The Treatment-Free Beekeepers' Forum

lharder

I'm very happy. I'm itching for some good weather to dig into them a bit. Food store situations can change quickly. Also waiting for the ground to firm up so I can drive in and clean up some of the deadouts. Maybe this week? Lousy weather on the horizon.

lharder

So I believe my numbers are 44 (I forgot to include another 4 for 4 early nucs at another location) compared to 35 last year. This in spite of drought, skunks and bears and selling 7 nucs.

lharder

After a long time I thought I would post and update. This is essentially a duplicate of my post on beesource First the bad news. Late nucs I started in August were a disaster. 5 of 17. They were under alot of robbing pressure during a severe drought. The middling nucs were devastated by skunks at on...

lharder

One of the advantages of a 5 over 5 is that that you can put them side by side and they can share each others heat. Also one can add smaller bits of new space to new colonies starting out.

As a minimum I winter nucs in groups of 2 side by side.

lharder

I just talked to a a beekeeper I sold a nuc too and a couple of queens to. We had a very dry summer so I told him that he should feed at the beginning of August as he had to get some comb built. I had another look at the beginning of September and his hives had made no progress. He began feeding wit...

lharder

The one had some capped honey when I started them. The other had very little and has begun to store a bit. I was trying to simulate a flow by feeding but that didn't seem to work. We do seem to have a pretty good flow now so we will see. I just don't know what to do if they don't have any comb goin...

lharder

Welcome.

Investment in a table saw would allow you to make much of your own equipment reducing costs and would be handy for other projects. I use lots of scrap wood.

I use all mediums and allows maximum flexibility. Really useful with only a few hives.

lharder

Are they storing any honey on the comb they have? If not maybe the flow rate needs to be improved till you see a little stored and they feel like they have some excess to make a little comb. My nucs seem to make comb with little hesitation as soon as there is some flow. I run all mediums. I start sm...

lharder

Likely not enough though. I would feed and make sure they are up to weight. I monitor the weight quite closely and do not wait for the fall flow. If you wait too long you will run out of good weather to feed.

lharder

I've had my first bear incidents this year. One was in an urban setting where I had placed 6 nucs. A bear got into 2 of them. I moved them the next day, lost one queen. The second was at a country location. A large bear got in and ate 2 (maybe 3) hives. I haven't gotten into the 3rd one yet to see i...

lharder

Depends on the nucs, how old the nucs are and the year. Have had some that had lots of honey going into fall. Others I have fed. This year is really dry and I will feed almost all of them. The big hives have enough food on them that I will be able to put into winter configuration with enough food fo...

lharder

All my frames are 1 1/4 medium. I use the same frames in the honey supers but space them out so there is 7 in a 8 frame box etc. I can take an extracted honey frame and shove them together to reestablish the 1 1/4 spacing. The wax is soft and the bees can rework it to get their spacing back in a bro...

lharder

My home made 1 1/4 frames have top bars of 3/4 inch. The bees fill out with comb and make the bee space they want.

In the brood nest they maintain the 1 1/4 spacing. I use plastic frames to keep things under control where they are storing honey.

lharder

Good to see some of your queens available Michael.

lharder

The hive has issues of some sort. I might just let them go.

lharder

It sort of depends on where you got your bees from. You could have problems if your bees have no TF pedigree. In that case getting nucs going with queens purchased from either TF keepers with some history, or a breeding program that takes mites seriously may be a good thing. But you are late. The la...

lharder

Sounds good Greg

I haven't chased any swarms for a couple of years, but they are sure handy for resources to build up initially.

lharder

Anyway, I arrived and the entire front of the hive was covered with bees. Lots of honey not all capped in the top 3 boxes. I added another 2 boxes. Hopefully they get back to work. I getting kind of desperate having enough space left for the queen to lay because of all the honey. never saw a storin...

lharder

So I visited my mentee and delivered a couple of queens for a side by side nuc set up. I have a 2 queen set up, side by side in a square dadant setup, all medium boxes. Bottom 2 layers have 6 frame boxes, then excluders, then 12 frame boxes. I had 3 of them, for a total of 5 medium boxes of square d...

lharder

Before the heat spell ( 35°C-40°C ) the last week I harvested some surplus out of 9 combs to make some place for laying. I left two combs of capped honey at least on both sides for insulation. Next week there should be nice weather to check. I was not opening because I did not want to disturb the b...

lharder

So I took a few boxes off that monster setup. Not all capped so I just gave some boxes to other hives. Took a couple boxes home. Should have some capped cells to place soon. In other news, of 16 queen cells I placed June 6th, 14 have queens, 13 laying, one looks about to lay. Really pleased with the...

lharder

I was going to replace a queen of a hive that was having trouble with chalkbrood. I opened them up and the pile of mummies on the bottom board was gone. They just may be getting it under control after a supercedure last year. They overwintered in a tiny cluster and are now in 5 boxes. Spotted the qu...

lharder

I've never experienced anything quite like it. There must be a solid 120 pounds fo capped honey on it. Alfalfa is just starting to bloom, and if last year was any indication, July and half of August is a honey flow. I might get another 120 pounds from that hive. A few other hives there need some mor...

lharder

I put a snelgrove board on one of my more promising first year hives. I gave the queen 2 boxes of empty freshly extracted comb, had 2 boxes of brood above the snelgrove board, and had 6 boxes of honey between them (8 frame boxes) for a montrous hive 10 medium boxes high. My leaning tower of pisa. I ...

lharder

I've had that happen. Getting better with more attention to detail as I do my manipulations. The worse is when you have to do things in a hurry and some steps have to be missed. The risk of transferring the queen when you don't want to is great. I won't do this with an important queen.

lharder

So a small update. From the 35 hives I had coming out of spring, I have sold 7 nucs, and have about 40 nucs that are coming online with queens that are just beginning to lay or have queen cells. I expect to place another 15 or so cells next week. That spring queen rearing poses problems with poor we...

lharder

I've noticed a substantial shift in the 3 years I have been bee keeping and raising mostly my own queens. On the productive robust side of things I've seen a real upside. Just the energy of some of the bees has gone up substantially. On the other side, I have one hive on the edge of mean. They don't...

lharder

Sold a couple more nucs. A more experienced bee keeper dipping his toe into the TF game. He was very happy with what he saw. Nice queen, 6 frames with brood, an excellent laying pattern, they had already built 2 beautiful frames of foundationless comb laid up with some open brood. He was well prepar...

lharder

Sold a couple more, will have a couple more sold on Saturday. New owners are very happy with them. As a little bonus, they have already drawn a full frame of foundationless worker comb filled with eggs and young larvae. A beautiful sight to see.

lharder

So I had a minor milestone. I sold my first 3 nucs queened by daughters of my most successful colonies.

lharder

Nice work Nordak!

Looks promising.

lharder

Yes, I had 4 of them. 2 survived their 2nd winter, but the line kind of dwindled after that. But the genetics is still in my yard and I have some strong grand daughters from them. I don't regret getting them. Its a program that takes mites seriously and I may get more once I get a better handle on w...

lharder

Could it be supercedure?

In that case I've seen a queen and her daughter in the same hive.

lharder

So I went out to my Heffley site. I have a few mating nucs set up there. Queens are about to start laying so went through them. 4 were trying to raise their own queens so I removed them combined the nurse bees and remaining brood at one mating nuc site. Instant cell builder. I gave them a frame with...

lharder

That's not a good sight to see. We poison everything around us and ourselves. One of the reasons I've gone TF.

lharder

Yes nucs are totally useful. My first spring nucs are just coming on line. I haven't seen eggs yet, but any day now. I saw a young queen running around in what I thought was a failure. I was going to use them for a cell builder, but was totally thwarted by queen rightness. I'm sure at least one will...

lharder

I think that is when you go looking for queens, any queens, not just one but a couple for a couple of nucs. Keep the bees going until you get the queens you want. With just one package I think you need to get them as backup. I'm in a real good location for queen rearing. I'm in a rain shadow. From h...

lharder

I have 23 mating nucs that I am waiting for laying queens. The question is with the not great weather, how many queen cells made it and how many will be successful with mating flights. I've checked 2 so far. Both had queens emerge, saw one virgin. We are getting decent queen flying weather just in t...

lharder

So I just had my little apiary inspected. My bees are looking pretty good according to the inspector, and I have an official permit to sell bees. We did some mite counts and they were pretty good. I had a strong overwintered nuc with 0.67 % (just added a 5th medium box) Another boomer had 2.5 so som...

lharder

I think it is time for an update because I could not post anything since February, when I stated my hive count as 4. But one of nucs lost its queen at the beginning of March so I went into spring with 3. When I gave a frame of brood to this queenless nuc I was worried because March is seen to early...

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