Bee Keeping

[tulip]

Sally, so sorry to hear about your hive! I'm glad your dad's is thriving. What can you do if it's too late to introduce a queen?

Lisa, your Mason Bees are really cool. I would love to keep bees, but I'm not sure that I can keep honeybees, as I was very allergic to the stings when I was younger. I keep an epipen with me, but i haven't been stung in decades, so I don't know if I still am allergic. Sometimes kids outgrow it, I've heard.

But I could keep Mason Bees (or at least provide them with tubes)!

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

But I could keep Mason Bees (or at least provide them with tubes)!

Exactly. And you could feel good about helping our native bees.

Sally, I would take those leftover bees and do a 'newspaper combine' to put them in your healthy hive rather than just let them die off.
If you can get your good hive built up enough, you could just do a split.

[short cut sally]

Bleeker, I thought about doing the paper split to combine the dwindling hive, my husband did too. I should've done the paper split last week, to be honest, but then I thought, what if they were diseased by something, and I introduced something into the strong hive. Then I would be really upset. It was a 50/50 thing I debated about. They looked healthy but I'm a newbie at bees and maybe I'm missing something that I hadn't been exposed to yet. ( I did a couple of hive days last year with an experienced bee keeper who showed me different things but that was last year, and my memory goes empty at times like my cats food dish after he's been sleeping all day). The total bees last week might have covered one side of a frame, if that...it was a gamble, and still is a gamble.. I'll update when I go and visit the hive..thanks for the concerns everyone!

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

My two new honeybee colonies arrived and I installed them into their two new hives yesterday. Very exciting! All went well, totally gentle bees and can't wait to see them fly today...supposed to hit 74F and sunny! Woo-HOOOOO!!!!
YES!!!!

[short cut sally]

Oh Bleeker, you will so enjoy them. I know I have.
To update on my hive that was essentially doomed. There is a shining star looking out for them yet. I see today that there are larvea in small to large stages, so I'm thinking maybe they made a queen. I inspected today and even though I didn't see one, there must be one. They had some spunk today too. It was too bad I used all my cornhusks and peanut shells for the smoker for my dad's bees. I'll know next time to take all the stuff in the bee yard with me instead of leaving it behind. My dad's bees are going great guns, I think I'll be adding another hive body on next week or so..they are like everywhere..

[crazycanuck]

Saw this on today & thought the bee folks might like it

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth...00/8682842.stm

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Here's a video i took of my new bee hives a few days ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN8DA_F6hUw
it was a pretty buzy day.