Josh Wall

wayne fajkus wrote:This is my first year for bees so any info appreciated. Id love your opinion on langstroth vs top bar.  I did one of each thinking i would pick one for next years expansion.

By 97% do you lose 3 complete hives out of 100, or does each hive lose 3% of the bees?

I only use 10 frame medium boxes.  I have not seen a top bar hive in years as I'm into production and they do not work with production very well.
As far as the amount of bees lost in a hive.  You would have to look into the life cycle of the hive over winter.

Over the last 7 years I have had around 250 hives and my worst year I lost 7 hives.
8 years ago I got a hold of some queens with bad genetics and lost a few more hives than normal.  I did not do my research very well.

I would suggest you read up on the types of queens.  IMO you would want a queen that has good hygienic traits as this will help keep the hive clean.  There is a point that you need to find that is between a good harvest ($$$) and keeping the hive clean.  Talking to bee keeps around you will help, but remember to ask them why they do something and what else have they tried.

Every location is different and every year has flows at different times.  This is where you have to decide on how much of what to harvest (honey, wax, and pollen) to what to what you want to supplement.  I set aside 75 pounds of pollen every spring to have if needed to feed back.  I'm careful about the amount of honey I harvest making sure that I only have to feed them in the fall and early spring.  I know plenty of people that end up feeding in the middle of summer from over harvesting when the dearth hits early, but the down side is I end up with an extra harvest to do every year.

You need to ask a question to point me down a single direction.  

Mark Tudor wrote:

Josh Wall wrote:I only have a 97% survival rate from year to year.

That's an outstanding survival rate, if only 3% are dying each year. I've heard the average survival rate is 67%, or 10 times greater loss than you.

It all comes down to the type of bees and the management.  I can get into details if anyone wants me to.  

There are a lot of different theories of the cause of hive issues.  I have over 250 hives (my main source of income) and I only have a 97% survival rate from year to year.  Research only gets done in the direction of the money so you can only trust the research so much.  

I think the primary issues with bees come down to over inbreeding and hive management.
A lot of bees have had there hygienic factors bread out for other factors that bee keepers wanted more.
There is to much over harvesting of cash (by honey, wax, pollen, or pollination contracts) from hives.

Don't forget bees can and will fly 2 miles from there hive.

The price of non-potable water is cheap where I'm at.  I would not want the traffic of someone coming to get it.

I ended up getting 2 loads of fresh wood chips for 2 pints of honey.

Where I'm at bear hunters want over cooked bakers honey or off flavored honey.  They burn it in pots with a Chafing Dish heater.  The smell brings them in.  

Depending on the year I waist between 50 and 100 gallons from cleaning, but it's the cost of doing business.

Putting the water out openly looks it could cause a robing response.
I would love to be able to save the water till the dearth.

I'm going to make some calls to see if I can get 2 dump truck loads of fresh wood chips to compost.

Getting ride of the water by RO or by heat would be waist of resources.
To make something out of it I would need to add a lot of sugar or starch.

I'm limited to what I can do by the local Health Department.

Compost tea is a thought, but I only have 1 large portable tank.  I'm not sure if I want to use the tank and pump for compost tea at this time.

I'm a honey and wax farmer.
This year I installed a 2,000 gallon tank to collect my flush water from flushing my equipment.  At this point I'm still flushing the sanitize water into the septic tank; I'm looking at changing sanitizes to something more eco friendly this year so I can use that water also.

Over the weekend we harvested honey and ended up with around 900 gallons of thin sugar water.  I would think it has around 10 gallons of honey and wax chunks in the water.

I pumped the water last night on top of the soil of my raised beds, but this morning I had bees all over the soil and not doing there job.

I don't compost on a scale that I would be able to use that much water.
I would rather use the water before it starts to ferment.

In the next few days I will have about 400 gallons of water from cleaning out my bottling tanks and a few 55 gallon drums.

If I'm not able to surface apply the water than what would be a good way to reuse the water?