I have 8 hives total. I have 6 at my house and 2 at the airport location. I will be moving two hives from my house to another location sometime closer to this fall.
I have gotten a queen castle to raise 3 queens at a time. All you do is put a frame of eggs, a frame of pollen and a frame of honey into it and 14 or so days later you get a new virgin queen. You can then sell them or use them yourself.
I have 4 newly hatched queens. I have one queen in a nuc hive. The three current ones should go on mating flights in the next few days and begin laying eggs by this weekend. I will keep one to requeen a mean hive, and I might sell the other 3. I am also considering trying to overwinter one nuc colony in the event I lose a primary hive. I can always sell it next spring if it makes it through the winter.
I have also had 2 metal hive stands built…. I have built in oil traps at the foot of them to keep ants, earwigs and anything else that crawls/walks off of and out of the hives. I have killed a good 30 bees with these traps. Not sure why those bees were on the ground and trying to crawl back up. Most likely they are already dieing or are deformed and the others kicked them out. I might try to market and sell the stands for $65.
reading all this makes me feel inspired. you sort of make beekeeping sound easy! i have had a rough first 4 months cuz my queens kept disappearing but my 2 hives are queenright now & my bees are happy. love your posts!
ReplyDeleteThanks. I do my best with the bees. I do have a biology degree, so I think some of that translates into my management of the hives.
ReplyDeleteI am glad to hear your hives are queenright. I have one that I introduced a new queen and they released her after about 4 days, after a full frame or two of eggs was layed, they killed her and made new queen cells! I am waiting to see if they did a good job, or if one from my nuc needs to go in there.
You are certainly ambitious. I think I'm only upgrading to two hives next year. LOL! I love following your venture in beekeeping because it keeps me hopeful that I'll someday figure this all out. I think it is sweet that your grandmother follows along and keeps you in check when you haven't posted :)
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