We've been having streaks of 60+ degree days, and with the Colorado Front Range mostly devoid of flowers at this time, I've been feeding the girls pounds and pounds of sugar syrup. They've been sucking it down like crazy, too, much faster than they did in the early spring, last year. Their stores are still good, but I've just been putting quarts and quarts and quarts of 1:1 sugar:water syrup into the internal feeder. No reason to encourage, even more, the robbers that keep trying to get into the hive.
I've been seeing wasps, flies, wild bees, and all kinds of creatures trying to get into the front entrance. I've been seeing the girls throwing out the intruders, too, literally grabbing them and taking them away or balling them up, heating them to kill them and then dumping all the bodies out the front door. There's a huge spider living under the hive, that gathers up all the bodies and eats them, leaving all only the wings. The spider's been a kind of amazing clean up crew.
I've smashed a few wasps just because they're so easy to spot and they move slowly in 50+ or even low 60 degree weather.
Tonight it's supposed to rain down freezing sleet, so I've finally reduced the entrance to the smallest setting, and took the feeder out, simply to give the girls less space they have to heat. I'm also putting the feeder in a place away from the hive so it'll lure the robbers there instead of to the hive, and the girls can still pick up sweets when they are energetic enough to be out flying. The last two brood boxes are heavy still with stores (or even the syrup, I imagine), and when I opened them to take out the feeder, there were still a lot of bees.
So I'm pretty hopeful about them lasting the winter. We'll see. I'll probably still put patties on around Christmas, in case they want them, but I've now zipped their boxes closed for the winter.
Showing posts with label equipment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label equipment. Show all posts
Monday, November 11, 2013
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Worth It...
The bees are now inside, and not hanging out in curtains on the outside of the box. I'm grateful, especially since Colorado seems to be having more rain this one week than it has had nearly all year. There's been flash flooding up and down the Front Range, but we're high enough up and our neighborhood has plenty of planned drainage. The hive is on high ground in our yard, too, and as you can see from this, it was high and dry and seems to be doing just fine at the moment.
My ankle is really swollen, though, and hurting enough to make me testy. *shakes head at self* It'll get better. I had the same pain and swelling reaction with my right index finger, but the pinky that got pinged yesterday is stiff and itchy, but not swelling quite as badly. I think that bee just didn't get to pump quite as much toxin into me. I think it'll be better tomorrow, after sleep, but I've taken Benedryl, iced like mad, and it's still swollen and hot to the touch. Not sure it's bad enough to go to the doctor, as it's not swelling of a whole limb, nor is it affecting my breathing. Still... it's all the more incentive to use smoke and my super thick socks (or even a couple layers of them) next time.
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Out of the Rain
They were pretty crowded, though, as you can see in this picture, and they were still doing orienting flights, which meant that even more bees were being born. Then, yesterday, it started just pouring, and with the way the weather looked, there was a monsoon pattern coming up from the Gulf. Last night, when I checked on the girls they had all bearded under the overhang of the lid! This was in rain and by morning it was in the high 50's and they were still outside.
This probably indicated that they were too crowded to find shelter from the rain in the ball of bees. So I decided to do what the field guys were doing, which was just have another super on top just to give them enough room to move around in. This morning, between rain storms, I attempted to open things up and get a super placed on top of the hive. Of course, all the bearded girls were not just in the way, but in every available crack, and getting my hands in places where they wouldn't sting the hell out of even my gloved hands proved to be really challenging. And I was stupid and didn't put on my thick wool socks, and one girl got inside my boot and went to town on my ankle.
I swore. A lot. It helped long enough for me to get to the side, and let John shoo the poor girl off and get the stinger, and most of her insides off my foot. I was also trying not to use smoke because they simply didn't have anywhere to go, and that may have been my mistake, so I was actually brushing bees off the lids instead of smoking them off, and I got another sting on my pinky, and she stuck her stinger right into the leather, so that it stabbed me a few times when I was trying to grip things. John got THAT one out, and I kept going, and got all the girls shaken into the super and got the lid back on without crushing any more.
My pay off came this afternoon when a huge downpour came down, and when I went out to check on the girls they were all INSIDE instead of hanging on outside. I'm much happier knowing they're in shelter with enough room for all their numbers. I also went to the allergy clinic this afternoon, and got everything checked out, and the ankle's much worse than the pinky. But the good news is that I don't really have systemic reactions to the stings, "just" local ones. *laughs* The interesting thing is that the pinky sting really hasn't reacted that much, and maybe it's 'cause she wasn't able to pump much into me, but the ankle one is a huge hole and puffy all around. Bah.
Next year, I'll remember to just keep a medium super on just until their numbers drop when it gets cold outside. Next time...
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Refractometers and Making Good
I got to use a honey refractometer last night to measure the actual water content of all my honey. It was pretty impressive to find that everything's between 16% and 17.2% water, all well below the 18% to keep the honey from fermenting.
The Northern Colorado Beekeeper's Association has two of them for any member to borrow, which I thought was a wonderful thing, as they're fairly expensive and no one really needs them for a long time. I just put a few drops of honey on the sample slide, squished it, let it come to temperature, and did the reading and it was as clear as anything. Though, because it was nearly 80 degrees in the house, we had to add one percentage point of water to the readings, which are calibrated for 68 degrees.
The other very cool thing was that Corky from Ballard Bees came through with my last two long boards. I was very grateful and he was very glad I was pretty patient about the whole thing. All in all, I'm glad it worked out so that my bees never even built in the first super, but now I'll have both for next year. After the experience of harvesting from a deep, I'm sure to use the medium supers next year instead of an old deep. The frames just really don't hold up well to being moved with all that weight in them. I'm going to have to be very careful with the brood chamber while it's full of honey when I go in for inspections before the fall.
I've also sold a good deal of honey already! Lots of people, once they heard it was available, were very happy to buy what they could, especially the local people with allergies. I loved hearing about how they use it for facial masks, wound treatment, and all kinds of things. So all in all, it's been pretty good.
The Northern Colorado Beekeeper's Association has two of them for any member to borrow, which I thought was a wonderful thing, as they're fairly expensive and no one really needs them for a long time. I just put a few drops of honey on the sample slide, squished it, let it come to temperature, and did the reading and it was as clear as anything. Though, because it was nearly 80 degrees in the house, we had to add one percentage point of water to the readings, which are calibrated for 68 degrees.
The other very cool thing was that Corky from Ballard Bees came through with my last two long boards. I was very grateful and he was very glad I was pretty patient about the whole thing. All in all, I'm glad it worked out so that my bees never even built in the first super, but now I'll have both for next year. After the experience of harvesting from a deep, I'm sure to use the medium supers next year instead of an old deep. The frames just really don't hold up well to being moved with all that weight in them. I'm going to have to be very careful with the brood chamber while it's full of honey when I go in for inspections before the fall.
I've also sold a good deal of honey already! Lots of people, once they heard it was available, were very happy to buy what they could, especially the local people with allergies. I loved hearing about how they use it for facial masks, wound treatment, and all kinds of things. So all in all, it's been pretty good.
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Moving House and Ghost Bees
On August 4th, I actually did a full inspection of the hive, because it had been a while, and I wanted to just see what was going on. I'd been on vacation to Seattle, so hadn't really had a chance until then to get at the girls. I also waited for the boards from Corky so that I could build the supers I needed.
I found a very happy, full, busy hive, with lots of larvae in the bottom two brood boxes, three or four full frames of honey down there, too, and nearly half the deep super already filled wtih new white comb and honey.
I put another super on, then, just in case the girls wanted to be ambitious, and I left the hive bodies staggered, because the weather had been wicked hot for the the last several weeks. They'd been bearding on every available surface, so I thought I'd let them do that as much as they could from every front and back of the boxes.
But in the last week, it's gotten both wet and colder, especially at night. It's been in the 50's at night, though still in the high 70's and low 80's during the day. There's still lots of flowers out all around the neighborhood, and in the wild field just across the street. So it's not like it's totally fall, yet, but it's certainly not the dog days of August I'm used to having.
For that inspection, though, the hive was full of bees, they'd probably doubled their numbers again, since I'd last seen them, and the sheer number of bees amazed me. I even saw a bunch of them doing an orienting flight, just as I was approaching the boxes to open them all up. The girls had also created huge amounts of propolis, glueing the front board to the entrance and cementing all the boxes together. That amazed me.
When we'd come home from Seattle, one of the boards blocking the skunks from entering our backyard was shifted, and there was a trench dug in front of the hive! They'd evidently come in and tried to dig their way under the hive to get at things. They hadn't gotten far in the hard-packed clay, so it wasn't really a viable plan. Still, it surprised me that they'd tried.
Anyway... I did take one chunk of honeycomb they'd probably built on one of the top bars, off the foundation. It had dropped in the 104 degree weather they'd had while we were away, and they'd glued it to the bottom of one of the foundations. It was so thick it was mashing bees when I tried to pull out that frame, so I shoo'ed all the girls off it, and then just used my hive tool to scrape it off the plastic foundation, onto a cookie sheet. I mashed it later, ran it through a steel mesh filter, and it's been really tasty in my tea.
But a few days later I noticed tiny, tiny black specks that were running around and jumping between the girls on the their front porch! The girls were scraping them off each other, but the tiny things were running around. One of the bee girls looked like she was chasing them around, shooing them off the porch. Not the red of Varroa or tracheal mites, but someone was still trying to hitch a ride and food from my girls.
Between that and the weather, I decided to get a screened bottom board with a drawer for sticky board, and then straighten up the boxes but still leave ventilation from the top super. So, today, I wanted to get all that in. Of course, it clouded up and started raining. John was amazing, and because I was going to have to take off all the boxes in order to get to the bottom board, he volunteered to build a new stand for it all so that I could move the whole thing two yards forward, off the basement window well, and make it a lot easier for me to lift and carry the full deeps.
Here you can see the old setup, and it's getting tall enough and heavy enough that I couldn't lift much while standing on the edge of the cover for the well. It's actually held up by two 2x4's stretched across the very strong metal well walls, so there was no danger of it falling it. The only danger was for me to fall in if I got close enough to spare my back.
John's back had been acting up, lately, too, so I did all the lifting this time, and basically put all the boxes on the lid a little ways out of the way. It got a little crazy, this time, since I was taking away the entire hive, and the girls got pretty agitated while I moved and stacked boxes, trying not to crush anyone. And then, of course, it started to rain, and all the field workers started to come back to the hive. Poor girls, they were hovering like crazy in exactly the same spot they used to hover in, in order to make a landing at the hive, but there was no where to land!
I had to clear out the old equipment and clean off the old bottom board. An enormous spider had taken up residence under the bottom board, and had a huge accumulation of wings, all stuck together, down there. The spider had run away onto one of the supporting 2x4's, and I figure she was probably who had eaten all the dead bees that the girls had thrown out of the hive, because I never found bodies in front of the hive or under it in the window well. Given how thoroughly she was cleaning up, I didn't really mind her there.
I had to put the new stand in place. John suggested testing it, so I did, and jumped up and down in a cloud of bees to make sure it was set solidly. Then I put the cleaned bottom board on it, and on top of that, the screened bottom board with a drawer in the back for sticky board. The sticky board we had was just covered in Vaseline, but it's sticky enough that if the mites fall on it, they aren't going to be able to get out or jump back on the bees.
And then I was finally able to put the bottom brood box back into place.
Whew.
In this picture, you can even see where I'd stacked all the boxes in reverse order, on the lid.
With the entrance board out front, but two inches down, all the incoming workers landed on the board, but then had a two-inch climb that confused the heck out of them. John went off to get an extra piece of 2x4, while I made sure that the box was in place, and the workers smoked down so that I could place the next box, which was another heavy one. But it made all the difference in the world that I could keep the box next to my body while I carried it. I had to work quickly to get the front board back into place, too, as every girl in the air kept trying to land on it, as it was familiar, so I kept one hand waving in front, while I got the board in. I've never been so glad of my protective gear.
I was swearing at the girls when they boiled up over the top bars, and it was only after I got both brood boxes and the nearly full deep when I remembered that I was going to treat them with powdered sugar. When you dump powdered sugar on bees, they start to clean each other off, and they do such a thorough job of it that they often clean the mites off each other, too. It's a great way to get mites to drop off, and onto the sticky board. It doesn't really harm them, it basically feeds them, and it's cheap and can be very easy to do. They recommend treating once a week, but just the brood boxes. *laughs*
I don't think that the powdered sugar affects the honey, but really the brood workers are the ones most at risk of the mites, which I think is why you just do the brood boxes. Half a cup of sifted powdered sugar went between the frames.
And ghost bees came zooming out. Poor girls. They were completely covered with the stuff. I saw one girl practically blinded by the stuff, trying to throw herself out of a small area between two frames. I gently helped her out of that into the body of the hive itself.
This one flew out, climbed onto Jet, and then tried to go into his pants. John got her out of there, but she left a trail of powdered sugar all over Jet. *laughs*
But all the girls that came out were frantically being cleaned by all the other bees. It was fun to see how cooperative they were about doing that for each other, and I'll see, tomorrow, how many mites were caught by the sticky board. Or if the sugar even made it to the bottom. The drawer means that I can look and check without bothering the girls.
It all went together beautifully. The top super had a lot of bees in it, but no comb, yet, or honey. It seem to just be living space for them, and there were a lot of them up there when I first opened things up.
Stacking everything up felt good, and I got most of the bees out of the way with practice. I just need to do this more often to be more comfortable with the doing. Still, not bad for having a whole cloud of bees flying all around me while I got the stand and the bottom back into place, just two feet in front of where it used to be. The girls were doing orienting flights, afterward, circling around as if they were figuring out where everything was again. It still amazes me that moving them such a short distance still confuses them so much. Nearly none of the field workers, coming back, seemed even able to see the boxes that were piled on the lid just a right-corner away. But once the box was back in the orientation it used to have, in nearly the same place, they homed in and landed as if nothing were wrong.
Now they'll have fewer entrances to guard, and I'll get a better handle on the mites, I think, and help them manage what they're already doing. If they clean the mites off each other in the hive, the mites can drop through the mesh, and can't get back out, unlike when they were cleaning each other on the front porch, and the mites were just jumping right back onto them.
I'll have to put it back on the solid bottom board again before winter, but now I'll have a portal into how they're actually doing.
I put another super on, then, just in case the girls wanted to be ambitious, and I left the hive bodies staggered, because the weather had been wicked hot for the the last several weeks. They'd been bearding on every available surface, so I thought I'd let them do that as much as they could from every front and back of the boxes.
But in the last week, it's gotten both wet and colder, especially at night. It's been in the 50's at night, though still in the high 70's and low 80's during the day. There's still lots of flowers out all around the neighborhood, and in the wild field just across the street. So it's not like it's totally fall, yet, but it's certainly not the dog days of August I'm used to having.
When we'd come home from Seattle, one of the boards blocking the skunks from entering our backyard was shifted, and there was a trench dug in front of the hive! They'd evidently come in and tried to dig their way under the hive to get at things. They hadn't gotten far in the hard-packed clay, so it wasn't really a viable plan. Still, it surprised me that they'd tried.
Anyway... I did take one chunk of honeycomb they'd probably built on one of the top bars, off the foundation. It had dropped in the 104 degree weather they'd had while we were away, and they'd glued it to the bottom of one of the foundations. It was so thick it was mashing bees when I tried to pull out that frame, so I shoo'ed all the girls off it, and then just used my hive tool to scrape it off the plastic foundation, onto a cookie sheet. I mashed it later, ran it through a steel mesh filter, and it's been really tasty in my tea.
But a few days later I noticed tiny, tiny black specks that were running around and jumping between the girls on the their front porch! The girls were scraping them off each other, but the tiny things were running around. One of the bee girls looked like she was chasing them around, shooing them off the porch. Not the red of Varroa or tracheal mites, but someone was still trying to hitch a ride and food from my girls.
Between that and the weather, I decided to get a screened bottom board with a drawer for sticky board, and then straighten up the boxes but still leave ventilation from the top super. So, today, I wanted to get all that in. Of course, it clouded up and started raining. John was amazing, and because I was going to have to take off all the boxes in order to get to the bottom board, he volunteered to build a new stand for it all so that I could move the whole thing two yards forward, off the basement window well, and make it a lot easier for me to lift and carry the full deeps.
John's back had been acting up, lately, too, so I did all the lifting this time, and basically put all the boxes on the lid a little ways out of the way. It got a little crazy, this time, since I was taking away the entire hive, and the girls got pretty agitated while I moved and stacked boxes, trying not to crush anyone. And then, of course, it started to rain, and all the field workers started to come back to the hive. Poor girls, they were hovering like crazy in exactly the same spot they used to hover in, in order to make a landing at the hive, but there was no where to land!
I had to clear out the old equipment and clean off the old bottom board. An enormous spider had taken up residence under the bottom board, and had a huge accumulation of wings, all stuck together, down there. The spider had run away onto one of the supporting 2x4's, and I figure she was probably who had eaten all the dead bees that the girls had thrown out of the hive, because I never found bodies in front of the hive or under it in the window well. Given how thoroughly she was cleaning up, I didn't really mind her there.
I had to put the new stand in place. John suggested testing it, so I did, and jumped up and down in a cloud of bees to make sure it was set solidly. Then I put the cleaned bottom board on it, and on top of that, the screened bottom board with a drawer in the back for sticky board. The sticky board we had was just covered in Vaseline, but it's sticky enough that if the mites fall on it, they aren't going to be able to get out or jump back on the bees.
Whew.
In this picture, you can even see where I'd stacked all the boxes in reverse order, on the lid.
With the entrance board out front, but two inches down, all the incoming workers landed on the board, but then had a two-inch climb that confused the heck out of them. John went off to get an extra piece of 2x4, while I made sure that the box was in place, and the workers smoked down so that I could place the next box, which was another heavy one. But it made all the difference in the world that I could keep the box next to my body while I carried it. I had to work quickly to get the front board back into place, too, as every girl in the air kept trying to land on it, as it was familiar, so I kept one hand waving in front, while I got the board in. I've never been so glad of my protective gear.
I was swearing at the girls when they boiled up over the top bars, and it was only after I got both brood boxes and the nearly full deep when I remembered that I was going to treat them with powdered sugar. When you dump powdered sugar on bees, they start to clean each other off, and they do such a thorough job of it that they often clean the mites off each other, too. It's a great way to get mites to drop off, and onto the sticky board. It doesn't really harm them, it basically feeds them, and it's cheap and can be very easy to do. They recommend treating once a week, but just the brood boxes. *laughs*
I don't think that the powdered sugar affects the honey, but really the brood workers are the ones most at risk of the mites, which I think is why you just do the brood boxes. Half a cup of sifted powdered sugar went between the frames.
This one flew out, climbed onto Jet, and then tried to go into his pants. John got her out of there, but she left a trail of powdered sugar all over Jet. *laughs*
But all the girls that came out were frantically being cleaned by all the other bees. It was fun to see how cooperative they were about doing that for each other, and I'll see, tomorrow, how many mites were caught by the sticky board. Or if the sugar even made it to the bottom. The drawer means that I can look and check without bothering the girls.
Stacking everything up felt good, and I got most of the bees out of the way with practice. I just need to do this more often to be more comfortable with the doing. Still, not bad for having a whole cloud of bees flying all around me while I got the stand and the bottom back into place, just two feet in front of where it used to be. The girls were doing orienting flights, afterward, circling around as if they were figuring out where everything was again. It still amazes me that moving them such a short distance still confuses them so much. Nearly none of the field workers, coming back, seemed even able to see the boxes that were piled on the lid just a right-corner away. But once the box was back in the orientation it used to have, in nearly the same place, they homed in and landed as if nothing were wrong.
Now they'll have fewer entrances to guard, and I'll get a better handle on the mites, I think, and help them manage what they're already doing. If they clean the mites off each other in the hive, the mites can drop through the mesh, and can't get back out, unlike when they were cleaning each other on the front porch, and the mites were just jumping right back onto them.
I'll have to put it back on the solid bottom board again before winter, but now I'll have a portal into how they're actually doing.
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Honor and Laziness
I suspect that she's actually someone's Italian worker bee. The body shape, size, and coloring match my girls to a T, Russians I know are darker, and she's much bigger than the wild bees that are in the area. But it was really neat to find her and get a good picture of her while she was sipping from a flower. I like that her pollen sacs have a few grains in them.
Sadly, when I came home from our trip to Seattle, I found out that the long boards for the supers, were actually the front and back boards for a 10-frame box. I emailed Corky, and he promised to send me the long boards. He did, but he only sent two instead of four, for both my supers.
So I have sent another email to him about that, and I know that he was in a hurry when he sent them. I also know that he's been great about correcting the problem, so far. He just said that he'd send the boards and not to worry about returning the ones I have. I have, however, been able to build one super, and I'm painting it right now. I'm hoping to get into the hive tomorrow or the day after and see how my girls are doing since I left for Seattle, and see if they need another super.
The keepers here are having a sort of mixed year. Our spring started late because of the late snow, but a lot of things have been blooming and are still blooming. The linden trees were late, the Russian sage is early, and the alfalfa is blooming everywhere. Hay's doing well this year, and when they let it bloom before they mow it, the bees can get a lot of honey from them.
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Ballard Bee Company
I'd heard a lot of good things about Corky and the Ballard Bee Company, an urban beekeeper who was doing a lot of education as well as maintaining some 150 hives through Seattle. They allow people to "host" a hive, as well as sell most anything you'll need to create your own. Corky even talked about driving down to California in April to get the queen and worker boxes this spring.
We went there. Obviously. *laughs* I needed some supers that weren't just the deeps because I don't think I could lift a deep if it were completely filled with honey, like those frames from the last inspection were like. And Mann Lake sells the unassembled boxes and frames for an eight-frame medium super, and after a flurry of exchanged phone calls, I found out that the Ballard Bee Company stocked those and could sell them to me! Since we were driving, it would be no shipping for me, even with the Washington sales tax, I'd save a good deal of money.
So we made it over there yesterday, and it's just out in a neighborhood, and when we were close, I saw the enclosed truck with bee boxes inside and said, "That's it!"
And it was. He was in the garage putting together 150 deeps for an order, and running around while it was still sunny working his hives. The weather's been phenomenal while we've been here, clear, sunny, and in the mid-80's, unusually good weather without a cloud in the sky. Corky was in the garage on a phone call, so we looked around in the front yard, and there was a handcrank extractor that he lends out to people.
When he was done, he was great, friendly and really informative. He got all my pieces together, lamented having broken down all his boxes the day before or else he'd be able to give me one. He gave Jet a honey stick, and showed Isabel a capped frame of honey that they were going to extract later. There was a tall stack of supers that they'd taken off hives already in preparation for extraction. He asked some about how the Colorado keepers had been doing, and was happy to hear that both the Southern Colorado Association and the Boulder County one was doing quite well with lots of members, though he was interested in the fact that both associations seem to be picking up a lot of people like me, just hobbiests trying their hand at it for the first time.
He said that the beekeeping there is very different than here, as in Washington a lot of the problems just come from the constant rain and damp. That the wood just rots away if it's not painted, and Nosema is a much much bigger problem around the Pacific Northwest. I'd have to suspect a fungus would be far more of a problem in the constant damp.
This year's been good so far, but they're just out of their swarm season, so things have slowed a little, but that stack of supers was good news so far for the summer. It was great to get to just talk with him for a bit, and I'd highly recommend him for mentoring, his classes, and his equipment to anyone in the Seattle area looking to start with this beekeeping thing. He seems super experienced, and really cares about his hives, which was really cool to talk with him about. I never knew what 50 pounds of sugar went for before.
We now have a nice cardboard box that John found in the recycle here and all my parts are neatly packed to come home. They're beautiful, fragrant cut pine, with handles on all four sides, and look like they'll do just fine on my eight-frame setups. Jet, John, and I will have a fun puzzle to put together when we get back.
We went there. Obviously. *laughs* I needed some supers that weren't just the deeps because I don't think I could lift a deep if it were completely filled with honey, like those frames from the last inspection were like. And Mann Lake sells the unassembled boxes and frames for an eight-frame medium super, and after a flurry of exchanged phone calls, I found out that the Ballard Bee Company stocked those and could sell them to me! Since we were driving, it would be no shipping for me, even with the Washington sales tax, I'd save a good deal of money.
So we made it over there yesterday, and it's just out in a neighborhood, and when we were close, I saw the enclosed truck with bee boxes inside and said, "That's it!"
And it was. He was in the garage putting together 150 deeps for an order, and running around while it was still sunny working his hives. The weather's been phenomenal while we've been here, clear, sunny, and in the mid-80's, unusually good weather without a cloud in the sky. Corky was in the garage on a phone call, so we looked around in the front yard, and there was a handcrank extractor that he lends out to people.
When he was done, he was great, friendly and really informative. He got all my pieces together, lamented having broken down all his boxes the day before or else he'd be able to give me one. He gave Jet a honey stick, and showed Isabel a capped frame of honey that they were going to extract later. There was a tall stack of supers that they'd taken off hives already in preparation for extraction. He asked some about how the Colorado keepers had been doing, and was happy to hear that both the Southern Colorado Association and the Boulder County one was doing quite well with lots of members, though he was interested in the fact that both associations seem to be picking up a lot of people like me, just hobbiests trying their hand at it for the first time.
He said that the beekeeping there is very different than here, as in Washington a lot of the problems just come from the constant rain and damp. That the wood just rots away if it's not painted, and Nosema is a much much bigger problem around the Pacific Northwest. I'd have to suspect a fungus would be far more of a problem in the constant damp.
This year's been good so far, but they're just out of their swarm season, so things have slowed a little, but that stack of supers was good news so far for the summer. It was great to get to just talk with him for a bit, and I'd highly recommend him for mentoring, his classes, and his equipment to anyone in the Seattle area looking to start with this beekeeping thing. He seems super experienced, and really cares about his hives, which was really cool to talk with him about. I never knew what 50 pounds of sugar went for before.
We now have a nice cardboard box that John found in the recycle here and all my parts are neatly packed to come home. They're beautiful, fragrant cut pine, with handles on all four sides, and look like they'll do just fine on my eight-frame setups. Jet, John, and I will have a fun puzzle to put together when we get back.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Summer Days
The days were pretty hot a few weeks back, and it's going to be in the mid-90's again next week. When I wandered out into the garden on the 100 degree day last week, I saw a whole bunch of the girls just sitting in, around, and in front of the entrance all fanning like mad. When I also saw a candle completely liquified on my picnic table out front, I figured I'd better do something.
First, John built a small structure out of scrapwood over the hive, just to shade it. Then I offset the telescoping cover, and offset the cover itself underneath that, so that there was more air flow. The telescoping cover keeps the rain off. The funny thing was that I did it bareheaded and barehanded, and I loved seeing all the workers come out through the 'roof' to take a look at the sunlight they weren't used to seeing through the top of the hive. It was just an inquisitive thing, and there was no rise in the buzzing at all and none of the ladies tried to check me out. In fact, ten minutes later, when I went to look at the entrance, a good number of the fanning crew had gone on to other duties.
I'm thinking of just leaving it like that for the summer, maybe checking on whether or not they're gluing things down when I do the usual checks. They seem to be very content on the most part and workers are tumbling out of the hive at a really good rate as soon as it's warm. I've seen them in the cherry trees that are blooming nearby, and their back legs are just stuffed with bright pollen. The girls that are entering the hive have the same color pollen, too! So I suspect it's them, as the trees are just a block away.
First, John built a small structure out of scrapwood over the hive, just to shade it. Then I offset the telescoping cover, and offset the cover itself underneath that, so that there was more air flow. The telescoping cover keeps the rain off. The funny thing was that I did it bareheaded and barehanded, and I loved seeing all the workers come out through the 'roof' to take a look at the sunlight they weren't used to seeing through the top of the hive. It was just an inquisitive thing, and there was no rise in the buzzing at all and none of the ladies tried to check me out. In fact, ten minutes later, when I went to look at the entrance, a good number of the fanning crew had gone on to other duties.
I'm thinking of just leaving it like that for the summer, maybe checking on whether or not they're gluing things down when I do the usual checks. They seem to be very content on the most part and workers are tumbling out of the hive at a really good rate as soon as it's warm. I've seen them in the cherry trees that are blooming nearby, and their back legs are just stuffed with bright pollen. The girls that are entering the hive have the same color pollen, too! So I suspect it's them, as the trees are just a block away.
Monday, May 6, 2013
Fail on Trying to Check on the Queen
I had a pretty thorough failure today, and with some thought and research, I am realizing why I failed to really find any evidence that the queen was in residence or laying, and there are multiple reasons.
Let's go through exactly what I did, first, and then what it was that really went wrong and where I lost heart and what I want to do about it the next time I go into the hive.
First off, I didn't get any pictures because I did it on my own while John was at some meeting that evening. So I didn't have my usual backup; however, I'd also gotten the mistaken impression that I should go in five days after the queen was released. I don't know where I got that number, and one Gabriel Petrut commented much later on one of my latter posts that one should wait until plenty of comb has been built, at least a week, if not more to give the queen time to go. I also read, later, that one shouldn't disturb the hive too much in the first ten days (after installation? After queen release? I'm not sure) or else the workers might ball the queen. Gah!
So I went in today. I put on all my equipment, went out to the box fairly late in the day, as my son was busy inside. The weather was windy, cloudy, and just a bit rainy, sprinkling even on an on again and off again basis. And the girls seemed crankier with the weather. I did use sugar syrup in a spray to calm them down now and again, but it was rougher going than the installation or the queen release.
I wasn't sure, at the time, if it was just because I was more nervous without my husband along, or if it was just me... and not the bees...
But I only had the one box. I had an empty box above, to keep a zip-loc bag of sugar syrup with holes in it. The feeder box had been leaking, so we'd taken it off, cleaned it out, dried it, and resealed it. but it was still drying, and I thought I needed to see what was going on.
I didn't really think things through, and just lifted one of the middle frames first. Something gave and then broke, and I was holding a frame with a lot of bees on it. I looked at both sides, and definitely saw honey and deep gold pockets all through the comb, a lot of the center was capped, but the edges were open, and when I looked closely, I couldn't see anything in the cups that I could recognize.
Then I was horrified to find that the next frame over was doubled up on comb! They'd actually attached a whole extra sheet of comb to one side of the frame, so I had absolutely no means of looking under it to see the bees that were hidden in the pocket between! I was so flummoxed by this that I had to stop and breathe for a bit. I broke off one of the pieces experimentally, and the bees got pretty angry with that, no duh, because I was breaking their home.
So I put it back, very slowly, as the bigger mass of comb meant that the frame was too big to fit into its usual slot, and a whole cascade of workers was pushed onto the top of the next frame! I was upset about that, too, and just decided to stop there and close things ups. I hadn't found specifics of her being there or not being there, and it really made me kind of obsessed for the next week, as I didn't want to bother them again. We did feed them, did fix the feeder and get plenty of straight syrup to them, but I didn't dare go in for another week plus...
Afterwards I did this research:
Let's go through exactly what I did, first, and then what it was that really went wrong and where I lost heart and what I want to do about it the next time I go into the hive.
First off, I didn't get any pictures because I did it on my own while John was at some meeting that evening. So I didn't have my usual backup; however, I'd also gotten the mistaken impression that I should go in five days after the queen was released. I don't know where I got that number, and one Gabriel Petrut commented much later on one of my latter posts that one should wait until plenty of comb has been built, at least a week, if not more to give the queen time to go. I also read, later, that one shouldn't disturb the hive too much in the first ten days (after installation? After queen release? I'm not sure) or else the workers might ball the queen. Gah!
So I went in today. I put on all my equipment, went out to the box fairly late in the day, as my son was busy inside. The weather was windy, cloudy, and just a bit rainy, sprinkling even on an on again and off again basis. And the girls seemed crankier with the weather. I did use sugar syrup in a spray to calm them down now and again, but it was rougher going than the installation or the queen release.
I wasn't sure, at the time, if it was just because I was more nervous without my husband along, or if it was just me... and not the bees...
But I only had the one box. I had an empty box above, to keep a zip-loc bag of sugar syrup with holes in it. The feeder box had been leaking, so we'd taken it off, cleaned it out, dried it, and resealed it. but it was still drying, and I thought I needed to see what was going on.
I didn't really think things through, and just lifted one of the middle frames first. Something gave and then broke, and I was holding a frame with a lot of bees on it. I looked at both sides, and definitely saw honey and deep gold pockets all through the comb, a lot of the center was capped, but the edges were open, and when I looked closely, I couldn't see anything in the cups that I could recognize.
Then I was horrified to find that the next frame over was doubled up on comb! They'd actually attached a whole extra sheet of comb to one side of the frame, so I had absolutely no means of looking under it to see the bees that were hidden in the pocket between! I was so flummoxed by this that I had to stop and breathe for a bit. I broke off one of the pieces experimentally, and the bees got pretty angry with that, no duh, because I was breaking their home.
So I put it back, very slowly, as the bigger mass of comb meant that the frame was too big to fit into its usual slot, and a whole cascade of workers was pushed onto the top of the next frame! I was upset about that, too, and just decided to stop there and close things ups. I hadn't found specifics of her being there or not being there, and it really made me kind of obsessed for the next week, as I didn't want to bother them again. We did feed them, did fix the feeder and get plenty of straight syrup to them, but I didn't dare go in for another week plus...
Afterwards I did this research:
- Studied a number of YouTube videos showing brood cells and their difference from honey cells.
- Realized that most inspections are done on sunny, calm days, in the middle of the day.
- Figured out that I should pull out one of the completely empty side frames, first.
- Realized that I really needed to try out the smoker instead of just the sugar syrup spray.
- Realized it would be easier with my husband as moral support, because emotional support really helped with the adrenaline rush and the tunnel vision effects while I'm still very new to this.
- Looked up the development stages of the larvae and realized that I REALLY had to give the queen more time before I looked for capped brood, as it would be at least eight days until they'd be developed enough to cap.
- Counted the days from the release to figure out what to look for when.
- Had another beginner beekeeper open a 'messed up hive' with comb being built so that it connected two frames! Eek. But learned from him that none of the experienced keeps had any specific advise to offer him, other than to make sure that the frames of any supers were spaced correctly, 3/8ths of an inch between frames.
- Sat back and realized that the doubled comb was not THAT big a deal. It was all right if I couldn't find the queen if I could find viable brood.
Friday, April 26, 2013
Getting and Installing the Bees
Several years ago I took the Boulder County Beekeepers' Association class for how to keep bees. It was in the Boulder County Farming co-op and it was in the dead of winter. They told us all about the thousand ways bee colonies can be killed and how to do your best to slow down the death... So I didn't really seriously think about it for quite some time. Last year, one of the big Denver pollination and honey outfits died, and they were selling their equipment for cheap, and I got six boxes, a feeder, a queen excluder, and a telescoping top for $100... Yes, the class told me everything about why getting used equipment was a bad idea, but... it was so inexpensive, and I just wanted to try. Succeeding wasn't so much the point, as just actually having the courage to try.
There's a long story about a swarm that ended up in a chimney that escaped my boxes, but it ended up with me wanting to order a package of bees this spring. I made a mistake, doing to the BCBA's forum pages, and instead of buying a package from Tom and Miles, I accidentally bought a package of Minnesota Hygenics from the Northern Colorado Beekeepers' Association. *laughs* Which delivered their beauties on Tuesday, in the midst of snow, and with a night in the low 20's to come.
We'd been having snow pretty much every week, nearly a foot of it for each of the last three storms, so this was a portion of our 'front yard' when we pulled out of the driveway. The good thing was that the streets and sidewalks had cleared and dried, eventhough it had snowed all morning! It was pretty cold, and the drive out to Severance is nearly a full hour out. John was kind enough to do the driving, and let me worry in the passenger seat.
Even before ordering these bees there were rumors that many of the queen rearing companies were having difficulties filling full orders of three pounds of worker bees to go with their queens. And I was recalling all the twenty thousand ways it seemed that one could kill off ones bees! *laughs* The Northern Colorado Beekeepers' Association was assured that their California Supplier was capable of doing the full packages, no problem and they were right.
They were allowing people to pick up packages from about 7 am, and this is what was left by a bit after noon. They'd started with over 460 boxes, or somewhere between five to six million bees!!
Each of the "packages" is that wooden box, there's a can of sugar syrup in there hanging down, and there's small holes poked through the bottom so that the bees can feed from them. The small metal tab to the left of each of the cans is connected to the queen's cage, which hangs in the midst of the ball of worker bees.
They take care of her, feed her, keep her cool, and ball around her to protect her while they're without a home. The box makes it really easy to hold them, no protection necessary, and it's an amazing thing to just stand there and hold ten thousand bees at once, hearing them hum.
One of the amazing things was that there were hundreds of 'free' bees hanging out in the garage, just hanging from some of the garage door windows, and people were joking about those being the ones I'd bought and that I could just gather them up and keep them. But they were just hanging out with the beekeepers.
Watching some of the videos of people keeping bees, it always seemed like magic that they could go out there and do what they do with minimal protection and maybe just a veil. Going into a cloud of bees seemed to incredibly crazy, there's this visceral reaction to that sound of insects buzzing. But it was amazing, with the cage, to see that there were five workers who had clung to the outside of the cage and just stayed there. Even when I picked it up and walked around with it and stuck it in the truck of our car, they just stuck with their sisters. No problem. I tried blowing them off, and all of the bees started to hum at a higher pitch. So I just left them.
We took them home and since it was going to be in the lower twenties that night, we kept them in our basement to stay warm. There was still plenty of syrup, so I let them just be, and when they were in the darkness of the basement after the sun went down, they went utterly quiet. I'm starting to realize what "domesticated" means with these creatures. I had to keep them in the house the next day, too, as the next night was going to be freezing as well, but not quite as bad, and Thursday was going to be really warm, so it would be easy to install them then, and the next four days and nights were promising to be really nice.
But I fretted for most of the day as it felt like the syrup can had been emptied and I was supposed to spray sugar syrup on them, but didn't have a great idea as to how often and then what were they going to do about water? *laughs* I worried a lot, but John and Jet put up with me.
One of the intriguing things was realizing that honeybees have a unique smell to them. It's sweet, heavy, a little musky, almost like how "golden" should smell. It was most noticeable in the garage with all those bees, but after the ladies had stayed in a small room in the basement for a while, it was easy to distinguish from other scents.
Then lots of stuff happened to land on Thursday. I was signed up for and had a lot of fun fun working a stint at the church rummage sale. I got called to meet with the publicity director for Longmont Safety in order to interview for a 4 hours a week volunteer position with their 911 group, and I realized I had a dentist appointment, too. So between the rummage sale and the interview, I decided to install the bees!
It was beautiful and sunny out and nearly all the snow had melted, so I went out with all my equipment and got to work.
John primed me with a YouTube video with a keeper who did the whole installation without any protective equipment whatsoever, but I really wanted to use the suit and veil since I had them. I figured if I was more confident, it wouldn't hurt and I'd still be able to move carefully. I did, however, consciously decide not to use any gloves. I didn't want to fumble the queen, and was ready to risk a few stings for the control I wanted to have.
It turned out to be a good choice, and it was kind of amazing how easy it was. The video will give you a sense of what it was like, live, as they were buzzing pretty good in the warm sunshine on the gravel in front of the hive. I jiggled out the syrup can and then the air was filled with bees!
Here's the box with the can out, and bees were everywhere. It's one thing to be told that it's all right, and that they aren't just going to attack you. It's a whole other thing to be standing feeling the wind of their passage, hearing the heavier, louder, higher pitched buzz now that they were out, and fighting that instinct so that I could move smoothly and slowly. But they were moving like they were just exploring, figuring out where they were, what they were going to do. It was pretty heady stuff to have them everywhere and realize that it was very much doable for me to work calmly right there and do the right thing.
With the tab as far along the slot as it was with these boxes, there was no chance that I was going to drop the queen into the mass of bees the way he did. I gently lifted the tab, worked it along the slot, and got her and her cage out with no problems. There was a mass of attendants around her, and I gently shook them off so that I could see her. She was fine. Alive, looking around, and touching the mesh. There was mesh on just one side of her box, so I turned that toward the open space between frames, and rubber-banded the box in so she'd stay near the top, and gently put the frame back into the box.
There were a good number of bees already in among the frames. Since there was beeswax on all the bases, they were already feeling at home in there, so I just tipped the box they came in on its side over the frames, and set another empty deep around the cage.
The opening for the cage was a little close to one of the walls, so I reached in with bare hands and moved the cage over. They were crawling everywhere and humming. One bee made it inside my veil at this point and was buzzing in my ear. *laughs* I ignored her, and just moved the cage so that the opening had more room.
There were hundreds of bees still behind the mesh buzzing away and disorganized now that a bunch of them had gotten out. While they'd been waiting in the basement, they'd hung onto each other around the can and the queen cage. With both of those gone, they were a little upset and looking for a way out.
The beauty of putting the cage in on top of the frames was that I didn't have to shake them all out. It's a gentler way of letting them get out on their own. I put all the sugar syrup I had into the feeder, and put it on top of the top deep, and then added the telescoping lid. The feeder has an opening directly to the rest of the hive, and with the lid other bees and wasps can't get at the syrup.
The amazing thing to me was that the bee in my bonnet never stung me, and when I finally let her go, out of the veil, she hung around me for a little while longer, as if to check me out and then finally flew off. The adrenaline rush was pretty amazing, when I finally got to sit down and shake a little. *laughs*
John was pretty impressed with the whole thing, and enjoyed taking his pictures, and realizing that he could walk into the cloud of bees and not even get touched if he moved slowly enough.
After all that, I aced the interview with the police department. The lady doing the gating pretty much talked with me for ten minutes and decided that I'd be perfect for what they needed. Most of their volunteers are a little too afraid of the computers, and this was a lovely station with five screens and more machines underneath than I had the time to count. I also got to meet the head of the department and shake her hand and that was pretty much good enough, it seemed. It's a pretty simple job, but one that requires time and concentration, and just half a day about once a week. So it should be pretty straightforward to do.
I actually fell asleep doing the teeth cleaning. I didn't get much the last couple of nights, especially with the anxiety over feeding them. So... uhm.. yeah. Jet also wanted sweet potato noodles for dinner, so as soon as I was home, I was roasting sweet potatoes and the three of us made noodles that night. Enough to eat and then the rest of the dough to dry for our own sweet potato pasta.
It costs eight dollars a pound at Pappardelle's, and this morning we stored a pound, dry, after eating half again as much the night before. It probably cost us a little more than a dollar to make, and when I cooked the sweet potatoes, I accidentally left the center a little firmer than fully cooked, and grated the insides with a box grater to skin them easily (the skins don't like going through the grater). So there were small pieces of sweet potato in the pasta. The wonderful thing about that was that it really intensified the flavor in the noodles!
This morning when the sun was up but hadn't gotten to the garden, yet, over the trees, I went out to water the garden and none of the bees were out. They were quiet and completely docile. John even opened the top to take a look to see if they needed more syrup, and it was completely empty.
While they were that quiet we decided to just lift the lid and pull out the traveling box. There was one big ball of bees on one side between the wall and the box. They'd started to dot the whole box with wax, and inside the box all there were were the bees that had died traveling and one leaf of fresh bees wax. This one. It was gorgeous and so very light. But as you can see in this picture, the sunlight went right through it and you can see the intersections of the walls so that each cell most strongly supports the other, front and back as well as side to side.
The piece was surprisingly strong. Since the feeder was completely empty, I cooked up more sugar syrup and after it had cooled enough, went out to put it in. The sun had gotten much higher and it was much warmer and the bees were out in force.
I was a little frightened to open the thing up. But I told myself I was a wuss, and just barehanded and headed, I got up the telescoping lid, and poured the syrup into the feeder. A few of the bees were underneath the raft, cleaning up the last of the sticky syrup of the day before, and they rolled out with the flood of syrup, grabbed the wood of the raft and pulled themselves out. Other workers rushed over to help clean them off, and it was kind of funny and amazing, too.
All of them were pretty agitated and even more so when I tried to brush a few off the edges so that I could put the lid back on. I really should just find one of those windshield brushes to gently brush them off with that instead of trying to use the hive tool to take them off. The hard tool crunched one a little, and the whole cloud suddenly started buzzing at a much higher pitch. It took a gut check to keep going, but I really wanted to get the lid back on, and it took a few tries before it was on straight and I didn't think I was crushing any MORE workers.
So I just stood there, in the midst of zinging bees that were bouncing off of my sweater, and just swallowed the fear and did it. Again, none of them stung me, and I was forcibly reminded that these are domesticated bees. Still... I think that I'm going to put more syrup in tonight, after it's dark, when they're all in their sleeping ball and out of the feeder, instead of doing it mid-day again.
And when I actually free the queen from her cage, it's going to be in full gear. Probably no gloves again, just 'cause I really don't want to crush her and I'm going to have to use something to get that cork out. The two or three days are so that they can get used to her and so that they know that this is home and their hive. So I think it'll be fireworks one more time, I can put another brood box over the one that's there, and then I can leave them for another five days to a week before checking to see if the queen's laying and doing her thing.
Afterward, John checked the internets and figured that we have about ten thousand bees out there. Three pounds of bees is anywhere from ten thousand to twelve thousand workers. That's a LOT of bees. I think that they all made me very very present in the time I was there. *laughs* If anyone ever needs a method of meditation that stops all wandering thoughts, I'd suggest going out to visit the bee box with no protection whatsoever.
There's a long story about a swarm that ended up in a chimney that escaped my boxes, but it ended up with me wanting to order a package of bees this spring. I made a mistake, doing to the BCBA's forum pages, and instead of buying a package from Tom and Miles, I accidentally bought a package of Minnesota Hygenics from the Northern Colorado Beekeepers' Association. *laughs* Which delivered their beauties on Tuesday, in the midst of snow, and with a night in the low 20's to come.
Even before ordering these bees there were rumors that many of the queen rearing companies were having difficulties filling full orders of three pounds of worker bees to go with their queens. And I was recalling all the twenty thousand ways it seemed that one could kill off ones bees! *laughs* The Northern Colorado Beekeepers' Association was assured that their California Supplier was capable of doing the full packages, no problem and they were right.
They were allowing people to pick up packages from about 7 am, and this is what was left by a bit after noon. They'd started with over 460 boxes, or somewhere between five to six million bees!!
Each of the "packages" is that wooden box, there's a can of sugar syrup in there hanging down, and there's small holes poked through the bottom so that the bees can feed from them. The small metal tab to the left of each of the cans is connected to the queen's cage, which hangs in the midst of the ball of worker bees.
They take care of her, feed her, keep her cool, and ball around her to protect her while they're without a home. The box makes it really easy to hold them, no protection necessary, and it's an amazing thing to just stand there and hold ten thousand bees at once, hearing them hum.
Watching some of the videos of people keeping bees, it always seemed like magic that they could go out there and do what they do with minimal protection and maybe just a veil. Going into a cloud of bees seemed to incredibly crazy, there's this visceral reaction to that sound of insects buzzing. But it was amazing, with the cage, to see that there were five workers who had clung to the outside of the cage and just stayed there. Even when I picked it up and walked around with it and stuck it in the truck of our car, they just stuck with their sisters. No problem. I tried blowing them off, and all of the bees started to hum at a higher pitch. So I just left them.
We took them home and since it was going to be in the lower twenties that night, we kept them in our basement to stay warm. There was still plenty of syrup, so I let them just be, and when they were in the darkness of the basement after the sun went down, they went utterly quiet. I'm starting to realize what "domesticated" means with these creatures. I had to keep them in the house the next day, too, as the next night was going to be freezing as well, but not quite as bad, and Thursday was going to be really warm, so it would be easy to install them then, and the next four days and nights were promising to be really nice.
But I fretted for most of the day as it felt like the syrup can had been emptied and I was supposed to spray sugar syrup on them, but didn't have a great idea as to how often and then what were they going to do about water? *laughs* I worried a lot, but John and Jet put up with me.
One of the intriguing things was realizing that honeybees have a unique smell to them. It's sweet, heavy, a little musky, almost like how "golden" should smell. It was most noticeable in the garage with all those bees, but after the ladies had stayed in a small room in the basement for a while, it was easy to distinguish from other scents.
Then lots of stuff happened to land on Thursday. I was signed up for and had a lot of fun fun working a stint at the church rummage sale. I got called to meet with the publicity director for Longmont Safety in order to interview for a 4 hours a week volunteer position with their 911 group, and I realized I had a dentist appointment, too. So between the rummage sale and the interview, I decided to install the bees!
It was beautiful and sunny out and nearly all the snow had melted, so I went out with all my equipment and got to work.
John primed me with a YouTube video with a keeper who did the whole installation without any protective equipment whatsoever, but I really wanted to use the suit and veil since I had them. I figured if I was more confident, it wouldn't hurt and I'd still be able to move carefully. I did, however, consciously decide not to use any gloves. I didn't want to fumble the queen, and was ready to risk a few stings for the control I wanted to have.
It turned out to be a good choice, and it was kind of amazing how easy it was. The video will give you a sense of what it was like, live, as they were buzzing pretty good in the warm sunshine on the gravel in front of the hive. I jiggled out the syrup can and then the air was filled with bees!
With the tab as far along the slot as it was with these boxes, there was no chance that I was going to drop the queen into the mass of bees the way he did. I gently lifted the tab, worked it along the slot, and got her and her cage out with no problems. There was a mass of attendants around her, and I gently shook them off so that I could see her. She was fine. Alive, looking around, and touching the mesh. There was mesh on just one side of her box, so I turned that toward the open space between frames, and rubber-banded the box in so she'd stay near the top, and gently put the frame back into the box.
There were a good number of bees already in among the frames. Since there was beeswax on all the bases, they were already feeling at home in there, so I just tipped the box they came in on its side over the frames, and set another empty deep around the cage.
There were hundreds of bees still behind the mesh buzzing away and disorganized now that a bunch of them had gotten out. While they'd been waiting in the basement, they'd hung onto each other around the can and the queen cage. With both of those gone, they were a little upset and looking for a way out.
The beauty of putting the cage in on top of the frames was that I didn't have to shake them all out. It's a gentler way of letting them get out on their own. I put all the sugar syrup I had into the feeder, and put it on top of the top deep, and then added the telescoping lid. The feeder has an opening directly to the rest of the hive, and with the lid other bees and wasps can't get at the syrup.
The amazing thing to me was that the bee in my bonnet never stung me, and when I finally let her go, out of the veil, she hung around me for a little while longer, as if to check me out and then finally flew off. The adrenaline rush was pretty amazing, when I finally got to sit down and shake a little. *laughs*
John was pretty impressed with the whole thing, and enjoyed taking his pictures, and realizing that he could walk into the cloud of bees and not even get touched if he moved slowly enough.
After all that, I aced the interview with the police department. The lady doing the gating pretty much talked with me for ten minutes and decided that I'd be perfect for what they needed. Most of their volunteers are a little too afraid of the computers, and this was a lovely station with five screens and more machines underneath than I had the time to count. I also got to meet the head of the department and shake her hand and that was pretty much good enough, it seemed. It's a pretty simple job, but one that requires time and concentration, and just half a day about once a week. So it should be pretty straightforward to do.
It costs eight dollars a pound at Pappardelle's, and this morning we stored a pound, dry, after eating half again as much the night before. It probably cost us a little more than a dollar to make, and when I cooked the sweet potatoes, I accidentally left the center a little firmer than fully cooked, and grated the insides with a box grater to skin them easily (the skins don't like going through the grater). So there were small pieces of sweet potato in the pasta. The wonderful thing about that was that it really intensified the flavor in the noodles!
While they were that quiet we decided to just lift the lid and pull out the traveling box. There was one big ball of bees on one side between the wall and the box. They'd started to dot the whole box with wax, and inside the box all there were were the bees that had died traveling and one leaf of fresh bees wax. This one. It was gorgeous and so very light. But as you can see in this picture, the sunlight went right through it and you can see the intersections of the walls so that each cell most strongly supports the other, front and back as well as side to side.
The piece was surprisingly strong. Since the feeder was completely empty, I cooked up more sugar syrup and after it had cooled enough, went out to put it in. The sun had gotten much higher and it was much warmer and the bees were out in force.
I was a little frightened to open the thing up. But I told myself I was a wuss, and just barehanded and headed, I got up the telescoping lid, and poured the syrup into the feeder. A few of the bees were underneath the raft, cleaning up the last of the sticky syrup of the day before, and they rolled out with the flood of syrup, grabbed the wood of the raft and pulled themselves out. Other workers rushed over to help clean them off, and it was kind of funny and amazing, too.
All of them were pretty agitated and even more so when I tried to brush a few off the edges so that I could put the lid back on. I really should just find one of those windshield brushes to gently brush them off with that instead of trying to use the hive tool to take them off. The hard tool crunched one a little, and the whole cloud suddenly started buzzing at a much higher pitch. It took a gut check to keep going, but I really wanted to get the lid back on, and it took a few tries before it was on straight and I didn't think I was crushing any MORE workers.
So I just stood there, in the midst of zinging bees that were bouncing off of my sweater, and just swallowed the fear and did it. Again, none of them stung me, and I was forcibly reminded that these are domesticated bees. Still... I think that I'm going to put more syrup in tonight, after it's dark, when they're all in their sleeping ball and out of the feeder, instead of doing it mid-day again.
And when I actually free the queen from her cage, it's going to be in full gear. Probably no gloves again, just 'cause I really don't want to crush her and I'm going to have to use something to get that cork out. The two or three days are so that they can get used to her and so that they know that this is home and their hive. So I think it'll be fireworks one more time, I can put another brood box over the one that's there, and then I can leave them for another five days to a week before checking to see if the queen's laying and doing her thing.
Afterward, John checked the internets and figured that we have about ten thousand bees out there. Three pounds of bees is anywhere from ten thousand to twelve thousand workers. That's a LOT of bees. I think that they all made me very very present in the time I was there. *laughs* If anyone ever needs a method of meditation that stops all wandering thoughts, I'd suggest going out to visit the bee box with no protection whatsoever.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)