Make sure you check your bee’s stores. It’s been a crazy winter with temperatures all over. I have been adding additional winter feed to all my singles. They have already gone through most of their stores, and I always feed a lot in the fall.
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May 2022 Bee Yard Update
| The weather is getting better. We had snow last week and its looking like 80°F next week. Been doing some feeding and adding extra boxes. Dandelions are almost blooming. We have started to graft and raise queens. Drones are just starting to get ready. Bees are looking great. We should be on schedule to start filling our nucs and packages later this month. I will send out email’s mid-week for Saturday morning pick-ups and fill orders through June. Thank you for your orders and hoping beekeeping is going great. |
Winter Preparing Single Hives
This is how I prepare my single colonies for winter. I just finished OA sublimation, the mouse guard is on the entrance, shim is added with a sugar mixture(emergency feed and maybe moisture control?), Super DFM probiotic, then insulated box cover. As you see most still also have pollen substitutes also. I have been using this procedure for years on over 100 colonies a year with great results. We also use it for 5 frame doubles and 8 frame singles.
Fall 2021…Busy Year!
It’s been a busy year, we had great nuc and 3lb package sales this year. Thank You! to all our new and past customers. This is the most important time of the year to get the bees ready for winter. Control mites, making sure they have enough stores, and the equipment is in good shape for the long cold season. We have finally had a little break to do some blogging and get the website set up for next year. We have our nucs and 3lb packages open to reserve for the spring of 2022. We are hoping to get a barn built this fall for storage and a wood shop, we have been renting storage units to store our unused equipment, frames, and nuc boxes. Hoping to eventually have custom boxes and equipment available for sale. Would like to increase our queen production this year to be able to again offer queens for local pick up and by USPS. Also will be adding some breeder queen to mix with our local hardy stock and increase their VSH behaviors. So looks like nothing much is going to slow down, we hope to see you all next year.
Sincerely,
Barry Lindquist
Spring Update 3/18/2020
We want to let our customers know everything is on schedule for our bee sales this year. We start planning our season as soon as the last season ends. So we are stocked with all needed supplies and bee feed to get everything taken care of on our apiary. The bees are looking great this year with only 6% winter losses. This year half of our colonies wintered in single deep and 5/5 brood boxes so that’s really exciting. We are looking forward to a great season, we have some nucs left if anybody still wants to get your orders in. Now if we can just get rid of this crazy virus! Thank you for your time and take care.
Barry
Winter 2020
The winter has been mild with temperatures all over the place. We have only had around 4′ of snow and at this point has all melted with little to no snow banks, kind of a strange winter. I’m guessing that later this month and February we will end up with colder and snowier conditions. We have been monitoring the bees and they are looking great with almost zero losses so far this year. They have gone through their sugar boards on the top but are still in the lower boxes on the 5/5 setups. I will be replenishing their sugar board supplies this week to make sure they have enough food to get through the next couple months. We are preparing for next year getting our nuc boxes and frames built. As you know beekeeping is a lot of work, especially when you have lots of colonies. Our nuc and package sales are going good this year so get your orders in for early pick up. Happy Beekeeping and think spring!
NY Bee Wellness Early Summer 2019 Newsletter
June the Golden Month for Beekeeping in NY? ….or not, in 2019 Historically June in New York State is the month for increase, settling in swarms, growing colonies, raising queens, making splits, stacking supers, but June 2019 is presenting many challenges, due to the cool damp weather, with repercussions now and perhaps into next year. In some regions many hives have not progressed, and have been stressed by the weather conditions that have caused a poor to fair nectar flow and reduced flying weather. Black Locust flow was a “wash-out” for many areas, but did well in places like Long Island. Weather stress on the bees renders them susceptible to various ailments. Queens may have been poorly mated. More frequent hive inspections and observations will be required this year: is the queen laying well, do all brood stages look healthy, is there enough stored nectar and honey? This may prove to be a challenging year for beginning beekeepers. Hopefully, the summer weather will stabilize in a week or so, the bees can rebound, and take advantage of the blooms that benefit from the excess soil moisture. If unsure of brood health or have “weird brood” that isn’t pearly white, send a sample to Beltsville. Unfortunately there has been a production stoppage for the manufacture of the Vita AFB & EFB test kits, and supply may not resume for a few weeks. |
Cold day in the bee yard 1/21/19
On a cold January day what else to do but check on the bees. It was -5F this morning with a feels like temperature at -22F. So I thought I would listen to the bees and take a couple of pictures. I have been wintering smaller 10 frame singles and 5 frame singles with insulated slip over covers for a couple of years now with great success. This audio is from a 5 frame single deep colony with a slip over insulated cover. The bees are looking great! We are building lots of new equipment, as once spring arrives we will bee very busy taking care of the bees, raising queens, and making nucs. Hope everybody’s bees are doing good!
Spring 2018 First Look and Feeding
This winter has been long, cold, and lots of snow. Our average snowfall is over 200″ a year, well this winter it’s over 250″, and finally starting to go away! Today getting into upper 40’s was a great day to open the colonies for a look to see how they have made it through winter. With only a handful of days this winter for cleansing flights I’m very happy how they are looking with our nightly temperatures still in the teens. We added pollen patties to all colonies to help them start spring buildup. Our losses are around 10%, which is great, I used a lot of insulation with no upper vent making it possible to over winter lots of 10 frame and 5 frame colonies with good success. With lots of strong colonies to fill our nuc orders this year our orders will be healthy and on time as long as mother nature helps a little on queen mating flights in early May. Beekeeping is a very interesting and unpredictable hobby – business but with proper management, mite control, and equipment is also amazing how they can thrive in our adverse weather. Hope everyone is having a great spring and looking forward to more beekeeping and warmer temperatures.
Instrumental Insemination
I’m happy to announce that I will be taking a course in Instrumental Insemination and invest in the equipment to further improve my honey bee stock. By controlled breeding through rigorous monitoring to select, improve, and maintain a better breeding program. With focus on honey bees that can manage, tolerate and show resistance to Varroa mites, with hygienic behaviors to control infections and viruses and maintain healthy vigorous colonies. While keeping the required traits of production, gentleness, and overwintering abilities. I am very excited to be furthering my education and experience with these honey bees as I have come to really enjoy this business. This will be a lengthy process that will take a couple years to master at which I will be thinking of future research programs to help develop the results that I intend to accomplish. Thank You…Think Spring!
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