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Mystery Nectar Source?

1K views 12 replies 6 participants last post by  Bens-Bees 
#1 ·
We are finally geting some sunny days for the girls to fly. I went through several hives and to my surprise found that many were crowded with stores (80lbs and more, not all capped) and building swarm cells. :confused: There have been very few days they could fly the month of May with all the rain and cool weather, not that much blooming either?? I'm running out of equipment making splits and nuc's with all the swarm cells, the last two i found with swarm cells i just said your on your own. :roll: I went into them thinking i was going to have to feed and found booming healthy hives, not complaining but would like to know how they managed to do this. :confused: Jack
 
#3 ·
an interesting thing to do is put the hive on a platform scale and see how much weight it will gain in a day I have seen good stong hive gain over 15lbs a day. sounds unreal but keep in mind some parts of the countrys main spring nector flow is only 2 weeks or so. and average a 65lb honey harvest per hive so they got to pack a lot of nectar away to feed broad and add stores for you to harvest. I just drove thru the state of missouri today and was amazed at how much yellow clover was blooming. makes me wish i had hives over here.
 
#6 ·
I don't know what my girls are bringing in right now... I see nothing but white and yellow clover blooming and I don't see them working them all that hard but they must be bringing in something because they've already filled nearly every super I had put up there two weeks ago... I added all 4 more supers I had with me but I'm going to have to go back with more supers within the next few days for sure. I think I'm going to try to extract this weekend just to give them some space to work in because othewise they're not going to bring it in. They gotta have space to work the nectar or they can't do anything regardless of what's blooming. But their source is a bit of a mystery for me, too. I did notice that they seemed to be headed toward the mountain, so maybe there's something blooming up there.
 
#7 ·
tec. the frost got the peaches, the apples didn't get pollenated good (a light crop) or frost bit? The bees rarely work the pears here, the canes on my thornless blackberries got killed out by sub zero temps., but the wild ones are blooming. :thumbsup: They did work my strawberries.

Rat, last Sat. i worked some of my hives up north and i seen the yellow sweet clover blooming on my way home,the earliest i've ever seen it bloom in this area?

Bens- Bees, like you, i may have to start extracting to free up equipment, the only draw back is it's not fully capped and there building swarm cells.

Rat, i read on here you were making another trip in Mo. and for some reason i kept expecting to see you coming up the lane while i was cultivating my sweetcorn field. :mrgreen: Jack
 
#8 ·
brooksbeefarm said:
Rat, i read on here you were making another trip in Mo. and for some reason i kept expecting to see you coming up the lane while i was cultivating my sweetcorn field. :mrgreen: Jack

doggonit i must have drove right by ya to busy looking at all they yellow clover blooming and thinking only if..... :D
 
#10 ·
Had a phone call from a local beekeeper last night, who said his bees are all over the honeysuckel now, but this sorce had to be before the honeysuckel bloom and during cool rainy weather. The only suspect i can think of is the Maple and Willow Trees, but i've never had this big a flow from them. :confused: Jack
 
#11 ·
Our main honey flow is on now,the sky around my hives looks like a swarm is on. I went through some hives that had alot of activity going on and bearding, and found they were full but not capped. Two had over a 100 lbs of nectar stored and a 30 lb super of comb honey drawn and filled with nectar, but not fully capped. The temp. has been in the lower nineties (hot and humid :roll: ) but it hasn't slowed the girls down. Jack

PS. Rat, i don't rember the yellow sweet clover ever bloom this early and i seen some white sweet clover blooming next to my hives today. Strange things are happening around here.
 
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