When the pool party is over, I just went out and pulled the gate and allowed the bees to forage. I was able to keep my neighbor across the street happy and she was a big advocate of me raising bees. It should be noted that containing bees within the hive for many days during the nectar flow will reduce the nectar that is collected.
The end result will be lower honey production. On a 5 acre lot I have about 75 hives. If you go greater than 75 hives you will see the honey bees competing for the same nectar source and will reduce your honey yields per hive. This is a lot of bees and I highly recommend placing this apiary in the countryside where no homes are within.
Always remember to talk with your neighbors because they can be an advocate or a real pain in your side. There is strong evidence that some of the most feared diseases are increasing rapidly in the areas of highest hive density. It just happens that the hotspots of those infection outbreaks seem to mirror high-density hotspots. That is telling you something is not right. The LBKA and other beekeeping associations want to reduce the number of bees in certain areas, without reducing the number of beekeepers.
Beekeepers are looking at ways to share hives, as well as reduce the number of hives in their apiaries. Tim Vivian, a beekeeper in the centre of Birmingham, makes an effort to show as many people as possible his hives, from colleagues to schools and anybody with a passing interest. What is quite possible is everyone who comes to see the hives could do a little bit more to think about habitat and forage for pollinators generally.
They just need to know more. Those sort of reasons are perfectly valid reasons to keep bees. Find more age of extinction coverage here , and follow biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on Twitter for all the latest news and features.
In , almond orchards occupied , acres. By that had more than doubled — almond groves in the Central Valley now blanket an area the size of Delaware, producing 2. The average American eats 2lb g of almonds every year, more than in any other country. When European immigrants introduced their own version of agriculture to North America, they also imported the art of beekeeping, along with boxes of Apis mellifera , the domesticated European honeybee.
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, beekeepers earned a modest living selling beeswax and honey. But in the late 20th century there was a titanic shift, exemplified by the career of Dennis Arp. Arp, 67, got into beekeeping nearly four decades ago when he established his Mountain Top Honey company in Flagstaff, Arizona. A commanding presence with biceps toned from hoisting heavy bee boxes, Arp is the sort of diligent beekeeper who spends his days driving between apiary sites, and his nights studying online forums, reading articles on the latest mite treatment.
With that strategic move, Arp joined the growing ranks of migratory beekeepers in the US who still sell honey but mostly travel the country from one pollination site to the next with stacks of bee boxes in tow.
And finally, what he still considers the bane of his business, a parasitic mite called Varroa destructor literally sucked the life out of his bees. Now Arp finds himself in a vicious circle: he is constantly battling to keep enough bees alive to meet the requirements of his almond contract. But if he was not pollinating almonds, maybe his bees would be healthier. Pesticides are used for all kinds of crops across the state, but the almond, at 35m lb a year , is doused with greater absolute quantities than any other.
One of the most widely applied pesticides is the herbicide glyphosate AKA Roundup , which is a staple of large-scale almond growers and has been shown to be lethal to bees as well as cause cancer in humans.
The maker, Bayer-owned Monsanto, denies the cancer link when people use Roundup at the prescribed dosage. My Question. Can I just dump the first package in the first hive and turn right around and dump the second package in the second hive without worrying about bees getting mixed up and flying in and out of both hives?
No need to worry. Your bees will recognize the pheromones of their own queen. But if a little crossover happens, there is no problem anyway. Thanks for your website! Like a poster above my bees went gangbusters and and had about frames of drawn out comb as of a week ago.
One colony swarmed a week ago which made me sad and was unexpected as my bee club and the book they taught from Beekeeping for dummies never raised it as a possibility. Our second hive was not as strong or aggressive and we have split them this evening using directions from this site. The first year queen went into the new hive with frames of brood, pollen, and honey.
Frames with swarm cells, brood, pollen, and honey were left in the hive that she once ruled. I might be a completely unique situation and not trying to get new beekeepers to spend more money unnecessarily but… I would have bought extra empty hives my first year if I knew I might have to split. Is this wrong? Seems like I also could have had nucs on hand that would also be useful to prevent a swarm. Many paths to the same destination.
I suppose the possibility of swarming the first year is not generally taught because there is so much to learn in the beginning. People go through a lot of silly machinations to prevent swarming, but the best way in my opinion is to split. So having a nuc box or two is a good idea. Beehives will attract any kind of bear that happens to live in the area. They also like the honey.
Starting two hives sounds like a great idea. Would it be a good idea to start one wbc and one national — to figure out which I prefer working with, or will that complicate the comparison?
Hold on a moment. Do you have research about raising bee in Asia country? I am new to the beekeeping realm. I inherited four Technoset 3 box hives with bases, queen excluder, top feeder, FD plastic frames that have been waxed, and top.
As I am retired and have plenty of time on my hands thought to give beekeeping a shot for home use. Have done the courses, watch youtube instruction videos, read the book till I am about to have a brain hemorrhage. Have sourced four, 6 frame NUCs to start things off. I will put 2 hives at our acre farm and 2 here at home, mainly to see which location is better for the little ones. Locations are prepared using recycled plastic pallets cut in four for stands and carpet underneath.
I will break the hives down to a single box with base, accesses closed of course with feeder and top to pick up the bees and transport them home. My initial idea was when I get them home to add in the other 2 boxes and queen excluder so I would have 2 brood boxes and a honey box.
As it is spring here I intend to feed them light syrup with a booster until they adjust to their new home and environment and find natural food that is abundant around them. My question is will it be too much shock to add all the boxes at the same time that soon or should it be done gradually across time and how long?
You can do either, but inspections will be more difficult with all those boxes in the way. And my family mutinied a few years ago when I first wanted bees. It took me about 4 years to condition them to see I could do it right without being a mess. It depends on what you think you can handle. I know a guy who kept one colony for two months and then bought for the next year. Feels like I finally found like-minded bee folk on this site. Thank you!
Two hives, both have frame deeps going with single-brood chambers and medium supers as needed. Ordered one package of bees and one nuc to increase the chance of getting through the season. Apiary is nearby and does a 24 turnaround to GA for packaged bees and has its own winterized nucs.
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