ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers
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- From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
- To: Meredith Friedrick <friema16 AT gmail.com>, Orange County Bees <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
- Subject: Re: [ocba] Newbee questions
- Date: Mon, 01 Jun 2015 13:25:07 -0400
Meredith,
First question: The admonition "don't mess with your bees too much" is a second-year topic, not a beginner topic. It is a little like the Biblical edict, "love your neighbor as yourself", which takes it as given that you already love yourself. In the case of "messing with bees", the advice to not do it too much takes it as a given that you are already messing with them a lot. But for a beginner, you aren't messing with the bees for the benefit of the bees. You won't get a single ounce more of honey solely by "inspecting" your hives. And it is true that inspections disrupt the colony, and it takes time for it to get back to business. HOWEVER as a beginner you had better get out there and inspect (mess with) those hives! I recommend once a week to start, then once every couple of weeks when things start to get dull. These learning inspections are to make YOU a better beekeeper, not to "help" your hive. Remember that you started beekeeping in order to learn something new; the way to learn is to get your hands dirty. These are your bees -- you own them, they don't own you -- so poke them as often as you want in order to satisfy your goals. It doesn't sound like this is your issue, but some folks avoid messing with their bees because they are scared of them. They need to get out there and work through their fear. They should find a decent mentor or bee buddy to share with -- seeing someone else's techniques is an excellent way to learn and can make a startling difference in the bees' attitude and the beekeeper's comfort level. If none of that works, then maybe beekeeping isn't for them. They can support the same pollinator goals by putting up bat boxes, planting a pollinator-friendly garden, or maybe trying to keep a different type of pollinator (see <here>). That is much better than putting bees in their yard and neglecting them, letting them become a reservoir for diseases and pests that spill out into the surrounding area. If someone is going to keep bees in a bee-populated area, they have a responsibility to their community to inspect their hives and ensure that they don't become a source of problems for other beekeepers in the area. Second question: Seeing standing eggs means you had a queen within the past day. Seeing laying-down eggs means you had a queen with the past 3 days. Seeing larva of a certain age means you had a queen within that age plus 3 days. So being able to recognize eggs is a really valuable skill. If you can point out standing eggs (looking straight down on the top of the tiny egg the size of a thread snip) then I'll bet you ate lots of carrots as a kid or have the best coke-bottle-lens reading glasses that money can buy. This is a SKILL that takes PRACTICE. See Question #1 above! Will you fail as a beekeeper if you cannot see eggs? NO! Find larva, then find younger larva, all the way down the line... you may see eggs in the vicinity of the very youngest larva. Keep looking; you'll get it eventually. But I'm sure that seeing young larva is all that most folks rely on to have reasonably good evidence that the hive is queenright. Third question: There are all kinds of things you can deduce just from looking at the hive entrance. A free-download book on the topic is <here> (note that it is written for European beekeepers; not everything in it applies to us). Are bees coming and going at the same rate as other hives? Are foragers bringing in pollen? Is there fighting on the landing board? Are the bees bothering you (aggressive) as you stand there looking at them? Is there dead brood on the landing board or on the ground in front of the entrance? Stand behind the hive and watch the flight path of entering and returning bees: are they going off to distant flowers or are they robbing the hive next door? I recommend that you stand to the side of a hive for a minute or so and observe all of this before you smoke it and open it. Once you open it, you can see what sort of condition on the inside corresponds with the condition on the outside. Then after you gain that experience and knowledge, you can often "read" a hive without needing to open it. I hope all this helps some! Randall On 5/31/2015 9:08 PM, Meredith Friedrick wrote:
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Re: [ocba] Newbee questions,
Randall Austin, 06/01/2015
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Message not available
- Re: [ocba] Newbee questions, James Latimer, 06/01/2015
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Message not available
- <Possible follow-up(s)>
- Re: [ocba] Newbee questions, Chris and Lisa Laudeman, 06/03/2015
- Re: [ocba] Newbee questions, Rob Zelt, 06/04/2015
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