Recent Posts

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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

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

« Last post by Occam on Today at 08:07:28 am »

When I performed an inspection 2 weeks ago the queen was doing well, there was plenty of eggs and brood of all stages, not an unusual amount of drones either. There had been no queen cells and the hive hadn't swarmed, I still had a marked queen. I opened the brood nest for some expansion and moved a couple frames of brood to a weaker hive needing a bit of a boost (made sure queen wasn't on those frames). We haven't had any frost lately, it's been  probably close to a month. We've had a lot of rain but nothing that would cause a dearth that I'm aware of.

I've been planning on making a cut-down split of this hive if they're still doing well this weekend and giving the split (once I know everything is successful) to my father in law since he's wanting to start keeping.

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

« Last post by Michael Bush on Today at 05:24:55 am »

>Notice in the video Paul cuts all the landing boards off his hives.  It's easier to stack and store equipment and a landing board is unnecessary.

A man after my own heart.

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

« Last post by Michael Bush on Today at 05:23:31 am »

Did you get a late frost or something that would cause a dearth?  Are there worker brood cells in the hive?  Certainly on a drone laying hive (either a drone laying queen or laying workers) sometimes there are so many drones that they would cluster like this.  In any dearth they will drive out the drones if it lasts long at all.

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

« Last post by Occam on May 14, 2024, 11:01:28 pm »

I'm going with the "dirt is good for you" idea. ... exposure to stuff builds up resistance, kinda thing.
Also, can't help but think being inside and breathing filtered AC air might have something to do with being more sensitive to pollen.

plus ... that means... when I was a kid and made my little sister take a bite of a mud pie .. I was just helping her build her immune system

This is absolutely a big factor. Allergies started spiking the more prevalent central heat and air had become and the more sealed from the outside of houses are. We weren't made to be separate from nature in our daily lives we're a part of nature. When we live in ways we weren't made to live we develop problems we weren't meant to have.  That said I agree with Kathy, it's death by a million cuts. There are so many factors bombarding us that "progress" and industrialization have brought us that weren't faced by most 100 years ago, we're quickly careening towards illness and disease.

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

« Last post by Occam on May 14, 2024, 10:52:26 pm »

I walked out to the garden and beehives this evening. On my double deep I noticed some interesting behavior I haven't seen before (see picture below). I'm used to seeing bearding although right now is early for it and I haven't seen any in earnest yet. These drones had clustered together under the inset handle and a smaller group had clustered to the side of my entrance hole. The workers were wandering around and I saw a couple feeding a drone or two. There were also around 25 drones I found dead below and to the side of the hive. This is the first time I've noticed this particular behavior

Any thoughts? I'm interested to hear what input y'all have.

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

« Last post by Ben Framed on May 14, 2024, 10:49:44 pm »

I have an allergy to hard work. Don?t know when I got it but it looks like I have it for life.  I?m afraid there?s no cure for it either. I?m thinking that I will just have to live with it.

 

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

« Last post by Kathyp on May 14, 2024, 10:07:27 pm »

He said yeah. They gave him a bunch of vaccines all at once. They messed up a lot of our military doing that.

When I was to deploy for Desert Storom I went in for my medical and my shot record was missing.  Must have ticked off the wrong person 

I got everything all at once. Made me kind of sick for 24 hours, but a shipmate of mine ended up in the hospital.  We are, after all, expendable components...

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

« Last post by BeeMaster2 on May 14, 2024, 09:55:19 pm »

Years ago during my navy years I was at the navy courthouse for jury duty. I spotted an old shipmate sitting outside of an office. I called his name and he was very slow to respond and his speech was real slow like he was severely drugged up. I asked him if he went to the gulf war. He said yeah. They gave him a bunch of vaccines all at once. They messed up a lot of our military doing that.
A few minutes later his wife came out from a lawyer?s  office and said common John and took him by the arm and led him out.
Jim Altmiller