A visit to Bush Farms

[Acebird]

We have three ft dia. trees blow over all the time (box elders). Regardless of the wind I do not want my hives above my head. If it comes to it I will pull supers. I surely would not go more than 4 mediums high through the winter.

Thanks for your comments. I see no problems for me using 8 frame mediums.

[Gypsi]

I was introduced to the concept of "chicken math" on backyard chickens.com. But since I can only eat so many eggs, 6 hens was plenty. Now bee math, it has potential. I have 1/3 of an acre, about 1/4 of that devoted to bees, storage shed and ponds. I have a rural area with little pesticide use, and neighbors who expanded their garden to enjoy my bees. I am having so much fun discovering the pallet I was going to tear up might be useful... aye, bee math

[Batman]

It's official. I envy Solomon Parker.

Ditto.

I would like to get in touch with a local commercial operation so I can check it all out for myself, although I like Michael's approach with treatment free beekeeping. Solomon, even with your 14 hour round trip drive, you were a mortal walking amoungst a god for a day.
I bought Michael's book and feel that even though, as he stated, all the info is available for free on this site, power comes and power goes, or you're not near a computer when you need the info, so having a hard copy in close by is worth every penny spent.

Michael, I don't know if you hear it enough, but "thank you for all your help."

C2

[Solomon Parker]

Funny thing, I told Mike he had been deified amongst a certain demographic. He was hardly thrilled.

[wdcrkapry205]

Solomon, I admire your website and blog. Very professional.
I have to agree with Jim Lyon, something had to set off the robbing frenzy. I'm guessing as Jim said the upper entrance straight into the honey or your hive had gone queenless. When had you last seen open brood/eggs?
I have always believed robber bees could detect queenless hives by the abscense of queen pheromones, quickly.
One time years back I wound up with 80 hives here where I live and never saw robbing like that, and the bees I had at that time could be vicious. I also had 8 to 10 hunting dogs on the place, I would come home and my dogs would have their water buckets bayed because they counldn't get a drink of water for the bees. They would empty all the 5 gallon buckets of water each day.
I would think just about any location could support 25 hives.

[Michael Bush]

>"thank you for all your help."

You are welcome.

For all you who bought the book, please feel free to leave a review on Amazon.

[Solomon Parker]

The hive is not queenless, I saw her the next day after all the honey had been removed.

[SERGE]

That's right, screened bottoms with upper entrances, and year round too.

Solomon,
I remembrer communicating with Michael about this, and understand that he usially closes off his screened bottom boards for the winter time. Is that correct Michael?
-Serge

[Michael Bush]

Mine hives are all 3 1/2" off the ground now (at one time they were on concrete blocks) and they are all up against one another, so the between the grass and the other hives the wind is pretty much blocked blowing in the bottom. I would not leave a screened bottom exposed, but I probably have a lot of hives with the trays out right now but the wind blocked by one means or another.

[Acebird]

If you leave the tray out won't the bottom board get full of crap so you can't get the tray back in? It is not easy to clean that area with the hive on it.

[Michael Bush]

>If you leave the tray out won't the bottom board get full of crap so you can't get the tray back in? It is not easy to clean that area with the hive on it.

I typically take the trays out in summer for ventilation anyway and put them back in in winter. I don't understand what you think is blocking putting them back in unless it is grass... the other "crap" is on top of the screen and the trays go under the screen.