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YouTube "almond pollination 2012"

16K views 48 replies 8 participants last post by  Ian 
#1 ·
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxcpGJ_2Df8


Interesting vid!

Question to all you pollination beekeepers out there,
The hives in this video is busting full of bees. When you place the hives into the Almond fields, do the hives re establish their swarming urge?
 
#42 ·
#47 ·
I have been chatting with a fellow via email, this is one of his emails.
Pollination sounds like alot of work! $150 is hardly enough

Ian,

I've been reading your posts on almond pollination. Basically there is never any "down time" if you're going to pollinate almonds. You're trying to keep the queens laying as much, and for as long as possible, so you have "big" hives. Since you are pushing the queens so hard it is essential that you requeen every year. Hives are in honey production during the summer in Wisconsin, USA. Hives winter in east Texas. East Texas has a tremendous amount of early pollen, but poor nector flows in spring. Since I work for guys who do alomond pollination, maybe this timeline will help you. I'll start the timeline with the move to Texas in the fall.

Late October - 1st week of November; Transport hives to Texas, feed syrup, pollen sub, treat for mites, nosema, and AFB. Inspect all hives for being queenrite. 2 rounds of feeding, and 2 rounds of treatments. These are all doubles or story and a halfs. Each brood box has a division board feeder, so it is possible to feed almost 2 gallons of syrup to each hive if it needed it, on each visit. Hives are intentionally left "light" on food stores to increase the number of hives that can be transported on a truck. This takes approximately 2 weeks to do while in Texas.

Mid December; Feed pollen sub and syrup. Inspect all hives. This takes about a week.

Last week of January; Inspect all hives. Equalize hives. Feed and apply pollen sub patty. Pull all hives in from the outyards. Pressure wash outsides of hives and pallets. (Texas has fire ants, and equipment with them will be rejected at the border) Washed equipment is placed onto tarps, and never touch the soil until they return from California. Load trucks and transport to California. (sometimes it's warmer while pressure washing, sometimes it's below freezing. No matter what the temperature, it's a mud pit) This takes about 2 weeks. Hives are sent to Californis about the 2nd week of February.

1st week of March; start queen rearing operations in Texas. Select breeder hives were held back from California. Breeders are fed syrup and treated for nosema. Grafting starts about the end of the 2nd week in March. Grafting is timed to start about a week before the bees return from California.

Mid March; Hives return from California. Feed and treat for mites, AFB, and Nosema. Inspect all hives for queenrite. Feed all hives syrup. Split hives into singles and 4 frame Nucs. Pinch queens as splits are made. Move split to new yard. 24 hours after the split, install queen cells that are due to emerge in the next 12 to 24 hours. Feed all splits syrup. Splits are left alone for the next 3-4 weeks. This allows for queen emergence, maturing, mating, and egg laying. This takes about 4 weeks.

End of April; Inspect all hives for queenrite and brood pattern. Feed syrup and treat for Nosema. Install Nucs into haves that are not queenrite. Stockpile hives for transport to Wisconsin. This takes about 2 weeks.

1st week of May; Hives arrive in Wisconsin. Disperse hives to outyards. Inspect for queenrite. Feed all hives syrup. The hives coming from Texas to Wisconsin are all singles.

End of May; Inspect all hives for queenrite, feed syrup and treat for Nosema and mites. Install Nucs into any hives that are not queenrite. Add second deep brood chamber.

June, July, August, beginning of September; honey production.

Late September and early October; Feed syrup and pollen sub, treat for mites and Nosema.

Late October -1st week of November; transport hives to Texas.

I hope this helps.
 
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