The Year in Review - Moose Meadow Bees 2019!

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to our customers, family and friends for making this year the best one yet for our Apiary!  We grew quite a bit, made lots of boxes/equipment, raised queens and Nucs and harvested lots of delicious honey!  We even took 41 hives to California for overwintering in the Almonds.

We are excited for the new  year and are hoping to raise 200 nucs this April.  Please check back early next year - if you are interested in signing up for Nucs.  We would love to help you too!

Final Winter Preps for the Colonies staying here - at our Farm in Eastern Washington

This weekend, I put my hives to 'bed' up here on our farm in Eastern Washington.  The weather is about to turn pretty cold so I want to do my final preps to give them the best shot of surviving our long winters here.  

The first step is to provide a 'sugar box' for emergency feed.  Bees like to move up in the supers and this seems to work well.  This is just simple dry table sugar you can get from a store.  I use one sheet of newspaper that they can chew through it.  The sugar will crust over a bit from the hive moisture and new 'dry' sugar is exposed as they eat their way through it.

The 'sugar box' is a simple box with 3 or 4 inch walls with a 1/2 inch screen mesh. 

Sugar box placed on brood chambers

Once the sugar box is placed on the hive, I use another box that is filled with burlap.  This acts in two ways:   It insulated and removes moisture.  The key to winter survival is for the hive to be dry and well feed.  Moisture is the real problem here.

Simple box with stand offs

Burlap scraps

 This insulator box is a simple thing - just a an old box with some stand offs to support the burlap.  This burlap can be removed later in the winter - if it gets too moist.  The point here is to trap the moisture here - and away from the bees.

Here's the setup for a different perspective:

All Set for the Winter!

Colonies successfully delivered to California!

Some of my hives were setup in an almond orchard in Central California for the winter.  This is quite amazing in that it was almond 80 degrees F every day while I worked there.  The bees 'woke up' from being pretty cold here in Eastern Washington.  They were hungry so I provided them with extra syrup and pollen patties.

Beautiful Almond Orchard

Placed Hives with Nuc Boxes

The "Nuc Boxes" in the foreground are for next years new colony starts.  We should do great here with lots of drones and sunny weather in April!

Pollen patties - they loved these!

When the bees 'woke up' they were extremely active and hungry.  I fed lots of syrup and pollen patties to each hive.  They seemed to enjoy this!

An old memory...

This picture brought back some great memories of my youth.  I spent quite a bit of time on the

Toluomne  River hunting and fishing.  It is so exciting to come back to this area - doing something different with my bees.  This Spring is going to be great!

It turns out that there are many beekeepers who overwinter their bees here. This yard had hundreds of hives near a place called "Dry Creek" just about 20 miles away.

Other bee yards

Prepping Colonies to go to California for Winter and to Pollinate the Almonds!

Over the past few days, I've been working on setting up my trailer for my annual trek to California.  Its a long drive, but always fun and interesting.

This year I will be taking down 43 colonies to overwinter and to work the Almond pollination.  From these colonies we will raise new queens and build Nucs for sale as well.  In April, I will be picking them up and bring them home for a 'second round' of Spring.

I put my little 'hive lift' to work today and it is a serious back saver!  It works great!

If you are interested in this - leave me a comment and I will go into more details on this.

Thanks!

I will post pictures of my trip and where they will spend the Winter next week.

Prepping Trailer for the Trek. 

Hive Lift in Action!

Hive Lift in Action

Using homemade 'Bee Escapes' to clear bees from supers

For several  years now, I've been trying to find an easy way of clearing Bees from my honey supers.  I've tried the 'Bee-Go' and hand brushing them, but nothing seem to work very well.  

I saw how many Bee equipment makers offer these 'Bee Escapes' and I was a bit skeptical.  However, I decided to build some following their design as close as possible, and gave it a try last year.  You know what?  They worked PERFECTLY.  I was amazed that coming back the next day - all of the Bees moved down to the lower supers, leaving the ones above the super - absolutely clear!  

Simple plywood Bee Escapes with 3/4" entrance hole

The theory behind this is that the bees move down during the day and evening to be close to the queen.  When they go down through this little hole - they have no trouble doing so.

Here is the 'unpassable' maze!

However, when the bees try to get back up they are confronted by a 'maze' of sorts that confuses them.  They can't figure it out for some reason!  They get 'stuck' underneath this barrier and are excluded from the honey super above.

This year, I left quite a bit of honey supers on and didn't harvest it.  I wanted to makes sure I had plenty 'banked up' for this coming spring when I raise our Nucs.  Nothing feeds a colony start better than a simple frame of honey - right next to the brood chamber!  They really 'explode' on this.  It is exciting to see for sure so this practice of saving a bit back for the following spring is a great way of managing new colonies.

Giving them syrup in the spring up here is problematic and besides... Honey is the best food for them anyway! 

The top green honey super will be 'cleared' in 24 hours

Showing Third Graders about the Bees - Sampling some Cut Comb!

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of talking about Bees with a group of 3rd Graders in Spokane yesterday Morning.  It was fun!  They kids always have great questions and are VERY curious about the bees. 

The colors are beginning to change a bit.  It sprinkled a little bit and the forecast calls for colder temperatures this weekend with snow in the mountains!  Imagine that?  So early but things have been rather unpredictable this year - weather wise!

Some are very productive!

Lots of Questions and Interest

Showing the kids the Smoker and Veil 

Trying some comb honey!  

Cool and Wet Conditions bring on a 'mini Fall flow' here in Stevens County!

We have had some nice cool and warm days lately.  A few rain storms have blown through but we are getting some nice sun breaks too.  Temperatures in the 60's now.   It is a nice 'gentle' way to move into Fall and the bees seem to like it!

My colonies seem to be doing well - considering the lack of food in the environment.  I have done some supplemental feeding as of late with a few of my yards - where the dearth seems to be rather tough.

Today, I was working in one of my yards when noticed that the we have some dandelions coming on.  I was able to capture one of my gals working this.  I was a bit amazed by this!

Up Close - Note the Pollen!

Dandelion bloom!

This time of year, we can get some knapweed that seems to 're-bloom' too.  Most folks hate this weed - but I know my bees LOVE it!  :-)

Dandelion and Knapweed blooming

Second Round of Varroa Treatments

This morning I had to get up before dawn to move some hives.  They were not happy about it! However, the Sunrise was incredible.  A light fog hung in the air and it was quite still and so beautiful.

Sunrise in Stevens County - Washington State - USA

Later that morning, I went out and applied another treatment to my hives to deal with the Varroa.  I'm switching thing up a bit to not rely on one treatment type or method.  The fogger with Oxylic Acid is fast and efficient.

Applying Oxylic vapor to the hives on the trailer

They get a bit upset with this.  Not too bad, but I still suit up with my veil.  They can be nasty this time of year!

Overwintering Presentation with the Northwest District Beekeepers Association!

It was our pleasure to drive on over to Snohomish yesterday to give a presentation on some tips and strategies for helping our bees overwinter successfully.  It was a lot of fun!

It was a great group too - lots of great questions and idea sharing.  Beekeeping is a community effort and to learn new things is always exciting.

Here is the link to their great website!  Lots of good information in there!

https://www.nwdba.org/

Much thanks to Mark Salser and Meagan Wells for hosting us for this event!

I look forward to helping your group there next Spring for Nuc and Packages too.

Lots of great questions and idea sharing!

Slide Deck From Presentation

Handout

Miracle Butter - Beeswax Skin Care Product!

My lovely and creative wife has been experimenting with the beautiful wax cappings that we harvest every year during honey season.  She has built an interesting formula for skin care.  She calls it "Miracle Butter" and we have received some great reviews on it.  

After I've worked outside with my hands, either wood working or cement work, this stuff works great!

It is amazing what products come from our hives!

Miracle Butter Skin Care Product

Getting Fall Treatments On

As you may know, our bees face many threats over the year.  Right now, we have two primary threats:  Yellow Jackets and Varroa Mites. 

The Yellow Jackets become quite predatory this time of year - as nectar sources begin to dry up and their growing populations require more food.  They become desperate and will attack the hives.  In years past this has cost us many hives.  Our strategy is to reduce the entrances on our hives.  Since I use a round entrance, with a soup can lid as a swing door, this is rather easy to do.

Round Entrance with a Varroa screen attached

We will be resetting our yellow jacket traps as well.  This Spring we used them to catch quite a few of the Yellow Jacket queens.  Hopefully, with this management strategy will help. Last year, it did help - but the yellow jackets were so terrible we did lose a few colonies to them.

Varroa Mites

These guys are a real problem for us.  I use varroa screens on all my equipment and have been using Oxylic Acid and Hopguard this year to deal with them.  Once, the honey is pulled, I get after this in a big way this time of year.  My aim to have clean hives that are varroa free and this means a treatment regimen that lasts at least 3 weeks to make sure ALL of the mites, including those in the capped brood are eliminated.  Luckily, the late summer dearth leads to a slow down in brood production, but I want those hives to start building next month in preparation for winter.  This means feeding and hoping for some fall rain to bring on a 'mini flow' that will trigger brood rearing.  This yard also received ProDFM probiotic treatment this spring too and they are looking good now.  11 very strong doubles with a 2  that are lagging a bit.  These guys will take a trip to California in November to winter there and to work the Almond crop as well.  I will keep you posted.

 

Things are drying up a bit but a sunflower field is just 300 yards away

Wonderful Harvest!

We were blessed last week with a bountiful harvest and a great visit from my Daughter Hannah and her husband Michael.  We spun quite a bit of of it and made some cut comb too!

We are selling this rather fast and the reviews have been great!  Folks LOVE fresh raw honey!

Chuck Honey in the Jar!

Cut Comb Packages!

Beautiful light color this year

Beautiful Sunflower field - just across from one of our yards!

Starting the Harvest 2019!

Hello!

Yesterday was the start of our 2019 harvest.  This year,  I have experimented with frame spacing and using simple starter strips to make at least 2 frames of cut comb honey per 8 frame box.

Plus, I used just 7 frames instead of 8 to get them to make the frames 'fatter' to ease decapping and spinning.

This is a 'starter strip' frame

Beautifully translucent 

Nice 'thick' honey frame - ready for extracting!

After I transported this portion to our honey house, a wicked thunderstorm came up.  I was the most severe storm that I've traveled in living here in the Inland Northwest.  The wind gusts nearly blew me off the road!  I thought the rain was going to come through the windshield.  Luckily, I arrived home safe and watched the storm rage from the safety of my home!

Canola field cause an 'explosion' of productivity!

I placed our "Pollination wagon" on the Canola just under 2 weeks ago and they have filled up the honey supers!  I have to place more supers on this soon!  Amazing !

Powder Sugar with ProDFM pro-biotic treatments applied

Last Spring, I tried using this treatment on my breeder nuclei.  It worked great and I have heard good things from other beekeepers as well on it. 

So, I decided to treat again with my new nucs and singles to give them a boost.  Plus, the powder sugar is applied with the billows.  This puffs the sugar into a cloud and covers the bees.  This encourages cleaning behavior and helps with the mites.  I use varroa screens - so this method seems to work pretty well. 

ProDFM with Powder Sugar applied

New Buckfast Queens Introduced - From RWeaver Apiaries

 I have had some great experiences with the Buckfast bee over the years.  I highly recommend folks give them a try as they are prolific producers and brood raisers.   These queens will be making the trip to California to work the almond pollination later this Fall.

Here is R Weavers Site - in case you are interested.  They are GREAT folks to work with!

http://rweaver.com/

Arrived Safely 6-28-19

Supering up on the Canola!

Amazing Day!

Today, I supered these hives as the flow is really coming on.  We are getting cool weather at times, with some showers.  Today is was warm and the bees were really working that canola.  Some hives are booming, some just puttering along.  I gave the 'boomers' extra supers to keep them busy.  In fact, just minutes after I put them on - they moved up into the supers and began working it.  Exciting to see how the honey comes out!

Moving the hives to the Canola!

This morning (3:30 am) - I moved the trailer from their 'early spring' yard in the apple orchards to the summer canola.  Just across the road is about 80 Acres of Sunflower.  Should be a great location!

Hives made it safely there!

Morning Glory on the Canola!

Hiving Breeder Nucs from Early May!

On May 18th, I setup these breeder nucs and the success rate was close to 80%.  Not bad but not as good as it was in California in early April.

Nice Frame

This colony was especially impressive and needed to be hived immediately.  I hived the rest at this location and one was even supered!  Great location and some pretty good queens!

Adding Second boxes for these growing colonies!

Pollination Wagon!

These colonies are doing well this season!  I just added the second box to all of them today.

One hive had some swarm cells, so I had a Nuc box ready - Thank Goodness for that.  Its good to always have spare equipment in the yards at ALL times!

Supering Hives and Some Roses too!

At one of my yards, the bloom is 'crazy good' with lots of different things for the bees to work.  These were all Nucs just a month ago and now they are double hives.  One of which is a 'triple'.  It is an Italian queen that is going into 'overdrive' and they hive is building rapidly.

Productive Yard

Beautiful Roses in bloom and a Bumble Bee too!