Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Question for beekeepers

some of the bee Keepers here rent their hives to citrus grower etc.

I would suggest going on beesource.com. They have a very active forum that has backyarders, sideliners, as well as commercial.

As far as mites, I've had good success with formic acid (MAQS). You have to be careful of temps, though. I also treat with oxalic in the winter when they are broodless. There are other treatments as well. Stay away form the touchy-feely treatments. Use something that's proven effective. Focus on keeping them alive the first couple of years. After that you can start playig with things. Mites, starvation, and moisture.

Check with clubs in the area. All beekeeping is local.

Thanks Steve.

When I get bees again next year I may have to refer back to this.

The mostly dead package I got a few weeks back is completely gone. Looked in the box a week ago and not one bee left. No capped cells started, they just drew out a few and had some with a bit of pollen. I'm guessing the queen died shortly after arrival here.

Learned a lesson. Going to order early and local.............and probably drive over and pick them up myself.

Good luck to all the other new beekeepers.

Steve, thanks for the suggestions. Because of the virus, the local bee clubs have not been meeting, however they are suppose/trying to start having meetings again around the middle of July.

I've read about MAQS and the temp thing is what has got me worried about it. This time of the year, 90+ temps are common. We've already had some upper 90 degree days. Since I dont have any honey supers on the hives, I was leaning toward Apiguard or Apivar. Have you used either of these? Hopefully by the time fall arrives, I'll be able to use the oxalic over the winter. I know there is a couple of ways to use it, and the fogger sounds very easy..... but costly.

Valsdad, hate to hear about you losing the hive. My first try at bees was a failure, also.

That sucks Geno. Sorry.

Oldman,

Not my first try, had a hive 25 years or so ago. Biggest problem I had with that one was a bear getting in it!

Moving something over 12 times since then until we got this place was not conducive to beekeeping. Still just a novice as back then I had never heard of colony collapse and a few other things. Our big town, 2 hrs away has a club, I'll be joining before ordering season so I can get info for next year. A bit different than down your way, up here the problem is keeping the girls warm enough in winter.

The Corona and it's impact on the USPS coupled with us getting a late start at finding bees turned into the worst case scenario I believe.

We'll try again, as that's what we do, right?

The local club has been pretty good for getting info/answering questions and putting out notices on used equipment. We were able to meet at a experienced beekeepers farm and observer a few inspections the past few months.

Yesterday was a beautiful warm day and both hives were really active. Did an inspection on first hive and they are starting to branch into new frames. Guessing I'll have to put the 2nd brood box on in 2-3 weeks.

Installed a Lyson top feeder on each hive too. They are Langstroth hive boxes but they seem to fit well. Shouldn't have to refill until this weekend.

We dont have that problem and I'm glad of it. Although I would like to see a wild bear, one of these days.





I had to look up what a Lyson feeder is.... shows how green I am. I can see where that large of a feeder can really be handy. My bees are still in 1 large super. I put an inner cover on top of it, placed a Boardman feeder with a qt. jar on the inner cover, put on an empty large super and outer cover. Right now both hives are using about a pint per day, so I have to replenish the feed every other day.

Wierd thing is that the bears each the larva, and leave most of the honey... We only had one incident with bears when we moved hives to the southern tier of NY where they exist.

My dad had a thriving bee keeping business for years before South American honey showed up and sunk the market place.
It’s how we spent our summer weekends traveling to the places (typically in brush rows) where our Colony’s were, I’d mow the lawn (they love that), and we’d check the health of the hives and put supers (smaller frame holders vs. hive bodies which are the 2 bottom big frame holders they keep for the winter). IIRC we had a special screen between the hive body’s and the supers so the queen couldn’t lay eggs up there.

Ah so many memories, and bee stings.

We’d fill a garage with supers in the fall and fill 50+ or so 5 gallon Cans with honey... Dad used the hot knife to remove the comb wax capping, and I’d run them in the extractor.

Cover honey in the spring, buckwheat honey in the fall, and we’d haul hives around to pollenize orchards for people every year.

Oldman3 - don't feel bad, its my first year doing this too and I'm still learning. I read a lot and watched a lot of YouTube videos over winter.

Temp management wise -

In the summer we flipped the top cover of the hive so that a slit was across the top for ventalation (the top is plywood, with 3/8” boarder except for the front.
when it is in the 90’s bees would be at the top and bottom and fanning thier wings to help air flow through the hive.
We also painted our hives with aluminum paint to reflect the sunlight and help keep them cool, in the winter we’d put boards with small entry cuts in them at the bottom hive entrance to help keep cold air out.

Skunks - have you guys run into the grass being pulled away from the bottom of the hive ?
That’s what it looks like when a skunk goes to the hive at night and rolls the bees around in the grass to get them to sting, and then he eats them.

I take my last post back then.

And yes, the top feeder is safer. But sometimes an entrance feeder makes sense..




Geno! One thing I have learned is that it's best to have more than one hive. That gives you a resource for rescuing a troubled hive.

Well, my buddy I'm starting up with got a package just like mine. His wife ordered them together for us. He kept 11 hives or so when they lived over in the bee area. Retired up here a year or two back and is just getting started again.

He got lucky, somewhat. His neighbor lent him a frame of brood to try to help his get fired up. Not sure, but he doesn't think it's going to help much.

We have an ad in the local paper for folks to call us if they want a swarm removed. Figured why not, as we have boxes and the clothes and smarts to do that. Maybe we get lucky yet and have a colony or two to overwinter for next spring's flow?

As I think I mentioned, neither of us has ever tried bees in this climate. But, we're both retired and can always use another project, eh?

We plan to help each other out with bees, queens, etc if needed in the future.

Geno, I can imagine it's good to have someone close by that can help ya, especially if they know what they're doing. As far as I know, no one in my community has bees, except me. One fellow told me he tried some a few years ago, but they didn't make it and he's not tried anymore. I hope that bee club out of West Monroe gets to start up their meetings next month.