I opened up all 8 of my hives. They are doing great.

The packages have all been installed about a month. They are packed with bees. In all cases they had 5 or more frames dense with bees and 7 or 8 full drawn frames. The nectar is flowing well here and none of the bees have been emptying the top feeders very fast, so I am satisfied that they are happy.

I pulled a couple of center frames on the packages and I saw eggs and brood. I put a second deep on all the package hives, except one. I don’t have enough deep boxes so I am making a temporary one out of plywood. I was tired last night and measured something wrong, so the first try did not fit the frames. For some reason I have about 15 unused deep frames and 20 unused mediums. I also have a bunch of deep wood frames that the mice got into and I need to replace the foundation. I have a pile of disassembled frames and some foundation, but the foundation was exposed to the heat. I may order some plastic foundation for the frames that need it.

I opened two hives that wintered and the split. I opened just the top and checked some frames. The top boxes each had 7 or 8 frames full of honey. I put a queen excluder on two of them and a medium super. I’ll have honey by Memorial day. The other hive had a medium super that I left on all winter. It was chock full of honey. I put another medium super on top of that.

I will pull the honey supers off on Memorial Day and spin the Honey. That should be about 100 pounds if things go well. I will check the new packages then and see if they need supers.

I will make the plywood deep this week and put it on the last hive. If it works I will make half a dozen medium honey supers. Plywood boxes with furring strip braces on the outside cost about $1.50 each as apposes to $20-$25 plus shipping for the nice boxes. I may buy a couple of deep boxes, but I can’t see buying medium supers. They aren’t going to be on over the winter and if they don’t hold much weight if I put them on top. If they only last a year or two they are well worth the effort to nail a few of them together – the bees don’t care.

I went out and opened all 9 hives this morning. The packages look good. Lots to bees and some new comb. I saw brood in all of them. That’s 5 new hives that are working. The queen boxes were empty and they looked like they had no trouble getting out.

One split seemed to be working well. The queen was released, and it was very active with lots of bees. I closed it up without checking for brood. Since there is nothing I can do if there is none, only time will tell.

The other split failed. The queen was dead in her cage and it looks like the bees went back to their original hive. This hive had not been taking syrup so I had already guessed it had gone bad.

The seven good hives have taken 10 gallons of syrup in these last 5 days and are ready for more. I have an extra top feeder now and I can put it on one of the splits. I suspect the racoons get any syrup left in the front feeders over night, because I find them scattered in the morning. You have to fill front feeders before noon.

I am worried about the bees. It is a bad day: sunny but very windy. The bees want to fly, but it they do they will blow away and probably die. The bees are all installed, but I am not sure they will all take. A good number of packages die due to a bad queen, or dissatisfaction with the hive.

I tried to use as much drawn comb as I could in the new hives, hoping the bees will see it as home. I had not frames of honey, though, like last year. A frame or two of honey will convince any queen that the new hive is a good place to live.

Right now the bees are gathering around the front and there is a lot of cleaning going on. I hope that they like their new homes and stay.

Here is a slide show of what the hives looked like this morning.

At about 1:15 AM Easter morning, Adam Fuller arrived with a truck load of bees from Georgia. I got 5 packages:

Billions and Billions of Bees.

Here are my 5 packages coming off the truck with a bunch of Beekeepers hanging around to pick up their bees.

I am done with the Spring installation. All the local Beekeepers met at the Mall at 1AM. Adam came with his truck. I bought two queens and five packages.

Yesterday I split my two hives. I could not find the queens, so I am guessing that she is with the brood that I found, so this morning I put the queens in the two boxes that I assume are the queenless hives. I hope I was right.

The 5 packages went smoothly and took about an hour this morning. I was not stung, although some riders manages to follow me into the house when I was done. I hope the bees are happy.

I have some pictures of the bee truck and maybe tonight I’ll post them.

I have heard from the guy who is trucking up the bees from Georgia. He arrives at the West Nyack Palisades Mall around midnight tonight. He will have 5 packages and 3 queens for me.

I will leave them in the truck overnight and at dawn I will install the packages.

Tonight I will split my two hives and in the morning give the two new hives a queen each.

The last queen will be installed with bees from each of the packages. I will dump the bees into the hives when I do the install, but leave a few in each box so the leftovers will serve to make an extra hive. This is an experiment and I am not sure it will work. Installing packages is iffy enough.

I got this list from a post on Bee-L, the beekeeping discussion group.

Beekeeping by Rotation System
Disease Prevention
Selection Vitality
Selection Yield
Waggle Dance
Skep Beekeeping #1 Spring Work
Skep Beekeeping #2 Preparation for Swarming
Skep Beekeeping #3 Swarming
Skep Beekeeping #4 Cast Swarming
Skep Beekeeping #5 Summer Work
Skep Beekeeping #6 Autumn Work

This is a very early spring and temperatures here should be in the 60s for the next 10 days, at least. The highs will be in the mid 70s some days.

Yesterday, it hit 69 here and the bees are active. They are bringing back yellow and red pollen, which is from the early tree blooms in the neighborhood. I fed them and they gobbled the syrup. I will be putting on top feeders soon.

Connie, my Russian hive, is quite active. I thought that she might have died, but Russians can survive with very small populations and build up fast.

The only thing is that hives seem a little “hot” and the bees are bumping me as I walk by. There is lots of noise by the entrance, which may mean they are robbing each other. I hope the feeding helps. I will feed again tonight when I get home. With daylight savings time this weekend, it was dark and I was too groggy to feed them before work this morning.

I was very depressed about the hive named Fanny dying. That meant that my two best honey producers from last summer died. I figured that since they were my strongest hives that the other hives would soon be dead.

I was wrong.

I went out today and the hive that I bought as a nuc from New Jersey was showing lots of activity at the entrance. The Christine hive had some activity and even Connie, who I’ve had for three years now has bees around the front entrance.

The temperature hit 53 degrees today and it looks like it will do it again tomorrow, so I filled up a front feeder for each of these three and fed them. When I took out the entrance reducer they were very active.

I hope that I didn’t hurt them by feeding them. I don’t want a big buildup before the nectar flow stars, but I don’t want them to starve. I will keep feeding them as long as the temperature goes above 50 degrees. I think that if I do this I will have some strong hives in the Spring.

I like this reason:

8. You get to be known as the “crazy beekeeper friend” by your peers, which gives you carte blanche to act like a nut.

Top 10 Reasons to Become an Urban Beekeeper.

Cornell University has a Master Beekeeper program up in Syracuse each Spring and Fall. My brother has already reserved a space. I am thinking of signing up myself. These would be for the Apprentice level courses. I should be worth while. I have read quite a bit about bees, but I keep making terrible mistakes. Maybe a course like this would cure me.

http://www.masterbeekeeper.org/masterbeekeeper.htm

This week I checked my hives. Another one has starved to death. This was one of the best hives that I’ve ever had and I had three supers piled up on it in July. I must have taken 50 pounds of honey from it.

I never touched the bottom deeps, but in September I noticed that the hives were all nearly empty. This one had some honey in it, and I though she would make it.

The two other hives still have some life, but I am not optimistic. Connie, my oldest hive, seemed quite, but there were no dead bees on the bottom board. This is a Russian hybrid, and she can live through the winter with short supplies, so she may make it. I did not open up the hives that I think might be alive because it is under 40°.

I was a little worried that I might not have enough wood for 8 hives. I ordered 5 packages and 3 queens. I as going to split any hives that lived through the winter. Now, I guess, I’ll use some bees from the packages to make small hives for the queens that I ordered. if I take a cup or two of bees from each of the 5, there should be enough to start the three queens in hives of their own.

I am gong to order some fondant for winter feeding on the three hives that are left, and I’ll put on the top feeders as soon as the weather starts to get above 50° regularly. With luck, I will have two hives live through the winter.

What I have learned is that next August I have to watch the bees until winter sets in. If they start using up their honey I have to feed them as much as I can. It is cheaper to feed a hive $20 worth of sugar than to have to buy packages at $90 each.

I have my order in for bees with AZ Apiaries for April 8th. Today I found out that it is already sold out.

That was fast. I ordered my bees around Christmas last year and here it is a month later and they are all gone. Things are moving fast.

The next due date is May 8th.

If you want bees this Summer, you have to start now.

You need to order your bee packages or nucs now. If you live near me, North Jersey or Southern NY, the best bet is to pick up a couple of packages from http://azapiaries.com/ The bees will be sold out in February. Reserve now.

The bees from AZ Apiaries are coming April 8 to the Palisades Mall Parking lot. Probably 4 or 5AM. Put your order in now. The other dates on the website are for Connecticut pickup only. (The date is usually delayed depending on weather, but the word is that a mild winter has resulted in large bee populations and the delivery might be on time this year)

These are very good bees from Wilbanks Apiary in Georgia. I have bought bees from 4 different sources and these were the best by far. They are healthy bees with low verroa counts. The queens are vigorous and the hives build very fast.

If you are a first time beekeeper you should order a Starter Kit. This includes the wood, frames, some tools, gloves and a veil. They have all you need to get started, but don’t assume that it has all you’ll ever need. You will be buying more wood and frames as you bees fill their hives with honey. These are for standard beekeeping boxes. You can also build your own boxes using some interesting styles. If you want to harvest honey, however, these are the best choice.

https://millerbeesupply.com/beginner-kits/cat_1.html
(seems to be most for your money)

or

http://www.brushymountainbeefarm.com/Bee-ginners-Kits/products/3/
(The one I bought because the shipping is lower.)

or

https://kelleybees.com/Products/Detail/?id=3336333133353339&grouped=1

or

http://www.betterbee.com/Products/10-Frame-Hives/Assembled-10-Frame-Beginners-Kit
(you get much more stuff, but you have to it buy anyway. In NY you have to pay tax.)

This year I will be building a bunch of hive boxes out of cheap plywood and I’ll see if they hold up. The plans to build hive boxes are all over the place, just do a Google search. The plans, however, all require some woodworking equipment and expertise. I am going to see how far I can get with just a ruler and circular saw.

My brother lives up in Rochester, NY. He was emailing me regularly last night as the temperature dropped. It was 4° at 11 PM when I logged off.

It went down to 13° here overnight. I never did get around to wrapping the bees. I know that they can make it through the cold. The problem will be their honey stores. I hope that they don’t starve over the winter. If I can find time I will wrap the bees this weekend. It is sort of like closing the barn door after the horse is gone, but This won’t be the last cold spell we get.

My brother is ordering some mixed Italian-Russian-Carniolan bees from an apiary near him. These are what is called “Survivor” bees. They have proven that they can make it through the winter.

Some of the bees he has now are mixed parentage that the Russian seller called “Amerikanski”, by which he meant they are mixed breed bees from swarms and other sources that over the years have proven they can thrive in the Rochester summers and survive the Rochester winters.

I will be making queens this Spring and I am hoping that my brother will too, and we can trade queens to vary our stock.

I was back by the bees New Year’s Day. I put some sugar on top of the inner cover on the hives that are still alive. I almost got stung when they got a little upset with me. I was wearing a black hoodie – the very opposite of a bee suit, and I must have looked like a bear to them. As soon as dropped in the sugar they were upset and headed for my hair.

It was 48° when I gave them the sugar. There were a few bees around the entrance. Here are a few pictures of the front of the hive. You can see one or two bees wandering around the entrance to each hive. When you open the top, the vent hole on the inner cover is full of bees.

Compare this to October 22. These are a couple of pictures of the hives in 75° weather. I had taken off the top feeders in June when I harvested honey, so I was using front feeders in October. I certainly hope that I was able to get the girls enough stored honey to make it through the winter.

It is early, but Adam at AZapiaries.com has posted the spring schedule for bees. The bees delivery, stopping by the Palisades Mall in West Nyack, is always the earliest date so I can expect to get my 5 packages of bees on or about April 8, 2012.

The bees never arrive on time due to weather. There has to be a month of good weather in Georgia for the Wilbanks Apiary to grow enough bees to make the packages. They are often two or three weeks late.

The price did not go up. It’s $95 a package plus tax. That should be about $500, plus I ordered 3 queens so I could make splits. This will be just shy of $600. Beekeeping is expensive. If I don’t make any money this year it will be my last year.

Over the winter I will be studying up on Queen Rearing, and I will make various NUC boxes and queen castles out of plywood when the weather permits. I can sell queens for about $35 each and I hope to be able to sell a dozen or so every month. Selling queens makes more money than selling honey ($500 a month), I’ve heard. Queen rearing is an arcane science and I am trying to learn its secrets.

Now is the time to order your bees for the Spring.

I ordered 5 packages from Adam at AZ Apiaries. Adam and his crew stop by the West Nyack Mall in Early April, around 3AM. A couple of dozen beekeepers sit in their cars (usually in the rain) waiting for him. The thing to remember about ordering bees as that no matter what date Adam gives you, the bees will be late. The weather in Georgia controls when the queens will be ready and the population is built up enough to make packages.

Adam gets his bees from Wilbanks Apiary in Georgia, and the are very strong packages and do very well. These are the best bees that I’ve ever bought.

5 packages  is about $450 worth of bees at $90 a package. It may even be more this year. I figure that I will need three or four of them. If I have any left over I will sell them on Craigslist, or maybe even eBay. I’ll know how the bees are doing in March. Right now it doesn’t look good for three of them. I already lost my second hive this fall.

I have also ordered some queens and I will make nukes, either by borrowing bees from a good hive, or taking a few thousand bees from each of the packages.

All in all, I will have 5 or 6 hives and a few nukes. I will sell the nukes when they get established and any of the packages that I don’t use, so I have to see the $500 as an investment.

Last year, the two packages that I got from Adam were so strong that I got 40 pounds of Honey from each of them. I got no honey from the nucs that I bought in NJ. One nuc died and the other doesn’t look good. Connie, my Russian hive is hanging in there. She seems light, but Russians go into the winter light and still come on strong in the Spring when I start feeding. She struggled all Summer so I only took one super of honey, about 10 pounds, from her.

The shed where I store bee stuff was hit by a huge limb in the last storm. It is crushed and leaning over. Erica put in the insurance claim and we will have a new shed built back by the bees. Two hives are very near the shed, I have to move them so they will have room to work. I need to buy some straps to hold the hives together so they will not break apart when I move them. I moved a hive once and it was a nightmare. You can’t move an active hive because the bees remember where the hive was and can’t find it at the new location. I was scooping up piles of bees at the old location and putting them in the moved hive every night for a week. I must have lost thousands of bees. In the winter the bees are not leaving the hive so they can be moved without worry.

Adam at AZapiaries is starting to take orders for next spring’s bees. I am concerned that my bees won’t make it, but I am also worried that this is a losing proposition. My bees are doing poorly and I am not sure that I want to spend $450 to replace all my colonies.

I have time, but I have to decide before Christmas.

The early October snow storm has done some damage.The bees are cold and inactive. One hive has a huge tree limb sitting on it, but the hive did not collapse. One tree limb hit my stack of supers and broke the top one up.

I fed the bees the day before the storm. It has been cold since. Some of the hives did not touch the sugar syrup. One of the hives finished it. The rest have finished some of the sugar. I am concerned about the hive that did not eat anything. I am wondering if there are any live bees in there.

The weather should warm up into the mid 50s for the next week. I hope that the bees find the sugar and store it away.

If the bees die this winter, that is it. I am selling the equipment and finding another hobby.