Cold wet December

Not much going on at this time of the year.

Sadly lost one of the Boy Scout hives, but the other is strong and will watch it on warm days.

My 4 hives all seem to be ok, even though one is very small and not likely to make it all winter, should have done a combine.

Haven't had any time to pick up the last hive still sitting at Wally's, last he checked it was fine.

Happy New Year and happy beekeeping.

Hives Hives Nucs and more

What a crazy few weeks I have run out of deeps, run out of wax foundation, run out of frames, and yet still more bees are coming out needing new homes. Had to provide brood frames to a few hives to make new queens, Allen's hive lost their queen , one of the Scout Hives lost their queen, pulled a frame for the original trap out, and the new trap out Lol

Helped Wally on a trap out, filled 5 frames in 2 days......

Will deliver a 10 frame box tomorrow to take its place .... Helped on a swarm on a chimney, well in a chimney firstly, then on the chimney a few days later, they refused to leave.

Removed supers full of honey, added supers of new foundation, added super to a 5 frame nuc too (making a 10 frame dble decker) , will have to make another 5 frame super for that nuc hive Back in the shop, I am scrambling, have built another 4 nucs,

2 full hives , tops and bottoms, need 3 more.... I have so much sawdust that I have had to clean up, and get a dust system ,but building my own to save money.

A very busy Bee Season

So far I have pulled three supers of honey, added a total of 6 supers to my hives, built 3x new hives, added two NUC's to the Apiary, and one hive of Trap out bees from the Ballinger Academy. The trapout is not finished and the capture box is again being worked by the bees , need to add another frame of brood to it.

The Scout hives are both working well, and we should see good growth soon from the 10 frame hive. The pkg we installed last weekend , so will take a bit longer.

Pics soon

April , booming begining.

The spring has been a boomer of a season, the mild winter moved right on into an Indian summer, temps in 70's and 80's mid March, and plenty of pollen and nectar. All hives have been growing, but last weekend when deciding to do a split we discovered a queenless hive, one of my Waynes bee hives had no new brood or eggs and a capped queen cell. Either they swarmed, or we damaged her on our last inspection. No matter, the bees are still working the hive well, and soon there will be a new queen. All hives already have a new super on. I also have a nuc on order for the 14th.

The first attrition

Well my original hive that took the late season mite hit, has not made it. On 28th Janauary, almost exactly a year after I first wrangled live bees with Rob and Wally, I noticed clear robbing signs at the #1 hive, opened it up and found a few bees frozen in a very small cluster of only about 6", food both sides of them , so the mites just hammered them too hard, and maybe the queen also failed late season..... Never checked for brood late season. She would have been at least two years old according to Marc. LIVE AND LEARN. The other hives are working well, good pollen going in and a gallon jar feeder in the yard is being cleaned outi every 3 days. Did one fumigdalin treatment as well, just to be sure. Was hoping to be able to open the hives today before the cold snap (20 expected Sunday morning) but too cold and windy, only 52 with wind, so left them alone. Will clean up the dead out tomorrow too, as it was raining last weekend and away all week. Hive #3 is strong so will make a split when it warms up. Might get a pkg too as Larry Tate has some left. Will add some pics soon.

Winter tasks

So with a rainy cold day, I retired to my woodwork shop , to mess with some bee hive stuff.
I made and nailed up 10 Medium Frames for the Boy Scout Project

Frames

Then I started to build 4x Med Supers for my hives, I cut the boards to length

First step cut to depth of a board

Setting the blade to the height Aligning the Tenon jig The final product

of one boardNow we cut off the unwasnted part of the tennon checking the depth of the cut

Getting ready to trip the tennon

Rabbit cut on both ends

Cutting the frame rest 3/8 rabbit



The final dimensional cutting done


Next the cove handholds, this is a 15 deg jig that slides into a dado blade, the board being cut is inserted face (outside) down, an the top is also DOWN.





Cut board folded over a clean cut with 4 deg undercut as well as blade is at 19 dg

New Year

Well my first year of bees faded away, and I have learned a lot, but have so much more to learn.

So far the bees have done fine, with such a light winter, and they have worked many days, in fact even saw pollen last week. All the hives seem to have good stores ( heave test)

On Dec 31st, witha temperature of 63 deg f, I have a video of new bees taking an exploratory flight, a first I thought it might be robbing, but nope, and within 10 minutes they had gone back inside.

I am also open feeding in the bee yard, 2:1 syrup with splash of Honey B Healthy. Works very well from a 1 gallon pickle jar , raised on two pieces of wood.

If the weather stays so warm, then mid Jan, I will be adding pollen substitute, and brewers yeast.