Beltane\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waning Last Frost Moon<\/p>\n
The bees.\u00a0 Today the second hive boxes went on each colony.\u00a0 This means that 70-80% of the frames in the bottom boxes have brood and pollen, requiring more space now for expansion of the growing number of bees.<\/p>\n
Without a second hive box the chance of swarming, increased by overcrowding, would become probable.\u00a0 In the ideal bee keeper world, adding the second hive box, with moving a ![\"500honey-extraction_0231\"](\"http:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/500honey-extraction_0231-224x300.jpg\" "\\"500honey-extraction_0231\\"")
frame from the box below to the new one to entice the bees up, eliminates swarming.\u00a0 No bee keeper wants a swarm because about half the bees and the young queen leave and the remaining, now queenless workers and nurse bees have to create an emergency queen.\u00a0 Since half of the workers are gone and emergency queens are not as productive as the new, young queen the beekeeper gets little if any surplus honey.<\/p>\n
(this is where we’re headed.\u00a0 this colony has three deeps and three honey supers.\u00a0 last august)<\/p>\n
On two of the colonies I added regular hive boxes, or deeps, that is a box able to hold the 9 5\/8″ frames.\u00a0 This is the standard UofM beekeeping in northern climates method and it aims toward overwintering of the colonies and using them to both create a new, child colony next spring and a maximum honey producing colony, the parent.\u00a0 On the third colony, however, I added two honey supers instead of a deep.\u00a0 This is the same amount of space as a deep, but the honey supers are lighter since they’re only half the size of a deep.<\/p>\n
This last colony I plan to manage solely for this year, attempting to get maximum honey production from it.\u00a0 I’ll accomplish that by extracting all the honey this colony makes.\u00a0 I estimate I would have had another 150 pounds of honey last year had I practiced this method.\u00a0 The downside of this method is that the colony will die in the fall because it will have no honey stores to live on through the winter.\u00a0 It also doesn’t create a parent colony for the UofM method.<\/p>\n
This may sound cruel, but if it’s effective, it will only reflect the reality I experienced last winter.\u00a0 All three of my colonies died.\u00a0 I had to start with new bees this year.\u00a0 The honey those colonies made to overwinter filled a deep and a half, the equivalent of 36 full honey supers.\u00a0 Since we only extracted from 2 full and several partial supers last fall, that would have meant a good deal more honey.<\/p>\n
An experiment.\u00a0 We’ll see how it goes.<\/p>\n
It continues to amaze me that these bees are calm, giving me no problem when I do colony inspections.\u00a0 With smoke they go about their business while I go about mine, the work gets finished and I move on.\u00a0 Don’t know what the difference is, whether I’m calmer or these are more docile bees.\u00a0 Maybe a bit of both.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Beltane\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waning Last Frost Moon The bees.\u00a0 Today the second hive boxes went on each colony.\u00a0 This means that 70-80% of the frames in the bottom boxes have brood and pollen, requiring more space now for expansion of the growing number of bees. Without a second hive box the chance of swarming, increased by overcrowding, … Continue reading Bee Diary: Memorial Day Weekend<\/span>