How are your honey bees?

[davesl708]

My neighbor has bee hives. Has lost two hives in four years. Trying again. He thinks it is the pesticides used in the area.
Maybe the third time is a charm.

 

[NorTracNY]

Around here 20% losses are considered major successes. The winter of 2013-14 was about 50% loss with many people reporting close to 100%. The preliminary numbers for 2014-15 are 30% which is closer to normal since varroa mites appeared on scene.

 

[troutsqueezer]

If there is a nectar flow going on, the bees will ignore your sugar water and go for the real thing. Also, bees concentrate on one type of plant at a time. Whatever flower is producing will get the attention to the exclusion of others. Attention to a particular nectar source may vary from hive to hive.

 

[randy41]

i lost 50% of my hives...which is 1 out of 2. its not only honey bees but other pollinators as well that are in short supply.

 

[dave1949]

I see these quite often although never in great numbers:

The Xerces Society » Bumble bees: rusty patched bumble bee (Bombus affinis)

 

[AndyBees]

I live in southeast Kentucky. I've kept bees off and on since 1975. After being "off" for about 10 years, in 2003, I ordered two colonies from the Kelley Bee Supply Company here in Kentucky to get started again (the bees actually come from Georgia). So, over the next five years, I worked with them and expanded my apiary to 11 colonies. In 2008, when I retired, it was my intent to get deeply involved with beekeeping.

Well, as luck would have it, life hand us a number of challenges beginning in 2009 that put beekeeping on hold until this day.

So, my 11 hives have "swarmed" (reproduced) and went to the wild numerous times over the last 7 spring/summers! Also, without attention, the colonies have died out to the point there are only two colonies left.

The good is, as stated above, numerous swarms went to the wild.

There are several beekeeper clubs/societies in the surrounding area. I try to attend at least one meeting per year to stay abreast of the latest in beekeeping, particularly dealing with diseases!

 

[mark02tj]

This is my third season for keeping bees. So far, I've only harvested about a pint of honey so it's an expensive hobby! The first year, I bought one "package" and one "nuc" for a total of two hives. All of that came from Georgia. Both hives died - one of them within a few months.

Last year I bought two nucs from a local beekeeper. He breeds them himself. They survived/thrived and made it through the winter until our last cold snap in late February / early March. One of them died then. It was from starvation. They didn't have enough put away for the winter and it was too cold for me to open the hive to feed them right before that last snap. I was able to feed them in late January / early February and that helped. When I opened the dead hive I found no sealed comb and many bees had died headfirst burrowing into the cells. That is a classic sign of starvation.

Anticipating that I'd probably lose both hives this year, I ordered two more packages (again from GA) for this spring. Since one hive survived, I now have three hives going. They all seem to be super active right now. I need to open the hives this week and probably put some more frames in the hive bodies. My plan is that I'm going to replace the queens in the hives later this summer. I'm going to buy queens from the local beekeeper again since he seems to have some hearty stock for our winters up here. If I replace the queens sometime in early August my thought is that a majority of the bees in the hive will be from this (hopefully) heartier stock going into the winter. When I re-queen the hives I'm planning on actually splitting the hive into a few new boxes and we'll see if I can go into next spring with 6 hives going!!

My biggest problem (aside from not knowing what the heck I'm doing!) is that our property is mostly woods/brush and we're surrounded by a lot of corn and bean fields which really aren't good for the bees. I'm moving one of my hives to my niece's property to see how it does there. She's on about an acre and, while she's rural, has a couple of residential neighborhoods within about a half mile of her. I'm hoping that the proximity to more gardens, flowers, etc. will be good for the bees. Plus, she has a large horse pasture right behind her. Not nearly as much "real ag" around her as there is around me.

I quit spraying my yard the year before I got bees so it's full of dandelions and quite a bit of clover. I'm trying to do what I can to encourage those little flyers to stay around here and pollinate to their hearts' content!

 

[CobyRupert]

As goes the bees, so goes the planet.
Be sure, there are those who would point to the canary in the coal mine and say "Naw, don't worry about him, he's just sleeping" Now pass me the round-up.

 

[davesl708]

My neighbor lost his hive last year. New bees this year. Hope they fare better. The have is surrounded by trees. Not much open area. They come to my yard for water and flowers.

 

[Ted Summey]

I've started two hives from nucs this spring. Both seem to be doing quite well. A handful of things seem to combine to cause most losses of hives here. Starvation, mites, cold, moisture, indiscriminate use of pesticides and overcrowding. That's according to my beekeeping mentor who has been keeping bees continuously since the 1960s.