beekeeping journal 2012- tips and tricks for this year

[lorihadams]

So we had some excitement last night! Our neighbor's hive swarmed! They have so many bees in the remaining hive that they are actually afraid the "mother hive" may swarm again later this year...craziness. They flew into a low tree nearby and we were able to get them into a hive body with some drawn comb and empty foundation sprayed with sugar water. I am gonna go down and check on them a little later to make sure they are still in there and taking to the new hive body. It was very exciting...this is the first swarm either of us have seen. The bad news is that they have ordered a nuc this year so with our hive loss we told them that if they didn't want the new nuc we would take it off their hands for them. Gonna mean that I have to get some new hive bodies, frames, and foundation but it'll be alright. I have 8 frames with foundation on them already so I should have enough for one hive bodie's worth without ordering any more but I'll need some later on. Gonna be interesting. I'm thinking I may paint the hives a different color for reference or at least number them or paint a symbol on them or something so I can keep them straight. I may tag them with a cattle tag. Gonna make the split Wednesday if it doesn't rain.

oh, and I am trying something a little different with my sugar water....I have spearmint plants growing so I put a handful of the leaves in the sugar water in the entrance feeders and the bees LOVE it. They are taking it much faster with the leaves than without. I'm thinking I may divide my mint plants and plant some near the hives...gotta see about getting some pots for it though cause it will take over if you plant it in the ground and if I ever move my hives then I can move the mint plants too.

 

[Blarneyeggs]

I am loving this thread. Thanks for all the greatt info. We are getting our first hive within the next month. So much to learn....

 

[Avalon1984]

Thank you all sooo much for this thread. This is incredibly helpful. I need to go and inspect my hive this weekend too. I am a newby and there are so many things I don't know yet. We had a real hot day in Decemeber and hubby and I checked on the bees and when we couldn't find them we opened the whole hive and they weren't very happy. I ended up with beestings for Christmas. We did feed them back then and I added some sugar water in February during a warm day but I don't know yet if they survived. It was a huge colony last fall but by the time they got so big it was late in the season and I was afraid to split them. Defineltey should try this spring if they survived. Has anybody ever had a problem with the bees not utilizing any supers you put over the screen? I was hoping they would start building up honey and I bought this screen that is supposed to keep the drones and the queen out. Problem is the worker bees didn't like it at all and didn't utilize the new super. With the season being late and the colony being so big I removed the screen last fall but will definetely try again if I have any hopes for honey. Does one need to train the bees? We even put a feeder over the super to attract them but they didn't buy my tactic.

 

[lorihadams]

Okay...I've been busy with babies everywhere and neglecting the beekeeping thread. Here are instructions for making a split:

Here's Doug's directions for making a split...if you see that the hive is making swarm cells this is an awesome opportunity to make a split and keep them from swarming.



Making a split is very easy.



Here is what I do (right or wrong)



Place the nuc box beside me where I can easily transfer frames into it.

Add frames with bees on them into new box:

o 2-3 frames of brood of different ages if possible (one frame MUST have eggs)

o 1 frame of pollen

o 1 frame of honey

Leave the OLD queen in the parent hive

Replaced removed frames with foundation frames but not two new frames together, you could isolate the queen

o Drawn frame, new frame, drawn frame, new frame, etc I oscillate them. I have found sometimes a queen will NOT cross two frames of foundation together

Rotate or relocate the parent hive if still full of bees

Place nuc in parent hives old location (by doing this you could overpower the nuc, but no real worries, the nuc will dwindle over the next 1.5 months anyway)(if I dont do this I shake an extra frame or two of bees (make sure the queen isnt on it) into the nuc to boost it)

Come back in 21 days to check for a laying queen, dont bother them before, or atleast I dont if I can help it causing stress with a virgin queen in there could spell death to her



****** I do NOT feed syrup until AFTER the new queen has started laying (about 3 weeks after making the nuc!!!! The workers will backfill the comb with syrup and by the time the queen is ready to lay she will have nowhere to lay and they will try to replace her bc she is not laying well, or they think she is not****





The key is plenty of bees and eggs. Dont stress over the brood amounts, honey amounts, pollen amounts, its not an exact science. Remember if a 2 frame nuc can survive and grow (I dont do these but Tom does) than a 5 frame one is no problem right?



Also make sure you parent hive is left strong enough too especially if they are slowing the queen down to prep for swarming this time of year. Also there is no rush in making a nuc. I routinely make nucs for overwintering in August, the ones I make in June go into winter as solid double deep hives its all about feeding though



Dont stress it.



If you can find swarm cells with an egg, larva, or already capped (google this) use those if possible as they are AWESOME queens and ahead of schedule

 

[lorihadams]

If you want to see everything from last year I have a beekeeping journal in this section for 2011 with tons of pics Avalon!



This morning I checked on my split that I made Sunday...finally got the weather to cooperate. I ended up moving my existing queen along with 2-3 frames of brood in various stages...2 frames of pollen...2 frames of honey/nectar and empty frames staggered throughout to make up the 10 frames of a new hive body. I gave them some time to get used to the new location and they are doing well...I've definitely lost some bees to drifting back into the old hive but I have lots of new brood hatching soon so I am not terribly worried. I'm feeding the hive with the old queen but not the old one. I managed to find a frame with newly laid eggs in it and left it in the bottom hive body of the new split for them to make a new queen. I'm not going to check that hive for a laying queen for probably a month. I'll go in and look for eggs and hopefully I'll have 2 hives again!

 

[Avalon1984]

If you want to see everything from last year I have a beekeeping journal in this section for 2011 with tons of pics Avalon!



This morning I checked on my split that I made Sunday...finally got the weather to cooperate. I ended up moving my existing queen along with 2-3 frames of brood in various stages...2 frames of pollen...2 frames of honey/nectar and empty frames staggered throughout to make up the 10 frames of a new hive body. I gave them some time to get used to the new location and they are doing well...I've definitely lost some bees to drifting back into the old hive but I have lots of new brood hatching soon so I am not terribly worried. I'm feeding the hive with the old queen but not the old one. I managed to find a frame with newly laid eggs in it and left it in the bottom hive body of the new split for them to make a new queen. I'm not going to check that hive for a laying queen for probably a month. I'll go in and look for eggs and hopefully I'll have 2 hives again!

I will look for it, thank you!

 

[lorihadams]

I peeked at the hive with the Old queen and she is laying and the bees are flying pretty well and taking sugar water. I haven't opened it up again cause it has just been too cold lately. I'm hopeful that the numbers in that hive will increase to my liking but since we have the whole summer to go I am pretty confident that it will be okay. I haven't looked at the split hive yet but I marked it on my calendar and I will look for new eggs when the time is right. For now, I wait.

 

[Dawn419]

If you want to see everything from last year I have a beekeeping journal in this section for 2011 with tons of pics Avalon!



This morning I checked on my split that I made Sunday...finally got the weather to cooperate. I ended up moving my existing queen along with 2-3 frames of brood in various stages...2 frames of pollen...2 frames of honey/nectar and empty frames staggered throughout to make up the 10 frames of a new hive body. I gave them some time to get used to the new location and they are doing well...I've definitely lost some bees to drifting back into the old hive but I have lots of new brood hatching soon so I am not terribly worried. I'm feeding the hive with the old queen but not the old one. I managed to find a frame with newly laid eggs in it and left it in the bottom hive body of the new split for them to make a new queen. I'm not going to check that hive for a laying queen for probably a month. I'll go in and look for eggs and hopefully I'll have 2 hives again!

I will look for it, thank you!

Here's the link, in case you haven't found it yet, Avalon:

http://www.sufficientself.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=9593

 

[John_henry]

This is great. Exciting stuff.

 

[BarredBuff]

We need to add the super soon to our hive....