My First Blogiversary + Giveaway

July 26th was my first blogiversary!  Many thanks to my friends and family members for their support of our beekeeping endeavors.

In honor of that milestone, I'm going to do a giveaway!  Someone is going to get a one-pound bottle of our honey from our upcoming harvest!  YUMMY!

My loyal, fab 15 Followers get two entries whether they want them or not (yes Troy, this means you). I love seeing your icons when I work on the blog. Thanks for being followers, y'all!  I've written down your names to make sure I enter you twice.

Anyone new who signs up as a Follower between today and August 6th gets one entry. Plus, Followers who leave a comment *on the blog, not on Facebook*. (I love you, FB friends, but I need you on the blog, too!) I'll use a random number generator to select the winner.

This is a deep frame of capped honey from our last harvest. Just something to tempt you to enter the giveaway . . .

Bee Beards

I'm mildly creeped out by the idea, but two different bee beard events have been brought to my attention recently.  So why be creeped out alone?

The first came from my friend Mike (Hi Mike!): In China, beards are not enough, apparently.

Image via The First Post.

The second is bee blogger Barbara's personal experience at an annual event held at Clovermead (a place I very much want to visit now, with a very nicely done website!). FYI: they use petroleum jelly (Vaseline) to create a barrier -- the bees won't walk over it so that's how they keep the bees off of people's faces.

Would you ever participate in a bee bearding contest?

Honey Competitions and Your Feedback

I'm not competitive in many ways. But I must say I'm intrigued by the idea of entering some Prairie Blossom Bee Farm honey in the competition held at the annual MBA meeting. After all, the bees technically do the work, right?

Yes and no. From what I read on a recent post by Linda on preparing honey for competition, the bees make the honey, but the beekeeper must make the honey beautiful in appearance. A certain type of jar, no smudges or fingerprints, no air bubbles, equal fill levels, etc.

Mark's OCD will go into overdrive, should we attempt to compete!

This photo appears at Things Organized Neatly on Tumblr, and is of the honey competition at the Minnesota State Fair.  YOWZA!  To see a very artful photo of a honey competition, visit What Should I Be Doing with My Bees This Month?

If you've had our honey and enjoyed it, we'd love for you to post your comments online. Our current plan is to harvest again at the end of this month, so if you didn't get any the first time around, you'll have a chance then.  Thank you for your support!

Hive Inspection July 9, 2011

Mark has been carrying the weight of the bee enterprise this summer. While I was in New Mexico visiting family, he called to say that he & Sarah saw one of our hives swarm at Barham's, Hive 6 had swarmed in Mayhew, and that it appeared another had swarmed at Harley's in spite of having plenty of super space. I returned home expecting to find struggling hives at Harley's.

Instead we found evidence of a laying queen in all three -- including the two splits we'd made before our trip mid-June -- and a sizeable population in the hive that had swarmed. We removed the feeders too.

Then the truck wouldn't start.  Thanks to Harley and Diana's hospitality, we didn't have to spend our time outside in the wicked heat. Mark pulled the truck out to their driveway with a tractor (I had to steer the behemoth without any power steering!), and made arrangements for repair while I sat in the air conditioned cool.

Sarah came to the rescue with the trusty Honda, which in a pinch does just fine as a bee mobile. We stopped by Barham's to observe the "tower of power" and happily discovered the cotton is beginning to bloom.

Back at home, we checked on Hive 6 to see if they had successfully requeened themselves. From the contented hum we heard when we opened the hive, we suspected all was well. But, we looked through the two deep boxes just in case. Mark saw eggs and larvae, so we closed it up and headed to the house ahead of the rain.

Love is in Bloom

 

Just a little beekeeper silliness captured by Sarah.

Know Your Local Bees: A Cautionary Tale

A while back, Mark got a call about a swarm hanging on a sign.

Given our positive experience at Kudos, he waited until I got home, and we loaded up with minimal gear for him and none for me.  Dressed in a skirt and sandals, I had no intention of helping, but would take pictures for the blog.  Easy enough, right?

Our confidence should have been our first clue that, according to Murphy's Law, we were doomed.

We arrived at the site to find a good-sized swarm hanging out on both sides of a big sign.  I jumped out of the truck, took a couple of photos, and got back in, where it was air conditioned.  I have told you we live in Mississippi, right?  All those ideas you have about the heat and humidity are TRUE.

So while Mark put on his gear and set out a box for scooping bees into, no need for a smoker, I settled into the No Sweat Zone, expecting a five minute wait.

Oh, how ignorance is bliss.

As Mark began spraying the bees with sugar water, rather than falling into the cup or box as they are generally wont to do, they got agitated and took to the air.  That should have been a sign.

Next, as he began scooping them into the box, they resisted -- rising up out of the box and attacking him.  Sign #2.

Soon the air was filled with angry bees, and I could see him flinching as some of them found their target. Confused, he walked toward the truck to confer with me. Next thing I knew, bees were pelting the truck like The Attack of the Killer Popcorn, popping against the windows and roof.  Sign #3.

Then Mark went back to try again.  Crazy.  You should have seen the people at the convenience store across the street looking at him, clearly thinking the man was nuts and had no idea what he was doing.

This swarm acted like no swarm we'd ever seen.  Mark walked into some nearby woods, chased by bees the entire way.  They persisted in their attack on the truck for several minutes.  I was horrified, but at least I was protected!

Eventually Mark came up to my window, which I refused to roll down. I may be dumb, but I'm not insane. I shouted for him to get his stuff, and get in the back of the truck so I could drive him home. He was *not* getting into the truck with me! I'd had enough, and so had he.  Especially since he hadn't tucked in his shirt -- after all, it was just a docile swarm -- and they'd stung him all around his lower back, up to where his veil ties criss-cross.

He clambered into the back of the pick up, with several bees still hammering him.  I took off down the highway, determined to blow the bees off of him and put some distance between us and the killer swarm.  He pounded on the roof to get me slow down and hollered something at me, so I pulled over. 

He wanted to go back and see what they were doing.  Unbelievable.  When we returned, there were still plenty of bees on the sign and in the air -- we hadn't made a dent in the population.

Our conclusion: this was no ordinary swarm.  This is, in fact, a hive of bees nesting inside the cavity of the sign.  Mark had attempted to storm a hive with a huge population of bees bearding on the outside of the sign due to the heat.  Their reaction was perfectly normal for a hive under attack.

A week later, our guess was confirmed by a colleague of mine who needed a ride home.  As we passed the infamous sign I told her our story and she said, "Oh, the neighborhood bees?  They've been there for YEARS."

Moral #1: Don't believe everyone knows what a swarm is when they call. Be a savvy beekeeper.
Moral #2: Be prepared for surprises and light your smoker. Every. Single. Time.
Moral #3: Observe the bees' behavior and act accordingly.

Inspection at Harvey's Hives

A happy beekeeper.

After our bee tree adventure, we went to the bee yard at Harley's to do a full inspection. While it's tempting to give you the blow-by-blow, I'll generalize and then show you some pictures, because we saw some pretty cool stuff.

The summary: we found evidence of queens in all of the hives, saw supercedure cells in one of the hives started from a nuc (which was very interesting, as we couldn't see a reason why they wanted to replace their queen), and found very little honey stored and little foraging happening, meaning there's a dearth of nectar. The bees were not occupying the space provided in the supers Mark had added.

The decisions: make a split from the hive with all of the supercedure cells, remove unoccupied supers from 3 of the hives, and move the four smaller colonies to the Delta, where there's plenty blooming.

The photos:

A mosaic of pollen stores.

I love the variety in the colors of pollen packed into the comb!

This is an ideal frame: honey around the edges, a solid brood pattern, uncapped larvae around the edges, and eggs.

Uncapped honey -- see it glistening?

Do you see the queen?

Don't waste a drop!

When we took off the top hive body, we tore open some brace comb the bees had built. Immediately the workers gathered around the exposed honey, drinking it in so it wouldn't go to waste. They'll relocate it to open cells in other frames, I hope.

The next morning before daylight, Mark returned, screened the entrances, made the split, and drove the bees to the Delta.  Once they were unloaded, he added the supers back so they'd have space to grow. We hope they thrive there.

Mark had already done the prep work.  Can you tell the man is OCD, with everything cleared just so?!