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Two thumbs up for NWC queens from Honey Run.

Hi John,

I live 30 miles NE of Muskegon and I had to look at a hive today cause I thought I heard some piping. I didn't find any queen cells, but I did find fresh nectar being stored and fresh...

Hi Jonathan,

Glad to hear of your success!

I just read your blog(s) and see that you switched to Russians. Can you tell me when you made the switch? Also were your bottom deeps covered with...

There is a local beek that operates this way. Not what I would do, but to each his/her own.

I thought about approaching him last fall about buying some of his bees to try overwintering them. With...

I live on a river, so all of the area is river bottom, so to speak. I have my bees about 150 ft from the river and at least 8 to 10 ft higher in elevation. I can't get much higher without putting the...

Danno,

No I haven't treated other than a few powdered sugar treatments. I thought I had a handle on the varroa, but never gave a thought about nosema sp. or trachael mites. I don't think the...

Danno,

Glad to hear yours made it through in good shape.

The queens in the nucs from the pollinator beek are from a different apiary in Orland. The pollinator beek is having major issues too,...

I feel for ya. I am in the same boat.

Last year, 4 of 5 survived. This year lost all 8. Like you I had the same setup as last year. Last two died around the first of March. Those had a bit of...

John,

We make wine and have a LOT of spent corks. ;-)

If you need some wine bottle sized corks, just PM you address to me and I will send you some. Too bad I didn't know two days ago, my lady...

Danno,

I don't get ABJ, so I don't know if this is a duplicate, but here is an Apiary from Saskatchewan which converted to overwintering in single deeps quite a while ago.
...

Mel Disselkoen from the Grand Rapids area was purported to have his own hygienic overwintered queens for sale last year. http://www.mdasplitter.com/

Lots of good info on his site.

HTH,

Jay

Thanks for the reply.

I am glad to hear your nucs have survived fall supersedures. Hopefully they will make it. Being as close as they are I can peak in on them in winter and feed some old honey...

I have two hives that are second year hives and were extremely strong this year. One had 6 supers and the other 7. I held off harvesting honey till the first week in September for fear giving them...

The hive with 6 supers that I just removed 4 from was west of the hive in question so I don't think that shading was an issue. Plus they are at least 6 feet apart.

You are probably right that I am...

Thanks for the reply.

We have some goldenrod flow going, now that we just received some rain, but I am not smelling that 'dirty sock' aroma yet. ;-)

We are similar latitudes but on opposite...

I have one hive that is overpopulated with bees.

The hive was a late fall (Oct 1, 2009) newspaper combine of two small hives (6 frames and 3 frames). I did not off one of the queens, but let them...

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing!

Jay

Well according to the Red Tape Blog at MSU, honey is allowed. Woohooo.

The only rub I can see in the law is it has to be done in the home kitchen. It is not allowed in an outbuilding. Attached...

Does any Michigan beeks know if the newly enacted Cottage Food law of 2010, eliminates the need for a MDA permit and inspection?

From their FAQ section it says: What types of Cottage Foods can I...

I made a slight modification to Tim Arheit's all season inner cover. I made a new inner insulation out of 2 inch blueboard insulation and hollowed out some of the insulation and placed a small hole...

My bees did not like the thin beeswax coating and didn't draw them out well. Rarely would they draw the entire frame out and many times it was in streaks. When I coat them with additional beeswax, at...

@Danny,

Because it is raining today, the beek had to change his plans. I did chat with him and though he had talked to BeeWeaver a number of times, they never mentioned the superceedure issues...

@Danny,

No offense taken. It was a disclaimer that I wasn't posting to give BeeWeaver a bad rap.

You know you make a very good point about the possibility of the hive superceeding her. It is...

@DRUR,

I know the beek pretty well and he was sure they were Taylormade queens based on the color of the stick pin. I suppose someone could have changed them around. I read that Taylor in...

I bought 2 nucs this spring from a local beek who winters in Florida. He used Taylormade queens in these nucs according to the colored stick pins on the nucs. In one, the queen was MIA when I got it...