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.

[tooge]

I'm planning on splitting at least one of my two hives. There was some "bearding" going on right before fall and I'm thinking it is getting a bit crowded. See how it goes.

[Jenson71]

What's the furthest NE Iowa HyVee or other place you're selling?

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by Iowanian

Spring update time.

Everything that survived the slaughter of summer '22, is still alive heading into March. There is hope.

I'm doing some things differently this year and I'm regrouping.
This year, I'm again running 2 bee yards, and I'm going to do a 3rd that I use as a quarantine yard. Anytime I catch a swarm or obtain wild bees, they go to the quarantine yard, get mite treatments and after they stay healthy for 3-4 weeks, I'll move them to a main yard.

I've pre-ordered some nucs of bees from 3 different people. I have ordered a new variety of queen, the Cordovan Italian. I'm going to use half of those to replace queens in hives that were mean last year or didn't produce. The other half I'm going to use for splits. I've got queens coming from 2 other producers as well, and they're more of a "mutt" that has been developed by some people in the state.

My plan is to split everything I buy evenly. If I buy 4 from producer A, I'm going to run 2 in 10 frame boxes at home, and 2 in 9 frame boxes in the 2nd yard. I'm going to try to do a better job of tracking temperament, production etc and use this as a learning and growing year with the goal to get my hive numbers back up where I need them, and produce a lot more honey. I'm pretty good at selling it, now I've got to back it up with production and try to make enough money back to be worth the hours and stings.

Hopefully this year the juice is worth the squeeze.

If there is still interest, I'll keep posting and making a few videos again this year.

Keep it coming Iowanian.

The quarantine is a good idea.

Also, go whole hog on selective breeding these bitches. I want an "Iowanian line" like these cowboys out here.

[ptlyon]

Hey Iowa - just this morning on the news they had a story about people starting to draw maple to make maple syrup. Do you do that as well?

[ptlyon]

Also, does it sell in Fareway stores? I only go into a hy vee if I want to catch a dose of Ebolaids.

[Iowanian]

I don’t do anything with maple syrup. I need another time sucking side hustle like I need 2” less of pecker.

I tried to get into a couple of fairway stores but the managers were both assholes. They acted like I walked in carrying a bucket of hobo turds.

I’m looking to expand stores so if you’ve got connections I’d sure look at options.

[ptlyon]

Unfortunately I do not, just wondering

[Iowanian]

I worked through all my hives the other day. I had to remove the dry sugar setups from winter, pull the mite treatment strips I had on all winter and swap the top and bottom boxes. I did see some of my queens during the inspection and marked hives for strength and checked the volume of the brood to know if the queens were good. I had one hive that wasn't as strong as I would like and another that was mean. I'm going to smash both of those queens and replace them when my shipment of Cordovan queens arrives(or 3 days before).

Why do you flip/swap the boxes? The bottom box typically had brood and honey going into winter. They've eaten the honey and the bees have moved into the top box. That's where the majority of the eggs are being laid and resources are available in the spring. I clean the wax casings and debris from the bottom board and put the top box on the bottom, assuming that's where the queen and eggs are located. I put the bottom box on the top, because the empty cells are inviting to the queen to get busy laying and building up the hive, and their instinct is to work "up".

Things are blooming and the bees are busy. I've been feeding pollen substitute trying to get them built up quicker. I assume around the end of the month I'll make some splits, and will use the new queens i have coming on as many as I can.

Over the winter and spring, I told myself I wasn't going to do cutouts this year...too much work, too much risk of bringing in disease or mites. I made it all the way to April 11 before I caved and agreed to do a hive removal from a well pump house. I need the bees and I can get these from the ground. Other than snakes and electric wires near water, and bees, what could go wrong? It'll make good content to share here and other places I guess.

I'll try to get some videos of swarm captures and the cutout stuff to share soon.


Also, for my spring mite treatments, I purchased and am going to be trying Formic Pro for the first time. It's pretty nasty stuff and will kill the grass in front of the hives, but it will nuke those mite bastards.

[Iowanian]

We're in the thick of it now so it's time for an update. If I have time, I'll put together some clips from my queen installs that some might find interesting.

So far this season I have:
1. made some walk away-splits.
2. Made some splits from my hives with queen cells and frames from my strong hives.
3. Made splits with queen cells I purchased from another producer
4. Made 4 splits with Cordovan Italian queens I purchased this week.
5. Captured 1 swarm.
6. Failed to capture 1 swarm because it was already "moving inside" an upper story soffit before I got there.
8. I have swarms caught in 2 of 5 traps that I have out at this time and need non-rainy day to get those home.

7....I did a removal of bees the owner said were mean. They had old bee equipment underneath a deck next to a walk-out basement door. Apparently, bees had moved into the stack of boxes 3-4 years ago, but recently turned very aggressive.

When I arrived there were indeed bees everywhere. They had 4 stacked deep boxes that were bursting at the seems with bees. I was short on daylight, and cracked them apart to find that some boxes had no frames and were full of wild comb, some had 2-3 frames turned the wrong way and were a mess and 1 box with 7 frames. I mean they were FULL. They were heavy and angry bees exploded from rotted spots and gaps when I pulled the boxes apart.

I ended up making 2 stacks of 2, putting them on bottom boards and strapping lids on. These boxes had to weigh 250lbs per set. I struggled to get them into the back of my truck but did get them relocated.

For those of you watching the show for the crashes, this was your lucky day. It Turns out the elastic is bad on the bottom of my bee jacket. I don't know how many got under it when I was in the middle of that, but several. I assume I had 15-20 stingers to remove from my forearms and love handles area and no idea how many "half stings" through my gloves and pants but it was a lot. These bitches were angry.

In their new location, one of the boxes appears to be calm and likely has the queen. The other stack is pretty damn grumpy still and need a queen. I'm deciding if I'm going to get 4 queens, make each of those boxes their own hive with a new queen or just try to make 2.

I'm also picking some nucs up from 3 producers in the next week, so I'll have a big variety of new bee, different types of queens and will have a lot of things to compare and try to figure out what the best plan will be moving forward.

I just wish I had time to do all of the things I need to do.

[myselff77]

Originally Posted by Iowanian

We're in the thick of it now so it's time for an update. If I have time, I'll put together some clips from my queen installs that some might find interesting.

Thanks for the update. I find this thread interesting despite having ZERO knowledge in anything related to bee keeping whatsoever. Stupid question of the day: how does one go about acquiring a new/additional queen bee? Do the bees somehow decide who is queen and promote from within? Is it a certain kind of bee that one breeds to be queen? Something else entirely?

[Jenson71]

Is the queen bee hot?

[Groves]

Here in Springfield I’ve received 2 swarm calls, but neither panned out.

Noticed today that one of my swarm traps caught a swarm, so I’m moving that hive back to the house tonight. A whopping 4 blocks.

Talked to a guy who’s been getting 8 swarm calls a day for a few weeks now.

Too much. The slow boat works great for me.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Iowanian]

Originally Posted by myselff77

Thanks for the update. I find this thread interesting despite having ZERO knowledge in anything related to bee keeping whatsoever. Stupid question of the day: how does one go about acquiring a new/additional queen bee? Do the bees somehow decide who is queen and promote from within? Is it a certain kind of bee that one breeds to be queen? Something else entirely?

This isn’t stupid at all.

There are a few ways to get a new queen.
1. The bees decide the queen isn’t healthy or producing right. They release a pheromone that tells everyone it’s time to replace her. The build a queen cell that looks like a wax peanut. They add a special enzyme t some pollen and make something called royal jelly. They place that in the cell and then move an egg that is 3 days or younger. When the larva eats that royal jelly, a change happens and it becomes a queen. The queen can live 3_4 years instead of 6~8 weeks. She takes a couple of mating flights, mates with 15~20 drones and returns to the hive. This same process happens if the queen is killed with young eggs available, or when then decide it’s too crowded and want to swarm.

2. You can purchase a mated queen that a producer has tricked the above into happening on a larger scale. It’s pretty impressive to see how it’s done.

3. You can find queen cells in a healthy hive and place those into the hive in need. The first one to hatch hunts down the other cells and kills the competition. You can also purchase queen cells from producers which I also did this last week.

4. You can do a walk away split with 3 frames of bees and larva and the bees will make a queen with method 1.

[Iowanian]

Originally Posted by Jenson71

Is the queen bee hot?

I assume you’re talking about the angry hive I obtained Sunday.

I think there are 3 likely causes.
1. The queen is a bitch.
2. Varroa mite infestation has them bitchy, but the hive was strong enough I don’t think that’s it this time.
3. Something was irritating them. Likely a skunk was scratching at the entrance, annoying the bees and then eating them when they came out. This will make a hive mean and that’s my best guess.

I worked through some of my hives today and didn’t have time to get to those….tomorrow.

Lesson of the day. Today I checked the hives I added queens and cells to last week. I found 2 of the cordovan queens weren’t released yet…bees hadn’t chewed through the sugar cork to let them out. I used a small stick to push the plug into the cage…I saw worker bees get in, so that one will be out.

I was afraid I was going to smash or stab or injure the queen on that one, so on the last one I decided to pull a staple and open the screen to let that one out. As soon as I pulled it back, she jetted into the sky and flew away before I could do anything. A $35 queen just flew off and is probably gone. It’s possible she comes back but doubtful. I’ll check tomorrow. So dump. Should have known better.

I’m picking up 6~7 nuc boxes of bees Wednesday and will set those hives up.

Today I have a handful that are close to needing honey supers. By next week, we will be making honey to sell.

[Iowanian]

I'll never claim to be a good video maker, but here are some short clips I pasted together of a queen install.





Also, the angry bees mentioned above, were still very unkind yesterday when I worked on their situation. Now they can sit inside in the rain all day with formic-pro cooking the mites off of them and think about what they've done. If this doesn't work, I'm going to have to figure out how to find the queen in those messed up boxes and smash her and replace. Not dealing with bees as aggressive as these are.