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.