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What would be y'all's advice to a complete idiot on this subject wanting to get started up?
 
Thefishguy77 said:
How were your boxes for fullness? I cant get mine to go into the honey supers but I think by keeping them on the stack they are “less likely” to swarm with space available.
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Single box, plenty of room. The 4 center frames were averaging about 1/2 used... nothing on the outer frames.

This is the 4th hive I've lost in 2 years. No f'n clue what's going on.
 
rockota said:
Honestly, probably join a local club... check w/ the county. Find a mentor.

I kind of failed on all of these.
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All good points.

Everyone loses hives, it's just a thing that happens. If you have 8 or so and 2 die or fly off to never never land, you can do some splits and make up for it. If you have two hives and they both die, you're SOL.
 
rockota said:
Honestly, probably join a local club... check w/ the county. Find a mentor.

I kind of failed on all of these.
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A HS buddy of mine is big into it but he's a few hours away now in the other side of the mountains. I know my Dad has a buddy he grew up with who keeps bees.
 
Pony_Driver said:
All good points.

Everyone loses hives, it's just a thing that happens. If you have 8 or so and 2 die or fly off to never never land, you can do some splits and make up for it. If you have two hives and they both die, you're SOL.
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1 hive died in a weekend. Fine on a friday, everything dead on a monday.
1 we think lost a queen
2 swarmed, we think. Never saw warning signs.. .just gone.
All last year. :(

I'm done until next year. Going to move the location, freeze all of the frames over the winter... deep clean and try again.
 
rockota said:
1 hive died in a weekend. Fine on a friday, everything dead on a monday.
1 we think lost a queen
2 swarmed, we think. Never saw warning signs.. .just gone.
All last year. :(

I'm done until next year. Going to move the location, freeze all of the frames over the winter... deep clean and try again.
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Crazy how it all works. There was a hive in the living room wall of my house when I moved in 5 years ago. They kinda come and go but are there more than they are gone. People joke that I should put a honey tap above my couch.
 
Had a hive abandon the have.
Was good one week.
2 weeks later nothing ....
Plus all the honey was pilfered.
Saved some wax.
Thinking the ventilation was not right.
Had lots of rain and humidity.
Other hive I got 9 frames today.
Leaving a super on it for over winter.
This hive is 3 years old.
 
Find a local mentor, get a suit and tag along with him. See if you can handle the bees when they get to flying. Go ahead and get you some boxes and frames for next year.
Setup a swarm trap for this spring.
Don't expect honey the first year. If you do get it you got lucky. Start looking at places you might be able to put some hives. Shit, I still have a swarm that moved in a empty box in my drive way.
 
Thefishguy77 said:
Holy shit impromptu bee day. Working outside and I began to hear my bees, WTF. Go down to my hives and they are super active. Shit something is going on. Grab my bee jacket and gloves and go in to my area. Fucking yellow jackets are attacking my weaker hive:mad3::mad3:. Had mites show up in my new hive this year and had a weather window to treat with formic pro. Well my new hive took that like a champ but it really set my existing hive back. May have weakened it too much to make winter. We shall see. Anyways thats the hive thats getting beat up. Threw an entrance reducer on both of them and then worked on finding the wasp nest. Took some time but found a in ground yellow jacket nest. Had a can of spray so I filled the hole with spray and that somewhat slowed them down. I then dumped a bottle of bleach down the hole and covered it with about 4-6” of 5/8- gravel. Also set a few meat traps hoping to lure them into that. Fingers crossed they didnt do to much damage to that hive. Also killed 2 boldfaced hornets around the hive as well. I have no idea where their nest is. Its always something when I have time for nothing. :lmao::lmao:😞
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Well update. Went out to work the huve today and they were still getting beat up by yellow jackets. Decided pulling it apart would be worse so I hunted yellow jackets and found another nest albeit small. Killed it and them set a yellow hacket trap near my hives since they had already found my hives. Fairly certain that hive is fucked. Will pull it apart this weekend and inspect but very low bee activity. Not surprising after not taking the formic pro well and then getting attacked by wasps. That sucks but such is life. Lots of honey in that hive thats for sure. Probably at least 10 deep frames.

Going to ask the local shop as well but my thought are assuming hive is done. Brood frames in other hive. Harvest most of the honey. Thinking about keeping 2-4 frames for an early split next year if my current hive makes the winter and or to augment a nuc next spring as well. I have put brood into a different hive that went queenless last year with seemingly no ill effects.

Thoughts?
 
Thefishguy77 said:
Well update. Went out to work the huve today and they were still getting beat up by yellow jackets. Decided pulling it apart would be worse so I hunted yellow jackets and found another nest albeit small. Killed it and them set a yellow hacket trap near my hives since they had already found my hives. Fairly certain that hive is fucked. Will pull it apart this weekend and inspect but very low bee activity. Not surprising after not taking the formic pro well and then getting attacked by wasps. That sucks but such is life. Lots of honey in that hive thats for sure. Probably at least 10 deep frames.

Going to ask the local shop as well but my thought are assuming hive is done. Brood frames in other hive. Harvest most of the honey. Thinking about keeping 2-4 frames for an early split next year if my current hive makes the winter and or to augment a nuc next spring as well. I have put brood into a different hive that went queenless last year with seemingly no ill effects.

Thoughts?
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Get that honey out asap if the hive dies, it will be stolen in no time.
 
Thefishguy77 said:
There are still bees coming and going but no major activity. Im assuming its the bees that didn’t get killed in the wasp attack that are left.
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See if queen is still there.
I had a hive that had bees coming and going...
Thought the hive was active...
They were stealing the honey.
Found out too late
 
jeeptj19992001 said:
See if queen is still there.
I had a hive that had bees coming and going...
Thought the hive was active...
They were stealing the honey.
Found out too late
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It has happened to me. I had one hive get robbed out this year. If you have a queen and some brood. Close the hive up at night and move them.

Then start feeding them sugar water. Maybe add super and give them a bag of sugar.
Cut the bag some and add some water to make a quick sugar cake.
 
Ok so opened it up and sure enough dead hive. Still a fair amount of honey left. So I removed the hive and closed it up tight for now.

Next question, since my other hive appears very strong but is resistant to go into the honey super I put on it, not drawing out comb. Should I put all the honey frames in one deep and stack it on the existing hive? That would give them drawn out comb and hopefully I get some extra Honey out of the deal. Probably have a solid 10 deep frames of honey in the dead hive with several partial that have been robbed. The alive hive is mostly full in their 2 deeps below the queen excluder. Mainly trying to recoup some of my lost honey. Trying to have enough to harvest and save some for a NUC and/or split in spring
 
Thefishguy77 said:
Ok so opened it up and sure enough dead hive. Still a fair amount of honey left. So I removed the hive and closed it up tight for now.

Next question, since my other hive appears very strong but is resistant to go into the honey super I put on it, not drawing out comb. Should I put all the honey frames in one deep and stack it on the existing hive? That would give them drawn out comb and hopefully I get some extra Honey out of the deal. Probably have a solid 10 deep frames of honey in the dead hive with several partial that have been robbed. The alive hive is mostly full in their 2 deeps below the queen excluder. Mainly trying to recoup some of my lost honey. Trying to have enough to harvest and save some for a NUC and/or split in spring
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I would. Would not hurt. Only benefit the hive.
 
So after removing the hive I found the queen still alive but no other bees. I have her isolated. I feel like I can split my other hive but dont want to chance my other hive dying. It is a hot hive but lots of capped brood and visible eggs in the uncapped frames so a strong queen.
 
Thefishguy77 said:
So after removing the hive I found the queen still alive but no other bees. I have her isolated. I feel like I can split my other hive but dont want to chance my other hive dying. It is a hot hive but lots of capped brood and visible eggs in the uncapped frames so a strong queen.
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Not this late in the season.
Might destroy both hives.
 
I would definitely add the extra honey to the other hives.
 
Ok so I sent it to a degree. I took the remaining capped brood from the gone hive and 2 frames of honey and put them into a 5 frame NUC with the queen. Then took to honey frames from above the excluder in my strong hive a shook the bees into the NUC box. I am trying to find someone local to come out this weekend and help me locate the queen in my strong hive. That way I can grab a frame of capped brood to give them a chance and put everything into a 10 frame deep. Still yellow jackets around so I closed the entrance on the NUC and left the vents open. Then used a closed up box to help support some tin to help keep the rain I feel coming off the NUC box.
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Are you planning on keeping the nuc there?
The bees you shook off the honey supers may just fly back to the other hive.
 
Roktoy829 said:
Are you planning on keeping the nuc there?
The bees you shook off the honey supers may just fly back to the other hive.
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Not there exactly but probably in the same area. I am going to transfer that NUC to a 10 frame box this weekend with more time and a better weather window. The bees I shook off may return. But I am hoping to get some nurse bees off a brood frame and they typically dont want to fly. If it doesn’t work it doesnt work. But since I have a mated queen, and lots of resources it seemed like it was worth the shot. Be cool to start spring with 2 hives. Split my strongest one and hope to have 3 strong hive by next fall. And harvest honey off 2 hives next fall. The only turf I plant now is clover. Great for the dirt, drought resistance, decent fire resistance and awesome for bees. My bees are still coming in loaded in pollen.
 
Very good chance you keep the new one going. I wanted to let you know, they may leave the split.
 
So its been warmer recently and I have seen zero activity. There are a bunch of dead bees I can see in the hive as well. Not going to open it till spring but im not super hopeful. Going to order a NUC for next spring.
 
Thefishguy77 said:
So its been warmer recently and I have seen zero activity. There are a bunch of dead bees I can see in the hive as well. Not going to open it till spring but im not super hopeful. Going to order a NUC for next spring.
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Don't give up hope just yet. It's normal to see dead bees at the entrance this time of year.
 
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