Dawn, I’m starting to wonder if it will ever happen. Our 7 day outlook maximums are 30 today, 29 tomorrow, then 30, 32, 31, 31, then 27. Hopefully that’ll be the start of some cool weather for us.
PS Dawn I don’t have any log splitting stories to tell. I did do something for the first time this morning. I hope this doesn’t turn your stomach. Just a warning for anyone with a tender stomach: I had a small rat ready to go into the freezer with the rest. The butcher birds were showing interest in it while it was dead in the cage. Seeing as the cockroaches have slowed down, only catching one last night, which escaped this morning, leaving the butcher birds with none. I decided to cut the rat up into small pieces for them. Over a period of time, they took everything bar the entrails.
This season, work on splitting and working your way up to 10+ hives; next year 30+ hives.
Once there, a few losses will be looked at as a blessing in disguise: The weak hives are gone and now you have a place to house swarm captures and splits .
5 for 5 hives surving so far! Smallest hive is a little behind the others but all hives have some small areas of brood. Pollen coming in nicely. All have good stores still.
Engines have started in the Northeast! (or atleast mid Atlantic)
What wonderfull Photos… I am envious of you all going into spring… all that excitment and anticipation!!!
I am hoping for a great year for you all.
Cheers
It seems you can do everything “right” and still lose several hives up here in mite country. This year I came out great with 5 for 5 where last year I didn’t do anything much different and I was 2 for 5 surving. I have a cousin who babied their hives more than I do with putting humidity mats, wrapping, and such for the winter and they lost all 3 of their hives. I even had one hive blow over in a wind storm and were wide open for 4 days and they survived.
Maybe I ranked luck a little high but it sure seems to be random. Good management definitely increases your odds but clearly doesn’t guarantee good results.
I feel the same way. I know I have more to learn and fine-tune with my management strategies, but I think it still ends up being like the luck of the draw - and over time your experience takes out the jokers before you draw.
Good news today is that I just finished my first spring inspection on my one survivor out there. It’s a small but hearty cluster with a nice, fat golden queen - a ripper! - there were tons of new eggs & larvae around a small grouping of capped brood on two frames in the lower box. I probably could have condensed into a nuc but decided to replace the four outermost frames that were just starting to be filled with nectar & some pollen with almost-all capped honey frames from the top, left over from winter storage. Took away the winter patty since so much honey was left and I don’t want to help any pests out. Looks like there’ll be a hatch in a couple of days so I’m hoping they’ll ramp up enough to outpace beetles, etc. I killed two but didn’t see any more.
Fabulous @Eva, a great new emoji sequence for @skeggley. Gotta love my friends on this forum!
For anybody new reading this, I love slatted racks, but when skeggs tried to get one in Australia, the local bee supplier said that they didn’t sell “salted rats”. He had no idea what a slatted rack was.
I think the trick would be to diagnose why a colony died out during winter, then try to avoid that from happening next season. I think @Doug1 had a 100% survival rate coming out of winter by having his bees in his bee house coupled with other management tools.
Edit: PS, you probably heard that saying “the harder I work, the luckier I get”. We could apply that to beekeeping. “The better I manage my hives, the luckier I get”.
I got unlucky last night because I found one of my hives slimed out. It was absolutely my own fault for letting my guard down & not listening to my own advice. I know that I could have avoided the slime-out if I managed that hive better.
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what do you think helped them out?
- there were tons of new eggs & larvae around a small grouping of capped brood on two frames in the lower box. I probably could have condensed into a nuc but decided to replace the four outermost frames that were just starting to be filled with nectar & some pollen with almost-all capped honey frames from the top, left over from winter storage. Took away the winter patty since so much honey was left and I don’t want to help any pests out. Looks like there’ll be a hatch in a couple of days so I’m hoping they’ll ramp up enough to outpace beetles, etc. I killed two but didn’t see any more.
