Looks outstanding Snake!! Your bees are going to thrive.

Sure does, he is putting in the work! Plants will benefit from the bees more than the other way around.

Snake, have you considered Dutch White clover in that field?, blooms will outlast nearly any flower and will be there all summer if it gets moisture, you can mow it as well.

I’ll look into that as well….thanks for the tip and kind words.

Got the fabric done about 10:30 this morning. Should be finished with wood chips in another couple hours. Then gravel for the paths, anchor strips for the edges of the fabric, and finally soaker hoses for the raised beds…..

Snake, a couple other plants came to mind you may want to consider, both nice for yard art and bees.

I have 6 of the blue vitex (chaste trees) my bees hit hem good while in bloom, I have been told they'll bloom most the summer if you cut back the spent flowers, but I haven't spent the time to do that.

Also have 4 Natchez Crape myrtle's, they flower all summer as long as they get a bit of moisture, my bees are on them daily. These where recommended to me by another beekeeper, he said he didn't have much luck with other colored myrtles.

Yeah, this gal is a 3 year old and on the block if she wasn't laying edge to edge yet

Checked a few hives we put packages in roughly a month ago and most have around 7 frames drawn out and doing pretty good, actually doing better than I’d thought by this point.

That’s awesome Thumper!



The plants will provide protection from a north wind so hoping that they both benefit equally!

You get your project finished yet?

I installed 4 packages on April 6th. And I had to already add an additional brood box to two of them. The other two will need one in a week or so .

The nectar flow is in full swing as my already established hives have honey suppers that are almost 1/2 full but not capped frames

My bees were hard at work today

Should be good times for bees right now - my 20ac field is covered in yellow-clover 6in thick - haven't seen it that thick in the 6yrs we've had the place.
In some spots the yellow-clover is a whole foot deep/thick!

Almost done…..






And found out today that our AG exemption was approved!!!!!!!!

Looks fantastic! Can’t wait for mine to get here….

You guys have been busy as well,, keep the updates coming in.

I’m picking up hives on Friday by myself as it turns out so this may turn into a chit show by the time it’s over

Congrats on the exemption Jess!

You're more than welcome to move that field over here! Takes a lot of acreage for bee forage and that would be a great start!!

You've never went anywhere before with a truck load of pissed wimmins? Wait until you get home and 50,000 of them have to go to the restroom

Been waxing foundation and making hive parts the days I can stay horizontal, actually been fun with these decent temp days.

Trying out HDO plywood for tops and bottoms, heavy stuff and SPEENSIVE!

I meant "vertical"

I’m glad you corrected that You sound about like me on most days.

Do you prefer the black over yellow frames for visual inspections in the brood box’s? Were running both to see what works best for us but I’m putting yellow in all the supers so their the same and are you running flat bottoms or screened?

Yes sir, posted and it wouldn't give me the edit button.

I have been using wax foundation since that is what I've always known, brood boxes for sure. I did switch to white ritecell for supers about 5 years ago with a few foundationless for cut comb if we wanted it mixed in.

I have been looking into plastic foundation on the smaller end of the cell size (5.2ish) and after a lot of reading and seeing what a few large beekeepers I respect are using, plus the trouble I had with the few hives I kept last fall with blowouts from brood frame extractions, I'm transitioning to black in my brood boxes. Premier brand, or now called Puracell, it was a toss up between that and Acorn and Premier offered free shipping over $150 iirc. I will still run one-2 wax frames for drone brood, I think this will help keep wacky comb to a minimum and make it easier to remove drone brood if and when I desire. Some beeks will use a couple frames with plastic foundation cut in half and allow the sides for drone brood.

Currently the only standard bottoms I have are hives I'm building and nucs. Never saw or heard of screened bottomed until I got back in. I have mixed emotions on mine. Some research indicates up to a 15% decrease in mites as they fall, but I have never had mine fully open. I just can't bring myself to do that since we go to all the trouble of putting bees in a box......Although 15% and added ipm for mites is a good start no doubt.

Cost also adds up as you grow, plus an added piece of equipment and imo, if you stay dead nuts on mite monitoring and treatments, it's an expense and maintenance issue I can grow away from. They are nice for monitoring hive debris, but also give a dead zone where I have had wax moths laying in the dead space. I generally clean mine and keep a coat of spray pam oil on the surface.

One thing I do use many don't, are slatted racks and will continue until I see a reason not to
Good description here to ponder
https://www.honeybeesuite.com/slatted-racks-everything-you-need-to-know/

That’s something I haven't ran across yet but it definitely makes sense, I’m an experimenter so I might give it a shot once I get a handle on everything I’ve got going. I appreciate the heads up

Yeah, may not fill a need for everyone, but I feel i get enough benefit from them.
Bee keeping is local, some things that work for me could be a pita for someone else.

Made two nucs from one very strong hive yesterday. I had two frames with queen cells that went into the nucs. The queens should emerge in 2-3 days. Each nuc has two frames of honey/polen and three frames of capped brood.





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