Three bee tales

Greetings and salutations! I haven't had a lot to post for the month of July and into August because I haven't really been going into the hives quite as much. I figured let them do their thing while the honey flow was on, you know?

Last weekend, Joel and I made a foray into our hives. He had 2 supers on, I had one. His was ready for another super and mine looked like it was getting close!! Unfortunately, we didn't have the equipment ready, so I told him I'd take care of his on Wednesday and work on mine this weekend. I really don't like going into the hives midweek any more because of the whole spraying incident behind us.

On Wednesday I had two bee experiences. First, my bee friend Sandy had a big issue with her "left hive" (she has two). Apparently, she lost a queen. The bees "made" a new queen, but she couldn't find evidence of the new queen in the hive. She saw no eggs, no larva, no queen (granted, hunting for an unmarked queen is like trying to find a needle in a haystack), and a dwindling population. Her right hive continues to thrive, so she was very concerned. She ended up getting a new queen from one of our mentors, Everett, who also runs an apiary supply business. Here's what he told her:

"Put the queen cage in your hive. Don't poke an opening into the cage (the queen cage is usually plugged up with "candy" which looks like nougat or a marshmallow, and you poke a hole in it with a needle and the bees eat their way through to release the queen). Instead, check her in five days. If the bees are attacking her and trying to kill her, your natural-born queen is alive and well. If not, release her, the hive needs a new queen."

Doesn't that just sound MEAN??? Not to mention, the new queen was an Italian queen, and very tiny compared to her hive, which is full of Carniolan Goldline workers. The Carniolan queen is a pretty big bee!

So she asked me to come help her on Wednesday. We opened the hive, couldn't figure out if the bees liked the new queen or not, although she seemed to be cowering in the part of the cage that wasn't open to the workers. But lo and behold! we found eggs in one of the deep chamber frames. That means that the queen that hatched is alive and well!!

So I guess she returned the Italian queen to Everett. I'll have to ask her what the fate of the queen was. Queen bees are expensive!! It can run you anywhere from $20 to a couple hundred bucks, depending on the quality and breeding of the queen.

Being that I was in the swing of bee-checking now, I decided to risk it and throw Joel's third super on at home. I figured it wouldn't take me more than 10 minutes to do so. I opted not to smoke them, which was a really big mistake.

Joel's bees, as I've mentioned, are way more aggressive than my hive, which may explain why they also have more honey. So when I opened them up, the aggression "scream" hit fever pitch almost immediately, and I had a bunch gather on my veil and start pinging my head. Things got worse as I dismantled the supers (I wanted to put the new super right above the first chamber to make them fill it faster, and I had to pull a frame from one of the full chambers to put in the new super to attract them to it in the first place). I wasn't too freaked out until I realized that there were several bees IN my veil. Apparently I had slit my veil somehow. Oh, the drama! I miraculously peeled one off that had attached on my lip, and I did a couple fast laps around the house, screeching like a banshee. I ended up with two IN the house after all that, and had to shoo them out after giving them a few minutes to calm down. And I STILL had to go put the outer cover back on after all that. Ugh. It was awful. I don't know how I didn't get stung.

Today, I had my kids help me put together ten frames so that I could put a second super on my hive if need be. I wasn't too psyched to go into a hive, but you know what they say about getting back on the bike....and besides, I was working with my sweet, gentle bees. And you bet your sweet bippy that I was going to smoke this time. And I borrowed Joel's (unpunctured) veil to do the job.

My older daughter ended up being an ace at putting the support pins in, so we banged out those 10 frames in no time. I lined them up in a new super and hauled them to the hive. Sure enough, they needed another super! Yay! I swapped out a full frame for a new frame on super #1 and threw the new one on top. I grabbed another full frame, swept the bees off, and brought it into the house to show the kids. There's nothing like bringing in a full frame from the hive to make people jump off your couch and run for cover! I made double sure, though, that no actual bees were on the frame when I brought it in.

As it turned out, I had made a small hole in one of the corners by accident, so I allowed them to dip their fingers in to taste it. Even my husband tried it. The verdict unanimously was "DELICIOUS!!" I wish I had tasted it now too!!! But I still had my veil on. I suppose I could have taken it off, but I was covered in honey and I didn't want to get everything sticky.

So....when you do the math, it looks something like this. If a medium frame is filled side to side, top to bottom, both sides, with honey, you get about 4.33 pounds of honey from it. If you have one super full of honey, then (as I do), you have a little over 40 pounds of honey. Joel has two supers full, and perhaps he'll get a full third one, and I'll get a little more, so let's assume we each get another half super. That means I'll get about 60 pounds and he'll have ONE HUNDRED pounds! Local honey is selling for $6-$7 a pound, which means that we'll have a decision to make. If Joel sells 50 pounds of honey, he can make back the cost of the hive startup, and keep the other half. I'd have to sell most of mine to make up the cost, but I don't think I want to do that. I'd like to sell some, but keep the most for Christmas presents and cooking use.

Here's food for thought...I read an article yesterday that warns that we may have a HUGE sugar shortage building up over the next 18 months. There was too much rain in Brazil this year and not enough in India...and they are the two biggest suppliers of US sugar. I wonder how many people will turn to honey if that is true? Honey prices could soar if it is. Of course, we apiarists will be faced with a challenge of feeding them in the spring and fall (since you supplement with sugar). Huh. Something to think about.