Welcome, Guest

Author Topic: bees not hungry  (Read 12575 times)

Offline Finsky

  • Super Bee
  • *****
  • Posts: 2791
  • Gender: Male
Re: bees not hungry
« Reply #20 on: December 21, 2006, 03:02:48 am »
Cindi,
I think he meant that 6 boxes of bees condense down to 1-2 boxes.


That I meant. 2 and line changed place in typing. My another hand is faster.

Offline Scadsobees

  • Galactic Bee
  • ******
  • Posts: 3198
  • Gender: Male
  • Best use of smileys in a post award.
Re: bees not hungry
« Reply #21 on: December 21, 2006, 09:02:07 am »
Finsky,
You write of forcing the hive down into one or 2 boxes.

What do you do with unripe, half filled supers at that time?  I usually have 1 half filled super per hive that I don't know what to do with at that time.

?? thanks!
-rick
Rick

Offline Finsky

  • Super Bee
  • *****
  • Posts: 2791
  • Gender: Male
Re: bees not hungry
« Reply #22 on: December 21, 2006, 09:57:00 am »
Finsky,
You write of forcing the hive down into one or 2 boxes.

What do you do with unripe, half filled supers at that time?  I usually have 1 half filled super per hive that I don't know what to do with at that time.

That is normal me too.Even more is normal.  It is impossible to arrange so that summer ends and all are capped.

Our yield season ends in last week of July. In August bees get something but seldom surplus because nature flowers are over.

If it is rainy bees eate during August open nectaqr away and they raise winterbees. If weather is good, they also raise new bees and consume most open nectar away. At least honey will be dry and I extract it at the beginning of September. I use heating closet wher I warm up honey before extracting and it ryes enough the honey.

So, there are a little bit alternatives what what I do but I have never had fermented honey. If I keep 5 days honey in the heasting closet, it will be so dry that it is difficult to extract.

At he beginning of September I extract all honey away and give sugar instead.

Offline Cindi

  • Galactic Bee
  • ******
  • Posts: 9825
  • Gender: Female
Re: bees not hungry
« Reply #23 on: December 21, 2006, 10:31:19 am »
Rick, Finsky gives good advice.  Follow what he says.  This is what I did when I condensed bees down to one box.  I had quite a bit of uncapped, capped and pollen frames left over when all was condensed.  I had given the bees a formic acid treatment the beginning of September.  I had extracted all the honey that I could before the acid treatment.  So when I had the honey frames left over,  I knew that because of the formic acid treatment, the honey was only fit for bees, so I froze the frames so that I can use it next year to give back to the bees, when they need it, or to feed any swarms, nucs, splits I will be doing.  I know that I will need honey for the bees and instead of taking from the hives which I may may nucs from, I will have extra in the freezer that I can give them.

That is what my plan is.  Trot was writing that if you don't have a freeezer, to store the frames with nectar, honey, pollen, to put them into a plastic tub and put sugar around the bottom of frames, this absorbs moisture and they won't go mouldy.  Read his post and there was other talk about the sugar and frames.  This is perfect if someone does not have the freezer space.

when I did the honey harvest I had quite a few frames of uncapped honey, probably some that were not even fully ripened yet too.  I did something similar to Finsky.  I had a little closet in my house that once the uncapped/nectar was extracted, I put the honey in a big pail into.  I kept a heater in there with a fan going for a few days, and this honey was absolutely amazing how much thicker it became.  Obviously the job that the bees just did not get around to was able to be accomplished by human being.  I was actually very surprised at how quickly the honey "ripened".  Hope this helps you out a bit.  This is only my experience, not necessarily the best one, but it worked for me.  Great day.  Cindi
There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.  The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold.  The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee.  Robert Service

Offline Brian D. Bray

  • Heavenly Beekeeper
  • Heavenly Beekeeper
  • Galactic Bee
  • ********
  • Posts: 7369
  • Gender: Male
  • I really look like this, just ask Cindi.
    • http://spaces.msn.com/thecoonsden
Re: bees not hungry
« Reply #24 on: December 22, 2006, 04:00:46 pm »
As the brood from the new queen hatched the temperment of the hive changed to mirror that of the queen.  also a hive with a high productive queen will generally be more mellow than one with a lower producing queen.
The secret to swarm prevention is to provide lots of extra space.  This extra space allows them to move the honey around the hive as they process it.  The more room for that out side of the brood area the more bees can be grown in the brood area.
But as Michael BushFinksy, & I frequently mention: why not give the queen as much room to raise brood as she needs.  If the equipment is uniform in size it can easily be consolidated to smaller hives at harvest time. The more bees in a hive the more honey is produced so providing plenty of room means more bees are produced for foraging, more room is available to process honey, the more space available for honey storage, and bees kept that busy rarely swarm.
I use 4 medium boxes dedicated to brood production this also supplies room for processing early in the season.  I usually put on 2 supers at a time instead of singles in a effort to keep ahead on space so they can work to their best advantage.  If you follow those practices you can get 200-300 lbs of honey per hive per year.
Life is a school.  What have you learned?   :brian:      The greatest danger to our society is apathy, vote in every election!

Online Michael Bush

  • Universal Bee
  • *******
  • Posts: 19832
  • Gender: Male
    • bushfarms.com
Re: bees not hungry
« Reply #25 on: December 22, 2006, 04:36:16 pm »
>If you follow those practices you can get 200-300 lbs of honey per hive per year.

Sometimes...
My website:  bushfarms.com/bees.htm en espanol: bushfarms.com/es_bees.htm  auf deutsche: bushfarms.com/de_bees.htm  em portugues:  bushfarms.com/pt_bees.htm
My book:  ThePracticalBeekeeper.com
-------------------
"Everything works if you let it."--James "Big Boy" Medlin

Offline Finsky

  • Super Bee
  • *****
  • Posts: 2791
  • Gender: Male
Re: bees not hungry
« Reply #26 on: December 22, 2006, 05:21:26 pm »
>If you follow those practices you can get 200-300 lbs of honey per hive per year.

Sometimes...


Michael is right. The yield maybe with same hive 60 lbs or 300 lbs. It depends how good are pastures and how colony  gets the load.

3-5 fold differences may be in yields.  Why, - you know that later when yield is over.

Offline AndersMNelson

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 117
  • Gender: Male
  • HEY
Re: bees not hungry
« Reply #27 on: December 23, 2006, 02:19:47 am »
So, basically, I should have provided more room through supers for honey to prevent a standstill in production?  Are they just plain full?  What can I do now, at the beginning of winter to help?
My Photos!

Takin' care of beesnus.

Offline Finsky

  • Super Bee
  • *****
  • Posts: 2791
  • Gender: Male
Re: bees not hungry
« Reply #28 on: December 23, 2006, 02:42:30 am »
So, basically, I should have provided more room through supers for honey to prevent a standstill in production?  Are they just plain full?  What can I do now, at the beginning of winter to help?

I do not know exactly what you are asking?

Nothing can be done during winter. From spring to early summer you try to raise hive so big as possible. HIVE NEEDS ROOM EVEN IF IT DOES GET NO HONEY.  - Bees need the room.

Then when you are lucky weathers are good and bees start to fill hive with honey. Hive should have through all the summer 

2 deeps for brood
2 deeps for nectar and
2 deeps were bees have honey under capping work.

In best days hive will get 15 lbs honey. It menas that in 2 days one medium box will be filled. If they have not space, they stop working.

If honey flow is very good you should extract every week to keep hive in working.
If weather are bad you just wait better weathers. In rainy days big hive consume 1 lbs honey per day.

On of our professional beekeepers said to me that he have  4 deep system. Brood area is restricted to one deep with exluder. 3 deeps are for honey and they go through hives every week and take capped honey box to extraction. He said that 6-deep hives are too heavy to work.

But what ever system you have, you must have allway free space for new nectar and BEES HAVE SPACE TO EXPAND.
.

Offline Trot

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 196
Re: bees not hungry
« Reply #29 on: December 23, 2006, 05:23:25 pm »
Listen to Finsky, you all !
It takes roughly three times the room to ripen honey.  Say, it takes 3 combs of nectar to make 1 comb of caped honey!
So, if one has on only one super - bees are most likely working only one good day and than waiting two or three, for the honey to be ripened...
A hive is capable of bringing in 10 to 15 kg of honey a day if they have a place to put it...

For maximum crop one should be a few days ahead of the bees, so to speak... A lot of places one has perhaps only a good week or two to make or brake the season...

Regards,
Trot

Offline Finsky

  • Super Bee
  • *****
  • Posts: 2791
  • Gender: Male
Re: bees not hungry
« Reply #30 on: December 23, 2006, 05:42:46 pm »

A hive is capable of bringing in 10 to 15 kg of honey a day

LBS is 0,5 kg. ............I have herad biggest day yields 8 kg/day. I have not  balance and I do not follow daily weight.

ÄSH, voi vitja munat = butter chain balls.

Here we have result when hives has been on balance during the summer.  http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php?board=2.0

When you push the button, you will se the weight  of some hive.

Here is one example  http://www.mtt.fi/tutkimus/kasvit/bees/karkola06.htm

Perhaps 18.6 raspberry - canola- fireweed - honeydew in August.

.

Offline Trot

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 196
Re: bees not hungry
« Reply #31 on: December 23, 2006, 07:13:52 pm »
Yes Finsky, 10 to 15 kg not lbs/pounds!
I had one yard, (12 hives) on strawberry farm in 1986 and I took 204 kg average per hive..!
Hives were 9 high..!  A real back-breaker!

Even back home - Slovenia, they had exceptional harvest this year.  A lot of beekeepers took in 4 to 5 kg a day - this is in their AZ hives, where they have only room for 10 frames in a single honey-chamber. (Mici posted a picture of such a hive.)
For such - AZ hive average good harvest is around 30 kg. This year they were reporting harvest of 100 kg per hive. They had to extract every day to be able to keep up..??!!
Can you imagine their yield, if they had 4 - 5 boxes to add on?


Regards,
Trot


Perhaps you can translate? If not - numbers are the same...

http://new.slovenski-cebelarji.com/forum/


Offline Finsky

  • Super Bee
  • *****
  • Posts: 2791
  • Gender: Male
Re: bees not hungry
« Reply #32 on: December 24, 2006, 03:13:34 am »
I had one yard, (12 hives) on strawberry farm in 1986 and I took 204 kg average per hive..!

Did you knew where bees got honey. Strawberry does not have quite much.

..................................

Raspberry has tremendous nectar droplets in flower.

The volume of nectar and the foraging distance has been in my interest some years. I have found that choosing a pasture means more than nursing the hive. But if it is too dry it is same how big you hives are. They must collect nectar so far that they will not get good surplus.

This issue is discussed very seldom. On another hand beekeepers are broud when they have  tens of hives in one site. I am proud if I have in best places 1-3 hive. Then bees gather cream from nature. - This is secret of good yields.

But Trot's story from Slovakia is unbelievable.

Offline Trot

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 196
Re: bees not hungry
« Reply #33 on: December 24, 2006, 02:41:42 pm »
Sorry Finsky, I made a typo mistake - I meant raspberry!!!

You are right!  On strawberries bees work themselves to death. They only get pollen!
(Had 12 on Strawberry farm for pollination - Three year contract. Almost lost my shirt - had to feed them all year!

Sorry to correct you but it is Slovenia - not Slovakia! 
Two different countries - two different people. . .

Regards,
Trot

Offline Cindi

  • Galactic Bee
  • ******
  • Posts: 9825
  • Gender: Female
Re: bees not hungry
« Reply #34 on: December 25, 2006, 10:37:15 am »
Comments required.  I was of the impression, like Trot, that strawberries do not provide much nectar at all.  I even think (??? not sure), but strawberries are self-pollinating and don't actually require insects to spread the nectar.  Could be mistaken, but I think I remember something like that in the cobwebs of my mind.  Any comments anyone?  Great day.  Cindi
There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.  The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold.  The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee.  Robert Service

Offline Finsky

  • Super Bee
  • *****
  • Posts: 2791
  • Gender: Male
Re: bees not hungry
« Reply #35 on: December 25, 2006, 12:07:38 pm »
I even think (??? not sure), but strawberries are self-pollinating and don't actually require insects to spread the nectar. 

To get good looking and large berries strawberry needs pollination.

Offline Trot

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 196
Re: bees not hungry
« Reply #36 on: December 25, 2006, 12:30:22 pm »
Bees spread the pollen , not nectar...

Sorry Cindi. I suspect it's just a typo - but I couldn't help myself... :-D

Also to add... Bees pollinating strawberries should be of greater numbers (double the hives per acre) that for other crops... Cause, many bees are needed to "make" a nice berry.
If number of bees on one and each flower, is not sufficient - the berries are not uniform - round. They will grow to be one sided!  Like if one half is missing. . . etc...
No place is bee more important, for "nice" crop, than on a field of strawberries...

Regards,
Trot

Offline Cindi

  • Galactic Bee
  • ******
  • Posts: 9825
  • Gender: Female
Re: bees not hungry
« Reply #37 on: December 26, 2006, 01:55:45 pm »
Finksy and  Trott.  Good, I got the answer that I was looking for.  (Trot it was a typo, I know the bees don't spread nectar, too much hurry to type something). 

So, OK, strawberries, (like EVERYTHING) must have pollination for the big and lucious!!!.  Granted, I learned something absolutely true and new today.  I thought perhaps that the self-pollinating plants did not require EXTRA pollination.  So, that makes sense, that the bees make the berries even more big, beautiful, uniform, etc.  That must be why the strawberries that I have these past two springs have been the most beautiful that I have ever had growing on my acreage.  They have always been very nice berries, but honestly, since I began keeping the species, the berries are much much larger and UNIFORM in size.  Just didn't put that two and two together. 

The strawberry pollination facts that I learned today remind me of the incredible numbers of bees that it requires for the cranberry pollination here.  In our Lower Mainland (especially out my neck of the woods nearby where we have the flats), cranberries are grown in great numbers.  Now cranberries are very similar with what is given to the bees as far as nourishment goes, it takes about 10 hives to pollinate one acre of cranberry, whereas, for example it takes 1 hive of bees to pollinate the blueberry (which we also grow in a big way this part of B.C.).  Now, that makes pollination of the cranberry very expensive to the grower, no wonder the cost of this berry is so high.

I planted 10 blueberry plants in 2005 and 30 more in last summer.  This year I will be able to produce quite a bit of blueberry product, honey and berries, of course.  The blueberry is an amazing sub-shrub.  If you ever get a chance when the plants are setting forth flower, walk through them.  The fragrance of the flowers are something to behold, no wonder the bees are drawn to these pretty little plants.

Fragrance in the garden is one that I focus on, whether it is flowers or shrubs that bloom during the day or night.  I find the night scented flowers to be even more alluring.  There are some flowers that bloom either night or day that surely take the breath away, and I am not exaggerating, walk around these things of beauty and one cannot help but inhale deeply, wishing never to allow this scent to leave the air.

All have a great day, hope the Christmas celebration was one of joy and happiness.  Winter solstace gone by the wayside, summer a'comin' on.  Cindi
There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.  The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold.  The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee.  Robert Service

Offline Trot

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 196
Re: bees not hungry
« Reply #38 on: December 26, 2006, 02:26:06 pm »
Cindi, you are right about Blueberries.  I know all about them. Sudbury is known and officially declared as "Blueberry Capital of the World!"
For miles and miles - nothing but blueberry bushes.
You see, in the past the chimneys from our mining companies were spewing out toxic fumes and everything was burned from the acid. But, this destruction created the ideal conditions for blueberries.
Of course much has been done lately to improve our image - but acidic soil remains...

Regards,
Trot

Offline Cindi

  • Galactic Bee
  • ******
  • Posts: 9825
  • Gender: Female
Re: bees not hungry
« Reply #39 on: December 26, 2006, 02:37:10 pm »
Trot, now that is interesting.  Blueberries and acid, it rings a bell.  In the blueberry fields here I see the farmers mounding up sawdust around each plant.  I have not delved into this to understand the point, but I imagine it gives some kind of mineral that the plants need.  Is this done in Sudbury?  Curious.

I have an enormous pine three in my yard that is surrounded by an emormous garden.  Over the years I have planted many annual flowers in this particular garden, but over the past couple, due to laziness I guess, I have not planted.  This soil under the tree every year has about 4 inches of pine needles, very acidic.  I usually just rake it up and discard into the compost.  this year I am planning, instead of designating the pine needles for compost, and going to mix it with turkey manure and place this concoction around each blueberry plant.  I hope that this will raise the acidity of the soil.

Strawberries also love the acid soil, I understand.

I hate picking blueberries though, that is a pain in my side for sure.  I am not a blueberry picker, love to eat them, but the picking, well, maybe the kids can do it for me this year.  Great day Trot.  My brother-in-law lives in Mississauga.  We are going there for my neice's wedding come the beginning of July this summer.  Is the weather similar in Subury to Mississauga?  Cindi
There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.  The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold.  The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee.  Robert Service

 

anything