In a message dated 4/28/99 12:01:14 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
> David Green, you seem to
> be pretty smart fella, you got to bee, you're from S.C.. What is your
method
> ? by the way david, i sat in your pollination course last summer at the
> greatest school in the universe, you know CLEMSON !
Clemson, awhile back, enrolled a football player that was really good,
but he couldn't quite handle the academics. With an IQ of 78, he was flunking
out of school. Finally the coach gave up.
"Son, I've arranged a favor for you, for Clemson, and for Carolina,
because I've gotten you transferred to the University of South Carolina. I'm
sorry to see you go; you're a great football player; but now you are also
raising the average IQ at both schools."
Thanks for the kind words, Mick. Your check is in the mail.
Ummmmmm.......wanna buy some bees?
Okay, seriously now...... It's easy to raise bees in coastal South
Carolina. The spring pollens here are the best in the world. The trick is to
find equipment for them -- and by that I mainly mean good comb. You can
start with foundation, if you wish, but it'll slow you down a lot. Find a
beekeeper who's on his last legs (there's lots of them), and is willing to
sell equipment cheap (not so many, but there are some). Make sure they aren't
plastered with foulbrood. Buy all the brood comb you can get, in the boxes,
if possible.
You can make covers, bottom boards cheap and fast from plywood. Or, if
you are really going to get big, get the pattern and the clips and make
pallets of four, instead of bottoms.
Starting about the last week of March, and ending about the end of
April, make splits. You can raise cells, or, as I've done more and more, use
the cells the bees make. You can also let them raise cells, if you just make
sure they have eggs. But you'll lose some valuable time you could save if you
can give them ready-made cells. Don't raise queens from junk stock, only the
best. Don't plan on making honey; you are making bees, and you can't really
do both well.
Feed the daylights out of your splits, then move them to somewhere that
will give them a flow -- cotton in the upper coastal plain (if you're sure
they will spray the way they are supposed to), sparkleberry in the sandhills,
sourwood in the mountains. Get them inland, or somewhere farther north. You
wanna do watermelon pollination? Charge enough for it, the bees would be
better off in other places. Still the little benefit they get from melons is
better than nothing, which is what they get if they are not on watermelons.
Everything is done on the coast by the end of June, and the bees will
decline, unless you find a better place for them. They are apt to get
poisoned, to boot. It's a great place to start bees, a so-so place to keep
them.
Another possibility: make nucs and sell them to the northeast. There's
always a shortage of bees up there. And they make more on honey and
pollination, so they can afford to buy bees.
Wait a minute here!...didn't I just tell all my trade secrets to the
world? Not so smart!.......>>>>Don't click that Send button.......Oops.......
[log in to unmask] Dave Green Hemingway, SC USA
The Pollination Scene: http://users.aol.com/pollinator/polpage1.html
The Pollination Home Page: http://www.pollinator.com
Jan's Sweetness and Light Shop (Varietal Honeys and Beeswax Candles)
http://users.aol.com/SweetnessL/sweetlit.htm
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