Many supers ?

[jp19sqn]

Quite right Margaret.

If you read up about Langstroth, Miller, Snelgrove et al, they all experimented. I guess they were rubbished by their amateur contemporaries too but their names don't appear on books now do they!

Good post!

JP

 

[MMJ100]

Finman,
Perhaps you could bring your "great experience" to the help of the beginner, rather than what you seem to do.

I am quite certain that there are many beginners and intermediate beekeepers who would like to hear your positive and constructive comments.

 

[Ely]

Do a search of Finmans posts, or oliver 90s, hivemaker etc. You'll find enough information to become a 'master beekeeper' yourself.
If people aren't free to chat freely. We may as well be reading books, all the info you'll ever need are there after all.
Sent from my XT615 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Finman]

Finman,
Perhaps you could bring your "great experience" to the help of the beginner, rather than what you seem to do.

I am quite certain that there are many beginners and intermediate beekeepers who would like to hear your positive and constructive comments.

Amen

 

[beeno]

Michael,
I am beginning to wonder what you have in that brood box. Maybe you should too. You are beginning to sound disingenous. Some of us have a genuine interest in bees on this forum. Let's keep it that way.

 

[MMJ100]

Beano,

I apologize if you have that impression. I have been totally straight forward. I am sorry if I made a cutting remark. I still think of my bees with genuine interest and I want to learn more about this fascinating subject. I will do as you kindly suggest... my best to keep it that way. I suppose I should have turned the other cheek.

I did get my question answered anyway and I hopefully will do the next time too.

Thank you
Michael

 

[Mellona]

My hive philosophy

I am the beekeeper whose hives were the subject of the beginning of this thread. To answer several items brought up here: I did not harvest honey from either of the hives in question this year. I should have consolidated them going into winter but beekeeping is a hobby for me, and my fulltime job took more from me in October at a time when I should have consolidated the hives.

However, both hives had full boxes of honey in every box except the brood frames that filled the bottom two boxes. We did not harvest. Had the bees been in a tree, their hive would not have been consolidated. I figured that the bees would work their way up through the stored honey over our very, very mild winter in Atlanta and probably be fine. I use 8 frame medium boxes so they aren't hanging out in huge warehouses of empty space.

I do not use queen excluders and give the bees the full access to all boxes to do whatever they need to do in those boxes. I run an unlimited broodnest as per Michael Bush, a well-known beekeeper in the states.

Sure enough, we only had three nights below freezing this winter and the bees are flying and healthy.

For those of you questioning my Master Beekeeper status, I didn't just give that to myself. While I haven't kept bees for 30 years like many of you, I have worked hard at beekeeping and have worked my way through the levels of certification offered by the University of Georgia and Dr. Keith Delaplane (who is internationally known in the beekeeping world) over a four year period.

I completed the requirements and testing for Master Beekeeper in 2010. That doesn't mean I know all the answers or even any of them - as we all know, beekeeping is both an art and a science and if you ask three beekeepers a question, you'll get 10 answers - that's why a forum functions so well!

In general, Michael Bush and Dean Stiglitz are my beekeeping heroes and I strive to follow natural and sustainable processes in my hives. I don't feed my bees anything other than their own honey and I use no poison or chemicals in my hives. I'm trying to have hives that will sustain without artificial help. So this year I went into winter with about 13 hives and came out with 9....with no treatment and no feeding. I plan to split the survivors and see how it goes.

Good luck to everyone with your bees - stop by my blog now and then - it gets about 1000 visitors a day in bee season from all over the world and is listed on many state and club beekeeping association sites in the states as a place for beginning beekeepers to go for information.

Linda T
(can't put the blog address because I'm new here, but it's in the first post on this thread)

 

[oliver90owner]

Ain't I glad that I kept out of this thread! Four (at least) of my colonies perhaps look a bit like that. But at least three have a couple empty shallows below the brood box (well the bottom shallow will have maybe half a dozen empty drawn frames). Those bees will all be above a Q/E as well. They were just too heavy to dismantle late in the season to remove the boxes (after the bees cleaned out the frames) - and didn't need the interference anyway. You don't tend to get waxmoth in the odd frame with that separation in the bottom box either. They have never been blown over; I pick my wintering quarters to be away from the worst of the wind.

 

[Finman]

I did not harvest honey from either of the hives in question this year. I should have consolidated them going into winter but beekeeping is a hobby for me,

and my fulltime job took more from me in October at a time when I should have consolidated the hives.

Sure enough, we only had three nights below freezing this winter and the bees are flying and healthy.

That was an natural answer to high wintering hives.

I have done too that I do not extract all my honey from combs. Next year I was in piss when I had not enough empty combs to give to hives when they enlargened with high speed. That is very expencive style to handle "no time" and it makes much more work later to get rid off that "honey like stuff".

But there are times and things do not go like they should.

.

 

[BKF Admin]

People are free to chat as they wish. That sometimes highlights more information to be learned. It can even form a friendly atmosphere and sometimes friendships. Forums are not q and a pages or books. You may have started the thread but it is under the forums control.

Sent from my XT615 using Tapatalk 2

That's something that used to happen on another forum,as soon as you started to go off topic the mods stepped in and either closed the thread or demanded you stay on topic.

I have learned far more on here from when a topic has gone off on a tangent than from original questions.

You have to remember though that some members (I can think of an ex mod on the bbka forum in particular) who used to post here who got very upset if things strayed off topic,some people in society have to have things black and white and can get upset if grey comes into a thread,I think it's an illness of some sort.

 

[BKF Admin]

Linda T
(can't put the blog address because I'm new here, but it's in the first post on this thread)

Hi Linda,the forum rules state you must not direct forum members to any website you own as it may contain advertising.
Having said that I have followed your blog since you started it.

Admin.

 

[PBee]

I am the beekeeper whose hives were the subject of the beginning of this thread. ....
Linda T
(can't put the blog address because I'm new here, but it's in the first post on this thread)

Well said and welcome .... you may have caught some of our august members asleep at the wheel but the majority, I would say, are open and interested in all methods of beekeeping as they pertain in different areas, climates etc.


Are those tyre marks on 'rook'66? .....bumpbump

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPFGXqBcJCY"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPFGXqBcJCY[/ame]

 

[MMJ100]

Thank you, Thank you everybody, I mean everybody!

Something that PBee brings up is climate. The difference between Altanta and my location which has a max of 4 months of winter (On sunny days here in Feb. the bees have been bringing in pollen at a huge rate) and Firman's location where I imagine winter is much longer ( I guess 5/6 months) must force bee keepers to adapt their methods. Let alone trying to fit in all the jobs into a tight timetable, some of which is brought on by weather.

Bless all our bees and hope that everyone has a good bee year,

Michael

 

[Mellona]

you must not direct forum members to any website you own

So sorry - I won't do it again - It was late at night when I joined so I must confess I didn't read the rules but I'll be a good girl going forward!!!

Here in Atlanta, my bees have been bringing in pollen since early January when the red maples began blooming and we got our first swarm call yesterday and were able to hive it in a teaching hive that absconded before winter that I have at a public park. Winter here has gotten much warmer each year for the last seven or so. I only wore my "real" winter coat three days this winter (six last winter).

 

[richardbees]

Hello Mellona...you and your Red Maples are very welcome....I'm in the middle of suburban London so there's year round pollen sources from from front gardens, at the moment mahonia and willow seems favourite.

 

[thorn]

Mellona, keep on posting. Let us know how you work with bees in your part of the world as Finman does about his. We all (well, most of us) love to find out how other beeks work, even when their methods may not be applicable to our own situation.

 

[MuswellMetro]

Mellona...welcome, there is a bit of a big pond between you and me but they are the same bees

I expect the bees speak the same language even if our talk of bottom bee spacev14x12 and commercialsl and top bee space smiths seem quaint