Cut Out

Been meaning to write this for a while, a week ago i got a call to a house that had not only one but two swarms that had set up home in the eves of the house. One of them has been there for a very long time and we have decided to take that out next week. The smaller one we decided to take out. I say smaller but to be honest there seemed to be at least 4-5lbs of bees in this swarm. There where 4 large comb sections that we placed into frames and then vac'd the bee's up into a deep.

Afternnoon Update

Well this afternoon i pulled up and there is no bearding but what there is is allot of bee's foraging and the temperature has just topped 97F with a heat index of 108F. Hopefully raising the hive tops this has done the trick, I'll check back in a few days and see what the difference is. If this has made the difference i can see me making some new lids with top entrances built in and better ventilation

Inspection

This year seems to be going very slow, I checked the bee's last night to see what's been going on this years packages have only drawn out 2 frames of honey, last years have not produced any. The weather here has been funny for the last 2 months either raining heavily or so hot nothing wants to fly. The two swarms i have picked up have only filled about 5 frames of mostly brood. I decided i have a ventilation issue and need to try and cool the insides of the hive down, for now i have raised the lids and drilled a 5/8th whole in one honey super to see how we do. I've also changed two solid bottom boards for screened bottom boards. I think the reason there not building comb is because they are bearding on the front of the hive each day.

The hive that's hot has also produced a Queen cell, I couldn't find the queen when i looked so I'm hoping she'll stay and mate with drones from my other hives and calm down a bit. I think i might re queen in the Autumn all my hives and get a bee that can build up fast in the spring for the main honey season.

I've really controlled the urge to go into the hives every few weeks this year but that doesn't seem to be helping either this season. With all hives behaving the same way i can only assume it is all down the weather and that this season is going to be very slow

Callout

I got called out to get some bee that had taken up residence in a bird box. The box was about 10 feet in a tree and the owner wanted to replace the box. So down came the bee's box and all. Latrell my wife , came with me along with our new pet, Emma a terrier puppy.







We transported the whole box back to the house and started to move them into there new home.







Thanks to my awesome wife we have some photos of the event !

I think judging by the comb , how soft it was and the amount that this swarm had only been there a few weeks.

For some reason 3 weeks ago one of the Queens stopped laying, The hive is completely dead, no broad, no nothing. Its all very strange and no one knows what to make off it, This was a hive that was building up very well was filling 2 deeps. This happened to a hive last year and one has to think to ones self what did i do wrong when things seem to be going so well.

If the queen had died one would have thought the hive would have raised a new one however this is just not the case no queen cells, there is even very little wax moth. I would have thought that the wax moth would have been more prevalent. Once again this is very frustrating.

I'm wondering about wether to re-queen the remaining hive from last year and use the old queen as a backup. I want to get some queens anyway because the swarms i have caught are a little to hot for my liking.

On another note , i've been using Mann Lake Hive top feeders for 2 seasons, Recently i noticed that more and more bee's where escaping. I looked more closly and realised that the harware Cloth used on these has actually coroded and broken down. I think im going to build some of my own hive top feeders as i really dont want to replace the Harware cloth every season. I also am a bit concered about the fact that if this has corroded that the bee's have then digested this material.

I've been thinking about developing something along the line of the Brushy Moutian line but with a screened top. I dont think it would be hard to covert what i have to this and see how we get on

Cut out

Went to do a cut out in a tree yesterday. A hive had set up home in the tree 4 years ago ,,,, it was a big hive. Unfortunately for me i went about it all the wrong way. I figured i wouldn't need my bee vac and boy was i so wrong. i started taking comb from the hive and putting it into frames. Ill never do that again. Next time ill use the bee vac to vac up as many bee's to start off with and then take the comb i ended up having to go home and get the bee vac and started vacing up as many bees as i possibly could. I also found i need a new bee suit, i got stung on the head, and back of the neck through the suit and on the eye and thumb as i was leaving to get my vac. Nick the guy i was removing the bee's for was videoing the whole thing so hopefully i post it and you can all have a good laugh at how not to do a bee cut out. right now i look like the hunch back of notradame with one eye all swollen up.

I ended up leaving a box to see if we can get the stragglers and ill go back and get that in a day or two

BEE PACKAGES

I had a quick looks at the new bee packages also today. one had drawn 7.5 frames of comb and another had drawn 10 frames so i placed a honey super on top off them both. The plan is when the honey season is over i will take those off and replace them with deeps for the rest of the year.

Previous Cut out

I think i need to re queen this hive. I had a peek at them without any smoke, i try not to use any smoke if i can help it as it puts them back so much. Anyway this hive is pretty aggressive in comparison to any of my other hives and its a trait i really don't want to put up with so sometime next week ill order a couple of queens and re queen that particular hive. I think i am going to get some carnolians as i think i will get a better build of bees for the spring flow here in Oklahoma. We only really have one flow and that's April through till about mid July. With the wet weather Italian's seem to take allot longer to build up and get going.

Rain, rain go away, come back another day!

Will it ever stop raining ! In between tropical storms i opened up this years package boxes to see where we are at. Disappointing but understandable to say the list. No point in building comb for new bee's if you cant fly to get pollen ! I was expecting 10 frames of fully drawn comb but instead saw only 6 and a half frames. In the last three weeks i think they have only had 1-2 days per week of actual flying time as its been so wet, They are drinking up the sugar water and had to put a new batch on. I sure will be glad when the rain stops or slows at least and the girls can all get flying !

I finally got some new feeders from Brushy Mountain

I'm using this on the two packages from last year. Bit more robbing but less bee's drowning There are some little lugs on the sides that i don't like as they let bee's into the hive so i am in the process of removing them or filling them in. I can see me moving over to these for everything in the not to distant future. I have closed up the entrances to cut the robbing down but i think I'm going to make some custom entrances reducers to fit these exactly.