Beekeeping

[lsgreg]

I "manage" my bees much more than you do, @CloverKnollFarms. Especially for swarm prevention and varroa control.

I am glad your methods work for you!

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

Yeah, I don't do anything except catch swarms and collect honey in October. I am not normal.

 

[ponytug]

Yeah, I don't do anything except catch swarms and collect honey in October. I am not normal.

I think that if it works for you and your bees, that is really the bottom line. Your approach to bee genetics seems very rational to me.

I'm not a beekeeper, but looking in from the outside, it is hard not to look at the mainstream beekeeping practices, and the issues that they are dealing with, and wonder if there aren't changes that could be made to help bees. I do recognize that practices like almond pollination are complex for everyone.

I love watching bee swarms. We used to have bee swarms come through here regularly and then drought, CCD, varroa, and who knows what else all happened. I haven't seen one here in eight or ten years. At the local onset of CCD, I saw a few forlorn bees circling our outside light (infrared on, not normally activated), and on closer examination they had varroaon them. Sad. The bumble bees, native leaf cutter, and mason bees seem to be doing ok.

I love the posts!

All the best,

Peter

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

Some bees can live with varroa. Some can't. If they can't, I don't really want to help them spread their genetics. Only the fit survive here. The rest are culled.

Purdue University actually does a lot of research and breeding of varroa resistant bees. Neat stuff

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

These ladies are still waiting to pop! Every day the group gets larger.

 

[Torvy]

How close can you get with the mower? Asking for a friend.

 

[tulenutn2o]

Contact your local extension office. You may need permits in your area. I don't know about your area.

The extension office, if like mine, has a wealth of information and probably can assist you from the local to state level with resources and points-of-contact.

My state has quite a lot of resources available, including hive lotteries for those starting out or expanding their hobby or business.

Good luck.

Permits? We don‘t Need no stinking permits.

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

How close can you get with the mower? Asking for a friend.

With a suit, as close as I want. . Back when we had a couple colonies, I didn't wear anything. As we accumulated more colonies, we had a lot of different personalities in the apiary. And at different times of the year, they act differently.
Heck, the swarm that moved in a couple weeks ago, was NASTY for a week or so. Today I moved them frame by frame to a permanent hive, and they didnt even leave the frames. Completely calm.
We have too many bees out there now to now what they are going to be like on a given day. Some days its complete chaos

 

[ponytug]

Some bees can live with varroa. Some can't. If they can't, I don't really want to help them spread their genetics. Only the fit survive here. The rest are culled.

Purdue University actually does a lot of research and breeding of varroa resistant bees. Neat stuff

I've been reading the Purdue publications for a long time. It does seem like the sustainable approach.

To me it is a straight parallel to what we do with crops; select for desired traits, and check for resistance to x, y, or z. (Drought, cutworm, fungus...) I think it is actually a lot easier in bees, although "living with varroa" and "thriving in the presence of varroa" aren't quite the same thing. You seem to have selected for colonies that are thriving in the presence of varroa, which is great, at least in my view.

All the best,

Peter

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

Here we go.

 

[WM75Guy]

Do you use a bee vac to get them?

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

7 hours later...
This was not a swarm... It was a full colony that had absconded. It was INSANE. BUCKETS of bees.

Never saw the queen. But we vacuumed her into a box and her children started locating on the box. Hallelujah

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

Do you use a bee vac to get them?

Yup. I built a bee vac a few years ago. We vacuumed all of these bees until we knew we had the queen. Once she is secure, I let the rest follow her into the box. It was one colony, in two completely separate cavities. One cavity was 6' deep so we had to use a pretty long hose. I hate that we always secure the queen after about 6 hours of work .

Time for a shower and to take the wife into town for a beer. She worked for it today! Hot, humid, nasty day.

 

[BackRoad]

So explain in layman's terms what transpired with your colony, and the results. Why was it good?

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

So explain in layman's terms what transpired with your colony, and the results. Why was it good?

These bees moved into a neighbors home.

Well, we thought it was a swarm... Pretty certain it was not. I've had full colonies extracted that were smaller. It was a massive number of bees. Likely a colony that absconded.

Oddly, they occupied two separate cavities in the same house. One cavity with no queen, one with a queen, 10' apart. Odd.

So we weren't sure it was one colony, because, why?? So wee segregated th bees in separate boxes. The first box didn't have a queen, as no bees would locate on the vents.

The second box did have a queen, as after 40 minutes of vacuuming, the bees located on the box.

Now, to be sure they were from the same colony, I took a handful of bees from the first box and placed them in the grass in front of the second box... And they located on that box too... They wanted to join the queen. So, we combined the two groups and opened the entrances to let the rest join.

It's a helluva lot of bees.

 

[EddieWalker]

Pretty cool that your wife is into the bees as much as you are!!!!

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

Pretty cool that your wife is into the bees as much as you are!!!!

She is a great helper, and in these situations, it is nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of. No two scenarios are the same, so you are never really "prepared".

I often pay little attention to my bee vac, and this cutout has me wanting to design something different. It works fine, but it could be better and more user friendly for cutouts 8' up in a soffit and 6' back in a cavity.

 

[EddieWalker]

Looks like bees are a big fan of baseball

AZ Beekeper Handles Bee Swarm at Diamondbacks Game, Throws Pitch

A beekeeper in Arizona saved the day on Tuesday night when a bee swarm developing behind the netting on home plate delayed the game.

www.breitbart.com

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

Today is a cloudy, drizzly day... Perfect day after a cutout. The bees will be stuck in that box another day due to weather, and more readily accept it as home. It has a mix of new frames with foundation, and fully drawn frames, so the queen can start laying.
We are about to hit a good black locust flow here, and clover is just starting to blossom... Great time to get them settled in a proper home, not someone else's home.

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

Moved the colony of bees to a new place to re-orient.

We vacuumed 3/4 of the bees out of the house 2 days ago. The other 1/4 would not move to the box with the queen. Probably because we had this little piece of comb still in there with eggs in it.

So we moved the comb, vacuumed the remaining bees, and moved them a few miles away to get settled in their new home. Mind you, this pile of bees, half a 5 gallon bucket, is 1/3 of what was already in the hive box. This was not a swarm, but a full colony that must have absconded.