Beesource Beekeeping Forums banner

Winter losses vs. Summer gains

180K views 644 replies 60 participants last post by  Oldtimer 
#1 ·
From time to time, there are complaints that there is too much bickering and arguing and people aren't getting to talk about what they want. Well, I can't do anything about that, people are people.

But what I can do and what I like to do is answer questions. So I want to give everybody the free and explicit opportunity to ask serious questions. If you want to be treatment-free, or if you are weighing your options, ask away. I want to help you. I'm not going to be answering challenges or defending my methods or viewpoint. I want to help you if you want to be helped. I want to tell you what you want to know, not what you want to hear. I had tons of questions and many of them will be the same ones you are asking now. You can even go back to 2003 and see them for yourself in the archives.

So ask away. You have my ear.
 
#113 ·
Re: Ask Questions Here!

Well in all honestly I didn't know so much what I was getting into at the beginning. I had researched bees and beekeeping enough to know that it's what I wanted to do as a hobby. Aside from reading a couple of Kim Flottum's books and reading Beekeeping for Dummies I knew packages were cheaper then nucs and my first year I was starting with a limited budget. The first couple of packages I got were Italian's, the beekeeper I got them from comes from a well established family of beek's that operate (what I would consider) a very successful migratory operation of ~6,000 hives. So I trusted the stock, and was OK with the packages. My second year I ordered packages from the same individual, 17 of which were italians and 16 of which were carniolans. I had 8 queens die of the 33 packages, he replaced a couple of the queens but I think he was suspicious that I had done something wrong to kill them because he said they had the same queens in all of their packages they brought back from California and they lost 2 out of 850. Maybe I mishandled, maybe something else happened, I'm not sure but I do remember being upset he didn't replace all 8 queens. In any case, I'm done buying packages and intend to raise my own queens and hives via nucs/splits from here on out, however, I still do intend to infuse new genetics through the purchase of reputable queens from time to time.
 
#118 ·
Re: Ask Questions Here!

In a treatment free world, if/when you have a hive die out of a nosema infestation over the winter, what do you do with the frames/equipment next year? Burn them, or treat them?
 
#126 ·
Re: Ask Questions Here!

23 out of 23 ay sol?

not bad.

and i hear what you are saying to moon and others, this is the ask sol thread after all.

and i hope you will take this in the spirit in it is given...

I have not had any nosema problems, so I can't speak from any experience on that issue.
you had mentioned in previous posts that you allow for natural selection in you apiary, and by treatment free you allow hives to perish if that is their natural course, i.e. no intervention. 23 out of 23 for this season is awesome, and it appears you have accomplished your objective. congratulations.

but the hives lost along the way to get there have a story to tell as well. they all died for some reason or another, or combinations of reasons. the question that was never answered, (if i understand and recall what you have shared in previous posts), is that you never initiated any kind of formal autosopy, i.e. not mite counts, nosema spore counts, ect.

perhaps some of your deadouts could have been from nosema, perhaps not. it would more accurate to say that you have never taken any action regarding nosema.

using diluted bleach to sanitize comb out of a dead out is something that the old beekeepers here have been doing for decades. i have had the opportunity to use that technique once or twice, and if that makes me not treatment free by another's defintion, well, ok.

moon, i regret the way i sounded in my previous two posts, i pledge to improve on my tone.

and sol, if you have carved this thread out to be a question/answer forum for just you and whoever asks, i can respect that.

for me, in a perfect world (forum) the most is gained with the free flow of ideas from all who care to contribute.

with respect,

kevin
 
#122 ·
Re: Ask Questions Here!

unless of course your goal is to expose your bees to as much disease and pests as possible in order to weed out the ones that can't survive on their own, in which case you would want as many nosema spores remaining on that comb as you can get.
 
#123 ·
Re: Ask Questions Here!

People are so pedantic in this thread. You offer knowledge, but belittle anyone in seek of answers that aren't in your immediate field of experience. Rather than offer assistance, people offer snide remarks and chastise anyone who doesn't think the same way as they do. Undoubtedly it's a no brainer to you squarepeg, if it wasn't you would probably be asking the question and hoping for guidance instead of snide remarks. I thought this thread was asking about questions Solomon, not what Solomon's first hand experience was, if I wanted that I could read a blog. What I wanted was the opinion of treatment free beeks who tout they've been doing this successfully for years, not the snide remarks of snippy people.
 
#124 ·
Re: Ask Questions Here!

i agree moon, (i had to look up pedantic).

and i do i apologize, my remark was snide.

the problem is that there is no such thing as a 'treatment free world'. what i mean by that is that sol has his approach and definition of what treatment free is, and others who tout being treatment free may have differing ideas.

if you are asking what could be done as a precautionary measure to comb obtained by from a confirmed nosema dead out, and if you are not concerned that you might be breaking some unwritten rule in the 'treatment free world',

then i would recommend using bleach diluted to 10% with water, mist the comb well, and let it dry thoroughly.
 
#125 ·
Re: Ask Questions Here!

Moon, I'm happy to share my experience. If you want the conjecture and wild hare brained theories of people who have never actually done what they're talking about, you're welcome to it. It wont be coming from me.

Like my website says, I am not telling you how to do it, but I will tell you how it can be done because despite the hoards who have told me it can't be done, I'm still doing it. Predicted crashes have not come. No one grants me the term 'success.' I don't care.

This is very simple. If you want to ask ME questions, ask and you will get honest answers. If you want to run off topic, start your own thread and you can ask for any sort of question you want. I wont complain. There are precious few knowledgeable treatment free beekeepers out there. Perhaps you should be thankful for what information you can find from those who actually did what they talk about.
 
#129 ·
Re: Ask Questions Here!

I don't get it. The thread topic is "Ask Questions Here".

But even if there was a particular topic, which in this case there isn't, just because I start a thread does not mean I haven't had people derail it. I've even had threads I started derailed by you Sol. To me, it doesn't matter, you just move on, if people want to ask questions here they'll do it.

If you've stopped answering a particular question, somebody else might be happy to.
 
#130 ·
Re: Ask Questions Here!

Question - "Super" rotation. I've read a lot of material here about NOT rotating supers. I'm in agreement with the concept but have a question. My lone surviving hive is made up of a deep and a medium. The bees are at the top of the deep and into the medium which still contains lots of honey. Our weather is still quite cool here in central oregon so I have not opened up the hive for a close look yet. My question is this. Assuming the bottom deep is basically empty - just drawn comb, will the bees work themselves back down into the deep if I leave things just as they are? The medium on top of the deep will be mostly honey but some empty comb, depending on how much of the honey stores they use.
 
#131 ·
Re: Ask Questions Here!

They should work their way back down. They should. They don't always do as they should though, as any experienced beekeeper will tell you. They might choose to swarm or something before completing the task.

What the gentleman spoke of regarding rotating brood boxes seemed to refer to situations where rotating the boxes would cause disruptions because there was brood in both boxes. If your bottom box is completely empty, I wouldn't be very concerned about that happening if you were to put that box somewhere else as long as you weren't disrupting the brood nest. I'm not entirely sure that's the case though. If all you have is a deep and a medium, I'd recommend leaving it alone. Let them build up a bit and see where it goes.
 
#134 ·
Re: Ask Questions Here!

Sondra,
I do. I don't usually use empty hives, I usually use empty five frame nucs. Not completely empty, they usually have four frames of foundation and one frame of comb. They also usually have some sort of swarm lure, either the commercially available ones or my homebrew type, a combination of lemongrass oil and a dash of alcohol that has had old dead queens soaking in it. I use the same setup for swarm lures around the countryside. I have caught a good number of local wild swarms that way. Wild swarms are usually very small here. Anything larger than two frames and I consider it to be from a kept hive.
 
#135 ·
Re: Ask Questions Here!

Question for Solomon,

I don't follow you enough on the forums to know exactly how you perform your inspections so if you've answered this elsewhere I apologize for asking again.

From your blog: New Rule
If you wave your hand over an open hive and bees fly up to sting it, requeen.

Is this with or without smoking the hive? Is this in the instance of a flow or dearth? Do you think intentionally breeding bees that lack any kind of defensive behavior towards an intruder is a good quality or a bad quality? Do you have skunks in your area?
 
#136 ·
Re: Ask Questions Here!

That is without smoking the hive, good weather.

I don't think breeding bees without any kind of defensive behavior is a good idea and I don't know of anyone who does it.

I do have skunks in my area.

I expect to be able to take the lid off a hive and to work it gently and deliberately without being attacked and without smoke. I keep a lit smoker with me in case it is necessary. I don't work with gloves so gentle bees are a must. That post was in response to my last mean hive that I have not requeened yet. If I open the lid and pass my hand above the hive, about 8" up, my hand will be attacked. May not be stung immediately, but mean bees are a liability as well as an annoyance. I get stung enough not to have any sort of a reaction, but it still really hurts, especially when I get stung under the fingernail like happened right before I posted that.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top