Preparation for this weekend

Guess what I am getting ready to do:

new cutout

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

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

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

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

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

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!