> What type bees do you keep? Some bees work better under bad conditions.
> Try unlimited brood nest management.

Keith,

Both italian and NWC (and one SMR/NWC mix). Had Cordovans (sp?) the first
year, but harder to find.  Nothing to do with brood nest management of bee
types (the italians are larger in general, yes, although the NWC/SMR mix has
the largest number of bees, oddly).  It simply rained nearly EVERY SINGLE
DAY all spring.  With no break, all the nectar in flowers like tulip poplar
simply washes away.  Prior years, nowhere near this much rain, no problem.
Ths year, no one in this part of the state got much of anything (unless they
moved bees to clover somewhere after the main flow ended in mid-june -- not
many places like that here).

> Leave plenty of honey on hives for dearth periods.

If you read my posts, perhaps you could pay attention to the part where
there is NO honey to leave for the bees. I took zero, the bees have zero.
Feed or they die.

> Allow the bees to build up their brood nest using Nectar instead of
sugarsyrup.

Gee, no kidding. Had I, in fact, fed syrup this year in early spring, they
might have made 4-5 lbs extra (instead, they would start buildign up, then
consume all their stores, et one day out, maybe two in a week, then back to
more rain).

> Dee Lusby in a dessert does alright not feeding sugar syrup and
> by gawlee it
> gets pretty hot and dry in her neck of the country.

I doubt that "hot and dry" means much of anything in the issue of feeding
syrup vs honey, unless it is so hot and dry there are no flowers to forage
at all.

> through our winters and a beekeeper should kill the bees in the fall.

Someone at EAS was advocating the same for all northern beekeepers.  From a
purely economic standpoint, it might make sense for him.  But, in this part
of the country, our flow is over early -- you would never break even from a
monetary standpoint and get very little honey. Not to mention your neighbors
would get upset when those homeless bees started getting feisty.

Karen

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