Keys for success with your new package! (Based on the mistakes we see new beekeepers make!) Feed, feed and more feed! New colonies have a lot of work to do and the more resources they have in the form of food, the quicker and more efficiently they can get it done. Don’t worry, about making […]
We hived packages on our bee day 2 days ago. Going in to see if queen has been let out of her cage and how they are doing. It has been cold and rainy here with intermittent moments of sunshine.
If you want to see how we recommend hiving package bees in Idaho, here are links to our videos!
This is a great video showing very common causes of bees not making it through the winter in southern Idaho. Many people think that starvation, lack of insulation, or moisture in the hive are the main causes. Kirk shows you that these are usually symptoms of a bigger problem, varroa mites. He walks you through
Should I treat my package Bees with Oxalic acid? Short answer is we don’t recommend it. Now for the lists of pros and cons. First off, O.A. is a great mite treatment when no brood is present. (we like it as a late season treatment) We also know that it is important to start with
Why don’t you insulate your hives? If the hive is strong, has low mites, health bees and plenty of food, it’s a non-issue. Insulation works by resisting heat flow. It also works both ways it can prevent a hive from warming naturally on a warm day. The ebb and flow of daytime and nigh time
Here is a look at what is happening! We are having an abnormally warm October, this isn’t great for the bees!
It is fall, we’re harvesting honey, pulling honey supers, and taking our bees back down to 2 deep 10 frame boxes. We want them dense and full going into winter. In the spring overcrowding is a problem, if the bees don’t have room they may decide to swarm. In the fall, overcrowding isn’t as bad.
