by deepwater » 23 Apr 2013, 01:09
Well i spent some long nights out in the shed doing some deep thinking and slow drinking and several times my grandfather sat with me,,he showed me the depth of my memory of times past all the way back to around 5 years sold ,,it was one of the first wild hives of bees he took me to ,,grandpaw gave me a slender stick and held me up over his head and i slipped the stick in and pulled out a huge gob of honey and a thousand bees,,we both got stung several times,,grandpaw said it was the price of being a thief and he said he was stung every time he took honey from that tree ,,it had been there for years,,,It was a few years later hunting mushrooms and anis root he showed me another bee tree,,this was a huge ash and about 4' off the ground was a hole ,,12 guage size ,,and bees going in and out also a hole way up with bees,, another stick and some honey and another sting,,over the years i have been back to the hives he showed me from age 5 to 15,, thats just one wild hive ,,, why dosent it collasp,,I think we are meddling in the bees lives tooooo much,, ok so we learned that they like BEE SPACE,, its not much space but they will fill in areas with a form of plaster if they dont like the space,,,we have built their bee space inside a skinny thin wood box made to fit our world and moved them at night all over america for our crops and robbed them of all their honey than feed them suggar water so they can make honey from that and live all winter,,there is no life in plan suggar,,not like in natural nectar,,we open their hives pull out the trays of eggs and young find a few queen cells they makd to carry on if the queen dies ,,cut the cells out hatch the queens and use the virgin queens to start other hives overnight , forcing them into small boxes and surrounding her with 6000 bees wanting to kill the intruder, and we wonder why they leave,,Out of all the wild hives i have seen all the openings were above 4' and none were facing the sun but were shaded by a building or wall or tall trees,,I have built another hive,,its just for the bees,,the walls are all 3" thick and the base is 20" off the ground,,i could not go higher for fear it would topple,, the base is also solid all the way down like a tree trunk i use 1/4" rat wire as a floor so all the small things will fall through and dead bees trapped to be removed out the front,, there are 3 openings in the hive body big enough for 2 bees at a time to go in or out,,the top is also 3" thick and overhangs the whole hive 3" on 3 sides and 6" in front,,it weighs around 200 lbs w/o bees or wax trays ,,if the bees dont like that than ill add 2" more wood to the outside,, i would like to get a wild swarm and not one gathered up and boxed against their will and made to accept the queen in a box as their ruller but one born to them that has chosen to find a new home and they chose to follow her,,as it should be,,srr my spelling sucks the spell checker is missing
Through my eyes you still see,, Through my heart you still live ,, For as long as i have breath you will sing,,Thanks Mom
and walking around the trails with me and Sam again,,The sawmill came and left me with 3000 bf of great white pine lumber 1x6 2x4 2x6 2x8s and we started the wife's shed (again) just last Friday and to day we will have a roof up,,Its a 12'x16' and 12' tall and the wife is all the help I have,,That's how good she is feeling 
and she is moving all the bark and sawdust down to the mulch field by wheelbarrow,,As bad as I feel about the cutting of the pines I'm glad they are gone as the last storms took several big ones down on a house over the hill from us,,All the trees I have close to the house now are oaks maples and beech,,Ill try again to post some pics and thanks again to all
,,Other than I miss her calling out to me everything is going well
,All 3 hives are for the most part are empty,, Thats well over 200,000 bees,,Each hive has some dead ,,maybe 3 or 5 thou from normal winter dieoff,, but where could 200,000 bees go in the middle of winter,,They cant swarm as they have no hive to go to nor can they cary enough honey to stay alive till spring flowers showup,, the hives were 2+ years old and very strong and the hive is still full of honey and now dead young larva,,crap ,, we have to start from scrach in the spring now ,, I guess i need to make fresh boxes as I dont know if something in an old box or honey tray drove them off,, I can tell ya ,, nothing used will be used in my hive,, the other guys hives are his to do what he wants ,, mine will be new every time i take a tray of honey out all new trays will be put in ,, This is like loosing a house pet for me
