What did you do in your Apiary/Bee yard today?

[NigelP]

Another "toy" to play with today. Although this is far from new....it's a Polish Potato boiler ideal for cleaning queen excluders and removing the wax left behind in the frames used for heather honey.




Holds about 100 liters of water and boy does it clean up queen excluders and frames.
Below is before and after dipping half of a queen excluder, literally took seconds to melt the wax off. Managed to finish off cleaning all my heather frames, that was 30 supers in total and around 25 queen excluders...all before lunch!

[Lesgold]

Love your high tech gear Nigel. I use the same method. It really is quick to clean the excluders this way.

[Ben Framed]

Nigel in my location propolis is produced in abundance.. I assume 'both' propolis and wax will come clean from the excluders by your method? If so can the two melted products be separated when recovered?  I am assuming propels will float? New ground for me concerning the questions.

Phillip

[NigelP]

Not sure ....but when it's all cooled down  the floating wax is very dark....possibly because it also contains propolis....but don't quote me on that.

[BeeMaster2]

Ben,
When you melt wax and propolis in water the wax is on top and then right below it is the propolis. If you remember from the old skep videos, the senior beekeeper would sit down with the blocks of wax and shave the dark layer of propolis from the bottom of the wax.
If you had enough of it to you might bee able to remelt it and spoon off the wax until you had only propolis.
One way to clean propolis is to melt it in alcohol.  Filter it with fine cloth and then dry it out, leaving behind only pure propolis. I have done this, it took a long time to dry out.
Jim Altmiller

[Lesgold]

As Jim said, the propolis will settle to the bottom of the wax. When the excluder is hot, there may be some propolis that remains on some of the flat surfaces of the excluder. A quick scrape with a paint scraper or hive tool while everything is hot and the soft propolis falls off. The dirty wax that comes off the excluders is just mixed with other wax from from old frames etc and processed as normal. The propolis is easily removed at that stage.

[beesnweeds]

Its -30F/-34C here (without wind-chill).  Ill skip doing anything in the bee yard today.

[Ben Framed]

Man that cold!!! I don't blame you, I would not either!! 

Phillip

[paus]

We have had almost a week of winter weather, and the bees also stayed home so I used a tractor front end fork to move a heavy double deep hive that was sitting on a  very rotten "treated " hive stand.. I moved them about 60 feet.  I have never done this as all the hives I ever moved went on a truck or trailer.  Just a tip for those that need to move a topbar hive, I have been successful by standing the TB on its end and then push it over, upside down, into a PU or trailer.  The temp is supposed to get to almost 60 degrees today so I plan on checking them out this PM.  Time to start putting out traps in NE Texas.

[paus]

24 hours later, the move was successful, they are working and no bees at the old location.

[Michael Bush]

Bees were flying yesterday.  It was 54 F.

[Bob Wilson]

68 degrees and sunny today. First inspection of the year this afternoon.

[JurassicApiary]

Supposed to reach 78 here today. 

Wishing you all (especially beesnweeds in frozen NY) warm weather and happy bees!

Matthew

[The15thMember]

I started cleaning up the apiary today in preparation for the new season.  I removed some fallen branches and some thorny weeds that grow everywhere around here; I think they are really called greenbriar, but we call them Mick Jaggers.    Our dogs also tend to use the apiary as their own personal restroom all winter, so there was that job to do.    When I was up there, I noticed one of the hives had a ton of bees out front, and the entrance was very congested.  It's still too cold to inspect, but I'm worried about them thinking about swarming, so I slapped a box of drawn comb with a little honey and pollen on top of them, and tomorrow morning when it's still cold out, I'll open a few more holes on their mouse guard.  My bee suits are in the washer right now, since every year I seem to only get them washed just in time to get them dirty again.    I also put my mason bee straws, which I had in the garage for safe-keeping over the winter, back outside in their can, and I helped my sister tattoo one of her goat kids.     

[NigelP]

I think bees get bored during the winter and need to do something......
I checked a couple of hives where I'd added about a kg of fondant 7 days ago that they really didn't need (insurance as expensive queens).
All gobbled down.
So added more.

[G3farms]

big winds all day long, sooooo......you guessed it put outer covers back on a couple of hives.

I did do the third round of winter patties the other day and a chunk of pollen patty for all.
So far got 31 hives coming out of winter, fingers crossed to keep them all till blooms pop.

A pretty mild winter here so far, with the exception of about 3 or 4 days that never got above 20*F (no need for you northerners to laugh), was about 67*F today. I look for a bunch of swarms this spring followed by a bunch of cut outs LOL.

[salvo]

Hi Folks,

South-east Massachusetts here.

Last Saturday, Feb 4, 2023: Low of -10 degrees Fahrenheit.

Today: 64 degrees Fahrenheit from 10 AM til about 3 PM.

Bees out, looking for something to do. Rolling and picking through my compost, paying close attention to the wood ashes and coffee grounds, harassing the birds at the feeder, and checking out whatever in the garage (door was open for me all day).

I pulled mouse guards and cleaned the BBs. I put some olde comb chunks with honey out to keep them occupied and away from the garage. They end up in the windows.

It has been overly warm here this winter, and forecast is pretty much the same.

OA vap later this month. Today could have been a good day though, but it was supposed to rain. I wasn't prepared.

Sal

[AustinB]

Just under 60 F here today. Just took a walk through the apiary and everyone is active, lots of pollen coming in.

[The15thMember]

67F today.  We went to Great Smoky Mountains National Park this morning for a walk in the woods and saw a river otter hunting and eating crayfish and mollusks in the river.  First time we've seen one in the Park.  When we got home I checked on the hives.  A few needed some insurance sugar and their moisture quilts changed, and I opened up the mouse guards a little bit on some of the hives that were looking congested at the entrance.  Only a week or two until first inspection, if the weather cooperates!   

[Lesgold]

Gee Reagan, I would love to see some cooler temperatures. Should hit 90 today and about 100 tomorrow. Just finished inspections, alcohol washes and final extraction of honey at the home site. Only 6 more to do tomorrow and I?ll be finished for the season except for one more round of inspections. Bring on the cool weather.