I was out over the weekend looking in on my bees. I expected them to be dead, but I was surprised to see that they are still chugging along. The fondant that I put on the top of all the hives is about half gone. It is hard as a rock, but they are nibbling away at it. I will move some fondant from the hive that died over to the other hives this weekend. I may put water on it to soften it somewhat before I feed the surviving hives.
I have to make a decision about new hives this spring. I have found someone who is buying a truckload of packages in North Carolina and is willing to stop by my house to drop off a couple for me on his way back. These are mixed bees, which I have decided might be better than the pure Italians that I have been getting.
There are other places within a couple of hours drive who are selling nucs, so I may buy some of these. All of these are mixed types – some Russian, some Carniolans, feral bees, and even some Buckfast.
My reasoning is that if I buy a variety of bees of different breeds that I might get lucky.
The guy that I bought queens from down in New Jersey had nucs last year, so I am going to phone him and see what I can get. The advantage is that this only about 15 miles drive and with the price of gas it makes his hives a bargain. He has recently divorced so I am also hoping that he may be wanting to get rid of some hives that I can pick up now.
My brother may have a bunch of nucs for $50 that he can get from a guy who does swarm captures.
I will also place some swarm traps on a few rooftops (one at my mother’s house and possible one in the village of Nyack).
My target is to have 8 hives so I would need 5 or 6 hives, depending on how my three make it through the winter. The hive that was smashed during Sandy, does not appear to have much population, so I am a little worried about her.
That would be $600 to $700 worth of bees. That would require that I sell about 150 bottles of honey. I am not sure that these bees will produce honey the way the pure Italians did. They are all of them “Survivor” bees of mixed types.
My fear is that one of these diverse hives will be sick with “foul brood” or infested with small hive beetle or varroa. This could wipe out my investment in a very short time.
