Are my bees still alive? Adding winter feed to the survivors.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ต.ค. 2024
- We had a warm day so I decided to get in the hives real quick and add some Hive Alive Fondant and see if we lost any colonies.
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Queen right dial
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Hive Alive Fondant
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Cute little hive tool
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One isn’t too bad. Keep the others going!! Thanks Jim!!
Ya, one isn't too bad at all. We're not out of the woods yet though.
Yes cut that fondant in half and put it on both sides of the resource hive!
Yup, I did exactly that.
Sorry for the lost of bees , I lost 11 so for due to mites and lack of treatment on my part. I did have 2 of them starve out in a cold snap, they had honey but couldn’t get to it when temps dropped.
Ouch, so sorry you've lost so many. Mites are the worst. I try to be somewhat aggressive with mite treatments, but I lost one colony due to formic pro and had another abscond. That was entirely my fault. I'm sure I applied the formic incorrectly somehow.
Oh man Brad, that stinks. . Sorry to hear that.
Awesome, you got some dials. Nice seeing that activity. Can't wait for the weather to break. That fondant should definitely carry them into Spring.
Ya, gotta support you guys. Those dials are a great idea. Can't wait for the next designs you guys do.
@@FreeRangeArtFarm Very soon we'll have another.
Forgot if you have hive beetles there. Thomas don't be afraid to put in some pollen sub patties. 1/4 patties or so. It may seem early but I guarantee you there is some brood in there. Your starve out, consider doing a mite wash just to get a count. Those are always interesting to see results wise. Keep a keeping :) Oh and love the kids tool ! Thanks for showing that.
We do have hive beetles, but they aren't any kind of issue in my apairy. I looked at my records from last year. I gave them pollen patties in mid Feb, so I plan to do that again this year. Weather permitting. And yes, I will certainly do a mite wash on the deadpan. Just to see where they were.
Hi Thomas, good to see ya buddy.🤩Spring is 1 day closer. Sweet you got "nugget" hive🥳their channel is great.
Can't wait for spring! I didn't know nugget had a channel. I have to find it now.
@@FreeRangeArtFarm www.youtube.com/@fuzzynuggetsbees
Two artic blasts, insufficient food stores... single box hive. To me that is a pretty risky set up in your apiary in N. Virginia. Minimally I'd have at least a full medium super of honey/reduced-capped sugar syrup on those hives going into winter and even with that I suspect they'd need fondant or granulated sugar to get them through to end of March beginning of April. While that cluster may not have been huge (you wouldn't have wanted it big anyway in a single deep) it was large enough to have survived if food stores alone had not been an issue. Heft the rest of those hives for weight and if light keep adding that fondant on. I might also suggest that you put that feeder shim (3/4 inch) on the top box and the inner lid over that and place that fondant directly on top of the frames. That way the bees are not having to climb into a "cold space" to collect fondant or granulated sugar. This keeps food and warmth below with the cluster. That's the way I set my hives up for any necessary winter feeding. Might get some bridge comb build in the area by late March but I'll take that over deadouts any day.At least those are my thoughts and 2 cents worth of advice. :)
Yes, most of my colonies are a deep with a few frames of honey and a full medium of honey. Some with even more. But we certainly can overwinter a colony in a single deep. It isn't quite as risky as it seems. Thanks for the feedback.
I had one nuc deadout in early January wen it was too cold to get to the sugar block. One 10 frame out of resources, started feeding and its still going. It happens to everyone if your colony is not real strong.
Ya, I had about four colonies that were low on resources going in to winter. I fed them, but wasn't active enough to get them enough resources before the cold to over. Life gets in the way. It's all good. I don't get bummed about losing colonies anymore. I just try to learn and grow.
Enjoyed the video. Shame about the dead out, supported surprised if one of ours survives, did everything we could to requeen but they weren't having any of it!!! How many swarms are you hoping to catch this year? Do you have a limit on how many hives you'll have in your apiary?
I'd like to keep my apiary to around 15 or fewer hives. As for swarms... I just stop when I've hit my limit of colonies to manage. This year, I might be putting a couple of hives on a neighbor's property so those will be from swarms or splits. Also, I'm working with Justin Ruger (from www.AccessibleBeekeeping.org) to build out and start the experimental accessible yard. He said he's expecting to get a few nucs, but if we need to populate more hives then I will keep trying to catch swarms to fill those.Thanks for the great question.
So sorry you had queen issues. We lost a queen in late winter last year and I managed to limp the colony along until I could buy queens. It was very touch and go for a while.
@@FreeRangeArtFarm that'll be a really interesting, an accessible apiary. I work in college signing for Deaf students, in always interested in equal access
@Melanie Jenkins we've had a slow start, but hoping to get a few different hive designs tested out this season. We are starting with wheelchair dependent access, but hope to grow to much more.