Archive for March, 2010

Spring

Monday, March 29th, 2010

I took some videos of Martha and Connie on the first day of spring. I just realized that I neglected to post them here.

You can see the bees returning with pollen from the trees that were just starting to bloom.

Several people I know are have lots of trouble with hay fever. There is lots of pollen in the air. This is very good for the bees.

Bees First Day of Spring from Keith Graham on Vimeo.

More Bees first day of spring from Keith Graham on Vimeo.

Turn on HD to get a little more detail.

Paint for My new Hives

Monday, March 29th, 2010

I needed to get some paint for my new hives. I went back into the yard and thought about ways to make the hive look natural. There was a copper beech, a silver maple and some ash trees. All had gray bark with a bluish tinge. I decided that I would like to paint the new hives a dark gray with a bit of blue in it.

I discussed this with Erica Saturday morning. She was no overly excited about the dark brown I had chosen for the first hives. It was dark and dull. We wanted the hives to blend into the woodland background, but the brown was just ugly.

Saturday afternoon Erica received a message from FreeCycle.org. Someone had a can of exterior marine paint. It was dark gray with a bit if blue in it. The person had purchased it years ago, used a little and then sealed it up. We went to get it and the paint was old but not dried out at all.

It is amazing how reality can appear to be preordained. I wanted gray paint with a bit of blue and the universe rearranged itself so I could have it. I know it is just randomness, but it can be spooky sometimes.

I assembled the new hives on Sunday morning and I expect to paint them this Wednesday when the rain stops.

March 16 Bee Status

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

It was a nice Spring day with temperatures up in the mid 50s. The weekend was just awful with several inches of rain and wind, but today was near perfect for this time of year. I got home around 5:30pm, but due to Daylights Savings time, it was still bright and sunny.

The bees in both hives were happy and active. I didn’t open the hive to check on the top feeder, but I did notice that both hives had workers returning with baskets full of yellow pollen. I don’t know what they found in March 16th. The forsythia have not come close to blooming and the only flowers that I know of would be Snowdrops, Crocuses and some early Daffodils. I don’t think that these would be all that plentiful, though. The only thing I can think of would be Skunk Cabbage and perhaps there is a tree that is blooming early from all the rain and warm weather. I think that perhaps the large silver maple is starting to bloom, at least the buds that I saw are large and ready to go. I think at the top of the trees there may be some blooms.

That the bees are returning with lots of pollen this early in the season is a wonderful sign. Tomorrow I will give them more syrup.

One thing, though, is that there is bound to be more bad, cold and wet weather. Spring is like that.

This is a wonderful surprise. I thought that the Martha hive was doomed, and now she is active and growing. I will be getting my next two hives, soon and I hope that this year I will get a good crop of honey.

One thing, though, my brother wants to raise bees, too. After I started, he began to read up on it. He wants me to split a hive for him this summer so he can get started. I was going to split the hive, but I was going to sell it and make back some of my investment. I may be able to make more than one split. We’ll see. I think it would be better if he bought a package up near where he lives.

I am stuck in the usual Spring wood backlog. I ordered new supers and deeps, enough to make my fifth hive if I split. Everything is back-ordered. I have enough to handle the two packages that I ordered, but I want to be prepared.

Bee Package Deliver Delayed Again

Monday, March 15th, 2010

It has been cold in Georgia and the bees have not been building up as fast as expected. The West Nyack Mall bee delivery is now scheduled for the wee hours of April 9th.

As I understand it, the bee packages are made at large apiaries  from vacuuming out bee hives, taking a bunch of bees from each hive, but leaving the queen and the half the bees behind. The early Spring in Georgia means that the hives have been building up for a month or more before the hives are vacuumed. If there is bad weather, the brood will be late and everyone will have to wait in order to get enough bees.

Queen breeders provide the queens, and the schedule of starting the queens and mating them has to be coordinated with the making of the Bee Packages.

The bees are added to a shoebox sized mesh box with a can of sugar syrup and the queen cage. It takes about 16 to 20 hours to get from Georgia to the NY area, depending on conditions and traffic. I understand last year the 3AM shipment didn’t arrive until 10AM. If the truck loads at Georgia 6AM and all goes well, the bees will arrive as scheduled. If there is a line and the truck isn’t loaded right away then all bets are off.

I am bringing a pillow with me when I go to pick up the bees.

Preparing for the 2010 season

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

My two hives, Martha and Connie, continue to do well. I have fed them thick syrup again, about 1/2 gallon each, since they knocked off the first half gallon in less than a week.

This whole feeding in March thing is questionable. I fed Martha just because I felt the hive was in jeopardy. Then I fed Connie as well. I wonder if it is a good idea to feed the hives in the late Winter – early Spring?

It has consistently been above 50 degrees F in the daytime here. The bees are waking up and cleaning out the hive. The outlook shows that the temperature will rise above 50 for the next 10 days. Feeding sugar water when the temperature is cold is not good because the bees have trouble evaporating the water to make honey and will be stressed. The humidity has been low and the temperature in the hive is perhaps warm enough so this may not be a problem.

Italian bees will start building up in the early spring if you feed them, and this is my goal. I want the weaker Martha hive to be ready for the spring nectar flow and I want the stronger Connie hive to be productive. I have in the back of my mind to split the Connie hive.

The buds pop here at the end of March. The pussy willows are already popping, and I see skunk cabbage sprouting up. These are early sources of nectar. The bees will be flying about, if it is warm enough, in two or three weeks. I am hoping that that is when the brood emerges so they can take advantage of the early flow.

A good backyard Beekeeper has a few good hives. A bad beekeeper has as many as he can get. I want to have eventually five or six hives and be able to sell a split hive once or twice a year.

I will have two hives from last year, and I think they will produce as much as 100 pounds of honey that I can sell for 4 or 5 dollars a pound. This will go a good ways towards paying for all the wood I’ve bought.

I will have two packages in April. If they do well, they may give me some honey in late summer, but I doubt it.

I might have a split off of Connie that might, or might not have enough honey to harvest in the late summer.

I will be able to sell one of the hives next year, if they all survive the winter. With the wood and the hive I should get maybe $300. This would be about $150 worth of wood and frames and $100 worth of bees, but together in an established hive it would be worth more.

I ordered frames and wood so I would have a small extra hive ready for a split or a swarm capture this spring. There is always hope.

Beesource – Drinking from a fire hose

Sunday, March 7th, 2010

I’ve been going over to www.beesource.com and trying to read some of the threads. BeeSource is incredibly  busy and it is impossible to keep up on much of it. One good thing there are separate forums for beginners and pros, so the professional beekeepers won’t belittle the newbies like they do on some of the mail groups.

If you want to see what is happening on BeeSource there is a link to
view latest posts that automagically shows postings in real time. I have this bookmarked and I watch it when I have nothing else to do.

This is way too much information – it is like trying to drink from a fire hose.

March 6, 2010 Bees

Saturday, March 6th, 2010

The temperature went up above 50F today and the bees were all out an about and making noise. I put the wooden Brushy Mountain Bee Farm feeders on top of both hives, but I left the spacer in place because there was still a lot of pollen patties that were half eaten. I’ll take them off next week.

The good news is that when I opened up Martha, there were lots of very active bees. I thought that she would be dead. She only had the one hive body of honey to make it through the winter and I thought that it was mostly empty from being robbed.

I took this video:

Bee Hive March 6, 2010 from Keith Graham on Vimeo.

As you can see there is lots of buzzing around and it might be the other hive robbing what is left, but I tend to think it is mostly Martha waking up from her long winter sleep.

Both hives have about a quart and a half of sugar water (about 3 pounds of sugar each). I will mix up some more and feed them during the week if I have time. The top feeders hold a gallon or more each.

I took a video of Connie, the healthy hive. (For some reason I called her Ethel in the video. Ethel is the hive that died last fall.)

Bee Hive on March 6, 2010 from Keith Graham on Vimeo.

Bee Shipment Delay

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

Each year the bee farms in Georgia announce the earliest possible date for bee shipments. Each year the date is delayed because of weather.

The first weather related bee delay has been announced.

My bee packages are now due to arrive in West Nyack on April 2nd, 2010.

AZApiaries.com » Package Bee & Nuc Delivery Dates.