Garden Harvest
Laura and I take some feedback, pontificate spring preps, talk about gardening, beekeeping, and other springtime activities. Laura would like to apologize for mistakenly referring to the Brandywine Tomato as a “Rutgers”.
Links from the show:
Roy’s Alaskan Homestead Blog
Ison’s Nursery
Murray McMurray Hatchery
Music: James Larson, Gaia Consort
PodCast Call in Line: 740-5-MYFARM
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A longer look at doing some hive manipulations. In this BubbaTube, we open up a hive with all intention of swapping brood supers, but get a surprise in the process. We also replace some hardware that has come to the end of its life.
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Today I’ll be swapping around supers at the Brooks and Woolsey beeyards. This is a swarming control technique that supposedly keeps the colony from feeling crowded. The idea is that bees constantly move up in the colony through the winter as they consumes their winter stores. By the spring, the bottom of the colony is basically empty. By swapping the top and the bottom supers, we open up another super of space above for the colony to move into.
I’ll also be putting honey supers on these hives. It takes a while for the bees to “get” that their hive has changed sizes and move up into the super. We’ve already got a light nectar flow going, which will quickly pick up in the next few weeks, so I want them up in there drawing comb ahead of the game.
My supers have top entrances too. I’m a big fan of top entrances for two reasons. They provide additional ventilation, but the air isn’t pulled up directly through the broodnest, and it gives the foragers a direct route to the honey stores – meaning they don’t have to walk all the way up the inside of the colony to get where they’re going.
For those of you that always wanted an observation hive but for whatever reason couldn’t make it work out, I give you Drapers Bee Cam. It’s a live cam of a bee hive just like it sounds.
Honey Harvest
This one goes out to our beekeeping friends. A full hour on springtime beekeeping practices and even a small taste of swarm management.
Links
Alaska Urban Farmstead
Increase Essentials by Dr. Larry Connor
Northern Kentucky Beekeeper
Beekeeper Linda’s Excellent Blog
Gardener Apiaries
Music: James Larson, Gaia Consort
PodCast Call in Line: 740-5-MYFARM
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Here’s a combined write up for the PTC and Woolsey hives and what the findings were when we conducted our quickie spring inspection. This is not the full spring inspection. I conducted the inspections very quickly to avoid chilling the brood. The idea was just to get a general idea on how the hive was doing and to identify any obvious problems as early as possible.
PTC Hive
This hive is in awesome shape. It had been a month since I last visited this hive and the bees had hardly touched the Megabee patty or the sugar syrup. This is good because it tells me that they have a viable food source. Indeed they were storing honey on both sides of the brood nest. The only thing blooming right now is Red Maple, so I’m assuming that there is ample forage available.
The brood nest was good sized spanning 6 frames with brood in all stages of development. Brood pattern was pretty solid as well. Forager traffic was high considering the temperature (low 50s).
I removed one of the division board feeders and changed the syrup in the other one. I also added another megabee patty.
Woolsey Hive
This hive is also in great shape. Both feeders were empty, and the megabee patty was completely consumed. Broodnest was a good size (spanning 5 frames to the depth of the super) with numerous eggs and larve in solid patterns across both sides of three frames. There were also new honey stores over the brood nest, indicating that this hive had also found early forage.
I removed one of the feeders and added another megabee patty.
Spotted 8 small hive beetles in this one. I’ll be adding a beetle trap on the next visit.
Note: Many beekeepers would question the approach of adding pollen and syrup while the bees have available forage, but it is not unusual (especially during the spring build up) for a hive to completely consume its stores over a few days of bad weather trying to feed the expanding brood nest. We still have nights in the 20s so I look at taking these steps as insurance. If they don’t need it, they’ll just leave it alone in favor of available forage. But if they do need it and it’s not there, the hive could suffer.
Here’s a short video that shows you a quick spring inspection of the Woolsey hive. This is not a full springtime inspection, but rather just a quick peek under the hood so to speak to check on food stores, brood production, etc. A full spring inspection is much more comprehensive and would be done in warmer weather. The video is crappy. I shot it with the video camera on my blackberry kind of as a spur of the moment – hey this might be cool – sort of thing. Enjoy!
PodCast Call in Line: 740-5-MYFARM
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Red Maple Flowers
I somehow talk Laura into doing another show where we throw out some updates on the dog, seed starting, and the bees. We take some great feedback, including an actual voicemail! We finally wrap the show up by reading some of the better ads out of the market bulletin.
Ison’s Nursery
Georgia Framers and Consumers Market Bulletin
Music: James Larson, Gaia Consort
PodCast Call in Line: 740-5-MYFARM
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It’s nonsense like this that really gets me going in the morning. Please if you have some time, contact Burgh Bees and see how you can assist.
Proposed changes to the city ordinance dealing with the keeping of agricultural animals on city properties has agitated bee and chicken keepers.
Burgh Bees, a 375-member nonprofit, has put out a “call to action” via e-mail for attendance at a public hearing before the city planning commission at 2 p.m. Feb. 16 “to show how many beekeepers and beekeeper supporters there are” in the city. The hearing is at 200 Ross St., Downtown.
Legal wording currently is confusing and leaves room for abuse of privilege, city officials have said. But bee and chicken raisers say the proposed changes could create unintended ill-effects.
The hearing is the public’s chance to offer input, said Joanna Doven, spokeswoman for Mayor Luke Ravenstahl.
“We support urban farms and groups like Burgh Bees,” she said, “but we have to make sure we are balancing their interests with the safety needs and concerns of other residents.
“There has been a disconnect between what is and isn’t allowed, so we need an ordinance that clearly outlines how we should proceed.”
Under current law, residents must get a variance to raise chickens on properties of less than 5 acres or if their lots don’t allow 200 feet between the coop and a property line, but it’s vague as to whether a five-animal limit means pets are included. In addition, enforcement is driven by complaints.
A proposed 15-foot setback from any property line and 2,500-square-foot minimum per hive would in effect ban beekeeping in many of the city’s dense neighborhoods, “where our members have been safely keeping bees for years,” said Meredith Grelli, founder and director of Burgh Bees.
Full Article – http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10039/1034293-53.stm
It’s been a little over a month since it was last warm enough to pop in and see how the girls are doing. Today when it broke 52 degrees, I conducted a brief spring inspection at the Brooks yard.
Brooks 1 – Bit the dust. The pollin patty was about 90% intact, and there was still syrup in the feeder. The (now dead) cluster was down to the size of a fist so I can only imagine that they never warmed up enough to break cluster and get some grub. Pisser.
Brooks 2 – Looks really good. Patty was completely consumed and feeders were empty. Cluster spanned 5 frames and was the depth of the super (bees were active all the way to the bottom of the frame). Brood pattern was very good, with larve in all stages of development. Added 2nd deep using drawn comb from the now deceased Brooks 1. Put 2 patties between hive bodies and topped off feeders with 2:1 syrup.
Brooks 3 – In good shape. Patty was completely consumed. Both feeders were empty. Cluster was large – spanning 6 frames. Brood pattern looked good with brood in all stages of development.
Maintenence Needed: The top deep super is rotting out on the left side and needs to be replaced.
Brooks 4 – Still Dead.
Brooks 5 – Similar to Brooks 3. Patty was consumed and both feeders were empty. Topped off both feeders with 2:1 syrup. Cluster was large and busy spanning 6 frames. Lots of brood. Added another patty on top bars.
Maintenence Needed:Screened bottom board and bottom deep need to be replaced.
I’ve read over on Linda’s Beekeeping blog that the Red Maple is already blooming. We have some red maples and I can’t report that, but they look darn close. Time to get the honey supers ready – fingers crossed.