Honey Bees

The Brunswick county bee club had bee school introduction Saturday morning. We have 16 people that signed up. We start classes this coming Saturday February 9th. We will have a Master Craftsman at our club meeting on 7 February. He will be giving a class on spring splits and how he does it. 7PM at the NC extension in Bolivia.
I haven't opened any colonies yet, but the weather looks promising this week to have a look inside. I will start with the overwintered nucs and then all the single boxes, as they made need room if they are already brooding up. I will be putting feeders on those colonies to help them fill up the next box with comb and resources. I only made 7 overwintered nucs last year, 6 made it. The only one that didn't survive got robbed out by the other colonies.
 
Mice chewed through my protections. Or squeezed through. About a dozen or so tore through my hives. Eating bees left and right, crapping everywhere else. Took out all four hives.

Bastards were too fat to even try and run away.
 
I checked my last hive today and they are all dead also.
 
I checked my last hive today and they are all dead also.
I hate that happened to your last hive. I have lost 2 so far. One of them was my strongest hive with lots of stores. I was planning on making some nucs
from that one. Checked some today and added syrup. I will try to check the other yard tomorrow.
 
Mice chewed through my protections. Or squeezed through. About a dozen or so tore through my hives. Eating bees left and right, crapping everywhere else. Took out all four hives.

Bastards were too fat to even try and run away.

...and I bet you set them softly on the ground so they could scurry away.
Oh I would be so upset. I am sorry for you guys loss. I want to raise some I just need to go ahead and do it. I reckon if I lose them at least I could figure out why and go from there.
 
One thing to keep in mind is that bees are livestock, livestock is farming and farming is really just an elaborate form of gambling.

Learning is helpful yes, but don't put,any money into it you wouldn't mind burning. That way all your surprises can be pleasant.

I have lost all 9 of my hives in 3 years. Moths, absconded, mice, late season robbing. And one crazy strong hive that just starved itself with full on 80lbs of honey right in front of it. Every hive I lose i wonder if it was my lack of skill, or nature being nature. Some were surely one, others probably never know for sure.

If you can take the classes do,so. Having someone show th ropes is,always,nice. It can be a fun hobby, and the,possible honey always taste better from your bees.
 
It does get expensive. Try to find as many swarms as possible.
 
It does get expensive. Try to find as many swarms as possible.
Our Bee Club keep a list of members that are willing to go out and collect swarms. We have it listed at the Ag Center and local pest control companies,in case they get any calls.
You may get lucky and get an easy swarm. I like free bees!
 
We have a swarm list also and I have gotten a couple of swarms that way and turned down a couple of others due to where they were located.
 
Our club has a swarm list as well. It seems to work pretty well. If anybody knows where a person might find syrup cans for package bees please let me know. I can get everything from Rossman Bees to make a package except the syrup can, with syrup. They sell the empty can but that doesn't help me. I have no way of putting a lid on a can.
 
One thing to keep in mind is that bees are livestock, livestock is farming and farming is really just an elaborate form of gambling.

Learning is helpful yes, but don't put,any money into it you wouldn't mind burning. That way all your surprises can be pleasant.

I have lost all 9 of my hives in 3 years. Moths, absconded, mice, late season robbing. And one crazy strong hive that just starved itself with full on 80lbs of honey right in front of it. Every hive I lose i wonder if it was my lack of skill, or nature being nature. Some were surely one, others probably never know for sure.

If you can take the classes do,so. Having someone show th ropes is,always,nice. It can be a fun hobby, and the,possible honey always taste better from your bees.
I've always gave away my chicken eggs. I told folks right to start with, there would be no free honey. I ended up giving away too much last year right to start with. I've made up my mind this year, no free honey.

I hope to split one hive this year. we'll see what happens.
 
Going to sell cut comb honey this year. Started putting shallow supers on my strongest colonies to get the wax drawn out. The girls are starting to brood up now.
 
Mice chewed through my protections. Or squeezed through. About a dozen or so tore through my hives. Eating bees left and right, crapping everywhere else. Took out all four hives.

Bastards were too fat to even try and run away.
How do you prevent this? I feel like those bastards will chew thru almost anything to get food. Is there a kind of wood they won’t chew thru? Don’t the bees sting them?
I’ve had to change all the trash cans to metal at our place because mice (or rats?) chewed thru the side of multiple plastic cans. Chicken food storage was already in metal trash cans.
 
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Started doing splits last week. Have about 27 colonies to go through before I'm done. Caught 3 swarms from my bee yard. Determined which colonies they came from and went to work. Made a few nucs and put frames with queen cells in 2 queen castles. If they all fly out and get mated that will be 8 queens I don't have to graft or buy. Clover and Dandelion are blooming on the coastal plain.
 
How do you prevent this? I feel like those bastards will chew thru almost anything to get food. Is there a kind of wood they won’t chew thru? Don’t the bees sting them?
I’ve had to change all the trash cans to metal at our place because mice (or rats?) chewed thru the side of multiple plastic cans. Chicken food storage was already in metal trash cans.


In the summer they will either chase the mice out or kill then mummify the corpse. Best I can do is put up mouse guards of various designs. Some look like keymod handguards.

In the winter the bees are more worried about keeping warm so more options for the mice to attack..
 
Put 6 more nucs on the farm trying Italian this time cause the truck won't make it to Georgia for the Russians. Little less independent but most use Italians so they should be ok.


Also got lax on cleaning and organizing the old vacant boxes and comb. Came home to a swarm making a new home in a few of the boxes. So win for me.
 

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Put 6 more nucs on the farm trying Italian this time cause the truck won't make it to Georgia for the Russians. Little less independent but most use Italians so they should be ok.


Also got lax on cleaning and organizing the old vacant boxes and comb. Came home to a swarm making a new home in a few of the boxes. So win for me.
Where did you get your nucs? I'm waiting on a couple of nucs with the Minnesota hygienic queens.
 
A friend of mine put out a couple of hives on my farm this past weekend. This ought to be interesting...
 
image.jpgyou can see one of the pallets under the box. I had to lay about 12 pallets down to make a bridge across the swamp to get to that swarm
 

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Caught 3 swarms yesterday and 2 today. One of them I had to climb to the top of a Holly tree to get. Cut the branch off they were on and lowered it down to my wife. She put them in the box. Sweet. I am out of bottom boards. Time to get busy building some.
 
Checked my nucs yesterday tons of bees in almost all of them. 4 built out almost all the foundation into actual comb and one was not far behind.

The runt of the pack seems to have lost it's queen though. Either it swarmed in the last few weeks or queen got pinched during transport.

There was no capped brood in the hive, but about 3/4 of a medium frame of eggs and uncapped brood.

Figure next week when I get to them again I may move a frame of brood from a strong hive to give them an edge in getting their numbers up. Or at least some syrup if I can find my top feeder.

What say you guys on that Sort of remedy?
 
Picked up 2 nice healthy nucs on Saturday. The guy had put together 180 nucs and was talking about making 10 more on Sunday.

Got a call on the way home today about a swarm near me. Took a nuc box expecting to bring them home. They would not all fit in the nuc box. Had to go back with a deep body to get them all in. The swarm was about 3' long and probably weighed between 12-15 lbs. Largest swarm I have ever seen. Looked like an entire hive had swarmed.

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Caught a small swarm in the back yard yesterday. Will give them a few days to make the box a forever home. Will be pulling honey supers this week, hopefully. I have a hand crank 9 frame radial extractor that I will be converting to motorized. I will be putting a motor from my old dishwasher or a ceiling fan on it. I will be getting pulleys and belt from Tractor Supply. A motor from the mfg for my extractor is $600 plus. I'm sure I can fab something alot cheaper. The Brunswick county beekeepers assoc is meeting this Thursday at 25 Referendum drive at the gov complex in Bolivia. We will be having a honey tasting and giving a demo of extracting honey. Everybody is welcome. Coffee and snacks will be provided.
 
There is a company called Bee Downtown (https://www.bee-downtown.com/) that focuses on placing hives in urban environments. They have 3 hives on the campus in RTP where I work, and we got offered a “tour”.
Not many people signed up - I was surprised at that. We got to wear a beekeeper suit and pull frames out of a hive. It was awesome and we learned a lot.
I have always thought about getting some hives where we live, but I didn’t want to handle the bees myself. But after doing this, I am fine with it. Need to get a few other things settled first, but then I think we are going to do it.
It was funny that all of us were fully suited up like this, but the beekeeper himself was just hanging out in a short sleeve shirt picking up bees with no gloves. :) If I do this at home, I will definitely be a beekeeper suit type of person. :cool:
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Most of my hives i installed a few months back were actually honey bound so I pulled a few frames out of each to give them room. Was really surprised at that, but hey honey sooner rather than later is always nice
 
That's pretty cool carman. It looks like you might have been bitten by the bug. Be careful it can be addictive. I had the same issue this year shadow. I didn't get to them soon enough to give them room and they swarmed. The Lord helped me catch most of them. I was caught totally off guard when the Gallberry bloomed A few weeks earlier than normal. I'm building ten frame woodware to get caught swarms out of double and triple stacked nuc boxes.
 
How do you prevent this? I feel like those bastards will chew thru almost anything to get food. Is there a kind of wood they won’t chew thru? Don’t the bees sting them?
I’ve had to change all the trash cans to metal at our place because mice (or rats?) chewed thru the side of multiple plastic cans. Chicken food storage was already in metal trash cans.
Grab EVERY black snake you see on the roadside. Keep a pillow case and gloves in your car. Release them in the area. If there are mice, they’ll stay until the mice/rats/poisonous snakes are gone.
 
That's pretty cool carman. It looks like you might have been bitten by the bug. Be careful it can be addictive. I had the same issue this year shadow. I didn't get to them soon enough to give them room and they swarmed. The Lord helped me catch most of them. I was caught totally off guard when the Gallberry bloomed A few weeks earlier than normal. I'm building ten frame woodware to get caught swarms out of double and triple stacked nuc boxes.

Yeah wasn't expecting honey out of them this year at all. The swarm I caught at my house was super busy too. Filled 3 frames in about 2 weeks when it first came in. Although with the amount of bees it has might of been a full on hive abandonment instead of a swarm. Filled 2 deeps of bees from start
 
We will be pulling honey supers this week or next week, weather permitting. I'm converting my manual honey extractor to a motorized set-up. I pulled the motor off our old dish washer before the scrap man hauled it away. Going to mount it on top and fab a coupler to connect the basket. Picked up a dimmer switch from lowes to use for speed control. I hope to have it operational after work this evening. If I go by the sales pitch the for a new extractor from the dealer, I should get 5% more honey when I extract.
 
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