Extracting the Honey

I know this is way late...sorry 'bout that!  Back in October, I borrowed some extracting equipment from my wife's coworker who is also a beekeeper nearby.  "Extracting equipment" this time around meant the actual extractor which is a rount steel tank which in this case fits two bee frames at a time.  There was also an uncapping tote, electric uncapping knife as well as a plastic pail with a spout at the bottom to collect the honey.  The picture below is pretty accurate except I didn't have legs on the tank...though that would have been nice!

The first step to extracting honey is to scrape the cappings off the frames.  You do this using the knife.  You can see me doing this in the pictures below.  The cappings fall off into the uncapping tank where you can collect/filter more honey and use the honeybee wax for other projects if desired.  The last picture in the series shows the frame fully uncapped (on one side anyway) and you can see the honey just dripping right out of it.  Once you do this to one side, you do the other.

As this was a 2-frame extractor that I was using, I'd do the above to two frames at a time placing each into the extractor.  The next step is to actually spin the frames for quite some time until the honey has been flung onto the sides of the extractor tank which then settles at the bottom.

I could only do this a couple times until the level of the honey rose to the point where it hindered the spinning...which brings us to the next step.  I'd lift the extractor onto a couple sawhorses and place the plastic bottling pail underneath.  I then placed a couple filters that were also loaned to me on top of the bottling pail.  Then I opened the spout at the bottom of the extractor tank and let loose the honey.  It was a pretty slow process as it takes quite a while for the honey to filter through and into the bottling tank.  Imagine filtering molasses through a very fine sifter/strainer. 

Here are a couple pictures of what the frames look like after extraction.

 

All told I got about 40 pounds of honey from the 16 frames...not bad for a first year, I suppose...especially considering that I didn't think I was going to get any as late as September.

The next pictures show the bees on warmer day in October when I placed the extracted frames back on the hives for the bees to clean up. I think they were appreciative.

Surprise!

I went into my hives the evening of Thursday, Sept. 24 with the expectation of doing the following:

1. Remove honey super from queenless hive with expecation that all frames would be full and capped
2. Remove upper brood box from queenless hive with expectation that some frames would be full and capped
3. At this point all bees in queenless hive would be in lower brood box.
4. Remove two honey supers from 2nd hive with expectation that all frames would be full and capped
5. Remove both brood boxes from 2nd hive and install regular bottom board to prepare for winter
6. Place both brood boxes back with "nest" in bottom box.
7. Place layer of newspaper over top brood box; make small slits in paper
8. Place brood box from queenless hive on top of newspaper; combining the hives

So it was going to be a busy evening for sure.  In Step 1, I removed the honey super and was surprised that not all the frames were capped yet.  Bummer.  I then removed the top brood box (Step 2) and began inspecting the lower box.  I had just seen Dr. Kunkle and he implored me to be very sure that the queenless hive was in fact queenless.  I looked at a couple of the frames and was very surprised to find larve, eggs, and capped brood!  "This hive isn't queenless!"  This of course means all my plans that I had been working out in my head for the last several days if not weeks were all kaput!  "Shnikeys!"

The fact that this hive was not queenless meant that I would not be combining the hives as I had previously thought and not only would I have to leave honey for THIS hive but I would also have to make sure there is plenty of honey in the other one as well.  I had been hoping that in combining the hives, I would also be combining the honey stores...

Anyhow, it was great news that this hive was able to raise their own queen.  My earlier hunt for the queen must have been premature...it does take time for the queen to become mated and to bulk up in preparation for laying hundreds and then thousands of eggs DAILY.

I went and installed the regular bottom board on this no longer queenless hive and put all the boxes back in place.  I then went ahead and checked the other hive.  The upper honey super was full of capped honey frames.  I shook and knocked and brushed the bees off the frames back into the hive and placed the frames into an empty hive box...placing a board over the top to keep bees out.  In the lower honey super, I was able to pull 6 more fully capped frames...the other 4 were not yet fully capped.  I left those and put in 6 empty frames.

Since it was getting cooler, I closed up the hive.  At a later date, I'll have to go back in and install the regular bottom board to keep the cold out some.  Over the weekend, I also put a hive top feeder on this hive to help them fill those empty frames and to make sure they have plenty of honey for winter.  I'll do the same for the "no longer queenless" hive.

Lots of Honey!

I went into the hives Monday afternoon...Sept. 13 just to see at what stage the frames were in capped vs uncapped honey.  I estimated that about 75% of the frame surface throughout the left hive were capped so hopefully they will be done capping by the weekend.  The frames being capped is important because it signals that the honey within is "cured" and is at the correct moisture content.  Too much moisture causes the honey to ferment.  You want as much of the honey to be capped as possible before extracting it.

I also checked the queenless hive on the right.  It appeared that they too were filling their frames in both the hive super as well as at least one of the hive bodies with honey.  Since there is no queen to lay eggs, they are putting honey in the frames that normally would be used for brood.  After extracting the honey from this hive, I will attempt to combine these bees with the other hive.  You do so by placing their box on top of the other hive with newspaper separating them.  By the time the bees eat their way through the newspaper, the bees from both hives should have the same odor and will be accepting of each other.  That is the plan anyway.

I wonder how much newspaper should be used...a few sheets, or the Sunday edition of the Boston Globe?

Got Honey?

I do!  I inspected the "good" hive yesterday...first time in a couple weeks.  Previously, there was not much honey anywhere in the hive...only a little here and there.  I was worried I would have to feed them heavily and that there would certainly be no honey "harvest".  Now one of the honey boxes is packed full of honey though it appears they are just now beginning to cap it.  Once it is all capped, I will be able to take that box off and it will be ready for extraction.  The other honey super is not full but the comb is all drawn out and they do appear to be starting to fill it...  I put in a queen excluder to keep her out of these two honey supers...there was no evidence that she ever ventured into either so that is good.  Hopefully all will go well and I'll have honey.

I did not check the other hive but did provide them medicated syrup.  They should pack this away in frames...which I will then use in the other hive for the winter.  Later I will try combining the two hives...

Still Queenless...bummer.

I went into the hive Tuesday, August 31 to see if a new queen had emerged and begun doing her thing...unfortunately, it a queen did survive, she is not laying.  I suspect that perhaps what emerged from the queen cells were regular workers or perhaps their was no surviving queen after they duked it out amongst themselves.  I suppose there is a slim chance that there is a queen but that she just has not yet matured to the point where she is laying...but I know that is a very slim chance.

The good news from this inspection is that there are still plenty of workers left for not having a queen for several weeks.  And they seem to be collecting honey and are doing a number on the pollen patties I left for them.

I looked real quick in the other hive and they too seem to be collecting honey now rather than consuming it all themselves.  Maybe I will get a jar or two out of them yet!

Birth of a Queen?

So it has been a couple of weeks since I suspect that my one hive has swarmed...and nearly as long since I first noticed supercedure cells.  The need for supercedure (replacing an ill, ineffecient or in this case missing queen) came about becuase I destroyed all the swarm cells before realizing that the old queen had already left the hive.  My theory (or perhaps it is just hope) is that the worker bees immediately began creating supercedure cells and transferred a very young egg to this special cell.

Anyhow, I went back into this hive this evening and took it apart right down to the bottom level.  You can see that there are still quite a few bees which is a good sign...there were even worker bees still emerging from their cells that the old queen had laid before taking off.

I removed the regular bottom board to increase ventilation which will hopefully keep them from wanting to swarm again anytime soon.  I then went through all of the brood box frames to see if I could find any evidence of a laying worker - a common ailment in queenless hives.  I did not find any evidence thankfully!  Hopefully this means they are waiting patiently for a queen to be born.  I finally found a supercedure cell on a frame...it was fully closed so hopefully that means there is a queen developing inside and will hatch soon.  Here is a photo:

In the second/top brood box, I found even better news:

That is definitely a supercedure cell and it appears to be hatching.  I am not entirely sure if it was a queen that emerged or not as I did not keep it out long enough - wasn't sure if I'd cause it too much stress or if the bees would accept her with so much commotion.

Later on I did see another supercedure cell burst open before my very eyes and found a couple others with their bottom caps already missing.  I am really curious as to what will happen now that there appears to be multiple virgin queens within this hive.  From researching online, it sounds like they will either fight it out amongst themselves or the workers will eventually accept only one and will either drive off, starve or kill the rest.  In either case, it takes 3 days or so for the virgin queens to develop enough to take their one flight away from the hive...during which they'll mate with a whole swarm of drones from neighboring hives, collect enough sperm to last 5 years of laying 1000 eggs each day and then return to the hive to begin laying. 

This will all hopefully take place this next week while I am away on vacation.  I'll be checking the hive again real close when we get back from Michigan.  Hopefully I will find eggs and this hive will be back on track!

Strong Hive

I went in this evening with my jacket and veil and gloves to check out the stronger of the two hives.  I really wanted to check and make sure they were not preparing to swarm.  The last couple of times I've checked this hive, I've been stung...which is why I am going in with protection this time.

The hive does seem to be going quite well.  All of the frames in the two brood boxes have lots of activity.  One thing I did accomplish on the 7th was to remove the queen excluder to encourage the bees to begin drawing out comb in the honey super.  A quick glance in at the frames show that this strategy appears to have worked.  They are drawing out the comb nicely and I can even see a small amount of honey being collected.  The picture below shows all the activity atop the honey super.

In this inspection I took the entire hive apart to get at the bottom-most bottom board.  I had this in place to hold the varroa mite counting board...but I think it is hindering ventilation which can induce the bees to swarming.  I removed this board and quickly placed the bottom box back into place.  The bees really did not like that this box was moved!  I am really glad I wore the veil and gloves!  Below is a picture of the hive without its brood boxes...not really a hive anymore.  But it shows the slatted rack (which is supposed to help improve ventilation and gives the bees the feeling of more room to reduce the desire to swarm).  Beneath the slatted rack is the screened bottom board which is used for mite control.  Mites fall off the bees and through the screen where they can't climb back onto bees.  Then under this is the regular bottom board...which is what I removed.  So now the mites will fall through the screen and into the grass below.

Here are a couple pictures showing the number of bees in this hive...most of the frames were as full as this...

Here is what the hive looked like in between each frame check...I had to use a lot of smoke to clear them enough to take out the next frame...

To top off this wonderful inspection, guess what I found???

I did not have time to go into the other hive...I will give it a couple more days and will check to see if the supercedure cells appear to be working. 

Supercedure Cells - Trying to Replace the Monarch

August 7, 2010

Wow...I really showed my "rookiness" when I went in and cut out all those swarm cells.  I should have evaluated whether they had already swarmed before I did that.  I believe now that they very likely did swarm based upon the number of swarm cells I found and the low number of bees in the hive and the near total absence of food in the hive. 

So I went back to the "swarmed" hive to see if my fears were correct...they were.  They are now trying to create a queen all over again...this time with supercedure cells meaning the original queen is absent.  Here is a picture of supercedure cells...they look similar to swarm cells except that they are near the top of the frame whereas swarm cells are near the bottom.

Anyhow my only hope now for this hive is that they can produce a new queen...otherwise I'll have to go and buy one.  I'll go in and check in a week or so to see what I find.  In the meantime I am going to add a couple pollen patties to help them replenish their food supplies...will also cook up a batch of syrup for them.  The objective now is to get their population and food stores built up enough so they can survive the winter.

The other hive still seems very strong...there are definitely many more bees in that hive.  They also seem more aggressive...I've been stung both times I've checked them in the past couple days...so I haven't been able to do a full inspection.  Will need to go in with my gear on to ensure they are not about to swarm as well!

Swarm Cell City

Went into the hives this evening which is something I've wanted to do for quite some time...but I've been busy splitting firewood and transporting it to the house.  Now I wish I had taken the time to check on the bees earlier!  :-(

I first checked the honey super to see if they had done anything...nope, not a thing.  No comb drawn out or anything.  I then took the super off as well as the top hive body.  I knew something was up because the top hive body was not nearly as heavy as I remember it being last time... 

Started the real inspection in the bottom box...  Found lots of brood at varying stages...tiny grain-sized eggs that must have just been laid recently as well as larger larvae.  This is a good sign because it at the very least means there is a queen present...right?  I hope so...  I never did find the queen but I did find what I feared...several, no MANY swarm cells.  Here are just a couple...

This might give you an idea of just how many I found in this one hive...

And here is a closeup of the queen larvae and what I imagine is the special food given to them called Royal Jelly...this special food is what helps make them a queen rather than worker or drone.

Anyhow, my suspicion is that with this many swarm cells present the hive has likely experienced at least one swarm.  Why haven't they moved up into the honey super if they were feeling crowded?  Damn bees!  So it would appear that this hive is half the number it ought to be at this time of year and has a fraction of the honey stores that it ought to have...the effects of swarming.

The news from the second hive was slightly better...maybe.  I found only a couple of very small incomplete swarm cells.  The top hive body seemed heavier though the amount of honey in it still didn't seem like it was previously or what it ought to be.  And they had not moved up into the honey super... 

So, now what to do?  The danger of them swarming so late in the season is that there numbers and honey stores are so low that they might not recover enought to survive the winter.  With that in mind, I removed the queen excluder so hopefully they will feel more welcome in the super box.  I will also make up some syrup to feed them to try and get there stores replenished.

I have some thoughts on what I could have done differently...

1. Sprayed the foundation of the honey super frames with syrup to encourage the bees to draw comb out on them.
2. Provided syrup when I added the honey super to give them easily available material for drawing out all that comb.
3. Leave off the queen excluder until the comb was all drawn out and then add the excluder.  Eventually with the queen being exculed, the brood that was laid in the honey super cells would hatch and would presumably be replaced with honey.

Who knows if any of the above would have helped...but they are strategies I will definitely keep in mind for next time!

All this likely means that any chance of my harvesting a crop of honey this year is out the window.  Oh well...from the beginning I really didn't think that would be possible...starting from scratch means the bees have to expend a lot of energy to draw out the comb...something they won't have to do much of next year.

Oh, one more little tidbit of news...saw my first varroa mite.  Lovely.  you can see it on the lower bee in this picture.

It was the only one I spotted but where there is one, there are many...and they tend to explode in numbers very quickly.  To help mitigate the problem, I removed the drone frames that were mostly drawn out and had drones either in larvae stage or were actively hatching.  Mites tend to favor drone brood as they incubate the longest.  By removing and freezing the drone comb/brood, you also kill the mites...which helps to keep their numbers in check.  This weekend I will also do a powdered sugar treatment...sprinkle enough on to get them all dusted real nice.  This causes the bees to groom each other...which knocks the mites to the bottom of the hive and through the screened bottom where they can not get back onto a bee.  Let's hope it works.

First Honey Supers!

I went in and checked the hives on Tuesday evening...7/20.  The bees were very calm and pleasant...didn't need veil or gloves and minimal smoke.  Couple times I had an individual bee chase me around but I smoked the heck out of her and the hive and that seemed to distract her enough.

With two deeps on, it is a bit more difficult to do a full check of the hive.  First I had to loosen the top deep enough to remove it...and boy was it heavy!!  I then set it aside and started going through the bottom deep.  The frames were pretty much all in use with brood, pollen, honey storage, etc.  Found the queen on one of the frames where it was evident that brood had recently hatched.  I thanked her for all her hard work...  I went through the hive far enough to check out the drone frame.  I need to start practicing swapping out drone frames and freezing them over night.  This is done to kill off large number of varroa mites that tend to favor drone brood due to their incubation period being longer than worker brood.  Killing off drones does not harm the hive really as they don't do much work anyway.  Their only purpose is to mate with virgin queens...

Anyhow, I put the top deep back on and began going through those frames.  Quite a few were packed full of pollen and/or honey.  Nearly all of the frames were in use...time to put on a honey super for sure!  Between the top deep and the honey super I placed a "queen excluder" which is like a grate that is sized to allow worker bees through but the queen out.  This will ensure that the honey frames will be just that...and won't have eggs and larvae mixed in when it comes time to extract...yuck!

I neglected to take pictures this time...:(  Bummer.  I'll go in again in a week or so to see how they progress with the honey super...I'll be sure to take pictures then.

New Beekeeper Anxiety - An 'oops' Moment

These events actually happened a couple of weeks ago when the temps were really hot.  There was a ton of activity at the entrance to the hives.  I got down close to get a good look at what was going on and saw a couple of bees "wrestling".  I immediately jumped to the conclusion that my hive(s) was being attacked/robbed by other hives.  I know now that this was not the case...

Anyhow, one way to stop robbing or to at least give your bees a fighting chance is to reduce the size of the entrance.  By cutting it down to the size of a bee or two, that is much easier for the guard bees to defend and keep out intruders.  So that is what I did.

About 5 - 10 minutes later, I was surprised to find my hive looking like this:

Holy smokes - it really was being robbed!!!  Not really...but that was my first thought...again completely wrong!  After a little research on the web I found that bees will do this when the hive gets too hot inside...bees will vacate the hive so that it cools off and they'll camp out on the box and "fan" it with their wings.  Pretty amazing, eh?

I removed the reducer and the bees eventually went back inside...  Silly beekeeper...I nearly cooked my bees!

Birth of a Honey Bee

Went into the hives this afternoon just to see how they were doing.  At first I was concerned that there was some robbing going on as there was a lot of activity at the entrance.  But I think it was just a beautiful day and the bees were real busy.  More "new beekeeper anxiety", I guess.
The visit went quite well.  Was going to try it without any smoke even but after I opened up the first hive and removed the feeder, I had a bee start a staring match with me.  I decided then I better bring in the big guns...

The bees have begun to move up into the second story of the hive.  The middle frames are drawn out and I can see eggs and larvae so the queen even is spending time up there.  There was also a good amount of pollen and what looked like honey.  Most of the frames in the top section though were still quite bare.  I think I might make up another batch of syrup to feed them...that might at least help them draw out the frames quicker.  Before doing so, I am going to clean up the feeders some as they are getting pretty nasty.

I did not locate the queen in either hive but now that I know she is there, I don't need to find her every time.  I found plenty of eggs that must have been just laid recently...tinier than a grain of rice but still quite visible.  Some frames had a strange brown color to them and were pretty bare.  I wondered what that was all about until I saw the following:

You can see the brownish color of the empty cells.  At the bottom, the capped cells are capped brood.  There are baby bees in those cells.  And if you look close, you can see several where the cappings are being eaten away by the bees working their way out.  The next several pictures show the birth of a honey bee.  Happens hundreds of times every day in the hives...but hey, it was my first time witnessing the event.

Elusive Queen...

Went into the hives again last night...mostly to see if they were doing anything in the second hive body recently added as well as to try once more to find that queen.  I was about half way through the hive with the "missing" queen when a beekeeper friend showed up to offer assistance.  Right away he told me it was evident I had a queen.  He was able to tell that by the abundance of WORKER BROOD present.  As I have said and have known all along, a laying worker will only lay DRONE brood...  I apparently had forgotten that drone brood cells are actually noticeably larger than worker brood cells.  This was very apparent when I compared the cells on the green drone frame with the cells present elsewhere in the hive.

Anyhow, it was not long after he told me this that we both spotted the queen doing her thing.  Bill also gave me a tip that you likely won't find the queen on frames that are full of capped brood...she's already done her work on those frames and has likely moved on.  Sure enough, she was on a frame with open drawn out cells and was probably busy laying eggs!  I do feel much better now that I have found her...but realize I was full of worry for no reason.  I should have known all along that I had a queen and not a laying worker.

As for the second hive bodies, one hive and just begun drawing comb on one of the frames.  It was definitely early for me to put them on...hopefully the bees won't have too much trouble keeping the hive at the right temperature.  Debated whether or not to remove them for now...but decided to keep them on as I'll be away for nearly a week...and the weather is supposed to be quite nice during that time.

Eggs and Larvae...but no Queen?

Sunday afternoon turned out to be absolutely perfect for checking on bees and that is just what I did.  I began with the hive that I had previously found a queen in.  I figured this would give me the opportunity and practice in spotting eggs and larae in various stages and sizes.  I was right!  You can see the larvae in the photo below.

I also found the queen again so all seems to be well in this hive.  They had drawn out the comb cells in all but the outer frames.  I think those eggs will begin hatching in the next week or two.  The syrup in this hive was pretty much all gone as was the pollen patty I had provided.  As I finished up, I decided to make more room for them so that when these little ones do hatch, they won't feel crowded.  I did this by putting on the second hive body (doubled their hive, really).  I then filled the syrup.

On to hive #2...  After just a couple frames, I began finding lots and lots of eggs of all sizes!  This should mean that there is a queen...though it could be a laying worker.  If it is a laying worker, all the eggs will develop into drones...which do no work in the hive.  From what I have read and heard, a laying worker will deposit multiple eggs in cells and the eggs will not be positioned in center.  It looked to my untrained eye that there was only 1 egg in the center of each cell.  Even so, I really wanted to find the queen to put my mind at ease.  I went through the entire hive and couldn't find her...and then worked my way backwards through the hive all over again...still no queen!  She must be well-camoflaged or really good at hiding...or maybe she isn't there at all.  I added a second hive body to this one as well and refilled its syrup. 

I forgot to mention, when I removed the hive-top feeder from this hive, there was a bunch of extra "burr comb" built between the feeder bottom and the tops of the frames.

I had to scrape all this off...from both the feeder and the frames.  I felt bad about destroying all that comb they had worked on building...but really, there was plenty of frame space they should have been working on!  Silly bees!

Below is a picture of one of the frames.  You can see the white honey cells toward the top.  I think the darker colored capped cells is capped brood. 

I am hoping that I can get a beekeeper friend to go through the hive with me sometime...to help identify some of these features as well perhaps help me in finding that elusive queen.  Perhaps tonight...as it is supposed to be quite nice!

Finally, here is what the hives look like now that they are two-high.

Support Your Local Beekeeper

“Even our honey industry is under siege from imports of Chinese-origin honey,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York. “Ongoing schemes by Chinese exporters to circumvent U.S. anti-dumping, food labeling and food safety laws, threaten the continued health of the U.S. honey industry and by extension the health of agricultural industries.”


Schumer said that China is guilty of violating anti-dumping laws, is running honey through several other countries then into the United States to avoid tariffs, and is even shipping honey contaminated with antibiotics.

http://home.ezezine.com/1636/1636-2010.06.09.13.51.archive.html

Daredevil

I forgot to mention in last week's post a funny tidbit about my daughter Olivia.  She is 3 years old and is very excited about our new "pets".  She has heard me talk about them all winter...  Anyhow, prior to last week's more thorough hive inspection, I suited up in my jacket, veil, gloves, etc.  I told Olivia to stay outside the fenced-in area that the bees are kept and then went to work.

As I was removing frames looking for the queen and really causing quite a stir, I turned around and found Olivia standing right next to me.  So there I was in all my bee garb and there she was in her shorts and tank-top!  Thank goodness our backyard is somewhat private or otherwise I would likely have been charged with child endangerment!  I do wish that I could have gotten a picture of that! 

Hopefully this Saturday we'll get some more good pictures of the hives.  I am sure Olivia will not be far away.

Quick Look

Monday night I checked the hives real quick...found them low on syrup again and so gave each hive a half gallon.  There were fewer drowned bees this time around...so it seems the piece of wood I placed has helped some.  I would still like to get a small dowel properly sized so that even fewer would die needlessly.

While there, I also checked to see if they had eaten the pollen patties I had placed last week.  Both had been completely devoured!  I put in another half patty in each hive.

It was later in the evening and the temps were cooler so I did not doing anything else.  This Saturday is supposed to be very nice...ought to provide the perfect opportunity to go queen AND egg hunting!

Wish me luck!

1 Queen Found!

I went into both hives this afternoon...it was a lovely day...hot, sunny, and little wind.  I had my 3-year old helper who is fearless of bees.  I imagine once she is stung for the first time, that might change. 

So I went and suited up and got my smoker going.  Looked inside the hivetop feeder of hive 1 and found that it was pretty low.  That's a good sign, I guess.  Thankfully, I had a couple gallons still on hand.  I then removed the feeder and got a good luck at the tops of the frames.  Plenty of bees in there, that is for sure.

I then started removing frames starting from the outside.  The first couple really did not have much of anything going on.  But as I got closer to the center, there were many more bees on the foundations and I could see where they had drawn out quite a bit of comb.  With each frame I removed, the number of bees present increased dramatically...until the whole frame was pretty much covered top to bottom.  At this point, I was really hoping to see the queen.  But with all those bees and my untrained I, I lost hope.  Then I came to the green "drone" frame. 

It's cells are a bit larger than the others and so drones are normally raised there.  These are the useless males...they are also the ones targeted most frequently by the dreaded varroa mite.  By providing a full frame of drone brood, I can remove it before the drones hatch, throw them overnight in the freezer and kill off the mites that have infested the brood.  This is one natural way to control the number of mites in your hive.

Anyhow, when I got to the drone frame, I noticed some large oval shaped cups toward the top of the frame...looked like supercedure cells...which would indicate the hive is trying to replace a missing or unproductive queen.  I am not sure if this is a "good" sign or not.  I guess if a new queen hatches, then I will be all set with that hive...at least then I know I will have a queen!

At this point I closed this hive up, replacing all the frames carefully so as to try not to crush too many of "the girls".  I also added a pollen patty and shim to the hive...we'll see if they like the patties.

On to the second hive...same procedure.  This time, I pulled out the center frame and there she was...the queen!  Whoo hoo!  This made my day!  Let's see if you can spot her...

I was not able to see any eggs but perhaps it is early for that...after all, the bees were still drawing out foundation.  Perhaps if I knew what to look for and where, I might have found eggs.  I am sure in a week or so, they will be more easily seen. 

I had previously put a pollen patty in this hive...and the bees seemed to be enjoying it (see below).  It's syrup was also nearly gone.

In both hives, there were many drowned bees in the hive top feeders.  I read that putting a small dowel or piece of wood where the bees drink up the syrup can help them keep their footing and prevent drowning.  I made up some slivers and put those in...and cleaned out all the dead bees.  Hopefully that will help.

My First Stings

Got stung a couple times Sunday evening...it was my own fault. I know that the best time to open up a hive is in the afternoon of a nice sunny day with little wind...basically when most of the bees are going to be out foraging for nectar and pollen. Sunday evening it was still pretty nice but the sun was definitely setting and there was a bit of a breeze. Even so, I came up with the bright idea of seeing if the bees might like some pollen patty that I had purchased.

To use this on the hives, I would first have to take off the hive-top feeder I use. Once that is accomplished, the hive is completely exposed from the top. The next task was to put on a shim which would allow room for the pollen patty on top of the frames and under the feeder.

Anyhow, the bees did not appreciate me taking their feed from them... As soon as I took the feeder off, I got stung on ankle through my sock which was fortunate because I think the sock pulled the stinger out rather quickly. The offending bee was probably one that was on the feeder when I set it in the grass. The second sting was on my wrist. It was at this point that I realized I should probably get a veil and gloves... So I ran up to the house and put those on real quick calling myself all sorts of names on the way. I have now left the hive wide open...another no-no. Oh well. What's going to happen right? I was coming right back...

Thankfully nothing did happen. I was able to put the shim on, the patty in, and replaced the feeder with no further excitement. This process did stir up quite a bit of excitement...so I decided I'd better wait for a sunnier day to do the other hive.

It has been very difficult for me to curb my curiosity and not go queen hunting. I am really worried that the bees assassinated the queens. My only hope is that the queens picked up the scent of the other bees enough while they were in the same packages together. If the weather is right on Wednesday, I hope to go in and look for some eggs. If there eggs in the cells, then I know I have an egg layer at least. Of course, this could be a worker laying in the absence of a queen...these eggs will only develop into useless males. If it is a queen laying, then there will be only 1 egg/cell and the eggs will be positioned in the middle of the cell. If it is a worker laying, then there could be two eggs/cell and the positioning will be messy.

If I find that the queens have been killed off, I will have to order replacement queens. Hopefully I will have better luck (or perhaps a better PLAN!) for introducing the queens!

The Arrival!

So on Friday May 28 I drove 2.5 to the Betterbee shop in Greenwich, NY to pick up my two packages of bees. Packages consist of a screened in box that holds approximately 3-4 pounds of bees which generally equates to about 8,000 bees along with 1 queen in a queen cage! As you can imagine, there is quite a bit of buzz coming from that little box!

I arrived there at about 10:00am to quite a few people lined up ahead of me...all in a state of concern. They were supposed to start handing the bees out at 9:00am...but had yet to open their doors! Rumors ran amuck about how there were not enough to go around or the truck was late, etc, etc. Thankfully, about 10:15 they opened their doors and the handouts began. I got my bees and was back on the road by 10:30!

I arrived home and got right to work to introduce the bees to their new home. I had watched several videos on how to install packages and read over and over again how it is done. I found out rather quickly that executing the procedure is much more difficult for the beginner beekeeper than they make it look in the videos! With the first package, I removed the queen cage with no problem...but then I had trouble figuring out how to get the cage attached to the foundation. During my efforts, the cork keeping the queen in her cage busted through and of course the first bee out (she has attendants, don't you know) was the queen bee herself! Luckily she flew directly into the hive and seemed content. I don't know how long that lasted as I hurriedly dumped those 8,000 bees on top of her. Doh!

The way it is SUPPOSED to happen is that the bees eat through a candy plug to "free" the queen...and through this process they come to accept the queen as their boss. I really don't know if my thoroughly messed up procedure will work. I think I will likely need to requeen that colony.

So, you'd think I would have learned from my mistake when I went about doing the second package...but basically the same thing happened. This time, the bees from the queen cage started escaping through the candy plug and so I just placed it in the bottom of the hive and dumped the 8,000 workers and drones on top of it. I guess I better buy two queens, eh?

Other than the queen troubles, everything went well. I did all of the above in shorts and short-sleeved shirt with no gloves nor veil and didn't get stung once! I had read many times that honeybees are quite gentle but never did I think I'd be dumping 16,000 bees into two hives in close proximity and not get stung.

I'll post some pictures...next step is to give the bees some peace and privacy for several days other than to make sure they have plenty of sugar syrup for feed. They need that to get a jump on all the wax building they need to do.

The What...

Once I decided to become a beekeeper, I began to look around on the internet to find out just what would be required. Many beekeeping sites sell full kits for the beginner beekeeper but I found that many of those kits included some "extras" that I likely would not use or would want a better quality of.

I did however find a "hive increase" kit from Betterbee that seemed to best fit my needs. This would give me all the hive boxes, frames, and foundation as well as a few other essential parts of the hive. This kit comes in an assembled as well as an unassembled version. I chose the unassembled version because it would allow me to become more familiar with the pieces of the hive and it also came with wooden frames rather than plastic.

The pieces that came with each of my two kits included 2 brood chambers also known as "deeps", 2 medium chambers known as "supers or honey supers", a wooden inner cover, polystyrene outer cover, reversible bottom board, along with 20 deep and 20 medium wooden frames with crimp-wired foundation. In addition to those items I also purchased a varroa screen, a slatted rack (for better ventilation), a queen excluder (to keep the queen from entering the honey supers) and hive-top feeders for both hives.

Here is a picture of how they all go together...

The Why...

So last Fall, I decided I wanted to be a beekeeper.

Why?

I had heard the many news stories regarding the plight of bees worldwide and the devastating effects of Colony Collapse Disorder as well as many other pests and diseases that are taking their toll on bees. I wanted to do a small part in trying to help bees thrive in my area.

A second reason is that both my wife and I have increasingly moved towards supporting our local economy as much as we can. We have started purchasing the vast majority of our vegetables (and now even meats) from a local farm (Pete's Greens) through a CSA (Community Sustained Agriculture) plan. I think that by keeping bees and making my own honey that I know is healthy and all-natural is just another way of "keeping it local".

The third reason is that I LOVE honey!

It seems that I was destined to be a beekeeper...at least thus far (easy to say since the bees have yet to arrive!). The very next day after announcing my intention to my wife, her beekeeper co-worked received an email from the Vermont Beekeepers Association announcing a grant for new beekeepers. This grant will reimburse new beekeepers 50% of the cost of starting 1 to 2 hives up to $200 per hive! Whoo hoo! It was meant to be!

So I made the decision to be a beekeeper..."Now what?" I asked. Just what is required to house bees?