TBH Bee Keepers

[rjtkdplus]

You get much honey?

Very little, less than 10 lbs. pretty common for a hive coming out of the winter though. Feeding them plenty of sugar water now.

[Ferg]

swarm traps out, its time here in East Texas

[trophyhunter]

Austin area keepers?

Anyone raising bees near Bee Cave? You would think it's a natural location.

I have 6 acres here and I'm interested in getting started.

Chris

[lovemylegacy]

Love this thread

[dxtbowhunter]

swarm traps out, its time here in East Texas

I just put mine out.

[MASTERS]

Ok I just did my inspection and it wasn’t good. No worker brood and spotty drone brood on 3 frames. About 10 to 15 on each side. A few larvae and I couldn’t see any eggs at all. There might be a few there but I can’t see them. So my plan is to stack them on top of my good hive with brown paper in between. Give them a top entrance I’m thinking and an obstruction in front of the top entrance so they reorient. What are your thoughts on my plan of attack? Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Sorry I'm just seeing this. Newspapering them like you mentioned is a great idea, at a bare minimum you wont lose their drawn comb to moths ad beetles. I've done it with good success combining late season removes going into the winter. I've never given them a top entrance like you mentioned doing though. They chew through the newspaper quick enough to not need it imo, but am interested in hearing how yours do set up in that fashion. I'm still about 3 weeks out from getting my first round of queens to make splits, and am feeding pollen sub and syrup as necessary to ensure ill make fat healthy splits come the end of the month. If anyone in south Texas are looking for a few nucs send me a pm.

[MASTERS]

Building slabs of brood, stacking old comb out with pollen, second deep brood pic as good as it could look for this time of the year and drawing fresh comb....

Queens arrive the 25th of March and splits will be made shortly thereafter!

Hold on it’s fixing to get busy in the apiary!

[sharkhunter]

Well I caught 4 swarms at the house so I put out two more swarm traps. I had no idea I would have this level of success catching swarms all within 300yrds of my house. Super happy :-)

[lovemylegacy]

Inspected my hives. Both hives had lots of brood at every stage. Found the queen in one hive but not the other. Good amount of nectar/honey. They had all frames with a good amount of comb, probably 90%.
On the next to last frame I had a large piece of comb fall over. Im concerned the queen was there as I hadn't found her up to that point, so stopped there, put the hive back together. Im concerned she may have been injured or killed. Looking for advice.

[MASTERS]

Inspected my hives. Both hives had lots of brood at every stage. Found the queen in one hive but not the other. Good amount of nectar/honey. They had all frames with a good amount of comb, probably 90%.
On the next to last frame I had a large piece of comb fall over. Im concerned the queen was there as I hadn't found her up to that point, so stopped there, put the hive back together. Im concerned she may have been injured or killed. Looking for advice.

check them in a week to see if they have made emergency queen cells about mid ways down the frames where the 1-3 day old eggs were today. if they have then its likely she was injured or killed. if they haven't and you see 1-3 day old eggs then you should be good to go.

[MASTERS]

Well I caught 4 swarms at the house so I put out two more swarm traps. I had no idea I would have this level of success catching swarms all within 300yrds of my house. Super happy :-)

I've never been that lucky. I'd have to run 25 traps to maybe catch 3-4 swarms!

[MASTERS]

Making splits this week, some hives are strong enough to make two stout splits and still have a pile of bees left in the hive.

[MASTERS]

Few more splits today

[Ferg]

man that is alot of work, looks good

[lovemylegacy]

Good work Masters.

My son and I saved another hive this week, but we aint near as impressive as Masters.