The Honey Factory

[duluthralphie]

I have just started my very own honey factory.

I was going to ha e two hives but decided to just buy one batch of bees, in case I kill them instead of two.

I can use advice from anyone and everyone with experience.

I do not plan to over winter my bees. I will use them as protein for the birds when their work is done.
My bee box:

I have it level side to side and and 1/8th bubble high on the back side.

Here are my new workers;

this was right after I moved them into their new home.

I was out and visited them a little bit ago. There were 50-100 bees crawling on the box above the door. I hope that’s normal.

I have Saskartraz bees. I think that’s because the Sasquatch developed them.

@R2elk might know more. As I said these are my first ones.

I know they were friendly and would purr when they sat on my arm, so I could pet them.


It was a tad intimidating to have a box of bees clumped together and buzzing like mad in my hands. I was not sure how getting them into the box would go.

It was not bad, I took the queen out first. She assured me we would get along fine and she had no hostility towards me. Hopefully, she pays her rent.

Her box had a wood plug and not a candy plug in it. I popped the plug out and put a marshmallow into the hole.

I hung her box between two supers, then dumped the rest into the box and replaced the supers I had removed to make space to dump them.

All of this was accomplished without a sting!

I am a tad nervous they won’t like my box and leave tonight.

I gave them a pollen patty and a jug of sugar water inside the box and I have a chick waterer set up outside the hive for them.

They have been here 4 hours. I will check on them in an hour or so.

 

[R2elk]

I hung her box between two supers, then dumped the rest into the box and replaced the supers I had removed to make space to dump them.

I am sure that you mean that you placed the queen cage between two frames. Supers are the boxes of frames that you will place on top of the hive.

I would recommend that for the time being you use the small exit hole in the entrance reducer rather than the large hole you have shown in your photo.

I am assuming that you have your feeder inside of the hive bodies since I don't see one on the outside and it is essential that you feed the bees until the weather is warm enough and there are enough blooms to sustain the bees.

The sister site BackyardHerds has a dedicated Bees & Beekeeping forum.

 

[R2elk]

Off topic.
Where is the Air Traffic Controller when you need one?

 

[R2elk]

Hive number two.

Open package

After being dumped in the hive and the temporary location of the queen cage.

Queen bee in queen cage

Frames back in place

Queen excluder

Inner cover

Hive closed back up

No incidents with this hive!!

 

[R2elk]

The Italians arrived this morning.

 

[R2elk]

About the hole. I had it set for the small entrance, but he said to turn it to the larger one because there are no other bees around.

He said if I had another hive or if there was one close I would use the small door so they could defend it easier.

Does that make sense?

Does the block ever get removed completely?

I use the small hole to start because it also slows down their exit if they decide to leave and it helps keep down the amount of cold air that can get into the hive. Once the brood starts hatching (population explosion), I switch to the larger entrance. When the hive is well established and the weather warms up, I remove the entrance reducer and replace it with a mouse guard entrance.

 

[R2elk]

I won’t be stealing honey, I will be collecting rent. When I explain that to them they will understand.

I just got off the phone with my tutor, he asked how it went. I told him they got a little excited when I pulled the Queen cage out.

He said almost the same thing you did. He said wait until you start taking the honey and you have 60,000 upset bees.

In my experience, bees do not understand the concept of paying rent. They do understand the concept of stealing as some varieties are more inclined to steal from other hives than they are inclined to make their own honey.

Another personal experience indicates that at least some kinds of Russian bees hold grudges. I had one particular Russian bee that took offense to me opening up the hive. It waited for me on the deck for 3 days in a row. On the third day it accomplished its mission with a suicide run and stung me.

 

[OhZark Biddies]

Congrats on the bees, ralphie! I’m sure you’ll enjoy them

This gal was from the hive I have here at the house... they were all over the redbud tree recently

I have another hive that isn’t up here... they were working wild plum trees the other day, but i didn’t get any pictures

 

[OhZark Biddies]

Hey! Are you gonna go check that hollow tree hive you wrapped and see if they survived?
I'm curious.

I never did give you an update on that did I, lol

I fed them again in February and then when I checked them in March after a warm spell, they were gone... not dead just gone....

I have a hive pretty close to that tree, and had seen some mingling of the two different colored bees in February, so I suspect they just joined my hive and they all robbed out the tree...

Once they were gone I could see there probably wasn’t much of a hive left when I found them this winter...

I couldn’t tell then, but in hindsight I suspect the queen and most of the hive “got dead” when the storm split the tree open.

I’d known there was a feral hive in that area for two years, just wish I’d have found them earlier.

This was it this winter

 

[R2elk]

It was 42°F in the shade when they arrived and they are predicting a cold front and more snow so I went ahead and hived them.
Hive number one.

Cluster hanging from sugar candy.

Sugar candy

Cluster on queen cage.

Open package

After being dumped in hive

Queen bee in cage

Frames back in place with queen cage suspended between two frames

Queen excluder

Medium super

Inner cover

Hive closed up

I had one mishap with this group. One bee felt like it was squeezed to hard and committed suicide by stinging the base of my thumb. The palm base of my thumb is now swollen and hot.