I'm getting to big for my britches, I've got 100 hives and only 100 honey supers to hand out. Eventually i'll be able to buy some more after i sell the honey. The moral of this story is to make sur you have enough honey supers for the colonies you have, well, time to put cardboard boxs on the hives
not this year, but it's the population i'm more worried about. usually the hives can have 5 dadant supers on them and be plugged with bees. i'm thinking of putting on empty boxs (i've no frames) and let them just draw what they can, very messy, or let a freind of mine put his supers on them and negociate a price, or as i was saying, actual card board boxs, even messier than the dadant with no frames.good news is that i'll be able to buy more honey supers at the end of the season. ha ha.
Been there, done that. I expanded too fast 2 years ago and worked my self half dead building supers and frames. I would contact a reputable and disease free commercial beekeeper and see if you could not rent any available honey supers he / she may have.
I'd be absolutely terrified of having to deal with 100 boxes of wild comb next spring! That'd be pretty nuts.
Just brainstorming, but what about extracting often to make the most of this season, then combining hive bodies in the fall, using the newspaper technique, to have a good population and stores for winter?
Sure it costs money, but given your situation,
your honey crop could more than "pay for" the
investment, versus not having more than one
super of harvestable honey crop per hive.
Years ago a beekeeper I was working with said they had run into the same situation and simply stacked empty boxs on top to keep the bees from going to the woods. When the time came they made a garrot out of wood dowel rods and piano wire to seperate the sections. Bee Go (or some alternative) would seem to me to be the only way to clear the bees from the boxs. If you have funds (which it sounds as if you are short of) there sure should be some used super in the Dakota's and BC itself... there are several used equipment dealers out there (who's reputation you should check out throughtly) Herb Issac Sales Ltd. and one of the Weaver's (of Navasota, Texas fame-but I am not sure of exactly which Weaver) comes to mind.
Lots of ads in the May 2005 American Bee Journal offering deeps and mediums for sale. Many with drawn comb. One in Bell, WA offering 200 drawn shallows at $6 each. Jerry Guilmette (360) 398-2146. Morris Weaver in Navasota TX is broker of bees and equipment. www.morrisweaver.com email: morrisweaver@earthlink.net He might know of someone near you willing to do a share-cropping deal. Getting equipment to BC might pose time/money issues unless you find someone in the NW with some ready equipment. Golden Millet in ID might have some. Good luck.
I bought some supers from Jerry ,the ad in ABJ shortened his address from Bellingham to Bell, real nice shape they were wet and ten frame. Pleasent person to do bussiness with. No problems at all. When I was there he had 3 more (I think) pallets with shallow boxes he was selling. And Bellingham is just below the Canadian border by Blaine.
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perfect time for permacomb, you'd be bound to have good acceptance with a good flow like that on
limiting supers to 8 frames might help also
thought of selling some bees?
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