To BEE or not to BEE (Honeybees)!

[txav8r]

@giroux68 Every time I have to inspect them, I have to break frames apart. At the top of the frames, they seem to want to connect them. And I'm sure it costs days to repair. But how do you check them or their progress without it? Yes, I have screen bottoms but I don't see how I could've into the cells for eggs or the queen, and to check for possible issues. How often do you check yours? With a new hive, checking weekly to add a deep hive body, add a super, etc., scraping off the overbuild each time. We started with two hives. And one has had a problem since the beginning. I don't know what it is, but they are still cleaning out dead larvae everyday. Maybe chalkbrood. The company I bought them from is going to replace that hive this Friday. I'll just swap out the deep body and frames for a strong hive and frames. He also suggested I could just add a few frames of brood and it would clear up faster on its own. I'm glad we are getting another hive.

I'm sure it's too late to expect much this season for honey. As we have been told to leave whatever they make for the winter food for them. But it seems almost every spring you would be in the same boat. Because your splitting hives when strong. So I'm not sure about honey expectations. Our good hive has the super getting combed out this week between two deep hive bodies, and hoping in one week, they get comb started in it. Then this weekend I will move the super to the top where it will stay through honey season. Here in Texas, we pull the supers off in July, as we have a plant that corrupts honey and you won't be able to eat it.

Ah, the saga of beekeeping! Don't you love em!

 

[zipper]

@txav8r One of my 10 varieties of high bush blueberries produces berries the size of a quarter. Many different varieties can grow from deep south to cold northern zones.

 

[giroux68]

checking every 10 days to 2 weeks is good to start with. I have been leaving the 2 brood boxes mostly untouched lately. always watching the coming and goings of the workers. you can tell a lot by how loaded with pollen they are. as for looking up from the screen, I do it mostly to see if those frames have comb on them and bees. you can add frames from the strong to the weak hive to help out. have you gotten on the swarm removal list for your area? good way to get some bees for free.

 

[txav8r]

I haven't, but as I learn a little, I think it would be good to do. Most of the beekeepers are din south of us. I know I don't have the experience or equipment to do a cutout from a wall. Right now, I just want to make sure my hives don't swarm!!!

 

[Scottintexas]

And there picking blueberries NOW !
http://www.moorheadsblueberryfarm.com/

There's also a small farm just west of Sanger that has PYO blackberries that we went to that was very good,
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Duck+Creek+Blackberries/@33.3504448,-97.208532,15z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x709e8d506fb0773f!8m2!3d33.3504448!4d-97.208532

 

[txav8r]

I wanted to reopen this thread. We had the strong hive and the weak one that may have had chalkbrood. The company we bought our hives and bees from, Texas Bee Supply, exchanged our weak hive and gave us a monster hive that was even stronger than our original strong hive. They have been doing fine but the new hive started robbing or at least fighting the other hive. And, they are fighting at one of our birdbaths. Speaking to the owner of TBS, he told me all bees fight and all hives are in completion. He said fighting and robbing are definitely two different things. So I guess we had fighting and not the latter. At any regard, I added entrance reducers and blocked the robbing hive in with screen and saw the robbing stop. So at the recommendation of my mentor, I added robber screens to both hives. They have settled down since doing that. I loved the birdbath they were fighting at farther out. The owner of TBS recommended that I continue what I was doing but consider open feeding as Texas is in a dearth about now. So we are using a birdbath to feed 2:1 sugar syrup and lured the bees to it close and moved it out about 50' from the hives but in the same area. I think things are stabilizing but just thought some of you might have an observation. He also told us, that adding supers in Texas is pretty much not going to help gain any honey. And that we should not expect any more than two deep hive bodies as we don't have the nectar flow other parts of the country do. He said that I could take frames of honey from the upper deep and not to expect more than about 40 pounds from a hive here. What are your thoughts?

 

[Scottintexas]

any update on the bees ?? do you have to do anything with them in the winter?

 

[giroux68]

My bees are all gone. We went on vacation and I came back to an empty hive. Nothing but empty comb. I did get about 8 pints of honey before we left. I found 20 or so queen cells. But some could have been from last season. I have not inspected that hive Body since early 2016. I figured they got to packed in and started swarming while I was goNE and the last bunch had no queen left. Last year they made it thru the winter with a little feeding from a top feeder. 50/50 sugar water. I am a little disappointed since they were doing so well all summer.

 

[txav8r]

I ended up giving away the replacement give that was robust. They were attack I g to other hive. During the days I was waiting for the guy to come get them, they swarmed three times. And still had a robust hive to give him. They are doing fine. My other hive is really good as of about 3 weeks ago, the last 70 degree day I could weigh the boxes. The bottom deep was full of brood, pollen, and honey, all frames, the second deep was pretty much all honey and that deep weighed every bit of 80 pounds, and then a medium super that was also completely full of honey...that's what they started winter on. Wife is attending a bee class and pretty sure we will split that hive in the spring. Fingers crossed @Scottintexas , that we get a good round of honey from both in July! First warm day I am home, I have to estimate weight of hive bodies and see if I need to feed protein they the rest of winter. Shouldn't have to but you never know.

 

[farrelltravis]

Dang Mell, you are the jack of all trades! This thread is why i said the bee's knees the other day. lol

 

[txav8r]

Yesterday, it got up over 70F. So we did the first hive inspection since the first few weeks of November. The honey is almost gone from the lower deep brood chamber, and there is no brood that I can see anywhere. This was a concern as we saw a big reduction in eggs or larvae in November as well. But the second deep is still probably 70 pounds so the honey is still plentiful. And there is a medium super on top that is half full of honey. I’m more concerned on what to do with the leftover after winter, as it is more sugar water honey than pure honey. The hive is heavy with bees. It is going to have to be split this spring or it will surely swarm. We ordered a queen to be here the first week of April, another hive body (2 deeps), a medium super, frames with foundation. We noticed some very strange looking sunken cells, dark, but I couldn’t find any resemblance in bee health to any disease. After pics to our mentor, it is bee bread! Who knew? The hive is strong and doing just fine. I have read that some strong hives with many bees, will give the queen a vacation over winter, and not lay eggs, so there are fewer mouths to feed. It was a concern to me, but when she starts laying 1500-2000 eggs a day in just weeks now, the frames will fill up and the honey will disappear. We live in a forest of post oaks and winged elm trees. The abundant early season pollen will jump start them fast. I’m wondering about the split, but we should be able to build two strong hives even before honey season...if the existing queen remains productive, and the new queen does the same. Hoping for honey this year!

 

[latitudeadjuster]

I got hit hard this past fall and winter. I had a strong hive die with wax moths and another from hive beetles....the beetles disintegrated the entire hive, supers 6 gallons of honey. omg was like a murder scene.

Then lost another hive with our multi day zero degree weather.....Virginia lost a lot of hives this year. Left me two super, shared some with new packages of bees. See the awesome honey the girls produced tho.....lol


2 new packages in the hives....check brood this weekend.

 

[zipper]

Bump...I was out doing some maintenance in the sugarbush yesterday and found this Honeytree. The honey bees found a hole in this sugar maple and set up shop.

The sound from within the tree, as I was walking by, alerted me to their presence. Here is a link to the season of honey in Vermont. https://www.vermontbeekeepers.org/about/the-vermont-honey-story.

 

[txav8r]

I am glad you woke up the thread @zipper, I guess capturing that swarm would be tough without losing the tree. Although, you could use a lemongrass bait and a swarm cage, and see if you could get them. I have no experience with swarms, and wish I had never seen my own hives swarm! @latitudeadjuster , how did you recover following the winter disaster? Those were great looking honey frames! Sorry for the troubles, I know in our short experience of being beekeepers, we have learned so much...and most of it the hard way. Anyway, I hope to read your reply with positive news and newly rebuilt hives!

Following my last post, the hive we had remaining exploded almost overnight and would have surely swarmed, but we were set to split it with equipment at the ready. So April 3rd, the new queen arrived, and we created the split, it took, and immediately started laying. And this split is doing fine today and is our biggest hive now. But the host hive was sporadic and we found lots of queen cells which told us that they didn't like the queen and were out to replace her. A lesson learned: they were preparing to swarm, and did. So the old queen was gone and they were trying to make a new one. We learned the difference between supercedure and swarm cells. So we started a process of wanting to get a queen with better genetics and ordered another. We placed her May 22, they accepted her initially, but she either swarmed or they killed her and kept making swarm cells, very different than supercedure cells. We also knew that getting them to accept and not kill a new queen was going to be tough, since they had just done that. So we built up another deep and decided to split them at the same time we replace that host hive queen. This host hive was very aggressive, and every time we got into it, I would get two or three stings right through my gloves! So we were set on improving the genetics in the hive by replacing the queen and not accepting one that they made. So the two new queens arrived, and it was apparent in both the new split and the host hive, that they were not going to accept these new queens. If the split didn't accept, we would lose that hive more than likely since it was just a new split. We were supposed to wait 3 days and check to see if the queens were out or release them if not. But we knew from how the hives balled up on the cages, that the odds were against them accepting them. I had read of an essential oil method that is used to mask the pheromones of the queen and those in the hive. It is supposed to be a very effective way to do a queen replacement, but not a recommended or "officially" sanctioned method. So we mixed up the essential oils, and sprayed all the frames, front and back, and all the bees, then we opened the queen cage and released her directly into the hive (both hives)...3 days later, we had eggs and very active queens. So today, we have 3 great hives with good genetics, and all three hives are much calmer and WAY more manageable. The weather in Texas was a bad drought through the spring and summer, so the nectar flow stopped just about the time it started, and as a result, most beekeepers didn't take any honey, unless they were in towns, where there were gardens (that are irrigated) to provide nectar flow. We took a single frame and extracted it just to taste our own honey. It is delicious, but all I got was 3 pounds this year. Right now, we are feeding the bees both 2 to 1 sugar syrup and pollen patties, although they are bringing in plenty of fall pollen now and there is a nectar flow off the "snow on the prarie". This is a weed that makes the honey toxic to humans, so no one collects honey (that knows about this) in north Texas and southern Oklahoma, past July. But they are building up for winter and all three hives should be just fine to go through winter. We won't trust that however, and will keep a close watch so they don't starve.

A side note on pests and diseases. We have plenty of small hive beetles as well. When the hive is strong, they can manage them, but when we notice more than a half dozen, we know we have too many and we treat with hive beetle traps and we have traps in all three hives right now. We also test for Varroa Mites 4 times a year. Our counts were high in two of the three hives immediately following us removing the supers in July, so we treated all three hives with Apivar strips, and then tested again after the 56 day treatment, and counts were back to acceptable. We have seen wax moth larvae, but we haven't had to do anything to it, and have not seen any damage from it. So going forward, we have an eye on that too. So hoping that they get their food stores full for winter and they come out gang busters this next spring! Good luck to all of you with your hives! And the rest of you...start keeping bees!

 

[Liftr]

Hello beeks. I just posted in the “what do you see” thread. I started with 1 Nuc last year, and caught a “wild swarm”.
The Queen had red paint n her. Both hives thrived last year, and I got 14 pints of honey in my first season.
I over wintered with double deeps, and both hives came through Winter very healthy.
I knew I needed to split both hives, but didn’t have time last week.
It cost me losing a swarm today. Very frustrating event, since I watched them fly away!

 

[giroux68]

That sucks. If you saw them leaving, I would have followed and tried to catch the swarm. But I don't know how fast or far the go while swarming. I had good luck like you my first season.

 

[giroux68]

Finally got a swarm call I was home for today. They were on this guy's out side TV bracket and outlet box. I was a bit harder to get them off the house and into a box. I ended up leaving the nuc box there for the night to see if I can get the rest of them in it. I'm pretty sure I got the queen in the box, there was a good line up of workers tail up fanning.

 

[Liftr]

My same hive swarmed on me again yesterday. I watched it happen while I was having my morning coffee.
This time I was able watch them land, and was prepared enough to catch them with no trouble.
Now, I have a question for you guys:
I installed them in a deep hive box with a frame of honey, pollen, brood, and one drawn comb.
I sealed them in the deep until after dark, when I opened the entrance.
What are the odds of them being there when I get back to check on them in 3 days?

 

[giroux68]

I'd say pretty good. But may swarm experience is limited.