I haven’t always been all that interested in bugs…at least not enough to have them as pets. I guess I have always been curious about all sorts of bugs but it was with my bees that my insectophilia became more obvious. Anyhow, as I was looking over some pics I have taken in the last few months, I noticed a large number were of bugs. A few were of my kids and family, but that’s not what we are here to talk about now is it?
So, here a re a few bugs pics I found…mostly pretty ones so fear not!
Ok, this next set was pretty weird. We have a clowder (I learned that from Big Bang Theory) of cats that have accumulated in our neighborhood. A former neighbor sort of collected cats but never took care of them. We’ve seen as many as 13 at one time on our doorstep begging for food (and that bugs me, speaking of bugs). Anyhow, Abigail was outside the other day playing with Tommy and noticed he was too interested in one spot in the yard. She called me and we rescued a praying mantis. I like praying mantises…and turtles. They all seem so primitive and helpless to me. So, I braved the jaws of Tommy and rescued this praying mantis. He was indeed praying as I picked him up. His wings were in bad shape but he nodded his head in appreciation as I set him upon a tree out of Tommy’s sight.
Oh why not…here are a few pics of the kids…they have mixed feelings about bugs.
As a family, we’ve been walking in the woods lately. There may be more to say about that later, but for now, I have just enjoyed being outside and seeing what we can see. Abigail and I took a walk together the other day. We sort of just roamed around and skipped rocks in the river and talked and saw all sorts of stuff. Abigail was super interested in seeing the heavy machinery at one place we were walking, but at the same time, she was terrified it would be illegal to get near it (and maybe it was?)
Isaac spooked a deer right beside him on one walk. It was only a few feet from him in a hay field and I think he wanted to chase it down just to chat. I suspect he was excited enough that he might have kept up for awhile. Outside stuff is just amazing, especially when you’ve been away from it for awhile. We saw fish and chestnuts and spiders and trees that were probably larger than any the kids have ever seen before.
Abigail was so into this...she wanted to carry it home but I thought Emily might not appreciate our wonder
My work has been stressful lately, but these walks have been so refreshing. I need to escape technology and it doesn’t get any better than walking in the woods with the family!
Back in the time of Robin Hood, Friar Tuck used to keep bees in a straw skep. Bees were plentiful back then so beekeepers could just reach in to a skep and grab a gob of honeycomb and go on with business. If a beekeeper wanted to harvest all of the honey, they simply destroyed the hive (sometimes by placing the skep over burning sulphur… yummy honey I bet). Anyhow, in 1851, the Reverend Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth invented a beehive such that bees would build orderly honeycomb on frames that could be removed and inspected. Honey harvest no longer meant that the bees had to be destroyed. Frames could be removed, honey extracted and the frames replaced. This type of hive is the one most people think of when they think of a beehive…you know, the white boxes out in a field.
This style is not the only type of beehive though. In the United States, laws require that bee hives have removable frames for easy inspection. Beyond that, it does not stipulate how those frames must be arranged.
So, some new web friends of mine have sent me some pictures of their Top Bar hive. In this type of hive, bees are encouraged to build their own honey comb from scratch (not on wax “starter” comb that most Langstroth beekeepers use). The shape of the honeycomb frames is typically like a blunted triangle rather than a rectangle like a Langstroth hive. A TBH encourages lateral colony growth (as opposed to vertical in a Langstroth hive) and many say healthier growth. Please enjoy these pics and narrative by Bob and Gail, beekeepers who use both TBH and Langstroth hives!
from Bob and Gail…
Here’s a couple of natural comb shots. As you can see from knowing the Lang- there’s no side or bottom bars, there’s plenty of brood along the bottom of the comb and honey along the tb.
taking off the cover. The TBH is horizontal compared to its neighbor Lanstroth hive.Inside- 31 Topbars and one backboard.a well-formed natural comb. The top third is capped honey while the bottom third is capped brood.Holding the comb upside down to inspect both sides. The comb must always be held perpendicular to the ground or it will break off the topbar. Turning and rotating the comb around so that it is always vertical takes some getting used to.Notice that the bees are "chaining." They are linking together by their feet, setting a pattern for building the shape of the comb. No side bars or foundation required.a closer view of chainingInside the hive, the bees are chaining between two combs. Notice that the TBH has a screened bottom.
All three of our hives looked terrific. We didn’t see any mites
and have used no chemicals. Our second TBH is being fed because they
lost their queen, had to create their own so they had a small
population during the flow. We noticed a number of bee carrying white
pollen which we think is from a cotten field just down the road. We
saw two pollen-laden foragers doing a waggle dance- isn’t that fun?
Hope these photos reveal more than they conceal.
Bees have a great sense of smell. Bob's handlebar is waxed with a cosemetic containing beeswax so this hitchiker found him irresistible. Now when he observes the hives he has a droopy 'stache. When asked how he would manage to keep his handlebar up since becoming a beekeeper he replied, "Willpower!"
After the first unsuccessful attempt at harvesting honey this year, we decided to give it another go last weekend. I had removed about half of the honey from the hives the weekend prior (before things went south). I suited up again this Saturday to finish removing the honey on the remaining hives…not one single sting while I was removing the rest. Not one! That’s the way it is supposed to work! I am not sure I would recommend it, but if one has normal freakin’ bees and works slowly and deliberately, one could almost work the bees buck naked.
Anyhow, I pulled the rest of the honey and we extracted on Sunday (with the help of my family!) I nearly fainted as Isaac and Abigail both actually helped with the process. Typically they swoop in and swipe bits of honey, then retreat to unknown locations planning their next attack. But this weekend, they actually stuck it out for an hour or so!
Some years we get different colors of honey. Different nectar sources produce different colors of honey. This year, all of the honey was the same color. That doesn’t mean that all of the honey came from a single type of flower…just that all the types of flowers they worked happened to make the same color of honey.
We have converted our honey frames over to plastic Honey SuperCell frames which I cut to size to fit in the shorter honey boxes. There are many advantages to these type of honey frames but one thing that is both good and bad is that the bees don’t draw out the honeycomb too thick. Really, they don’t draw it out beyond the depth of the plastic that is already drawn. That’s good in that I don’t destroy any honey getting the frames out, but bad in that it means it’s harder to cut the cappings off. Rather than using a knife to remove the top caps of the honey comb, we had to try something new this year – a capping scratcher. That’s basically a fork with long thin tines that we drag over the sealed honey cells to break open the honeycomb so it can be extracted. (All that may be confusing…basically, I can’t use a knife any more to open the honey cells…now I need to use a fork)
We spent about 4 hours on Sunday and extracted about 193 pounds of honey this year. I am pretty satisfied with that especially considering I destroyed 25-40 pounds of honey in one of the hives I had to kill. It’s exhausting work but we really enjoy the family time too (right family? right?) Like so much at this time of year (i.e. the garden), I love the build-up and the harvest but even more-so, I love its completion!
I was looking over a bunch of pictures of stuff we’ve done/seen/enjoyed lately and I thought it might be fun to show the stuff…you know…the things…
Of course, the other day, I posted our score of grapes which we were planning to turn into jelly…real grape jelly. We got that done. Usually Emily and I work pretty hard together on that sort of stuff but for some reason, she did all the grape jelly this time. She is a jelly-making fool! I am just a plain old fool. I was busy watching The Colony, a new show on the Discovery channel (cable is evil but that is a heck of a show…if you are into post-apocalyptic stuff) while she did all the work. Yeah…still paying for that.
Let’s see, we have seen lots of butterflies and moths around the house lately. I don’t know why, but whenever I see turtles or butterflies, I like to make sure they are ok. I stop and help turtles across the road and I always offer a frown when a butterfly gets tangled up with the car (yeah, I know…it’s not much but what can I say?) Anyhow, we have had a good crop of butterflies around…and dang they are cool! I am not sure I had ever seen a luna moth before but it was really cool…so beautiful!
Yeah, I guess snails fall into the same category as turtles too…snails are super cool to watch. I love to see their antennae disappear into their bodies and I am always amazed at how they can stretch. They’re a little chewy primitive I guess…like turtles. I am just amazed at all the stuff that just seems to be everywhere if I look!
It seems like this time of year finds our fingers all sorts of different colors. It really just depends on what we’re picking at the time. Last night was no different really. A co-worker of Emily’s has a bunch of grapes growing at her house. She has picked a ton and canned/preserved them every way she knows how. That’s where we come in. The grapes are still plentiful so she gave us a bunch of them…and there are more to pick so we are hoping to be able to go and harvest a bunch more. It’s hard to beat real concord grapes I think!
this is just a portion!
We cleaned them last night and are making grape jelly with the ones we have now. Do you remember when you were a kid and even the store bought grape jelly had flavor? I have tried some recently and it seems like the grape jelly is completely without flavor. I guess it’s like everything – homemade is really hard to beat. But gee whiz, the store stuff isn’t even fit for slug bait!
Anyhow, does anyone else gather grapes? What do you do with them? I remember my Mom and Grandma canning grape juice but they always left whole grapes in the jars. It freaked me out because I could have sworn they canned eyeballs! Oh, and don’t get me started on when they canned whole tomatoes…eeek! Anyone make raisins or juice or wine? I’ve nibbled on wild grapes but does anyone do anything more specific with them? I’d love to know what options I may have!
This weekend was supposed to be the weekend I harvested honey from my hives. I started as I always do by donning my suit listening to Johnny Cash. So I open each hive and check how things look through the small hole in the inner cover. If all is well, I usually remove each frame, one at a time, and shake the bees from it before I walk it over to Emily who waits inside the door to receive the frames. I finished the hives at my house and headed to the next location. It seemed pretty normal. We started the same way and got one hive done. I opened the second hive and that’s when all hell broke loose.
Bees are never thrilled with honey harvest day, but it has always been manageable…until this weekend. I opened the outer lid on the second hive and it erupted with bees. I thought it was odd but decided to press onward. I got a number of honey frames out before the bees really came out. Most times when I get in a hive, I only smell honey and the normal smell of happy little bees. There are two main scents that bees release when things are about to go badly for the beekeeper. The first warning one gets is a strong banana smell. I know it sounds weird but if you smell bananas when you get in a hive, the bees are upset. Sometimes you can continue, sometimes it’s best not to try. The second smell is more ominous. I can only describe it as the smell of a junior high locker room – it’s a strong b.o. smell. When one smells that in a beehive, it is time to get away and fast. I never did smell the banana smell but I definitely got the locker room smell but by then, it was too late.
Anyhow, once the attack started, I knew I wasn’t going to get any more honey off so that wasn’t an issue. In all seriousness, staying conscious was more my goal. At various points, I couldn’t hear anything but buzzing. I also couldn’t see out of my veil as it was black with bees. I started smashing bees as best I could so I could see to get a hose. My father-in-law (who had a suit on thankfully) was able to get a garden hose to where I could pick it up. I sprayed water in the air such that it felt like rain. The bees thinned some which helped. I continued to spray which settled things down to a manageable level. Emily mixed up a few 5-gallon buckets of soapy water for me to pour into the hives. You see, soapy water is the safest way to kill bees and it works fast. I dumped 15-20 gallons of soapy water over each of the two bad hives to kill them.
Once both hives were essentially dead (some bees were still in the field…I poured more soapy water on them after dark to ensure no bees were left), I headed into the house to see the damage. This picture of my back was the worst but my shoulders and front weren’t much better. I wish I had taken a picture of my suit. It had thousands of stingers in it as well. Emily started to count the stings on my back but stopped counting at 200. I fully expected to need my epi-pen (which I had thankfully) or at least head to the hospital but my reaction never got much worse than what is in the picture. I took 2 benadryl and slept the rest of the day Saturday and most of the day Sunday.
I know I am pretty lucky that this didn’t end with a sad story. It’s a good warning to anyone working with bees (or anyone who happens upon bees). Honey bees are typically defensive only when provoked and are somewhat predictable…but not always. I have never seen a hive react like this one did. When bees are unpredictable, they can be dangerous or even deadly. These hives are no longer a threat. I just thank my lucky stars that nobody was hurt…
Ok, so all this stinging stuff made me think this stuff…
Well, Sting of course…singing his coolest song ever!
And Ali – I wish I had been able to dance a little more and sting a little less…
We have a compost pile in our back yard. We throw all sorts of stuff in there, but I always know what it is when it goes in. This year we had volunteer tomatoes, catnip and a mystery squash come up. I have absolutely no idea what kind of squash this is but I know we have never thrown anything like that in the pile. We have thrown pumpkin and zucchini and cushaw and yellow squash parts into the pile but none of those particularly look like this fruit.
For a bit, I considered the possibility that someone was playing a compost pile prank…but who on Earth would do that? Too bad I don’t have any composting friends though…could be interesting.
Anyhow, back to the subject at hand…does anyone have any idea what this is? Maybe a mutation of some hybrid pumpkin or something? Ginny chomped on one, but quickly left it alone (and you know, my dumb dog eats poop so that ‘s saying something!)
Honeybees are amazing…first of all, there are 60,000 or so females living together under one roof. That could be the end of the story really…but I’ll go on. Every bit of every day is about being busy. They warm the hive or cool the hive. They gather nectar or raise newly hatched bees. Sometimes they die protecting the hives from…well…me. I think one of the most interesting things they do, however, is make wax.
(click each of the pics – you will see more detail in the expanded view)
Bees mainly produce wax during the early bit of their lives…in particular, from days 10-16. They eat honey which is necessary for the wax glands to produce. It takes 6-10 pounds of honey to make one pound of wax. Small flakes of wax protrude from the underside of the bee’s abdomen when the glands are in production. The bees pull the flakes and chew them so they can be molded into whatever shape they need.
The cool part is that bees can also recycle wax! Bees are the ultimate green community! I had some extra honeycomb that I pulled from a hive that I had been working on earlier. I always leave the bits of wax out for a period after I remove it so the bees can have a go at it. This most recent batch has been particularly tasty I guess because bees have been all over it for 2 weeks snatching bits of old wax. They bite chunks of the wax off of the old honey comb and chew it until it can be shoved into their pollen baskets to be carried back to the hive.
I have often seen bees work with wax I leave out for them, but I have never seen them work so long and hard on a single “pull” of wax. It really is sort of inspiring how they use what they have and make do. I think there is a lesson there for everyone…
Last weekend we went canoeing with the kids and Emily’s aunt and uncle. The Little Coal river is near where we all live so it is convenient and really, a pretty great river for canoeing. Like most of the East, we have been hot and dry for quite awhile so I had pretty low expectations about the quality of the water on the trip. I grew up in NW PA near the beginning of the Allegheny river. It is pretty shallow and slow there so I have plenty of experience in carrying a canoe through shallow water. I didn’t really want to carry a canoe full of my offspring over rocks and downed trees.
We threw our canoes in (actually, the kayak started down the river without us) and headed out. The water was perfect! My shallow-water-eyes were just flat out wrong. There were spots that weren’t deep but in every case, there was a ton of room to navigate the river anywhere we wanted! The last time we went on this river, the water was raging. We absolutely could not get out of the boats (and truth be told, probably shouldn’t have even been in the boats) and our trip down the river was speedy. This time, we got to really enjoy the river!
There were a few “rapids” that we got to ride. I wasn’t sure whether the kids would enjoy it but they laughed and Isaac yelled, “Caribou!” at the top of his lungs (yeah, it’s a 4th/5th grade boy thing I think). We stopped at the end of several of the rapids and walked back up to ride down in the rapids sans boat. Holy mackerel that was fun! I had to hold on to the kids the first few times because they were wary, but in no time, they were itching to go on their own…we just had to catch them at the bottom!
At one point, we saw a few cassette tapes in the water. I suspect that someones house or camp was flooded at some point as no one would just dump old Motley Crue cassettes. Anyhow, the kids saw them and asked what they were…that’s right, my kids had no idea what a cassette tape was or why people would use them instead of cds or dvds. That was a bit shocking to me but we had a great conversation about how life was when I was a kid (and that wasn’t super long ago…I can’t imagine if they had the conversation with my 96 year old Grandpa!) I enjoyed telling them about sleeping in the back of the station wagon on trips and how our legs would burn and stick to the plastic seats…how we didn’t have A/C in the house or cars and no cell phones or video games. Abigail asked me, “How did you make it through?” HA! And our lives were still pretty easy compared to people before us!
Anyhow, it didn’t take long for Diva…I mean Abigail…to get tired. She propped back in the kayak and toured the rest of the river “princess style”. We ate lunch on the river and laughed and had a great time not worrying about a thing. Our only donation to the river gods was one pair of old sunglasses. They were easily satisfied with our sacrifice. I think the river was just what we needed…and I can’t wait to go again!
