Goodbye to 2014

Winter is officially here. It was 10 degrees this morning. The girls are wisely staying inside where it's warm and dry.

There hasn't been much snow yet, but the hives are covered with frost.

In contrast, it was in the 50s last week! Crazy.

One of my hellebores was blooming! That plant is almost ten years old and it has never bloomed in December.

In all, 2014 was a great year for our bees. They all made it through the winter. No AFB this year. I made up four nucs in the spring and gave three away. Nobody swarmed. The weather cooperated and the girls made 500lbs of honey for us. Two hives tried last-minute supercedures and one pulled it off. The other needed help and got an emergency nuc transplant at the last minute. I guess you never know exactly how your beekeeping year went until the next spring so until then I'll keep my fingers crossed, my eyes on the weather, and my stethoscope close at hand for when I need to hear that buzz....

What's next for 2015?? A trip to Disneyland? That's right! We're taking a trip there so I can go to the annual North American Beekeeping Conference with a few hundred beekeeping buddies. I can't wait. The boys will be at Disneyland while I'm back at the hotel attending the conference. Stay tuned.

Ready For Winter?

It's November and we still haven't had a frost!

The sun was out today and it was in the 50s so the bees were flying like crazy. They were glad to get out after the rain we had this week.

Toby helped me get the cedar shaving-filled supers ready.

They sit on top of the hives to provide a little insulation and (in theory) absorb some of the moisture that rises from the cluster.

That's about it until the spring. It's up to the bees now. I fed all three hives until they were over 110lbs each. I'll be checking their weights during the winter but I won't be able to play with them until the spring bulbs are blooming. Time for  football, holidays, and skiing to keep me busy!

Where's the snow??

Fall Cleanup

The bees and I are working on our fall chores:

Cleaning out the smoker. After two seasons of use, it was full of ashes and melted wax.

Visiting the last of the flowers. It's still sunny and warm in the middle of the day and they are very active. Lots of bright gold pollen still coming in from who knows where.

The first frost is probably coming soon. I have feeders on two hives and they're finishing off a gallon in three days. Time to hit the grocery store for more sugar!

Drone Layer II

So much for my original plans to re-queen that hive that had the drone layer! The new queen (hatched from a swarm cell in late spring) went MIA the end of August. Not good. I thought maybe she was taking a break because of a high mite load but that was wishful thinking. 

Luckily, my good buddy Peggy had an extra nuc on hand to share with me and I put it on the hive.

It was actually more than just a nuc, it was in about 8 frames worth of brood and honey, practically its own hive.

I put it right on top of the queenless hive with a sheet of newspaper underneath. The paper was gone in a few days. I checked it yesterday and the queen if laying eggs which was great to see. She was hanging out down in the middle box. I rearranged everything so it's back to a two-deep hive with brood in the bottom and honey + feeder on top. Hopefully they'll adjust well and get ready for winter.

Drone Layer

It's not just about the honey in August. I've got to make sure the hives are in good shape to raise the "fat bees" this fall that will over-winter.

One queen had a problem that I'd heard about but not seen yet.

This frame had a lot of pollen and honey in the corners and lots of open brood but something was wrong. It's easy to see the queen cell on the left. What's going on?

Here's a closer look. Can you see how the capped cells poke out instead of looking flat?

This is almost all drone brood. The queen was laying worker brood a few weeks ago but then she stopped and is only laying drones. She was a supersedure from almost two years ago (born in August) and I think she didn't have enough drones to mate with and has run out of sperm. 

The good news is that she was showing signs of winding down and I replaced her with a new queen earlier in the summer. I put the old queen in a nuc because I didn't have the heart to kill her. I was hoping the nuc would produce some honey frames for the bank before it petered out at the end of summer. 

I didn't want thousands of drones hatching out in the bee yard, so I had to pull those frames and stuck them in the freezer to kill the brood. There's still a nice supply of honey and pollen in there so those will go back in the big hives to recycle.

Next up: mite control! Yikes.

Selling Honey

I'm spending my evenings in a tiny shower in the basement bottling honey. It's hot work: I crank the electric heater to warm the room and the honey flows faster that way. 

Of course it drips so it's a very hot, very sticky job. I started schlepping it to work this week. Time to bring the honey to the masses! 

It's $8/pint and $15/quart. $50/gallon for the serious enthusiasts.

What to do with that delicious honey? Here's my breakfast (almost every day):

Homemade granola made with our honey, yogurt, blueberries and lots of honey on top. Yum!

Honey Harvest

It's that time of year again!

Jon and I just finished loading up 20 supers for extracting. My friend Yolands is taking them to her place for extracting. I can't wait to see how much we get.

Now the bees are back in the two deeps and looking a little crowded.

So much easier to work them now!

Next up: getting ready for winter. Hard to think about when it's almost 90 degrees but I have to get these hives in good shape before the cold hits. Two of the hives have low mite counts and look nice but #2 is high and the queen is either MIA or on vacation. I didn't see any eggs or open brood yesterday. Yikes. Time to treat those mites and figure out if that hive is queen right or not. Drone production is way down already so I can't trust the hive to re-queen itself..... There's always something to worry about!

Skyscrapers

It's stepstool time in the bee yard. Cam's hive just got its 10th super! I'm running out of places to put them. I'm having to store the supers with capped frames in the garage now.

Toby gave me a hand last week which was a lot of fun.

He helped with the record keeping.

Ick! Drones on a stick. No mites though! A nice snack for the chickens.

Thank You Bees!

Berry season is almost here:

Thanks to the pollinators! Yum. This was the first of many backyard strawberries in our berry patch. The raspberries will be next; I can't wait!

I had to get another batch of supers too. I think I will have to store some full ones in the shed until it's time to extract. It's really hard to work the hives when they have five or six supers on. I almost fell a couple of times trying to wrangle them last year. Yikes! Not a good habit to get into.

What else is going on? Toby's queen all but stopped laying a couple of weeks ago. I was planning to replace her this summer anyway so she got swapped out for the new queen that was in my remaining nuc. The new queen hatched out of a swarm cell from hive #3/last year's nuc and was laying well. She should be happy to have a full sized hive to call her own.

The old queen (she'll be two in August) is in her "retirement home" for now which is a nuc box. It won't hurt to keep her on hand while I make sure the new queen gets established.  Still hoping the nuc can generate a few frames of drawn comb for future use....

Honey in June!

After making up four nucs (and giving three away), I think the girls are finally starting to focus more on producing honey than swarm cells. I've been throwing on the supers left and right to give them room.

Unfortunately, they are not totally done making queen cells as you can see. Here's a queen cell on the left and a queen cup on the right. This is the drone frame that's in the freezer now.

I'm at the point where they're too heavy to lift off the hive, even with the stepstool. I am going to have to pull frames off and extract early. I took 11 frames off of Toby's hive today. I'm planning to use the nuc on the left to re-queen Toby's hive at some point. Right now, I'm using it to produce some drawn frames and maybe honey for the honey bank.

The spring honey is really light. A totally different color than the late summer.

Hungry, Thirsty Bees

The girls are enjoying the back yard this week. 

Here's one collecting water from the "pond" in Toby's mini garden.

Dandelions galore in the lawn! Look at this girl covered with pollen. She's no new-bee: see her tattered wings? She's been working hard for weeks.

That's why the supers are already stacking up. This hive is almost as tall as me!

Backup Plan

Uh oh!!

Not my pic but it's close... Found a swarm cell in hive #3 yesterday. Just one. I caught all the others but this one slipped by, probably because it was up a little on the side and not on the bottom of the frame.  Argh. Even after pulling those three brood frames out a couple of weeks back. I had to pull it out and make up a nuc on the spot: I used three frames of brood plus one more from Cam's hive and an empty frame.

So now I have five hives in the backyard! Probably three more than I need. If this new nuc produces a laying queen, I'll have to find a home for it. If it goes queenless, I'll just re-combine it back with the mother hive later. Any honey frames they produce can go in the bank. The main goal is to keep the big hive from swarming. Can't wait til swarm season is over! Filling up honey supers is way more fun than checking frame after frame and looking at all the queen cups.

Super!

Hard to believe, but it's time for honey supers already. The weather has been beautiful and sunny and flowers are bursting out all over the South Hill.

All three hives are thriving and that means I have to stay on top of them to prevent swarming.

Strategy for hive #3 was to donate three frames of brood to a friend for a nuc a couple of weeks ago. 

Now you can hardly even tell that anything is even missing! The boxes were heavy so it got a super today.

Hive #1 is the star right now: I put a super on three days ago and it's already almost full! Unbelievable. Second super went on today. I think the extra warm 70-80 degree temps had something to do with it. I also pulled a frame of brood out today for a nuc.

Hive #2 donated three frames of brood to a nuc today. I used a purchased queen who will be in her cage for a couple of days until her "stepdaughters" get used to her. I can use that nuc to re queen that hive later. That queen is the oldest of the three; she'll be two in August.

Drone Frames and Bonus Bees

The tulips and cherry trees are blooming and so are the dandelions! That means swarm season is right around the corner. All three hives are hopping, especially the new one that was a nuc last year: 9 frames of brood to the others' 6 and queen cups galore. Too many bees so my friend Peggy and I pulled three frames of brood for her to make up a nuc. She'll add a queen and we'll see how they do. 

The drone frames were filling up nicely so it was time to rotate them out already. 

Not a single mite to be seen! They're in the freezer now. 

Except for a few that I gave to the chickens. Mmm, drone casserole!

St Patrick's Day

The first day of spring is right around the corner and the early flowers are starting like this hellebore who had a visit from one of the girls.

Spring is Almost Here!

Yay! Daylight savings is here, the snow is melting, the snowdrops are blooming. All three hives are alive and well to my relief. They are even out and about collecting water and finding a little pollen. I would love to know where it's from! I think there's witch hazel somewhere as well as hazelnuts and pussywillows.

Here's a bee hard at work cleaning the last bit of honey from an old super at my friend Peggy's farm.

All three hives are active during the warm part of the day now. A little bit of dysentery last month on one of them, but it cleared up. Overall, I think we had a few more cold snaps than last year, but we were lucky enough to have intermittent warm spells that allowed the girls to get out for their potty breaks which decreased the overall stress of the winter season.

Deep Thoughts

I came up with this when I was up late worrying about the hives the other night.

You know you've really fallen for bees when:

You schedule summer vacation around honey extraction.

You dream about your bees.

You take your honey with you on vacation.

You go out with a stethoscope to your hives in winter to see if they're still alive and buzzing.

School age kids around town know you as the "bee lady."

You have at least three kinds of honey on the kitchen counter.

Your kids' pictures have been published in Bee Culture.

You take it personally when people call yellowjackets "bees."

Poor babies! It was 2 when I woke up this morning!

Say Hello to My Little Friend

One of my bees came over to say hi to me this afternoon!

She perched right on my wrist for a minute or two and then flew off. One of her sisters was on my shoulder at the same time. Good thing I didn't get pooped on! Just call me the bee whisperer...

The sun was right on hive #3 and they were taking full advantage of the opportunity. Lots of potty breaks and clean-up going on.