The Honey Factory

[duluthralphie]

Swarms are amazing at drawing comb. It's not ideal to catch your own swarms but the upside is they'll draw you a box of comb new comb in a week which is handy.

I know you are more experienced than me. But it would be super ideal if I could catch swarms.

I went into my hives yesterday and again today. First time I went in two days in a row. Not something I hope to repeat.

I saw yesterday I needed more room. I had taken my cut comb frames out. I had no more to take out. If I put too many in it makes a mess.

Also I don’t have an extractor and the guy that will extract for me says he can’t do it for 12 more days.

So I made the trip to the bee store. I bought more medium supers and frames. I think I can last 12 days now.

The Russians are amazing. The Italians are doing good.

The Canooks are failing.

I took all the hives apart today. Checked brood and honey. I added a green drone frame.

And I bought wire queen excluders and got rid of the plastic ones. The bees immediately went through the wire ones like they aren’t there.

I found some brood cells, maybe 20 above the excluder. The bees must move brood around. Weird because I saw the queen below the excluder.


The Canooks are short on brood. I found a supercedure cell. I did not see a queen, not that I always do.

There was just one supercedure cell in the hive.

I did not see any swarm cells in any of the hives.

 

[duluthralphie]

If I fed the bees maple syrup would I get maple honey?

 

[BirdsBeesTrees]

If I fed the bees maple syrup would I get maple honey?

I don't know about that but different years I can tell what the bees were taking necter from. 2 years in a row I could really taste the apple and plum blossom honey, some years the clover is prominent.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

If pressed to a queen can get through an excluder. They really are not meant to be permanent. If so they retard growth resulting in less honey and higher chance of swarming.

I highly recommend not using excluders. They are great if you are having trouble finding a queen you want to change out. Place excluder between brood box and come back in few days to see which has eggs in it- cuts the hunt for queen by half. Using them as a sieve to find queens works well too. Place on a box with frames and put open box over it with line of duct tape a few inches up from excluder. Shake a colony into this set up to find the queen. They also are needed if you bank queens or for setting up to graft appropriate age larva to make queen cells. All sorts of uses for excluders including using them for colonies to collect specialty honey like sourwood. But after the bloom and hives moved back to home apiary those excluders are removed.

The largest brood nest I've ever seen a single queen capable of extends into 4-5 frames of the 4th medium box or medium box on two deep boxes. It's just not possible for them to lay more than that unless it's a hive with more than one queen. Mike Palmer used the sieve method described above a few years ago to test 50 hives. Over 15 of those 50 full colonies had two queens.

 

[duluthralphie]

I will continue to use the excluder the rest of the summer. I want my honey as brood free as possible. And I really like these new metal ones.

 

[duluthralphie]

A two queen honey would be super.

 

[jerryse]

I made a brood box today . I will shut the swarm trap tonight and transfer in the morning . Glued up enough boards for 2 more brood boxes . I will make those tomorrow . Going cheap . Ash cutoffs only 1 was wide enough so glued some together . .

 

[Apis mellifera]

To exclude or not to exclude that is the question! Its all in how you want to keep your bees and extract. For duluthralphie they are an excellent option, I like clean cut comb too. He can take frames out whenever he wants without worrying about brood. He can cut out the comb and leave about a 1/2" strip and if there is a strong flow on the bees with fill it back in. I use them on most hives with an upper entrance. I dont see big differences in strong hives with or without queen excluders. QEs dont cause swarms, lack of management does. The only difference is I typically get brood in supers without excluders and have to wait till late summer or fall to extract those supers. So I will end up missing out on varietal / seasonal honeys in those supers. Frames that got used for brood are far more likely to get infested with wax moths if they are not stored properly. Mike Palmer uses QEs on all his hives and he produces tons of honey.
On another subject, if you did feed bees maple syrup, molasses, brown sugar or anything that was heated and may have caramelized, its hard for bees to process or digest and could cause dysentery.

 

[jerryse]

I saw a post about basswood honey . Not many basswood around me . At the cabin there are a lot of basswood . Said to make excellent comb honey .

 

[duluthralphie]

I saw a post about basswood honey . Not many basswood around me . At the cabin there are a lot of basswood . Said to make excellent comb honey .

How would anyone know it’s basswood? There are so many other things blooming at the same time a basswood does.

I sometimes wonder about claims people make. Even if the hive sets on 40 acres of clover, it’s not all clover honey.

I have thought about planting buckwheat for the bees though.