Honey Bees

I got the mount bracket fabricated for the motor and everything works like a champ. It's ready for some honey.
 
I converted my extractor to motorized several years ago. All my help grew up and left or got to old to help.
We will be pulling honey supers this week or next week, weather permitting. I'm converting my manual honey extractor to a motorized set-up. I pulled the motor off our old dish washer before the scrap man hauled it away. Going to mount it on top and fab a coupler to connect the basket. Picked up a dimmer switch from lowes to use for speed control. I hope to have it operational after work this evening. If I go by the sales pitch the for a new extractor from the dealer, I should get 5% more honey when I extract.

I put a one way clutch bearing in mine when I rebuilt it. It makes it a lot easier to insert the frames if you can turn the basket by hand. Also, without
the clutch, the spinning drum may break the shaft when you stop. When I slow mine down to a stop, the basket keeps spinning for several seconds.I drive mine with a small timming belt so it can jump or slip if needed.
I pulled and extracted 5 supers on Monday.All capped and looked good.
 
I don't have a clutch on mine. It turns real easy and I'm usually not in a big hurry extracting. I get slowed down during the straining phase. I was hoping to get a bigger extractor this year, but the sticker shock has put that on hold.
 
I used a V/S DC motor/gearbox and coupled it to the shaft/gearbox on my extractor. I wanted to leave the crank handle on for manual positioning.
I was afraid that with a full load of 9 frames it might strip out the factory gearbox if I had to do a "Panic Stop"
Mine is a 9 frame Dadant with the green handle. I don't think they have made this one in years.
 
Hey all, I hope this isn't too off topic. Saw this posted up on Gab and wondered if there is any validity to it. Figured y'all would know!

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Ok the little motor I installed on my extractor didn't have enough power to do the job. Fabricated more brackets and mounted a 1/2 horse motor from Harbor Freight on it. Picked up pulleys and a belt from Tractor Supply. Got everything hooked up and found out that the dimmer switch from Lowes ain't going to work ever again. Poof and it was cooked. Tried hooking it up without a switch and it is on wide open from a dead stop. I'm afraid it will strip out the gears or sling out the comb. Tomorrow I will get a rheostat from HF and try again.
 
Well the entire plan for putting a motor on the hand crank extractor has been scrapped. Sold some bees, and honey and was saving up for more equipment. God opened a door for me. Seems Kelly Bee bought a lot of equipment from Brushy Mountain Bee before they went bankrupt. Kelly had a sale on this equipment. I just happened to check their website and there it was. An 18 frame motorized extractor for $950. Got delivered on Monday, pulled some supers on Wednesday, extracted honey on Thursday, started putting in jars on Friday. Total added up to 950lbs of honey. This morning we are off to the farmers market to sell honey.
 
Looked out the back door yesterday when the sun finally came out and one of my hives was swarming. Landed about 25 feet up in the big Holly tree. Got out the climbing gear and 15 minutes later had bees in the box. Will check the box they came from for queen cells today.
 
Looked out the back door yesterday when the sun finally came out and one of my hives was swarming. Landed about 25 feet up in the big Holly tree. Got out the climbing gear and 15 minutes later had bees in the box. Will check the box they came from for queen cells today.
When that happens, is it usually a split, where you end up with 2 colonies from 1, or do all the bees leave the old box?
 
If anyone needs some bees there’s about 1,000 of them that have set up shop in the dumpster behind Krispy Kream in Clemmons. I’m sure the people who work there will be very happy to get them gone. And my driver will be ecstatic not to have to swing the doors open and run away when he dumps the dumpster.
 
If anyone needs some bees there’s about 1,000 of them that have set up shop in the dumpster behind Krispy Kream in Clemmons. I’m sure the people who work there will be very happy to get them gone. And my driver will be ecstatic not to have to swing the doors open and run away when he dumps the dumpster.
Thems probably yellow jackets. Y’all can keep those
 
When that happens, is it usually a split, where you end up with 2 colonies from 1, or do all the bees leave the old box?
That is usually the colony splitting itself. Generally accepted rule of thumb is the old queen leaves with as many bees as there are capped brood in the hive. I will go into that colony tomorrow and take out frames that have queen cells on them and make more splits. Those cells will make very good queens as they were not made under emergency conditions.
 
Wax moths destroyed some of my supers after I froze them for over a week. I put them in heavy black plastic bags and the damn moths ate holes in the plastic bags.

I have found out that the best way to store the hive boxes is to set them on their side on my front porch where the light can get to them and the moths have not bothered them.
 
ok, even though no one responded to my last one, I'll post another. ;)

Also saw this on Gab, wondered if it was true too. Looked pretty cool.

Concerned about your bees in this dry weather? Feeding them with watermelon can help. Plenty of moisture and sugar content for them.
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ok, even though no one responded to my last one, I'll post another. ;)

Also saw this on Gab, wondered if it was true too. Looked pretty cool.
That is awesome!
We do that for our chickens whenever we find a good deal on watermelon or have some left over. And then our dogs and goats eat the rinds. :)
 
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We pulled our last supers this week. Left some on longer to get some goldenrod honey. Got about 400lbs of honey. We are also doing the last of our fall splits this week. I’ll divide the brood and resources evenly between the boxes tomorrow and dump all the bees in the bottom box. I’ll place a queen excluder on top of the bottom box and put the second box on. Wednesday the nurse bees will have moved up to cover the brood. Easy split. .Take the top box off, add a top and bottom, feeder and new queen. Move to new location and done.
 
Splits are done and moved to new bee yard. I will need to make more sugar syrup and feed, feed, feed. The rest of the year will be building/repairing Woodward and building another bee yard.
 
Almost finished repairing/painting bee equipment from the flooded bee yard. 82 deeps, 20 supers, 41 bottom boards, 41 tops, 5 queen castles, 25 nuc boxes. I paint anything needing attention when it comes off the bee yard. It shows in the fact I have bee equipment that is over 13 years old and still in good shape. There is a price to pay. I now have a repetitive stress injury to my right arm. This pretty much sucks.
 
All the repair work has been completed on the equipment. Been working on building new boxes, tops, bottom boards, and frames. The stress injury seems to have come from the sander. The sanding is done so problem is gone. Using a nail gun to assemble boxes now, borrowed from my son. This is faster and easier for sure. I will be buying one for me in the next few days.
Starting to get calls for bee orders. Its that time of year for the bees to begin spring build up.
 
Millions of years of evolution. Months and months of gathering nectar and pollen for the singular purpose of surviving the winter. And 3 of my hives did the equivalent of starving to death in your bedroom cause the kitchen is too far away.
 
Millions of years of evolution. Months and months of gathering nectar and pollen for the singular purpose of surviving the winter. And 3 of my hives did the equivalent of starving to death in your bedroom cause the kitchen is too far away.
Sorry that happened. Did you have a long stretch of cold weather?
 
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That is 31 Hawaii/Italian queens that came in today. We made three colonies queen less yesterday in preparation for these girls. We will use them as queen banks to store them until the weather warms up.
Those are queen rearing frames I modified to hold the California queen cages in the top picture. I think they sent enough attendants to keep the queens alive during transport in the bottom picture.
 
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Split 20 colonies today. Found 2 that were queenless. Will put queens in them tomorrow. Lots of drones in the colonies now. Still feeding sugar syrup as nothing but maple trees are blooming right now.
 
Suit on hood down. I can flip, the hood like a welders mask pretty easy. Was only wearing the suit cause I was scared of getting hit by an idiot and not having the suit ready. Would of been a bad day
I would have had to do the same thing. There is no way I could’ve brought myself to drive that without the suit on. :cool:
 
I would have had to do the same thing. There is no way I could’ve brought myself to drive that without the suit on. :cool:
The boxes don't seal too well. But I drove the first hour without a suit cause I left it at the house.

Almost 3 hours of nothing but me and the bees total.
 

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Man out in Clayton/smithfield area . He was significantly cheaper than most places sell packages. Let alone nucs. Farm is in ramseur and prices out there are high.

If you,want I can pm you his info. Might be too late this year though
 
Got a couple of years left till retirement. Then I want to get into bees. I like local honey to help with seasonal allergies, however, after watching several videos there is a bigger need for more people to start raising and taking care of the bee population.
 
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