Day #183 A Bit of Bee Trivia

Why is a honey bee not a honeybee?

A few examples to illustrate the difference:

Ø  A dragonfly is not a type of fly, so it is not a dragon fly

Ø  Ladybugs are not bugs; they are beetles. So they are not lady bugs.

A honey bee is a bee that produces honey, so the correct term (regardless of what terms I’ve used in this blog so far) is two-worded:

Honey Bee

By the way, this bit of trivia won’t work in the United Kingdom, for there they use the term “honeybee.”

Don’t ask me why.

BEEattitude for Day # 183:

       Blessed are the wordsmiths, for they shall call us wondrous things.

One thing Fran is grateful for right now:

       My dear friend Debby Barker, who has the most amazing healing energy.   

http://www.franstewart.com

Day #181 Grandma's Irises

My father’s mother was a Mississippi farm wife. One of the most poignant memories of my childhood is my watching her on her knees, wearing an old blue faded sunbonnet, weeding her iris garden. I wanted so much to help her, but she was not the sort of grandmother to encourage anyone to poach on her precious time alone with her flowers.



Grandma Stewart's Irises



Long after her death, I visited my Aunt Mary, who had taken some of the irises from her mother’s garden and planted them at her own place in Tennessee, where they had multiplied into enormous beds of deep purple, light lavender, and multi-colored wonder. Aunt Mary gave some of each color to me, and I planted them at my house in Suwannee. Then, when I moved to my current house, I lugged irises along with me, leaving plenty for the enjoyment of the people who’d bought my house.

Yesterday I was out in the front yard, filling the bird feeder, and I saw that several of Grandma’s irises had shot up those distinctive tall stems, topped with furled buds. This is what some of them looked like the spring after I moved into this house. Now these particular ones have pink dianthus growing around their feet

I hope my bees will enjoy them as much as I do when they finally bloom again this year.

One thing Fran is grateful for right now:

       My grandchildren, who are always welcome to share my joys.    

Day #178 Feeling Encouraged

We had a Board meeting last night, where we sat over dinner and discussed what we want the Gwinnett Beekeepers Club to accomplish over the next year. It was lovely to see the enthusiasm of the other members. Each of us wants to encourage beekeeping and to educate people about the value of honeybees.

But the real value for me came when I mentioned that I’ll be picking up my bees next week. Instantly the experienced beekeepers were full of suggestions

v  stay calm,

v  be sure you take pictures because this is the only time you’ll open a package of bees for the FIRST time,

v  make sure the queen cage is placed in the middle of the hive body,

v  spray the bees a little bit—not too much, and

v  enjoy the process.

That was the big one—enjoy the process. It won’t help the bees one bit if I get all nervous and flustered. So, I have my checklist all made out, and I honestly think I’m as ready as I possibly can be.

Tomorrow I’m going to call the bee supply place to see if I can get an exact date for picking up my bees. Then I’ll be twiddling my thumbs, waiting for the big day and wondering if there’s anything I’ve forgotten. Maybe I’m not as ready as I think I am . . .

BEEattitude for Day # 178:

       Blessed are those who stay calm, for they shall not upset us.

One thing Fran is grateful for right now:

       Doggie bags from restaurants.   

http://www.franstewart.com

Day #144 The Complete Canon

Becoming a beekeeper has been a long process – and I don’t even have my bees yet. For some reason, this process reminds me a bit of the adventure that the Atlanta Shakespeare Company has been going through at the Shakespeare Tavern.

As of this month, they will become the third acting company in the world ever to have completed the entire canon – every play Shakespeare ever wrote. March 11^th they’ll open Two Noble Kinsmen, the story of two men who are best friends, but who fall in love with the same woman. Running in repertory on alternate evenings will be Edward III, which opens on March 17^th. The two plays will close on April 16^th and April 17^th.

Completing the canon has been a long-time dream of the ASC’s artistic director, Jeffrey Watkins. I’ve been fortunate to serve as a volunteer at the Tavern ever since I first moved to Georgia in 1993, and I've watched the dream become a reality.

The ASC gets most of its revenue through ticket sales, so – if you’ve never seen a play there (or if you’d like to see another one) – head to http://www.shakespearetavern.com/.

After TNK and E3 open, the Atlanta Shakespeare Company will join the rarified company of those two other acting groups who have performed every play of Shakespeare’s.

Ø  One of them (of course) is the Royal Shakespeare Academy in England.

Ø  The other was Willie’s very own acting company – the one for which he wrote all those plays.

Once I’ve seen both these plays, I’ll join a select group of people who have, over the years, attended every single play by W.S.

And then, in early April, I’ll join that select group of folks who live with bees in their backyard. I’m looking forward to both experiences.

BEEattitude for Day # 144:

       Blessed are those who act, for their dedication shall brighten the world.

One thing Fran is grateful for right now:

       My good friend Millie, with whom I attend the plays.   

http://www.franstewart.com

Day #127 Bee Burglars

We’ve talked about the way killer bees infiltrate a hive, but what I’d like to mention today is hive robbing by regular little worker honey bees.

If a hive is weak—because of an inefficient queen, perhaps, or because the hive simply isn’t well-enough populated—then bees from other hives will do their best to sneak in and rob the honey and pollen stores. If the beekeeper is feeding with sugar water, the intruders will take that as well, leaving the original hive inhabitants to starve. I hope this is something I never have to deal with.

How to avoid a problem? I’m glad you asked.

1.       Monitor the hive to catch problems before they get serious. That’s what the books say, as if I’m supposed to know what to look for.

2.      Feed the bees at the rear of the hive rather than right at the front door, so that robbers would have to negotiate the length of the hive and would probably be stopped before they got to their goal. Langstroth hives are traditionally built to accommodate an entrance feeder. This makes it harder for the guard bees to keep out a mass of intruders. The bee hives I’m buying (and the ones I’ll build) all feed at the rear, however, so I should be okay.

3.      Reduce the size of the entrance. You can buy fancy entrance reducers, but my hives have a small hole as the entrance to begin with. That’s the usual design of top bar hives as well, so when I build mine, I’ll put in three entrance holes and cork the ones that aren’t ready to be used yet. (I’ll explain this in a later blog.)

4.      As a last resort, break up a weak hive by eliminating the queen and placing that hive’s brood comb in a stronger hive. I’ve said it before: I DON’T want to squish a queen, so this last resort will probably never be used at BeesKnees Beekeeping.

And now, while we’re talking about burglars, here’s a fun story from a National Public Radio blog: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/02/15/133784265/no-not-a-cat-burglar-a-cat-thats-a-burglar

BEEattitude for Day # 127:

       Blessed are those who keep their feet to themselves, for we shall not resort to stinging them.

One thing Fran is grateful for right now:

       Steve Reiman, founder of Therapy Dogs of Vermont, who sent me that blog link    

http://www.franstewart.com

Day #120 Fat Bees

Fat bees? That's not what I want.

Commercial beekeepers have created bees that are 30% heavier than bees are meant to be. The change to large-cell foundation has forced the little bees to grow bigger, presumably so they can create more honey. But the final result has been bees that are more susceptible to diseases.

o   Fat bees can't easily forage in cold weather or in hot weather.

o   Fat bees can't dig out the bug pests that invade a hive.

o   Fat bees can't fly as far from the hive to gather pollen, propolis, or nectar.

o   Fat bees are not as healthy as the bees sized by Mother Nature, so they need to be medicated regularly by the beekeepers.

Why would anyone want to propagate fat bees, when Mother N's been telling the bees all along (for more than a hundred million years) how to stay healthy and happy?

Let's hear it for Mother Nature! And the next time you buy honey – find out about who produced it and how.

BEEattitude for Day # 120:

       Blessed are they who let us live as we were intended to live, for they shall have their gardens pollinated and shall eat healthy honey.

One thing Fran is grateful for right now:

       April Myers, the managing editor of The Pen Woman magazine.   

http://www.franstewart.com

Day #115 Gardening in Bags

I found a great article in Mother Earth News (the only magazine I subscribe to) about how to start a garden in bags of soil. Sounded great to me, since my “back yard” is a small strip of weedy ground between the house and the woods, strewn with spiky round seed pods from the sour-gum trees. The thought of trying to turn it over and delete all the weeds has kept me – well – NOT gardening back there for the past six years.

This year, all that’s going to change. I’ve bought three bags of soil (that’s all I can fit in the trunk of my little car without tipping its front tires off the road). I laid them in a row, side by side to keep weeds from growing up between them.

When the weather is right, I’ll cut a big rectangle out of the top surface, poke drainage holes down through the bottom, and plant my seeds. Lettuce and beets to start with, followed by tomatoes and dill and chives, scallions and parsley and nasturtiums and marigolds. The list goes on.

Now all I have to do is buy 25 more bags. And straw to put around the ends of the bags to keep the weeds from growing up in the pathways and over the edges. Home Depot, here I come…

Boy, am I going to have a busy spring and summer.

BEEattitude for Day # 115:

       Blessed are they who garden, for we shall pollinate their plants and they shall have food in abundance.

One thing Fran is grateful for right now:

       The downy woodpecker eating home-made suet outside my window as I write this.    

http://www.franstewart.com

Day #111 White Wax and Cardboard Boxes

This past week has felt like a bonanza. Four separate orders of beekeeping supplies were delivered to my door. Four boxes of magic. At least it feels like magic to me. I now have a hive perch, an “inspector’s jacket,” three beetle blasters, a bee brush, an Italian hive tool, and a whole bunch of other goodies. Yeah!

One of those other arrivals was a one-pound block of white beeswax. As I get my top bars built, I’ll be applying a thin line of beeswax along the length of each bar, so the bees can use it as a roadmap for where to build their combs. I’m not sure the wax is an absolute necessity, but the bees I’ve ordered were all raised on man-made foundation. These sheets of plastic are stamped with a raised pattern of hexagonal cells that have been coated in beeswax. The bees follow that pattern in drawing out the comb (making each cell deep enough to hold eggs, baby bees, nectar, honey, pollen—all the necessities of life in a thriving hive.

But I want my bees to form their own comb, with no plastic guiding them. I’ve heard and read that a line of wax centered on the bottom side of each top bar will at least get them started in the right place. After that, it's up to Mama Nature. The problem with drawing comb completely all by themselves is that it takes a tremendous amount of effort and resources on the part of the worker bees. And, before they can draw the comb, the hive has to be warm enough to keep the wax malleable as they form it.

It will be my job as a beekeeper to make sure there is enough room in the hive so the bees don’t have to store their nectar in the brood chamber (because that would mean the queen would have no cells in which to lay her eggs).

My cats are delighted, because the four orders mean cardboard boxes for them to hide in. I have an empty bee hive in my living room, boxes everywhere for the cats, shelves overflowing with books I love, music on public radio. Life is good.

BEEattitude for Day # 111:

       Blessed are the beekeepers who give us enough room to grow, for they shall find honey in abundance. This beginning beekeeper hopes that is right . . .

One thing Fran is grateful for right now:

       My new hive net, so I’ll be able to enclose the nuc and the package I pick up in South Georgia in eight weeks. I don’t particularly want a bunch of stray bees getting out of the nuc on my back seat and flying around the car for several hours while I’m driving home.   

http://www.franstewart.com

Day #109 Gwinnett Environmental & Heritage Center

If you've been reading my blog from the start, you may recall that I was inspired to keep bees after speaking with various beekeepers last September at the Gwinnett Environmental and Heritage Center. It's that kind of place -- they pull together fascinating people and fascinating information in thought-provoking, fun exhibits.



(c) BluePeak.net



Yesterday I dropped by there to see Your House, My House. What fun! I got to step inside a Navajo hogan, a Malaysian stilt house, and a Fijian M'bure. I also got to try to put the roof on a Mongolian ger (rhymes with dare). That one was a model about 3 feet in diameter, and I struggled to get poles threaded into a wooden circle and attached to leather brackets spaced around the circular wood frame wall. After it was together (sort of), I had to place a canvas top over it and get the hole in the canvas to line up with the wooden smoke hole. I will admit that it was lop-sided when I finished, but I still had a good time. Give it a try sometime. The exhibit will be there through April 8th. http://www.gwinnettehc.org/

I found these two ger photos at http://www.bluepeak.net/

(c) BluePeak.net

 As I was leaving, I stopped at the front desk to thank them and to tell them that I was starting beekeeping as a result of that exhibit they'd had last year. The woman called out the Education Program Coordinator, Brian Sterne. Seems he's a beekeeper, and he has a top bar hive, which is precisely the kind I want to build over the summer. He gave me a lot of good advice on how to craft the top bars.

Beekeepers are very special people, ready to share their knowledge and to encourage newbies in the field.

BEEattitude for Day # 108:

       Blessed are the exhibit-makers, for the delight they bring shall filter back to them.  

One thing Fran is grateful for right now:

       Holtkamp Heating & A/C Inc., the sponsors of “Your House, My House” at GEHC.    

http://www.franstewart.com