Monday, May 26, 2014

Caught in the Rain





I needed to go check the hive I have at the orchard down the road today. I finished up all the bee work I had to do to the North so I figured I would do the South part today and finish checking all my traps that way as well.

First thing I did was look at the hourly forecast for the day and they were still saying evening thunderstorms... Check.

Then I looked at the current radar both past and future to see if any cells were forming. Nothing on radar to worry about....Check

I drove in, fired up the smoker and got it going, put on my jacket and started taking the hive apart. This particular hive is about 11 months old and it obviously had been BEEEE-ZY they had filled the entire honey super I left on them for Winter and had most of the frames of their brood chamber drawn out now as well. They got a new Brood chamber to begin working on.

I captured this swarm last year about a week after the one I added the brood chamber too the other day. I have actually kinda wondered if they were after swarms from the same hive. They seemed to build up at about the same rate although the other hive was quite a bit meaner. They were also incredibly small swarms last year. I captured each of them in a five frame Nuc box rather than a swarm trap so they were both extremely small swarms but are building up well.

So I had just determined they needed a new box and went and got one out of my truck when all of a sudden the sky opened up in a deluge. Rain was pouring into the open hive so I just threw the new box on then the honey super and closed the hive up. I never got a chance to check for swarm cups or look much beyond how much comb they had.

Now I am going to have to make another trip.

Still no hint of a swarm anywhere. I haven't even heard a rumor of one nearby this year yet. I am still thinking our swarm period has been pushed back about two weeks to a month or so. Winter was just too cold to recover from as quickly as usual.

The rain even made garden weeding impossible. When I got back home I could see a massive front coming in and I just managed to get the sheep moved from the grazing field to the barn before it hit. We got over an inch of rain in about 10 minutes. My bet is we are up to over 2 inches for the day so far.

I would of course complain but we needed it so bad and I prayed for it so much it would make me seem ungrateful.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!


12 comments:

  1. Strange how the rain just appeared like that. We haven't got any and they are calling for storms every day now so it really doesn't help to hear them say it might rain. Luckily it didn't rain and we got the chimney project done.

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    1. Sf - Ya it just came in bam. It was like just that one cloud was dropping the rain and it was gone pretty fast but had I tried to wait it out, well I couldn't leave the top off the hive soo...

      The orchard owner himself said it was the weirdest little rain storm he had seen and he has gotta be in his 70's

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    2. Guess you are lucky it didn't drop softball size hail on you while you were out there. Looked like lots of storms going through MO when I watched the weather a while ago.

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    3. Ya the storms finally developed and hit us. I was beginning to think it was going to be like 2012 all over again because they been sayign rain for days and nothing ever came of it. In 2012 it would split and go right around us, it was maddening.

      I have seen softball and golfball sized hail. Saw a cow get killed by a chunk of ice about softball sized when I was a kid. That stuff is scary.

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  2. We had some rain this afternoon, but north of us in St. Cloud they had flooding in streets. I have seen small hive boxes so far this year. two per stand. Do bees go in any kind of cycles??

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    1. Rob - Other than the yearly seasonal cycles I don't know of any longer term trends. Bees do seem to build up faster when they are hotter though around here. Heat is relevant I suppose but I noticed when I left my boards in over the screens the bees built up faster than when I gave em ventilation.

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  3. Rain here yesterday, very heavy. Overflowed my up slope diversion ditches, I'm obviously going to have to deepen the ditches and I started on that today. Everything is still so wet from the downpour of yesterday that I didn't get much else done.

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    1. Harry - Well we got a good soaking today and the forecast is for storms all week too. Looks like I will be building some more bee hive stuff and splitting my leftover firewood for a day or two as it's too wet to go into the garden. I still need to figure out something with that downspout I put on the barn that leaks too. It's truly never ending.

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  4. We'd sure like to get some of that rain up here; it's finally sprinkling this morning, but they're only calling for a tenth of an inch (or two) today. May not be enough to help, but we'll see.

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    1. RP - Normally I would be happy to send you some of our weather but not this time. I want all the rain I can get right now :)

      But I will say a little prayer for you guys to get some of your own though.

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  5. Thought you might be interested in this article http://www.beloitdailynews.com/news/national/driver-cited-after-del-highway-crash-bee-swarm/article_3af20a1d-66bd-5653-9748-752e9051b28e.html

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    1. Heh thanks for the article link. You hear about that happening 2 or 3 times a year and it always makes me wonder what they do with all the bees they clean up. If I lived nearby I would put on my suit and go see if I could get me some bees!!!!!

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