Drying Out

Thank you all for your concern over my poor nearly-drowned bees. However, it looks like everything is fine down at the hive. A couple of hot sunny days and the water is back down. It was a close call, and a lesson about our water table learned, but I certainly still have bees in the box!


I was checking on them this afternoon and saw a lot of activity down there. Probably more bees than I have ever seen outside at once. I'm not sure what they were up to. Some of the behavior I saw was a bit strange. There were at least six bees at the entrance fanning out pheromones. I'd never seen that before. Who were they trying to attract in? I didn't see any fighting at the gate, so I don't think they are being robbed. Well, I didn't see any chick-on-chick fighting any way. I did see one drone get beat out of the hive. He had a couple of workers on him kicking his but. But then the weirdest thing, they stopped and just left him alone on the door step. After that he walked in and out a couple of times like no big deal and eventually when in for good. I thought that was a bit strange. There he is on the door step. He's the fat guy with eyes that take up his whole head. 

I did see many bees coming in with pollen. That is a very encouraging sign because they bring the pollen in to make bee bread with to feed the larva. Larva means there are new bees on the way, and I think this hive is pretty small and could use the extra work force. That's why I closed the entrance down as small as I could. It gives them a smaller space and I know there are wax moths and small hive beetles about, so I need to give the girls an advantage against those pests. In fact, when I cleaned out the swarm's dead hive, I threw all of their mold comb into my trash. The next time I opened the lid a dozen or so wax moths flew out at my face. Ugh! 

Can you spot the bee with full pollen baskets?

Wax moths aren't the only pest that wants in to the hive. It looks like a raccoon or something tried to topple the boxes to get at the sweet stuff inside. Check out the paw prints on the side of the hive. I hope this would-be burglar got driven off with a bunch of stings to the kisser. And stay out! 

The exciting news is that tomorrow I will know what's going on inside of the hive as well as the outside. I know I've had this thing here over a week, and still haven't opened it up except to take the cover off and add a super! I won't lie I'm a little nervous too. Not really about the bees, but because I've never manipulated this type of hive before I'm scared to go in there and crush a bunch of bees. The last thing I need is ANOTHER dead queues. But, my mentor is coming by to go in there with me, help with the heavy lifting, and offer guidance. I am SO excited. As are the bees. Can't you tell by the look on their cute little faces? 

The gods of beekeeping are conspiring against me and Mother Nature is laughing.

Last night when the house was being rocked by the strength of the second mighty midwestern thunderstorm of the week I was not thinking about my bees. I was thinking about my babies and how long it would take for Smoochy and I to scoop them from our bed and dash down to the basement if the sirens started. And though I dreamed vividly about seeing tornadoes swirl out our windows we all stayed safe in bed until morning. Well, if you consider 4:30 the morning rather than the night.


I didn't give the storm much more though until the sun started coming up. I looked out my window and my heart. stopped. beating.

This picture really fails to capture the essence of just how much water is out there. It is staggering. From my vantage point in the living room I thought the front entrance could be standing in water. So the kids and I threw on boots, I strapped Lola to my back and we ran out side to survey the damage.

Um... I think the bees might be OK. I did see one or two fling around.  I'm just lucky the platform didn't slide all the way off the cinderblocks. But it may still be slipping.... This sucks.

4th Time's the Charm!

Good morning! It's a bee-uti-ful day over here at my apiary! Yes folks, I am back in business! I didn't write about it because it just made me too sad to think much about, but my third colony of the season died while I was in NY visiting my Grandma. I knew they were queenless when I left, it's no surprise that the scorching July heat finished the remaining bees off. When I returned home the hive was empty except for moldy comb and at least one small hive beetle larva. Yuck. 


However, the universe provides, and this weekend I learned that there was a local 2nd-year beekeeper selling her bees and equipment on the cheap. After a succession of stings she was having stronger and stronger reactions, and thought it was best to quit while she was ahead and before anaphylactic shock... Her bummer is my good fortune, as I now have a fully established colony buzzing away in my back yard. Well, I hope they are buzzing.

The new hive! The queen has been christened Deborah, which as it turns out means honeybee in Hebrew.

Admittedly, the former owner didn't pay a ton of attention to these bees this year. They swarmed in June, she hasn't inspected them in over a month, and she never got around to adding the super (extra honey storage) that they probably needed at least two weeks ago. Whatever, the price was right and it is a new lease on life for my beekeeping adventure. Truth is I didn't do my do-diligence either. I didn't inspect the hive before making the purchase. Does buying used beekeeping equipment fly in the face of prudent beekeeping practices. Um, yea. However, I figured a few things:


Firstly, it was a good deal for all the equipment even without the bees.


Assuming that the hive has a laying queen, I would have bought them regardless of 90% of the possible problems the hive might have. (The only deal breaker would have been AFB- a rare & nasty disease that necessitates burning all the equipment infected.) Anything else I would have taken on and tried to remedy.


And lastly, inspecting stresses the hive, and I rationalized that moving them would be stressful enough. Throw in the fact that to go inspect the hive someone would have watched the kids and Smoochy and I had a busy weekend, and it just wasn't going to happen. Oh well. 


Part of me is pretty nervous to manipulate a Langstroth hive. (Which is what this new one is.) I've never even seen it done in person. My only experience is with top bar hives. But, I suppose if I just go slow and steady it will all be fine. What's the worst thing that could happen? Oh yea. I could drop and dump and entire box of bees, brood, and honey. And let me tell you, those boxes are HEAVY!

Let me also tell you that my hubby  is awesome beyond description. Not only is he strong enough to move said bees, but he is brave enough to do it in the dark. To relocate bees you wait until sunset when all the foragers are home from a hard day's work. Then you plug up the 

entrance, strap the boxes together, and away you go. We made it home long enough after sunset that there was no light left to aid Smoochy in the hive set-up. After getting the kids settled we walked the bees down to their new home with only a flashlight and steady stream of curse words to see the bees on the final leg of their journey. Smoochy held the boxes, I held the flashlight. There was an unspoken understanding that if he slipped and fell, it was every man for himself.

Imagine stepping down this path caring 100+ pounds of bees in the dark!

These bees have a different location on our property than their predecessors. For a variety of reasons, we choose a more open area by the pond. The benefits are obvious: More sunlight (hopefully), easier access, and visibility from the house (which is purely a factor in satisfaction). I can't keep my eyes off the hive this morning. I've set up camp by the living room window to watch the girls leave for work for the day. I hope they don't get lost in their new neighborhood. I've already been down there to check on them twice. At 7:00 a.m. there wasn't much going on. The sleepy-heads were still in bed, except for a few early risers getting their bearings. I expect I'll be popping down there often today just to watch them come and go. Perhaps I'll post picture updates as they settle in and go about their business. I bet you are as excited as I am faithful readers!!!

7 a.m.

8 a.m.

Reminder

This post will hopefully serve as a reminder of two things. #1: Never go out to my bee yard without my camera. And #2: Never go out without a hat. I have long hair, and bees can get amazingly tangles in it. It would also help to remember that flipping the hair around does not free said trapped be, but merely ensnares it more. I'm lucky I didn't get a stinger to the scalp. Although, I can tell I'm getting much more comfortable with the bees because never once did the bee in my hair cause me any heightened blood pressure. I simply went about my business with it's buzzing in my ear, and eventually it figured out a means of escape, and flew off. Sweet.


So I've already been out to check on the hives twice today. The first time was just after sunrise, say 7-ish and everyone was still sleeping. Now it's 11:30 and thing are a buzzing at the entrances. Well, one entrance anyway. The new swarm is coming and going like crazy. I didn't see any pollen on their legs, but I was only out there about five minutes. (The kids were in the house reading books.) The older hive looked deserted. I go it a bad feeling in my tummy as I stood there and only saw one bee return to the hive in the same amount of time I saw about 30 bees come and go at the other. Oh crap.


Today is the first good weather day in a a few so I had planned on suiting up, lighting the smoker, and doing a thorough inspection of the older hive when I got all the kids asleep. But, Lola has been taking a killer morning nap, and I didn't think I'd get another chance to go out there. I figured I might as well just take a little peek inside and see what I could see. That's when I got the bee in the hair.


Sadly, there wasn't much to look at. Most of the comb in there that had last been filled with bees and nectar looked empty and abandoned. All the bees that were in there we between two combs guarding a queen cell. Oh frick. Regina Apis is dead. I didn't get to see if they had anything to eat or if there was any capped brood (which would indicate reinforcements will soon be born to bolster their flagging numbers.) There were not very many bees in there at all... a couple hundred at the most. I hope there is an army out foraging, because the home fires are dwindling.


As far as I can tell, I have two options at this point. Let nature run it's course and see if they can hatch a new queen. She would have to successfully take her mating flight and make it back to the hive before she could even begin to lay. If Regina Apis died on Mother's Day May 8th and they made the Queen cell on May 9th there wouldn't be a chance of new eggs till May 30th or June 1st. It takes a little more than two weeks for a virgin queen to emerge from her cell and about another week for her to take her mating flights. I'm not sure there are enough bees left to hold out that long. (I could order a new queen through the mail, but I'm ruling that out because of the tiny population of the hive.)


The only other option I see is to destroy the queen cell and combine the hives. The swarm sure could use the comb any any stores from Regina's colony. Plus, it was a small swarm to begin with, and some more bees would help them I think. Then of course, the other bees sure could use a queen. I'm just not sure how to do it. If I moves the comb and the bees on the comb to the other hive would the bees out foraging be able to find their relocated sister? I have some research to do...

The Queen is Dead; Long Live the Queen!

Well, it's heartbreaking to have to share this with you, but, one of my hives is dead. Not just a little dead, but dead as a door-nail; dead as a zombie before resurrection; dead as Elvis without the sightings. Just dead. There are several factors that played into the demise of the bees. I think the biggest factor was the double layers of screen at the bottom of the hives that trapped countless girls right at the start severely crippling their build up. Then there was the cross comb issue. Did I write about that before? In brief, the situation was that the bees didn't seem to like the guides we built along the bars for them to follow and were building their combs perpendicular to the bars. This made it completely impossible to inspect the hive or manipulate the bars without breaking the comb from the bars. And here's were rubber meets the road: Am I beekeeper for the bees or the honey?


The solution, from the perspective of a beekeeper with hopes of someday harvesting honey or just being able to manage the hive at all, was to cut the comb out of the hive and rig it to the bars. However, my poor bees were already so depleted in numbers, and this procedure would likely result in the lives lost of both some bees and their brood. (Eggs and larva could be damaged by handling the combs or not putting them back in the right order. The bees use body heat to keep the brood at the exact right temperature and it has been an often chilly and rainy month). Part of me thought if these bees were to have a chance of survival at all it might be best just to give the hives to the universe, and give up any aspiration of managing them. 

Hair clips and pipe cleaners to reattach the comb to the bars

But, the part of me who liked the idea of just walking away was the part of me who had been stung repeatedly and was chicken-shit. The bigger part of me felt that I owed it to myself to get back on the horse and go out there and deal with my hives, gosh darn it. I had invested too much time, not to mention money just to be like, "Oh well, maybe next year." So, what did I do? 


I had courage delivered to me in a box:


A Badass Bee Suit. (Pictures of me geared up to follow) ;-) 


After the suit arrived, the next thing I did was enlist the help of my husband. Actually, he offered. I had been tormented and obsessed with the plight of my bees for several weeks, and I think he was eager to help me move on. Beekeeping is probably the first real challenge I've undertaken since natural childbirth, and I was really struggling when things didn't simply fall in to place. 


So, on Mother's Day, he dressed in a sweatshirt, kitchen gloves, and my old veil; armed himself with several different choices of knives and told me:


 "I'm going out there with you. But, I am going to do this so I can't get mad at you if I get the crap stung out of me. You're going to assist." Then we capitalized on nap time and went out to the hives to tackle the cross comb. I won' lie, even with my superwamidine bee suit, I was still incredibly nervous, and relieved that I could ride shotgun on this one. Once we got out there, my fears melted away pretty quickly. I don't know if it was the smoke or what, but the bees were as gentle as kittens. It was a fairly quick operation, and though there were a few glitches we both made it back to the house without a sting. The combs were all cut and rehung, and we didn't feel like there were too many squashed bees in the process. We both walked away from my bee-yard on a high. I felt like if we could break into the hives, cut apart all their hard work, and exit the situation without making the bees irritated, than I could do ANYTHING with these hives that needed to be done. I got my confidence back, and that was the best Mother's Day present possible. 


Well, we may have FELT like there weren't too many squashed bees, but there was at least one bee lost that day. Her majesty Queen Eleanor of Apiculture didn't survive the ordeal. I wen't out to the hives a little over a week later to check out the sugar syrup and made a very sad discovery... my 42 inch hive only had about twenty very sad bees in it clustered around a queen cell. This means a couple of things. First, that there HAD been a queen and that they had noticed her death very quickly. There must have been some very new eggs (three days old or less) laid in the hive when they realized they were queenless, and the bees built special queen cells for these eggs in the hopes of raising an new queen to replace the one we killed. Poor bees. Can you spot the queen cell? It's on the right with a worker on it. It kinda looks like some kind of jet puffed cereal. 

It was hard to pack up that hive and know that a mere month ago they came into my care 10,000 strong and in no time at all my choices had wiped this colony out of existence. I know it sounds a little melodramatic... But Mother Nature really gave me something to think about here. And yet... Perhaps unfortunately for honey bees everywhere this experience has not derailed my ambitions as a beekeeper. In fact, I have learned so much over the course of this month that I am more fired-up than ever to figure this out an succeed at beekeeping. 

Apparently the universe isn't against me continuing on as a beekeeper because I had the answer to my sad empty hive appear out of the clear blue sky, literally. This is what a fellow mom spotted at the park yesterday:

I was chilling with my babes on a blanket with a good friend (Kate, a fellow beekeeper) and her kids when my friend overheard a lady talking about a nearby bee swarm and jumped into the conversation. The woman  approached and warned us that there was a swarm of bees in a nearby tree, and we might want to keep our kids away. The two of us however, were so excited that we sprang up with our gaggle of kids in-tow to get a better look. 


We had been told that "The City" had been called and someone would be out to "take care" of the bees shortly. My first thought was really that I didn't want them exterminated. My second thought was that it would definitely be cool to have those bees take up residence in my empty hive. Luckily I knew just who to call. I've written about Tony before. He's pretty much my honey bee hero. I tried to play it cool waiting the the 20 or 30 minutes it took him to finish up what he was doing and head out to the park. I am so grateful to the friends I was with, because they totally watched my backward slide-climbing children while I hovered under the swarm with Lola making sure no one came to steal or kill them. I was so excited I was practically jumping out of my skin. 


Tony got there in no time, and totally made swarm catching look like a day at the park. Oh wait, it WAS a day at the park. He basically used a five gallon bucket at the end of a long pole and scooped the bees out of the tree and into the bucket with one swift and forceful swoosh. When he did, more than half the swarm was successfully caught. Many filled the air, and a more stayed clustered on the branch... He assumed the queen was still in the tree by the way the bees reclustered. One of the coolest things was to see some of the bees in the bucket crawl up to the lip and start fanning their wings to send their sent out onto the wind so that the other bees could find them. After a few minutes most of the bees in the air flew back to the branch and settled down. Tony used a step ladder and a pair of borrowed snips (Kate, just happened to have her gardening tools in her van after a trip to the community garden!!!) and snipped off the branch and added the remaining bees along with the branch to the bucket- It. Was. SO. Cool. 

Crappy pictures taken with my phone.

By then, my kids had been at the park WAY longer than we anticipated. All three of them had pink cheeks and were over-due for a nap. It was time to get them home. Tony stayed at the park for about for a while, giving the straggling bees time to find their sisters and make their way to the bucket. It was great though because, by the time Tony delivered the bees to my hours the kids had been fed and washed up and were on their way to naps. I could focus on the bees!

While at the park I had been excitedly trying to get a hold of my hard-working husband. I called several times and finally sent him and email that read, "CALL ME!!!!! (everyone is fine)." You see, though I had new bees, the hives hadn't yet been rehabed and I neeeeeeded him to come home and put a new bottom on my hive. You see, as soon as we had dead bees caught between the screen bottoms we ripped the outer layer of screen off. We assumed that the bead bees that were trapped between would simply fall to the bottom. But, they did not. When the outer layer of screen was removed their decaying and sticky little bodies remained trapped right where they were. I tried to poke them off with a stick from the outside with limited success, and their shear number made this impractical. So, in the end we simply ripped that screen off as well, leaving the bottom of the hives totally open. Before I could introduce my swarm to their new top bar hive, we had to get a bottom on there to keep them home!

You want to know how much my husband loves me. He came home from work. To put bottoms on both my hives. I pretty much think he is the coolest man alive. (And I'm glad he has such a flexible work schedule.)  It didn't take him long to measure and cut some proper sized boards to fit the bottom of the hive, and soon he and I were ready to attach them. Obviously, it was easy to attach the board without bees in it. (Except that the board, taken from our old balcony, was warped and there were a few touch-and-go moments when we thought it wouldn't go on.) Next we had to screw on the board to the hive with the bees still in it.... It was OK.

We tried to keep as many of them in the hive as we could by closing up their entrance, but because of the way the bottom board fit with the hive body there was still a pretty big gap that the bees could come and go through, right where I was crouching. About twenty or thirty (maybe it was ten) irritated guard bees came out to see what the heck all the commotion was. I was wearing jeans and a tank top, and I felt the breeze from their wings on my neck, some landed on my shoulders, and one crawled around my hand. I. Did. Not. Move. I breathed away from them. A millennia of fending off mice, raccoons, and bears has made bees defensive upon contact with a hot steamy stream of CO2. And you know what? That old adage is true: If you leave the bees alone, they will leave you alone! Even though we were drilling into their hive... no stings! My confidence grows.

Now came the moment of truth: Getting this bucket of bees into their new home. I suited up and walked the bees out to the hive practicing diaphragmatic breathing. Over and over I mentally replayed the instructions Tony had talked me through: Bonk the bucket on the ground to knock the bees down to the bottom. Undo the bungee cord and remove screen, grab the branch and tap firmly on the side of the hive so ALL the bees fall from the branch into the hive. Then double check that the branch is bee-free (the queen was likely there). Next, dump the remaining bees from the bucket into the hive; quickly replace all bars and cover. The end. And that is exactly what I did. I took a deep breath and just did it. I knocked that bucket with such authority that all the bees fell to the bottom stunned and hardly any took to the air as I whacked the few still on the branch in to the hive. They poured out of the bucket like water and fell in a heap at the bottom of the hive staring up at me like, "WTF, man?" A couple buzzed around as I replaced the bars, but the hardest part was putting my heavy and unwieldy 48" gabled cover back on the hive! I did it and let out a whoop that they could probably hear in Kansas!

I did it! I did it! I did it!

I wanted to spend the rest of the afternoon out there sitting and watching the bees... but of course my motherly duty called me away. Today however, as soon as Lola was napping the big kids and I went out to see how everyone was settling in. Jacob stayed down by the tire swing, but my excited little Georgia wanted to visit the bees so up we went. Everything looked great!

One of the things I like about beekeeping is how it is a little bit like playing detective. You don't actually have to take the hive all apart to tell some of what's going on in there. Take for example this next picture.

What you are looking at is the entrance to the hive where the swarm is now living. (Can anyone think of a renegade queen to name the new matriarch after? Bloody Bee Mary?) Tony suggested that I wanted to close up all entrances of the hive to at least a quarter inch, so the workers could come and go but the queen had to stay home. He gave me this little bit from a queen excluder and Smoochy stapled it over their only entrance. You can see two workers coming and going. That is AWESOME because it means the queen is in there and they are getting to work. If their were no bees coming or going, it would be a pretty clear indication that I did not get the queen in the hive because the swarm would have vacated, found her and moved on. Cool, huh? This big fat guy you see hanging on the outside is an unlucky drone who wants in fro some free lunch but is too big to fit through the gate. Lucky for him, any hive will take his lazy ass in; hopefully he find his way over to Regina Apis' place before he starves.

A few other pictures to show you the bottoms we put on the hive. They make me very happy.

The swarm house

Notice the little strip tacked on to cover the gap? SOme day I'll be able to take that off and the bees can use it as an entrance. It will also allow me to easily slide in a sticky board to catch an monitor for mites! I'm so happy about it!!!

Regina Apis' House

Notice the gap? The bees love it for an entrance.

 It's official: I feel like a real beekeeper. 

What are they doing out there???

Well, there are certainty still bees out there despite all my unintentional attempts to sabotage their existence. These bees are truly a testament to the resilience of life. Go bees! But what on Earth are they doing out there? I didn't expect there to be quite so much activity OUTSIDE the hive. Every time I get a chance (3 napping children is no small feat) I pull on my boots and take a walk down to my apiary! Yesterday the clouds parted just long enough (literally and metaphorically) for me to visit my bees... from a distance.

As soon as I got close enough, I could hear the buzz and see the clouds of bees zooming around each hive. I hunkered down and just watched. I stayed out there as long as I dared... 15 minutes? But, as long as I watched I couldn't make out any obvious pattern. The girls didn't look to be coming or going. They were just flying around. To me, they looked without objective. Could they be queenless? I haven't been up in there business enough to figure that out yet. (Too chicken)

Could it have just been that it was the first time all day the sun was out and the wind and rain had died down so they were doing orientation flights? Getting out of the house for the first time that day? (Orientation flights are when bees fly patterns in front of the hive to learn landmarks memorize where home is.) 

This hive is my 36-incher where (if she's alive) Regina Apis rules supreem. They have decided to use the entrance I intended them to use. Good girls.

The other hive has ideas of their own.

This is the bottom of my 48 inch hive where Eleanor of Apiculture was hived. These gals have decided it is far easier to fly in and out through the holes in the farmers cloth under the hive. A few days ago I had Smoochy go out an rip off the outer layer of screen so more bees wouldn't get trapped while I puzzle out a long term solution to a bottom board. I thought all the dead bees would just fall out when he took the screen off, but most of them stayed right where they were. YUCK. I have seen some alive bees fly around and land on the bottoms of their dead comrades, as though they are almost trying to pull them off the hive. I wonder if they are trying to clean up the carnage?


And what's up with the bees congregating ON the hive?

 I never expected they would just hang out on the outside of the hive. These girls looked like they were feeding each other and telling secrets. 

I'm utterly captivated by the mysterious life of my bees. As soon as I can muster the courage I am going to put on my big girl panties and take a look at what's going on under the hood out there. But, for now, I'm pretty happy just to watch from a few feet away. 

(Mis)Adventures in Beekeeping Part II

When I was 36 hours into Normy's labor and asking to be taken to the hospital for my epidural Smoochy told me, "Just because this is harder than you think it is doesn't mean you can't do it." Those words changed my life, and have become a mantra I repeat to myself when things gets sticky. When I went on to push my son triumphantly into the world 8 hours later I knew what Smoochy had told me was true. Now I believe I can accomplish ANYTHING with enough stamina and hard work... But, I have been repeating the mantra a lot this week.


I wanted Part II of my beekeeping adventure tale to be a cheerful retelling of the day I hived the bees along with a status update of their life in the hive that featured sunshine, rainbows, and of course the promise of honey. Instead the news from Becca's Sunshine Apiary is slightly more realistic, a whole lot more humble, and a little bit grim. The girls aren't doing so well. And really, most of it is my fault.


I have to go back to the moment just before I vigorously shook my first three pounds of bees in to their new home. Well, that was what was SUPPOSED to happen anyway. The reality was more like I just shook them around in the box. When they finally got their bearings they flew out and started sticking their stingers into the jackass who had just treated them like a can of new paint in a mixing machine. Actually, I wasn't the only one.  Smoochy took a hit in the dead center of the back of his neck, but he got some great pictures.  I wasn't expecting to get stung. I had seen all these YouTube videos of these beekeepers with neither gloves nor veil deftly introducing bees to their hive with the calm of a Zen Master sitting on a mountain. Let's just say I had unrealistic expectations. I'm sure I let loose a high-pitched Oooooooh-Nooo! the first few stingers to pierce through my skin-tight jeans and billowy white blouse. But, I held it together and as quickly as humanly possible set up shop. I was suddenly a lot more grateful that Smoochy caught that my fly was down BEFORE I attempted to hive the girls. The trouble was there was still one more package to do.

The bees circled my head madly, and followed me over the few feet to stand in front of the second hive that still needed to be dealt with. I don't know if any of you have ever experienced having your nipples pierced, but I'm here to tell you that the second one is a lot worse than the first because you know what's coming. Plus, you also know there is no way to get out of it without looking really really silly...

Here I am getting the crap stung out of me.

So, I muddled through. I was so shaken from the first incident that I attached my queen cage horribly to the bar. This forced me to leave out the second bar that should have snuggly fit next to the one the cage was suspended from. This also left a huge gap to the outside world and the cold rainy April elements were able to blast right in on my poor bees. But, I wanted to get out of there so badly that I didn't take time to think about what I could have done to fix it. As it was, I had to walk around our property forever to finally get the angry mob of bees to quit chasing me... or die on me with their stingers ripped from their butts.


It wasn't until after I had slurped down a rum and coke and had a moment to reflect that I realized I had made another bone-head move. Instead of putting the queen in the center of the hive body with plenty of room for the bees to cluster around her cage and keep her warm, I had suspended her from the bar closest to the entrance. Frick. Not good.

This was the properly attached queen cage. The second was a little wonky! Smoochy took this shot right before I banged, shook, and dumped the first package. I remember feeling confident and exhilarated. Hope to get that feeling back soon...

Then, to add to the problem, it was cold and rainy, and cold and rainy, and cold and rainy for days on end. Not good weather for bees.


Three days later I finally went out to check on the girls and made yet another horrible discovery. The bottom of the hive was constructed with two different sheets of farmers cloth layered over each other. The inside sheet (the first we installed) had bigger holes. Turns out those holes are too big to keep out pests (like small hive beetles and wax moths). Instead of ripping that sheet off and starting again, we just layered the cloth with smaller holes over it from the bottom. I never could have imagined that the bees would try to crawl through the bigger holes in the first layer of cloth and get trapped by the second. But they did. My heart sank and my stomach hurt when I saw the layer of dead bees sandwiched between the two sheets. 


I have to say, at this point I was a little shaken. I got on the phone with the main organizer and chairman of the Omaha Bee Club, bee doctor, and bee-friendly pest management guru, Tony Sandoval, AKA Big Bear. This guys rocks. I think he could sense the fear and distress in my voice when he talked with me about what I was going to need to do to start fixing the situation out at my hives. I had never even lit my smoker before, and after my fist run-in with angry bees I was a little too on the scared-shittless side to go out there and start messing around. Tony offered to come over right then and help me open things up and take a look around. My hero. He told me, "That's what the Bee Club is all about. Bee people helping bee people." 


Having someone that experienced come over and walk me through opening up the hives was just what I needed. When we got out there all was not lost. There were lots of dead bees, sure. But, lots of alive ones too, all clustered together to keep warm. Tony helped me move the queen cage of the first hive over where it needed to be. On the second hive (the one with the wonkily attached cage) we discovered that the queen had been released, so we could close that one back up tighter than I had left it initially and things were good. It was a huge sigh of relief to be out there and not get stung, and to see Tony work without any protective gear at all and not get stung either. But, the best part of the experience was observing the slow, gentle, and steady way he manipulated the bars and the bees. It was masterful and I learned so much. 


Since then I have been out to visit a friend's bees once and my own just last Sunday. I have a residual phobia of getting stung that I really need to work through. I'm seriously considering buying a full bee suit, because a calm confident beekeeper will always be more successful than a spastic freaked-out one.  But, the adventure has begun. I'm not sure how this first chapter will end. Frankly, I don't think my hives are very healthy right now, but I'll save that story for next time. The thing is: I'm in it to win it, so to speak. I am not giving up. Even if these hives crash and burn (poor tortured bees!) I will start again and take everything I've learned from this experience and do better next time. 


The good new is, there are defiantly bees in both my boxes. I was just out there watching the field bees come and go which was a promising sight.  I'm not sure that they have queens, or are building comb... but they are out there and working the yard. On Easter while we were out egg hunting I saw quite a few girls I'm sure were mine. ;-) We have been seeing honey bees in the creeping charlie on our property and the last time I opened the hives up I saw bees with lovely bright yellow clumps suck to their hind legs... in their pollen baskets! Life goes on. 

How I Know

Every time I look out my window at the hives on the hill, I know my husband loves me.

It is a special man who works so hard to make his wife's dreams come true.

Thanks you, Smoochy for always being my partner.

Adventures in Beekeeping Part I

I started writing this last night, and though I haven't completed the tale, I feel as though I should at least get started with it. So...


Well, Becca's Hard Knocks School of Beekeeping is now in session. After hours of research and reading, reams of plans, and a bit of day dreaming it has begun. I wish I could express to you just HOW MUCH of our lives the last few weeks have revolved around the arrival of the bees. My husband has taken time off from work to build hives. In fact, he's spent ALL of his free time on the project for weeks. The kids have missed him. I too have spent every second of free-time I could (or couldn't) scrounge to make this whole show go off today (Yesterday). Smoochy and I have been bouncing ideas off one another on how to make each little detail work... and there have been a surprising number of details to tweak. Hive ventilation, top bar guides, hive covers, screen bottom boards, bee feeding apparatus... It's enough to make your head swim.

Then there was the day of the bees' arrival. A grey cold day. Steady constant rain. North west winds averaging 35 miles per hour and a chilly 33 degree low... NOT the best day to introduce the girls to their new home. Here's the thing with bees. Packages of bees are typically raised in nice warm places like California or South Carolina where winter is something friends from the North mention, but really remains abstract. Once the bees are caged and trucked to their final destination they have been confined for several days...3... 4... more? And it is time to get them into their new home as quickly as possible. Every extra day they stay in their box is another day of stress and diminishing food supply. I don't know exactly how long my bees were caged up, but I know the can of sugar syrup they had to snack on was almost empty... and they were pissed off about it.


The day they lived in my basement waiting for the rain to stop was a day of anticipation and joy for me. Strike that. It was not joyful... I was totally stressed that I couldn't hive the bees immediately. I kept hoping against all hope that the clouds would magically part. Why it had never occurred to me that there could be bad weather in the beginning of April that might complicate our beekeeping plans surprises me now. Regardless, the kids and I would go down into the basement and listen to the buzz the bees made in the dark compared to the super-sonic buzz they made when we flipped on the lights. The change in tone would have shocked you. Each time we visited them (every four hours) we sprayed them down with sugar syrup to give them a little snack.  There were actually a couple of bees that clung on to the OUTSIDE of the packages. These poor girls wanted so bad to be inside with their sisters and the can of sugar syrup. At least one made it to the hives with the rest but the other found the plant starts under my grow-lights and died a sad lonely death.

Anyway, the day I was actually able to hive the bees dawned grey and WINDY. I was scared those poor girls would starve to death in my basement. So, just like a woman in early labor fiddling with her bags packed for the hospital I started dinking around with my bee-gear. Oh the bee gear! There has been no shortage of things for me to over-think with this project. It might have been different if I had decided to go with a standard Langstroth hive, but I opted for top bar hives, which still leave a lot of room experiment and personalization.


I have belabored each and every point of construction, much to the chagrin of my accommodating husband who has changed mid-stream with me as I have flip-flopped with each new beekeeping source I've read.


Like top bars: Which guide to use? OK, bees will build their lovely comb without any real help from us people. But, to keep them going in nice straight lines (which makes it easier for the beekeeper to remove the comb) it helps to give them a guide to work with. I thought at first I would have Smoochy cut bars with grooves to be filled with beeswax to serve that purpose. So he did. Then we decided that it would be better if they had a wood guide to work from, so he cut those same bars again. All would have been fine except the wood piece had a groove left over form the first cutting, and I found myself obsessing over this at 6:30 this morning, and filling that groove with beeswax despite myself. This was totally at the expense of all other activities, like making breakfast of diapering the baby. Hmmm.

before

after

Then there was how to feed the bees. (When you first get them started in the hives you need to help them along to make up for the fact that there aren't enough nectar and pollen producing plants blooming just yet.) I decided on inverted mason jars placed inside the hive as feeders, which is great. But, which way to punch the holes? If I do it from outside-in the bees (supposedly) are in danger of having their proboscises (tongues) ripped off. If the holes are made form the inside-out then they have something to grip on to but their heads could get wounded on the sharp metal.... Oh my god!

In the end I made some holes going in each direction. Now I just have to count whether I see more bees with scratched heads or missing tongues. 

I've heard it said, "The only right  way is what works for you and your bees." Great. That's helpful. I've also heard if you ask 100 beekeepers how to do something you'll get 100 different answers.


Like which flavor of mini-marshmellow should I stop the hole in the queen cage with??? OK, I didn't really agonize over that one. Everyone knows the bees like the lemon ones best. (The queens come separately in their own cage with a little cork baring her escape. When you introduce her to the hive you replace the cork with with a mini-marshmallow to hold her in, so that by the time the bees have eaten her out they have had enough time to smell the pheromones she gives off and accept her as their rightful ruler.)

Well, as I spent the morning fiddling with molten wax and top bars, Smoochy was finishing up the hives.  After spending hours building lovely gabled roofs for the hives, I decided they needed an inner cover to protect against heat seeping between the bars and up into the roof. So, at the last minute he was back out in the garage measuring, sawing, and swearing. He really does love me. Two o' clock in the afternoon rolled around, the sun was shining even if the wind was a little too breezy, and the hives still weren't 100% ready to go. My poor husband still needed to lug them over an acer away from the garage and up a 45 degree hill to their final resting place on the far side of the pond.

Yikes! Luckily fate smiled on us and we found ourselves with three sleeping children. I was able to help him lug cinderblocks, clear brush, and even chop down one last tree just for good measure. Each minute that ticked by I became more and more excited and nervous. How was the whole thing going to go? Would the wind pick-up before we could get the hives set up? Was I going to get stung? (Yes.) Was I prepared enough? (Um... No.)

Well, I hate to leave you hanging, but I'll have to get back to that later. This will have to be a two part series. I've already spent two days working on this and now it is bath time. See ya' soon!