The Second Day of Summer

I guess it's only fitting that we experienced the highs and lows of beekeeping on the second official day of summer.

Our first stop this morning was the newest beeyard, located in Starkville. The bees are putting up honey like crazy! This is the "before" picture. We added honey supers, checked all of the hives to make sure they were queen-right, and sweated through our clothes.

Beautiful honey with "wet" cappings.

Our second stop was at the Tripletts' house. Mark thought, going into it, he had one dead hive. The bees haven't thrived there and we suspect there's just not enough for them to eat. As soon as we took the lid off, I could smell something stinky. Sure enough, the only bees in the hive were there to rob the honey, and small hive beetles had laid eggs in the comb -- one corner of the hive was crawling with nasty larvae, and several frame tops were covered in slime. (Don't worry, no pictures of THAT.)



But that was only the first hive. The second hive was struggling, but appeared to have a newly mated queen. All of the available comb space had eggs and young larvae, though there was no capped brood in the single deep box they occupied. Our fingers are crossed that this small population will bounce back. They have stored honey, but need more bees.


Then, in the third hive, we snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. It wasn't that the hive was struggling -- it was actually bursting at the seams. It had so many bees they overflowed the sides of the boxes. Bees flowed out of the box like lava. We had to change out the bottom board in the midst of all this chaos . . . and that was when Mark saw the queen in the grass in front of the hive. He tried to catch her, and couldn't.

We spent agonizing minutes trying to put the hive back together in hopes the bees would get inside and make finding the queen easier. Even though we had stacked 2 deeps and added 2 mediums, they wouldn't go inside. I crouched in the grass in front of the hive and carefully pushed aside grass and weeds and then I saw her! Mark quickly removed his gloves . . . and she crawled right up on his finger. He set his finger on the bottom board and she marched right into the hive. Within 10 minutes, several hundred bees had returned to the safety of their nice, dark, newly expanded hive.

Whew.

Our last stop was at Bee Hill, to drop off the frames of honey from the failed hive. There were 2 deep boxes with frames full of honey, so we'll let the bees rob it out, and we'll be on the watch for an invasion of small hive beetles once those larvae that tagged along become adults. Blech.

On a good note: Bee Hill is LOADED with honey. Once Mark's back is better, he plans to harvest.

On another good note: my garden is doing well, and this morning I had a visitor!

This guest was about the size of a dinner plate!

This melon vine volunteered in the raised bed. Who knows how it will turn out?

Know Your Local Bees: A Cautionary Tale, Episode II, Part 1

Saturday, March 17th, did not bring me the luck of the Irish.

I started out without my gloves (they're still lost) and got a sting on my bare left hand. Ouch. Yes, I'm a whiny baby.


At about 8:15 a.m. Mark's phone rang, and since he was out busting beaver dams, I picked up the call. A swarm out in the Steens area, in a 91-year-old granny's ash box on her chimney, right by the front door. Now, those of you who know me understand I have a soft spot for grannies. Apparently the bees were causing enough of a problem for her going in and out of the front door that her granddaughter wanted them gone.

After lunch, we loaded up the truck for a 2-part adventure in beekeping. Part 1 ended up being so dramatic that Part 2 will have its own post.

Yes, friends, it's time for the next installment in "Know your Local Bees: A Cautionary Tale."

Imagine a brick house with a yard surrounded by blooming trees and shrubs: dogwood, wisteria, red bud, azaleas, camellias. "If I were a swarm I'd come here," I said to Mark. "This place is bee heaven."

Little did I know it was far from heaven . . . in the opposite direction of heaven, in fact.

We thought it was a swarm. They said it was a swarm, that it had been around back the day before and had ended up out front.

Mark got set up for a swarm removal.

We had to remove the Guard Gnome to get to the bees.

 Mark got his bush clippers and cut back the bush so he could get closer to the action.

Mark set a hive box close by for scooping bees into.

Unlike last year's cautionary tale, this time he brought his smoker!

As soon as Mark opened the door . . .

he said, "This is not a swarm."

And was he ever right.

But there was a 91-year-old granny sitting on a chair behind her glass door watching the proceedings while eating her lunch. "Move over so I can see," she said to me at one point. So it's not like we could just close it up and tell her to call an exterminator.

Beekeeper Yoga ensued.

My wonderful husband proceeded to carefully remove several large pieces of comb from her ash box, all the while vacuuming bees.

I thought the brood pattern was shaped like a pear. Did I mention it was hot outside?

Once I started cutting the comb and attempting to put it in the hive box, propped between frames, my gloves got so nasty the photo-taking stopped.

Yes, we attempted to vacuum up bees. The first transfer saw them all boiling back out of the hive box, which was reminiscent of last year's debacle. On the second attempt I sprayed them with sugar water while he transferred them, to deter their flight somewhat.

We worked for over two hours, I think. it was over 90 degrees out when we drove away. We left two hive boxes facing each other, with hopes that the queen was in one of them, and the bees would find her. It's unlikely we got her out of the ash box, but we tried our best. If we didn't get a queen, we'll newspaper combine these bees with a strong hive that has a good queen.

The granny said, "You're not going to leave that mess, are you?" (Of course not!)

So we found a hose and sprayed all the dead bees and honey drips from her sidewalk, cleaned up our equipment, and drove away.

Part 2 begins with her neighbor down the road saying, "If you'd have asked me, I'd have told you those bees have been there three or four years."

When will we learn?

An update on Monday afternoon.: the granddaughter called Mark to come and remove the boxes. While he was en route, she called and said she'd sprayed everything down with pesticide. Including our equipment, which will have to be burned. Including the drawn out frames of comb, which are like beekeeper's gold.

All ruined, because she wouldn't wait 20 minutes for him to get there.

All that work for nothing, and the money wasted to boot -- deep boxes, bottom boards, tops, screens -- several hundred dollars worth of equipment ruined.

We're both just sick. So sad.

This bee season is not off to a very good start.

Arizona Bees in the Winter

Robert and Danielle went on a hike and sent us fabulous photos of bees foraging in the desert. I think the first one is magazine cover worthy. Robert gets amazing shots without a fancy camera -- at one point in his life he wanted to be a wildlife photographer. He has the eye for it!

 

How Robert got so lucky to find Danielle, who is not freaked out by bugs, geckos, or snakes, is beyond me. We love her!

You can read more about our honey adventures in Arizona here, here, and see other bee photos Robert took here.

Mark's Homemade Bulk Bee Feeder

A summer drought resulted in no nectar for the bees.  After we harvested honey, we found they were eating the stores we'd planned for them to have for the winter. Mark had some honey from a tear-out to feed them, but wanted to feed them in bulk rather than using top feeders in each individual hive.

He cut holes in a bucket, inserted sticks so the bees could climb out of the liquid if needed, and strapped it down on a stand a short distance from Bee Hill. Putting it in the bee yard might encourage robbing -- when stronger bees attack a weaker colony to steal their stores.
 

Aster

It didn't take long for our colonies to devour the bucket of honey, and he refilled it at least once before the fall-blooming wildflowers began to appear.

Lately the bees have had some serious pollen packed on their bodies to bring back to the hive!

What's Blooming in Your Neck of the Woods?

Before I became a beekeeper, I didn't pay much attention to the details in nature, such as when flowers bloom.  I've always loved flowers, and used to plant them each spring with my mom (Hi Mom!).

This year, however, my eyes were hungry for the first signs that something, anything was blooming.  First came a tiny purple flower called Henbit, which I'm sad to say is called a weed.

Next, a tiny white flower.  Name unknown.

And a tiny pink and white flower.  Name also unknown.  Help me out, here, plant people!

But, by far my favorite, the glorious pear.  Pear trees this time of year look like giant snow ball puffs on sticks. I took this photo of someone else's pear tree.

 Our pear tree is much more the Charlie Brown variety.  But it's close to the bees who are delighted it's there.

Mark pulled down a branch so I could get a better shot of the delicate blossoms.  (He's wonderful and patient like that.)

Red bud trees are blooming in the edges of some woods.  Daffodils and other bulb flowers are springing up.  So what's blooming where you live?