Hive Check #2

All day Sunday I knew that I’d be needing to get into the hives.  Part of me was feeling rather nervous about the prospect, but I made my mental list of what needed to be done and I prepared myself mentally for the task.  Just as soon as Bodhi was taking her afternoon nap, I grabbed my bee basket and headed to the hives.

As usually, Ruby was calm and quiet when we took the lid off.  I have continued to notice that the activity around this hive is low and I was wondering what I would find when I got inside.  I was not expecting what I saw.

Very little growth in Hive Ruby.

It’s as if nothing had changed from last week.  They haven’t made any new comb to speak of.  It’s still a tiny clump of bees.   I’m very worried about this hive. I want to do something to help them along, but at this point I’m not sure what to do.  They didn’t eat from their sugar can at all, they didn’t take much food from the dish of moist sugar I gave them.  I’m considering going to the local apiary and purchasing a pollen patty for them and see what kind of feeders they have in stock.  Perhaps the beekeepers there will have some ideas and maybe a feeder that I could purchase that would work in a TBH.  I don’t want this hive to die, but I also don’t want to help a sick or weak hive limp along and start breeding less than fabulous bees.  Sigh.  This feels like having a sick kid and not knowing how to help them.

Getting into Ruby without gloves or veil.

I was very disappointed when Frank and I put Ruby’s roof back on.  I had hoped that they were recovering and making progress, but this is just not the case.  I’ll be doing some research, and polling of other beeks to see if I can come up with an answer to why they aren’t eating or growing.

Bonanza Jellybean inside the hive.

Bonanza Jellybean is growing like gangbusters.  Frank captured the above picture right after I opened the hive.  They are making a lot of comb and seem to be eating a ton.  I wish they would share their skills with their neighbors.

Beautiful comb.

The comb that Bonanza Jellybean is making is gorgeous.  They have nearly filled five bars with comb.  I didn’t look around for the queen and for some reason I didn’t look for eggs.  I think I was distracted by my worry for Ruby and I just couldn’t focus on Jellybean like I should have.

An extra bump of comb on the bar.

One of the bars had an extra bump of comb on it.  I’m not quite sure why the girls did this, but I used my long knife and sliced it off.  I was pleasantly surprised that it was easy to remove and the bees didn’t seem to mind too much that I had taken part of their comb from them.

Looking at the comb.

The bees weren’t interested in leaving the piece of comb that I cut off, so I gently placed it on the ground under the hive.  Then I panicked.  What if the queen was on there?  I didn’t even think to look for her there.  So I picked up the comb and looked for the queen.  I didn’t find her and was relieved.  I tried brushing the bees off of the comb, but they didn’t want to move so I put it in grass farther from the hive.  Eventually, they would leave it I assumed.

They did end up leaving it and now I have a lovely small bit of soft comb in the house.  I don’t know what to do with it exactly.  Frank wants to eat it.  I think for now I just want to have it.  It’s given me a lot to think about and learn.  The bees are amazing builders and I’m so very proud of what they are accomplishing.

What I learned from this hive check.

• It’s better to walk away when you get stressed than do something stupid because you are stressed.
• Things don’t always go they way you think they will even if you are doing everything you should be doing.

That’s about all I gleaned from this trip into the hives.  I’m feeling a bit glum for Ruby and hope to find some ways to bolster that hive up and grow it into a bustling robust hive.

First Hive Check: Part Two

I really hadn’t planned on making this a two-part post but the last one ran on long and my toddler and my cold medicine got the best of me.

As you may recall from a previous post,  bees have not always been my most favorite thing in the world.   I thought I’d put that out there just in case anyone is new to this new blog.

—————–

Continued from yesterday…

After I closed up the hives I went inside and shared the pictures of the bar gaps to the  Facebook beekeeping group that I belong to.  Knowing that if I put the question out there, one of the more experienced and wiser beekeepers would help me along.

One of the first responses told me that I had ‘VIOLATED BEE SPACE’ and that the bees could and would more than likely start building comb where I don’t want them to and I’d have a mess of epic proportions on my hands.  Violate bee space???? I certainly didn’t want to be doing that.

{Bee space is the amount of space that bees like to have around them.  If there is too much space, the bees will build comb to fill it.  If it’s just a tiny gap or crack, they usually fill with propolis.   Here’s a link if you want to know the dimensions.}

It was late in the day and I didn’t want to go bugging my girls again so I decided to wait until tomorrow to fix the gaps in the bars.  The next morning Hubs and I went out and got a bee brush and spray bottle at the local apiary.  I wasn’t going to try to move the girls with my dust pan brush again.  They got all tangled up in it and I don’t want to hurt anyone.  I also chatted up the guy to see if he knew any top bar beekeepers, as I’d love to have a mentor that’s more experienced than me.  He said he’d call if he thought of anyone.  I haven’t heard anything about that yet, so I’m guessing the answer was no.   No matter, I’m doing alright on my own so far.

On our way home from the shop, Bodhi fell asleep and after we got her settled in her bed we went straight out to the hives.   Armed with my new bee brush and a squirt bottle of water, I decided to forgo the veil and white shirt.  I didn’t feel like they were necessary and perhaps feeling like I needed to shield myself from my bees was making me feel more guarded around them than was actually needed.

I started with Hive Ruby since I’m a creature of habit.  At first I thought I would just close up the gaps, but I was in there and feeling brave and oh-so-curious about what my girls were doing.  So I decided to take out one of the bars and see what they were up to.

I don’t know if you know this, but bees link together in the hive.  They make chains and hold hands.  It’s really a spectacular sight.  When I ever so slowly lifted the bar out of the hive, the bees were hanging on to one another for dear life.  I reminded me of the end scene from Titanic when everyone is freaking out and grabbing on to each other.  I felt a little bad for disturbing their world for curiosity’s sake, but I was as gentle as possible and I don’t think anyone actually got hurt.

Hive Ruby's first comb.

Hive Ruby had a beautiful little comb going.  It was incredibly bright yellow.  I’m assuming the color is coming from all of the dandelions in bloom at the moment.  I didn’t look around for a queen or even check for eggs.  I just wanted to see that they were building, and they were!  A very proud bee mama, I gently slid the bar back in place and with the help of my bee brush and plain water squirt bottle, I was able to close up the gaps between the bars without a problem.  Frank and I put the lid on and we were done.  So easy!

I think I’ll always start with Hive Ruby.  It’s a gentle hive and definitely a confidence booster.

Busting at the seams with my can do attitude I forge into Hive Bonanza Jellybean with perhaps too little healthy fear of the bees.  I know what I’m doing.  I’m not afraid.  Look at me in the hives with no gear on working with the bees.  Blah. Blah. Blah.

Pretending to lick Hive Bonanza Jellybean's Comb.

Look at those bustling girls making such a huge comb!  I was so pleased with their work,  and possibly high on endorphins that I got a little hammy and decided to be playful with my bees.  After this picture was taken I had the urge to see what was under all those bees.  What was in that gorgeous comb they were building?  Would I be able to see eggs?

Being that my hands were full, and you can’t lay a top bar comb on it’ side to inspect it as it would snap off and create havoc.. I blew on it.

It took exactly half a second for me to realize the mistake I had made.  The bees tone changed from buzzing about ‘what a beautiful sunny day it is’ to ‘Get her girls!!!’

They started flying at my face and I freaked out.

Lost it.

Somehow I had the presence of mind to hand the bar off to my sweet husband before I lost complete and total control.  After I thrust the bar into his hands…

I. RAN. SCREAMING.

My pinky finger was throbbing.  Sting one.

My neck burned as I brushed off the stinger in-bedded by my jugular (this one was trying to kill me)  Sting two.

I could feel and hear the bee in my bangs trying to get to my scalp like the wasps from when I was a little girl.  I ripped out my favorite ponytail holder, tossed in the grass and tried to get the bee out.

Screaming still.

Wondering where my knight in shining armor was.  (Wait, do I hear him laughing?)

Just about the time that I had decided that it would be worth it to pull out all of my hair to rid myself of the bee stuck in the tangles, Frank showed up and freed me from my tormentor.   He gave me a great big hug and we just stood there for a minute.  My husband has an amazing calming effect on my nerves.  Thank goodness for that.

Knowing that it wasn’t all that warm out and that I needed to get the lid on my hive so my girls didn’t get cold, I somehow got my game face back on and went back to the hive.  I looked around frantically for the bar that I nearly tossed at Frank.  Where was it?  He couldn’t remember what he did with it and started looking in the grass (are you kidding me, the grass?).  At this point I was sure I was the worst beekeeper in the world and that the Bee Protection Society was going to roll up in yellow and black vans at any moment and take away my hives.

It turns out that even in all of the commotion of his wife freaking out (which he thought was a joke at first??) he put the bees back in the hive right where they came from before he came to save me.  That man is a wonder.  A fantastic  bee handling, wife calming wonder.  I love him so.

Using the same technique that I did with Ruby, I got the bars closed on Bonanza Jellybean and we got the lid back on.  The girls must have noticed my contrite manners and let me go about my business without further scolding.  Thank goodness for that.

What I learned that day:

• Always respect the bees.  A little healthy fear is a good thing when working with a large group of creatures that will chase you down and make you pay for your sins against them.
• Childhood fears and their corresponding reactions surface quickly when the need  arises.
• Probably the most important thing I learned is DON’T BLOW ON THE BEES

I do feel badly that two of my gals died to teach me that those lessons.  I promise from this day forward, no matter how brave and confident I’m feeling to always be on my most gentle and respectful behavior.

For everyone’s sake.

First Hive Check

The day after I hived my bees, the rain came and didn’t really let up until Friday afternoon.  I had checked on my girls every day, but hadn’t seen much activity since poor weather keeps them inside the hive.  Friday there was a ton of activity from one of the hives and if I came close to it, the girls would run into my head.  This gave me the impression that the hive was cranky and I was worried that something was wrong with it.  Luckily, I know some sage beekeepers online and they assured me that a cranky hive is one that stings you when you walk by.  This was just an active hive.   Active is good.  That was music to my ears and I decided to venture out to the bee yard before my daring husband came home from work to see if I could at least get started on my bee tasks alone.

The first hive I checked was Hive Ruby.  It’s my quieter hive and therefore I figured it would be safer for a solo hive check.  There were quite a few dead bees in this hive (three or four dozen) and the swarm was tightly packed around the queen cage.

Hive Ruby Large Clump of Happy Girls!

I was pretty excited to see them doing whatever it was that they were doing.  Very glad to see them in their hive and alive still.  When I realized that I had to get the queen cage out of that ball of bees that’s when I had to pause for a moment.  I hadn’t really expect such a mass around the cage.  I don’t really know what I expected, but there you go.  I separated the bars slowly and took out the push-pin holding the cage in place.  With bare hands (I’m pretty impressed that I wasn’t wearing gloves) I pulled the cage out and there were roughly two dozen bees hanging on.  Since I had forgotten to purchase a bee brush, I used my dust pan brush (bee people please don’t judge me) to gently move most of the bees back into the hive.  The queen had successfully been released!  I was overjoyed.  I know that my next step was to search for the queen, but I was not sure of how to go about doing that so I figured it could wait until my next check.

Hive Ruby Queen Cage

Next I removed the sugar can that came with the bees and was surprised that it still felt mostly full.  With having nothing to compare it to, I wasn’t too concerned at the moment.  I had prepared two different feeding methods for my bees and decided to give Hive Ruby what I imagine is the easiest to access food.  Their next meal consisted of a long plastic tray filled with granulated white sugar.  I sprayed the top of the sugar with water laced with lemon grass essential oil.  One particularly successful beekeeper I read about uses this method, so I thought I would give it a try.  The girls seemed to perk up as soon as I gave them their food.  That was a proud moment for sure.  I closed up the bars the best I could, but a few of the girls didn’t want to get out-of-the-way, so I left the hive like that.  Frank came home just in time to help me get the lid back on the hive.  He was impressed that I had gotten into the hives alone and was very excited to help out.

Hive Ruby is named after one of my all time favorite literary characters, Ruby Thewes.

Hive Bonanza Jellybean is my more active hive, and that had me a little more nervous when Frank and I opened the lid.  I repeated the same sequence with Bonanza and had nearly the same results.  Hive JB got a bag of sugar syrup with slits in it instead of a dish of sugar.  We’ll see if there is any difference in how the bees treat their food.  Whichever seems to be the more successful feeding method is the one I will continue with.  There were much fewer dead bees in this hive and surprisingly, the sugar can was empty (this got me thinking that maybe Ruby couldn’t get to their sugar somehow and they were starving).

Hive Bonanza Jellybean Clump Close-Up

Hive Bonanza Jellybean wasn’t any more cooperative when it came to closing up the bars.  The girls just wouldn’t move.  At some point while I was trying to close up the hive I saw why people liked the smokers.  I’m sure that is just the thing to get the bees to move.  Not knowing what exactly I should do next, I left gaps on those bars as well and with my lovely assistant’s help closed up the hive.

Hive Bonanza Jellybean Top Bar gaps

Hive Bonanza Jellybean gets her name from a character in one of my favorite books Even Cowgirls Get the Blues.

Here’s a quote from the book.

“Cowgirl Interlude (Bonanza Jellybean)

She is lying on the family sofa in flannel pajamas. There is Kansas City mud on the tips and heels of her boots, boots that have yet to savor real manure. Fourteen, she knows she ought to remove her boots, yet she refuses. A Maverick rerun is on TV; she is eating beef jerky, occasionally slurping. On her upper stomach, where her pajama top has ridden up, is a small deep scar. She tells everyone, including her school nurse, that it was made by a silver bullet.

Whatever the origin of the extra hole in her belly, there are unmistakable signs of gunfire in the woodwork by the closet door. It was there that she once shot up one half of an old pair of sneakers. “Self-defense,” she pleaded, when her parents complained. “It was a [sic] out-law tennis shoe.   Billy the Ked.” 

― Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

This really is just the beginning of the story.  The funny and much more interesting part happens the following day.   My eyes are heavy and my sweet girl needs snuggles, so the story will have to be continued tomorrow… come back for it!  It’s totally worth it.

Calling in sick.

Taking a day to rest with some tea and a book.  I did my first two hive checks this weekend and have a tale to tell.  Come back tomorrow and hear all about it.

Hoping you have a fantastic Monday!

Hive Bonanza Jellybean ladies all in a row.

How did we get here?

If you have overcome your inclination, and not been overcome by it,

you have a reason to rejoice.

~Plautus

One afternoon when I was five years old, I was playing with my sister and a friend on a little island in the middle of the creek in our back yard.  The older kids were fishing, I imagine, and I was just trying to be involved in what they were doing.  My mom came out to check on me and I got very busted for wearing my new school loafers out in the muck.

Angry that I had to go inside and miss all of the fun, I was stomping through the woods to make my point known to anyone that was paying attention.  Somehow during my theatrical flounce, my hair got tangled in a low tree branch.  Clearly, I was already in a poor mood and I imagine I did some more stomping and flailing and guess what… I stepped on a bee’s nest.

Now, I guess I should give you some sort of proper information, in that these were actually ground wasps and not bees.. but to my five-year old brain, a bee was a bee.

So there I was standing in a bee’s nest with my hair caught in a tree screaming my head off.  Someone freed me of the tree and carried me into the house.  I couldn’t tell you if it was my mother or my sister.  My mom hurried around to make me a bee sting paste and while she was working on that, something horrible happened.

The story goes I was in full screaming freak out mode when I got silent and with large eyes and said, “There’s something in my shirt.”  Sure enough three bees flew out of my clothes and I was in hysterics all over again.

From that day forward I was completely terrified of bees.  All flying insects that stung were bees, all were mean, and all were out to get me.  I was sure of it.

So how does that girl end up in charge of two hives of bees?

I have no stinkin’ clue.

In January, I read an article on top bar hives on Mother Earth New’s facebook page and I was hooked.  I started reading everything about bees that I could get my hands on, and it quickly became apparent that I was going to have to do this.

Soon after I joined a local bee club and then I ordered two packages of bees.  At the time we were in full chicken preparation mode and so bees seemed a long way off.  Time sure flies when you are busy doing other things.  Before I knew it, the bees were a couple of weeks off and they needed a home.

Frank and I worked for two weeks on the hives.  They weren’t terribly difficult or anything, but as we’ve learned in the last few months.  Everything takes twice as long as we expect it to.  The hives were no different.

We got the hives finished and in place the day that we picked up the bees.  Nothing like getting things done at the last-minute… but hey, we did it!

On Sunday, the bees hung out in the shade of the yurt most of the day while I walked through the last few preparations to ready them for their big move.  I did a lot of checking and re-checking.  I was nervous and excited.  Nervous and excited.  I would get a huge feeling of giddy excitement.   ‘Bees!  I have bees!’, then the nerves would kick in.

I had visions of myself running screaming from the hives and all of my bees chasing me.  I could see myself freezing and Frank having to take care of hiving our new charges.  I had terrible visions of my body being completely covered with bees while they tried to consume me.  Luckily for me, I saw ‘The Savage Bees‘  when I was younger so I had plenty of horrifying images to conjure up any time my nerves necessitated one.

At some point on Sunday, I just made myself stop indulging these thoughts.  I had read up on this as much as I could.  I watched numerous Youtube videos of people hiving their bees, I had talked to experienced beeks about how to do it and I got all of my questions answered.  I was as prepared as I was ever going to be.

I decided that I would just go ahead and hive the girls a few hours early….. I just had to get it done.  I followed my rehearsed plan one step after another and before I knew it, I was done.  There were no stings, no tears or freezing. I was not chased off into the sunset by a humming black cloud.

For the most part, everything went according to plan.  The bees are in their hives and they have some food.  I’ve checked on them and they seem like they are doing OK.  In the next week, I need to go back to the hives and do a few things:

• I need to feed them. When I put them in the hives, I gave them the sugar can that they came with.  I have two different feeding options in mind.  I think I’ll try a different one with each hive and see which one works better.
• The top bars are not all into place as the bees were kind of everywhere when I installed them.  Hopefully, I’ll be able to get them moved to where I want them and have the hive put together properly.
• Queen check – make sure the queens have been released from their cages and see if I can find them.

I’ve been drawn to the hives many times in the last two days.  Watching them is my new favorite pastime.  I am officially a beekeeper.  I still don’t know what I’m doing, or maybe even how I’m doing it…. but one thing is for sure.

I’m doing it!

The Bees Have Arrived

We got our bees yesterday.  On Earth Day.  It was just perfect.  Please enjoy these pictures.  I’m still processing the experience and will write all about it when I’ve figured out what to say.

Hoping your weekend was great!

Package of Carneolans

Bee package stragglers going into Top Bar Hive

Bee activity around top bar hive

Busy bee already going to work.

Bees gathering around the entrance of the top bar hive.

Investigating from a distance.

The lessons of the hives.

My goodness this was a busy weekend!

My mother came up for the weekend to celebrate her birthday and the weather was beautiful.  We were outside nearly the entire time enjoying the sun and being busy little bees…. and getting ready for the bees.

Again, much work was done on the bee hives.  They are nearing completion.  I’ve been Madame Foreperson on this job and I have to say, building things with wood when you don’t have previous experience, is hard.  I have very little experience with  power tools and  I spent a good deal of the weekend bouncing from elation  for figuring out how to do something, to tears when I realized it was wrong, to frustration at my husband for knowing these things and having them come easily to him.

PSA:  If you have kids and plan on teaching your boys how to use tools and build things, for the love of Pete, teach your daughters as well!   Nothing sucks worse than wanting to know how to do something that should be relatively simple and not knowing how because no one ever taught you.  You know my boys know how to cook and clean and make things pretty.. now I’m on a new mission to learn all things handy and builderly to teach them to my daughter!

I have nothing but gratitude for my husband for being patient with me while I made him teach me how to make the hives instead of doing them himself.  I’m certain they would be done right now if it wasn’t for my learning curve, but the journey is the most important part… and this has been quite a journey.

I’m certain that when the time comes for me to need more hives that I’ll be able to make them on my own.  I didn’t have that certainty a few weeks ago when this started so I know that while this has been a harder than I would have liked, it was all worth it.  Mommy temper tantrums excluded.

Inside my bee basket.

Yesterday, I got all of my beekeeping supplies together and put them in a basket.  I had to chuckle to myself because the contents were few, and not what you would normally expect to use to keep bees.  There was no bee veil or suit, gloves, no smoker, or hive tool.  Most importantly to me, I didn’t spend $125 or more for supplies.

Contents of the basket include:

• Thrifted white men’s dress shirt – $3
• Knife – stolen borrowed from my kitchen – $0
• Mosquito head net– generally used for hiking – $4
• Hat – worn under the net to help keep the net off my face (found in closet) – $0
• Squirt bottle – used instead of a smoker to encourage bees to fly elsewhere – $3
• Basket – borrowed stolen from my yarn stash – $0

That’s it!  I’m not sure how these tools will work exactly, but I’d rather start out with too few items and add to my basket as I see a need than buy everything I’ve heard beekeepers ‘must have’ only to find out I won’t be using much of it.

I do hope to never use a smoker, and this is why.  During my bee studies, the explanation of why Beeks (industry term for beekeepers) use smokers really rubbed me wrong.  The idea is if you blow smoke on the bees they will think there is a fire.  They rush into their hive, gobble up all the honey they can because they think they have to move elsewhere and then they leave.  What that does for the beek is, it occupies the bees and gives them a bigger threat to deal with than a giant poking around in their hive.  It also makes sure that the bees are so full of honey that stinging is difficult for them.

I don’t know about you, but to me that sounds like a terrible practice.   I don’t want my time with my bees to be traumatic for them.  I can’t imagine that it would be the best for their health and well-being for them to constantly think that their house is going to go up in flames.

Hopefully, a little mist from my squirt bottle will be all that I need to get the girls to fly elsewhere.  Maybe I won’t need that at all?  I’ve seen other seasoned beeks handle their hives without smoke or water and not be attacked.  We shall see.  I have no idea really how any of this is going to play out.

Now, I’m not saying this is all I’ll ever use to keep bees.  Goodness knows, if I start getting stung up like a honey badger, I’m going to take precautions.

top bar hive progress

The weather was beautiful yesterday.  While the kids ate Popsicles and read Calvin and Hobbs in the hammock, I worked on the beehives.  My goal for the day was to drill the holes for the entrances and get the bodies stained.

One of the top bar hive bodies.

Drilling the holes proved to be harder than I had expected. I have never used a spade drill bit before and they are kind of tricky.  My wrist still hurts a bit from the drill going crazy out of control a few times.  I got the first hive completed on my own and Frank helped me with the second when he got home from work.  They are both stained (and drilled) and ready for the next step of securing the screen to the bottom.

Entrances

The plans for the hive are graciously posted on the net for free by Philip Chandler, author of  The Barefoot Beekeeper.  This book is the one that I have read the most in preparing for my bees.  I’ve read others, but I keep coming back to this one.  I appreciate his approach to keeping bees.  Philip’s low intervention style resonates with how I try to live all of my life.  I appreciate the notion that bees will naturally do what they need to in order to survive.  If they are given the environment that they need to do their job, they will be healthiest.  Makes sense to me!

Beehive by the river.

I imagine that I may not break any records in my honey crops by keeping bees this way, but I’m alright with that.  I hope one day to only eat honey that my bees produced.  I’m not sure how long it will be until I’m self-sustained in the honey department.  My guess would be a couple of years.

Hopefully,  my bees will like their new home and think that I do a sufficient enough job of leaving them alone that they will want to stay a while.

The perfect weekend.

We had the most glorious weekend of sun, sun and more sun.  This was the first weekend this year of barefoot weather, sun dresses, eating al fresco, mowing the grass and being outside all day… for two whole days!

We worked most of the weekend on the top bar hives for the bees that are coming soon.  I had a lot of help from everyone in the family and we couldn’t have gotten nearly so far without them.  We are nearly ready to put the screens on the bottom and then make the entrance holes.  Hopefully, I’ll get some pictures of the hives taken today.

I found a fabulous video showing exactly how a top bar hive works and what they look like.

I didn’t feel like I had time to install windows into my hives (my bees could be here as early as next weekend), so I’m going to have to make do without.  Perhaps the next set of hives that I make will have them.

While out in the yurt, I found a bag of beeswax chips that I had purchased a few years ago.  I need a brick of beeswax to finish up the hives so the chips got melted down and poured into a soap mold.  I had nearly five pounds of organic wax just lying around.   I’m sure it’s more than I need.

It’s amazing when you have exactly what you need to finish a project on hand.   I’m pretty sure that’s just the universe letting me know, like always, that things are on the right path and that I should be happy.