The Honey Factory

[shawluvsbirds]

red wasps are communist... it’s patriotic to hate them...

Luke Bryan probably is too... but I forget who he is other than some ‘pop country’ singer ... so there is a chance he just sucks but isn’t an actual commie... but that’s probably splitting hairs, lol

 

[OhZark Biddies]

View attachment 2181156

okay... I was wrong... it’s likely he just sucks and is a commie both...

much like beekeeping the answer is often not binary, but a combination of things

 

[duluthralphie]

okay... I was wrong... it’s likely he just sucks and is a commie both...

much like beekeeping the answer is often not binary, but a combination of things

He is, and I think he hates bees.

 

[karenerwin]

My bee mentor came over today and we opened the hive together. She was very impressed at how mellow my bees are and how vigorous they are too! She said I have plenty of bees and tons of capped brood ( and uncapped brood) and that we can do a split if I want too!!
So we are going to pick a day in the next 2 weeks and make that split. She said I will probably be able to harvest some honey this year too, but not from the new hive that we split off. I'm not counting on any honey though since I entered this adventure with the expectation of "no honey the first year". But if I get a little then that is just a bonus.
We did see 1 hive beetle (which we smooshed).
I'm going to go buy a couple of Queen excluders tomorrow.
I did tell her that the bees (in my opinion) were doing great! (despite me. ).
We did not see the queen but we did not go all the way through the hive as she didn't think it was necessary since she could already see how well everything was going.
She was able to see all 3 stages of development, egg (which I was not able to see{bad vision}), uncapped larvae and capped brood. We could also see bands of honey and some pollen storage too.

 

[duluthralphie]

Did you get photos?

 

[Neggative]

hmmmm maybe i should get bees,.... (dripping with sarcasm..)

 

[karenerwin]

Did you get photos?

No, my phone was in the house on the charger. But I will make sure that I have it when we do the split in a week or 2!

 

[Neggative]

Today I went out to my chicken pen and heard a buzzing sound... looked around and found a bunch of bees buzzing around a hole 30 foot up a huge red oak.... is there a difference between domesticated and wild bees? Would somebody want them?

 

[R2elk]

Today I went out to my chicken pen and heard a buzzing sound... looked around and found a bunch of bees buzzing around a hole 30 foot up a huge red oak.... is there a difference between domesticated and wild bees? Would somebody want them?

Check your laws. Every state has different laws concerning taking bees from the wild. Here, a permit is required to have bees and another permit is required to take bees from the wild along with the permission of the land owner.

 

[duluthralphie]

I think the best thing to do before getting a permit or gathering the Wild bees, is check and see what variety of bee you have, so you can fill out the permit properly.

First crawl up the tree and tie yourself securely to the tree by the knot hole. Make sure the knot is double tied you don’t want a quick release for this part.

Then look in the hole, reach I and start pulling out the bees one at a time. Check the bee if it is not the queen, release the bee back into the hive and grab another.

Eventually you will get the queen so you can identify her variety.

Do not wear glove or arm protection as that will startle feral bees.