Farmers keeping beehives

[Danllan]

Covering t's costs would be nice aim for a couple of years! But once I stop buying stuff, I can't see why it won't end up being slightly profitable. Pay for my pub bills maybe!!
I'm never going to be a full on bee farmer (over 40 hives for insurance or associations) but I'd like to get a few more hives than I've got now. Enough to warrant selling bulk buckets of honey for other to people to do the maketing, there are people who love that side of it, and I really don't!

Famous last words, guilty here too .

 

[topground]

Can I ask? How does verroa find it's way into the bee colony in the first place, if you buy them verroa free from the start? Can wasps spread it for example? Forgive the ignorance, just always wondered is all

Carried by drones which are tolerated by female dominated colonies during the summer. ( Drones kicked out when there are no Queens being produced to mate with. They then die because they are not being fed by the workers that are female) Drones will move from hive to hive and take the varroa mite with them Varroa lays its eggs in drone brood and so the cycle continues.

 

[Larel]

First day this year I have seen my bees flying. Didn't open the hives but there were bees flying from each hive. Sometimes more difficult to keep the bees alive through the spring than it is to overwinter them so not out of the woods yet!

 

[Larel]

Some bee swarm management photos. Preparing to snelgrove a hive to prevent swarming. Queen is marked with red paint in the 2nd and 3rd photos.

 

[Larel]

Here are some mismanagement photos! A swarm on a strainer stay in the garden. The last photo is a swarm captured in a straw skep ready to be rehived.

 

[Larel]

I'm afraid my bee mismanagement and neglect knows no bounds! This is a swarm that installed itself in a lid of an adjacent hive and started a colony by building comb and raising brood before I discovered them.
It looks beautiful, nice clean comb, as new swarms always produce.
This was back end of last year, they are still in the lid of the hive, I decided to give them a chance to see through the winter and deal with it in the spring. If they have survived they will either get united with another hive or rehived to be a colony on their own. To be honest I'll be surprised if they have enough food to survive as I couldn't supplement their stores with syrup or candy.

 

[bovrill]

Had the youth wing of the local beekeepers association here today, building the hives for their apiary I'm going to be hosting. As usual I didn't think to take any photos until there was hardly anyone left here!

 

[Larel]

First of my hives to swarm this year, hopefully caught and used to artificially swarm the original hive.

 

[Larel]

Collecting supers for extracting.

 

[Larel]

Uncapping the combs. Note I picked a couple of good ones to show. Not all are as well capped!

 

[Larel]

Homemade extractor. Made from a drum after lemonade concentrate, powered by a motor robbed from a treadmill. Controlled by a box of tricks bought off amazon, and powered by 110v transformer. It takes 9 frames arranged radially inside it.

 

[Larel]

Honey starting to run into buckets for filtering at a later date.

Running in honey from the cold uncapping tray as well.

 

[Av Gorritt]

I have kept bees on and off for the last say 6 years. I had a couple of good years with big yields, but unfortunately the most common theme with me was hives dying out (probably due to neglect by me). I found with working away form home, then bad weather when you are at home meaning I could have went 3-4 weeks without looking at them.

When ever I get back to working on the farm full time it will be handier if there is some good weather to just nip over to the bees.

The advise of doing it with more experienced people for the first few times is def very relevant. I remember my first time opening the hive I found it very overwhelming, the noise can be immense.

On the whole I found it very enjoyable, sometimes it is just nice to take 5 mins and watch them coming and going form the hive.

Obviously getting stung is horrible. I had a couple of hairy experiences, I went to lift a couple of hives one night and had to drive 30 miles home. About 15mins into the drive my car started to fill with bees, I had to abandon ship. Such a mess they left.

Anyways, good luck to anybody starting

As with surprise farmer , we had a similar experience . I'd split a few hives , and sold 3 active stocks . We duly "seat belted " the hives , blocked the alighting board with dry grass after smoking them . We loaded them into an ifor to deliver them , but when we got there the trailer was heaving with very very angry bees . By the time we were finished my younger son was stung quite badly , despite being "armoured up" He finished up with 3 days in bed , very sick indeed . He's now bee and wasp sting allergic and has to carry an epi-pen all the time . End of my bee keeping hobby . ! I agree with all the previous advice though - join a club , get some practical experience , working with an experienced apiarist . It's a very rewarding hobby , and in my experience you can spend as much , or as little time with them , to coincide with your busier or slacker times . they seem to cope quite well either way .

 

[Larel]

Honey bears filled last night. Might be a few Christmas presents there.

 

[Larel]

Jarring my soft set honey tonight.

 

[Larel]

Bed activity in all hives today but don’t think I’ve ever seen this much bees flying from a hive in February.

 

[bovrill]

I've said that I'm too busy with some other stuff going on this year to go chasing swarms.
So this is my 3rd one I've collected this week!

I've given the first two away, to someone who had a bit of a bad winter with their colonies, but these are so placid that I'm hanging on to them!

I've not been a fan of the idea of poly-nucs in the past, but I got a couple earlier in the spring, and I'm convinced now!

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

I've said that I'm too busy with some other stuff going on this year to go chasing swarms.
So this is my 3rd one I've collected this week!
View attachment 803074
I've given the first two away, to someone who had a bit of a bad winter with their colonies, but these are so placid that I'm hanging on to them!

I've not been a fan of the idea of poly-nucs in the past, but I got a couple earlier in the spring, and I'm convinced now!

"Poly-nucs"?

 

[bovrill]

"Poly-nucs"?

Sorry, being a bit technical
A nuc is a half width beehive, without any of the honey boxes on top. It's all in one piece, rather than in separate layers, so it's easily portable to move small colonies around, or,like this, go and fetch a swarm.
But it uses full size frames, so when the numbers of bees start to grow they can easily be transferred to a full sized hive.
A poly-nuc is made from expanded polystyrene rather than the usual wood, which gives the possibility of incorporating feeding sections into the top, and see-through panels to watch the bees feeding.

I'm not sure I approve of the whole concept of using plastics rather than wood, but this really is portable and convenient to use.

 

[Larel]

I had a bit of a honey disaster tonight. When carrying a full pail if honey the handle gave way. The pail hit the ground and split but luckily didn’t spill very much. Managed to get it decanted into another bucket.