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Hanging some trim in the shop…. Single bee flies in and dive bombs me. Duck and weave and it nails me in the temple.

One of my hives is mean AF. Gotta figure out which one this weekend and get a plan together. Either move it to the other side of the property, requeen or carry a Musk flame thrower for defense.
 
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Checked out the two hives today after watching some videos. The hive that's active seems healthy and we saw the Queen. The other hive that's not real active, we didn't see any eggs or larvae. Just capped brood. Didn't see a queen and definitely seen more drones then the other hive. Will they eventually make a queen on their own?
 
ANGELO said:
Checked out the two hives today after watching some videos. The hive that's active seems healthy and we saw the Queen. The other hive that's not real active, we didn't see any eggs or larvae. Just capped brood. Didn't see a queen and definitely seen more drones then the other hive. Will they eventually make a queen on their own?
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If you didn't see any eggs and there are no queen cells, then it's doubtful they will have what they need to make a queen. If you reasonably sure they have no queen, see if you can buy a mated queen locally and get her in that box. If you wait too long, you will end up with a laying worker, which is difficult to recover from or the hive will most likely die.

Another thing you can do is take a frame of brood from the healthy hive and give it to the queen less hive they will have what they need to create a queen. The brood frame you take needs to have eggs that are 3 days old or less. If you can afford to leave the nurse bees on the frame that will give them some additional bees to care for the brood. Best of luck.
 
baldwin said:
If you didn't see any eggs and there are no queen cells, then it's doubtful they will have what they need to make a queen. If you reasonably sure they have no queen, see if you can buy a mated queen locally and get her in that box. If you wait too long, you will end up with a laying worker, which is difficult to recover from or the hive will most likely die.

Another thing you can do is take a frame of brood from the healthy hive and give it to the queen less hive they will have what they need to create a queen. The brood frame you take needs to have eggs that are 3 days old or less. If you can afford to leave the nurse bees on the frame that will give them some additional bees to care for the brood. Best of luck.
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So do I just slide the entire from in with all the bees on it?
 
Inspection today. Saw 3/4 queens. Saw larva. Plenty of capped brood. One has mite: (saw 1) so have to figure that out.

And one is aggressive AF, even with smoke. Got me through the bee suit.

Ultimately, I think that hive will need a new queen. In the mean time, I’m going to move it to another spot on the property and monitor.
 
Busy little fuckers in just a couple weeks:eek:
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det107 said:
@Santa~ is this you-
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Thank God nope. I did just get stung on the toe last weekend and the wife got hit on the ankle through her sock this week.

She's havgng fucked up reactions to anything that's bitten her lately. The sting has her ankle all swollen and bruised like a sprained ankle. The tick I pulled off her had a bruise for close to 3 weeks, and same with some other bite, I think may have been a spider.

Going to get an epi-pen to have on hand due to how badly she's been reacting to stings/bites.
 
Whistlepig said:
Even though the other bites/stings did similar, I would be wary of the tick bite. I went through 3 months of antibiotics for one that did the same and ended up being lyme disease.
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Kept an eye on it, no bullseye or other indicators of Lyme that we could see. Just takes her forever to heal on the lower half of her body. A couple years ago, she got bit by something that made most of the side of her thigh look bruised. Dr. didn't seem to concerned and subscribed her a cream for it which sort of helped.
 
Well finally got around to beginning to spin honey. Got a cheap Vevor spiner off amazon. Its a bit wobbly but if I hug it with my lega while spinning it gets it done fairly quickly. Going to be the adapter parts to hook it up to a drill motor, a few on YT have done it with success.

Anyways with 2 partial frames that my current hive has been robbing I got a fair bit of honey. I have 10-12 full frames in the freezer I am going to be warming up overnight and spin probably 4-6 of them. Going to save the rest for potential resources. But finally got some honey for all the time put in. Also going to start feeding my bees. Apparently I should have been doing that:homer:. Finally joined a bee club and am learning a ton. Bananas are apparently great for bees and its a good use for the older one we dont really want to eat. Put a spacer board in, some wax paper to set the cut up bananas on and they chow the fuck out of them just like a pollen patty.
 
Santa said:
Kept an eye on it, no bullseye or other indicators of Lyme that we could see. Just takes her forever to heal on the lower half of her body. A couple years ago, she got bit by something that made most of the side of her thigh look bruised. Dr. didn't seem to concerned and subscribed her a cream for it which sort of helped.
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Lyme is funny. Most of the time it leaves a mark of some sort but not all the time. On the west coast most docs will tell you its not here dont worry about ut. I looked one in the face and said stop lying I got Lyme in western Washington. Suddenly it was well its not common enough to worry about. Also you need to test positive for 2 different panels of lyme to get “diagnosed” with Lyme Disease. On the bright side there is some building evidence that BVT, Bee Venom Therapy, helps actually destroy Lyme disease. From what I have read its 10-12 stings a month.
 
My uncle has it. Had to be from a tick from their property in Sonoma. He hasn't left the state in decades. It's definatley here.

Thefishguy77 said:
Lyme is funny. Most of the time it leaves a mark of some sort but not all the time. On the west coast most docs will tell you its not here dont worry about ut. I looked one in the face and said stop lying I got Lyme in western Washington. Suddenly it was well its not common enough to worry about. Also you need to test positive for 2 different panels of lyme to get “diagnosed” with Lyme Disease. On the bright side there is some building evidence that BVT, Bee Venom Therapy, helps actually destroy Lyme disease. From what I have read its 10-12 stings a month.
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Thefishguy77 said:
Well finally got around to beginning to spin honey. Got a cheap Vevor spiner off amazon. Its a bit wobbly but if I hug it with my lega while spinning it gets it done fairly quickly. Going to be the adapter parts to hook it up to a drill motor, a few on YT have done it with success.

Anyways with 2 partial frames that my current hive has been robbing I got a fair bit of honey. I have 10-12 full frames in the freezer I am going to be warming up overnight and spin probably 4-6 of them. Going to save the rest for potential resources. But finally got some honey for all the time put in. Also going to start feeding my bees. Apparently I should have been doing that:homer:. Finally joined a bee club and am learning a ton. Bananas are apparently great for bees and its a good use for the older one we dont really want to eat. Put a spacer board in, some wax paper to set the cut up bananas on and they chow the fuck out of them just like a pollen patty.
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Make sure you check moisture content before bottling. Too much moisture will make honey turnbto alcohol. Lost 4 quarts due to that.
 
It's a good idea to place a fan over your honey supers to help dry what little moisture is there.
 
Ok so dugout my refractometer calibrated it with some RODI water and my honey is wet 30% ish. Now these were just 2 partial frames my bees have been robbing this spring. This is not my capped honey in the freezer. I think I will open my bees today and check to see if they are ready for a super. If so I will put a deep with the remaining honey frames from the hive that died/absconded over winter.

Someone mentioned a fan blowing over the boxes to dry the honey but how does that effect the honey if it is already capped? I thought that capping sealed it off.
 
Thefishguy77 said:
Ok so dugout my refractometer calibrated it with some RODI water and my honey is wet 30% ish. Now these were just 2 partial frames my bees have been robbing this spring. This is not my capped honey in the freezer. I think I will open my bees today and check to see if they are ready for a super. If so I will put a deep with the remaining honey frames from the hive that died/absconded over winter.

Someone mentioned a fan blowing over the boxes to dry the honey but how does that effect the honey if it is already capped? I thought that capping sealed it off.
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Moisture can still be pulled out capped frames.
 
Let's say the frame is 85-90% capped. Then you could do the fan idea I mentioned.
 
Ok so since I only have a little honey spun with high moisture I am going to see if I can put it on some cookie sheets, cover it with cheesecloth and then run a fan over it. See if that does anything.

For my existing frames in the freezer, if they are 20% or above should I try the fan trick of feed them to the bees?
 
So I am dumb and didn’t understand the BRIX scale in relation to moisture content. My refractometer doesn’t go up high enough on the brix scale. I am going to jar what I have spun and wait for a digital refractometer to get here so I dont have to have screw with the reading.
 
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