Flood Recovery

[Pond Creek Farm]

I had three of my hives swept away last week in the flood and a fourth seriosuly damaged, but things are coming together nicely to recover from that event. I got all of the equipment back, save for a few frames that were lost to the creek.  I managed to bring back many of the bees that I found floating on various bits of equipment.  I put them all back into the recovered boxes but the frames were jumbled around such that frames and bees were no doubt forcibly combined into boxes from which they did not come. I have no idea if any queens were in the mix.

A local bee keeper from whom I bought a hive has agreed to make me up a whole hive with at least seven frames of brood (all with open brood on them).  The queen will arrive caged within the hive.  I will pull four frames of brood and place one in each of the damaged/recovered hives.  That way, if they need a queen, they can make one, and they will have the benefit of a population boost. If they do not need a queen, I will not have wasted money and time on trying to introduce a new queen who would simply be killed as an intruder, but I still have the benefit of added population for forraging and rebuilding.

Lastly, and really the most fun for me, I have a new five frame nuc left over (three brood, two honey/pollen) and that brings the apiary to five.

I am assuming that I will have to feed all heavily to support the building, but I am curiosu what you all think.  We are in the middle of the honey flow right now.  Is feeding in a flow still ok when trying to nurse the hives back to health?

[derrick1p1]

First, glad to hear that you are okay.  Sorry that you've had to endure this.  My friends and family are in Missouri.  I am thinking of them especially during this time. 

I'm also happy to hear that you didn't lose your hives/equipment and that a local beek is helping you out.  Under the current conditions, I would go ahead and feed.  If they don't need it, they won't take it.  If they do take it, I would keep feeding.

Best,
Derrick

[Ross]

You need not just open brood, but brood that has just hatched from the egg in the last 24 hours for queen rearing.  If the larva are older than that, they won't make a queen most likely.  Look for frames that have both eggs and larva mixed.  That is the most likely to have the right age larva. 

[Bee-Bop]

Glad to hear You were able to salvage a good part of your bees and equipt.
Looks like we get a couple of nice days, then more rain.

Oh,I hope you just ignored my rant the other day.

Bee-Bop

[Kimbrell]

Glad to hear you were able to salvage some of your hives.  Bees are tougher than they look, aren't they.  I would definitely feed them.  It might help them recover a little faster even if there is a nectar flow on.

[Pond Creek Farm]

Update:  Checked the hives today to prepare for the introduction of the new brood frames.  Two were beyond repair.  There were very few bees, the hives smelled terrible. I even found a dead crawdad stuck in the middles of one of the frames.  I shook the bees off and carried the equipment up for cleaning and re-use.  The good news is that two of the hives not only had a lot of bees, they both had open and capped brood.  I am relieved to know that these two hives have queens, bees, and are making honey to help them through the winter.  I am considering two five frame nucs to raise through the summer as replacements.  The only downside is that one of the hives I lost was a small cell package, and now any bees I get will ahve to be regressed.  I enjoy that too, however, and am looking forward to the process.

[SgtMaj]

How bad was the flooding in Springfield?  I've got family out that way and haven't even called them because I didn't even know there was flooding.  Will have to call them tomorrow.

[danno]

Friday morning we got 11"s of rain in about 5 hours.  Most of the bridges around us were washed away.  50 road closings.  My basement stayed dry and my bee's,  sitting at the top of a hill overlooking my creek also weathered the storm well.  Had I put them where I first wanted to along the creek that NEVER floods, thing would have been different.  That little four ft. creek got to be 50ft plus wide.

[Pond Creek Farm]

Sgt.Mjr.  Springfield was nowhere near like what you see on the news from Iowa and the largerer tributaries of the Mississippi, but we got a lot of rain in a very short time.  This caused some rather intense, but short-lived flooding in limited areas. Our flood was like Danno described and my creek that never floods did so and was about fifty feet wide.  Unlike Danno, however, I put the hive where I originally intended and three of them were swept away.  We are picking a spot on top of the hill and will let the bees fly to the creek for water.