Winding down

[Dunkel]

Well things are starting to wind down here. Hay baled in place for winter, one more load of calves to haul to market. Grades posted for the first nine weeks of school and hives almost up to weight and first frost in sight.  Look out deer season.  I have had the worst year for honey. Last few buckets extracted last week.  I have had a blast though, got to graft some, sell some nucs and meet some other quirky wonderful people.  One more round of feed to put on tomorrow then another check and placement of mouse guards and good bye till OA in a couple of months and winter will be in full swing.

OK, I am starting to get depressed. Crazy how something that has taken up so much of my extra time will be missed.  I have reached what I have found to be my maximum number I can handle now.  So increase dreams over the winter are out. Replacing dead outs and new queens for each hive from my own stock will be nice.  Can always use additional supers, never enough mating nucs and frames. Queen castles are handy.  Still I am going to be lost for a while without the smell of a hive and smoker, decisions off the top of my head and a molded over stinking crusty jacket.  Am I the only crazy one getting this feeling?

[Jen]

Hi Dunkel    We're having a lovely long enjoyable Fall, so I'm not thinking it's time to wind it up yet. This seemed to be my year for learning more queen stuff. How to requeen a hive that has been queenless for so long that it went drone crazy. Started my first two nucs. And how to mark a queen.

It been a good year, but like you, a tough one for honey, not enough for winter, so I'll be making honey cakes later on.

[lazy shooter]

It is time to wind it down.  My bees are still foraging on late blooming cotton and some remaining blooms on the brush, but they are not bringing in much nectar.  I still see a bit of real white comb, which I interpret to mean there is still a small flow.  I have a small swarm of bees that I am combining with another hive, and that is my last apiary "chore."  Over the winter, I have frames to clean and spray with Xentari (BT). 

[Jacobs]

If things get too bad, I recommend firing up the smoker, just to keep in practice and to keep the bee smoke smell in your clothing.

[Perry]

Things slowing down here as well. Entrances reduced, feeders on the last few hives, but temps dropping fast. Some hives I wish were heavier, guess I'll have to deal with that later. Got a few hives to move once the feeders are off.
Tons of clean up ahead in the next couple of weeks, trying to sort through all the stuff that just got put "here and there and everywhere". Honey shack looks like an earthquake hit it, can barely move in there. About 1,000 feet of pine to cut up into manageable pieces so I have something to do in the basement this winter.
Wrapping won't start till mid-November sometime.

[efmesch]

At my grandson's urging, I've begun preparing my hives for next year--- reducing the hives to one brood box only (no supers), removing the old queens  and on Friday I'll be introducing ripe queen cells he's purchasing.
I haven't done this in years. Usually I leave my hives "topped up" with one honey super (which is not really needed because of our mild winters).
I keep telling him that I'm in bees as a hobbyist, while he is in it to make a living and that difference makes for a great difference in hive management.  He wants as much honey as he can possibly get, so he wants young productive queens.  I'm afraid to get too much honey, lest I have nothing to do  with it, so I'm happy with my "tired, worn out queens" and only replace them when they really are all washed out.
Now I'll have to keep track of the success rate in getting the queen cells accepted, the virgins mated and the hives' winter development.  Not wanting to build them up feeding them sugar syrup,  I'l have to go into my stocks of honey and feed it to them when February comes around.
The more I think about what I'm getting into, the more I think that my season is winding UP, not down.

[riverbee]

"Still I am going to be lost for a while without the smell of a hive and smoker, decisions off the top of my head and a molded over stinking crusty jacket.  Am I the only crazy one getting this feeling?"

LOL! nope!

[Yankee11]

Extracted our last super tonight.

Filtering and bottling starts now.

All hives and wintering as double deeps. Upper deeps are full of honey.

[efmesch]

During the process of compacting my hives in preparation for receiving their new queen cells, I took of 24 frames of honeyl  Another ten frames or so are outside,  closed up and waiting to be brought in to the house (I do my extracting in closed our back porch). 
Hopefully, I'll be able to get to the extracting on Monday.

[apisbees]

You should be pulling the queen in a nuc from a few more desirable hives and raising some cells for yourselves.

[efmesch]

The queens are coming as a gift from my grandson---he's buying them (as queen cells) from the apiary in "Yad Mordechay"  ---Israel's biggest bee enterprise.  It's located about 25 km south of here.
Tomorrow (Friday, Oct 16) we'll be introducing them into the hives that we've prepared over the past few days.  They are supposed to emerge within 24 hours, so the hives will be left alone for the next two weeks, to allow the virgin queens to emerge, be acccepted, mate, and begin laying.
I spotted plenty of drones in the hives today, so mating is the least of my "worries".
I guess I'll be winding down after all  -at least until October 30^th.

[Les]

I will miss my meanderings out to the hives and watching the girls come and go!

[Chip Euliss]

I'm hauling hives in from my outyards and have already fed the lighter ones; most are too heavy so I just drenched those with fumagillan instead of giving it to them in syrup.  I should have all the hauling completed early next week and give the final round of syrup, especially to the hives I'll winter this year in North Dakota.  Cleaning up honey supers, adding 2 undrawn frames to each honey super and getting everything stacked neatly inside before winter is always a big cvhore.  I should be done by early November just before the semi arrives to haul them west.  I'll load bees for the trip to California just before our deer season.  Each year, I'm glad to see them go after all the fall work but I miss the little buggers about 2 weeks later!

[efmesch]

Finally got to my hives today---six of the seven queen cells have produced queens that have been seen.  Not being certain about the seventh hive (didn't see any eggs either) I gave it a frame with eggs.  Will check it out in a few days:  If there are queen cells being built, I'll know that the previously introduced queen cell didn't make it.  If there are no queen cells, I'll look more caarefully for the queen and for eggs.  Either way, I know that I'm winding down the summer and going into the winter with at least six hives with new qeens.  That's as much as I would like to have.  If the seventh hive comes through, it will be a bonus. 

On Thursday (OCt. 30) I finally got around to extracting the frames that have been waiting on my back porch.  Rough calculations based on the volume of my tank and how high it's filled say that I collected about 50 kg of honey.  Now I have to get enough jars to empty it out.  It's been years since I've  produced as much honey as I did this year---from three extractions.  I've never done more than two before.   

Question---IF I should decide to mark the new queens, do they get the color of 2015 (blue)---the year of their birth or of 2016 (white), the year when they start getting to work? 

[Perry]

I would guess year they were born.
Congrats on the bumper harvest my friend.

[apisbees]

Or what ever color you have of want. With 6/7 queens and all the same age, marking is more for ease of finding her and to confirm the queen is the one introduced from the cell and she has not been superseded or swarmed.

[iddee]

I don't know what the rule is, but I would go with year of birth.

[CBT]

I like bright orange for my old eyes