First Post of 2021!

Sorry for my tardiness this year as we have been really busy with more students (more work for me) and the whole Covid-19 "joy"

Latest news...

I took the bees down in November of last year to my good friend in California.  He has about 37 acres of almonds and uses my bees for the pollination.  The bees benefit from the warm gentle winter and come out pretty strong in the Spring.  Here's what it looks like now:

Beautiful January Weather!

Feeders on!

The new trailer!

The drive down was uneventful and much better than last year!  

Beautiful scenes from the countryside - on the way there and where I hunted and fished as a young man.  Great to be back a few times each year.

Oak Trees along HWY 132

SHOP NEWS!

In the shop, back home, we've been making frames, boxes and and a new 'invention' for my smoker.

A tidy box for my tools

The shop is nice and warm with the fire!

Speaking of Boxes...   

Here is a video of my box machine 'in action'.  Note:  I respect this machine quite a bit! You pay attention while running it.

BUILDING CUSTOMER BOXES AND FRAMES:

This is one I built for a customer.  THANK YOU!

8 Frame Langstroth

It's an 'all-hands' evolution here.  Its fun to build these in the winter.

I will be heading down next month to start new Queens and Nucs.  Its going to be a great year!  I will post more then.

Thanks !

Will Olson

Setting Up Breeder Nucs in California!

This year, I had the wonderful opportunity to have my adult kids give me a hand with queen rearing/nuc making in our yard in California.  This is where the bees pollinated the almonds this February/March.

Working Hives

 The weather cooperated a bit for us, although it sprinkled a bit.  Just after we finished our last task, it really came down!  My father-in-law in Houston would say, "it was a real frog strangler".

Placing Cells and Pro Biotic Treatment Applied

 We have been using ProDFM pro-biotic treatment for some time and the bees seem to respond to it very well.  Doing this brief and 'delicate' operation required some speed and care.  I was placing the cells and my lovely daughter - Hannah would apply the treatment.  THANK YOU Hannah!

Each Nuc took about 4 seconds to do.  The bees are queenless at this point - so they are not in the 'mood' to be messed with!  Plus, the weather was a cool and damp and this didn't help either.  It was interesting that the Nucs took immediate interest in the cell - once placed.

Cool Weather

 Working hives is not easy!  Pretty long days but very rewarding!  We all were fairly tired by nightfall!

Loading Nucs from Outyard

 We built some of our Nucs at an outyard on a previous day before placing queen cells.  Michael was a huge help!  THANK  YOU!

Inspecting 'donor' hives for making Nucs

 These were strong 'donor' hives - with two of them that were very pissy and angry.  Just a few stings!  LOL  :-)

ProDFM with Powder Sugar Treatment

Note - the Pink cell in the middle of  the nuc!

Saluting my Russian Visitors!

I would like to take some time to thank so many of my visitors from Russia.  As you may know, Beekeeping is very popular in Russia and Ukraine.  It is a shared interest and we all LOVE our bees and learning from each other.   Thank You!

Leaving politics aside for a moment - lets consider the terrible threat that is endangering our lives, our children and especially our aging parents.  I am so worried for my Dad, who is is in quarantine in California for his safety. 

WE are fighting a war of survival here and to be sure the entire world will experience this - in one way or the other.

Together, we will win and defeat the corona virus!  We will survive!

Я уважаю жертву ваших бабушек и дедушек. Вместе мы можем снова победить!

Working in my Shop during the CoVid-19 Virus Danger - Making 2 Frame Breeding Boxes!

We are staying positive and busy during this challenging time.

I went up to our place to get some work done in the wood shop and to make some more 2 frame breeding nuclei boxes for this upcoming Queen rearing season.

Enjoy!

Simple box design

Shoot the Bottom on

Note - the 'feet' to keep the box from 'wicking' moisture

Shooting the handles on

Feeding port - can refill the jar (with punched holes ) without opening box

Just needs some paint!

I've made a few!  LOL!  :-)

Movie.

Almond Orchard Bloom is INCREDIBLE !

The almond orchard, where my bees overwintered, is in FULL bloom now.  It is so beautiful there.

We will be going down to start Nucs and New Queens in 3 weeks, so our timing is great.   We are still in snow in some areas here but it does warm the heart a bit seeing these wonderful pictures from California

Hives doing great with the Bloom

Amazing!

Amazing Warm Days there!

A Beautiful Day to work in my Shop!

We are still in the depths of Winter here in Eastern Washington State.  As I drove in, there was a blizzard with lots of snow coming down. 

Winter STILL has it's hold on things here!

It was just me and my two canine buddies going up.   They love to go but typically 'over do' it by running and playing so hard that that crash later.

In the wood shop, I spent the bulk of the time building 2 frame 'breeder nuclei' boxes for raising queens.  This year, I had some outstanding survivor colonies that I want to raise some queens from.  Local queens are very good and those colonies tend to be rather better adapted for our weather and environment conditions.
The box on the top - is a 4 frame Nuc box for our efforts in California.  I hope to have over a 100 of these for next year.

All built with locally supplied ponderosa or what is called 'yellow' pine here.

Breeder Nuclei

On a side note, I've been building a 'tiny home' office for our place this year, and as the day progressed the sun came out and the fresh snow had melted.

Late Afternoon Sunset light

At the same time, my 'helpers' crashed in front of the Wood Stove.  Sound Asleep. 
It was a wonderful day.

Inspecting local hives here in Spokane

Winters can be tough on our Bees here.  However, 2019-2020 has been rather mild but damp. 
I put on the sugar feeder box back in November along with a Insulator box with burlap as a moisture wick. 

When I inspected these today the survivor's burlap was damp so I replaced it with dry burlap.  A few of the survivors were working on the sugar.

Eating the Sugar!

I added more sugar and and feed the DFM Probiotic treatment too. 

This hive is really strong and notice - no nozema staining either!  :-)

This was a caught swarm (6-26-19) that is just booming!