Could’ve gone better but two barrels of honey and I doubled my apiary.
Tag: beetles
DIY Hive Beetle Vacuum and Getting Paid To Poop
It sucked up the beetles, even from the hard to reach corners and grooves inside the hive.
Tale Of Two Hives: Beating Hive Beetles
Rehabilitating Beetle Infested Bee Hives.
Feed or Not To Feed Bees – Surviving The Dearth
Local flooding has has caused delays in nectar flows…
How To Eradicating Hive Beetles – Secrete To Success
A week later, same thing – this time there were less beetles and no beetle larva.
Absolutely On Target: Up 26 Hives – Down 22lbs
There is one foolproof way to kill beetles…
How To Prevent Moth and Prepare for Winter
My last preparations before winter: #8 hardware cloth lined with dryer-sheets and covered with cedar chips. The whole feeder cost roughly $6 to build and fill. However, I believe it will prove brilliant on all fronts. The dryer sheets should catch the beetles – the cedar should deter moths – and both should insulate the…
How To Build Useful Hive Top Feeders
If you are one of the 1000’s here from Pinterest, checkout a few of my other Beehive Builds. Just click here. I’ve used a lot of feeders but my favorite one is Don “The Fat Bee Man” Kuchenmeister’s Hive Top Feeder. They are really easy to build and make checking on your bees super convenient. However, I…
Beetle Glue Traps Were A Bust
My friend, Cindy’s first visit to a Bee Yard. My glue trap didn’t work at all. Not a single beetle died in the trap – however about a dozen bees did. Well it was worth a try. If anyone has a great beetle trap idea, please leave a comment. I’ve got to beat these beetles…
Building A Better Beetle Trap
I truly hope that someone smarter than me is working on eradicating the Small Hive Beetles. “Build a better mouse trap and the world will beat a path to your door.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson However, until then, this is my latest attempt. I bought Catchmaster Home Pest Traps (glue traps for insects) 12 pack…
Bees, Beetles, and Mosquitoes… Oh My!
Maybe I’m cheap or maybe I’m frugal but either way, I have a hard time throwing out dilapidated supers. This is my last attempt to breathe life into my original boxes. The super in the picture is about 13 years old and has been badlytreated. My latest act of malevolence was when I dropped the…
Loss 13% – Time for Harvest
“It takes 15,000 casualties to train a major general.” – Ferdinand Foch. I lost 3 of my 23 hives to beetles. Actually, I lost 3 hives to neglect. While the beetles were the final cause, I think that the hives may have swarmed and left the remaining colonies too weak to defend themselves. I could…
My Cup Runs Over
My bees are flourishing like never before. 20 of the 22 hives at Dr. D’s place are packed with bees and honey. Two needed some help but still had bees in them. I am also happy to say, that I didn’t see a single beetle yesterday – not that I looked too hard for them….
Checking the Walk-Away Splits
“Success in not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” Winston Churchill Let’s skip the suspense: 13 Healthy Hives but 3 did not make queen cells. All the splits are full of bees. Three made Queen Cells and Three did not. Now last year, I labeled the hives A,B,C,…
First Split of 2018 & Big Bryan’s Beetle Box
“Necessity if the mother of invention.” – PlatoI am an inventor at heart and given my beetle problems last year, I have been trying to build a better mousetrap (beetle trap). Beetle Busters are great but they can get expensive. Fat Bee Man’s political sign traps seem reasonable but I still have beetles when I…
2018 First Inspection of Spring
“In winter, I plot and plan. In spring, I move.” – Henry Rollins Is there anything more daunting than the first hive inspections of spring? This was the harshest winter since I started keeping bees. Yet, I am happy to report that I only lost one hive. It was the VSH Hive that was full…
How To Build A Excellent Beehive Using Pallets
“Art is making something out of nothing and selling it,” Frank Zappa I have been making beehives out of old pallets. I’ve built about 14 now. I had planned on building 100 but the process is just too time consuming. However, if you are broke and want to get into beekeeping, then this is a…
Linda Passed Away
“A year from now you may wish you had started today,” Karen Lamb I have been overwhelmed as of late. I can’t put my finger on the exact cause of this feeling but it is there just the same and it has been crushing my productivity. Nonetheless, Monday (12/4/17) I finally managed to winterize my…
Drones at the edge of winter
Link to YouTube Here “Never trust a woman, even though she has given you ten sons,” Chinese Proverb That’s a fitting quote given that my hive is full of sons (drones). This is a heartbreaking event so late in the year. While doing a little winter preparation, I opened up the first hive (Hive-VSH) and…
What if my alpacas get flees and other insane thoughts
“It is always darkest just before the day dawneth.” Thomas Fuller, circa 1650 I woke up at 3:30am and my first thought was, “What if my alpacas get flees?” It would be a reasonable question… If I had alpacas! It all started partly because my wife is afraid that opossums will eat our beloved chickens….
Honey Homestead 