Honey Run Apiaries-A Beekeeper’s Blog

We just received our 3rd shipment of package bees from Gardner's Apiaries.  Like the past 3 shipments they have been on time and look to be in great shape.   We hived one ourselves from the first shipment and it is building up strong.  I've heard a lot of people still looking for packages or that have had their packages delayed and delayed again so I've been very pleased our have been on time.

The good new for those still looking is that as of this time Tony has 300 or so packages available for the May 6th pickup date and they can be picked up in Cincinnati, Columbus, Tipp City or here at my location near Lima.  But act fast, he needs to receive the order by April 29th.  Details and the order form are on his website at  olddrone.com

With the unseasonably warm weather in the 70's the bees are building up quickly and flowers are well ahead of schedule.  Based on pictures from last year (Specifically the picture from the blog post Buzzing Trees with it's picture of a pear tree taken last year) the blooms are about 2 weeks 3 days ahead of last year.  This all means it's time to begin grafting, just in time to be perfectly on schedule for this years queens  (the first graft was actually this past Sunday). 

I've talked to a number of beekeepers over the past weeks and the results of the winter are quite mixed. Some did quite well and have mostly strong hives and few losses.  Others did poorly with 50-75% losses.  Unlike past bad years where almost everyone did poorly, there doesn't seem to be a pattern by area, size of the beekeeper or experience.   Fortunately most of our bee yards fall into the mostly strong with few losses category.  I chalk it up to good stock and the extra effort in winter preparations we made last year.  Still, if our winter had been a few weeks longer some hives may have run out of stores and would likely have starved out without assistance as some of the strong hives were getting light.

A good start to the season so far but we aren't out of the woods yet.  The last time I recall such a great start to April ended with snow the last week of April.  So keep your fingers crossed.

 Snakes on a Plane?  Nope, just bees.  Most beekeepers just picked up their bees by car or truck, but this Michigan beekeeper saved some time by air.

The package bees arrived this past Friday and most beekeepers who had ordered a packaged picked them up on Saturday with the remainder picked up on Sunday.  I must say I was impressed with the quality of the packages so far.  The bees were in very good shape with fewer dead bees than I’ve ever seen in packages, plus the packages weighed a full 2.5-2.6 pounds of bees in the couple I checked.  Very good for 2lb packages.  I only got a few for myself as I really have enough bees.  It’s too soon to see if the queens are as good, but it’s a very promising start.

There is nothing quite so wonderful and calming as walking by a tree in full bloom and listening to the tree literally humming with activity.  This was the picture today (Thursday) as the pear trees were blooming today under a perfectly clear sky.  Some trees were just starting to bloom, and others like the one pictured were in full bloom with dozens of bees working the flowers.  I would have loved to just take a nap under the tree watching the bees instead of heading back inside to my day job….. perhaps one day…

Finally…. The dandelions and pear trees have started blooming.  A good sign that spring may finally be here to stay.  You can see the large load of pollen this bee has already collected on her back legs.
 

April has generally been cold and wet seriously limiting the number of days that it’s been possible to do spring inspections, reverse hive bodies and make splits for mating nucs.  While it’s only 55F right now, this weekend is suppose to be very warm so hopefully a lot of bee work can be caught up.

The picture below shows a few of the mating nucs that were setup last Friday.  I ended up having to introduce virgins into the nucs because the cold weather earlier in the week didn’t allow for setting up nucs before the queens were to emerge from the cells.  They were released from their cages yesterday and most were accepted.  With some luck they may even make mating flights this weekend when it’s suppose to be up to 80F, if it doesn’t get too windy.

 

I has bee a  fairly cold start to April.  I should be thankful it’s not snowing, but the consistently cool weather has made it nearly impossible to begin any inspections or other bee work that involved more than peeking under the inner cover. The hives do appear to be building up well and drones are starting to appear which is a good sign.  We have fortunately had one day that hit the upper 60′s and a few days in the mid 50′s that allows me to setup a cell builder and begin grafting with great care not to chill the brood.  I use a portable incubator to transport the brood frame to graft from into the house where it’s warm and then to transport the grafted cells back to the hive.  It does seem to work quite well and the brood is only in the open for a few seconds at a time.

On the plus side I’ve had more time to catch up on building equipment.  Not exactly what I planned on doing this time of year, but with rain and a high of only 40F today I can’t do much else with the bees.

It’s May 28th.  Do your hives look like this in Ohio?

10 of the 14 hives in this apiary look this strong right now.   The 2nd to the top super was added to the hive just 2 weeks ago and most hives already have a significant amount of honey in it or have it filled and were building comb on the top of the bars.  They desparately needed more space and I added yet another super this trip (the top super shown in the picture).    Also keep in mind that 3 or 4, 5 frame mating nucs were made up from each of the hives in this yard just 6 weeks prior to this picture.

Not all hives look this good, but a large number of them do and I account much of it to the effort made last year to requeen nearly all of my hives and improve the stock.  I must say I’m very happy with the result.  The down side is that it’s going to be a real chore lifting off all the honey to get down to the brood nest to pull larvae for grating on some of these that are breeder queens.

I’m still here in spite of my absence from the blog for about a month.  Not to worry, I’ve suffered no tragic accident, I’ve simply been busy with work and bees from dawn till dusk and sometimes much later.

The weather here has been cool and wet and we are still consistently well below the average temperature for this time of year.  It has made it difficult to keep the queen rearing on schedule because there have been very few days warm enough for mating flights.   It hasn’t been as bad as it was a few years ago where a 3 week cold spell April and May caused a complete halt to production and loss of all queens in the mating nucs because it simply took too long for them to get mated, though I did have one batch of queens that was about a 50% loss.  Fortunately it looks like things may break this weekend and temperatures may be above normal for awhile at least.  I’m looking forward to it.  We shouldn’t have to be running the pellet stove in May.

It’s always a busy time of the year, inspecting hives, splitting up hives for mating nucs and for sale, grafting, etc.  and the weather can make it even more difficult.  Still, it’s nearly done….nearly 200 mating nucs are in production, hives have been inspected and supered if needed, nucs for sale have virgins running around in them just waiting for a warm day later this week to mate, and I’m starting the first batch of  II queens this week.    It’s a couple weeks behind because there have been very few days were drones were flying to collect for II. 

One thing I would change for next year…If we have such a wet spring, I need to buy a pair of waterproof boots.  Carrying equipment and bees though water because you can’t get the truck back to the apiary isn’t fun, but it’s worse with wet feet.

The spring season has started in earnest. This past Saturday the silver maples started blooming and by Sunday enough was blooming that the bees were completely ignoring the open feed pollen substitute. Probably a good thing as real pollen is better for them and I was starting to run out of substitute as they had consumed nearly two 5 gallon buckets worth.

The weather Sunday was quite warm in the upper 60\’s. Many of the hives had a significant amount of drone brood and the strongest had adult drones. At least one hive had several hundred adult drones…which means it\’s time to start grafting…right on time. I made up one queenless hive, reducing it from 4 medium boxes to 3 from the strongest hive I had checked and grafted the next day, Monday. Checked the grafts on Tuesday and found almost all were accepted so things are progressing nicely. The real work begins late next week…inspecting hives and making up dozens of mating nucs.