Brad's inspection 06/17

Brad is another friend we met in bee school. He actually lives two minutes from my house. I've not been able to catch up with him since he hived his first beehive, a nuc. I was very eager to see how his hives were coming along. They seem to be coming along quite nicely, although Brad reports that his nuc can be rather ill tempered compared to his package bees.

Here's a nifty dark drone we spotted alongside the ladies. Aren't they just so different in size and shape from the girls? This one was very striking with his dark bands.
Because the nuc came with existing frames, he's got five frames in his bottom chamber that are more weathered than any of the package frames. Here's a good picture of some propolis, that gluey tarlike stuff that the bees like to paste everywhere to fill cracks and spaces:


Here's another frame with a good pattern. Can you tell this frame is a new one? Isn't it amazing, the difference between this one and the one above it?


This section of comb was hanging from the bottom of the frame. We both kind of said, "What is THAT?!"


I think the answer is that it's drone comb, but just the fact that it's below the frame makes me a little nervous. That's where the bees build any supercedure cells (as in new queens).

Here's a closeup of that weird chunk. See the larva they are just about to cap?


Here's a great closeup of the larva. We believe they're drone larva.



His bees were making me laugh, because even when the cover came off, they were clambering to get into the little hole on the inner cover. Seriously, girls, you can use the bottom OR the top, it's much easier!!

Bring out your dead!! And other bee hygiene facts

Someone at work a couple weeks ago asked me if my honey was FDA approved. I tried to keep a straight face. And then someone else asked me if it was safe to buy farmstand unpasteurized honey. It's a legitimate question!!

No, my honey will not be FDA approved. Why? Read on...

Yes, it's safe to buy honey. Why? Well. There are many reasons.

First of all, honey lasts forever. Sealed honey has been found in Egyptian tombs, still in edible form.

Secondly, honey is fungus and bacteria resistant. Some people actually use honey to swab on cuts, much like Neosporin or Bactine.

Thirdly, honey isn't processed. It's spun out of the frames using a centrifugal force, allowed to settle so any sediment (bits of honeycomb, etc.) falls to the bottom, and put in a bottle for your consumption. It's pure.

There are warnings not to feed honey to babies, but that is for the same reason that you shouldn't feed them peanut butter or strawberries; they could develop an allergy or have an allergic reaction.

Finally, honeybees are VERY hygenic. They don't like anything to be in their hives except themselves and their honey and pollen. Sandy says that she put in some sweet fern fronds (which is an organic way to combat the ants which sometimes lurk around the hives), and witnessed the bees carrying it out the next day!! They don't even poop in their hive. They take it outside. My kids are amazed that bees are "potty trained." If you see evidence that bees are going in the hive, there is usually a problem. Winters are tough for them. YOU try holding it for weeks on end!!

I snapped a photo to illustrate this the other day. Another thing that is not allowed to lurk around the hive is carcasses. I've seen bees pick up their dead comrades and fly them out of the hive a few times, but I was messing around in the hive and actually got to snap two of them finagling a dead bee into one's grasp so they could move her out of the hive. First, they actually cleaned off any pollen she had on her (recycling!).


Then one of them got underneath her to grab her and fly her off. Look at her poor little tongue hanging out, she's dead...

Disaster in brood chamber #2 06/07/09

Today was a disaster. Well, nearly a disaster anyway. At Sandy's inspection last week, she had thrown her second brood chambers on already. Joel put his on a week ago. Mine hadn't gone on until the 3rd of June, four days prior to when this post occurred. When I threw on the second chamber, I couldn't find the staple gun to finish the frames (you have to lock the foundation in), I couldn't find the pins you use to attach the foundation to the sides of the frame, and I was in a hurry so I wouldn't be late to pick up my older daughter from school. Even though you're supposed to go at LEAST a week between inspections, I decided I wanted to peek into that second chamber just to make sure things were going ok.

I'm glad I did.

Apparently, the tacks I used in lieu of staples were NOT a feasible substitute. I was missing pieces of frames, the foundation was all mangled and warped, and completely out of the frames in several instances.


Problem was, the bees were now in the second chamber and working on a couple of frames. Egads.

So what was supposed to be a short inspection lasted about an hour and a half with my fixing the frames as best I could. I located the staple gun and the pins and pulled the frames one by one, shaking the bees off it as much as I was able to before working it.

In some cases the bees actually tried to fix the problem themselves by fusing the foundation to the frame. This had mixed results. Half the built frames had burr comb on them.



These are the pins that go in the sides of the frames. They are kind of a pain in the neck to put in (especially on frames where the bees and/or cells and/or honey are already plentiful), but they do keep the foundation in place much better.


I thought this was cute...it was a solitary pollen-filled cell in new comb.


In the end, it was fixed, I didn't get stung, and I felt much better about the second chamber. But boy am I glad I went in to inspect!!

Bristol Bee Workshop 06/05

We weren't sure it was going to happen due to the weather (ugh, has it really been awful weather all month!?) but we had our first workshop at a fellow beekeeper's house. Her name is Beth, and Joe, one of our instructors in class (the one that scared the bejeebers out of us when he announced a "quiz" based on our reading...he was kidding!) led the inspection.

Beth is NOT a first year beekeeper. She's got several hives, including a new package and a nuc, but the most impressive hive was the giant hive!! Check out the little gadget to the left of the hive Joe is working. It's this frame holder that you drape over the side of the chamber that holds the frames you pull. I want one. It would make life a LOT easier.



Joe worked all the hives, saving the big one for last.
He pointed out the drone comb, which was enlightening and comforting because Joel has the same thing on his hive (I haven't seen a single drone cell yet).


Joe also showed us a frame with a good "pattern" on it. You're supposed to see capped honey on the top, then a band of pollen, then brood (or empty cells if they have hatched and the queen hasn't filled them yet).

Then, because the hive is obviously giant, he taught us how to perform a "walkaway split." I will not be able to articulate it well because I don't remember the whole thing, but basically you are splitting the hive in two so it doesn't swarm, so you can create a queen, or so you can build another hive. Joe basically pulled a bunch of frames with fresh eggs, larva and honey, brushed off all the bees (to make sure the queen was NOT on the frames), and stuck them in a chamber on top of this screen gadget called the queen excluder (because the queen can't go through it).

The nurse bees (the "babysitters") make their way back to the brood, you move them with one more frame of fresh eggs from the old hive, and they make a new queen from those eggs.

After a while the bees started getting very irritated in the big hive, and they started to beard. What a sight!





It was very informative. One of the big things I noticed was the speed and efficiency with which Joe worked. I am always trying to get through inspection without killing any bees (go ahead, ask me how many times that's happened), but he just didn't worry about it. Another thing I noticed was that he didn't worry so much about a little bit of burr comb. I usually scrape every last speck out of the hives when I'm in there. He just lets it go unless it's really an impediment.

Sandy's Bee Inspection 05/30

Today, Joel and I went to our friend Sandy's house to see her work the bees. She has 8-frame beehives, which is another way to combat the heavy weight of the brood chambers. Even an 8 frame deep weighs significantly less than one with 10 frames.

We joined her husband and older son on the inspection. At first, her husband didn't even wear a veil. He's VERY brave!!

The first thing Joel and I noticed about the hives was that she has a LOT of burr comb. Burr comb is pretty much comb put where you don't want it to be - below the frames, between the frames, sticking sideways out of the frames...etc. The class leaders kept telling us that burr comb should be removed at all costs because it "causes problems" later on. I suppose those problems are that the bees will lay in it, put honey in it, and of course if you have a big wedge of burr comb holding two frames apart, the bees will fill up that space with MORE burr comb. Ugh. But yeah. Poor Sandy had a LOT of burr comb, both in her hives and that she's already taken out during previous inspections.

In the second hive was the biggest burr comb I've ever seen. Her husband pointed out that as she tilted the frame, it hung from a small strip at the top, so she decided maybe we'd better remove it. Unfortunately it had brood (babies) in it, capped larva (which means they're three weeks or less from emerging) but it was still better to remove it.


It was at this point that I got this sudden surge of courage and I helped her take it out and lay it on the ground. It was kind of sad, because her older son pointed out the bee that was trying to hatch (and most likely did not without help from her family). Those of you that know me know that I HATE killing most things, so it was difficult. But her death wasn't a complete loss. I was able to snap some pretty cool pictures that look like an emerging adult bee.


Those capped cells to the left, by the way, are what honeycomb looks like with capped larva in it.

Thanks, Sandy, for sharing your hives with us!!

Plato's Harvest Volunteer Day 05/23/09

I may have mentioned that I belong to a CSA. It stands for Community Supported Agriculture. It's my second year of splitting a share with a friend and I LOVE it. Dave Purpura owns Plato's Harvest in Middleboro, MA, and it's not only organic, delicious and plentiful, it's a beautiful place to go.

This year Dave's renting a piece of farmland on the Soule Homestead property. It's a historical piece of land in Middleboro. It helps him expand his size and variety of crops. Only problem is, there's no electricity or running water, and it's literally in the middle of noplace, so they have become very creative.



Shareowners were invited to a volunteer planting day on May 23rd. I had my African sister Joanita visiting us for the weekend, and she came along too. We hiked to the plots, and proceeded to plant tomatoes all morning. Dave plants his in a way nobody had ever heard of before. He digs trenches and lays them on their side, covering most of them with soil and bending up the top carefully. This way there are more roots grown, which makes for a stronger plant.


After we planted the tomatoes, we watered them. How do you water a large farm in the middle of noplace with no running water, you ask? It was the coolest thing to watch!! Dave loaded up his tractor with cisterns of rainwater. He attached hoses to them, laid the hoses flat, and then hoisted the bucket to start the water flowing with gravity. Voila! Instant water pressure!

After we watered, we were treated to a delicious roast pork (roasted on the grill while we planted) with lots of homemade fixin's. We sat in the grass next to the field and dined like kings. It was a really neat experience!!

When will the rain end?

Hi! It's been a while. There really hasn't been all that much to report though. It's been raining for EVER, it feels like...

We've got a second brood chamber on! That pretty much means the stack of boxes that are my beehive just increased by one. But beekeepers aren't supposed to call them BOXES :). They are "deeps" (because brood chambers are the deepest you can buy) for the bottom two, and "supers" (because...um....they are for collecting honey and that's SUPER?) after that. Supers can be deeps too, or they can be shorter than the deeps. Mine are "mediums" because in class we learned that a deep full of honey can weigh 80-100 pounds. Can you see me lifting that off the top on a regular basis? Yeah right. You can get even smaller than mediums too, but I sort of went middle of the road. Besides, with all this rain, I wonder if we'll get honey anyway this year.

I've managed to take some cool pictures and have some adventures this past month, but we've had some modem issues, so I haven't been able to post so frequently. I've caught you up to date this evening, I believe. I'm itching to visit those girls again already. They were out in full force this afternoon when the sun briefly peeked out. So were we! It was quite funny...I was out checking on the girls and cleaning stuff off with the hose in the back yard, our next door neighbor's crew (he owns a landscaping service) had just returned, and the kids were out at the preschool in the back. Whenever that sun popped out, all you heard in our three yards was cheering!! Anyway, they were doing their cleansing flights and pulling in some bright, bright yellow pollen today. I don't know what it was, but I think they were awfully happy. The ones I got close to not only had their pollen baskets full, they had it all over their "faces" and bodies!! One landed on my arm. I fought the urge to scream and flick her off, and she just proceeded to clean off her yellow powder and then flew off. I think they need windshield wipers!