Still learning

I checked on the girls today and they look great. It looks like the skunk guard got tipped as some point recently and something (possibly black and white) was biting or scratching Sun's hive. The bees have a funny bottom board that they like to use as a back door entrance. I think this is why the beastie was bothering the girls in middle. Given that they are New England bees, that is no surprise - no one around here seems to actually use their front doors!

Joy is teaching me yet again that she knows how to be a bee better than I know how to be a beekeeper! I put honey supers on all the hives a couple of weeks ago. Joy's bees had done nothing on the bottom super so I expected that the honey super would be merely a plaything for them for a while. Alas no. The wax on the bottom super needs to be cleaned out - dead bees, bits of wax, and other detritus litters the frames.

They are either being lazy or just don't like that wax because Joy decided to lay eggs in the honey super frames! Grr. I don't like using a queen excluder between the brood boxes and the honey supers as I don't think the bees like to go thru them and I get less honey. Nonetheless, I put one on today - after assuring myself that she was in the brood box. (She is a really pretty queen!)

Pink's hive is doing beautifully. I could watch her bees all day long. Pink's laying pattern looks like not only did she read all the books, she probably wrote them! We have our first capped honey cell - yep - cell singular! Her hive smells so good - all business and wax.

It was a great check - and my smoker stayed lit the whole time!

Feeding time at the hives

This is the time of year when the queen will start laying eggs to make more workers for the spring. The bees raise the temp from around 60 to 93 degrees.

Most beekeepers feed their bees sugar or pollen patties. I had three sugar patties left from last year, so I thought perfect - I have three hives why not use them. I went out wearing my regular orange coat and orange gloves - what a beautiful day!

I didn't exactly rip open the hives, I cracked the inner covers open about two inches and slipped a disk of bee candy in. The bee candy is sugar and corn syrup cooked and cooled in a pie plate until it forms a rather hard disk. One disk had cracked in to about 10 pieces, but they are all usable.

I checked on Pink's hive first and found a few girls out and about.

I slipped the sugary disk in and found part of their pollen patty from Oct still there. The girls should eat that soon.

Sun's hive was pretty much the same but there are way fewer bees. They had not consumed any of their pollen. I am most concerned about these bees and will keep a close on them.

Then I went to Joy's hive. WOW. I could hear them buzzing the moment I touched the outer lid of the hive. I made the mistake of trying to slip the broken patty into their hive. They were all up in arms and one tried to get in my hair.

Have I mentioned I HATE bees in my hair.

I closed the lid best I could and made a beeline to the shed to get a veil. Sheesh. So with veil on and hive tool in hand, I re-cracked open the hive lid and maneuvered the sugar pieces so that the lid would close properly. The sugar bits were COVERED with bees and there were a handful of girls still flying around.

If Sun's hive doesn't make it - and I hope they do! - I will manipulate things so that one of Joy's daughters becomes the new queen in that hive.

Joy ROCKS!

I love being a beekeeper.

Mouse Guards

I love reading all my friend's blogs about Halloween and potty training. I am happy to have a diverse group of friends because that is so not my life anymore. While many others were preparing for parties and buying value sized boxes of diapers, I was putting on mouse guards.

My daughter, nearly 6, checked out the hives this weekend for the first time. Unfortunately, she's still too small to see over the top of the boxes very easily as they are set up now, but she was so calm and moved so gracefully. I can see her keeping her own hive in a couple of years.

Naturally she has a fondness for Pink's hive and here's a picture of Pink's girls emerging from their inner cover opening. This is inside a box where I put honey for them to eat now. I am hoping that all three hives take some honey from me (that I robbed from them this summer when they were honey bound!) and put it up for the winter.

I also put mouse guards on two of the hives. These are metal gates that fit across the front of the hive that, as you guessed, keep out mice. Mice LOVE to overwinter in a hive where it is nice a warm and they can make a nest with the wooden frames and wax.

I have another guard on the way from one of my favorite bee equipment companies, Brushy Mountain.

So while my kids remain potty trained and we had no behavior problems at our big harvest dinner, I was so happy for our milestone: how joyous my daughter was to see the bees close up.

Stay of Execution

I asked our bee inspector Ken Warchol to come visit my hives to help me get rid of Pink because I was planning on combining Pink and Sun's hives for the winter. I am SO glad I asked him to come over.

He said that Pink's have was the stronger of the two hives and that he thought all three hives were good and strong! Yay! And being the great teacher that he is, he explained to me how to tell - essentially if on a cool day the bees are still in the top box across all the frames, there are plenty of bees.

On the other hand, and isn't there always one, all three hives need more honey. I am trying to feed them honey but it might be too chilly for then to take a bunch of honey. With the extra cold weather these days I am going to offer them sugar water as well and then treat them in the spring for the intestinal parasites bees get.

On his way out, Ken had one of Pink's girls on his hat. She'd gotten a bit chilly, so I took her home.