Snow Bees

Here we are at the end of January and man is this winter dragging! Every year I forget how long it stays cold and start looking for the warm weather before it is ready to arrive.

Anyway, we have had a cold but relatively dry winter up until a few days ago. Over the weekend we got dumped on by a big storm system that came through. By Saturday afternoon we had about 7 inches of snow on the ground.


The bees survive the snow just fine. In fact I doubt they are very aware of it at all. I have read that snow piled up around the hive actually helps to insulate them and protect them from the wind.

I did clear the snow away from the fronts of the hives but I don't know that that was completely necessary. The heat from the hives had already melted the snow directly in front of the entrances. What was interesting was that even though it was only 24 degrees outside when I took this picture, there were bees crawling around the front entrances. They are not supposed to break the cluster until it gets well above freezing. The only thing I can figure is that they were taking advantage of the melting snow in front of the entrances to collect water.


Now back to the subject of feeding Virginia. I know I have changed my mind on this subject a couple of times. Back in December I was worried about both hives and wanted to add some dry sugar as supplemental feed. Then, when I peeked in at the beginning of January, Georgia's bees were still in the bottom deep and Virginia's had moved up to the top- I thought they both had plenty of honey so I quit worrying. Since then I have read that if the bees are to last the winter on their own honey, they should still be working on the bottom deep in the first part of January. Apparently spring can be a precarious time for bees and they can quickly starve to death if they run out of honey stores too early. So now I have decided to supplement Virginia with dry sugar- if we can ever get some warmer days that is. I don't want to chill them to death while I am trying to save them from starving to death.

Inside The Hives

It warmed up to a balmy 38 degrees today so I went out to take a peek at the hives this afternoon. There was not a lot of activity but there were a few bees walking around on the front porches. Since it was apparently warm enough for the bees to break cluster a little I decided to peek inside and maybe see about feeding them some supplemental sugar to make sure they could make it through the winter.

Having never opened up the hives in winter before, I didn't know if they would be calm or cranky and if I should gown up or go in bare skinned. I chose to don the hat/veil combo and put on the gloves just to be safe. It turned out that I didn't need to- they were very calm and docile. Not even one bee flew up out of the hives.

As I looked down into Georgia I could hear the bees buzzing in there but couldn't see any without pulling and moving the frames. I didn't want to disturb them too much so I let them be. I guess the cluster was down in the bottom deep hive body. What I did find, to my pleasant surprise, was that all the frames in the top deep were full of capped honey! That really put my mind at ease- I was afraid that I had not fed them enough last fall and they would run out of reserves before spring. I replaced the top cover and moved over to Virginia. Virginia was just as calm but I could see plenty of bees. The cluster had moved up to the center frames of the top deep hive body. I was even more worried about Virginia's stores because she seemed to take less of last fall's sugar syrup, but the 3-4 frames on either side of the cluster were full of capped honey. Let me tell you- that really put my mind at ease. Looks like no mountain camp supplemental feeding will be necessary. I closed up Virginia and went back in much less apprehensive than I had been.

I have one question that I am hoping some of you other beekeepers out there will be able to answer. As I looked down into Virginia I noticed some of the bees looked like they had yellow pollen granules stuck to them. I had noticed the same granules on some of the dead bees outside the hive. It is not on all of them by any means- actually they are on far less than half. Do any of you have any idea what it is and should I be worried?

Let's see- we are now approaching the middle of January. I think it will be time to start spring feeding in a month to a month and a half- sometime in March? I have some pollen patties stored in the freezer- we ordered them to feed the packages when they arrived last April. What I didn't know then but I do know now is that 15 pollen patties will last us several years. I will throw them on the tops of the frames in addition to sugar syrup to give the bees a kick start on spring brood rearing. Hopefully, we will then have two rip-roaring hives going in time for the late spring/early summer nectar flows. I do still want to order a new queen for Virginia- she really slowed down at the end of last summer (even decreased in population a little bit) and her bees got a lot crankier than Georgia's did. I hope that a new queen will calm them down and help them build better numbers.

Winter has been long but the end is in sight! We will soon get to graduate from "Newbie" status and become "Second Year Beekeepers"!

They're Alive!

Just a few days ago I posted Snug As A..... Bee In A Hive and mentioned that it had been to cold for the bees to fly in the past month or so. This had become frustrating to me because A) I miss seeing them buzzing around, and B) I am a little concerned about their winter stores and want to start some supplemental feeding with granulated sugar. Well, shortly after posting that blog entry I happened to look up at the thermometer saw that it was 39 degrees outside. So much for the accuracy of The Weather Channel!

I immediately ran outside to look at the hives and saw.... nothing! I was really disappointed. I crouched down and rapped on the side of each hive with my knuckles and heard a loud buss from each of them. A few guard bees from each hive wandered out of the entrance with their stingers up in the air. They are cranky but still their! It was good to see them, even if they were mad. I stood there for a while and watched as a few bees did a little house keeping and brought some of their dead comrades out of the hive and deposited them a few feet away.

We were just about 20 minutes away from heading out to church so I didn't have time to get the mountain camp feeding going right then. By the time we made it home the temperature had cooled back into the 20's. I guess that will have to wait for another day.

Snug As A..... Bee In A Hive

Oh I am tired of winter... and I think the bees are, too.

December was a cold month and the last time I have seen any bees (any live bees that is) was Thanksgiving weekend. I remember that day specifically because November 30th was St. Andrew's Day. I was dressed in a kilt on November 29th waiting to head out to church and decided to go have a quick look at the hives. It was a frosty morning, but as the sun hit the front of the hives the frost melted and left little drops of water suspended over the front entrance. As I looked more closely I saw two little bees from the Georgia hive slowly sipping water from the hanging drops. I thought that would make a pretty cool picture and ran inside for the camera. By the time I made it back out they had slipped back inside. While I have seen a lot of dead bees since that time, those were the last live bees I saw before winter set in with a vengeance in December.

As December started, a cold front moved in and for about 2 weeks night time lows were reaching 20 degrees below zero and day time highs were lucky to get above zero. It warmed a little after that. Most days we have had highs in the 20's with lows in the teens and single digits and the occasional subzero night with a few dustings of snow. The last week of the month we finally started to get a few days above freezing but still not warm enough to allow the bees to fly. With it being too cold to see the bees fly I have been anxious about how they are faring inside. I have periodically put my ear down to the entrance and have always been able to hear the cluster buzzing inside. It is amazing to me that it can be 20 below outside but the bees stay snug and warm inside their hives. Sometimes the buzzing is louder and sometimes it is fainter- I assume that is due to the cluster moving about on the frames eating the honey they had stored- sometimes they are close to the entrance and sometimes they are further away. I just hope they have enough honey stored to last them through the winter.

All through December I have found piles of dead bees in front of the hives. Georgia was a really strong hive going in to the winter and has had large piles of dead bees on and around her front porch. Virginia was a much weaker colony with a smaller population and has had many fewer bees littering her entrance. I know it is normal for bees to die in the winter but I can't help feeling a little sorry for the girls.

The cold temps have had me a little nervous as bees are very hygienic creatures and will not... how shall I say this... do their business in the hive. They have to wait until it is warm enough to perform "cleansing flights" and relieve themselves outside. I was beginning to wonder how long bees can "hold it" before they explode. I consulted with other beekeepers on beesource.com and learned that during times when the bees are rearing brood they have to relieve themselves at least every few weeks because they are consuming pollen which contains a lot of solids. When they are not rearing brood (like now) however, they are only consuming honey which is very low in solids and they can hold it for months at a time. That made me feel a lot better. So now I am anxiously awaiting the day when we get a nice warm front move through and highs reach about 40 degrees so I can watch the bees fly again.

As far as the honey stores go, I can tell the bees are using it up- I just am not sure how fast. At the beginning of the winter I hefted the hives to get an idea of how much honey was available to the bees. Georgia's hive was quite a bit heavier than Virginia's- but Georgia had a much larger population and would need more. I hefted them the other day and Georgia has gotten a lot lighter. Virginia is lighter also, but the difference is not as great. I keep telling myself that they will be fine but I worry all the same. I suppose it is normal for fathers to worry about their little girls. If it would ever warm up enough to take the top cover off, I would supplement their honey stores with sugar in a feeding method called "Mountain Camp" feeding. To do this you simply put newspaper across the tops of the frames in the hive, pour on granulated sugar, and replace the top cover. The bees can then crawl up onto the newspaper and take the sugar that they need. According to the weather channel's website we are not supposed to get warmer than the low 30's for the next 10 days or so. Come on warm front! Where are you?

In other news- we have been experimenting with the hand and foot balm that we have been making with the beeswax. Originally we were just melting beeswax and olive oil together. This worked but left your hands kind of greasy for a few minutes after applying it before it all soaked in. Recently we bought a little lanolin and added that to the mix. This had made it creamier and less greasy. We just might have stumbled upon the perfect recipe!

I guess that's it for now. If we spot any cleansing flights or if we are ever able to go ahead with mountain camp supplemental feeding I will let you all know how it goes.

What To Do With All That Wax?

So we harvested honey, fed the bees, and got them all tucked away for the winter. Now they should be all taken care of until spring- not much left for us to do except wait. That doesn't mean that we have been sitting idle though. All through the summer we were collecting burr comb from the hives and then then we collected the wax cappings from the honey frames when we harvested honey. We had read that you can use beeswax for all kinds of products from lip balm to furniture polish- but it has to be cleaned up first.

Beeswax, when it comes out of the hive, not not very clean. In fact, burr comb especially, can be quite dirty. It is full of honey, bee parts from any unlucky bees that happened to be in the way when the wax was scraped out, pollen, and sometimes even bee eggs if the queen happened to be close to the burr comb before it was scraped out. Our first attempt to "clean" the wax early last summer was unsuccessful. We threw the wax into a pot of water and heated it until the wax melted and then poured the whole thing through some cheese cloth. We figured that the cheese cloth would filter out any impurities while the wax and water would pass through and cool with the wax solidifying on top of the water. This did filter out most impurities except for the eggs- they were too small and we ended up with wax with a bunch of eggs all through it.

Fortunately, I was surfing the internet one day and came across another beekeeper's blog with a video about how to build a simple solar wax melter that would filter out any impurities. If you want to watch it yourself you can find it here. Basically, it is just a styrofoam cooler with a piece of glass across the top. Inside the cooler you place a plastic container with a little bit of water in the bottom and a paper towel rubber banded across the top. On top of the paper towel you place the wax you want to melt and put the whole thing out in the sun on a hot summer day. The sun melts the wax, the paper towel filters it, and then the clean wax solidifies on top of the water. We built one of our own, but instead of a styrofoam cooler we found an old metal box that had been painted black. We tried it a few different times but the weather wouldn't cooperate with us. This was a cooler and cloudier summer than usual so we were only successful a couple of times. We did manage to finish melting the wax but with a modified solar wax melter in that it was not solar- just a wax melter. We used the same set up but we used a metal bowl instead of a plastic container and put the whole thing inside the crock pot set on "keep warm". It worked just as well but wasn't as fun as using the sun to do the work. We ended up getting about a pound and a half of bright yellow wax.

After the process of melting and filtering the paper towel is saturated with beeswax and all the impurities. This sludge that is left is known as "slum gum". Beeswax is quite flammable so the leftover slum gum has made for excellent fire starter in our wood burning stove this winter.

Alright- now that we have all that wax, what do we do with it? We have already used some of it it to make hand moisturizer. I think I would actually call it a salve- definitely not a cream or lotion. It definitely has hydrophobic properties as it is just a mixture of bees wax and other oils. But- in this dry winter air, it will keep your hands as soft as a baby's bottom. Will we branch out and make other products? Maybe we will wait until next year to attempt lip balm or any other more adventurous recipes.

Bees and Potatoes

Well, it is definitely fall. We had a few weeks of winter back in October. Lows were getting down to the single digits and stayed below freezing for several days in a row. I had fed the bees some sugar syrup prior to the cold weather but was not sure that they had been given enough to build enough stores for the winter. After that time it warmed up for a while so I fed some more and then it got cold again so I stopped feeding. I was thinking that they had been given enough so I didn't continue feeding during this last warm spell.

Now, lets go back in time to remember that Virginia started the summer like gang busters. Later in the summer, however, she started to struggle and we actually harvested more honey from Georgia than Virginia. I actually think that Virginia had decreased in population and hadn't taken much in the way of sugar syrup to build up her winter stores. I had about given up on her and figured I would just need to order new bees for next spring.

It now looks like Virginia realized that she needed a larger population to survive the winter because lately we have seen lots of orientation flights in front of the hive. The queen is either still laying or has been laying recently even though there has been no orientation flight activity in front of Georgia for some time now. I have decided to put the feeder back on Virginia to give them the opportunity to build the stores and survive the winter if they will.

Last week I happened to notice a lot of activity and discovered that the bees were conducting orientation flights while I was working in the garden. The soil on one side of the garden is less fertile than the soil on the other side. I was moving some of the dirt around so the plants on the east side will grow and produce better than they have. As I was doing this, I got to thinking that this was kind of like redistribution of wealth- taking some good soil from some of the potato plants and giving it to others. I thought,"Is this really fair? To take from some potato plants and give to others? How will the potatoes on the west side feel about that?" But then I thought, "Well, I am the gardener and I just want all the potato plants to grow and produce well." Is this any different than what some in the federal government want to happen in our nation today? Don't they just want us all to succeed?

What is comes down to is this: I am the gardener in my potato patch. I know what I want my potato plants to look like when I am finished with them. I can cultivate them the way I want to because they are mine. When the government confiscates property (whether that be land, money, wages, or anything else that rightfully belongs to an individual) in order to transfer it to another individual, they are saying, in effect, that the property rights of some are more sacred than the property rights of others. In doing this, the government can cultivate and mold us into the individuals they want us to be and we become nothing more than a bunch of potato plants. Now, I can do this with my potato plants because they belong to me, but we do not belong to the government. The government belongs to us. Let us all stand up and declare "I will not be a potato!"

Honey Harvest

The honey has been harvested! This truly was an exciting experience for us. We were trying to not let our hopes get up, but our bees outdid themselves. "Beekeeping For Dummies" said not to expect a honey harvest the first year because you start with such a small population of bees and no preexisting comb- the bees are starting with absolutely nothing. When you think of all that our bees have accomplished in just a few months it is remarkable.

The harvest actually took place a while ago and I have just been to busy to get this blog updated since then. About the middle of September I finally got around to pulling the supers from on top of the deep hive bodies. The question is "How do you get the supers off without getting all the bees inside of them?" We decided to go with a product called Bee Quick applied to a fume board. The principle is that you spray the Bee Quick, an almond oil containing solution, onto the felt covered surface of a fume board. The bees apparently can't stand the smell of almond oil so when you remove the top cover from the hive, place the fume board on the top super with the felt/Bee Quick side down, the bees move down into the next super. In my inexperience I figured that I didn't need to buy a fume board- I could just glue felt to one side of a piece of plywood and use that for a fume board. I soon learned that this didn't work very well. You see, fume boards are made of metal and need to heat up in the sun before applying the bee quick so the bee quick can actually vaporize in the hive and push the bees down. My homemade fume board only pushed about half of the bees out of the supers.

Here are is the ineffective fumeboard on top of one of the hives.

Here are the four supers laid out on the basketball court waiting to be taken inside. They can't be seen in this photo but there were still a lot of bees on the frames. As evening approached and temperatures started to cool a little bit I pulled out each frame one at a time, carried it over to the hives, and shook the bees off in front of the hives. I then had to rush it in the house before any bees landed back on it. With ten frames in each super, this was a long process. We ended up with several bees inside the house as well. I am thinking of getting a bee escape to use next year. A bee escape is a board you put in between the boxes. They are easy for the bees to move down but difficult for the bees to find the entrance to move back up. It takes longer to clear a super of bees but I hear that they are pretty effective.

Once the supers were down in the basement tucked away in the store room, I put the top feeders loaded up with sugar syrup back on the hives so the bees could store up enough food to get them through the winter. I added a little fumigillin to the sugar syrup to prophylactically treat for bacterial infections that can sometimes afflict bees.

We ordered a three frame tangential extractor from Mann Lake which arrived about a week after the supers were removed from the hives. Extractors remove honey from the frames by spinning the frames inside the barrel shaped body of the extractor. Tangential extractors have the plane of the frames running tangentially to the extractor (makes sense) and must be turned around after the first side is extracted. Radial extractors have the plane of the frames running radially like spokes in the extractor and will extract both sides of the frames at the same time. Our tangential model was a little cheaper than the radial models.

We decided at the last minute to extract on a Saturday evening and at about 7:00 set up the extractor in the kitchen. The following pictures give an idea of how things went.

Here I am uncapping a frame of honey. As the honey in the hives is "ripened" the bees cover it up with a layer of wax caps. Those caps have to be removed before the honey can be extracted. You can buy heated or unheated uncapping knives for this job. Unheated knives still have to be heated in warm water or it tends to tear up the comb. We tried using a bread knife heated in warm water- but that didn't work so well so we borrowed an uncapping knife from a friend. The process went much more smoothly after that.

As you remove the caps from the frames you remove a significant amount of honey with them. We attached a queen excluder to the top of a plastic bin to allow the honey to drain off the caps.

Here is the whole set up. The uncapped frames go in the extractor and I crank on the yellow handle on top of the lid. The honey spins out of the comb, runs down the sides of the extractor, and out the honey gate at the bottom.

The honey runs out the honey gate and through a couple of filters to remove the bits of wax and bee parts. It is collected in a bucket with another honey gate at the bottom. The filters have to be cleaned periodically during this process or they clog up and everything slows way down. After about 6 hours of uncapping, extracting, and filtering we ended up with 75 pounds or about 7 gallons of honey.

The final product! The bottling process went pretty quickly. Just hold a jar under the honey gate and fill'er up! We bottled in quart, pint, and 1/2 pint jars. The word got around at the hospital where I work and we sold out in about a week- except for a couple of pints we kept for ourselves and a few gifts for neighbors and family members. Can't wait for next year when the bees have some preexisting comb to work on and are starting with a larger population.

Stay tuned- the year is not over and there is more to learn and do!