Post by: .30WCF on March 20, 2023, 08:56:40 pm
I checked my bees for the first time since I took honey LAST spring. (no need to shame me, I know)
Had a small cluster die off and one apparent abscond over the winter. Both hives had beautiful frames full of comb, so I just moved them around and added to the hives that were needing more room. The rest are booming with brood and bringing in nectar.
Disclosure. I did preemptive mite treatments in the fall, and hit them with some Christmas OA, but they have just been left to do what bees do since last spring, and appear to be quite well and needed the extra frames. That short yellow hive was a deep nuc and medium super that was about to explode with bees.
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Post by: .30WCF on March 20, 2023, 09:23:23 pm
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Post by: Zweefer on March 22, 2023, 09:47:34 pm
Sounds like you came out of winter all right… look forward to hearing more from you in the near future…
Post by: .30WCF on March 22, 2023, 10:00:56 pm
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Post by: .30WCF on March 23, 2023, 03:23:11 pm
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Post by: .30WCF on March 30, 2023, 06:07:26 pm
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Post by: Bakersdozen on March 31, 2023, 08:11:12 pm
Post by: .30WCF on April 01, 2023, 11:06:08 am
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Post by: Jen on April 01, 2023, 02:50:27 pm
Post by: .30WCF on April 01, 2023, 11:18:28 pm
Hi .30 ~ Don'tcha love it when they are coming and going big time like that. We here in upper northern California have had an unusual amount of snow, of which we are soo thankful for. So we have had a couple days here and there when the temp gets up to 55 and the bees are soo happy ;DYep. They sure have been busy. We kissed winter goodbye a couple weeks ago with probably our last frost. I’ve got herbs growing on the porch and a few strawberries in a tiered planter.
I’d have liked to had some snow this year, but we missed out.
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Post by: .30WCF on April 11, 2023, 07:13:54 pm
They were bearded up pretty good this evening. The pic was earlier in the day.
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Post by: .30WCF on April 13, 2023, 10:16:30 pm
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Post by: .30WCF on July 17, 2023, 07:05:32 pm
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Post by: The15thMember on July 17, 2023, 11:00:36 pm
Got some hitting the sourwood saplings I planted a couple years ago.Yay! You'll be getting that delicious honey in no time! :)
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Post by: .30WCF on August 11, 2023, 08:48:46 pm
Three of my hives are alive and well. This one is being stubborn. It’s been more or less queenless since spring, and has dwindled down to a few frames of bees per box. I went to the Beez Needz today and bought a gold medal queen. I smashed all the bees I had left in the hive in a double deep nuc. Let’s see how they do in a couple weeks.
If I can keep these frames good till next week I’ll drop them right under some good laying queens I have at another site. I just kept this weak hive at the house for the summer.
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Post by: iddee on August 12, 2023, 06:13:43 am
Post by: .30WCF on August 13, 2023, 12:49:40 pm
After being more or less queenless for that long, I would keep her confined for at least 7 days to try and ensure acceptance.Loading up some fresh candy in queen cages. I’m gonna transfer her over to one of the cages with fresh candy since I don’t know if I’ll have a chance to get back in there at the end of the week. That should buy her some time.
I also stuffed the other cages I had for later use if I need to move a virgin in the spring or something. Good to have on hand and ready to deploy.
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Post by: .30WCF on August 13, 2023, 02:00:50 pm
Cleaned out every bit of candy. (https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20230813/46c12ae971da358ae33ec02b9b3881fe.jpg)
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Post by: .30WCF on August 13, 2023, 02:13:29 pm
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Post by: iddee on August 13, 2023, 04:11:26 pm
Post by: .30WCF on August 15, 2023, 06:16:24 pm
I added the extra comb from the hive I compressed to some of my other hives.
The one on the right is the hive I combined the swarm I caught the other week with. It had been queenless, but they accepted the swarm, and I put a deep of drawn under the queen X to let them start on some winter bees when they are ready.
The middle hive is raising QCs in the bottom two boxes under an excluder.
The left hive, I added two mediums of drawn from the compressed hive below the Queen X. They are also recovering from being queenless. They have a queen, I may not be impressed with her, but they have a queen. That is a hot hive too. I’m not sure if it’s just August and they have honey, or if it’s the bees. I can’t imagine any of the new queens brood is actually emerged yet. She haven’t been queen that long.
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