🐝💗Our Backyard Beekeeping Journey!💗🐝

[drstratton]

Do you have a large number of dead bees? Are they fighting or fanning? Temperature will bring bees out if hive has large number of bees to cool things down. Did see some spotting on hive body, doesn't seem abnormal amount.

No more than usual on the ground so far, it's not that hot out and they haven't done this since summer. Hopefully that's what's going on.

 

[drstratton]

Just checked again. After flipping the entrance reducers, it's calmed back down. Not sure what that was about.

 

[cavemanrich]

Consider placing little white flags near the hives,
Message. WE SURRENDER,, WE DONT WANT TO FIGHT

 

[5Australorpasaures]

No more than usual on the ground so far, it's not that hot out and they haven't done this since summer. Hopefully that's what's going on.

See if things slow down later in the day and chk again tomorrow. Or you could go into the hives and if they're really agitated could be.

 

[drstratton]

See if things slow down later in the day and chk again tomorrow. Or you could go into the hives and if they're really agitated could be.

They've calmed down again. Thank you!

 

[5Australorpasaures]

Just checked again. After flipping the entrance reducers, it's calmed back down. Not sure what that was about.
View attachment 4235789View attachment 4235790

Then again it could have been a shift in new workers orienting.

 

[cavemanrich]

Or you could go into the hives and if they're really agitated could be.

And wear protective gear. Don't feel LUCKY

 

[drstratton]

Then again it could have been a shift in new workers orienting.

That's an interesting thought, something I didn't even think about.

 

[drstratton]

And wear protective gear. Don't feel LUCKY

Thank you! I definitely wore protective gear, no bravado here...lol

 

[drstratton]

Today's honey extraction is going to be selective. I was afraid that we had buckwheat mixed into our summer honey and I was right. We're extracting 4 frames at a time and choosing the ones with the least amount of buckwheat to extract first. Some of the frames are solid buckwheat on one side and a mix on the other. So, we'll extract the mixed sides first. Scrape out the extractor and then do the solid buckwheat. Will be interesting to see how strongly the buckwheat comes through.

Mixed, shows the difference in color.

More solid. This will be extracted with the frames of full buckwheat.

Running 4 frames at a time takes longer, but I'm going for a better result. Once we get to the full buckwheat I'll spin 8 at a time.