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Pollen In Colorado!

4K views 8 replies 6 participants last post by  Colobee 
#1 ·
the girls were out collecting pollen today! Its been pretty warm lately, i hope the trees are not getting tricked into pushing sap and buds too early. the winter usualy comes back to kill my garden starts at least once! The pollen was a dirty yellow/white color. Any front range experienced keepers have guesses as to what it could be? Its way too early for dandelion. i think the silver maples are one of the first to go around here. Ill try to get a picture tomorrow.
 
#2 ·
Where in Colorado?

I've been seeing pollen since February 8th here in Denver. It could have been coming in sooner, though, since I wasn't paying attention. My queens started laying eggs around January 19th.

I've never taken the time to varify it, but the general consensus I hear is that Silver Maples are the first to bloom along the Front Range in the Denver area.

Here is a photo of a neighbor's hive, also on February 8th:

 
#3 ·
Don't know where you are in CO either, but the last frost date in COS is 18 May, so good luck with your garden this year. My girls have been dragging in the same dirty yellow that you describe on 10 Feb. I thought that they might be reworking some saw dust from some of the upgraded SBB's that I've been making this winter.

Steve
 
#4 ·
juniper, silver maple, elm
Pollen.com says jumper is in bloom right now, I didn't see any sliver maples near me last week (they are close) and saw one elm starting.
Dang thats a hive, all mine have small clusters and have a few small patches of spoty capped brood...... we shale see...
 
#7 ·
Hey Steve! How ya doin', buddy?

Pollen is pale yellow.

Bees are doing well overall. We lost one that was weak; thought we might be able to get them through but they didn't make it.

Last spring we raised some queens and expanded from 7 hives to 16. So the hives were not quite as strong as normal.
That, coupled with the fact that the alfalfa flow just stopped dead in its tracks early last summer, gave us less than we anticipated.

We got about 300 boxes of cut comb and a few cases of liquid honey from the unfinished frames. The bees just sat on uncapped frames of honey. Refused to cap the comb. It was weird. So I crushed and strained them.

Part of the problem was the bees do not like pushing past a queen excluder to get into a brand new super filled with foundation; you need a busting out hive filled with bees for that and with expanding to double the number of hives they weren't populous enough.. That's just the price for raising comb honey AND bees in the same year. This year will be better.

But the bees did some great work for us. Raised some queens, drew and filled a bunch of deep brood boxes and gathered a decent crop of cut comb. Can't ask for more than that.
 
#8 ·
Arnie,

Sounds to me like your year was really pretty descent if you got that much cut comb plus some liquid. I must commend you for doubling the number of colonies, I think that that is quite a commendable accomplishment. last year was the third poor production year in a year for me, but each year has been better. I' m hoping that this year will be like the 'good old days' when I always had a good surplus. I'm back in the wildflowers foothills where there is very little blooming, especially in the low rain years. I don't even know what an alfalfa looks like. My out yard in the mountains near Salida was not a good producer either. Too dry.

Since having Michael Palmer as a speaker in the club several years ago he has gotten me sold on his approach to sustainable beekeeping and I haven't had to purchase any packages for the past three years. I did get in on a group purchase of some Canadian Buckfast queens last year and it looks like I have two of those Nuc's that made it through the winter. Last year another club member and I attempted to teach a queen rearing class within the club with limited success and we are probably going to give it another go this coming summer. We didn't produce any viable queens, but he and I sure learned a lot. There are dozens of procedures out there and we were attempting the grafting approach. We may try several of the other methods this summer. I've got a couple of queens ordered from M. Palmer for late June arrival so I'll be doing some splitting then and see if I can get them built up strong by fall.

The club has their annual two day bee school coming up on 11-12 March which is capped at and maxed out at 110 students this year. In the past we have had it for two consecutive weekends with a max of 50 students each weekend. I'm no longer an instructor but during each of several "break periods" in the lectures I will be one of about 10 experienced beekeeper mentors sprinkled around to answer some of the zillion questions that the newbees will have. Should be fun and exhausting.

Do you belong to either CSBA or CPBA and go to their annual meeting here along the Front Range? I belong to both and maybe we can meet up some day and get to see each other eyeball to eyeball. Have a good bee year. I still have cut comb honey production on my long term "gotta do list". Stay in touch, Arnie.

Regards,
Steve
 
#9 ·
I had long thought that Silver Maple was the first source of pollen around here (Castle Rock). The one by the front drive has been my gauge - almost always covered in bees sometime during the first half of February. Last year the bees started bringing in the usual first pollen - in February - and the Maple stood silent for another week. I don't know for sure if they were working Elms, or some other Maple but it wasn't my own. Or maybe it was Juniper...

Friday's all time record high February temp (for Denver) of 80*F fit the pattern I've seen for decades - unusually warm temps sometime in February. The dandelions should be popping up in another month and a half. Time (for me) to get ahead of the game, or prepare to play catch up all year again...
 
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