Steve's Bee's

Passed the bad weather

2011-02-12T11:15:00.000-08:00

With temps getting down to below zero it was good to see the one remaining hive with bee's in it.

Disillusioned

2011-02-03T07:50:00.000-08:00

Well its been i while since i last posted, to be honest we ended up having a really crap year. We got 24lbs of honey of 8 hives and then lost all but 1 of those hives, right now we will probably loose the remaining hive because of the below freezeing temperatures and 2 inches of snow.

Just before the bad weather i placed a pollen patter and placed a top hive feeder on full of sugar water so who knows maybe they will survive.

Not sure where to go with this right now or what to change n order to get a successful year. I was placed with the queens i received it made a big difference to the hives i had that had gone hot so will probably do that again.

Anyway spring is coming and who knows what may happen or become of it

Re-Queen Success !

2010-07-22T20:42:00.000-07:00

Photos Courtesy of Latrell Oner

The only good thing to come out of this season has been the re-queening, honey levels have been very disappointing. we seemed to do OK and then all of a sudden nothing. It was rather pleasing going into the two hives i had re-queened and finding the new queen. Thanks to my wife latrell we have some photos

New Bee Video

2010-06-23T12:20:00.001-07:00

Made me laugh

New Resource

2010-05-18T08:35:00.001-07:00

I found this link that might be of use for British Bee Keepers

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/beekeeping/

New Queen

2010-05-11T18:47:00.000-07:00

Well my new queens arrived today via UPS. I know i should have taken pictures but i was in a hurry because the weather for cast is not good. Both had about 6 attendance and where marked with a blue dot.

I had split the hive i want them to go into on Sunday so i carefully went though both hives to see if i could located the queen. On Sunday i found about 10 queen cells fully occupied and ready to go. If this hive had not been so mean i would have just put three frames in a nuc. however i just split it in two. We double checked and then checked again and i could not locate the queen.

So i have placard them both in each hive, i have not uncorked them going to leave them in there till next Sunday and see what happens then uncork them. This game is about getting acceptance. We have been called out a number of times to different swarms all over the neighbourhood. i got another swarm last week that appears to be doing well.

New Queens

2010-05-04T10:55:00.001-07:00

I finally bit the bullet and have decided to re-Queen my problem hive. As an experiment i have ordered a Carniolan Queen that has been mated with an Italian drone. The idea is the build up will be big and less swarming tendencies. They should be good honey producers. I've ordered them from Koehnen & Sons . the shipping date is for May 10Th. I'll post pictures and a video of how it goes.

I am still getting a few calls for swarm catching which is always a good thing...

Prohibiting bee keeping

2010-04-05T08:57:00.000-07:00

I had heard a rumour that my local town is trying to stop bee's from being kept inside the city limits. a few phones calls and i go directed to the OKLAHOMA APIARY ACT.

§2-3-125 - Local Government Regulations and Ordinances Regarding Honeybees and Hives
No county, municipal corporation, consolidated government, or other political subdivision of this
state shall adopt or continue in effect any ordinance, rule, regulation, or resolution prohibiting,
impeding, or restricting the establishment or maintenance of honeybees in hives. This provision
shall not be construed to restrict the zoning authority of a county or municipal government to
establish appropriate locations for apiaries.

I am waiting to hear back from my local town hall. I think i need to find out who else is keeping bee's in my town and organise a meeting.

2010-03-24T18:29:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Honey Bee News I've been listening to the commentary on the videos that they have. Im not allowed to actually watch the videos at work but the commentary in the back ground helps pass the day as i work. One of the thing i really want to do this year is get better at my mite management. I'm pretty sure that's been one of the contributing factors in some of the losses last year. So this year I've been reading u on different methods. I have always wanted to be as chemical free as i could be. I have used IPM boards and standard bottom boards . I have noticed here the bee's do seem to build up better with IPM boards. So I'm going to be changing all mu bottom boards to IPM. I've also done my first sugar shake. 2 of the hives where not to bad about it but one of them is very hot ( Will have to re-queen this year) I got a sieve and just dusted each box down. I'm also looking at getting some drone frames. The idea is once a month with your sugar shake you take these frames out and freeze them for 24hrs. I'm not sure if on a commercial front this would be practical or viable but I'm a hobbits so something new.

Lastly i have noticed i have a few hive beetles. This is new in the 2 seasons we have been doing this i never saw them before but they turned up towards the end of last year and look like they are here to stay. I have AJ's Beettle Eater and will be installing them shortly.

I wont be buying packages this season but i will be collecting swarms and doing cut outs for people. I have still to go and check on my hive in Texas and will probably bring that back with me and use it for splits.

I have been looking at queens to use in re-queening and will think about doing that once the main honey flow April-June is over.

The weather as always is being particularly unusual in that its been very cold until a week ago and constant rain, So I'm feeding pollen patties and sugar water (1:1) to build them up ready to attack the clover which has started to bloom already.

2010-03-18T08:15:00.000-07:00

Calls for Bee Removals have started early this year, I ahve already had two calls . One to remove from a tree and one to remove from a house

Feeding

2010-03-06T13:45:00.001-08:00

It's spring so the bee's are flying and its time to feed like crazy for the main honey flow in April. I haven't bought any bee's this opting to build up what i have got or find wild ones and then re-queen if i have to. So this year its really important to feed constantly for the next few weeks.

I mix 4lbs of sugar and 4 litres of water to make my sugar water, the bee's devour it but the delivery of it as always been an issue for me. I have used various types of feeders and to be honest i haven't found one yet that i was 100% happy with. I some hive top feeders from Mann Lake.

I have three of these and drowning has been minimal my only complaint is the wire mesh.
After a season the wire mesh breaks down, not sure why but the following season you have to replace. This year i bit the bullet and ordered the replace meant mesh from Man Lake.

As you can see they are pretty corroded and i cant help but wonder what this did to my bee's. The replacements came in yesterday they are a few bucks a piece so i got a few spares cleaned the feeders up and swapped the mesh out.

The feeders are pretty good in that they can hold 4 gallons of sugar water , which for me normally lasts about a week max per hive. I have other types of feeder that i will comment on.

Brushy Mountain Bee Farm produce a plastic entrance feeder that's $3.25 each and holds about 1.3lts of sugar water. So far they have been pretty good and have survived being outside in heat and cold for a whole season. There are two things that i don't like about them. They encourage robbing. My friend Albert suggesting modifying my bottom boards so that they could be placed in the back which i haven't had time to do yet. Because of the fit of the bottom to the cup there is a capillary action which results in the bee's being able to feed on the outside further encouraging robing.

I have also noticed this year that the ones from last season the plastic has gone very hard and britle. I got some more this year so i will check on them and see if they fair any better.

I also have the internal black kind. So far there are a number of things i don't like about them. First they only fit in a deep so you have to take the hive apart to get to them and secondly they seem to drown a large number of bee's. I am interested in the new kind from Mann Lake with the Bee lander and might make something similar for mine to experiment with this year.

Spring is coming

2010-03-01T07:17:00.000-08:00

We are down to 3 hives, usual fatalities of the winter. All three seem to be doing ok, but i have started feeding sugar water and placed a pollen Pattie in each hive to kick start the season.

I have also bought a new jacket, In comparison to my old one this is so much thicker and more comfortable and the price wasn't to bad either. I'm thinking of spliting one hive and building up the other two. We may even get to rescue some wild bee's this year.

Cut Out

2009-08-09T15:49:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-10T15:30:00.001-07:00

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

2009-07-10T05:51:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-08T18:27:00.001-07:00

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.

2009-06-03T06:41:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-25T03:39:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-05-11T08:44:00.000-07:00

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.

Squatter

2009-04-26T17:15:00.000-07:00

I found this in one of my empty hive deeps when i was getting ready for my bee extraction. Needless to say i killed it , but goes to show , be carefull when going into empty bee boxes

First Swarm / Cut out

2009-04-25T15:13:00.000-07:00

Did my first swarm and cut out in a water meter today, I have never seen so many bee's crammed into such a small space. I used my bee vac , wasn't allowed to take pictures on site but i did when i got home.

2nd inspection

2009-04-20T20:38:00.000-07:00

Well its been 10 days since my last inspection. I wanted to replace the division board feeders with hive top feeders. My bee's from last year where not using theres and i was getting some drowning in the new hives. I also didnt want to have to open them up every time i want to feed them. So i took the division board feeders out and put a new deep frame in instead. Placed the hive top feeder on top and away we went.

My bee's from last year have not started moving up into the second deep but i think everything is very slow this year, even the clover is slow to bloom this year.

I picked up some second hand hive bodies and medium supers on saturday, 4 deeps, 8 suppers and some migratory lids. There old and passed there sell by date but will act as some good spares for this and next year for swarms. I burdned all the wodern frames most had rotted and gone moldy, and disposed of the plastic frames. I thin scourced the insides of all the boxes witha propaine tourch to kill of a bacteria or dieases. They all need paiting but i have also been thinking about treating then with some wood preservitive.

I finished paiting some other boxes and my queen castle tonight. so the queen castle will be ready for use in the next day or two.

All in all is been a very busy time of it on the bee front, i ahve some 9 frame spacers on order and some plastic front feeders that i cant wait to get hold of this week. I like the hive top feeders but there expensive at $18 a pop. So all in all i am in pretty good shape for the season.

The plan for the next few weeks is to keep feeding and to build up all hives , Im either looking to raise some of my own queens or to ship 5 queens in in the next month. 3 to go in the queen castle for the year and 2 to use on my splits.

First Inspection

2009-04-13T16:35:00.000-07:00

Its been 5 Days since i installed the bee's the weather has been none stop rain. so during a break in the clouds and when the temp had risen to 65 i wanted to get teh queen cages out and to see if any egg's had been laid. Both packages are doing well drawing out and repairing the comb i had already in there and a great rate of knots, they had gone through all the sugar water so time to put some more on.

New Bee's Video

2009-04-10T07:28:00.001-07:00

Well Wednesday i got some more bee's and this is a short video of how the installation went !

We hope you like it.

Bee Vac

2009-04-07T17:21:00.001-07:00

Well i have extended my bee yard and have been promising some pictures of the bee vac so here are pictures of both. Cant wait till tomorrow when i get my package bee's

New Bee's

2009-04-06T18:10:00.001-07:00

As well as the two hves that i am going to split in a few weeks, i have two new packages arriving on wednesday.

I got the site all ready for them and will be taking some video of me installing them roll on wednesday afternoon !

2009-03-30T11:24:00.000-07:00

What can i say been very busy recently and its nearly the end of the month. There is a bee artical in the Texoma Living Magazine about how i got into bee. It seems to have gone down faily well.

Next weekend is the Oklahoma Bee Keepers Spring meet in McAlester. I was hopeing to go but unfortunetly the wife is off to shoot guns and blow things up with the national guard for the weekend as its drill weekend.

I do plan to mark my queens instead. on saturday im going to check the hives out and see whats happening. I got a red markers for last years colur and will be marking them to see how they get on.

The weather her has been very hit and miss, one day sunny the next day thretening snow. Hoefully we will be moving out of that now into more gental sunshine. Clover is starting to sprout here and the main honey season will start in a few weeks.

Oklahoma State Beekeeping meeting

2009-03-08T06:40:00.000-07:00

The Oklahoma State Beekeeper's Association Spring Meeting will be held at the Kiamichi Technology Center in McAlester,Oklahoma on Friday April 3rd from 7:00 P.M. to 9:00 P.M. and on Saturday April 4th from 8:00 A.M. to 4:30 P.M. Everyone interested in beekeeping is welcome. For more information, call Keith Amason 918-470-8683

Whats blooming and where

2009-03-07T10:05:00.001-08:00

Found this data for the Oklahoma region . see Nasa Wesbite

USDA code	Family	Latin Name	Common Name	Plant Type	Begin Bloom Month	End Bloom Month	Sig
ULMUS	Ulmaceae	Ulmus	Elm	TDB	2	5	N
POPUL	Salicaceae	Populus	Cottonwood, poplar aspen	TDB	3	6	N
VICIA	Fabaceae	Vicia	Vetch, tare	F	4	8	N
ROPS	Fabaceae	Robinia pseudoacacia	Black locust, false acacia, yellow locust	TDB	4	6	N
SALIX	Salicaceae	Salix	Willow, osier	TDB	4	6	N
CILAL	Cucurbitaceae	Citrullus lanatus	watermelon	C	5	7	N
CUME	Cucurbitaceae	Cucumis melo	Cantaloupe, muskmelon, casaba,	C	5	8	N
CUSA4	Cucurbitaceae	Cucumis sativus	cucumber	C	5	8	N
MESA	Fabaceae	Medicago sativa	Alfalfa, lucerne	C	5	9	Y
MELIL	Fabaceae	Melilotus	Sweet clover (white/yellow)	F	5	10	Y
MONAR	Lamiaceae	Monarda	Horsemint, wild bergamot, bee-balm	F	5	8	N
TAMAR2	Tamaricaceae	Tamarix	Tamarix, salt cedar, athel	S	5	9	N
GOSSY	Malvaceae	Gossypium	Cotton	C	6	10	Y
GUTET	Asteraceae	Gutierrezia texana	Bromweed	F	7	10	N
GUSA2	Asteraceae	Gutierrezia sarothrae	Matchweed, snakeweed	F	8	10	N

Spring Inspection

2009-02-23T18:08:00.000-08:00

At the weekend i did a full inspection on both hives, Hive 2 is doing allot better than hive 1. In fact i was surprised at how well hive 2 was doing it was so much more advanced in that it had brood and so many bee's that fairly soon i will have to do a split.

I was lazy last fall and didn't remove the spare deeps i had put on and at one stage a medium went on there as well. so as it was in the upper 70's here in south Oklahoma, i decided i would remove the unused boxes and try and make it so i can get the medium supper off or moved in the next few weeks.

The removal of empty boxes from hive one went pretty straight forward, most of the frames where empty of supplies and not many bee's on them. The removal of boxes from hive 2 was a bit more difficult.

I want to try and get the queen to go down into the bottom brood box. so i placed a queen excluder on the medium and put a deep on top. So the hive has a deep, a medium, an excluder and then another deep. the plan is to open the hive back up in a week/2 weeks and see if i can find the queen in the medium, if she is I'm going to switch the deep and the medium round and carefully place her in the two deeps . I'll then place the excluder on top of the two deeps, any brood will hatch and start filling this space with honey and pollen. Hopefully this will give me back my honey super and we will be all back to normal

Bee Vac

2009-02-09T17:55:00.000-08:00

Today i had Katie at home she's been sick all weekend. Whilst she was asleep i started building something that i have wanted for a long time.

Last season i caught 3 swarms , unfortunately none of them made it and one even flew away the next day after capturing them. I think the reason behind this was i didn't get the queen in two cases and didn't transfer the other swarm from the cardboard nuc to a hive body.

I've been reading various ideas regarding a Bee Vac. The problem with most commercial available vac's is that they are small and then require you to transfer the bee's to a deep after the event. This stress's the bee's and adds another step in the process. Wouldnt it be better to vac the bee's straight into a deep. The other problem is there over $200.

Rob at Robo's World is a very good beekeeper with some good ideas and after reading his artical on his bee vac i thought i would be myself one. I had found an old shop vac, 1 gallon , 1 hp Vacum in a dump. So i borrowed it as they say in england and went to Lowes to get some wood and addtional hose for my little project.

Mine is not as alaborate as rob's but i think i did a good job. The vac is curently waiting its second coat of paint and then ill take some photographs off it for you all to see.

Spring might be here

2009-02-05T12:25:00.000-08:00

The recent change in weather down here has really got the bee's going. Highs around 65-75 during the day and just above freezing during the night. The bee's seem to be bringing pollen in by the bucket load ! Every other bee must have two very bulging pollen sacks as they enter the hive.

I haven't seen any drones yet but to be honest they only just got rid of the last drones a few weeks ago. When i see drones i should know that the hive is building up and ready to go for another season.

I've put sugar water on the hives but they don't seem to be taking any but then again i never took any honey last year . I've not opened them up yet as they is the first real week off being warm every day and next week looks the same. I will probably open them up on Saturday ( High of 75 ) to see whats going on and see if i can pull out any deeps that i know are empty. I also need to rotate the boxes at some point.

2009-01-27T17:39:00.000-08:00

I was down in Paris on Monday so stopped by Dadant to save some shipping money got some medium supers and a few other bits. Today i made three of the mediums up and the frames, now to paint them. Cant wait to use them this year. Last year i didn't take any honey from the bee's I wanted them to ahve it all for the first year to give them the best chance. So far Ice Storm permitting that will have worked a treat

I will say this Dadant have changed the bottom bar opn there frames to 1/2 inch compared to previous years. I didnt get a metal strip like you normally do but thats ok because im going to get a 9 frame spacer anyway. 9 frames in honey supers normally yield more honey. This year i want to get some honey i have so many people wanting to buy it. The response has kind of shocked me because it was somthing i was not expecting in the least.

New Year , New Season, New Bee's

2009-01-20T19:14:00.001-08:00

Well it's time to think about more hives and more bee's so i duly placed my order for 2 x 3# packages. I'm very happy with my bee's that i got from this place last year. The NUC's where a disaster and i wont be doing that again in a hurry.

The Bee packages are more expensive this year. $85 for 3# and $75 for 2#. Last year the prices where $10 less but i feel for what i got last year i will be very happy with the results. I plan to buy at least 2 new packages every year and spit what i already have at least once building up my number of hives. I have had a few offers of people willing for me to locate the hives on their property so far i could keep up to 30 hives 8-10 hives per location.

I drove passed 4 bee yards in Hugo during the week there must have been at least 200 hives in each yard. Someone has got a very good bee yard operation down there. I would love to have an operation like that one day.

Cold Spell

2008-12-19T14:23:00.000-08:00

Well the first real cold spell has been and gone. We have had tornadoes, Snow and Sleet for the past week. The bee's seem to have come through it OK with lots of orientation flights today. They haven't been delving into the sugar water which is on the Hive top feeders. I did notice them bringing pollen into the hives. We have another cold spell coming in with a rest bite of Christmas and then back to being cold.

I peeked under the hives and noticed about 10 dead bee's in each hive. Usual for this time of year. Some of the Cleaner bee's where dragging the deceased out of the hive.

I've been reading up on queen rearing for next season. I want to raise a few of my own queens for swarms that i catch and for the splits i want to do. so this winter we will be gearing up for that. Not sure which method to try yet but the Junter Method seems popular and less stressful than grafting.

Closing Shop

2008-12-07T12:51:00.000-08:00

The bee's are closing up shop. One of my supers has a ventilation hole in it. for the past week the bee's have been filling it in.

2008-12-05T17:47:00.000-08:00

I just realized I'm no longer a newbie beekeeper.

2008-11-30T20:51:00.000-08:00

Haven t posted in a very long time but basically here is how things go.

We have two very good hives and 1 ill be surprised if it makes the winter. The two nucs did not do very well at all. However the packages did awesome and i would def buy bees from Dadant in Paris Texas again. I'm looking at getting a few medium boxes to make over the winter as well as a Queen Castle. I think one of the failures for this year was i could provide queens for the swarms i collected. I'm going to extend the bee yard a little bit for ease of use and hope to do a few splits next spring. I also want to make a few nuc's up myself. We will see how things go. I'm still feeding sugar water 1 part sugar 1 part water but less often now. The days have got cold and they seem to be taking up less. The two good hives are 4 Deeps deep. Which i am very happy about, hopefully this will give them and me a good basis for next season.

इन्स्पेक्टिओंस एंड updates

2008-05-17T22:15:00.000-07:00

3 out of the 4 beehives i have are doing very well, so well that i have now added another Deep onto them. The frames that i used the fishing line straight rather than criss-cross are doing very well , the criss-cross pattern caused some irregular comb to be drawn out as it spaned comb holes, the line that just went horizontally has worked out perfect !

Yesterday on the way home from work i spotted a swarm in the staff car park. I had to go with my wife to the Dr's with our new born baby but on the way back they where still there. I headed home and got a Deep, a bottom board 10 frames with starter strips and a top. After much a do... I managed to capture 95% off the bee's still not sure if i got the queen but i think i have come very close to it. Today i placed two frames with a full sheet of foundation in the deep along with a deep of capped broad and some uncapped broad form one of my other hives. I also put a top feeder on and filled it full of sugar water. I'll report back over the ext few weeks on how we get on !

Ice Cream and Bee's

2008-04-26T18:04:00.000-07:00

I saw this on TV the other night and then someone pointed it out on Beemaster.com But Haagen-Dazs have really got behind the honey bee recently.

Here is the Commercial...

They also have a website at http://helpthehoneybees.com . My step-daughter (shelby) spent a long time on the website and is well worth checking out

My Bees....

Well my bees are moving along at great guns. I checked them out on wendesday before the storms. the Package hives had drawn out alot of comb and you can see lots of wax flakes under the screen bottom board. The NUC didnt seem to be doing so well. I noticed that the bees had not been moving off the installed frames so under the advice of a friend i moved one frame outwards and inserted a new frame with new foundation on it in order to try and get the bees to move onto it and to start drawing it out.

apart from that the bees seem to have really settled down and constantly entering the hive with pollen and sometimes nectar stores.

Installing a package

2008-04-17T20:23:00.000-07:00

Installing my Package of bees

Pakcage arrives today

2008-04-15T19:46:00.001-07:00

Well i got out of work early today and we headed to Paris Texas to pick up two of the packages i have ordered. I got a few suppliers whilst i was there. It was funny meeting someone from the next town over that had decided to get bee's and was getting advise from the shop keeper.

On the way home things got a little eventfully. First of the bees are normally shipped in Wooden boxes with screening on both sides. Ours came in cardboard with screen on both sides. We loaded them up and off home we set, about 1/3rd of the way home we noticed a few bees nothing to worry about, at about 1/2 way i say latrell pull over, she said "it's ok dear few bees wont matter", i was like no dear you don't understand you really need to pull over, about 20-30 had escaped most where sat on the box. Seems a small staple had come loose and the bees where making there way out. I had decided to buy a spare vale so latrell said hey put them in that . When we got home there must have been a few hundred bees in that vale. Latrell was giggling all the way home saying this is exactly how i envisaged getting the bees . Car full of bee's and us racing home to put them in the hive !

After setting up i put the bee's with the hole in the box into the first have and put the other bee's into the other hive. Tomorrow ill post a short video.

We did get another shock in that the cage the queen comes in was not what i was expecting so i had to ad lib and work out what was going on in terms of how that worked. In three days time ill open the hive back up to see how there doing and that they have released the queen from her cage. The cage as a sugar candy cork that they eat in oder to release her. that should take a day for them to do.

Tonight as we watched them it was awesome to see the bee's basically fanning the entrance . This behavior is normally a very good sign that they have accepted the hive as there new home

Bee's Arrive Part 1

2008-04-14T17:35:00.000-07:00

2 Packages of bee's arrive tomorrow. Will post pics and a video of me installing them Tomorrow

Pollinator Website

2008-04-03T15:23:00.001-07:00

Cam across this pollination website http://www.pollinator.org/ they are offering some free bee items that are worth checking out

Differences in Foundation

2008-03-31T19:28:00.001-07:00

I have decided to use Small cell foundation in my hives. I have purchased two different types form two different manufacturers .

I got some wire ( Vertically ) Small Cell from Brushy Mountain and i got some unwired from Dadant ( None Wired ). You can notice the immediate difference. The Dadant product is so thin that if you hold your hand behind it you can actually see your hand through it.

I'm going to use the Dadant as starter strips for some of the frames, for one thing making it last a bit longer and for another I don't think it would by think enough to wire up. i have noticed that Dadant have started to cell a wired version. Hopefully this is a little bit thicker.

The Brushy mountain Small cell although a bit thick I have found bows slightly. From advise from the Beemaster web site I have strung up some 15lb fishing line to support it horizontally.

Today we also got some Lemon Grass essential oil and we are going to use some of this to see if we can capture a wild swarm to increase our Bee Population.

Making my Bee hive tops

2008-03-23T18:42:00.001-07:00

Finished making two off my bee hive tops today.

I first cut all the pine to the rights size. I got 6 foot lengths of 3/8th by 9" I cut them to 24 Inches length giving me enough for 4 tops.

I then cut some 1"x 1 1/2" pieces to act as braces. I was going to use 4 for each top . Two on the underside and then two on the top I used 2.5" Screws to hold it all together and glued with gorilla glue .

The tin I cut to length and then glued with a strong glue and used the baton to hold in place.

Then screwed through all three peace of wood and the tin to hold in place.

I hammered the access around the edge and them smoothed of with a file any burs or sharp ages.

Straightening out foundation

2008-03-22T20:40:00.001-07:00

Some of my frames are going to have a full sheet of foundation that is wired. one of the things are noticed apart from it being fragile is that is warps and bends. Today on the beemaster.com forum it was mentioned about using fishing line to hold wireless foundation in place using a criss cross pattern. I tried it and was not to happy, mainly because I had strength in my wires. It also didn't seem to take the warp out. I then thought hang on i only need it on the side that is bowed out so I'm now running it straight from one side to the other and then back again on the same side. Then something else happened as i was putting it in place I noticed I could press down lightly on the fishing line and the wax sheet would stick to it giving a more uniform and held in place structure. It is all tied off with a thumb tack so cheep solution all in all

This seems to work so for all my frames that the foundation is bowed and warped I'm now fixing with fishing line.

I also started making my custom lids to my hives. They will be a cross between a telescopic and a migration hive top.ill post pictures once I have got a bit further along !

Free Bee Keeping Book

2008-03-15T14:41:00.001-07:00

I came across this free Bee Keeping book today. Excellent way to learn how to start keeping bees. It is written by Penn State University...

Bee Keeping Basics - Penn State University

This is a test with windows live writer !

2008-03-13T19:26:00.001-07:00

Interesting article on CCD

2008-02-27T17:08:00.001-08:00

Bee's Dieing in the United Kingdom

2008-02-12T19:12:00.001-08:00

I was sent an article by a friend regarding bees dieing in the UK. Seems they now have a super Varroa mite.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7240456.stm

Makes for interesting reading anyway... I guess i fall into the not using chemicals unless you really really have to.

Fitting the Small Cell foundation to the Frames

2008-02-11T20:34:00.001-08:00

Fitting the small cell foundation to the frames can be a little bit tricky. for one thing its very fragile ! I found on the wedge bars i had to nail at an angle because the nail would protrude out of the top bar. I'm going to put a small beed of wax along the bottom to make it more secure

Putting together a Mann Lake Carboard NUC

2008-02-11T19:25:00.000-08:00

We have ordered Cardboard NUC's from Mann Lake. The reasoning behind this is that we will use them for transporting the bee's when we get them. I didn't like the idea of transporting live bee's in a Hive Deep.

The Cardboard NUC are Waxed and are very easy to put together as the video suggests..

More Flowers and Woodenware

2008-02-10T07:31:00.000-08:00

We are in the process of putting all the different wooden ware boxes together. Most of it is dead simple in that its all flat pack, just glue and nail.

We are also in the process of putting flowers and flower boarders around the bee hives..

A New Platform

2008-01-20T08:34:00.000-08:00

Yesterday i started to put a platform together for keeping my bee's. I've been looking at other peoples bee set ups. The problem i have in my area is fire ants. The soil is mainly sand / Loam so these make nests everywhere. its also very uneven. I was going to keep them on cinder blocks but this looked very messy. I have to keep this looking very nice or i could end up with a lot of complaints.

First Installment of wooden ware

2008-01-14T19:47:00.000-08:00

Today the first installment of wooden ware arrived

I have ordered2 x Screened Bottom Boards, 2 Deep Hive bodies ( With 10 Frames ), 10 Sheets of 4.9mm Small cell foundations, Some medium gloves and a hive tool.

I ordered all this from Dadant on the 9th ofJanuary which duly arrived today. The deep hives included all the nails you would need for the boxes and the frames. So my step daughter and i started to put each item together. The next week or so will be spent putting the rest of the frames together which whilst not hard is fiddly as everything is fairly light and fragile.

Soak the join so that the glue starts its chemical reaction.

Hold tight and then carefully nail in place with the 2.5 inch Nails

Get a helping hand !

All Complete and ready to be sanded and painted

Everything seems to go together fairly straight forward the boxes have been cut pretty well which has meant they are square. I was using gorilla glue which again seems ok for this application although it does get very sticky. We are planning on having 4 Hives and a spare Nuc come the beginning of April. So far we have built 1 and a half hives.

2008-01-09T18:35:00.000-08:00

I Order 2 Nucleus Hives for delivery at the beginning of April.

A Nucleus hive is a hive that is already Established. It has a Queen bee that is already laying eggs in the honey comb frames. The idea is you go to the breeders location swap 5 empty frames for 5 frames full of Bee's, Bee Larva and a Queen.

The cycle of a honey bee ( for workers ) is 21 days till emergence from a the honeycomb and adult maturity. After that they can live anywhere between 6 weeks and 4 months ! depending on the time of year.

Buying a nucleus of bee's means you get a 21 day head start on a Package of bee's

A package of bees is normally 3lbs of bees and 1 queen. you place them in a hive and it can take 2-3 weeks for them to produce the honey comb before the queen even starts to lay eggs and then another 21 days before bee's start to be produced. There are advantages to package bee's in that you have an awful lot of bee's (approx 30,000 - 50,000 bee's )

So hopefully in 4 months i will have 4 Bee hives !

I also ordered ( From Dadant )some screened bottom boards and Deep Hive suppers as well as some other equipment ( Gloves and a hive tool ). Decided to go Small Cell route and will be installing that foundation into the Frames

Start of the New Year

2008-01-01T20:01:00.000-08:00

Today i cleaned out the Old Deep body frames of foundation in order to replace them with 3/4" Strips of Small Cell Foundation.

The old frames had been in a hive that was infested with Wax Moth Lava. I boiled the wax in order to save it for fixing the wax strips but ended making a mess everywhere....