Bee Hives

[leechmann]

Hey Swamptiger, it depends on the year but for the most part, the bees will gather nectar up until labor day. The bees do go from the bottom entrance all the way to the top. I do have holes drilled in the upper supers in the front, but the bees don't use them. Maybe I should have started that earlier, but for what ever reason, they just don't use the top entrance hole.

[swamptiger]

Never thought about that critters could be a problem.. Ever have bears or other animals do damage to the boxes?

[Pickelfarmer]

Yeah bear can be a real big problem. They can do thousands of dollars of damage in one night. I have had whole bee yards (30 hives) ripped up in one night. Figure 30 hives at $100.00 a hive plus how ever much honey they have on them when the bear rips them up you could be looking at anywhere from $3000.00 to $6000.00 dollars worth of damage in one night. Not a good deal at all . One year I had 3 yards destroyed by bear and I figured it out to be over $11,000.00 damage. No insurance company would insure bees at that time. Not sure if theres one out there now that will but I just had to eat that loss at that time.

[swamptiger]

Oof - not good... Is there anything you can do to keep them away?

[leechmann]

They have solar powered elctric fencers now. The bigger commercial bee keepers use them. Picklefarmer, how efective are the electric fences on bears?

Picklefarmer, looks like you're going to be able to fill you cupboards with honey too. Looks like you're having a good year. Congrates.

[Pickelfarmer]

Bat powered Electric fence. But even that won't stop them sometimes. Fences work pretty good though. The reason I had so much trouble that one year is, I got some batteries for the fencers from a referbishing place and they weren't worth a darn. They went dead in like a week. Normaly one bat will last all summer on a fence as long as its not grounded out by grass or tree branches. I didn't realize they were faulty batteries until it was to late .

[swamptiger]

I've done that to keep coons out of my garden - just one wire about 6" off the ground works good for coons...

[leechmann]

Picklefarmer, wondering if you got rid of your shunk problem? If not, I have a live trap you could use. Let me know.

Leechmannn

[Pickelfarmer]

as of yet the stinky little bugger is still out there. I tried to get him the other night but he must have heard me and ran off. I hope to get him in the next few days. I'll keep you posted.

Looks like a hot week this next week. stuff just keeps on blooming!!!!!!!! I just want to say, don't get used to this leechmann. Not every year is like this. Most years things either dry up and blow away or flood. I'm not trying to be a bah hum bug but this year is not normal for the honey flow. BUT I'M LOVING EVERY MINUTE OF IT!!!!!!!!!!!

[leechmann]

I was thinking the same thing Picklefarmer. The flowers just keep blooming and the bees keep buzzing. No, I sure this year is the exception to the rule. It wouldn't hurt to let the sun shine a little, my bees want me to order them 60,000 umbrellas.

[Pickelfarmer]

Sounds like its going to be a warm one this week. I really can't stress what a great year its been. I don't remember a year that the bees have done so good. I think with this next hot spell we are going to see alot more honey. Hope you got the suppers to go around leechmann. I just went out to my Dad's place and got another 20 suppers to put on. I haven't put them on yet but if it comes down to it I'm ready . We still have the golden rod and more clover for the bees to work.

You showed that pic of the bee working a Sunflower. I was going to say that if you winter bees in MN you really don't want them to store any Sunflower honey in the brood chamber only because this is the honey you leave for the bees to eat over winter. They disintary (Bees versoin of the hershy's squirts) bad on sunflower honey. Since they only have limited flying time in the winter, maybe once in Jan and once again in Feb if it gets above 35-40 deg.If they have to stay in the hive for to long without a cleansing flight they go #2 in the hive and that makes them sick and they die. Since your sending your bees south you got no worrys. Sunflower honey is kind of a dark honey but it tastes ok. When you extract you might want to pay attention to the boxes and if you run into the sunflower honey hold it until the end so it doesn't darken your nice clover/light honey. Thats just a suggestion, you don't have to do that but its not a bad idea to keep in mind so you don't darkin you other honey.

[leechmann]

I only have 4 sunflowers in my garden. I don't think thats enough to make a difference, do you? I opened a hive today to show some people what it looks like and to my suprise the box was full capped frames. I ran out to my garage and got two more boxes to put on that hive. I have to make time tomorrow to go through the rest of my hives. Maybe, I'll have to put medium super #10 on. I'll need to get a taller ladder pretty soon. Hey thanks for the advise, and I am enjoying every minute of this years honey flow, I know things can't be this good forever.

[Pickelfarmer]

I only have 4 sunflowers in my garden. I don't think thats enough to make a difference, do you?

No I dont think that even if you had a whole field of sunflowers behind your house it would make a difference, Since your going to be sending your bees south they will have plenty of flying time to get rid of any toxins that might build up so you should be fine. If they were stuck in the hive for any length of time then I would worry.

I would still keep an Eye out for any darker honey that you see and try hold it until the end of your extracting time. Sun flowers are a great source of honey its just not the most disirable honey out there. It will darken you nice sweet clover and bass wood honey so just keep an eye on it as to not taint your nice crop of honey.

[leechmann]

Pickelfarmer, 2 inches of rain this weekend. That has to make a difference as we come down to the final weeks of the honey flow. What are your thoughts?

[leechmann]

I can tell the fall push is on. The bees are getting more defensive around the hive. I had a bee bounce off my head and chase me away from the hive today, and that rarely has happened all summer. I notice the yellow jacket hornets landing on the hive approaches and attempt to walk into the hive, and then a guard bee comes tumbling out rolling around with the hornet, fighting for all shes worth. I imagine the hornets want to steal some honey, but the hives are well defended. Approximately 2 weeks to go and we'll be extracting honey. I'll post some pictures of the whole process, enough to show how honey is produced.

[leechmann]

Picklefarmer, let me know hen you are going to pull your honey from the bees. I'm thinking I'm going to give them one more week. What are your thoughts?

[leechmann]

I harvested some honey from three of my bee hives today. Everything went good, I didn't even get stung. The first picture is a frame of capped honey that I removed from the super.

The second picture is of the super itself, just trying to show how the frames sit in the super, and you can see that all the frames are capped. If the frame is full of honey but the bees haven't capped it yet, it means that the moisture content in the honey is more than 18%, and it would furment if you were to take it at this time.

I am going to take the rest of the honey from my other hives in the next few days, then I'll start the extraction process. I take lots of pics and post them.

Leechmann

[leechmann]

Heres more pictures of my wife and I taking the honey from the bees tonight. In this picture my wife is sweeping the bees off the frame.

The second picture is of the bees after we shake them off the frames, all climbing back up into the hive.

The third picture is of the bees that are in the supers that did not have the honey capped. I put these supers back on the hive, in hopes of them capping the frames. There were three supers on both of these hives that had uncapped frames.

[leechmann]

[img:center]The last few days the worker bees have started to kill the drones, the male bees, off. The bees do this as the male bees work is done. The workers bees, the females, kill them and remove them from the hive, in an effort to make thier honey stores last.

[leechmann]

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Here's a few pictures of the extractor, with the frames of honey loaded in the basket. You can see the honey that has been spun out of the combs on the bottom of the extractor barrel. The second picture is of me turning the extractor crank, which makes the basket spin around and the honey is forced out by centrifugal force. Sorry I was unable to roatate this picture. Last picture is of the honey coming out of the extractor valve and going through a double filter. In the first filter you can see the wax chunks and comb pieces that are filtered out.

I had 7 hives this year,this being my first year. I ended up with approximately 500 lbs or approximately 42 gallons of honey. I was also able to leave the bees approx. 60-80 lbs of honey, per hive, to survive on this winter.

[leechmann]

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So then my wife and I started bottling the honey in lots of different sizes of containers. We have custom made lables on the way. This is the start of the " Double Bee Honey Company ". Brett & Brenda

This will be my last post on this thread, unless I can answer any questions. Thanks to the pickleFarmer for all of his expertise. Hope you folks enjoyed this as much as we did.

[toughguy]

Very cool thread. Nice to see the process the whole way thru. Thanks for sharing.

[leechmann]

Just had to show you folks our new labels.

[swamptiger]

Very interesting thread. Thanks for the info, and all the photos. Looks like nice light colored honey, too...

Let us know how the bees make it through the winter.

I have a tip for you with your camera. If you cut the resolution down, the photos will load much faster in the computer, and will usually turn out just as good.

Thanks again.

[leechmann]

Hello, with the weather finally cooperating, I mean the 60 degree temps and sun for a full day, the bees were out and flying over over. I have a couple of supers which had a few frames of honey left, so I put it out side and the bees cleaned them out, and hauled all the honey back to thier hives.

I've also had some robbing going on. This is where the stronger hives will over power the weaker ones and kill all the guard bees. Then they take all thier honey too. I had 9 hives, and now I'm down to 6. The six that are left have nice honey stores, so I'm hoping they make it though the winter.

Just a quick bee update,

Leechmann