The season went well! Two out of our three hives survived, flourished even. The Carniolans completely disappeared at the last inspection we did of them. When I carcked open the hive, all I found was a couple of bees scraping the last drops of honey or bits of bee bread (a pollen-honey mixture that the bees use for protein storage), a couple of earwigs that quickly met their untimely demise, and a few wax moth larvae.
The last was the most depressing as they wreaked carnage upon some of the frames. The moth itself is a dark grey moth that looks pretty much like any other moth. It lays its eggs in bee hives, hoping the bees are too weak to fend off the moth and its larvae. Once the eggs hatch, the larvae eat their way through the wax leaving a path of destruction not disimilar to what a town looks like after a tornado crashes through it. The larvae spin a web-like substance that only heightens the effect as it's cast about through the wrecked comb.
A moth infestation (and even one larva can look like an infestation) is a sign of a weak hive...or nonexistent one in the case of the Carns. The moths are comparitavely large and easy to detect when they attempt to intrude into a hive. If the bees are in good spirits by being queenright and have a good population, a wax moth has not chance of getting in, much less laying eggs. The Carns lacked both of the above traits. The queen we purchased had a penchant for laying two eggs in a cell (often a sign of a drone laying worker), something that dooms both eggs as they won't have enough room to grow. It's impossible to tell why she did this. It could have been she never perfected the single egg drop (i.e., she was defective), or it could be that she was so stressed by a lack of workers that she was just shoving her abdomen in a cell and laying willy nilly. Or it could be something completely different. Either way, the Carns will be missed but we learned a lot from their time with us.
Next time we run into that problem--that a queen appears to be out of the picture--we know that we must act more quickly to get the hive requeened. We discovered over the summer a couple of ways to do this. One is to manipulate the frames by slicing off the bottom of a comb in a sort of jagged pattern to help induce the workers into creating queen cells (something that can be done in a queenright hive to breed extra queens on purpose). Another is to buy a queen quickly and get her introduced fast. Her pheremones, assuming she is accepted, will turn off the drone laying worker's or workers' reproductive organs. Thus, we could have prevented that kill off that I pereptrated in the early stages of our requeening attempts (see the "How Salvation Hurts" post from June).
What it came down to was a problem with PPB. This ailment doesn't infect the bees, but the beekeeper, which affects the bees. PPB is a curable ailment, requiring two things: the desire to be a good steward to the bees and a bit of knowledge. PPB is a beekeeper's affectionate term for being a lousy bee keeper: it stands for piss poor beekeeping. One could argue that John and I were just naive and unlearned brand new beekeepers. However, when it came to the kill-off, it didn't feel like a good idea at all and I should have decided against it. But at the time it was our only option, or seemed so. We didn't know that you could try to requeen it as is. We didn't think about adding them to the second Italian hive to boost their population and, therefore, production. For me, it all came down to not exhausting the research and knowledge base out there. That last is one of the simplest cures for PPB.
One last thing about the learning curve. Another thing that we learned is that going foundationless with deep supers has certain ramifications. On my last inspection of the hives about three weeks ago, both Italians were obviously doing very well. As normal, I started with the Sicilians to prevent too much aggression. Didn't work. They got pretty "in my face" pretty quickly. I swear they have African roots some days! (Look for a post about the recent arrival of Africanized honey bees in Georgia soon.) I pulled out a few frames of from the top super and they were loaded with honey. As they were getting mightily ticked off and I had seen enough to know they would do well over the winter, I buttoned them up and wished them well.
The first Italians were so docile initially that I started wondering if they had a a problem. but as I popped off the inner cover and peaked in, they were as busy as bees should be and looked in good form. And here's where the learning curve comes in: the first frame I removed was one of our foundationless (the Sicilian frames that I puled out were all foundationed frames that came with their nuc) and the bottom bar had been pretty well attached to the frame below it. Hence, the bottom bar came half undone, pulling itself halfway out of the frame. "No problem," I thought. "I'll just knock off some of the girls and pound the bottom bar back in." The comb was fully laden with capped honey and weighed a good seven pounds or so. I tapped and brushed most of the girls off and flipped it over to reattach the bar. As soon as I had it upside down, the fragile comb collapsed on itself. The bees start the comb from the top bar and then build it down, attaching it to the sides and bottom once it's fully built out. Without the bottom bar securing it and the jostling that I did to it to get the frame out, the comb lost its footing and, well, crapped out on me. So, we got an extra bit of comb honey and the Italians suddenly sounded like the Sicilians. As soon as the comb collapsed, I heard the hive go into a bit of an uproar. I felt horrible about it, but realized that if this outside frame was fully loaded, they had more than enough honey to get through the winter. So I returned the belatedly fixed frame, spaced them and buttoned them up.
So, I can't wait to start our top bar hive project, the subject of the next post! In that post, I'll tell you how this little incident will be (almost) completely avoided with the different hive design.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
A Second Harvest...more coming?!?
A week after the fact, let's talk about the second harvest. John and I were both excited and apprehensive about pulling the honey out of this set of supers. This hive houses our Sicilians, after all!
For those of you just joining this blog, the Sicilians came to us as a replacement hive for our queenless Carniolans. They've been productive and they've done what bees do, but these girls are agressive! We initially purchased two breeds of bees, the Carniolans and another hive of Italians. Originally hailing from (you guessed it) Italy and the Mediterranean region, the Italian breed is by far the most popular for beekeepers and has been for about 200 years or so. They are loved for their quick population buildup in the spring, large production and generally mild temperment. The Carns are almost as popular. They are a bit darker than the Italians, populate with nectar flow instead of ramping up right away, don't rob other bees (Italians are a bit notorious for that), produce honey well and are very gentle. To give you a quick idea on the gentle factor, despite numerous hive manipulations that included dumping every bee out of the hive unceremoniously (I believe that is described in the "Salvation Hurts" post), neither John nor I have been stung by the Carns. Our first Italian hive has stung me twice and John once.
But those Sicilians. Can they be similar? Oh, no. They have to teach us about dealing with an aggressive hive. We named them the Sicilians for their desire to put a hit out on us nearly every time we open the hive. Fortunately, they are a bit Jeckyll and Hyde, sometimes being calm, sometimes going nuts and attacking the hive tool. These are the girls that hit me 12 times in one day, 11 of those stings occuring so fast that I only felt three or four. So, we were a bit nervous.
To deal with our testy mavens of sometime misery, we pulled a frame, knocked most of them off into the overturned top cover, and sprayed them with a sugar water mix that has the probiotic kombucha in it. We have to be careful with using the spray as we don't want the kombucha or the sugar water to infiltrate the honey harvest as it puts a foreign substance into the mix, quite a way to reverse our organic desires!
In pulling out the frames, which the Sicilians are quite good at bonding to the frames from the upper hive body, they got a little riled. They buzzed both of us incessantly, attacked the tools, followed us about fifty feet away from the hive (much farther than even the most agressive Italians from the first hive), and stung John about five times. Surprisingly, despite me pulling almost all the frames out, the girls never stung me. Again, I go back to my Jekyll and Hyde comparison. But there may be an easy explanation.
Once a bee stings you, it releases an "attack" pheremone that the other bees target on. The Africanized honey bees get hyper-focused on this pheremone and follow the target for up to a mile, gladly sacrificing themselves for the cause. This trait leads to their so-called "killer bee" status, even though victims rarely die, albeit they do get stung upwards of 100 times on less than rare occasions. Africanized honey bees do deserve their reputation of being super bullies! John and I have come to believe that our Sicilians have a tiny bit of this trait in their genes. In talking about it, John became a bit of a pheremone-covered sacrificial lamb for me, giving the Sicilians something else to focus on besides me. I can't say that I'm not thankful about that!
We received the Sicilians about 3 weeks after the first two hives, so the first Italians have had 21 extra days to build up their population and had good conditions to do it in. The Sicilians have not slacked on production, though! While the super was not nearly as full of honey, they did an admirable job in playing catchup. We harvested six out of the nine frames in the super and returned five on the advice that less will equal more. Our guess is that the bees build deeper cells and therefore can collect more honey. That said, it was still a good harvest with an estimated 15 or so pounds of honey (I've revised my estimates from the original harvest and think we got 20-25 lbs).
A last note on the harvest: there is more coming. The 1st Italians have already built up significant comb on the frames John emptied. We don't expect nearly as much, but flowers are still in bloom and the weather is nice, so nectar is still flowing and bees are still gathering!
A note on our underdog hive
The Carniolans will die. There is no way, at their current population level, they can over winter successfully. Not only are they too low in numbers, their spirit had dwindled and the queen hadn't laid an egg in several days by the time we did the inspection after the harvest. We saw several larvae, but the youngest was about four days old, judging by size. They also have eaten maybe six ounces of sugar water in the two or three weeks since we last filled it.
Our next question is what to do with them in a way that doesn't foul the hive. I am concerned that we might not be able to use the components within the hive if they die on us "without notice," yet am unwilling to bring about their demise as I remember what I felt when I tried and succeeded in getting rid of the drone-laying worker. I don't think it's a wise idea to introduce the larvae into either of the other hives as it might mess with the population balance as they wind down for the season. So, any plans are on hold at the moment. Sometimes, "wait and see" is the way to go.
For those of you just joining this blog, the Sicilians came to us as a replacement hive for our queenless Carniolans. They've been productive and they've done what bees do, but these girls are agressive! We initially purchased two breeds of bees, the Carniolans and another hive of Italians. Originally hailing from (you guessed it) Italy and the Mediterranean region, the Italian breed is by far the most popular for beekeepers and has been for about 200 years or so. They are loved for their quick population buildup in the spring, large production and generally mild temperment. The Carns are almost as popular. They are a bit darker than the Italians, populate with nectar flow instead of ramping up right away, don't rob other bees (Italians are a bit notorious for that), produce honey well and are very gentle. To give you a quick idea on the gentle factor, despite numerous hive manipulations that included dumping every bee out of the hive unceremoniously (I believe that is described in the "Salvation Hurts" post), neither John nor I have been stung by the Carns. Our first Italian hive has stung me twice and John once.
But those Sicilians. Can they be similar? Oh, no. They have to teach us about dealing with an aggressive hive. We named them the Sicilians for their desire to put a hit out on us nearly every time we open the hive. Fortunately, they are a bit Jeckyll and Hyde, sometimes being calm, sometimes going nuts and attacking the hive tool. These are the girls that hit me 12 times in one day, 11 of those stings occuring so fast that I only felt three or four. So, we were a bit nervous.
To deal with our testy mavens of sometime misery, we pulled a frame, knocked most of them off into the overturned top cover, and sprayed them with a sugar water mix that has the probiotic kombucha in it. We have to be careful with using the spray as we don't want the kombucha or the sugar water to infiltrate the honey harvest as it puts a foreign substance into the mix, quite a way to reverse our organic desires!
In pulling out the frames, which the Sicilians are quite good at bonding to the frames from the upper hive body, they got a little riled. They buzzed both of us incessantly, attacked the tools, followed us about fifty feet away from the hive (much farther than even the most agressive Italians from the first hive), and stung John about five times. Surprisingly, despite me pulling almost all the frames out, the girls never stung me. Again, I go back to my Jekyll and Hyde comparison. But there may be an easy explanation.
Once a bee stings you, it releases an "attack" pheremone that the other bees target on. The Africanized honey bees get hyper-focused on this pheremone and follow the target for up to a mile, gladly sacrificing themselves for the cause. This trait leads to their so-called "killer bee" status, even though victims rarely die, albeit they do get stung upwards of 100 times on less than rare occasions. Africanized honey bees do deserve their reputation of being super bullies! John and I have come to believe that our Sicilians have a tiny bit of this trait in their genes. In talking about it, John became a bit of a pheremone-covered sacrificial lamb for me, giving the Sicilians something else to focus on besides me. I can't say that I'm not thankful about that!
We received the Sicilians about 3 weeks after the first two hives, so the first Italians have had 21 extra days to build up their population and had good conditions to do it in. The Sicilians have not slacked on production, though! While the super was not nearly as full of honey, they did an admirable job in playing catchup. We harvested six out of the nine frames in the super and returned five on the advice that less will equal more. Our guess is that the bees build deeper cells and therefore can collect more honey. That said, it was still a good harvest with an estimated 15 or so pounds of honey (I've revised my estimates from the original harvest and think we got 20-25 lbs).
A last note on the harvest: there is more coming. The 1st Italians have already built up significant comb on the frames John emptied. We don't expect nearly as much, but flowers are still in bloom and the weather is nice, so nectar is still flowing and bees are still gathering!
A note on our underdog hive
The Carniolans will die. There is no way, at their current population level, they can over winter successfully. Not only are they too low in numbers, their spirit had dwindled and the queen hadn't laid an egg in several days by the time we did the inspection after the harvest. We saw several larvae, but the youngest was about four days old, judging by size. They also have eaten maybe six ounces of sugar water in the two or three weeks since we last filled it.
Our next question is what to do with them in a way that doesn't foul the hive. I am concerned that we might not be able to use the components within the hive if they die on us "without notice," yet am unwilling to bring about their demise as I remember what I felt when I tried and succeeded in getting rid of the drone-laying worker. I don't think it's a wise idea to introduce the larvae into either of the other hives as it might mess with the population balance as they wind down for the season. So, any plans are on hold at the moment. Sometimes, "wait and see" is the way to go.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Sweeeeeeeettttt.....
I would like to thank John and his family for doing all the work extracting out first honey harvest!!! I was stuck downtown with the wife for a seven-hour long four-hour mediation. I much rather would have been getting honey, darn it.
Anyway, because the Italians had 90%+ of their honey super filled a week and a half ago, we decided to do an impromptu harvest. John says it was an extremely sticky affair and Kirsten felt like she was sticking to herself a couple hours later as we were enjoying a beer. Their middle son, Aiden, pulled out a frame all by his lonesome and did not get stung. The fun thing about this experience is that he was the least interested of the kids when we brought the bees home that first day back in April. Now he'll actually talk about something besides video games! I know John is quite happy about seeing Aiden turn his interests around - makes for a good sense of fatherly pride.
Since we used a foundationless frame, John and the kids pulled the frames and then just lopped the comb off onto metal trays. The bees were readily removed using a trick we learned in a beekeeping class presented by the Denver Urban Gardens at the Delaney Farm in Aurora last Saturday: instead of using the bee brush (which is effective but really ticks the girls off), he used a handful of weeds. For some reason, this method doesn't anger the bees nearly as much. I'm guessing that they don't get rolled off like they do with the brush, but more just dislodged or pushed off. During the process, John reports that the bees remained pretty calm. Admittedly, between the two of us we have only received three stings from them, so we know that they are easy to work with. Still, they didn't even get riled up much, so we'll have to focus on this hive and split them so we can attempt to have more hives with hopefully the same temperment and production levels.
John used a pot with a collander for the extraction. He set the combs in and used a potato masher to squeeze the honey out. He was able to collect just over three 32-ounce-sized jars of honey plus four Mason jars with large chunks of comb honey and then still save a fram of comb for the everyone to devour. I'm estimating that we got about 10 pounds of honey out of this harvest. In remembering what different books have siad about how much honey a beekeeper should expect out of a super, this seems low (about half, actually), but this is this hives first harvest and we need to develop a more efficient method. The potato masher looked like a really messy way of putting the squeeze on.
Filtering quickly became our next issue. The next morning, John tried running the honey through cheesecloth. I won't repeat what he said about that mess, but his solution will now be to let the honey settle and scrape the wax off the top. I tried a nylon bag with similar results (even though I suspect the overall holes were larger than John's cheesecloth). I was also unhappy with the amount of wax that filtered out. Yesterday I tried a different approach. I found a wide mouth Rubbermaid container used for storing spaghetti and then stole (with permission) a pair of knee high panty hose from Joy (her only request was that they had holes in the toes). I knotted off the toe hole so I would actually get some filtering done and then placed one over the mouth of the container. This worked really well as there was plenty of knee high to slide over the container to keep it secure, while still having a large "reservoir" to hold the honey as it drained through into the container. I then warmed up the glass jars holding the honey in a large pot of water, bringing the honey to a temperature less than a warm bath but with a nice runny consistency. John doesn't want to use heat at all to preserve the enzymes in the raw honey. My though is that the hive is roughly 90-95 degrees, so as long as the temp is under that, I shouldn't lose the enzymes. Also, I am personally less concerned about the enzymes than I am having a waxy film in my cup o' tea. The honey filtered through the nylons marvelously and got rid of at least 99% of the wax and particulates. I'm calling the process "warm filtering." [ Bees do keep their hive cool by fanning their wings, so the honey may be a bit cooler then 90-95 degrees , also certain enzymes can be damaged or destroyed at temperatures of around 100 degrees , so in erring on the side of caution I am still against warming it even slightly. In regards to the wax, it has, after several days risen to the top leaving clear golden honey at the bottom. ( it looks like a jar of lager ). I am thinking of filling a wide jar right to the brim, and with some method of slight displacement, skimming the wax off . By the way , what does 'toe jam' honey taste like ? ;-) ~ John ]
,
Most importantly, the honey tastes great! Unfiltered or filtered, it has a mild taste much like clover honey, rich creamy texture, and is sweet without being cloying. We can't really call it wildflower honey since most of the nectar collected by the girls comes from surrounding flower gardens. So I'm thinking that we'll call it Suburban Blend.
Whilst I got over to the Rodgers' too late to participate in the harvest, we decided to check the Carniolans and the Sicilians. The Sicilians were in Hyde-mode and really didn't want us to be in there (note: do not mess with aggressive bees at sundown when they are all home). John got stung once almost immediately after opening the hive. I'll be honest about something here, that makes me kinda happy! I'm tired of being the one who takes it from these ladies almost all time. Our score is 17 to 2 right now. He's finally starting to catch up! Either way, the mobsters didn't want us in the hive. They were attacking the hive tool so ferociously that I decided to leave them be and put 'em back to bed.
I'm heartened somewhat by the Carns! The queen is laying tons of eggs and the hive is much more spirited than it has been. They've knocked off a half jar of sugar water in two weeks, more than they have done in a month, and they were actually a bit fiesty in dealing with us, buzzing John's face. I had to get really brave to actually find eggs: I took off my veil so I could see them in the too dim light of the near dusk conditions. That's when I saw how many eggs the queen had been laying. That's also when a bee flew inside my shirt. It got out, but another got in. And she couldn't find her way out. So, as unpanicky as possible, I put the frame back in and stepped away, unbuttoning my shirt carefully so she could escape. Most guys would say it was awesome to have a lady in such intimate contact with your chest, not so true in this case!
Anyway, there is a possibility that the Carns will survive. They have about 6 weeks or so, depending on the weather in September, to rebuild. They have a queen that is super-productive. And they have us nurturing them along. Hopefully that will all be enough.
Bob
Anyway, because the Italians had 90%+ of their honey super filled a week and a half ago, we decided to do an impromptu harvest. John says it was an extremely sticky affair and Kirsten felt like she was sticking to herself a couple hours later as we were enjoying a beer. Their middle son, Aiden, pulled out a frame all by his lonesome and did not get stung. The fun thing about this experience is that he was the least interested of the kids when we brought the bees home that first day back in April. Now he'll actually talk about something besides video games! I know John is quite happy about seeing Aiden turn his interests around - makes for a good sense of fatherly pride.
Since we used a foundationless frame, John and the kids pulled the frames and then just lopped the comb off onto metal trays. The bees were readily removed using a trick we learned in a beekeeping class presented by the Denver Urban Gardens at the Delaney Farm in Aurora last Saturday: instead of using the bee brush (which is effective but really ticks the girls off), he used a handful of weeds. For some reason, this method doesn't anger the bees nearly as much. I'm guessing that they don't get rolled off like they do with the brush, but more just dislodged or pushed off. During the process, John reports that the bees remained pretty calm. Admittedly, between the two of us we have only received three stings from them, so we know that they are easy to work with. Still, they didn't even get riled up much, so we'll have to focus on this hive and split them so we can attempt to have more hives with hopefully the same temperment and production levels.
John used a pot with a collander for the extraction. He set the combs in and used a potato masher to squeeze the honey out. He was able to collect just over three 32-ounce-sized jars of honey plus four Mason jars with large chunks of comb honey and then still save a fram of comb for the everyone to devour. I'm estimating that we got about 10 pounds of honey out of this harvest. In remembering what different books have siad about how much honey a beekeeper should expect out of a super, this seems low (about half, actually), but this is this hives first harvest and we need to develop a more efficient method. The potato masher looked like a really messy way of putting the squeeze on.
Filtering quickly became our next issue. The next morning, John tried running the honey through cheesecloth. I won't repeat what he said about that mess, but his solution will now be to let the honey settle and scrape the wax off the top. I tried a nylon bag with similar results (even though I suspect the overall holes were larger than John's cheesecloth). I was also unhappy with the amount of wax that filtered out. Yesterday I tried a different approach. I found a wide mouth Rubbermaid container used for storing spaghetti and then stole (with permission) a pair of knee high panty hose from Joy (her only request was that they had holes in the toes). I knotted off the toe hole so I would actually get some filtering done and then placed one over the mouth of the container. This worked really well as there was plenty of knee high to slide over the container to keep it secure, while still having a large "reservoir" to hold the honey as it drained through into the container. I then warmed up the glass jars holding the honey in a large pot of water, bringing the honey to a temperature less than a warm bath but with a nice runny consistency. John doesn't want to use heat at all to preserve the enzymes in the raw honey. My though is that the hive is roughly 90-95 degrees, so as long as the temp is under that, I shouldn't lose the enzymes. Also, I am personally less concerned about the enzymes than I am having a waxy film in my cup o' tea. The honey filtered through the nylons marvelously and got rid of at least 99% of the wax and particulates. I'm calling the process "warm filtering." [ Bees do keep their hive cool by fanning their wings, so the honey may be a bit cooler then 90-95 degrees , also certain enzymes can be damaged or destroyed at temperatures of around 100 degrees , so in erring on the side of caution I am still against warming it even slightly. In regards to the wax, it has, after several days risen to the top leaving clear golden honey at the bottom. ( it looks like a jar of lager ). I am thinking of filling a wide jar right to the brim, and with some method of slight displacement, skimming the wax off . By the way , what does 'toe jam' honey taste like ? ;-) ~ John ]
,
Most importantly, the honey tastes great! Unfiltered or filtered, it has a mild taste much like clover honey, rich creamy texture, and is sweet without being cloying. We can't really call it wildflower honey since most of the nectar collected by the girls comes from surrounding flower gardens. So I'm thinking that we'll call it Suburban Blend.
Whilst I got over to the Rodgers' too late to participate in the harvest, we decided to check the Carniolans and the Sicilians. The Sicilians were in Hyde-mode and really didn't want us to be in there (note: do not mess with aggressive bees at sundown when they are all home). John got stung once almost immediately after opening the hive. I'll be honest about something here, that makes me kinda happy! I'm tired of being the one who takes it from these ladies almost all time. Our score is 17 to 2 right now. He's finally starting to catch up! Either way, the mobsters didn't want us in the hive. They were attacking the hive tool so ferociously that I decided to leave them be and put 'em back to bed.
I'm heartened somewhat by the Carns! The queen is laying tons of eggs and the hive is much more spirited than it has been. They've knocked off a half jar of sugar water in two weeks, more than they have done in a month, and they were actually a bit fiesty in dealing with us, buzzing John's face. I had to get really brave to actually find eggs: I took off my veil so I could see them in the too dim light of the near dusk conditions. That's when I saw how many eggs the queen had been laying. That's also when a bee flew inside my shirt. It got out, but another got in. And she couldn't find her way out. So, as unpanicky as possible, I put the frame back in and stepped away, unbuttoning my shirt carefully so she could escape. Most guys would say it was awesome to have a lady in such intimate contact with your chest, not so true in this case!
Anyway, there is a possibility that the Carns will survive. They have about 6 weeks or so, depending on the weather in September, to rebuild. They have a queen that is super-productive. And they have us nurturing them along. Hopefully that will all be enough.
Bob
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