The Girls are Back in Town

Murdoch's called last week to say that the bees would be in town on May 1st, and that I'd have 24 hours to pick them up. Then yesterday, Sunday, they called to say that people could pick them up Sunday afternoon/evening as well as Monday; but since I wasn't actually expecting them, I didn't get the message until today. And they said that we could pick them up until 5pm today.

So we went there a little before 2pm, as I had 911 all morning. It was kind of a rough set of incidents, including one with a suicidal father whom the dispatchers called directly to get him out of the house without weapons... that worked out; but it was odd to listen through.

But it was good to be with John and getting the girls.

They came in the standard wire box. When we went into the store to pick them up, the customer care guy told us that we had to go around back, as they didn't want people bringing their bees through the store itself. I kind of blinked at that, and I guess I understood, but at a gut level I was just laughing. Homeless bees are harmless, but people react badly to stinging insects, I guess.

So we went round back, and they had a few dozen of the wired cages in the back, with the lovely buzzing of warm bees. The weather had been freezing over the weekend, with snow and ice and all that, so yesterday they'd been a lot more quiescent, and the lady back there was saying that they were a lot more active with the warm weather. I got to pick my box, and I tried for the one where they were clumped up most closely to the queen. They'd definitely accepted her and were hanging near her to keep her warm, and there were fewer dead bodies at the bottom.

So I picked them up, took them to the back of our car, and we put them in a crate that would hold any droppings that happened, and we went and got Jet from school. *laughs*

As always, there were always a few bees hanging out on the outside of the cage, but they stayed there while we were in transet, as they had the last time I'd gotten them, so there was no worry about that. Jet got in at school and was cheerful enough about sitting in the back seat. They were back in the hatchback of the car, and there were no worries. He asked if he could help, but there really wasn't much for him to do.

John mostly kept me focussed on the checklist, what it was I had to do, and I knew the steps were pretty straightforward, i.e. take out the can, get the queen out, put a marshmallow in for the plug, and then get her into the hive. Pour all the workers on top, and then try and get a feeder onto it so that they would have something to eat. I also put the can into the hive, so that they would have that as a source of food as well. The hive was full of old comb, so I figured they'd have plenty to walk around on, there would be ready-made insulation, and old comb is attractive to bees.

It was easier the second time. A lot easier. I knew what to expect, and knew how docile the girls really would be. So when the can came out and they zoomed out of the box, it was easy for me to ignore the sounds and the little insect brushing and bouncing against my hands and all my gear. The can came out easily with the hive tool, and only a few of them clung to it, and they moved readily when I set the can down on the tops of the frames in the box.

I think they could smell the comb, so they dropped down into the rows quickly.

For some reason, the whole things was a lot more tightly secured than it had been the previous box I'd had. And the band holding the queen's cage into the box was more deeply inset into the wood. I had to really pry to get the tab to come up, but it was double folded and I had no problems holding onto it in order to work it free from the slot it had been put into. Having all the bees crawling all over my hands was really kind of cool. *laughs*

I know most people wouldn't say that, but I really loved it; and loved knowing that I wasn't going to react badly to it. I was very carefully suppressing any urge to swat or wave at the girls; and it was kind of fun knowing that I didn't have to in a way. I trusted them, and they rewarded the trust by not ever stinging me or making the move that was a prelude to a sting.

The tab was actually of such sharp metal that it cut into the wood, so I had to work it free at different angles.

When she came out, she came out with a lot of attendants. So many that I had to give the whole cluster a little shake to get them to drop into the hive. I always worry about damaging the queen when I do that, so I was really careful about it. And when I could finally get a good grasp on the cage and turn it around to actually look at her, she looked just fine.

She's really active, and it looked like she was really doing well in there.

Last time I'd just hung her in the hive and decided to worry about removing the plug later, and it had been kind of a pain to get it out the second time when the bees had already decided it was their home. So this time, instead, I dug the cork out to begin with, and I stuffed a mini marshmallow into the hole, like the instructions said to do. It kind of peels off the outsides and squishes into the hole really well and really stickly. *laughs*

The idea is to just keep the queen in the hive until everyone had decided that this is going to be their home. She usually sticks with the workers once they've established the hive, and they stick with her while she's stuck in the cage. And the idea is that she and her workers will eat at the candy plug until they can free her and clean her off. This way they release her eventually.

The other thing I did differently than last time was that this time I actually shook all the girls out onto thier home, rather than waiting patiently for them to figure it out by just sticking the wire box into the hive top. I thought about it, but decided not to, but I also did the second deep so that they could still keep the can of sugar syrup from the traveling case in the hive with them for the first couple of nights.

I may well remove that and the second deep if it gets too cold at night. They also have a feeder on top, with about a quart of simple syrup up there. I'll have to check it soon and probably refill it as soon as they're done with it. Though the spring here has been wet recently, so there should be plenty of bloom for them to forage off of. Still, it was snow, which can freeze off a lot of bloom. Still, the dandelions are popping everywhere, and there should be more stuff sooner rather than later.

They were everywhere, and there were one or two actually chasing me already. I'm not sure what that bodes? But they had the angry sound, which I was more used to in the deeper end of summer.

We actually have the box in a different part of the yard than where they'll end up staying; but we have people coming on Monday to put the solar panels back up on the roof. So we had to put the hive in a place that would be out of the way and keep the workers out of the flight path.

I loved being able to just stand in the cloud of bees, though, and they were doing fine with where they'd ended up. I made sure that the queen cage was facing out the right way, and the spacing looked right for what they had in there. They also all seemed to find good footing, and were happy to get into and onto all the comb that they could find and clean it all out. There had been some wax month damage on the waxed frames I'd kept from the end of the hive three years ago. There can't be mites and I'd frozen them, but then put them back out into the garage, and the wax months had found them again.

I put the feeder on top, then the top board, and finally the telescoping tin lid to keep everything else off. *laughs*

This time I had the snow brush to brush all the girls into the box before I placed anything anywhere. That was really good to have this time. *laughs* The things I learned from the mistakes of the previous time. I often think that if one is just lucky the first time, you don't get to learn what you actually did *right* the same way you get to learn what you did wrong from the mistakes of the previous time.

That seems to always be true, no matter the endeavour.

By the time I was done, they were already doing orienting flights from the front entrance. I have the restrictor on, at mid length, as the temps at night are still in the high 30's. Not super warm, but also not terribly cold. They should be able to defend this size entrance.

It was amazing how satisfying it was to just see happy, healthy bees orienting on the hive entrance.

I went and adjusted a few things, putting a deep box on the top instead of the medium one, and having to leave a crack between it and the feeder to begin with because so many of the girls were using the crack as an entrance at the start. I also put the shipping cage into the shade behind the hive.

When the sun started to go down behind some clouds, all the bees who were in the cage got into the hive, and fewer and fewer were wandering outside, and I finally just went over and closed the gap, with bare hands and no protective gear. With the gap closed, too, they were keeping more heat in the hive, which is important these first few nights.

I'm really grateful that ours didn't come two weeks ago, the way the Boulder Beekeepers' bees came. With the snow and temperatures in the 20's, I would have had a hard time worrying about them. As it is, now, while it's near freezing at night, I know they should be all right.

I Have Bought a New Colony

I have bought a new colony from, of all places, Murdoch's Ranch and Home Supply....

They had a poster right there on their shelves, with a web address that I could go to to just order them and they'd bring them to our store, which is only ten minutes from my house.  It was so darned convenient.  They're supposed to arrive at the end of this month.

I've cleaned up and setup a deep for them, with waxed frames from the old colony. I think it'll help them get setup.

I'll write more when I actually get them.

Saying Goodbye to the Bee Girls

As posted on ursulav's livejournal:

“Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt – marvelous error!–
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.”

—  Antonio Machado

I went out last weekend, in the sunshine, to find a cloud of active, healthy bees around my hive. John and I were happy for a moment, thinking that they were actually orienting bees, and the mite treatment had worked, but it turned out that it was a healthy colony robbing out the last dregs of my poor hive...

They killed off the very last bees in my hive, and were taking all the honey that they could take, which is actually kind of good for them, as it'll help them survive this fall, and the winter. The poor last spots of brood were dead or dying from lack of care, and it was just all pretty much gone.

A failure, truly, and I think I have a little more of an idea as to what went on. The mites were taking over badly, and the cold weather after I'd taken off the last super really didn't allow for there to be much nectar around. There was honey in the brood chambers, so they shouldn't have just starved, but the cold probably made it hard for them to get around, and there was no pollen to be had. Maybe if I'd put pollen patties on? I dunno, as some people really advise against it because it seems to signal spring to some brood, but it would have been what they needed when they needed it. Plus, I'd seen pesticide die off on the front step, so some of the girls had gotten into something they really shouldn't have.

It would have been better if I'd been able to treat them with mite treatment when I actually had ordered the stuff, 2-day postage, but they were unable to fulfill the order for nearly three weeks. So I was stuck and then the weather went freezing for another three days before I could go in. Better yet was if I'd gotten the Mite Away and actually applied it in July when I saw mite drop. Next time. Next time...

Honey from my failures...

Anyway... John and I pulled all the boxes that night, except for the lowest brood box that had half a dozen tiny native bees who were living on the honey and wax that night. They left in the morning, and I got everything into the garage. We just dumped all the foundation with pollen and the spotty dead brood, in case there was pesticide in the pollen, and cleaned off all the frames, and the remaining eight drawn comb full height foundation frames I've been rotating through our deep freeze to kill of wax moths, and then store, sealed in bags, in the garage for the next time I actually get bees.

Tim Brod is a local bee breeder, and he supplies queens, not so much workers, but it might be fun to buy from him next time, instead of from California.  Someone kept saying that I should find a wild hive and claim it for my own, but I'm not going to bother native bees that are comfortable in their own habitat. A swarm? Maybe. But not an established colony.

In any case, I now have the winter off as a beekeeper, and the surprising thing is that while I have mourned the girls, and burned offerings in their memory. I loved having them a lot, but it's also something of a relief not to have to worry about them anymore... when there's a cold snap, I don't have to wonder how it's affecting them, and when it gets hot, I don't have to worry about how much ventilation they're getting.

Anyway... I was very glad I had them while I had them, and grateful to them for all they did for me and taught me. And I promise that if/when I get another colony, I'll start posting here again. Thanks for reading...

Drat...

Went in today to put the MiteAway strips on the top bars of the bottom of the two brood boxes. I also took the feeder off and wanted to put the super back on with the emptied frames so that the the bees could take the leftover honey off of them.

And when I opened it up, I found very very few bees in the box. The top box was practically empty. The honey in the feeder was about half gone, and while there were a few bees up there, there weren't that many. It was a shock given how many bees there were earlier this month.

Nearly all the bees in the bottom box were between three frames on the southwest side of the bottom brood box. There weren't that many of them, but they all looked healthy, and while some had mites on them, there weren't any of the crippled wingless ones. There were bees going in and coming out of the hive, at a pretty good rate, which is partially why I was so surprised to find so few bees in the box.

When I removed the sticky board on the bottom, there was a lot of wax flakes, a lot of bee heads, and a couple of hive beetles (sighs). That isn't good, either. I suspect that the really strong wasp and hornet nests nearby took their toll on the girls, as the wasps pretty much bite their heads off.

I'd been seeing some sign of pesticide die off, as nearly every morning there were a handful of the girls on their backs, feebly waving their legs in the air on the entrance board. On cold mornings there were a lot more dead than on relatively warm mornings. I wonder if they'd brought back some poisoned pollen? I don't know.

The boxes were also pretty heavy, still, so there was honey in the frames the bees had.  A number of the local keepers have experienced starving because August and September were far colder and rainier than the local flora is used to having, so they haven't been producing as much nectar. So they've been feeding at a pretty good clip. So they weren't dying off simply because I wasn't good about feeding them... there's just something else going on, and I'm kind of sad to see it.

I left the open mesh bottom board on because of the mites, to get rid of them, but maybe the ventilation is too much and it was too cold for them? Anyway, there seem to be a myriad of possible reasons, and no real way of sorting them all out.  So I just put the strips on for the ladies that were left, and if I get their mite problem taken care of, and reduce them to a single, well-honeyed brood box, it might give them a little more of a chance. But this winter really looks like it's going to be a harsh one, so I don't give them much of a chance with such small numbers before even getting into winter.

It's kind of a shock, but it's also kind of to be expected, as the local keepers have been writing, lately on our email list, about what a horrible end to the season it's been. The losses are huge already, and the mite loads have been crazy. Plus, the feeding/lack of flow problem, and a lot of keepers are already losing a lot of colonies. One lady even found an abandoned apiary that she was asking for help to clean out... so it's kind of sad all around.

Record Keeping

Mostly to say that today I treated the hive again with powdered sugar, as I'm still waiting on the beekeeping supply place to ship my mite control strips. *sighs*

I also put all the uncapped honey into the sugar syrup feeder I usually put on near this time of the year, and fed it back to the colony. I don't make mead, I don't really use honey quickly enough to use all the uncapped stuff I got out of the super, but I had to take the super off in order for the colony to fill its brood box. This way the girls will still get the benefit of their labor. It was actually pretty close to the density of honey, so I don't feel like it's feeding them something watered down that will bring on dysentery. And it was nearly five pounds of the stuff, so it'll just help them that much more for the winter.

Also pulling and replacing the sticky board which has a pretty large number of mites, so any treatment won't hurt.

Oh! And I got another half a gallon from the very last harvest. I wasn't expecting much, so it was nice to just see what I could get.

Final Harvest

On Saturday I went in and took the last eight super frames, I think the theory is that if the beekeeper takes all the supers off by the end of summer, the bees will still have the time, through the fall, to put in honey supplies in all the brood chambers. Two frames weren't built at all, four were half-built and half-filled and uncapped, and then the last two were completely full and capped. So the last two are the only ones I can jar to sell, the others might not be dehydrated enough for common consumption.

The local keepers say to use it for mead, and I may well do that as my husband's a brewer.

I also saw my first mite-damaged bee that had been in larval stage with the mite larva, i.e. her wings were stunted and she couldn't fly. I did another powdered sugar treatment, and changed out the sticky board. There's a LOT of mites on the board, so I've invested in some of the Mite Away formic acid strips for when the weather finally goes under 70 for a week at a time. It's time to bring out the chemical means to deal with the mites. They're just so thick on the poor girls now it was making me a little unhappy.

Still... about 60 pounds of honey from one hive for a year is really good. I've now given my yearly gifts to the neighbors that directly deal with the girls, and I'm starting to sell the honey to the rest of the neighborhood and my church. Mostly just through personal connections, since I don't process in a commercial kitchen. I think that's one reason why I'll never go beyond just the one hive, as I really don't want to get a license and have to do all the things a business would have to do. Honey for my friends and family is plenty.

I've also been using the diluted honey for brewing ginger ale, just soda pop, no alcoholic content. I simmer the ginger with a lemon and its juice as well as honey and sugar. Then I take the resultant tisane and water it down to make a gallon and add an 1/8 tsp of plain old bakers' yeast (actually instant yeast so I don't have to be careful rehydrating it). Then I give it a little time to dissolve the yeast, shake it up, bottle it, cap the bottles and wait a day or two and then I have highly carbonated ginger ale that isn't all that sweet, as the yeast has eaten most of the sugars, but it had the flowery hint from the honey over the bite of real ginger.

We've been bottling our own root beer too, with the same yeast, and there's something about the brew that slows down the yeast, so it takes three or four days before the root beer's ready, and only a day or two for the ginger ale. But hey, cheap, all-natural soda pop is fun. *grins*

In case anyone's interested in the recipe: 2 1/2 ounces coarsely grated ginger, 2/3 cup honey, 2 cups sugar, one lemon squeezed of its juice, and about 2 quarts of water. Put all that together in a pot (including the two lemon peel halves), and bring to a boil. Turn down the heat, let simmer for about 25 minutes, and then turn off the heat, cover and let cool for at least an hour. Pour through a sieve and a funnel into a gallon jug, add water to fill to a gallon and alternate cold and hot tap water to make the resultant liquid 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Add 1/8 tsp instant yeast (not regular dried yeast or live cake yeast, if you use the regular dried yeast, give it 10 minutes in a cup of warm sugared water first before tossing it in), cap the jug, shake a few times. Then bottle it and cap it, and put it out in the garage in the summer/in a warm area for a day or two and then test to see if the carbonation suits you. Makes 10 12 oz bottles and 1 8 ounce bottle.

Another Two Gallons

The girls have been very productive, indeed... and I've been kind of remiss about actually recording everything.

In July, on the 25th, I actually pulled four frames, or one and a quarter gallons of honey, from the bottom of the two supers I had on the hive, and I swapped the positions of the supers, so that they'd work on the "lower" and half-full super before they worked on the upper one. John and I scraped clean the four frames, and the next morning I put them all back in to let the bees clean them off.

Then, this month, on August 12th, I pulled the other four frames from the upper super, and found out that they'd half built and filled one of the empties I'd put in in July. The super that was now on the bottom was about three-quarters full. So I pulled three full frames out of that, and left the five half-filled ones, putting the half-built frame from the upper into the lower, and added the two frames that were still empty from the upper super.

Then I took the upper super completely off the hive, to help the colony compact a little before fall. I'm going to have to have all the supers off before winter and before I do my mite treatment, so it's better to get them used to a little smaller space. But I also wanted to shuffle through the frames as we emptied them to allow the bees to clean all the honey off of them.

It took us two days to get the first three frames cleaned off, and by then, the girls had actually built comb up on one of the 'empty' frames. They'd also completely filled the top super with bees, who were busily building and filling! Agh. I pulled that frame out, put it by the entrance to let the bees empty it of the uncapped honey, and I managed to shuffle in the three empty frames, and then after taking a night off to Estes Park, we came back and I shuffled in two more of the empty frames. Tonight we're finally emptying the last two, and I hope to get those in tomorrow, along with the wax built one, hopefully for the other one that was in there from yesterday, but it's been a little crazy going in every day. They don't seem to mind that much so long as I don't leave the hive open too long.

And it looks like two more gallons of honey.

I also saw some hornets and wasps stealing honey and trying to rob the hive, but the girls were having none of that. I've left a lot of things open for ventilation for the summer, but with the nights getting longer and cooler, I'm probably going to remove the summer shims from the inner cover and put in my usual winter popsicle sticks that just allow ventilation and no actual insects through. The girls have taken to lining the inside of the outer cover and completely covering the bottom of the inside cover with bees just to defend those slots. So I'm going to close those up tomorrow. I think that, also, the two brood boxes aren't quite meeting, but I also have a single knothole in the back of the hive that the girls have been using as a second entrance for the last two years.

I had a lot of fun just squashing wasps and hornets when they touched down on the honey in my empties tray and as soon as I could ID 'em, I'd squash 'em.

Anyway... that's more than four gallons of honey this year, or something like 50 pounds already. That's a LOT of honey. I got 40 all together last year. So the "common knowledge" that a colony usually does better its second year is already true for this one.