Warm Day on 1-30-2011

It was in the 50's for the past two days and bee flight on both days from ALL hives, on Saturday i checked every hive and added a sugar pattie to one nuc and a pollen pattie to the garden hive and on another nuc. The Garden hive by far is eating the most pollen pattie. Most are not even touching it, but its there if they want it... i also had changed my recipe a bit to add canola oil, boy does it work. keeps the pattie soft even after 2 weeks in the fridge or outside in a hive. Something to remember...

As a side note out of dad's 4 hives 2 are eating up the sugar patties very quickly. A pound about every two weeks atleast. He placed 3 lbs per hives on them yesterday... I believe these 2 hives are just "high up" in the hive as they are very heavy with honey sarting out and still are veyr heavy lifting it, id say around 80-90 pounds!!! They had 2 mediums of capped honey going into winter plus some around them in the bottom. But again i think the cluster has just decided to live high and thus running the chance and instinct that they are close to starving, which they could do if they dont go back down without feeding...

Anyway, here are a few pics of the garden hive to show how much they have eaten and how quickly they work the patties.

Mega Bee Patties being consumed BELOW Freezing!!!

I wanted to show you pictures of the Garden hive consuming the Mega Bee Patties with temps BELOW freezing!!! So far its been exactly one week since i placed the patties on the hives. At this rate i would expect a 1/2 of patties to be consumed about every 3 weeks or so and maybe quicker once brood rearing really ramps up. Remember the worst thing you can do if you feed is under supply them, once you start feeding them they will expect and make plans based on the feed being available. So keep an eye on it and its better to have too much on the hive than not enough and they run short...

Hives after a 50 deg F. day

Took a few pictures after a 50 deg day, i expect the temps at the time of the pics was about 40 or so. All the hives are still "heavy" and living with little if any moisture. You will notice i have added Mega bee patties i made to stimulate brood rearing prior to the Maple and Elm Bloom, if you start this you have to continue to feed both sugar and mega bee or else the hive will starve.The Mega Bee patties i made consisted of the typical mega bee recipe plus honey bee healthy, canola oil, Latshaw's mineral and vit suppliment, and raw pollen. This mixture is something i wont be using going foward since make my own patties is time consuming etc. I do like the improved patties i make, but with the thought of 50-100 hives i dont have the time, so i will be buying the commerical Mega Bee Patties from Dadant instead this year, i do recommend the small beekeper if they want to make their own... The other thing you will notice is one hive has large droplets of water on TOP of the inner cover, this is of no concern as the bees are not exposed to it etc, but i wanted to mention it here so you know.

For some reason i cant "post" a comment, i have noticed this on other blogs as well... anyway, i wanted to reply to Sunman's question. First let me say i have stopped making my own patties, far too messy and time consuming with my ever expanding yard (21 now, 31 in a week...). So i went back to premade patties, Mann Lakes right now as they were the cheapest with free shipping. The bees seem to consume them just as fast...

The carnola oil was something Randy Oliver mentioned at the VA State Fall meeting that he adds to increase the essential aminno acids, cant remember which. What i also found was that it stopped my patties from turning rock hard and they stayed nice and moist. A huge plus when making your own, if nothing else i would do it for this reason! if i remember correctly i used about a 1/2 cup for about 15lbs of final patties... but its not exact just add or delete to find your consistancy just like you have to do with the pattie mix itself...

The Latshaw min&vit sub as something i bought to try. I am a person that doesnt mind spending a little if it does help, Joe and his father are well educated scientist so i trust them over others, but i dont know if it works. Can you really tell anything really works with bees??? most of the things i do have no evidence etc... Since this 5lb bag does a true Ton of patties i usally just take a little scoop and mix it in. I know its overkill, but i cant measure out grams etc to break that bag down into my small portions...

BTW i doubt the bees will use a pollen pattie right now, i placed some on a few hives on sunday, but thats only for insurence purposes incase we get another week of ran and cool weather... but they dont eat much of it during the spring here in VA, the real purpose for me is the first of july to keep brood rearing up and healthy. eventually by august they are eating a pound per hive per week up until about Nov....

New Breeder Found for Hard To Find Bee Lines!!!!!!

I have found a new breeder of what i call hard to find Queen Lines http://www.russellapiaries.webs.com/ while browsing Bee-source. I do not know their reputation etc so purchase at your own risk. However, based solely on their website etc i feel comfortable enough where i might purchase a few AMM (the ole German black bee...) to try. However, the AMM's have their own set of "issues" and i will need to keep them away (about 5-10 miles) from my home "typical" bee yard to avoid cross breeding and any issues until i understand them personally.

Since most of you are just getting started this year, i would recommend sticking with the typical gentle proven performance of a Minnesota Hygienic, VSH, Italian, or Carnolian line of bees for at-least your first year. Then if you decide to "play" a little then you can venture into the "other" strains if you want until you find YOUR perfect bee line.

The reason i suggest this is your mentor and or people your talking with very well may not be familiar with the "specifics" of your strain and this could make it difficult for you to understand whats going on and how to successfully manage your hive. So stick with whats known first...

I hope this makes sense.

However, if you have already have bees and want to expand your genetic pool this could be another source. Do your research and make sure its right for you.

http://www.russellapiaries.webs.com/

Websites and Queen Sources

I get asked what websites i like and which queen breeders i use all the time. Here is a quick list of both and by all means let me know if you like others etc so i can add them for others to see or buy from...

Heater bees: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZEoAMfRICM

Swarms: http://www.sciencefriday.com/videos/series/5/ 

Here is a list of websites I follow and trust

http://buffalobeefarm.blogspot.com/  Doug Ladd's Blog

http://beenatural.wordpress.com/ Dennis Murrell

http://www.scientificbeekeeping.com/  Randy Oliver

http://www.bushfarms.com/bees.htm Michael Bush

http://www.honeybeeworld.com/  Allen Dick (check his diary)

http://aspenhoneybees.blogspot.com/ Local member of the Farmville club

http://beekeeping.varinagardens.com/ Local member of the East Richmond Club

http://www.thehoneygatherers.com/html/photolibrary1.html Great Pictures of bees around the world

http://anarchyapiaries.org/hivetools/ Good site

http://www.sustainablebees.org/index.htm N. VA website

http://community.lsoft.com/scripts/wa-LSOFTDONATIONS.exe?A0=BEE-L Bee List email server

Here is a list of Queen breeders I have used, am using this year, or would use maybe next year for diversity:

Have bought:

http://www.hunterapiaries.com/   

http://www.carneyqueens.com/

http://www.ziaqueenbees.com/  

http://www.honeyrustler.com/welcome.html  

Bobby Oakes from the HOVA club RICE, VA (VSH queens) contact me for info...

Am buying this year:

http://www.vpqueenbees.com/  

http://russianbreeder.com/  
http://russellapiaries.webs.com/ 

Would Buy or Plan on Buying another year:   

http://www.mrksbees.net/mrksbees01-changes_002.htm  

http://www.bjornapiaries.com/  

http://www.glenn-apiaries.com/

Just some warm weather thoughts... thinking about spring

People often talk about an easier way to feed. Well open feeding gets brought up, alot of the "Big Guys" use 55 gallon drums. Is it the best way, maybe not. But it is sure quick, easy, and awesome to watch.

I use it as a bump along feed method after the nectar flow and before serious individual fall feeding, or to make sure the hives stay "topped off" just prior to winter.

You need to make sure there is something the bees can sit on as not to drown. Packing peanuts are always mentioned but i am cheap, so i stuff tons of brush limbs in my bucket instead...

A few words of advice is place it about 100 yards or so away from your hives if possible and never have a walking path between the pail and hives as a huge super bee highway will be created...

Living bees and Cluster Size

After this weekend i got a few emails regarding some very small cluster and many dead bees on the bottom boards or out front. My comment in a nut shell, if they are still living leave them, some bees over winter in really small clusters (Russians are a prime example). My bees were very activly flying and so far i still have 100% of my hives living and activly cleaning the hives on the warm days. I see no room for worry and am very pleased after this weekend, IF i make it thorugh this witner with zero losses it will be 2 solid winters with ZERO losses, i must be hearing my bees right or maybe i am just lucky.... you never know with bees. LOL

Anyway, here is a picture of my typical cluster size it seems, but thats only a guess really. You can see about 3 solid frames of bees in the picture but the cluster is actually about 5 frames... This is a VSH line of bees with some dark and some yellow bees...

None of this really means anything at all, but it is neat to see with the plexi covers...

New Years Day 2011

Well after i awoke i decided to go take a quick look before the bees got to their cleansing flights. So these are pictures of multiple hives around my yards to check for mositure.

New Years Eve Moisture

Well i got home form hunting on Friday Night and decided to take a look at my garden hive since we had such warm weather and see what level of moisture i had, i expected some to be honest and thats just what i saw... some... not much.