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.

[ptlyon]

NWS drought monitor:

https://www.climate.gov/maps-data/da...rought-monitor

On a different note. Drought is such a strange word. Easily rolls off the tongue but spelled so weird.

For that matter, so is tounge.

[ghak99]

Originally Posted by Buehler445

**** me. You’re dry too?

I’m sorry man. Drought is the ****ing worst.

What stage is your silage corn?

I'd call it V7 or a little more depending on where you are in the field. There are no brace roots yet.

Our conservation department is howling the "water your trees" siren. The vineyard across from my clover fields has cracks in it you can almost drop a chain down. I told the idiot he was at least a month behind on water and he's just now opening the tap. He appears to be better at drinking wine than making it.

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by ghak99

I'd call it V7 or a little more depending on where you are in the field. There are no brace roots yet.

Our conservation department is howling the "water your trees" siren. The vineyard across from my clover fields has cracks in it you can almost drop a chain down. I told the idiot he was at least a month behind on water and he's just now opening the tap. He appears to be better at drinking wine than making it.

Barf. Sucks man. Silage for your cows? You going to find roughage? Maybe if everyone’s corn burns up you’ll get plenty.

I’ll say it again. Droughts are the worst.

[ghak99]

Originally Posted by Buehler445

Barf. Sucks man. Silage for your cows? You going to find roughage? Maybe if everyone’s corn burns up you’ll get plenty.

I’ll say it again. Droughts are the worst.

Small group of steers to finish in the feed lot and the cow herd. Unless it doesn't rain at all, I should be ok as I planted more than usual. Just won't really know how things will pencil out until insurance and .gov settles up and I see just how much corn isn't in the silage. First cutting hay here brought in 40% of normal and it's like that in a large chunk of the state. The guys without a silage crop in their operation who normally buy all their hay are going to be in a bind. At least the markets are making it a good time for them to scale back or quit.

[tooge]

Originally Posted by Iowanian

A guy showed me a trick I'm going to start using now that you mention queen cells.

Drill a 1" hole in a 2x4 and make a 3 1/2" mark.
Cut a 3.5x3.5 square of 1/8th hardware cloth.
Lay the square over the hole, punch it through with a dowel rod.

It makes a mesh "cup" that you can put over those cells..and if you get in there when they emerge, you can save some of those virgin queens before they get killed. pull them, mark them, add them to a small nuc for a "reserve" queen. I'm going to start doing this, but didn't see any cells when I went through hives yesterday.

I wish you were closer...I'd love to have a frame of that many cells. that's awesome.

This is the first year I've used formic pro and I'm putting it on every single swarm I catch. My hives and the nucs I'm buying have been treated. The way it smells, I feel like I'm putting a nuclear waste patty in the hives, and the bees react like you just showed them a photo of their mama naked...they hate it.

Lol. Yeah I accidentally took a whiff of it and holy shit. Temoved The pads a week later, and I didn’t seem to be any issues with dead bees or anything like that. I’ve now added my second super to all the hives, and they seem to be doing well

[tooge]

77 mph wind knocked over one of my hives. Suited up to put it back together. They were super pissed off. No amount of smoke calmed them. I got it put back together and only got stung six times, lol. Hoping they will be ✅

[displacedinMN]

"only" stung 6 times

[Iowanian]

I finished processing the 2023 honey crop.

This year I did a lot of testing and I think I'm learning some things. I ran 2 yards, one had 10 hives, the other had up to 25, but we've lost 7 of those so far this summer. Due to last year's losses, all by 7-9(can't remember) were new. These were spits, swarms, purchased nucs from varies bee suppliers. I tested Italian Cordovan queens(dismal failure) saskatraz, some others as well. I split all of them up between both yards and tried to place each producer, my own and queen options together. It was an odd year and I'm not sure what to think on some, because no supplier really dominated. Each had 1-2 hives that were very good, some that were average and lost/failed one.

I also purchased a simple harmony farms uncapper that was about $400 to try. You'll see it in the video I'm going to post. It definitely was much faster in the uncapping process, but I had so much small wax in the honey that it constantly plugged the filter when I was bucketing it. Next year, I'll add another layer of strainer to catch more of the wax earlier in the process but overall it was ok. Doesn't work well on thick comb, doesn't work well on thin comb. My recommendation is in the air until i've used it more.

Results...as always I'm not happy because I have higher expectations. the 10 hive yard was within 40lbs of the 25 hive yard(home). I'll have about 60 frames of comb honey as well as the raw.

I still have mite treatments and I think I'm going to start 1 yard with formic pro and then finish with OA vapor. The other I think I'll just do OA and see what happens. To save time, I think I'm going to splurge and purchase a lorab battery vaporizer which is about $500 but if it saves me 2-3hrs per treatment and i have to do 4-5 treatments this fall and more in the summer, it's worth it in reclaiming my time.

I tried to put together a short video of the process. I know I'm not good at this but i think it shows you a lot of the process.

[tooge]

Im jealous of you extractor. Im only at 4 hives. If i keep growing, just maybe Ill splurge.

[Iowanian]

My extractor is an old 20 frame beast. Every time I turn it on I wonder if it’s a belt breaking or a bearing giving out in my future but so far it was a good investment. I’m doing 200-300 frames and I’m just not doing that with a 2-3 frame hand crank.

I’ve considered letting people rent my room to spin their honey….but by the time I’m done with mine I hate the thought of doing another frame.

I’ve decided to relocate my home hive to a higher ridge and face the hives south based on the production at my second yard this year. Being low in a bowl and a tree line a guy suggested the temperature stays lower down there in the. Owning and they’re in shade from the tree line after 430….so I’m losing production on both ends of the day. I buy that argument enough to try the change.

Your story of wind blowing them over is a concern though.

[Iowanian]

We've discussed in this thread the Thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.

In this installment, I'm going to present to you a tool I purchased that I only regret not purchasing a year ago. $500 seemed like a ton of money for an O-Acid Vaporizer when I had a $40 aluminum block on a stick with a glow plug to heat it. I've been doing some things to recover my time lately as I've determined my time has value.

I purchased the Lorab 18v vaporizer to hopefully speed up my Oxalic Acid treatments for varroa mites. It is AWESOME.

You drill a 1/4" hole into the back side of the hives, turn this on until it reads the appropriate temp. It has a plunger that you set the grams of desired treatment, you insert that into the vaporizer, stick the tube into the hole you drilled into the hive, hit the plunger and in 1.5 minutes....it's vaporized. You do place a towel or a cover over the entrance for 10 minutes....but I did all of my hives in about 2hrs. If I do 5 treatments, and save 2-3hrs per treatment...that's 10-15hrs of my time recovered in the fall and a couple of treatments in the spring.

I couldn't see this being worth the expense if I had 3-4 hives....but when you get over 10, it's a no brainer for me. It's awesome.

Now....I've been trying alterate methods as well. I used Formic Pro on one yard. I had 10 good hives when I started treatment with the Formic pro....and as of last night (2) had absconded...I have a friend who lost 6 queens or absconded hives out of 30.

In short, it might be really effective at killing mites....but that shit is hard on queens and bees hate it enough to leave. Going forward, I'll only be using that stuff on sick hives where I feel drastic measures are needed.

Now. the body count. So far, I've now lost 9 hives. That's too many dead bees for the end of summer. I'll do everything I can to get them ready for winter.

I'm also working on some new products...herbal remedy honey(infused with herbs for medicinal purposes) and also am looking at some new creamed honey flavors to include aronia and elderberry to target those health aware markets and make those berries palletable with the power of honey.

[Iowanian]

Mite treatments are done, it's about time for me to add spacers to the top of my hives so I can add dry sugar. As mentioned before, I choose dry sugar for 2 reasons. It absorbs moisture and hopefully reduces potential condensation, and it provides an emergency source of carbohydrates in the winter if they bees run low on resources.

I've been working on 2-3 new products. Recently I obtained some aronia berries and freeze dried, powered them and a working on some aronia berry honey products. Aronia is a super food people take for health benefits, but they don't taste very good, so I'm trying to fix that. So far, initial reviews are very positive in product testing in the area. I've been infusing some ghost peppers into honey to make a "hot honey" product and initial reaction to that has been surprisingly positive. I also started working with a certified herbalist a little bit and am looking at infusing herbs into honey for a "holistic" product niche market for hippies who want to buy a value added product.

[displacedinMN]

Bump

How do you and they handle the snow and cold????

[Iowanian]

There isn’t anything I can do at this point. We have deep snow cold temps and roaring wind. I’m glad for my choices of trees blocking wind from the north.


if they’re healthy and have enough honey and supplemental sugar they will be ok. They will cluster around the queen and keep that ball temp in the low 90s. The problem would be if it stays this cold for a week or two and thy can move the cluster.

When weather breaks I’ll go dust the snow piles away from the entrances so they can get out if they need to.

On the upside when you inspect the healthy hives will usually have the entrance melted open from that interior temp. Unless it’s piled that’s a sign.

If it warms up to the 40s this month I’ll go crack lids and dump some additional dry sugar on them. Other than that…wait until spring, count the dead then….order bees and queens now and consider product development.

[booger]

Raw honey helps me with my allergies. Lived all but 3 years of my life in Iowa. And the ear-nose-throat specialist have said since I was a kid that you should live in a different climate lmao.

Also helps me keep my blood sugar even keel. That and apple cider vinegar both help. And the honey helps with the bitterness of acv. I drink it hot warm or room temp in a quick made tea. Grab a glass and put lemon in water acv and raw Iowa honey. That’s a good once maybe twice a day drink I like. With cold or sinus congestion chest congestion etc. I use those 3 ingredients plus Himalayan/pink salt. Has a bunch of trace minerals in it. The only salt I use for anything. So water lemon acv raw honey Himalayan salt and thyme. Thyme opens the congested head or chest and breaks that shit up. Recently had what felt like a sinus infection with bronchitis on top of it for almost 3 weeks. Didn’t go to dr because everything was going around. The cvid both a & b flu strep sinus infections galore even walking pneumonia. It wasn’t a miracle cure but it does help. Quite a bit for me. Doesn’t replace antibiotics if you need them so use your own judgement. I buy the stuff 3 lbs at a time and now I’m going 5 lbs. last purchase was $9 per pound but that included shipping as it was 45 total for a 5 lbs jar. But it is much better than corporate store bought shit. And reading bits and pieces of this thread over the years you can see why with how much actually goes into it as far as how it’s worth the price. Iowanian if you got a website send me a pm and link. Don’t know how much you sell or if you sell directly or to a local or eBay. If you sell on Facebook I’m SOL as I’ve never had an account