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a FYI for anyone with 50 or more hives; there is Crop Insurance for bees hives subsidized by the USDA.
I am one of 5 Crop Insurance agents in MA (I also write in CT, RI, NY and ME).
The bee policy protects against losses due to drought; if it is dry there are less flowers , the bees produce less honey.
You have less honey to sell and may need to feed your bees. The policy was introduced for crop year 2018.
THE USDA is all about shared risk now; the Beekeeper pays 45% of the cost (works out to about $7/hive) of the insurance and the USDA pays the rest.
The policy uses National Weather Service data to calculate rainfall, so no record keeping. The policy would have paid about $35/hive in 2016, $20/hive last year (dry august/September) and $0 this year (please stop the rain).
I used too do it with my dad also. He always had a half dozen or so. Seems the hives had a high survival rate back then the biggest problem we had is when they would swarm. He's 94 and he gave his hives to a friend 5 or 6 years ago who has not has much success. I still have my dads observation hive. Yes it is way cool....When I was young my dad and I did that for many years. I addition to the big hives we had an "observation" hive. A single comb with glass sides that you could open to watch the activity. Neat. Jack.
This - I lost my hives every year as I refused to treat for mites and couldn't coordinate pulling off the honey supers, treating and getting them to finish partial frames. I also didn't want to raise treatment resistant mites. I just choked it up to my being stubborn and accepted the losses. You HAVE TO treat for mites. With Oxalic acid though it takes 15 minutes rather than many weeks to treat. I started treating last year and all my hives overwintered successfully. To be successful, pull your supers off at the end of August regardless of whether they capped all frames, Start treating for mites and feeding if necessary into the fall. (with syrup feeding in the fall there will be lots of robbing going on so make sure you have robbing screens. As your queens slow down and she starts to raise winters bees the summer bees will backfill and finish the honey for you. Once done with your treatments, you can open feed the partials or you can feed them back to them by placing them in a super above the inner cover. Insulate your hives. It's critical to make sure you have ventilation and access via an upper entrance. Most important is to make sure to insulate the top of your hive to prevent condensation from forming on the inner cover and dropping on the bees. Check on them during warm days in winter to make sure they have stores and if necessary feed them with winter patties or fondant. That's my formula for success. Talk to 10 beeks and you'll get 10 answers as to how to do somethingHow have you been treating for mites? It's very possible this killed them and not starvation.
How have you been treating for mites? It's very possible this killed them and not starvation.
And if anyone has colonies that are light/dont have enough stores this is the time to start feeding the shit out of them....especially if they havent drawn out all frames
Things are gonna come to a screeching halt in about 4-5 weeks
That means you have about one more good cycle to get your queen laying/raising brood
I assume most of this honey was robbed.
Last year I could have taken so much honey... I way over fed because there was no comb.
This year was especially ruff compared to the luck/success of my first year....
It’ll be many season before my opinion has any weight... but producing honey is easy.... I’m more interested in helping my bees, or not over helping
They are amazing and resilient... I can only assume their lack of survival was something I did.
I’m pretty hard on myself but last year was f***ed up and I may have done nothing wrong....... it’s just upsetting to be doing better the second year only because of vandalism.//
I must care because I have nightmares about my bees not doing well