Bud Posted May 12, 2015 Share Posted May 12, 2015 Anyone else here keep bees? Yesterday, I hived a swarm at my neighbors house. They were on a fence post. I had a NUC box handy and scooped them up and dropped them inside. After a while the rest of the stragglers went inside as well. This morning they were still inside the box, so I'm pretty sure I got the queen or they would have left. Will give them a couple of days to settle down before lifting the lid and seeing what's taking place. It's been cool and overcast here with more rain predicted this week. I may have to give them some sugar water, but I hope they can make it on their own. Link to comment
elkroeger Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 http://www.amazon.com/Beekeeping-For-Dummies-Howland-Blackiston/dp/0470430656 Link to comment
enfoman Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 Beekeeping.Always seemed like fun for me. It it starts with that four letter word called.work sometimes. I do have a few employees that do this and I hear the stories they tell. It was.a hard winter here and one of.the guys were concerned if the hive would.make it before the flowers bloomed. He gave them sugar water too. Funny thing now.is that the bees were combing the hive perpendicular to.the frames this spring. He.has not.seen that before. He had to.carefully.separate the combs from the.frames and basically hope.to.train.them to.weave the combs.correctly. Link to comment
MT Wallet Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 Too easy. I just picked up a Nuc Saturday to replace the hive I lost this winter. They've already started gathering pollen-even though it's cold and rainy. Survivor bees (1 hive) were active for about 3 weeks when the weather was warmer. Still going strong. Link to comment
Sonor Posted May 14, 2015 Share Posted May 14, 2015 My old boss kept bees. She was really into it and had multiple hives. I learned a great deal about them from her and highly respect those that keep them. Thank you - the world and ecology needs people like you. Link to comment
Sonor Posted May 14, 2015 Share Posted May 14, 2015 Here's an interesting and timely article. 40% of the bee hives died last year. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/more-than-40-of-us-honeybee-colonies-died-in-past-12-months-usda-2015-05-13?dist=beforebell Link to comment
Bud Posted May 14, 2015 Author Share Posted May 14, 2015 Here's an interesting and timely article. 40% of the bee hives died last year. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/more-than-40-of-us-honeybee-colonies-died-in-past-12-months-usda-2015-05-13?dist=beforebell I saw that. The importance of bees to US agriculture is not well known by most folks. There has been a lot of stress on bees lately. I'm lucky to have mine survive the winter. Link to comment
MT Wallet Posted May 14, 2015 Share Posted May 14, 2015 Did you do anything special to prepare your bees for winter? Link to comment
Bud Posted May 17, 2015 Author Share Posted May 17, 2015 No, but I live in S. Illinois so it didn't get that cold and stay cold. BTW The swarm didn't like the brand new house I gave them. They moved on. I guess the queen either wasn't in there or ??????? Link to comment
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