Early Spring Bee Report, West Central Florida

overwintered frame

Spring is on it's way here in West Central Florida, and so far  have we have had a fairly mild winter. We had plenty of honey stores left on the hives, and I have started to feed for the spring build up as well as making splits. The bee's did very well over the winter. The photo at the left is a frame of brood I pulled off other day. The temperature's are generally in the seventy's during the day and cooler at night but tolerable.

screened bottom boards

I have been making some bottom board's lately and I'm trying to keep my expenses down by getting scrap wood at Home Depot. I get the dunnage they use Home Depot to separate load's to make the  bottom boards. They cost about fifty cents each for them. The metal strap makes a 3/4" grove in the wood fit will with the 3/4" plywood. I also buy 1/4" hardware cloth from Ace Hardware for the screened bottom board's; they're the only store that sells that size around here.  My equipment is not as aesthetically pleasing as some but that's ok; I am just trying to make it affordable.

hay feed

I have been open feeding the bee's using hay in the bottom of a half barrel (the barrel came from my previous aquaponics set-up) with a 1:1 ratio of sugar to water. I'm not an expert on the subject, but I really like this way of feeding them; the bee's seem to do well and I don't have any with robbing or drowning which has been a problem with other feeders.

I have also have been able to make several splits already, which I was happy about after having a couple of hives swarm last year . I've been told it's natural, in spite of precautions, to expect 1-3 swarms a year which can be a disaster if that's all you have, but it happens.   

 chard

I also received three hives from William Mashburn of BeeHappy Honey in Crystal River. William has been a blessing to me as he has been working bee's for many years and is a great teacher and tremendous help to me every since I began keeping bee's.

Bee-ponics: I have been doing aquaponics for awhile now and the bees love it. Now I'm seeing improvements as the tilapia are doing better this year, they survived the limited cold spells, and the we were able to harvest some Swiss chard and lettuce (mostly for the ducks) over the winter.