2010 Rollercoaster Ride...

Hello all,

This year has been quite the ride. I took on a total of 15 hives this year, and put three of them in Kenya Top Bar Hives, as an experiment. Just something a little different to keep things interesting. So I started the year with 5 each of Italians, Carniolans, and Minnesota Hygenics. I had only two hives swarm that I know of; the Minnies in the KTBH and one hive of Carnis also. I was called to catch a couple of swarms, and ended up about even on the year.

This year I also consolidated my hives at the North Madison apiary. We built really nice hive stands, which raise the hives off the ground and make them level. In the past I'd had two hives at home, and two or four up at the Johnson Farm, but the North Madison site is just so much better in terms of sunlight, especially in the winter. It was very nice to stop driving all over the island during feeding season.

I had two hives die in the first two weeks; not sure the cause but possibly starvation. As the weeks wore on, several hives became really strong, and others were faltering a bit. By early July, the blackberry was open and none of my hives were really getting busy on honey production. I ultimately decided to combine a few hives to give strength, and ended up with a total of 9 hives (2 Kenya TBHs, and 7 standard Langstroth hives). The bees then went crazy with the hot weather, and over the next 2-3 weeks produced about 275# of surplus honey. Whew...after last year's 30#, I really needed some surplus to offset some of the equipment costs I've incurred over the past two years!!! Last year I purchased a very nice extractor, and this year I went to all-Western size hive boxes (which has been a VERY nice change in terms of my back!). Beekeeping on a small scale is definitely a labor of love, but it's always nice to at least pretend you're close to breaking even, ha!

We extracted honey this past Wednesday, and then I bottled most of it yesterday. I am planning to experiment with creamed honey this year, so held some back for that and some for personal use over the next year.

Here are a couple of shots of bottling day, the bear army is coming...




















































































And here are the packages I have for sale for 2010--left to right,
1/2 lb. cork bottle ($6)
2 lb. hive jar ($17)
1 lb. hive jar ($9)
2 lb. soft bear ($17)
3/4 lb. soft bear ($7)
3/4 lb. hex jar ($7)


























All the best,
Ben McCafferty
ben@kbmc.net

Sunshine Superbee

OK, there's an obscure rock 'n roll reference in that title...

Finally have a warm, sunny afternoon. The bees are going crazy, with orientation flights, finding pollen, etc. I've already seen them around the neighborhood on the neighbors' flowers, etc. A couple of shots for you. You can click on a picture to see a bigger version of it.
bmc

Bees again, naturally

I hived ten packages on Sunday, despite the nasty weather. The bees had been caged for four days and several packages really needed out--they already had a strong ammonia smell, meaning they were starting to eliminate in the package/cage. They all seem to be doing well, even though we normally don't like to handle them outside below 50 degrees or so--Sunday it was in the mid-40's and pouring rain. Very much less than ideal. I did discover that three of last year's hives were clinging to life, but only had a few hundred bees left. I took the queens and added the new packages in with their new queens. I imagine the old bees were killed, but hopefully some of them were allowed to stay. I'll be using the dead queens to make swarm attractant.

As of today, I've added double feeders on each hive with sugar syrup. I treated this first batch with fumigillin, which is a treatment for nosema disease. Some people do this routinely for new packages, but I normally don't. However, since my bees went into used equipment and the weather is still very cold and varied, I thought it would be a good idea (nosema gets out of hand when the bees can't get outside to eliminate, i.e. in cold weather when they will instinctively stay in a cluster to keep the queen warm).

This year I'll be doing an "exchange" feeding method, i.e. I've purchased forty feeder jars (twenty will be on hives at any given time), so I can take full ones to the apiary and trade them out with the empty ones. This saves lots of driving, and also allows me to clean jars after each feeding.

I did find that my more shady locations had pretty significant quantities of chalkbrood, and those frames will be destroyed. For next winter, all hives will be overwintered in the sunniest location.

At this point in the season, it's time to inventory equipment and get rid of the old junk, and also to purchase a few more supers and get all new woodenware painted. I'm a bit behind the curve but will catch up soon.

bmc