Author Topic: What did you do in your Apiary/Bee yard today? (Read 157973 times)

The15thMember · « **Reply #60 on:** February 12, 2022, 06:49:50 pm »

I went up to the bees today to check on everyone and to prep for my first OAV treatment, which I have planned for Monday. I found one hive being robbed out and opened them up to find all the residents dead on the bottom board and a good bit of dysentery on the frames. My upcoming week is swamped, but I may try and take a look at for nosema with the microscope.

Lesgold · « **Reply #61 on:** February 12, 2022, 07:29:54 pm »

Sorry to hear that Member. It?s always a sad event to lose a hive to robbing. Hopefully spring will bring a good flowering season for you and alleviate this type of problem. I just pulled four boxes of honey ready for extracting. It still amazes me that a hive can have no honey ready for robbing and it?s next door neighbour is absolutely full of capped honey. Checked 5 hives and two of them did not have any capped honey. The other three gave me 36 frames.

Bob Wilson · « **Reply #62 on:** February 12, 2022, 10:36:27 pm »

Yesterday, I added empty frames on each side of the broodnests in my long hives.
I moved the untouched honey frames to the entrances, removing the honey barriers to the queens expanding their nests.
Lastly I repaired one of my swarm boxes and cleaned it out for putting up next week.

Lesgold · « **Reply #63 on:** February 14, 2022, 03:38:22 pm »

Back into the bees again today. Will grab another 4 boxes of honey and then extract them. It?s a bit like ground hog day every day at the moment.

rast · « **Reply #64 on:** February 14, 2022, 09:08:50 pm »

4th OAV treatment today, rebated my russian scion in my bee yard. Hung two swarm traps Saturday.

Lesgold · « **Reply #65 on:** February 21, 2022, 04:37:42 pm »

Just about to begin the most exciting aspect of beekeeping. Cleaning the extractor, uncapping tank, mopping the floor etc. Can?t wait to get started. Really pumped to get this process underway. Lol

FloridaGardener · « **Reply #66 on:** February 22, 2022, 05:44:41 pm »

Caroline Laurel flow has just started. Not full-on yet. Saw one beautiful new bar of ice-white wax with 30% drone comb... no pollen tracks at all. Queenie didn't get to it yet.

Added some empty frames to expand nests, added old brood comb with capped honey for a couple hives that were short on stores from full-speed-ahead brood production. Some capped drones in all hives.

One colony has small brood nest (size of orange). She's getting old. A little techy. I added a frame of open brood. In a couple of days I will pull the queen and add more eggs, hopefully get a couple of Q cells. Should be enough local drones then to get a new queen mated. I'll follow advice from here, to keep her separated above a Snelgrove board (double screen) for the time being. She's good looking but I don't think she's got much oomph left to bail them out later.

Going to set swarm traps & bait hives this week.

Bill Murray · « **Reply #67 on:** February 22, 2022, 06:36:59 pm »

First off,Member sorry to hear about your loss.
The last week. Made appox. 50 splits, All on double bottom boards. Yesterday Made up 12 NUCS, to be re-queened by the said splits. Today cleaned the dead outs I starved due to all my trucks being out of service. Ill take my wifes info to heart next time. "Just go rent you a truck" Shes way smarter than me. Also this last 2 weeks I sold all my fall nucs from last year that I wanted to part with.

saltybluegrass · « **Reply #68 on:** February 23, 2022, 02:49:43 pm »

I lost a hive that produced 1.5 gallons of honey last year. I see no dead bodies so I think they swarmed without me seeing.
Anyway I had a super that I took off last year full of bees and laid them on the ground. They have been living in an open 10 frame box for 5 months.
I relocated them to the dead hive
Let me tell you I was attacked. They came at me in the hundreds
Lol
Hopefully they?re mean enough to last

LawyerRick · « **Reply #69 on:** February 23, 2022, 05:28:01 pm »

Quote from: TheHoneyPump on January 17, 2022, 11:01:13 am

I do have a few Lyson 6F boxes. They are OK. There are some local hobbyists who have 10F poly hives and they like them. The bees definitely have an easier time maintaining their climate inside, year-round, and do well in them.
For me, there is no substitute for the strength and durability of wood. Which is important when handling, moving, stacking with machinery (trucks, fork truck, and lifts). , and bears. Drop a poly box of bees and honey it chatters, blows apart, not salvageable, complete loss. Drop a wood box and can just pickup, restack, add a nail or screw and carry on. Bears rip into and destroy the poly effortlessly. Wood, they have to really work at it and usually resort to tipping the hive and rolling the boxes around until the frames fall out. Wood boxes survive bears and people. Poly do not.

Have you tried Technosetbee, Anel or Apimaye supers? They are much stronger than wooden ware & minimize temperature swings in the hive. I've been using these hard-shelled poly supers for 4 years & they stand up to transport etc. very well & the bees do much better in poly than wood, especially in the winter.

Lesgold · « **Reply #70 on:** February 23, 2022, 10:25:34 pm »

Just finished melting down the last of the cappings wax. Should have a bit of time off now until the next flow. It?s been quite a big year so far. Not sure what I?ll end up doing with the honey collected this season.

NigelP · « **Reply #71 on:** February 24, 2022, 04:23:45 am »

Disastrous morning!
I was lifting a bucket of freshly melted heather honey out of my honey Melter when the handle on the bucket broke. When jarred that would have fetched around $500 now all laid out over my garage floor. Thank goodness for power washers and concrete garage floors.
Never happened in 10+ years of lifting buckets of honey around, will probably never happen again!
Just as well I have another 7 buckets of heather honey to jar.

The15thMember · « **Reply #72 on:** February 24, 2022, 11:09:36 am »

Quote from: NigelP on February 24, 2022, 04:23:45 am

Disastrous morning!
I was lifting a bucket of freshly melted heather honey out of my honey Melter when the handle on the bucket broke. When jarred that would have fetched around $500 now all laid out over my garage floor. Thank goodness for power washers and concrete garage floors.
Never happened in 10+ years of lifting buckets of honey around, will probably never happen again!
Just as well I have another 7 buckets of heather honey to jar.

Oh no! That is so horrible!

JurassicApiary · « **Reply #73 on:** February 24, 2022, 03:36:30 pm »

Quote from: NigelP on February 24, 2022, 04:23:45 am

Disastrous morning!
I was lifting a bucket of freshly melted heather honey out of my honey Melter when the handle on the bucket broke. When jarred that would have fetched around $500 now all laid out over my garage floor. Thank goodness for power washers and concrete garage floors.
Never happened in 10+ years of lifting buckets of honey around, will probably never happen again!
Just as well I have another 7 buckets of heather honey to jar.

Indeed, very frustrating, Nigel; Sorry to hear. I too benefit from concrete floors in my honey house, but am thankful that I have not had this issue as of yet. I use 3-gallon buckets for most of my storage needs for ease of moving them around and less strain on my back, so the reduced wight load hopefully on the handle will prevent this from happening, but if the design/strength of the handle/bucket is manufactured in proportion to the bucket size, then the difference is moot.

Ben Framed · « **Reply #74 on:** February 24, 2022, 03:58:36 pm »

I do not know if this was a plastic bucket. Plastic buckets, with time and age can become brittle without visible notice, allowing stress points to break without warning, quicker than can be recovered.. Sorry this happened to you Nigel.. Your shared experience just might be instrumental in saving some reader, (including myself), the same grief in the future. Thanks for reporting...

Phillip

Lesgold · « **Reply #75 on:** February 24, 2022, 04:21:53 pm »

You are right Phillip. Two buckets that I was using in the last extraction cracked near where the handle attaches to the bucket. I had honey in them and was just pushing them away from the extractor so that the strainers would drain. Was lucky that the cracking did not impact the bucket itself. It was only on the moulding section near the handles. Both buckets were emptied and will end up in the recycling bin.

Lesgold · « **Reply #76 on:** February 24, 2022, 08:08:53 pm »

Just finished cleaning up the wax from last weeks extracting.

It?s clean enough to now make some foundation over the cooler months.

Ben Framed · « **Reply #77 on:** February 24, 2022, 10:52:04 pm »

Good looking wax Les. That should make several sheets. You might have already said, but let me ask. Do you embed wire into your embossed wax foundation? (You have covered a lot of good ground since you have been here in the past couple of months).👍🏻🙂

Lesgold · « **Reply #78 on:** February 24, 2022, 11:22:24 pm »

My frames are wired and I embed the foundation into them.

.30WCF · « **Reply #79 on:** February 25, 2022, 11:51:21 pm »

Quote from: NigelP on February 24, 2022, 04:23:45 am

Disastrous morning!
I was lifting a bucket of freshly melted heather honey out of my honey Melter when the handle on the bucket broke. When jarred that would have fetched around $500 now all laid out over my garage floor. Thank goodness for power washers and concrete garage floors.
Never happened in 10+ years of lifting buckets of honey around, will probably never happen again!
Just as well I have another 7 buckets of heather honey to jar.

5 second rule apply here?

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