Sunday, January 24, 2010

new adventure

While working with Larry Tate with his apiaries, he brought up something interesting. A strawberry farmer near us has some hives that he doesnt want to tend, but wants them left for the pollination. I would help tend them and get all of the honey as payment.







Sounds awesome right?!?!?!?!?




Well, there is a HUGE problem. Most of the woodenware is in such a poor state that it needs to be carted off and burned. The two of us went by to just see if it would be worth it. It was kinda muddy (which I can live with) but SAD! The woodenware had not been taken care of in about 5 years and had been treated poorly from the looks of it. Out of 10 or so hives, 3 were strong, 4 were iffy and 3 were downright scarry.... and there were about 5 deadouts mixed in.

I think I might give it a try anyway. I will continue to work with what I have there and it will either make it or not. When I go into them for the first time, I am not going to use my gloves or hivetool until I know there is no EFB or AFB present.... I dont want to be tracking that home. From the looks of things they have not been touched for at least a year.... so they are pretty strong if nothing has been done with them for well over a year and they are still around!





I might get a bonus of a few of these puppies

        <============

1 comment:

  1. As I mentioned to you on the phone, if you have some weak hives, maybe you could do newspaper combines and save them.

    If they haven't been worked in a good while, I would expect they may, just may, be pretty hot. Since they've had no interaction, they could be defensive, but for all I know they could be the opposite.

    Good luck with that. Looks like it could be fun.

    ReplyDelete

weather at the hive