Okay I'll start the beekeeping thread (Page 7 of 154)
|
Originally Posted By dogfacepappy: Today was productive for me, I had some nucs built up and some Australians in them, I built up a few boxes that are pretty strong, I also visited one of my boxes, a triple, and built up another nuc that I will switch out to a box in the morning as the sun set before I had a chance to get them home from my farm location, this one I will stick in my back yard like I did last year, I've got good bloom going, so, I am good to go. I ordered a few new queens to build up a few more boxes. I needed today, working with the "girls" always makes me feel good. Good to hear. I have yet to go into my one remaining hive this spring. I guess I'm avoiding it because I know I have to move them off site, and I don't want to.  Stupid to avoid what must be done, but I am. |
Born with a low tolerance for bullshit.
Loosely connected to UXB.
Wait. That's an oxymoron.
Well-behaved women rarely make history--Marilyn Monroe
Loosely connected to UXB.
Wait. That's an oxymoron.
Well-behaved women rarely make history--Marilyn Monroe
|
Originally Posted By SigOwner_P229: Just an update on all my bees. I filled my last 2 empty hives last week. The swarms were really small but I still have high hopes, my best hive to-date came from the smallest swarm that I picked up (except the 2nd swarm I got last week). I moved my 3 well-established hives to a location full of Black Locust trees. They're doing great! The entrances are so busy that sometimes the bees don't even have room to land. They come in laden with nectar and seeing no place to land, and not able to just hover, they crash to the ground and rest for a bit before making their way up to wait their turn to enter/exit. I'm hoping for a lot of delicious Locust honey this year. They've just come into bloom and they smell amazing! I tried to count all of the locust trees within 150 yards of my hives, but I lost count around 40-50. I wouldn't even be able to count the trees withing 300 yards of them, there are far too many. I wish I had more bees to take advantage of all those locust trees, there is no way that my 3 hives can take advantage of it all. That locust honey will be amazing. I love the smell of locust blossoms. Nothing like it. I have yet to get set up in time to take advantage of the locust honey flow. Next year, I aim to change that. |
Born with a low tolerance for bullshit.
Loosely connected to UXB.
Wait. That's an oxymoron.
Well-behaved women rarely make history--Marilyn Monroe
Loosely connected to UXB.
Wait. That's an oxymoron.
Well-behaved women rarely make history--Marilyn Monroe
|
Originally Posted By Kitties-with-Sigs:
Originally Posted By dogfacepappy:
Today was productive for me, I had some nucs built up and some Australians in them, I built up a few boxes that are pretty strong, I also visited one of my boxes, a triple, and built up another nuc that I will switch out to a box in the morning as the sun set before I had a chance to get them home from my farm location, this one I will stick in my back yard like I did last year, I've got good bloom going, so, I am good to go. I ordered a few new queens to build up a few more boxes. I needed today, working with the "girls" always makes me feel good. Good to hear. I have yet to go into my one remaining hive this spring. I guess I'm avoiding it because I know I have to move them off site, and I don't want to. Stupid to avoid what must be done, but I am.
Well, I got the girls transferred from the last nuc to a box. A visit to my my other bee yard in the boonies yielded quite a spectacle. I did not have a queen excluder separating the bottom from the supers, the top is full of brood and honey too. So, I am about to go back and rob out some frames of brood and honey from the 1 super on top, add an excluded and another super and see what happens. I'll take the robbed brood frames and honey and start another nuc. (Yes, it's yet another excuse to go play with my bees, as if I needed an excuse, but if I do, I have a good one  ) I am hoping to get a good stock of honey this year.
|
μολών Λαβέ
The PATRIOT ACT: Turning citizens into suspects since 2001.
Freedom is LINUX, Linux is free.
The PATRIOT ACT: Turning citizens into suspects since 2001.
Freedom is LINUX, Linux is free.
|
Originally Posted By Kitties-with-Sigs:
Originally Posted By SigOwner_P229:
Just an update on all my bees. I filled my last 2 empty hives last week. The swarms were really small but I still have high hopes, my best hive to-date came from the smallest swarm that I picked up (except the 2nd swarm I got last week). I moved my 3 well-established hives to a location full of Black Locust trees. They're doing great! The entrances are so busy that sometimes the bees don't even have room to land. They come in laden with nectar and seeing no place to land, and not able to just hover, they crash to the ground and rest for a bit before making their way up to wait their turn to enter/exit. I'm hoping for a lot of delicious Locust honey this year. They've just come into bloom and they smell amazing! I tried to count all of the locust trees within 150 yards of my hives, but I lost count around 40-50. I wouldn't even be able to count the trees withing 300 yards of them, there are far too many. I wish I had more bees to take advantage of all those locust trees, there is no way that my 3 hives can take advantage of it all. That locust honey will be amazing. I love the smell of locust blossoms. Nothing like it. I have yet to get set up in time to take advantage of the locust honey flow. Next year, I aim to change that. Hey kitties, since beekeeping kind of melds with survival and such, ya think Goatboy and Ed will give us a Beek forum here, this way we have a permanent house as it were instead of a thread? |
μολών Λαβέ
The PATRIOT ACT: Turning citizens into suspects since 2001.
Freedom is LINUX, Linux is free.
The PATRIOT ACT: Turning citizens into suspects since 2001.
Freedom is LINUX, Linux is free.
|
I've had several requests for that. I haven't followed up on it because I wasn't sure the interest would be sustained. Also because I don't much like a lot of bad behavior (and there is a lot of that on other parts of the forum. Feral does a good job in here and that's why I hang around.), and though I could be called a survivalist in mentality, that's not my main reason for beekeeping, so I figured I might not exactly fit, ya know? Beyond that, if I get busy, I take breaks from the forum. I'm just not sure there's quite enough interest for a whole forum of its own. I could be wrong though. We'll see what Feral and the other mods think. I don't want to duplicate the work that beesource and the other beekeeping forums do already. I don't see much point in that. If there's a real need for it I'd be willing. There are just so many good sources of bee information out there on the web... kitties |
Born with a low tolerance for bullshit.
Loosely connected to UXB.
Wait. That's an oxymoron.
Well-behaved women rarely make history--Marilyn Monroe
Loosely connected to UXB.
Wait. That's an oxymoron.
Well-behaved women rarely make history--Marilyn Monroe
|
Originally Posted By dogfacepappy: Originally Posted By Kitties-with-Sigs: Originally Posted By dogfacepappy: Today was productive for me, I had some nucs built up and some Australians in them, I built up a few boxes that are pretty strong, I also visited one of my boxes, a triple, and built up another nuc that I will switch out to a box in the morning as the sun set before I had a chance to get them home from my farm location, this one I will stick in my back yard like I did last year, I've got good bloom going, so, I am good to go. I ordered a few new queens to build up a few more boxes. I needed today, working with the "girls" always makes me feel good. Good to hear. I have yet to go into my one remaining hive this spring. I guess I'm avoiding it because I know I have to move them off site, and I don't want to. Stupid to avoid what must be done, but I am.Well, I got the girls transferred from the last nuc to a box. A visit to my my other bee yard in the boonies yielded quite a spectacle. I did not have a queen excluder separating the bottom from the supers, the top is full of brood and honey too. So, I am about to go back and rob out some frames of brood and honey from the 1 super on top, add an excluded and another super and see what happens. I'll take the robbed brood frames and honey and start another nuc. (Yes, it's yet another excuse to go play with my bees, as if I needed an excuse, but if I do, I have a good one ) I am hoping to get a good stock of honey this year.We can't get a nice warm sunny day here to open the hives. I hate to open hives and have a storm come up. Every time I tried to open the hives last year I got rained on. Sky would be clear as a bell. I'd open the hives, and here'd come a storm. Bees were pissssssssed at me. |
Born with a low tolerance for bullshit.
Loosely connected to UXB.
Wait. That's an oxymoron.
Well-behaved women rarely make history--Marilyn Monroe
Loosely connected to UXB.
Wait. That's an oxymoron.
Well-behaved women rarely make history--Marilyn Monroe
|
Originally Posted By Kitties-with-Sigs:
Originally Posted By dogfacepappy:
Originally Posted By Kitties-with-Sigs:
Originally Posted By dogfacepappy:
Today was productive for me, I had some nucs built up and some Australians in them, I built up a few boxes that are pretty strong, I also visited one of my boxes, a triple, and built up another nuc that I will switch out to a box in the morning as the sun set before I had a chance to get them home from my farm location, this one I will stick in my back yard like I did last year, I've got good bloom going, so, I am good to go. I ordered a few new queens to build up a few more boxes. I needed today, working with the "girls" always makes me feel good. Good to hear. I have yet to go into my one remaining hive this spring. I guess I'm avoiding it because I know I have to move them off site, and I don't want to. Stupid to avoid what must be done, but I am.
Well, I got the girls transferred from the last nuc to a box. A visit to my my other bee yard in the boonies yielded quite a spectacle. I did not have a queen excluder separating the bottom from the supers, the top is full of brood and honey too. So, I am about to go back and rob out some frames of brood and honey from the 1 super on top, add an excluded and another super and see what happens. I'll take the robbed brood frames and honey and start another nuc. (Yes, it's yet another excuse to go play with my bees, as if I needed an excuse, but if I do, I have a good one ) I am hoping to get a good stock of honey this year.We can't get a nice warm sunny day here to open the hives. I hate to open hives and have a storm come up. Every time I tried to open the hives last year I got rained on. Sky would be clear as a bell. I'd open the hives, and here'd come a storm. Bees were pissssssssed at me.
Knock on wood, we've had a great string of really nice days here. Besides the storms today, and tonight and chances tomorrow, I'm pretty pleased. I just hope that we get as many nice days as possible during the locust bloom. I want them to be able to take advantage of every single ounce of locust nectar out there. |
| Not exactly related as I'm not planning to keep bee's however I just bought a new house. I'm pretty sure I have a hhoney bee colony somewhere around. I saw a bunch of them in one of my flowering bushes. I got a pretty good look at them and I am pretty sure they are honey bee's. |
Germans know these things...
Cars, guns and beer.
And every 50 years or so they can be expected to invade your country.
Probably caused by a combination of cars, guns and beer. Sooner or later somebody is gonna call 'road trip' - Steyr Aug
Cars, guns and beer.
And every 50 years or so they can be expected to invade your country.
Probably caused by a combination of cars, guns and beer. Sooner or later somebody is gonna call 'road trip' - Steyr Aug
| Well, not exactly extracting honey, Just swarms. In the last 3 weeks I picked up 6 swarms. One somehow managed to be queenless after 2 weeks so we added another swarm to them. Largest swarm was 5.5 pounds. Smallest was less than 1 pound. I didn't want it so I gave it to a friend who was going to work with it I think. Found a strawberry farmer who wants some out on his place. He told me he lost his bees when the mites got bad and never went back into it. I may try to see if he would put some of my honey out there to sell with his strawberries next year. I did a brief look the other day they are drawing out the foundation nicely. This is the first time I am using plasticell. Found a local retired beekeeper that makes and sells frames and boxes. Spent $225.00 for 6 deeps with frames, foundations, bottoms, and inner/outer covers. He was out of screened BB so I will pick them up later. He threw in 4 feeders for free. The price is a bit cheaper than ordering and no shipping or tax so I can get almost 5 for the price of 4 if I go through him. Products look real good but sometimes he uses maple for the boxes and I really prefer pine. He lets me pick and choose. He is 90 years old and gets around like a 60 year old. Said he used to run 1000 hives when he was younger. Wealth of information walking around. |
|
Question I've been keeping up with this thread as well as watching a bunch of youtube videos and I cant find the answer to one question: how do you know how many supers to take honey from, and what happens if you take honey from a super and it has larva in it? Does it get thrown in to the jar or will the screen filter it out?
|
|
Originally Posted By Kitties-with-Sigs:
Bump for updates. Anybody extracting any honey? kitties Nah, but my girls have been working hard. I did catch another swarm last week, I'll be getting calls for cut outs real soon though. Fine by me, more bees. |
μολών Λαβέ
The PATRIOT ACT: Turning citizens into suspects since 2001.
Freedom is LINUX, Linux is free.
The PATRIOT ACT: Turning citizens into suspects since 2001.
Freedom is LINUX, Linux is free.
|
Oh here's the beekeeping forum I joined:
http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php |
|
Hey guys, just wanted to thank you for the honey I had in my tea this morning.
I used to work in a small, family owned, honey factory in NC Wyoming. Made some decent money for a 12yo boy and sure learned a lot about bee keeping. I can still eat honey by the handful lol. |
|
Originally Posted By memyselfandi: Question I've been keeping up with this thread as well as watching a bunch of youtube videos and I cant find the answer to one question: how do you know how many supers to take honey from, and what happens if you take honey from a super and it has larva in it? Does it get thrown in to the jar or will the screen filter it out? Okay, this time of year, you can take pretty much all the honey, then put the comb back on for them to refill. You MUST leave them enough honey to make it through the winter. The necessary amount will vary by location. The further north you go, and the longer the winter (the season with no nectar flow, and temps too cold for bees to fly and work), the more honey you must leave in the hive. Here, I leave at least one deep and one shallow of honey as a rule. That's for a hive with two deeps full of bees. Sometimes I leave more, depending on how those bees are doing and how many are in the hive. Your local beekepers will tell you how much you need to leave. Now, for the question about the larvae. You want to avoid having larvae in the supers you are going to extract if you can help it. Sometimes you have a queen that just won't cooperate and she lays in the honey supers. If this is constant, you can use what's called a Queen Excluder, which is a device placed between the honey supers and the hive bodies/brood chamber. This device is designed so that the worker bees can fit through the slats, but the queen cannot. Thus, the queen is confined to the brood chamber and cannot lay in the honey supers. If you have just a little bit of brood up there, and you want to take that honey, you'll remove the cappings from those frames and extract just like you would if it were not there. You will be straining your honey through a series of screens and a special nylon type of cloth, which will catch all the bee parts, pollen, wax cappings, and other debris that is always in the extracted honey. My honey goes through one large screen, then a second screen lined with this nylon cloth. You don't want bee bits and such in your honey. Nothing like handing a customer a jar of honey and having them hold it up to the light and there's a bee leg floating in it.  No more customer. Plus it's just gross and you don't want to eat that stuff anyhow. Your honey should be clean and free of that kind of thing.The truth is, you can eat bee larvae. It's the same as eating royal jelly pretty much. I don't do it, but I know people who do, and if I needed a supplement and we were in some kind of post-shtf world, I'd do it. Not after they start to grow wings. I couldn't do it then. Some people could, but I couldn't eat bugs that look like bugs unless times were awfully hard. The larvae itself––well, I'd still have to kind of shut myself down to do that too. But if it had legs and wings? Not. So, bottom line is, you want to keep the larvae out of the honey supers. If you fail to do that this year, take steps for next year, and decide how much of the larvae you are willing to sacrifice to get the honey. Okay did that answer your question clearly enough? If not, ask again and I'll clarify. kitties |
Born with a low tolerance for bullshit.
Loosely connected to UXB.
Wait. That's an oxymoron.
Well-behaved women rarely make history--Marilyn Monroe
Loosely connected to UXB.
Wait. That's an oxymoron.
Well-behaved women rarely make history--Marilyn Monroe
|
Originally Posted By DUX4LIFE: Wow, that's some high-end wood to make bee boxes out of! Products look real good but sometimes he uses maple for the boxes and I really prefer pine. He lets me pick and choose. He is 90 years old and gets around like a 60 year old. Said he used to run 1000 hives when he was younger. Wealth of information walking around.  Sounds like you've got a good mentor. Keep us updated on how it all goes this summer! |
Born with a low tolerance for bullshit.
Loosely connected to UXB.
Wait. That's an oxymoron.
Well-behaved women rarely make history--Marilyn Monroe
Loosely connected to UXB.
Wait. That's an oxymoron.
Well-behaved women rarely make history--Marilyn Monroe
|
Originally Posted By dogfacepappy: Originally Posted By Kitties-with-Sigs: Bump for updates. Anybody extracting any honey? kitties Nah, but my girls have been working hard. I did catch another swarm last week, I'll be getting calls for cut outs real soon though. Fine by me, more bees. What are they working, do you know? Are you near the almond fields? (Sorry, that may be a totally stupid question, as I have no clue about the bloom times of crops out there.) |
Born with a low tolerance for bullshit.
Loosely connected to UXB.
Wait. That's an oxymoron.
Well-behaved women rarely make history--Marilyn Monroe
Loosely connected to UXB.
Wait. That's an oxymoron.
Well-behaved women rarely make history--Marilyn Monroe
|
Originally Posted By Spun: Hey guys, just wanted to thank you for the honey I had in my tea this morning. I used to work in a small, family owned, honey factory in NC Wyoming. Made some decent money for a 12yo boy and sure learned a lot about bee keeping. I can still eat honey by the handful lol. Wow, that's really cool that you worked in a honey processing place. Sounds like you're a prime prospect for recruitment into beekeeping.  |
Born with a low tolerance for bullshit.
Loosely connected to UXB.
Wait. That's an oxymoron.
Well-behaved women rarely make history--Marilyn Monroe
Loosely connected to UXB.
Wait. That's an oxymoron.
Well-behaved women rarely make history--Marilyn Monroe
|
Originally Posted By Cockatoo: KWS- I'm gonna harvest one shallow this Saturday. My buddy Ralph is coming up to help me/teach me. I'll take video! Good luck with the harvest! Prepare for them to be a lot pissier this time than they were before. 
|
Born with a low tolerance for bullshit.
Loosely connected to UXB.
Wait. That's an oxymoron.
Well-behaved women rarely make history--Marilyn Monroe
Loosely connected to UXB.
Wait. That's an oxymoron.
Well-behaved women rarely make history--Marilyn Monroe
|
Originally Posted By Kitties-with-Sigs:
Originally Posted By DUX4LIFE:
Wow, that's some high-end wood to make bee boxes out of! Products look real good but sometimes he uses maple for the boxes and I really prefer pine. He lets me pick and choose. He is 90 years old and gets around like a 60 year old. Said he used to run 1000 hives when he was younger. Wealth of information walking around.
Sounds like you've got a good mentor. Keep us updated on how it all goes this summer! Not really high end, just seems to be a real weird grain (perhaps heartwood). I am afraid of warpage with it so I ask for pine. |
|
Originally Posted By Kitties-with-Sigs:
Originally Posted By dogfacepappy:
Originally Posted By Kitties-with-Sigs:
Bump for updates. Anybody extracting any honey? kitties Nah, but my girls have been working hard. I did catch another swarm last week, I'll be getting calls for cut outs real soon though. Fine by me, more bees. What are they working, do you know? Are you near the almond fields? (Sorry, that may be a totally stupid question, as I have no clue about the bloom times of crops out there.) hey are working the mountain wild flowers, roses, they worked the neighbor's cherry blossoms as well as apple blossoms, they are hitting my neighbor's garden pretty hard. They sure packed in LOTS of pollen too. They've been "BEEZY". ;) Nah, I am not close to any almond fields. Those are much further north of me. |
μολών Λαβέ
The PATRIOT ACT: Turning citizens into suspects since 2001.
Freedom is LINUX, Linux is free.
The PATRIOT ACT: Turning citizens into suspects since 2001.
Freedom is LINUX, Linux is free.
|
Kitties Ya you've kind of answered. I guess I'll need to use an example. Lets say you have a two full super, 1 shallow super hive. and its a fairly new one. Will the queen stay for the most part in the lower full size super, using it only as a brooding super? Is this how it normally works, and one would expect to harvest from the higher full and top shallow super?
|
|
Originally Posted By memyselfandi:
Kitties Ya you've kind of answered. I guess I'll need to use an example. Lets say you have a two full super, 1 shallow super hive. and its a fairly new one. Will the queen stay for the most part in the lower full size super, using it only as a brooding super? Is this how it normally works, and one would expect to harvest from the higher full and top shallow super? My friend Ralph had the queen go crazy and brood in the supers last yesr. |
|
Originally Posted By Cockatoo: Ok here's what we've canned so far! http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd48/screamingcockatoo/honey1.jpg http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd48/screamingcockatoo/honey2.jpg Wow, what kind of frames are you using? And how did you get so much hive wax? |
|
Originally Posted By memyselfandi:
Originally Posted By Cockatoo:
Ok here's what we've canned so far! http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd48/screamingcockatoo/honey1.jpg http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd48/screamingcockatoo/honey2.jpg Wow, what kind of frames are you using? And how did you get so much hive wax? I'm using shallows, 10 frames across. My bees are Midnights from a friends hive that swarmed. He said it's the strongest colony he's ever seen. The bees filled the frames perfectly with honey and Ralph used a heated decapping knife to cut the comb as I held each section with thongs. |
|
Originally Posted By memyselfandi: Kitties Ya you've kind of answered. I guess I'll need to use an example. Lets say you have a two full super, 1 shallow super hive. and its a fairly new one. Will the queen stay for the most part in the lower full size super, using it only as a brooding super? Is this how it normally works, and one would expect to harvest from the higher full and top shallow super? Okay I don't understand "a two-full super, 1 shallow super hive" Does that mean you have a hive with two deep boxes and one shallow box? You want the honey in the shallow box and the brood in the deeps, right? If I've read it correctly, this is the way it will go: You would LIKE for the queen to lay only in the brood chamber, but she may not. She may go up into the shallow and lay eggs there too. That's what queen excluders are for. Sometimes the bees are working so hard and fast and filling every possible cavity with honey that the hive becomes "honey bound", which means that as fast as larvae hatch and they clean out that cell, bees fill it with honey and the queen is left with nowhere in the brood chamber to lay, so she goes up into the shallow. But sometimes they're not honey bound and they do it for no paticular reason that we understand. You probably need to stop worrying about it and see what happens this year. Just keep enough supers on the hive so the bees have plenty of spots to put honey. If, when you go in there, you have larvae in the shallow "honey" frames, then you need to put a queen excluder between the honey supers and the brood chamber. After the first year, you'll know if you have a queen that likes to lay in the supers. If so, then get a queen excluder and put it between the brood chamber and the honey supers and you'll be good to go. Yes, it slows down the worker bees a little. And yes, you'll find beekeepers who won't touch queen excluders and call them "honey excluders". But they were made for a reason. Who wants to deal with larvae all interspersed with honey you're extracting? nobody. And it's bad for the colony because the bees NEED those worker larvae that you're destroying when you extract. So queen excluders are available for a reason. I wouldn't put them on a hive unless I needed to do so, but if I needed to, I would. You can tell what's brood and what's honey by looking at the frame. The honey cells are capped with wax. The brood cells are capped with kind of a brown fuzzy covering. Look back at the beginning of this thread at the pics I posted of the frames from a Kentucky University bee class. I've noted which is pollen, which is honey, and which is brood. The brood cells look nothing like the honey cells. Once you see it, you'll be able to recognize it easily. |
Born with a low tolerance for bullshit.
Loosely connected to UXB.
Wait. That's an oxymoron.
Well-behaved women rarely make history--Marilyn Monroe
Loosely connected to UXB.
Wait. That's an oxymoron.
Well-behaved women rarely make history--Marilyn Monroe
|
Originally Posted By memyselfandi: How can you tell on the comb what is simply capped honey, and what is capped with a larvae in it? The caps look different: brood comb caps are slightly raised and look kinda like paper:  honey comb caps look more waxy:  drone comb will have puffy looking tops and the cells will be a little larger:  pollen gets stuffed into open cells:  |
There is a guy.. a NAKED GUY WITH .. with.. with.. WITH A SPIDER ON HIS DICK!! There are PANTIES WITH SPIDERS CRAWLING OUT OF... THERE IS A SPIDER ON A ROLL OF TOILET PAPER!!-DrFrige
|
Originally Posted By Kitties-with-Sigs: Nice pics Torqued! Thanks! Behold the power of Google! |
There is a guy.. a NAKED GUY WITH .. with.. with.. WITH A SPIDER ON HIS DICK!! There are PANTIES WITH SPIDERS CRAWLING OUT OF... THERE IS A SPIDER ON A ROLL OF TOILET PAPER!!-DrFrige
|
Originally Posted By Kitties-with-Sigs: Originally Posted By memyselfandi: Kitties Ya you've kind of answered. I guess I'll need to use an example. Lets say you have a two full super, 1 shallow super hive. and its a fairly new one. Will the queen stay for the most part in the lower full size super, using it only as a brooding super? Is this how it normally works, and one would expect to harvest from the higher full and top shallow super? Okay I don't understand "a two-full super, 1 shallow super hive" Does that mean you have a hive with two deep boxes and one shallow box? You want the honey in the shallow box and the brood in the deeps, right? If I've read it correctly, this is the way it will go: You would LIKE for the queen to lay only in the brood chamber, but she may not. She may go up into the shallow and lay eggs there too. That's what queen excluders are for. Sometimes the bees are working so hard and fast and filling every possible cavity with honey that the hive becomes "honey bound", which means that as fast as larvae hatch and they clean out that cell, bees fill it with honey and the queen is left with nowhere in the brood chamber to lay, so she goes up into the shallow. But sometimes they're not honey bound and they do it for no paticular reason that we understand. You probably need to stop worrying about it and see what happens this year. Just keep enough supers on the hive so the bees have plenty of spots to put honey. If, when you go in there, you have larvae in the shallow "honey" frames, then you need to put a queen excluder between the honey supers and the brood chamber. After the first year, you'll know if you have a queen that likes to lay in the supers. If so, then get a queen excluder and put it between the brood chamber and the honey supers and you'll be good to go. Yes, it slows down the worker bees a little. And yes, you'll find beekeepers who won't touch queen excluders and call them "honey excluders". But they were made for a reason. Who wants to deal with larvae all interspersed with honey you're extracting? nobody. And it's bad for the colony because the bees NEED those worker larvae that you're destroying when you extract. So queen excluders are available for a reason. I wouldn't put them on a hive unless I needed to do so, but if I needed to, I would. You can tell what's brood and what's honey by looking at the frame. The honey cells are capped with wax. The brood cells are capped with kind of a brown fuzzy covering. Look back at the beginning of this thread at the pics I posted of the frames from a Kentucky University bee class. I've noted which is pollen, which is honey, and which is brood. The brood cells look nothing like the honey cells. Once you see it, you'll be able to recognize it easily. Kitties, You got it right. Sorry if I wasn't clear before, but yes you answered my question. One more thing though - I'm assuming that a full strength hive uses and even requires two full size (deep) supers for brooding? And also I'm guessing the reason why most seem to use the shallow or half size supers for honey is because it gets so heavy when full? Btw, what is the proper term for the full size and half size supers? Deep and shallow?
|
|
Originally Posted By CheeseSandwich: Just curious but does canning the honey with a piece of honeycomb serve a purpose or is it purely for aesthetics? Comb honey sells higher here than extracted honey. That said, you always have customers who want no comb, so most producers around here do a little of both. It's about 50 cents more per pint, or $1 more per quart, for comb honey. Kitties |
Born with a low tolerance for bullshit.
Loosely connected to UXB.
Wait. That's an oxymoron.
Well-behaved women rarely make history--Marilyn Monroe
Loosely connected to UXB.
Wait. That's an oxymoron.
Well-behaved women rarely make history--Marilyn Monroe
|
Originally Posted By Cockatoo: You know, actually I'm not certain I ever knew exactly WHAT you do for a living! Originally Posted By Kitties-with-Sigs: Cockatoo, that honey looks great! Where'd ya get your cool labels? I designed and printed them myself at work! Remember what I do for a living! Y'all want some labels? We always talk birds or guns or somethin. Maybe. I actually paid for labels from Kelley's a couple of years ago, then never got them the copy I wanted on there, so I dunno if I can still get them or not . Probably if I go up there. I'll have to see. If not, I'll holler. There ARE specific state regs for every state as to the proper way to label honey. I don't know if anyone's explained that to you or not. But if you go to sell any, make sure your labels are in compliance. kitties |
Born with a low tolerance for bullshit.
Loosely connected to UXB.
Wait. That's an oxymoron.
Well-behaved women rarely make history--Marilyn Monroe
Loosely connected to UXB.
Wait. That's an oxymoron.
Well-behaved women rarely make history--Marilyn Monroe
|
Originally Posted By memyselfandi: Originally Posted By Kitties-with-Sigs: Originally Posted By memyselfandi: Kitties Ya you've kind of answered. I guess I'll need to use an example. Lets say you have a two full super, 1 shallow super hive. and its a fairly new one. Will the queen stay for the most part in the lower full size super, using it only as a brooding super? Is this how it normally works, and one would expect to harvest from the higher full and top shallow super? Okay I don't understand "a two-full super, 1 shallow super hive" Does that mean you have a hive with two deep boxes and one shallow box? You want the honey in the shallow box and the brood in the deeps, right? If I've read it correctly, this is the way it will go: You would LIKE for the queen to lay only in the brood chamber, but she may not. She may go up into the shallow and lay eggs there too. That's what queen excluders are for. Sometimes the bees are working so hard and fast and filling every possible cavity with honey that the hive becomes "honey bound", which means that as fast as larvae hatch and they clean out that cell, bees fill it with honey and the queen is left with nowhere in the brood chamber to lay, so she goes up into the shallow. But sometimes they're not honey bound and they do it for no paticular reason that we understand. You probably need to stop worrying about it and see what happens this year. Just keep enough supers on the hive so the bees have plenty of spots to put honey. If, when you go in there, you have larvae in the shallow "honey" frames, then you need to put a queen excluder between the honey supers and the brood chamber. After the first year, you'll know if you have a queen that likes to lay in the supers. If so, then get a queen excluder and put it between the brood chamber and the honey supers and you'll be good to go. Yes, it slows down the worker bees a little. And yes, you'll find beekeepers who won't touch queen excluders and call them "honey excluders". But they were made for a reason. Who wants to deal with larvae all interspersed with honey you're extracting? nobody. And it's bad for the colony because the bees NEED those worker larvae that you're destroying when you extract. So queen excluders are available for a reason. I wouldn't put them on a hive unless I needed to do so, but if I needed to, I would. You can tell what's brood and what's honey by looking at the frame. The honey cells are capped with wax. The brood cells are capped with kind of a brown fuzzy covering. Look back at the beginning of this thread at the pics I posted of the frames from a Kentucky University bee class. I've noted which is pollen, which is honey, and which is brood. The brood cells look nothing like the honey cells. Once you see it, you'll be able to recognize it easily. Kitties, You got it right. Sorry if I wasn't clear before, but yes you answered my question. One more thing though - I'm assuming that a full strength hive uses and even requires two full size (deep) supers for brooding? And also I'm guessing the reason why most seem to use the shallow or half size supers for honey is because it gets so heavy when full? Btw, what is the proper term for the full size and half size supers? Deep and shallow? Okay lessee...terminology first. It's called a "super" only if it's on top of another box. The words "box" and "super" are often used interchangeably, but you don't say it's a super if the hive consists of only one box. "Super" means "on top of" in bee terms. Kind of like superscript or subscript, if that helps it have context. So when you speak of "supering" your hive, it means you're adding more boxes on top. Even the second hive body, no matter what size it is, can be called a super. BUT MOST PEOPLE speak of supers as "honey supers" meaning boxes they're putting on to provide a place to store honey, NOT the brood chamber. The deep bodies are called that...deeps or deep bodies. Then there are medium boxes. These are also called Illinois boxes, Illinois bodies, or Illinois supers. Then there are shallows. Shallow boxes, Shallow bodies, or Shallow supers. I'd say the majority of beekeepers in this country use two deeps as a brood chamber, and then super on top of that with either shallows or mediums. This is changing gradually though. SOME beekeepers keep bees in all Illinois, or medium bodies. If I had it to do over again, I'd do this, because a deep hive body full of honey and brood is HEAVY. The first thing to go on a beekeeper's body is the back. There is no good way to lift that 90-pound box, and it has to be lifted at least a couple of times a year. Also, there are a few studies that indicate that hives overwinter better in all mediums. The jury is still out on this I think, though I haven't read any good research in a year or two. Now to your question about a "full strength" hive. A beehive will keep expanding and growing, as long as it's managed properly, and unless the beekeeper splits it, they swarm, or something else happens. I've seen beehives six or seven deeps, and with as many as twenty or thirty boxes stacked on top. This is not the norm, and was done as an experiment, just to see how far they'd go. Answer: As far as you can stack the boxes. People manage their hives differently for different reasons. I know beekeepers who keep a brood chamber in a deep and a medium, in two deeps, in a deep and a shallow, in three mediums, etc etc. Beyond the "rules" which actually don't exist, each hive is different. You don't want the box too big for the hive (number of bees) and you don't want it too small for the hive, or they'll swarm. Beekeeping and managing a hive in these ways is a lot science, and a little bit art. It's kind of a zen thing, learning to tell what the bees are thinking and what they are about to do. A really experienced beekeeper will take the top off a hive, go no further and say, "you need to get some room in here or these bees are gonna swarm. " And by then it may be too late. Once they hit the top of the box, they start looking for more room, and if there isn't any, they'll start making a new queen so they can swarm. As to how much honey they need to overwinter, that depends on a) how big and strong the hive is, and b) where you are located. I think I've said this before at some point, so I don't mean to be redundant. Your local beekeepers are your best source to ask a) does this hive need more room to brood and b) how much honey do I need to leave them for the winter. If you haven't had a master beekeeper or your state apiarist look into your hives, give them a call. Get somebody in there to look at what you're doing and make suggestions. You'll make a friend and have a good ally for when you have problems or need to ask questions. Okay have i answered? Said too much? Made any sense at all? Or have I made mud out of water? |
Born with a low tolerance for bullshit.
Loosely connected to UXB.
Wait. That's an oxymoron.
Well-behaved women rarely make history--Marilyn Monroe
Loosely connected to UXB.
Wait. That's an oxymoron.
Well-behaved women rarely make history--Marilyn Monroe
|
Originally Posted By memyselfandi:
I guess the only thing left is to ask about different species of bees and which are better; where to buy the best supplies and bees. http://www.beekeepingstarterkit.com/page/1317490 I have Starline/Midnights. Hunt a local supplier first. Mine is about an hour south of me, but worth the drive. |
|
Originally Posted By memyselfandi: I guess the only thing left is to ask about different species of bees and which are better; where to buy the best supplies and bees. Where are you in Texas? |
There is a guy.. a NAKED GUY WITH .. with.. with.. WITH A SPIDER ON HIS DICK!! There are PANTIES WITH SPIDERS CRAWLING OUT OF... THERE IS A SPIDER ON A ROLL OF TOILET PAPER!!-DrFrige
|
Originally Posted By Torqued: Originally Posted By memyselfandi: I guess the only thing left is to ask about different species of bees and which are better; where to buy the best supplies and bees. Where are you in Texas? Currently I'm in Conroe, but I will be owning land in the Beaumont area. |