New Beekeeper in Concrete Washington

[concrete-bees]

just got started this year and loving everyday of it -
was wondering if there are more keepers up in skagit County on here

thanks

[Sundance]

Welcome and glad you're here. There are several from
Wash on the site. Hope you cement your relationships.

[concrete-bees]

yeah i hope to meet other keepers and start new friendships with people of the same hobby -

[wannabeekeeper]

Hi Concrete. I am also a new bee keeper in Olympia Wa Welcome!

[wally.snohomish]

Hello,
I am in Snohomish, WA.

[Hormel]

Welcome, there are a few around here from WA
John

[concrete-bees]

things are really buzzin now that we got some rain here - all of the flowers were dry. but today i found them back to building comb - i was worried the last two weeks -

swarm after swarm after swarm - they took 90% of the bees and most of the honey with them - i got most of the swarms back but what a mess this last month has been -

oh and on a bad note ------ someone just dropped about 50 hives about a mile from my house . . . . eerrrrrrr thats just not right ...... but thats life

have a great day fellow keepers and take care

Seth

[wannabeekeeper]

Why did you have so many swarms? I think we will re queen every other year to try and avoid that.

[concrete-bees]

odd as it sounds but i could not get them to build in the supers - at all i try with and with out the excluder i tryed to put the super between the two deeps to try to get them to biuld comb but nothing - in fact right after i wrote yesterday i had another swarm -

they are all new queens that i bought this year but they are probably old queens that they sent me

[BGhoney]

Hi, Battle Ground Washington here.

Are you using plastic foundation, if you are try putting another light coat of bees wax on it with a foam brush, it will help them take it.

If someone moved 50 hives by me, I'd put up some empty boxes with swarm lures in them.:eek:

[oldenglish]

I am in Snohomish WA, no swarms so far from my five hives. Not using foundation but kept feeding right up until the end of last week, their is usually a bit of a dearth between the maple and blackberry and the bees will stop building comb during that time.
Right now things are looking real good for a great flow, we had rain at the right time and now good weather appeares to be settling in.

I also agree with BGhoney, get those swarm lures out.

[concrete-bees]

Hey Battle Ground - thats a great idea - i never thought of that HAAHAHAHA that just made my day

in the foundation .... im using plastic Rite Cell with sprayed on beeswax
i just the same stuff for the deeps and they built it like no tommorow -
i got 25 lbs of thin surplus at a yard sale for 5 bucks and i took every other frame out of the super and replaced it with this

so it go plastic wax plastic wax and so on - and still nothing ?????
its odd because i had a warm on may 20th and they have build both deeps in the same time that others havent started the supers???

i took out the excluder and figure im not going to get much honey this year and just let them get stocked up -

anyhow keep in touch

Seth

[mariongoose]

Oooh, I hope some of those swarms head towards me. Okay it's a bit of a stretch, but I hope I have luck with my swarms.

[megank]

People of the Pacific Northwest...including Concrete WA can also post your questions here..

http://nwdba.proboards.com/index.cgi

yup......A shameless plug

[mariongoose]

a shameless plug perhaps, but a great find!:applause:

[concrete-bees]

agreed -- nice find -- thanks !!!!!!

[oldenglish]

Thanks for the plug, I hope it becomes a usefull site to those of you that keep bees in the Pacific Northwest.

[iwombat]

Greetings from North Bend here. Those 50 hives are a mixed blessing for sure. But I'm right there with the swarm trap or bait hive idea as mentioned before. If you can't get them to move up, try pulling a frame of brood up. That usually gets them working the new box.

[concrete-bees]

yeah mixed blessing for sure but now that i think about it if they put 50 and i have ten then i should be fine - other wise they would have only put 40 being that with 50 they know what they are doing but still its a bummer because they just drop and steal the nector and then move on

i moved frames around so ill give them a week or so

thanks for the help

[iwombat]

Old, I don't know what it's like in your area, but between the maple and the himalaya blackberry I get salmonberry and native blackberry. So I don't see much in the way of a dearth. Himalaya is definitely the gangbuster of flows though.

[oldenglish]

Old, I don't know what it's like in your area, but between the maple and the himalaya blackberry I get salmonberry and native blackberry. So I don't see much in the way of a dearth. Himalaya is definitely the gangbuster of flows though.

Salmonberry ends about the same time as the maple or at least it did this year, I was not sure about it as I have lots on my property and did not see many bees working it, we also have huckleberry but again it was more the bumble bees on it than anything else. They were still bringing in lots of pollen but their comb building definatley cut way back until the blackberry kicked in.

[Barry]

Just a reminder, this is a forum for people to introduce themselves. Let's move the conversation to another forum when it gets beyond a welcome.

[concrete-bees]

up here there are TONS of clover and blackberry in flower but my bees are not moving up into the supers - with or without exculders ??? they have room but swarm anyway - ive been fighting swarming since May and these are new packages installed on 4-16-09 - just worried if they dont get packing they will starve