The Honey Factory

[jerryse]

Well I have a swarm . Put them in a hive .

 

[duluthralphie]

Well I have a swarm . Put them in a hive .View attachment 2673068

Jerry it amazes me how many bees you can catch in a year.

 

[jerryse]

Jerry it amazes me how many bees you can catch in a year.

I am a bee charmer . The real test will be to see if I can charm some at the lake .

 

[jerryse]

So I had to go pick up the car at Farm and Fleet . New tires . They have bee equipment sometimes - sort of . Wanted inner and outer cover for the new hive . Nope those spots were empty . Heavy rain so I did not try TSC . Right now I have a plastic feed sack and a old floor mat for a cover . I will make a migratory cover tomorrow . There is a bee supply guy about a hour away . I need other things so I will plan a trip soon . He has a good inventory .

 

[duluthralphie]

I checked my bees today. The package bees seemed a little slow. They are doing fine once I opened them. They did not take feed for a couple days then gulped it down today.

I refilled their feeders.

The Russian bees are going to town. They had the top box I added when I got them a week ago nearly full of honey and, of course, the brood I moved up there last week. I added a medium honey supper to the top of them today.


I think I have more honey now than I had all of last year. I have no idea where they are getting it but they are. Some is already capped. Amazingly.

I like my Russian bees. They did not like me checking out their hive, but we will learn to get along.

I think they would have bearded tonight, but the new super should help stop that.

 

[CLSranch]

I got a call the other day Sat. Well several with bad timing. I had part of a plugged tire blow out and happened to be next to a house. While I was asking them if I could leave it, that is when I got the calls. ANYWAY it was for a cutout. It will be my first and they want the bee's to stay there and have me manage them. It is in a dead tree that got a swarm a few weeks ago. If the tree was healthy they wouldn't bother.
Sounds like I just work for them but I can treat them as my own. Take the honey, make splits, etc.... They just want the pollination benefits. So it's like a free bee yard that someone wants me to use.

 

[jerryse]

I put in the remaining 5 frames in the swarm hive . Did not see the queen . Checked the nuc/split and found the queen and marked her . Then I fumbled and off she flew . While I was putting the inner cover on her she comes , lands on the board and walks in . I did not see any eggs yet . Nice yellow brown queen . The mother colony is very good . More activity around swarm traps again . Sun is trying to shine .

 

[R2elk]

I did a quick hive inspection today. I did not check the lower hive bodies on the two Italian hives and did not see the queen in either one but strongly suspect they are in the lower hive bodies. Lots of capped brood and growing larvae. Some capped honey in both hives. I did not see any eggs but my eyes aren't that great and it is extremely bright out.

I also did not take a camera with me.

I did check the lower hive body in the Saskatraz hive. It is nearly full of mostly capped brood and some growing larvae. They are starting to fill the remaining cells with honey.

They have begun some cell building in the upper hive body. They are not doing well at cell building. I did find the queen in the upper hive body and she looks to be a beauty and has grown much since she was in her cage. I really wish I had taken pics but no such luck.

Just about all the fruit trees are currently in bloom with the majority of the bees being in the crabapple tree.

 

[duluthralphie]

I caught a swarm of bees, 5 frames full. I just threw 160 bucks away and I caught the swarm.

I got the bees from the guy I was worried about. He seems ok.

The nuc was marked “Mn Q”. So hopefully it’s not a scam. There was not a lot of covered brood in the nuc. But that actually comforts me. I let him keep the bees an extra week. So most of the brood that came from texas would be hatched, I would think. It’s been 2 weeks since they left Tx.


The bees seemed healthy. I did by an alcohol wash kit. A Tupperware dish with a strainer you put a 1/2 cup of bees and swish.

I also bought some hops guard strips. They should be here in a few days.

I will bathe some bees before use the strips.

I went through every frame today.

The package bees seem to be doing ok. Not as well as I would like but they are putting up some honey. I don’t think there is any danger of a swarm there.

The full hive of Russian bees are doing amazing. They had brood and honey, lots of honey. It appears the queen is laying in the bottom box right now. There were about 3-4 empty sides of frames or at least not honey or capped. I can not see eggs real well wearing a hood... or without cheaters on.


The top box had maybe 5 sides not filled. But all the frame sides had some honey. There was more capped honey than I expected. When I removed the top deep, I found it to be a lot heavier than I expected.

a couple days ago I put a medium super on it after my quick inspection because I was worried about them getting over crowded.

I am glad I did. There was no honey in the med super. However, the frames were all simply foundation. They are building comb on it.

Quite a few bees working in the medium super.

This should all be good honey as I never fed this hive.

All the pictures are from the Russian Bees.

I hope they are different frames. My photography is not real great.

 

[duluthralphie]

I forgot to mention in my Expose’.

I did not see any swarm cells. I might have seen one supercedure cell. I removed it.