Today I did the most beekeeping I have ever done while doing my regular (going to work) routine. I got out of bed at 6:20 and prepared for going to work.
6:50 am: Outside and reinforcing my poor hive stand to prepare for the evening event
7:05 am: Treated two colonies with foul brood powder (sprinkled 18g per hive onto top bars)
7:20 am: Cleaned hive top feeders on the two treated hives and added final Fumagilin-B treatment (4l of syrup made the night before for each hive)
7:30 am: Cleaned hive top feeder of the hive which I will be doing a newspaper combine with and took the inner cover to be used in the evening.
7:50 am: Loaded car and cleaned smoker, etc...
Went to work.
6:20pm: Treated two colonies with foul brood powder (sprinkled 18g per hive onto top bars)
Added formic acid pads to both colonies
Removed the third box of my 'monster' hive and brought it to my other apiary.
7:30pm: Did a newspaper combine of the monster hive top box and my single box colony.
Placed the hive top feeder on the top box and fed the final Fumagilin-B treatment to that hive.
7:40 pm: Beautiful sunset
All I got for doing all this work for my bees was a sting in the belly. It stung pretty good. I have to buy a bee suit!
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
News Article: Where the Swarm Concurs
There is a new book out regarding the interesting phenomenom called Swarming. The book is called HoneyBee Democracy and it is written by Thomas D. Seeley.
Interesting Facts from News Article:
Drone bees search out proper nesting sites and report back to the hive and share the location and the quality of the site with other drones. These drones will visit other drone 'selected sites' and judge for themselves and report that back to the drones. There is no 'leader' and they all have equal say. Pretty cool.
This is definitely a book that I will be adding to my list.
See the book at Chapters/Indigo:
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Honey Harvest: Fall 2010
My latest extraction was last weekend, which was September 11th. The honey looks absolutely fantastic. I have received only compliments. I also have them in my new containers.
The greatest thing about getting all this honey is that there was a professional photographer there collecting photos of the process. She was gathering the photos for a book or for stock photos perhaps
All of these photos of are my honey and are done by Tracy Cox. You can see her website at: Tracy Cox Photo
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| Uncapping the frames: Hot uncapping knife cuts off the wax caps on each cell. |
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| Bottling the honey in 500g jars. |
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| Honey Jars |
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| Beautiful honey |
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
State of Affairs
Since I have fallen behind on my posts a bit; here is an update to my hive situation. I have transferred my nucleus hive into a full sized box. I have also been feeding them a bit of sugar syrup so that they can build up enough stores for the winter. They seem to have a very strong population and they do not have much for diseases it seems.
I have been worried about my white hive which I have re-queened with an expensive queen with supposed good genetics. I had not seen much new brood in the last couple inspections. But when I pulled out the first frame, this is the sight I saw:
I also have taken the honey super off of these hives and placed them onto my much stronger hives at my parents property. I am hoping that those hives are able to top up the boxes!
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| Strong honey bee population, hive top feeder beside. |
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| What a relief! The queen is alive! |
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| Current view of the apiary. |
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| Does not look like much any more! |
2nd Annual: Beekeeping Reunion
On August 29th I had the pleasure of hosting the annual "bee swarm". We are a group of friends who are hobby beekeepers. Everyone came to my place and we enjoyed a BBQ and then we took a look at my hives.
We also went through pictures that we had taken over the last year and shared our stories. I shared my video of the swarming and we talked about how to deal with swarming, etc. Everyone in our group had swarms come out of their hives this year (including a swarm on the day of the meeting)! Everyone seemed to be bitter about that.
We were fortunate to have a beautiful day and the bees were all on their best behavior. My girls made me proud!
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| The bees were very gentle and everyone seemed to like my hive lids. |
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| Me standing beside the 'monster' hive. This hive was 4 frames in May. |
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Not a Beekeeper until you...
get stung 35+ times in a matter of minutes.
I now understand why my fellow beekeepers have $200 bee suits. I also realize that when you think you may be doing something wrong; that it probably is wrong.
In an attempt to reduce the population of my monster hive, I tried to take some frames of brood to give to my nuc box (which I in turn was going to put into a regular sized hive box). I got to the bottom box of my biggest hive and the bees were a bit agitated but nothing major. The problem was that the bees were boiling out of all of the boxes and it was a hot day(+35C). My smoker was ready and working and I had my spare frames ready to be swapped out. I pulled out a middle frame and saw that it was all capped brood. Perfect. So I searched the frame from side to side and had not seen the queen. This should be easy I thought. I smoked the hive again and then I took out my bee brush and swept the frame on the one side. Bad idea. The bees were mad. In a matter of seconds I had bees bouncing off my mask and bees stinging me through my two shirts. I had to put the hive back together and get the heck out of there. In a minute I was throwing the boxes back on top of one another like they weighed nothing. There was a massive amount of adrenaline running through my body. I could feel the stings but they just felt like little pokes now. I got the last box on top, put on the lid and then ran away. I left my equipment all strewn on the ground. I first ran through some corn to try to lose the bees. That did not particularly work. I then ran up to our barn and closed a door quickly behind me. I was swatting the last 10 or so bees that were trying to sting me and then I went back outside. I decided to go into the house and see if I had any stingers left in me and to try to get some sort of a count. The stingers did not stick to my flesh and were probably stuck in my shirts. My wife counted at least 35 stings and I decided to take some diphenhydramine hydrochloride to reduce the swelling. The swelling actually was not too bad. A few hours later, at nightfall, I snuck up to the hive and gathered up my frames and equipment. I did not stir any bees; and was quite greatful for that.
Trust your instincts and get a better bee suit!
I now understand why my fellow beekeepers have $200 bee suits. I also realize that when you think you may be doing something wrong; that it probably is wrong.
In an attempt to reduce the population of my monster hive, I tried to take some frames of brood to give to my nuc box (which I in turn was going to put into a regular sized hive box). I got to the bottom box of my biggest hive and the bees were a bit agitated but nothing major. The problem was that the bees were boiling out of all of the boxes and it was a hot day(+35C). My smoker was ready and working and I had my spare frames ready to be swapped out. I pulled out a middle frame and saw that it was all capped brood. Perfect. So I searched the frame from side to side and had not seen the queen. This should be easy I thought. I smoked the hive again and then I took out my bee brush and swept the frame on the one side. Bad idea. The bees were mad. In a matter of seconds I had bees bouncing off my mask and bees stinging me through my two shirts. I had to put the hive back together and get the heck out of there. In a minute I was throwing the boxes back on top of one another like they weighed nothing. There was a massive amount of adrenaline running through my body. I could feel the stings but they just felt like little pokes now. I got the last box on top, put on the lid and then ran away. I left my equipment all strewn on the ground. I first ran through some corn to try to lose the bees. That did not particularly work. I then ran up to our barn and closed a door quickly behind me. I was swatting the last 10 or so bees that were trying to sting me and then I went back outside. I decided to go into the house and see if I had any stingers left in me and to try to get some sort of a count. The stingers did not stick to my flesh and were probably stuck in my shirts. My wife counted at least 35 stings and I decided to take some diphenhydramine hydrochloride to reduce the swelling. The swelling actually was not too bad. A few hours later, at nightfall, I snuck up to the hive and gathered up my frames and equipment. I did not stir any bees; and was quite greatful for that.
Trust your instincts and get a better bee suit!
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Board's Honey Farm: Restoule
On a recent vacation to my cottage up in "Northern" Ontario, I took the time to visit a local honey farm. I got the chance to have a little tour of the store and the honey extracting area by one of the owners. She was very helpful and very knowledgeable.
They run 300 colonies and raise their own queens in the spring time. Mites are present in their area as well but the mites are not as rampant as more southern bee hives. I do not understand how the mites could be less rampant; I suppose it could be because the mite breeding season is shorter. Because they do not have as long of a summer as we do.
There honey extraction system allows them to extract a ton (1000 kg) of honey in a days work. That is a lot of honey! The honey is stored in large stainless tanks which are heated and the honey is bottled from these tanks.
They are not able to get as much honey as more southern locations but they still manage to get a decent crop. There is some agriculture in their area and even some Buckwheat fields within driving distance.
What impressed me the most about their operation is that they do a lot of value added work to their honey. They have a retail store where they sell all things that can be made from honey, beeswax etc. The owner has a fairly good sized garden where she plants vegetables to use to mix with honey to her products. It was very impressive. From BBQ sauces to salad dressings!
There is also a good amount of information scattered around the property to teach children about bees and their importance to our environment.
Thanks for the tour!
They run 300 colonies and raise their own queens in the spring time. Mites are present in their area as well but the mites are not as rampant as more southern bee hives. I do not understand how the mites could be less rampant; I suppose it could be because the mite breeding season is shorter. Because they do not have as long of a summer as we do.
There honey extraction system allows them to extract a ton (1000 kg) of honey in a days work. That is a lot of honey! The honey is stored in large stainless tanks which are heated and the honey is bottled from these tanks.
They are not able to get as much honey as more southern locations but they still manage to get a decent crop. There is some agriculture in their area and even some Buckwheat fields within driving distance.
What impressed me the most about their operation is that they do a lot of value added work to their honey. They have a retail store where they sell all things that can be made from honey, beeswax etc. The owner has a fairly good sized garden where she plants vegetables to use to mix with honey to her products. It was very impressive. From BBQ sauces to salad dressings!
There is also a good amount of information scattered around the property to teach children about bees and their importance to our environment.
Thanks for the tour!
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