Fall in the bee yard

Last night was one of my very least favorite activities I have to do as a beekeeper. M and I combined our two weak hives. It is hard, ugly work.

Here is how it goes. First you have to knock down the two hives so they are using as little space as possible. In this case, both hives lost honey supers and that was it. One hive was only using a single brood box. No way they could possibly have enough bees to make it through the winter.

So was it that cute little single-box hive that had to be moved? Oh noo. It was the bigger two box hive that moved.  Moving it was eye opening and in no small measure, scary. First it is dark out. Then we are ticking off a few thousand venomous stinging insects.

The hive that was a swarm was really light. They have not stored nearly enough honey for the winter. Their honey super (where people honey lives) was empty.

Then comes the actual combining of hives,  and it is just as it sounds. We put one hive on top of the other - in the dark so they can reorient and find their new home in the light. A single sheet of newspaper goes between them to slow down the introduction of bees. We used the obituaries. Turns out that is the only sheet of newsprint we could find that was all black and white. And since one queen would be dying, it seemed fitting to our sadness.

This is the second time I've had to combine hives and in so many ways this was easier. The temperature last night was steady which helped the bees to fly home and not get stuck on us. Second, we had an idea of what we were going to do. Finally, we had done the prep work well. Like so many things in life, good preparation really helps hard jobs go more smoothly.

Not entirely surprisingly, we both got stung. What was surprising was that it was only once each. We headed back to the house after the event and found that M had brought in a dozen bees stuck in the folds of his gear. I had one caught in my veil.  There were some very exciting (read scary) moments dealing with these newly warmed up bees, but they were all taken care of quickly. It is a real challenge to find good gear for such a tall man.

Checking on the hive this morning, it was clear that something was going on. The lower colony has many bees on the outside. Not surprising given the nice weather and that they lost about a third of their space. In a few days the paper will be gone and they will have many new sisters and plenty more space.

And our beeyard will be down to two hives again.

WCBA meeting

With my sister visiting from Arizona and two afternoon soccer games, I could only attend the first part the WCBA October meeting. I usually LOVE the all day meetings and this held such promise.

Alas, the first two talks I did hear didn't live up to my expectations. Dr. Jamie Ellis from the University of Florida was one of the most entertaining entomologists I've ever heard speak, but he didn't have anything new to tell me. Just for the record, Go 'Noles.

The best bit I heard him tell us is that honey bee is entomologically two  words. When an insect is what it's name says, then it is two words.  When it isn't what it's name is, then it is one. Very confusing but think of it like this - honey bees are actually bees, so two words. Butterflies are not actually flies, so it is one word.

The second talk was the one I was most interested in hearing. The speaker was going to tell us about evaluating our hives without opening them. He did mention it, but most of his talk was about getting older as a beekeeper. I would have love to have learned more about what to do if I observe certain things or when it is worth going in based on outside observations.

So I am going to work on building my beekeeping knowledge from books and asking a lot of questions at the next meeting.

Honey Harvest

We had a dollop of honey from this year left in the honey bucket and added it to our everyday bottle. The honey we just harvested is a tad darker!  It looked like last summer's honey swallowed it. Eventually the darker honey settled to the bottom.

Fall honey tends to be heavier and will crystallize faster because it has a slightly lower moister content.  If you have fall honey that does crystallize, just warm it up gently in hot water from the tap.

Spencer Fair

This was the first year since we started beekeeping that we didn't enter honey into the fair. We hadn't extracted honey and unless you extract early, it is tough to win that blue ribbon.

As usual, the family and I volunteered to help at the Worcester County Beekeepers Association's booth. My son sold honey sticks like crazy and my daughter helped other kids roll candles. My husband and I floated around answering lots of bee questions. I thought I would share some of the most common.

How long to bees live?
Queens can live about four years. In the summer the worker bees live about six weeks. In the fall, bees emerge that are going to live all winter in the hive. These bees will die off in March.

Why do the worker bees cluster around the queen?
The queen exudes pheromones, chemicals that give information. The queen's pheromones tell the workers that she is well, laying eggs, and she's healthy. They cluster around her to get this information as well as to groom and feed her. The workers take very good care of the queen.

Do the bees know me?
No the bees don't know me. Bees don't have memories that would include a person. Generally the bees may only have me in the hive a few times in their lifetime.

Do I get stung a lot?
Nope. I rarely get stung and usually when I do, I am in someone else's bee yard. When I am in my own hives I tend to be calm and focused. I don't do things to startle the bees. Those of you who know me personally, know that I don't wear a lot of scented products so that I don't irritate the bees. Bees operate by smell as much as vision outside the hives- so staying calm (so I don't stink with sweat) and moving with purpose help to keep the bees calm.

What is my favorite part of beekeeping?
This is really hard! There is really so much to love about beekeeping. I love the feeling of calm that stays with me after being in the hives. Honey is a wonderful benefit too. But I really think I am in it for the bees. Go bees!

Banana Report

A few weeks ago I put a banana in my hives to see if this would help with the chalkbrook issues in all three hives. Our big hive, Sun's, got a whole banana and the other two each got a half.

Well this is Serenity's hive- this was the split we did earlier this year. You can still see the blackened peel at the top and bottom. There was a PILE of chalkbrood mummies on the bottom of this hive. The bees were doing a great job of cleaning them out of the frames, just not out of the hive.

The banana peels had mold on them and looked nasty. Yech, but I will tell you that two out of three hives are looking pretty chalkbrood free. I am now wondering if we need to move the third hive to a sunnier location as they still have wicked chalkbrood. Sigh.

So will I do this again- sure it didn't hurt the bees and along with better ventilation, might help. It certainly didn't hurt the bees.

Along with all this crazy chalkbrood I have been waiting for the bees to supercede Sun. She's three years old and is starting to lay in a patchy pattern. Perhaps my talk to the bees worked because what to my wondering eyes should appear today but a new queen. She was camera shy so I only got an iffy shot but like her mum, she's all golden. She is lighter than Sun but she has no marks on her abdomen.

Serendipity- our swarm hive- is building slowly. Partly this is the chalkbrood but I think they are just not in a good location. They are off the bee deck (my hives sit on a deck originally built for a hot tub) and it just might be too cool.

Getting Stung

I got stung last week while I was checking a fellow beekeeper's hives while he was out of town. This is a critical time of year for many hives with lots of swarms and supercedures (replacing the queen). His hives looked good but on the last hive check I got stung. 

My ankle swelled up so more that it did when I was pregnant and it was very hard to move.  This is a fairly typical response to bee stings for me and a number of other beekeepers I know. 

I've been asked lots of times if I get stung often and truthfully I do not. This was the third time I've been stung in three years - yes, once a year is my average lately. Given that I am in my hives about every 10 days from March to November, I am feeling really good about that. 

How do I not get stung often?

I am calm around my bees and pay attention to the moment. It is a very meditative experience for me. I do wear gloves and a veil but they are more as an aid to me to remind me to be in the moment. My gloves don't get stung either. 

What do I do when I get stung?

First, I take out the stinger. I usually use my fingernail to make sure I have it out. The venom is excreted in less than two minutes, so be quick.

Then, if possible, I chew plantain leaves and get them on the sting. Plantain grows in most people's yards and looks like spinach. This can help to neutralize the venom.

Finally, I use spray antihistamine to relive the itch. The itch is primarily from the swelling, so if you don't have it, don't use it.

Bananas!

I did feel a bit bananas to be putting bananas in my hive. As a beekeeper for just over five years, I have been hearing for just over five years not to eat bananas before going into the hives because the smell of bananas is very very similar to the alarm pheromone of bees. Twice I have smelled the banana oil alarm and packed everything up and left the bees within moments. The smell is quite distinctive and I am sure that I reeked of my own alarm pheromones at that point as well. 

So it was no surprise when a fellow beekeeper suggested I give my hives bananas to help them with the chalkbrood that I thought he was bananas. Nonetheless, I decided to give it a try. This is the top of Sun's hive and since there are LOADS of bees in that hive, they got a whole banana, sliced in quarters atop the frames. The other two hives split a banana.

How did the bees respond to this unorthodox use of fruit?  They were very curious. They crawled all over the fruit but didn't act alarmed or fly around. 

Why does this work?  All my research online and in books suggest this may work by triggering a cleaning behavior in the bees. When they finish with the strange fruit in the hive, they may continue to clean out the infected brood. Honestly no one really knows and no scientists have tracked it either. The state bee inspector was very curious and agreed to recheck the hives later this summer.

Can this lead to some scientific proof? No, for two reasons. First I treated all three hives so there is no control. 

Second, I also removed the mouse guards from the two hives that still had them in place - so I also increased the ventilation. Serendipity's hive only has a partial  entrance reducer so I left that on for now. I wanted to make it as easy as possible for the bees to remove the infected larvae. 

Time will tell.