Oh, beehive!

And so it had to evolve. North winds meant I really needed a block so I put up a fence. It doubles to make the bees fly higher so they don't bump into the churchgoers across the street.
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...s/DSCN6935.jpg

Original colony survived winter like real champs. The two honey supers are packed, but the middle one has some brood in it.
It had a pretty heavy mite load, which can't be seen internally during cold months. Caught a warm (HOT) couple days to do some proactive pest elimination, and found a high count post treatment. More bees, more fleas.
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...s/DSCN6936.jpg

The colony I removed from the lake house has built up and survived also. It took several months for them to requeen themselves, get a good lay (population boom), and pack away supplies. They are stressed, but really made a comeback. Minimal honey stores, but at least they are established. The brood box is covered with bees.
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...s/DSCN6938.jpg

The colony that came from the irrigation pipe, combined with a colony from the farmhouse, with a purchased queen had to be merged with the next colony. Perhaps I clumsily squished the queen, perhaps they froze to death, but they never got a population boom, or put up any honey. When I saw bees crawling on the ground I knew it was a dire situation, so I placed a box on top of the next colony I'll show and set the 3 poor excuses for drawn frames on top.

This colony was actually the last one I got, late in the year, and didn't expect to survive. They managed to attach their combs to the frames, establish a brood nest, and maintain high enough population to not freeze for the one night it got below freezing this year (who needs seasons anyway?) Major traffic in the entrance. You might notice the entrance screen on there. What is that anyway? well... I figured the queen might try to fly back east to her tree. didn't want to lose the colony, so I cut a queen excluder into strips, built a little frame for it, and fixed that problem. The holes are large enough for the foragers to pass freely, but just small enough that the queen can't pass through. Normally used to keep her from laying in honey supers (which she shouldn't do anyway). So they've stuck.
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...s/DSCN6939.jpg

spotted drones flying in and out, so it is time to start watching for swarms! Don't know that I want to get many more hives than this, but I have a nice network of beekeeping friends who would take one or two each year.
Oh, and if you are gonna keep bees, keep a journal too. When you work all the time, weeks run together and "trying to remember" ain't gonna cut it! This is a hobby for most who do it, and things like treatment dates and inspections are important to remember. Queen raising is one of those timing things that has to be done on just the right day (I'm too inexperienced to really talk about that). At least keep a calendar if not a notebook.

One last shot is a basic feeding station. no fancy lid, just a proper bottom and shell. A bar across, some small distance in keeps water from blowing in, a small sheet of saran wrap with pollen substitute ensures they get dusty, which in turn makes them groom more, keeping mites off, and in back (right side) a jar with 1/16" holes in the lid used to dispense sugar syrup. It's been warm and we have lots of winter-blooming plants in my area, so they don't use it as much as I would have thought, but it's there if they want it!
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...1116111507.jpg

Looks like you and your bees are getting on pretty well there YCC. Got to admit I envy you a bit. I do love honey!! Just never got around to learning about the little buzzers. More power to you for doing all this on top of all the other things you do in your spare time.( Guessing you don't have much of that) ;>)

Oldtrap

Well done. I got a bee call today - half the hive on the ground, half 35 feet up......he thought anything over $25 was too much.......I wished him luck.

OT, it's impossible to get bored at my house. Come over sometime and you'll leave more tired than when you came lol!
$25 wouldn't even pay to get the man-lift out to the job, let alone the rent on it. Easy to get to, I might say $25 and free bees, sure. Hope he finds somebody to get 'em. Gonna take a real sucker!

Pretty cool. I am looking forward to see how things progress for you this summer. Good luck!

You guys might remember the removal job from the lake house in this post: http://www.wilderness-survival.net/f...l=1#post301193

I forgot I did a couple video clips and when I borrowed the camera and noticed the memory card was full, I started fumbling through them and found the removal clips.
I put them together into a short video.

One thing I thought I'd mention, if only for Crash's enlightenment, I am not running queen excluders on my strong colony (or any of them for that matter). I found some brood in the middle "super" but I really only consider it part of the brood chamber as most folks run two deeps for strong colonies. When I removed the honeycombs from the top super and inspected the middle one, only the top edge of the frame was honey, the middle had an arched stripe across it that was all pollen, and at the bottom of each frame was a small amount of worker brood mingled with drone brood. This means the colony is large enough to need more space above the single deep box. I'm considering adding another deep to that brood, so that both mediums will be honey.
The idea is that the queen will not cross the pollen barrier to lay eggs, which lends to another concept, "Food over brood". A colony builds in 3 dimensions, in concentric spheres, like the top half of a jawbreaker. The outer layer is capped honey which you can see in the video above, then pollen beneath that, and finally the "nest" at the core. The queen really has no reason to go get food because all her needs are taken care of by all the attendant bees, who feed, groom, and even take away her poop! So if she reaches the food stores, she knows to move on around the circle. If she has nowhere left to lay, you get "swarming behavior" where the colony says "we have overpopulated and it's time to move out".
It's time to be watching for swarms, so be expecting some calls!

I did a whole writeup on swarming, but for some reason the forum locks whenever I try to make a new post, and I also seem to lose whatever is copied to my clipboard.. Not sure what the problem is, but it's frustrating. Short of retyping the whole thing, I'll just post the video, and let folks ask questions.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by your_comforting_company

After meeting with the folks at Landmark Park, I got some names and phone numbers to beekeepers and the bee club over in Dothan.

So I caught up with Mr. Carter on the phone before church this morning and MAN, OH MAN he was helpful!! He not only answered every question I could think to ask him, he invited me to a bee class on the 15th! Best of all IT'S FREE through the cooperative extension!

So I've been out using power tools instead of rocks the last few days.. well, just to get my rock fix.. and this is what I came up with.
Still gotta build the bottom stand to keep it up off the ground, and build a jig for making frames. Then I gotta order my starter grids, a block of beeswax, and hopefully find a swarm (he suggested this was best, as the "bred" species seem to be less tolerant of adversity) to get started.. well actually, I have to build a whole extra box set, because I need to start with two colonies,, but at least I know a little bit more what to expect and do now.

So this is my start-up phase of beekeeping. I'll gladly give pointers and links to anyone interested. Since I'm building it all myself, I didn't go by any specific plans, so my measurements probably won't help if you are buying frames, but the gist is in the reasoning behind some of the cuts, etc.

http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...s/DSCN5791.jpg

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You might want to make the slit at the bottom wider. You can always shim it closed. In the summer you will find lots of bees sitting there fanning their wings, just to move air through the hive to keep the temperature steady/tolerable. With narrow that can't happen. Overwintering you have to have narrow to cut down heat loss
Allen

Ooops. See you have done so.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by your_comforting_company

Finally caught up to the man on the phone, and we talked for a little while. It is definately asbestos. Still he wants the bees out of his house, whatever it takes. Gonna be a fairly big project.. Water sprayer bottle to keep dust down, tarp to catch breaking pieces.. THEN I have the plywood and bees to deal with.
Still trying to get a functional plan together.. really should have built that bee-vac already, that would make it really easy.

On a more positive note, I'm finally making some progress with the trapping down the road. Bees had formed a "beard" on parts of the porch, so I misted them with water, brushed them off into my swarm bucket, and dumped them in with my bees, and they took to the new queen with ecstacy and vigor, immediately moving into foraging mode.

There is one more bee class tomorrow, regarding extracting honey. I'll have to build my own extractor (they are pretty expensive to buy). I hope it doesn't get cancelled due to rain. This is the last major lesson, and the rest of the learning process can only be from experiences, which I'm getting plenty of. Had yet another fellow mention he needed bees removed yesterday at the building supply.. I need more boxes!!

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Saw an interesting home built extractor out of Africa built from two bicycle wheels

Well, I started posting at page one and definitely stuck my foot in it. Since I have read the whole thread in detail and carefully, and all I can say is you sure do learn fast and well.

Mind, being north in Ontario Canada, we do have slightly different problems, but probably less than you do. No Aficanized bees here yet. Been a while since I dabbled in bees although we had plenty on the farm when I was a kid. Not many tame bees survived the winter going feral. We usually noticed if the bees were at or near swarming, and if they swarmed it was usually onto a limb or fence crossbar. Lay down a blanket under them, hit the limb a good crack with the back of an axe and the swarm would fall onto the blanket. Pick up the blanket by the corners and take it back to the hive. Kill the queen on the way back in and done. Other than hornets and wasps, no nests in houses etc.

You are one sharp cookie and I'm gonna keep my mouth shut around you. I even sent a message to a friend that this is one of the better tutorials I have seen about raising bees.

Good luck
Allen

Thanks Allen. I have really had a lot of fun with this project. And as you can tell, I started off knowing basically nothing. Now, I'm closing in on a full year of beekeeping and I've had some good and bad times, and learned an aweful lot. Currently I'm reading "The Hive and the Honey Bee" and I really had no idea bees were so sophisticated!
I don't imagine you have much problem with small hive beetles up there at all, which isn't really a fair trade for the overwinter losses that I hear is more common farther north. All my losses were actually before winter, and after I made a split. Is it really so common to lose a queen on her nuptial flights?
Since the Africanized bees are more tropical, I'm not sure they would survive over winter up there because they like to nest in the open down here.
Don't keep quiet around me.. If you want to share something, I'm all ears. I listen well to others who have more experience than me, and I listen very closely. I think it was Mark McGuire who said "Never make the same mistake once", and I will gladly listen to any suggestions you make.
I actually have a few questions for you, if you don't mind: What methods did you use to try to alleviate swarming, and at what point is it too late? (not chronologically, on a calendar... I mean "when you see swarm cells" or "at first nectar flow")
I'm working on moving the lake colony into a standard box, trying to force an upward move by slowly depleting resources in that lower box. Do you think there is a way to make it happen faster without losing an entire brood cycle AND all the nectar they've stored this year. We are already in a heavy nectar flow with all the clover in the yard, which is why I think one of them swarmed... But they all still look so strong I can't tell which one it was!
I have more questions, but it's time for me to head to work. I appreciate your input!!

YCC (and anyone else interested) - I thought you might be interested in this article on bees and pesticides.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/201...say-yes.-video

That was a pretty good primer on the pesticides. I have noticed a correlation in the initiation of nicotine-based pesticides and the timing of the invasion of the honeybee pests around the mid-90s. I also read in "The Hive and the Honey Bee" about residiual, persistent pesticides like carbaryl (Sevin dust) being so persistent, that using it on plants before bloom time, somehow the plants "soak it up" and it has been found inside flowers (that were unopen at the time of application) IN the pollen. This is very VERY bad because pollen is bees primary source of proteins and amino acids. I have not read the research on nicotinoid pesticides yet, but if they are as bad as that article makes them out to be, I won't be using them in my garden. I am also going to be researching through my local extension office, other methods of pest control that are safer for use in my garden than sevindust.
Thanks for sharing that info!!

This is the book I'm reading right now.
http://www.dadant.com/catalog/produc...roducts_id=242

Finished the book.
It's been over a year now and the stuff I've been doing is far more advanced than I ever intended this thread to be, with the exception of a few gadgets.
A solar wax-melter:
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...0407121154.jpg
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...2/DSCN7168.jpg

Swarm Trap with a pheremone lure:
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...0331121451.jpg
It mounts on a tree and is used for swarm control. The pheremone smells like lemon pledge, or lemongrass oil, which mimics the scent that scouts leave on a new nest location.

I've had to deal with swarms a bit this year, but most of my own hives were no problem with proper management. Some of my management strategies went completely haywire, but that's also some technical type stuff that's a little deeper than the scope of this discussion.

One of the swarms I caught landed in our gardenia bush, and was very easy to catch. Another piece of equipment is the 'nuc' sized boxes for doing splits and catching larger swarms.
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...0408121330.jpg

Making some progress, going to try selling comb honey this year. 3 Production size colonies and 2 starters. Got a few gardeners talking about pollination services and such, so I've still got a lot to learn.

The progress that you've made with this is fantastic. It's been fun learning with you and watching you grow.

It has been a lot of fun. I've met some really old-school guys who don't mind sharing what they know (and one in particular who is very reserved...).

I have left out a great deal of intermediate-level info on recent progress, so if there are any questions about the pests, swarm impulse prevention and management, hive splits, queen rearing, or anything else that I haven't covered, I encourage you folks to ask! My cukes were so bountiful last year we couldn't pickle or eat them all and wound up giving away a large portion and throwing a lot back into the compost.

You've really done a great job and I've learned tons from the post. I've really enjoyed following it. That solar melter is pretty cool. Get it? Solar.....cool.

If you touch the wire basket in there, it will burn your fingers. I'd imagine you could cook bread with it. It caramelizes any honey left in the comb as it melts. It's built on 16 degrees, which is roughly perpendicular to the suns' angle at midday for my latitude. Most of it was built from scrap wood from different jobs, and the wheels are from an old Radio Flyer that rotted away. It's nothing fancy, but I did have to learn how to cut glass.
I'm trying to figure out a compact "collector" to absorb more sunlight inside the melter, to generate heat. I'm thinking something akin to a heatsink for a computer, but larger scale, and it needs to fit along the sides without blocking access for cleaning.
The wax in the pictures is from removal jobs. All the comb I salvaged to save the brood within, I'm slowly cycling out (only have 2 frames left in one hive now) so that everything will be standardized. I'm guessing I have about 12 pounds of wax +/-. One of the by-products is the scale or "cocoon" that each bee molts in the cell as it develops. This stuff turns to goo as the wax melts off and what's left is called "slumgum". Strike a match to slumgum and it burns as well as fat-lightered. It can be a little sticky, but stays solid at temps around 90F. Might be a good backup resource for drying tinder when starting a wet fire.