MBA Conference: Photo Highlights

Mark & I spent Friday and half of Saturday in Ellisville, MS at the Mississippi Beekeepers' Association annual conference. Highlights included:

1. Finally meeting the famous Dr. Clarence Collison (photo 1) and Harry Fulton, whose knowledge and passion for beekeeping first inspired Mark at the 2-day class he attended.

2. Taking the "basic" workshops on overwintering and spring management. I learned a lot and have some concerns about a couple of our hives and the amount of food stores they have, but we'll just have to keep an eye on them and if we have to feed them during the winter, we can.

3. Learning that the reason Hives 1, 5, & 6 are so strong may simply be a matter of "drift." When hives are all the same color, bees can get confused. Usually when they return to the wrong hive, the guard bees won't let them in; however, bees who return to a hive loaded with nectar or pollen are allowed it as they are considered contributors. Thus, those hives on the ends of rows tend to have higher populations due to bees drifting in due to confusion. Note to self: paint hives different colors before spring.

4. Going to a workshop on candle and soap-making, which began poorly (the person they'd asked to teach had little experience with candles and none with soap!) but took off with a bang when one of the attendees turned out to be a "master candle maker" and gave us all kinds of tips and tricks. He may not look like a candle maker, but he buys jars in bulk from Big Lots by the truckload. *Plus* he's a commercial beekeeper. He works 7 days a week.

5. Meeting an experienced lotion and beauty product maker from Arkansas, who gave me some tips on finding a niche for products. I told her she needs to teach a class next year, and she said she would be interested!

6. Seeing Joan Thompson (who taught me how to cream corn properly this summer when we went to buy nucs). She said, "One day when I returned home from my work with the Farm Bureau, I discovered a 21-frame extractor in my kitchen." It's like seeing my future before it happens . . . though I've already told Mark this story and warned him 21 frames is a bit too much for us right now!


7. Seeing the wide variety of honey entered in the honey contest. The range from light (spring) to dark (fall) is stunning, and in the first photo you can see Dr. Collison tasting some chunk honey with a toothpick.Maybe next year Prairie Blossom Bee Farm will have some honey for the competition!

Crush and Strain Method

To get an idea of how I've spent my Friday night, visit Linda's blog and watch her video on the crush and strain method of harvesting honey.

Then remove anything that makes the process convenient, and you'll have a better idea of what I went through.

The Story: Mark is migrating another group of bees. This time they're in Kemper County, and they'd set up housekeeping in a huge metal barn with a camp house built inside, but a "one story" camp house. So in that big inviting space between the plywood ceiling of the camp house and the rest of the barn, the bees built a hive.

From the evidence of queen cells in some of the old, dark brood, this hive may have been growing a new queen. Mark will inspect the hive within a week to see if he needs to buy a new queen quickly to keep the colony together, or if a new queen had hatched out and was busy doing her job.

What he brought home was a cooler full of comb most of which looked old, dark, and brittle, at least what I could see on top. He also brought home a bucket of lighter comb filled with honey (and bees!) and an old Tupperware container, also full of honey comb (but not as many bees). I picked through the best looking comb and trimmed up some chunks to save for eating (photo above).

However, because of the condition of everything else in the containers, we'll use this honey to feed the existing bees, rather than feeding them with sugar water. I'm glad we'll be able to feed this honey to the bees that worked so hard to make it when Mark moves the hive to Bee Hill. They'll be healthier if they're eating honey.

Thankfully, Mark has ordered some equipment that will help with this process, namely a bucket with screen and a honey gate. I ended up with three full quart jars of honey, and when I got up Saturday morning the container holding the remnants of crushed comb had about half an inch of honey in the bottom that had drained out overnight!

Hives 2 & 3

Hives 2 & 3 were easier to get than 1, 4, & 5, because we bought them. In Philadelphia, MS, an industrious couple married for fifty years have a thriving bee business. Mr. Johnny Thompson (shown at left) manages several hives for both honey and queen/nuc production. Mark bought the new queen for Hive 1 from Mr. Johnny, and in this picture Mr. Johnny is transferring a "package" of bees from his nuc box (the small one on the right) to our hive box on the left. I think we bought a queen and 4 or 5 frames that had established comb, brood cells, and "baby bees" as Mark calls the larvae. And why not? The word "larvae" is gross.

Please notice in the picture that Mr. Johnny is wearing regular clothes, a bee veil, and gloves. Please notice that my husband is wearing regular clothes and no protective gear. On this particular night, if I recall correctly, he got several bee stings behind his right ear. For some reason, he waits until *after* he's discovered the bees are feeling aggressive before he puts on any gear. Makes no sense to me.

Ahem. Back to Hives 2 & 3. When we first arrived at the Thompsons' house, Mr. Johnny showed Mark how he was using rubber bands to hold pieces of comb in empty frames. This technique and all of the information Mr. Johnny shared that night have helped us immeasurably. Then a major storm blew through, so we took refuge inside the house, where we discovered Mrs. Thompson creaming corn (and she gave me a new idea on how to do it that proved very effective when the sweet corn came in), making chicken and dumplings, and draining honey in their homemade system of filters and containers. Mark couldn't resist buying the single jar of cut chunk honey she had for sale.

Once the rain settled and we'd toured Mr. Thompson's extensive shop with enough hive bodies and components to become a nationwide distributor, we went to get the bees, as seen in the photo. For more information on package bees, go to Bees Online, which includes a video of installing a package of bees.