The Honey Factory

[duluthralphie]

If I may ask, where do you live,and what the hell is that big boat, a V hull or a tri-hull oh and what do you use it for?

That is a V hull. It is my Lake Superior boat, it is 25 ft with a deep V and a cuddly so I can sleep on the water.

The white one is a Carolina skiff, that’s my normal boat for everyday fishing. It is 18 ft.

The last one is 14 ft, I don’t use it much unless I am going into a place that is tight to get into, or has hazards, it is light enough to pull through river shallows.

Everyone in Minnesota has several boats. I have two canoes, a pontoon, a 12 and 14 ft boat at the cabin, and the 2 kayaks in the shed that the turkeys use.

 

[duluthralphie]

Things I learned today:

1. when properly motivated an old fat man can run the 100yard dash

2. A bee can provide said motivation

3. opening a hive lid when it’s 40 degrees and rainy outside does not insure one against a mean “b” bee

4. a bee that chases A person over 200 ft is intent on inflicting pain before it dies.

5. the jeweled Queen’s granddaughters are all mean. Her daughter must die.

6. the other hive is very docile.

7. bee


I decided to open the lid and see how the sugar water I gave the bees was doing. I was outside, it’s cold wet and miserable. I figured just lifting the lid and taking a quick peek would be safe.

I was 50% correct.

I was worried the feeder in the docile hive might leak, so I opened the lid. I found I made an error. The hole in the sub cover was being blocked so no bees could go up and down from the hive to the feeder.

The feeder itself was doing great. There were maybe 25 bees trapped in the feeder super. I found a small stick reached in and slid the frame a tad making a good 3/8 plus hole for the bees. They immediately came through it and crawled to the feeder. No bees flew at all.

Nice bees..

I should mention the weight of the feeder pushed the inner lid down on the frame so there was no crawl space. I use a spacer to set the distance in the honey supers, so I have 9 frames in a 10 frame box. I now know by doing this the frame blocks the hole in the lid completely.

I decided I should look in the other hive to see if it happened there too. It did.

I was just looking, had barely opened the lid, I did not reach in at all, when 4 million bees came rushing out in an aerial assault formation.

My neurons fired fast enough to tell me to get the_____ out of there. My legs that have refused to run for 20 years took over and ran.

There was a persistent buzzing right behind me. My legs ran faster. I thought when I cleared the orchard fence which is over 100 ft from the bees I would be safe.

The buzzing told me I should run another 100 feet for good luck. At the end of the second 100 ft the buzzing was less. However, it was not done. At about the 100 yard mark I slowed down. The bee did not. She got me. Only 1 stayed for the whole 300ft.

That is one too many. My neck is throbbing. I am going to suit up and go move that frame, only because I don’t want that hive raiding my friendly hive.

I will try to winter them, but come spring that queen will be gone, whether she dies over winter, I buy a queen or I make one in a NUC from the friendly hive is to be determined.

I can’t believe I have to put a bee suit on to just move the frame and put the cover on.

 

[shawluvsbirds]

I have just started my very own honey factory.

I was going to ha e two hives but decided to just buy one batch of bees, in case I kill them instead of two.

I can use advice from anyone and everyone with experience.

I do not plan to over winter my bees. I will use them as protein for the birds when their work is done.
My bee box:


View attachment 2078027View attachment 2078028

I have it level side to side and and 1/8th bubble high on the back side.

Here are my new workers;View attachment 2078032View attachment 2078033View attachment 2078034

this was right after I moved them into their new home.

I was out and visited them a little bit ago. There were 50-100 bees crawling on the box above the door. I hope that’s normal.

I have Saskartraz bees. I think that’s because the Sasquatch developed them.

@R2elk might know more. As I said these are my first ones.

I know they were friendly and would purr when they sat on my arm, so I could pet them.


It was a tad intimidating to have a box of bees clumped together and buzzing like mad in my hands. I was not sure how getting them into the box would go.

It was not bad, I took the queen out first. She assured me we would get along fine and she had no hostility towards me. Hopefully, she pays her rent.

Her box had a wood plug and not a candy plug in it. I popped the plug out and put a marshmallow into the hole.

I hung her box between two supers, then dumped the rest into the box and replaced the supers I had removed to make space to dump them.

All of this was accomplished without a sting!

I am a tad nervous they won’t like my box and leave tonight.

I gave them a pollen patty and a jug of sugar water inside the box and I have a chick waterer set up outside the hive for them.

They have been here 4 hours. I will check on them in an hour or so.

is that a real possibility that they might all just fly away and not come back?

 

[R2elk]

Got it, thanks.

I moved the frames!!
The feeder is inside the top super? (Box)..

I had a guy that goes to our church help me. I bought the boxes and stuff off him.

He told me to open the cover in 5 days and check to see that the Queen is out of her cage And to check the feeder.

He also told me to space the frames more evenly once I get the Queen cage out.

Hopefully they will let me do this without incident.

They will still be friendly in 5 days especially if the queen has been released. I would check it sooner than 5 days to make sure they have plenty of sugar water. You don't want them to run out of food.

 

[duluthralphie]

I have just come in from visiting my bees.

First off, the bee store guy lied to me. I asked for friendly bees. He said he would give me the friendliest ones he had.

He lied.

I opened the lid, peered inside and saw lots of bees around the base of the feeder. To quantify the term “lots” I will make an educated guess.

~2.5 million.

Well, it seemed like it. They were extremely hungry, I would guess there were a couple hundred around the feeder.

They had almost emptied it from yesterday. I was shocked at how much they drank. I removed the feeder.

They did not seem to care for this much. I had several bees flying around me. A few landed on me, one was on my shoulder staring me in the eye. I gently brushed him away. No idea if that is right or wrong.

Some followed the feeder, most followed me.

I then very gently removed the inner cover, this seemed to tick off the ones on the cover even more.

They were circling me and dive bombing. It was intimidating, but interesting as they all didn’t come after me, some just crawled down into the frames somewhere.

I pulled the queen cage out. The queen had escaped, so I assume she is somewhere in the hive. I needed to even out the spaces between the frames. I moved a couple a little but was afraid to move them more as they were really stuck in there well. I was afraid I would squish the bees to move the frames too much.

Also I did not have my hive tool with me so I had to use brute force. I have learned, always bring a hive tool with when opening the hive.

I put the inner cover back on, this seemed to calm the bees a lot. I still had bees circling and riding on me, but was like the anger was gone from them.

I put the holder for the feeder back in place, even this upset a couple bees. I told them I was giving them more food, but they did not listen.

I put the rest of the feed I had mixed up in the feeder, Drained the liquid to get a vacuum and put the feeder in place. Some bees immediately started feeding. Others kept a sharp eye on me.

I closed the lid, put the weight on it, picked up the Queen cage and headed to the house. A couple bees followed me 25 ft or so but not many and they weren’t aggressive.

I did notice a strange phenomenon, when I was almost to the house I thought I heard all the bees buzzing around me. I looked and saw none.

However, I was a little nervous to open my nice safe bee suit. I actually went into the bathroom and checked myself in the mirror. I was bee free and Removed the suit without incident.

whew.. what a rush!

 

[Angileen]

I have just started my very own honey factory.

I was going to ha e two hives but decided to just buy one batch of bees, in case I kill them instead of two.

I can use advice from anyone and everyone with experience.

I do not plan to over winter my bees. I will use them as protein for the birds when their work is done.
My bee box:


View attachment 2078027View attachment 2078028

I have it level side to side and and 1/8th bubble high on the back side.

Here are my new workers;View attachment 2078032View attachment 2078033View attachment 2078034

this was right after I moved them into their new home.

I was out and visited them a little bit ago. There were 50-100 bees crawling on the box above the door. I hope that’s normal.

I have Saskartraz bees. I think that’s because the Sasquatch developed them.

@R2elk might know more. As I said these are my first ones.

I know they were friendly and would purr when they sat on my arm, so I could pet them.


It was a tad intimidating to have a box of bees clumped together and buzzing like mad in my hands. I was not sure how getting them into the box would go.

It was not bad, I took the queen out first. She assured me we would get along fine and she had no hostility towards me. Hopefully, she pays her rent.

Her box had a wood plug and not a candy plug in it. I popped the plug out and put a marshmallow into the hole.

I hung her box between two supers, then dumped the rest into the box and replaced the supers I had removed to make space to dump them.

All of this was accomplished without a sting!

I am a tad nervous they won’t like my box and leave tonight.

I gave them a pollen patty and a jug of sugar water inside the box and I have a chick waterer set up outside the hive for them.

They have been here 4 hours. I will check on them in an hour or so.

My Aunt used to raise bees and sell honey. She put a hive in my orchard one year. I used to go with her to check the honey. I stood about 5 feet away and never got stung even with her pulling out the trays. Probably would be a good idea to have an extra bee hive that is empty just in case. While my Aunt had the bee in my orchard another queen was born, she was on a tree branch in the orchard with a big mass of bees swarmed around her like a big massive ball. Half the bees left the hive to go with her. So my Aunt and I got a garbage bag, cut the limb off the tree with the bees attached. and stuck them in the garbage bag and she brought them home and added them to an empty hive she had.

 

[shawluvsbirds]

I can't believe you missed the short finger!!

Wwweelll ... I just figured a dux bit it off so I wasn't gonna say nothin.
I did however notice you needs to clean under your fingernails.

 

[duluthralphie]

Do tell

What don’t you understand about SSS...

Friends never ask friends what or who they just buried..

 

[shawluvsbirds]

@R2elk
I got stung by a wasp today.
Somehow I feel like it's your fault.

 

[blackandtan]

Thanks for your input.

I understand, your desire to remain anonymous, and thus not reveal your “area”.

I hope you will understand this,

I am retired, I was born and raised on the same farm I live on and live on in north central Minnesota.

I “farm” because I enjoy it and I like being semi self sufficient. I would have liked to have been a farmer my whole life. That was not a possibility as my Dad was only 23 years older than me.

When I got out of high school, my Dad was too young to retire, the government had just stolen via eminent domain the majority of our land to make a goose refuge 200 miles from a goose flyway. ( yes bureaucrats are arrogant enough to think they can get geese to fly a different path)

Money for buying farms was near impossible back then, so I entered college and after a few miss starts ended up in a decent career that allowed me freedom to live rurally most the time.
I farmed on the side on small farms.

I found what worked on the farm I grew up on did not always work on the farms I owned in other areas.

My Dad told me 40 years ago, “don’t try to farm here, like I do, talk to farmers around here to see what works and what doesn’t”

To me that was wise old sage advice. I used that most my life and it worked well, I take advice from everyone, then adapt that advice to my goals and situation.

I weigh advice based on what I perceive the person’s experience to be and how similar their situation is to mine.

I freely admit everyone here has more experience with bees than I do.

I was a workaholic most my life, I had a full time job, most here know what I did, I had a part time/ side job both these jobs required a fair amount of education and training. In addition, my wife and I would buy distressed businesses and turn them around, selling them once they were “fixed”.

I have been involved in politics and local government for 40+ years. I still am involved in politics, as most here know. Many people know me on here. I am a public figure so it’s harder to remain anonymous for me.

I truly understand, your desire to be anonymous, heck you might even be in the witness protection program. (That’s a joke, I like joking and kidding around with people)

I say all this hoping you understand I will read everything you write, I will digest it and apply what I think applies to my situation, but I weigh the information.

Not knowing where you live, what your climate is and more about your background, means I will discount some of your advice regarding over wintering bees.

I am not a PETA person, to me at this point, bees are like seeds, I plan to plant them annually harvest and replant next year.

That does not mean I won’t change my mind and look at them as a perennial crop in the future.



One of the most telling pieces of information here came from the guy from Ohio, while trying to get me to over winter them stated “75% of the bees die over winter in Ohio”.. Ohio is a tropical paradise to us.

I will not attempt to over winter until I am assured of a better than 25% chance of success.

Sorry this got long. Thanks and please stay here and advocate for your position and advise myself on others on what works for you.

Not to pry but does your desire to eradicate dux stem from the goose sanctuary issue?