Brushy Mountain E-Flyer

I get an e-flyer from Brushy Mountain Bee Farm http://www.brushymountainbeefarm.com/ about once a month or so. This month Shane Gebauer, General Manager, writes about feeding your hives and for some, the terrible honey year.

I have been speaking to beekeepers up and down the east coast and most agree that this has been a terrible honey year. It was a wetter than average spring, and continues to be so in the northeast. I harvested the spring crop in June and averaged just 8 pounds per hive. Granted I left some behind to get the bees through to the sourwood flow. I now have no sourwood and honey which was left has been consumed.
Certainly, there are areas that are doing better, but for the most part its the same story. The reason I mention this is not to express my disappointment in the honey crop, but rather to warn of insufficient reserves in the hives. Right now I am feeding because they don't have, nor can they make, enough honey to sustain the colony, let alone get it through winter. Nutrient is one of the most under-recognized factor in colony health. Be sure your bees are not hungry bees.

This is the main reason I left so much honey on the hive for my bees. I don't want them to starve and I don't want to be feeding them now. I have four very strong hives - we'll see how it goes for the remainder of the summer.

Comb Honey

I don't usually put up any comb honey - just not something I normally do. But this year, I dropped some of the cappings (the excess comb from the supers) and put in jars - I've got 6 pints.

It's great to eat the honey and have the comb to chew too.

Tomatoes - Late July

This is part of the garden with tomatoes that haven't started getting ripe - they're late - must be the variety and I don't know what they are. I'm still getting yellow squash. The zucchini did not do very well - I think they were crowded. I have some peppers and that's about it.

Next year I'll plant more - I'd like some beans and peas.

Some of my Family

Some of the family - just hanging out.

Hive #6 - Three Options

I felt I had three options with Hive #6 - this photo shows robbing and this has been a continuous problem. This was a strong hive in the spring and produced a large swarm which is doing great. I gave a friend a nuc and the queen must have been in those frames and the hive never recovered. I wasn't as conscientious as I should have been in checking the hive so lots of lessons learned.

So the three options (I checked with my beekeeper friend, Mr. Ellis, and some of these were his suggestions and opinions and from others too):

First I took the super off the hive and put on Nuc #1 with newspaper between.

Option #1 - buy a queen.

Option #2 - put the bees in a nuc and hope they make a queen or buy a queen and put with them.

Option #3 - take the bees out of the hive and put with another hive and give up on this hive.

So after opening the hive Wed, I chose Option #3 - there were so few bees left in the hive, I felt sure they wouldn't make a queen and we've got about a month and a half of nothing for the bees. And I truly did not want to buy a queen.

So on Nuc #1, I put the super and on Nuc #2 I put the brood box with all the bees from Hive #6 with newspaper between.

This is Hive #4 which nothing was changed except this hive was beside Hive #6 and the robbers were still hanging around so I put an entrance reducer on this hive.

They were fine this afternoon and in a couple of days, I'll take the entrance reducer off.

First Mouse

First mouse caught on Saturday evening.

Missy has already earned her keep.

Hive #6

When getting the honey on Sunday, all the hives were checked and Hive #6 has no queen. We moved 3 full frames of brood from Nuc #2 and took off one of the brood boxes. Not many bees in the hive but enough that I don't want to walk away and just let them die.

Also put on a full super of honey from Hive #4 and put a piece of newspaper between the super and brood box so any bees just work their way through and hopefully not be killed or kill the bees in the hive.

I'm really upset with myself for what has happened to this hive - beekeeping is always a learning experience - sometimes good and sometimes not.