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Date: | Thu, 6 Jun 1996 09:55:35 CDT |
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I apologize for wasting the bandwidth of the group, but I have a short
question to a loss problem that hasn't happened to me before.
The problem began as a story of good intentions gone wrong. A local
beekeeper here who hadn't kept bees in many years wanted to get rid of
his equipment - all of it new and never used. He also had some sacks of
white sugar laying around and some old honey.
This spring he gifted me with this by surprise. He also wanted to go
through the apairy "one last time" and give me pointers. Recall that
spring in Missouri this year was a warm period followed by an extended
cold period.
My mentor approved of my general "leave things alone" policy, but said
if I really wanted a good crop to feed some of the sugar early to get
the hives built up. This seemed extravagant to me, but I put feeders on
three hives, leaving the other three alone.
As you may guess, the cold weather followed, and now that the season's
on, the three hives that I didn't feed are going great, but the others
have only a few bees.
I'm thinking of removing supers (there's no honey in them yet anyway,
and one of the "unassisted" hives has filled two supers already) and
giving fumadil and some antibiotics. All three hives have brood.
Or should I just leave things alone and count this as a lesson learned?
I realize this question is ill-posed if you can't see the hives, but
nonetheless, any opinions greatly appreciated. I doubt this is
significant enough to be of interest to the whole group- why not reply
to me personally at [log in to unmask] and if I get five or
more answers, I'll post a summary to the group.
TIA
Phil Wood
[log in to unmask]
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