Leary, I hope they produce some captures for you. Good luck!

That really depends on the keeper. Most do not want to travel great distances to tend their hives. It sounds like a nice setting, but there are a lot of things to consider. The normal foraging range is a mile or two and there needs to be enough resources available to sustain the colony in that area. Three acres alone is not enough for a single colony typically. Three acres surrounded by appropriate resources could house hundreds of colonies.

A hobby beekeeper that is local would probably be interested if they had no land of their own.

Dirty D, yes perhaps but bees generally forage thousands of acre so it is much more important what the surrounding acreage is. If it’s on the middle of barren cornfields not good. If it’s a very botanically diverse habitat then great. Canola, alfalfa, clover, soybeans, fruit tree, lawns, gardens, woods are all generally good areas.

how in the world do you guys know and remember all this.

we started a class with the local association, pretty informative, but so much to remember.

we are looking at getting our first hives this year, but really dont have the time resources to commit to it until after memorial day.

edit: any suggestions on where to get nucs/packages?

Thanks for the thread, Aaron!

This is what mine look like now.

Outside



inside

Checked the covers on my 6 hives this weekend and they are still alive. Saturday they all were really packing in maple pollen! Made me smile as it was the first good foraging behavior I had observed this year. Working on planning to make splits and hopefully go into fall with 20 hives.......Last year I only pulled about 14 frames and harvested a 5 gallon bucket of honey and overwintered my hives 3 deep. I do not plan on treating my bees with chemicals and know in the future I might lose some so I better take care of them and split now to make increases. I picked up a few swarms last year and much prefer feral genetics over Italian Packages. I even raised a few queens myself last year and probably enjoyed seeing them lay a new pattern of brood over everything else. It is very simple to raise your own queens and in my opinion, no need to buy another.......

I have hives at two different farms about a mile apart. Its very time consuming for me with shift work, grand kids and trying to peddle honey here and there. Honestly, not sure if I can make it another year keeping up with everything.

I will say this the Honey Bee is the most incredible creature God has put on this earth.

B

Short answer is, years of practice-and maybe a little loco in the brain, lol.

Second part, check with your state beekeepers association. Waiting until after memorial day is not ideal if you can avoid it. Most of the nuc production will probably be over. Here nucs are generally ready by April 1st. That said, looking further north might yield something on the dates you have listed.

You are more than welcome Lee!

Good job. I hope your plan works out. I fear that you will struggle in time with mites, and eventually have to address it with some form of treatment.

As for raising queens, yes you are correct that it isn't too complicated. There is much to weigh out on what you hope to accomplish with your bees and that, IMO, is where buying queens comes in. Think of it like breeding cows. Not hard to do and you can get a lot of cows bred just by having cows and a bull. But having the right cows for maximum milk, beef/meat, heat tolerance, cold extremes, disease resistance, etc., etc, etc. Now considering all that and breeding "cows" got much more complicated.

I don't have a dog in the queen rearing fight, BTW. I bought a few last year to try something new. So far, too early to tell. I raise them any time I need them, and then some.


I think the only thing crazier than keeping bees, is trapping in the off season-or the other way around, lol. But you are right. It is a unique form of husbandry. And dealing with insects has the added benefit of being able to see change on a rapid scale over a compressed time frame. Very challenging and rewarding. And frustrating. And infuriating...lol.

What sugar ratio does every one use for spring? I use 4lb of sugar to 1 gal of water.

A bee can not live without the colony and a colony can not live without the “Bee”. They are not cows or goats or horses but really two organisms in one the bee and the colony.
Bees lived in this country long before man introduced chemicals into bee hives. Please Study the bee and the colony and work with them not against them and their nature and you WILL not have to use harsh chemicals into your hive. But if your short on time and short on patience then chemicals will keep you going.
Naturally honey bees explode in population and swarm often thereby reducing parasites and diseased hive environments. Beekeepers
Do everything possible to stop them from swarming and keep them in the same hive same old comb as long as they can. Can you say contamination and disease?
Work with the nature the natural aura of the honey bee.
One piece of advice for smaller beekeepers and those who can ; you can raise honey bees successfully without harsh chemicals. Read some of Dee Lusby’s work in Arizona.
A queen break or brood break once or twice a year does wonders for mite levels and several other non harsh chemical means.
But please treat before you just let them succumb to and proliferate diseases.

Sugar and water in same ratio (1 to 1 volume or weight)in the spring for brood rearing only if needed and until a nectar flow gets under way.
1 cup sugar 1 cup water
1 lb sugar 1lb water
1 gallon sugar 1 gallon water
5 gallon sugar 5 gallon water

This is standard and may vary slightly

The Honeybee iee.. Basic bee biology - understanding the life cycle of the honeybees and each caste member is a vital part of understanding honeybees and bee keeping.
One of the first things was asked by Kim Flottum I believe. Why do you want to keep bees? Answer that question first and then many other answers will come easier? For a little honey? To make money$? To pollinate my garden? To sell bees? Because they are in decline? Because my grandfather did? You get the picture.
Now understand basic bee biology such as
A bee starts as an egg for 3 days (laid by a queen in most cases) larvae, pupae, adult.
Development varies slightly for each cast. They are mostly capped on /around day 9
They each hatch on day:
Drone 24 days
Worker 21 days
Queens 16 days
By knowing these basic things one is able to diagnose many hive issues by observing what is happening in the hive.
If you observe the hive seems sluggish while another is going strong. You may wonder what is happening and any experienced bee keeper will ask you some leading questions to form some educated, logical things that are happening.
You observe several frames of capped brood but no eggs or open brood present. Then we know by basic biology that something happened in last 12 days.
Time of year early spring you would look for queen cells, may be swarmed, maybe being superseded with a virgin. May be she just died but you are able to assist a hive by your observation into the hive and the life cycle of the honey bee.

Egg , larvae, capped brood much can be solved by the observation of these three stages.

Let me point out that honey bees are a nonnative specie from Europe. They could survive before varo mites showed up no problem.

Now its like your dog had mange and it will eventually kill the dog if you dont treat it with chemicals.
The chemicals you treat bees for mites have the same ingrediants found in honey and can be safely used with honey supers on.

Some beekeepers are able to keep treatment free bees, but not many. and none of them are first year bee keepers.

I will keep an eye on this thread. My boy joined the beekeepers 4h club. We live in a swamp, so plenty on land. Just need to keep the bears out!

Jerry Jr.

I hope you and your son find it both enjoyable and educational. Feel free to ask questions any time and hopefully you will find helpful people with good answers here.

Thanks for reminding us that the honeybees in the US are non-native. Also, the Varroa Destructor parasite is not a native parasite for the European races of honey bee. So, they do not have an "evolutionary" strategy for dealing with the mites. The small hive beetle isn't a natural pest on them either... All this influences beekeeping and the decisions beekeepers must make.
Clearly you are passionate about your beekeeping. I'll assume this was directed at me. So, please re-read my statement where I said "some form of treatment". It is well accepted among scientists and experienced beekeepers that the current status of beekeeping in the US requires intervention on the part of the keeper. You described unnatural, beekeeper forced intervention. As did I. You mentioned harsh chemicals, I did not.

As for queens, you missed the point. Buying queens which have been selectively bred for certain traits (manifested in hives) is exactly like the livestock example I gave.

As for the comments about understanding bees, their biology, the caste system, life cycles, etc. please allow all of us the opportunity to have a beneficial, mutually respectful conversation about beekeeping without these assumptions that make a person feel talked down to.

I, as others on this site have as well, have been keeping bees a long time.

Matt, in the spring you want to mimic nectar. It is generally accepted that a 1:1 ratio is the best, weight to weight. So one gallon is 8#...
In the fall you want them to build stores, so you mimic honey and adjust to 2:1, or 16# to one gallon.

Equal parts volume is also acceptable and is close enough to work just fine.

Your ratio is .5:1, and will work, but is a bit light. They would likely do better at 1:1. Essentially you are giving them extra water that they have to get rid of to utilize the amount of sugar they need. You could spare them that step...

I know sentiment can not always be portrayed through typing into words and I apologize for any offense given. That was absolutely not my intent. It’s just hard to type anything on intent. I did not mean no treatments but feel that many are trained to use “harsh” chemicals
First and it is not always a must. Softer chemical treatments work just as well many times.
I sure did not mean for anyone to feel talked down to I was trying to convey that by studying the life cycle of bees can help solve many many issues and something I sure was not aware of or privy to when I first started with bees. So many people first in to honey bees
start and fail and lose interest in bee keeping because they lack some basic knowledge. I would like for everyone to have a couple beehives in their back yard and try to help many get started.
Please accept my apology as I surely did not mean to offend.

Absolutely honeybees have been imported. Honey bees have survived many threats throughout creation without the influences of man. I solidly believe we can not breed honeybees better than god created them and their genetics and their ability to overcome natural diseases by diversity within the species. Natural selection will kill off the weak and only the strong will survive. The only thing that will kill off the honeybees is Man.
While many good traits can be selected for by controlling breeding long term over many hundred years perhaps I fear we will continue to put pressure on this canary in the coal mine. We just don’t think as caretakers on a very very long term basis as our creator.

Alot of supposition in this with a good dollop of wishful thinking.
I'll comment further when I have the time.

thank you.