Brett, I certainly hope that your floor doesn’t give away! Maybe you should do the extraction process in your garage on a concrete floor. Don’t make Katie mad at you, the way she handles the deep supers she might sling you down into the lower peninsula! lol. Have fun extracting!
lol, we rearranged the supers to even it out. Yeah, a concrete floor situation would be nice. The garage isn't perfectly sealed off though so I'd be inviting our neighbors bees in for a feast and some frustration. Hopefully next year we can do it in a couple of different rounds, rather than having 90 boxes in the kitchen. Who knows. I do know I'll be truly happy when this honey is out of those frames and my bees are fat and ready for winter. Lots more still to do.
Each night after extraction we've cleared and cleaned a path to the sink and refridgerator. You're correct on assuming we aren't doing much cooking this week, lol. As I type this my wife is on her way to the casino down the road to pick up a couple of burgers.
Brett, enjoy your videos and your thorough explanation of different topics. As a keeper wanting to move up to 50 hives I know time management will play a big role. Have you considered doing a video on spending less time in a hive inspection and how to identify overall wellness/swarm potential etc without a full hve inspection?
That's a super good idea. The reality is, I do less on screen inspections nowadays because of the fact that I've streamlined my overall process. I will definitely make a video on this subject.
I get ya there. We're on two different levels lol just an explanation on how you've gone from those long drawn out inspections that beginners need to do starting out and some pointers on how you've grown into that streamline! Greatly appreciate your videos and always learn from them. Look forward to some more!
You two need a honey house separate from the home you live in. LOL Banks have lots of money to borrow! Katie is your right hand woman, what a good worker she is.
Agreed. Katie is the other half to this venture. The honey house will have to get paid for by honey. We've gone a long way without borrowing money for the bee operation and I'd like to make that last up until the end. Although it's a true pain in the ass doing it in the kitchen, I'll grant you that.
Yep. It's just the way of the end of summer in our house, lol. At some point we'll get something set up to eliminate that, but, I don't think a honey house is next on the list. Maybe. Who knows. Right now I'd just kill for another uncapping tank.
At what point do you not go into hives anymore in the fall? Recently our flow plummeted. And it feels like the bees are much fiercer and don't want us in there. Robbing at all time high. It seems like its possible to maybe not check at all. Some of the carnica genetics hives aren't doing much with brood now. (But this is semi-arid drought ridden west.) The hives seem healthy. Its just having a hard time wrapping my head around it. It feels like I could be doing more harm than good going in the boxes now, but I don't really know for sure if that's right.
You're 100% spot on. Unless you have a solid reason to, there isn't a whole lot of justification for getting into colonies now. My goal is to take honey boxes off and put formic on in mid August, and only open them again if they need spot feeding in early to mid September. So, I'm not getting into my bees anymore this year, and unless you think you have an issue that needs to be addressed, I'd suggest you do the same. Spend this time worrying about their overall weight, rather than the brood nest and all of that.
I get this kind of comment a lot and it just makes me appreciate Katie all the much more. She's in on it with me. She doesn't look like I'm doing it to the kitchen, it's just a job that needs to get done. We just got done with our second 8 hour extraction day in a row. Probably two more and we'll be done.
