Honey Bees

Caught three swarms today. Had to get my 60 foot bucket truck out to get them. They were within 10 feet of each other. I ratchet strapped the Woodware together, less the top and tied them to the limb they were on. Took the bee brush and brushed them into the boxes. Lower them to the ground and handed them off to the wife while I went for the next swarm. Took about an hour for the entire operation.
 
Caught swarm #5 yesterday. Just put a third super on one hive that is going gang busters.
 
Been a while since I posted here. The Gall Berry nectar flow is less than spectacular due to the cooler weather. Our full size production colonies are doing ok, but the new splits are struggling. We have started emergency feeding the splits. They have little to no resources stored in the hives. We will have to feed them until something else blooms.
 
Yeah most my hives are getting fed right now. Lost one to robbing it looks like. They just can't seem to build up past the nuc size it seems

Any experience with using pollen sub? Figure an extra protein source may help them recover a bit better
 
Leadchunker said:
Started pulling honey supers yesterday. Pulled some more today. So far looks to be 50% less honey than last year in my New Hanover county apiaries.
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That sounds like a really big drop... is that pretty unusual? Do you think the cool wet spring is to blame... Poor nectar supply? Something else?
 
shadowsbane said:
Yeah most my hives are getting fed right now. Lost one to robbing it looks like. They just can't seem to build up past the nuc size it seems

Any experience with using pollen sub? Figure an extra protein source may help them recover a bit better
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Pollen subs are good if needed. This time of year I would stay away from in hive patties and do a pollen feeding station. Hive beetles population would explode with patties.
 
DurhamDad said:
That sounds like a really big drop... is that pretty unusual? Do you think the cool wet spring is to blame... Poor nectar supply? Something else?
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80% of the nectar flow in the coastal plain is from Gall Berry. The temperature and humidity didn’t get high enough early enough for the Gall Berry to bloom. So reduced nectar flow.
Poplar trees did bloom over a longer period due to the weather. We have a very light and flavorful honey that we normally don’t see. Very good honey with a low moisture content right at 17.2%.
We are right at 350lbs of honey harvested.
 
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I did my first day in a friends apiary today. I was fully awake by the 5th sting and totally over my small phobia. What amazing creatures God made! I was a lil "gun shy" by the end of 4 hours but am looking forward to going back.
Rooster
 
Leadchunker said:
80% of the nectar flow in the coastal plain is from Gall Berry. The temperature and humidity didn’t get high enough early enough for the Gall Berry to bloom. So reduced nectar flow.
Poplar trees did bloom over a longer period due to the weather. We have a very light and flavorful honey that we normally don’t see. Very good honey with a low moisture content right at 17.2%.
We are right at 350lbs of honey harvested.
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Well it's good to know there's a silver lining. I have always liked gallberry honey, but I hardly ever see it labeled as such... I am amazed to hear that it usually makes up 80% of your nectar flow!
 
One of my least favorite things is wax moths. They did a number on one of my hives over the week and the bees absconded.

One of my favorite things is sitting the hive box on top of a fire ant nest and watching them go to town on the wax moth larva. I like to imagine tiny screams of terror as they are overrun
 
Had to catch up on this thread. Looks like I will have bees this fall. Friend's wife is really into bee keeping and captured 10 - 12 swarms this spring. Asked if I wanted a couple of hives, I thought she just needed more room to keep them, of course I do, have always been fascinated, but told her she would have to look after them. She said no deal, once I bring them they are yours! However she is an accomplished bee keeper and good friend, so she has agreed to help teach me on keeping them happy and healthy.
 
Remshooter said:
Had to catch up on this thread. Looks like I will have bees this fall. Friend's wife is really into bee keeping and captured 10 - 12 swarms this spring. Asked if I wanted a couple of hives, I thought she just needed more room to keep them, of course I do, have always been fascinated, but told her she would have to look after them. She said no deal, once I bring them they are yours! However she is an accomplished bee keeper and good friend, so she has agreed to help teach me on keeping them happy and healthy.
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Damn, I need a friend like that.
 
We finished robbing one of our apiaries in New Hanover county Friday. Got all of the extracting done by 2:45 am today. Yup long night. Total is 850lbs at this point in the game. Things will go a lot faster and easier when our Kelly hot knife gets here. It’s been on back order for 6 weeks. We will also be picking up more coarse steel strainers and plastic 600 micron strainers to spread up the process. Small enough to keep bee body parts out but big enough to let all the good stuff stay in the honey.
If the sun would come out for more than a few hours we could pull more supers. We have about 90 more colonies to go for our first robbery to be complete.
 
We are definitely in a dearth right now. The robbing is starting to eliminate the weaker colonies and late swarms. I have to get out and put entrance reducers on all the colonies.
 
Just finished leveling an area behind my shed to store all the dead out boxes that need cleaning/repair. Still have one yard to remove equipment from. Got all the yards treated for mites a few weeks ago. Colonies are bringing in the goldenrod pollen and nectar in huge amounts. I will need to equalize a few colonies shortly as they are getting honey bound. Really! Hopefully I won’t have to feed this winter. I have been buying sugar just in case. I have about 300 lbs at this point. Last year I fed close to 700 lbs due to the goldenrod getting damaged by storms.
 
Finally got all the dead outs removed from the bee yards. Started sanding and repairing tops, building new boxes, and painting.
We are looking to replace our losses from this years flood and expanding our operations. How much we expand is based on how much wood ware I can build. It also depends on how many people I can get that will let me put bees on thier property.
We are on the list for 50 early queens to be delivered in February. God willing I’ll need to increase my queen order.
 
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Made 10 gallons of sugar syrup today. Set up a feeder at one of my yards. Started pouring the first bucket in the feeder and the darn handle came off. Lost about half the syrup on the ground. I got the other 5 gallons in with no issue.
 
Glad to find this thread. My Dad and I got back into bees this year. He kept hives when I was young, and I had no urge to help. After my Mom past away we have been doing much more together. So, beekeeping it is. We worked up to 5 hives in 2020, and the dearth made it terrible. We have lost 4 hives. The 5th is strong and treated and looking forward to giving it another shot this year.
 
Made 20 gallons of sugar syrup today. It’s getting close to heavy feeding time. A few maple trees are starting to get red in the tops. The spring nectar flow is about to begin.
Bees are starting to bring in pollen. Brood rearing has already started. Keep an eye out for drone populations increasing. This is a clear indication that a colony is preparing to swarm.
The temps are not high enough to get queens shipped yet. Our supplier would not ship queens to us next week due to the weather. It’s projected to be 9 degrees at the Louisville KY ups hub. The queens would likely not survive those temps without a colony around her.
 
Went through 8 colonies yesterday. All the queens were Laying good patterns except one. It will survive, she had just started laying for the spring buildup. One box was packed with bees, had lots of drone brood, and were a bit agitated. A clear indication they were in early swarm preparations. I will need to split that colony pretty soon. I will try to inspect the other colonies today and tomorrow.
I have 25 queens arriving on Wednesday. We will start prepping colonies to split on Tuesday. We will leave the splits queen less for 24 hours and install queens Thursday. The next week and the next week and so on rinse and repeat.
During inspections We discover some colonies in full swarm prepping mode. They will be split immediately. We will find the queen and place her in a nuc box to start a new colony. We will split the rest of the colony and divide up queen cells between them. If necessary we will pull frames of bees from other boxes to utilize the queen cells.
 
Inspected 39 colonies today. The colonies were all very strong except 2 dead outs and 2 that needed some help. We transferred some resource frames to weaker hives. They should do well now. Got 33 more to inspect tomorrow after church.
The cool winter has kept the girls from looking for resources that are nonexistent. That reduced the amount of resources the bees used this winter. The colonies are real heavy with honey. Yay I don’t have to feed bees this spring!!!!!
 
Inspected 33 colonies today. Had 4 dead outs. 2 were struggling and got needed resources from other strong colonies. Marked about 7 queens with last years color, blue. Had one colony with a virgin queen. All queen cells were torn down in the box. That box will need to be split as soon as the queen starts laying. I don’t want to chance her leaving as virgins are pretty skittish. If she leaves I would have two queen less colonies. It’s packed full of bees.
 
shadowsbane said:
Man out in Clayton/smithfield area . He was significantly cheaper than most places sell packages. Let alone nucs. Farm is in ramseur and prices out there are high.

If you,want I can pm you his info. Might be too late this year though
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I'm interested if he's still selling
 
Got queens in yesterday. Went down to pick them up at the UPS hub. The lady up front had me follow her out to the loading dock to get the bees. WTH. She is allergic to bees so she put them outside on the loading dock. It’s a good thing it wasn’t too cold.
Prices on bees has gone through the roof. Mannlake has packages for $208.95. WOW!
 
I checked my bees a couple weeks ago and one had died out, one was in good shape and the last one appeared to be struggling. I put some bags of syrup in the hives along with some pollen patties. Checked the remaining 2 yesterday and they both appear to be doing a lot better. Put an additional pollen patty in each hive along with a sugar block. That should get them through until the flow gets started.

I've got some nuc boxes ready to catch swarms to build up some more hives.
 
Equalized 11 colonies and moved the queens to the bottom box yesterday. Split the colonies today screened off and moved the colonies to another yard. Will equalize more colonies tomorrow at the yard colonies were dropped in today. Before we leave that yard we will put new queens in the colonies we moved today.
That will make the colonies queen less for 24 hours. This will increase the chances the colony will accept the new queen.
we will take the equalized colonies to another yard and repeat the process till we have split all the colonies.
 
beamernc said:
I checked my bees a couple weeks ago and one had died out, one was in good shape and the last one appeared to be struggling. I put some bags of syrup in the hives along with some pollen patties. Checked the remaining 2 yesterday and they both appear to be doing a lot better. Put an additional pollen patty in each hive along with a sugar block. That should get them through until the flow gets started.

I've got some nuc boxes ready to catch swarms to build up some more hives.
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Hey Beamer get some queens shipped in and split those colonies. If you have strong colonies you can do 50/50 splits. Keep syrup on them and manipulate the frames till they have the wax drawn out. They will make you 50 to 70 lbs of honey per colony this year.
 
Slow going the last few days. The queens that shipped last Monday didn’t get into my hands until Thursday at 11am. Thanks UPS for sending them out for delivery with no address and a request to pick up at the hub.
They called to pick up Wednesday at 9am. I got there at 9:30. No queens. Lots of phone calls and 3 visits to the hub. No clue where the package is. Drop box, delivery truck, on the loading dock. Oops they were put in a storage trailer for what reason who knows.
Will be doing more splits today after the rain moves out, if it does. Meanwhile I will be cleaning frames and putting in new foundation.
 
Leadchunker said:
Slow going the last few days. The queens that shipped last Monday didn’t get into my hands until Thursday at 11am. Thanks UPS for sending them out for delivery with no address and a request to pick up at the hub.
They called to pick up Wednesday at 9am. I got there at 9:30. No queens. Lots of phone calls and 3 visits to the hub. No clue where the package is. Drop box, delivery truck, on the loading dock. Oops they were put in a storage trailer for what reason who knows.
Will be doing more splits today after the rain moves out, if it does. Meanwhile I will be cleaning frames and putting in new foundation.
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Bar codes and scanners all over the place, and they still can't put their hands on stuff without a search... Ridiculous.
 
My wife started a hive last year. It did really well and then in the fall started getting hit by robbers and this continued through the winter she says. She opened the hive up and found a dead queen and that the bees were gone. She's going to take half the honey, which there was quite a bit of, and get a nuc (?) to restart it.

The odd thing is that her friend also had a hive near my wife's that was always much weaker and the bees did much less foraging, etc. It's now full of bees. My wife suspects that those bees may have been the robbers and my wife's bees joined those. The funny thing is that her friend is getting ready to move back to Nebraska or Kansas or somewhere out in Monkey's Elbow USA and won't be taking the bees.
 
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