Recent Posts

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GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: A General Hive Question

« Last post by Terri Yaki on Today at 11:20:47 am »

I'd like to hear more about the strategic part of it. I guess that first I should determine at what point do I draw the line as too late to do so. I'm thinking that a couple more frame manipulations would be in order to help fill them out and make a split when resources are high for both boxes. One box being a medium would have to be taken into account in the event of an uneven distribution of resources between the boxes. Deep frames just will not fit into a medium. I do have more deep boxes but I question whether the excess space of mediums in a deep would be a good move. And again, ultimately, I'd like to score a swarm and this would be a possible plan 'B', if it's feasible. And I almost forgot, I did pick up a five frame deep box nuc that I could throw together and use, if that would be a better option. I could grab five good deep frames and toss them into the nuc and replace them with new frames.

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GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: A General Hive Question

« Last post by Ben Framed on Today at 11:18:44 am »

Reagan gave a very good answer which will help you realize available options.  Do you want honey this season or is your goal primarily building up bees? You can have both if you choose to wait and split late summer or Fall. Of course you will need to help the split out as late summer is usually dearth time and the Fall flow is not as strong as the Spring (speaking of my location). You will need to feed the late split with pollen sub as well.

Being this is your first bees in your first season, you are taking in a large amount of information. You may or may not know that bees have to have both pollen and nectar (or sugar water) to thrive. If you feed both, even in dearth, they will thrive, which has been my experience.  And prosper is exactly what you will need before Winter arrives. 

For example:
My very first season , this is exactly what I did. I let my hive build up the whole season until late and then split the >strong hive<, making 5 nucs. (Though this was not my plan, another story),  I ordered 4 MATED queens and this was during VERY late Fall when I did so! I am happy to tell you, that by following David?s instructions (from barnyard bees),  all five not only made it through the winter, ( The one with the original queen as well as the 4 with purchased queens), but came out full speed ahead the following Spring. . It was a fun project! . And remember these are just a couple ideas, there are several ways to make successful splits!  Best of luck what ever you decide!

Phillip

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FARMING & COUNTRY LIFE / Re: Not all pollen is the same

« Last post by Kathyp on Today at 11:01:47 am »

Max, one of the interesting things in your article is this:  The declines in life expectancy since 2019 are largely driven by the pandemic. COVID-19 deaths contributed to nearly three-fourths or 74% of the decline from 2019 to 2020 and 50% of the decline from 2020 to 2021. An estimated 16% of the decline in life expectancy from 2020 to 2021 can be attributed to increases in deaths from accidents/unintentional injuries. Drug overdose deaths account for nearly half of all unintentional injury deaths. The most recent data reported by NCHS showed more than 109,000 overdose deaths in the one-year period ending in March of 2022.

Again, I think there are multiple reasons but have you read the reports on excess deaths during and after COVID?  That's some interesting stuff and still being analyzed. 

The stats on fentanyl deaths are staggering too.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/895945/fentanyl-overdose-deaths-us/

Unlike past drug use spikes, this one is almost 100% coming from the outside.  People used to cook meth here, but fentanyl is coming in by the truck load through Mexico, ingredients courtesy of China.  It's a big problem and one that hurts a lot of innocent people because the stuff is so toxic you can be poisoned just by touching something that has fentanyl on it.

Other things, like infant and maternal deaths, and some lifestyle diseases we can't really use in the stats because people who come in from other countries often have not had good healthcare or healthcare at all, so they should be excluded from these stats.

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GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: Curious done behavior (at least to me)

« Last post by Occam on Today at 10:58:16 am »

Sounds like the hive is ok. It might just bee that they are kicking the drones out.
Jim Altmiller

Hopefully so. Planning on splitting this evening if all looks good and I provided I get home early enough. Apparently people think I need to do a job and not hang out with my bees all day

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GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: A General Hive Question

« Last post by The15thMember on Today at 10:54:20 am »

You can split, but realize that it will set both colonies back, so you may have to continue to baby the two colonies longer than you otherwise would have the one colony.  You will definitely want to inspect before doing so, because the contents of that second box will determine whether or not the job can be as simple as just separating the two boxes.  I might be inclined to do a little more strategic of a split given that the colony is already behind, just because it's only their first year.   

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GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: A General Hive Question

« Last post by Ben Framed on Today at 10:51:22 am »

You are very welcome Terri. He is quite efficient Terri and a good communicator as well. He has other videos that are VERY informative as well.
Yes you can split if you wish.

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GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: Curious done behavior (at least to me)

« Last post by Terri Yaki on Today at 10:10:03 am »

Poor guys, all they get is used and abused.

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GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: Curious done behavior (at least to me)

« Last post by BeeMaster2 on Today at 09:53:38 am »

Sounds like the hive is ok. It might just bee that they are kicking the drones out.
Jim Altmiller

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GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: A General Hive Question

« Last post by Terri Yaki on Today at 08:41:14 am »

Terri, Devan Rawn has a good video explaining how and why he winters single deeps. He is in Canada. A real nice fellow who is always willing to help
Phillip

https://youtu.be/YjyNcyVvbEI?si=2mhX7N7pLUFk6uiO

And another good video, thanks. I like the way he did the math and explained everything and like I said previously, I like efficiency. I was also impressed with how he could hold the queen and move that frame around without squeezing her too hard. So now for my next question(s)...I want to have two hives before I go into winter and am hoping to catch a swarm. Absent the catching of a swarm, I'll want to get another hive going one way or another. The colony that I have seems to be doing well (for all I know anyhow) and after watching that, I'm wondering...Can I just split this colony? I'll inspect it again tomorrow as it's the best weather day we have in sight. If I find plenty of brood and stores in both boxes, can I just pull the top box off and let the queenless one requeen? I'll video the job and maybe decide what do do afterwards?

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FARMING & COUNTRY LIFE / Re: Not all pollen is the same

« Last post by max2 on Today at 08:26:46 am »

Occam - is this related?
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2022/20220831.htm