Bee camp is finally over. I sold all the horses and have been cleaning up the place and taking down all the horse things. We just grafted our first batch of queens other than the two batches we did for bee camp. Return on those from bee camp has been good. Better than previous years. There is a drought going on, but things are blooming and we have gotten about an inch and a half of rain during the past month or so. When we were digging to fix some plumbing issues the ground was bone dry down five feet. Usually it's wet at 18" or so because of the high water table here...
I saw this frenzy going on and turned the cover over to block the entrance. They were doing this same thing before I blocked it. They would pile up until they would fall in clumps. I slowed it down to try to see it better.
I consider propolizing a good trait for bees (maybe not for the beekeeper). Here is a mating nuc I found this year. The drilled hole is about 5/8". The reduced hole is about 5/16".
It wasn't working right and then it would and then it wouldn't. This is what I found. It couldn't get out, so I left it and used another smoker. It was finally out after two days.
We needed to feed because of a dearth and we still needed to finish building up the 8 frame nucs for winter. We bought 50 six gallon buckets and bought 3,450 pounds of sugar in 25 lb bags. We worked out the maximum strength we could do with hot water from my tap (140 F) and not have it crystallize out. We put one 25 pound bag in each bucket with a heaping tablespoon of ascorbic acid, then 18 pints of water and stir it with a five gallon paint stirrer. After 10 to 30 minutes we stir it again.
