June Counts:
Hamblin: 32 5 frame nucs
Metcaf: 13 single boxes
Bunting: 2 single-double hives
Church Farm: 23 hives (single to triple)
Land: 9 single, 2 nucs
Stampin' up: 7 single, 1 nuc. 25 hives (single to triple)
Hales: 27 (not a definite count) (single to triple)
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Bee Updates March-May 2009
March Updates: Flowers started coming on trees first week of March.
We picked up Bees from California on March 26-28th.
Placed 11 pallets at Hales property. 8 at Stampin' up property.
Here is our haul from California to Kanab.... We had 16 pallets on Flatbed and 3 pallets on trailer.
April Updates: First weekend in April Matt came down and worked a few of the hives with Bryant. We picked up around 200 gallons of bee feed in Bakersfield, CA on April 16th.
We started splitting hives on April 17th and split hives until April 19th or 20th. Most hives we were able to take two splits off of or more. Total number of one-two box hives: 59 Total number of 5 frame nucs: 67
Total number of 4 frame hives: 18 (these numbers are not exact. We had some sell and die and we are just guess, since we were lazy when we were doing them all and didn't write down numbers. Hopefully next year we can do better keeping track.)
We ordered 150 queens from Wooten, which arrived on April 21. We also ordered 75 queen cells from Purvis Brothers, which we had to go and pick up in Cedar City on April 24th. We started placing those queens on April 22 and didn't finish until April 28th. We placed the Wooten mated queens in pallet hives and 5 frame nucs at Stampin' Up property and also a few nucs on our land as well. We also placed some Wooten queens in a few nucs at Hamblin property. There are 10 frame hives (8 pallets plus one hive) located at the Church farm, each of those hives were full box spilts from very large hives even after the two or three nuc splits off of them from the Hales and Stampin' Up properties. Each Wooten queen was removed from shipping cage and placed in 1/8 inch hardware cloth queen cage on frame with brood and empty cells. With exception of the above mentioned nucs, the remainder of the nucs had Purvis Brother queen cells placed in them They were all hatched and placed in queen cage with small marshmellow on the end. Nucs were spot checked at our land on April 28th and each queen was no longer in queen cage. We enjoyed a two day break April 29-30th.
Picture shows Bryant working at the Hales property on hive locating old queen, squishing her, and placing new queen in hive with queen cage.
May updates: Bryant started releasing Wooten queens on May 1 at Stampin' Up property and started at the Hales property, finding only 4-5 of the queens that didn't make it. When releasing queens the hive accepted her as their own. Bryant continued to release queens on May 2nd finishing the Hales property and working at the church property as well. We finished going through all hives and nucs on May 3rd finding that most Purvis brother queens were out of queen cage and those that weren't were released. All Wooten queens were released from queen cages. May 8th Bryant took 20 5 frame nucs from our land to Tropic to help them get a jump start with more feed available to them at that location. We placed an ad on the bulletin board at Jones Bees in Salt Lake on May 11th and also placed an ad on KSL.com classifieds that day for 4 and 5 frame nucs. The ad for nucs were $70 4 frame and $80 5 frame.
On May 30th Bryant took up a load of nucs to sale to a few different individuals. We ended up taking 25 nucs (or so) to Salt Lake and sold 3 to a Ferdonia guy, and 4 to a guy here in Kanab. Selling a total of 32 minus the four that we gave Matt for helping us split and work the bees... Thanks for all the help Matt sorry we don't pay very well. So I guess we really sold 28. Pretty good for not advertising early and in only two places. Things we want to improve on for the next time we sell nucs: put an ad in the American Bee Journal early, be more cofident in our selves and our bees, place an ad on KSL.com again and ask Jones bee if we can place an ad there again both of which needs to be placed earlier in the year.
We picked up Bees from California on March 26-28th.
Placed 11 pallets at Hales property. 8 at Stampin' up property.
Here is our haul from California to Kanab.... We had 16 pallets on Flatbed and 3 pallets on trailer.
April Updates: First weekend in April Matt came down and worked a few of the hives with Bryant. We picked up around 200 gallons of bee feed in Bakersfield, CA on April 16th.
We started splitting hives on April 17th and split hives until April 19th or 20th. Most hives we were able to take two splits off of or more. Total number of one-two box hives: 59 Total number of 5 frame nucs: 67
Total number of 4 frame hives: 18 (these numbers are not exact. We had some sell and die and we are just guess, since we were lazy when we were doing them all and didn't write down numbers. Hopefully next year we can do better keeping track.)
We ordered 150 queens from Wooten, which arrived on April 21. We also ordered 75 queen cells from Purvis Brothers, which we had to go and pick up in Cedar City on April 24th. We started placing those queens on April 22 and didn't finish until April 28th. We placed the Wooten mated queens in pallet hives and 5 frame nucs at Stampin' Up property and also a few nucs on our land as well. We also placed some Wooten queens in a few nucs at Hamblin property. There are 10 frame hives (8 pallets plus one hive) located at the Church farm, each of those hives were full box spilts from very large hives even after the two or three nuc splits off of them from the Hales and Stampin' Up properties. Each Wooten queen was removed from shipping cage and placed in 1/8 inch hardware cloth queen cage on frame with brood and empty cells. With exception of the above mentioned nucs, the remainder of the nucs had Purvis Brother queen cells placed in them They were all hatched and placed in queen cage with small marshmellow on the end. Nucs were spot checked at our land on April 28th and each queen was no longer in queen cage. We enjoyed a two day break April 29-30th.
Picture shows Bryant working at the Hales property on hive locating old queen, squishing her, and placing new queen in hive with queen cage.
May updates: Bryant started releasing Wooten queens on May 1 at Stampin' Up property and started at the Hales property, finding only 4-5 of the queens that didn't make it. When releasing queens the hive accepted her as their own. Bryant continued to release queens on May 2nd finishing the Hales property and working at the church property as well. We finished going through all hives and nucs on May 3rd finding that most Purvis brother queens were out of queen cage and those that weren't were released. All Wooten queens were released from queen cages. May 8th Bryant took 20 5 frame nucs from our land to Tropic to help them get a jump start with more feed available to them at that location. We placed an ad on the bulletin board at Jones Bees in Salt Lake on May 11th and also placed an ad on KSL.com classifieds that day for 4 and 5 frame nucs. The ad for nucs were $70 4 frame and $80 5 frame.
On May 30th Bryant took up a load of nucs to sale to a few different individuals. We ended up taking 25 nucs (or so) to Salt Lake and sold 3 to a Ferdonia guy, and 4 to a guy here in Kanab. Selling a total of 32 minus the four that we gave Matt for helping us split and work the bees... Thanks for all the help Matt sorry we don't pay very well. So I guess we really sold 28. Pretty good for not advertising early and in only two places. Things we want to improve on for the next time we sell nucs: put an ad in the American Bee Journal early, be more cofident in our selves and our bees, place an ad on KSL.com again and ask Jones bee if we can place an ad there again both of which needs to be placed earlier in the year.
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