Keeping Bees

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Re: Keeping Bees

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Thu Mar 06, 2014 5:43 pm

The code enforcement officer is very allergic to bees, so she was not thrilled with the idea. But since my son is getting them, and was looking for places to put then with out bears she had approved his placing them up in the upper field here on the hill, far away from the house. Since he found a place close to his home where he can keep them inside a shed beside his friends hive where bears will not be a problem he did not need my place. But the approval had already been given, :lol:
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Re: Keeping Bees

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Sun Mar 09, 2014 12:01 am

The Bee Hive Boxes just arrived by Fed-Ex with all the bee keeping paraphernalia that I ordered. Not sure if I needed it all, but they sold it to me anyway, :lol: Its about 7 pm now and too late to start painting. I bought the paint yesterday, ;) I decided on a dark blue, not the normal color for a bee hive, but I think it will work out fine. The dark color should help to hold the heat in winter, and Blue is a nice pretty color and I think it will look nice up in thefield. I will open the shipping boxes up tomorrow after church and make sure everything I ordered is in there, for now I am just excited that they have arrived. :D The next thing is to order the Bees now that I have a place to house them !!!
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Re: Keeping Bees

Postby Lollykoko » Sun Mar 09, 2014 4:20 pm

Sounds great, Guy. The dark blue will serve the same purpose as black would, and will look good against the brightly colored wildflowers that you will be growing as a backdrop and food source. 8-) Did you say that you are thinking about a food forest in that area, someday? Or is that me, projecting my hopes for this year's accomplishments? :lol:
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Re: Keeping Bees

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Sun Mar 09, 2014 4:38 pm

You were in the upper field I am talking about Lolly, it is past the apple orchard through some trees. That is where I planted your milk weed seeds. I also planted 2 Chinese Chestnuts, two pecans, and 4 mulberry trees in that area. Last year I cleared out a section of brush and left 2 Red Oaks and a couple of Black walnuts. So there is a start of a food forest out there. I picked that spot for the bees because it gets good sun and it is far away from the house. Both were key features in my opinion. :D Having the bee yard a goodly distance from the house was a very important to getting the Zoning issue approved, Judy is very allergic to bee stings. So I really had to take that into consideration in picking the location.
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Re: Keeping Bees

Postby Lollykoko » Mon Mar 10, 2014 3:07 am

I was thinking that was a great location for what you have in mind. Are you adding fruit on bushes or vines to the area? The mulberries are a great start, though. Common wisdom says that birds like mulberries best, so if you have plenty of those, they might leave the cherries alone. :lol: Or apples. Whatever fruit it is that you are wanting for your table, or to take to the food pantry or sell in the back of a pick-up truck in the grocery store parking lot. It helps to have a plan for what you will do with the abundance. ;)

I'm looking at cherries & blueberries on a bush and cranberries as ground cover for the food forest I hope to get planted this year. Kiwi is also on my list of desirable plants, for screening as well as fruit. The catalogs are offering a special on 2 pecans and an almond, with hazelnuts and butternut also available. Then all I have to add is a dwarf "fruit tree orchard" package and a couple hundred bulb plants to draw the pollinators!
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Re: Keeping Bees

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Mon Mar 10, 2014 3:20 pm

I don't think I will plant any more trees up in that area for now. Its close to my apple orchard and not that far from the garden as the Bee flies, :D They can go a mile to find nectar so I do not think they will have any trouble finding the apple trees. There used to be 60 bee hives with in a mile from my place, now there are none that I know of, so I think there will be plenty of things for them to collect pollen and have plenty of food sources close.
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Re: Keeping Bees

Postby mannytheseacow » Mon Mar 10, 2014 10:21 pm

We finally had a warmup here. I went out to the hive over the weekend and stuck my ear against it. 3 weeks ago there was a furry of buzzing coming from inside, like normal. This weekend.... nothing. Took the top off to find nothing but dead bees.

There is still a full deep hive of honey so I know they had enough, and plenty of bees in there... so I'm not sure what happened.

In Illinois we're required to license our bee hives. It's free, but still, I'm a little skeptical of letting too many people know what I'm up to, especially the government. I gave in last year and registered after several letters in the mail (don't know how they figured out I had a hive). Anyway, I'm thankful now. I called the state apiary inspector today and she's coming out later this week to go through the hive. They'll take samples and send them away for testing for free. I guess my tax money goes somewhere after all....

I'm anxious to know if I have to destroy my hive or if I can just clean it up and restock it. I managed to find another supplier of Russian bees today and secured a new colony for this year. I hope I don't have to invest in new boxes. I can't really afford that now. I often have groups out to the house here to show off what I'm doing and/or educate people and I think the bees are an important part of my little ecosystem. Stupid bugs. Ha! :lol:
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Re: Keeping Bees

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Tue Mar 11, 2014 1:29 pm

I opened the boxes and saw what all they sent me. When I pulled the Suppers out of the shipping box the frames all fell out of course, I can be such a Dummy. :lol: Looked everything over and made some repairs to the frames, The plastic just had to be popped back into place. :) I watched a video about how to seal the boxes before painting, that seemed like a good idea so I went and bought some silicon caulking yesterday to seal the cross grain at the ends of the boxes before I paint them. Yesterday was warm so I dug in the garden, tomorrow is cold and snowing so I will be in the basement painting. 8-) It is late in the season to order bees so I had some trouble finding what I wanted. The guy who had Russian Queens was sold out, several more calls including the Local Bee Association did not help much. I was given a link to mail order Russian Bees from Ky but they were pretty pricey. I found an old bee keeper that still had Italian Bees with a Queen for $90. That was about $70 less than the mail order place in Ky so my thinking is to go ahead with the Italian bees, and if they die next winter replace them with Russian Bees. If they make it Good, if they don't I am only out about $35. There is always the chance that even the Russian Bees would die the 1st year so I thought it was a good risk to take. Like I said before, you pays your money you takes your chances. ;)
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Re: Keeping Bees

Postby mannytheseacow » Tue Mar 11, 2014 6:24 pm

That sounds like a good plan, Guy. If you have some good eyes, or you get your queen marked, you could also just buy a pure Russian queen next year and remove the old one. That would be a lot cheaper, if the bees survive next winter.
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Re: Keeping Bees

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Tue Mar 11, 2014 11:40 pm

I thought about re-queening. Many people re-queen every year because they feel the egg production is better. I do not have a strong opinion either way. What is your take on re-queening?
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