Making a nuc

Yesterday...which was at least a few weeks ago when I began this entry...I've just been so busy that I haven't had time to write:

Anyway, I made a nuc from my hive.  It was my first time, as all of this is my first time, so I'm sure I stressed out the bees more than I needed to.  But it's done now and I can only hope for the best.

I got to the bottom hive yesterday for the first time in a month and lifted every frame and cleaned off burr comb that was in odd places.  I saw some brood, pollen and nector....and larvae so that I can be pretty sure I still have a working queen in there. Unless it took off in all the commotion yesterday while I was doing this work in the hive.

I also looked in the upper deep hive which is jammed with honey.  I saw very little brood in there and think that next time, I may need to do something about that but for now, I did nothing with that since I had other work to do.

My one super...where I get my honey...is almost full so I added another super and that will give the bees more space to build it out and make honey.  There seems to be enough in bloom so that they can get enough nectar and pollen to work with.  The hive is getting tall!

This is what it looked like yesterday after my work was completed.  They spent the rest of the evening outside trying to recover from the trauma of my messing with their hive.

To start the nuc, you take about 3 frames from the brood chamber at the bottom.  You want to make sure you insert frames that have brood, eggs or tiny larvae, nectar and pollen.  With those ingredients, they will make their own queen within a few weeks.  With this nuc, I only want it to be strong enough to survive the winter and then in the spring, I will add the five frames to a new hive...and not have to spend the money on purchasing a nuc from someone else.  We'll see.

Next thing I needed to do is move the nuc a few miles from my home.  Otherwise, the bees would just go back to their original hive (their home) rather than make the nuc their home.  So I drove it up to my daughter's land and found a great spot there with lots of wildflowers around...and away from the family.

Notice the orange wheel in the front.  That spins around so that you can open it fully to give bees full access to come and go.  But there could be stealing from other bees so I opened only one of the holes to minimize the threat.  It's secured with a wingnut in the center.

This morning, I needed to take the nuc away from here and so lifted it and placed it on the floor of the backseat of my car.  All of a sudden, I see bees everywhere!  I hadn't secured the front! So they were flying at me, all over the car.  I ran in, donned my beekeepers hat, veil, gloves, and ran back out to close up the opening.  A bee got up my pant leg so I stripped them off getting just one sting.  Then I decided I needed long pants and socks to tuck my pants into.  Then I went back out to deal with it.  I started my smoker.  Then tightened the wingnut so it was closed. The bees then went into my trunk, just in case there were a few I missed crawling on the outside of the box.  You can see I used duck tape to secure the top.  Then I drove them about 5 miles away.

Wow, that's a lot of adrenaline for first thing in the morning!  I doubt I'll ever forget to tighten the wingnut again. :)

I picked up this hive from my daughter's land and it was all intact.  It was there for a few weeks.  Now it's back here next to my more mature hive and I've added a feeder to the top of it as well.  I need to pick up some cement blocks to set it on.  Right now, it's on a tree stump but it isn't secure enough to my liking.

Splitting the hive and adding a super

It's July 18th, 2012. I got up to a few of three deer in my yard.  One in the lower pond, one at my blueberry bushes which explains why I didn't get one blueberry this year, and then another down by the birdhouse.  I grabbed my camera and took great shots, but none came out.  I can get a great photo in my kitchen but through the screen, it comes out a gray blank image.  Darn because they were so close and only ran when they heard me snap the last photo. Next time, I'll need to quietly step out onto the front porch to get an unobstructed shot.

Well, the very next morning, I looked out my bedroom window to see a couple of deer in my backyard.  This time, I quietly sneaked around the side of the house and got this wonderful shot!

As for the blueberries, next year, I will build a shelter for them with 4 posts and netting over the posts that drape over the bushes too..I've seen others do that and it seems to work.  Left alone, the animals eat the blueberries (and bushes) before you can get to them.  Live and learn!  I may have to move the bushes though. It will obstruct my view down the hill to the birdhouse which now has gourds flowering unless I can figure out some attractive way to do it..which is doubtful. I've been thinking that I'd like to see some evergreen shrub in the area so I will be thinking about that for the future.

I have to laugh at the unrealistic expectations I personally start out with year after year.  I suppose it's like this with other gardeners too...you expect everything you do to be in peak condition, lush, with no insect or other disease damage.  But it's never perfect.  I suppose that if it were. there would be nothing left to do and what's the fun of that?  But some things surprise you and sometimes surpass your expectations.  I can't speak of my beautiful tomatoes this year..knock on wood...I don't want to jinx them.

Over by the beehive, my little rustic archway has gourds blooming.  I will try to get a shot of this early evening...or as soon as I see the flowers open. It was pretty last night and will get much more filled in over the next few months until the frost gets it. Gosh, I don't want to think about that right now!
I sure hope this turns out to be as lush as my imagination saw it.  It's coming along and it now, at least, catches the eye.

I've been busy trying to figure out what to do with the hive.  It's been difficult to not go in for an extra week. I believe I have a super filled with honey, or at least some frames should be filled.  I'm ready to add on the second super this weekend.

The other chore this weekend is to get into that bottom hive and pull out some frames to see what's going on.  I fear there is comb being built that needs to come off and I need to make sure I have a healthy queen who is laying eggs.  If I see that....then I'm planning to split the hive and make a Nuc so that next year I won't have to buy one to start my second hive.  More on that later.

Let me just say this. Yes, I want another hive.  I'm told that I can start a Nuc now and winter it over (I need to learn more about how to do this...seems like they'd freeze in such a small box for the winter).  Then, in the spring, I will use that to start my second hive. But that's for discussion later on.

Right now I need to focus on extracting the honey.  And I've order what I need and the various items are being shipped. I ordered all the extraction products I need with high hopes that I'll have honey to extract.  It does seem like I will but until it's in the jar....

More on extraction next time. I'm finding this to be a very busy time so apologize if I bounce from subject to subject in these posts. It's how I am in the yard too, bouncing from task to task. :)

Air in the hive makes all the difference

If you recall a few weeks or so ago, the bees were all hanging outside the hive.   For a while, I thought they were going to swarm, but it was because they were so hot inside. I did two things to help them, inserting a stick or rock under the top cover lets in air, and I removed the entrance reducer. Between those two actions, what a difference!  I haven't seen this kind of scenario again so now the bees can concentrate on gathering.

In the interest of full disclosure, my grandson got stung in my yard last week. We were hand picking japanese beetles off some plants on that side of the house but not really near the hive. Rather than spray them with poison, I pick them off and drop them into a can of water and then cover them. Cruel but safer then pesticides.  He was helping me.

Somehow a bee found him and stung him on the.  I am not sure why but there may have been a bee in the clover that he stepped on.  He was very brave after the shock wore off!

It happens.  I refuse to give in to a few bee stings but family will be better off on the other side of the house where the hive isn't.

Bees message received

Well, I was stung again this past weekend...twice.  I tried (in vain) to get into the bottom deep hive where all the brood created and maintained.  As soon as I moved off the box (another deep hive that is full of their honey) they went crazy!

I had bees flying all around me thinking I might be taking something from them.  But I only wanted to look at the frames down there to see if 1) the queen is still alive and well and if she is 2) to see the eggs and 3) to see if  the bees that are growing are worker bees, or drones.  But the frames were pretty well stuck together.  After trying several time to get the first frame removed so I could have room to look at a few more, I gave up.  I had been stung twice and it was only a matter of time before they found a few other vulnerable parts on my body.

I guess I really need to invest the $139 to buy a full bee suit which the bees can't sting through.  I try to have two top layers (on a hot day, it gets really, hot in two layers) but they can still sting through that.  I had on thick wool socks  and they found their way through the sock right at my ankle.

Other than the itching, it wasn't so bad.  I hardly swelled up at all this time.  But each of the areas itched a lot.  The first 4 stings I got a few weeks ago stayed with me for all this time...only today I can't find them on my legs. For the past 3 weeks or so, I could see a thumbprint size of red (two of them actually) on my leg.

I had read, and also was told my my instructors from Swanzey, NH, Imagine that Honey, that the body will build up an immunity to the strings.  I didn't think it would happen this quickly but was glad they didn't last like the first ones did.

The bottom line is that they  need to be left alone right now.  I have heard (and felt) their message.  We all feel that way at times.  And this is their time. They are very busy making honey and they know what they are doing.  They do not need me looking over their shoulder!

I will continue to add sugar syrup every 3-4 days to keep them going during the hottest part of the summer when the burst of spring pollen as a source of food has passed.  They need that help. I will keep their water filled and fresh.

Then I need to monitor the top super to see when they have filled  7 frames with honey.  Then I'll want to add on one more super. 

Overall, the bees seem to be thriving.  There are a LOT of bees now, and all seems to be normal.  The super that is there now was close to half filled, I think, so perhaps next week, I can add one more box.  I will need to monitor when to add that last super.  And by the time they fill the second and last super, it will most likely be fall. However, I wonder if I should have one extra on hand...but that's probably way too optimistic :).

My next entry will focus on purchasing extracting equipment.  Another investment made this week. If things continue...that process is not too far away.

I see honey being made

As I did a quick inspection today, the new super I added last week has honey in it already.  The bees are building comb and honey was loaded inside!  I removed just one frame, and pulled out the third frame to inspect and that's where I saw the honey.  It's still pretty clear.   Apparently that's how it starts out and then mellows into various golden colors, depending on the pollen they carry into the hive.

Then I went down into highest deep hive when the bees began buzzing all around me.  I think that they were protecting their food source.  Because they seemed especially protective today, like a few weeks ago, I decided to cut my inspection short and I didn't go into the bottom deep hive at all.  I'd already been there for more than the 10 minute maximum.  But I need to get to that bottom deep to see if I have a queen and new eggs but for now, I'm going to stay positive and let them do their job.  Things look active everywhere else and surely productive so I'm hoping there's a queen down there and that everything is AOK

Next time I will try to do the bottom hive first.  (I fear I said the same thing last week)

All this honey is making me think of the next step in this beekeeping process.  I'm beginning to look at honey extracting equipment because I'll want to have what I need on hand when the time comes.  I will begin putting an order together.  If I decide to purchase it all, it'll probably be another good sized investment in the $300 - $400 range based on some window shopping.

Another side note...the beeswax candles I made last week burned beautifully last night. I decided to try one of the smaller ones first because I didn't use a weight on the wick so wasn't too sure if those would burn well.  But this one did so I should be set to make more of these candles very soon.  I'm collecting any beeswax I clean off the hive weekly, but today there wasn't that much to take.  I'll get most of the wax when I extract the honey.  That should give me a bunch to play with making candles and perhaps some soap and lotion

A patio for 40 dollars

I think I mentioned recently about my plan to put in a patio outside the porch ...one that looks better than just grass that constantly needs to be mowed, and heavy chairs always needing to be moved so I could mow. And it never looking neat because it also needed weedwacking in between mowings and I just  never got around to doing it.

I would have liked an old brick patio and even went so far as contacting the mason who built me the masonry heater that heats my house, also finished in brick.  But before he showed up to look at the job, I had another, cheaper idea.

With this pile of woodchips I have from trees removed this spring, I decided I would go buy some landscape fabric, cover the patio area with the fabric, and then cover the fabric with wood chips.  Then I'd trim it with the stone from the beginnings of a field stone patio, but reality told me that it wasn't going to work out as something I could do myself.  And it looked terrible.  So I decided to use some of the wood chips.  This photo was taken after I had done the patio so you can see I still have a few left over :). 

Before the patio

The 40 dollar patio

The pond is in front of the chairs. From the top step or from the porch, you can see over the chairs and still see the pond.

Here's another angle..  I've already move somethings around and added more plants but this is basically what I see today.  I'm very satisfied with the solution and it feels like a good way to recycle materials back into the land.

I made this little stone area, cleaning out a few plants, so that the kids and I can get right up close to the pond without me saying "don't  step on the plants" 40 zillion times. I think it will work out...again, for now. A garden seems to always be a work in progress.

One note about my $40 patio.  I only took into account the two rolls of landscape fabric I bought. Having the trees cut by professionals obviously cost me some money.  But I kept the wood for burning and the wood chips for use around the yard so I was able to recoup some of the money I spent having them taken down.