Feral Bees Hardiness Overwintering Diseases and Cell Size

[Perry]

Perry:

What are the four frames?  Are they brood and honey frames or, are they just honey frames?  Just any four frames with bees?

In a perfect world?  1 frame with plenty of stores,1 frame with empty comb, and 2 frames of capped-ready to hatch bees that will free up laying comb and provide the nurse bees. Clearly no Q cells on any of these. This does not provide a brood break, but does prevent the loss of bees.

[BoilerJim]

Dave,
I share your philosophy on the feral bees. They tend to survive longer in my apiary then those I have purchased from Georgia. My Georgia bees have produced the most honey each year I had them but they all died over the winter.

Iddee said:

“Bees that have been on their own for a few years are stronger and more reliable than bees that have been bombarded with chemicals, dumped into a large container and mixed from many hives, then queened with a mass produced queen”     I totally agree with this statement.

Riverbee, who is your source for Russian Bees in Iowa? I have always been interested in experimenting with a couple of Russian hives.

[LazyBkpr]

Riverbee, who is your source for Russian Bees in Iowa? I have always been interested in experimenting with a couple of Russian hives.

   Ditto.. maybe they are close to me and I can go scrape information from their tongue's !!

 

[JanO]

I find this thread very interesting.  As a new beekeeper, starting this year,  I intend to rely on swarms and/or cutouts to fill my hives.  I want strong healthy bees that are acclimated to our area and will be able to survive our winters.  Most of our shipped bees are brought up from California or Southern Oregon, which is fine, but they don't seem to do well with our wet cold winters.     

Currently there is a feral hive in a big fir tree in my yard and I know where another feral hive is on a neighbors property that I intend to set a trap for as soon as the weather warms up and swarming becomes likely.  I also hope to assist my bee club mentor with some swarm collections and cutouts this year, which will also give me some bees to add to my hives. 

[riverbee]

jim~
Riverbee, who is your source for Russian Bees in Iowa? I have always been interested in experimenting with a couple of Russian hives.

lazybk~
Riverbee, who is your source for Russian Bees in Iowa? I have always been interested in experimenting with a couple of Russian hives.
Ditto.. maybe they are close to me and I can go scrape information from their tongue's !!

okay what are you guys willing to trade me for my sources?.........
you guys will get hooked on these bees, and will love less mite problems and better wintering!  dunno if you want to work them in really loose shorts lazy 

1st one:  manly bigalk.  vice president of the russian honey bee association. he's in cresco, iowa, and is already sold out for queens and nucs for 2014.
talked to him recently.  you can check back with him or his wife (linda), (great folks) and have him put your name on a list for queens maybe. good folks!
golden ridge honey farms, no website, but can find his info on the rhba associations website.

2nd one: jason foley.  he's in des moines, near easter lake, iowa.  he is up and coming and working towards becoming a member of the rhba, another cool guy/beekeeper.  his website: 
Foley's Russian Bees
i think jason might have queens available in june or july, but sold out of nucs for 2014. 

even with queens only available, you can requeen your hives with a russian queen or start a nuc.  just follow the advice of queening non russian hives/nucs with a russian queen.

hope this helps you guys!

[tecumseh]

a robo snip....
I am also a firm believe in the power of the nuc.   I can't explain why and can only speculate,  but it seems that an overwintered nuc will grow fast in the spring and end up out performing a full size hive that season.

tecumseh....
I see much of the same thing here.  I would SUSPECT the difference I see in this regards is the power of a group of nucs all headed up by very young queens.  I love to find a very old queen(which is pretty much the primary bases of my own breeding program < program may be a bit too formal a word but you do get the picture I hope) that is still performing acceptable but I would never expect to see the same performance in the spring time of an old queen when you compare her to a one year old queen.  I suspect it is this difference why many old school beekeeper commonly replaced queens that were two years old.

and thanks for your input on this thread Robo.

[Woody Roberts]

I agree with robo here. I think when bees are in an established hive they're in a maintaining mode. Young overwintered bees are in buildup mode.
Any queen I have that is over a year old I put into a nuc as soon as the blackberries bloom. Even 3 yr old queens are liable to catch or surpass the hive they came out of.
This is how I prevent swarms.

[lazy shooter]

In my novice opinion, I think that feral bees are more acclimated and adapted to the local environment.  I have a feral hive under a neighbors building 1/2-mile up the road.  They are under the floor, but they enter on an unused sidewalk and go under the floor.  I am  going to set up a Hogan trap-out hive and see if I can catch some of them.  They have been in this building for seven years.  That makes me think they are well adapted to our area.

[barry42001]

after looking through the two nucs that I have, the cells seemed abnormally small, these are supposedly Russian/ Italian hybrids. I'm not bothering with the cell count or anything like that,  just curious....

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk

[robo]

I have a feral hive under a neighbors building 1/2-mile up the road.  They are under the floor, but they enter on an unused sidewalk and go under the floor.  I am  going to set up a Hogan trap-out hive and see if I can catch some of them.  They have been in this building for seven years. 

If the owner is comfortable with the bees being there ( I assume he is since they have been there 7 years).  I would suggest you rethink the Hogan trap-out.   

My take would be to set up a few swarm traps in the area to catch swarms from it WHEN THEY ARE READY TO SWARM,  not when you think it is OK to steal bees from them.   Despite all the claims of getting multiple nucs from a colony with the Hogan method,  I'm skeptical that it does not impact the mother colony.  First of all you aren't getting the genetics on all these nucs,  but only one if you get the queen and sacrifice the mother colony in the process.

Long term I think it would be more beneficial to you (and the mother colony) if you leave them alone and catch swarms (with genetics) for multiple years.

I've learned a long time ago that a feral colony remains stronger in it's feral location than if put into a man-made beehive.   Despite our desire (and confidence) that we are "helping" the bees,  I often see the contrary.

[G3farms]

Well said Rob!

[blueblood]

Agreed Rob.  I am keeping one of my bee trees in the yard to hopefully catch swarms off of it.  Kind of like a perpetual bee package supply store. 

[LazyBkpr]

I Agree with Rob as well. That is exactly what I do. I keep track of the feral hives in this area. Trees, old barns, old equipment etc, and put my swarm boxes in the area.
   

[minz]

I get most of my swarms from down in the industrial area.  I don’t know where they come from or where the live (or what to call them) but it is good for a swarm in the trap or two every year.  I usually make up nucs and overwinter using my own bees (put a frame of bees in a queenless nuc with fresh wax). This year has been hard on me. I lost all of my nucs, and a lot of hives. I may do a split and raise queens from the first split and then add frames of bees to the mating nucs to get back up to strength. 
I did get a hive of black bees last year. If they are Russians you guys can have them. As mean as they are they did not make our wet, mild winter.

[riverbee]

i posted some info here on where to get russian bees in my area, and also another thread a number of links on their management and characteristics. 

based on the number of thank you pm's that have been sent to me,  all i can say is this, when i can't get nuc's and queens from my 'secret' suppliers cuz you all beat me to it......
guess who is going to be showing up on your doorstep looking for you to SHARE BEES.....

[LazyBkpr]

LOL.. I didn't order any Mrs River.. but you show up on my doorstep you just load up what you want.. my wife will tell me when your gone so I can come out from under the bed.

[riverbee]

LOL lazy!!!!......

ps, i will just bring a bottle of the captain to coax you out!.......

oops, forgot, i don't back expensive trucks up to well......