A facebook message I don't mind getting
Last weekend was filled by getting some used hive equipment as well as attempting to repair the main computer here at the LetMBee homestead. Come to find out, I was also catching bees, and didn’t need to leave the house to do it! On Sunday evening I was on facebook to see if I had any messages. I’ve been hitting up any and all of my computer-nerd friends for advice associated with the current computing problems. Low and behold there was a message stating that Trap 25 had been occupied on Saturday 6/9 sometime in the afternoon.
The humble beginnings of a booming hive. For those that fear the repercussions of not feeding. Here is yet another success story. I will have a present pic of them soon.
Two swarms came from that site last year. The first on 7/1/11 (Hive 1107) was just your run of the mill swarm call, the second was a swarm that entered a trap on 8/7/11 failed to overwinter. There is an old barn located about a mile away from the site that has been inhabited by bees for twenty years according to the trap host. 1107 overwintered in two deeps, started out slow this spring, but it’s now a booming hive of bees housed in three 10-frame Langstroth deeps. Currently they have two supers atop of them as well. So much for the old saying that a swarm from July isn’t worth a fly. They have not been checked since 5/25, but I’m sure things are coming along. They were fed nothing last year and won’t need feeding this year either.
This is not the first time I have been alerted to a swarm via facebook. I don’t know or really understand what people do on there most of the time, but I have seen the benefit of having an account. If your “friends” know you are interested in bees, facebook can potentially help in getting some relocated to your apiary. Also in the event you get that swarm call make sure you ask if you can put a swarm trap up. I’ve had 5 occupied traps so far this summer in locations I went on swarm calls last year. Just something to be thinking about……
Who knows, perhaps it could be Karma telling me to get a Facebook Fan Page up for the LetMBee Blog.
My comp went dead a while back, refused to even post, it was a bad ram stick, all I had to do was pop it out and the thing started right up no problem. Hope you can fix it 🙂
I disconnected all components 1 at a time. Even the ram, still the same symptoms. I believe it is in the chip or mother board. New motherboard processor, and RAM will be here tomorrow. By friday I hope to be up and running. First computer upgrade since 2005. I am fairly excited about it.
You should get a facebook page going. I’ll be your first fan! I use it all the time for bee related things. There are several local bee groups in my area that have great discussions in their facebook groups. Plus it’s nice to see pictures of all the swarms people catch and their different hive setups and bee gadgets and be able to ask them direct questions about it.
I’m still afraid not to feed new hives. The bees just don’t seem to draw out much comb without the sugar syrup or lots of stores. Maybe swarm trapping will change my thinking on this. 🙂
Has that trap been getting any attention? Things have slowed here, waiting on the next wave.
I started two people out this year and they haven’t fed their hives. One of them I almost told to feed. It was a dinky swarm, almost felt sorry for taking it to them. After 7 days only 4 frames filled half way. That was going on a month ago on the 15th. Last weekend she got into her hive and said that the entire top box was filled, and the bottom one was about 1/4 drawn. They will be fine and dandy.
I will probably make the facebook thing a fall project. 😀
Unfortunately since I installed the trap a few weeks ago it has been raining hard every day (except last weekend when I went out and reapplied more LGO.) But now today we have rain again. I’m hoping all the rain draws out a swarm to trap at least.
It may seem bad to be getting all that rain, but I would love to have it here. We have had only about an inch since the 7th of may (perhaps less). That’s at the house. There are a lot of my Hive Sites that have not had that much. I know it is holding up swarming progress.
Just be patient. It will bring my heart MUCH joy if you have a catch or two in June or July, don’t feed em’, and have them pull through the winter for you. 😀
I hope you have better luck than Jason over at theselfsufficientgardener.com. I sent him a trap in April, and I still don’t think he has caught anything. Maybe I am just lucky and live in the last spot in America where feral bees can be found in abundance. If that is the case I need to shut the blog down before Monsanto comes here and screws it up. Just kidding, I am not paranoid…. well maybe a little. 🙂
As I have told you before, I live in mono-crop hell already. Bees are existing here despite it! GO-BEES!!!
I’m sure you are right about feeding because they will draw lots of comb during a nectar flow without syrup or stores. But the wacky New England weather and all the rain makes me a nervous bee mommy.
I am just kidding with you. I’m thinking that with time and a couple swarm trap loads of bees I will bring you over to “the dark side”. 🙂
The weather has seemed wacky to me the last two years. I don’t know if it is really the weather or just the fact that I am paying more attention to it now. If you read accounts of weather reports from the last 200 years there have been years that I am glad I didn’t have bees. Yet they did survive… They can be amazingly hardy creatures.
Tell me when you go FB and twitter.
Will do. Things must settle down around here first…. 🙂