Recent Posts

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GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Newbie with New Swarm-- okay to move from temp hive after a month?

« Last post by heartfarm on Today at 08:05:30 pm »

Hi! Thank you in advance.
I caught a swarm last weekend and borrowed a bottom board from a neighbor until my hive parts came in and am feeding them. This all happened quickly and I wasn't quite prepared. The swarm basically surrounded me for about 60 seconds and then clustered on the ground so I took it as a sign to step into gear

I ordered a kit from Dadant that includes a 10-frame deep super and medium shallow. I'm waiting for the hive stand and queen excluder. Right now I have them in a clean "temporary" deep super I had in the barn, and am still looking for the best location. We are rural, 5000ft high desert and sometimes winds of 35mph so am considering building an adobe wall long term for windbreak. I have pasture and orchard 0.1 miles from the house but lots of variables with cows, irrigation and critters so am considering ample space uphill nearer the house. Right now I have the hive set on boards with cinder blocks just inches off the ground (all I had available) just outside our courtyard wall under a mesquite bush with weight on top of the cover.

All of that background to ask-- how long do I have until the hive is "settled" and have to take strong considerations for relocating the hive?

My plan is to move the frames they are building on (now 7 days) into this "new" hive being delivered after they've been in there for about 3 weeks total. The new hive is already painted white and may fare better in weather (sun, monsoons, some light snowfall). Is that wrong? Do I need to, or is it better to keep them in the existing super (proper super just not painted) and just set that on the new bottom board/stand, and add the medium on top of that?

thank you!

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GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: Follow the Bloom - 2024

« Last post by The15thMember on Today at 07:37:17 pm »

Blackberries are blooming pretty heavily here.

AAHH!!  Send them my way! 

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MOVIES / The Stand at Paxton County

« Last post by The15thMember on Today at 07:35:22 pm »

This is the last weekend to watch The Stand at Paxton County on Netflix, and I don't know where, if anywhere, it will be available once it's gone, so if you want to see it, you'd better do it fast!  I watched it last night and was very impressed, not only by the cinematic quality from such a small production, but also by the fact that this was inspired by a true story, and even though it was kind of "action-ified" and streamlined and all the names were changed, a shocking amount of what happened in this movie really happened.  The whole project was very anti-Hollywood, and I was disconcerted by the fact that I had never heard of this movie or the true story behind it before.  My sister and I gave it an 8/10.  If you have the chance, don't pass it up.  You can read the true story here, but fair word of warning, it's very long. 
https://protecttheharvest.com/news/north-dakota-rancher-fighting-for-his-ranch-and-your-rights

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GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: Follow the Bloom - 2024

« Last post by .30WCF on Today at 07:33:51 pm »

Blackberries are blooming pretty heavily here.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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

« Last post by The15thMember on Today at 07:20:18 pm »

I inspected 4 colonies today, two of which are very small and struggling.  The one is coming off a supersedure and was starving, so I gave them some honey frames and reduced them down to a single box.  The other is this swarm that didn't have a laying queen.  I didn't see any queen cells in there last inspection, but today I found 2 being torn down on the original donor frame, so maybe I just missed them before.  They still had some open brood so I decided to wait another week and see if they are just waiting for a queen to be mated.  My favorite queen Snow White got an additional box.  For some reason, the brood pattern in her bottom box wasn't very good, but in the second box it was stellar.  I did a sugar roll and their mite counts were low, so it's not that.  They were a little low on honey as well, so maybe that was the culprit.  I put two honey frames in their new box.  I also found eggs and very young larvae in the colony I split her from, so I named that new queen Cinderella.  Unlike everyone else, they have a full honey super.  This colony has always been better at foraging for whatever reason.         

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GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: Follow the Bloom - 2024

« Last post by The15thMember on Today at 07:09:36 pm »

The black cherry is starting here, and I saw open tulip poplars in Cherokee earlier in the week, so ours should be close, if not also open.  My poplars are so large I need binoculars to see the flowers.    Hopefully we'll get some nectar coming in soon.  I had to give two of my small colonies some extra honey today.  Pollen is fine though, I took a pint out of my pollen trap after less than 24 hours!   

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EQUIPMENT USAGE, EXPERIMENTATION, HIVE PLANS, CONSTRUCTION TIPS AND TOOLS / Re: Today I Made

« Last post by BeeMaster2 on Today at 07:08:30 pm »

Thanks Les, I will be checking out Lightburn. Let me know about engraving the lids.
Jim Altmiller

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DOWN UNDER BEEKEEPING / Re: Varroa in the subtropics

« Last post by The15thMember on Today at 07:04:37 pm »

Jim,
"holes" from the product?

Formic acid is highly corrosive, so it can eat holes through mesh.  You shouldn't set the bare pads on metal lids either. 

With  10 hives the cost start to add up...but cheaper then losing hives.

I don't treat every hive every year with FormicPro, only hives that are performing very poorly where varroa is concerned.  Hives with moderate infestations get OAV, because it's less hard on the bees and less hard on my wallet. 

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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 Today at 06:12:33 pm »

Drove through the yard to see how the two hives are doing and check on the swarm trap.  All's well.

Mesquite and American Basketflower in bloom.

We stopped to watch a tom Turkey court a hen.  He was puffed up with bright red wattle and tail all spread out.

A Blue Heron flew over.

Saw a deer earlier this week and a beautiful red fox.

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OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES FORUM / Re: Gold prospecting using a metal detector

« Last post by Lesgold on Today at 05:28:17 pm »

I didn?t own a mobile phone until I retired. People at work used to give me a hard time about it and that was a bit like a red rag to a bull. I didn?t get one just to annoy them. I used to say that none of them were worth talking to anyway, so why purchase one.

The sad part about dropping the phone is that I had to go back and look for it. Thought it would be where we took off our waders and detecting gear so I picked up my detecting buddy and headed back to where the ute was parked. Joe got out of the car and saw it straight away. What a relief. It would have taken quite a bit of gold to cover the replacement cost. We decided while we were there to put in a few hours detecting. Joe found a beautiful nugget and between us we ended up with a dozen pieces and just over 3 grams for our effort. We decided that the phone should be dropped on a regular basis.