In a message dated 96-08-28 06:16:38 EDT,  [log in to unmask] (Tim Cote)
writes:
 
<< After five years of hobby beekeeping, my young wife and I've decided to
 advance to "sideliner" status with a trial of 50 additional colonies to add
 to our current 8.  She'll be doing most of the work, but what a dynamo!
 Anyways, were to get 'em? From time to time I've seen bees advertised in Bee
 Culture (which I get), but there havn't been any applicable ads in the last
 couple months.  American Bee Journal (which I've seen occasionally but not a
 recent copy, subscribing soon) has a beefier classified section.  Could a
 current subscriber look for me in this and last month's ABJ and tell me if
 there are local hives for sale?>>
 
    Got the bug, eh?  There is some discusssion among beekeepers whether it
is a treatable condition, with proper therapy, or whether it is an
untreatable genetic defect.  Well good luck to you.  I expect to keep at it,
until I can no longer lift a super.
 
    This past week we have been looking at some powerful hives, with heavy
supers, and fat, clean, bright looking bees, and I get high on it.    (I also
get down, when I look at a batch of greasy, sour-smelling, sickly bees that
have mites, chalkbrood, or have taken a pesticide hit.)
 
   In the past, when folks talk about buying in the fall, I've encouraged
them to plan on buying in the spring, and let the seller take the winter
losses.  However, this may not be as true nowadays. Last spring, there was a
"giant sucking sound" in the south, as northern fruit pollination, and loss
replacement for northern bee winter deadouts took every available package,
nuc, etc.  You may gain by avoiding this direct competition in the spring.
 (I was just informed of a young beekeeper, who sold some of his crop this
past week, in the barrel, for $1.15 per lb.  -- He's bankrolled now to buy
more bees next spring.)
 
    But you still need to ask yourself.  Am I knowledgeable enough to get
them through the winter?  Am I knowledgeable enough to judge the quality of
the bees I buy?  You don't want to end up with fifty boxes next spring,
looking for packages to refill them.
 
 <<(Almost needless to say buying new equiptment and nucs/packages is
 financially prohibitive.  We have an Ethelene dioxide chamber here for any
 extra supers I might buy and I'll just hope we can recognize AFB on initial
 inspection.)>>
 
    You are better off not buying it.  If a seller has a lot of AFB, it's
likely that it is in the live bees as well, and you can't run them through
the chamber -- well not without killing them anyway!  When I was first
beginning, I bought a hundred hives of bees, and several hundred deep supers
from a retiring beekeeper.  I looked at the bees, but didn't know enough to
look at the supers, many of which were his deadouts, that he had extracted.
When I got smarter later, I looked through the supers, and found scale.
 
    Many of the hundred broke down, because he had covered up the AFB with
heavy terramycin treatments.  And the extra deeps, most of which I placed on
bees I already had, caused a lot of them to break down.  It took a lot of
burning to clean that up.  That's the tuition in the University of the Seat
of the Pants.  Very expensive.
 
   Any beekeeper can have an occasional AFB hive, and I wouldn't let that
stop me from buying, if he did.  But it would make me cautious.  If you don't
recognize scale, take someone with you who does.  And, if there is scale in
the supers, look for the possibility of a "cover" up with the live ones.
 
  <<We live in Maryland and I'm willing to travel up to 500mi on a weekend
 adventure to get hives.  We'd like to get them soon to assure proper mite
 treatment. Feeling kind of woozy about this step, but excited too.
 Timothy Cote MD MPH >>
 
    If you look north, the best you could do is to buy good solid (but not
plugged) two story hives.  You want the top box to be full of honey, the
bottom to still have some brood. There should be enough bees to make a
cluster big enough to mostly fill one box on a frosty morning.  They will be
losing bees all winter, and they have to have bees left to insulate the brood
in a late winter cold spell.
 
     Make sure they have Apistan and terramycin, and your work is mostly done
until late winter.  But you are going to have to pay for this.  The box of
honey represents at least $50 extracted, probably more.  The tendency for
northern commercial  beekeepers right now is to drop them down to single
story, so as to get that honey.  Then they will be taken south, where they
can pick up some feed, and get supplemental syrup all winter.  After last
winter's losses, a lot more bees will be going south.
 
    Watch that you don't buy real cheap bees that have been stripped of ALL
honey. You are still too far north to get them through winter that way.  They
will be dwindling fast, even during the time from the "stripping," until you
can get them home and start feeding.  During a cold spell, they would not be
able to take syrup. Because they have no reserve in the combs, they could
starve, even while you are feeding.
 
    If you look south, you'll probably only find singles, which would not be
as good for you as doubles, but I think you could winter them fine, if they
start out fairly heavy, and you put on candy boards or something similar,
right away.  I can give you more info on this, if you want.  They may even
winter better this way, it's just more work and expense.
 
     Finally:  The jump from hobbyist to sideliner is a quantum leap.  I've
seen guys get all excited because they've had a 150 lb. average at a hobbyist
scale, so they went out and bought a couple hundred, only to see the average
cut in half, or worse.
 
     With all these careats, if you are still eager.  Good luck!  You could
win big or lose big.  Make sure your skill is up to the challenge, and go for
it!
 
     A call to your state bee inspection office could turn up possible
sellers.  Also check with local or state bee associations.  Check Extension.
Some extension agents are involved on the beekeeping end, others would not
recognize a hive if they saw it up close.  South Carolina has a market
bulletin, a free classified ad newspaper put out by the Dept. of Agriculture,
which has bees for sale from time to time.  I believe NC does too.  Does
Maryland?
 
[log in to unmask]    Dave Green,  PO Box 1200,  Hemingway,  SC
29554
 
Practical Pollination Home Page            Dave & Janice Green
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