Last Inspection of 2011

Was a beautiful 62 degree day and the bees were flying so took advantage of it to inspect the hives and check on their honey stores. Since our temps have ranged from 45 to 65 degrees thus far this winter, the bees have remained up in the top box of both hives instead of clustering lower. With so many bees up top, it was impossible to see between the frames so had to pull one to check on the honey.

Can you spot the queen?

The OV bees were quite feisty! The one frame I pulled had just a few cells of honey so will begin feeding them fondant. And wouldn't you know it, but this frame also had the queen on it! I took a quick pic before slowly and carefully replacing it. No wonder the guard bees were after me! Last year I didn't begin feeding until the 25th of January but they were clustered in the bottom box until then.

I've mentioned this before but the Sasha hive is so very different from the OV hive and the differences are quite noticeable. Not only are the Sasha bees gentler than the OV bees but they are smaller and lighter in color. Only one guard bee flew up to check me out. They still have a fair amount of honey on the frames so will hold off feeding them for a bit.

Already planning for 2012 and adding the 3rd and final hive to our apiary. Need to inventory the supplies on hand and order the wooden ware.

The Lore of the Honey-Bee by Tickner Edwardes

Am the delighted recipient of The Lore of the Honey-Bee by Tickner Edwardes (1865 - 1944). He had always wanted to be an author from childhood and wrote a number of romantic novels. This 1908 book is full of information that is still pertinent today and will be great winter reading.

When the First World War broke out he applied to join the army as a fighting soldier but was told that at the age of 50 he was too old. However he did join the Royal Army Medical Corps as a private, and worked his way through the ranks to become a Captain particularly involved in entomology – the study of insects.

Following his enlistment he decided to enter the priesthood and subsequently became vicar of Burpham. It was during his time there that another of his books was to achieve fame - Tansy 1921. It was made into a silent film on location in the village and was highly successful, starring some of the most popular stars of the era. 

St. Ambrose - Patron Saint of Beekeepers

Part of the Rose Window at the
Church of the Gesu, Milwaukee, WI

Born about 338 A.D., legend is that a swam of bees settled upon the face of the infant Ambrose and left behind a drop of honey. His father took it as a sing that the boy would grow up to speak eloquently with a honeyed tongue. For this reason Ambrose is often depicted with bees or a skep.

There is much about the life of St. Ambrose on the internet so will leave that up to you to discover. If you look to saints for intersession, St. Ambrose is our one!

St. Ambrose in white accompanied
by St. Gervasius and Protasius.

Ambrose became the Bishop of Milan in 374 and died in 397. His body may be viewed at the Church of St. Ambrosio in Milan.

Lots of Stores for Winter

Silly photo, I know but I'm
feeling silly today!

Inspected just the top box of both hives today as they've done a great job sealing everything up with propolis and wanted to disturb the hives as little as possible while checking on their stores.

The OV hive still has a good population of bees and was again quite feisty. I wear a jacket / veil combo that zips together around the neck and one determined guard bee managed to sneak its way inside the veil via the tiny gap where the zipper ends don't quite meet. The words of Dave Morris of BUMBA came to mind... "Squish it or suffer the consequences." You can bet I squished it against the side of my chin and fast!

The OV hive has a eight medium frames full but it is mostly uncapped yet. There were plenty of bees up there fanning away so I'm sure it will be capped in no time and the population will die off to a comfortable level for winter.

The Sasha hive has about half the amount of bees and 6 full medium frames nearly all capped with another half of the adjoining frames uncapped. This hive had stopped taking from the feeder nearly two weeks ago so figured they were ready.

Last year, I had just the OV hive and it went into winter with 5-6 frames so feel both hives are well prepared this year.

No Mice Welcomed Here!

Our days are still mild but our overnight temps have been quite cool. I'm sure there are more than a few field mice that would love to curl up for a long winter's nap in a nice warm hive so it was time to put the mouse guards in place.

The best advice I got as a new beekeeper is that you don't have to spend a lot of money on do-dads and stuff. There are nice mouse guards on the market but I employ this simple guard made from a length of hardware cloth, folded loosely in half along the length and stuffed in the opening. It is naturally springy so the tension keeps it in place.

Last year I was able to keep the top feeders on until Veteran's Day but with the temps some nights near freezing I have stopped feeding. I'm beginning to see dead bees outside the hives. A sure sign of winter coming!

An Important Lesson on Ventilation

Bees need room, food and ventilation to be happy. If one or more of these things are missing the bees will swarm to a new home where all three will be in balance.

It was evident this morning that the Sasha hive was lacking in ventilation! Thanks to our cooler days and even cooler nights, paired with the 90 degree temperatures inside the hive, there has been a build up of condensation on the inner cover. This was caused thanks to the sugar syrup in the top feeder and a piece of cardboard covering the hole of the inner cover.

Popsicle sticks in place
on the inner cover.

Thankfully, the fix is as simple as gluing a popsicle stick to each corner of the inner cover which then raises the articulating cover about 1/8" to allow for the flow of air.

Here in Southern Maryland, I use the screened bottom board as well as this popsicle stick ventilation technique throughout the winter as you certainly don't want cold condensation dripping down on the cluster!

Propolis

Was removing propolis from the top feeder tonight which got me to thinking just what is propolis and where does it come from? It is not a bee-made product such as wax, but it is produced by the bees.

They use it to close up distances less than 3/8" apart.  Bees are happiest when things are precisely 3/8" apart from one another. Anything more than that and they will build it out with comb until it is 3/8" apart. Anything less than that and they fill it up with propolis. This 3/8" distance is known as 'bee space'.

Propolis is made from resin such as sap, wax, essential oils, pollen and a host of other trace ingredients. It is a natural antibiotic and anti-fungal and is prized for its medicinal properties. Bees will also use propolis in the hive as an antiseptic paint to protect the walls, frames, etc. Everything within the hive that comes in contact with the bees, they will lacquer with propolis. Interestingly, a predator killed within the hive that is too big for the bees to carry away will be mummified in a covering of propolis.

Sap in the bee's baskets.

The foragers store the harvested sap in its leg baskets to bring back to the hive. Once mixed, the propolis can be any color, depending on the plant source. It has a bitter taste but a sweetish scent.

Because of its healing properties, propolis is used in ointments,  lip balm, lozenges, etc. It is even available as a toothpaste where it is thought to prevent tooth decay!

They say it is easy to harvest propolis by placing a small-holed screen under the inside cover after the summer honey harvest. The bees will busily fill the holes with winter on the way. Once covered with propolis, place the screen in the freezer. When good and froze, flexing the screen (similar to twisting an ice cube tray) will release the brittle propolis. I may try this next year, just to say I did. I'm not sure what I'll do with the harvested propolis but I have all winter to think of something. :-)

Moved Some Drawn Frames to the Sasha Hive

I was reminded that a queen will scale down her laying during the dearth and pick back up again with the fall nectar flow as they are doing now in both hives. The bees in the Sasha hive are finally getting to work in the top box and this new queen is laying super up there as you can see in this photo.

I had left the honey super on the OV hive and the bees had plenty of frames nearly full with either capped honey or open cells of nectar so moved half into the Sasha hive. These added to the 4 frames of brood and honey they had started will position them nicely going into fall.

I moved the rest of the frames of nectar into the top box of the OV hive. That hive continues to be amazing! I'm confident now that the Sasha hive will be just as strong through the winter and looking forward to another split in the spring.

Tick 4 — Won a Ribbon!

Was blown away to see that our honey placed second at the county fair! It will be neat to get the scoring sheet to learn more about color class but the tag did have the moisture content at 16.5%, which was the lowest of the entries!

Well done OV hive! Simply outstanding!

Its All a Learning Process

Dropped off my entry at the Charles County Fair tonight and the judge happened to be there so I asked him about how honey is judged, never having done this before. I can tick off the things I've done wrong already!

Tick 1 — Different colored lids. Not knowing what this is all about I used what I had on hand.

Tick 2 — Jars should be filled with honey to the bottom of the lid. I have one jar just slightly too low - about the thickness of a bee's wing.

Tick 3 — There should be no bubbles on the top of the honey. My jars fell over in my bag en route to the fair so when he opened one, of course there were bubbles!

Yikes! It's not looking good, is it? There were already 6 other entries looking full and bubble-free so I probably don't stand a chance at this point. But I am looking forward to learning the color grade and water content as both will be determined by the judges.

What About the Wax Cappings?

I've heard that it can be such a mess dealing with the wax cappings. The cappings are the wax that is cut off the top of the cells of honey in order to extract the honey. I recently read an 'How To' that sounded so simple I thought I would give it a try.

1. Set the cappings outside and let the bees clean up the extra honey.

I covered an old cookie sheet with a layer of aluminium foil and sort of spread it out. I placed the tray roughly 40 feet from the hives and was hoping to watch the bees do their thing but we left to run errands and ended up being out all day. By the time we returned, not only was every speck of honey cleaned away, but the wax was totally rearranged, separated into a neat layer of wax flakes! I'm not sure if you can see this by the picture, but we were really amazed at how the bees broke down the wax pieces!



Thank you bees for doing such
an outstanding cleaning job!



2. Fill an old crock pot with water and hear the wax on low.

The wax is lighter than the water so will float on top. Once melted, turn off the crock pot. Once cool, remove the wax and pour out the water.

3. Scrape off any impurities from the wax and repeat. The wax will get cleaner with each melting.

If melting old brood comb, they recommend putting the wax in a nylon stocking the first time then squeeze out the excess wax before letting the wax cool.

4. After the wax has been rendered, use a double boiler to melt the wax to  pour into molds.

I'm in the middle of the first melting but it seems to be going very well, it has not been messy at all.

Fall Inspection Today

Seems weird to say the word 'Fall' when its 80 degrees out but it's time to do a full inspection of the hives to ensure we're set up well to make it through the winter. The hives fared hurricane Irene just fine along with the rains from the left over storm that was hurricane Lee but then the east coast has been hit with days and days of more rain. No bees were flying! As a result, the OV hive, which didn't have a feeder on it, fed from their reserves of honey. The Sasha hive fared better because I've been feeding them all along.

The reports on the inspection:

OV HIVE................................................

The OV hive had nearly 4 frames of honey in the super but they are now down to 2 frames with very little honey on them. There is no honey whatsoever in the brood boxes. The hive is full of bees which, to my surprise, were really gentle. They're busy bringing in lots of pollen in white, yellow and orange with lots of waggle-dancing on the frames.

I'm really happy with the queen's brood pattern. Since there is not the usual honey in the corners of the frames, she filling those cells with brood. Most of the brood continues to be in the top two boxes but there is some in the bottom box, too.

I removed the queen excluder and put the top feeder on. Will now concentrate on building up their reserves for the winter.

SASHA HIVE...........................................

Sash II initially had me confused as she's much darker than I knew her to be... almost as dark as Sasha I. (I needed to compare photos once back in the house to make sure I wasn't seeing the old queen!) While Sasha II is certainly different looking you can see that her abdomen has thickened much more since she was last photographed.

The bees still have not yet drawn out the top box! As you can see, the population of the hive is really good but they are concentrated across two medium supers instead of three. The brood is good on a couple of frames and spotty on others because the bees have taken to storing nectar in those vacant cells. That concerns me so will plan to  move a couple of drawn frames from the honey super of the OV hive to the top box next week if the hive doesn't start working drawing out the top box.

As as aside, I'm going to enter some honey in the Charles County Fair next. Wish me, or rather the OV bees, luck!

Batten Down the Hatches! Here comes Irene.

As Hurricane Irene made landfall over North Carolina this morning, we were busy little bees ourselves preparing for the coming storm.

As bees do not fly in the rain, I made sure the feeder was full on the Sasha hive. (The OV hive has plenty of honey.) Forecast calls for a possible 10" of rain and sustained winds of 60 to85 MPH. I'm sure the hives will not blow over, but to be on the safe side we put a couple of cement paving stones on top, adding another 25 lbs. Now we're really sure the hives will not blow over. :-)

Rain is expect to begin within the next couple of hours with the worst of the storm to hit our area about 2AM. It is going to be a bumpy night but will keep a watchful eye on the hives and pending a tree falling on them, they'll be safe and sound.

Visitors at the Hive

My special friends Sara, Leah, Alex and Macallan came by today. As you can see, we had a blast learning about the bees! They met a drone, watched a bee as it emerged, saw the queen and had a taste of honey fresh off the frame.

I've not inspected the Sasha hive for 2 1/2 weeks, letting the new queen settle in and matures in her laying so was very happy with the first frame I pulled from the middle box. Look at the wonderful brood pattern! Other frames had less covered brood but there were lots of eggs in the cells. I did not inspect the bottom box and the frames of the top box still have yet to be drawn into comb. The bees are feeding well from the top feeder, taking nearly a gallon of sugar syrup every 2 days. Overall, I'm really happy with the new queen.

Have not been in the OV hive since we harvested the honey over the 4th of July weekend. It is well glued together with propolis, sticky from our warm weather as I pulled a frame of honey for the kids. They're doing well and I'll do a full inspection when the weather turns cooler.

The Old Queen is Gone - Long Live (and Lay) Sasha II

Nice brood pattern found on the one frame and Sasha II is looking lovely in the center of the top bar of the frame. Other frames in that box have a mixture of scattered larvae and covered brood. The bottom box has less covered brood but a nice amount of larvae and no sign of Sasha I. Looks like the bees have decided that Sasha II is working out after all.

Sasha II Bad Brood

A brood pattern like this is just what a beekeeper doesn't want to see! Everything is wrong, from spotty to drone cells. The only reason I'm not too worried about it is that this is from Sasha II and she's just begun laying eggs. One cause of a bad brood pattern is the workers will remove unviable eggs, and leave those that will grow into healthy worker larva. Drone cells are a indication that the queen did not mate but I'm of the opinion that there are enough worker bees in the brood to make me think otherwise.

Sasha II



Other frames in that box have similar small areas of covered brood but without as many drone cells as in this photo. I used the flash so that you can see there are lots of cells containing larvae, older in the middle and younger as you move out. Sasha II just needs to get going. 
 

Sasha I

Sasha I continues to populate the bottom box and while there is less covered brood, there is a fair amount of larvae.



I know the bees will sort it out... they have four dry queen cups ready to employ should they decide Sasha II is not going to work out. And for now, Sasha I remains the better layer but that isn't saying much. The lack of orientation flights is noticeable!

I've kept the feeder on and they take it heartily, but there is no real honey production yet. September 1st is the landmark date in my area to really push the feed buildup for the winter. There are four partial frames of in the OV hive's honey super so I can always move some to the Sasha hive. I have options ready for when the bees let me know what they need. There is still time.

Adding a comical touch to my morning inspection were green bees in the hive! I'm not versed enough yet to know which plants produce which color pollen, but the bloom chart for my area shows dandelions, bugloss, clover, thistle, milkweed, mint and more are in bloom. Could these be mint green bees? (te he he)

Is Sasha II Laying Yet?

By my calculations, today is the first day that I could conceivably see eggs from Sasha II so as soon as I got home from work I checked in on the hive. While I did not inspect every frame, I found lots of eggs on two frames in the middle medium super. (Sorry for the crappy photo but if you look closely, you can see the eggs.)

Sasha II

Sasha II was on the second frame I pulled and by her size you can see she has mated. :-) I carefully replaced the frame and decided to see if there was new brood in the bottom box, too.

Sasha I

Again, I didn't inspect every frame but did see a few covered brood and a nice amount of young larvae on the two frames I checked. I found Sasha I still live and well  and if you click on this photo to view the larger image you will see an egg sticking out of her abdomen — it was caught and left behind on the edge of that cell shortly after I took the photo.

So, the question is... who's eggs are those? Not that it really matters as it will all be shorted out soon enough.

Waiting....

No inspection of the bees this weekend. The OV hive is quite cranky when our weather gets hot and we've had heat indexes of 125 degrees this past week! I've respectfully given them space and spared myself a sting or two.

Sasha II should have had her nuptial flight(s) by now and I'll start looking for eggs on Tuesday. I've spent a bit of time in the mornings and evenings observing the sasha hive in hopes of witnessing Sasha II's orientation flight, but no such sighting. I know what I experiencing Sasha I's was a rare event!

BUMBA Friends Save a Colony in Washington, DC

A friend at BUMBA posted an incredible story of a recent rescue of a multi-year colony that has managed to survive in a dying sycamore tree in downtown Washington, DC. 


Read about the bee's relocation on her blog: City Bees - Urban Honey is Twice as Sweet. 

Happy Birthday Sasha II

Did a quick inspection this morning to see if the supersedure queen hatched and she sure did! The workers will now dismantle the queen cell.

This was the first time this hive has ever been feisty - the guard bees were not happy I was poking around but since we've had a hatching, I wanted to see where both queens were within the hive.


Sasha I - An emergency queen born from the spring split.



I found Sasha I right away in the middle box (remember I'm using three medium supers instead of two deeps). She's not really laying anymore. There are a few cells in the bottom box with young larvae but I didn't see any eggs.



The top box is full of bees but they are not drawing out the comb yet. They are feeding like mad from the top feeder as nectar is low this time of summer. The middle box is being used for some brood but mainly for storing nectar/sugar syrup.



Sasha II - The supersedure Queen.



Located the new queen in the bottom box. As her queen cell was much larger than the one made for the emergency queen, I was expecting her to be larger upon birth. If all goes well, she'll begin to lay eggs anytime after July 26. Shortly after Sasha II is mated and begins laying eggs, the worker bees will kill Sasha I by "balling" her, clustering tightly around her until she dies from overheating. 

I'm sad to know my first home-grown queen didn't perform as needed but am hopeful Sasha II will be a good queen and get this hive going. The population in the hive is good right now. They can take care of it for a bit while the new queen mates and begins to take charge. Hopefully Sasha II will give them a lot more brood in order to be a vibrant hive going into the fall.

Sasha, Sasha, Sasha!

I had been thinking that I should replace the queen in the Sasha hive as she's just not laying like gangbusters. But what she does lay is done in a good pattern as you can see in this photo. This frame is in the top box (of two mediums) and you can see she's eager to lay even before the frame is fully drawn out with comb.

I'm finally happy with the population of the hive, bees are everywhere and boy, are they gentle! Inspected all the frames today as I was hoping to see full frames of brood in the four frames I added after extracting the honey last week. But what I found besides the frame of brood pictured above was nectar being stored in most of the frames of the top box.

And I found another surprise — a  beautiful supersedure cell not yet fully capped. Those smart bees made the decision for me! How that egg got up there is a mystery. You can see there are no other eggs in the cells around her as well as elsewhere on that frame.

Because the life cycle of a bee is so regimented, we know she'll be fully capped by day 8 (and she certainly wasn't there 7 days ago) so that will help us know what to expect. She should emerge about July 18 or 19th, take her nuptial flights around the 23rd to the 27th and I can expect to begin to find eggs anytime after the 26th.

I did a very careful inspection of the bottom box and it was difficult to find eggs anywhere. I ended up taking photos of the likely brood frames in order to blow them up on the computer and then I did see some eggs. There is a small amount of larva but very few capped pupae. I found the queen, seen here. Take a last look at her because she will be going to the big hive in the sky very soon.

I've heard a lot of beekeepers says that the bees mostly except emergency queens until they make their own and that the same goes for fall requeening... they will accept her until they can make their own. I'm sure that has been the case with this hive. The population in this hive is finally at a point where it is strong — the two medium supers are pretty full with bees.  

It has been a fun learning experience to do a walk away split. But it has also been a struggle nearly every step of the way. We're now at the end of this queen's life and the beginning of a new learning experience for me as I watch the next queen work to build up the hive for the winter.

A Little Taste of Heaven

Sent a few jars of honey to my parents and they responded with photos of the two of them enjoying the bounty!

I didn't get into bees in order to get honey but having a bit of honey to harvest and share has proven to be a reward in itself!

Honey Harvest

We bottled up the honey this morning and I designed this logo for the labels. The 4 frames harvested produced 21 cups of honey! That is just enough for all of us to enjoy this first year.

Next year I'll have two hives producing honey but for now, we'll be enjoying our first harvest of home-grown goodness!

Harvest Time

I was like a  little girl this morning, excited to finally harvest some honey! The OV hive had 4 full frames of honey but I left 2 additional frames that were only 1/2 capped and there were more partial frames not yet capped. We may get a second harvest this fall but I will probably leave these frames for the bees to feed on over the winter.

After reading various how-tos, I came up with my own, home-grown system: I covered the bottom of a nuc box with two layers of aluminum foil and used the inner cover (with the hole covered with tape) as a lid. This made it easy to hold and transport the frames while keeping the robbers out. I pulled one frame at a time and simply brushed away the bees while walking away from the hive.

Since there were only 4 frames to extract, we worked on the back deck as I had been lead to believe that extracting honey can be a mess. In reality, things went quite smooth. I used a serrated-edge bread knife to cut away the cappings and did this over a cookie sheet that has a lip on it, commonly known as a jelly roll pan. The husband spun the frames and we were both amazed at how easily warm honey spins out of the cells.

Once the honey was extracted we covered it, along with a strainer full of cappings, and left them both out in the sun to allow the heat of the afternoon to aid the honey in draining and straining.

The honey was strained through a fine strainer into a storage bucket and it will sit tonight to get most of the air bubbles out before filling it into jars. The honey looked light on the frames so we were surprised with the dark golden color of the extracted honey.

And the smell is out of this world! The scent is pure honey and the taste is so much sweeter but not sickingly sweet. Too bad there is precious little as I'd love to share some with everyone who has supported our adventure! A medium sized frame weighs about 4.5 lbs each when full of honey and these four frames produced about a gallon of extracted honey.

Sasha Hive Doing Better With Brood

What a wonderful sight to see! This is a picture of brood in the second box of the Sasha hive. Look at that lovely brood pattern! The queen wants to lay, even though this frame is not entirely drawn out with comb, but the bees are certainly doing so in the second box now.

There are 5 full frames of brood in the bottom box with the adjacent half filled on the frames located to each side of those 5 frames. Adding two frames of brood and nurse bees last week really made a difference in the population. This morning I observed many orientation flights!

I placed the 4 extracted frame from the OV hive in the top box and the bees immediately went to work cleaning the honey from the comb. They'll prepare the cells and I'm sure the queen will have these frames full with brood in no time!

OV Queen Looking Wonderful This Morning

Spotted the OV Queen while doing my inspection as I hadn't really checked on them for 4 weeks or so, leaving them to do their honey thing. She's got a great brood pattern going on but you won't necessarily think so from the frame in this photo. This frame is in the top box and the empty cells have been filled with nectar.

Even though she was a surprise queen, she's doing great. The hive is just full of bees and there are currently 6 frames of honey nearly all capped. Looks like I'll have a nice honey harvest for my first year! :-)

I am feeling good about both hives and enjoyed my time with them this morning. As I was closing up the OV hive I spotted these two beautiful bright orange pieces of pollen and couldn't resist taking one last photo. All's well in the apiary today!

Gave Sasha Hive Another Little Boost

Last week I attached some of the burr comb to the frames in the second brood box hoping that the wax would entice the bees to go up there and move it around. As you can see, they did just that but with an undesirable outcome! Good news is that the queen laid eggs in the largest piece (you can spot the eggs when expanding the image.) Bad news is that the queen laid eggs in the largest piece. I've left it there for now because that hive needs all the bees it can get and I want the queen to be moving to other frames.

Thankfully, the queen has begun to lay on the other side of one frame, bringing her total area to 4 full frames. Being as patient as I can with this hive, I know the population must be built up much more in order to have the resources to make and store food to be able to survive through the winter. I decided to move over two full frames of brood and with some house bees from the OV hive. Six full frames of brood in the hive will certainly increase their chances. If there isn't much progress next week, I'll move over another two, and so on.

They are feeding on the syrup at the rate of a gallon a week for this small number, but I am hopeful their wax building capabilities have finally gotten up to speed (albiet misdirected for now) and that they will begin drawing out more comb.

Waxing with Joy!

The Sasha hive top feeder was empty today which was an exciting discovery on two levels:

1. It means the bees are finally taking the sugar syrup in quantity, and
2. The edges of the opening had lots of little, white pieces of wax like that pictured here.

I hope that means that the girls are producing wax in order to draw out more comb in order to store the syrup they are taking from the feeder. Will inspect this weekend and hope to finally see some progress in that hive!