Beekeeping

Did a quick peek into the hive yesterday as it was sunny and warm and my sister-in-law was in town and really wanted to see the hive. Just went through the upper honey super and checked their stores. They were super docile for this time of year and all looked good. They are carrying a heavy mite load and I'll have to treat them in the spring or risk losing them the following winter.
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After dinner we cracked open a 4 year old mead which was delicious!
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Notice the layer of sediment at the bottom of the bottle. When originally bottled the clarity was murky. After settling it has a beautiful golden color and when poured is like champagne.
Bees are awesome.

I find it interesting that you want to treat for mites in the spring. I have always been told Fall is the time to treat them after you pull your honey and the brood are at a low number. Kill the mites in the fall so the bees don't have to have one more thing against them in the winter. We are in very different climate areas. I am in MN.

How much honey did you get this year? I got about 55 lbs per hive average for my 5 hives and I heard that was not bad for around here. I did not feed them in the spring or this fall and i hope they have enough to make it through. Many around here kill off the hives in the fall and get new ones in the spring. But I got enough for me!

A local blog by the place I get much of my supplies.

What Should I Be Doing With My Bees This Month?

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Originally Posted by 32t

I find it interesting that you want to treat for mites in the spring. I have always been told Fall is the time to treat them after you pull your honey and the brood are at a low number. Kill the mites in the fall so the bees don't have to have one more thing against them in the winter. We are in very different climate areas. I am in MN.
Your bees did great! Any of the harvest going to mead?
This hive is from a 5-frame package I got this last spring and I didn't take any honey from them. They mostly filled that upper deep and are going into winter heavy.
These bees are supposed to be 'hygenic' and somewhat resistant to the varroa and I was hesitant to treat them this first year. Maybe they can handle the mites? In the past I've treated in the fall with formic acid and it was effective. Are you treating for the varroa mite?
I might also just split them in the spring and hope a break in the brood cycle will knock down the mite.

How much honey did you get this year? I got about 55 lbs per hive average for my 5 hives and I heard that was not bad for around here. I did not feed them in the spring or this fall and i hope they have enough to make it through. Many around here kill off the hives in the fall and get new ones in the spring. But I got enough for me!

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Your bees did great! Any of the harvest going to mead?
This hive is from a 5-frame package I got this last spring and I didn't take any honey from them. They mostly filled that upper deep and are going into winter heavy.
These bees are supposed to be 'hygenic' and somewhat resistant to the varroa and I was hesitant to treat them this first year. Maybe they can handle the mites? In the past I've treated in the fall with formic acid and it was effective. Are you treating for the varroa mite?
I might also just split them in the spring and hope a break in the brood cycle will knock down the mite.
My 200th post: when I ski dived the 200th jump was a biggie. I was the last out on a 12 way and dived down on the formation in a full on delta.
This is not as exciting.

Getting the hives ready for winter here in southern Ohio. I put my insulated covers on the tops and will get the bee cozies and mouse guards on this weekend - it has been warm enough during the day for them to break cluster but temps will dip next week.

I have not treated for mites this fall because I have almost no issues with them but have done several things to try and knock the small hive beetles down with seems to have hit this area hard.

Last year I got 135 pounds off of two hives (105 from just one of them). It was really raining here this year so I think some of that affected the honey production and I ended up with only 43 pounds total off one hive. I had two hives last year and had one die off so I didn't expect anything from the 2 new hives this year but will feed heavily in the spring to get them built up to hopefully get some decent production next year. I am currently at 3 hives and may try to go to 4 next year which is all that I want for now.

I treated with Formic acid this fall.

I tried some two year old mead this fall that a friend made and it definitely gets better with age.

A friend of mine brews beer so I offered to trade off honey if he would make the mead. It has been settling since June and he is going to bottle soon so looking forward to having that.

Do you guy’s test for mites before treating with formic acid? I usually test by throwing bees in a mason jar with powdered sugar and screw on a cap with metal fencing. The metal has holes big enough for the mites to fall through but not the bees. Then I shake the mason jar with the bees inside on a paper plate and spray the plate with water. I can then see the mites, if any, and then know to test or not.
When I tested in fall both of my hives had no mites so I didn’t treat. My hives did okay when I harvested, the one producing 53 pounds and the other produced near nothing. The one that didn’t produce was having other problems and NOT mites though. It swarmed 4 times and the population was low after a while. So, do y’all test for mites too? It saved me some formic acid for future years in case I have mites.

Just put in two hives this past year. I'm using flow hives and they make the process of harvesting the honey a lot easier. Just turn a key, honey flows out and you catch it in jars. We've had one harvest so far, tastes like lavendar and jasmine! Apologies if these have already been discussed, I haven't read the entire thread yet.

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The other thing we have, purely for pollination purposes (though I did grab the sugarbag out once to try) is an Australian native bee hive in a hollow log on my front deck. They are smaller than european bees and bite rather than sting (and they don't die if they bite you). Their honey is a lot less viscous than european bee honey, and has an interesting flavour (depends on what they have been collecting I guess). Here's a bad slow-mo of them.

Native Bees

James.

I have read about these flow hives before and thought they were more of a gimmick.

It will be interesting to hear your thoughts after a couple more uses.

There are many different bees than the Honey bee that most people think about and they are all interesting.

One time when I was younger we tore down a shed and got the honey from a bumble bees nest that was in it. Not much honey but boy it was good!

Tim