This was a nice Friday evening catching up with Duck River Honey. The bee plan may not be working out perfectly for you but you've come a long way. Hope it keeps working out. With those bad storms in TN I'm glad you got that tree down. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, an old saying that came to my mind. LOL
Really liked this extra weekly video, I'm so glad that I'm not into bees for honey production. You have to work like a one legged man in a butt kicking contest as my grandpa used to say, to do it alone like you are doing!
I've been watching for a while. I've have decided you have made my back hurt, hurt from bee stings, I'm stressed, tired, frustrated, emotionally drained, pressured-I've decided to go work 9 to 5 job and relax : )
Interesting about the blackberries! Here in SE coastal VA, the blackberries are one of the biggest spring flows after the apples and pears and before the privet. I just harvested the first 8 pounds from the blackberry flow from 3 frames.
Getting close to hitting your target! That's great Nathan so happy for you! Our weather has continued to be wet and smack dab in the middle of locust and poplar just reaching peak bloom simultaneously. Brown Locust blooms littering the ground under the trees like leaves in the Fall and Tulip poplar getting washed away with the continuous rains. Not planning on a large honey crop now but expect to make some. Build up and bloom started way early, set up perfectly and then got cooler and rained out. Playing the hand as dealt... Lots of folks early split/swarms didn't do well so folks are looking for queens and I've quite a few in the works to help folks get back on track. So making mud pies! 😃
At least we got our early flow before the rain hit. Still hoping we’ll get another white wax flow if clover and sumac do well later this month into June.
Hey im like 45 min south of you. Ive lost quite a few swarms this year too. But still averaging like 60-70 pounds thus far with roughly a month left of flow.
It's a shame that you guys over there don't use minis.. 3 tiny frames and a cup of young bees.. kept in some cool space, a shedd, in dark for 2-3 days. And then you put them to work without many expensis. It's a much better space than 2-3 long frames in a box which is difficult for a small number of bees to maintain optimal micro climate. It would done wonders for you this spring. Mine are made from 2 flower pots one into other for insulation. The chipset l could find. Square with a frame rest already made. You can always see a video from 'Pcelarski sokak' and see his wooden ones also hand made. Using frames and boxes is an expensive sport. Imagine having all those frames and equipment for honey or nucks after they start laying. And in our experience the percentage of mated queens is better. Why not make 10 and give it a try.? It's used all over Europe. We can't be all stupid. Ofcourse we started with big equipment and switch to minis after some time
@@DuckRiverHoney ofcourse this are just suggestions and stuff that I already tried that I write to you. If l ever write an opinion l will say it is just opinion. If l was smarter decades ago I would changed my deeps into mediums and kept my back in better shape. And for the current honey situation l'm sure there would be more honey collected in mediums than in deep boxes to take off the hives.
It is a contest here in Wisconsin. If the black locust are blooming and have alot of nectar the bees wont touch blackberry. if the black locust flow is not very good they will be all over the blackberry
Maybe the BlackBerry bloom the same time as something else they prefer more?? Good luck with your honey, that would be a bonus. It's so pretty and natural in most the places you've shown. So much pretty country there.
Weird your only one not making black berry must be the Tennessee heat and humidity.. going to be interesting see how you finally deal with this swarming problem.. might need to requeen everything early in the season with a cell.. young queens don't normally swarm as much. Definitely costing you honey. Requeen with cell leaves nice window for oav treatment at least.. letting that heat out should help...
