#apiary2016

[continent-of-wild-endeavor]

Hive inspections 5/27

P: Same - all well, working, doing their things, but not expanding or making/finishing honey. Saw q1.

GBF: Slow to build and fill top boxes. Q cell in 2 but also eggs in decent pattern. Maybe they’re feeling crowded, but they need to build as they have plenty of space, just not comb. Left it alone - maybe they know better than me. 3 wall to wall brood in box 2, not much in box 3 but I couldn’t move a frame up to encourage without also encouraging “excess” brood there. 

I used to/learned to always go for as large a population as possible, to make more honey and get through those long cold Illinois winters. I’m trying a different thing this year, hopefully more suited to this climate and turn of seasons, where I don’t do anything to try to get them to raise brood beyond the second deep/third medium. Smaller population but still sizeable, eats less through the dearth, doesn’t need to be huge with our mild winters anyway - so goes the theory. We’ll see.

I think I didn’t check the GF hives this day because I was going to be doing demos there that weekend and figured I’d open them then. It rained, so I couldn’t, and delayed inspecting them until June 8th.

[continent-of-wild-endeavor]

Hive inspections 4/30

GBF: 3 is coming along well. Moved two brood frames up to encourage. Eggs, larvae, nice pattern. 1 was testy - possibly because I just mowed around them all yesterday, though the other two were calmer - and not expanding as I’d like. Supered anyway. Bad idea? 2 is having a queen issue. She’s there, as I saw both her and some eggs, but she’s not laying well. Could she be new/a recent replacement? A quick look at previous notes suggests...maybe? Which would be a decent excuse for laying inexpertly. Also starting to get ants under the lid, so I took the empty feeder box off. Weak or not, I’m not feeding them during the tulip poplar flow. I made a note that says “Reinspect midweek and decide” but I can’t do that.

I’d hoped to super 1 & 2 today, but alas, it was not to be. I may actually have to combine them if I don’t see improvement soon. Wish I could check again in <week, but I’ll be out of town, so unless I wanted to take quick action on Tuesday, which I don’t, the next inspection on this uncertain situation will have to wait until Sunday the 8th.

Low 60s, cloudy. I’ve pretty much run out of deep drawn comb.

[continent-of-wild-endeavor]

Apiary notes

Installed 5 packages 3/23/16 - three at the plantation, 2 at GBF. Mid afternoon. All queens healthy and active, none marked. Minimal dead bees in packages, all cages had candy. From TF in Liberty. Fed each 2 quart bags of 1:1 sugar, plus what was left in the can. Entrance reducers. Some telescoping covers, some new migratory tops.

P hives are all mediums, all drawn comb. 2 meds each to start, plus feeder space. P2 still has 1/4″ hardware cloth bottom board, P1 & P3 have new 1/8″ bottoms.

GBF 1 deep each plus feeder space, good bottom boards. Will add one more here on Saturday.

[continent-of-wild-endeavor]

I’m always on the lookout for light-colored “mistake” paint at the hardware store. They have a cart where they put it when they mess up mixing the colors, for like half the price of normal, but there’s rarely exterior paint. So I had to go for it, though I’m not thrilled about the idea of basically labeling my beehives “These belong to a lady.” Pink, man. Not my favorite.

[continent-of-wild-endeavor]

Progress!

[continent-of-wild-endeavor]

Writing a business plan to apply for a loan to seriously expand my beekeeping business right now. Very exciting! Even I’m starting to believe I really know what I’m doing, and I’m getting pretty hyped up about the 2016 honey season.

I only need a couple thousand dollars, and the loan is from the illustrious Bank of My Parents, but if this season goes well I should, without further outside input, be able to increase my hives by ~50% every year thereafter, until I feel like it’s as many as I can handle. That might be 50, 70? Hard to say. (Don’t worry, that uncertainty is in the business plan as a positive point: slow, self-sustaining growth will allow me to feel out the market and my own workload capacity as I go, so I’ll never get out of my depth on either front.) But I can totally do this, and I will, and it will even be fun. I’ve already got more people asking to buy my honey than I can supply, and those are wholesale accounts. Expansion will be to more wholesale accounts, and possibly (if I want to give up my weekends again) to one or more of the local farmers markets. And that’s work I’m already good at, and I know the markets need my product, and I have contacts at one of them, too!