In past years, when it was time to mow the orchard/bee yard, I would give the hive stands a fairly wide berth until right at the end of mowing that area, then drive the tractor as quickly as possible in front and back of them about ten feet away. I did this without a suit on, because there were few hives, and the speed generally got me past them and away before they figured out what was happening. This resulted in much less area to whack to knock down the grass and weeds in that ten foot area before and behind them (suited, of course), but was still kind of a pain. Obviously, getting nearer to the hives with the tractor would be much better, efficiency-wise, leaving much less area to have to manually whack. The very first year with bees, I did run up right across the areas directly in front of the hives, as they were young hives, and there wasn’t much danger in doing so.
Now, with six very active hives, another hive likely to come from a split of one of those, and more bees coming, efficiency is definitely key, as is spending as little time possible annoying them with motors or vibrations. After all, I want them to be able to focus on their work pollinating, collecting pollen and nectar, making new bees, and generating honey. So today, I suited up, climbed on the tractor, and started mowing, running right up in front of the hives. The girls were supremely pissy about this: bees boiled out from every single hive, some coming to knock against me and the tractor, others forming up on the landing boards, and some flying around in front of their homes, ready to attack in force. Suiting up: excellent decision!
At one point I hopped off the tractor to pull the two new hive stands out of the way to mow under them, and when I turned to climb back on, there were bees buzzing around the tractor, attempting to communicate their displeasure to it about its motor, and the vibrations from the blades disturbing their piece. On the down side: it can be a little hot in the suit, even on a cooler day like today. On the plus side: I swept a couple of bees off the seat before I climbed back on, so no stings in the butt (or anywhere else), and the orchard/bee yard is mowed right up to and behind the stands, leaving much less to whack, and that just right under each stand.
Next project: digging out the grass from under each stand, laying landscape fabric in, and topping it with mulch. My desired end result: no whacking necessary around the stands at all. Easy and efficient is the name of the game, particularly with the brutal summers we have.
With all due apology to George R. R. Martin and GoT, spring is on the way. It may already be here, looking at our ten day forecast, with daytime temps bouncing around between the mid-50s and low 80s. Yep, Florida is a weird place during this transition time. The fact that we’ve already see a swarm this early in the season is also a sign, of sorts – it means the queens in the hives have still been laying more or less at the same rate as they always have. In the winter, they generally slow down or stop, so as not to have a ton of bees in the hive that need to be fed and kept warm during the cold. Since Mother Nature is a bit wacky this year, and the winter has been mild, the bees are going full bore. Nothing wrong with that, except chasing down a swarm and trying to stop other hives from swarming.
When the state apiary inspector was here, I noted the two colonies I thought had gone queenless were looking a bit cramped. Checking on them again, it was clear the queen was doing her thing, as the frames in the brood box were full of bees, brood, pollen, and honey – in other words, a very healthy hive. There were also bees bearding on the landing board and front of the hive. In the heat of summer they will do this to relieve the heat within the hive. On milder days, it can be a sign there simply is no room left for expansion. Given that it was also time to check the gear to determine what supplies needed to be ordered, I decided to go ahead and expand both the one looking overcrowded and the one next to it, that was also going strong.
Storing hive bodies, supers, and frames is a necessity. Storing them properly is an even bigger necessity, to ensure critters don’t move in to them and take over, and the ensure wax moths don’t take up residence and destroy the woodenware and any comb that might be on any frames.
Wax moth damage
That’s done by stacking them soundly with no entrances available, and using paradichlorobenzene in the stack. What’s that, you say? It’s a kin to traditional mothballs, and smells like them. But regular mothballs you use in your closet are napthalene, and bee folks say use paradichlorobenzenne instead – so that’s what we do. I had put down a couple of sheets of newspaper, sprinkled the crystals on, then stacked the hive bodies on top of them, closed off with an overturned top cover. That would take care of any wax moths, keep rats/mice from getting in, and also keep Florida wood roaches out. It worked out fairly well, although next time I suspect using a bit more of the crystallized stuff would be better, as it kind of just melts away as time goes by.
Dead wax moth and feces
It worked out pretty well, as you can see from the dead moth on top of that frame (and the poop, but no larvae present). There were some frames I pulled out that had dark comb, as it had been used for brood once and then packed with pollen as the brood hatched. A couple of those had the remnants of wax moth damage, as wax moths lay in dark comb. Those went into a box set out near the shed where I was working. The bees immediately found it and notified a couple thousand of their closest friends to come help gather it and clean.
Cleanup crew
There was a bit of fighting going on between bees from different hives as they went about gathering from the frames, but in general, they were well behaved, and completely unconcerned with me – a good thing, as I was not wearing any protective gear.
Eventually, all the gear had been unstacked, examined, cleaned when necessary, or given over to the bees to clear. That left me with an inventory list of what was available, about to be put into use for the two lively colonies, and what needed to be discarded.
Sorting in progress
Once this chore was done, it was time to have a look in the hives. That will be a separate post. Stay tuned!
Here in Florida, everyone who keeps bees is supposed to register with The Man. Not everyone does, of course, sometimes because they just don’t know they’re supposed to, and sometimes because they’re some anti-government whackadoodle who doesn’t think it’s any of the government’s beeswax. They should, however: one of the jobs of the apiary inspector is to look for instances of American foulbrood, which is a very nasty business. If foulbrood is found in a hive, the hive has to be destroyed – by burning. That’s how bad it is. I asked bee man how often he sees it, and he says just once or twice a year. Remarkable: consider that this guy and another spend literally almost all their time driving around doing inspections, in beeyards with one hive or a thousands. Finding foulbrood that rarely out of that many hives says that the bees are doing well and that the beekeepers are, too.
I had thought two hives had gone queenless, as they were not ramping up from the splits I had made previously, and I hadn’t found good brood patterns in them. I’ve also not really gone into the hives except to pop the cover and listen for pissed-off bees in about a month-ish, except for one hive from which I made the newest split (that I am not sure actually hatched a queen that mated; there is definitely no brood in there). BUT! Upon inspection, both of the hives I thought might not make it have brood in them. Score! This means they are well on their way to earning their keep here at the ranch.
As some people know, we had a swarm earlier this week – that originated from the hive from which I had made a split trying to forestall that swarming – and the swarm landed in one of the very tall pine trees, about 50 feet off the ground. That was not a swarm that I could safely attempt to retrieve, so I wished them well and just kept checking them every day. I also put out the swarm lure in a nearby tree, to try to coax them into it as a suitable landing place. One day as I was heading out to replace a couple of feeders, a clump of bees fell off the swarm. When I checked later, they had formed a smaller ball on the end of the same branch the original ball was on – but again, in a place it would not be safe to try to capture them.
Initial swarm
Today, while waiting for bee man, I went out to replace some feeders and check on the swarm. As I was heading into the bee yard, I looked up, and finally, after five days, no bees way up in the tree. I figured the scouts had finally found a suitable space and everyone had taken off. This was not the case. As I shifted my gaze downward, what did I spy but the swarm, reformed about five feet off the ground in one of the hardwood trees nearby. An excellent prospect for capture.
Hello, ladies
We have attempted swarm captures before here at the ranch, with no success. Between then and now, though, I’ve done a lot more research, and picked up some pointers on how to get them in the box without them immediately flying right back up to where they were. With those tips in mind, I pulled out four frames we were storing from the last honey extraction and put them into an empty hive body box. Directly under the swarm, I laid down a couple of white sheets, then put the hive box (with bottom board) on those. The next step is the one that is terrifying to some people: using a hive tool, or brush, or just your hand to run along the tree limb, breaking the ball’s hold on the branch, causing them to fall into the box in a giant clump. This also results in a bunch of disturbed bees flying around. When they’re swarming, they are not really aggressive most of the time, because they’re all full of honey. But, if the swarm has been out of the hive for a few days, some of the bees may no longer be so full of honey, and may think your head is a terrific place to target with their asses, where their stinger resides. Luckily, I was completely suited up, and was not stung at all. Some of the bees, disturbed into flying, flew right back to the branch, so it took a couple of tries to get enough bees in the box for everyone to recognize that was a viable home.
With a bunch of bees in the box, I put on the inner cover (which has a slot in it) and then the outer cover, propping the edge of the outer cover up with a piece of a branch. This allows the bees to enter from the side as well as the front, and is a good thing, as there were quite a lot of bees on the side of the hive body. With the outer cover propped open in this manner, and with a little luck, the bees will march right into the hive. And that is exactly what they did.
By the time the bee man made it here (about 4:30), the branch was empty of bees, and the box was full of them. In just a bit, I’ll head out to remove the branch prop and close the cover. Tomorrow, I hope they will still be in the box, and if they are still there by Saturday, I and my bro Chris Abbey will be able to move the box back to the hive stand, and I can stick a feeder on them. If all works as planned, this will be our first successful capture of a swarm!
All photos and video are courtesy of my mom, who has now also been instructed on the proper way to shoot video (landscape!) from her phone when the needs arises. Thanks, Mom!
One of the things about the ranch that remains constant is that there is always something to do, either inside or out. This past week, the goal was weeding the back garden area and chopping up the vetch (which, hilariously enough, the autocorrect on my phone wants to correct to “kvetch”) that has regrown, so it can be used both to mulch the transplants when the time comes and so it can compost in place to return itself to the soil for later years. Today: achievement unlocked! The two rows in the foreground need some topping off with fresh soil and manure, and that will be done well before the transplants are ready to go out.
Next target: the front gardens. In addition to the weeding chores, keeping the bees fed and happy during these winter days is also very important, as is keeping a good water supply for them. I do this with a birdbath near the beeyard, with some sticks in it to allow the bees to drink without drowning themselves. Even with this in place, we still have to fish them out of the pool from time to time, but once they dry off, they’re off again back to their hives. I found this one girl hanging out at the edge of the birdbath basin, drinking up.
Just another day at the ranch on a beautiful day that felt more like spring than winter.
After processing out the honey in the extractor and then getting the honey that was in the uncapping tub (and also taking that beeswax out, to be cleaned and stored until we do a melt), the last task is cleaning everything. Fortunately, there are many thousands of helpers ready and willing to do just that.
It takes a lot of them as there is still quite a bit of honey left, clinging to absolutely everything: extracting honey is not a pristine or entirely clean (hands-wise) process. Like Cecil B. DeMille, we have a cast of thousands.
The girls can be quite acrobatic when they are searching for every last drop of sweet honey to carry back to their hives.
They are also quite focused on their task, which allows Norma Desmond here to be ready for her closeup.
A late season frame pull for honey, as the bees in one hive were starting to approach the honeybound phase: storing so much honey that no cells were available for the queen to lay. Replacing a couple of full frames with empties can hold that at bay hopefully, until such time as we can pull more honey-filled frame and/or split off some of the bees from that hive to create a new hive with a new queen.
Last month, I created two new split hives. A split, for those unfamiliar with such things, is when you take a frame or frames of brood and bees from an existing, strong hive, and put them in a new hive, either with a new queen (which is what I did) or by taking our brood that contains eggs that were recently laid so the bees will create an emergency queen for themselves.
I also had a third hive I had split previously, without a queen, which was going nowhere, but which had bees in it. So I also added a queen to that hive as well. About a week ago, I opened this hive to find it completely empty of bees: a failed split.
Today I visited the bees to feed them, only to find one of the attempted split hives completely empty: abandoned, including a queen with clipped wings who would be unable to fly. I think this one is on me. Last week, I had removed some frames that wax moths had gotten into but that I had cleared, because the bees were not drawing any comb on them. This change may have thrown a wrench into things and either pissed them off that they drifted to the other hives or they just left, in which case they’re all dead by now, having no queen. So, I’ve ordered another queen, and this time will take two frames of brood from the very large hive, and beyond those two frames pulled from the other hive, the other frames will be brand new. Hopefully that will allow them to build up as we move into winter. If it works, I’ll do the same with the original split attempt. Overall, it’s disappointing this one left. However, the second split I did at the same time as this one is still working itself up: I found the queen, the workers are drawing comb, and I think they will survive. Or I hope. Beekeeping is, at its most basic, a lot about hope.
In other news, the three new package hives seem to be doing fine, and one of them was really aggressive and pissy when I opened it to have a quick peek inside – it was still rather early and slightly foggy, so the foragers were not all out foraging. Full bee suit FTW!
Later this week, I’ll go into the supers on the really string hive, and the second hive that is making a fairly nice go of things, and see if there is more honey to pull. But I’ll bring the smoker when I do, to keep them a bit more sedate than they were today.
Every season, there is some kind of disappointment at the ranch. Sometimes, it is the entire season, like 2010, lost to cancer and surgery. Other times, it is low output, like 2012. This year, it was the tomatoes being flattened, although we still had a fairly good harvest, all things considered. This year’s major disappointment, however, is the bees: two swarms that were captured but did not stay, one swarm that was seen far too late to do anything about, one hive completely absconding without a trace of anything left. This afternoon, heading out to feed the bees, I tapped on the sides of the hives, and once again, it sound completely hollow on one and nearly so on another, so my fear is another hive absconded, and possibly two. I cannot for the life of me figure out why this would be. The state apiary inspector was here two months ago, and all four hives were just fine, and buzzing (no pun intended) with activity. Today, there is next to nothing in two of the hives. Tomorrow, if it’s slightly warmer and a lot less windy than today, I’ll go into the hives and see what’s left in each one. Hopefully, they’re all still home, just bundled into a ball against the chill. Otherwise, it will be yet another package order from a supplier – although perhaps it’s time to find another supplier, given the history of bees from this particular supplier.
Our journey with the bees has been a slightly rocky one. Last year, when we first got our bees, we had two hives in the back orchard, and one up toward the front of the property. The front hive was not doing as well as the other two, and I realize that it spent most of the day in the shade: not a good thing for bees. It had also gone queenless at some point, probably because the queen decided it was too damn gloomy there and took off with half her workers. So we relocated the hive to the orchard, and as we moved the other two further west from their original spots, I found one of the hives had absconded. In May, we received three more packages, one of which again was struggling. However, the original two were doing fine (swarms notwithstanding), and a good frame from the strongest hive has helped this weakest one along nicely.
The strongest hive – the one that originally was at the front of the property, as it happens – has swarmed twice this season, in March and again in May. That isn’t unheard of, but it’s rare, and I decided to go into the hive and see what was going on in there. With my sister’s help, we smoked the bees and took a look around inside. Neither of us could spot the queen, but there was a nice brood pattern, pollen stored, and honey. Lots of honey. So much, in fact, that we found two full frames of it – but they weren’t doing anything in the super I’d put on top of the hive bodies, for some reason. I decided that perhaps part of the issue was that they were honey bound: that is, they’d stored so much honey in the area where they live, the queen couldn’t lay, and couldn’t get past the honey barrier to do anything in the super (which is fine; I don’t really want her laying in the super anyway, as it will make honey extraction a pain). So we took two frames of honey out and replaced them with fresh, undrawn frames.
We stuck them in an empty hive body and placed the whole thing over a chafing dish. I’d not been expecting any honey this early in the season, so we have none of the things we’ll eventually need for full scale honey extractions. One of those things is an uncapping tub, which allows you to hold the frame above a tub on a nail-like surface and scrape the caps off the cells. We improvised.
Another thing we don’t have – yet – is an extractor. After uncapping into the chafing dish…
…we set the frames back in the hive body and set the hive body back on top of the chafing dish to let the honey drip out. Gravity is our friend here.
We had used a sheet pan to hold the frame we weren’t working on each time, and wound up with a bit of honey there. Of course my mom and sister had to taste it – not me, though, as honey is too acidic for my damaged mouth.
There were a couple of bees hanging on to the edges of the frames when we brought them in. Guess who didn’t see one when grasping one of the frames to move it out of the way.
Another sting to add to my collection, this time on the pad at the base of my pinky finger. Unlike the ones I’d had in my ankle and shin, not too much swelling, and it only hurt for the instant of the sting itself. It mostly itched throughout the night and into the next day. Meanwhile, back at the frames, the honey was drawing down nicely into the dish.
Today, we had this.
Of course, amongst the honey is wax, pollen, probably a few bee parts here and there and so on. That’s what strainers are for.
This is a coarse strainer. We also have fine and micro, but decided to start with this. The contents in the dish get poured in…
… and the honey flows through to the bowl beneath it.
Eventually all that’s left in the strainer is the wax (and assorted bits of things).
Now, we wait for the honey to settle and for the bubbles to work their way up to the top. We’ll then take a look at it and see if we want to strain it again, or just bottle it for use: Lazy Dogs Ranch honey.
June 1st this year is not just the start of hurricane season, but the official start of our harvest season here. Sure, I collected a bunch of shelling peas the other day, and we’ve had romaine for almost a month, but now the heavy hitters start coming in.
This afternoon, while picking, I was interrupted by yet another swarm. Which is crazy, and I swear this hive must be possessed, as this was the same hive that swarmed previously. Unfortunately, I saw them as they were getting themselves together to move on to whatever location the scouts found, rather than at the point they were finding a handy branch to settle on while the scouts were out. I heard a low buzzing noise while I was up to my shoulders in some plants, looked up, and the cloud of bees was on the move – I hadn’t even noticed the swarm hanging off the pine tree not twenty feet from the rear garden, and they’d apparently gotten themselves there while I had been inside having my usual lunch. They flew into the pool area, which is fenced in, and by the time I had grabbed my phone and walked out the back, they had vanished. I walked around the western edge of the property, and no bees, anywhere: they were gone. That royally sucks, as the hive had plenty of food and plenty of room to store brood, pollen, and honey. I’m thinking of ordering a queen from the place we get our bees, finding the queen in this hive and beheading her, and introducing a new queen to see if that will help.
On with our harvest totals today:
Yellow squash: 8 pounds, 1 1/2 oz
Zucchini: 7 pounds
Cukes, adam gherkin: 8 pounds
Cukes, homemade pickles: 12 oz
Snap beans, provider: 12 3/4 oz
My sister is leaving to return north for a month before coming back down to visit again, and will taking the squash and zucchini with her. The gherkin cukes are in the brine, the first step of a three day process that will end with them being sweet relish. And despite the frogs croaking like there would be rain, despite the forecast, and despite the clouds that suggested it, there was no rain today. We really do live in the bermuda triangle of weather here at the ranch.
