Any Beekeepers?

[!Xabbu]

Now is the time to get swarm trap boxes ready to set out. I've started using a '3 boxes per sheet of plywood' design and 9 new ones so far.

[M_ray]

Tagging ... I want to do this.

[jackelope]

Now is the time to get swarm trap boxes ready to set out. I've started using a '3 boxes per sheet of plywood' design and 9 new ones so far.

I had bees for a few years. Couldn't keep them alive. Probably the most interesting pain in the ass thing I've ever done. They were a lot of fun and very interesting but I couldn't keep them alive. First year we were doing good, had nice strong healthy hives and a bear went through them at the end of summer and that was that. Then the varrao mites got them last year and I assume this year too. Tried not treating them because I didn't want to introduce a bunch of chemicals into the hive. Don't have a place for them at the new house and don't feel like spending more money on them only to have to drive all over to take care of them. I'm throwing in the towel.

@Born2late  and @Whitpirate  have bees and I know there are more. I just can't remember offhand who.

Swarm season around here seems to be April-July it seems.

[!Xabbu]

Varroa destructor mites are probably the biggest problem of colony collapse, there are other things but those little buggers are rampant.

We have a club and one of our members is artificially inseminating queens, an absolutely fascinating process. The stock is a mix of varroa resistant stock, provided by WSU out of their breeding program and local drones from strong local survivor hives.

I do treat my bees with OA. I don't mind treating but also I'd rather not import more California (or elsewhere) bees.

[!Xabbu]

Swarm season around here seems to be April-July it seems.

That's only 2 -3 months.  I'm building boxes and planning locations now.

[jackelope]

Varroa destructor mites are probably the biggest problem of colony collapse, there are other things but those little buggers are rampant.

We have a club and one of our members is artificially inseminating queens, an absolutely fascinating process. The stock is a mix of varroa resistant stock, provided by WSU out of their breeding program and local drones from strong local survivor hives.

I do treat my bees with OA. I don't mind treating but also I'd rather not import more California (or elsewhere) bees.

I tried some locally WA raised bees last year that were supposed to be mite resistant. We tried 2 nuc's, neither survived. Neither were treated. Probably should have OA treated them in hindsight. It's not a really bad chemical and I think it occurs in nature.

Mostly for me it comes to time. Trying to simplify and make more time to spend hunting and fishing and doing things I love to do. Turns out the bees weren't one of those things.

[!Xabbu]

My bee yard is fairly close to my house and I'm a hands-on kind of keeper; I'm always out there messing with the girls on way or another. None of mine aren't very aggressive either and I usually don't wear a veil, not unless I'm doing something like messing with brood box frames. I almost constantly feed them sugar water, I'm not totally about the production of honey though it's nice, I want bigger populations for stronger hives, splitting, and queen grafting.

I have 2 teenage daughters that like to mess with them too. Beekeeping and swarm hunting are fun for the fam.

[Born2late]

In my experience the biggest thing i lose hives to is the moisture inside the hives.I have made sugar blocks to over winter them and had mixed success,They do cut down on the moisture some.I don't treat at all.Never have had a problem with mites or anything else.My hives that produce,usually will put out 75-100 pounds of honey. The weaker ones usually get 25 pounds.What kind of honey does everybody get.I get mainly blackberry and knotweed.
Love catching swarms,especially when they are my brothers .
I have done a few cutouts, The biggest one i did was in a old farm house in silvana.It had a dead space between the two roof angles in the wall.It took me and my son all day to remove the darn thing,Never thought they could get that big around here.

[outdooraddict]

I am super interested in bees. I have tented books at the library and done a fair amount of research. I really want to find a me tor though. Anyone on the eastside do bees, that would take me under their wing.

[!Xabbu]

There is a club in Spokane. I'm the mentor-mentee coordinator for our club and I think they do the same.

[lokidog]

In my experience the biggest thing i lose hives to is the moisture inside the hives.I have made sugar blocks to over winter them and had mixed success,They do cut down on the moisture some.I don't treat at all.Never have had a problem with mites or anything else.My hives that produce,usually will put out 75-100 pounds of honey. The weaker ones usually get 25 pounds.What kind of honey does everybody get.I get mainly blackberry and knotweed.
Love catching swarms,especially when they are my brothers .
I have done a few cutouts, The biggest one i did was in a old farm house in silvana.It had a dead space between the two roof angles in the wall.It took me and my son all day to remove the darn thing,Never thought they could get that big around here.

I've thought about bees, one more hobby I probably should not get into. I tried Maple honey last Fall, that was amazing, quite unique. I wasn't real thrilled with the knotweed honey I tried.  I never realized how different honeys tasted. I'd like to make a batch of mead again, it's been quite a few years.

[JimmyHoffa]

I've been building a few more traps and hives, but I can't get to the places I've found feral bees until the gates open in May.  The biggest things that have got me so far are yellow jackets, hives robbing each other and killing queens, moisture and varroa. 
One problem is with work, I'm not around during the 'warm' part of the day to go in and inspect.  Then it is cold and dark out when I can go in....but they don't bother me then and the yellow jackets have gone home.

[jackelope]

There's a guy in Duvall that is doing a bulk nuc order from down south somewhere. He's going to drive down and pick them up. Snohomish Bee Company is selling nucs and 3# packages that usually show up around April. I think down south by you, Lori Miller isn't selling anymore. @Come Get Some  ??
You could reach out to the WA Beekeepers. I'm sure they could point you somewhere.
https://wasba.org/

[boneaddict]

@Idabooner

[Skyvalhunter]

My friend in the Methow ran about 25 hives this past year. He lost a lot to mites over half.

[skinzner]

Woods bee company out of centralia does nucs, super nice and helpful people,  heres a link to his website

https://woodsbeeco.com

[jackelope]

My friend in the Methow ran about 25 hives this past year. He lost a lot to mites over half.

This was a weird year I think. Not a lot of honey produced and lots of mite issues I've heard about.

[!Xabbu]

There's a guy in Duvall that is doing a bulk nuc order from down south somewhere. He's going to drive down and pick them up. Snohomish Bee Company is selling nucs and 3# packages that usually show up around April. I think down south by you, Lori Miller isn't selling anymore. @Come Get Some  ??
You could reach out to the WA Beekeepers. I'm sure they could point you somewhere.
https://wasba.org/

Ordering bees is good that it brings in bees and more people keep bees. Ordering bees from anywhere afar, looking at you California, is bad as their genetic stock dilutes the local hardy stock that are wintering over in the PNW and probably resisting Varroa better than most.

We have the county extension agent as ex officio member of the club and that can open some doors and gates to new places for traps and hives.

I had some Cali bees last year. Not this year though, the little ungrateful wenches left me right at the start of fall. If I dont catch a swarm, I'll borrow a pound of girls and maybe get a locally bred queen (or let them go at making a new one).

[boneaddict]

My Dad got some bee nucs from a member.  I dont think the member is still active.   I want to say Buckman.....

[jackelope]

My Dad got some bee nucs from a member.  I dont think the member is still active.   I want to say Buckman.....

Beeman

[3nails]

 I'm a beekeeper and am very interested in catching swarms. I watched several videos last summer on how to do it. There are a ton of commercial guys who come into my area so I've been thinking about picking off a swarm or two from them. Two different times we had swarms come into the barn we keep our gear in.

[Idabooner]

Last winter I had two hives, come through OK, no losses.  In mid April I made up a nuc from the strongest hive and bought a Queen.  By mid July all 3 hives were ready to harvest, I got a good amount of honey, and from then on let them store up for the coming winter.  I do treat for mites in the spring and fall with Api-Var.  Yellow jackets are my biggest problem.

[Humptulips]

I have I think 32 colonies right now. All my colonies come from swarms. I catch swarms here at home but I trap most of the swarms I catch. So simple and easy plus it is great fun going to look at your bait hives. During the summer I always keep an eye out for bees working the flowers. Those are good places for a bait hive. Spotted a couple new places this deer season. About the middle of May I place an empty hive in these spots wit at least one old comb in the hive. Very important to have and old comb as this is the attractant to lure a swarm. You can use a nuc box but I think it better to use a single story hive. Even at that I catch swarms at time that are a tight fit. I have quite a bit of old equipment which is what I use. I have lost a few to bears over the years but mostly they just chew up the frames and the rest of the wooden ware remains usable.
Most are placed along the way to town so I don't have to go out of my way to check them. Look at them every couple weeks until July when I pick up any remaining. You can hide the things along the road in quite a bit of brush. Doesn't seem to matter to the bees. Some places produce good swarms every year and when you find such a spot you are golden.
I catch most swarms at home but I have another apiary and miss almost all of them there but I have found a few empty bait hives out about a 1/4 to 1/2 mile away catch them. It does not seem like empty hives in the apiary are very attractive. The new swarms instinctually want to move away from the parent colony.
Back when mites first appeared my Dad and I had bees and we were wiped out. We restarted with packages and treated with apistan,  then amitraz, then coumaphose (sp?). We both thought the medicine was having an adverse effect on the bees. We had noticed some of these survivor bees and started collecting swarms. Eventually stopped treating in the early 2000s. The thought being let the weak die and end up with a very resistant strain that did not need mite medicine. Typically we had losses of 50% but replaced them with swarms. It seemed to be working until there was renewed interest in bees and the non-resistant package bees started arriving which seemed to dilute the gene pool.
Any way two years ago I decided I had to go back to treating and started using formic acid spring and fall. Losses have been about 10% so far. Short time frame but seems good so far.
I'll never be more than a hobbyist but have had up to about 50 colonies at times.

[jackelope]

Last winter I had two hives, come through OK, no losses.  In mid April I made up a nuc from the strongest hive and bought a Queen.  By mid July all 3 hives were ready to harvest, I got a good amount of honey, and from then on let them store up for the coming winter.  I do treat for mites in the spring and fall with Api-Var.  Yellow jackets are my biggest problem.

@Idabooner  what blooms do they primarily hit over there by you?

[Idabooner]

Jackelope!  My bees feed on mostly wild flowers, wild rose and some wild fruit trees, some alfalfa before the hay harvest.  There is no orchards around and I harvest the honey before the barnaby starts blooming.  I don't supplement them. The honey tastes great.

[danderson]

I'm going on my 3rd year raising honey bees something I always wanted to get into, my first year with the help of my lady friend she been raising bees for over 10 years, we started our own bee company with 6 hives we extracted a total of 165 pints of honey that year, unfortunitly none of our bees survived the winter due to what I think was moisture and partly inexperance on my part I didnt keep the snow off the entrance the bees couldnt get out for cleansing flights during the long winter here we live in the mountains above Cle Elum at 2500 feet. last year we had 6 hives it was a horrable year for yellow jackets we lost 4 of the hives the 2 remainig hives are doing good even today at 28 degrees snowing hard I see them looking out the upper entrance with some bees actually coming out for a peek at me. we treat for mites with deluted wood bleach and powered sugar in the early spring and again in the fall. we extracted 156 pints this year. we get our bees from Snohomish bee company nuc's last year were 190.00 we just ordered 8, 3 pound packages supposed to be in around mid May. we call it Wildfower honey but since were in the mountains but I see them on all sort of flowers including thissels and knapweed as well as snowberry lupin, I have a massive Mint plantation and Lavender, but bees can range up to 5 miles so they get around, this year our honey was real dark compaired to the last few years it was light.