The Honey Factory

[BirdsBeesTrees]

Have any of you tried this:

View attachment 2712719

No, I haven't but I know a couple guys that do. The bees will use them for Drones, but they also will put them anywhere else they want to.
Like these:

The deer rarely watch for these signs to cross the road. I almost hit 2 of these nasties this morning who were obviously ignoring their crossing signs.

 

[duluthralphie]

No, I haven't but I know a couple guys that do. The bees will use them for Drones, but they also will put them anywhere else they want to.
Like these:
View attachment 2712870
The deer rarely watch for these signs to cross the road. I almost hit 2 of these nasties this morning who were obviously ignoring their crossing signs.

Deer in Minnesota only cross in designated crossings.

You must have rebel deer.

 

[Apis mellifera]

Some bee breeders set up drone yards and use drone frames in large colonies to flood an area with desirable genetics. Others use the drone frames as a form of mite control because mites are more likely to enter drone brood. When the drone brood is capped its taken out and put in the freezer killing the drones and mites. Workers will clean out the dead brood. You can get almost the same results by placing a starter strip on an outside frame and the bees will build drone comb.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Bees need a place to lay drone eggs. If you use cell size less than 5.4 mm then your bees will be plugging up the hive with cross comb, ladder comb and comb everywhere you don't want it just to have places to lay drone eggs. The 5.4 mm is smallest cell size they will attempt drone cells though prefer much larger. It's just good practice to give them a frame to make them happy. I'd not buy an overpriced plastic frame for that. Just set up an open wood frame between two drawn frames. If you put it one or two frames in from side they will draw it almost completely drone. I use popsicle sticks wedged in top bar as starter strip.

Queen excluders are nice for certain things but I don't believe in using them as a barrier between brood and supers. If you limit the brood chamber you're promoting swarming and limiting the colonies potential. A full size hive is exactly how large a give queen and healthy colony can make. Typically that's 4 mediums or two deeps and a medium hive box. In Northern climates that is what we winter with to ensure enough stores for our long winters. No winter feeding up here. That extra medium can be located anywhere in the stack. Shuffled with other boxes come spring to get bees in bottom box working up.

Knowing that the brood will likely be coming into that first super you just need to inspect prior to pulling frames for harvest. Center three to five frames can have brood so you don't pull those boxes willy nilly rather grab the outer frames of honey and put them back wet after extraction. As for extracting honey from frames previously used for brood it does darken the honey. Nothing else. The Slovenian hive system is constant extraction from brood chamber.

 

[itsasmallfarm]

seems the bees i have are doing better then expected, my mentor (who i got the bees from) was quite impressed with how they are doing in one week.

and they are very gentle i was a bit worried at the start (before i got them) about getting stung. but after two checks (ran out of bee food so i had to put more in after my first check a few days later) it is very relaxing. i should also note i have the carniolan bees.

also happy that our clover field is starting to bloom. that should give lots of feed for them.

 

[duluthralphie]

Things I learnt:

The 9frame system is not for me. While I did get larger honey comb. It is not as neat as it should be.

when I pulled the frames I broke open comb.

The bees do not make the comb a uniform depth so it is like pulling a jigsaw puzzle up.

But I do have one of those 9 comb measuring devices for sale..

Make me an offer..

 

[jerryse]

I am at the lake and very busy . Did not have room for. a swarm trap . A waste anyway as no honeybees observed here . Just native pollinators .

 

[duluthralphie]

We had a 1/2 of rain last Sunday. The bees have been going nuts since then.

Hopefully because there is nectar out there and not because they want to swarm.

 

[duluthralphie]

The following is a photo of the most expensive honey in the world.

it costs around $1,000 a quart.

The hole in the above frame was along the wall of the super. I scraped it free. The silly bees glued it to the wall.

The larger missing piece is in the fridge for later. The smaller one was consumed. Really good tasting but really sweet.

These frames have beeswax with no wire through them for cut comb.

Sure was good to taste my own honey.

The girls did not give it up without a fight.

 

[itsasmallfarm]

Well not much of an update on the bees but have a bear trying to get to them.