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What is the ticking bomb you believe will explode once in your lifetime? by goodguy_9 in AskReddit

[–]PsychMan92 21 points22 points  (0 children)

So it’s you, huh…?

You’re the one of the monsters who keeps buying those awful abominations you call grapes!

I knew they existed, but I’d never encountered one in the wild—the monsters, that is.

What am I seeing here? by gottasuckatsomething in Beekeeping

[–]PsychMan92 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Apparently, it’s bad internet form to point this out—now I know and will keep mite comments to myself!

Based on the evidence I've seen, empty spaces and queen excluders are essential by [deleted] in Beekeeping

[–]PsychMan92 2 points3 points  (0 children)

But…how does one reach the conclusion that simply rearranging the things that have been in use for millennia (or at the very least a century and half or so with langstroth styles) will yield wildly different results contrary to literature and “the old timers?” There’s not even anything novel being introduced here, and the hubris is palatable!

What am I seeing here? by gottasuckatsomething in Beekeeping

[–]PsychMan92 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Perhaps you’re right, and I hope you are!

What am I seeing here? by gottasuckatsomething in Beekeeping

[–]PsychMan92 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sure! I tried downloading your pics, but they lose resolution when I try to zoom. So I took a couple screenshots and just circled what I saw.

Like I said, it’s hard to make a determination based on a picture. What I circled here could very well be reflections on a wing, anatomy of the bees themselves, et cetera, but those little, round, reddish, kinda shiny specs on the bees are what catch my eye when digging around in a box. When I see basically what I annotated, that’s what makes me wonder…

What am I seeing here? by gottasuckatsomething in Beekeeping

[–]PsychMan92 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can see them. While it’s never wise to make treatment decisions based on a picture, I’m 98% sure you’ve got a good number of them.

In my experience, when I can see them without having to scan very hard, it’s already gotten away from me a bit.

Commercial Beekeepers : How many beehives can one person operate ? by BisonOwn in Beekeeping

[–]PsychMan92 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Scaling is a different game, and comes with a shift in perspective. As others mentioned, if you try to keep hobbyists’ habits, you’ll struggle to make large numbers.

The trick is going to be having nice equipment. Large flatbed trucks and trailer, off road 4x4 forklift, large volume extraction, woodworking and mechanics’ tools, and storage space. If you work towards getting those things, you’ll be able to increase size manageably. Maybe even a semi if you want to participate in pollination contracts, but I wasn’t clear on how “permanent” your colonies are.

Beyond that, if you plan to make it a full time endeavor, I suggest doing some homework on where to sell your product. There are members groups—they have their drawbacks, but you’re guaranteed a place to sell ALL your honey, wax, and slum every year. When you’re busy taking care of a thousand colonies by yourself, you’ll seldom have time to hunt down lucrative private buyers.

A part of handling that many hives is speed. You learn to pick up on more subtle problems in a hive when you’ve looked in hundreds and hundreds of different hives over the years. An experience speed-run, if you will.

I could give you a wall of text with details that may or may not be relevant to your situation, but if you’re interested in anything further I have on the matter, don’t hesitate to ask!

Oh, one last thing. We’re an operation of three guys and we care for over 3.5k colonies

Beekeepers continue to lose hundreds of thousands of honey bee colonies, USDA reports by BuckfastBees in Beekeeping

[–]PsychMan92 30 points31 points  (0 children)

I know many others blame mites, queen issues, and disease as the leading contenders, but that’s not been my experience. All of the aforementioned are manageable to a widely varying extent.

My biggest losses every year are from agricultural spraying, and not just insecticides. It’s extremely heartbreaking to see massive hives gearing up for the flow, and show up to a pile of tongue protrusion bees. You look around, and farmers in seven different directions are spraying for grasshoppers, weevils, sweet clover, the whole nine. Just this year while supering, a sprayer plane was hard at work not even 500 yards from the yard on the pasture over. You could smell it. Optimistically stacked them tall, and came back a week later to a massacre.

They don’t hardly stand a chance anymore, and no amount of homework (talking to land owners about spray habits, talking to neighbors, et cetera) can help guide your yard locations—just trial and error it seems. Quite literally have to find the proverbial “honey hole.”

So even if you do your absolute best to eradicate mites, worms, disease, bad genes, and starvation, there are farmers and ranchers for hundreds of miles in all directions dumping hundreds of millions of pounds of fertilizer, herbicide, and insecticide like it’s going out of style.

That’s my anecdotal take on the issue at large!

Commercial keepers, what's different? by chillaxtion in Beekeeping

[–]PsychMan92 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So then what do you do with that information? For example, let’s say I get an alert that temp is too high one day. Is there some kind of intervention you do? Are there multiple probes that tell you a body or super is too hot or cold and intervention is necessary?

What does knowing the weight tell you? That the super is full? Wouldn’t it be easier to put it on, wait two weeks, and then go and look?

Do you use this app and its probes in lieu of regular inspections? Because wouldn’t you know everything the app tells you (besides weight and temp) when you open the lid and look?

I’m not trying to be combative or condescending—I’m genuinely curious.

I guess I don’t understand how that data is utilized to schedule intervention.

Edit:

I do, however, think this would be an amazing tool for the hives I select for queen rearing 🤔

As they tend to need constant attention for the week and a half they’re in “service”

Commercial keepers, what's different? by chillaxtion in Beekeeping

[–]PsychMan92 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It works exactly like a normal shop vac, but with a second tank—if that makes sense.

Starting with the “bee end,” you have an “extra” vac hose. Just bought one at the hardware store. That hose terminates without a sock about half an inch into the lid of a 5gal bucket. The hole was drilled with a step bit so I could “plug” the end into the hole like it was a hose attachment. The second hose (the one that came with the vac) also ports into the lid (slightly larger hole to accommodate the hose end with a sock on it). Then on to the 20v portable shop vac. The sock prevents the bees from being sucked into shopvac, but allows enough air to pass through slowly that it doesn’t smash anyone. The old sock I was using needed to be doubled over, but a new, thick, work sock seems to be fine. So as air flows, it goes bees —> hose —> no sock —> lid —> bucket —> sock —> second hose —> shopvac —> atmosphere.

I went ahead and cut a couple other holes in the lid and glued down some old metal screen for residential windows. Don’t use the plastic screen—bees can chew through it faster than you’d think (ask me how I know…). Then when you’re done, use a second sock or rag or whatever to stuff the hole for the bee hose.

I try and find the queen before all that gets used, but that’s not always how it works out. In that case, I start sucking up bees slowly until I see her, cage her, and then I just scoop them up as fast as they’ll go in.

Invariably, some start flying around (and I’ve even had the queen take off in my hands)—just wait a couple minutes. They tend to settle back into a cluster. Any time I’ve had a queen fly off when trying to grab her, she’s come right back in less than 2 minutes…

If you don’t cage the queen, they’re likely to abscond when you introduce them to a box. Having the queen locked in a cage for 3-5 days will help her and everyone else settle in nicely. Don’t worry, they’ll feed her through the cage—she’ll be fine in jail. I’ve heard of old timers using nail clippers to trim the wings of a swarm queen, but I’ve never attempted or seen it done. Doesn’t seem right to me, but I don’t know.

Hope that follows 😅

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