Drought effecting the bees.

alleyyooper · #1 07/01/12, 08:22 AM

Seems the drought and other forces are effecting our bees. The honey supers are still empty, even at the yard where there was 20 acres of white, yellow and crimsom clover blooming just a couple weeks ago. Many of the queens have started shutting down also due to the dreath of nectar and pollen.

Chicory is blooming now, normal bloom time is mid July to late August. There was no bass wood blooms at all, goats beard is all gone early.
Golden rod has the signs of budding early and blooming.

Contplating removing the honey supers and feeding if we don't get rain soon.

Maybe do nucs to build for next spring and sell nucs then to recover this years honey crop failure.

Any one tried to get a queen lattly? Friends are reporting queen suppliers are sold out, Have been for several weeks.

Al

tom j · #2 07/01/12, 08:53 AM

queen suppliers are sold out, Have been for several weeks.

yea what the heck is going on with gueen this year ???? why the high demand ???

southerngurl · #3 07/01/12, 02:39 PM

I saw some queens for sale on Craigslist locally here. Italians, $20.

Elizabeth · #4 07/01/12, 05:21 PM

We have queens for sale if anyone needs them. $20 for forum members.

We do all of our requeening in the Fall, so we usually have some until the end of the summer.

francismilker · #5 07/12/12, 04:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elizabeth

We have queens for sale if anyone needs them. $20 for forum members.

We do all of our requeening in the Fall, so we usually have some until the end of the summer.

Where are you located? Do you ship via mail or UPS? I'm really new to bees and want to get more than the two hives I inherited from an older beekeeper. I just don't know if it would be better to wait until early next year to start up some new hives.

Elizabeth · #6 07/14/12, 08:24 PM

We are in Minnesota.

We do ship queens.

If you were in my area I would advise you to wait until Spring, not so sure about Oklahoma.

alleyyooper · #7 07/16/12, 11:09 AM

We finished the honey super removal, one thing we found is not very many drones left so we will not be doing nucs or raiseing queens.

Al

Peggy · #8 07/16/12, 11:40 AM

this is my 2nd year for my 2 hives, and the first year to get honey. Only got 35 lbs of honey from both hives. did anyone else get a small amount of honey?

francismilker · #9 07/16/12, 01:34 PM

Elizabeth, I stared out her in SE Oklahoma with excellent honey flow and lots of clover blooming. I think I'll hold off trying to split hives this late in the year. The drought has set in and things are starting to turn brown. I'd hate to try and split them and then loose everything. In fact, I'll probably be feeding bees by this time next week.

I will keep your info on the queens and try to contact you early next year. Thanks.

alleyyooper · #10 07/17/12, 08:08 AM

Gona be a lot of beekeepers in this part of Michigan that will get less than that unless they had their supers on by the first of April. We may get 25 pounds out of 79 colonies if we are lucky. Going to be a huge winter die off this winter also if we don't get rain soon for the Golden rod and Aster blooms. Our brood boxes lack honey not much at all in two deep, some were totally empty.

Al

mooman · #11 08/01/12, 01:53 PM

Im in upstate SC. I have two top bar hives (this is thier second summer). I was able to harvest a couple bars of capped honey from one a few weeks ago (about 5lbs total). Checked them out today and found both hives to be strong and healthy. Plenty of capped brood. Good pattern. FULL OF BEES.... but no honey to speak of. Couple frames in each hive were 1/2 to 3/4 full of capped honey, couple more were less than half full.

Is this because of the dry summer? Anyone else in this area (scrapiron) seeing low production? I'm a little bummed, but I mainly got into this for the experience. Just wanted to know if this is normal.

PS the honey I did get got made into a Belgian Wit Ale that should be ready to taste in a couple days (very excited).

scrapiron · #12 08/02/12, 07:17 AM

My biggest problem this year was getting super frames, and foundation. I made a batch of supers about mid spring, and couldnt get frames for them anywhere. So actually I lost honey. It has been an above average year. I pulled about 100 pounds of honey off 2 packages that were started April 1st! Amazing! They filled 2 deeps and 2 supers each, in less than 4 months.

Even though we are only 15 miles apart, you get more rain than we do. I would have thought you should be having a good year too. Strange.

We went to that waterfall on highway 11 right there at Cesars Head last weekend. The goldenrod is just starting to bloom up there. It wont be long and there will be another flow. Let them keep it all, goldenrod honey crystalizes fast.

Good luck on the "Witbier"! I planted a few grape vines last fall, and just made 2 gallons of wine with the grapes from our backyard. Like you, I cant wait.

alleyyooper · #13 08/02/12, 05:30 PM

Hum, wonder if it could be a difference in Top Bars or Langs.

After all in nature bees work up. Perfect of lang equipment.

Al