Working The Bee Colonies

https://bangordailynews.com/2020/04...ged-91-percent-survival-this-winter-heres-why


Good afternoon all,

Per ...

This light reading article tells of author's 91% survival rate. Last year's national average is 61%.

Author's website found at end of article.

 

That certainly is good news. I hope he shares the information, and spreads the wealth. A healthy bee population is critical to all of us.

 

If you have a large garden a hive can be a big plus. They will pollinate your plants and also make honey for you. We always had the Blond Italian bees and they are sweet little creatures that are not a problem to have even near your house. We robbed the hives in T shirts and jeans. They were so gentle and friendly that we never needed a bee suit. You could pop the top off and pull the frames out with only a little smoke to distract them and just shake them off the frames. after we had extracted the honey we would just pop the frames back in and drop the wax and spilled honey on the ground in front of the hive and they would recover it.

We got several hives by going to someone's house that had aswarm they were upset about. You can just gently run your hand up into the swarm and slowly move them into a box. Once you get the queen in the box they will go to her. If you want to get really into it you can make queens and when a hive gets big you can split it up into two or three hives.

 

Good afternoon Morgan and TexDanm,

Appreciated reading posts above.

 

Thanks for the post . I saved it on my favorites . My bees have died after multiple tries at reestablishing my bee yard . I do enjoy working with bees and may try again so the post is something I may want to refer back to in the future .

 

Building a new top bar hive is on the menu next month. Love the bees, just not yellowjackets , wasp or hornets. Essential to the environment, I just prefer them at a distance.

Dale

 

Those of you out there, please speak to the aphid problem. What all I've heard had concerned me deeply. This article makes it sound like there is a very effective treatment to kill these aphid infestations. I did not know that there was such an effective treatment! I'm totally in the dark about this and other folk may also not know about this. Back 20+ years ago (not that long ago), I had a friend who lost the better part of his hives to these dang aphids.

Please enlighten me! If this is true, I'll be mightily relieved.

Another point. Squash have their own bee breed that pollinates them. These bees come out EARLY in the morning. I've seen them. They're cute.

https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/pollinators/pollinator-of-the-month/squash_bees.shtml

https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/squash-bees-in-the-home-garden

 

Just found this. I didn't know about hover flies. Guess I am an idiot.

https://www.honeybeesuite.com/hover-flies-pollinate-flowers-and-eat-aphids/

 

Good morning Old Geezer,

The aplid problem is known.

The overall problem is political. The use of ag chemicals gets priority in the scheme of things.

 

I have worked with honey bees " off and on " throughout most of my adult life but have never considered myself an expert or even close to that . Yesterday my son-in law , daughter , 6 year old grandson and I were privileged to get to tour a apiary in another state where the owner was running 80 something hives . The 6 year old had the job of smoking the bees . We went into many hives looking for queen bees and dug out a few larva as the beekeeper explained how to produce your own queens . Hive treatment for mites was of big interest to me , as from past beekeeping experiences have gotten complete die offs in the winter due " likely " to mites . A very busy day yesterday . --- As of this moment I have one hive and my son-in law 3 hives which is only a few hundred yards apart . All our hives are in the infancy stage and will experience their first winter this year .