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Looking for help in North Central Washington

1K views 2 replies 3 participants last post by  indypartridge 
#1 ·
Tough start off last year, tough start up this year.

Grew up keeping bees and then joined the military, not lots of beekeeping opportunities. Got back in the game after 27 years absence. I was lucky enough to connect with a beekeeper with experience keeping bees at altitude in a semi-arid environment last year and things were looking good. In September she suddenly picked up and seemed to drop off the face of the earth. Would sure love to get in touch with somebody keeping bees in a similar environment.

Looks like I'm going to need some new bees as well. The four packages I got last year came out of the Sacramento area. One had a badly mated queen who started laying drones in late June. Got a new queen from Old Sol but too little, too late so I went into winter with 2 good hives and 2 very weak ones.

Could tell I'd lost the weak hives last month but the strong ones still sounded good. Problem is the last three weeks have been days in the 40s many with lots of sun, nights in the low 20s and upper teens. Terrible for the bees. I don't dare try and feed, it's too cold at night and I'm just listening to them get weaker and weaker.

Probably going to need to start with fresh packages or nucs for all 4 hives. Would like to get some a bit more acclimated to my climate. Can anybody help a brother out here?

Thanks.
 
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