Well,
I had fully intended to get my Warre Top Bar hives built before the bee season this year. Maybe next year – or, maybe I can get 1 or 2 built and by nucs in May…
I installed 6 packages of bees Sunday afternoon.
I’m getting pretty fast at it -It took all of about 5 minutes for the first one, and around 2 – 3 minutes for the other 5.
I fed them pollen patties yesterday. I have 2 1-gallon “community” feeders set up with sugar-water, to help them pull wax, and to stimulate laying in the queen. They were installed in hives that had pulled comb on the foundation for all or, at least for 7 of the 10 frames, so they have a head start there.
I intend to pull honey off of these hives, so I will be installing individual feeders on each hive this week, along with queen excluders and supers with empty frames (foundation only – no “pulled comb) so the bees can pull comb. If they can get that done by May 1st – 10th, I should be in business, and will pull the feeders off and add additional supers that have pulled comb. That way, then will have plenty of room for putting up honey. This helps me in 2 ways:
1. The bees will be less likely to swarm, since they have the entire brood box for brood, and 2 supers for storing honey.
2. They will have supers with comb – so all they have to do is put the nectar in the cells and start making honey out of it.
We are planting lots and lots of Anise Hyssop (Agastache foeniculum). It is said that 1 acre of anise hyssop can supply 100 beehives with enough nectar to put up 100 pounds of surplus honey per hive. With my 7 bee hives, we should do well.
We are also planting a bee-friendly flower garden, and have some clover in. All of these plants should boost the “nectar economy” and, hopefully will provide enough stores for my bees to overwinter well. Since most of the farms are no longer here, it has been a struggle to support more than 4 hives here with the amount of bloom that has been available.
Add to that the 125 blueberry plants we have, (which will bloom in July) the several hundred strawberries, 40 plus fruit trees, and we could have a good year.
And if the black locust blooms this May, we’ll have a bumper crop of honey!!!
Here’s to a successful beekeeping year!
–Pat