Spring hasn't yet sprung

This past weekend I went out to see how the bees did over a very harsh winter. We had a number of days when the temps got way below freezing. I was worried that the ladies may have run out of food keeping warm or simply froze to death because of the cold. 

NEITHER HAPPENED! All five hives have so far survived. There was life at each hive. At 3 hives it looked there was still honey in the top super and plenty of bees. In 2 though the ball of bees looked like they were running out of stores and had reached the top. 

So, I went to bjs and bought a bunch of granulated sugar and went back to the hives the next morning. I put at least a pound of sugar under each outer cover just for insurance. Not much money in sugar and a huge benefit if the bees need that extra boost. 

I'm thinking that this will definitely help considering how it looks like it is going to take a while for spring to really get rolling up here. 

Next steps are getting the extra wooden ware to expand the apiary. Not sure how I'm gonna do that, maybe another trip to the airstrip in VT. 

More news on the expanding front. I am going to start 2 new hives at a place out in Guilford. I work at a vineyard and the owner has a large property with fruit trees and grapevines and he wants to keep bees but doesn't have the time. So he's going to pay me to get them going for him. I'm psyched because I get to do more beekeeping, but don't have to invest anything. It's an exciting time, 2014 will definitely be a good year for bees :) 

AWARD WINNING HONEY

Great news! I put a bottle of my summer honey and one of my homebrew beers into the North Haven Fair and they both won 1st place in their categories. Also Jack entered the same honey in the Durham fair, which has many more entries and we won 3rd place. 

I even won 8 dollars from the North Haven fair! Next year I am entering all the fairs with my dark fall honey and whatever we get in the spring. Also next year the North Haven fair is going to have a light and dark beer category. So I have to get thinking and brewing so I can win both categories next year. 

That small white topped bottle is ours. Among other lesser honeys our's rises to the top.

Fall Honey Harvest

There has been a lot going on at the apiary as the season comes to a close. Here is a quick list of things I want to check in about:
-DIY mite wash jar
-Mite count
-Mite away strips
-Fall honey harvest

         
 Between blog posts I find myself learning so much about Bees. A few weeks ago I went to a CT beekeepers informative meeting over at Massaro's Community Farm in Woodbridge. There I learned a lot about mites and different ways to keep their levels down. The biggest take away for me was

Melt a screen in between

Then you melt the lids together

My completed mite wash jar

learning about 'the count.' This is your number of mites per 100 bees. The technique for getting this number is pretty simple. You have 2 options, the sugar method or the bee wash method. Each requires the use of a jar shaker that one must make in their basement with a soldering iron. Check out this link to another bee blog site where the guy really explains all the steps. His technique is a little better then mine, but check out my pics, I think it came out pretty good.
            You use this jar and some alcohol to get your number. I took a half cup of bees (which is approximately 300) and toss them in one jar and put on the lid. Then you put a few ounces of alcohol in the other jar, screw them together and shake. This unfortunately kills the bees but it also kills all the mites. (I think about like you have to give blood sometimes to check on your health)
            You filter the liquid through the screen and look at the liquid with no bees and count the mites. A count of more then 6 mites per 300 and the experts say you should treat. Anything less and IPM (Integrated pest management) techniques will be fine. This includes, regular sugar treatments (I am in the process of making a tool to make this easier - another post to follow), screened bottom boards, maybe drone brood frames, etc.
             So with my new handy dandy mite wash jar I went about getting my count. The three North Haven hives I tested gave me these numbers: 9, 11, and 14. For you non mathematicians out there, that is more 6. To say I was concerned is an understatement. I was almost panicked.
             After much thought and evaluation of my original Beekeeping tenants I decided that treating with as minor a treatment as possible would be best. I have heard from many beekeepers that the 'organic' or rather non treatment route is kind of a fool's errand and would not being much for the health of my hives. Also, looking back at my implementation of a proper IPM program, I realize my practices are more like PPB (piss poor beekeeping) rather then IPM. I don't have screened boards under 3/5 of my hives and I haven't done a sugar shake all year. So why let my hives die from Varroa destructor just because I want to be high and mighty about treatments?
               I decided to go with mite away strips, which do not penetrate the wax and are OK to use if there is honey in the hive. They are the least invasive but still do something to knock down the mite numbers so my hives can be strong for the winter.

               I put strips in all 5 hives, and when I went to the woodbridge hives I stumbled across an awesome problem. Both hives were LOADED with honey. There were 5 mediums all completely full of dark golden rod honey. So, I got a hold of the CT beekeeping club equipment and we went to town harvesting our fall catch. I left enough so all 5 hives have a full medium box of honey for the winter.
             We went about extracting the honey from the three full boxes, it was quite an adventure. Jack, Ryan, and I went out in the field with the wheel barrow and our fume board. It started to rain. We used a propane torch to warm up the fume board to maximize the fumage inside the hive. The mild smell of almond filled the apiary. The bees hate it, but I think it is kind of pleasent.

Bees don't like this thing.

              The fumes didn't do a great job, but I think it was because all of the bees were home because it was overcast and not too nice out. So the hive was kind of overcrowded. After we took the boxes off I took them down the path a bit and used the bee brush to knock off any stragglers. Amazingly no stings, even with the weather and all that brushing. :)

         We threw the honey in the back of the truck and we went for a ride. I took a little break in the middle of the day to hang out with my 2 favorite ladies, and then we got back together to extract the honey. 

     

          We used the same equipment again, rented stuff from the bee club. It worked great. The only problem was that we had TOO MUCH. The buckets we have won't allow us to filter the amount of honey we have. So I went to the local brew shop Luck and Levity ,downtown New Haven and got another food safe bucket to store the honey before we bottle it.                                                        The honey looks and tastes delicious, I am so proud of what my little ladies have accomplsihed in a season. I have lots of plans for the winter and the spring. (I haven't yet met a beekeeper without a plan) I am thinking that I will continue to involve more people in my apiary. Ryan wants to start a hive and Jack's buddy Matt wants to still be involved. My idea of having a kind of bee colony commune might actually be a real thing some day. 

               Enjoy a couple of quick videos of the honey flow on the day of extracting:

Trip to VT

Beautiful VT country side

Just an animal skin on the front porch

The places I have gone, and the people I have met while keeping bees has been the best part of this hobby. An awesome example of this was a trip that I took with my beekeeping partner Jack and our friend Ryan this past spring. 

A friend of Jack's family owns a farm in northern Vermont on which his son has started a wooden ware company, and now a rather large apiary. Their farm is about one square mile, and it is impressive. When you first pull in, it feels a bit like you are entering another world. A long ascending hill cutting through a dense forest. When you approach the farm, it is clear that this is a working farm. There were quite a few head of cattle fenced in, and what was rather striking was the large flat stretch of land with wind socks everywhere. Right in the middle of the farm there is an airport.

Lots of cattle

The owner of the farm is named Bob, he works as a big wig executive at a large financial institution in Manhattan. I guess he got tried of driving up to his retreat in VT from the city, so he bought himself a small plane and built an airport. Pretty cool if you ask me.

When we arrived we passed two large plane-hanger sized buildings, and we approached the house at the very top of the hill. Bob's son (affectionately called Guido) came cruising over in a pick up truck to give us the tour. Bob and Guido first showed us a hanger full of lumber. Since Bob purchased the farm they have been harvesting wood from all over their property and milling into usable pieces of lumber. The plan, as I understand it, is to eventually build a post and beam home with all the hard wood lumber they have in there. We are talking two feet by two feet beams that are probably 50 feet long. It was extraordinary.

Bob and Jack in the workshop

We then went to the next hanger where the wood shop is located. In this shop there must have been over $100,000 worth of wood working equipment. Along with the equipment there were parts of beehives everywhere. Pallets of unassembled boxes and frames. All of which are made with pine trees that were fell, and cut into lumber right there on the property. I felt a little bit like I was in heaven. I could have stayed there for days making boxes and experimenting with some ideas I have about feeders and landing boards.

Our tour continued with a quad ride around the property and a short hike to a scenic view. It was a beautiful cool spring afternoon. There is nothing like drinking a beer with a view like this.Yes, that is a bucket of beer with us.

Surveying the land

Oh yea! There was a donkey too

The whole trip felt kind of surreal. After our quad trip we grilled up some burgers made from meat butchered from their cows. A burger flipped with a small hatchet might have been the best tasting burger I have ever

"Guido" making the greatest burgers

had.

We left late in the afternoon with a trunk full of unassembled boxes and a promise for a return trip to help them out when they get bees. 

Later in the spring, Billy, the son of Bob who is running this operation purchased over a hundred nucleus hives from a beekeeper in Florida. He flew down there and drove a truck full of bees back to CT. Jack is going to return to the farm this weekend to help him do full inspections on all of the hives he installed. Which I think is around 80! When this family does something, they go big. I wish I could join them, however my wife is due any day now and leaving for any period of time would be a sketchy choice.

Uncle Dave SWINKIN! Also the collie patrol.

Another awesome part of the trip was a stop at Jack's uncle Dave's house in upstate New York. It was only about 30 minutes from the farm in VT, so we headed over there to spend the night. He was a great host, we ate dinner and sacked out until our drive home the next day. Dave is always an entertaining character, and you can count on him for having a great story to tell. We stayed up talking about bees and the renovations Dave wants to make on the house.

One thing to add about the stop at Dave's chateau was Ryan's ridiculous level of snoring. I posted a video because it was so extreme. If we had bees with us they would have swarmed to avoid his snoring.I don't know how his wife Lisa deals. I slept on the couch.

We had a fun productive trip and met some crazy survival guys up there in Vermont who I chose to keep out of the blog for fear of them finding out I posted their pictures or names on an official place like the internet. They were pretty serious, they had lots of camouflage clothing and chewing tobacco. Also the boxes we got were great for the nuc hives we bought from Gilman this spring. Things have really come together for the apiary.

Anyone looking at this blog and are interesting in purchasing any of this fine Vermont grown wooden ware, please message me and I can easily get you in contact with these guys.

Honey Harvest!

Some of the Honey Bear army

It has been a while since I have posted. I have so many things to share. I haven't been blogging because I have been so busy with work, and a pregnant wife. With all the stresses of the regular world I have continued to keep my apiary going the best that I can. I want to get some pictures out there about the harvest that I just finished bottling this evening.


A quick recap: over the winter I lost two of the three hives I had in the fall. It was a sad spring for me. One had too few bees and froze, the other didn't have enough food and starved. However the one hive that did survive was really strong. I split that hive by purchasing a mated queen from California and put her in charge of a few frames from that awesome survivor hive.

Sad frame of starved bees :(

I also purchased 3 more nucleus hives from Gilman. All of which are doing really well and are located at a farm that is close to my house. Which has been awesome and super fun. I will have to make a separate
post about all of the adventures I have had this spring already.Also, I had a crazy adventure at a farm in Vermont that I need to share with my bee blog.

A picture of a bee coming for a landing on one of the Gilman Nucs

The awesome thing at hand however is the harvest from that  survivor hive. I got a little over 5 gallons of honey. We rented an extractor and the accompanying equipment from our beekeeping club which was totally awesome. Actually, the club received a grant from the federal government to support local beekeeping to purchase this equipment and rent it out at a discounted rate. So all the equipment was only 25 BUCKS! What a deal.

The extractor

Cutting off the wax cappings with a hot knife

Anyway, we followed the procedure by cutting off the wax cappings and putting the frames in the extractor. We bought a few honey buckets to store the liquid gold, and we went to town. What we ended up with was a really light in color, rather dense honey, that tastes FANTASTIC. I know other beekeepers say this, but my honey is the best tasting honey in the world. I hope you enjoy some of the pictures and I promise more posts to come.

Liquid Gold

Maybe my next post will be an update on the baby that will be here any day now.

Installing the Nucs

 

June 18, 2012

So I have some catching up to do. The last few weeks have been kind of a whirl wind. The end of the school year means a ton of work. Also throw in a trip to Denver, a camping trip, mowing lawns, and starting an awesome pizza delivery job, this adds up to not a lot of extra time to update the bee blog. I love being busy. It makes me feel more like a bee.

Anyway, I think I will start by briefly giving you the story of the nuc pickup and install. Then in another post I will tell the epic story of my first Connecticut Beekeepers Association meeting. To give you a glimpse, that meeting cemented for me that beekeeping people are my kind of people. Also any doubt I had that this was something I would do for a long while is gone. 

Cool sugar sifter

SIDE TRACK STORY: I went to the flea market two weekends ago and came across this gem. I plan on using the sugar shake technique when I have to treat for varroa mite. The sugar shake is simply shaking confectioners sugar into the hive and letting the bees eat the sugar off each other. In the process they groom off a lot of the mites that are attached to their backs. So when I saw this cool sifter for 2 dollars and the company's name was "Bromwell's Bee" I couldn't leave it there. It now lives in my bee bucket.

On May 27 Jack and I drove out to Granby to pick up our nucleus hives. I woke up really early because Gilman, the guy we were buying from, told us we could be there as early as we wanted. I was at Jack's earlier then I would normally be awake on a weekend, and we were on our way. The whole ride we talked about our expectations of Gilman, what we were going to ask him, and all the details of installing the hives that day. We weren't sure what to expect from Gilman, because Jack had spoken with him many times on the bee forum and couldn't seem to get a read on whether he was a cool guy or just a cold guy. Either way we were really excited.

Awesome empty jar for the Honey Money

It took an hour plus to get to Gilman's place. When we pulled up we saw an old tree stump with a few bottles of honey with a little for sale sign. We knew we were in the right place. We pulled up the driveway and Gilman met us out front. He is short in stature with the dark features of a Mediterranean kind of guy. He spoke with a subtle accent and had a very welcoming attitude about himself. I was put right at ease, this was my kind of guy, balanced and happy. Even if we didn't know exactly what we were doing, this guy was an expert.

When I got out of Jack's truck and looked around, I thought, this is a unique guy. Just about his entire lawn is a vineyard. There were probably over a hundred grape plants around his house. After we traded pleasantries he told us to, "pull through the trees towards the chickens and then back up." Jack didn't hear him, or maybe he was just thrown at chickens being a landmark so he asked him to repeat it. Gilman repeated his instructions. It was kind of a silly moment, we all kind of laughed at how ridiculous the directions seemed. Certain that we had his directions down we drove into his backyard and pulled up towards a rather large chicken coop and backed up to a small bee yard with probably 30 or so nucleus boxes surrounded by a white electric fence.

Gilman unhooks the fence and I ask him about the strips of bacon that are tied to the electric fence. He said something to the effect that he wasn't trying to slowly cook the bacon or anything. (I have found that most bee people are pretty good at corny jokes) The bacon acts as bait to get bears to bite down on the fence to shock them enough to keep them from ripping up the hives for honey. Apparently a little shock on the body isn't quite enough to keep a full sized bear from getting to the honey hole.

We talked about different beekeeping practices while he lit up his smoker. I asked him about installing the nucs and he gave me some tips. We talked about breaking up the brood nest to try to promote the bees drawing out all the comb. He didn't object in a huge way so I felt pretty good about doing it. We also saw a small snake under the nuc we picked up. He or she was just trying to find a warm place to sleep. We loaded up the nucs and were on our way.

Do they look infected?

On the way home we stopped at a guys house, not that far from Gilman's place, to pick up some used equipment. Jack knows the guy through one of his fish club buddies. He was moving and didn't want to bring the empty hive bodies with him. He told us that two seasons in a row his hives were destroyed by bears and he didn't want to keep throwing money to make really expensive bear food. I guess he didn't get the bacon baited electric fence lesson from Gilman. So we grabbed the boxes from the guys front lawn and we were out of there. 

I have read lots of bad things about used equipment. Mainly that if there has ever been foulbrood inside one of them that the spores can last something like five years. So using equipment that could be contaminated is a big no no. The guy we got them from I don't know at all, which doesn't help. Also some of the boxes are pretty old. So I'm thinking that I might just end up tossing them. However the frugal part of my soul says make it work. Some guys say you can torch the inside with a propane torch and that will kill any possible spores. I think I'll wait to see if I will ever actually need them.

Neither of us had eaten breakfast and all the time we spent at Gilman's discussing bees, bears, and making wine (the reason he has so many grape vines) it was time for an early lunch break. We stopped at a five guys and feasted on some hot fries and red meat.

New deep hives before paint

When we got home we loaded the used equipment into the garage and picked up all the wooden ware and stand equipment for the new hives. This includes for each hive: a hive stand, screened bottom board, one deep hive body, ten plastic foundation frames, an inner cover, and an outer cover. We also bought a few cinder blocks and some 2x4s as a way to place the hives off the ground so the back of the truck was pretty full with all of our equipment.When we bought the equipment it wasn't treated at all, it was bare wood. So Jack and I spent a few hours covering every part that will be exposed with high quality latex exterior paint.

Jack in the middle of the install

We drove out to Acorn Hill, and the work began. The hardest part of the day was getting all the equipment through the field. We first carried the cinder blocks and then decided to drive across the field to cut our trip in half. In hindsight I wish we hadn't, because I don't think Phil the farm guy really appreciated it. There are still two tire tracks across the field from where we drove, it has been almost 5 weeks.

After the foundation stand was in place we brought the nucs up and cracked them open. At first the thing that struck me most was the difference in the color of the bees. The nucs are Carniolan bees which are a different kind of honeybee then the Italians I have in the package hive. The next thing that struck me was how dark the wooden frames had become from all the seasons of propolis being spewed all over them. They looked cool.

Frame pattern: Jack painted this box

Nuc frame loaded with
bee food

We pulled the frames to put them into their new home. The frames were loaded with brood in all stages as well as some capped honey and pollen. They looked awesome. I was kind of in awe and I hope some day my frames look this way. Installing the nucs was a lot easier then I thought. It was just a matter of taking out frames and putting them in a different box. We did however kind of break up the pattern they had already laid out. We placed the three frames with mostly brood together in the middle, however we took the ones with mostly food in them and put an empty frame between the center three and the outer empty frames. I think the picture does it justice, and also the wild difference between new and seasoned wooden frames.

We closed up the boxes and that was that. If you notice in the picture I added one thing to each hive. I always see guys on the internet and in most of the new bee books they tell you to put something on top of the hive to keep the lid from blowing off. At first I thought it was a bit cray because the outer cover is pretty heavy, however I just read a bee forum post about a guy who had hives for 5 years with no lid and went to his yard to find two of his hives with no top and a devastated colony because of a bad rainy stretch. I figured, hey whats the harm in throwing some old heavy patio bricks on each top. Also they have served as a nice place to lay the smoker. I have been a little neurotic about the smoker on the ground. (maybe it is my safety minded father-in-law's influence)

 

With a little work, some investor money, and time, Acorn Hill Apiaries went from a one hive establishment to three. I was really happy with the strength of the nucs as well as no stings for the day. I will get into some of the things I learned at the Connecticut beekeepers association meeting next time so please stay tuned.

Mothers Day Inspection

Sunday, May 13, 2012 Mother's Day inspection. I thought it fitting to see the queen on mother's day. I decided to run out to Acorn Hill to check on the ladies to see if it was time yet for the second medium. The forecast was calling for rain Monday and Tuesday, so I went for it, kind of on a whim. Melissa and I showed up after eating a nice breakfast with the in-laws and before a visit with my side of the family.

I lit the smoker, which I think would be much easier with a small butane torch. I will be on the look out for an inexpensive one. I smoked the bees and checked them out. I saw the queen right away and lots of really good evidence of successful life. One frame of really good looking capped brood another frame with some eggs and another with some capped and some larvae. All of which were an epic sight.

The end frames however have yet to drawn out. The last frames that are drawn out have been filled with sugar syrup. Now thinking back on it I think I should have done a little checker boarding with the empty frames. That is, move the empty frames in between some that have already been drawn out. There a total of five full frames drawn out and one side of two more frames. So that is only 6 frames. I figured I will wait until next weekend to add the next super.

Also I came across a little bit of burr comb. (honey comb growing where it shouldn't be) One section was clearly coming straight out of the frame almost perpendicular. Also there was what might have been a queen sticking out of another frame. This worries me a little, but my newbee eyes couldn't tell the difference between burr comb and a queen cell. Considering the bees still have room in the hive and the queen is laying just fine, I don't know why they would consider a queen cell. However maybe it is something I don't know about yet. My internet is down right now, so when I post this I will also post a picture of my mystery cell on the forum and see what the experts say.

Wish I had this sweet Ruler/ Sign to give me advice before I burned a hole in my pants :)

All in all another fun inspection. No stings, all smiles! :)