The Honey Factory

[Eden83_haaretz]

I pulled 3 completely full supers from the one hive that is doing good. I had pulled a full super earlier making 4 supers taken from this hive. I hope this hive makes it through the winter.

The first hive of Italians has produced no honey in the supers. At the first inspection of the hive, they were doing very good. I suspect that I inadvertently killed the queen during that inspection. The traffic in and out of the hive this summer was abysmal. I ordered a Russian Carniolan queen without looking inside the hive. Days before the queen was to arrive I checked the hive for a queen. There was no queen and no brood but there was some honey.

I took 3 frames of brood from the good Italian hive and put them in there along with a partially filled super and all the bees that were in it.

The new queen arrived and was placed in the hive. An inspection after 5 days showed the queen had not been released. I released her. She dived right down into the hive. In early September when the brood from her first eggs should have been showing up, a number of small dark colored bees showed up coming from the hive. It wasn't a huge hatch but showed that she had survived to lay eggs.

Unfortunately almost all the bees using that hive are now Italian looking bees. Maybe I got lucky and they made their own queen. Circumstantial evidence says the Russian Carniolan queen didn't make it.

Got the tip from a beekeeper that has decades of experience, to smear the queen bee with honey from the hive, works every time so that they will accept the queen bee.

 

[Eden83_haaretz]

I had to inspect my hives today. It has been 15 days since I last went in. Way too long for my comfort.

I have been semi-laid up with a knee injury. I was waiting for it to feel better and the weather to cool down. Neither happened.

The swarm I caught was doing great.

The Canooks not so great. It appears the queen is dead or worthless I found a few 10-20 capped cells across 10 frames and a bunch of drone cells. Laying worker is my guess there.

I looked but could not find any queen.

The swarm has lots of brood and a fair amount of honey for 2 weeks worth of gathering.

I combined the two hives. Fingers crossed here that it will work.

The Italians were holding their own. I would have liked more honey in the honey supers. But they looked good.

The Russians are amazing again. The amount of brood is unbelievable. I saw that queen again. She lays every cell except the outside 1/2 inch with brood. I took 3 full deeps from them of honey. I will freeze it and give it back this winter. I am going to make sure they don’t run out of honey.

I have 3 supers on top of the hive. Looking good. Making new comb like crazy on the new foundation.

I replaced some clean comb with my spun out frames. Hopefully they will clean it and refill.

I had given all three hives drone comb. The Canooks snd Italians had a few cells covered not enough for me to pull it.

The Russians had about 1/3 of one side full of drones. They were filling the other side with honey. Silly Russians!

I think I am over heated and my knee hurts like a (words I can’t use here).

I got stung for the first time while working my bees today. I must have not had the suit tight to my shoes. She crawled up my leg and got me on the back of my calf muscle.

Not sure what type of knee injury you have, but have you tried having a bee sting you in the knee? Might help

 

[Eden83_haaretz]

It is getting close to time for me to steal the rest of the honey.

Feed the bees and put them to bed for the winter.

I plan to get an extractor and was wondering what kind you have and what you think of it?

I also read where some people use an electric drill instead of the crank. Anyone do that?

I am going to over winter two hives. The Italians I got this spring that I voiced a concern about whether they were truly Minnesota bees or Texans the guy sold as Minnesota bees, ended up being a worthless hive considering how much promise they showed.

I will be smothering them in next couple weeks. I plan to use their deep supers of honey to help the other hives.

I am also still toying with the idea of adding a little… very little supplemental heat to the hives.

The thermostat comes on at 35 goes off at 45.

What is everyone’s plans? Ideas. Etc.

Also who has pulled honey and how did you do?

We're lucky that we don't get snow, the bees have been very happy here and we're very lucky because the flowers last really long. About a week and a half ago we got out about 57 liters (15 gallons) of honey, we were going to extract some today but it rained, hopefully tomorrow we'll be able to get more honey.

 

[R2elk]

Ok, here in Mexico it's quite rare that anyone will sell you bees without at least 2 frames with larvae and 2 with honey (just guarantees that you'll definitely have them stay in their new home).
Pheromones could help, I think in the US they do sell it commercially so you can treat at least the lid with it, since the bees are already inside.

Package bees are readily available in the U.S. I have never had the need to use pheromones to keep the bees in the hive.

 

[R2elk]

Got the tip from a beekeeper that has decades of experience, to smear the queen bee with honey from the hive, works every time so that they will accept the queen bee.

You do what you do, I will continue to use my methods.

 

[Apis mellifera]

Personally we've controlled mite infestation with incredible success by smoking them with lavander branches flowers or Eucaliptus leaves and branches; the mites will fall off and die quite quickly. Years ago we sort of researched that the mite problem wasn't very bad in France and Australia, checked out and the oils in lavander and Eucaliptus effectively kill mites. So whenever we check the bees we always use lavander or eucalyptus; the bees even seem to like it.

No thanks, been there done that. Plenty of all natural essential oil data and research shows none of it kills mites. At least not in the US. Besides we dont have access to lavender branches flower and eucalyptus leaves here, it would be very expensive here. Oxalic acid is proven to kill mites and its pennies per treatment. Australia doesnt have varroa mites.

 

[itsasmallfarm]

tomorrow going to wrap the bee hives for winter. fed them for a few weeks of sugar water. my mentor checked them out and said they where good for winter just needed to be wrapped.

also planning to get 6 more hives next year making for a grand total of 8, my mentor said that would be a good number to work with as he wants to keep teaching us. and it works well as we wrap in groups of four.

 

[duluthralphie]

I fed my bees 100 pounds of sugar as of last night.

 

[duluthralphie]

If you love them set them free..

I decided I love my Italian bees so much, I set them free tonight.


They must really love me back, they never left. They clung to my suit. The WW had to broom them off me three times.

Some of them loved me so much they laid in Piles just below where the frames came to a sudden stop when hitting my table.

Others were clinging to the sides of the boxes without frames. I will check on their welfare in the morning.

They should do fine without the boxes I was keeping them captive in. It will be in the mid to upper 20’s. Which maybe uncomfortable for them, until their little hearts stop because of my setting them free.

I am wondering what they did with their share of the sugar. Their frames are extremely light with many empty frames.

I am thinking they will learn to make honey next year after this episode.

 

[duluthralphie]

Dear Fellow Bee Peeps:

I have recently discovered kicking bees out of a hive in below freezing temperatures will not necessarily kill them.

I have also recently discovered Bees that look dead on a frame kept outside in below freezing weather may not in fact be dead.

I have also stumbled upon a little known fact. If you see bees clumped together on the bottom of the leg of a table and they look alive after spending the night outside, in below freezing temps, they will indeed be alive.

Also I learned taking a frame with what appears to be dead bees and pounding it against the table of which the bees have clustered will awaken the bees on the frame and on the table leg.

Upon further reflection I deduced, 36 degrees f will not slow down bees very much if they are pissed off from spending the night outside in below freezing temps.

Learn from all I learned today. And if you don’t learn at least be smarter than me and wear a bee suit while learning.