Whatcha doing today?

[brokensword]

WELL the long and short of it, if you count the hours, the equipment, the treatments, the sugar, the bottles to bottle the honey, time at the market to sell, etc etc We are losing money all of the time.

The only time you do well with bees, sell packages, sell nucs, sell queens. Or have a ton of hives, pay for help get good return on your honey sales and rent out your hives for pollination to farms, nurseries, etc.

so, what you're saying is; you have bee franchises to buy???? heh heh

 

[brokensword]

Well they are neat little bugs, run a great society in the hive, each bee knows what its job is, and the job changes as they age. Very interesting. A lot of learning to keep them healthy and alive.

Equipment, our walkout basement, 1/2 of it is bee stuff, and a van outside has bee stuff and piles of bee stuff under the deck.

And bee stuff in one of the upstairs rooms and one of the small rooms in the basement (boxes of honey bottles, buckets etc)

Bags of sugar stored etc etc.

do you see yourself (and hubby) doing this for the long term?

 

[addy1]

again, that's so cool to see/think about. Can your FLIR cam get heat signatures through houses? Could be kind of a creepy thing to think about if you're paranoid or something cool if you're an Intel agency keeping the borders safe!

Have you tried it out on other things? I know with fish being cold blooded, it would be useless there. I was thinking if you take a hike around your lot, would it show stuff like foxes hibernating? Bears, bobcats, etc? I would imagine they'd stay in their den if you walked by in the daytime and you could locate such if needed...just thinking out loud...don't worry, there's an 'off' switch!


View attachment 146545View attachment 146546

It needs to be dark and cold, the sun even with clouds throws up a huge heat signature. I have looked at our house and can see the heat leakage. But to find bears, wolves, foxes.....................for one we only have some fox here, saw a bear years ago but not since. I will fire it up tonight and look at the woods see if anything shows up, I don't think it has any real distance to it, but it might.

 

[addy1]

so, what you're saying is; you have bee franchises to buy???? heh heh


View attachment 146553View attachment 146554

lol no in fact I am probably selling all this summer.

It is getting to be too hard on my hands. A lot of lifting twisting to look at each frame, flipping them over etc.

Each box is around 50-60 lbs that you move at least twice, honey supers are 80 to 100 lbs that you lift over your head to take off and put back on the hives.

And not counting all the hours spend decapping the honey to spin it out, hours of hand use. Getting way to painful for me. And the heat harms me, in a bee suit in 96 f heat with heat index way over 100, I manage only 2-3 hives per inspection we have 17. So day after day you go out to check them then start over again.

We don't need any funds we get from selling honey, did this more because it was fascinating, the fascinating is still there, but the body says stop.

 

[brokensword]

lol no in fact I am probably selling all this summer.

It is getting to be too hard on my hands. A lot of lifting twisting to look at each frame, flipping them over etc.

Each box is around 50-60 lbs that you move at least twice, honey supers are 80 to 100 lbs that you lift over your head to take off and put back on the hives.

And not counting all the hours spend decapping the honey to spin it out, hours of hand use. Getting way to painful for me. And the heat harms me, in a bee suit in 96 f heat with heat index way over 100, I manage only 2-3 hives per inspection we have 17. So day after day you go out to check them then start over again.

We don't need any funds we get from selling honey, did this more because it was fascinating, the fascinating is still there, but the body says stop.

wouldn't you at least leave one hive to fend for itself, just for the bees? It's what I'd do if I had such a situation and the land to do it. Thought about putting one in the back of my lot, just to help out the bee population but not sure it would survive. Be interesting if you did and you could monitor without all the labor.

 

[addy1]

wouldn't you at least leave one hive to fend for itself, just for the bees?

With the mites it will just die, even one hive needs constant monitoring treating etc. Seldom do you find a "wild" hive surviving without help. Might live a year or two then the viruses will wipe them out. The mites carry virus that kills the bees. I treat every 5ish days from spring until late fall, then treatments in dec, jan, feb, just less of them.

 

[GBBUDD]

IE like this? Earlier in the winter,
Mid Dec, this hive was already in the very topView attachment 146528

this Hive had the cluster top of mid boxView attachment 146529

This is our strong hive the cluster is now mid and top box. Still a strong heat signatureView attachment 146530


November

This hive cluster mid and top box, now it is all top box

View attachment 146540


The big very strong, nasty hive (all summer) large heat signature bees all in the lower box

View attachment 146539

Why not insulate them . or even drop a heater small lizard type

 

[addy1]

Why not insulate them . or even drop a heater small lizard type

Further north ie up in the really cold states and Canada they do wrap the hives, using roofing tar paper, Some put insulation sheets around the hives.

Here our temperatures are too psychotic, up and down. Warm up until the end of December, wrapped they would have been too warm, ie flying more than they already did, looking for food that is not there.

And now if wrapped, my hives are full sun, they would be out flying when it is in the 20's thinking it is warm enough to find food. They die unable to get back to the hives. I am currently finding a bunch of dead bees, on the deck on the hot tub near the ponds. They have flow out, sun warm up, could not make it back to the hive.

This is our coldest winter since 2017 or so, after we had our warmest December in years. The bees ate a ton of food in December, they flew every day looking for nectar, find none go back and eat to stay alive. The activity was like a summer day.

The winter bees live almost 5 months, the summer bees live around 32 days. Mainly due to flying looking for food. Winter bees are a bit bigger and have more fat cells. Recently I am finding a lot of dead bees at the bottoms of the hives, most likely due to flying so much in December.

Right now all I can do is treat for mites, make sure they all have sugar blocks on top of the hives and wait for a 60plus temperature day to see how big the cluster is, see if they might make it.

 

[Dimelius]

Grilled sea bass and potatos, with my new creation sauce

 

[brokensword]

Grilled sea bass and potato, with my new creation sauce View attachment 146577

mrs brokensword says; 'YUMMY LOOKING', despite we're supposed to be vegans!!! Your culinary prowess is obvious, Dime! Are you the cook of the house?

 

[Dimelius]

mrs brokensword says; 'YUMMY LOOKING', despite we're supposed to be vegans!!! Your culinary prowess is obvious, Dime! Are you the cook of the house?




View attachment 146579

Ya, i am, almost of the time. I love cookin and create new dishes

 

[j.w]

Grilled sea bass and potato, with my new creation sauce View attachment 146577

and are you not going to share your secret w/your wonderful loving friends?

 

[Dimelius]

mrs brokensword says; 'YUMMY LOOKING', despite we're supposed to be vegans!!! Your culinary prowess is obvious, Dime! Are you the cook of the house?




View attachment 146579

More appreciated from a vegan Thanks a lot.

 

[Dimelius]

View attachment 146580and are you not going to share your secret w/your wonderful loving friends?

Mean about sauce? ill try make all list

 

[j.w]

Mean about sauce? ill try make all list

Yes secret sauce!