Any Bee keepers in here?

That aint nothin. In another month i will wrap the hives in landscape fabric.

 

Yikes CR thats definitely not for me I dont think my southern bees could handle that they would need a wood stove in the hive

 

Lol yeah man, took me some time and i just started getting it right. The first couple years my southern packages flunked big time. Beekeeping is local they say. You can tell how well my insulated top covers are doing and the barn is a big wind block from that Canadian air. I am looking to expand if these make it to spring well enough. Here is a couple more pics from yesterday since you dont see much snow. I will get lots more im sure.

 

You know it's warm outside when the honeybees are buzzing around the last couple blooms of the year

 

I wont see me bees untill april, maybe march...

 

I'm in. We run anywhere from 2-5 hives per year depending on our winter survival and budget for new packages in the spring. Last year we did great, getting about 8 gallons of early honey from 4 new packages (lost all hives last winter). Left plenty of honey for each hive and left plenty of time to forage after extraction. Unfortunately, one lost the queen and went into laying worker mode and one froze with a recent cold snap. Down to 2 very healthy hives going into winter. Fingers crossed.

 

i have not been happy with package bees. decent honey producers but struggled with overwintering. where do you get yours from?

 

We get our packages from a local guy who goes down south an picks up a load of them each spring. Overwintering is unpredictable. We've had some good years and some bad. We've also tried local nuc's but didn't seem to be any noticeable difference, at least in our small sample size.

 

Mike I would strongly encourage anyone involved in beekeeping to only buy local bees for a couple reasons one it helps to promote local economy and local beekeepers and two there is always the concern of transplanting africanized bees to places they havent already set up shop. I hope your bees overwinter this year Im a little worried about one of my hives but well see what happens fingers crossed.

 

I'm jones'n to start hives.
I woodwork so I'd like to build the components, but wife says too many Irons in the Fire.
Our local bee consultant is the Mortician.
An for the fun of it- our local prices are $8.qt He has 2 different type depending on the season.

 

That must be a nice sign to see the girls midwinter to see that they are doing good.
We had 50 degree weather a week or so ago and I wanted to see if the girls were out, but I was sick so I didn't get the chance.

 

Same thing here too

 

Mine were out and about yesterday it was in the low 60s Im glad to see they are still doing good.

 

Mine were flying yesterday and christmas eve!

 

Some girls were flying a little bit today! Anybody here have bees further north than NJ?

 

Looking good ! I have 3 hives...and I already lost 2 this winter I think . They looked good till mid Fall....then they just went down hill before winter you know you are good when you see dead bee carcasses on top of the snow . Means they are able enough to be busy in there !

 

The one on the end that isnt wrapped is NFG. They swarmed in fall and i speculate the new queen didnt get mated well enough or in time for a round of brood before winter.

 

Ehhh. I tell ya.. Havent had any sick bees or mite probs... Its all swarming/ queen problems. It seems like they just do what they wanna do..no matter how i try to fix em !