Posts in category Beekeeping

First Swarm of the Year

Apr03
2012 Leave a Comment Written by Tim Arheit

Hard to believe the first swarm call was on April 2nd.   It shouldn’t be overly surprising though given our warm March weather.  Hives are bursting with bees and need room now.

You need to get out in your hives the first chance you get and reverse hive bodies or add supers to give them more room or your hives will soon be looking like this.

I manage to visit three of my yards this evening after work and most had a lot of activity in the top box.   The hives have lots of drone brood and honey plastered up against the inner cover in many of the hives.  I didn’t have time to do much so instead of rotating brood boxes I just added supers.   It was faster, and it let me hit more than one yard, but it does mean I’ll have to go back later when I have time and rotate boxes if they need it.  But when you have more than a few hives you need to make these trade offs.   Super all the hives, or rotate a few and chase the swarms from those you didn’t have time to rotate.

Posted in Journal - Tagged

April Has Arrived.

Apr01
2012 Leave a Comment Written by Tim Arheit

It looks like the long warm spell of March is over.  We should be starting our first grafts this coming week and the weather forecast only predicts one day that even reaches 70 degrees.  A big change from the last few weeks where nearly every day was in the 70′s.

With the use of an incubator to keep the brood warm, I probably will start grafting early this week, but what is of bigger concern is the extended forecast. Accuweather.com puts it in the 50′s to low 60′s through April 25th currently which may make it a real challenge to populate the mating nucs in a couple weeks when the queen cells are ready, and even a bigger challenge for queens to mate.

The hives are raising plenty of drones however, so we’ll start and cross our fingers.

Posted in Journal

First Spring Inspections

Mar22
2012 Leave a Comment Written by Tim Arheit

It’s hard to tell by the calendar that it is only March.  For the past 2 weeks we have had weather consistently in the 70′s to mid 80′s and mostly sunny.   This would be the norm for late May or even June.  Needless the to say the bees are very, very active and have plenty of flowers to forage on.   Blooms are easily running 3-4 weeks ahead of schedule.  Maples bloomed in late February and the tree to the right (a pear, picture taken March 21st) bloomed April 24th in 2009.  It’s the same tree that is showing in this post.

The good news….  The bees are in great shape.   Pollen patties went in last week.   I really didn’t need them this year, but they were already made up so I went ahead and put them on anyways.   A few hives are a bit light, but overall they are looking good and loss currently stands at around 5%.

The bad news…. ticks are already out, so are flies, mosquitoes (pests for the beekeeper not the bees), and small hive beetles look to be as strong as I normally see in fall already in some hives.   Normally this hasn’t been a concern in our area, but we will have to keep a close eye on them.   It’s quite possible we’ll have to do something about them this year.

So what does this mean?   The weather and the bees are telling me I should be out grafting and getting ready to split hives (I see a heavy swarm season this year).  But the calendar tells me the my earliest graft should be nearly 2 weeks away, and 3-4 weeks until I start splitting hives for mating nucs.  For now I’m waiting because I’m worried this weather will pass and if we have a normal April mating could be a problem if I start too soon.

Posted in Journal

February 29th – 69F and Sunny

Feb29
2012 Leave a Comment Written by Tim Arheit

The weather forecast was calling for rain, but it cleared out early and the day was warm, humid and sunny with a light breeze.   The bees were very, very active.   Unlike yesterday, the bees were virtually ignoring the dry pollen substitute I had put out for them.   A quick inspection of the activity told me why, they were gathering real pollen from somewhere.  I was a bit surprised because the silver maple outside my door was not yet blooming.

Later in the day, activity at the pollen substitute had increased somewhat, but was not the thick cloud they would have been if no real pollen was available.   I though the picture below was pretty cool as it caught most bees in flight as they had just flew up in response to my breath while I was taking the picture:

The source of most the the real pollen, probably a few maple trees that had started blooming.   I did find one on my property that was humming, but not all of them.  I’m hoping the others hold out till we have another warm day next week.   This is the earliest I recall silver maples blooming in recent memory.  In past years it has been mid to late March when the maples bloom.  Normally I start putting pollen patties in the hives the first week of March, a week or two before the maples begin to bloom.

 

Nearly every hive in my yard had activity today,  Including most of the nucs I am attempting to overwinter this year.   I put most of them in groups of 4 to help provide a windbreak for each other.  It will be interesting to see which ones did well when it gets a bit closer to spring.

Still, activity at the hive was not always a good sign.  This following hive had a lot of activity.  But it had no pollen gathering and the activity was more frantic and disorganized.  It also had the waxy residue near the top fo the white box that is a sign of robbing.  I’m not 100% certain, but my experience tells me this particular hive didn’t make it and had a lot of unprotected honey.

I’m not sure what this incredibly early start means for the bee season this year.  It looks quite promising with a lot of live hives.   But it’s still very early and we’ve been fooled before.   At this point I’m most worried about starvation.

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New Products – The Ultimate Hive Stand

Feb15
2012 Leave a Comment Written by Tim Arheit

Honey Run Apiaries now carries The Ultimate Hive Stand.  With snow on the ground today we haven’t had a chance to try it ourselves, but it looks like a well though out stand.  It’s lighter than the concrete blocks, and more rot resistant than the old pallets we  tend to use.  It’s easy to assemble and gets the hive off the cold wet ground.   It’s available for standard 10 frame, 8 frame and beemax size hived and has an optional frame rest built in.

In addition to looking great and the long list of features and benefits the manufacturer claims, I’m betting it will help with skunks by making them bare their underbelly and should be easy to trim around with the weed wacker.  It’s perfect for the hobbyist with a few hives in their garden.  I’m looking forward to the warm weather and trying it on our queen cell builders.  The extra height should make them easier on the back to work with.

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Unseasonably Warm Weather

Feb08
2012 1 Comment Written by Tim Arheit

We are just a week into February and we have yet to have the really cold weather one expects in Ohio for January and February.  We really haven’t had a prolonged period that has been below freezing.  Last week we had a few days in the upper 40s and even a day that broke the 50 degree mark.  It’s still winter, right?

While the bees are doing well, I’m beginning to become concerned that the bees will use their winter stores up too quickly and starvation will be a real issue come March.   It’s still too early to worry too much, but come March 1st I’ll have to make a point to check hive weights, and recheck them every couple weeks.

The forecast for the next 10 is much the same with highs in the 30s, except of course for Saturday and Sunday when I don’t have to work the day job and planned on working in the unheated garage.  Isn’t that always the case?

Posted in Journal

Long Break

Feb02
2012 2 Comments Written by Tim Arheit

It’s been entirely too long since I’ve had a change to post any updates here.  Beekeeping and life in general was just too much to do and have time to update the website.  My wife complains that I can never say no… and I suppose it’s true to a point.  I’m now also secretary of the Ohio State Beekeepers Association.  Not that I really needed more to do.

The past 3 days have been unseasonably warm with temperatures around 50 degrees.  The bees have been flying heavily and only one inactive hive was seen at the house.  It’s still much to early to tell how well the bees faired over the winter, we still should have a good 2 months of cold weather.   Time will tell.

Posted in Journal

Cold April

Apr20
2011 Leave a Comment Written by Tim Arheit

This has had to be the most consistently cold April that I can recall in the past many years.  The next 4 days aren’t looking much better either though it’s actually on the warm side compared to the past few days with highs that only were in the mid 40s.


Typically we would have nearly half our mating nucs out in the field and would be on our 3rd grafting cycle.  But we are only on our first cycle and if it stays too cold or wet this weekend it may be a complete bust.  Interestingly this was the first time I’ve every had customers call and ask if we could delay package bees because of the cold weather.

I just hope this cycle breaks soon…

Posted in Journal

Swarm Removal on the Ohio State Association Website

Feb13
2011 1 Comment Written by Tim Arheit

The Ohio State Beekeepers Association website is getting a bit of a face lift with new content, event calendar and more.  And we are happy to announce they have added our swarm removal look up to their website. (Ok, I did have a hand in it since I’m also their new webmaster).

This does mean however that if you also sell honey, bees and supplies you can safely link to the state associations website swarm removal page without redirecting your clients to a potential competitor.  Though honestly if anyone considers me a competitor I’m flattered,  I don’t have enough time in the day to compete with anyone and my queens, nucs and honey sell out well before the demand runs out.  Frequently this means I’m searching for other reliable sources I can refer my potential customers to because I don’t have the stock or inventory to help them.

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Beekeeping in Style

Feb11
2011 1 Comment Written by Tim Arheit

So what do you picture a beekeeper wearing… a boring white suit of course, often dirty and stained up with propolis and dirt.  I’ve mentioned to my wife before that I though there might be market for more stylish suits, particular with all the new hobbiests starting beekeeping these past few years, many of them women.  So what should I see in the latest issue of Bee Culture?  Colorfull bee suits offered by Blue Sky Bee Company.   Guess I’m too slow again.   Still might be market for suits with patterns, and I don’t see a jacket being offered yet.

My daughter would love these suits (she’s a style freak).  But for myself, I’ll stick to my jeans and boring white jacket, if a wear a suit at all.

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