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Hello everybody, can anyone answer my questions plz.
1) if one buys an established Langstroth hive, when should one open the hive for 1st inspection.
2) I want a split out of that hive before winter but main pollen and nectar season is gone here, now its Summer, if i feed them, can they raise enough young before winter to bear a split and survive the winter.
3) Here in our locality we have an inferior type of apricot (sweet inside filled with nectar/ sour outside), no one eats these and are wasted, i want to feed them to my bees as I have seen a lot of them on squished ones. Should I make juice with or without sour part of fruit(it's very difficult to seperate).
You should check the hive at least once a week during the main pollen & nectar flow. You only need to remove the lid to check if all the frames are being filled with brood & honey. You need to add supers before all of the frames are totally filled.
To start a new hive, remove 3-4 frames with bees & brood, but not the queen, and insert into the new super with the new queen. The new queen should be kept in her cage for a few days while the other bees become used to her. If the cage has a candy plug, she will be "chewed out" in as little as 1-2 days, but you should remove her manually or at least open up the cage if she is not out in 72 hours.
You can feed all year if necessary. Sugar water (50/50) is the universal feed that minimizes "robbing" of a weak hive by a stronger one. Feeding is especially important when the weather drops below freezing is usually required in the spring when all the stores inside have been used up.
Here in the mid western US, we leave a minimum of 30-40 pounds of honey in the hive made up of 2 deep supers to help the bees get through the winter. Honey in an additional shallow super left on the hive is also standard practice here.
