Honey bees

[Eaglesfate]

About to pop open the hoods and see if they are ready to put my next box on.

 

[LittleBittyBigJohn]

Ours have all but quit drawing comb.

 

[Eaglesfate]

Checked the two hives, the boxes were filled with unworked out frames, contemplating adding feed to help get the frames built out quicker. bees only working three of the frames.

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

Well, it looks like the early swarming and cold temps at that time caused four of my colonies to go queenless.

Really disappointed. It looks like we will pull 150 pounds of honey from them and have 40 fully drawn frames to put into production next year… but still sad. They aren’t dead yet, but the numbers are abysmal and not a single egg.

The other four colonies are working hard and thriving. The clover is in full bloom and the bees are busy storing it up. The buckwheat will come online in a couple weeks as well as the soy beans nearby.

So, I suppose out of 8 colonies, we will likely head into winter with four. Probably just shy of 300 pounds of honey for the year, and plenty of empty equipment to go into next season.

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

Finished up a new hive for a swarm I caught this spring. Not bad for drawing it myself!

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

Moved the swarm to their new home today. Some beautiful clover honey comb being built!

 

[LittleBittyBigJohn]

looking good!

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

Harvested about 80 pounds of honey today. Add to that about 30 pounds from the cutout, and what we will harvest this fall... We will be around 300 pounds. For the first time ever I have colonies filling 20 frame hives! This has been a not so great year due to the drought, but still seeing great production. In part perhaps due to the good clover growth and now buckwheat!

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

I'm also curious to see if with fewer colonies, we see a noticeable difference in excess honey production. We have never seen a colony fill a hive to 20 frames. Each colony CONSUMES 200 pounds of honey per year to just survive in our zone. So, the (4) colonies that went queenless will free up a theoretical 800 pounds of honey for surplus. My (4) working colonies cannot save that much excess, but could each save about 40-50 pounds more than they typically do. So, my optimal number of colonies may be about (6). That would create a need for 400 pounds to survive, and 160 pounds of excess. Adding one more colony would just divide the resources too much and limit excess honey.
I didn't get into this to sell honey, but I won't lie, $4000 a year for minimum input is very nice.

 

[LittleBittyBigJohn]

We harvested 77 lbs of honey yesterday. Only took 2 medium supers and 2 additional frames. Left plenty for the ladies.

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

Had some local homeschool kids over today to teach them about bees, beekeeping and how to harvest honey.

I have about 40 pounds tied up in comb I needed to crush, so I gave them all potato mashers and let them liquify the stuff. Now begins the long process of straining and filtering it. What a PITA. Oh well, for $400, I suppose I can bother with it.

The buckwheat is blooming like crazy, and I’ve never seen such a dense concentration of bees on a plant in my life! The field just hums all morning, then they move to the clover in the afternoon. This stuff is really incredible! It’s all waist high now too.

 

[LittleBittyBigJohn]

You might enjoy this. I took them today to advertise our honey. Seems to fit the tractor forum theme and the beekeeping thread pretty well.

 

[ultrarunner]

The Cub is the star of the Christmas Tree farm... something about a 75 year old tractor that gathers a crowd and puts on a good show starting... usually with the first pull of the crank...

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

That looks great! I love the old Farmalls, I grew up on those.

Finally crushed and filtered the comb from the cutout this week through a 400 micron filter… but it’s still too murky. Sending it through a 200 micron this weekend.

The buckwheat has been insane. It’s in its third week of bloom and showing no signs of slowing. It’s nice to have some thing in bloom in our area this time of year. It’s producing seeds, and should be ready to till back in by mid August

 

[BrendanDaniels]

That's awesome to hear about your bumper crop of honey and catching swarms! As a fellow beekeeper, I understand your concern about the late arrivals. It's important to provide them with enough food to get through the season. Keeping the feeders out is a great idea to help them thrive. Bees are resilient, and with your care, they'll do their best. Also, their products are highly nutritious, so it's worth it. Also, if you want to have an even better diet, consider getting powdered coconut milk to add to your recipes. I hope you like it!

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

We have never fed sugar. The buckwheat crop was planted to fill the void in the summer nectar flow July-August. With any luck we will get another crop of buckwheat blooming mid September-October for the final push for winter.