Due to a crazy year starting a farm and also finding a new job my beekeeping records and especially this blog have not been adequately updated. I thought I'd do a post now that things are settling down to summarize the year, especially the developments/differences from last year.
It was a super wet spring so the spring flow was late, but we had plenty of rain all summer so there was essentially no dearth. Brief review of this year:
- lost one of two colonies over the winter
- installed three packages into new equipment I assembled and painted (April)
- did two late spring splits into nucleus hives (nucs) (May-June)
- encouraged raising of three new queens (for the two splits and requeening the overwintered hive which had a 3 year old queen) (May-June)
- split a weak colony and divided the bees to be combined into two slightly weak hives. (Hive 4 was split and combined with hives N1 and N2) (yesterday)
I will hopefully be doing some fall extracting by the end of the month. I had one hive that just went crazy building comb in the spring and they have 4 supers on the hive even after doing a split! I also plan on feeding any colonies that are low on food going into Nov.
I need to find out a better way keep records. I may do a single post for each hive next year and just log each record with an update to each post. The way I did it in 2010 did not scale.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Friday, December 31, 2010
12/31/10: One last inspection (#14)!
Conditions: Sunny, 55F
Present: Just me
Equipment: No changes.
Activities: Smoked hives about 2:30pm. Inspected representative frames.
Observations:
First of all, we had a phenomenally warm day, 55 on New Year's Eve. It was sunny, easily the nicest day since early November. Even more luck, I didn't have to work! With the bees flying so much, I had to check in on them. There were lots of bees near the hives on trees, snow, weeds, and anything else. They weren't flying far, maybe a dozen yards or less, then landing and just hanging around. Before I finished up, one must have landed on my leg and was just hanging out, too. I bumped my tray that I use to carry my hive tools, smoker fuel, frame lifter, etc. into her and she stung me on the inner thigh. I felt that one. Last sting of the year.
Newer hive:
Lots of food, about a half inch of dead bees on the screened bottom board, which I cleaned out for them. No pest damage, no mites seen. Some starved bees in the top-most super which was not full of honey to start with (I am overwintering with one deep and two shallow supers). They probably ventured from the cluster to eat higher up and got caught in a cold snap. Still plenty of bees there, not too concerned. I did not spot the queen, but there was a small patch of brood on the center frames in the lower deep and some newly emerged bees.
Older hive:
Not as much food as the newer hive, fewer dead bees, and maybe 50% more bees present. The upper super was not full to start with and the lower shallow super was pretty heavy. I spotted the queen on a center frame in that lower shallow super with a small patch of brood. She looked fat and happy. No way to be 100% sure because she wasn't marked, but this is most likely the original queen, 3 years old and overwintering for the second time. She's done well for me. Hard to decide to requeen when she's done so well or maybe try to rear some queens from her. I likely won't have too much free time this year to try my hand at queen rearing, but I'd like to someday. If I requeen, I'll likely get a Pioneer Queen from Long Lane Honey Bee Farms. David and Sheri Burns put out lots of great and FREE beekeeping information (with a sales pitch thrown in, but not in a pushy way). Anyway, I'll resume feeding in the spring after the thaw and likely put some pollen patties in around February and hopefully they'll all pull though!
The New Year:
What does the 2011 hold? Hopefully lots more hives, bees, honey, and some other hive products. Candles, anyone? We hope to produce enough to sell our surplus. People have been asking!
Present: Just me
Equipment: No changes.
Activities: Smoked hives about 2:30pm. Inspected representative frames.
Observations:
First of all, we had a phenomenally warm day, 55 on New Year's Eve. It was sunny, easily the nicest day since early November. Even more luck, I didn't have to work! With the bees flying so much, I had to check in on them. There were lots of bees near the hives on trees, snow, weeds, and anything else. They weren't flying far, maybe a dozen yards or less, then landing and just hanging around. Before I finished up, one must have landed on my leg and was just hanging out, too. I bumped my tray that I use to carry my hive tools, smoker fuel, frame lifter, etc. into her and she stung me on the inner thigh. I felt that one. Last sting of the year.
Newer hive:
Lots of food, about a half inch of dead bees on the screened bottom board, which I cleaned out for them. No pest damage, no mites seen. Some starved bees in the top-most super which was not full of honey to start with (I am overwintering with one deep and two shallow supers). They probably ventured from the cluster to eat higher up and got caught in a cold snap. Still plenty of bees there, not too concerned. I did not spot the queen, but there was a small patch of brood on the center frames in the lower deep and some newly emerged bees.
Older hive:
Not as much food as the newer hive, fewer dead bees, and maybe 50% more bees present. The upper super was not full to start with and the lower shallow super was pretty heavy. I spotted the queen on a center frame in that lower shallow super with a small patch of brood. She looked fat and happy. No way to be 100% sure because she wasn't marked, but this is most likely the original queen, 3 years old and overwintering for the second time. She's done well for me. Hard to decide to requeen when she's done so well or maybe try to rear some queens from her. I likely won't have too much free time this year to try my hand at queen rearing, but I'd like to someday. If I requeen, I'll likely get a Pioneer Queen from Long Lane Honey Bee Farms. David and Sheri Burns put out lots of great and FREE beekeeping information (with a sales pitch thrown in, but not in a pushy way). Anyway, I'll resume feeding in the spring after the thaw and likely put some pollen patties in around February and hopefully they'll all pull though!
The New Year:
What does the 2011 hold? Hopefully lots more hives, bees, honey, and some other hive products. Candles, anyone? We hope to produce enough to sell our surplus. People have been asking!
Monday, October 18, 2010
10/16/10: Honey Removal and First Extraction
Conditions: Sunny, 58F
Present: Bud F. and I
Equipment: No changes.
Activities: Smoked hives about 11:30 am. Inspected super frames for capped honey.
Observations:
New Hive: Took about 5 more frames of capped honey. All dark honey.
Old Hive: Took an entire super of capped honey. Some of this is fall honey that was light in color, which is surprising. Vast majority was dark honey.
I did not observe any varroa in either hive, though we didn't go down lower than the supers. This is still surprising given the time of year and the fact I have not done any treatment this year (did powdered sugar last year).
A combination of 10 shallow frames were removed from a the hives on 9/30/10 and stored in a large rubbermaid tote. An additional 19 frames were removed the morning of 10/16/10 (frames that were full on 9/30/10, but drying and largely uncapped). All 29 frames were extracted in about 3.5 hours with two people working (though who did the work traded off a bit)
We set up the extractor on a raised platform of cinder blocks and a wood pallet. The extractor was placed on (and later anchored to) the pallet. We allowed the honey to freely drain from the extractor into an intermediate pail from which we dumped the honey into a nylon strainer (course filter). The filtered honey was stored in 8 gallon pails with lids, one each of light and dark honey.
We used a combination of electric uncapping knife and serrated bread knife stored in hot water to uncap on a baking tray, with capping wax/honey stored in a separate bucket for later separation.
It was a blast! The boys (3 and half) even took their turns spinning honey in the extractor.
Lessons Learned (and tips for next year):
1) There are lots of sticky jobs during extraction. A tip I read to keep a bucket of warm water around to rinse your hands or tools was VERY useful. Next year I think I'll do two, one for the majority of the honey and a "second" that just gets the sticky honey water from the first off.
2) The honey will spill and drip. Cover with newspaper all high traffic areas BEFORE starting. This includes around the extractor, uncapping area and work surfaces, and the pathways from uncapping to extractor and from extractor to filter bucket.
3) The extractor sometimes gets off balance and shakes or tips. Screw it down BEFORE you spin anything.
4) Lots of bees tried to get in. We placed a fan in the window on the edge of the building to blow the honey smell in one direction. The bees gathered outside of that window instead of all over the outside of the honey house, including the door where we occasionally needed to exit and enter through. This worked really well.
5) We killed any bees we found in the shed. Sorry ladies, but this was surplus honey and we weren't going to give it back. I was not concerned about a few bees in the honey house so much as a few scouts telling the whole hive the secret to how to slip in and out of the honey house where "the motherload" was hidden.
6) We extracted on a day that is not hot, but warm enough for bees to fly. This meant any bucket, tray, knife, frames, etc that we were no longer needing could just be placed outside for the bees to clean up, which they did eagerly.
Our yield was approximately 65 pounds of honey, 20 light "spring" honey (very fragrant) and 45 dark "fall" honey (mellow and rich). We let it rest 24 hours for bubbles to settle out. I began bottling last night with a ladel and funnel. Next year a bottling bucket with a honey gate valve would be a nice addition, especially if we do lots of little bottles for sale. This harvest will be enough to split with Bud and hopefully get us to the next harvest. I think we'll be increasing the number of hives and might try our hand at marketing some honey. There are a number of neighbors, co-workers, and farmers who have expressed interest in buying our honey.
Present: Bud F. and I
Equipment: No changes.
Activities: Smoked hives about 11:30 am. Inspected super frames for capped honey.
Observations:
New Hive: Took about 5 more frames of capped honey. All dark honey.
Old Hive: Took an entire super of capped honey. Some of this is fall honey that was light in color, which is surprising. Vast majority was dark honey.
I did not observe any varroa in either hive, though we didn't go down lower than the supers. This is still surprising given the time of year and the fact I have not done any treatment this year (did powdered sugar last year).
A combination of 10 shallow frames were removed from a the hives on 9/30/10 and stored in a large rubbermaid tote. An additional 19 frames were removed the morning of 10/16/10 (frames that were full on 9/30/10, but drying and largely uncapped). All 29 frames were extracted in about 3.5 hours with two people working (though who did the work traded off a bit)
We set up the extractor on a raised platform of cinder blocks and a wood pallet. The extractor was placed on (and later anchored to) the pallet. We allowed the honey to freely drain from the extractor into an intermediate pail from which we dumped the honey into a nylon strainer (course filter). The filtered honey was stored in 8 gallon pails with lids, one each of light and dark honey.
We used a combination of electric uncapping knife and serrated bread knife stored in hot water to uncap on a baking tray, with capping wax/honey stored in a separate bucket for later separation.
It was a blast! The boys (3 and half) even took their turns spinning honey in the extractor.
Lessons Learned (and tips for next year):
1) There are lots of sticky jobs during extraction. A tip I read to keep a bucket of warm water around to rinse your hands or tools was VERY useful. Next year I think I'll do two, one for the majority of the honey and a "second" that just gets the sticky honey water from the first off.
2) The honey will spill and drip. Cover with newspaper all high traffic areas BEFORE starting. This includes around the extractor, uncapping area and work surfaces, and the pathways from uncapping to extractor and from extractor to filter bucket.
3) The extractor sometimes gets off balance and shakes or tips. Screw it down BEFORE you spin anything.
4) Lots of bees tried to get in. We placed a fan in the window on the edge of the building to blow the honey smell in one direction. The bees gathered outside of that window instead of all over the outside of the honey house, including the door where we occasionally needed to exit and enter through. This worked really well.
5) We killed any bees we found in the shed. Sorry ladies, but this was surplus honey and we weren't going to give it back. I was not concerned about a few bees in the honey house so much as a few scouts telling the whole hive the secret to how to slip in and out of the honey house where "the motherload" was hidden.
6) We extracted on a day that is not hot, but warm enough for bees to fly. This meant any bucket, tray, knife, frames, etc that we were no longer needing could just be placed outside for the bees to clean up, which they did eagerly.
Our yield was approximately 65 pounds of honey, 20 light "spring" honey (very fragrant) and 45 dark "fall" honey (mellow and rich). We let it rest 24 hours for bubbles to settle out. I began bottling last night with a ladel and funnel. Next year a bottling bucket with a honey gate valve would be a nice addition, especially if we do lots of little bottles for sale. This harvest will be enough to split with Bud and hopefully get us to the next harvest. I think we'll be increasing the number of hives and might try our hand at marketing some honey. There are a number of neighbors, co-workers, and farmers who have expressed interest in buying our honey.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
9/30/10: Inspection and honey removal
Conditions: Sunny, 65F
Present: Bud F. and I
Equipment: No changes.
Activities: Smoked hives about 5:30pm. Inspected super frames for capped honey.
Observations:
New Hive: Took about 5 frames of capped honey. More frames of uncapped honey present. Will return again before extracting for the fall. 2 more weeks?
Old Hive: Same as new hive. Also removed a super that was nearly empty with no real new comb to speak of.
The weather has been good with enough rain and plenty of warm, sunny days. We're going to have a fall harvest after all!
Present: Bud F. and I
Equipment: No changes.
Activities: Smoked hives about 5:30pm. Inspected super frames for capped honey.
Observations:
New Hive: Took about 5 frames of capped honey. More frames of uncapped honey present. Will return again before extracting for the fall. 2 more weeks?
Old Hive: Same as new hive. Also removed a super that was nearly empty with no real new comb to speak of.
The weather has been good with enough rain and plenty of warm, sunny days. We're going to have a fall harvest after all!
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
9/9/10: Twelveth Inspection and Geagua County Fair
Conditions: Cloudy, 62F
Present: Just me
Equipment: No changes.
Activities: Smoked hives about 6:00pm. Inspected a few frames.
Observations:
New Hive:
Two frames of capped spring honey left. About 3 frames of fall uncapped honey drying. The hive was quite defensive. Not sure if it was the weather, the season, or what, but they came boiling out several times. I cut the inspection short after watching a worker intentionally sting my glove. Sufficient bees, spotted larva 5-6 days old.
Old Hive:
As reported at last inspection, no remaining spring honey, though fall nectar is coming in nicely. I observed approximately one super full of uncapped honey drying. The queen is still laying in every open cell she can find, though now that the workers are bringing in nectar they can fill it into newly opened up cells in the supers after the brood has emerged. This is no good for cut-comb as the comb where brood was laid is darker, but hopefully will be great tasting honey once extracted. The super I placed on top did have lots of bees in it, but they have not built out comb on any of the foundation or foundationless frames (I put in three empty frames to see if they’d build those out. There must not be a shortage of open cells, then. Spotted larvae 5-6 days old.
General:
We went to the Geauga County Fair and tasted honey on Labor Day (9/6/10). I talked with a Geauga County Beekeepers Association (GBCA) member who said the fall flow will be disappointing and he’s already feeding his bees, expecting no honey crop. He said a botanist came out to the GCBA to talk nectar and he said goldenrod would produce pollen, but no nectar due to early maturity of the nectar-producing organ in the plant. This natrually made me nervous about potentially ending my second year as a beekeeper without a substantial harvest. I don’t know about all that business with goldenrod nectar-producing organs, but I was relieved to see my bees are finding fall nectar from somewhere. A couple more weeks of fall flow before beginning a winter feeding should leave us with a good honey crop. There have been a few occasional rains which probably helps boost the current nectar flow. August was really dry. The forecast is all days in the 60s with partial clouds, lows in the 50s.
Present: Just me
Equipment: No changes.
Activities: Smoked hives about 6:00pm. Inspected a few frames.
Observations:
New Hive:
Two frames of capped spring honey left. About 3 frames of fall uncapped honey drying. The hive was quite defensive. Not sure if it was the weather, the season, or what, but they came boiling out several times. I cut the inspection short after watching a worker intentionally sting my glove. Sufficient bees, spotted larva 5-6 days old.
Old Hive:
As reported at last inspection, no remaining spring honey, though fall nectar is coming in nicely. I observed approximately one super full of uncapped honey drying. The queen is still laying in every open cell she can find, though now that the workers are bringing in nectar they can fill it into newly opened up cells in the supers after the brood has emerged. This is no good for cut-comb as the comb where brood was laid is darker, but hopefully will be great tasting honey once extracted. The super I placed on top did have lots of bees in it, but they have not built out comb on any of the foundation or foundationless frames (I put in three empty frames to see if they’d build those out. There must not be a shortage of open cells, then. Spotted larvae 5-6 days old.
General:
We went to the Geauga County Fair and tasted honey on Labor Day (9/6/10). I talked with a Geauga County Beekeepers Association (GBCA) member who said the fall flow will be disappointing and he’s already feeding his bees, expecting no honey crop. He said a botanist came out to the GCBA to talk nectar and he said goldenrod would produce pollen, but no nectar due to early maturity of the nectar-producing organ in the plant. This natrually made me nervous about potentially ending my second year as a beekeeper without a substantial harvest. I don’t know about all that business with goldenrod nectar-producing organs, but I was relieved to see my bees are finding fall nectar from somewhere. A couple more weeks of fall flow before beginning a winter feeding should leave us with a good honey crop. There have been a few occasional rains which probably helps boost the current nectar flow. August was really dry. The forecast is all days in the 60s with partial clouds, lows in the 50s.
Friday, September 3, 2010
9/1/10: Eleventh Inspection
Conditions: Sunny, 88F
Present: Just me
Equipment: Added Super to old hive.
Activities: Smoked hives about 4:00pm. Inspected representative frames.
Observations:
New Hive: Still a couple of frames of capped honey, some additional comb built, sufficient bees, brood, larvae. Nothing much of note moving into the fall flow.
Old Hive: All the capped honey (previously some 11 frames) is gone. The bees ate it in the past month during the dearth. The queen has filled all the opened up cells with eggs, larvae and brood. The deep and three supers, two of which were supposed to be honey supers. This is amazing to me. This hive has twice as many bees and more than twice as much brood as it’s neighbor. We are either going to get a huge amount of all fall honey from this colony, or nothing but a bunch of bees. There were some very small amounts of dark fall nectar drying, but they appear to be consuming it all faster than they can bring it in. Time will tell. I saw about a half dozen queen cups, which appears to be more than usual. I spotted the queen, but since she is not a marked queen I do not know if she’s the original or superceded. I did not spot any full-sized queen cells sealed or already hatched. I spotted LOTS of 1-3 day old eggs in pristine wax cells that were previously all full of capped honey.
Present: Just me
Equipment: Added Super to old hive.
Activities: Smoked hives about 4:00pm. Inspected representative frames.
Observations:
New Hive: Still a couple of frames of capped honey, some additional comb built, sufficient bees, brood, larvae. Nothing much of note moving into the fall flow.
Old Hive: All the capped honey (previously some 11 frames) is gone. The bees ate it in the past month during the dearth. The queen has filled all the opened up cells with eggs, larvae and brood. The deep and three supers, two of which were supposed to be honey supers. This is amazing to me. This hive has twice as many bees and more than twice as much brood as it’s neighbor. We are either going to get a huge amount of all fall honey from this colony, or nothing but a bunch of bees. There were some very small amounts of dark fall nectar drying, but they appear to be consuming it all faster than they can bring it in. Time will tell. I saw about a half dozen queen cups, which appears to be more than usual. I spotted the queen, but since she is not a marked queen I do not know if she’s the original or superceded. I did not spot any full-sized queen cells sealed or already hatched. I spotted LOTS of 1-3 day old eggs in pristine wax cells that were previously all full of capped honey.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
8/17/10: Tenth Inspection
Conditions: Sunny, 77F
Present: Just me
Equipment: Provided additional ventilation by propping the top and off-setting the lower deep from the other hive bodies. This effectively creates another entrance.
Activities: Smoked hives about 5:30pm. Inspected representative frames.
Observations:
New hive: No changes. No observable change in the number of bees or amount of honey. No mites seen.
Old hive: No changes. Observed eggs in top super, which I placed on the top after the previous inspection as it had some brood in it. This means the queen was there laying 1-3 days ago, if she wasn't still up there. I was hoping she'd stay away, down in the lower since there is a super full of honey between the main brood area (deep) and this top super. No luck. I observed 5-7 day old larvae in the lower brood area, so the queen is basically laying all over. Also observed no mites on bees. Planning the next inspection for at least 2 weeks.
General: Goldenrod will bloom soon.
Present: Just me
Equipment: Provided additional ventilation by propping the top and off-setting the lower deep from the other hive bodies. This effectively creates another entrance.
Activities: Smoked hives about 5:30pm. Inspected representative frames.
Observations:
New hive: No changes. No observable change in the number of bees or amount of honey. No mites seen.
Old hive: No changes. Observed eggs in top super, which I placed on the top after the previous inspection as it had some brood in it. This means the queen was there laying 1-3 days ago, if she wasn't still up there. I was hoping she'd stay away, down in the lower since there is a super full of honey between the main brood area (deep) and this top super. No luck. I observed 5-7 day old larvae in the lower brood area, so the queen is basically laying all over. Also observed no mites on bees. Planning the next inspection for at least 2 weeks.
General: Goldenrod will bloom soon.
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