[Broke-T]

Well, I went through a lot of hives here in Central Mississippi yesterday and they are building up nicely but not much in the way of drone brood yet. Just a few small patches of capped drone brood. I am due to start grafting a week from tommorrow, but may have to push that back a week. Worst winter in years for us here in MS.

What is everybody else seeing around the country?

Johnny

 

[johng]

So far so good hear in North Fl. we have plenty of drones, the bees are building up nicely. My first two rounds of cells will be ready to go into nucs on the Feb. 25 and 27.

 

[Fusion_power]

I did a thorough inspection of four colonies today. Had a football size brood patch in one colony, no drones started yet. There was 3 full frames of fresh pollen plus plenty more scattered around the brood nest. With the level of pollen intake, they will start drones this week. Adding 40 days, that means queens can be started in about 2 weeks.

 

[KevinR]

Hoping to do a full inspection on my yards this weekend, if the weather would cooperate... But so far, they look a little slow... Most are still alive, so I'm happy.. I don't personally try/promise for April queens, too iffy for me.

 

[marshmasterpat]

Saw a line of drone brood in one of my hives this afternoon as I checked them just prior to the arrival of that cool front and a line of thunderstorms.

Maybe I will have enough drones to encourage me to try some queen raising in two weeks.

Plan to really give it a push in mid/late march. Of course I am only after a half dozen maximum.

 

[tommysnare]

Ohhhhh to be a beek in the southern states. We still have nights in the freezing here and we haven't even broken any winter propolis seals yet. Just seeing pollen this week. Open feeding now as well. What are we chopped liver ? Hahahahahaha being a month behind you guys is a bummer sometimes

 

[KevinR]

I haven't started feeding yet, but probably will this weekend. Weather can't make up it's mind yet, but I expect the switch to flip soon.... Or maybe it already did... It was almost 70 today, 19 at night last week...

*rolls eyes*

 

[Honey-4-All]

Everything seems to be right on schedule queen wise. Drones are getting frisky :thumbsup:

The biggest issue continues to be what impact the drought will have on queen and package production.:waiting:

Up north things are greening up nicely :applause:although it might be as close as we have ever seen to an agricultural mirage if the rain doesn't continue in amounts beyond normal. :ws:

We are planning on proceeding as normal at this point with queen production.:shhhh:

After that what happens with the bees is a question answered best by saying all bets are off. Almonds will be wrapped up in a week to 10 days and by then we will be on a tear grafting and filling mating nucs.

 

[stefanybezar]

The situation is pretty bad at my place. This year, the overall honey production is below average. The Propolis, which I collected this year is not up to the mark. Harsh winter is to be blamed for this condition. Due to less production of honey and Propolis, the prices of these two commodities are going to be raised.

 

[Daniel Y]

We have been getting nights that stay up in the 40's and days that hit the high 60's low 70's. All of my hives have brood some of them quite a bit. one as of yesterday has brood in 7 frames. I am expecting the bees to make queen cells naturally before the end of March. You never know here though the weather could turn right back around and we could be back to winter conditions for the next 6 weeks. We have started adding space to a couple of the hives. Of 11 nucs we are over wintering two are struggling. One of those lost it's queen sometime in the past week so we placed that box over another nuc. It is the first hive we have ever lost. The other weak nuc has shown signs of strengthening over the past week. I expect to be adding more boxes to various hives this week and consider that build up is under way and has been since sometime in late January. I have over 800 frames to start getting drawn out this year so every box that gets added has as many undrawn frames in it as we can get.

I will not graft until later in the season. for now I expect to harvest every queen cell that is produced during swarm season. I am doing all I can to get the equipment together just for that.

 

[Giorgio]

I haven't started feeding yet, but probably will this weekend. Weather can't make up it's mind yet, but I expect the switch to flip soon.... Or maybe it already did... It was almost 70 today, 19 at night last week...

*rolls eyes*

I won't see drones until mid April here in Virginia ...and maybe as late as May..... I started on 1:1 feed this week.... pollen patties over a month ago... no drone cells at this time...brood pattern is getting bigger each week... my biggest fear is a real cold spell and not enough workers to cover all the brood.....