I went out a few days ago when the temperature was in the mid 40s (F), and found no activity at all, just dead bees. The cold snap where the temps went down into the low teens must have done them in. I put in a pollen patty in each hive just in case.

I went out today and in the first two hives there were no bees. In the third hive, there were bees tearing up the pollen patty. I’ll go out again with another one in a day or so.

It is disappointing to lose 9 out of ten hives, but it is heartening to see one lone hive hanging on. I have something to root for.

Adam at AZApiaries used to come to the West Nyack Mall, but this year he said he’d be stopping across the river in Westchester. That’s a hike for me and I’d have to pay an expensive toll and some expensive gas to get the bees, so I have decided to try an alternative.

Jorik Phillips at http://www.hudsonvalleybeesupply.com will be stopping by, either at my house or at the mall during the last week in March (perhaps early April if the weather is bad). He has another run scheduled for the end of April.

“Their bees are genetically diverse and are bred for honey production, hardiness and temperament. They carry the best traits of Italian, Carniolan and their local stock. The queens and bees come from the same apiary so you can expect them to have the same southern drawl.”

I think that this is a nice alternative to the Italian bees that produce lots of honey while the nectar flows and then starve to death in the fall, no matter how much you feed them.

I have to make a decision about new hives this spring. I have found someone who is buying a truckload of packages in North Carolina and is willing to stop by my house to drop off a couple for me on his way back. These are mixed bees, which I have decided might be better than the pure Italians that I have been getting.

There are other places within a couple of hours drive who are selling nucs, so I may buy some of these. All of these are mixed types – some Russian, some Carniolans, feral bees, and even some Buckfast.

My reasoning is that if I buy a variety of bees of different breeds that I might get lucky.

The guy that I bought queens from down in New Jersey had nucs last year, so I am going to phone him and see what I can get. The advantage is that this only about 15 miles drive and with the price of gas it makes his hives a bargain. He has recently divorced so I am also hoping that he may be wanting to get rid of some hives that I can pick up now.

My brother may have a bunch of nucs for $50 that he can get from a guy who does swarm captures.

I will also place some swarm traps on a few rooftops (one at my mother’s house and possible one in the village of Nyack).

My target is to have 8 hives so I would need 5 or 6 hives, depending on how my three make it through the winter. The hive that was smashed during Sandy, does not appear to have much population, so I am a little worried about her.

That would be $600 to $700 worth of bees. That would require that I sell about 150 bottles of honey. I am not sure that these bees will produce honey the way the pure Italians did. They are all of them “Survivor” bees of mixed types.

My fear is that one of these diverse hives will be sick with “foul brood” or infested with small hive beetle or varroa. This could wipe out my investment in a very short time.

On all three remaining hives, the fondant is about half gone. That means they are eating the sugar, but I am not sure if it is enough to make it.

The weather has turned really cold today. It was under 20° when I woke up this morning and it won’t go above freezing all day. There are two months of deep cold left before I can start Spring feeding. I put on top feeders with sugar syrup during the first good thaw in late February or Early March. The three hives will have to survive until then on their honey stores and the rock hard fondant that’s left. I might try some more fondant if they get near the end of the current batch. (about 6 lb. per hive).

The question now is whether or not to buy bees in the spring to get back up to 6 or 7 hives. It will cost me, perhaps $850, for 7 hives, if the ones I have die. AZ Apiaries is not stopping by the West Nyack Mall with bees this year. I will be paying at least $110 per package for bees from unknown sources.

My brother Ward thinks he can get nucs from a guy near him for $50 each. These are unmanaged hives from swarms captured last summer. They are mixed breeds, but are survivors. They may have heavy varroa mite loads. There are a dozen of these available, so I am asking Ward to try to reserve three. I don’t know if he will come through.

There is a place an hour or so north of us selling nucs for $135 each. These are mixed race survivor bees, but he claims to not treat his bees, so they may have varroa, also. $135 is expensive, at least for me. It would take about 25 pounds of honey to make this back. There is also a place about an hour south that is selling nucs for $125. They have $100 3# packages from North Carolina.

I figure that I have about two weeks to make my mind up. The bees go fast.

Ward has followed in his big brother’s footsteps. He still has honey up in Rochester.

If we have a good Spring and most of the hives live through the Winter, we I will be able to harvest around the end of May or early June.

For no good reason that I could see, one of the hives was totally dead and empty. Not even dead bees. This is frustrating.

I put Thymol strips in the hives. The back yard smells like thyme. Thymol is the essential oil found in the spice thyme. It kills the mites that kill bees, naturally, without pesticides. I also mixed up a batch of sugar water to feed the bees. I added some honey and a product – Honey Bee Healthy – to the sugar. It is spearmint and lemon grass and encourages the bees to take the sugar and store it. It also makes the hive smell nice and keeps the sugar water from fermenting. It is a natural way to help the bees.

A bee got inside my bee veil and teased me, pretending it was going to sting, but it never did. The bees were mostly calm, but one hive got upset when I started pulling the frames out to see how they were doing with honey. Lots of swarming bees adds a little tension to the inspection.

I was upset with the dead hive, also the hives are not doing as well as I expected. They seem light  with lots of empty frames. I will feed them again in a few weeks and I have to take out the thymol strips over Thanksgiving day weekend. Then I’ll take the feeders off and put some shims in place and then feed them bee candy, which is similar to bakers fondant.

I am seriously considering not buying new bees in the Spring to replace any hives that die. This is a very discouraging hobby and the bees are fragile. I have spend a few thousand dollars on bees and equipment and this has been the first year that I broke even on honey sales. I may have even made a small profit. I do not see this going anywhere. I have a full time job and the bees require more attention than I can find time for. I wanted to raise queens, but that is very nearly a full time job. Maybe when I am retired I will be able to work the bees better, but with this economy, I have to keep working as long as anyone will pay me.

There are two buckets, one full and the other with a little bit, sitting on the counter in out kitchen. Erica will try to find time to bottle the honey today or tomorrow. Bottling is slow work and Erica has to stoop over to do it. Her sore back is no help here.

I am going to print out labels today and the honey should go on sale this weekend.

We have accidentally obtained a dozen one pound “Muth” jars which will sell for about $10. These are antique looking bottles with a cork. They are very pretty and make good presents. I am not sure if Erica will fill any of them this time. We may be using them for Christmas presents for out friends.

There are 4 hives with honey that I will rob when I get a nice weekend. That should be another 70 or 80 bottles if the bees did their stuff as well as I hope.

The bees are very healthy and have a high population. I hope that with the chill weather this week that they start slowing down for winter. All the hives seem full so they might have enough stores to make it through. This winter I will make a sugar concoction called “bee candy” to feed them a few times in the cold months.

The Chickens are just starting to lay eggs so there may be a dozen or so fresh eggs available by this weekend. Erica has been working hard on the “Fresh Eggs” sign.

I bought a couple of top feeders and put the screening on them and suited up. I replaced the feeder on each hive and gave them 5 pounds of sugar mixed with 2-1/2 quarts of water each.

I finally acted on these hives because they have not been feed in a couple of months and compared to the other hives, they didn’t seem as busy. My other hives have long beards of bees on the front. I’ve been feeding them a couple of pounds of sugar a week.

When I opened the two hives, there was lots of activity. I pulled a middle frame from the top super and found it to be 100% capped honey. This was a surprise. I expected to find them to be starving, what with me not feeding them and the high heat and humidity all July and August. They must have been finding flowers because they were indeed packed.

I checked one of the hives that I have been feeding and the top super was so heavy that I could hardly lift it. It looks like all the hives have one or two supers of honey. I did not put a second super on some of the hives because I thought it would be a waste of time. I think that I’ll put on the rest of my supers this week and continue feeding them heavily until I harvest the honey.

I am going to harvest honey on Labor day and I hope to get a bonanza!

Ward ran with it and is busy making queens. The last I heard, he got a good frame of brood and cut it into points to encourage queen production. He put it in a queen-less box and that’s the last I heard. He should have cells by now.

I sent him some queen cell protectors for moving the cells to nucs. This weekend he should have some queens if all goes right. As soon as they are mated he will send me one.

These are queens from his “wild” hives. He harvested 100 pounds from them and they are extremely vigorous. I will split my good hives and introduce his queen. I should have smoky black bees in a month that produce lots of honey.

Ward has the theory that these dark wild bees are the original European dark bee (Apis mellifera mellifera) brought by the colonists in the early 1600s. They went wild and have been living in the woods for years, occasionally mating with Italian bees, but keeping their dark color. (There were no native American honey bees as far as I can find).

The original bee was considered gentle, but the hybrid variety is supposed to be a little cranky and more prone to defend the hive and sting. Nothing could be more gentle than the last batch of bees that I got from Georgia, but even my Golden Italians get a little bitchy sometimes.

These dark bees are hardy, although I wonder if they can resist the pests and diseases introduced lately into the bee population. They might have no resistance to Varroa and hive beetle.