so that the entrances are not all in a straight line. Yeah, just knock off the bees and give it to the weak hive. The emerging bees don't imprint on their new hive scent until they hatch.
|
|
#
?
Apr 24, 2011 01:55
|
|
|
I checked on the hive today to and added a feeder since I did not yesterday and removed the nuc box. There were plenty of workers going in full of pollen and a lot going in and out. I have not actually looked at the frames very closely. The nuc had four, three with older comb drawn on it and one new frame. The frames that had comb on them the bees had bridged comb and connected them. So my two concerns are 1)how should I clean up the frames that have had comb built between them and 2)should I look to replace the nuc frames at some point in the future since they have older comb? Ive been working with my dad since we had hives when I was young 20+ years ago. He isnt quite up to date on bees it seems but he knows how to handle them which is a help. Since seeing my hive he has decided he wants one of his own. lightpole fucked around with this message at 03:25 on Apr 25, 2011 |
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2011 03:22
|
|
|
ShotgunWillie posted:Another potential problem and possible contributor to the weakness of the middle hive is that you have all of the hives in a flat-fronted row. Yeah, I wondered if that might be an issue. The far hive is staggard, but I can't do too much about the ones that share a cinderblock other then seperate them, which I can't do right now unless they let me go in there with a shovel to do some landscaping to make a little more room. At the advice of a guildmember I switched the two hives that share the cinderblock around, will see what that does. In a week or so I'll put a frame or two of brood into the weak hive. I want some bees to chew their way out into the other hives before I do that, though.
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2011 12:35
|
|
|
lightpole posted:I checked on the hive today to and added a feeder since I did not yesterday and removed the nuc box. There were plenty of workers going in full of pollen and a lot going in and out. I have not actually looked at the frames very closely. The nuc had four, three with older comb drawn on it and one new frame. The frames that had comb on them the bees had bridged comb and connected them. So my two concerns are 1)how should I clean up the frames that have had comb built between them and 2)should I look to replace the nuc frames at some point in the future since they have older comb? There shouldn't be any problem with letting the bees use older comb. If they're building connecting comb between the frames, that usually means the frames aren't close enough together. They're designed so that they should be flush at the edges (no gap) and that creates the correct "bee space" between the comb. You can use your hive tool to cut through connecting comb (it's almost never used for brood, so it might have some honey in it but that's OK, the bees will clean it up) and then adjust the spacing. Even so, to some extent the bees may occasionally build burr comb regardless. Clean it up occasionally to avoid a situation where you have to disturb the bees too much when you need to remove a frame.
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2011 19:08
|
|
|
Thats what I figured. I was going to leave them alone for the week since there is a good amount of activity and Im guessing the queen is alive since the bees left outside in the nuc box followed everyone else in to the hive. I will open it up saturday and fix the spacing. Edit: I wish I had gotten them several weeks ago since the nectar flow has been so heavy here. lightpole fucked around with this message at 22:05 on Apr 25, 2011 |
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2011 21:18
|
|
|
drat drought. So many fewer flowers this year than there were last year.
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2011 21:45
|
|
|
I was just out watching my hive when I noticed a beetle land on my feeder, and then it walked into the hive. Concerned, I waited and about five minutes later, a second beetle flew in, which I managed to catch before it landed. It looks like a SHB as far as I can tell, comparing it with pictures and my familiarity with other beetles; should I be concerned, or are they so prevalent that I can't really do anything about them? The colony is pretty weak, since I just got it on Saturday, so I guess I'm a bit worried.
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2011 00:11
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 18, 2024 03:53 |
|
|
Do you have an entrance reducer in place, so there's only a single small hole for the bees to defend? Even a starting package of bees should be able to defend against the occasional beetle intruder, I would assume.
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2011 03:43
|
|