I bought some hives from a guy who is going to move from the area
(Snohomish County, Washington). He said he checked a month ago and
hive five hives were fine. When I bought them, we found three
completely dead, and two had entrances with numberous dead bees.

Some of the hives had a large super full of honey on top. We removed
them from the dead hives and found some mold on the comb and pollen.
In the dead hives, many bees were head first in the cells.

What should I do with these frames of honey?
- Extract it. (Not appealing.)
- Feed it to the bees. (Will it make them sick?)
- Clean them off and start over in the spring. (Seems like a waste,
as much of the honey is still capped.

The guy had homemade entrance reducers of aluminum bent at 90
degrees. The entrace holes were only two 3/8" holes right next to
each other. My guess is that the bees did not get enough air
circulation, and condensation got to them.

Temperatures have been freezing most nights, and in the 30s most
days. And lots of rain. The hives were in a large pasture under a
pine tree. It looked like a good location.

I've cleaned out the dead bees from the entrace of the two hives and
removed the entrance reducer, so there is an entrance full-width of
the box. I did make sure the bees are facing slightly down to prevent
rain from entering. They have solid bottom boards, not screened
bottom boards.

Any other recommendations? The hives with the dead bees are rather
wet. I plan to dry them out and use them in the spring. Can I reuse
the brood comb?

Thanks much.

Possible causes:

Foulbrood= destroy colony
Mites= clean out dead bees and damaged comb, put honey supers on good hives,
consolidate frames with honey into supers, check and treat for mites in
spring.
After cleaning extra hives  and frames, store inside with PDB.
poor ventilation= place 1/4 inch shims under outer and inner cover and leave
hive entrance open. Consider screened bottom boards..
  Place hives in sunny drier location, especially if in coastal wet area.

Ask seller for some $ back.

Build up existing hives in early spring with pollen substitute and if
colonies get strong split.

Just some ideas- you will get many more I am sure

Dan Veilleux
in the mountains of NC
zone 6a

David O. wrote:

> I bought some hives from a guy who is going to move from the area
> (Snohomish County, Washington). He said he checked a month ago and
> hive five hives were fine. When I bought them, we found three
> completely dead, and two had entrances with numberous dead bees.
>
> Some of the hives had a large super full of honey on top. We removed
> them from the dead hives and found some mold on the comb and pollen.
> In the dead hives, many bees were head first in the cells.

That head-first thing sounds like the bees were too cold to move up to the
stored honey in the supers and starved out while trying to get the last
little bits of honey close to the cluster.  Were the areas right around the
dead bees completely cleaned out?

It's worth looking for signs of foul brood on the brood comb that's still
in the hives.  I bought used gear and got stuck with foul brood my first
time out.  Not fun.  Check for those little irregular perforations in the
brood caps, and old dead brood with the tongues sticking out.

> What should I do with these frames of honey?

Somebody else may have suggestions for you on this one.

Kalia

----- Original Message -----

From: David O

To: beekeeping@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2007 11:26 AM

Subject: [beekeeping] Help! Moldy comb, dead bees.

I bought some hives from a guy who is going to move from the area
(Snohomish County, Washington). He said he checked a month ago and
hive five hives were fine. When I bought them, we found three
completely dead, and two had entrances with numberous dead bees.

Some of the hives had a large super full of honey on top. We removed
them from the dead hives and found some mold on the comb and pollen.
In the dead hives, many bees were head first in the cells.

What should I do with these frames of honey?
- Extract it. (Not appealing.)
- Feed it to the bees. (Will it make them sick?)
- Clean them off and start over in the spring. (Seems like a waste,
as much of the honey is still capped.

The guy had homemade entrance reducers of aluminum bent at 90
degrees. The entrace holes were only two 3/8" holes right next to
each other. My guess is that the bees did not get enough air
circulation, and condensation got to them.

Temperatures have been freezing most nights, and in the 30s most
days. And lots of rain. The hives were in a large pasture under a
pine tree. It looked like a good location.

I've cleaned out the dead bees from the entrace of the two hives and
removed the entrance reducer, so there is an entrance full-width of
the box. I did make sure the bees are facing slightly down to prevent
rain from entering. They have solid bottom boards, not screened
bottom boards.

Any other recommendations? The hives with the dead bees are rather
wet. I plan to dry them out and use them in the spring. Can I reuse
the brood comb?

Thanks much.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2243176

And they are so ignorant they are proud of themselves.

--- In beekeeping@yahoogroups.com, Mike Stoops <mws1112004@...> wrote:
>
> Queen Rearing Poll
>
> I am planning on raising my own queens this coming year.  There are
several options I am considering to initiate the development of the

I've used a very informal method that works well for my 3-4 hives. In
Spring, around swarm time, I'll pull a few frames of brood from
different hives (especially any that have swarm cells) and put them
in some 4-frame nuc boxes I cobbled together. Maybe this has helped
to prevent a swarm or two, or, at least, allowed me to keep some of
the resources that would otherwise have flown away. Usually these
nucs go on to produce a laying queen.  These little nuc colonies can
become crowded pretty quickly once the queen is laying, so I have
several options at that point.

I can use one or more of the queens to replace a weak queen in the
main colonies, and let them go on to produce another queen in the nuc
box.  The 3-4 weeks that takes reduces the size quite a bit, which
buys more time before they are crowded again.  Or I can combine a
couple of the nucs (I have up to 3 going at times) to form a new
colony to replace a lost one or to give away.

At the end of the season I will either combine the nuc colonies with
a weak hive, or combine them into a full-size super to make one
'extra' colony for the winter.  Sometimes these 'extra' colonies have
survived when one of the established hives doesn't, and I have the
replacement come Spring.  Or I can split the extra back up into nucs
in the Spring.

It's a pretty laid back approach, but it seems to work well enough
for me.

Richard

I'm sorry I looked at those pictures :(  :(

That Britanny SPears "cell phone" ad pretty much sums up the mentality
of those people. Horrible.

--Madeleine

Wednesday, January 3, 2007, 7:08:47 AM, you wrote:

> http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2243176

>  And they are so ignorant they are proud of themselves.



>

The idiot was really lucky they were not Africanized.

Dan Veilleux
in the mountains of NC
zone 6a

I find that if a poster signs his approximate location it really helps with
being able to provide better replies

Dan Veilleux
in the mountains of NC
zone 6a

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Thanks all for your suggestions. We did negotiate a fair price after
finding that the bees were dead. It did not look like foulbrood to me-
-at least the photos that I've seen. I've not seen an actual case. I
did look like starvation from not leaving the cluster, which I have
seen before. And I am certain there was insufficient air circulation.

Here is my current plan:

- Keep entrances clear in the existing two hives.
- Add a shim to top cover for additional air circulation.
- Add screened bottom boards as soon as I can make them.
- Treat for mites when I start feeding.

--- In beekeeping@yahoogroups.com, "Dan&jan" <montveil@...> wrote:
>
> Possible causes:
>
> Foulbrood= destroy colony
> Mites= clean out dead bees and damaged comb, put honey supers on
good hives,
> consolidate frames with honey into supers, check and treat for
mites in
> spring.
> After cleaning extra hives  and frames, store inside with PDB.
> poor ventilation= place 1/4 inch shims under outer and inner cover
and leave
> hive entrance open. Consider screened bottom boards..
>  Place hives in sunny drier location, especially if in coastal wet
area.
>
> Ask seller for some $ back.
>
> Build up existing hives in early spring with pollen substitute and
if
> colonies get strong split.
>
> Just some ideas- you will get many more I am sure
>
> Dan Veilleux
> in the mountains of NC
> zone 6a
>

Hello, friends. I'm new to this group and wanted to introduce myself. My wife and I live in middle Tennessee just a few minutes north of Nashville, and decided to start keeping bees. We ordered our first package bees yesterday and anxiously wait their arrival 3 months from now. Due to impatience and a complete lack of good sense, I acquired a feral colony just a few weeks ago. Fortunately, the winter seems to be fairly mild this year and I am cautiously optimistic about their survival. My beekeeping notes are being kept as a blog. If you want to see how my first bees are doing, you can see for yourself at http://beeadventure.blogspot.com

 

I look forward to learning as much as I can from the discussions here.

 

Mike

 

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http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2243176

And they are so ignorant they are proud of themselves.

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Hello Fellow Beekeepers (and Happy New Year)!

I was wondering if someone could tell me what determines certain characteristics
of different
types of honey. I have had my hives three years and have harvested honey and wax
for two
years. Both years, the honey has been very light in color, but very thick in
consistency. I
understand why the color is light (new wax and wildflower/sage pollen) - but -
why is it so
thick? It's not crystalizing - just thick.. Any ideas?

Thanks-

Melissa

In my experience, the thickness (aka viscosity) is related to the
temperature. Warm honey is thinner. Honey greatly thickens as it
cools. Did you compare two types of honey side by side at the same
temperature?

Generally, honey should have very little pollen in it. The color
mostly comes from the nectar. Unripened nectar or "green honey" will
be thin because its water content is low. However, if the bees cap
it, it should be about as thick as any other honey.

As I said, this is my experience. I'm open to correction if I am
mistaken.

--- In beekeeping@yahoogroups.com, "twotortu" <melarris@...> wrote:
>
> Hello Fellow Beekeepers (and Happy New Year)!
>
> I was wondering if someone could tell me what determines certain
characteristics of different
> types of honey. I have had my hives three years and have harvested
honey and wax for two
> years. Both years, the honey has been very light in color, but very
thick in consistency. I
> understand why the color is light (new wax and wildflower/sage
pollen) - but - why is it so
> thick? It's not crystalizing - just thick.. Any ideas?
>
> Thanks-
>
> Melissa
>

Hello Fellow Beekeepers (and Happy New Year)!

I was wondering if someone could tell me what determines certain characteristics of different
types of honey. I have had my hives three years and have harvested honey and wax for two
years. Both years, the honey has been very light in color, but very thick in consistency. I
understand why the color is light (new wax and wildflower/sage pollen) - but - why is it so
thick? It's not crystalizing - just thick.. Any ideas?

Thanks-

Melissa

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__________________________________________________
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----- Original Message -----

From: Melissa Harris

To: beekeeping@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Wednesday, January 03, 2007 3:17 PM

Subject: Re: [beekeeping] Re: Honey Characteristics

David,

Thanks for the reply. I have compared my honey to other honey and the viscosity is very different between them. Mine is very thick and it is thinner in warm weather. I bottled it in October this year, last year I bottled in August and there is no difference. I live in the "High Desert" and we have very low humidity here (except today - we have rain turning into snow). In the summer months, it is commonly below 20 percent most days.

Thanks for your comments about pollen. I did probably mean to say nectar. I don't use a fine screen to strain my honey, so there are some bits of pollen in it..

Melissa

Northeastern California, Zone 6

On Jan 3, 2007, at 3:00 PM, David O. wrote:

In my experience, the thickness (aka viscosity) is related to the
temperature. Warm honey is thinner. Honey greatly thickens as it
cools. Did you compare two types of honey side by side at the same
temperature?

Generally, honey should have very little pollen in it. The color
mostly comes from the nectar. Unripened nectar or "green honey" will
be thin because its water content is low. However, if the bees cap
it, it should be about as thick as any other honey.

As I said, this is my experience. I'm open to correction if I am
mistaken.

--- In beekeeping@yahoogroups.com, "twotortu" <melarris@...> wrote:
>
> Hello Fellow Beekeepers (and Happy New Year)!
>
> I was wondering if someone could tell me what determines certain
characteristics of different
> types of honey. I have had my hives three years and have harvested
honey and wax for two
> years. Both years, the honey has been very light in color, but very
thick in consistency. I
> u nderstand why the color is light (new wax and wildflower/sage
pollen) - but - why is it so
> thick? It's not crystalizing - just thick.. Any ideas?
>
> Thanks-
>
> Melissa
>

Hello all. Name is Steve and I started with one nuc late April 2006
and bought a few more later. Had 8 going into winter but lost one
small colony from a cutout I did in the fall. Hoping the rest will
make it as we plan to increase as much as possible.

We have ten russian nucs ordered and will bring our woodenware over
in a couple of weeks to build them in.

Our place is near Zachary Louisiana USA which is 30.66 degs latitude.

Looking at the proud idiots kill that swarm is sickening. Truly a sad
end.

When I got started I had some cards printed up and started handing
them out. I went to the two farm stores near me and spoke to each
person about me and bees. Almost everyone said that people come in
all the time looking for chemicals to kill "bees". They agreed to
give my bee removal cards out.

There is a pretty good hardware store nearby and they have 1/8"
screen and other good beekeeping stuff. I worked them hard to give
out my cards and encourage patrons to let a local beekeeper(me?) at
least look at their situation before they kill. I have had at least
10 calls from these contacts since may 2006!

I also gave my contact information to the local university ag
department. They keep a list on the website for the public to contact
beekeepers. Several people called me from this also.

There are two bee trees out there now that I have an agreement with
the property owners to let them alone. They wanted me to kill them
initially but I was able to explain a little about bees and their
nature. One was 25 feet up! The deal I made was leave them alone and
if they became a problem I would come back and do whatever it took to
remove them.

One guy has them in his living room wall and agreed to wait until
late winter for me to do the removal. The bees go and come from an
old cable hole in the bricks.

One bee tree was down low and the man had been stung several times
cutting his grass. He wanted them gone and was going to throw Sevin
dust at the hole. I vacuumed out what I could and united them with a
small colony from a cutout I had back at home. I plugged the hole and
checked back in a week and all was quite. I hated to do it but would
rather do it myself the right way.

I had several yellowjacket calls too. One bumble bee nest in the
ground a guy down the road found bushhogging. Yellojackets hurt and
come at you in numbers and stay awhile. Each one was an opportunity
to spread good will towards honey bees.

I said all that to say this. I let all know I am a beekeeper and I
will at least consult with anyone about their bee or wasp problems.

If someone with some sense is around early enough, maybe they will
call a beekeeper before the idiots take over.


--- In beekeeping@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Cobb" <rec@...> wrote:
>
> http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2243176
>
> And they are so ignorant they are proud of themselves.
>

I am a hobbyist beekeeper. I've picked up a number of easy swarms at no
cost. I've also picked up a bald-faced hornet nest for $35. (It was
really easy!) I've heard some hobbyist beekeepers say that they always
charge.

Do you get swarms? Do you charge? How much for an easy swarm? How about
for something more challenging, like in a wall?

Here's what I have been considering:

After obtaining my first bees by removing a feral colony from a camper, I am
considering offering services to pest control companies. What I am thinking
of offering them is my ability to remove bees for a portion of their fee.
That will still let them make some money and I won't have to deal with the
repairs.

As for just coming out to pick of a swarm, well that's like charging
somebody to pick up the dollar they just dropped! :-)

Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: beekeeping@yahoogroups.com [mailto:beekeeping@yahoogroups.com] On
Behalf Of David O.
Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2007 10:57 AM
To: beekeeping@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [beekeeping] Do you charge to get swarms?

I am a hobbyist beekeeper. I've picked up a number of easy swarms at no
cost. I've also picked up a bald-faced hornet nest for $35. (It was really
easy!) I've heard some hobbyist beekeepers say that they always charge.

Do you get swarms? Do you charge? How much for an easy swarm? How about for
something more challenging, like in a wall?

Greetings all.  Just wanted to say hello, and I'm looking forward to
learning from all of you.

I'm jusst starting out with bees.  I've been making mead for about 7
years now, and I've finally decided to take the plunge and keep my own
bees.  I've been hanging out with the local beekeeper's association for
the past year or so, and have learned alot.  I still have a ways to
go.

I'm going to be starting out this year with 2 colonies, and see where
it goes.  I'm just now making up my shopping list for my new hobby.

Looking forward to Spring!

Greg

Greg Fink wrote:

> Greetings all. Just wanted to say hello, and I'm looking forward to
> learning from all of you.
>
> I'm jusst starting out with bees. I've been making mead for about 7
> years now, and I've finally decided to take the plunge and keep my own
> bees.

Hi Greg,

I'm in a similar boat, except it's my husband who's the brewer.  His mead
is one of the (many) reasons I married him, though it's taken me a long
time to get around to starting beehives (1 last year, and adding another
this spring).

What style of mead do you make?  Jon's is a dry, champagne-style mead,
which I'm quite fond of.

Kalia
(Sonoma County, CA)

Hi Kalia,

I make many different kinds of meads, but my favorite are fruit meads
that are on the dry/stong side.  I recently made a blackberry mead,
raspberry, strawberry.  I also make a cider/mead (cyser) every year.
I try and vary the kinds I make.

This year I did an experiment with honey varietals.   I made a mead
with the exact same recipe, but used a different type of honey in
each: raspberry blosson, apple blosson, blueberry blossom,
wildflower, clover, alfalfa, orange blossom, and buckwheat.  I was
suprised how much the character of the honeys came through.


Greg



--- In beekeeping@yahoogroups.com, Kalia Kliban <kalia@...> wrote:
>
> Greg Fink wrote:
>
> > Greetings all. Just wanted to say hello, and I'm looking forward
to
> > learning from all of you.
> >
> > I'm jusst starting out with bees. I've been making mead for about
7
> > years now, and I've finally decided to take the plunge and keep
my own
> > bees.
>
> Hi Greg,
>
> I'm in a similar boat, except it's my husband who's the brewer.
His mead
> is one of the (many) reasons I married him, though it's taken me a
long
> time to get around to starting beehives (1 last year, and adding
another
> this spring).
>
> What style of mead do you make?  Jon's is a dry, champagne-style
mead,
> which I'm quite fond of.
>
> Kalia
> (Sonoma County, CA)
>

David,

 

When capturing a swarm you are spending your own "time" and "gas money" to remove it from someones property. Usually they want to see it removed as much, or more, than you would like it to be added to your collection.

 

When taking a swarm call I will first question them very carefully to make sure it actually is a "honeybee" swarm before wasting time and money only to discover a wasp or hornet nest when arriving at the site. When getting around to discussing charges I let them know that I am not an "exterminator", who may charge $75-$100 to come out and kill them. I explain that I do not "charge" for removing them live, but will accept a "donation" for the effort to cover my costs. Most rational people will cough up $20-$25 for your service and feel that it was money well spent. This will cover your expenses plus you get a free package.

 

I don't worry too much about getting money for capturing swarms.. some I get nothing, others more than $25. It usually ends up being a very enjoyable experience for myself and the people involved, either way.

 

I don't do extractions, so someone else can respond to that part of your question.

 

Mike

 

>> I am a hobbyist beekeeper. I've picked up a number of easy swarms at no
cost. I've also picked up a bald-faced hornet nest for $35. (It was
really easy!) I've heard some hobbyist beekeepers say that they always
charge.

Do you get swarms? Do you charge? How much for an easy swarm? How about
for something more challenging, like in a wall?

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