Mike,
there is another member from Vermont.
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I bought two nucs of Carniolan bees and two 3 pound pakages of Italian.
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The hive from last year(carnoilan) is doing great, the other four are very slow. I was not able to get them until the beginning of June.
Archie
I purchased two NUCS of Carniolan bees from a guy named Pater down in Anhurst NH. (I'm in Concord NH) the first of the month as well...Same Guy?
My hives are a 25 minute drive out in the countrie so I'm not watching it as much. I have been inspecting every four to five days. I have one hive with 4 mason jars on the top innerboard with two shallow supers covering them and the 2nd hive has one of those styrofome top feeders. At the rate they are taking the sugar water 4 to 5 days is just about right for refills. I do notice that the sugar keeps better in the mason jar feeders. I have to scrub down the styro. top feeder when I replace the sugar water.
I just picked up a bottle of Honey B Healthy, that should pep up the bees & hopefully make the sugar water last longer.
It looks as though the queens are laying & are working on the outer new frames (5 frame NUCS). Another keeper in this forum suggests that I move the outer NUC frams outward so I think I'll move the NUCS outside honey frams one frams over on one side & two frams out on the other side. I'm not going to split any brood!
I'm going back out this afternoon & will give you all a report of the progress. I plan on feeding till late fall, perhaps longer. If I do feed thru winter I'll put a styrofome feeder on the 2nd hive. I'll be able to refill w/o disturbing the bees & it should do a better job at insulating the hive.
Oh, Since I have over 400.00 invested in these two hives I purchased a Critter Gitter from Betterbee.
http://www.betterbee.com/products.asp?dept=589So far so good, Anybody else running one of these devices? Don't want a bear comming along and tearing up my only two hives.
Robert McHenry