Jim Tom and the Sting of Pain

One of my favorite shows this winter has been Moonshiners, not so much for the characters but for the hints of technical knowledge. (To brew moonshine is quite simple... not that I'd try it myself. ;-)  ) Jim Tom is a seasoned veteran shiner lending a hand to Jeff and Mark at a new still site when they come across a ground nest of yellow jackets. This is when Jim Tom shares another of his marvelous tales... 

Homemade Cough Syrup

Homemade Cough Syrup Ingredients 3/4 cup raw organic honey 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil 3 lemons - juiced Instructions: Add all ingredients to a small pot over medium heat until steaming. Remove from the heat & let it cool. Place it into a mason jar or other container with a tight fitting lid. Store it in the fridge for 3 months, or on the counter top for 1.5 months. Tips: Use by the teaspoon or tablespoon, as needed. Stir & warm before using Use as soon as you feel a cold coming on. Also great for allergies

With the cold and flu season hitting hard in our part of the county, I thought I would post a recipe for homemade cough syrup. This simple recipe has been passed down for generations. All you need are three ingredients:

Olive Oil: Making a homemade cough syrup using olive oil will help you combat your cough as well as reduce reduce inflammation in the throat.

Honey: Honey helps with coughs, particularly buckwheat honey. In a study of 110 children, a single dose of buckwheat honey was just as effective as a single dose of dextromethorphan in relieving nocturnal cough and allowing proper sleep. You can use any type of honey you have on hand though.

Lemon: Because everyone knows that lemon & honey is the one of the best throat soother combinations.

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Another great soother for a sore throat is apple cider vinegar and honey. I heat a couple tablespoons of the vinegar in the microwave for a few seconds then stir in an equal amount of honey. Sip and feel better!

There's More to a Winter Bee Than Meets the Eye

I read the most interesting thing on honey bee biology regarding winter bees vs. summer bees, courtesy of the Association of Southern Maryland Beekeepers newsletter: 

The critical portion of a summer bee's life is the first 21 days when the young bees are performing hive duties. Their hypopharyngeal gland produces royal jelly and it is the young bees that feed it to the developing larvae. (Although all bee larvae receive some royal jelly, the future queen bee is fed this substance exclusively and in high quantities.)


The gland is not active throughout the whole bee's life but only about the first 30 days. That’s why you must have a continuous supply of young bees emerging in order to maintain brood development. This is why, it is hard to lose a queen and requeen if you wait too long to replace her. If the break in brood cycle is too long, you may not have enough young bees to feed the new queen’s larvae. That is also why adding sealed brood from another colony helps.

In the early fall, the queen lays "Winter bees" and the hypopharyngeal gland in these winter bees is active for a much longer time and is the reason why the colony can survive a break in the brood cycle that would not be possible in the summer season.

Hello? Anybody in There?

Feeding Back Honey Using Entrance Feeders

I left the top feeders on until nearly Thanksgiving as our daytime temperatures can be in the mid-50's and the overnights had not yet dropped lower than the upper 30's. When finally removing the top feeders I did an inspection to check on the stores. The Sasha hive remained the strongest at that time with lots of honey in the top box but I added entrance feeders to the Dmitry and OV hives, feeding them back their own honey so that they could just store it and cap it without having to expend the energy needed to turn it into honey as they would have had I fed them syrup, which would also add moisture to the hive and is a major a no-no in colder temperatures.

It's too cold for bees to be moving when I leave for work in the mornings and it's dark by the time I  return home but I did observe activity at all the hives this weekend. All appeared well...

Until this morning when I pounded on the side of the Sasha hive. All was too quiet.... I lifted the outer cover to peek in the hole of the inner cover and there was not a bee in sight! Removing the inner cover, I could peer between the frames all the way through the three medium boxes down to the screened bottom board. Not a bee to be seen! By this I mean a live bee.

Frame of Capped Honey in the Sasha Hive

I pulled all the boxes apart thinking I would find evidence of anything that would make the bees want to leave or kill them off... but there was (1) plenty of honey and pollen left behind, (2) space (not an issue this time of year) and (3) ventilation (popsicle sticks glued to the corners of the inner cover provide for that) - the three things that make for a happy bee hive.

There were two frames full of honey and another five frames partially full. The bottom box had five frames containing lots of pollen so if the bees had starved to death I would have found frames containing dead bees head-first in the cells, but the hive was completely void of any bees, dead or alive. There were perhaps a dozen dead bees on the bottom screen, certainly not enough to give an indication of a major die-off.

Did they swarm one unseasonably warm day? Highly unlikely as there really wasn't a reason to move on and they'd not have the ability to find food this time of year. I'm sad for the loss of the hive but everything is a learning experience and I'll do some research to see if I can determine what happened.

2012 has been a tough year for me as a beekeeper. It was my third season. I'm no longer a newbie with just enough experience to be comfortably dangerous. I mysteriously killed the Sasha queen early spring, killed my best queen in the OV hive when harvesting honey, experienced a major die off from the Dmitry hive, probably due to pesticides and now lost the Sasha hive. In 2013 I'm going back to thinking like a newbie!

Apiary Ready for Winter

Left to Right: Sasha, Dmitry and OV Hives

I have been worried about the status of all the hives going into fall but especially the Dmitry hive, the newest one in the center. This queen has just not taken up house very well, keeping to just a few preferred frames to lay her eggs. I've been feeding syrup heartily since Labor Day and the Dmitry hive, more than the other two, were gobbling it up which is always a good sign... and reinforced by the many bees taking orientation flights these past few warm days so I was hopeful the queen was finally branching out.

But today's inspection shattered my hopes... Dmitry has zero stores (no pollen or honey anywhere) and so few cells of brood that I'm contemplating combining the hive into another to get them through the winter. Have they only been eating the syrup instead of making honey? When I last inspected this hives late October I noticed this queen is a bit smaller than the others... perhaps that is contributing to her lack of filling this hive? They've never really recovered from the loss of most of the bees to pesticides this summer.

I had super'd up OV hive to six boxes and they did exactly what I wanted them to do by drawing out comb and making enough frames of honey to supplement the Dmitry hive. Even though I lost the OV queen in July and let the hive make another, it certainly stands true that a strong hive makes a strong queen. This OV hive has never let me down! I was able to add four frames of honey to each box in the Dmitry hive as well as replacing the undrawn frames with empty frames of comb. All Dmitry has to do now is fill the cells with honey! They don't have to waste time doing anything else this time of year. The top feeder is on and I've also begun to feed them back some of their honey using an entrance feeder. I'm giving them every opportunity to make it and if our weather stays mild they have a chance...

All the hives are now set for winter, being set up three medium supers on each. Sasha is doing outstanding with six frames of honey in the top box. The OV hive has four but I'm confident they'll make up for the frames I moved. I didn't take apart the Sasha or OV below the top boxes as they have everything all glued tight for winter with propolis and I don't need them to spend the energy doing so again had I opened them all up. I'm confident there's enough honey in each lower box by the weight of them and that they're doing what bees should be doing this time of year.

I'll leave the top feeders on all the hives as long as I can while I explore options for the Dmitry hive should they just not get their little bee-act together. I know I'm taking a chance with the overnight temps this coming week forecasted at temperatures well below that recommended for feeding syrup. Hopefully, they'll store up the syrup I'm feeding them and my worries will pass...