The queen is dead.

Well hello there! It's been quite a while since my last post, and a lot has happened.

The last time I checked in on the bees was on a cold Sunday afternoon in early November. The first snows of the season were starting to fall, and everything seemed in place for winter; there was plenty of honey stored up for the bees to feed on, the mouse guard/entrance wind reducer was in place, and the electric fence was all charged up. I removed the top feeders, and said good-bye to the hives for a few months as winter set in... and what a winter it was, filled with cold weather and hot toddy's.

With the bees doing there thing up at Louisa's my time was free to shovel snow, chop firewood (or watch Ben chop firewood) and learn the right phone numbers to call to get pipes unfroze in a hurry.

It wasn't until early March that Ben and I made the drive up to Louisa's (stethoscope in hand) to have a listen to the hives to see if they had made it through the worst of the winter. We listened to all sides of the hives with the stethoscope hoping to hear a buzz from the bees indicating that they were doing fine. We heard nothing. As if that wasn't bad enough, both mouse guards had been blown from the hives' entrances, greatly increasing the wind going into the hive. Things looked pretty grim.

A few days later Pete informed me that I was supposed to bang on the side of the hive to startle the bees into a buzz. Maybe all hope wasn't lost.

Fast-forward a few weeks... Nicole makes her way up to the hives, bangs on the side, and presto - loud buzzing from Queen Latifa's hive. One bee actually flew out to see what was going on! Unfortunately though there was no sign of life from Beeatrice's hive. Nicole returned a few days later to load the hive up w/ pollen patties - a late winter nutritional supplement to get the bees through until the sugar syrup feeding starts.

Finally, the time had come to move the hives to their permanant home in our very own backyard. With much help from Ben's Australian co-worker Ian, we first removed the dead hive and it's stand before preparing the live hive for transport the following morning. Back in Saugerties, we cemented the first stand in place, and celebrated with a mimosa or two. Nicole and I left early the next morning under the cover of darkness (when all of the bees are still inside the hive) to retrieve Queen Latifa and her crew. It was a stealthy mission - we backed the car right up to the hive, filled in the entrance with steel wool, duct taped it shut and lifted it into the car in about 90 seconds flat.

That was eight days ago. In those eight days the temperatures have really started to climb and there are many flowers in bloom, and judging by the amounts of pollen the bees are bringing back into the hive I'd say they couldn't be happier.

We cleaned out the dead hive yesterday in preparation for the arrival of a new pack of bees. It was quite a scene. I think the correct term would be carnage. They all  seemed to have died very suddenly, like frozen in place. It was kind of like some post-apocaliptic movie where everyone dies in place doing whatever chore they were in the middle of doing. Some were still in a cluster, some were stuck face first in the wax comb, as if they were retrieving honey. So weird. There was still about four full frames of honey left, so they Couldn't have starved to death. Or so I thought. After some more research I learned that bees can and will starve to death with honey supplies only inches away, if they are stressed or too cold. This kind of makes sense, as the wind reducer was blown from the hive, allowing tons of freezing and even sub-zero temperatures into the hive. Next year I will be a lot closer to the hives on a day by day basis, so something like this should not happen again.

I have a new pack of bees arriving on April 30. Hopefully if things go well with these bees, and Queen Latifa's crew continues to thrive, we should have a crop spring honey in a few months.

I guess the fact that one hive survived such a brutal winter means that I did something right, or as Louisa put it when I told her the news: "Boy, is that the definition of glass half full or what?"


a few pics:

The view from the hives at Louisa's as winter sets in.

Bunny tracks!

Warm dogs!

Carnage.

Dead bees on capped honey.

The death cluster.

Brutal.

Honey!

Wassup everybody?

It's been two months since my last post, but as I've learned in this beekeeping game, sometimes you gotta just sit back and wait. When I last posted, I had just added the honey supers and queen excluders. After a few weeks, I checked on them and was disappointed with the lack of activity in the honey supers. I did some research and learned that experienced beekeepers often refer to the queen excluders as "honey excluders" - due to the fact that most bees aren't comfortable passing through the thin metal grate, so I removed them. That coincided with a warm September and a great Golden Rod bloom that left much of the countryside awash in bright yellow.

Fast-forward three more weeks - and it was time to harvest the honey. After a myriad of email exchanges with Dick Johnson, the plan was taking shape. He told me to be at his house no later than 10 am on Saturday to pick up the honey extractor, as well as some other extracting tools. When I arrived, he had everything waiting for me in his driveway. Before sending me off he walked me through the process and told me what to expect. He said, "I'll stay close to my phone." Before the day was over I would call him 4 times.

The first step in the process was to simply open the hives and see if we did indeed have capped honey. After recruiting Ben as a partner we headed up to check the hives. Beeatrice's hive had thousands of bees congregating near the entrance, while Queen Latifa's hive had next to no action. It looked very strange. We actually thought they might have flown the coop! So, with Ben manning the smoker we opened Beeatrice's hive first and immediately saw capped honey. Lots of it! That was kind of the point where this whole experiment became real. Now we we're going to have to take the honey from the bees... very carefully. We applied a very smelly, all natural product called Bee-Quik to a felt lined lid to help clear out most of the bees. They hate the smell and it drives them deep into the hive. Once most of the bees were gone it was relatively easy to remove the frames, brush off any remaining bees and place the frames in an  empty honey super that was placed nearby. Erin's parents were visiting this weekend and her mom somehow got the job of manning the super that we were putting the frames into. She kept a towel over it to keep bees out. We removed six full frames from Beeatrice's hive leaving the remaining three frames for the bees to keep for winter. Next, we headed over to see what Queen Latifah had to offer. I opened the hive half expecting to see no action at all, but to my surprise when I opened it there were not only more bees in there, they had also produced more honey and were more aggressive. Who would've guessed? While we thought they had headed for the hills, they were actually inside their hives quietly working as hard as they could to produce honey. Like a bunch of nerdy kids who just stay quiet and do their work. As I said earlier, these bees were way more aggressive, so Ben had to work extra hard with the smoker to keep us from getting stung. We ended up taking seven full frames from that hive and made our way into the house for the extraction - with not a single sting!

Extracting honey for the first time is quite a learning experience, albeit a very fun one.  How do we get the wax cappings off of the cells? What do we do with the wax and all of the honey attached to them? How do we use this crazy honey extractor anyway? Exactly how many pots, pans, bowls, knives, spoons and spatulas we went through that day we'll probably never know, but here's how it went down: I would scrape the cappings off the cells, then deposit them into a strainer over a bowl to catch the honey caught in the caps. Once a frame was decapped on both sides, it went into the extractor. When two frames were in there, the lid was closed and Ben (and occasionally Erin's dad Mr. Callahan) would start spinning. We spun the first two frames for about 2 minutes and nothing came out, prompting me to call Dick Johnson to ask advice. He said spin each set for ten minutes. Ugh. He also said that once the frames were drained to put them back in in the super on top of the hive for the bees to clean out. That step would later prove to be a daunting task. So, we went back to spinning and after about ten minutes, there was a healthy amount of honey pooling up in the extractor. Midway into the second round of frames, Ben was having difficulty cranking the handle, so we opened the lid to find that about three inches of honey had accumulated at the bottom, preventing the mechanism from spinning properly, so we decided to drain it. We opened the spout at the bottom of the contraption, and honey with bits of wax in it started pouring out into a sieve (to catch the wax bits) that was over a big soup pot. That pot was quickly filled, and we continued on. Over the course of the next 4 hours or so, as Ben and I plowed away, the Callahan's rocked out quite a jam session that proved to be the perfect soundtrack for a honey extracting party as Miss Lucy kept a watchful eye (and tongue) on the all the action. We spun the remaining frames, strained out the wax chunks, and soon had about five gallons of honey running through a fine mesh bag to get out any remaining impurities.

After the cleanup, Ben and I (now covered in honey) had to go back up to the hives to put the frames back in the honey supers for the bees to lick clean. Beeatrice's hive went very smoothly, but when we got over to Queen Latifa's hive those quiet nerds we're now angry and aggressive. As I replaced the frames, Ben fought the bees back with the smoker as best he could, but in the end I was stung twice on the left forearm and once on the left ankle. It was kinda brutal, but we did it.

And then there was honey.

Check out some pics below:

You can see why I had little hope for honey from Queen Latifa's hive (in Background)

                                        

Getting started.

Brushing off some straggelers.

Ben on the smoker.

A full frame of capped honey fresh out of the hive.

Mrs. Callahan keeping the frames free of bees.

I never thought this day would come.

The frames waiting to be thrown in the extrapolater.

A close up of a fully capped frame of honey.

It got messy really quickly.

Scraping the wax off the cells.

Wax cappings.

Mr. Callahan at the helm. 

Lucy making sure no honey is left behind (this was after that frame was spun).

Ben tapping the keg so to speak.

Lucy on Quality Control duty.

This is how the honey comes out. Note the chunks of wax that are being strained.

The final straining is made through this fine mesh bag.

Filling a bottle.

Just the tip of the iceberg.

Show me the Honey!

Que Pasa Amigos?

We passed a big milestone this weekend; we added the honey supers. The honey supers are the third tier of the hive, and with the help of the queen excluder only the worker bees can enter them. Without the queen in there, there can be no eggs laid so the only thing that the bees can produce in there is honey. The will first draw out the comb foundation into proper honey comb, then start filling with honey. They will then fan the comb with their wings to evaporate the water level in the honey down to 14 -18% before capping it for long term storage. I hope my bees get it right!

Pete made his first appearance to the hives since the first week of May, and was astonished at how the bees have multiplied. At this point in the summer the hive is probably at it's peak as far as bee population. When we opened the first hive and began the inspection, I removed an end frame to make room to work in the hive, that frame was filled with capped honey, and it was shocking how heavy it was. All seemed well in the hive, and Pete was stung twice on the hand! The first stings really do hurt a ton, and you can see Pete's reaction below in the pic where he's running for the woods (as well as Ben's reaction to this). It seems that running for the woods is everyones reaction to the first sting; I did it and so did Nicole.

His reactions to the bees were very much how I reacted at the beginning of the season: approach the hives with a sense of excitement... open the hives and realize there are tens of thousands of bees in there... wonder aloud if this is worth it... get stung and decide it's not worth it... continue on anyway... get stung again and step back and seriously contemplate saying F••K it all... realize that even if you do decide that, the bees are still there... come to the realization that you're screwed either way so it's best to finish the inspection as planned... finish inspection, close up hives, and walk away realizing that it is all actually worth it. Pete was a great help though as the hives are getting very heavy. Oh - and he got stung a third time while inspecting the second hive!

So there's not much to do at this point except wait... wait and put up some barbed wire. On our way home we noticed a house with a huge bee yard in it, so we stopped. The owner's name was Burt, and he had 43 hives! He warned me that the electric fence I have will not stop a hungry bear, so it's best to make three rows of barbed wire around the hives asap. I can pretty much guarantee you this will not be accomplished without incident, so stay tuned!

The latest pics:

Inspecting hive A

We took too long and the smoker crapped out on us!

That's capped honey!

Pete running for the woods.

Bee stings are always a crowd pleaser.

A frame of nectar being turned into honey and capped.

Hive B entrance activity.

Hive A entrance congestion.

Both hives with honey supers.

NO MORE FREE RIDES!

Hola, amigos. How's by you?

I know its been a while since I rapped at ya', so here’s what’s up:

I went upstate on Tuesday to check on the hives, and see how the bees are doing on building out the second deeps. The quick answer is they’re doing great! There are a ton of flowers in bloom up there right now, and the girls seem to be taking full advantage, so I decided to halt the sugar syrup gravy train! It’s actually difficult to walk through the yard without stepping on bees as they are all over the clover flower that is covering a lot of the property. Also – the garden is really coming along and I think we have the bees to thanks for at least some of that.

Both hives are busting at the seams with bees, and both Queen Latifah and Bee-atrice are still laying eggs at a great rate. They have quickly drawn out the comb in the second deeps and are ready for the first honey supers to go on. When I put on the honey supers, I will also add on the Queen Excluder. This is a metal grate of sorts with a grid spacing which allows the worker bees through to make the honey, but is too narrow to let the larger queen through. Exciting stuff!

No stings this week, even though one of the bees got under my veil. I’m not sure how I dodged that bullet. On the last inspection, which I didn’t post an update for I got stung under the armpit, and Nicole got one on the foot while working in the garden that weekend, so they will be reflected in the sting counter this week.

Anyway, check out some of the pictures that I took on this last inspection. It’s not getting any easier to take photos while doing the solo inspection. I think I need an assistant!

Double deckers!

Because of the horrible weather upstate on Sunday (30 MPH winds, heavy rain and fog) I couldn't open the hives, so I did a quick trip up there yesterday to check on the bees, and everything seems to be going very well.

Beeatrice is still in the overall lead as her bees have already drawn out 3 frames of comb in the second deep, which is pretty good for the first week of June. This makes me feel like we have a good chance at some honey this season, but who knows. While inspecting the frames, I noticed that some of the worker bees seemed to be attached at the hind legs, which concerned me a bit. After a quick google search I learned that that is called "festooning" and it's the practice of interlocking their legs in a chain fashion to help them keep their place while drawing out comb so the comb is drawn out correctly. So crazy.

Queen Latifa is also producing very well. When I opened her hive, it was teeming with worker bees and her egg laying patterns look very solid. I added the second deep to her hive, so we'll check in again in a few weeks.

I also learned how difficult it is to take pictures of the bees with a veil and huge gloves on. Needless to say my camera got covered in sticky nectar.

Sorry I have no tales of massive beestings or bears tearing the hives to pieces this week, but stay tuned I'm sure all of that is just around the corner.

STUNG IN THE FACE!!!!

It's been an interesting few days... we had my mom up last weekend. After taking care of the usual weekend chores, which included a tumultuous relationship between Nicole and the weed wacker (think "I love you... you're perfect, now stop shooting all those pebbles in my eyes and on my shins"), we hit the road checking out the Hull-O Farm and a local flea market, where we bought a pretty rad see-saw top for $40, complete with scary 1950's clown faces painted on the seats.

We decided to save the hive opening for Sunday afternoon, and after making a few batches of sugar syrup we headed up to the hives. I was covered head to toe, nicole wore yoga pants and a t shirt, while my mom settled on a sundress, flip-flops, and beekeepers veil. Awesome!

We decided to use Dick Johnson's advice of using a sugar syrup spray to calm the bees instead of the smoker... this would prove disasterous. Nicole was my wing man, so to speak, and her duty was to spray the bees with sugar syrup to calm them so that I could inspect the frames. Well, the bees weren't calmed by the spray... worse yet, when Nicole saw that there was a fair amount of drowned bees in the top feeder she got upset. That (and the fact that my mom was snapping pictures) made me stressed and even though I told Nicole it's part of beekeeping, the tears were already flowing. Chaos was brewing!

On the first frame I noticed what appeared to be a supercedure cell- a cell in which the worker bees are grooming a new queen because they are unhappy with her egg production, which would inevitably end with some sort of queen on queen showdown. Now I'm freaking out! Nicole's crying, my mom (in her sundress and veil) is snapping pics, and I'm witnessing a bee revolt in the making. It felt like it was a hundred degrees out, and as the first drops of sweat drip from my face NICOLE GETS STUNG! Screaming, she goes running into the woods, my mom is following behind her and I am left alone to finish the inspection. It was all kind of a blur.

As we made our way home I felt kind of bad about the bees that had drowned in the syrup and wondered if this whole beekeeping thing was a really bad idea. Quickly I realized that I was in too deep, and there was no turning back now. I had to regroup.

After doing some research and an informative talk with DIck Johnson, I headed up again today to check on the bees (and water the garden in 95 degree heat). As I approached the hives I noticed dozens of bees standing at the hive entrance, feverously flapping there wings in order to circulate air through the hive to cool it down from the heat. It was pretty impressive. I started by re-reading how to use the smoker to calm the bees during the inspection, and it worked like a charm. The bees were calm and the inspection went very well. I was able to clean out the top feeders of all the drowned bees, and replenish them with fresh syrup. I determined that Hive A is ready for a second deep to be put on, as our Queen Bee-atrice has been hard at work filling frames with eggs. It turns out that what I believed to be a supercedure cell is likely just a drone cell (a new male bee), which is totally normal. As I finished up at the hives and was preparing to exit, I saw in the corner of my eye a bee that had made it's way under my veil. I shook my head and tried to open the bottom of the veil, but that just enraged her, so she stung me on the cheek. I ran into the house and pulled out the stinger in the bathroom mirror leaving it on the sink for Nicole to see this Friday.

By the way, the garden is doing great and a new couple has moved into one of our bird houses.

Hive alive!

Well folks, it's been a couple weeks since I hollered at ya, so here's the latest from the farmhouse:

It's been roughly three and a half weeks since the bees were released into the hives and now that the weather's warming and the blooms are becoming plentiful, the hives are thriving. The activity at the hives in the afternoon is intense with hundreds of bees flying in and out constantly. It's pretty bad-ass when the bees return to the hive with their hind legs weighed down with pollen and nectar. After a stupid move of opening the hive sans veil and gloves (during a beer break while installing the garden fence on Saturday) to check the sugar syrup level I was stung twice, once on the arm and once on the head... awesome!

On Sunday, Dick Johnson stopped by to watch over the hive inspection; which went very well. The bees are doing great! Both queens (still unnamed - any suggestions?) are laying a ton of eggs, and the first of the baby bees should be hatching from their cells this week. With that, the hive population is set to soar, and we should be adding the second deeps by memorial day. DJ also brought over some metal poles for me to use on the electric fence as he thinks the plastic ones won't really stop a bear.

In non-bee news, with a helping hand from a visiting Brendan Murphy, the garden is now fenced in and planted with carrots, radishes, kale, broccoli, garlic, peas, sunflowers, various lettuces and a rogue chili pepper plant. We should have everything in by early June. Also, Joe the Tiller made an always welcome guest appearance (this time with a truckload of firewood!), as did a new snake friend.