Beekeeping it’s the bee’s knees

@trekinit

 

Sweet, thanks for the heads up.

 

Same, nearly seen them all. He does a fair amount of unconventional things, but its nice to see some fresh ideas to contrast most people that have been keeping bees with the exact same methods the past 200 yrs or so. Took his idea for winterizing because it keeps the bees cold but still shields them well. That helps a lot for me since i'm in a tough spot as far as winter temps. January is the only month i can really count on day temps to stay under 20 degrees and keep the bees in a cluster for sure. Otherwise, last week of Nov. to last week of March the day temps float around 20-40 degrees. I'm thinking if i have too much insulation on the hive that would make for a lot of days where they might get warm and break the cluster, consume more honey than necessary, and possibly try to fly when it will probably still be too cold and windy for them to make it. This way might work might not we'll see

 

Working with Africanized bees... a little grumpy.

 

Do you keep them still when this happens?

 

You guys trying some new crossbreed? @Kingbee14

 

Also you or the bees are grumpy

 

Nah just doing some research on these girls. They all show different levels of temperament. Even though it may seem defensive, a lot of them were just "flighty".

 

On my hot hives I smoke the front and let them sit 5-10 min then pop the top and smoke 3 puffs and let it sit for a couple min. Works good

 

When i was in Texas, my friends wife worked for some kind of estate closeout company, we went to look at an estate, yanked open a garage door and about 10' in there was a huge hive! Dunno if they were the Africanized ones but we closed the door slowly and got out of there...we were not expecting that at all!!

 

Nothing to see here no deals in here. Haha
I been lucky last 5 years no hot hives, grumpy but not hot Africanized.

 

Does the university have them secluded on a island ? , they look new. I found that my more defensive hives had higher honey but after requeen with my local all acting the same

 

Yeah were werent sticking around to find out...

 

Nah we dont have AHB in Hawaii. Went to Arizona to see how some beekeepers deal with them. Its too bad their defensiveness is extreme and they swarm a lot because they had very very few mites and disease.

 

supposedly they swarm and follow the flow most likely their reason to low mites due to high brood breaks,

 

My wife did inspections today as I recover.

 

Recover from what? Multiple massive stings?

(sorry if I missed something important healthwise)

 

I had back surgery after a injury at work

 

Just ordered 2 nucs and some hive kits. Looking forward to working with the bees

 

Had my first experience with Zom-bees this weekend. Yesterday they were out flying around because it was sunny, calm, and fairly warm (40-ish). Saw one that had apparently landed in the snow and died, or that had been dropped there by another worker. I picked it up for a closer look and to check for mites, wing condition, etc. While I was looking her over she started twitching her legs very slightly, and within 30 seconds had woken up enough to have a mini-seizure and then started walking around on my hand, cheery as could be. Eventually she took off and flew back to the hive! Definitely a neat experience.