New beekeeping with AZDuffman

May 4th, 2015 at 11:52:11 AM permalink
Face
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 61
Posts: 3941
What happens come winter?

I am aware of one operation up the road. They have a building, basically a four or five car garage, that they store all the boxes in for the winter. I assume some stay and hibernate? I dunno. Insects aren't my specialty.

Do you have to replant your bees every year, or do some indeed stay? If they stay, is this another basement project? lol
Be bold and risk defeat, or be cautious and encourage it.
May 4th, 2015 at 11:58:31 AM permalink
AZDuffman
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 135
Posts: 18136
Quote: Face
What happens come winter?

I am aware of one operation up the road. They have a building, basically a four or five car garage, that they store all the boxes in for the winter. I assume some stay and hibernate? I dunno. Insects aren't my specialty.

Do you have to replant your bees every year, or do some indeed stay? If they stay, is this another basement project? lol


Come winter the colony will prepare to not hibernate but "overwinter." 90% of the colony will die off, the drones will be ejected by the ladies, they will huddle up, and live off the honey they stored for winter. WNY is in a higher zone and some serious keepers up there will take them down to say WV I hear to avoid the worst of the winter. I guess some bring them inside.

No effing way I am bringing 5,000 bees in the basement! They will stay outside and do what bees do. Some colonies will die over the winter of course. The key is to have several so if that happens you wait until about now when they have built up a bit and take a few frames from a good colony. The ones who get taken will make a new queen and hopefully you get back to normal.
The President is a fink.
May 4th, 2015 at 12:04:23 PM permalink
petroglyph
Member since: Aug 3, 2014
Threads: 25
Posts: 6227
Quote: odiousgambit
Further investigation shows that for some reason the big brands want to filter out the pollen in order to "help delay crystallization", see links below. Demerits for them; they are skirting the rules about selling honey. Shelf life is better, Kudos for them? Not sure. The people hyping the "no pollen" thing go on to some scare tactics claiming various dubious things such as Chinese poison honey with pollutants from air and water, etc. is being sold. Demerits big time in my book, your feelings may vary. Overall, probably no harm done and if it means the little guys get to sell more honey, can't be all bad, and I too never fully trust the big guys. Just don't like the scare tactic stuff.

http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2012/04/national-honey-board-honey-is-made-from-nectar-not-pollen/#.VUdMzfDw-jI
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2011/11/25/142659547/relax-folks-it-really-is-honey-after-all

*One take-away from all the above: it is certainly a canard to claim that the store honey is "fake"


As you linked FSN, I peeked at some of their stuff, http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/08/honey-laundering/#.VUe61PlViko "Food safety investigators from the European Union barred all shipments of honey from India because of the presence of lead and illegal animal antibiotics. Further, they found an even larger amount of honey apparently had been concocted without the help of bees," Same article; "Why are we the dumping ground of the world for something that’s banned in all these other countries?” asked Adee, who, with 80,000 bee colonies in five states, is the country’s largest honey producer.

“We’re supposed to have the world’s safest food supply but we’re letting in boatloads of this adulterated honey that all these other countries know is contaminated and FDA does nothing.”
Honey Vs Sugar. What are their differences?
From this article: http://www.disabled-world.com/artman/publish/honey.shtml "Honey and honeycomb Both sweeteners contain glucose and fructose. However, for sugar, in the process of manufacturing, the organic acids, protein, nitrogen elements, enzymes and vitamins in the sugar cane are destroyed, whereas honey, a natural sweetener, subjects only to minimal heating. Also, honey has certain beneficial antioxidant and antimicrobial properties which are not present in table sugar."

My problem isn't with filtration, my biggest objection other than all the chemicals in foreign honey is "manufactured honey" which is made from high fructose corn syrup and sold as honey, "http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/techniques/polarized/gallery/pages/honeysmall.html".

If we are talking about smuggled Chinese honey, I doubt them more than I doubt the FDA. "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal" Also see this: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/toxic-treats-china-killing-us-dogs-pet-owners/story?id=15927579.

My logic being, if the baby formula from China is laced with Melamine which kills infants, and the imported dog food kills dogs why would anyone think the honey is any better?

The USDA inspects a minuscule amount of imported food, all these articles discuss filtration to the point that even if it originated from bees, it may [probably] also contains antibiotics, pesticides, lead, etc. Some admit adding water, syrup and processed sugar to sweeten it. Honey does not have to be made my honey bees.

Talking about diabetes, processed food [short chain carbs] the epidemic of obesity and the indigenous people of North America are topics that could easily be topics for entire threads each.
The last official act of any government is to loot the treasury. GW
May 4th, 2015 at 12:56:12 PM permalink
FrGamble
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 67
Posts: 7596
This is so cool. I love honey bees. Is it true that some beekeepers will take their bees on the road and drive them to locations that need lots of pollination? I heard that the bee population is so down that if beekeepers didn't do this there wouldn't be enough bees to pollinate all the fruit we need. That seems kind of scary and makes me glad AZ is dong this.
“It is with the smallest brushes that the artist paints the most exquisitely beautiful pictures.” (
May 4th, 2015 at 1:51:20 PM permalink
AZDuffman
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 135
Posts: 18136
Quote: FrGamble
This is so cool. I love honey bees. Is it true that some beekeepers will take their bees on the road and drive them to locations that need lots of pollination? I heard that the bee population is so down that if beekeepers didn't do this there wouldn't be enough bees to pollinate all the fruit we need. That seems kind of scary and makes me glad AZ is dong this.


Thank you for the last part. Means a lot.

As to the first part, yes, it is true. The CA almond pollinating being perhaps the biggest and most famous. From what I have read it takes well over half the bees in the USA. However, it really has little to do with colony collapse and such the last few years. This was always the case, though it may have intensified.

Yes, it is scary. Here is one of the pics that was going around:

The guys that do the pollination seem to be divided between major operators and sharp gypsies who can't or don't like holding down straight jobs. (Before anyone complains about that last part it also fits myself and most of the better oil and gas landmen, we just work indoors.)

It is too bad that most of you can't come over for a few drinks of choice and sit and watch the little buggers coming and going.
The President is a fink.
May 7th, 2015 at 3:39:20 PM permalink
AZDuffman
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 135
Posts: 18136
ONE WEEK UPDATE

The queen is released--LONG LIVE THE QUEEN!

Well, let her live and lay enough eggs that if she goes they make a new queen.

As I talked last week, when you get a package of bees the queen is in a box all to herself. It is plugged with a candy which is more or less 100% sugar for the workers to eat away and release her. This is for a few reasons. One is the colony needs a few days to accept her as their new queen. A second is that if she was loose in the box she could decide not to like the new digs and swarm them away. A third is that if she was just in the box she could easily be lost or killed. So the box was installed and I waited. This morning I found this:



Hive inspection takes a few tools. For some reason people are always asking about the smoker. Yes, I used one:



The smoker fuel is unimaginative but efffective:



So I checked for a few other things. One was food. The bees ate, get this, FOUR POUNDS of sugar in a week. Full bag, well almost. A few ounces short. But it was all gone. I did not find the queen, but they were all over several of the frames. They were really clistered over a few spots and I assume that is where the queen was. No comb drawing yet, but it was only a week. Hoping there was comb under where I could not see, I did not want to keep it open any longer than I had to because in reality I can do nothing more but wait.
The President is a fink.
May 7th, 2015 at 3:51:26 PM permalink
odiousgambit
Member since: Oct 28, 2012
Threads: 153
Posts: 5030
oh, at first I thought it was a bad thing, that photo ... the Queen is gone!

damn interesting, keep it coming!
I'm Still Standing, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah [it's an old guy chant for me]
May 7th, 2015 at 6:20:00 PM permalink
Ayecarumba
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 89
Posts: 1744
Quote: AZDuffman
ONE WEEK UPDATE

....This morning I found this:


...


I'm amazed that they were able to pry the staple right off the wood. Considerate of them to leave you two bits for your trouble... hehe

Actually, I am impressed by the clever way they manipulate the bee's natural behaviour to ensure that you get what you ordered. It is amazing that this knowlege has been passed down for a very long time. I wonder who was the first to actually attempt to put the bees in a manmade container. It must have hurt.
May 7th, 2015 at 8:01:42 PM permalink
Fleastiff
Member since: Oct 27, 2012
Threads: 62
Posts: 7831
Fuel for your smoker? ..... How much will you pay for my laundry lint?
May 7th, 2015 at 8:44:08 PM permalink
FrGamble
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 67
Posts: 7596
Quote: Ayecarumba
I wonder who was the first to actually attempt to put the bees in a manmade container. It must have hurt.


Probably a monk somewhere, but I'm just guessing.
“It is with the smallest brushes that the artist paints the most exquisitely beautiful pictures.” (