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I have fell behind on bush hogging the fields adjacent to my pond this year.I have noticed that I have what seems like thousands of honey bees that have started to hang out in my stand of wild mustard.I cut one plant with a weedeater and about 15 bees flew out of that one plant!I have a neighbor about 1/2 mile away that has 5 or 6 hives but I am amazed at the amount of bee activity that we are seeing.Is anyone else seeing a noticeable increase in the number of bees this year?

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I have fields of yellow goldenrod that are full of honey bees.

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We run 50 hives and they are pretty active right now smile And like Rah, we have golden rod in bloom all over the farm this time of year. Also have another native plant that grows to about 5' tall and has clusters of white blooms, but I can't seem to name it right now due to crs frown and the bees are all over it also. We processed 600 lbs of very dark honey yesterday. Our honey changes colors throughout the season. The clover honey is the first we have and it is a light golden color. As the spring and summer passes the honey gets gradually darker each month to where it is now and that is a pretty dark color. I don't have much to do with it other than eat it or plant seeds for the bucks and bees. My son and daughter in law do the bee thing.

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Are the white flowers boneset or aster?

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Originally Posted By: TGW1
We run 50 hives and they are pretty active right now smile And like Rah, we have golden rod in bloom all over the farm this time of year. Also have another native plant that grows to about 5' tall and has clusters of white blooms, but I can't seem to name it right now due to crs frown and the bees are all over it also. We processed 600 lbs of very dark honey yesterday. Our honey changes colors throughout the season. The clover honey is the first we have and it is a light golden color. As the spring and summer passes the honey gets gradually darker each month to where it is now and that is a pretty dark color. I don't have much to do with it other than eat it or plant seeds for the bucks and bees. My son and daughter in law do the bee thing.

Tracy



Very cool!! Love to see some photos of the whole process!


"Forget pounds and ounces, I'm figuring displacement!"

If we accept that: MBG(+)FGSF(=)HBG(F1)
And we surmise that: BG(>)HBG(F1) while GSF(<)HBG(F1)
Would it hold true that: HBG(F1)(+)AM500(x)q.d.(=)1.5lbGRWT?
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We have a few wild honey bee hives in the woods if any of you beekeepers want to catch them ..... If that is even done......

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We have one hive on the farm, but I'm not its caretaker. The beekeeper came this weekend and said he'd lost all of his hives this year except mine. This one has swarmed at least a dozen times since it's been here, so it's a healthy colony. It's a pretty cool sight to see them swarm. Almost always they head straight across the pond. I have them to help pollinate all my berries, tree fruit, and veggies. I used to sell thousands of squash blossoms, and it takes far more time to extract the bees from them than it does picking them.

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This is fascinating stuff - keep it up guys, I'd like to learn more about this process.

In the past 10 years, probably like everyone else, I've noticed a significant reduction in honeybees and lightning bugs/fireflies. I've read it may be in part to a disruption in their navigational abilities due to increased cell phone use, for honeybees I've also read it's due to a mite that can infect and destroy a colony.

What I have noticed is a huge leap in bumblebees - they are far more common than honeybees at our place now. Nature abhors a vacuum I guess?


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A friend has 7 hives on our place, but I have him keep them far from our vegetable field. We have plenty of wild bees and a few wild honey bee hives as well in tree hollows. Some folks may not know that honey bees are not native to North America and they compete with wild native bees. We have enough wild flowers on our place to go around.

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Thankfully, nature has provided plants with many more pollinators other than honey bees--mason bees, for instance. I marvel at all the critters going in and out of my trees when they're in full bloom. TJ's bumblebees are the main pollinator for my blueberries. My farm's namesake, paw paws, are pollinated by carrion flies. Some ambitious folks even hang dead animals nearby to attract flies when the paw paws are blooming. (I haven't yet) I also grow a whole lot of gourds. Many have white blossoms that only bloom at night and depend of moths for pollination.

I've read where fireflies are declining. Fortunately, that's not been the case here. I've never seen so many for such an extended period of time here. Maybe they like all the rain we've had. The same can be said for the huge assortment of frogs we have--especially tree frogs. The number of frogs this summer was downright biblical. We have found desiccated specimens everywhere--including the inside of our wood stove.

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You learn something every day! I never knew what a paw paw was (Brook Wilson) much less that it was an important part of our American (southern) history!

Too bad the fruit is hard to bring to distant markets, I'd love to try one.

The critical need for the paw paw in the lifecycle of the zebra swallowtail was fascinating to read about!

Discover the Paw-Paw

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Have you guys seen the Flow hive? Run a quick search on you tube for Flow hive. Really cool hive. They raised like 12 million in a month on a go fund me campaign to go into production.

Cheers Don.


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Originally Posted By: canyoncreek
You learn something every day! I never knew what a paw paw was (Brook Wilson) much less that it was an important part of our American (southern) history!

Too bad the fruit is hard to bring to distant markets, I'd love to try one.

The critical need for the paw paw in the lifecycle of the zebra swallowtail was fascinating to read about!

Discover the Paw-Paw


When I was growing up we called Paw Paws "Indiana Bananas." They taste great! Kind of a cross between a banana and custard.....Thanks for reminding me...time to plant a few at our new place!


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Originally Posted By: DonoBBD
Have you guys seen the Flow hive? Run a quick search on you tube for Flow hive. Really cool hive. They raised like 12 million in a month on a go fund me campaign to go into production.

Cheers Don.

Dono the Flow hive looks really interesting!Maybe after a while the price may go down and make them a little more affordable.

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Quote:
When I was growing up we called Paw Paws "Indiana Bananas." They taste great! Kind of a cross between a banana and custard.....Thanks for reminding me...time to plant a few at our new place!


Bill I often have heard them referred to as the Indiana Bananas also.I would like to plant some paw paw trees.The state nurseries will sell saplings but I think the minimum order is 50 trees IIRC.I think 50 trees might be too many for the amount of area that I would like to reforest.

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We've got a stand of paw paws behind the sugar house, but I haven't visited them in a couple years. I enjoy reading about others discovering this kind of stuff, as I have grown to take much of it for granted. The idea that someone would deliberately purchase paw-paws from a nursery would've astounded my father....we had them growing wild durn near everywhere when I was a kid.

I'm taking some persimmons into work tomorrow, as a co-worker has never tried them.....astounding.


"Forget pounds and ounces, I'm figuring displacement!"

If we accept that: MBG(+)FGSF(=)HBG(F1)
And we surmise that: BG(>)HBG(F1) while GSF(<)HBG(F1)
Would it hold true that: HBG(F1)(+)AM500(x)q.d.(=)1.5lbGRWT?
PB answer: It depends.
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This past weekend my wife and I picked a bunch of paw paws and she made paw paw bread (banana bread recipe substituting paw paw for banana) and paw paw pie. I have watched the paw paws that grow wild here for a couple of years, but this is the first year that we have found any fruit on them. Very good!

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Some of what I have learned the past two years about honey bees has spiked my interest as I have watched my son and his wife fool with the process. So I will pass along some of what I have learned and maybe I can get some pics of the next honey harvest. First Tj, we discussed navigation disruption this within the family. And about the bees and what is causing the disturbance in "The Force". We just this week talked about a large bee die off in Kansas, Round up along with genetic plant growth may be blamed but I am not sure anyone knows for sure but there is some pretty heavy discussion about it in the local Bee keeper Association. And Pat, we also have bees in the trees smile. My son will remove bees from places that people don't want them, like walls in houses and attic's or storage places, School houses, court houses are just a few of the places he will remove them (for a price) Sometimes he will take something in trade. We now have an old skeeter type bass boat at the pond. smile He sells his honey as Raw honey (how it is processed), but not organic because a bee will travel up to 20 miles so one must own all that land to declare it is organic. I could be wrong about this but that is what I understand. And Rah, bees will take the shortest route for pollen and will use what is the closest to them. That is why we have clover honey early in the year, we plant and maintain clover for the bees and the bucks. So most likely they are in your veggies. And Brook u r right about the swarms caused by mites and beatles and also due to too many bees in a hive which causes them to split and swarm to start a new hive. To recall a swarm is something to see, he will recall a swarm and get them to enter a new hive, does not always work but it does happen. A neat thing to watch. And Dono, he did buy a flow hive to watch and see how it all works, he has three different types of hives, each has it problems and rewards. Again, I'm no expert but just a father watching his son.

Tracy


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This is really interesting stuff here....one of those topics that I could read about all day.


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Just to correct some very common misinformation (with citations).

All scientific evidence points to no toxicity of GM crops to bees.

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0001415

Organic honey has no official definition in the USA except for how the bees are cared for (under USDA organic livestock regulations). If your land is certified organic and you do not treat the bees with prohibited chemicals, then you can label organic.

https://brookfieldfarmhoney.wordpress.com/2012/01/03/usda-organic-honey-what-does-it-mean/


There are guidelines, but even these allow for foraging on non-organic crops.

https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/NOP%20Livestock%20Final%20Rec%20Apiculture.pdf

P.S. Of course some of the domestic honey bees get to our vegetable field, but they are the one's that do not like the millions of closer flowers in the native habitat that is in between:)

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Thanks RAH for pointing these out, the citation referring to toxicity of GM crops is interesting.

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I started beekeeping last year. Some things I've learned:

- honey bees aren't native to the US, they are from Europe.

- swarming is how the honeybees multiply, the queen leaves with about 1/2 of the workers (all female) and finds a new place for a hive. The remaining workers raise a new queen and carry on.

- males do nothing but mate and then die afterwards. They don't gather pollen or nectar and do no work in the hive. As winter approaches the female workers kick them out of the hive and they die.

- worker bees fly up to 2-1/2 miles to find nectar and pollen.

- mites are the #1 pest of the honeybees (they aren't native to the US either, came from Asia). Almost every hive will get them sooner or later and they transmit viruses and weaken the bees. All of my hives have them.

- the flow hive is interesting but it doesn't mean you just set it up and get honey. You still have to be a beekeeper if you want them to survive. It doesn't lessen the chances for mites or other pests and diseases.

- the typical hive population rises to about 50,000 bees by mid-summer then falls to about 5,000 over the winter.

- during the winter they form a cluster to protect the queen and stay warm.

- the honey they make is for their consumption during bad weather and over the winter. If they don't have enough honey during the winter they die. If the cluster can't reach the honey reserves they die.

and...

- it is way more involved than I thought it would be but fascinating and rewarding nonetheless!

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I used to have about 20 colonies. Then I married and found that my Wife is deathly allergic to bee stings. If there is a biting or stinging bug in the vicinity, it homes in on her. A mosquito bite, on her, can swell to the size of a half dollar. I sold my hives and all the gear.

Lots of news these days about colony collapse disorder


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What about the neonicotinods?

http://ento.psu.edu/publications/are-neonicotinoids-killing-bees

The biggest problem with this seed coating is the now use of air drills to place the seed in the ground. The coatings excess is then blown off the seed as it heads to the planter and the ground. The dust cloud then covers miles and miles of early spring plants.

Years ago you had to pay a premium for large flat corn seeds and rounds were much cheaper. Now with these big air drills they all want the round so they flow to the planter smoother down the tubes. Now the large rounds are the most expensive seed shape for corn seed.

I think we are not far from a band of neonicotoinods in Canada.


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