Recent Posts

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GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: Swarm Trap deadout/abscond

« Last post by BeeMaster2 on Today at 07:53:45 am »

Phillip,
Wax moths for the most part don?t go after brand new wax.  The older the wax the better they like it. If you put a frame of brand new wax in a box of old wax they will devour everything but the new wax. They will build there cocoons all over the frames and make a trail through the new wax but mainly ignore it.
Jim Altmiller

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EQUIPMENT USAGE, EXPERIMENTATION, HIVE PLANS, CONSTRUCTION TIPS AND TOOLS / Re: Frame width

« Last post by Michael Bush on Today at 06:52:52 am »

My end bars are 1-1/4" (32mm) in the brood nest.  For honey it's not that critical, so anywhere from 1-1/4" if it's not drawn to 2-1/2" if it's drawn comb in the honey super.

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GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: How are your Bees?

« Last post by cao on April 22, 2024, 11:33:37 pm »

I was talking about this the other day with friends.  This year was a mild winter with an early spring that had no major cold snaps.  Now we are getting the rains that are delaying some of the farmers from killing the cover crops to plant.  So, there is an eighty-acre farm with crimson clover and some other white flower blooming that I can see the majority of my bees heading that direction when they leave their hives.  I had one hive swarm almost a month ago.  Having 40+ hives make it through the winter, I made the first round of splits 3 weeks ago.  Almost time to check if queen is laying.  I made another round of splits about a week ago.  Even with those splits I have caught 6 swarms, 3 of them today.  As of today, I have bees in over 110 boxes.  They are full hives with multiple boxes all the way down to 4 frame nucs.  Right now I have all my stands full and have nuc boxes sitting all over the place.  And the bad thing is I still have 8 hives that I still need to inspect (they are probably the ones that swarmed today).

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GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: How are your Bees?

« Last post by Ben Framed on April 22, 2024, 10:43:54 pm »

Thumbs up Caashenb, sounds good! It seems folks from Louisiana and South Mississippi who report on such, are in a honey hole area for catching swarms. Thanks for your repot, and keep up the good work!

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HUMOR IS A FUNNY THING / Re: Old Man Jokes

« Last post by Salvo on April 22, 2024, 08:34:01 pm »

An old man goes back to bed ...And asks his wife " does the light in our bathroom turn on and off automatically ", she replies with "No why?", the old man sighs and says "well.... I'm going to buy a new fridge tomorrow"



I asked an old man, "Even after 60 years of being married, how can you still call your wife 'Honey', 'Darling' and 'Sweetheart'?"He replied, "Well I forgot her name 10 years ago and I'm scared to ask her!"




Why did the old man hate living next to the tennis courts?
He couldn't stand all the racket!

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HUMOR IS A FUNNY THING / Re: 30 years

« Last post by Salvo on April 22, 2024, 08:29:26 pm »

.

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GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: What did you do in your Apiary/Bee yard today?

« Last post by FatherMichael on April 22, 2024, 08:21:14 pm »

Installed a nuc this morning from The Bee Place near San Antonio.

The proprietor there, Gary Rankin, told me that he was up to 1000 Italian queen imports to "cool down" the Africanized bee invasion that has been so hard on Texas beekeepers.

His business has exploded because Texas allows agricultural exemptions for keeping bees on personal property.  The Hill Country and South Texas are  retirement destinations.  Localities make up for no income tax with property taxes, which are high on the "ranches" that lucrative people buy there.  You'd have to see the growth of Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio, and Houston to understand.  I am in constant awe as I travel to these places.

Gary had a couple dozen in his Beekeeping 101 class for new customers, and was selling dozens of nucs and complete set ups on this his first weekend.

The potential for honey production in this country is phenomenal.  Even here in West Texas there is an untold wealth of sticky sweetness.

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GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: What did you do in your Apiary/Bee yard today?

« Last post by FatherMichael on April 22, 2024, 05:00:14 pm »

This afternoon, i built more Layens frames. Build, build, build.
Yesterday, a fellow beek had a nice sized, wild swarm move into a spare nuc box behind his shed. I quickly dumped them into a Layens swarm trap with a bit of old comb on one frame and moved it the 4 miles to my house. It looks like they are staying in the box. Whoo-hoo! Free bees!

Awesome!

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EQUIPMENT USAGE, EXPERIMENTATION, HIVE PLANS, CONSTRUCTION TIPS AND TOOLS / Re: Frame width

« Last post by FatherMichael on April 22, 2024, 04:58:50 pm »

What do you do for spacing, Michael?

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GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: How are your Bees?

« Last post by Caashenb on April 22, 2024, 04:22:46 pm »

The flow is on here also and the five hives I over wintered are doing well and putting up nectar.

I have caught four swarms this spring and have 3 more in traps to transfer so I am still feeding this years catch to increase population and build up comb.

All of my colonies are feral so I am looking to start re=queening them soon to make my life a little calmer when I work them.