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Author Topic: Personal stash honey maker  (Read 1208 times)

Offline Bob Wilson

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Personal stash honey maker
« on: May 16, 2023, 10:15:08 pm »
I just spoke with a beek, who had never heard of using a nuc as a personal specialty honey stash maker.
A friend of mine has a nectar source (we are still not sure from what plant) that blooms out near his rural property in late May/June. Since I cannot move my long hives out there, I create a nuc with a frame of eggs, a resource frame, three empty comb frames and a bunch of shakes of bees, then move it out there. In 4 weeks, I have a laying queen, and with nothing else to do but raise the queen, the bees pack the nuc with my own private stash of dark, buttery, molasses flavored honey.
Doesn't everyone do this?
I have a family member up in north Georgia. I need to find a way to get a nuc up there for sourwood.
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Offline Acebird

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Re: Personal stash honey maker
« Reply #1 on: May 17, 2023, 08:42:51 am »
Not a bad idea Bob.  Good for you.
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Offline The15thMember

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Re: Personal stash honey maker
« Reply #2 on: May 17, 2023, 11:04:00 am »
I've never heard of anyone doing that before, but that is genius!  Also if you figure out what that dark honey is, please let me know.  I've got the same stuff around me in June, and I can't for the life of me figure out what it is. 
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Offline BeeMaster2

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Re: Personal stash honey maker
« Reply #3 on: May 17, 2023, 06:42:43 pm »
Bob,
Our observation hive was bearding with a couple thousand bees hanging on the entrance. This is a good indicator that the bees will end up swarming so we decided to split it and move the queen. This hive still had open space in some of the top frames that they wouldn?t build out. They also hardly ever filled up the top drawn frames. They mostly worked on making brood. We split them hem and gave 2 frames of brood and the queen to the new hive and took 2 other frames for them also. We left four frames, all vertically and we gave them 4 empty frames. We are in a major flow and they have a new queen and filled all of the drawn comb with nectar/honey even starting to cap a lot of it. They are also drawing out most of the frames and filled them. The last couple of days they moving nectar and the queen started laying eggs yesterday.
If I did this to all of my full sized hives, that is made them queen less 2 weeks before the flow I would made probably 3 times as much honey as I will get next month.
Many years ago I had heard that some beekeepers did this.
Jim Altmiller
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Offline BeeMaster2

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Re: Personal stash honey maker
« Reply #4 on: May 17, 2023, 06:54:11 pm »
Here is a picture of our new queen, and the 2 sides of the observation hive. You can see how much honey they are processing and capping as well as all of the new comb they are making.

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Offline Ben Framed

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Re: Personal stash honey maker
« Reply #5 on: May 17, 2023, 07:08:27 pm »
Nice!
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Offline Occam

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Re: Personal stash honey maker
« Reply #6 on: May 17, 2023, 07:25:14 pm »
I need an observation hive in my life.
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Offline The15thMember

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Re: Personal stash honey maker
« Reply #7 on: May 17, 2023, 08:11:42 pm »
Quote from: Occam on May 17, 2023, 07:25:14 pm
I need an observation hive in my life.
DITTO!  I'm always killer jealous of Jim's observation hive. 
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Offline Occam

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Re: Personal stash honey maker
« Reply #8 on: May 17, 2023, 08:45:27 pm »
I just need to decide where to put one. Garage would be easy but often inaccessible probably (I have garage piles), den might not be bad but pretty sure my puppies would chew at the window opening from the deck, living room...idk, not really sure about the hive entrance at the window next to the front door. Guess I could do one in the barn but I don't exactly spend a lot of time there except taking care of the animals
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Offline The15thMember

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Re: Personal stash honey maker
« Reply #9 on: May 17, 2023, 08:49:44 pm »
Quote from: Occam on May 17, 2023, 08:45:27 pm
I just need to decide where to put one. Garage would be easy but often inaccessible probably (I have garage piles), den might not be bad but pretty sure my puppies would chew at the window opening from the deck, living room...idk, not really sure about the hive entrance at the window next to the front door. Guess I could do one in the barn but I don't exactly spend a lot of time there except taking care of the animals
I just gotta move out of my parents' house!  :grin: 
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Offline Michael Bush

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Re: Personal stash honey maker
« Reply #10 on: May 18, 2023, 07:53:59 am »
>I just gotta move out of my parents' house!

I need an apprentice... https://bushfarms.com/beesapprentice.htm
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Offline Bob Wilson

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Re: Personal stash honey maker
« Reply #11 on: May 18, 2023, 09:11:28 am »
Big observational hive.
None for me, but seeing Jim's inside hive a few years ago did get me thinking a lot about a 2 frame version for sharing in our school system, FFA, and FH groups. His is top notch.

Stach nuc.
Glad I could bring an interesting idea to the table, but the credit for the concept goes to you beeks. All I ever learned about beekeeping, I learned at Beemaster.com.
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Offline The15thMember

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Re: Personal stash honey maker
« Reply #12 on: May 18, 2023, 10:49:47 am »
Quote from: Michael Bush on May 18, 2023, 07:53:59 am
>I just gotta move out of my parents' house!

I need an apprentice... https://bushfarms.com/beesapprentice.htm
Yeah, I think Nebraska is a little farther than I had in mind!  :wink:  Plus I don't think I could hack living on flat land anymore.  10 years ago I went to a Transformers convention in Dallas with my sister and my dad, the farthest west I have ever been.  As we were driving through Louisiana, we couldn't get over how exposed we felt out on the plain.  It felt like we were expecting a giant thunderbird to swoop down and nab us or something!  :grin:
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Offline Acebird

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Re: Personal stash honey maker
« Reply #13 on: May 19, 2023, 08:26:09 am »
Quote from: The15thMember on May 17, 2023, 08:49:44 pm
I just gotta move out of my parents' house!  :grin:
Are they still there?
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Offline The15thMember

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Re: Personal stash honey maker
« Reply #14 on: May 19, 2023, 10:47:41 am »
Quote from: Acebird on May 19, 2023, 08:26:09 am
Quote from: The15thMember on May 17, 2023, 08:49:44 pm
I just gotta move out of my parents' house!  :grin:
Are they still there?
My parents?  Yeah, if they weren't, I'd probably have put an observation hive in already!  :grin:  My adult sister and I are planning on moving out together at some point, but for now it's all 7 of us under one roof.     
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Offline Michael Bush

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Re: Personal stash honey maker
« Reply #15 on: June 01, 2023, 06:42:42 am »
>Plus I don't think I could hack living on flat land anymore.

You're thinking of central and western Nebraska.  We aren't in the mountains, but it's not the plains either.
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