Slatted Bottom Boards

Mark invested in some slatted bottom boards this year, to help with ventilation.

Some beekeepers think it's an unnecessary expense.

We like them for the following reasons:

• bees don't beard on the front of the hives -- they can congregate down below the brood chambers. If you have an urban bee yard and it freaks out your neighbors to see bees bearding ("They're SWARMING!"), slatted bottom boards might be a good option for you.
• ventilation. Mississippi is hot. We have screens on top to help with temperature, but the extra ventilation may help us cut down on common bee diseases, like Nosema.
• the bees seem calmer. Maybe it's because they don't feel as crowded, but our colonies on the slatted bottom boards don't seem as aggressive.
• we can still use oil traps for pest control, rather than chemicals.

Here are two pictures.

The hive entrance is to the right.

Bee Yard Inspection at Prairie Wildlife

Yesterday Mark drove out to Prairie Wildlife in West Point to add honey supers in anticipation of the soybeans blooming. He was upset to find that since his last visit two or three of the hives' lids had been blown off in the recent storms. We have no idea how long the bees had to put up with all of that light, wind, and rain! Not their favorite way to live.

So today, after the rain storm and power outage (!) he loaded the 4-wheeler onto the trailer, put heavier lids in the back of the truck, and we headed out. Thankfully, it was only 75 degrees! Not that it lasted . . .

We looked through all of the hives except the "tower of power" on the end. For the most part, they're doing well, though growing more slowly than we anticipated. Most are not generating excess honey stores yet.

We found one hive that was queenless but loaded with honey and pollen. We combined it with one of the hives that had been exposed to the elements, but still had a healthy queen. We hope they'll join forces and create a strong, healthy colony.

It was nice to be out with Mark, working the bees together. I've missed it.

Photo highlights:

It wasn't smoky . . . my lens fogged up when I got out of the truck. ;-)

All of the hives, before we inspected.

Snack time!

If you can't see the queen here, folks, I can't help you.

These bees are making use of every cell -- pollen is interspersed with uncapped and capped brood.

Pretty, fresh brood comb. Well done, Queenie!

Newspaper combining a healthy colony with a queenless colony.

A Swarm Call with Spectators

One recent Tuesday, I got home from work and Mark said, as I got out of my car, "Swarm call -- wanna go?" I quickly changed clothes, grabbed the camera and got in the truck.

We didn't have to go far -- an apartment complex in Clayton Village, about 12 miles from the house.

The bees were balled up on a stucco wall. Fortunately for us (and the bees), the renter called his neighbor, who called a pest control company inquiring if they knew of anyone who could save the bees. The exterminator had our number, and ta-da, here we came to save the day.

While Mark attempted to brush the bees off the stucco (they were gripping it rather tightly apparently!), I got to share bee info. with the spectators who had gathered across the road.

Occasionally, they would yell at the people driving by, swerving and rubbernecking, "Don't wreck!" Apparently, people in bee suits on the main road entering the complex aren't a common sight. We had more than one car make several trips past, trying to see what was going on.

One of the ladies was allergic to bees and afraid, but still curious enough to watch the process. The gentleman on the left is the hero who called the pest control company. He stayed out with us until everything was loaded up -- I predict he will be keeping bees one day!

In the end, I told Mark he should just set the hive body on the bush and see if the bees would follow the main group into it -- he thought he had the queen, but the workers kept regrouping on the wall. I said to our spectators, "on other blogs I've read about the bees all marching into the hive in an orderly fashion, but I have yet to see it."

Lo and behold, these bees did it! After a few minutes of our standing around watching, they regrouped into a cluster and began moving down the wall in one accord. Mark ran over and intercepted them as they were bypassing the landing board and headed toward the ground. Within minutes, we had nearly all of the bees in the box.

That was a fun catch! Thanks, everyone for making it such an entertaining experience!


When we got home, I got to see Mark's latest building project -- two wooden stands in the back yard. With the swarm calls coming so fast, he decided he needed a better place than the front porch for bringing bees that need monitoring. Plus, people won't come in the front door when it's got 5 colonies on it.

Chickens. ;-)

False Starts and Lessons Learned

Good morning, Saturday!

Our first swarm call ended up being no swarm -- just holly bushes that had been buzzing with happy bees in such numbers the homeowner thought it was a swarm. Or two.

Our second swarm call came the next day, and resulted in a drive to Caledonia. Unfortunately, upon arrival, Mark found out the supposedly massive swarm had moved into the man's house. Interestingly, now that they were in there, he didn't want them removed -- they were the second colony in his house, after all. More power to him, but as much as I enjoy bees I don't want them living in my walls.

The third swarm had Mark driving to the edge of Alabama on Friday night in a circuitous route because the GPS sent him to the wrong place. He'd been anxious to use his new swarm retrieval tool and finally got the chance.

He had bees in the bucket and bees in the screened box attached to the vacuum (yes, he has a bee vac built by the shop teacher from Kossuth). It was a huge swarm of bees.

When we rounded the corner to get to Bee Hill, our first problem of the morning was clear: beavers.

Persistent beavers plug up our drain in an attempt to make themselves a lovely pond. Of course Mark didn't have his beaver-dam-busting tools on the 4-wheeler -- it was loaded with bee stuff. He was annoyed.

He had to put the 4-wheeler in 4-wheel drive to get up the muddy bank of Bee Hill. I was wishing I'd had more coffee before this adventure.

As I attempted to take artistic pictures of clover (fail), I got stung on my left hand. Boo. I didn't take many photos after that because, well, my hand hurt and we had a serious case of learning the hard way.

One of the hives from our Heritage Academy art class project.

Preparing the hive to transfer the swarm.

Pouring in the bees.

The bucket was heavy, there were so many bees. Unfortunately, even though Mark had screened ventilation for them, there were so many bees they couldn't get enough air, and a couple of large handfuls of bees were dead. Mark felt terrible.

Then, the bees got really upset, as one would expect after spending the night in a bucket ghetto, gasping for air. I was already stung (that is, marked with "STING THIS" scent), so I tried to stay away from the melee that ensued -- bees were in the air, all over Mark, and landing on me with alarming regularity. Now, when I have gloves on and haven't been stung already, I feel relatively calm about this process, but today I was unnerved and anxious to finish up.

After Mark put the bees in, he had to take the bees out to scoop out the dead ones -- too many carcasses for the bees to push out on their own. We don't know if the queen survived.

By 8 a.m., we were back at the house and discouraged. The list of "shouldas" began. We should have put the bees in the box last night, in spite of the dark and need to move them the next day. We should have known there were too many bees for the amount of air and warmer night temperatures. We should have known we were violating their concept of space. We should always have an extra box with us, even when we're sure we won't need it . . . because we will.

We should have had more coffee.

One good thing -- we hope -- is that many of the frames we put in the beautifully painted hive box already have wax and honey. So, the bees that survived will have immediate access to food, and the queen (if she survived our novice treatment of her) will have a place to lay eggs.

We're hopeful, but a bit disheartened at the same time.

While I was typing, Mark's phone rang. A swarm call . . .

Our Trip to Dadant & Sons

In February, we stopped in High Springs, Florida en route to my college reunion. We made sure to plan the trip around a visit to Dadant & Sons for beekeeping supplies.

We did not buy any signs.

They said I could take pictures anywhere I wanted. They were super nice, and very helpful. We bought a pallet-load of frames, some foundation, some soap-making supplies, and some honey. More on the honey in a later post!

At the front of the store they had an assortment of supplies. Apparently they get more from other warehouses as needed. The phone rang constantly.

Out back, they had a tractor trailer-sized storage unit of beeswax. Huge, bucket-sized chunks of it. Talk about feeling like a small-timer!

We toured their assembly shop, where one of their staff members demonstrated the machine that shoots nails into the hive bodies that are assembled -- talk about getting it done quickly! They also had a guy putting together frames with a pedal-operated nail machine. If Mark hadn't been convinced before that buying frames was better than assembling them, the speed with which they constructed them did him in.

Apparently in Florida, beekeepers have to register and get a identification number. They can burn/stamp/imprint/paint this number on their hives, so if they're stolen, they're easier to recover. We saw all kinds of special order hive bodies -- you can get them copper treated, painted, imprinted, etc. I think they said last year they sold over 60,000 deep supers!

We really enjoyed the town of High Springs. We stayed at The Grady House Bed & Breakfast (amazing breakfast! nice guests! lovely hostess!), ate supper at The Great Outdoors (beautiful artwork inside, tasty food, amazing bread pudding), and wished we'd had time to stay and sight-see. Maybe someday we'll go back!

Attendance Soars at Beekeeping Course

Dr. Clarence Collison

My article on the recent beekeeping workshop Mark & I attended posted today.

You can read it at the MSU Extension site.  Be sure to click on the photo links at the bottom to see the actual photos -- for some reason the vertical shot is rotated (and thus cut off) in the sidebar.

Here are a few more photos from the event.

Harry Fulton

Handling a drone -- they can't sting!

Queen cups ready for grafting.

Our youngest attendee.

What I look at when I get concerned about the amount of equipment we have.

Mark's Trip to Moultrie

We got so busy with swarms I forgot to share this picture of Mark's truck loaded with stuff he bought at Rossman Apiaries in Moultrie, GA. The entire back seat was full too.

Mark's dad Bert (Hi Pop!) went with him, which was a good thing, because he bought me this fabulous mug. It makes my coffee taste very good. Mark was so distracted with trivial things like extractors that he didn't get me a present.

I'm so glad my father-in-law loves me. ;-)

Back Saver Bee Hive Stands

Hive stands on the trailer.

Mark picked up 25 aluminum bee hive stands, his "Back Saver 1000" model. 

Features include:

• all welded aluminum construction -- won't rust
• extended platform holds hive cover and supers as you work (and keeps equipment off the ground)
• rain cups to deter ants 
• height raises equipment to comfortable working height
• fits standard hive bodies and bottom boards

Mark designed these with the help of our friend Jody Reyer, a welder.  The initial prototypes were welded steel that was then galvanized.  The weight and cost made them impractical, and the rain cups were too low. Click here to see one of the prototypes. The first aluminum model was improved in weight, but still had the rain cups improperly placed.  Finally, the new version appears to have all of the elements Mark initially desired. 

Side view.

Top view.

He uses treated lumber to brace the ends.  He wants me to do a pictorial guide to assembling, as he figures most beekeepers will prefer to do the braces themselves rather than pay extra shipping for lumber and screws. But, knowing Mark, he'll do whatever the customer wants!

Hive stand in use during inspection.

If you're interested in purchasing a hive stand ($189 plus shipping), contact Mark at 662-418-4422.

Bee Season has Begun at Prairie Blossom Bee Farm!

On Saturday, we cleaned up our car port.  A recent storm had blown hay, pine straw, potting soil, and leaves all over.  Mark and I spent hours, washing equipment, inventorying, setting aside stuff to sell (seed spreader and moquito-killing machine), and generally getting organized.   

A tidy stack of hive bodies.

Then we went to Sherwin-Williams to continue our quest to buy local, and decided on paint colors.  With all white hives, there's a chance for drift, and changing up some colors and patterns is supposed to help the bees orient themselves to "home." Besides, it's fun and colorful!  "We don't get many requests for bright yellow exterior paint," commented the salesman, so we had to go with an interior/exterior gloss.

Mark wanted colors that would reflect light so that the hives wouldn't get too hot in the summertime.  Local beekeeper Art Potter is known for his patriotic red, white, and blue hives, so that was out.  I decided to take inspiration from my fun winter project.

 

We chose yellow and blue.  Then we ordered some stencils so we could decorate them with bees and blossoms.

Cheerful and Candid Blue.

 

 

On Sunday, we did a quick, top-super-only check of Hives 5 & 6 since they didn't get included last weekend.  Loads of honey stores visible, so we left them alone.  It was cloudy and windy, and thus too stressful for the bees to attempt deeper investigation.  For the first time we tried using a tea towel as a hive drape, and it worked like a charm to send the bees down into the hive as opposed to out in the air.

Mark painted some hives on Monday, and when I got home on Tuesday, he was assembling frames. Last night I made him a poster to advertise that he'll catch local swarms and trap out unwanted bees.  This morning before work he asked me how many hives we should plan to add, and moments ago when I called him on my lunch break, he was outside working on frames again.

It's official: hunting season is over, and bee season has begun in earnest.

The Drama Continues

While the weather hasn't truly begun to cool, the bees are preparing for the long winter, when they must eat what they've stored. Part of keeping bees is determining how much honey you can keep for yourself (or to sell) and how much they need to survive the lack of nectar until spring. I wanted to share a photo of what their pollen stores look like. Whereas earlier in the summer frames would be solid with honey or a combination of honey and brood, they now have frames with bright yellow deposits of pollen. It's the bees' protein source and is essential for rearing brood. For the record, bee pollen is considered by some a health food that cures all ills, but that's a story for another time.

While I was returning from a work trip to Tupelo and Booneville, Mark installed a new queen in Hive 1. He ordered her from Georgia, because the idea of losing that hive due to queen problems was driving him crazy. The lady in Georgia told him to leave both ends of the queen cage corked for three days, then go see how the bees are behaving and see if he can find a queen existing in that hive. If he finds one, and eggs as proof of laying, he can requeen another hive, for instance, 2 or 3 -- he thinks one of the two is not active enough but can't remember which one. If the bees in Hive 1 aren't aggressive and he can't find a queen or eggs, he can take one cork out to begin the candy-eating-release process.

In other bee news, we received $180 as part of the grant from MBA, as well as a receipt for our conference fees. I've already determined that if a vendor at the conference(October 28-29) has a queen marking pen and cage, we're getting it to make our lives easier looking for queens. Here is a photo of a marked queen from Ebert Honey in Iowa. You can imagine how much easier it would be to see her among the rest! You can pay extra to have the vendor mark the queen, but so far we've forgotten to request it.

And I use the term "we" liberally here. ;-)

Last but not least, our entrance reducers arrived. Did you know that mice love to build nests in bee hives during the winter? Bees tend to congregate together in the center of the brood box and "flex their bee muscles" to keep the temperature up; therefore, mice, if not prevented by some sort of entrance reducer, can sneak in and build a nest in a corner with little fear.