In NEPA, I leave my entrances at 3/4” all winter, I use 3/8” hardware cloth for mouse guards! I feel the bees need ventilation, also the video showing installing the reducer is putting it upside down! The gap should be on top to allow bees to get out after the foragers have died and blocked the entrance .
I have to disagree with your assesment of Carniolan's defensiveness. I've raised Carniolans for a long time and every once in a while, a colony is aggressive. But if I split them and feed them, they settle down. It's big, hungry colonies that are more likely to be touchy. I don't think they have any natural proclivity to be aggressive. Also, I find winter clusters to be smaller so they make good use of the available honey. Maybe I'm biased but I also think Carniolan queens react pretty quickly to changes. They seem to slow down when there is a derth and speed up production at the slightest hint of a nectar flow. I started out with them and I think we just work well together. If we can just get the weather to cooperate!!!
I feed with buckets,prevents robbing and it’s a 24 hour feeder! I community feed in the spring which works great, it gives the bees a reason to fly and forage tree pollen as well!
1st.................... increase speed to 1.5. Just got a combo, suit, gloves, Boardman feeder, hive tool and book. FREE SHIPPED I needed 2x ordered 3x advise all to order 'up' one size. And if you have ZZTop beard, ponytail that thing................ Zippers.
Just imagine when we start building freeform Adobe Garden walls and we put the beehives right there in the greenhouse and then the Adobe walls it's going to be crazy. Then like our polish ancestors we will start doing polish notches polish dugouts and house the bees directly in the posts that are holding up the Garden Wall also.
If I raised bees just for myself and produced honey I would likely be raising Caucasians as I truly like the Caucasian honey bee, However, I raise bees to sell and for politicization, therefore I raise Cordovan Italians as they raise more brood earlier and later in the year. earlier
I had an Italian hive. That thing was so aggressive, I had to kill the entire hive, after trying re-queen them. I have a Russian hive and they are gentle compared to that Italian hive.
we seem to have bees in an outlet box (gang box) that we installed when we built our house but never got the deck built. the outlets are 3 stories off the ground. I baited a previously used hive box with swarm commander and it drew in quite a few bees that I think may have come from the outlet box.. If I were to install one of these on the siding, covering the outlet box securely - would you thing it might work to draw them out?
Thats interesting because I have some insulated hives and they are booming. Nuc boxes have foam board under the top cover and those don't suffer from the summer heat.. I even made some winter wraps with a moving blanket and black plastic, the freezing wind did not affect the colony the same as an unprotected hive body.
When is the best time to add a queen excluder before adding a super on an 8 frame hive. We are in northern Pa. and the weather has been wet and sometimes cool. Bees arrived May 2. Thanks, Buck Biondo
This is Don from MO. I have a small hive beetle problem. I have installed "beetle jails" but seem to have more hive beetles than I prefer to see. What should I do in addition to the traps to combat this problem?
Got my bees only 10% ded when i got then thay were littel more agresiv then i Imagine, but I think there are 3 queens in that package. That clump in 3 different columns. And we're a fight in each other. So I lost about 60% during the fight, but now they're doing good.
