Out and About

I put some home made Honey bee healthy in last week to spur some laying activity and it must be working, hive is really out and about and busy, course the weather here is amazing this week so that may be playing a larger part in it than anything else.

Going to pick up the russians on saturday and weather again looks to be awesome, so everything should go well and thier first day should be nice as well for orientation flights etc. Just havent decided if I am going to put them in the new TBH or the other LH that I have sitting there. Decisions decisions...

March 2010

Have now started to build a top bar hive (one from Michael Bush's page) everything has been going well, girls look good and we are awaiting the arrival of our russians in april.

Weather has been quite well and they are bringing in lots of pollen, rain is forecast for the next couple days, but then nice temp and sun for the rest of the week, so they can get at it again. My son and I are also going to attempt to aquire some bees from my uncles farm as he has a bee tree there, so we are getting some swarms boxes ready and are going to place them near the tree and see if we have any luck.

All for today...

New Year

Well a new season has begun...

the weather was warm today, bout 55 degrees or so and the girls were a flying alot. i lost alpha to starvation, hive was literally empty and the cells had butts sticking up out of them, so it was starvation as near as I can tell. bravo on the other hand is going like gang busters! I mean boiling out of the entrance today and bringing bucket loads of pollen as well, though I dont know from where or what kind it is. I looked around the area and I see nothing blooming to speak of.

I have new bees coming in April (Russian hybrids) for alpha and my son and I are going to try our hand at breeding some of our own queens. Specifically out of Bravo since it did so well over the winter.

well guess thats it for now, will post some pics soon.

8.30.09

Sunny

temp 75 and breezy

Did a complete inspection of both hives today and was pleased at what we saw, Alpha as always is looking good, they built a lot of drone comb on the bottom of a a couple of frames, and this made it a little hard to remove some of the frames. Checked some of the drone brood still in comb and saw zero mites, which is great.

Also saw a lot of capped honey for winter stores, always nice and took some photos as well.

Bravo is a bit puzzling though, frames nearly full on bottom box, but little done in top box. they are building, and queen laying like crazy in bottom, but nothing in top box at all. even some capped honey in bottom box. I need to move them into a 10 frame deep very soon.

i also took some photos of bravo as well.

8.13.09

Both hives are doing fine. Alpha my first and my 10 frame hive is doing fantastic, started feeding them earlier in the month of July and they are really filling frames for the winter now. Bravo my small 5 frame nuc is also doing very well and building up quick. Weather has finally took a turn for the better and I beleive that nectar is now more readily available. I am very happy with the way things are looking now, outlook for the winter is much better.

I really cant believe how much I enjoy watching them every day. My son and myself sit out near the hives and just watch the action, and on my days off i get up early and go out and watch them (they are really active then).

8.1.09

Been checking food stores and after having several conversations with the local beeks, I decided to start feeding now, since all the rain that we have been having has cut the nectar flow to next to nothing.

Started feeding 2:1 now as the food stores they have are very little and am worried that there wont be enough to last them the winter. We have had rain and cloudy weather throughout the month of July (something like 20 days of rain and only 3 full days of sunlight the entire month)

will continue to feed until late september

7.12.09

temp:85 sunny and clear

heat index 85

We moved the bees from the nuc to the 10 frame deep (2) , lit the smoker up just in case but never needed to smoke them. Went very well moving them, saw the queen and plenty of brood and some honey as well.

All in all was a very easy move as always some pics are included as well.

Also thanks to my brave wife who took the photos.