Archives

Memorial Day Honey

May29

Last year, we had not even rescued our first hives of bees by Memorial Day. This year, we added two new hives and got them early in the season (February in California).  We’ve also been feeding both hives steadily with 1:1 sugar:water syrup, and prior to when we added the honey supers, we also fed the hives Pro-Bee cakes.  Our hope is that these two factors will allow us to take one small draw of honey prior to the fall.

Today, we decided to reward ourselves with a first taste of honey. Our bees have been busily filling the honey supers (two medium on each hive) with honey. It’s still too early to do a full honey draw because the honey isn’t full in either super, nor is it capped.  But in inspecting the hives today, hive 1 had several pieces of comb that the bees had built up between frames. For hive maintenance – and conveniently to collect some honey – we removed the extra comb.

I had brought a large metal bowl down to the honey grove just in case such a situation presented itself.IMG_7857_1024 Of course many bees came with the comb into the bowl, but we gently and patiently brushed them off the comb, and back into the hive, leaving us with beautiful comb dripping with honey. Rand showed me that I could chew on the comb, much like chewing gum. What a pleasure! Our honey is indescribably sweet and flavorful. I can’t wait to do a proper draw and share it with our friends and family!

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bees on the honey super’s frames:

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End of March check-in

Mar29

Both beehives are humming and as Spring is coming into full bloom, they have lots to eat from the garden. On the theory that a well-fed bee is a healthy, happy bee, we’ve been supplementing with 10/1 sugar patties, and 1/1 sugar-water syrup still. And they are still consuming about one large ball jar a day!

Here is hive #1: DSC03599_1024

And here’s a video showing their activity around the entrance, and how many are returning with pollen-filled legs. http://youtu.be/IVBfGIYX6_Y

Tomorrow, we’ll check inside the hives

Old Frames From Our Robbed Bees That We Are Putting in the New Hives

Mar9

 

Here are the frames from our hive that was robbed of all its honey last summer. We are dividing these well-developed frames as the four side frames (two on each side of the existing bees) in each of our new hives. Having comb built out will save the bees a lot of energy. They will clean these old frames and fix them up to suit their hives. There are some dead larvae and a few dead bees, but no foulbrood or other disease.

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Bees are loving Sugar Fondant Candy

Mar4

When the hive was new, less than two weeks ago, it took the bees a week to drink the ball jar of syrup. Now, it’s taking them only two days. Similarly, the bees are making fast work of the candy fondant we put above the queen excluder, so we added more today. IMG_7057_1024They are putting wax on the queen excluder, but don’t seem to have spread out to the extra four frames much yet, so we don’t think it’s quite time to put a new super on top.

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Feeding our new bees

Feb27

Feeding Time:

It’s early spring here, and the bees don’t have honey on their frames we transferred from the nucs, so we must feed them. We’ve done that in two ways: liquid and cake food.

Here is the liquid food. I dissolved sugar and honey in hot water, then let it cool. I made the solution thicker than 1/1. I’d say it’s closer to 2/1 to give them a rich start for their colony building. Plus, we’re about to have 3-4 days of rain, and it’s still cool, so I didn’t think they needed hydration as much as sugar sustenance. This reminds me of having babies and thinking how much water to add to juice to dilute it in their bottles.

We used the kind of feeder for the liquid that gives the bees access from inside the hive because we worry about robbing bees. Basically, it’s a mason jar with holes in its lid, turned upside down that drips onto a container that the bees can get access to from the side facing into the hive.
We also added entrance reducers to the left of the feeder after I took this photo.

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The second kind of food I’m giving the bees are cakes of sugar that I made using 10 parts sugar to one part water. You boil water, add the sugar gradually until it dissolves. It will turn caramel color instead of white. Just as the mixture begins to reboil, you take it off the sheet and pour it on paper plates on which you’ve put waxed paper or plastic wrap (to make removing it easier). After it’s cooled, it breaks up nicely to put on top of the colony, and they’ll eat it slowly as needed.
I put these cakes above a queen excluder inside a ventilation shim that I bought from Evans Cedar Beehives in NJ.
After you’re done, you can turn any leftover sugar into sugar water solution for your liquid feeders.

IMG_1447_1024IMG_1471_1024   IMG_1470_1024   our lower hive                  IMG_1500_1024 our upper hive