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aczlan said:
A quiet hive is a bad sign, dead bees on the floor are normal, but at 40-50F you can safely crack the top and see if you hear any buzzing.

Aaron Z
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Its already cool again. Next break into the 50’s and I will pull the top. Already ordered my NUC. Worst case I restart. Best case I buy more boxes:lmao:

I actually have a bunch of cedar slabbed up I may plain it down to 3/4” and make some fresh boxes.
 
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2 of my hives are strong today. Bringing in the cedar pollen.
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Yesterday was warm and someone's bees were stealing honey out of the hive I had left that swarmed off earlier this winter. I really should harvest it, but i have other stuff going on. I am not sure if I will buy a nuc or hope to catch an early spring swarm with my honeypot of a hive.
 
3 hives going into winter and only 2 now. I noticed robbing going on last week and shut in the hive but it was too late. I guess they had already killed the queen and most of the others as there were dead bees everywhere when I opened it up.

It was the strongest hive by far so not really sure what happened. Still had about 30lbs of honey in it so they didn't starve.

I put all the comb in the freezer to kill any pests in it and will reuse it when I get a nuc.
 
Fuckin bummed, lost a third hive this winter. This one starved. They were our strongest hive going into winter. They had two deeps of honey, plus a 25lb sugar board. They ate it all. So frustrating. I'd been changing straw boxes to keep them dry, but hadn't cracked to look at food due to the temperature. Hope we don't lose our last two.
 
I found a hive of bumble bees a few weeks ago in the ground while raking weeds. Thankfully not the hard way. Best way to get them to leave and make a new hive elsewhere?
 
^ we have Yellow Jackets, I just do yardwork around them at dusk/nighttime. Following spring, they are already disappeared. Guessing the winter weather wasn't kind-
 
This will be my first year with bees. I am in the process of getting it setup, and I'm picking up my equipment and nucs the first weekend of May. Built a hive stand with stuff I had laying around. Hopefully it holds up.
 

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So, I think our hive split. We watched the swarm and it settled about 15' up in a juniper we have in the back yard.

Wife had an extra box but no base, so I whipped one up real quick out of some scraps and screen I had laying around.

Came up with a plan to try to get them into a bucket from a 10' ladder, then hand the bucket to the wife to dump into the box.

What a fucking stressful pain in the ass, but I think we got the queen as most of the bees seem to be in the box now. They were balled up around a bunch of smaller branches and the main branch was too big to cut or give a proper shake to knock them loose.

So I used the bee brush to knock as many as I could into the 5 gallon bucket and handed them to the wife to dump. I did that a couple of times to get as many off the juniper as possible.

The wife just put a plywood temp cover on for now as we don't have a proper lid either. Hopefully she can make it to the bee place tomorrow for the pieces we are missing.

Pics...
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Hive died overwinter. Sad times. Installed my new NUC about 10 days ago. Let them finish the pollen patty before hitting them with a mite treatment. Need to pull my winter boxes apart. They are heavy and I only found maybe 1000 bees in there. So I think they swarmed right before dormant time. I need to go through it but at quick glance I have a ton of frames full of honey but has some mold on the exterior of the frames. Will try and post pictures tomorrow
 
I put out an old nuc box on a deer stand in the woods about 3 weeks ago. I noticed bees going in and out last week but couldn't do anything with it due to work. I waited till nightfall tonight to move them to a hive and damn there was a lot of bees in it! they had tons of capped brood in 3 frames and the other two were full of nectar.

Free bees to replace the hive I lost over winter made it a good day.
 
Looks like they swarmed again, neighbor called while I was up in Sacramento. Just got home and went and looked at where they landed lat time and sure enough. Ball of bees. Much smaller than last time, both hives still look full so not sure which one they came from. Super frustrating. We don't have another box to try to catch them.

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Copied from a Mad Science article~

Bees may be the ultimate helper species; after all, the term worker bee refers to all those drones in service of the queen. Yet, in South African Cape honeybees, female workers have been observed changing from altruistic helpers to self-servers.
These bees ignore the orders of the queen and reproduce on their own, and forming their own colonies. Scientists have delivered that this is due to a genetic mutation called thelytoky syndrome. Under certain conditions, the genes of females are mutated, causing the bees to turn selfish-
 
And another swarm.

Caught the one last night. Got stung twice in the face even though I had the bee suit on. It was funny to watch the neighbors who wanted to watch scurry once the bees got a bit active as I knocked the swarm into a bucket.

Then about noon today, I looked in the back yard and sure as shit, yet another swarm. This one landed in our pear tree. Not sure what I'm going to do about it. We are out of boxes and or room for another.

Up in the ladder getting the one last night.

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New one today a few minutes ago.

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