Tag Archives: Bees

Your honey for nuthin’ and your licks for free

Bees, Family, Nature, , ,

We harvested honey this weekend.  We usually seem to pick the hottest day of the year to harvest.  It’s not because we like to do it on the hottest day of the year…it just works out that way.  So, my father-in-law came over on 6:30 am Saturday at my request.  “We’ll start early and beat the heat.”  Of course, it didn’t occur to me that the sun isn’t truly up then.  Bees get pretty testy when they are disturbed before the sun is shining bright in the sky.  It’s also best to give the worker bees time to get out into the field.  Fewer bees in the hive come harvest time is always a good thing.  So, our early start didn’t exactly start how I expected but we still did get going with the harvest.

 

My father-in-law holding honey in the comb and an edge-on piece of comb
 
 
 

I have previously sworn off smoking the bees and the smoke/no-smoke argument is a religious debate amongst beekeepers.  Personally, smoking bees leaves me with a bad cough and I can never find rolling papers anyhow.  Um, no, actually, smoking bees with a smoker is what I mean.  After last year’s episode, I decided that for the harvest, I would return to using smoke.  As much as I hate to admit it, I am certain that the smoker made our harvest easier.  For most interactions with the bees, I still do not think that using a smoker is necessary, but harvesting is not a typical interaction.

 

 

Brood (aka baby bees) on the left, honey on the right.  Don’t confuse them on harvest day!

 

 

So, we pulled off all of the honey from the hives and promptly headed off to a soccer-palooza in the heat of the day.  It was fantastic to…uh…have a break in the middle of honey harvest.  After 4 or so hours of  ball kicking, we returned to the honey-house and worked until every drop of honey was extracted, bottled and/or licked from our sticky (but exceedingly clean) fingers.

Click: Honey Flow Video                             Click:  Bees Cleaning Honey Supers

It’s great having bees.  We don’t pay for honey any more, but I am not sure you could say honey is free.  We definitely take our licks and they seem to be free though.  My back is sore and my arms are tired.  All told, we harvested around 150 pounds of honey which is much less than I expected or hoped for but it’s better than none!

Of course, the title to this post is a nod to the awesome Dire Straits Song linked here!  Nothing at all to do with bees unfortunately…

More info about my bees and beekeeping

The beginning of our bee farm

Bees, Family, Nature, WV, ,

We bought a piece of property a few months ago.  There are lots of reasons we bought the place including it’s beauty, it’s size, etc.  One of the big reasons, however, was to have a place to move the bees.  You may recall that I had a bit of trouble last summer during the harvest.  It was after that event that I decided that we needed a place out somewhere where the bees could be away from people.  “The event” was probably a once in a lifetime thing (I hope) but I can’t take the chance.

Aren’t these daisies pretty?   They are everywhere in the hay field…

Our new place is outside of Charleston in the country so, of course, there is a potential for bears to be around.  If you remember your Winnie the Pooh, bears tend to like honey.  A determined bear cannot really be stopped, but a good electric fence will dissuade all but the most determined bears from messing with the bee hives.  So, the beginning of our bee farm has to be a good electric fence.

We found a nice sunny spot on the property away from where we plan to do most of our other messing around.  Emily, the kids and I laid out what is to become our first bee yard at the new place.  We set 4 corner posts in concrete.  Being thrifty as I am, we decided to hand dig the fence post holes.  When I put our fence in for the dog, I ran into all sorts of roots and rocks but the digging at the bee yard was easy…apart from the fact that we had to dig 3 foot deep holes.  It was warm and humid so we took turns digging.  Abigail and Isaac both wanted to help so I was happy to oblige…and they earned their supper for sure!  Really, the kids were great and a big help.  Let’s hope they will help with the bees too!

So, we will let the posts set up this week and add the rest of the supports, posts, wire, etc next weekend if all goes well.  After digging the holes, we are committed so the bee farm is officially underway!  Who knew a few fence posts would make me so excited!?!

Stay tuned tomorrow for a funny story about our posts!

First swarm of the season

Bees, Nature, WV, , ,

We had just finished Easter lunupper (brunch sounds so nice…what do you call it between lunch and supper? Lunupper?).  We rolled into the house and had a message.  The caller reported a swarm of bees near a popular chain restaurant attached to the big mall in the city.  The swarm was at the top of a cedar tree and was “the biggest swarm ever seen” by the manager of the restaurant.  I was pretty skeptical about the size as most people have never seen a swarm of bees so big could mean anything.  Still, I decided to roll down with Abigail and my father-in-law to find out.

As soon as we pulled in, a crowd gathered and watched us do our normal routine of surveying the swarm.  It wasn’t the biggest swarm I had ever seen but the manager had picked out the fact that it was a big swarm.  It was in the very top of a cedar tree.  Cedar trees are sort of flimsy at the top.  Unlike an oak or maple, the cedar doesn’t really have big branches against which one can lean a ladder.  It has been my foolish tendency to just go for it when it comes to swarms.  I just threw the ladder up against the green of the tree and climbed my way up.  I always carry loppers (is that a local term or what they are called?  Long handled tree pruners, anyhow) to cut branches.  The funny thing is that when you cut a swarm out of a tree, you need to hold onto the branch with the bees on it.  Of course, it also takes two hands to run the loppers.  I learned the first time I did this that I can hold onto the swarm with one hand and brace one handle of the pruners against my neck.  I use my other hand to close the loppers and cut the branch.  Now let me tell you, doing that leaning into the greenery at the top of this flimsy tree with a swarm of bees was interesting!

marching into the hive...

So the crowd continued to watch as the three of us did our thing.  We transferred the bees from the branch to the hive I brought along.  I gave the branch a good shake and the bees mostly fell into the box, but some fell onto the sheet I had under the box (another lesson I learned…put down a sheet first.  It looks more impressive and help me keep better track of the bees as they walk into the hive).  In a few minutes, it was clear I had the queen as the bees on the sheet and from the tree ended up working their way right into the hive.  We packaged up the hive and hauled it off in the van (much to the dismay/excitement of our audience).  I really like the “performer” part of catching swarms.  Hauling bees in the van is sort of the grand finale!

safe as can be!

Two things sort of struck me about this capture.  First, people were amazed that I let Abigail be so close to the swarm.  She was a great helper and loved every second.  The funny thing is, she had on a full bee suit so was at lower risk than the people around us who were concerned for her safety.  Silly people!  On the way home, she asked me over and over, “Why were those people looking at us?”  I explained that people were surprised at a kid working with bees, and even more so a girl kid working with bees.  I told her they were probably seeing a swarm of bees for the first time ever, and so on.  She talked about it all night long.  I think she was sort of proud more than anything.  I am still smiling about it…

fascinated!

The second striking thing was a man who walked up as we were doing our thing.  It was clear he was drunk.  He walked right up to us and began to talk to us far closer to the bees than I really liked but he was so curious about the whole deal.  He ended up sitting right beside our area and asked all sorts of questions.  He asked about the queen and I said she was bigger than the rest.  He said, “Bees have three parts, right?  The abdomen, thorax and head, right?”  He must have sensed my surprise because, with a smile on his face, he added, “I may be homeless but I’m not stupid.”  “No sir, you are not.”  That brief conversation really turned my prejudice on its head.  I shook his hand (which I think surprised him) and we parted ways.  I think we both ended up with a pretty cool story to tell, though they are undoubtedly quite different.

Anyhow, I had a really great time catching this swarm.  The audience was fun, having my family along was great, and the homeless man was sort of good to remind me to listen to people before deciding that I know their circumstances.  Bees always teach me something…

Here are some more of my bee adventures and here are pictures of many of the swarms I have captured.

Honeybees – splitting a colony

Awesome, Bees, Nature, ,

The number of bees in a honeybee colony ranges depending on the season.  Sometime in the middle of the honey flow (April-July or so here in WV) a good colony will have somewhere around 60,000-80,000 bees in it.  In the middle of winter, the colony will only have 20,000 or so bees.  Typically, the more bees there are in a colony, the more honey they can make.  So, sometime around the end of January or the beginning of February, the queen starts to ramp up her egg production and the colony starts to grow in number to get ready for Spring.

My helper

Most queens are egg-laying machines, capable of laying up to 2000 eggs per day.  When a hive gets too full of bees, spring fever hits and the colony makes preparation to swarm.  Swarming is a natural reaction to over-crowding and is the typical way the species propagates.  The old queen and a bunch of workers (half give or take) will leave the hive and find a new location.  Prior to leaving, the workers make several queen cells (they feed fertilized eggs/larvae the proper amount of royal jelly and the larvae will turn into a queen) so the remaining colony will still have a queen after the swarm leaves.

Lots of worker brood in the pupal stage...changing from larvae into bee. The flat cardboard-colored covering gives it away
Note the white larvae. Once the eggs hatch, the resulting larvae eat and eat and grow into pretty large "worms". They eventually are capped over (see above picture) and pupate. This stage is the conversion from "worm" into bee.

An observant beekeeper will watch for the Spring build-up and may consider splitting a colony that grows too big.  Swarms are a lot of fun to watch and to catch, but a beekeeper runs the risk of irritating his neighbors or losing the colony to the wilds.  I prefer to split a colony before it gets the urge to swarm so I can retain all of my bees.  So, last night I split a few of my “booming” colonies.  I simply take 3-5 frames with a mixture of bees, brood, eggs, pollen and honey and move them to a different hive box.  I make sure to leave the queen in the original location.  The original colony will remain strong as the queen finds she has lots of room to lay more eggs (in the empty frames I put in place of the ones I removed) and the colony will make lots of honey.

Notice the different bands...the outer bad has a somewhat wet looking yellow cap over the honeycomb. That is capped honey. Inside of that is a yellow paste down inside the cells. That is stored pollen. Inside of that band is more capped brood. The "nest" always has these bands of honey, pollen and brood.

The new colony will feed royal jelly to a number of eggs (in essence, making their own little swarm condition without actually flying off) and end up with a queen in 3 weeks (if all goes well).  The split probably won’t make honey this season as they have to hatch a queen and wait for her to get to full egg-laying capacity, but they should be strong going into the Fall.

Lots of pollen stored by the hive. This is protein for the bees and essential for raising new bees

I was able to find a few queen cells in the original hives so I took them and put them in the splits so I know there is a queen already pretty far along in the development process.  These splits have an even better chance of having a good queen and growing rapidly since they won’t suffer the 3 week delay to make a new queen from scratch.

Too bad it is blurry but this is one of the queen cells I found...a new queen in the making!

I make splits every year and have great luck at it.  I will probably re-queen these splits later this season or maybe next spring as I want to maintain genetic diversity, but in the short term, I now have more colonies than I did 2 days ago and I will almost assuredly make more honey than I otherwise would have made.  Honeybees are so cool!

Maple blooms

Bees, Nature, Thoughts, ,

Last weekend when we had our first false spring, the maples really showed their stuff and bloomed beautifully.  The bees were out and about and desperate for an opportunity to stretch their wings and look for a bit of fresh nectar to eat.  Many folks fon’t know that maples have floral blooms (I guess as opposed to fungal blooms?)  Blooms on a maple are super tiny and most people  just think they are the beginnings of leaves on the trees.  Anyhow, with the warm weather and blooming maples, the bees were out in full force.  Tons of bees were dragging back all sorts of pollen also.  Pollen is the protein source for bees and early protein usually means that the queen can start ramping up egg production as soon as the weather stays warm enough, long enough.

Some beekeepers find it necessary to add pollen patties about this time of year to prime the queen for early egg production.  Of course, early eggs mean early bees which usually makes for a strong colony when the honey flow begins in a few weeks.  With so many maples so close, we do not need to put pollen into the hives.  I have been into the hives this time of year and sometimes there is so much pollen that I worry the queen won’t have room to lay.

Look closely at all of these pics…the yellow stuff on the bees’ back legs is pollen!

Anyhow, the bees were out and doing their thing and I, as always, decided to hang out near the hives and stick my nose into the doorways so I could smell the smells of the hive.  Unlike a few weeks ago, I managed to avoid being stung.  I love summer plenty but I think I might just like this time of year more than any other time.  This is the time of year when stuff starts to come alive again…including me!

I thought the pics were especially nice so I hope you enjoy my bees (from afar) as much as I do!

Right in the eyeball

Bees, Nature, ,

Sunday was absolutely beautiful here so we all enjoyed being out in the sun.  The kids and dog got super muddy and Emily washed the cars.  Being useless, I sat in front of the beehives as the bees dodged in and out, mainly pooping, but also enjoying the sun (I think).  Of course, I absolutely love the smells that come from an active beehive.  If you sit close enough, you can smell the wax and the honey.  It’s not like sniffing a jar of honey from the grocery store.  Oh no, it’s quite different and really incredible.  You’ll have to trust me on that one until they invent “Sniff-o-web”.

Bee poop

So, there I was watching Emily work, just minding my own business when a bee reached out, butt first, and stung me right in the eyelid.  She stuck there for a few seconds, buzzing and trying to fly away.  Though it would have made for a cool picture, having a bee attached to my eye, my first reaction was to get her off before any more venom got injected.  As you might guess, a sting in the eyelid swells up pretty quickly.  I guess I have developed a bit of an immunity because my eye did not swell like it did the first few times I was stung in the eyelid (yes, it’s happened many times).  Still, I looked a bit freaky for a few hours.

A little puffy under my eye
Swelling is spreading out...ugly pic though

Well, spring is my favorite season so a little taste of it makes my day.  Seeing the kids all muddy and the wife washing the cars…it just feels right.  If only my bees had a better sense of humor about my sticking my nose in their business.  Maybe this spring I will try to train them better…I’ll keep my eye on that…

Top bar bee hives

Bees, Nature, ,

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 chaining
Inside 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!"

So, why bother? Here’s a great narrative by Bob and Gail that explains it perfectly!

We’re in the honey!

Bees, Family, Nature, , ,

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!

Stingy stingy

Bees, Nature, ,

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…

Wax harvesting

Bees, Nature,

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…