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.

[Iowanian]

Originally Posted by Amnorix

At what price do you sell the honey? To be honest, it sounds to me like given the amount of time, effort and costs, there can't be much profit margin, but obviously there are businesses around honey production so there must be some profit to be had..?

Prices for honey vary a little every year, there ends up being kind of a standard.

It also depends on the quantity. Smaller jars sell for a higher price per volume.
I get $6 for a 12oz bear and $7 for a 1lb bottle and $14 for a 2lb jar. I do sell some quarts and half gallons but not as many due to the volume I have. The best money would probably be on small 2-4oz bottles but I don't go to farmers markets or anything to sell.

If anyone wants some, I do ship but you have to pay for that(sorry).

[Iowanian]

Originally Posted by Mr. Wizard

1- they react differently than other bee hives. A puff of smoke they attack, a spritz of sugarwater they attack. They attack directly and in groups. They are direct in all patterns of come and go not lazy like a honey bee. Lastly I looked at two under a microscope.
2- This is the second hive I have dealt with. Once you handle them you will understand. I hope you never have to.

They are dead now if you want to verify I will send you some!

Interesting. I have no interest in messing with those after watching some youtube videos of removals. Their honey does have a market and they're rabid producers but the squeeze isn't worth the juice to me.

[redfan]

I just picked up my Saskatraz pkg a couple of hours ago. I've got 12,000 or so bees sitting under my desk. They sound like a little electric fan. Now if the rain will hold off until I can install them, that'd be swell.

I currently sell my honey for $10/lb, and that'll be going up next year.

[Iowanian]

I'm very interested to hear about those, because I was considering a saskatraz queen for the replacement mentioned above.


Side Story.
There was a news story in Des Moines a couple of weeks ago about a local ice cream shop that uses honey instead of sugar. The lady was hauling a 5 gallon bucket of honey in the back of her crossover car and hit one of the pond size pot holes and it exploded 5 gallons of honey in the back of her car. The basic premise was "OMG, how will she ever get that cleaned up".

My initial thought was "duh...back it into a bee yard and open the hatch for 2-3 days" and it would be good as new. They also forget honey is water solluable and some detail shop volunteered to clean it for her.

That said....instead of selling a jar at a time, even if it's at a discount rate, maybe take a look for businesses in your area like that ice cream shop to sell to?

[mlyonsd]

Good news. Notre Dame bees survive.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.fox...rvive-fire.amp

[Groves]

Put a nice sized swarm into a hive on Easter. I’ll post a video later.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[redfan]

We had a nice weekend, albeit a little windy.

I got my Saskatraz pkg installed Wednesday (4/17) evening. It went fairly well, with only a couple of minor issues.

This pkg came in what's called a Bee Bus. (Photo 1) As you can see, it is plastic, and it contains rock 'n roll Rush bees. Well, they are a Canadian breed after all. Typical pkg setup, feeder can in the middle, queen cage off center just like every other pkg I've installed.
So the initial process to install is the same: remove the feeder can then remove the queen cage. If you've ever installed a pkg before, you know how imperative it is to get the feeder can off and queen cage out as quickly as possible (when you pop out that feeder can, a volcano of thousands of bees erupts).
The queen cages I've had are a mix between 3-hole, JzBz plastic, and Cali mini cages. This was a California mini, which has a metal strip anchored to the back for hanging the cage between frames. The metal strip even hangs out of the pkg making for easy handling.
When I was removing the queen cage, I broke off the metal strip right where it attaches to the queen cage. No big deal, except the queen cage has now fallen to the bottom of the pkg and I can't really see where it is because there are thousands of bees obscuring my view. I'm now standing over the hive they're going into so I just start gently shaking bees into the box. Shake, shake, shake, senora, work your body line. No queen cage yet, so I shake shake shake that booty some more. After a little more gentle shaking, the cage plops out onto the tops of the frames. Check for a living queen, yep, there she is, none the worse for wear!
It's a good thing I had some drawn out frames, because I was able to smush the cage into the comb and it stuck there (screen side down).

Now it’s time to get the girls some feed!
Did you guys know if you let sugar syrup sit in a bucket for months, it will become moldy and unusable? Well I didn’t. I had to dump about 2.5 gallons of 2:1. That felt just like lighting a ten dollar bill on fire. I had to leave the hive open without a lid for about a half hour while I went to mix up some new 1:1. Normally this isn't a big deal, but I’ve got severe thunderstorm warnings in the area! It’s friggin’ raining all around, but it looks like I’ve got a window. I lucked out and didn’t have anything get wet. I put on the feeder box and lid, and called it an evening.

I released the queen on Saturday (4/20).
With all the queen cages I’ve had in the past (the ones with a wood cork), the bees went ahead and chewed out the cork and released the queen on their own. Not this time, I had to pull it out with some needle nose pliers. I pulled the cork, and then stuck the cage back onto the frame. I tried to watch the queen walk out but she was surrounded, so I put the lid back on and came back about hour later to an empty queen cage. I’ll check them again this Sunday to see about eggs/brood. They were bringing in henbit and dandelion pollen, so hopefully they’ll have some brood soon.

[Groves]

Here's the full capture and install of a swarm issued by my hive.

https://www.facebook.com/grovesthegr...1251775474479/

[Iowanian]

That's a nice video but I'm not going to lie, I was waiting for that entire ball to drop on the ground when you clipped the bush. One of the first swarms I caught we took a box and placed it under the bush and I was trying to clip branches back and it shook a little too much and scattered them in the grass. Now if I can, I try to put a tarp-towel under.

The hives you run are very different than Lang but they're cool to see.

Much easier if they just cooperate and gather on the end of a chest high branch of a small tree.

[Iowanian]

If weather had cooperated I had intended to be in the middle of a bee hive removal-cutout right now, but it's raining.

Tomorrow I'm looking at a removal from an old corn crib-barn that has what appears to be 2-3 separate hives in one wall. I won't know until I get into them for sure, but it's either an 8-10' wide hive with 3 large entrances, or three....I'm obviously hoping to find 3 with queens. Jackpot.

I'll take some pics and share when I can.

[KS Smitty]

This is messed up...Police are searching for suspects after the Brazoria County Beekeepers Association (BCBA) said someone dumped out dozens of beehives and set them on fire at a county bee yard in Alvin over the weekend. Up to 500,000 bees may have died.

https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/b...photo-17301049

[ghak99]

Originally Posted by Iowanian

If weather had cooperated I had intended to be in the middle of a bee hive removal-cutout right now, but it's raining.

Tomorrow I'm looking at a removal from an old corn crib-barn that has what appears to be 2-3 separate hives in one wall. I won't know until I get into them for sure, but it's either an 8-10' wide hive with 3 large entrances, or three....I'm obviously hoping to find 3 with queens. Jackpot.

I'll take some pics and share when I can.

Dumb question, but what do you do with a single hive that large when you find one? How large of alive can one queen support?

I found a tree a storm blew out that had one of the largest hives I'd ever seen with multiple entrances. Everything was gone, but I counted endless layers of comb stretching through multiple hollow branches that all joined together in a main trunk I could almost crawl in.

[Iowanian]

Here are some pics from the cutout I did today. It was in an old corn crib that is being torn down soon. I found signs of 4 other old hives in the same building.

These were large. A lot of bees and I ended up with two separate hives within a few feet of each other. I caught one queen but I'm confident I got the other in the vacuum based on how they acted when I put them in their new box.

A lot of work but a good day of bee catching.

[Sweet Daddy Hate]

Weren't you expecting three queens in this lot? whatever the case, it looks like you did some really good work and I hope you get the Queens that you're looking for.

Depending on species, how many bees can one Queen "rule over" so to speak?

[Iowanian]

One queen per hive. They will kill another queen.


I thought there could be three hives in the wall because of the number of entrances being used. It turned out to be only two living hives.....and three more old ones with no bees. The east wall had a dead hive also.

I'm still happy. Two nice hives are in my bee yard now