The bee keeper diaries

[Iowanian]

It's a great time to buy stock in eppy pens.

This thread is a repository for bee keepers or those interested.

A couple of years ago, a couple of friends an my brother started puttering with honey bees. I didn't buy off because, well, I've never been a big fan of bees or getting stung by them. Last summer I tagged along a couple of times to check their hives and to remove honey bees from a house, public building and an old garage.

I realized at the end of the summer when I was helping them process some, that it's actually pretty interesting, and fits into my expanding "grow my own" logic. I'm not full blown hippy but I see a lot of logic in the self sustaining food thing and I'm doing some of that too.

That said, this thread is about bees, honey bees, bee keeping and bee fighting war stories.

I'm taking the leap and plan to get 2-3 hives this spring and maybe build some bee swarm traps to make it cheaper or to make a few bucks.

Join me and I'll share the real life lessons of an ameture bee keeper. I'm sure I'm going to learn some things the hard way.

[redfan]

Originally Posted by patteeu

What's the risk of becoming allergic to bee stings if you aren't allergic when you start the hobby? Is it low enough that it's not a consideration? Sorry if this is a dumb question.

I seem to be getting more allergic to stings. The first ones hurt like a sumbitch but didn't swell up.
I got popped in the forehead and I looked like I had on some prosthetic makeup. I coulda been an extra on Deep Space 9!
It might be due to getting stung close to the sinus cavity, but I've never swelled up like that before.
I got zapped on the back of the head and didn't swell at all. This study needs a bigger sample size, and I'm not too keen on doing that.

[Iowanian]

Originally Posted by Groves

This is a Warré hive. We run 8 or 9 topbars. This box is flipped over so you’re seeing the bottom.

It’s harvested a box at a time. I’m largely a non-interventionist. Add an empty box to the bottom in the spring. Take a full box of honey off the top in the fall. Rinse. Repeat.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

If you have time, I'm really interested to see/learn more about the top bar hives you're running. Do you do those due to cost, preference, or for comb honey? I've been considering building one so I'd have some comb to sell, but don't know anyone local that is doing them.

I don't know how widespread it is, but there is an explosion of new beeks in our area. I heard the beginner class has over 70 attendees this year. The bad news is, that's more people competing for swarms and selling honey which will flood the local market...the Good news is, I'd guess there will be a lot of used equipment for sale in a year or so when they realize they don't like getting stung or their bees die and the new wears off.

[Groves]

Originally Posted by Iowanian

If you have time, I'm really interested to see/learn more about the top bar hives you're running. Do you do those due to cost, preference, or for comb honey? I've been considering building one so I'd have some comb to sell, but don't know anyone local that is doing them.

I don't know how widespread it is, but there is an explosion of new beeks in our area. I heard the beginner class has over 70 attendees this year. The bad news is, that's more people competing for swarms and selling honey which will flood the local market...the Good news is, I'd guess there will be a lot of used equipment for sale in a year or so when they realize they don't like getting stung or their bees die and the new wears off.

I love the Warré hives. They fit my management style and my life preferences.

It would be classified as a vertical top-bar hive. Quite different from the horizontal top-bar hives.

It's a french design from the 30s. It's purpose was to be simple to build and simple to manage. They're much smaller than a Langstroth, which has it's advantages in saving one's back, but also advantages to the colony.

It's not at all ideal for producing comb honey.

Hives are just tools, so you can run your hives any way you want. Most guys who run warré hives are following the principles set out by Émile Warré, who wrote Beekeeping for All. click on the link for a free pdf of it. His goal was for everyone to have a hive in their yard. I have helped people get started easily.

Running Warré hives in the Warré method means that you expand your hive space, not by supering (placing empty boxes on top), but by nadiriing (placing
empty boxes on bottom). The Warré method is like a never ending tree trunk cavity, so as the bees keep building downward (the way they do in nature) the boxes are gradually filled, used for brood, then used for honey once they make it towards the top of the stack.

Honey stored in comb that was once brood comb will not be the pearly white comb that customers want, AND it will have papery husks left over from the brood. Not a good mouth-feel.

Langstroth folks often put a queen excluder below their honey supers to prevent the queen from ever laying up there. This preserves the virgin honeycomb.

You CAN get some comb honey from the edges of a warré, but it's unreliable.

For the most part, we crush & strain to harvest our honey, the bees feed off the slum-gum and we process the leftover wax into bricks.

For me and my style:
• I want my bees to make their own comb. Yes it takes more energy that could have gone into honey production, but it prevents the chemical buildup in the wax, allows them to build whatever cell size they want, and keeps me supplied in wax.

• I like the smaller (12in x 12in interior) boxes, they are less heavy, but more importantly they fit the winter cluster better and prevents bees from starving with honey right next to them.

• I believe swarming to be a sign of a healthy hive. I don't go out of my way to force it (by restricting their hive size, for instance), but I certainly don't try to prevent it (rooting around for queen cells, keeping the hive weak, etc). I do capture my swarms when possible and they're far better off as colonizers than a random 3lb box of bees blown out of another hive.

• The boxes are super easy to build. Simple butt joints and rabbets. The top-bars are just a guide and of course the bees build how they want. I do put windows in mine, cause it's so fun to look in.

• I'm just a guy who likes honey. I'm not a sideliner. I'm barely a hobbyist. I seem to stick to 2-6 hives, and I never have trouble selling any extra hives or honey that I have...at prices that I certainly could not afford.

• I did buy my first hive already in a langstroth, but we put a bottom board under it that had a warré sized hole in it with a Warré box underneath. They grew down the next season and the langstroth box came off for good.

• The clubs all recommend langstroth hives of course, but in my opinion, starting with a bunch of langstroth equipment really keeps them chained to that hive style. You're going to need more and more langstroth boxes of course, and it's hard to start buying/making new boxes when you're already invested so heavily in the langs.



Because of the infighting within beekeeping circles, I want to make clear that I'm not declaring my methods as superior, nor do I look down upon other methods/hives/goals. Enjoy the little rascals.

[redfan]

Damn you, Groves!!
I've just spent the last couple of hours researching Warre' hives, and now I want to try it out. Shit man, my wife is gonna kill me (again).
Damnation dude, I was happy in my little Langstroth world. **** me

[Groves]

Originally Posted by redhed

Damn you, Groves!!
I've just spent the last couple of hours researching Warre' hives, and now I want to try it out. Shit man, my wife is gonna kill me (again).
Damnation dude, I was happy in my little Langstroth world. **** me

If you want to avoid death-by-wife, you can always just run some langstroth boxes in the warre method: Nadiring, no excluder, etc.

[ptlyon]

Originally Posted by Groves

If you want to avoid death-by-wife, you can always just run some langstroth boxes in the warre method: Nadiring, no excluder, etc.

Exactly. Whatever he said.

[redfan]

Originally Posted by Groves

If you want to avoid death-by-wife, you can always just run some langstroth boxes in the warre method: Nadiring, no excluder, etc.

I don't use excluders, so I think I might try that. I'm not spending $300 to buy new and making one isn't really feasible time-wise for me.

[Iowanian]

Near miss to start bee season.


I've been doing some burning this spring(CRP, Field edges, timbers) and last night decided to burn my timber to kill off some of the thorns and honey suckle. I was doing it alone but thought i should be pretty good as one neighbor had burned and had a mowed path, one side a pasture and I had burned quite a bit across the creek and a steep ravine.

Short version, I lit the timber and then went to the area i needed to control to keep the fire off of a neighbor property and worked on a back burn. My timber has a lot of dead and dry sticks and undergrowth that needed to go away to make it a healthier habitat.

A couple of hours into the burn I was getting pretty close to being done as the back burn fire and main line were about to merge in most areas, but had another area it had burned up a ditch and started so I put that out....but realized I was out of water. I was zig zagging through the trees and brush and noticed a tree had burned across the ditch and started on the other side of the creek and the fire was about 20-30 yards from my bee hives.

I had to drive about a half mile around through a neighbor to get more water and hauled ass down and put the fire out about 30-40' from my hives. I was "that close" to killing off the bees that hadn't died already, and based on activity I'm not sure one more of them hadn't died in the latest cold snap.

A lot of people are picking up the "packages(2-3lbs of bees)" this week....so bee season is here.

I've looked at a couple of trees to do cutouts already and now that dandilions are blooming I'll probably start doing some of those before swarms get hot and heavy towards the end of May. Should have some pics to share in the next couple of weeks.

[Iowanian]

I'm getting geared and ramped up for bee swarm apocalypse. We need to catch a lot of swarms so I hope the calls roll in.

I've been through my equipment, my remaining hives have been gone through and I've found my queens and so far so good.

I had 4 trees identified for cutouts. Two died over the winter, one that I looked at with an endopscope 3 weeks ago is gone and I went to cut one out at a cemetery and the mower guy had sprayed the hive and blocked the entrance with a rock and mud. If he'd have waited 2-3 days I'd have had them out.

On the bright side, I got a call last night asking me to go look at a dead walnut tree full of bees. Further investigation reveals that it is very likely next to the house of THE most insane woman in 7 counties. I once saw her eat a live, mud covered crawdad out of a bucket like a snickers bar. That could be interesting if I follow through.

Next three weeks should be more exciting in this thread if I'm lucky.

[Hog's Gone Fishin]

Originally Posted by Iowanian

I'm getting geared and ramped up for bee swarm apocalypse. We need to catch a lot of swarms so I hope the calls roll in.

I've been through my equipment, my remaining hives have been gone through and I've found my queens and so far so good.

I had 4 trees identified for cutouts. Two died over the winter, one that I looked at with an endopscope 3 weeks ago is gone and I went to cut one out at a cemetery and the mower guy had sprayed the hive and blocked the entrance with a rock and mud. If he'd have waited 2-3 days I'd have had them out.

On the bright side, I got a call last night asking me to go look at a dead walnut tree full of bees. Further investigation reveals that it is very likely next to the house of THE most insane woman in 7 counties. I once saw her eat a live, mud covered crawdad out of a bucket like a snickers bar. That could be interesting if I follow through.

Next three weeks should be more exciting in this thread if I'm lucky.

Holy Shit!

[Iowanian]

Today I needed a break from reality so my pal and I did a bee cutout. Actual,y 2 hives about 10' apart. They were 6' or lower so we could do the, from the ground and the owner was going to remodel so we didn't have gen have to put it back together again.

It went really well and took a total of 2.5hrs for both removals.

The best part, I found and caught BOTH queens. That is the tricky part of cutouts. No queen and they might fly off.

Sting total on the year: 3.
Fault: mine. Removed glove to take pics for you.


I will add pics here when I have time to convert them.

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by Iowanian

Today I needed a break from reality so my pal and I did a bee cutout. Actual,y 2 hives about 10' apart. They were 6' or lower so we could do the, from the ground and the owner was going to remodel so we didn't have gen have to put it back together again.

It went really well and took a total of 2.5hrs for both removals.

The best part, I found and caught BOTH queens. That is the tricky part of cutouts. No queen and they might fly off.

Sting total on the year: 3.
Fault: mine. Removed glove to take pics for you.


I will add pics here when I have time to convert them.

Good work. I killed off a half acre of grass to plant a pollenator strip. It probably wont grow.

[Iowanian]

Here are a few pics from today's two cutouts.

[redfan]

When last we left our intrepid apiarist, he(me) was patting himself on the back for successfully wintering 2 hives started from packages. The boxes were heavy, and presumably had enough honey to last until the early spring blooms started. Mother Nature and the Seasons had a different plan.
I don't know how the late Winter/early Spring weather went for the rest of the country, but around here it was pretty screwy. Winter held on for far too long and didn't really seem to want to leave. Consequently, it delayed the early blooms. It seemed everything was late in blooming this spring, white clover in particular.
One fine day in the beginning of April, I went out to the bee yard to check the hives. Much to my dismay, there were piles of dead bees in front of the hives. Thousands and thousands of bees, dead and dying on the ground. I pop the lids, same story: giant wads of dead bees on the bottom board. In the frames, clusters of dead bees with their heads in empty cells.
Well GODDAMMIT!! I mean what the ****?!?!? What the hell happened?!?!?! They were doing so good!!

What I've surmised during autopsy:
1. The lingering winter affected the spring bloom, delaying it by a few weeks.
2. There were some warm days, so the bees were active; not in a cluster. When bees are active, they have to eat. They ate all of their winter stores, and had nothing left.
3. Because there weren't any blooms, the bees weren't able to collect nectar to replenish what was consumed.
4. There were a couple of nights/days that were quite cold, we had several freeze warnings this spring. The bees starved then froze to death in their hives.

Whatever the causes, by the time I figured out what was going on, it was too late for one hive. It was a total loss for the best honey producing hive I had last year. Damn y'all, beekeeping ain't much fun when your hives die!! I was really down about the deadout, and thought about just having the one survivor hive this year. No splits, no nucs, and no new packages. Just the one hive and if it dies, it dies. **** this stupid shit, I suck at it anyway.
After spending a coulpa days ruminating about why I'm doing this beekeeping thing, and feeling bad about so many dead bees, I decided to go ahead and see about getting some package hives. Mind you, by now it's the 2nd week of April, and that's getting kinda late to decide. Still, I called up my supplier, and whaddaya know, he's got some packages that I can pick up that day! Okay then, I guess it's meant to be! I'll take 2 Italians, please.

Let's just see what happens this year!
I've already had some (mis)adventures with these package hives, but this post is already too damn long.

[Iowanian]

It's been a rough year for a lot of people I know.

I've also found the lack of swarm calls disturbing and 3 trees with wild bees are empty right now.

I was convinced my lost hives were due to the reasons you mentioned above, though mine were dead in a cluster on top of the frames. I saw something a while back that if your bees are dying on the ground in front of the hive it could be tracheal mites.


My dumbest gaff so far this year is sticking my hand into a glove that a few bees had crawled into while I was taking a pic. Stupid is as stupid does.