Holiday first week or still summer

My holiday started at the first of September. For one year I was waiting for this.
I have something to do for my bees and then I’ll go fishing.
A bad thing happened: my queen from Alpine hive was missing in mating flight so I have to give up to this hive I’ll united it with another.
I'll come with news next week.

Last 3 weeks with friends & enemies

I did not write for some time in my blog.
I had a lot of work to do before going to my holiday.
I did spent my time to my apiary with some old frind.
First of all the Alpine hive make problems. The bees decided to superseded the queen .

So now I have in the hive a brand new queen but last weekend she was unmated. I’ll see if she is mated if not I have to give up working with the Alpine hive.
One of my enemy.

My friend call him "the bees wolf". Do you recognize him









Please look to one of my friends .

I’ll spend my holidays to my apiary getting the bees for winter.

See you soon.

Beekeeping Symposium

I’m really happy that I can tell to you who read this little blog about Beekeeping symposium that will bee here in Romania. Between 11-14 September 2008 In Bucharest Romania will be beekeeping symposium "Beekeeping Simple & Clear"
To this link you can read about final program of the symposium:

http://www.apimondiafoundation.org/foundation/symposium/finalprogram.pdf

I think that you’ll find the symposium interesting .

WHY

WHY
A lot of why questions last week.
From Tuesday last week started the rain. As you probably know in the in the nord of our country there are floods and the bad thing human lives were killed. You’ll say" it’s the Nature" . No, it’s the Man. For 10 years the climate is changing and the future in my opinion does look good. But we keep going this way. It’s our choice.
Around here a lot of rain and storm. On Wednesday the storm brake down 2 hives. One of them lost their queen. I have to unite this hive because I don’t think that a good time to rear queens. No nectar is available in nature and the weather in not a good one for rearing queens.
Surprisingly the small hive Alpine was not tern down by the storm.
I did check half of my hives. I did mark the queens and clipped. I did feed a small nuc. I intended to winter this nuc(in Langstroth hive) using the experiment done by Canadian beekeeper Pedersen.
Why I’m doing all this?
As you can see in this little film the the queen in Alpine hive I clipped and marked the queen and for moment everything is OK.

Killer or How to spend The Weekends

Arrived to my apiary wet (the temperature was about 32 degrees) but happy because I’m free for 3 days and I can work my bees.
Sunday morning I start working my second Alpine hive (or Warre). One day I’ll try to explain why I’m interested to this type of hive.

As you can see in the little film the first Alpine hive looks OK and hope that I’ll have a strong family next spring.

By noon on Sunday I did looking to my tomatoes. I did get mad when I did see a mole start big up just right in the middle of my tomatoes bad. The tomatoes are special for me because they are not Dutch they are old Romanian tomatoes and I want to make a lot of tomatoes for seeds. That bastard named mole start to dig and destroy. See the film what happened.

Work in Apiary

I’ll begin this post saying "Thanks Jorn". I did use calciumcarbid to get rid of that bastards named moles. At the beginning I was lucky but after 2 weeks they start make more hills about ~ 50 meters away. Well I’ll repeat the lethal calciumcarbid next week to see what happen.

On Wednesday as soon as I arrived to my beeyard I did start to clean up the apiary. A lot of work to do but at the end I make a big fire and burn the misery.

Saturday wake up by 7:30. Make preparation to move a small swarm in to warre(Alpine) hive. All my insistences let me down. Only two man help me David J. Heaf and Ilmārs B.. So at the moment I don’t know the management of Alpine hive but for sure I’ll find out before give up beekeeping. You can see my first step on Alpine hive.
Success George!

Toftman or Beekeeper

The little political situation in the beeyard named "Happy Apiary".Well, it's what I want to write ,it's a kind balance and do believe me I don't like to write a thing like this.Now, let's start.For me it's time to harvest. It's time to be happy. To be sincerely I'm not so happy. The average from 6 hive it's 12 kg/colony. I don't know that

it's a good average it's not but for me who visit in spring my beeyard for 10 times and I can't work my bees because of the weather only 4 time. Anyway I have honey for my and my friend and don't forget there are still honey flow: lime, and perhaps honey dew.I had 4 hive that swarmed in last month 3 of them become feral colonies and I cached one(using lemongrass oil paste).After the hives swarmed I had 4 new unmated queens. Now I have now 3 mated queens and one missing in action, I mean lost in mating flight.Only one thing make me a little bit happy : my fruit trees.

How to get rid of..

Since Romania joined EU Animal Protection do not permit to use chemicals to destroy animal like that bastard named MOLE ( Talpa Europaea). I want to get rid of them because In short time I’ll have more Moles then bee colonies. In all my garden have such hills. Can anyone help ?

14,15 June or Swarms If you wish

For sure you had enough of my complains in my last posts, but this weather make me feel stupid: this is not beekeeping this is a kind of lottery. For quite some time I have the idea to give up because this is not the way to work my bees.
Arrived to my beeyard and I did find the same cloudy sky. I started assembling the Alpine hive T made last winter. Really I want to work with this type of hive. Last 2 years I did read a lot on the Internet about this Warre hive. I can not say something about this type of hive because I know about Warre only by reading, but I want to see how it works. You can see me in action doing 3 Alpine hive.

On Saturday I did wake up about 7 am with a lot of hope. The same cloudy sky. About 11 AM I did try to open one hive to see if I can working the bees. No way, I got a lot of stings. I did give up.
Start cutting the grass and I had a coffee . About 1:30 PM I did hear a "big" near my hives. Guess what I saw ? You can see in this little movie.
I do not blame the bees, I do not blame the weather I blame my self why I don’t give up. That it.

Lime Tree

I want to tell you that you visit Arad from ~20 of May till `10 of June you’ll be surprised. Lime tree flavour (aroma) make you fill in haven. From the railway station till the Theater of Arad there are around 100 lime trees. This is why I love Arad among other things . Last 3 years during midday you can fill the pollution from town traffic and only in evening the lime trees aroma become real

That’s it !

For quite some time I can not work properly my bees because of the weather ( not only). In the weekends the weather was rainy so I have to do all the work in hurry .
Friday 6/6/2008 . Arrived at 7;30 to my beeyard. The sky was full of black clouds. I did look to my hives(not opened). The first rain drops about 10 PM. I have to rethink my beeleeping.
Saturday 7/6/2008. I did wake up about 6 AM. The sky was cloudy . I had a cup of coffe. I hope and pray not to rain. I think how to work my bees in this situation. For the moment no chance. I did start to make lemongrass oil paste and you can see in the photos I did make it .

Around midday the sun did show up. First I did look to the hive with the new queen I did put in home made cage(you can see the film in my last post). The bees did release her and now it is on the comb. She is not matted. I hope she will mate next week. Looking to my Reduced Langsthroth (RL) as you can see in the photo. I did start using this type of hive from last year. I have 2 such hive. I’ll explain this type of hive and his benefits in my opinion. At this moment the RL is equal with 2 Dadant hive body. I’m afraid the family will swarm. Try to harvest 2 combs full of honey but it was impossible, the temperature come up only to 21 Celsius degrees. Perhaps tomorrow.
About 3 PM a big buzz in the apiary. It was a swarm coming out from my RL hive. I’m not really happy but for the moment I can not help. That’s it!

For Two Times Happy

Every weekends I did visit my bees It’s raining or bad weather. So I get used to it. I Have to rethink my program for spring time. I have to take 2 week holiday so I can work my bees and get rid of coming and going and do nothing because of the weather.
















My opinion is the acacia flow in my area was roughly like in the past last years . In spite of the weather my bees gather some acacia honey as you can see in photo. I’m really happy for this.
The second reason I’m happy for is that my grapes this year. I did plant this yearling about 6 years ago. As I can see there are some bunches (?).



















Make small nuc with a new emerged queen a friend of mine gave me. You can se a home made queen cage.




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Acacia bloom

The acacia time is here. This time must be a wonderful time for bees. But I think that the rains wash away a lot of nectar. In spring the were nocturnal chilled nights and in many parts of the country a lot of acacia chilled so the acacia flow will be not so good.
Last week I did put pollen trap at 2 of my hives just to collect pollen for me and my bees for winter time. I harvest acacia pollen as you can see.
Next weekend I’ll go to see the acacia honey the bees gather for me.

I did put a little move I did made for my beekeeper friend from America.

Acacia Time-Sad Time

I just want to say few words about acacia bloom and the weather situation but a new post from Bee-L coming in.
Aaron Morris post a sad new: Steve Tober just passed away. I learned a lot from his articles and his book. In my opinion he was a big personality in the beekeeping industry.
R.I.P.

They call it Spring

Wednesday 23/4.I arrived to my bee yard at 7:45.I took some days off to look after my bees because I did come here 10 weekends and 6 out of 10 it was raining.
CLOUDY.
Listen to the radio till 10 Am. Looking in the garden to my fruit trees. I have apples, cherry plums. Oh, I love cherries.
11 AM. Start raining for about 2 hours. By 1 PM. I did start working, I assembled 4 hive bodies. About 3 PM. started raining again. I’m happy anyway I did a good job doing hive bodies as you can see in the picture
At 6 PM still raining. The day is over and I did not check my bees. But Tomorrow is another day but tomorrow ….
My neighbor Florin did visited me for Saint George greetings. He left about 9 PM. I had something to eat, and then go to bed. Listen to the radio the news and music. Started reading an interesting subject:" Bee diseases caused by modern beekeeping methods"
Thursday 24/4Wake up 7:30Am, I feel so relaxed. I love hearing the dunghill cock in the morning. I had a cup of coffee. Temperature is 8 Celsius degrees. Cloudy. Listen to the radio.
By 10 AM the clouds ran away and looks that will be a fine day. I’m happy. By 11 o’clock start working my bees. I’m really happy looks OK to me. I do hope to harvest some acacia honey. By 1:30 PM I finished the inspection. I put a little film. It’s in BUZZ language. I’ll translate in English for you in case you don’t know this language. "We are OK. Waiting for acacia flow to gather this delicious nectar for you"




I left the beeyard by 7 PM. I had to come home because a a cousin twice removed had a cerebral attack.
Those were the day me friend and I think they never end" or somethink like thi if you do remember the old song.

Signs of Spring

I’m real happy and not because I’ll run for presidency and I have big chances to be elected but because my bees are OK. I lost 3 colonies out of 11 last winter.
Last Saturday I did visit me bees. Seeing the hives I did start making plans for future actions foe the way I’ll work my bees. First I started to arrange my beeyard. My plans are to run up to 20 colonies, so I have to do some modifications.
For the star I keep doing plans so next contribution I can tell a lot more.
For th moment you can see some photos.

2008- FIRST VISIT

I can say only one thing: I’M HAPPY. All the bee colonies are Ok, and No dead hive.

It was 26 January 2008 when I made the first trip to my beeyard. The out side temperatures are –6 Celsius degrees. It’s not the good time to do visit but I have to.
The first thing I did see entering in my Cabin were a lot of dead bastards named mouses.
About 11 o’clock the temperatures were around +7 Celsius degrees. I started opening the hives and put the “cakes” I made for my girls.
For minutes I made plans for the new placement of the beeyard.
I did meet my neighbors for the first time this year.
See you next trip.