Dad and I went out and put sugar boards and mouse guards on the hives. Here are my notes from today
Pam's
We need to reevaluate whether we want to keep hives here or not. We had a pretty large fall lose. We think it may be due to farm overspray. This is something that the will have to monitor this year and make a decision.
David's
All hives appear to be in good condition. We noticed that these hives were shaded and not flying at all. This is also a location that we may want to reevaluate.
Joe's Bottom
All in good shape
Bear's
Gave all hives 3 bricks each
Grandma's
Gave all hives 3 bricks each.
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We didn't do a great job preparing the bees for winter. We did not get any liquid feed on and I thought that the bees would be light. This was true for some of the hives - however, I was pleasantly surprised by others. We did have a couple of hives that ended up starving.
Tom's ("nursery" location)
Watkin's ("nursery" location)
Mom and Dad's
Baxter's
Nicholas'
Blackberry
Versailles
I was a little disappointed in our hive count. I still have a few yards to go through but I can tell that next year will be a rebuilding year.
]]>I hope to get bees in all of the deep boxes next year. Which means I have A LOT of splitting to do. I am working on a plan to make about 160 splits. I'm not sure if we have enough bees to make that happen. I guess I will see in the spring. I'll probably need to get more lids and deeps if I can build those splits to full hives.
Nicholas has been working hard on assembling the deep hive bodies that we bought in the spring. I plan to use these to make retail displays.
As you can see we have a lot of equipment maintenance to complete. A lot of our "lids" do not have the metal wrap on them and are not painted. I hate painting but I guess it's part of it.
Tomorrow is supposed to be warmer. The high will be 50. I plan to get out to the bee yards to do some last minute winter preparation.
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