Beesource Beekeeping Forums banner

Today in the Apiary

685K views 4K replies 397 participants last post by  AR1 
#1 ·
I will stick this thread at the top so we can have sort of a beekeepers diary. It will be neat to look back in time, in time. Share what work you did, observations, stories about things that happened in the apiary. Musings while you have your morning coffee while watching the bees. Let's see where this goes.

I checked a new swarm that moved into some empty boxes I had stacked about 5 days ago. Saw the queen when I transferred them into a new hive with frames of foundation. They're building comb, but filling every cell with nectar/feed. No eggs. Will have to put a frame with eggs into it right away.
 
#1,965 ·
Was down below zero on Saturday morning 3-Feb-18. Walked out back and put the stethoscope to all the hives. The 3 nucs were buzzing, as were all the full size hives. Took a look at the bottom boards on the 4 full size hives and found no mites. As far as I can tell there's been 1 mite dropped on 4 hives over a 3 week period. Checked all the quilts and they were dry. I put some sugar in the nucs and one of the Italian large hives a week ago. Not sure any of them needed sugar but the weather was good enough I could do it. Another week of winter is behind me, but just tonight as I'm adding this the snow is blowing horizontally and nearly a foot has fallen in the past 5 hours.

Lobo
 
#1,966 ·
So took a walk out back today. The snow from the storm earlier this week was about 2 feet deep with an icy crust. All looked well again and with the stethoscope I was able to hear all the hives buzzing. Even though it was just a bit over 32f, I decided to not lift the top boards to peer inside. All the quilts were dry and I still see no signs of moisture problems. I was able to get at the bottom boards of 4 of the larger hives and found nothing but chewed wax. No mites at all. Is going on nearly 4 weeks with just one mite having dropped naturally. Not sure whether this is normal during very cold weather, or means that the mite load in these colonies is low. I found a few dead bees on the snow so there must have been some flight activity last week. Winter keeps hanging on, but every day is one day closer to spring!!
 
#1,967 ·
Been a while... Havent been in my hives since August when I had some health issues & got a new job. Been taking peaks and they seem to be doing alright, could be better. There's still bees, there's enough honey in the established hives & I have some I harvested that I have been feeding back but one hive is iffy. It's my 3rd one I made in late summer. It's currently 10 frames. I've wanted to try overwintering a nuc for a while but I think not paying attention for a few months has had consequences. Last time I went in it was Nov/Dec and I did not find brood and not a whole lot by way of stores. Everytime I peek I still see a cluster through the inner cover and I've fed them the most honey. I'm good to go for year 3 though so our warm up warrents a good check. If only my boss, classes, and the weather thought so too!

Got it announced at my local club last night that I'm beginning to rear queens and already have an order. One member wants 10 capped QC for less than 300 and when my college professor said 2 of her 3 hives have died, I said my nucs are 150 and she seemed pretty interested. I graduate college in a bit more than a year There's a strong internal argument of expanding the business or stashing it with my wages for when I move out. We need to pay rent "but more money" Eating is a good idea "but more money!" We'll see.

During this warm week, I saw a few clusters of some small white flowers in my communities lawns. These flowers are the first things to bloom and to start seeing them means spring is coming to the Delta :) Them, dogwood, and hawthornes will be out soon and then come blackberries. We cleared land that grew back as blackberry thickets. There's going to be 7 additional acres of straight blackberries blooming this year in addition to the surrounding ones that have always been here. Really excited to harvest as I've a hive who are excellent with making honey & I hear good things about blackberry honey. Or I'll do what I always do: split and get swarms until there's not enough honey for me between the infant hives. With possible nuc orders, thats probably going to happen again :D Money > Honey
 
#1,969 ·
checked hives yesterday. Flyers out from all. I had thought 2 had died out. Open the candy boards on 5 and they were all using the sugar and winter patties I them in just before the cold spell in Dec. Gave them some sugar and more winter patties. clusters seemed good. Going to be in high 40's the middle of next week. Will check them again mid week along with the rest. Will add sugar bricks but not sure about adding pollen patties. We really have at least 4 more weeks of winter.
The 14 day forecast has the lowest night time temp during that period 21F. However, seasonal temps don't consistently hit all 40's until mid March. Temps last few days good but dropping over the weekend. Warming up most of next week and I wouldn't be surprised if brood rearing gets a jump start.
 
#1,970 ·
In Middle TN, temps will climb into mid-70s today and stay strong all week after a ton of rain the last couple of weeks. I put on a pollen patty & a quart of sugar yesterday for each hive.

Today, the high is 74. Bees are coming and going like crazy and they've barely touched their syrup from yesterday morning. They have fat sacks of yellow pollen. I see daffodils in full bloom. Henbit, dandelion, and a lot of winter annuals & broadleaf weeds are popping. Maple buds are opening up.

I'm worried about early swarms in March & starvation before April flow comes. Might be a lot of syrup going on these hives when the Maples die out.
 
#1,971 ·
In Middle TN, temps will climb into mid-70s today and stay strong all week after a ton of rain the last couple of weeks. I put on a pollen patty & a quart of sugar yesterday for each hive.

Today, the high is 74. Bees are coming and going like crazy and they've barely touched their syrup from yesterday morning. They have fat sacks of yellow pollen. I see daffodils in full bloom. Henbit, dandelion, and a lot of winter annuals & broadleaf weeds are popping. Maple buds are opening up.

I'm worried about early swarms in March & starvation before April flow comes. Might be a lot of syrup going on these hives when the Maples die out.
 
#1,972 ·
Temps here today reached the mid 60's. The snow and ice are melting fast, but the water is also rising fast. Every colony was flying strongly today. The remaining snow had orange polk-a-dots all over it from the cleansing flights. After today the temperatures are forecast to fall to more seasonable levels with lows in the teens and highs in the mid 30's. I have to believe that brood rearing will now start to increase so I'm going to keep a close eye on food stores and supplement if needed. I don't want to mess it up now with just a few weeks to go before nectar and pollen start to show up.

I did open up the top of one the full sized hives to add some sugar. Everything looked fine, but what surprised me was the heat coming out through the inner cover hole. I'll have to ponder on that observation for a bit.
 
#1,974 ·
My supers are fuller than Charlies's and combs better looking. Eucalyptus flow of the decade after 4 years of drought now in another year of drought. Sunny and warm during the October to February bloom. Third photo is pure eucalyptus cut comb. Under supered of course, who knew there would be spring weather all winter?






 
#1,976 ·
Wilson County, TN
37088

Here in middle TN, beekeeping has begun and seems to be in full swing. Got into the hives the last few days to find the hives have moved into their second brood cycle of the year. Each hive has 4 to 6 frames of brood and the queens are laying where brood has hatched. It’s encouraging. The nucs are booming also.

Made 11 swarm traps and have placed 6, placing 5 more tomorrow.
 
#1,977 ·
Yesterday in New Haven, CT was warm enough before it started raining that all hives were showing activity. Of those 11 hives, 2 were dead and only had activity from bees coming in to rob a bit of the stored honey. They got dissassembled and carried down to the basement after cleaning out their small clusters of dead bees. All the other colonies had their entrance reducer temporarily removed so that a stick could be used to scrape out dead bees, etc.

Not much blooming yet here. I saw two Crocus tommasinianus ('tommies' are one of the very earliest crocus) blooming in a more sheltered area, Galanthus (snowdrops), and Hamamelis x intermedia (witch hazel). Some hellebores are budded, but not yet open. I did see a bee working the snowdrops, but it's predicted to only get up to about 50 degrees as the high temperature for the next week. Red maple buds are swelling, but nothing for the bees to work on yet...
 
#1,978 ·
Reading these latest posts and attending a bee meeting yesterday where Kieth Delaplane from UGA gave a very interesting talk on several topics has got me excited for the upcoming beekeeping season here in Massachusetts. Right now I'm prepping snowblower for midweek storm and packing gear for a ski weekend in VT. LOL
 
#1,981 ·
I was there, too, and was inspired to rewrite my Spring Management list of things to do, create several queen rearing schedules, and figure out how I'll create all the mating nucs I may need. He's a great speaker.

Eight to twelve inches of snow due on Wednesday, so spring is yet again postponed.
 
#1,979 ·
Things changing rapidly here too...

Last month, no drones...this week, thousands of them. Can't understand how it changed so fast...

Same as Frank and Charlie...all hives suddenly filled with honey and pollen...wow!

I will need to scramble this week to add upper boxes and frames, do some splits, and begin the queen rearing process asap.

Hoping for more rain to end the new drought...this was the worst amount of Dec-Feb rainfall I can remember in 50 years...and it was the first time ever I had to water acres of fava beans in February...they were wilting and dying. So thankful for this last week's rain.
 
#1,982 ·
Not exactly in the apiary but this weekend I cleaned up my bee supply room at last. I moved into it a few years ago in typical fashion by simply putting stuff in for short-term and the small mess grew into a huge mess.
After a full emptying, getting the (junk storm) windows closed so bees and dirt don’t continue to come in, and a thorough floor cleaning I started reloading.
All of the boxes are in and I sorted my frames into boxes and used painter’s tape to label accordingly. Next will be bottom boards, feeders, tops, etc.

Progress...
Room Furniture Filing cabinet Floor Cabinetry
 
#1,984 ·
I inspected all hives yesterday. They are picking up the pace of brooding. One Queen-less out of 18 with a rapidly decreasing cluster size. I guess I will combine with another or shake it out if it has gone laying worker. I don't know how quickly they will go LW at this time of year.

This is the first year I have had serious issues with condensation. This Spring is also the first time they have come out of Winter with so much honey stored. When I pulled frames of honey out they were coated with condensation. In the stronger hives it is less severe, but still not good. I changed out the tops and inner covers on the worst ones so the bees don't have to dry them. I may need to think about quilt boxes for next Winter.

Hopefully the rains will slow down now. Good luck to everyone on the upcoming season!

Alex
 
#1,986 ·
Wife walking dog today and noticed a hive stand holding 5 hives leaning. FROST. When she got closer she saw the end hive was on the ground. Lots of dead bees.
Called me at work. Put hive back together and the small cluster that survived were huddled in the feed shim. Have no idea if there is a queen. The contents of the mountain camp on the shim were no where to be found. Put a newspaper over the cluster and poked a few holes. Gave them charity sugar and winter patties. They probably won't last long but we have an 8C day next Sat. If alive will give a new bottom board and eliminated the lower deep then will take a frame of honey and place it on it's side over the survivors.
No cold spells coming but cluster is so small may not(queen less ????) survive anyways.
Disappointing as we had not lost a hive yet but on the bright side we could have lost the whole stand.
 
#1,990 ·
Yesterday actually......:)

Just because it was 70º yesterday, my daughter & I went through our 15 colonies just to see how many survived the winter. We found bees in all 15, but only one appears to have gone queenless over the winter. We looked for the queen without success and there was no brood to be found.....only a fist sized group of survivors left.

But the other 14 are building up nicely....some are full to the brim already. We found 3 that need splitting soon, but no drones to be seen yet, and only a small patch of drone brood here & there. There was a start or two of queen cells, but nothing too far along. We're going to give them a week yet and take another look.

I'm really surprised at the survival rate of the hives this year. The last few years we've lost nearly 40% of the hives over winter. I give credit to the Pro Vap / OA treatments that we did last fall and winter....it's easy to use and appears to be very good at killing mites. (did I mention EASY to use?) :D
 
#1,992 ·
Spent the day cutting out handles on bee boxes and going through a dead out. Lots of honey but most starved as there butts were sticking out of cells. Found 4 or 5 different clusters besides. They were small and I'm thinking to cold for them.
Blame it on this spring funny weather. They flew half the days in Feb and think they broke cluster because of it.
Also had mountain camp sugar and winter patties on board so besides the honey there was plenty of food.
With all the flying they just unclustered and when it got cold they couldn't move around to recluster or get food.
 
#1,993 ·
Wow, it is nearly April and so many reports of snow and freezing temps. I am counting my blessings of living in a more moderation climate.

I keep building more boxes, more tops more bottoms, more nucs, more swarm traps. Never ending story. Getting ready to graft, realizing I should of/could of done it a month ago.

JRG came over and nearly doubled our bee yard with splits. Rainy weather now...so working indoors building and organizing.

Met some large land owners with irrigated pasture lands. They told me I could bring the bees.

Trying to figure out how to do all this...

Still need to build another 15+ of Charlie B's ant proof bee hive stands. I feel fortunate because we purchased a number of full pallets of 3"x4"x96" wood. I plan on using this wood to build the ant proof bee hive stands.

Slowly building 150 new boxes, using glue, staples, a square, etc. Picked up nearly 100 gallons of Home Depot "whoops" paint. Made sure to stick with the super light colored mistakes...

Transferring all colonies in the 8 framers to 10 framers, then, using the 8 framers for swarm traps.

Busy bee here...
 
Top