# I was asked this morning how our bees were doing.



## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

My reply.

So far the bees are doing great as a whole. Moving 5 colonies to out yards today.
Have two colonies here at home that keep making queen cells for some reason even though the queens were new this spring. Guessing the present queen can out fight the ones that hatch as they remain even after I decided nature has to take it's course.

Have 3 colonies that are still in single deeps because they just don't seem to want to build up. Two queens a year old, one new from this spring. I want to step on them and install new queens, Kare isn't a fan of that idea.Probably do it when Kare isn't looking. 

Still have 2 colonies here at home that I have raiseing new queens. May have hatched by now. Looking at the records last night says we should have new laying queens in those two colnies.

Don't know about the honey production in the honey supers. Once I install the supers I pretty much leave them alone, not want to disturb them. I suppect that the production is going to be down over all because it was so hot and dry in June and July.
Some colonies I believe are going to do above normal production. The horse farm for example due to the blooming of alafa and more rain there than other places .
The christmas tree farm due to the thistle all over the place they clear cut two years ago. Also a whole bunch of star thistle growing in all the trails and between the smaller trees.
Gale road yard had a huge crop of white & yellow sweet clover bloom and I suppect that works well for the bees because it has deep tap roots and can draw moisture.

 Al


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## tom j (Apr 3, 2009)

Al ,, I want to talk to you about two queen hives ,, you know one on top of the other but , the darn cell I am using goes dead after 8 10 min of use , I am waiting to get a new one , if I get one now I can't up grade with out a huge cost ( have to wait a week or so ):bored: . any way ,, I have a two that I would like to try running with two queens,, hey you said experiment .. was thinking that the two may build and get to be 1 good hive that will winter .. any thoughts ???? ever try it ??? I know most will say to kill one queen and join the two ,, but :shrug:??


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Got the 5 colonies moved, that went well although two of them were really heavy.

Inspected three, 2 that were not building up and one that has the new queen and they keep building cells.

The new queen one, with cells is still going strong still our smoky queen and cells torn down but two more started. Now why couldn't they do that in the spring when I had more use for queen cells?

One of the slow builders the one with the new queen is queen less. Want to guess where the new queen cells will come from? The second slow builder with the one year old queen is also queen less and so far gone I am just going to shake out the remaining hand full of bees and store the empty drawn comb.


Tom the 2 queen systems I know about are for honey production. You set up the hives with a queen then a queen a pair of queen excluders and another pair of deeps with a bunch of honey supers above. I have never tried that or any other 2 queen system.
Best to do that expermint in the early spring, I don't think it would help build them up for getting thru winter.

 Al


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## tom j (Apr 3, 2009)

I just thought it might work .. Oh well back to thinking , hope it don't make my head hurt ..


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Building up for winter is the job of the queen. She has to lay a good number of eggs before shutting down to give the hive a good winter population of winter bees.
They have to have a good amount of stores to hold them over and a low mite count. 

I firmly believe with Nosema Creana around today you just have to feed a gallon of syrup mixed with the recommend amount of fumiguin B to treat the girls like shots people get to ward off the (flue HA) small poxs.

Hives has to have just the right amount of ventlation as a way to keep moisture under control. Any moisture in the hive has to have a place to drain and not get on the cluster. Proping the hive does that trick.
I also feel the wind break is with out saying one of the most important idems to over wintering bees.
Places I fet marginal wind break wise I have bought straw bales and stacked 5 feet from the hives on the north and west sides.
I have one yard with a big red barn to the north and discovered on a summer day that the wind from the north whipped around the ends to colide right where we had the hives set up. I moverd all those hives more to the west end and built a privacy fence wind block there. Bees in that yard seem to over winter better than any other yard except in our back yard and the Christmas tree farm.

I think the 2 queen system is worth a try to up the honey production though.

 Al


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## tom j (Apr 3, 2009)

I hate when I type out a post and get it all done and hit the wrong key , and its gone ,, it just happen for the 2nd time today , now you all will never know the mess I was posting about ,,


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

I hate it when I hit the right key and return a few hours latter and find the post is gone.
Oh well such is life.

 Al


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## tom j (Apr 3, 2009)

I did it twice in a row that was why I made that post .. I was kind of mad at myself .. most of the time I cope it before I hit the submit , but yesterday I must have had my head some place else .. what I was trying to post was ,, I got the time on sat to open the hive ,, spare time has not been around the last 2 weeks or more ,, but sat I thought I better have a look .. 4th frame in , 3 swarm cells white inside ,, I closed it up right then ,, had no box's to work with .. sun went to the sons house as he had two hives I could use ,, got home found the queen , moved her to another spot , gave both a second box , hope she takes .. I had two deeps and a honey super on and had not went into the honey super , no excluder ,, but they thought they should swarm ..good thing I opened it , now maybe they will not swarm .. now I better get a look at the others .. Bonnie said ,, that I'm more interested in the girl'S more then THE GIRL.. . she gets a kick out of it when I have to go look at the girls as soon as we get home ..


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Kare isn't jelous of the girls taking my time.

Added a second deep to one of my problem queen hives. Last week when I was in there I saw the queen and am sure that she is a new one. Even Kare felt that she was a different one as she appeared smaller.

Hope you have good luck prevent a swarm.

 Al


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## tom j (Apr 3, 2009)

Bonnie's not jealous ether she just think's its like of funny the way I run out and look as soon as we get home ,, and the people all way's look at us when I talk about the girl's .. they think I'm talking about two legged girls , and the wife is the one I'm talking to .. and she's not beating the crap out of me .. its a running joke that "" I'm more interested in the girl'S , more then THE GIRL.""


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## tom j (Apr 3, 2009)

hope you don't think I Hi-Jack your post when I bring up something not close to what your post is about ..


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

We're among friends here Tom.

Have been thinking for some time about building a different type of bee vac. Finally found plans of one that would do what I was wanting, suck the bees right into the hive their going to end up in.
Started a few days ago by going thru my stack of shallow and medium extra boxes. Found a medium for the bottom sanded it down and installed the ramp inside. The shallow I had grabed for the top, when I inspected it closer it turned out to have a crack running thru the handle area. Decided to build the top from scratch. Finished it and was so proud of my work, but the sliding cover over the screen still needed the hole for the vac tube and the vent hole that regulates the suction drilled out.
Should have removed it to do the drilling. Have two real pretty holes in the ventilation screen. Just going to patch those holes for now as I have a removal to do Friday. Rain in the forcast for this afternoon and tomorrow morning. So the patch will have to do.

 Al


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## tom j (Apr 3, 2009)

I knew I did it to you but I didn't think you minded ,, so thought I would ask ,, the only other one I come out of the blue with a post is Mare ,, and I hope its ok with her to ,, Mare is it ?? the reason I ask is on another site I go on they get up tight about doing that ... here I try to only out of the blue post only with you and Mare .. thats why I did ask ..


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

I consider it a sort of chat post myself.

Stained the new bee vac yesterday as well as cut out the mess I made of the screen and did a patch for that . I think the patch looks good and you can only tell it is there from the epoxy lines where the patch was epoxed to the good screen. Won't cut down much air flow so isn't a big deal.
The removal Friday is a shed on a repo property. I'm only doing it this late in the year because the bank is going to kill the bees some way if I don't remove them. The bank already sent a extermiter whos refused to kill honey bees.

 Al


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## k9 (Feb 6, 2008)

Al, where did you find the Vac plans? Thanks!


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

If I remember right it was bushkill farms web site.
Not getting the suction I feel I need for some reason. Even with the 5 HP vac I get less suction than I do with the box in a box with the 1 HP motor.
since the bank decided they could buy cans of wasp killer for less than $5.00 They don't want me to remove the bees today.
I told themn the price doubles after they spray them and don't get them all and doubles again every week there after.

Going to try useing baby powder today and find my leaks.


 Al


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Yesterday Kare and I move two swarms out of the catch boxes into regular hives and bottom boards. Checked our two remaining nucs to see how they were doing. One we moved into a deep[ and screened bottom board and the other just wan't doing any thing and the queen cell was torn down. I dumped them in with another strong colony after spraying them down with vanalla.
that second colony that kept building queen cells had torn down queen cells didn't see or smoky twiggy queen but we had eggs in many cells added the second deep to them.

I have deeps full of honey filled frames I'll give to them about mid Sept if I think they need it for winter.

Redid the outlet hole for the vac and it is some better. Bought some weather stripping yesterday to help seal between the deeps and the vac parts.
That web site was Robo's world.

 Al


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Applied all the 10 feet of weather stripping yesterday. In all these years I never even thought that 10 feet was less than the area where the weather stripping would sit on a bee hive edge top and bottom. I'm short about 18 inches.
After a fixing the weather stripping except for the one area I assembled the vac with a deep then ratchet straped it down and applied some tape where I was short the weather stripping and it really sucked with great pressure useing the 5HP vac. Useing the regulator door I built in the top I was able to adjust the pressure down to nearly nothing. Went and installed the screen over the regulator hole just the staining of that slide remains.
I now pronounce it a workable vac. 


 Al


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## k9 (Feb 6, 2008)

Good work Al! And thanks for the info.


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## tom j (Apr 3, 2009)

I do not think I will ever have to worry about a bee vac ... the only swarm around here would be from my hives ... Oh two weeks ago they made a big deal about a swarm ,, and they couldn't find any bee keepers to go pick it ,, it was the first one in about 15 years ,, so a vac would be a wast of time


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Here are some pictures of the bottom where the bees are sucked in before I stained it.



















Here is a picture of the damaged screen top where the vac hooks up.
Nice OOPS Al!!!!











This is the top that slides in and out over the sceen. It provides the hose hook up to the vac and the vaqcum force regulator. It is much different looking today since I revearsed the rolls of the holes. the small one near the handle is now the suction regulator hole and the one covered is where the vac hose goes.










 Al


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

More bee vac pictures.

The repaired screen I OOPSED. 

before.









After.









How I will close off the inlet once I finish sucking the bees up.









The suction regulator in the front and the vac hook up in the rear.










With the fitting at the suction hole above I can use my small 2.5 HP vac.. I can remove that fitting and use the 5 HP vac..










Here it is with one deep in place and the 5 HP vac hooked up. the tape is to seal off the area where I ran out of weather stripping. I taped it off to test to see if I wasted the money on the weather stripping and if I should buy more to finish the job.










I am happy with how it seems to work testing it. the true test will come when I use it to vac up a swarm of bees. Like these.










Still needs one more coat of stain, OOP'S of course.

 Al


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

As expected we had a real good honey harvest at the tree farm. Other than one colony that only had a half box full but that was sort of expected. It was a nuc that got placed in a single deep on June 18th there. On July 9th the second deep and the one shallow honey super were added.
one colony had 4 shallows on it totally full. Of course the supers on that one were added at the beginning of June.
Two yards to go with 10 supers between them and what we have on here at home left which isn't much since they contrubited the most to our nucs.
The Christmas tree farm was god awful with only a total of 9 frames with honey in them in the back 12 colonies and 18 frames out of the 2 colonies we had supers on in front.

 Al


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Finished the removal of the last of the honey supers yesterday. Pretty slim as expected.
Golden Rod is any where from 10% to 90% in bloom depending on the area. Here at home it is about 50% and you can smell the hives before you see them. Where we pulled yesterday it is close to 90% but they were still working the sweet clover it looked like.

 Al


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## tom j (Apr 3, 2009)

""""" you can smell the hives before you see them """"" how do they smell ???


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

They smell like Golden Rod honey. That Michigan State Person who told me that was the smell of Aster honey is dead wrong. Asters haven't started to bloom any where I've seen yet.

Stored 15 empty shallow supers yesterday and ten mediums. Not even enought honey in the whole lot to intrest bees for more than a few minutes. Of course the yellow Jackets liked them but they eat the wax too.

I think there is 17 shallows to extract left in the honey house.

 Al


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## tom j (Apr 3, 2009)

Al sorry but I have no idea what golden rod smell's like ,, as because of allergy's , I smell nothing at all ,, my son cleaned the hog pen ,, and I could smell nothing .. I haven't smelled any thing for over 10 years .. a few years ago the freezer went out ,, had just put a full beef , and a hog in it when it got opened Bonnie could not stand to be in the basement ,, I cleaned it out , couldn't smell a thing ,, she was throghing up out side just from the smell in the open air , around the pit I was putting it in.. 
oh and what does it taste like ,,, a year after I lost smell ,, I lost taste . blind fold me give me something and say you will give me $100 if I can tell you what it is ,, you will walk away with the $100 ...


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

The smell of Golden Rod honey rendering in the hive is a sticky sweet smell. One of those smells so strong you can even taste it if you can remember those types of smells. Much stronger than any other nectar they were rendering all summer long.

 Al


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## tom j (Apr 3, 2009)

Thanks was wondering a bout the smell and taste ... ......... Hows the SIL doing ????? ..... .. Last week end my SIL had a stroke and nephew had a heart attack .. both doing ok now .. SIL has a lot of mini stokes but this one was a lot harder ...


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Visited Chuck yesterday afternoon. They had moved him from cardedo ICU into a different area of the hospital where it is sort of ICU but there is therphy with it.
He gets points for sitting in a chair and walking, more points he gets sooner he can come home.
Still being fed thru tubes but finally has his stuff together. Knows where he is, no bugs on the ceiling, no 12 million dollar blood sucking bugs at night and is in the USA state of Michigan U of M hospital.

 Al


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

I guess I should have kept this up to date.
I drove Chuck and his wife down to Ann Arbor for a check up on Oct 10th. He got a clean bill of health healed nicely and all but one restriction removed. He still has a diet restriction of only twigs and leaves. He is back to work trying to sell reestate to a public that can not get the banks and other lenders to turn loose of the money unless the buy wants to buy a bank owned property.

we finally did his 60th birthday party Sunday. He was good and only ate a little of moms carrot cake because of the frosting.

 Al


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Winter was kind to our bees. our winter loss rate is 4% but I am sure there were 4 that died out in late Oct or Nov. 2011. There was wax moth cacoons in those 4.

 Al


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