Difference in Bee Breeds

I am by no means an expert on the different bee breeds, but I will share with you some information I have found and what I have found in my experience. I have found a pretty basic web page that does a pretty good job of explaining the bee breeds.

In my experience the two most common types are either Italian or Carniolan.  You can also find a few other species of honey bee, but they are not as common in Utah. Then you have the Minnesota Hygenic or a VSH which I understand to be hybrids and not actual species of bees.

I will do my best to break down the difference between the Italian and Carniolan races.  Italians are the lighter golden color and the Carniolan are typically darker and sometimes even black.

Some pros and cons for the Italian race:

Pros - They are very gentle, builds up good in the spring, good honey producers and overwinters well .
Cons - They usually have large colonies even when there is low honey flow requiring more honey during the winter.  I have found they tend to have more mites than the Carniolans.  They tend to drift and rob.

Pros and Cons for the Carniolan:

Pros - They are very gentle, rapid spring build up, queen will slow down the laying in times of nectar dearths, overwinters in smaller populations, seems to be more resistant to diseases and mites, tends to forage in cooler weather, and good honey producer.

Cons - Because they build up so quickly in the spring they have a tendency to swarm, my experience is they tend to have more propolis.

I tend to favor the Carniolans, but I enjoy having the Italians as well.  Hopefully this helps in trying to determine what queen to select.  

Basic Starter Kit, Complete Hive Kits, and Hive Componants for Sale

I am going to be selling some equipment. I have decided to make most of the wooden ware.  It will be standard 10 frame wooden ware, but I plan to make some improvements to the top box joint that tends to be the weakest part of the box since it is also rabbit jointed. All lumber will be commercial grade lumber and will be assembled with weather resistant glue and galvanized nails.  The bottom boards will be made with 3/4 inch solid exterior plywood that can be reversible for winter and summer entrances.  The inner covers will be made with 3/8 inch exterior plywood that will be very durable and shouldn't warp or twist from the moisture in the hive.  Many inner covers are made of 1/4 inch Masonite that will warp as it is exposed to moisture from the hive.  The telescopic covers are very attractive and actually provide better ventilation than the California tops or migratory tops.  They will last  a long time as the top is covered with galvanized steal.  These will be some of the best built hives you can buy.  I am not painting the hives, so that the buyer can decide on color and whether to paint or stain.  I prefer to stain. 

I am also selling kits that will include a package of bees.  I have done a lot of research and have found a couple of package providers that consistently have good reviews.  I have used CF Koehnen packages and queens and have had good success with both.  I have decided to stick with them.  You can choose between Italian and Carniolan queens.  There are pros and cons to both breeds, but it would probably take too long to explain them in this blog entry.

Pricing:

$300 - Complete hive with a 3# package of bees.  For the hives you can choose from either 2 deep boxes and 2 medium supers or 5 medium super kits.  All boxes will include wooden frames and molded plastic foundation dipped in 100% beeswax. Kits will also include a reversible bottom board, entrance reducer, inner cover, and deluxe telescopic cover all as explained above.

$220 - Basic starter kit with 3# package of bees.  If you just want to get started this kit is for you.  You can choose from 2 deep boxes or 3 medium supers.  Again boxes will include wooden frames and molded plastic foundation dipped in 100% beeswax.  Kits will also include a reversible bottom board, entrance reducer, inner cover, and deluxe telescopic cover all as explained above.

If you just want to buy components the pricing is as follows:

·         Reversible bottom board - $10

·         Deluxe Telescopic Cover  w/ Inner cover - $30

·         Deep box w/ frames and foundation - $55

·         Medium box w/ frames and foundation - $45

       
If you have any questions give me a call 801-830-1168.  I am currently not shipping, but will be happy to arrange a time for pick up or I can deliver to Utah County.

Hives are Alive!

I checked the hives on Saturday and was relieved to see all the hives were alive.  Two of the hives have pretty small clusters. One of them is pretty light on food storage, so I put a pollen sub patty in and will start to feed liquid feed in a few weeks as temps get a little warmer.  The other small cluster has always been one of our weaker hives.  They have plenty of food, so hopefully the Queen will start laying again and build up the population.  The other hives were very active and were still very heavy with food.  I sense the bees feel the same way I do and are excited for spring.  I love spring and spring beekeeping because the world comes to life with flowers and bees start getting active again.  Spring is one of the most important times in beekeeping as it can dictate your honey crop as well as how prepared your bees are to go into the next winter.

Some things you can do to get your bees going strong.  I prefer to not feed the bees unless they really need it.  If they have made it this far through the winter, I don't want to loose them and will feed them if they need it.  If you have an existing hive, it is a good idea to put on a pollen sub patty or two to help get the queen laying again.  The goal is to get your hive near its peak in strength and numbers right about the time the main flows are going on.  In my experience we get a couple of flows in Utah, May and June are typically pretty good and then we get another one in August.

If you are just starting out with a package of bees or a nucleus hive, it is best to feed them sugar water and pollen subs to help them really get going.  With new hives you are not necessarily building up for the honey flows for your own harvest, but the hive needs a little help so it can put enough away for winter.  If your lucky you may get a little of that liquid gold that is the best honey you have ever tasted.

Springs coming! Lets get ready!     

New Beehives for Sale

I have decided to sell a few start up hives this year.  I have had a lot of people interested in getting into it, so I figured since I am buying hives anyway I can buy some extra and help people get started.  I am selling two types of hives a medium set up and a standard set up.  The medium set up is made up of 5 medium boxes with frames and foundation, a reversible bottom board, entrance reducer, inner cover, and a telescopic cover.  The standard is everything the same, but you have 2 deep boxes and 2 medium.  If I were starting all over again I would go all medium boxes.  There is some great advantages to having everything the same. I am selling these for $300 and they include a package of bees.  I will even help install them if you need help. This set up will give you a great start.  In most years this set up will be more than sufficient, but if it is a great honey year you may need an additional box or two.  Give me a call if your interested.  801-830-1168

Halfway through the Winter

We are about halfway through the winter right now.  I haven't looked into any of the hives lately to make sure they are still alive.  The next warm day we will and probably put a pollen patty in their to start them raising brood again.  Here in Utah where we are located there wont be much pollen before the middle of March.  Once we look in we can see if they still have food stored up or if we need to feed them.  If they have made it this far, we don't want to lose them.

It is also time to start preparing for spring.  Right now you can find many people advertising on KSL to sell their package bees.  Prices are ranging from $69 per package to $90 per package.  I am not sure why the discrepancy in price, they all get their packages from California and most of them come from two main breeders Olivarez and CF Koehnen.  I have also seen some advertised to have Wooten or Pendall queens, but I am not sure if they sell packages or just queens. I have purchased from CF Koehnen and was really impressed.  I don't think I would purchase anything smaller than a 3 pound package because it took all they had to get the hive started. I also don't think I wouldn't spend the extra money on a 4 pound package because the 3 worked out so well.

The other way we are going to try to increase is with our own splits.  I have made about 8 nuc boxes.  These are small versions of a hive that will hold 5 frames instead of 10.  This is where their is quite a bit of uncertainty as I don't know how the hives are looking and how many splits I will be able to make.  I also don't know when to have to queens arrive because I will need a nice day to make the splits and another decent day to put the queens in.  I am going to try and order the queens from Strachan Apiaries.  http://strachanbees.com/about_us.html   I have been wanting to try their queens for a while.  I have been really impressed with the carniolan queens.  They seem to manage the hive well and have less problems with verroa mites. I think I will try to have them delivered close to the first or second week in April.  Hopefully that is early enough to get the nucs going well enough to get a good honey crop, but late enough to have good enough weather to work with the bees.   

The next project is making all the boxes for the hives.  I will post some pictures of the process later.

A couple pictures from our Harvest

Year In Review

This was a fun year for us in beekeeping.  It started off pretty exciting getting the new hives and then getting lucky and catching a swarm.  We were up to 6 hives at that point.  I had a crazy experience and was stung on my neck and went into shock.  I pretty much passed out and so the paramedics came and gave the neighborhood some excitement on a Saturday night.  That freaked us out a little bit and the thought of giving it up about broke my heart.  I decided to take a lot more precautions.  Things were going well until harvest time and I was stung through my gloves.  The great thing is I didn't have any reaction to it, so I don't think I am allergic to them.  I did learned you always need to be careful though. Honey bees are for the most part very gentle but if you don't take precautions they will get you.

We also learned this year that you can have very weak hives.  We had to take from the strong hives and give to the weaker ones in order to help them out.  It was amazing how a couple of frames of bees and brood could help the weak hive start booming.  We didn't get nearly as much honey as we had hoped, but enough to get us excited for next year.

After we had harvested we checked the hives and found that we didn't have a queen in my Dad's hive.  The hive was so large we tried to split it and get two new queens, but Fall is a very difficult time to get hives to accept new queens and they killed both of them.  We combined them back and introduced another one and they killed her as well.  What we didn't realize is that they had raised their own queen but as late in the year as it was I don't think she was mated very well.  Our numbers were decreasing rapidly so we tried to put them into a nuc box (mini hive) and the Queen left and we lost the hive.

Now we are down to 5 hives going into winter.  Some are stronger than others, but we are optimistic they will all make it through.  We will try to make splits and buy a few more hives.  My goal is to get us up to 15 hives next year and do it without braking the bank.  Should be a lot of fun.

For now there isn't much we can do.  I try to read up on stuff and learn new tricks.  I must say this is my least favorite time of year when it comes to beekeeping.  There isn't much you can do for them now, but just hope they are making it through the winter okay.