Young Farmers

The girls got a treat this weekend!  We stayed over night with my cousin Dan and Kristin at the farm!  In the morning, after they treated us with pancakes, we got a tour of the farm.  Emma has been learning about dairy in school this week, so all week she has been asking if she could milk a cow.  Emma and Ginny jumped right in!  Here's some photos of the young farmers:

 It was a lot of fun.  I have such good memories of exploring the farm with my cousin Dan as a kid, so it was great to share the experience with the girls!  Thank you again to Dan and Kristin for being such wonderful hosts!

Hungry Bugs

The bees are really hungry!  Tonight, I refilled the sugar syrup jar in the hive for the third time.  I've gone through over a pound of sugar so far!  I never thought I would pay this close attention to the weather and when things are blooming.  Apparently, the cool, wet weather keeps the bees from foraging as much.  Everything that I've read says that when the bees can find natural nectar, they prefer it to the syrup.  When that happens, I shouldnt have to feed them for a while.  Well, it isnt today.  Nothing I can do but keep feeding and watching.

It is pretty neat to watch them build honeycomb.  I'm pretty impressed at how much they have built.  Here's the view from the observation window tonight:

Its tough to get a good picture with the glare on the glass.  Anyway, hopefully you can see the rows of honeycomb in the picture, going up and down, perpendicular to the glass.  Just like its supposed to.  The space between the comb looks to be full of bees.  The cluster seems to be getting much bigger, but it might just be comb taking up space and making the same number look bigger.  I now know where the phrase "Busy  as a Bee" comes from!

Better Lucky than Good

Lefty Gomez, a pitcher for the Yankees in the 30's, once said he'd rather be lucky than good.  Lefty had a lot of good quotes, that you can read here.  Anyway, I feel that way about beekeeping this morning.  One of the first worries for a beekeeper using the type of hive I have is that the bees will build honeycomb in nice clean rows.  This kind of hive doesnt have a guide, or foundation, comb for the bees to follow.  You want the comb to be built along the bars, perpendicular to the observation window.  The danger is that they will build it across the bars, parallel to the window, which makes it very very difficult to work with.  Even if they build it they way they are supposed to, you want it to be very straight.  There are lots of strategies for making this happen.  First, you want a level hive.  I took some extra time before putting the bees in the hive to make it level.  Second, you can paint your bars with beeswax in the direction you want them to build comb.  I read this after the bees were in the hive, a little late.  Third, you can pray, which is essentially what I did!

When I checked on the hive this morning. I could see the honeycomb peeking out of the bee cluster perpendicular to the observation window, just like its supposed to be.  I changed out the feeder jar for a new one and noticed it was too close to where they are building comb.  The bees had turned the last comb and attached it to the jar!  I took that piece off and moved the feeder jar to the other side of the divider board so they wouldnt build comb next to it.  Hopefully the comb there will be built straight now that I've corrected it!

So this is what the comb I removed looks like:

Its very white and clean right now.  I left it sitting on the counter, and when I came back and moved it, I noticed there was a little drop of honey left behind.  Tastes good!  There's no doubt I am not yet a good beekeeper.  At this point, I'm happy to be lucky and having the bees build the comb right without my help!

Queen Cage Is Empty

Tonight, I went to check on the hive and noticed the bees were going through the syrup pretty quickly.  Maybe its the rainy weather, so they dont go out and forage as much?  Or maybe there just isnt enough nectar yet. I made up another jar of syrup and got all beekeepered up and went out into the hive.  While replacing the syrup jar, I spilled some of the syrup.  I need to remember to spill outside of the hive next time, because after that, syrup was dripping from the bottom, but I couldnt tell if it was what I spilled, or if the seal on the jar was leaking.  It slowed down over time, so I think its fine.

While I had the hive opened, I retrieved the queen cage.  It was empty!  Dont worry, thats good news!  It means the bees ate through the marshmallow cork I put in and released the queen.  Looking at the massive number of bees in the hive, I suspect the only time I will see the queen was when she was in the cage.  I'm not nearly good enough to identify her in the hive.  So instead, I have to look for evidence she's there.  If there is capped honeycomb that's not golden, its called brood, which is where the eggs are.  Capped brood is a sign the queen is in the hive.  And thats good.  I could tell the bees were building honeycomb.  Its a very clean white right now.  They build it down from the roof.  The ones I saw were empty, but its not time to worry yet.  I'm sure Magnolia is busy in there somewhere.

Here is a picture of the empty queen cage.

On the left side, you can see where the cork was.  On the right side is the hanger that held it in a slot in the package.  I put a quarter in the picture so you can see how big it is.  

Bees. In. Hive. - The Visual Edition

Wow, reading yesterday's blog is a wall of text! Here's the pictorial version!

This is what a "package" of bees looks like:

Here is Hyacinth the bee.  She stayed pretty much right there the whole drive home:

Here are the two beekeepers, trying to look confident before putting them in the hive:

Here is the smoker Jerry gave me.  Works Great!

Here is the empty hive.  The opening is where I dump the bees in.  The glass jar on the inside is the feeder, full of sugar syrup:

Here's me trying to get the queen cage out.  I have a few seconds to lift the can, slide the queen cage out and then put the can back down.  The picture below is actually a video.  See how fast I did that!?  

Ok, it is just a picture, I couldnt do it that fast.  A few bees got out.

Here is "Magnolia", the queen, in her queen cage.  This is before I replaced the cork with a marshmallow.

Here is me smoking the bees to keep them a little calmer.  The next part is kind of harrowing, so I want them as calm as possible!

Here is me dumping bees into the hive.  They pour out like water!  How many bees do you see flying in the picture?

Here is "most" of them in the hive.  I have an observation window to peek in on them.

Here is my outstanding assistant!  One of the bravest 6 year olds you will meet!

What a day!  You can click on most of the pictures to see all the pictures Stephanie took!  I really appreciate her taking pictures.  They are awesome!

Bees. In. Hive.

Today was the big day when the bees arrived.  No longer was this a planning project.  I had to put on my bee veil, open a box with thousands of bees in it, and put them into the hive.  Lots to talk about!

This morning, I prepped the hive with everything I could do before hand.  Emma and I made syrup to feed the bees.  It is a pretty simple recipe.  Emma measured 1 cup of sugar.  I added 1 cup of warm water.  Emma stirred.  We repeated until the mason jar feeder was full, and we had a little extra for the "bee spritzer".  I filled up a bucket of water and put a bunch of wood chips in it, and placed it next to the hive.  The wood chips are something for the bees to stand on when they get the water.  They cant swim.  I put the feeder in the hive, with the syrup.  Then I cut up an old tee shirt and stuffed the pieces in 3 of the 4 openings in the hive.  This is to limit the number of openings the bees have to guard while they establish the hive.  It also makes it slightly more difficult for the queen to escape, taking the rest of the bees with her.

Then, Emma, Mom and Dad drove with me to east of Watertown to pick up our "package".  We arrived at a barn with about 2 dozen cars and a line of people waiting for package bees.  The line was inside of the barn, where over a thousand boxes of bees were being stored.  There were bees flying everywhere in the barn!  Just standing in line there was enough to overcome fear of being around honeybees.  They are really very gentle.  We stood there maybe a half hour, and they never really bothered us.  One fellow in front of us bought 40 packages!  I bought my one package and put it between the seats of the minivan, ready for the drive home.

Yes, thats right, we drove an hour with a box containing over a thousand live, buzzing bees between us.  They were pretty much contained to the box.  One was outside the box.  Emma named her Hyacinth.  I know what you are thinking - how could we possibly drive with a bee loose inside the car?!  Really, it was no problem.  Hyacinth just sat on the outside of the box and let Emma inspect her.  She didn't cause any trouble at all.  Emma and Gramma decided it would be a good idea to name all the bees.  They came up with quite a few!  The queen is named "Magnolia".  All of the drones (males) are named "Lazy" because they just sit around and eat.  The worker bees mostly have flower names, but I think I'll just call them all Hyacinth.  You know, so when I see one, I'll know its name.

We got home and Erin, Ginny, Nathan, Stephanie and Walter all came to watch me attempt to put the bees in the hive.  I'm sure they all thought I knew what I was doing, but I was pretty worried about releasing all these bees.  I put on my veil and tucked in all my clothes.  Emma decided she would help, so I put a veil on her and we found her some gloves.  I got all the equipment to the hive, took a deep breath, and started to work.

The first step is to get the bees a little wet with sugar syrup, so they dont fly as much.  I used the "spritzer" spray bottle with the syrup we made this morning.  I sprayed about a dozen spritzes on them.  Then, I put some smoke on them to calm them down.  Thank you Uncle Jerry for the smoker!  Incidentally, corrugated cardboard worked wonderfully for making smoke.  Then, I banged the box on the ground three times.  This is so that bees fall to the bottom of the box.  I always question the wisdom of shaking a box of bees, but thats what the directions said, so I did it.  I used a hive tool (small crowbar) to pry out the metal feeding can that was part of the package.  One the can is out, you have a few seconds to slide the queen cage out of a slot, and replace the can before all the bees escape.

The queen has her own cage.  I think the reason is twofold.  First, the queen hasnt been with this bunch of bees for very long.  The queen being in the cage allows them to overcome their first instinct to kill a queen that isnt their own, and lets them get used to her.  Second, the cage sure makes it tough for the queen to escape when you first establish your hive.  Where the queen is, the bees are.  If the queen is in a cage, she aint going anywhere.  The problem is eventually releasing her from the cage in the middle of a swarm of bees.  The answer?  Marshmallows.  The queen cage has a cork in it.  I removed the cork and replaced it with a marshmallow.  Over the next day or so, the bees will eat through the marshmallow and release the queen.  Once the queen is out of the cage, it should be easy for me to retrieve the empty cage from the hive.

I put the queen on the bottom of the hive.  I've read all kinds of philosophies on this.  Some people tell you to hang the queen cage from the top of the hive, and others say to put it on the bottom.  I chose the bottom because putting it on the top may cause the bees to build their first honeycomb crooked around the cage, and mess up all the rows.  The risk of the bottom is that the bees prefer to be on the top of the hive, where they begin building their comb.  They are supposedly happier near the queen at the top.  I dont know.  If this doesn't work, I'll try the other way next time.  I suspect it doesn't really matter.

Once the queen is in the bottom, my next task was to put the rest of the bees into the hive.  Here we go.  I banged the package on the ground three more times to get them to the bottom.  Then I pried out the can again.  Yep, as expected, bees flying everywhere.  Deep breath.  Then I "poured" the bees into the hive.  Like water.  Shake the box, tip it to the side, shake it some more.  Pour the bees in.  Bees still flying everywhere.  I  didn't get all of them (not sure how you could), so I set the open package next to the hive.  Then, I put the top bars back in, closing up the hive.  I made sure to use my bee brush to gently push them out of the way before putting the bars in.  I'm sure I still squished some.  I put the roof back on and walked slowly away.  Phew!

We've checked it several times since then.  Miraculously, they are still in the hive!  They seem to be covering the queen cage, so I think they are taking care of her.  The feeding jar is covered in bees, so I think they found their food.  There are a lot of bees clustered at the top, so I suspect they are beginning to draw out honeycomb.  Maybe this will work!

I am impressed at how gently honeybees are.  Not a single sting.  Not me.  Not Emma.  Emma was an outstanding helper.  She is a brave little girl!  I love that she is interested in helping me with this.  The honeybees being so gentle convinced me it was ok for her to help.  Its a sigh of relief that they are in the hive. I feel like the hard part is over, but I bet I have more ahead of me I dont know about yet!

Stephanie took a lot of pictures and I'll post them soon!