I built a version of your insulated box over the winter while waiting for my bees this spring. We hit 110 this last week in SW Washington with zero bearding, so the insulation is working like a charm!! But yes, my hive is booming, and they are storing honey like crazy in the brood box, so much that I was starting to worry about them running out of space, so I added an insulated super, and they have just barely started to touch it. I'm perplexed on what's going on, but I'm letting them do what they're going to do.
Midwest has had a pretty dry past 2 months but we still had a fantastic nectar flow so far where I am in Zone 5b. My strongest colony in a Bee Barn with a full deep super (that I already had pulled 5 full frames from) and 4 medium supers (3 of them full).
Yes that's kind of normal for my hives and I haven't figured out why either. That being said, although we're all about 2 weeks behind in terms of weather they've been making honey like firecrackers.
Great to see you back Jim. Here in Maine, we seem to be having a great nectar flow, but we’ve had so much rain that the bees certainly have not been working it to their full potential. There seems to be plenty of nectar in the hives, but very little is capped. I hope it ends up being a good season for you and we all would love to see some more videos from you. All the best, Doug
Hey Jim, Yep. I actually built these boxes and tried it out this year. Same experience…..pretty much stalled on nectar intake following basswood blooms, very different from last years ebb and flow. One hive (a very strong one) appears to be bearding heavily regardless of space. Population is exploding and lots of honey and nectar and brood in the bottom box. They have room to store in a medium super but are not doing so. Not especially worried, but agreed it is weird.
I'm here in the Pioneer Valley in Massachusetts, and I'm seeing the same sort of bearding above the entrance on my strongest hives... not the typical bearding you find below the entrance. Here's some sad news in case you didn't know, George died early last month quite unexpectedly... I found out when I went over to their house to get some bee supplies. RIP.
In eastern Mass, I have a pollinator garden with some clover, salvias, anise hyssops, and so on. They are blooming the same as prior years, but I do not see nearly as many honey bees as before. The number of bumblebees and butterflies increased though.
Down here in central Fla it has also been a weird year. A lot less rain this spring. The rain was late and no honey to be had. I’ve been feeding my bees off and on so far so I’m hoping this will end next spring.
I build bee barns and had the most amazing overwintering, low varroa numbers (even with zero treatment), insanely large and strong colonies at the beginning of flow, and pulled nearly 300lbs from my best producer. This was from a moderate flow. This was not the case all across the board by any means, but for once I had no struggling colonies at all so far this year. Bee barns work.
Sacramento CA .I got 1 swarm, and 4 packages, 2 of them and the swarm exploded with huge beard like what you've got but 2 went queenless and even with new queens haven't bounced back or come anywhere close to the others. I built the bee barns like your originals. Love them. Smells like honey like crazy. Will check this weekend. Thank you for your videos.
Great to see your bee yard again! I'm in the Hudson Valley NY. I started the spring with 2 colonies, after losing 4 during the winter. One Hive has been untouched all year and is now made up of 5 supers and 2 deeps. I have already pulled about 15 frames of honey from this one hive and they are full again. The other hive I have used for splits and have been able to split those splits so I have 8 strong hives now. I will not be collecting honey from my 7 new hives, but still expect to get a decent amount from my one large hive. I think our weather is comparable to yours. So I made a short answer long, I have not experienced anything too weird here. Best of luck for the rest of the season. Cheers
I’m having a crazy year, picked up 14 swarms and two cutouts. Then I ran out of honey supers. Just got done making 10 more honey supers (75 total) 38 hives all together.
My friend thinking is that due to all the smoke from the Canadian fires is that the bees have been consuming most of their nectar/honey, and it has set them back because they would be preparing to leave the hive.
Everyone I think…from beeks like us that are doing good to get 500lbs of honey because of where we live and not much flow to and epic flow year with 1500 lbs of home to just the opposite where beeks are having the worst year theyve had in 50 years!! Swarms are doing crazy things this year too!! And yes we’ve already had 17 days of temps over 100 and 8 of those days were over 105! Nothing normal about this year!
The 2 Bee Barn 2s I built this year and installed packages in bulit up super fast...very strong colonies 1 Italian and 1 Saskatraz. The Saskatraz swarmed July 2 and theres still a ton of bees in the box. I caught the swarm and its now trucking along in an old hive. Zero honey in the supers in any of my hives either...thought it was just my area...guess not.
I had honey this time last year but my hive just swarmed so no honey. I am building the Bee Barn 2.0 for the swarm I just had so I am pretty excited to get that made!
Same here in PA. I have two hives and they are doing this all summer. Except one hive is completely full of honey. The other colony is weaker and I am hoping the fall golden rod will top that one off.
Same thing going on is Concord Mass. Supers are full of bees, but not much else. Brood patterns are great, lots of pollen coming in, but nectar flow looks minimal. Most of it staying in the main hive.
With all the rain, the plants are real busy putting on green growth. When the rain subsides some more you'll get more "plant stress", which will trigger more blooming... then pollen and nectar flow. It may be a light year 'till later.
Yes it has been a strange couple of year's here in the mid west. Crazy bad mites last year. None this year (really weird to not have any) We adjusted for possible problems with treatment. Winter weight is good. But we see the same thing her a little bit. It's like they want to swarm its strange. Tell anyone who has bees to document this it could help the honey bees in the future. Thank you for sharing. Please keep posting.
Down here on Long Island it's been a great year for me. It probably would have been better if every one of my 7 hives at home didn't swarm because I was away on vacation for 3 weeks. Otherwise I have pulled a full super from 5 of my 7 and have the other 2 at like 50-60%. One of my swarms was so big it could not find a home. Its still in the tree next door with about 7 or 8 frames of comb. Unfortunately 30' in the air.
I’m in way upstate NY and if it isn’t raining then the wildfire smoke has had us socked in. I’ve got two hives in bee barns and one is in turbo mode and the other puttering along. If I get one super off my strong hive this year I will be happy. To be fair, they have been focusing on building out those huge (I’m doing foundation-less) frames for the bee barns and doing an awesome job of it.
A friend of mine got less honey in France mainly not because of amount of rain or good weather, but because the conditions changed fast between good weather and rain, which broke a little bit the collection of nectar and honey production cycle.
Definitely a weird year for me in NWI. But I split and requeened so……even my hive that is in the middle of redeeming itself wasn’t producing honey like it did last spring
I had my entire hive abscond in a swarm leaving about 30 bees and an inmates queen. I was able to salvage them but it’s been a weird year. They have boomed in population and are doing the same thing no swarm signs
Starting from scratch this year with 2 hives. The stronger of the 2 has been bearding quite a bit with no signs of swarming. I think we share the same uneasiness. I'm in north central Illinois in my 2nd year of converting 6 acres to tall grass and wildflowers. Up until this last week, it's been a very dry summer.
Weird here in south west Kentucky. Didn’t think there was going to be much of a flow due to the plant damage that happened during our winter. I was wrong, flow is about average this spring but the honey 🍯 looks more like fall honey. Very dark. It also has a fermented taste that is hard to describe. It’s like they had been getting nectar from over ripe fruit. Colonies are solid though.
Without question a lot of people having very strange bee problems this year. I'm hearing about it from others. Lots of people last bees over winter, and now they aren't getting as much honey this year, presumably because there's lots of problems with growing things and blooms.
I know you have the bee barns but in this case that there might be too much heat in the supers. So the bees aren’t filling them up since it’s too warm.
Supers are uninsulated. It's been in the 70s and 80s with a lot of rain for the past two months. It only got hot yesterday. They've had a month to work on those supers and there's just no flow.
Yes... i under super my brood boxes to keep the bees interested in foundation. I like the insulated boxes. Can this design be made to accommodate that approach
Similar weather in southern VT, similar bee situation. I got some honey late July, but ever since there's a lot of nectar in the honey supers but it's too humid to evaporate into honey. I wasn't planning on harvesting any more honey but now I'm a little worried about their winter supply. I usually leave them a full medium super over the winter because it gets so cold here.
Weird year here in Alabama as well. Strong numbers like you, but we got very little honey production. It’s also rained every afternoon for the last month and has been super humid. Not sure if that has contributed but we just pulled the honey today and it’s tiny compared to past years.
3 of 4 swarm captures this year had queen problems… usually the queens have no problems mating…… flow has been ok that I have seen. I did have bearding on one hive until I gave it a second deep (it was time to add it), and opened up the entrance… your bees look great… hope a flow comes along soon for you
Western WI zone 4. Drought here 0.9” total for June, 0.2” as of July 9. Heavy nectar flow despite the drought. Supers are full. Will be making splits this week. One colony made a queen cell and a ton of drones. I think they may be preparing to swarm. That particular hive is madder than a junkyard dog so I have Italian queens arriving this week. I plan to split the hive and re-queen to to e down their temperament. I got stung through my veil again today despite ample smoke.
I am in Southeast PA and I'm having the same problem. Not much honey. We had no rain at all in May and now we just get scattered storms. So disappointing.
Here in SE Pennsylvania started slow with drought, but recent rains have made it a normal flow, my newly created bee barn 2.0 gave me 4 frames of honey so am happy with that.
We have the best white clover bloom we’ve ever had. Tons of rain to keep it wet. More milkweed than I’ve ever seen. But almost no nectar in supers. Very strange.
Can't comment specifically on ur bee situation but Weird Year indeed as here in Central Maryland I've seen almost no butterflies & even very few moths at night. June was completely dry, July very wet, August dry... where are All the insects especially my fave the Monarch?
Very weird year for me as well... Zone 8a. Tons of bees and zero flow. I've already pulled honey and averaged something terrible like 5lbs per hive (but that really means is about 3 hives made honey and no others made any.). I also had very higher than normal mite loads very early. I would guess related to robbing pressure from the lack of flow.
We’re in So Me and our hives have been ‘hanging on the front porch’ day and night (aka behind the robbing screen and we have a coroplast top with an overhang that mimics a porch roof). With all this rain, we were guessing they were just needing to get outside any way they could. Our nectar flow has been great with 3 full supers which we are about to harvest
Here on the Eastern Shore of Maryland it’s similar. Not a lot lol honey in my hives. Although we’ve had a lot of awful air quality days because of the Canadian wildfires I’m wondering if that has something to do with it? Also, we have maybe 10% of the hummingbirds that we normally do. I personally think the smoke from those fires has something to do with all of it.
We have a normal amount of hummingbirds. But it’s been raining like every other day and the bees haven’t been foraging. We finally have three days in a row of temps over 85 and sunny. I’m sure they’re happy.
Hey Jim. I was seeing similar to you about 3 weeks ago, but I could smell nectar and there was a little in the supers but those had been on for a month already. I looked yesterday and my three strong hives all have supers that can be pulled. I’m in Lunenburg MA so hopefully you’ll get a little bit soon!
Yes, in TN we're hearing from the old timers that it's the worst year in 50 years for honey. We got 2 frames per hive in one county. 1/2 super per yard in another. The flow came and went like a fash of lightning. The mild February tricked the bees into feeding, and the plants into budding. That March frost killed everything, including the flow.
For me in the southern tire of NY. We started last year and hive numbers going into winter weren't great. The strange weather here from 50's to 20's ours didn't make it. We got two packages this spring. They are growing well. They've had 1to1 sugar water since we got them. The spring started wet, went hot and dry here for like 7 weeks no rain. Then 3 weeks ago the rains came back. They are bring in pollen but not alot. We have 3 acres of clover and are going to continue the 1to1 until late August and take it out for 2 weeks then go back to feeding for winter. Basically going to make sure they experience a darth before fall to make bees that should be able to make it through winter (life cycle wise) and numbers.
Hey Jim, interested how are the temps inside the beebarn, are they bearding due to being too hot? Also since its first summer for us here in Croatia, can't tell, everything is weird 😂
It's been rather cool and rainy all spring. Yesterday, we got the heat. It was scorching and humid so those two large colonies were bearding. No major bearding on any others.
@@vinofarm I was wondering about the temperature inside the hive. My hives (built with 2" styrofoam - inspired by you) constantly have 35 deg C since May (96ish F?) And aren't bearding yet (max temp outside was 32C). Next week they're forecasting 37C here, so am a bit worried how hives will behave.
@@vinofarm isn't that a bit weird for them to be bearding that much if temp is standard/hasn't increased and gave them reason to go out and ventilate the hive?
@@londam2405 They do whatever is necessary to regulate the temp. If that means moving numbers outside, they do it. If that means clustering in a tight ball, they do it. No matter what, the temps will stay stable.
I’m here in Westport mass. Lots of rain too, colonies are strong, looking great, some early swarm signs but splitting did the trick. Bees are bearding here too. Solid spring nectar flow for me from my main production hive, Just over 50lbs. I wonder what’s going on in your area? We’re not that far apart.
Our bees are just now starting to take off and the populations are starting to explode and the nectar is coming in. We are 2 deep supers on several of our hives and they are filling them very fast. Hopefully Mass will come around. Took Colorado a while to get going for us.
Yeah, also in Algeria truly is a weird year, Especially at the time of expelling the bees, which moved forward two months.. Which country are you from Sir?
I'm in ontario, should be zone 5b, I am a new beekeeper so i may have other issues, but i only have one colony filling supers, i have had a couple swarms, but my other 6 hives aren't filling any supers, they look strong, but just not moving up
Try to vent the top of the hive, bees won't go up into the supers if its hot in there. There is a screen board that is used for this very reason in western Canada but maybe you have a vented super already without making a special piece of equipment. That black plastic ontop the hive isn't helping with the heat inside the hive ya know. Are you seeing what I mean yet? Its hot in there. Hive tops and hive bodies are white for a reason.
There is insulation under the black plastic. The heat is not beating into the supers. If they bees "won't go up into the supers if its hot in there" then why did they go up there for the past two summers? And why haven't they gone up there all spring when our temps have basically been in the 70s? This 92º day was ONE hot day. What you're saying may be true if we were having day after day in the 90s for the past two months... but that is nowhere near the case.
Hi Jim, it looks like the front of you bee barn is about to break off , maybe from the weight of the bearding? have you found a better way to secure the wood on the front? I recall it is just wood glue, correct? I am assembling 2 bee barn 2.0 right now and would love any insight if you've made any improvements or
Yes, those front face pieces cupped and began to pull away from the foam. Not on every hive, though. It's not weight, it's just the wood movement. Those pieces are mainly decorative, so I'm not too worried about them, but if I did build more, I'd try to come up with a better solution. I'm open to ideas!
@@vinofarm do you think maybe one solid piece of wood with the entrance routered out might work? It could then be screwed in directly to the other wood sandwich around the entrance and glued as well? That might hold up better maybe?
They're bearding to try to show off so they can get more screen time.
I built a version of your insulated box over the winter while waiting for my bees this spring. We hit 110 this last week in SW Washington with zero bearding, so the insulation is working like a charm!!
But yes, my hive is booming, and they are storing honey like crazy in the brood box, so much that I was starting to worry about them running out of space, so I added an insulated super, and they have just barely started to touch it. I'm perplexed on what's going on, but I'm letting them do what they're going to do.
Im in ontario canada pulled honey alread and boxes almost full again! 😊. Best year in a while.
Pulled 2200 lbs from 31 colonies this year.
Midwest has had a pretty dry past 2 months but we still had a fantastic nectar flow so far where I am in Zone 5b. My strongest colony in a Bee Barn with a full deep super (that I already had pulled 5 full frames from) and 4 medium supers (3 of them full).
Yes that's kind of normal for my hives and I haven't figured out why either.
That being said, although we're all about 2 weeks behind in terms of weather they've been making honey like firecrackers.
Midwest dry ? Not where i am
This coming week will be the first rainlesscwe3k in a while.
Great to see you back Jim. Here in Maine, we seem to be having a great nectar flow, but we’ve had so much rain that the bees certainly have not been working it to their full potential. There seems to be plenty of nectar in the hives, but very little is capped. I hope it ends up being a good season for you and we all would love to see some more videos from you. All the best, Doug
Hey Jim,
Yep. I actually built these boxes and tried it out this year. Same experience…..pretty much stalled on nectar intake following basswood blooms, very different from last years ebb and flow.
One hive (a very strong one) appears to be bearding heavily regardless of space. Population is exploding and lots of honey and nectar and brood in the bottom box. They have room to store in a medium super but are not doing so. Not especially worried, but agreed it is weird.
For the record, I do NOT think it’s toxic chemicals.
😂
Toxic chemicals? Only a complete whacko nutjob of a beekeeper would blame his beekeeping problems on toxic chemicals. 😉
I get it!😂
I'm here in the Pioneer Valley in Massachusetts, and I'm seeing the same sort of bearding above the entrance on my strongest hives... not the typical bearding you find below the entrance. Here's some sad news in case you didn't know, George died early last month quite unexpectedly... I found out when I went over to their house to get some bee supplies.
RIP.
Yes, I heard about George. Very sad news.
@vinofarm yes, he was the closest thing to a mentor that I ever had. I could always ask him questions and he would always give me advice.
In eastern Mass, I have a pollinator garden with some clover, salvias, anise hyssops, and so on. They are blooming the same as prior years, but I do not see nearly as many honey bees as before. The number of bumblebees and butterflies increased though.
Down here in central Fla it has also been a weird year. A lot less rain this spring. The rain was late and no honey to be had. I’ve been feeding my bees off and on so far so I’m hoping this will end next spring.
We had this case last year in Algeria and we almost didn't get no honey at all
I build bee barns and had the most amazing overwintering, low varroa numbers (even with zero treatment), insanely large and strong colonies at the beginning of flow, and pulled nearly 300lbs from my best producer. This was from a moderate flow. This was not the case all across the board by any means, but for once I had no struggling colonies at all so far this year. Bee barns work.
I read they beard of its too humid (to remove their breath/moisture from the hive). That insulation will keep condensation\ the hives from warming up?
Houston having weird issues too. Lost to swarm earlier in year had lots of uncapped honey and just rebuilding.
Hey Jim! Great to hear from you brother. Hoping things work themselves out on the honey front.
Sacramento CA .I got 1 swarm, and 4 packages, 2 of them and the swarm exploded with huge beard like what you've got but 2 went queenless and even with new queens haven't bounced back or come anywhere close to the others. I built the bee barns like your originals. Love them.
Smells like honey like crazy.
Will check this weekend.
Thank you for your videos.
Great to see your bee yard again! I'm in the Hudson Valley NY. I started the spring with 2 colonies, after losing 4 during the winter. One Hive has been untouched all year and is now made up of 5 supers and 2 deeps. I have already pulled about 15 frames of honey from this one hive and they are full again. The other hive I have used for splits and have been able to split those splits so I have 8 strong hives now. I will not be collecting honey from my 7 new hives, but still expect to get a decent amount from my one large hive. I think our weather is comparable to yours. So I made a short answer long, I have not experienced anything too weird here. Best of luck for the rest of the season. Cheers
I’m having a crazy year, picked up 14 swarms and two cutouts. Then I ran out of honey supers. Just got done making 10 more honey supers (75 total) 38 hives all together.
My friend thinking is that due to all the smoke from the Canadian fires is that the bees have been consuming most of their nectar/honey, and it has set them back because they would be preparing to leave the hive.
Everyone I think…from beeks like us that are doing good to get 500lbs of honey because of where we live and not much flow to and epic flow year with 1500 lbs of home to just the opposite where beeks are having the worst year theyve had in 50 years!! Swarms are doing crazy things this year too!! And yes we’ve already had 17 days of temps over 100 and 8 of those days were over 105! Nothing normal about this year!
The 2 Bee Barn 2s I built this year and installed packages in bulit up super fast...very strong colonies 1 Italian and 1 Saskatraz. The Saskatraz swarmed July 2 and theres still a ton of bees in the box. I caught the swarm and its now trucking along in an old hive. Zero honey in the supers in any of my hives either...thought it was just my area...guess not.
I had honey this time last year but my hive just swarmed so no honey. I am building the Bee Barn 2.0 for the swarm I just had so I am pretty excited to get that made!
August 3, SW Florida. Basically same here. Huge colonies, not too much honey.
Same here in PA. I have two hives and they are doing this all summer. Except one hive is completely full of honey. The other colony is weaker and I am hoping the fall golden rod will top that one off.
Same thing going on is Concord Mass. Supers are full of bees, but not much else. Brood patterns are great, lots of pollen coming in, but nectar flow looks minimal. Most of it staying in the main hive.
Here in zone 7a we have four hives that produced 4 gallons of honey. Last yr we had 3 hives that produced 15 gallons
With all the rain, the plants are real busy putting on green growth. When the rain subsides some more you'll get more "plant stress", which will trigger more blooming... then pollen and nectar flow. It may be a light year 'till later.
Yes it has been a strange couple of year's here in the mid west. Crazy bad mites last year. None this year (really weird to not have any) We adjusted for possible problems with treatment. Winter weight is good. But we see the same thing her a little bit. It's like they want to swarm its strange. Tell anyone who has bees to document this it could help the honey bees in the future. Thank you for sharing. Please keep posting.
Down here on Long Island it's been a great year for me. It probably would have been better if every one of my 7 hives at home didn't swarm because I was away on vacation for 3 weeks. Otherwise I have pulled a full super from 5 of my 7 and have the other 2 at like 50-60%. One of my swarms was so big it could not find a home. Its still in the tree next door with about 7 or 8 frames of comb. Unfortunately 30' in the air.
Wow!
I’m in way upstate NY and if it isn’t raining then the wildfire smoke has had us socked in. I’ve got two hives in bee barns and one is in turbo mode and the other puttering along. If I get one super off my strong hive this year I will be happy. To be fair, they have been focusing on building out those huge (I’m doing foundation-less) frames for the bee barns and doing an awesome job of it.
South central Ontario, Canada. Had a great mid May first flow. But now similar, tons of clover and milk weed but not much nectar being brought in.
46808. Lots of swarms. Lots of bees . Lots of full supers.
A friend of mine got less honey in France mainly not because of amount of rain or good weather, but because the conditions changed fast between good weather and rain, which broke a little bit the collection of nectar and honey production cycle.
That is what’s happening up here. Rain every other day. The rhythm is off.
Definitely a weird year for me in NWI. But I split and requeened so……even my hive that is in the middle of redeeming itself wasn’t producing honey like it did last spring
I had my entire hive abscond in a swarm leaving about 30 bees and an inmates queen. I was able to salvage them but it’s been a weird year. They have boomed in population and are doing the same thing no swarm signs
Starting from scratch this year with 2 hives. The stronger of the 2 has been bearding quite a bit with no signs of swarming. I think we share the same uneasiness.
I'm in north central Illinois in my 2nd year of converting 6 acres to tall grass and wildflowers. Up until this last week, it's been a very dry summer.
Weird here in south west Kentucky. Didn’t think there was going to be much of a flow due to the plant damage that happened during our winter. I was wrong, flow is about average this spring but the honey 🍯 looks more like fall honey. Very dark. It also has a fermented taste that is hard to describe. It’s like they had been getting nectar from over ripe fruit. Colonies are solid though.
In Belgium I had the best year
In 4 years.
Do you have plans for insulated hives?
Can you make them build and fill comb with a feeder?
Here is the first video in a 4 part series: ua-cam.com/video/lptiJGV-o0U/v-deo.html
Without question a lot of people having very strange bee problems this year. I'm hearing about it from others. Lots of people last bees over winter, and now they aren't getting as much honey this year, presumably because there's lots of problems with growing things and blooms.
I agree, this has been an off year for my few hives. Whether it is lack of comb buildup, honey stores or queen issues or smoke from Canada.
Smoke from fires blocking sunlight
I know you have the bee barns but in this case that there might be too much heat in the supers. So the bees aren’t filling them up since it’s too warm.
Supers are uninsulated. It's been in the 70s and 80s with a lot of rain for the past two months. It only got hot yesterday. They've had a month to work on those supers and there's just no flow.
Yes... i under super my brood boxes to keep the bees interested in foundation. I like the insulated boxes. Can this design be made to accommodate that approach
southeast Mass huge hives and I have harvested twice already and will have to do it again this week.
Similar weather in southern VT, similar bee situation. I got some honey late July, but ever since there's a lot of nectar in the honey supers but it's too humid to evaporate into honey. I wasn't planning on harvesting any more honey but now I'm a little worried about their winter supply. I usually leave them a full medium super over the winter because it gets so cold here.
Same is here in the Middle East.
I’m in middle Missouri and we’ve been very dry. I had a decent flow but the lack of rain has had an impact for sure.
Weird year here in Alabama as well. Strong numbers like you, but we got very little honey production. It’s also rained every afternoon for the last month and has been super humid. Not sure if that has contributed but we just pulled the honey today and it’s tiny compared to past years.
Hey, even insects can want to occasionally not wanna be cooped up inside.
I have a great flow here in sw iowa
I am having the same problem in NE Texas
3 of 4 swarm captures this year had queen problems… usually the queens have no problems mating…… flow has been ok that I have seen. I did have bearding on one hive until I gave it a second deep (it was time to add it), and opened up the entrance… your bees look great… hope a flow comes along soon for you
Western WI zone 4. Drought here 0.9” total for June, 0.2” as of July 9. Heavy nectar flow despite the drought. Supers are full. Will be making splits this week.
One colony made a queen cell and a ton of drones. I think they may be preparing to swarm. That particular hive is madder than a junkyard dog so I have Italian queens arriving this week. I plan to split the hive and re-queen to to e down their temperament. I got stung through my veil again today despite ample smoke.
Your supers should also be insulated or removed to cool the hive.
I am in Southeast PA and I'm having the same problem. Not much honey. We had no rain at all in May and now we just get scattered storms. So disappointing.
Every year is different.
Here in SE Pennsylvania started slow with drought, but recent rains have made it a normal flow, my newly created bee barn 2.0 gave me 4 frames of honey so am happy with that.
Planting sweet clover saved me. I keep watering it and it still has flowers.
We have the best white clover bloom we’ve ever had. Tons of rain to keep it wet. More milkweed than I’ve ever seen. But almost no nectar in supers. Very strange.
I'm in Ontario. we have same issue.
Same! Brood boxes packed full of honey. One frame upstairs with nectar last week, July 4th. WTH?
Can't comment specifically on ur bee situation but Weird Year indeed as here in Central Maryland I've seen almost no butterflies & even very few moths at night. June was completely dry, July very wet, August dry... where are All the insects especially my fave the Monarch?
Something here atkinson nh. Bees are flying like crazy but I haven't pulled any honey yet.
Very weird year for me as well... Zone 8a. Tons of bees and zero flow. I've already pulled honey and averaged something terrible like 5lbs per hive (but that really means is about 3 hives made honey and no others made any.). I also had very higher than normal mite loads very early. I would guess related to robbing pressure from the lack of flow.
Mine are bearding everyday in SC!
Too frequent rain can knock the nectar out of the plants.
We’re in So Me and our hives have been ‘hanging on the front porch’ day and night (aka behind the robbing screen and we have a coroplast top with an overhang that mimics a porch roof). With all this rain, we were guessing they were just needing to get outside any way they could. Our nectar flow has been great with 3 full supers which we are about to harvest
Here on the Eastern Shore of Maryland it’s similar. Not a lot lol honey in my hives. Although we’ve had a lot of awful air quality days because of the Canadian wildfires I’m wondering if that has something to do with it? Also, we have maybe 10% of the hummingbirds that we normally do. I personally think the smoke from those fires has something to do with all of it.
We have a normal amount of hummingbirds. But it’s been raining like every other day and the bees haven’t been foraging. We finally have three days in a row of temps over 85 and sunny. I’m sure they’re happy.
I'm in Northeast Mississippi, it is a weird year. Most people I've talked to are down 50 to 75 percent on honey
Hi Jim, yes. Im in Douglas MA and my russians seem to be bearding a lot more then the carolians.
Hey Jim. I was seeing similar to you about 3 weeks ago, but I could smell nectar and there was a little in the supers but those had been on for a month already. I looked yesterday and my three strong hives all have supers that can be pulled. I’m in Lunenburg MA so hopefully you’ll get a little bit soon!
Great to hear!
My bees here in Ohio have been doing the same thing. They are bearding even right before a thunderstorm. I have no idea why.
Yes, in TN we're hearing from the old timers that it's the worst year in 50 years for honey. We got 2 frames per hive in one county. 1/2 super per yard in another. The flow came and went like a fash of lightning. The mild February tricked the bees into feeding, and the plants into budding. That March frost killed everything, including the flow.
For me in the southern tire of NY. We started last year and hive numbers going into winter weren't great. The strange weather here from 50's to 20's ours didn't make it. We got two packages this spring. They are growing well. They've had 1to1 sugar water since we got them. The spring started wet, went hot and dry here for like 7 weeks no rain. Then 3 weeks ago the rains came back. They are bring in pollen but not alot. We have 3 acres of clover and are going to continue the 1to1 until late August and take it out for 2 weeks then go back to feeding for winter. Basically going to make sure they experience a darth before fall to make bees that should be able to make it through winter (life cycle wise) and numbers.
Hey Jim, interested how are the temps inside the beebarn, are they bearding due to being too hot? Also since its first summer for us here in Croatia, can't tell, everything is weird 😂
It's been rather cool and rainy all spring. Yesterday, we got the heat. It was scorching and humid so those two large colonies were bearding. No major bearding on any others.
@@vinofarm I was wondering about the temperature inside the hive. My hives (built with 2" styrofoam - inspired by you) constantly have 35 deg C since May (96ish F?) And aren't bearding yet (max temp outside was 32C). Next week they're forecasting 37C here, so am a bit worried how hives will behave.
@@londam2405 Hive temps are always stable. Humidity also normal.
@@vinofarm isn't that a bit weird for them to be bearding that much if temp is standard/hasn't increased and gave them reason to go out and ventilate the hive?
@@londam2405 They do whatever is necessary to regulate the temp. If that means moving numbers outside, they do it. If that means clustering in a tight ball, they do it. No matter what, the temps will stay stable.
I’m here in Westport mass. Lots of rain too, colonies are strong, looking great, some early swarm signs but splitting did the trick. Bees are bearding here too. Solid spring nectar flow for me from my main production hive, Just over 50lbs. I wonder what’s going on in your area? We’re not that far apart.
In S Ontario, Cda. Pulled 2 supers so far :) but July is appearing dry with low flow
Our bees are just now starting to take off and the populations are starting to explode and the nectar is coming in. We are 2 deep supers on several of our hives and they are filling them very fast. Hopefully Mass will come around. Took Colorado a while to get going for us.
I'm Nebraska and I have zero flow with great hives. Our drought is affecting it.
Yeah, also in Algeria truly is a weird year, Especially at the time of expelling the bees, which moved forward two months..
Which country are you from Sir?
USA, Massachusetts.
Hey Jim! That sucks for sure. Flow seems to be normal here in Canada. How are you coming along with the frame project?
Yes 2023 indeed a weird year so bad I didn't farm this year.
Same here, except there have been several queen cups and cells. Zone 7B
Bearding, been a while since I've seen it!
Yes. It never increases brood. Not much honey. My big hive two brood boxes and 8 frames of honey. I am going to give a frame of honey to small hive.
I am I. Florida and it’s happening same thing they are all over and out
I’ve always been told, too much rain, low honey flow, best flow when drought conditions
That sounds completely backwards to me.
@@vinofarm I would agree, I heard this from a buddy who has over 400 hives
I'm in ontario, should be zone 5b, I am a new beekeeper so i may have other issues, but i only have one colony filling supers, i have had a couple swarms, but my other 6 hives aren't filling any supers, they look strong, but just not moving up
Weather has messed up flow this year.
We moved 2500km, now time to set up our permanent apiary and expand our hives.
Hi. Where do I get those bands you have around you're Hives?
I have a lot of seeds and unopened seed pods for milkweed. If you were closer i would bring you a bunch of seed.
I have acres of milkweed here!
Any update on the frames?
Eastern Mass. We have nectar flow, just not as strong as last year.
They are way too warm in the hive so they’re cooling off just outside … We are seeing that all over TX hives with this heat dome
I'm in the same area as you. Tough year for CV flow. Are your modified langstroms available for others to try yet?
Try to vent the top of the hive, bees won't go up into the supers if its hot in there. There is a screen board that is used for this very reason in western Canada but maybe you have a vented super already without making a special piece of equipment. That black plastic ontop the hive isn't helping with the heat inside the hive ya know. Are you seeing what I mean yet? Its hot in there. Hive tops and hive bodies are white for a reason.
There is insulation under the black plastic. The heat is not beating into the supers. If they bees "won't go up into the supers if its hot in there" then why did they go up there for the past two summers? And why haven't they gone up there all spring when our temps have basically been in the 70s? This 92º day was ONE hot day. What you're saying may be true if we were having day after day in the 90s for the past two months... but that is nowhere near the case.
@vinofarm if it's hot in the hive, they collect water, not nectar.
Hi Jim, it looks like the front of you bee barn is about to break off , maybe from the weight of the bearding? have you found a better way to secure the wood on the front? I recall it is just wood glue, correct? I am assembling 2 bee barn 2.0 right now and would love any insight if you've made any improvements or
Yes, those front face pieces cupped and began to pull away from the foam. Not on every hive, though. It's not weight, it's just the wood movement. Those pieces are mainly decorative, so I'm not too worried about them, but if I did build more, I'd try to come up with a better solution. I'm open to ideas!
@@vinofarm do you think maybe one solid piece of wood with the entrance routered out might work? It could then be screwed in directly to the other wood sandwich around the entrance and glued as well? That might hold up better maybe?
same here in bosnia
How has your rain been? It's been hot but we had a decent amount of rain here.
Do you have a top entrance so the hive can breath and control temperature ?
No. No upper vents at all.
My bees are the same 7 hives , all bearding low honey production. I Don’t know what to do . I’m in my 2nd year bee keeping.