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

[Reinbeau]

Quote:
Is that the only hive you have? If you have another, you can do a newspaper combine. Beetles will overtake a weak hive, sounds as though you've lost your queen and the hive has been taken over by a laying worker. That's a tough think to recover from, unfortunately.

 

[ChksontheRun]

If there is no brood at all, you may not have a laying worker, you may just still have drones from before. You can try purchasing a new queen, and try introducing her to the hive to build it up before winter. You would need to feed feed feed so that they have time to build up their honey stores before winter. Do you have a beekeeping association near you? It would be really helpful to have someone come over and give you their opinion. Don't give up. Sometimes the first year or so can be a little rough, but it is worth it.

 

[cheraboo]

I've been emailing a local beekeeper. He doesn't think the hive will make it til spring

We have two more hives at another location. Should we try relocating these bees there? We're going out tomorrow to check the hives and make sure they're ok. If those hives are good and we move the bees will we be taking hive beetles with us? Really don't want to have that happen. And how do we move the bees?

It's funny cuz I always thought our backyard hive would be the strongest. Right now it looks like the farm hive is the one winning out. We moved some brood/honey to a second hive about a month ago to start a second hive there and all seems well so far. Of course we'll know more for sure tomorrow *crosses fingers*

 

[cheraboo]

Well shoot! The original hive at the farm is doing awesome! We didn't get to check things over as much as we wanted as the smoker was not cooperating. We have got to get that darn thing figured out! Jacob was able to pull off the top two supers. Not much going on in the top one but the second one is almost filled with honey

Those girls have been working like crazy. Lots of activity in this hive and LOTS of bees. Woohoo! Jacob couldn't check the entire hive, but he didn't see any hive beetles

The other hive we have at the farm is a split from that original hive. Not as busy as the original hive but still a lot of activity. And it has a queen

Jacob saw some larva and capped brood. The bad news is that he found five or six hive beetles

What do we do now? This colony is not as large as the one at the house but the bees are definitely busier AND we know there is a queen.

To recap -

The backyard hive looks to be queenless and has hive beetles and their larva present.
#1 farm hive seems to be doing really great. No sign of those blasted hive beetles (at least not where we were able to look).
#2 farm hive has some hive beetles but also has a queen. The bees are very active compared to the backyar hive.

How do we keep the hive beetles away and can we get rid of them once they're in the hive? Can we take the bees from the backyard hive and move them to the farm?

 

[bibliophile birds]

for hive beetles, our favorite plan of attack is to smush them. whenever you see them on the frame, tap it on the lid and crush all beetles that fall off. we also encourage fire ants around the colonies because they will kill and eat the beetles and the larvae. we destroy any other fire ant nests on the property, but the ones around the hives get a free pass so long as they don't get out of control.

if you don't have or don't want fire ants, try some DE in the soil under the hive.

here's other tips from here

Control : If A. tumida is suspected or detected, the following precautions are suggested:

1. Be clean around the honey house. Do not leave filled supers standing long before extraction. Do not leave cappings exposed for long periods. Beetles can build up rapidly in stored honey, especially away from protective bees.
2. Do not stack or store infested supers onto strong colonies.
3. Be aware that supering colonies, making splits, exchanging combs, or use of Porter bee escapes can spread the beetles or provide room for beetles to become established away from the cluster of protective bees.
4. Monitor colonies for hygienic behavior; ie., the ability to actively rid themselves of both larval and adult A. tumida. Propagate those queen lines found to be beetle-resistant.
5. Experiment with trapping or cultural control measures. It may be possible to trap beetle larvae as they attempt to reach soil and pupate. Moving colonies may be advisable to keep a beetle population from building up in any particular apiary. The ability of beetles to complete development may vary according to different soil conditions and beekeepers may find some locations naturally less prone to beetle infestation. Fire ants may be a beneficial insect in this context if they are found to prey on pupating beetles.
6. Bees will normally not clean up equipment or supers full of beetle-fermented honey. However, bees may finish the job if the beekeeper first washes out as much honey as possible with a high-pressure water hose

 

[welsummerchicks]

I hope to learn a lot from this thread. We would like to keep bees too.

A lady told me the poison from bees accumulates in the body, that it never goes away, so that every time you get stung the reaction is worse.

I don't think though, that it works that way with everyone. Some people do seem to have their reaction lessen over the years, for others it increases. I wonder if allergies really are understood well yet.

 

[Beekissed]

Youngest son opened the hive today...no protective gear, per usual. These must be the most gentle bees ever...they hardly even make a fuss when he does this. Moved the left side follower board down to the very end of the hive.

Sad to say that the bees are not building comb the way I had planned but are building it across two boards so that when you move a bar, the comb is torn in apart....

In the spring I plan on slowly replacing these bars with ones that are properly sized so as to avoid this...maybe even place wax guides on the bars to encourage proper comb placement. Too late this year to do anything about it.....seem to have plenty of bees, busy building comb and filling it with honey. It is very hard to inspect this hive with the comb structure being this way. I intend to do a more thorough inspection later this year with the help of my two sons to help me lift the bars all in one piece to see if everything is okay.

The bees are very quiet and industrious....I take that as a good sign.

 

[cheraboo]

We're going to try a last ditch effort to save the hive. We pulled every frame that had signs of beetles and/or their spawn and moved the bees to a new location. We're going to requeen the hive this afternoon and feed, feed, feed. I know that the odds are against us but you just never know. We aren't losing the girls without a fight.


What do we do with the nasty frames? I really am seriously considering just burning them. There are only 4 or 5 and we have extra frames so we wouldn't run short. I'm just kind of grossed out and fire sounds good

Not to mention all of the dead bee larvae

We did get lucky and were able to salvage a little honey but there is no brood. Should we grab a frame or two from our strong farm hive and bring them over? I know it will take some time before the eggs laid by the queen hatch and that's if the queen is accepted and able to do her job. I'm not sure we can get a mated queen, which is kind of a bummer.

 

[bibliophile birds]

you can freeze the frames for a few days to kill all the nasties and then cut the comb out, clean the frame well (i'd hit it with a powerwasher if you've got one), and reuse them safely.

i'm not much help when it comes to requeening and such, since my father has always taken care of that kind of stuff. but it's all worth a shot!

 

[sydney13]

so with one box how much honey do you get?
about how much money do you have to spend to get started?
what are the daily chores of beekeeping?