Anyone keep Bees?

McCracken said:
Got into the hives today. I suck as a beekeeper. Back about 10 years ago with no kids I had all this time to fool with them. Now, it's a struggle. Fast forward to today and I haven't been in the bees in about 3 weeks. When I left them, I had two full supers of honey and starting to draw out the third in my big hive.

The other hive was upside down. Laying in the super and no work in the brood chamber. I flipped it and let them work back up into the brood.

I go into the big hive today and my numbers are way down. Splochy brood, no sign of a queen with about 5 superceder cells hanging around. Wax moths in the upper super with larvae crawling around. Hive beetles joined the fray too. The two supers I had were either chewed up or half empty now. I decided to pull the super with the wax moth damage and set it out in the sun. I figure I'll let the bees clean it up and take what they can to out in the other super. I left the new super that they never started drawing out to see what happens. I put in a beetle trap so hopefully that will reduce those numbers. Lastly, I swapped out the inner top cover. I'd been running one with a slot in the front. The other hive doesn't have this slot and also doesn't have moths so I'm thinking that may be the issue since the moth damage was in the top super.

The other hive I flipped and put the brood back on the bottom and put the super on top. It's numbers were booming. Lots of good brood and lots of coverage on the frames. I'm thinking of trying to steal a frame of good brood and putting it in the shitty hive to see if they can turn a cell into a queen.

We'll see what happens. If they can make it through winter I'll be happy. However, I've got to start feeding them. Around here in east TN you've got to start feeding in July. The dearth starts now and it lasts until late fall.
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something happened for the moths to take over. Usually they move in and take over when everything else is going wrong or they got week. When you say "chewed up" was every last "food goods" stores gone through? If the wax had a rough appearance with some flakes on the bottom board I'd guess they got robbed out. We have had a fair share of troubles this 2nd year of learning. Still got two hives I cannot decide what to do with. Added to that we have 3 doing massively well in numbers. Trying to decide on late splits and what to do about queens. Buy or try them raising their own.....our problem hives have me very gun shy.
 
WARRIORWELDING said:
something happened for the moths to take over. Usually they move in and take over when everything else is going wrong or they got week. When you say "chewed up" was every last "food goods" stores gone through? If the wax had a rough appearance with some flakes on the bottom board I'd guess they got robbed out. We have had a fair share of troubles this 2nd year of learning. Still got two hives I cannot decide what to do with. Added to that we have 3 doing massively well in numbers. Trying to decide on late splits and what to do about queens. Buy or try them raising their own.....our problem hives have me very gun shy.
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No, the larva crawl through the frames and destroy the wax and comb. I've had this happen before and it sucks a big one. Once you have wax moths you'll never forget them.
 
McCracken said:
No, the larva crawl through the frames and destroy the wax and comb. I've had this happen before and it sucks a big one. Once you have wax moths you'll never forget them.
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I know that time is a factor, but if you could build some 2-3 frame nucs, you could put a good frame a brood, and empty, and a supersedure cell in them, and possibly start a few more hives. If you have an extra 10 frame, this video shows how he sets it up for multiple queen castles: .
 
paradisePWoffrd said:
I know that time is a factor, but if you could build some 2-3 frame nucs, you could put a good frame a brood, and empty, and a supersedure cell in them, and possibly start a few more hives. If you have an extra 10 frame, this video shows how he sets it up for multiple queen castles: .
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I think it's a little too late in the year here for that. With the dearth hitting they wouldn't have time to build up stores.
 
McCracken said:
No, the larva crawl through the frames and destroy the wax and comb. I've had this happen before and it sucks a big one. Once you have wax moths you'll never forget them.
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yeah, I was referring to the pest in general. I caught a mess before it happened with a weak colony. Way to much comb to keep policed. I caught it just as the larvae moved in or was hatching. Killed all I could manually and reduced the surface area of the comb. Limited numbers then cleaned it all up and back to business. That hive has made a full rebound. My problem hive has been huge numbers and was a 2 deep with super......now declining after over a month of trying to re-queen I will be pulling square inches of comb to keep it clean and un infested. No sense letting it all spoil. I will repurpose it in splits.
 
paradisePWoffrd said:
I know that time is a factor, but if you could build some 2-3 frame nucs, you could put a good frame a brood, and empty, and a supersedure cell in them, and possibly start a few more hives. If you have an extra 10 frame, this video shows how he sets it up for multiple queen castles: .
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We have helped them and are learning from them.....last adventure was helping move thirty or so hives to trailers to transport.....the fun was he had just set a bunch of wet supers on them...they where "crunk".
 
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Bee hardware fabrication day. Worked the hives some too.
 
paradisePWoffrd said:
What are these bottom pictures of?
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Solar wax melters. Built two. It always seems just as easy to do two of something if you have the supplies.

I want to sell one for some cash......so I can buy more bee boxes, lol.
 
I got invaded today. Was my fault too.
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I needed this for what I was repairing.
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Lucky this wasn't on today's list.

I had a small cloud of bees all around and in the shop.
Bout a hour and they cleaned up the mess and moved on.
I spilled some old honey comb juice and left the bag out. They got real thick about 5 minutes after this picture. I decided to go get some refreshments.
 
My bees think it's spring.
They are busting. If I knew it was gonna be this warm I would open the entrance reducers.
 
Our bees are doing well. We sold some to another keeper one of our mentors who had a rough over wintering.
The wife tracks our progress here:Johnson Apiaries - Facebook https://m.facebook.com/JohnsonHoneyBees/

I am also peddling these:
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Sold 10 Bee stands so far, yippy!



Me giving the Bees an apologetic scolding. My wife got tickled in the back ground. I was working while she filmed one of our queens. This was a mid summer swarm from last year. We monitored fed and got a good sized colony this year.
 
How is everyone doing with the bees? Mine are up to 16-18 hives. I have several supers of honey so far. My shinning hive has about 6 stacked above the brood chamber full.
 
WARRIORWELDING said:
How is everyone doing with the bees? Mine are up to 16-18 hives. I have several supers of honey so far. My shinning hive has about 6 stacked above the brood chamber full.
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I dont know what any of that means, but it sounds positive, so congrats! :laughing:
 
jeepinmatt said:
I dont know what any of that means, but it sounds positive, so congrats! :laughing:
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Estimate about 120lbs of honey from one hive. That's the short of it.
 
Longer answer...
When full of honey, you can expect your 10 frame boxes to weigh the following:

Shallow – 40 pounds
Medium – 50 pounds
Deep – 80 pounds
When full of honey, you can expect your 8 frame boxes to weigh the following:

Shallow – 32 pounds
Medium – 40 pounds
Deep – 64 pounds

I run ten frame stuff. If this little article I copied and pasted is right my arms have lied. I should be north of 200 on that one hive. All I know is my shoulders hated the last two boxes at head height full of bees and honey.
 
WARRIORWELDING said:
Longer answer...
When full of honey, you can expect your 10 frame boxes to weigh the following:

Shallow – 40 pounds
Medium – 50 pounds
Deep – 80 pounds
When full of honey, you can expect your 8 frame boxes to weigh the following:

Shallow – 32 pounds
Medium – 40 pounds
Deep – 64 pounds

I run ten frame stuff. If this little article I copied and pasted is right my arms have lied. I should be north of 200 on that one hive. All I know is my shoulders hated the last two boxes at head height full of bees and honey.
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You gotta start pulling supers and emptying them I can't let them get more than 2 high or I'm killing myself
 
Ok survey time.........what is a a quart jar of honey going for? What are y'all paying? Willing to pay?

We are gonna jar up 1lb plastic squeezers, pints, and some quarts.

Local prices are all over and the famous Amish store up the road has some retail stuff over 30 dollars a quart.
 
My brain is in overdrive so I'm over thinking the simple.

I need help interpreting this statement before I over think it.

"In my case, I know the honey source and foulbrood was not the issue that killed the colonies. General recommendations suggest that the honey be cut about 30% with hot water, mixed and fed back to the bees in quantities that the colony can consume overnight. My bees loved it."


I'm my head I read 6 pounds of honey to 3 pounds water? What say ya'll?



The gist is I isolated some extracted honey I knew was tainted with table sugar feeding. (One super)They did the job of rearing brood and pulling comb. Now I want to refeed the stored portion to set them up better for fall/winter. I have about 5 gallons of this product. I refuse to sell it as pure honey. It was probably a gallon of feed at the right time but I'm not selling poor goods. Now I can feed several hives and I get drawn comb.
 
WARRIORWELDING said:
My brain is in overdrive so I'm over thinking the simple.

I need help interpreting this statement before I over think it.

"In my case, I know the honey source and foulbrood was not the issue that killed the colonies. General recommendations suggest that the honey be cut about 30% with hot water, mixed and fed back to the bees in quantities that the colony can consume overnight. My bees loved it."


I'm my head I read 6 pounds of honey to 3 pounds water? What say ya'll?



The gist is I isolated some extracted honey I knew was tainted with table sugar feeding. (One super)They did the job of rearing brood and pulling comb. Now I want to refeed the stored portion to set them up better for fall/winter. I have about 5 gallons of this product. I refuse to sell it as pure honey. It was probably a gallon of feed at the right time but I'm not selling poor goods. Now I can feed several hives and I get drawn comb.
Click to expand...
I read that as 70% honey 30% water.
 
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