Mailing list for the Person County Beekeepers Association, Roxboro, NC

[Scott Bowers <professionalslug AT gmail.com>]

As someone who just moved from Asheville last summer, perhaps the biggest threat to your hives this year will be the bear population in the mountains. I'm not sure if you're putting them near Black Mountain, which is probably the richest sourwood area in the state, but the bear population is at all-time high in that area of the mountains and many of the keepers over there that I've talked with have either lost or have had heavily damaged hives this year from bear attacks. If you're taking your hives to an electrified secure lot, then you may want to line the electric fence with peanut butter, too. Most electric fences fail to deter bear hides, so it's best to bait the wires to encourage shocks of the nose or tongue, which will certainly deter them. 

On Wed, May 25, 2016 at 2:19 PM, Randall Austin <s.randall.austin AT gmail.com> wrote:

Paul,

The article <here> has a few thoughts on this topic.

Regarding your specific questions:

1) Any suggestions on the best way to transport a couple of hives 4 hours to minimize stress and death of the bees?
Close the entrances with screen so they can breath and tightly strap everything together with rachet straps. Otherwise, 4 hours isn't a long time to worry about -- its not like going to California for almond pollination.

2) What would be the best strategy to minimize the number of trips to check on the bees?  Super the hives with deeps instead of mediums?
Deeps versus mediums isn't right question -- the question is how much space you are putting on. The configuration is up to you. 3 mediums = 2 deeps. I have no idea whatsoever what you can expect from a summer mountain flow (I haven't done what you are planning to do). If I weren't going to inspect for, say, a month, I would put something like 4 mediums on each one.

3) To lighten the load would you only transport frames of brood/bees or would you need to take frames of honey as well?
I'm not sure I understand the question. You don't want to take Piedmont surplus honey supers to the mountains -- you'll want to extract those here and keep that honey separate. The point of going to the mountains is to get mountain honey, notably sourwood. You don't want to blend that with Piedmont tulip poplar honey. So you'll only want to take your brood chambers (for me that's 2 deeps per hive) and empty honey supers. You should have some spare honey stores in the brood chambers. If you don't, take off your honey supers now and let the bees backfill the brood chambers with some honey. That way if the pickings are light in the mountains they won't starve between your visits. The sourwood flow is not dependable.

4) Anything else?
There is a persistent load of horse manure on the internet that says to confine your bees for 3 days after moving. That is pure nonsense and can be extremely harmful, even deadly. Don't do that -- there is absolutely no reason for doing so. The only advantage of it is to separate out the intelligent beekeepers from those that get all of their advice from the internet; the latter quickly become Former beekeepers.

There may be folks on this list who have done what you are planning to do, and so whose advice is much better than mine. I hope they also post so I can learn from them too.

Randall

On 5/25/2016 11:26 AM, paul childers wrote:

I have a question or two regarding the transporting of bees to another location to obtain honey.  I have an opportunity for my bees to make honey in the mountains. I have some questions regarding this listed below and any input you could provide would be helpful. If you can think of any other suggestions from first hand experience, that would be great.

1) Any suggestions on the best way to transport a couple of hives 4 hours to minimize stress and death of the bees?

2) What would be the best strategy to minimize the number of trips to check on the bees?  Super the hives with deeps instead of mediums? 

3) To lighten the load would you only transport frames of brood/bees or would you need to take frames of honey as well?

4) Anything else? 

Thanks,

Paul Childers 

_______________________________________________
Person_County_Beekeepers_Association mailing list
Person_County_Beekeepers_Association AT lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/person_county_beekeepers_association

_______________________________________________
Person_County_Beekeepers_Association mailing list
Person_County_Beekeepers_Association AT lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/person_county_beekeepers_association