Jared's Adventure Into Beekeeping

cool happenings

2012-01-27T11:06:00.000-08:00

I discovered I have lost yet another hive today. I will be spending my spring making splits and recovering my losses instead of being able to sell nucs.

I will also be officially starting artificial insemination this year. More to come on that in the future.

I have 2 bee hives in a country club and they needed to be moved. The people there love them so they built me an awesome stand/platform for them. I am amazed at how involved the people at the country club are with nature. They wanted them near the gardens, so we decided on the location and I told them about my requirements. And this is what they built for me:

A neighbor where I have some hives took a bunch of pictures and asked a bunch of questions about bees last year. She has entered an art contest with my photo.... Pretty cool! It has some iridescence in it that the camera cant pick up.

Motivation

2012-01-16T07:00:00.000-08:00

All of my bees that are still alive are doing really well even with the recent cold snap. The candy boards and mountain camp method really helped.

The problem is now me. I have a bunch of comb with dead bees in it from my losses and I am starting my rotation out. I will be removing 2 frames from every box, making the bees make new comb and then processing the wax. I am just really lazy about it and have quite a few supers in need of processing.

Does anyone have a good way of processing? The way I have been doing it is: boil everything in excess water. Once cooled but still hot, I take a cheese slicer and remove the underside that has all of the trash. I then use a double boiler system on the good wax. This workd well, but takes a really long time. Any suggestions?

Lost more hives and pollen

2011-12-31T08:28:00.000-08:00

It was 60 degrees yesterday and I was able to go into all of my hives to check them. I have lost 2 more. All of the hives had queens from strachan and were carniolians. They all absconded or underperformed and froze. I had heard nothing but good about them. Oh well.

A bunch of the hives had already worked through their honey reserves and I had to put candy boards that had a pollen party embedded for this spring. By the time they eat through the sugar block, they will be needing the pollen for buildup. I will have to post a picture later of what they look like.

I also noticed 2 different types of pollen they were bringing in. I can't figure out what is blooming for tem to use. It is gray and dull yellow.

losing bees left and right

2011-12-23T14:56:00.000-08:00

I had an extraction call in an apartment complex.... Turned out to be yellow jackets. I was not too thrilled to find them in the attic space above the heated apartment. I informed them they needed to call a pest control company.

I still have 12 hives. It is wierd as some of them are only half way through their rations and some are onto the sugar I put on top (to make sure they didnt starve over the winter). We are having a really warm winter and I think a few hives have not figured it out......

Either way, I will be concentrating on recouperating my losses and making honey to sell instead of selling nucs. I will probably end up selling 2 or 3 extras anyway. But, this year I am planning on honey and removing old comb and replacing it with new comb.

I replace 20% of my hives comb every year. That equates to about 1/2 a brood chamber. It takes a lot of sugar or honey to replace that. I am hoping that we will have a good honey flow and I can get them to replace it fast.

Been a couple of months

2011-11-22T07:31:00.000-08:00

I have not forgotten about any of you out there who read my blog. I have been busy with the job search and life.

I decided to not do my regular powdered sugar shake this fall for three reasons. First, I forgot. Second, I decided a long time ago that I wanted stronger bees and I didn't want to help the weak colonies. Third, by the time I remembered I was too busy to do it.

Well, I have already lost 4 hives out of my 16. I have no nucs left to replace them with. They all absconded with brood in the comb which all died. I do not think it was foulbrood as it did not pass the ropiness test or the smell test that confirms it. I think it had to do with mite loads or CCD. While feeding and preping for winter I noticed a few hives that had LARGE numbers of bees with deformed wing virus (a condition caused by mites). More bees were like this than usual. I think the sugar shakes helped last year (and I will be doing them from now on if I want to keep my hives).

I have fed out all of the honey from those hives and am storing the frames in the garage. The ones with dead brood will be culled and turned into wax blocks next year.

I have the entrance reducers on and all of the hives should be ready for winter. I will be placing candy boards on top of some next month around christmas, and sugar on newspaper on the tops of the frames on the rest. I just want to make sure I have some bees this spring to make splits from and try to sell.

2 months with no post

2011-08-21T15:20:00.000-07:00

I do apologize to everyone about not posting very often. I get caught up with life and forget.

So here is what you have missed:

The two hives with the Kona queens got a type of paralysis virus. I am no longer in favor of the Kona Hawaii queens. tons of dead bees and tons more quivering clinging to the frames and inside the hive.

I requeened them both and sterilized everything each time I went in them. After a month or two they seem to be doing better. There is no cure, just have to get lucky and get some new genetics.

Cutouts galore!

This one was in a rent house and had been there for over 10 years!

The one below was in an old tree on a golf course. They didnt want to kill them, so they called me.

I did it for free. The reason it was free? They understand the importance of bees and are paying me to keep some hives on their property. I just have to share the honey from them for their chef to cook with (but mostly for them to eat).

And lastly I have a friend who works for a water company and they said there were honey bees in the meter box.

I did this one for free because he is a good friend, and also because they were just going to kill them if I didn't get them. Turned out that the meter reader freaked out and sprayed them and didn't tell anyone. I only got a handfull of bees.

Onto the honey harvest!

In all I ended up with 91 quarts of honey! that is after making 10 splits and quite a few queens! It took me about 3 days to process it all.

It is a beautiful golden yellow color. I have quite a bit left, but I am getting ready to sell a bunch to the local grocery due to the new organic and local food push we are having around here. I am a part of http://www.naturallygrown.org/ and I will be able to get about 2$ more per pint!

But, I have a problem.... or a blessing. I am not sure yet. I managed to keep it at the perfect temperature to cream it (by accident).... And now about half of the jars have creamed. No, not crystalized, creamed. I have about 40 quarts of creamed honey in jars!

Mead me:

I am in the process of making 4 new types of mead. Sweet and dry versions of blackberry and cherry. Both were fresh picked and are doing well. I cannot wait to try them, but it will be next year before I can!

That's what you have missed over the last 2.5 months summed up in a post!

Honey processing

2011-06-01T17:32:00.000-07:00

I still have 5 medium supers to extract. I have about 12 gallons of honey so far.

You can see two different types of honey in the picture above.

Preparation for this weekend

2011-05-25T18:52:00.001-07:00

Guess what I am getting ready to do:

new cutout

2011-05-23T15:23:00.000-07:00

I got a call about a cutout from a second story overhang on a building the owners were trying to sell. I got everything ready on my day off, and got delayed until 6pm. I got there and proceeded to start the extraction with the intent of quitting if it got too dark. The extraction went until 8pm and I called it for the day. I then came back to finish the cleanup the second morning. In all it took about 4 hours. That seems to be the running time for me to do an extraction without destroying the house.

Enjoy the pics:

Not posting much

2011-05-17T16:28:00.000-07:00

I have been busy with my new job and not had much time to do anything else.

I have started on a yard project to make it look better. Under the mulch is the weeding cloth so I wont have to worry about weeds or grass deciding to grow back through the mulch.

I have done all of this in about 2 days of 3 hours of work each day plus a trip to Atlanta to see my parents and get some free plants!

Yes, those are a few bee hives and nucs in the background...

HUGE swarm cutout

2011-05-06T15:57:00.000-07:00

I got a call from a guy who had bees that moved into his front porch awning. They were about 12' up and he wanted to have them removed.

Above is the hole they were using to make a hive inside the porch covering.

Most of my tools. I am missing my sawzall and my drill and hole bits.

The bees were massed in a 5 gallon bucket mass just to the right under the flooring. I used my beevac from ground level to suck them all up. I a, pretty sure I got the queen. In all I got 3 medium supers worth of bees! I will have to go see if they like their new home on Sunday.

swarm call

2011-04-29T16:10:00.000-07:00

At about 2pm today I got a call from a lady about a swarm of honey bees in her mother's holly bush by the house. She said they always go there in massive numbers each year around this time. They fit the profile of what she was saying, so I drove over.

It was only a ten minute drive. What she failed to tell me was that they were LIVING in the ground all around the house and had been for years.

They were ground dwelling pollinator bees. Not honey bees. Oh, well.... I guess I have to add: "are they in the ground every year" to the list of things I ask them on the phone when they call swearing there is a honey bee swarm in their yard.

In other news, I have 7 nucs that have successfully made queens. Carni, italian and carni x italians are the types. 4 or 5 are already claimed. I would have had 10, but one froze because it was too cold and not enough bees. One went queenless and didn't make a queen, so they became laying workers. And one made a deformed queen.

The bee yard at the house has 3 more nucs than the following picture:

I need to move the hives out to the apiary that has only 3 hives. I also need to find one more apiary location somewhere close so that I can keep 5 hives max per apiary.... That means I have 15 hives now!

This picture is of the apiary behind the airport. I have 2 more full hives there and 2 more nucs....

No Time to Rest

2011-04-16T16:09:00.000-07:00

I am sorry I have not posted in a long time. I have been really busy.

The bees are bringing in nectar and making honey. 4 of the hives were about a week away from starting the process of swarming, so I have made a bunch of nucs and splits.

I need to make another split from one of my hives I have at a different apiary, but I am going to wait a bit because I have carni queens coming from Strachan Apiaries next week. I will just split it up the day before and make a few nucs to put the new queens in.

This is what my bee yard at the house looks like:

Brew day

2011-03-24T13:36:00.000-07:00

I decided since everyone loved my last beer I would brew some more. I am doing the same as last time, it is an India Pale Ale but it is on the fence between IPA hops taste and pale ale hops taste. It is really good.

I am also trying my hand at a hefeweizen. I found a recipe that I thought would be nice and got everything together. I decided to use liberty hops. It comes in a packet like this:

Here is a picture of the malt and the first hopping together in the wort that is about to start boiling again:

This is the yeast I am using:

Yeast comes in several forms, but the dry form keeps longer.

Above is a picture of the IPA I am making.... It is bubbling away. It should be ready in about 2-3 weeks. The hefeweizen I am making should be ready in about the same time.... 100 bottles of beer is what I am making.

On a side note, I had a helper (Mac) who was nice enough to lend a hand on the IPA and bottle 3 different versions of my mead. He bottled my chocolate blend, pina colada and plain meads. He did a fantastic job from cleaning and prepping all the way through filling and corking. I have to give him a big thumbs up! Thanks Mac!

Bee Tree Cutout

2011-03-03T15:27:00.000-08:00

I got a call today from a gentleman who had cut down a tree and found a hive of bees in it. He wanted to keep the bees and become a beekeeper. My role was to sell him a full hive of equipment and remove the bees and place them into it. I am also to assist him in the future with some questions and how to inspect the hives.

Walking to the tree I noticed this bee foraging... I figured I would snap a pic real fast.

All of our stuff was loaded onto a trailer to be brought into the woods to get the bees.

The tree was quite large. The gentleman would not go anywhere near it without my spare suit on.

You can see the enterance here:

We guessed at where the bees were and where the comb went... The bees were all in the other half like we anticipated and this was all empty comb with some honey reserves still in it.

I cut out some brood and pollen and honey and placed it in a hive body. I brushed and smoked the bees down into it. We found the queen and made 100% sure she made it into the hive. I put the hive there to get the returning bees. I am comming back tomorrow night to move the hive to the guys house.

Bee School

2011-02-23T21:51:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday, 2/19, the Forsyth County Beekeeping Association had the first of its beekeeping classes. There were defiantly well over 100 people attending.

After the lecture on a basic introduction to beekeeping, there were demo stations. I presented at one of the stations: Protective equipment, hive tools, smokers and Hive stands. My presentation was to 1/2 of the crowd. They were broken up into smaller groups to wander amongst the stations. Each time lasted about 15 minutes and had a Q&A session at the end.

The next few weekends are going to be full of demo station presentations as well.
March 5- How and when to inspect a hive
March 12- Feeder types and feeding sugar
March 26- Requeening principles and techniques

April 2 will be the bee yard day. I will have up to 9 people to be a mentor for throughout the year and beyond. These people will come to my apiary and I will grade them/help them on an actual inspection. This will be their practical test for the NC Beekeepers Certified Beekeeper level exam.

warm weather

2011-02-15T11:01:00.000-08:00

We have been having really warm weather for the last 4 days... It has allowed the bees to break cluster, and fly. It also has allowed me the opportunity to go into them and inspect the hives.

At my house, one of the hives is down to just 1 frame of bees with the queen not laying many eggs. They might not make it if she doesn't get her act together. She is the last remaining Kona stock I have.

I have one hive that has a HUGE number of bees. two brood chambers worth. The queen has layed eggs on 4 frames in the bottom brood chamber and 4 frames in the middle one. There are tons of bees bringing in pollen. They have gone through an entire candy board already and only have one supers worth of honey spread among 3 hive bodies. I will probably have to feed them more before the honey flow.

You can see the one worker bringing in pollen.

Big Brother Fail

2011-02-09T19:42:00.000-08:00

Once again, our government is doing something stupid.... http://www.globalanimal.org/2010/12/20/wikileaks-says-epa-is-a-buzz-kill-for-bee-colonies/26984/

Wikileaks is bringing light to the fact that the EPA (enviromental protection agency) isnt actually protecting the enviroment.... They have caved to lobbiests AGAIN. No wonder the honey bee is very rapidly becoming extinct....

busy as a bee

2011-01-28T17:32:00.000-08:00

I have been busy on a new construction project for my cutouts.

I have been building a new version of the bee vacuum. I use it for cutouts to gently suck up the bees off the comb as it is removed from a structure such as a house or building.

I added suction reducing holes in the sides to allow me to better regulate the amount of vacuum force that is removing the bees from the comb. Too much suction slams the bees into the tube and bounces them around and then slams them into the wall of the super both of which can kill them.

I added a plexiglass top to allow me to see how the bees are doing and if I have the suction too great.

The middle white super has older drawn comb in it to give the bees a head start. All I have to do is remove the top and bottom of the vac when done, and place the middle on a bottom board and put a top on it and I have a hive ready to go. I can also add supers to the vac if needed for larger cutouts.

I am not going to give away all of my secrets for the vac, but it does have a few ingenious ways for collecting the bees and storing them.

New toy

2011-01-21T09:32:00.000-08:00

I decided to break down and try to make things easier.

I went ahead and bought a motor conversion kit for myself, seeing as I will have 15 hives in 4 yards this spring. I got tired working with just 3 hives that made any honey last year.... I cannot imagine hand cranking for 20 mins for every 9 frames. I should have at least 180 frames of honey this year, so you can imagine how long it would take to harvest!

NEW POST!

2011-01-18T09:32:00.000-08:00

It has been a little over 2 weeks since the last post. I have not fully gotten over the crud that I got just before christmas. The doc says it will linger for a while.

We had a warm day 2 days ago. Warm enough for the girls to get out and fly some. I figured it would be perfect to make them some pollen substitute to ensure good brood numbers coming into the spring.

As with everything in beekeeping, I tried to save some money and bought the powdered versions of 2 different substitutes. You can sprinkle it on the frames, or make patties with it. I also got lucky to get some spent brewers yeast. I decided on 4 cups of brewers yeast, 2 cups of the tuscan bee diet and 1 cup of the generic substitute from brushy mountain. I added 2 bottles of corn syrup, a little water, some honey B healthy and some apple cider vinegar.

I used my hands to mix it. You want to talk about a mess.... imagine 7 cups of peanut butter. That is what it looked like and felt like. I couldn't get it off my hands or anything else it touched.

After I got them on the wax sheets and rolled out, I took scissors and cut them into useable strips. I froze what I didn't use and put 2 strips on each hive right above the cluster. 4 or 5 of the hives immediately started eating it. All of the hives were mean. It is cold, the middle of winter and they don't like to be disturbed.

I just hope they don't dry out and become cement bricks....

2 hives lost

2010-12-31T10:49:00.000-08:00

It was warm enough again for the hives to have bees out and about cleansing. I noticed 2 hives for the second time durring a warm spell, not active. I broke them open and this is what I found:

Both hives with Kona Queens from Hawaii didn't make it. There were inches from food, but starved to death. There were also random pupae ready to hatch that they abandonded to try to stay warm. I will place some of their old honey stores on a hive that is desperatly needing honey.

2 out of 12 isnt so bad... but we have a few months left to go!

For Michelle

2010-12-24T08:19:00.000-08:00

I managed to get a really nasty bug on Monday that has run me over like a truck. Before the inconvenience, I have had the opportunity to take some quick peeks at where the clusters are and check the stores.

I have candy boards on all of my hives and my nucs just to be safe. There is a small gap that I made to keep the boards from turning to complete mush due to condensation on the inside of the hive. Only 2 hives are to the point of using the candy boards. Two hives also have a super and a half left of honey. I can use their candy boards if needed. All of the other hives seem to have enough to make it the rest of the way through winter.

We have had snow stick 2 times already this winter and tomorrow (Christmas day) it is supposed to snow and accumulate again! It is really too bad I feel so terrible.

Busy

2010-12-01T11:39:00.000-08:00

I have been busy with various things and have forgotten to post.

I moved the hives off of my back deck and organized my main bee yard some. I had some stragglers not want to orient to the new spots and they buzzed around the back deck looking for home.

It was warm enough to crack open the hives to take a peek and several have me worried. They have eaten through ALL of the bottom and most of the middle boxes of honey. This means they have one medium left. I threw sugar in there via the mountain camp method (place sugar on newspaper and wet slightly to let them eat it as they go through the rest of the honey) and will be making candy boards (hard candy that sits in the inner cover for them to eat if they run out of honey). I guess 66 lbs of honey is not enough for this climate.

I should have enough honey next year to have a few supers left for winter swapouts if they get low next year.

Warm weather

2010-11-08T18:45:00.000-08:00

We had 73 degree weather today and the bees were out taking advantage of the nice day to do cleansing and orientation flights.

I also took the initiative to add about a 8"x8" pollen patty to the center of each hive and they must have been hungry because after about 15 seconds the patty was covered in bees eating it. I need to go and feed the other hives.

I also found 2 hives on craigslist for sale and got a really good deal on them. The guy had not messed with them for over a year (or so he said). Lets hope the bees were truly as advertised and are healthy enough to make it through winter.

Update on apiary and mead

2010-10-25T12:00:00.000-07:00

I will be changing the chocolate mead carboy in the next few days. I will also be adding some more water to all when I rack them (change from one container to another leaving behind the gunk).

I have marked all of my queens with the exception of one. She is a black carni and hard to spot. I have also made sure all of my bees are ready for winter with enough stores to be able to survive. They are in 3 boxes known as supers. The bottom is full of pollen and brood, the middle is half honey and half pollen and brood and the top box is all honey.

I have also given all of the hives another sugar shake. Food and mite population reduction all in one.

Sugar shake and mite drop

2010-10-06T07:58:00.000-07:00

I decided now that it was getting colder, I would do a sugar shake and a mite drop count. You take powdered sugar and sift it over all of the bees in the hive. Taking care to brush it down between the frames. As the sugar gets on the bees, they start cleaning themselves. The powdered sugar gets on the varroa mite feet and they cannot hang on while the bee cleans. The mite then falls through a screen on the bottom of the hive. You slide a board in on the bottom coated in either cooking spray or crisco. The mites stick to it and you can count them.

Needless to say, the bees were NOT happy to have the 10x powdered sugar thrown on them. Even my calmest hives became mad.

After 24 hour I came back and pulled the boards. I counted the number of mites on each board.

There is a lot of junk you have to sift through to find the mites, but the grid system makes it easier. Below you can see a mite that I have circled.

Here are the totals and breed of queen for each of the 5 hives I shook:

Glenn Carni: 3
Kona Italian: 10
Tate breeder Carni: 6
Kona 2nd Gen Italian: 7
Kona Italian: 85

I have several options for the Kona that got 85 mites. I can treat with chemicals (don't want to do that as I am staying as natural as possible), do another sugar shake in a few days and then another a few days later (probably do this), or do nothing and let them either die off or deal with it. I would have to say that 1 out of five failing the drop test is not bad.

I think I know why the mite levels are so high in that hive. I have some old drone comb in the hive and the hive still has drones, and the queen is still making drones in it. Varroa LOVE drone pupae. None of the other hives have either drones or drone comb.

Mead 2nd shot

2010-09-24T13:33:00.000-07:00

I am making a few tweeks to the previous JAOM orange:

Joes Ancient Orange Cinnamon Clove Mead

Filled 6 gallon carbouy to just under top line

3 ½ gallons water
1Qt OJ
1/4 tsp orange extract
5 large naval oranges cut into 16ths then halfs
5 pinches nutmeg
4 cinnomon sticks
7 cloves
18 lbs clover honey (1.5 gallons)
1½ cup loosely packed Sunkist raisins
2 packets fleschmans baking yeast (4.5 oz)
2 tsp Fermax nutrient

I am also going to try a pina colada mead.

3 gallon carboy
12 lbs honey (got carried away and forgot to stop at 9)
2 20oz cans crushed pineapple
1 can 13.5floz coconut milk
1/4 tsp coconut imitation extract
1 tsp Fermax nutrient

Extra pineapple
3 gallon carboy
9 lbs honey
4 20oz cans crushed pineapple
1 can 13.5floz coconut milk
1/4 tsp coconut imitation extract
1 tsp Fermax nutrient

lot in a few days

2010-09-14T09:24:00.000-07:00

I have done a lot in just a few days. I have fed up all of my weak hives or hives low on stores. I will continue to feed pollen patties for 2 more weeks.

I finished marking all of my bees yesterday.

This one is from a swarm I cutout from an apartment in reidsville a while back. I marked her last years color because she is at least 1 year old.

Yesterday, I went into one of the airport hives and the queen was gone. This is the problem hive. I don't have any idea what is going on, but this is about the 4th time this season the queen has dissapeared with no queen cells present in the hive.

I am making one last effort before giving up on them completley. One of the late splits I did was pretty low on bees. I decided I would do a newspaper combination on the two of them. Late last night I attached a front moving screen to the one here at my house. This closed the bees up inside. I moved this hive out to the airport this morning. I added the queenless hive ontop of the queenright hive with a sheet of newspaper between them. I also have removed all of the frames that were from the cutouts, or even looked questionable in the problem hive.

I opened up the drone cells to see how bad the varroa mites were. wow....

I count 8 mites. Only having about 1 frame of capped brood in a whole hive condenced the mites into a very small area.

All of the frames I removed are being melted down and I am going to make candles eventually.

queen marking

2010-09-09T07:12:00.000-07:00

I am going to spend today marking the rest of my queens. Since I am doing this by myself, I cant take pictures.

I marked my first queen last night. I decided I would try one of the nucs (small starter hives). This way, if I screwed up, it isn't that big of a loss. I was very nervous about handling the frame without gloves and then grabbing the queen out of the middle of the workers without gloves. My heart was going a million miles a second in anticipation of getting a bunch of stings on my bare hands, or hurting the queen.

I found her in the second hive body and set the frame aside. I took off my gloves and went for it. I got her with my dominant hand, let her grab my left thumb then gently pinched her legs (minus the front leg so I wouldn't damage her front leg. Queens measure the cells with the front leg. If it is damaged, she wont lay). I carefully dabbed some blue paint with a Sharpie paint pen on her thorax. I then blew gently on her to dry her off.

All that was great until I went to return her. They balled her and tried to kill her! I had to throw my gloves back on and dig her out of the pile of bees. I put her on a frame with honey and corralled her with a push in cage. she had 2 very young bees to tend to her. I put that frame back in the middle and closed everything up for the night.

I came back today and let her out. The bees were so happy to have her free. I guess the smell of my fingers, me blowing on her and the paint made the workers think she was a foreigner.

Today's nuc trial went better. I donned my neoprene gloves and tried again in a different nuc. I got the queen, marked her with my gloves on and then put her on a frame with a push in. I let her dry in the shade for 10 mins. I came back and let her loose. The bees were just fine with their newly tattooed queen.

Now I need to do this with 5 more hives....

I need to get a hairpin roller style queen cage to let her dry in so I stop damaging the comb and brood with a push in cage.

Hive tracking tool

2010-09-08T12:02:00.000-07:00

I am now using a free service called Hive tracks. https://www.hivetracks.com/

It lets you visually build your hives with components the hives have on them. That is a nice feature because I do not have to remember what I have on each hive.

It also lets you select hives to be requeened, when the queen was introduced, her race, ect.

You can also generate inspections and reports on each hive. The hives are all shown and weaker ones are colored yellow to red depending upon the strength of the colony.

This is an awesome tool. I hope it stays free.

Back from Panama

2010-09-01T11:16:00.000-07:00

I am back from my trip to Panama. I had a great time with some of the most fun people in the world.

Once I got back, my mother wanted to dig up and give me a bunch of flowers to plant in my yard. It has taken me 3 days to plant them all. I had a car full of plants and assorted spiders that I am still finding in my car! I am adding another expanded flower garden that I should get done this weekend.

I helped my father pickle and bottle jalapeno peppers. As a reward I got a whole flat of them to take home. There are more peppers than I know what to do with.

I also had to clean my 90 gallon reef tank and my 29 gallon tank. 2 weeks of neglect took 3 hours of work. Plus, I had more corals to put in that I brought back from Atlanta.

On to my bees:

Inspecting 8 hives that have not been inspected in 2 weeks is a lot of work. I checked 2 at the airport when I was there this past weekend and the swarm cutout from reidsville is awesome. Good pattern, stores and bees. The other hive is hot. I have had nothing but issues with them. Lost 2 queens trying to keep them queenright and they finally raised their own. I went back to feed them a few days later, but I was in shorts. Big mistake. I cracked the bottom box to throw a pollen patty on it and immediately got hit by 5 workers on my left leg. They shot out of the crack and stung me! I got 2 on the right leg before I was able to run back to the car.

Most of the hives are awesome. One is so calm I worked it without smoke or a suit. That hive has a great brood pattern and nice pollen rings and honey rings around the brood in the frame. I am 99% sure they are carni's. They are all dark workers with the exception of a few Italian looking ones.

I also have 2 hives that are mean as can be at my house. They chased me around outside for the next 5 hours if I went to work in the yard. Next spring, I will be re-queening them with a queen from the super calm colony.

I have fed all of the hives 1.5 gallons of sugar water to make sure they have enough stores for the fall and winter. The nucs are up to 1 gallon.

I have also noticed a TON of wax moths around the hives hanging out on the outside. Good thing the hives are strong.

In all, I have 2 nucs that are doing well, 3 hot hives and 8 hives total.

Mead update:

I racked the chocolate mead into a new carboy. It is very creamy chocolate tasting, but bad alcohol after-bite. It will take some time to mellow out.

I bottled the last strawberry mead, and it is AWESOME! It is a bit on the sweet side, but it has quite a complex flavor and aroma. My best one yet.

Posting

2010-08-12T20:07:00.000-07:00

I have been very busy and not had time to post. I thought I would let everyone know that, yes, I am alive and will post when I get back from Panama.

I would also like to let everyone know I gave a lecture on aerodynamics and honey bee flight to the Forsyth County Beekeepers this past weekend. There were about 113 people there! The talk and Q&A lasted about an hour. In all, I would say it was a success!

That's all for now....

For my Granny

2010-07-15T18:45:00.000-07:00

I have been very busy with things and I have not had much time to post on here. My Granny in Florida has been keeping up with my posts and has made the comment that I have not posted in a while. So this one is for her!

I have 8 hives total. I have 6 at my house and 2 at the airport location. I will be moving two hives from my house to another location sometime closer to this fall.

I have gotten a queen castle to raise 3 queens at a time. All you do is put a frame of eggs, a frame of pollen and a frame of honey into it and 14 or so days later you get a new virgin queen. You can then sell them or use them yourself.

I have 4 newly hatched queens. I have one queen in a nuc hive. The three current ones should go on mating flights in the next few days and begin laying eggs by this weekend. I will keep one to requeen a mean hive, and I might sell the other 3. I am also considering trying to overwinter one nuc colony in the event I lose a primary hive. I can always sell it next spring if it makes it through the winter.

I have also had 2 metal hive stands built…. I have built in oil traps at the foot of them to keep ants, earwigs and anything else that crawls/walks off of and out of the hives. I have killed a good 30 bees with these traps. Not sure why those bees were on the ground and trying to crawl back up. Most likely they are already dieing or are deformed and the others kicked them out. I might try to market and sell the stands for $65.

cutout, queen rearing and bottled mead

2010-06-27T12:10:00.000-07:00

I started and finished another cutout today. It was in a second story bedroom. I removed the wall and got the bees out. Never found a queen. The comb is small cell and not larger sizes. I then crawled on the roof and we cut into the soffit/box overhang and made sure there were no other bees in there. Just mouse damage.

Yesterday I also bottled the Ancient Orange mead and the Strawberry Chocolate Vanilla mead. Talk about good stuff!!!!!!!!!!

This is a combo of both..... I call it sunset mead. Very complex taste and VERY good.

Queen pics and ant/roach/earwig

2010-06-17T13:15:00.000-07:00

I have had an ant, cockroach and earwig problem in this hive. I have taken 2 turkey roasting pans and filled them with canola oil to stop them from crawling up the stand.

I have created 2 new nucs, one in a nuc and one in a hive body. I will be testing 2 Instrumentaly Inseminated queens in these to see if we did a good job on them.

We will be doing II on friday or sunday and these bees will have been queenless for 24-72 hours... I will have to destroy any queen cells I find when I cage introduce the new queens.

While pulling frames, I was able to take a picture of 2 queens. Hive 3 which is a carni who is putting out mean daughters and will be pinched very soon (see if you can find her in the next pic):

And I was able to get a good one of the Kona queen from Hawaii:

nuce to hive move, and queen pics

2010-06-15T14:02:00.000-07:00

I decided that the nuc had enough time being in a nuc now there was a queen in it.

The brood pattern in the following pic is from my Kona Hawiian queen. I gave them a booster of brood. I would say that is a good pattern, wouldn't you?

I got to witness my carni queen in hive one laying an egg. Now that she has figured out how to do it, she might be laying too many eggs! You can see the egg on the tip of her abdomen. She then lays it in the next pic.

wax processing

2010-06-13T14:21:00.000-07:00

I have gotten around to cleaning up the junk wax and processing it to clean it up. I washed it in warm water in pantyhose to catch the big chunks. I then put it under a heat lamp in my solar wax melter, as we have not had a full day without rain.

I took that wax that ran off and gave it a hot water boiler bath to get it to melt. All of the trash either floats or sinks. I can skim off the top and scrape off the bottom to get rid of the junk.

All I have left now is to scrape the bottom trash off the block and melt it one more time.

Working and a wild swarm appears!

2010-06-11T14:26:00.000-07:00

I was inspecting my far hive at my house and I started closeing everything up. I noticed a lot of bees buzzing around near me. I went back to the porch and looked back and saw the swarm landing on the cinderblock temporary hive stand.

I initially freeked out and though that I had dropped my queen while working with her, but I remembered that I put the only frame I removed in front of the hive, not behind it.

I threw them the best I could with my bee-vac into the nuc I had been trying to get to raise a queen. What a dumb idea. They all immediatly started fighting. I sugarwater sprayed all of them and shook every frame infront of the hive. I also smoked really well....

Don't ask me why I added them to the queenless nuc... I didn't think about the cardboard nuc I had squirreled away in the garage.

4 meads bulk ageing

2010-06-10T19:39:00.000-07:00

I have sorbated both the chocolate and joes orange meads to keep them from restarting, and I put them in the freezer and got them below 30 for the night. That should have made most of the yeast, if not all of it, go dormant. The sorbate keeps it from becoming active again.

I also didn't think the chocolate had enough chocolate taste. I added a whole bottle of Hersheys syrup and stirred it up. It was noticable, but not strong. The same with Joes and orange taste. I added 5 cups of quality OJ.

I am going to add some more honey as well. This is known as back-sweetening. I have to make sure it doesn't start fermenting again. That is why I froze it and sorbated it. A lot of people I know are alergic to sulfites, so I am going to try to not go that route.

I added 3 lbs honey to each strawberry mead along with 9 drops vanilla extract to the strawberry vanilla.

Sorbating, freezing and back sweetening is all done.

no queen cells

2010-05-27T16:18:00.000-07:00

I think I know why I am having a hard time with the bees in the nuc drawing out a queen from a worker cell.

I went into the nuc today and the bees were PISSED! Even with smoke, they shot out and started smacking the veil. I had them stinging the gloves and my jacket too!!!!

They are queenless, and they are hungry. I have tons of honey in the nuc, but apparently there is a shortage of pollen. Because of this, the bees have been sacrificing eggs to eat. I have added a pollen patty to the nuc and will be sprinkling some dry pollen substitute in tomorrow, along with a fresh frame of eggs. I don't want to open feed due to the honey flow being on.

Maybe I will be able to get them to draw out a few queen cells now that they have tons of sugar water, honey and food.......

Anyone else have any ideas?

Mead update

2010-05-24T05:44:00.001-07:00

I have a few good recipes that seem to have turned out well. And one or two that have some serious pucker factor tartness!

To give everyone an update, I did a lot of racking into secondary's a few weeks ago and taste tested everything. I was a little drunk by the end of it just on taking about 2 shots worth of each.

The chocolate tastes very mellow with a hint of chocolate. It will be one that sneaks up on you and when you get up to get just a little more you will have to sit back down!

The Joes I made is VERY pithy but good. I added 2 cups of OJ out of the carton into secondary to bulk age. It will be pretty good too. Cinnamon made it spicy hot.... I think it might need a dash of nutmeg or something. Not sure yet.

The strawberry chocolate vanilla is VERY strawberry sweet, then goes to a slight pucker. Very nice contrast. The straight up strawberry is like a punch in the mouth pucker. It is like munching on straight cranberries fresh from the farm.... WOW! I am going to have to k-meta/sorbate and backsweeten it. I cannot stand to drink it. I am puckering just thinking about it.....

NC Master Beekeeper

2010-05-21T10:41:00.000-07:00

Here is a link detailing the process and requirements that I am going to be doing.
NC Master program

Journeyman is the second level of beekeeping certification, and the one I am currently working on. You have to do a certain number of community service hours, have 2 years experience as a beekeeper and take another test.

Then I will take the Master level and the Master Craftsman. It takes 5+ years in all...

Certificate

2010-05-20T13:58:00.000-07:00

I got my certificate today verifying I am a Certified Beekeeper with the State of North Carolina. I now get to work on the next level, Journeyman. You need 2 years experience and community service hours.

Orientation flights

2010-05-19T13:15:00.000-07:00

Every day around 3-4pm the bees all come out in masse force to orient on their hives. The first time I saw and heard it, I thought they were swarming and I was going to loose a bunch of bees. I sat and watched one lone bee (VERY hard to do when there are that many). It would fly out around in a lazy loop and come back in.

Here is a video.... You can hear the crow in the background. I scared him off the porch when I went out. He was having a mid day snack on my bees.... :( I have noticed a TON of birds hanging around. Cardinals, Jays, Titmice, crows, robins and others all grabbing a quick meal.....

Hives update

2010-05-18T15:07:00.000-07:00

I now have 6.5 hives total. 4 at the house (with a starter nuc to see if I have drones around here for virgins to mate with) and 2 out at the airport where I work.

The hives at the airport are standard white. I did this to be able to keep my equipment separate for separate yards in the event of an outbreak of AFB or something. I will not loose everything this way.

The first carni I got has done quite well. I am now on the second honey super. They have drawn out and filled all but 2 frames. 4 frames are capped already.

The middle hive was a late nuc from Hawaiian Italian breed. They are just starting on their first honey super.

The hive closest to the house is doing okay. The replacement queen has JUST started laying…. Dunno what that is all about. They have plenty of stores, but if she doesnt start laying faster, they will miss the end of the honey flow.

The other swarm has about 3 frames in the top box drawn out.

spoils of war

2010-05-15T15:15:00.000-07:00

It started at 9:00 and went until 2 pm. This cut out was a lot of work an in 95 degree heat, it was not fun. We had to cut into the house due to tiling on the inside and they were sort of below the floor.

I have no idea if we got the queen or if we got to all of the nest. I have a feeling that I will have to go back in a day or two and tear off more siding and cut more wood off of the house. There was a small bee-run that either went to the back of what we exposed, or a whole new area.

I did end up getting a ton of honey covered bees, who knows if they will make it. I also got what will amount to about 3 gallons of honey!

cut out part 2

2010-05-13T14:24:00.000-07:00

I got on site this morning at 9:30 and with the help of Greg (local beekeeper from Kernersville) and the maintance director of the complex, we dove right in.

The floor was cut into a piece about 5' x 5' and we pried it up. There had been a serious honey bee hive in the past that took up most of that area, but a mouse got in there and made a mess of everything.

The bees were still in "swarm mode" as they had only been there about 4 days and had just started comb building. I vaccumed up what I could and then shook them into a hive body. We then put the moving screen on top and set the body over the area they were living. A lot of them moved up into the body, but there were still a lot on the outside. We vacuumed up the outside and filled the hole with foam sealant. We sucked up a bunch and went back inside and sucked the rest up.

I then took the complex's shopvac and sucked up all of the nasty mess that the mouse caused and threw everything of mine in the car and headed out at 12:30.

The only major issue was when I was working with the bees I had to lift the wood and I squished one of the girls into stinging my finger. She got me good.... It feels like it is going to pop with swollen pressure.

I got a phone call on the way to the new apiary about a house that has a hive in the wall that has been there for 10 years. Easy access too. I am going to tackle that one on saturday morning. Now all I have to do is try to find another hive and woodenware because I am out!

cutout

2010-05-12T14:46:00.000-07:00

I am going to be doing my very first cut out tomorrow (5/13/2010). The hive is between the first and second story in an apartment. I have a paper from the complex saying that I am not responsible for damages or repairs or cleanup. The maintance guy is going to help me get it done.

I would say that there are a few bees in this hive......

Mark from Mark's Bee Havin turned me onto this one. He will probably be helping me tomorrow off and on between his work and personal life. This job is going to take the better part of the day.

Carni install

2010-05-07T13:25:00.000-07:00

I have placed the carni replacement queen in the hive that has run amuck. I will be going back in on sunday to ensure she has been released and everything is okay.

She was not cooperating for a photo, but you will be able to spot her a mile away with her blue dot!

I took the queen cells I found and placed them in the nuc over the railing. I am going to see if the virgin will get mated and start laying there. I am not sure there are even drones within a 3 mile radius of me, so this will be a good experiment.

The bees are REALLY pissy and easy to excite. I guess being without a queen will do that.

Watson Queenless

2010-05-06T15:51:00.000-07:00

Well, for the last 2 nights Watson Hive has been really testy and upset. I went in today to see what was up and found 2 queen cells. I went and grabbed a nuc and set those aside, getting ready to try to make them think they already swarmed. I then saw 2 more and set them aside.

I searched every frame 2 times in search of the queen. I couldn't find her. I decided to look for eggs. A lot of the middle frames that should have brood had pollen in them. I then saw bad patterns amd miss-shapen eggs and a few in the bottom of the cells together. Then it dawned on me. The queen failed and they were replacing her.

I put the queen cells back in the hive VERY carefully. I hope they can raise one. This hive was the strongest. I hate to lose this queen. She was a good girl, but I guess she used herself up. Now I hope there are good drones around here for her to mate with. I would try to Inseminate one of the virgins, but I have yet to start that project and dont want to risk losing the strain completley by doing something stupid while trying to inseminate.

So much for getting honey off this hive this year. I just put the honey supers on and they just started drawing them out....... Now by the time the queen hatches, mates and the pupae emerge, 90% of the honey flow around here will be over.

Honey supers!

2010-05-05T17:57:00.000-07:00

Added honey supers to the first two hives Watson and Holmes. Added broodbox to middle hive (3rd hive). I will post pics soon.

Still feeding 1 week on, 1 week off. The swarm hive seems to have hit a lull and I found 3 hive beetles in the top feeder which got smashed.

I have two hives I need to name. Any one have suggestions?

hive inspection

2010-05-01T10:45:00.000-07:00

I went out on the porch last night to let the dogs out to the bathroom, and I was barefoot. As soon as I stepped out, I stepped on a bee and got stung on the toe. So now it is all swollen and hurting. I was wondering why they were in front of the porch door. I looked in front of the hives and the one closest to the house was bearding a bit. There were about 100 bees out on the front just hanging out.

Today I went into them because I was worried they were too crowded. The queen in each hive was in the top box and on the outer frames. I was not even looking for her. I found the queen in each hive really easily. The queen in each hive has laid in every cell possible and I will be able to put on my honey supers in about 5 more days. Busy busy!

The 2 carni hives will probably be able to give me some honey this summer, the 2 Italians will probably just be them drawing frames and winter stores.

I took off the feeders for a week to force them to use some of their own stores. I am going to add them back today to get them drawing comb faster....

Problem with counting hives

2010-04-23T18:58:00.000-07:00

I originally only wanted 2 hives in my back yard for the first year. I built a stand that can accommodate 3 hives comfortably, and 4 a little cramped. This was placed on the back deck because the flowers and bushes I purchased are too short and not grown in enough for where I will eventually have the hives.

I started off with two carni hives from Larry. Then we made arrangements to for me to take a third. This one was a Kona Queen from Hawaii. I took it in place of getting paid for helping the Tates.

I went over there today with 2 mediums full of frames for me to do a quasi-frame exchange and have a few of his bees draw comb for me, and at the least put my 8 frames on his 10 frames with a shim and let them work up into them so I could give my bees a head start and he could keep his from swarming. win-win for everyone.

We pulled up to the yard with the intention of swapping a few frames, and out came a swarm. It started boiling out of the hive as we pulled up. Larry hopped out and started banging rhythmically on the metal of the outer cover he grabbed. An older beekeeper we talked to told us that it causes a swarm in progress to hurry up and land low. If it works, who knows? I do know that the swarm started gathering on a fence post out in the open. This is the 3rd time I have seen this happen.

All we had were my supers and the frames. No bottom. We put a 10 frame top on my 8 frame body and put it over some of the bees that were gathering on the ground at the fence post in a bucket size hole. We raced back to Larry’s and grabbed a bottom and some shims. When we got back they were already marching into the hive body. We put a 10 frame top and bottom board on my 8 frame supers with a shim to make it fit right and threw everything together. The bees just marched right in.

We did some work on the yards (for 6 hours!) and Larry told me to just close it up and take the whole thing home and keep it.

So here I sit now, 3 hives on the back porch that look very nice. One cobbled together mess of a hive with a bottom board and top too big on 4 cinderblocks where the hive stand will go next year and 2 Kona queens and 2 carni queens!

I now have to make another brushy mountain order for a full hive because I am using what were going to be my honey supers, as brood chambers now...

I will try to take a picture of this mess tomorrow for everyone to see.

Racking Mead and fruit trees/bushes

2010-04-21T10:13:00.000-07:00

I am racking both of the strawberry meads today. The strawberry chocolate and strawberry vanilla are both going to be racked into new carboys topped up a tad and have some more strawberries added to the secondary. In another month, I will rack again and wait a month or two and bottle.

The pure chocolate I am not going to touch. I am going to top it up a bit with some water. For the most part it will sit in the primary for 6 months to a year bofore I do anything.

The Joe's Acient Orange has one more month (or two) to go before racking into a secondary to separate the gunk, then immediate bottling. Ready for consumption in May/June until christmas (if it lasts that long).

I am adding 2 lbs of strawberries to the secondary with 1/8 tsp Pectic Enzyme to help clear it a tad by breaking down the suspended pectin.

Fruit trees/bushes

The whole peach tree is covered in young peaches like this! I am thinking that I might have to thin them out some because they will not have enough room to grow without becomming squished and ugly/deformed. This is a Georgia Belle white peach that is supposed to be awesome. I will have to give some away and freeze some. I should have gotten another when I had the chance.

This is the top down view of one of my 7 blueberry bushes.... they all are still putting out blooms and the blooms that have dropped are almost all starting to get baby berries in the crown... If I can keep the birds and squirrels out of them it will be a miracle.

Certified again!

2010-04-10T12:58:00.000-07:00

This morning I took the written and practical exams to become a NC Certified Beekeeper. I passed with flying colors. I would have passed the Journeyman test as well, but I didn't have the experience/time requirements.

I am hoping that I will find out soon if I won a hive and bees from the Brushy Mountain give away that the Forsyth County Beekeepers do for a lucky few who take the class.

Went into the hives and they look great. about 4 frames left in the top box and I can add the next one! Both queens are laying well.

waterer

2010-04-09T15:03:00.000-07:00

This is the waterer I got for the bees in the event neighbors start complaining about bees drinking from their birdbaths or pools. It is a simple pet waterer with rocks in the drinking area to keep them from falling in and drowning.

Weather

2010-04-09T11:32:00.000-07:00

After the weather being in the 80's for the past week, the temps have taken a nose dive. Last night it was 48 and the temps in the day are going to be in the 60's all week. At night they are going to be upper 40's lower 50's.... That is going to throw the girls for a loop and cause breed heating issues.

I will go ahead and tell everyone one trick I have been trying. On the days and nights where it drops below 60, I have been running a red flood 100 watt light in a heat lamp socket under the screened bottom board (SBB) until it reaches 70 outside airtemp, then I turn it off. I have found that it raises the temperature on the SBB inside the hive by 25 degrees, no matter what the outside air temp is. This allows the nurse bees in the bottom brood chamber to not have to work so hard at keeping the brood warm. Wax production happens at 95 degrees, this keeps them closer to that range with less effort as well.

I have also been trying a 25 watt reptile aquarium heater with less success. I have placed it on the counting board inserted just below the SBB. It only heats anywhere from 5-20 degrees above outside temp. And it closes off the SBB. It is too wild and variable for regulating the temps in the hive.

Right now the temp inside the SBB on the bottom of the hive reads 66.5 degrees. That is without the heat lamp on. With it on, stabilized and running for 15 minutes it is reading 85.7. The wind is blowing and lowers the temp a little.

Nectar flow in NC

2010-04-08T18:03:00.001-07:00

I guess that it is holly and wisteria along with some hard wood or something, but the bees are definatly bringing in nectar and curing it down to honey. My back deck for the last few days has smelled FANTASTIC! It is wafting around the house to the front and all I have had to do is open the windows when it cools off to get the smell throughout the evening. To describe it would be like being able to smell the color purple... Kind of crazy, but that is how I could best describe it.

Orientation Flights

2010-04-07T15:39:00.001-07:00

Below is a video of the girls doing orientation flights this afternoon in the 85+ degree weather.

Hive inspection

2010-04-05T07:24:00.000-07:00

The pictures above are what I have spent my weekend doing. Building garden boxes, planting flowers and general yard maintance. The blueberry bushes I planted last fall are all blooming now and I hope my bees can get to them and pollinate.

This past saturday Mark from Marks Bee Haven came by to give me a hand with the inspection. It was after 6pm when we were finally able to go into them, so I was worried about them being upset.

This is a picture Mark took through the railing about 1' away from the enterance. Not one of the guardss flew up to investigate. You can also see the cable on the left. It is attached to a probe which is resting on the Screened Bottom Board (SBB) so I can measure the temp on the screen. Every night the lowest I have seen it is 78 degrees.

As usual, Watson hive (with the green roof) was calm as could be. I usually do not use smoke when doing anything with them. Just a few mists of sugar water with a drop of Honey Bee Healthy if they start scrambling for the exit. This queen is great. I had to move some frames around because the workers were trying to store so much pollen and sugar water that the queen didn't have much room on the frames to lay. This is a frame of only 1/2 weeks work:

They are still trying to draw comb to be able to lay and store in. These bees took the syrup from the boardman very well, but the hive top feeder is hardly touched. I won a boardman style feeder from brushy mountain at the beekeeping class a few weeks ago and have been feeding from both. It is now on Holmes doing double duty feeding them.

This is another frame from Watson:

The only issue I have with the Watson bees is that they are so gentle, they like to crawl on your hands from the comb to check you out. I am switching to nitrile gloves because I am killing about 15 bees every time I go in just for the meer fact that I have them sitting on me and cannot feel them with the gloves. No biting, no stinging, just crawling around. I think it has to do with the scenting. I placed a used t-shirt in the top feeder side that was empty to see if they would get accustomed to my smell. I think it worked. After a week, I removed it and they seem to love me like I am one of their own...

Holmes is a differenty story. The queen was from very gentle stock and is the cousin of Watson's queen. They were in the shade for about 1/2 of the day at the last location and were not very well built up. The bees have been taking down the full boardman every 2 days and I am concerned they are overfilling the combs.

The queen does not have very much area to lay in due to them filling cells with the syrup. They also have begun building burr comb in the hive top feeder on the inner cover as big as my hand. I figured this was an indication of needing to add a super, as the bees are pretty thick in there. This is a picture of one of the pierco frames I was given....Quite a few bees and every frame in the 8 frame brood box had this many if not more.....

We didn't see either queen but did see eggs in both. Watson had every cell filled. Holmes had a few eggs. I am not sure about her. The Tates and I are going to graft and collect drones for Instrumental insemination from the Watson hive very soon to see if we can get another couple of fantastic queens going.

My bees have found the drain off hose from the dehumidifyer in the basement I installed this past winter. They seem to like this water better than the water feeder I made for them.

Alarm Pheromone

2010-04-02T13:29:00.000-07:00

While working the bees at the Tates, I have discovered when to just walk away. If you have a keen nose you can smell the alarm pheromone and then things get crazy. If the bees are a bit upset, and one decides to mark you, all hell breaks loose and about 100 guard bees will start headbumping you for quite some distance.

I know this because I went to pass off a frame to Janice and it bumped the hive hard enough to get them all stirred up. They seem to go after Larry and me more than Janice. I dont know why. Maybe testosterone or sweat?

They can actually spray the pheromone to get more bees after you. It smells just like Bananna Runtz or the way Bananna popcicles taste. Sweet and bananna like. If that happens, no amount of smoking will help. I am wondering if Febreeze might help. I will give it a try and see.

2 eight hour days in hives + my new bees again!

2010-03-31T19:33:00.000-07:00

I spent the last 2 days working all day with Larry and Janice Tate on grafting, shaking bees, making nucs, making mating nucs, moving hives, moving queen cells, making splits and doing a lot of labor intensive work.

It has paid off in the Tates paying me with bees. I now have my second set that are on the back porch! They are the half sisters to the ones I already had. Talk about your calm bees. No smoke or gloves needed! They are awesome bees. We will be grafting from them to get queens and selecting drones for Instrumental Insemination on other future queens. We do NOT want to lose these lines, as all you need is a veil to work them (keep the random bee from flying into your hair or face).

They were a little low in numbers, so we took some of his mating nuc bees that had been queenless for 24 hours and I am adding them with the news paper method. You take the bees you want to add and place them over a newspaper sheet wetted with sugar water and a few small slits in it and close them in completley. They get aclimated to the new queen and the new bees as they slowly chew through the news paper. They will remove most of it in a few days.

I need to seal the copper top on that hive with urethane sealant after I clean it as I want this one to remain copper. No oxidation or paint on this one.

I will have pics soon.

good inspection

2010-03-27T12:58:00.000-07:00

I had a good inspection today. The queen is laying as fast as they can make new cells. The workers are extremely calm and I didn’t have to even break out the smoker. They still have about 2.5 frames to draw and I will probably add a brood chamber the middle of next week.

I found the queen on the second frame. She likes to scoot pretty fast when you expose her to light.

I am concerned at how calm they all are. It does make it a little difficult to work them. They crawl all over my hands to the point it is hard to not squish a few. And when I put the top feeder on, the inner cover or the spacer for the patty, I seem to kill about 5 for each item because they are all on the rim and my hands checking things out and telling me hello.

I am 100% sure I could inspect them without gloves and be just fine. No head butts, no angry bees buzzing around. Good genetics.

class and inspection

2010-03-26T20:15:00.000-07:00

Saturday (tomorrow) is the last class of the Forsyth County Beekeeping lectures. We have a practical test and paper test in 2 weeks. I am not worried in the least.

I am going to have to duck out a tad early tomorrow, since class runs about 1 hour long. I will do a full inspection around lunch and I will try to get some pictures. It will be short, sweet and to the point. I have to fly at 2:00 for a helicopter egg drop where I am flying the helicopter in to drop easter eggs over a field for children to hunt.

I can tell by the amount of wax scales I have seen on the IPM mite board that they are just about done with the last empty frame. There are a ton of scales on the board under that outer most frame. I am betting I get to add a super and move some brood around tomorrow!

I am going to head to bed now. I will post pics and an update tomorrow, post inspection and class.

CNG Certified!

2010-03-24T12:14:00.000-07:00

It is official. I have my Certified Naturally Grown certification. All I have to do is follow the standards and have 2 other beekeepers inspect my apiaries each year. I am hoping I can get someone this Saturday (you know who you are!).

This allows me to get a little more for my honey and gives me a very nice presentation option if I sell at Farmers Markets or stores as I can add a really nice CNG lable to the containers. It also encourages me to keep everything IPM (integrated pest management) and chemical free.

I just realized I can get some great shots of the hive from some cool angles due to the fact that it is on my porch.

This is some truly urban beekeeping!!!

I have the boardman and top feeder on to ensure they have plenty of syrup at whatever consistancy they want. The boardman has 2:1, the hive top has 1:1 and almost 3:1

I need them to draw as much comb as they can as fast as possible.

I can also peer into the hive without ever getting into their flight path. They fly up and over the railing instead of through it. Because of this, I can get right up in front without even a beesuit!

I have BEES!!!

2010-03-22T06:51:00.000-07:00

Lets starts with the bad news I was telling you about. Saturday, I spoke with the guy who I had my $50 deposit with for my two nucs. Each time I have talked with him over the course of the past few weeks his date of delivery for my 2, 5 frame nucs keeps getting pushed back and pushed back... So this got me worried. Well, he has now told me he is giving a bunch of peoples deposits back and some people will not get their nucs until almost June!!!!!! This means you will have to feed all year to keep them alive this winter.

When I went over to Larry Tates Apiary to assist in grafting and some general work and I told him about it. He said “Well, I have a Carniolian that is about to swarm if I don’t do something soon. You want some today?” YES!!!!!

We went over to the other out yard and boy was he right. They were full up to the top in 2 deeps and a shallow with no where to lay. We found the queen and she is HUGE! I don’t have a pic of her because it was about to rain, all of the bees were upset in that yard and we wanted to get in and out fast. The queen is a beautiful dark red and she is about 1.25” long! She is one of the biggest I have seen. Larry then gave that frame to me and said stick her down in that nuc and take her home. “I just expect you to catch some drones from her for II and let me graft a few times.”

At this point it started raining. We then shook some bees out of the old hive into the nuc to get them going (since I didn’t have much drawn comb).

I then took them home in a medium with 2 moving screens securley strapped down. I got them in... no need for smoke or squirt bottles.... Just took off the bottom screen, shook them off the empty frames, exchanged them with ones with foundation, put on hive top feeder, put 3 cups sugar to 6 cups water (1:2 which I think is a little more natural) with some honey bee healthy on one side. The other I put a pollen patty and some powdered substitute. I am gonna peek this afternoon and see if they are into the food. They were MUCH more calm than when we were trying to get them in. I put the entrance reducer on as well. When I put the pollen in last night they were all peeking up through the top of the feeder on its inner rim.

The rain knocked off a bunch of maple tree blooms all over the porch do to the winds and rain. I cleared their enterance with a stick and got greeted by a long row of guard girls who checked everythign out.

So, I am canceling one nuc I ordered. I have swarm traps out near the airport where I work. I did this because for the last 2 years there have been swarms that land on parked airplanes. If I catch one, I will have my 2 hives. I will cancel the other nuc too.

I am trying to talk Mark of Marks Bee Haven to come saturday and check it all out. If I have the extra set of hands during the inspection, I will get some pics.

Major update tomorrow

2010-03-21T18:05:00.000-07:00

I will have a MAJOR UPDATE tomorrow with some bad news and some really great news!

more mead

2010-03-16T13:32:00.000-07:00

In cleaning out the freezer, I found a ton of fresh frozen unsweetened strawberries that were begging to be made into mead. I had the leftover chocolate too! So my brain got to thinking..... what would it take to turn this into something fantastic?

I went and got 2- 3 gallon carbouys and airlocks, sanitized everything and started in on the next and final batch of mead for a while....

Chocolate vanilla strawberry mead

3 gallon carbouy filled to just under top line
1/2 cup Nestle Quick milk powder 25% reduced sugar
4 tbsp Hershey’s chocolate syrup
1 vanilla bean cut lengthwise and in half
2.5 tsp Fermax
9 lbs honey
4.5 lbs frozen strawberries
3/4 cup wyeast sweet mead yeast and d-47

secondary added 2lbs frozen strawberries and pectin enzyme

Vanilla strawberry mead

3 gallon carbouy filled to just under top line
1 vanilla bean cut lengthwise and in half
2.5 tsp Fermax
9 lbs honey
6.5 lbs frozen strawberries
3/4 cup wyeast sweet mead yeast and d-47

secondary added 2 lbs frozen strawberries and pectin enzyme

I am still going to have to invest in a bunch of small wine bottles, corks and a corker.....

I will get some pictures of those soon. I can tell you, if these get started right and not contaminated, they will be awesome!

Mead update

2010-03-15T15:32:00.000-07:00

Well, the nice chocolate orange smell is gone and it is now replaced by a sulfur, rotten egg smell coming from the chocolate mead.... It is pooting away about 1 Silent But Deadly per second. Apparently d-47 yeast makes Sulfur Dioxide as a by-product.... Defiantly keep this one well far away from living space.

The chocolate still smells nice fro the airlock. It got so excited the last few days that it bubbled up into the airlock. If it gets clogged, I will have to pull it off and clean it. I don’t want to risk losing the mead to oxygen or bacteria, so I hope it stays clear.

2 months to go before I rack both into new carbouys. Then 1 more month before I bottle... And a year until it is ready. I am going to add a mead countdown clock on the right if I can find a good one.

mead update

2010-03-12T09:49:00.000-08:00

I might have used too much yeast in the Ancient Orange to get it going.... It is foaming and bubbling like crazy! I am a bit concerned that it might bubble up through the airlock because I left about 7" to the airlock, and it is half way there with bubbles on day one..... Here is a pic of the Orange:

I would post a picture of the chocolate mead, but it looks a bit like it sounds, chocolatey bubbling slurry.

Both have about 1.5 burbles per second out of the airlock, and the closet smells like chocolate/oranges/christmas spice.... Man, these will be good around christmas....

MEAD!!!!!!!!

2010-03-11T15:20:00.000-08:00

Okay, it is official... I am insane.

For christmas I got a Mr. Beer home brew kit and have made some really good beers.... A West Coast Pale Ale that is light and citrusy and a High Country Canadian Draft which is mellow and nice.

This got me thinking about mead.... I have always been a little curious about it and I do make my own strawberry vodka, peach vodka and blueberry vodka....

Today I got the urge to make mead bad enough I went to the local brewery supply store and bought 2- 6 gallon carbouys, and all of the equipment to make, rack, ferment and store mead....

I ended up making these two recipes:

Joes Ancient Orange Cinnamon Clove Mead

Filled 6 gallon carbouy to just under top line

3 ½ gallons water
2 large naval oranges cut into 16ths then halfs
3 medium/small naval oranges cut the same
3 pinches nutmeg
5 cinnomon sticks
4 cloves
18 lbs clover honey (1.5 gallons)
½ cup loosely packed Sunkist raisins
2 packets fleschmans baking yeast (4.5 oz)
2 tsp Fermax nutrient

Chocolate Mead

Filled 6 gallon carbouy just under top line

8.2 oz Nestley quick milk mix 25% reduced sugar
8 oz Hershey’s chocolate syrup
18 lbs clover honey (1.5 gallons)
3.5 tsp acid blend
5 tsp Fermax nutrient
1 pack D-47 yeast

The chocolate mead is my own variation of the Lady Bridget version here: http://www.ladybridget.com/m/chocmead.html and a few other recipes....

The biggest issue with the chocolate meads is that they take 1-2 years to be mellow and good and not bitter from the cocoa.... so just like a wine, I will have no clue if it is good for a LONG, LONG time.... They also call for back sweetning where you add honey or sugar after fermentation, I used a yeast that stops fermenting at around 13% ABV, so there should be plenty of honey left....

Another beekeeping class

2010-02-27T10:01:00.000-08:00

I just got out of the second beekeeping class for the Forsyth County beekeepers.

Today consisted of general fram inspections and lighting a smoker. nothing new and everything I learned from a book and working with Larry Tate. Most of the people in the class have 0 knowledge of bees or biology (which is how the class is geared).

On a brighter note, I won a door prize. I won a boardman feeder. The other two prizes were basic hive tools.

I have to go get ready for the Wake Forest VS UNC basketball game... GO DEACS!!!!

Long time, no post

2010-02-21T08:02:00.000-08:00

I have not had much going on in the ways of the bee world.

I am working on a grant proposal to hopefully get some scientific research done, and have someone else pay for a few hives! If I get the grant I will post its details here. Maybe everyone out there reading would like to participate? I cannot give away anything as of right now, but soon.....

I also took the first beekeeping class offered by the Forsyth County Beekeepers Association yesterday. I pre registered, so I got a free cookbook for cooking with honey! There were about 85 people there. It was all information I already knew, but I guess it was good to get it reinforced. The class takes you through everything beekeeping. Yesterday's class was assembling woodenware and foundation types in the demo stations. The lessons were very basic history and biology of bees. It was only supposed to go from 9:00-11:30. So I scheduled a bunch of flights from 1:00 on. I figured 30 minutes would allow them enough time to wrap it up then I could get to the airport and prep the helicopter while grabbing a fast food lunch. When 12:00 rolled around, and we still had one and a half demo stations left, I had to grab my stuff and sneak out. They were talking about frame building and I already had all of mine built. I learned on my own. The last station was protective equipment and basic tools. I already had all of my equipment.

Maybe next week's class will go better.... I am planning on it running an hour long.

Wierd Weather and Things

2010-01-27T18:38:00.000-08:00

North Cariolina has had quite a bit of rain in the past weeks. So much so, there is flooding going on. It is sad when you see something like this:

These are a bunch of floating and washed away bee hives in Boonville, NC. The Yadkin River overflowed its banks by 28'

Now we have another winter storm warning for NC. Friday and Saturday are expected to snow almost all day, both days. They are expecting several inches. Then possibly more snow Tuesday, Thursday and Friday next week! Now that they are predicting several inches of snow and everyone is running to the grocery scared of 2-3 days of bad weather. As we all know, people in NC don't get regular snow fall, so several inches scares everyone. We don't have the infrastructure to handle it.

The strawberry patch & other things

Larry Tate is talking with the owner of the berry field to see what he wants us to do. We are also comming up with a game plan for the bees there. There needs to be some serious cash invested in the woodenware and there is a lot of cleaning up to be done.

I have also contacted all of the pest control agencies in Winston and they will call me if they have any swarm or cutouts to be done. I am hoping to get one or two free colonies. I will keep one, and the others will go over to the strawberry field. I also have built a beevac from a shopvac and a cooler! I cannot wait to try it out. I am going to build a frame holder and it will be able to hold 6 frames and can act as a temp. nuc until I can get them installed.

I might be getting into queen grafting, raising and instrumental insemination with Larry Tate of Tates Apiaries..... LONG story on that one. I will post about it in a later post.

new adventure

2010-01-24T08:53:00.000-08:00

While working with Larry Tate with his apiaries, he brought up something interesting. A strawberry farmer near us has some hives that he doesnt want to tend, but wants them left for the pollination. I would help tend them and get all of the honey as payment.

Sounds awesome right?!?!?!?!?

Well, there is a HUGE problem. Most of the woodenware is in such a poor state that it needs to be carted off and burned. The two of us went by to just see if it would be worth it. It was kinda muddy (which I can live with) but SAD! The woodenware had not been taken care of in about 5 years and had been treated poorly from the looks of it. Out of 10 or so hives, 3 were strong, 4 were iffy and 3 were downright scarry.... and there were about 5 deadouts mixed in.

I think I might give it a try anyway. I will continue to work with what I have there and it will either make it or not. When I go into them for the first time, I am not going to use my gloves or hivetool until I know there is no EFB or AFB present.... I dont want to be tracking that home. From the looks of things they have not been touched for at least a year.... so they are pretty strong if nothing has been done with them for well over a year and they are still around!

I might get a bonus of a few of these puppies

<============

Fun Happens

2010-01-21T19:21:00.000-08:00

The last two days were a blast. I got to assist Larry Tate of Tate's Apiaries in his inspections. He has several yards and several types of bees.

We found the queen in most of the hives, but a few the bees were hot due to the drizzling rain that moved in 1/2 way through. We made up sugar water with honey bee healthy, some with mega bee and some with apple cider. We put each type on different hives to see what works best. Each type of feed was applied to about 6 hives, along with regular sugar water in some.

Initially we put bowls out with each type in front of a dry substitute box he made that had bees swarming around it. And by bees swarming around it I mean SWARMING.... They were going crazy loading up their baskets.

Initially the honey bee healthy and the apple cider vinegar had a lot of bees on it, but before the rain started, the mega bee had a few as well. I think the smell of the honey bee healthy and cider led them to the water faster. It started raining so there is no telling which they took the fastest.

We should be able to get a general idea about mega bee vs honey bee healthy vs apple cider in a week or so if the weather is warm enough for an inspection (but it is looking like 40's for all next week).

Quite a few of his bees didn't even need smoke on the cloudy day. About 5 hives had bees so calm, we wouldnt have needed protective gear. The most gentle were his carniolians and MH Italians.

I will post an update about a free yard I might be getting into with him, but that is a whole post for a future date.

Beek Idea!

2010-01-12T03:57:00.000-08:00

The CNG class really got me going into science mode again. I have an idea to help combat: varroa, wax moth, small hive beetle and tracheal mites. Yeah, just about everything out there that can crawl, fly or hitch a ride into the hive. I am going to test my idea on one of my hives. I am going to gather data and report on it once I have the first years data compiled. The second year will seal the deal.

I am getting 2 nucs from Buddy Marterre. They are roughly the same breeding with the same genetic traits, mutts of everything. The bees will have identical foraging areas as both hives are in the same apiary. Granted, a much larger number of hives will be needed. So, once I establish this I will post my results AND post how to do this. I will then gather everyone else’s data from my generated forms (you will be able to get from me after the first year) and compile it with mine. The more raw hard data we have will prove or disprove my hypothesis.

Yes, I am being vague. The reason is, I don’t know if it will work and I don't want everyone out there running and giving it a try and then it to be an abysmal failure. It is also a little pricier than thought. But if it works, it will be worth it!

I am also going to be reporting on the efficacy of powdered sugar blowers/billows vs regular dusting. I bought one from Brushy Mountain. This study will be the second year or, if I win a hive from Brushy Mountain, it will be this year. Brushy Mountain donates several hives to beginner classes for the newly hatched beeks to begin their journey with. I REALLY want to win one.

Certified Naturaly Grown Class and research ideas

2010-01-10T08:08:00.000-08:00

The CNG class was good, but not great. They could have charged us $5 and just given us the handout and we could have gathered the same info on our own from reading the handouts. The demonstrations were good and talking with other beekeepers was beneficial as well.

One of the biggest problems is that we are all the first to start this program. We are the ones giving feedback and helping to dial this whole thing in. We will be the first crop of CNG farmers for beekeeping.

I do really object to them splitting the first class into a January class and a future undecided class. They did this yesterday during the class. They just talked about some of the rules and guidelines, but nothing really about pest management and nothing too involved like I thought they were going to do. They also should have had a walkthrough on the certification applications and process.... Other than saying just "sign up and fill it out." There is a little more to it than that. They also don't have the farmer inspections network up yet. It is a system of inspecting farmers from other farms spot checking everyone else around them...

Mark from Marks Bee Haven attended the class with me. I am glad I told him and Mr. Tate from Tate’s Apiaries (he has a nice nuc and soon to be queen breeding program going just south east of me). The class didn't really advertise much and not a lot of people were told... Even so, 85 people signed up!!!!
I did get the opportunity to meet Lynn from Walter Bee. She is a VERY nice person. It is amazing how small of a world it is sometimes. I found out she used to live near me where I grew up in Georgia and we both moved states, to North Carolina! She brought up some very good points and questions during the class. She also brought some good literature for Mark to read (and I will have to steal it from him)...

On to other things:

Sometimes the scientist comes out in me and I get really interested in scientific research. I have found two sites that are really well done and are requesting local beekeeper assistance in supplying data and info.

The first is: http://www.scientificbeekeeping.com/

This website has a TON of scientific data and research done on current thoughts for pest management and apiary management. I really recommend everyone go there when you have some down time or are bored, and read away!!! They test the sugar shake method vs IPM vs anything else. If they have not studied it, and you want to get some scientific data, send them an e-mail... And even compile some yourself to send them!

The other site I found asking for data and info from local beeks is: http://www.bushfarms.com/beesexperiment.htm

They are asking for participants to supply data and records for swarm management and handling. They want you to try a method of swarm pervention called checkerboarding. You basically take empty frames and put them where full, drawn out frames would be. The thought is that this tricks the bees into thinking they have more room in the hive, and get into establishment mode building comb, instead of swarm prep.

Check them both out and happy beekeeping!

Painting

2010-01-07T12:10:00.000-08:00

I went ahead and did one cover in "Hunter Green." I just couldn't wait. I must also say thanks Mark from Marks Bee Haven for prompting me to get it done before the storm came in and we had more snow.

I used old newspaper and painters tape to tape off the areas I did not want to turn green.

I then sprayed in even strokes right and left until it was evenly coated (I had a little run until I got the hang of it).

This is the finished product.

I think it turned out just right.... Clean lines and crisp color. The light in the basement is flat right now due to the fact we have a winter storm rolling in.

Here is what it looked like before:

All in all, I must say it came out really well.

To paint or not to paint....

2010-01-07T11:07:00.000-08:00

I am having a hard time deciding on painting the copper metal on my hive covers or not. Copper being what it is, can be enticing for someone to try to take, especially in an urban setting. What does everyone think?

Plain:

Painted

I like the idea of hunter green, but what about any other colors? Feel free to send comments on paint colors or not.

2010-01-06T03:25:00.000-08:00

The poll is closed. I appreciate everyones help on naming my hives. There was a problem... A 3 way tie! The name was tied between American Presidents, Brands of alcohol (Jameson, Jack, Coors Bud, etc...) and Literary Characters....

I am going to go with Literary Characters for my first pair. When I get more, I will put up a new poll with the remaining two to let the people decide.
I am now posting a NEW poll. I will give everyone options for the names, pick the pair you like the most. If you think of a better one, let me know and I will add it if I like it.

New Year

2010-01-05T18:56:00.000-08:00

I am excited about the class I am taking this coming Saturday. I will get to learn all about Organic and IPM beekeeping.

I am also doing some shopping around and trying to figure out some more plants to add to the yard/woods for my bees. At Wake Forest every year there were hundreds of honey bees on a type of holly, Osmanthus Fortunei. I am getting 2 of them to be a short hedge, with 2 Osmanthus Fragrans.

I found 5 false orange trees, which are really fragrant, for $20 and 5 fragrant lilac trees for $20. The yard will have sweet smells throughout summer… the flowering order will be Fortunei, Fragrans, orange and lilac…. And all are REALLY aromatic plants!!!!

I have another holly the bees like along with:
blueberries, a dwarf GA belle peach, Cleome spinosa (spider plants), chocolate vine, Pink fragrant lavender, Russian sage, Salvia Plumosa, Wonder of Staffa Aster, Dwarf aster, Lady in black Aster, Bee Balm, wild romance aster, 5 different types of butterfly bushes, Black Eyed susans, golden rod, snowdrift aster, 2 types of thyme, milkweed, Blue fragrant lavendar, Butterfly scabiosa and a few others I cannot remember.

I have also found some really nice people on a few of the bee forums who are going to send me seeds and plants. I will be getting quite the annual and perennial garden going for the girls… I am afraid I am going to run out of space in the yard before I can get everything situated. I think I am done!!!!

I guess I am going to have to invest another $200 in soil, landscaping timber and stakes to build another garden box so I will be able to handle all of the new plants.

Classes

2009-12-28T20:10:00.000-08:00

Well, through this adventure I have met Mark of Marks Bee Haven. Through talking he discovered I was taking the Certified Natural class in Winston on the 9th of Jan. I am also going to the "Bee-giner" class offered by the Forsyth Beekeepers Assn. this spring. We will meet several times this spring for almost all day classes.

I will have my hands full just about every weekend! I cannot wait for class to start! If you want to know, there is no reason for me to re-type everything. Mark at the above link has been quite generous on the keyboard on one of his most recent posts...

Pictures update

2009-12-20T13:05:00.000-08:00

Since there is still 6" of snow on the back deck, I figured I would take some pictures of everything I have and have done. The only thing left out is the 2 medium nucs I built. They are in the office upstairs.

For some reason Dozer, our pit, wanted to sit on top of the presents. We were rearranging them and he hopped on this one.

Below is Jasper... He is a bit wierd. If he is happy he sticks his tongue out like that.

I have no other place for storage right now, so this is everything stacked up nicely in the garage.

To the right is what my hives look like. I cannot put them out yet, as I do not have any bees!!! I cannot wait until spring!

On my hives, I used a pecan/almond stain with 2 coats of a Min-Wax urethane varnish to seal them. I still need to stain and coat 3 supers that I just got as an early Christmas present from my better half and I need to work on the rims of all of them with the varnish. The copper on the top will eventually turn green but for now, I think I might spray paint it hunter green...

To the left you can see the powdered sugar blower I am going to try and report about in my blog.

The sign below is what I am going to have posted just in case of idiots roaming the neighborhood....

I will be using all 8 frame mediums and the English Garden Hives.

As I get my bees I will be trying various things to get them fat and happy. I have patties and builder and megabee for them this year... I am going to offer all in patty form and liquid form as an experiment to see what is preferred. I plan on experimenting a lot (the biologist and chemist coming out in me). I have found some products for human use that has everything the bees require and some, and it doesn’t have any damaging chemicals like lactose that the bees can die from. It isn't a bee food sold on the market, but I am going to see if it works for them... It is kind of pricey, but if the hive I use it on get huge, I will know why, and it will be well worth it....

On a side not I like to cook....

I got bored today and made a sopapilla dessert (in all honesty my spouse was more interested in me doing it that I was). YUM!!!!!! Nothing like made from scratch desserts!

I have been told by all of my friends and family that I should publish a recipe book.... I love cooking, but I don't have the time to compile all of my recipes....

Quick Sunday update

2009-12-20T09:03:00.000-08:00

I have signed up for two classes. One is a certified organic class, and the other it a beginer beekeeping class. Both being offered in Forsyth County.

The link for the Certified Organic class is: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/86792

It talks about IPM and several other options for "natural" beekeeping. At $11.50 with tax for a fun day you cannot beat it! You also get the ability to use the license for certified organic labels on your honey.

There is not real tension about the bees on the homefront, other than the fact that they are going to be on the back porch for about 2 years before the garden grows up enough. We do entertain on the deck at times so it will have to be late in the evening before anyone goes out…. One of the neighbors does not care and one set is curious about it, the rest are college kids or never around for me to talk with….

Let it snow!

2009-12-18T10:46:00.000-08:00

Well, it is snowing in the Piedmont Triad.... It has only been snowing for 2 hours and it is sticking pretty well. It is supposed to snow for the next 18 or so hours.... Estimates are 8" or more.... Fun times. I was running around getting some things for a party, which was cancelled, and realized people around here freek out and RUSH to the grocery and forget how to drive in the process... I needed some meats and potatos and waited in the checkout line for 30 minutes!!!!!! There were 2 wrecks I passed on the way home and people were slamming on their brakes for no reason in curves!!!!! DOH!!!!!!!!

I wish I had my hives up and running so I could get some pictures of the snow on them....

I will post some pics of the storage area with everything so far, sometime soon.

For now, I am off to play in the snow!!!!!

a little update to this, it is 5:30 now and it has snowed 4" on everything!!!!

Pictures

2009-12-17T12:08:00.000-08:00

Okay guys and girls, here are some pictures of my hive stand and initial location. My neighbors dont mind and are actually curious. Anyway, I live on a private road with about 15 houses. About 10 of the houses on my road and around me are rentals rented by college kids. I am worried about vandalism from some drunk frat party the first 2 years until the flowering plants I have planted grow up enough to partially hide the hives and create a barrier from the road to the apiary. It will only have one enterance from the back unless you crawl through the bushes.

This is the stand on my porch where it will be kept for the first two years. The enterances will be faced out of the slats in the railing with about 18" of clearance from the fence.

This is a picture of the "official" location where the hives will be the second year. The stand on the porch will be put on the cynderblocks. the garden box should be full of flowers, and plants all around the area.

I will provide some more pictures of everything built and the processes. I will also get you guys some pics of everythign in starage soon!

In the BEEgining...

2009-12-17T09:44:00.000-08:00

Okay, this is my first post. Please bear with me. Here is an update on where I stand (since I have started buying everything before I started this blog).

I have purchased the following items:

2, 8-Frame Assembled Cypress English Garden Hive

-- My better half liked these most. We all know that if you are going to be doing this in your backyard and your spouse is around it has to be pretty…. :) (I liked them too)

12, 8-Frame Cypress Garden Hive Supers

6-1/4 Frame Wedge Top/Grooved Bottom frames

White 5 1/2'' Plastic Foundation
-- For my Supers

TEN Shts 5-5/8 Crimp Wire Foundation
-- for brood chambers

5 Frame 6-5/8'' Complete Nuc (minus the frames) and a Waxed Cardboard Nuc

--I got these for if I ever needed a nuc for swarm capture in the future, or if I needed one for any reason.

8-Frame Hive Top Feeder w/Floats
--I figured that it would not disturb the bees as much and it also keeps the winter feeding to a simple ease as well.

8 Frame Metal Excluder
-- to keep that pesky queen from going into the supers

8-Frame Ventilated Inner Cover & Moving
-- I got 2 of these in the even I needed them. Better to have and not use, than need and not have.

8-Frame Imirie Shims
--Just incase I get some crazy honeyflow going….

Powdered Sugar Blower
--I have not read ANY studies on these bellows. I figured I would give them a try and report on it here.

Beetle Blaster
-- I have also not read anything about these but it seems quite easy to use and I will report on it as well.

Frame Lifter Hive Tool

Brushy Mountain Pro Smoker

Bee Brush

Inspector's Jacket

Clear-Vue Hat/Veil w/double zip

Plastic Coated Gloves

Cypress Solar Wax Melter

Frame Perch

MegaBee substitute, Honey B Healthy Mega Bee Pollen Patties, 1 lb. Ener-G-Plus Bee Diet
--To feed my bees when I get them this spring.

12 oz Creamed Honey.
--I never had it before, I figured I would give it a try.

Creamed Honey Info.
--In the event that I decided to try to make it at some point.

total: $1031.32

Sure, I could have saved some money and gotten the cheaper version of things or non-prebuilt items. I just didnt want to deal with assembly or things I didn't truly want.