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Post by heavyhitterokra on Apr 22, 2020 10:47:35 GMT -6
New Colony Day 2. I was too busy to write yesterday, due to cleaning out an old top bar beehive and installing a swarm of bees that George and I caught over at his place.
It looks like the new swarm is happily taking up residence in my top bar beehive. They've only been in place for about 18 hours. This photo was taken at about 8:00 am this morning. It looks like they are taking a liking to their new environs.I opened the front door of the top bar beehive this morning and removed all the debris from the fencing and tree sprouts that we had to cut loose in order to catch the swarm. They didn't seem to mind me having my hands in there with them at all. I expect by tomorrow they'll be 'chaining' and preparing to start building their first new comb. New residents are amazing to watch, as they have no brood to protect yet and are incredibly docile.
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Post by mountianj on Apr 22, 2020 20:37:37 GMT -6
looking good ron.i plan on gettin couple packages start up some more hives hopefully.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Apr 25, 2020 10:23:43 GMT -6
Day 4.
I checked on the swarm again this morning while it was still cool outside. They are all still in there, happily making comb. I have the entrance closed down to where only two bees can pass side by side. I did that to prevent robbing. They seem to be thriving with that arrangement. Though I see robber bees crawling along the outside, looking for the entrance that is hidden from them, I see no sign of fighting; so that means the swarm is safe for now.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Apr 30, 2020 23:15:08 GMT -6
Day 10.
The swarm is steadily building comb. They still completely cover their work, but you can tell by the size change of the swarm mass, that the comb is growing larger each day. They are slowly spreading across the top bars as they go along building the comb out longer. They have moved downward a full inch since the last time I took a picture of their progress.
I took another photo today. They are good-natured bees. I sure enjoy hearing them hum away inside there each day.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on May 12, 2020 15:30:36 GMT -6
Day 21.
Despite the almost constant rainy, cold, and unfavorable conditions of late, the swarm of bees that I introduced to my top bar beehive on April 21st, 2020, are still fairing well and seem to be very content to have their picture taken. I love to watch them as they work tirelessly, fleshing out their new comb. The entrance is alive with foraging bees bringing in heavy loads of pollen, to feed the hungry crowd inside. Today, is the 21st day in this new location. I already see the makings of six or seven bars of new comb inside the cluster of busy bees. Their progress always impresses me. I don't think anything is as delicate, white, and pure, as newly formed honeycomb. The camera just doesn't do it justice.
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Post by macmex on May 13, 2020 6:17:42 GMT -6
When the weather finally clears there should be a blast of nectar and they'll really take off!
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Post by heavyhitterokra on May 13, 2020 20:03:27 GMT -6
The swarm bees are definitely my most active hive right now. I think the rest of the bees have been laying back on the cold, rainy days and living off their honey stores.
Yesterday, when it was so cool, I went out to my hives, and other than the new bees, I never saw more than two bees at a time in the air near the entrance of the other two hives.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Apr 10, 2021 13:17:55 GMT -6
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Post by chrysanthemum on Apr 11, 2021 14:08:01 GMT -6
I just found this thread even though it started a couple of years ago and read through it all. The mention of stings reminded me of a couple of things. My mother raised honeybees when I was in my middle and high school years, I think. She once got stung on the tip of her nose when an angry bee got through her veil. It was a Saturday afternoon. Her face swelled up overnight, and the next day we went to church as usual. Before the service, one of the deacons who was acting as a greeter came up and introduced himself to her because he didn’t recognize her at all, though they had been friends for well over a decade. I still remember how flabbergasted he was when she introduced herself right back. The mention of bee sting therapies also reminded me of the some history I have read about one of the peppers I grow, the fish pepper. It’s a neat seed saving story. I think I’ll see if I can get some photos and put up a thread for the pepper in the appropriate spot, but here’s a link about the bee sting connection. smithsoniangardens.wordpress.com/2012/06/22/william-woys-weaver-trading-bees-for-seeds/
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Apr 12, 2021 15:24:37 GMT -6
chrysanthemum,
That was a very interesting link. Thanks, for posting that. I enjoyed reading the article as well as reading the Fish Pepper post in the Pepper category.
The mention of 'Secret ingredient in fish and shellfish cookery' reminded me of some of the wonderful crawdad boils we enjoyed during my wife's 6 month internship at Tulane Children's Hospital, in New Orleans.
Crawfish were plentiful there and could be purchased at Walmart for .99 cents per pound. We'd take them home, boil them with new red potatoes, and corn on the cob, seasoned with the local, prepackaged 'Crab Boil Mix' that was so hot with red pepper that you could hardly stand to eat it, but it was so good that you couldn't stop trying to eat it. Great memories!
We'd invite friends over, cook up a big aluminum pot of this on a Saturday afternoon, spread a large piece of Visqueen on the floor of our dormitory room, and ladle out the contents of the pot onto the Visqueen. Everyone would sit in the floor and eat crawdads, new potatoes, and corn on the cob until we were so full we could hardly move. It was a good way for us 'poor, starving, interns' to enjoy a hardy meal together for a very affordable price. The same dish in a restaurant would have cost us nearly a hundred dollars, plus we all had fun spending the day together, in a steamy New Orleans kitchen, cooking our own crawdads at home.
When we were done, we'd all grab a corner of the Visqueen, pick up the entire mess in one big, bundle and drop it neatly into the trash can. It was sort of a local custom in that area to eat communal meals in that fashion.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Mar 24, 2022 14:54:01 GMT -6
I missed my first swarm of bees today while working in the garden.
I had been hauling manure and heard one of my hives going crazy, so I walked over to see what all the noise was. Even though it was only 55 degrees and pretty darn windy outside the bees were bearding on the outside of the hive and the air was alive with activity. Since I was in the middle of another project, I walked back over to the garden for about five minutes, just so I could cover up my manure pile with a tarp and get my wheelbarrow back in the garden shed.
When I came back to check the hive, the bees were gone. They had swarmed while I had my back to them and it was so windy that all I could hear was the roar of the wind in my ears. (Typical March day in Oklahoma). The wind was hard out of the Northwest when they swarmed, I'm guessing about 20 mph? But it was changing really fast to the Southwest, so I couldn't even guess which way they might have flown.
I walked around out there, listening, or trying to, for about 30 minutes, but never found the bees. It's really hard to imagine that they picked such a cold, windy, day to swarm. It seems very early in the year too. Maybe, they know something we don't?
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Post by rdback on Mar 30, 2022 9:06:04 GMT -6
Speaking of bees, somehow I ran across this video and found it really interesting. It may seem a little long, but I found it worth the watch. Definitely a different approach to beekeeping. Thought you might find it interesting as well.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Mar 30, 2022 22:28:12 GMT -6
That was a really cool idea. My son sent me that video this winter too. I keep my bees in white painted hives in full sunlight. I kind of think the 100-degree sun here in summer would probably cook them alive at the current location.
I have seen them kept in plexiglass at the Nature Center years ago though, so people could watch them build their comb. It was on the East side of the building, so it was shaded most of the day. They had a PVC tube for an entrance. That was a really cool setup for a while, but the bees ruined their window with propolis over the years. His bottle method looks like it might be a better deal. That way the bees don't mess up your kitchen window pane by building a comb directly onto the glass the way they did at the nature center.
I really liked his wooden extractor too. I have a top bar hive here that has hanging comb that has to be cut off. That looks like a really good way to deal with that. The top bar hive has been my most healthy hive over the years and was really easy to build, (excluding the fact that I cut the tip of my thumb off that day while using the table saw). Even still, it was a good lesson and the hive turned out well despite the bandages. Sometimes, I put a little piece of myself into my work.
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Post by theozarkan on Dec 30, 2022 21:20:40 GMT -6
Seen several bees out yesterday. No flowers around for them but they are eating my pig mash. Just a week ago we had negative temps and then it gets up to 50 and out they come. I don't recall bees being out in the winter in the past but maybe I just never noticed them.
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Post by macmex on Dec 31, 2022 7:03:48 GMT -6
Any time it hits the 50s you are likely to see bees up and about. For one thing, they make a potty stop while they can. Also, they need to drink, and if they can find anything, it helps to replenish their food and/or eat something. Sometimes in the dead of winter they'll find that certain trees or shrubs are flowering. This provides both pollen and nectar. Pollen is their source of protein and extremely important for their brood's development. Nectar is their source of carbs and is what get turned into honey.
They were after your pig feed because it contains bits of dust from things like corn or wheat, which are small enough for them to use in place of pollen.
The past two days I set out sugar syrup for my bees. They have been guzzling it. At this time of year I make it two parts sugar to one part water, so they don't have to evaporate it before storing it.
Hard to believe, but in most of the Midwest honeybees will begin brood production for spring in January! This means they will be raising the interior of the brood nest to above 90 F and maintaining it by friction of their bodies! That takes calories!
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