Welcome to /hive/ -beekeeping general. Discuss apiary and bees.Old thread: >>2657231
repostingit's been super hot these past couple of days and it's pretty normal for the bees to be out on the front of the hive just hanging out to cool down, but lately at night they've been hanging out on the outside still. When I woke up this morning they had mostly gone back inside(sans the ones grouped up on the handle) but it is a little concerning. At night it's still a little warm, should I be worried about this many bees hanging out on the outside or should I stop being a baby about it?
you ever go outside to have a beer at sunset? same thing. also don't shine your flashlight at them, thats a sure fire way to piss them off. If they are bearding and you're concerned about overheating switch to a screened bottom board
>>2732849what is the avg daily temp at where you're at? are they exposed in the sun all day? You can try to relocate them to a place that gets partial sun and shade in the afternoon in evening to get them some relief.
What other animals make honey?
How do I induce colony collapse in a feral honeybee colony?
>>2732922bag it, bin it. simple as
>>2733020Say I don't know where it is but I have access to hundreds/thousands of foraging workers. How many would I have to vacuum up before the hive fails due to lack of workers? Like, percentage-wise.
>>2733064How do you know it's feral and not a neighbors? Gotta find the hive.
>>2733066Actually I don't care. If they belong to somebody it would be funny for them to be like fuck why are so many of my bees disappearing? And I could be like fuck you I vacuumed them off of my bird feeders because they spend all day trying to glean pollen from sunflower seeds.
>>2733068so you want to wipe out a hive because they visit your birdfeeder? fuck off
>>2733107because they stay at it all day and go inside and drown themselves in seeds and scare off all the birds
>>2732922>>2733064>>2733068>>2733109you are bringing bad karma upon yourself
>>2733109Your birds are fucking pussies, why would you even want such wimpy birds? These bees are doing you a favor.
>>2733109I recommend that you burn your house down. Hope this helps
>>2733111>>2733120>>2733211they don't even belong in North America
>>2733216neither do you
>>2733263well I'm here and I'm bigger than a bee so I win
>>2733292well yes but you're also much bigger than HIV and that hasn't helped you, has it? You naughty little fellow.If honeybees are spending lots of time going after sunflower seeds on your bird table then something may be up with them, e.g. not enough forage plants in the vicinity. If you were to plant a more pollinator friendly garden that might well solve the issue, and also be good for native bees.
>>2733368Nothing is in bloom yet but the weather is warm enough that they've activated
>>2733068are you sure they are honeybees? That seems very unusual behavior for honeybees
>>2733432Yeah they are
I guess it's not that uncommon
>>2733469I learned somthing new today. Sorry they're causing you troubles. Good luck finding the hive though, they have a huge radius in which they forage. It looks like its the corn dust specificalyl they're after so if you change bird seed to somthing without corn, they might leave it alone
>>2733520That's the thing that confused me, it doesn't have corn. It's just sunflower seeds (meaties) like picrel. I guess sunflower pollen attracts them too or it is made in a facility with a lot of corn dust around.Anyway they shouldn't be out today since it's raining and they tend to only come on warm sunny days. And I saw the first dandelion come out yesterday so it will be over soon.
>>2733522Could they be after the seeds themselves? Especially because they're shelled and therefore a lot more palatable. I know that for instance wasps can eat seeds and insects.Also just being nosy, but where are you located that spring is just starting? Asking because I'm surprised you have honeybees there.
>>2732849They're overheating. Not seriously yet (The entire hive would be covered at that point). Open up the back and bottom meshes if you have them, try to give some shadow during the day and ensure they have water close by.
>>2733540I think they want the pollen dust. They don't seem able to carry seeds, just kind of wrestle with them and knock them out of the feeders.Far north Maine, zone 3.
how long should it take for a new package of bees to completely fill the first brood box? all three of my colonies only have about 4 or 5 frames drawn after two weeks. I do see larvae and capped brood so I know the queen is laying. I'm worried my homemade feeder isn't providing enough syrup.
>>2733068the owner might reward you if you notify them
>>2732841>Be me >South African >"Killer bees" are just bees which we keep >Move to the US >Bees are so fucking chill you can rob hives without gloves>Tfw have to smoke our hives into oblivion and rob at 2 am when it's coldest >You can just fucking walk up to hives>Tfw walk within 10ft and it's fucking over >Upside is they are significantly more productive and the hive splits every summerYou're playing on easy.
>>2733864Some strains of Euro honeybees are also more docile than others. Some countries even have their respective honey bees be extremely docile or even stingless. >be south african >move to USwhy the US instead of Australia, Netherlands, or elsewhere?>>2733469During the warmer days in the winter a slew of foragers will leave the comfort of their hives to scavenge ground feed from the wagons in the barn. The mixture is mostly feed corn and some söybeans for cattle to placate them aside from bales in winter. I guess honeybees aren’t too picky.
>>2733864my bees are such sweethearts. <3
anybody improve overwintering/varroa loss outcomes by manipulating carbon dioxide/ventilation rates/insulation?
>>2733777>package of bees>package of bees>package of bees...Please tell me this is some sort of translation error...Anyways, for a normal sized brood box (10x Zander, 12x DN etc), a mid-sized swarm will draw out half the comb within 2-3 weeks. Obviously, how many frames that is depends on your setup. For a large brood box (Dadant, Zadant etc) it's closer to 4 weeks.>worried my homemade feeder isn't providing enoughLook how much they took. In my experience, a midsized swarm will take 2-3kg of dough a week. That's around 1,5-2kg of sugar.They do need warm weather and lots of water to use the sugar, though.
>>2734081>Please tell me this is some sort of translation errorwhat do you call this anon?
>>2734081Bees can be packaged
>>2733109Only a flagrantly open homosexual would choose birds over bee's. Simple.
>>2734486Native species are better than introduced species. Change my mind
>>2734157Nice box
>>2732841hey, nice to see my pic used for the thread, thanks OP. Thats the queenless hive from about 2 months ago. Haven't really checked them cause its been raining non stop and I've been too broke to do anything about it if the colony hadn't made a new queen from that brood frame i put in. Cracked them open today and they are chock full off bees, new queen is pumping them out. Unfortunately the hive next door is near collapse with varroa mite and hive beetle. I've removed the near-slimeout frames and put some plastic drone frames in, taken the honey super off. Filled the beetle traps with a bit of oil mixed with a tiny bit of peppermint oil. I've also got a feeder in with tea tree and peppermint infused syrup. I really hope I bring them back from the brink.
>>2735408have you tried acid treatment, be it vapor or liquid?That will curb the mites greatly, especially with a screened bottom board.>>2734504(Honey)Bee keeping removes introduced species into a domestic setting where they are used to farm honey and wax. They’re not farmed to replace native pollinators. Removing introduced pollinators such as honeybees wouldn’t do much for active pollinators either as the introduced species are not the reason why mass extinction of insects species is occurring throughout the globe.
>>2733864sorry you have nigger bees bro, hope things improve
>>2733109 based bees commandering the birdfags autism shrine.
>>2733864Yeah I've returned to the industry for the same company and I notice the bees are a lot nicer now and they're slightly less rich in color and producing less honey. My suspicion is they fucked the breeding in favor of nice bees.
does anyone have any of the magneto-culture stuff for bees written down anywhere? About to go out and grab a magnet and copper strip for my hive
>>2735013Right?
>>2732841Bump for bees
>>2734504Wrong, bees make honey for humans while still helping local ecosystem
cracked open my bees yesterday with the goal of finding the queen and marking her because the guy I got them from didn't do it. Took me about an hour to go through all my frames and on the second go around right before I was gonna give up I spotted her. Didn't use a cage so it was extra tricky, thus the unclean marking. I got stung in my knee through my pants for the trouble though. Also killed several beetles. Anyone else do any fun stuff with their bees lately?
>>2733469>>2733522They collect the birdseed dust as it's high in protein. Just like collecting pollen
This year has been weird.>3 hives survived the winter>all three hives swarm, >manage to capture every swarm thanks to clipped queens and swarm commander>one hive throws off a cast swarm>it contains six (6) queens>kill 3, put one in a mating nuc, split the remaining swarm into two nucs>up to 8 hives nowIf you catch your hive in the act of swarming, you can spray Swarm Commander on a convenient tree branch and they will cluster on that instead of fucking off somewhere high up.>one hive smells musky or funky>you can smell it on the wind>gym bag, wet straw, horse blanket, barnyard smell>smell goes away after 2 weeks>harvest 2 medium supers off it>4 gallons of water white, crystal clear honey>honey smells exactly like that funk>tastes fine, smells like an old persons home or an estate saleI think it's either dandelion or deadnettle (mint family) honey. Earliest harvest I've had yet, so IDK what they've been collecting from. Unsure if I can give it away due to the smell, maybe fermenting mead would de-funk it.
>>2739731Nice anon
How often do you guys get stung by bees? I've never kept bees, but I stumbled on this thread and I'm curious.Also how much land do you hobbyist beekeepers live on? Do you live close enough to other people to be worried about swarms invading a neighbor's land, or is that an unrealistic concern?
>>2740615I’ve never been stung badly but that’s due to me taking precautions by wearing proper suit/gloves along with doin g what i can to not lois’s off hives. Bees will sting your gloves and suit, however due to how thick your protection might be you might not realize you’re being stung or only get a slight sensation of sting. >Also how much land do you hobbyist beekeepers live on? From an acre or more>Do you live close enough to other people to be worried about swarms invading a neighbor's land, or is that an unrealistic concern?Unless you live in a congested urban area, bees flying around shouldn’t be an issue for your neighbors. If you raise your hives properly the chances of them swarming, aka large group flying off, should be minimal. During swarm season many bee keepers will have vacant hives and swarm traps to make sure they possibly recover can any hives that do swarm. Some beekeepers will have the wings of their Queens clipped to prevent her from flying off. Commercial beekeepers don’t put too much concern into hives that swarm since they have to work with a far greater amount of hives and bees than your regular bee keepers although I am sure many also take proper care into swarm reduction.
biden administration doesnt want to tell us everything he knows about bees in us (USA). i recommend either looking for land with honey bee population or no bee population. filling it with it is common fact that africanized simply do not care and you cannot fight back. plus the trustiworthiness of people today. i stopped at the road the other day: a man trying to gain entry to my car produces hospital documents and CVS prescipriotns with todays date and hospital wrist brand and he cgi his rat leg to 5X its normal size and claims he didnt have his keys due to gang ambush. btw i think if you do go you need a gun. bee spray simply wont do it. aim for the head. pepper spray doesn't kill bees = more bees
>>2741489This but unironically>>2740651Interesting, thanks!
is there a difference in methodology if you want bees only for the wax and pollenation of local flora? they can have their honey
>>2741489is this a schizopost? I feel like I had a stroke reading this
>>2740651I must need a new suit becuase they fucking get me through my suit all the time. >>2740615I usually get about 6-10 stings a year. Bees dont need a lot of space to do their thing. The risk of swarms is a very real possibility which is why you need to practice swarm control.>>2741500Wax and honey sort of go hand in hand. while you do get a lot of wax from your typical honey harvest, its not an incredible amount, and building comb is very taxing on the bees. most keepers prefer to be as non-destructive and reuse the comb as much as they can. Usually the wax that keepers harvest are the caps from honey extraction and any burr comb. If you want to harvest wax though then rather then extracting/spinning out your honey, you will cut, crush, and drain the combs. If you want pollenators, while honeybees are fine, explore bee houses to support solitary bees
>>2739731the farmers who agreed to let me put bees next to their fields have been watering my bees. not a lot, but there definitely moisture.
>>2741688would you reccomen just uncapping the wax then putting the uncapped comb back in so they can fuck with the honey?
>>2741734You dont want honey? I guess it depends on why you want only wax but not honey. Yes you can just uncap the honey and put it back in but they're going to cap it eventually again. Remember though that the bees that do wax production are not the one harvesting, so you're going to run into storage issues as your bees need a place to put the incoming honey. If your honey supers are full, they'll start filling up the brood boxes and if that goes unchecked you'll become honey bound. You can always add another super, but if you're not going to harvest honey then you'r hives are going to get very very tall, which is harder for them to defend and very expensive for you.Honey just comes with the territory. If you just want to help pollinators and beeswax. Just buy bricks of beeswax from a keeper and if you want to help the pollinators, look into setting up a couple bee houses on your property and plant a ton of bee friendly flora
>>2741734>>2741823remember too, that it takes a lot of effort for the bees to make beeswax. like it works out to be 100lbs of honey will get you like 1-2lbs of wax. a bit more if you're more destructive. 100lbs is like 2 hives worth of harvest a year.
>>2741500bees are livestock and need to be managed. you need to harvest honey to control the dynamics of the hive. you wouldn't keep chickens and not collect the eggs.if you want to support local pollinators, leave leaf litter and brush on the ground over the winter. >>27418298lbs of honey to make 1lb of wax
>>2741845>>2741829>>2741823thanks for the info. i heard that you need sugar to help over winter the hives. perhaps ill just harvest honey and save it for them to use during the winter season.
>>2741879It depends on how you’re managing the hive. If you never touch the brood boxes then they’ll store enough honey for themselves. Commercial apiaries take every last bit of honey they can.
>>2741879They don't need sugar if you leave them enough honey to overwinter. No problem, if you don't want honey to begin with. One thing that could work is to leave them with all of their honey stores at the end of the year and then open the hives in spring and remove most of the empty combs to harvest the wax. They will then build new comb for the years brood and honey. You dont need to bother with wax foundation for the frames if you dont want to harvest honey anyways. Saves a bunch of material and work. During the season, you probably will have trouble removing comb while giving them back their honey as >>2741823 pointed out. You could try removing comb one or two at a time, remove the caps, let the bees move the honey, harvest the comb and wait for them to build a few new ones. It's honestly a really weird way of managing them, so there's really no "best practice" of harvesting wax + not harvesting honey established. There's probably some ways to maximize their wax production if you experiment with it.
>>2741879 >harvest honey>dont use it>feed it back to the bees???Just give it to friends and family, the bees will make more
first harvest of the yearended up with about 30kg or so from 30 half framesthe queen in one of my hives has escaped into the honey room and started laying eggs..... gotta find the hoe
>>2742986That doesn't seem like a lot of honey for the number of frames.I can usually get ~15kg per 10 medium frames
>>2743016yeah, i weighed it and ita about 36kg, reasonable since the internet says there should be 1.3kg per frame once filled
>>2742986Nice anon >>2742084Cool photo
