Day #355 Bye-bye Bees

Yesterday morning, Rob and Tommy came by to take my bees to their new home.

I cried.

I also tried to give Rob the bee box brander I’d bought from Brand New, “because,” I said, “I’m not a beekeeper anymore.”

“Yes, you are,” he told me. “You still have the bees; they’re just going to be living somewhere else.”

The transfer was easy (except for my crying) in part because the weather has turned quite cool. At 10:30 in the morning, it was only about 48 degrees Fahrenheit / 9 degrees Celsius, so almost every single bee was inside the hive.

In fact, when Rob and Tommy each picked up a hive, they were both surprised at how heavy they were. That’s good news. It means the bees have been making good use of the supplemental feed I’ve been giving them, and they should have enough honey to get them through the winter, particularly since their new home will be in the middle of fifty acres that right now are filled with goldenrod, and my bees will have several weeks for harvesting. Goldenrod honey is good honey.

I still won’t get any honey until next spring, but that’s okay. My bees got off to such a slow start, I’m just glad they survived. Rob kept reassuring me yesterday that the hives were strong now and should make it through the winter just fine.

Here the hives are, loaded on the back of the truck. They guys stapled screening over the entrance holes.

And the photo on the right was my last view of the hives, as Rob backed the tuck out of my driveway.

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you’ve seen lots of pictures of the hives, taken through my bay window. The scene looks awfully empty now, with that slash of dark shadow from the deck railing looking like a slash across the whole enterprise.

There are about a dozen bees flying around the concrete blocks where their hives used to be. Rob said they’d figure out another place to go, possibly find a wild hive they could join. With their little gifts of pollen-filled corbiculae, I imagine they’d be welcome anywhere.

As I try to type this Saturday afternoon, through my tears I see an enormous Pileated Woodpecker land on one of the nearby trees in my back yard. Life goes on.

BEEattitude for Day # 355:

       Blessed are those who keep their eyes open, for they shall see wonders the rest of the world misses.

Fran’s p.s. The WAG raffle is over now. Once I contact the winner, I’ll let you know who it was and what kind of dog will be in Violet as an Amethyst.

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Day #317 Successful Hive Inspection!

It’s amazing what a little sugar water will do for a starving colony. I’m not talking about how people run in the door and yell, “What’s for dinner? I’m starving!”

I’m talking about 60,000 bees too exhausted and depleted even to buzz when I opened their lid. That was last week, though. After 7 days of sugar water feeding (I went through an entire 10-pound bag of sugar), the queen has started laying again, and the bees are happy and buzzy once more.

Thanks to my beekeeping mentor Tommy Bailey for helping me with my hives. He came over Wednesday afternoon and took both hives apart, teaching me what to look for, and why.

He said the places where the bees had bridged the space between two of the frames was okay for now. We saw eggs, larvae in all different stages, and capped brood where more babies will be hatching. I watched several babies clamber out of the cells they’d matured in – that was so absolutely amazing I could have cried.

Look at the places where the bright yellow comb is showing. The grungy looking brownish junk (shown here on the inside lid) is propolis, the glue-like substnce that I wrote about earlier this year. The bees had used it to stick the lid to the top of the frames. Thank goodness for my yellow hive tool; otherwise we might never have gotten the lid off.

When it was all over, I brought the super back inside. No comb on it at all yet. I'll put it back in next spring.

BEEattitude for Day # 317:

       Blessed are those who keep going in spite of discouragement, for they shall be pleasantly surprised.

Fran's bee.s.: Thank you to those who emailed me asking about the bee sting on my leg. It's still pretty swollen. To get an idea of the size of it, spread your fingers really wide and lay your hand along the side of your leg. I've started taking an antihistamine. Probably should have done that as soon as it happened. I'll see if I can take a picture of it tomorrow

Day #248 What a Difference . . .

I apologize for having spent the last week bemoaning the sorry state of my white hive. All my friends have most likely gotten thoroughly tired of hearing about my poor bees who hadn’t done any comb-building as of the last time I checked the hives, one week ago.

To paraphrase an old song, though –

What a difference a week makes, tra-la-la

Thursday morning I called Tommy Bailey, asking if he would stop by sometime soon and help me figure out what was going on in the hives.

He said yes, of course, he’d stop by on Friday, because he’s that kind of guy – unfailingly polite and committed to helping inexperienced beekeepers. But he added, as he always has before, each time I’ve talked with him, “The only way to learn about honey bees is to work the hives yourself. You’ll never know what the books are trying to tell you, or what I’m trying to tell you, until you get in there and moves those frames around. Try something, anything. If it works, that’s great. If it doesn’t, you’ve just learned something.”

As many times as he’s said it before, I think this was the first time I heard him.

I put down the phone, grabbed my smoker, bee jacket, and hive tool, and headed for the deck.

What I found astonished me. I opened the brown hive first, knowing ahead of time that it was a dismal failure. And guess what I found? Three and a half full frames on the top hive body, with lots of capped brood, lots of larvae, and lots of worker bees.

Sure, some of the frames were stuck to the ones underneath them. I wiggled them loose, scraped off the offending protuberances, and put it all back together. Then I added a super, because it looked like they’d soon need more room.

All this activity going on at a time when beekeepers (including Tommy) are saying, “It’s been too dry and too hot, and not much is in bloom now, so don’t be surprised if your bees aren’t doing much. June is the down-time.”

 
Not for my girls!

They’re as busy as . . . okay I’ll say it . . . as bees.

p.s. I called Tommy right back and told him not to bother stopping by. Everything was just fine and dandy at Bees Knees Beekeeping!

BEEattitude for Day # 248:

       Blessed are those who provide clean water for us bees, especially on hot days, for they shall be buzzed about in the hive.

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Day #243 Squash Casserole and Beehives

Rob Alexander, one of the leaders of the Gwinnett Beekeepers Club, outdid himself Saturday. Oh, I’m sure he had some help – people who helped haul coolers and food, plates and utensils – but while all of us sat around the pavilion at Rancho Alegre (the wonderful home of www.Gwinnett.LocallyGrown.net) and ate ourselves silly, Rob cooked hamburgers, and hotdogs, and bratwurst. My friend Geri and I left before the end, but I imagine he did a great deal of the clean-up afterwards, too.

So,

THANK YOU, ROB!

You get a

Blue Ribbon!

It was a good ole American picnic, with baked beans and potato salad, brownies and fudge, squash casserole (my personal favorite of the afternoon) and coconut cake. Not too many ants. Lots of beehives.

Beehives? At a picnic?

Well, not right there in the pavilion. To check the hives, we had to walk across the field. More than a dozen people at a time gathered around a line of hives, asking questions of Tommy Bailey (the other club leader), and learning a lot.

That’s what beekeeping is all about – learning.

BEEattitude for Day # 243:

       Blessed are those who enjoy good conversation as they eat, for they shall have true nourishment.

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Day #204 Still a Lot to Learn

Tuesday I spent some time with my friend Geri, who has a 10-frame hive.

She knew as little about hers as I knew about mine. I’d told her I’d help her open it up for the first check since she brought it home last week.

Guess what? I hadn’t a clue whether I was looking at something positive or something negative. So she called Tommy, who—bless him indeed—stopped by and set her mind at rest. It seems the hive is working just fine. All that comb built between the frames is to be expected (I’d thought it was only in MY hive!)

This just goes to prove that I still don’t know nearly enough about bees. Of course, Tommy’s been around bees for 40 years, since his grandpa and dad had hives. So maybe Geri and I aren’t doing too badly with our less-than-a-month of experience…

BEEattitude for Day # 204:

       Blessed are those who take time to practice, for they shall gradually get better at what they do.

One thing Fran is grateful for right now:

       My knees that still work

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Day #203 First Honey - Sort Of . . .

Last week, when I opened the white hive, those bees were building comb that didn’t look like anything I’d seen in books, so I put out a call for help. Tommy Bailey, one of the leaders of our beekeepers club, dropped by my house Monday to help me figure out what was going on. I wasn’t crazy. The bees had built comb that wasn’t attached to the foundation other than at the top. Some of their comb was so deep it infringed on the space needed by the next frame over.

Thank goodness for Tommy’s bee-sense. He showed me how to slice off the extra-fat comb so the frames would fit. Then we junked three of the five frames, the ones that had so much messed-up comb they weren’t worth saving. This whole operation will set the white hive back a few weeks, but what they build from now on should be better all around. I’ll have to keep an eye on it.

We did find an active queen, and there were lots of eggs and larvae and capped brood, so the hive should eventually thrive. At least, I hope so.

Then we checked the yellow hive – and the comb they’d built in there was as bright yellow as the hive itself. I kid you not. BRIGHT yellow. Tommy said he’d never seen anything like that. The thing is, I have this HUGE Tulip Poplar tree in my front yard, and it’s been in full bloom for several weeks. Tommy said he guessed that the bees were pulling all their nectar and pollen from there, and that it was turning the wax yellow. Isn’t that fun?

Those frames (in theyellow hive) were getting close to being full, so by Thursday I’ll probably have to put a second story on the hive, to give them room to expand. Can you believe it? In two weeks, starting from scratch, those sweeties have built themselves a mansion, and peopled it with everything they need not only to survive, but to flourish.

The comb we cut off drained out into a bucket, and I “harvested” about three tablespoons of honey! The rest I left for the bees to rob out and return to the hive. My grandkids thought the honey was delicious. Life is good.

BEEattitude for Day # 203:

       Blessed are those who are willing to help others, for they shall go on our gratitude lists.

One thing Fran is grateful for right now:

       The wonderful conversation I had with Tommy.

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