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Recent Posts
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DOWN UNDER BEEKEEPING / Re: To Spring feed or not to feed? (Hives, in Melbourne, Australia).
« Last post by LenR on Today at 06:03:40 am »
I'm thinking of giving them a 'Mountain Camp' style feed each.
(IE add a kilo of white table sugar on the top board).
The feeding style is simple and has worked for me before.
On the other hand I don't want to give them so much that they think swarming in a month or 2 is a good idea.
What do people think?
Cheers
Damien
Hi
I don't think your bees will swarm feeding dry white sugar, they do not store it like syrup they just eat it if they want it.
I feed dry sugar to my bees every year in winter some hives consume it some do not.
they don't swarm from dry sugar feeding.
Len
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EQUIPMENT USAGE, EXPERIMENTATION, HIVE PLANS, CONSTRUCTION TIPS AND TOOLS / Re: Frames and Frame Assembly Videos
« Last post by little john on Today at 05:46:26 am »If you'd like something a little low Tech. Which most Woodworkers can make. This is a jig I would recommend.Yes, it's a brilliantly simple method. I made that jig woodwork in two pieces: one being a side and two ends; the other being just one side. Held together with shock-cord as per video. If you make the ends very slightly under-size, then you can insert shims to cater for (pretty-much unavoidable) variations between manufacturers. Then, removing those shims makes completed frame extraction so much easier.
A great method.
LJ
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EQUIPMENT USAGE, EXPERIMENTATION, HIVE PLANS, CONSTRUCTION TIPS AND TOOLS / Re: painting occupied hives
« Last post by little john on Today at 05:35:28 am »My bees appear to love paint:
[click the above images to enlarge - this is a new image host I'm trying-out]
This young lady found a nice chewy bit of xylene-based latex paint to take back home as an alternative to tree gum. Must have been re-decorating, I guess.
LJ
[click the above images to enlarge - this is a new image host I'm trying-out]
This young lady found a nice chewy bit of xylene-based latex paint to take back home as an alternative to tree gum. Must have been re-decorating, I guess.
LJ
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DOWN UNDER BEEKEEPING / Re: To Spring feed or not to feed? (Hives, in Melbourne, Australia).
« Last post by little john on Today at 04:50:00 am »I only put 2 tiny holes in the feeder jar lids to minimize swarming. They get a continuous small amount of nectar but they are not able to back fill with it. It just helps feed the brood.
Jim
I think that's a good tactic to adopt, Jim - and it's not only the brood which benefit. One of the problems with 'running on empty' is that bees need fuel in order to find fuel - so a small drip-feed of syrup will also help the foragers to initially 'get out there' in order to help themselves ...
LJ
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GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Hive relocation and spring preparation field report
« Last post by omnimirage on Today at 03:03:09 am »I relocated nine beehives last week, and checked up on them this weekend, in preparation for the upcoming spring weather.
For some reason, almost half the hives had a lot of dead bees in front of it. I also took a weakened, queenless starving hive up there with me, with the intention of merging it with another weak hive, but they all died on the way. Does transportig bees stresss them and cause them to die? It seems like the hives with the most bees, and least space, had the most loses. Is there anything I can reduce loses next time?
I didn't see any queen cells, which surprises me. I figure the warm spring weather will arrive in ten or so days, so I expected to see some. I may have simply missed them. Only one hive had a heavy amount of drones. I wasn't sure what to do with them, as my mentor advised me to kill them but people on these forums have said otherwise; I ended up squishing most of them.
I gave most hives an extra super. Two of the hives proved to be a challenge, as last year, I needed to move my deep nucs into a bigger sized super, but I only had medium sized brood chambers available to me, so I put the deep frames into two medium supers. They of course built a lot of comb underneath, I discarded most and strapped the brood to frames with rubber bands. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with my deep nucs anymore; I'm transitioning to all mediums. I guess I'll try to fill them with bees and sell them.
I wasn't sure if one of the hives should have had the extra super on top. They have a fair amount of space, there's a few frames that haven't been used and a few frames were somewhat low on honey, but spring is approaching and I'm not sure what the flow will be like soon.
I set up two trap hives. The hives are on stands, with feet sitting in a container with a little bit of vegetable oil in it. I've read that such can be used to stop ants, but I'm unsure how effective it'll be. I used to use sump oil for this purpose, but am concerned about the environmental impact of such as it'll spill when it rains, and I figure it'd be disrespectful to the farmer who I have the hives at, to even suggest using such. I guess I'll need to top up the containers when using vegetable oil; I didn't have to with sump oil. I used only a very little amount covering the bottoms, I'm not sure if I even used enough and it cost me a bit of money to do, about $12 in oil (which is the cheapest homebrand oil that I could find and was on half price, I wouldn't consistently bee able to purchase it for this price). I did wonder if maybe I could exchange honey for used vegetable oil from a local fish and chips shop, as I figure used vegetable oil would be just as good. I'm not exactly sure how I'd approach them for such or if it's even a good idea. I also read that mineral oil can perform the same function as vegetable oil, and that it's supposed to be very cheap, but it was enormously expensive when looking for prices online; I haven't checked local hardware stores for it, it may be cheap there.
A few of the hives had a bit of moisture on the top of them. I've very concerned about this, simply because I've had this issue in the past and I haven't ever really been able to work out how to effectively deal with it. The hives that had the most moisture, had the most buckled lid; I'm not sure if water got in there, causing it to buckle with time, or if the water came in from elsewhere.
I'm not sure when I should check the hives again, but I figure in about a months's time would be good.
I took a couple photos:
https://imgur.com/a/kRlhx
For some reason, almost half the hives had a lot of dead bees in front of it. I also took a weakened, queenless starving hive up there with me, with the intention of merging it with another weak hive, but they all died on the way. Does transportig bees stresss them and cause them to die? It seems like the hives with the most bees, and least space, had the most loses. Is there anything I can reduce loses next time?
I didn't see any queen cells, which surprises me. I figure the warm spring weather will arrive in ten or so days, so I expected to see some. I may have simply missed them. Only one hive had a heavy amount of drones. I wasn't sure what to do with them, as my mentor advised me to kill them but people on these forums have said otherwise; I ended up squishing most of them.
I gave most hives an extra super. Two of the hives proved to be a challenge, as last year, I needed to move my deep nucs into a bigger sized super, but I only had medium sized brood chambers available to me, so I put the deep frames into two medium supers. They of course built a lot of comb underneath, I discarded most and strapped the brood to frames with rubber bands. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with my deep nucs anymore; I'm transitioning to all mediums. I guess I'll try to fill them with bees and sell them.
I wasn't sure if one of the hives should have had the extra super on top. They have a fair amount of space, there's a few frames that haven't been used and a few frames were somewhat low on honey, but spring is approaching and I'm not sure what the flow will be like soon.
I set up two trap hives. The hives are on stands, with feet sitting in a container with a little bit of vegetable oil in it. I've read that such can be used to stop ants, but I'm unsure how effective it'll be. I used to use sump oil for this purpose, but am concerned about the environmental impact of such as it'll spill when it rains, and I figure it'd be disrespectful to the farmer who I have the hives at, to even suggest using such. I guess I'll need to top up the containers when using vegetable oil; I didn't have to with sump oil. I used only a very little amount covering the bottoms, I'm not sure if I even used enough and it cost me a bit of money to do, about $12 in oil (which is the cheapest homebrand oil that I could find and was on half price, I wouldn't consistently bee able to purchase it for this price). I did wonder if maybe I could exchange honey for used vegetable oil from a local fish and chips shop, as I figure used vegetable oil would be just as good. I'm not exactly sure how I'd approach them for such or if it's even a good idea. I also read that mineral oil can perform the same function as vegetable oil, and that it's supposed to be very cheap, but it was enormously expensive when looking for prices online; I haven't checked local hardware stores for it, it may be cheap there.
A few of the hives had a bit of moisture on the top of them. I've very concerned about this, simply because I've had this issue in the past and I haven't ever really been able to work out how to effectively deal with it. The hives that had the most moisture, had the most buckled lid; I'm not sure if water got in there, causing it to buckle with time, or if the water came in from elsewhere.
I'm not sure when I should check the hives again, but I figure in about a months's time would be good.
I took a couple photos:
https://imgur.com/a/kRlhx
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EQUIPMENT USAGE, EXPERIMENTATION, HIVE PLANS, CONSTRUCTION TIPS AND TOOLS / Re: Frames and Frame Assembly Videos
« Last post by tycrnp on Today at 12:08:05 am »All very helpful videos. Thanks!
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GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: Beekeeping with 25 hives
« Last post by minz on August 19, 2017, 11:11:18 pm »Title sounds good but I could find nothing at either of two counties that I have libraries and none at the Powell?s Used and New books. Amazon says he has 63 titles and this is down as a manuscript.
Maybe it is the digital age.
Maybe it is the digital age.
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GARDENING AROUND THE HOUSE / Re: Garden Updates 2017
« Last post by minz on August 19, 2017, 10:57:10 pm »Is it normal to have so little rain?I think it was the 5th longest run on record. It also came with the top 90+ degree days in a row on record.
We hit 53 or 55 days before it did finally rain (one day).
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HONEYBEE REMOVAL / Re: beeswax rendering
« Last post by Robo on August 19, 2017, 10:42:07 pm »
Next step is to make a mesh cage of some sort - and put that slumgum under boiling water again.
LJ
Try a 5 gallon paint strainer. I think you will have better results than the pillow case.