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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Frame pattern: Jack painted this box |
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| 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.
