Harmony Hollow Apiaries

High Gear – Home repairs

My motivation for getting the house repairs completed has been given an adrenaline shot.

7-19-2012:

Finished tiling master bathroom tub surround & floor
Grouted master bathroom tile & floor

7/20/2012

Removed about 3/4 of the 2-layers of linoleum flooring in the kitchen
Scraped adhesive to bare concrete floor

7/22/2012

Removed all wallpaper and paper backer from kitchen
Removed all cabinet doors from kitchen
Scraped popcorn from kitchen ceiling to repair settling cracks in drywall
Removed fluorescent light cover & grid to repair (will repair later on – maybe next week)
Found supplier for replacement hinges and door/drawer pulls for all cabinets through the house
Found local tub re-finisher for re-surfacing the kids’ bathtub

7/23/2012

Removed all hinges and screws from the cabinet doors and drawers
Boxed and removed all kitchen items left in the kitchen drawers & cabinets
Removed backsplash and counter tops along south wall of kitchen
Sealed grout in master bath with 2 coats of grout sealant
Tape & bed ceiling settling cracks in kitchen
Primer (Kilz) walls that were wallpapered – to texture afterwards
Contacted contractor to get pricing for replacement carpet in bedrooms and closets
Repaired can-light over kitchen sink

That said… I’m tired. It will be a long night finishing up today’s tasks – then tomorrow begins the work again.

The ladies are HOT! We’ve finally – now that we are in late July – hitting 98 to 102 degrees outside. Bee sure to provide fresh water for your honeybees – just like you would for your dog or cat. The honeybees use the water to help cool the hive (evaporative cooling) – to maintain appx. 95 degrees F.

Subscriptions

Just a quick note to announce that followers of this blog can now subscribe to my blog, and receive instant updates whenever I update the Harmony Hollow Apiaries site.

Thank You
Rex & Shannon

New Face for Bohemian Utopia

Be sure to take a looksee at the new face for Bohemian Utopia at BohemianUtopia.com. There’s still many updates and cleaning to be done… but it’s made it a long way!

Rex

Plug on Podcast – BKCorner

I wanted to send a special shout-out and thank you to Kevin Inglin of Beekeeper’s Corner. Kevin noted this blog (and Harmony Hollow Apiaries) in Episode 31 of his podcast BKCorner. He also has a Facebook page HERE.

I have yet to build the hive-stand of Kevin’s design – however, I do plan on doing so in the near future. (Possibly in the Fall or winter “rebuild time”) I’ll keep you tuned in and will post photos as soon as I have it built.

On a separate note: My rescue line for the Dallas, Texas area will be inactive as of the end of June 2012. I will update the page to list only the line from our Tyler, Texas location.

Hives bumped up / LocalHarvest

It was time to bump up 2 of my 5-frame nuc hives to 10-frame boxes. I waited until the rain had subsided to a slow drizzle, and fired up the smoker.. and moved 2 nucs to 10-frame deep hives with screened bottom boards.

I believe that this will give the bees something to do besides sitting on the front porch.

Also – Note that we are now listed on LocalHarvest.com

Hot in Texas

One of my 7 hives is bearding outside the 5-frame nuc. Temperatures here in North Texas are in the mid-to high 90’s right now (1st week of June 2012). I do believe that it’s time to move these ladies to a 10-frame box along with a screened bottom board. That should do wonders for helping to keep them ventilated.

Update on 6/6/2012… We’ve had about 4-inches of rain today… and the temps are down to 70 Deg F. The bees are STILL bearding – Holding out – under the board – whilst it’s raining all around them. I’ll check their hive tomorrow to see what’s going on.

Now Hiring: New Queen For Old Hive.

Strange subject line, eh?

My oldest hive seems to have lost its queen over the last month or two. The brood boxes are full of honey and pollen.. and LOTS of drones… but not a single egg, larvae, or capped brood in 2 deeps and 2 supers.

My latest captured swarm has filled out EVERY available newly waxed cell with eggs – so this evening, I took one of the new frames of eggs, and placed into the lower brood box of my original hive. I knocked down the bottom 1/3 of 7 or 8 of the cells in order to persuade them to create a new queen from one of the freshly laid eggs. I’m REALLY liking the last captured swarm.

Swarm Capture

I received a message from a friend today about a swarm that had taken up a temporary home in a tree in her back yard. I loaded up the extension ladder, and high-tailed it to her home before it got too late in the evening, and evaluated what we had going on… It looked to be about 2-3 pounds of bees firmly holding on to a thick branch.. about 18-20 feet in the air.

I tried shaking the branch – but it was too thick to get a good movement of the bees, then I tied a rope to the branch – to shake from the ground. Again – No luck. Back up into the tree I went (with a ladder this time), and decided it was time to scoop the bees by hand. This seemed to work. I got about 75% of the bees into the box. It’s unknown, though as to whether I got the queen into the box – they were clustered pretty tightly.

It was dusk, so I decided to leave the box until I can make it back to check on them. It may be a few days – so hopefully, they decide that my nuc-box is a great place to live. I’ll find out then whether or not the queen has decided to take up residence in the box.

On a similar note. I have received 4 honeybee-related calls in the first 4 days of this week. My hopes are that feral survivor honeybees are on the increase.

Trap-Out Re-Start

Today I checked up on a trap-out that was started about 2 weeks ago. Unfortunately, the 1-way screen was blocked with masses of dead bees – and the survivors chewed through the other blocked entrances/exits to get out. I can’t say that I blame them for their industrious nature!

I made the appropriate repairs to the trap-out, and re-sealed the openings – this time, I embedded a physical barrier of a galvanized wire mesh into the sealant. So they will not be able to exit via these spaces again. unfortunately, this means that the trap-out essentially “starts over” from today. They’ve been adding pollen & nectar for at least the last 1 week.

Video to come later in the week.

Update 5/10/2012
Unfortunately, the queen did NOT last the extra 2 days between Monday & Wednesday when I checked on the trap-out again. We’ll see what’s going on with my hives, and maybe I can find a frame of eggs to supply.