For Sale: Corn syrup will be available
by the barrel or by the bucket sometime after the middle
of Sept. Discounts available if you pick up before Oct
10.
Contact:Phil Ebert at 641-527-2639
or
ehoney37@netins.net
|
The Beeyard Report
My optimism of early July has given way to the
reality of August. A wet rainy month really put a kink in the
soybean flow. Most of my yards will still be above average except
for the ones around Monroe where I made almost nothing. We are
now moving bees back to the Skunk River flood plain where there
are 700 acres of beans that are not yet in bloom. This may be
a waste of time but if we don't try anything, nothing happens.
We will have to get some heat in order to get a flow from the
beans.
My yard is a wonder of natural selection. I am probably one of
the few people who lets ragweed grow. It's a fairly attractive
plant when it's in bloom, with a lot of little purple flowers.
There is cluster of it right outside my backdoor. I always look
for bees on it when I go out in the morning. The bumble bees always
get there first. The other morning, the temp was in the forties
and the flowers were wet. the bumble bees were there at 7:00 AM.
The honey bees showed up about 10:00. They must have decided to
sleep in.
I have some colonies this year that I have marked as super colonies.
They are, basically, the ones that had at least four boxes of
honey by mid July. Another requirement was that they not come
for me when I opened the lid. After the honey is off, I will test
the mite load in all of these colonies. Then, if any of them are
still alive in the spring. we will select a breeder queen and
use the rest for drone mothers. We have moved almost all of our
bees out of Lynnville, so I am planning to set up the mating yard
close to my house and have the drone yards a mile or two away.
The obvious often escapes me. I have an accordion veil that I
got from B&B. I like it because it folds flat and I can put
it behind the truck seat out of harms way. The drawbacks were
two fold. The sun was usually in my eyes and the veil laid against
my chin, where the bees seemed to nail me with regularity. I complained
about this to Bill Berrnachi one time. He told me I should wear
a baseball cap under the veil. It's a little inconvenient to get
the veil on over the cap but it works great, otherwise. The other
point was that you can avoid some heavy lifting if you remove
the supers before they are full. It is also a lot easier to blow
the bees out of the boxes if you remove them before they are full
of burr comb.
Submitted by Phil Ebert
