Archives

Winding down the season

It’s starting to cool off – and the beekeeping season is starting to wind down.

That does NOT imply, though, that we are done with the hive or honeybee work for the year. What’s there still to do, you may be asking yourself?

There’s lots! How about:

Feeding for strong brood through the winter Manage […]

A few leftover bees…

Hah! I received a call today from a gentleman that was referred to me by another beekeeper. He said that he had a lot of bees on the outside eve of his house – and that he’d had bees removed from a wall of his home about 3 weeks ago. I thought to myself – […]

Trapout – for naught…

The trapout posted several days ago will not work. The bees have another entrance/exit about 10-15 feet in the air in the tree… There were no foragers from the bottom, because they were simply there for ventalation.

I’ll re-evaluate the tree later in the week, and see if I can close off the main entrance, […]

Plug on Podcast – BKCorner

I wanted to send a special shout-out and thank you to Kevin Inglin of Beekeeper’s Corner. Kevin noted this blog (and Harmony Hollow Apiaries) in Episode 31 of his podcast BKCorner. He also has a Facebook page HERE.

I have yet to build the hive-stand of Kevin’s design – however, I do plan on doing […]

Swarm Capture

I received a message from a friend today about a swarm that had taken up a temporary home in a tree in her back yard. I loaded up the extension ladder, and high-tailed it to her home before it got too late in the evening, and evaluated what we had going on… It looked to […]

Trap-Out Re-Start

Today I checked up on a trap-out that was started about 2 weeks ago. Unfortunately, the 1-way screen was blocked with masses of dead bees – and the survivors chewed through the other blocked entrances/exits to get out. I can’t say that I blame them for their industrious nature!

I made the appropriate repairs to […]

Spring Splits made

Yesterday I picked up 4 new queens with which I have made 4 new hives from my original hive that was 3-deeps of brood/stores + 2 supers on top. This should make the original hive much more manageable – and provide the nucleus frames and some genetics for many hives to come in the future.

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Tree Trapout – the queen emerges

The trapout that started on March 29 can officially be called a success! I received a call yesterday from the homeowner – letting me know that the queen has emerged, and was sitting on the screened-over entrance with maybe 100-200 bees. That was exactly what I was hoping to hear, since the standard procedure for […]

Pollen Coming In – and Swarm Traps/Lures

1/30/2012

This last weekend was beautiful in north Texas. Friday, I saw a variety of pollen coming into the hive – including a nice bright yellow-orange color; some was a pale yellow-white in color; and other -(presumably henbit) was a blood-red. The henbit has been flowering for the last 2-3 weeks, now. Daytime temps have […]

Swarm Traps Made

(Update 2/15/2013 – Over the last year – the number one search term linked to my site has been “swarm trap plans”. Thusly – I’d like to link over to Rob’s set of downloadable plans for hive products. (Sorry – Rob’s site is no longer accessible) Old Link here: http://robo.bushkillfarms.com/beekeeping/downloads/ )

( and now back […]