A BEE thread....for those interested in beekeeping.

[Beekissed]

So....how's everyone bees doing now? Mine are quietly productive and were busy making honey when last I looked.

I'm going to remove the last follower board soon to really open up the hive so they can fill to max if they need to before winter. This winter will be the real test, won't it?

 

[PotterWatch]

I am going to inspect my hive tomorrow and see if they need another box added on. Right now they have two deeps and I have a medium super ready to go. I noticed yesterday that some ants have found their way inside so I will be dealing with that tomorrow as well. I'm hoping to find that they are still going strong!

 

[bibliophile birds]

Quote:
yep. this winter you will most likely have to supplement their feed a little (remember that they can get hydration from sugar syrup, which doesn't freeze as easily as pure water). but, when they make it through their first winter, you can breathe a lot easier!

 

[sparkles2307]

My boys' best friends' parents are beekeepers. I think I may have a valuable resource there.

 

[PotterWatch]

Well a friend came over to help me today and we started doing our inspection but we had just gotten the cover off and were prying loose the first frame when my neighbor came out crashing around with his trash cans and then starting his lawnmower. Since my hive is right on the other side of the fence from where he was working and they don't know about my bees, we decided to wait until another time. We did get some of the vines that are growing above the hive cleared away so that they don't touch the hive and allow the ants an easy entry. We also saw that they still have enough space left in the top box so that they don't need the super I have ready to go. I'll try checking on them again next week perhaps.

 

[bibliophile birds]

nothing WE didn't already know, but NPR has a story about the new interest in beekeeping.

"Numbers are way up as thousands of novices take up the hobby. And who are these new beekeepers? Increasingly, they're women." (emphasis is mine)

 

[sparkles2307]

They dont offer beekeeping classes any closer to me than a 4 hr drive to the Twin Cities. I will have to settle for the books that the library has and takling to our friends. He really has no trouble talking forever about his bees, kinda like me and my chooks

 

[Beekissed]

Quote:
yep. this winter you will most likely have to supplement their feed a little (remember that they can get hydration from sugar syrup, which doesn't freeze as easily as pure water). but, when they make it through their first winter, you can breathe a lot easier!

I'm thinking very seriously about not supplemental feeding. I'll have to give it some thought, but I'm trying to develop bees that function much like in the wild. Wild bees do not get supplemental feed and I would suppose many of them may die of starvation. And some may live to reproduce more of the kind of bees that survive in tough conditions....these are the bees I most want to promote and keep.


I may wind up losing the whole hive...which is an accepted risk for me and I will slog on with my experiment in finding hardier bees than the ones people are now tending. I want survivors on my place...be it bees, chickens or sheep. Keep the best and let the rest go...eventually you have only the best.

I'm willing to devote money and time to this kind of husbandry as it pays off in the long run and creates a more sustainable creature...which is something the world really needs.

I see too many pampered animals that allow weaker specimens to carry on their genetics(sheep, goats, bees, cattle, dogs, cats, chickens, etc.)...in the wild this is not usually the case and that is for a reason. Survival of a species depends on the strongest surviving, not the weakest.

 

[greeneggsandham]

Quote:
yep. this winter you will most likely have to supplement their feed a little (remember that they can get hydration from sugar syrup, which doesn't freeze as easily as pure water). but, when they make it through their first winter, you can breathe a lot easier!

I'm thinking very seriously about not supplemental feeding. I'll have to give it some thought, but I'm trying to develop bees that function much like in the wild. Wild bees do not get supplemental feed and I would suppose many of them may die of starvation. And some may live to reproduce more of the kind of bees that survive in tough conditions....these are the bees I most want to promote and keep.


I may wind up losing the whole hive...which is an accepted risk for me and I will slog on with my experiment in finding hardier bees than the ones people are now tending. I want survivors on my place...be it bees, chickens or sheep. Keep the best and let the rest go...eventually you have only the best.

I'm willing to devote money and time to this kind of husbandry as it pays off in the long run and creates a more sustainable creature...which is something the world really needs.

I see too many pampered animals that allow weaker specimens to carry on their genetics(sheep, goats, bees, cattle, dogs, cats, chickens, etc.)...in the wild this is not usually the case and that is for a reason. Survival of a species depends on the strongest surviving, not the weakest.

I did not supplement my hive the first Winter. I had given them some when I first got them, but when I checked the hive in the fall they had 8 brooder size frames fully capped with honey. They did just fine. This Spring was the start of year three for my hive and they are doing great. Oh and this last Winter we had some pretty cold and windy days here in CT, but I think because I had originally gotten the nuc from a beekeeper in CT they were already hardy for the area.

 

[bibliophile birds]

Quote:
i see your point. we are definitely fans of the "bees should be bees" philosophy, but new hives are in a precarious situation. they might be perfectly wonderful, hardy bees and can starve simply because they didn't have enough time to build up sufficient stores of honey. if we check new hives and they seem to be stocked up enough, we don't feed- we're not interested in constantly coddling them. but newer hives, especially ones started later in the season, usually get fed the first winter (at least part of it, anyway).

the way i see it, there are enough things out there to kill off less hardy bees (and some perfectly good ones as well) that i don't want to loose a hive to starvation just because i started it too late in the season.

of course, that is my approach and won't work for everyone. i definitely appreciate your interest in not babying them. i'd just suggest keeping a close eye on their honey stores this first winter and being open to feeding IF they need it. hopefully you'll get lucky and that won't be the case, but i'd hate for you to loose perfectly good bees when a feeding or two could have kept them going.