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Author Topic: marchuary almost got me again  (Read 2410 times)

Offline 10framer

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marchuary almost got me again
« on: March 28, 2013, 11:16:38 pm »
the latest cold snaps ruined my queen nursery last week.  today i was checking one of my hives and thanks to the rain/cold snap they were full of bees and brood but all the nectar they had a week ago was gone.  went ahead and went through my other hives and found another one in the same condition and one that will be there in a couple of days if they don't start bringing a good bit of nectar in tomorrow.  i fed the two and will check the third saturday.  2 weeks ago every hive was storing nectar and there was even a little newly capped honey.  hopefully this round was the last one.  rain is still moving though every few days but that's probably actually a good thing. 

Offline blanc

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Re: marchuary almost got me again
« Reply #1 on: March 28, 2013, 11:19:39 pm »
Hope things work out my friend. With the warm winter we had the honey stores were almost zero down here but are in a flow now so all worked out for us.
Blanc
Psalm 19:9-10
The fear of the Lord is clean,enduring forever; the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold, yea ,than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.

Offline divemaster1963

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Re: marchuary almost got me again
« Reply #2 on: March 28, 2013, 11:20:19 pm »
The weather has got them at the fringe of their limits of stores. but we should be getting a massive bloom in the next few days. them they will be in a mad rush in the flows. I am setting up to add suppers this weekend.

Good luck

John

Offline 10framer

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Re: marchuary almost got me again
« Reply #3 on: March 28, 2013, 11:37:05 pm »
john, i supered both of those hives with foundation 2 weeks ago and they were drawing comb.  i had a good flow going at the beginning of last week.  all the bees were orienting this afternoon.  my laziest hive still has almost half a deep of last years honey left.  i keep going back and forth on grafting from that queen.  they built up pretty fast and they didn't use many stores considering the winter but they don't work as hard as any of my other hives.  

Offline Bush_84

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Re: marchuary almost got me again
« Reply #4 on: March 29, 2013, 08:20:05 am »
March is finally showing signs of warming around here.  We finally got to 40 and the snow is showing signs of melting!  I can feel spring a comin! 
Keeping bees since 2011.

Also please excuse the typos.  My iPad autocorrect can be brutal.

Offline 10framer

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Re: marchuary almost got me again
« Reply #5 on: March 29, 2013, 09:39:56 am »
i'm going back this afternoon and i hope to see a lot of flying.  i think the high is around 75 today.  not sure if what ever they were working 10 0r 12 days ago is still putting out or what else might be.  i did see a lot of jigs being danced on frames yesterday.  who knows, i may be behind on supering in a week.

Offline RHBee

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Re: marchuary almost got me again
« Reply #6 on: March 29, 2013, 01:12:36 pm »
the latest cold snaps ruined my queen nursery last week.  today i was checking one of my hives and thanks to the rain/cold snap they were full of bees and brood but all the nectar they had a week ago was gone.  went ahead and went through my other hives and found another one in the same condition and one that will be there in a couple of days if they don't start bringing a good bit of nectar in tomorrow.  i fed the two and will check the third saturday.  2 weeks ago every hive was storing nectar and there was even a little newly capped honey.  hopefully this round was the last one.  rain is still moving though every few days but that's probably actually a good thing. 

I learned a valuable lesson today I was going to put this in another post but I feel that it is proper to drop this information here. We all are at the mercy of mother nature and mother nature is a hard teacher. I looked in on my splits, three are dead, starved, robbed it doesn't matter why. I wish that I had had forsight but that isn't the way we are made. We work for a living some of us work rotating shifts that are 12hrs long and have a two hour daily commute. Whatever the reasons all kinds of excuses, cold weather, inexperienced beekeeper, working for a living, first time splitting, being in a rush, the list could go on. Can you guys tell that I'm really PO'd? I don't do failure real well. I'm a pretty driven guy. You know the type "If your gonna be a bear be a Grizzly". Anyway, I didn't put this here to take away from 10framers post when I'm off GY's I'll post about the valuable lessions I've learned and we can talk about it then.

What I really wanted  to say is: 10framer, I'm sorry to hear about the queens but I'm glad you caught your bigger problem in time. Good eye, keep us informed about what's going on. The more information we share the better equipped we are to improve. Staying ahead of circumstances is pretty tough. Like this weather, who knows what's coming next. One more shift then I'm off for three days. I get to play catch up.










Later,
Ray

Offline 10framer

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Re: marchuary almost got me again
« Reply #7 on: March 29, 2013, 01:51:06 pm »
sorry to hear that ray.  the last 90 days have been crazy where the weather is concerned.  i knew last sunday that there was a chance i'd have to break out the feed again. 
you're not hi-jacking this thread, a crazy winter/spring in the south east is what it's about.  i'm betting most of your bees went back to the original hives.  you should still have strong hives but losing the brood is a little set back. 
it's still early for me.  clover is just opening up. 
i was marking where i'm going to have some fire breaks cut yesterday and found some popcorn trees on my place.  that's an unexpected bonus.
i'll try to graft some new cups today and then graft a second round in about a week.  then it's going to be splits and nucs in about 10 days (i had planned on doing splits this week). 
the life of any farmer is tough when the weather doesn't want to do right.  beekeepers are no exception.
 

Offline Georgia Boy

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Re: marchuary almost got me again
« Reply #8 on: March 29, 2013, 09:32:21 pm »
10framer,

Sorry to hear about your problems but want to thank you for sharing. It really helps me to be a better beek in knowing what to look out for.

Truly hope it all works out.

David
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"Never give up. Never surrender."

Offline 10framer

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Re: marchuary almost got me again
« Reply #9 on: March 29, 2013, 10:52:05 pm »
they were all working today.  blackberry is just coming into bloom.
i expect everything to turn on over the next couple of weeks and i'm also expecting swarm calls to start coming in.  i'll be back to trying to stay ahead on wooden ware again.  i waited too long to start building this winter.
david, you need to be building as well as reading while you wait on those bees. it's impossible to keep ahead and still do my real job plus plow and bush hog.  next year will be different.

Offline CBEE

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Re: marchuary almost got me again
« Reply #10 on: March 30, 2013, 07:51:12 am »
your not alone, we all have thees issues :)  Marchuary got me good this year. got 2 out of my 3. Both had stores but not where they were balled up at  :roll: So now I am back to square one again. not a happy camper :-x

Offline blanc

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Re: marchuary almost got me again
« Reply #11 on: March 30, 2013, 08:20:19 am »
Did about 12 removals last year and was my first year bee keeping. At the end of the year I kept telling my self why do I not have more hives. Inexperience was probably my number one enemy and hurricane Issac did a number on us for seconds. Well in the end game having to combine hive to have stronger ones for wintering I wound up with 3 strong hives.After a short discussion with Bailey he encouraged me and said that anytime he established a new bee yard seems he had about a 50% loss on first year and percentage would decrease in second year. I did not feel as bad and am determined to learn from my mistakes and so far I have 9 hives doing good. I do work full time also and am an avid gardener along with raising rabbits and chickens so time management is my most important issue dealing with the bees. So saying all that keep your heads up and thank you all for this forum as it has helped me to produce the sweet stuff that I love to eat. :-D
Blanc
Psalm 19:9-10
The fear of the Lord is clean,enduring forever; the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold, yea ,than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.

Offline 10framer

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Re: marchuary almost got me again
« Reply #12 on: March 30, 2013, 11:25:39 am »
i expect to see a lot of activity today.  i've got 43 acres and it was clear cut about 8 years ago so it's covered in blackberries.  yesterday a lot of them were in bloom. 

Offline RHBee

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Re: marchuary almost got me again
« Reply #13 on: March 31, 2013, 09:59:48 am »
10framer, I had 3 hives swarming in the back yard yesterday. Just finished 5 12 shifts worth of graveyard. I was stepping and fetching all day long. I caught one of the swarms and hived them over a queen excluder, got the queen for sure. The other two were in the process of swarming I was able to hold them off by some rather quick splitting. These were all colonies that had been previously split. Finally fell asleep in the recliner about 10pm. What a day.
Later,
Ray

Offline 10framer

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Re: marchuary almost got me again
« Reply #14 on: March 31, 2013, 10:45:20 am »
ray, i was going to set up a queen rearing nursery yesterday and found swarm cells close to being capped.  pulled the queen and set up a nuc the original hive into 2 single deeps.  found cells being started in another hive where i don't like the queen.  i'm going to wait til those are capped then kill the queen and remove all but the biggest cell.  if the daughter does ok i'll keep that line if not she'll get replaced.  i also started two more nucs.  big turn around over a few days.  things are about to start moving really fast for a while.  i need to be building and painting in my spare time.  i got all my peas planted yesterday and i'll plant one of my small corn fields later this week.  i've got the forestry department coming to burn off my biggest field then i'll be plowing and trying to get it planted.  all the while working my day job and trying to expand my bees.  my goal was to go into fall with at least 20 hives and i'm halfway there.  i'm going to split another hive today or tomorrow.  then by next weekend i have to have my mating nucs set up.


rob  

Offline Georgia Boy

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Re: marchuary almost got me again
« Reply #15 on: March 31, 2013, 12:31:07 pm »
darn Rob,

And I thought I was busy!!!!

 :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

David
"Give it All You've Got"
"Never give up. Never surrender."

Offline 10framer

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Re: marchuary almost got me again
« Reply #16 on: March 31, 2013, 05:29:06 pm »
it's my own fault david.  i should have prepped more during the winter but had no idea that i would fall into some nucs in january.  i've got too many projects going at once.  next year will be easier because i won't be cutting roads and making fields.  i'll also have power and water on site and hopefully a honey house/barn with some living space so i can spend a few nights a week out there.  60 miles one way eats up a ot of time.