The bees have been fed

Today it was warm enough...sort of...to get into the hive just to add some fondant.  I'm glad I did because it was all gone!

While I was there, I cleaned out the bottom of the hive of dead bees and I think there were about two cups of dead bees.  I was pretty worried about that but when I opened the hive I saw many bees and the humming was loud.  Yeah!  There are still bees in there surviving.  I just hope the rest of the winter...the one that hasn't officially started you understand...is less cold than the last month!

I do hope that we have a January thaw so that I can replenish the fondant then so I don't starve these girls and can go into the spring with a somewhat reduced but healthy hive.

Should I or shouldn't I open the hive to check on bees in frigid weather

It's been so cold the I'm worried about  my bees freezing...or starving.  This morning I also worried about smothering because we got about 14 inches of snow last night and from my living room window, it looked like the front entrance was covered with snow.  So I rushed out and began shoveling.

Once I got near the hive, I saw that the snow hadn't reached the entrance because the plywood "roof" overhangs enough to provide a little shelter from the rain...and snow too I guess.  And I saw a few dead bees at the entrance which told me I still have bees in there.  Seeing some dead outside is normal I've learned.  Seems like they could easily freeze just leaving the hive to go to the bathroom.

I have resisted opening the hive even to take a look because I'm afraid that I'll kill them by making them freeze.  I do want to replenish their fondant though because I don't want them to starve if there's not enough store of honey in the bottom deep hive.  Later this week, we are supposed to have a balmy 40 degree day and that's the day I'll open the hive and add fondant.  Who knows when I'll get another opportunity? It's been a cold late fall...right...it's not even winter yet!

What I'll do with the fondant is scoop some out and put it on a paper plate with a small hole at the bottom.  The fondant has the consistency of taffy so it'll stay in place.  Then the plate will be placed on top of the top hive, under the cover and the insulation added under it.  I'll do this very fast to minimize the cold air going into the hive. 

I sort of hate to remove the snow at the top of the "roof" because it provides extra insulation.  In fact, I like having the snow around it for the same reason.  But something tells me there will be plenty of snow to replace what I brush off from the top.

11/24/13 - BRRRRRR

I have to say this is the coldest weather I've felt in months!  It seems very early to be only in the low twenties in November although it's probably happened before.  I most likely buried it in my mind as I hate the cold.

Thankfully I had already wrapped and winterized my hive and hope it helps them make it through the winter.  I had added a piece of tin roofing to the top to keep the weather out but when I got home a while ago, I saw that it had blown off...even with rocks on top to hold it in place.

So I removed the tin roof and replaced it with some sheathing material, like plywood, only more porous. At least it's heavier and I hope it will stay in place.  I think that helped the bees last winter.

I also removed the fence today.  Last year, I waited until mid-December to remove it but with it being so cold this year, I was sure they'd freeze and I'd not be able to remove the posts.  So, here's hoping that the bears have settled in for their winter's nap and leave my hive alone.

Since Thanksgiving is just a few days away, let me take this time to wish all my readers a wonderful holiday!  Take a moment to thank something or someone in your life.  That's what the season is all about.

My best wishes to you all!

A honey comparison between 2012 and 2013

I wanted to show you the difference a year makes!  On the left is last year's honey.  It's much lighter than this year's honey on the right.

Last year, I fed the bees all summer using sugar water.

This year, I only began feeding them in August.

Otherwise I'm not sure what the difference in color means but they are both delicious.

The fall beehive and other autumn tasks and thoughts - Nov. 3, 2013

Here it is, at the beginning of November and I've just insulated the hive, or almost, for the winter.  The only thing left to do is to wrap it with roofing paper to insulate it from drafts.  I have 6 bales of hay, two on each of three sides, leaving some space between the hay and the hive.  For ventilation.  However, I have not taken down the fence yet. I probably should because I need new batteries..  I think there's little to no power there now. 

Earlier this year, I ordered enough D-size batteries to last me through October.  Because of the warm fall season, if next year is the same, I'll need to order enough for a couple more months so that I'm not running out. Ordering in bulk was a very convenient, not to mention less expensive way to power my fence.

This year was an extremely low honey year.  Remember that.  2013!! Not a good year for honey.  A friend of mine in Maine, who has been a beekeeper for 10 years, told me she had no honey!  She had to go buy some for her own use. (You get used to using honey for so much when you have it handy).  She also told me that she heard this statistic about this year's honey production...that it was down this year 50%.  More of it having to do with the weather which affected the pollen, vegetative growth, etc. versus colony collapse disorder.

It's always sad in the fall. All my high hopes from the spring are gone and I contemplate what went right and what went wrong as well as handling the fall cleanup.  Here is my list of fall chores:

• empty pond of leaves, pine needles and other debris as well as the floating plants (doing this now with the help of Peyton, my granddaughter.
• remove pond pump (I wait until pond begins to ice over)
• mow leaves into pile and mow them (then add this to vegetable garden...great nutrients for the soil)
• bottle honey that was extracted and put into 5-gallon bucket (there's not much there but I will jar it today)
• dig up herbs that are in the ground and divide them if needed (I have rosemary and sage I'll give as gifts)
• dig up and bring in other herbs for winter use - basil and parsley are already on the windowsill as well as sage and rosemary for me.
• stack wood on the deck for those days when trips to the woodshed aren't safe or I'm just plain lazy or get the flu
• bring in cushions and umbrella from patio and store them in the basement (still on my to-do list)
• change tires to winter snows (this year, with a new car, I had to buy studded snow tires). Regular tires stored in shed.
• straighten up greenhouse and get it ready for spring planting. 

There's always something good to be found in the fall too.  Here are the things I look forward to:

• begin to cook more again...I have little time to cook in the spring and summer or I'd just rather be outside
• Spend bad days inside reading, without feeling guilty for taking time out for myself
• Less pressure to be doing something every moment
• the warmth of a wood fire every day
• no more mowing the lawn every week!
• decorating for fall and then Christmas
• Thanksgiving (I love this holiday all about good food and good company)

Honey extraction day

I find it hard to believe it's been a month or more since my last post.  It's been a very busy fall!  The vegetable garden produced a lot of tomatoes even though I didn't think it would.  So a lot of tomato sauce was made and frozen.  I frenched a lot of beans and froze them too.  I believe I mentioned the peaches from the Maine house and they are in my freezer.  Blueberries too.  Now I need to begin using up the wonderful produce I foraged or grew this season.  I realized I had a lot of ramps in the freezer that I'll begin eating soon. I've had too many other fresh vegetables on hand so the ramps will wait until the fresh items are gone.

I picked another half dozen cucumbers just a week ago...almost unheard of in October without a hoop house.  I think they are finally done producing but what a long time I've had fresh cukes this year. I hope that the late season will make the upcoming winter feel shorter.  One can always hope.

Then I went away on a trip for a week.

Then it took me a week to catch up on household chores as well as staining the deck.

The deck was yesterday.  But before I started that project, I visited the beehive and added a triangle board which stays on for 24 hours.  The purpose of the triangle board, if you recall, is to remove the bees from the super that will be extracted.  So today I will go back to the beehive and remove that super and bring it into the basement where I will extract the honey.  I'm not sure if I'll be able to complete the extraction today given there's a football game at 1PM that I can't miss so I will fit it into breaks from work over the next few days.

Once extracted, the honey will sit in the house for a period of time to let the bubbles settle down before bottling.  I'm happy to get some honey this year since the spring troubles slowed down the bees progress in terms of making brood and then honey.  But I think the longer season has helped.  The second super I added has not been drawn out much at all.  I'll probably just remove that super too because for the next several months, the bees will be just clustered in the deeps to survive.

I'll begin giving them fondant after today, to give them some extra to nibble on in addition to the honey stored in the second deep.

I added the bales of hay to the other side of the hive yesterday as well.  Once I take off the two supers and the top hive feeder, the hive will be much shorter to a few bales of hay will go to the back of the hive and I'll, at some point, add my piece of plywood over the top for some extra protection this winter.  I will then keep my fingers crossed that they survive the winter.  In the spring, I want to divide this hive into two.

Sept. 16 - Checking the hive

I was pleased yesterday when I went into my hive.  It looks like I will have some honey after all.  One of the supers has several frames of honey so I moved that one to the top and the fairly empty super under it so they can begin to work on that one.  I doubt they'll have time to do much with the lower super given it's mid-September, but maybe they will if we have a warm autumn.

Meanwhile I decided to feed them again because I want them to have enough honey and food to last the winter.  Later on in the year, I'll swap out the syrup with fondant, like I did last year.  That seemed to help winter them over...at least that's my hope.

First ever peach crop(s)

In Maine I planted a peach tree several years ago.  When the house was rented, the tenants hoped for a peach crop a few years ago but the tiny peaches that were there when they began their tenancy disappeared within a few weeks and they got nothing.  The following year, there were no peaches at all.

Sometime within those two years, I did some pruning on that tree.  This year, when the tenants left, I saw that the tree was loaded with peaches and fully expected them to disappear from one weekend to the next when I went there.  I would check them each week.  Each week they got bigger and the trees branches weighted to the point I thought they'd break.  In fact, I propped some up because they definitely were going to break if I didn't.

In the end, I harvested a box of peaches...hundreds.  My neighbors also came and took what they wanted.  An unbelievable peach year!

And in Vermont, I planted a tree two years ago and got about 20 peaches from that tree this year. 

What was best about these peaches other than the quantity is that no pesticides were used on any of them.  I didn't find any insects on the peaches.  On the outside of a few of them was some black spots that looked like mildew or something like that but they get peeled off during preparation so that was no problem at all.  I'd rather that than pesticides.

Peach tree in July...wish I'd have taken a shot at the end of August to see how it weighted down with peaches.  Here I was really focusing on those beautiful orange flowers!

Preparing for fall - It's not all about me and my honey

I have to remember that the bees serve a much bigger purpose than supplying me with honey! With their help, we have better crops.  Without the pollinators like honey bees, we'd have no crops at all.  Just think about our food source or lack of food without the bees.

So when I start to be sad that I will probably not have honey this year, or so little, it's not worth mentioning, I just need to keep telling myself that if I can keep them alive all winter and keep the hives producing bees, I am still doing good.

Actually, I'm enabling them to do some good or perhaps they are enabling me to feel useful!

I have located some free bales of hay that will be used, like last year, to surround the hives for the winter.  I used them, if you have been reading that long, on three sides of the hive and a piece of plywood on the top.  I also wrapped the entire hive, except for the entrance, with roofing paper.

 In this image  above, I had started a small hive (nuc) that you see on the left in the fall.  That didn't work out.  It was too small to winter over...just not enough space and brood for them to keep warm, I think.  So I won't do that again and will wait until the end of May to start a nuc next year.  I can't wait to have two hives.  As you know, patience isn't be strong suit!  But I learned my lesson this past spring when I started a nuc too early.  Next year, I intend to do it right!

Today I will go into the hive and see how things are going.  It's also time to put on the mouse guard because the mice will be looking for a warm place and I sure don't want it to be in the hive.  Just add this to the entrance of the hive to keep out mice but allow the bees to come and go as they please.

Bees and bear - a near miss I think

Today I traveled 140 miles each way to pick peaches off my tree in another state.  She's crazy, you might say.  But in my defense, I planted that tree about 7 years ago.  This is the first year I've had this kind of crop.  In fact, it could be argued that this was my first crop.  And what a crop it was.  The branches of the tree aren't that big yet so thankfully they were flexible.  Because they were bent to the ground, laden with fruit.  I was so afraid that the chipmunks, birds and other wild beasts would get the peaches before I could get back there and afraid they'd get overly ripe too.  Anyway I came home with a large box of peaches that I now need to prepare.  I also left some for my neighbor up there as well as my ex tenants.

I will freeze them because I have a large freezer and it's easy to do.  Then, over the winter, I can make crisps, pie, cobbler and whatever recipes I can find that could use their wonderful flavor.  My daughter wants to add them to her smoothies too and that will be delicious.  What fun it is in the fall, getting the harvest in and "putting it up".

But I digress from the subject of this post.

My office is on the second story of my house with a bathroom off that. The bathroom has a nice sized window looking out at the back yard.  I happened to be looking out the window just after returning home with my peaches and saw a black bear at the edge of my lawn!

I still hadn't unpacked the car where my camera was so I just stepped out on the porch corner to see where it was.  It was to the side of my shed...to the right...between that and the fence around the beehives.  He stopped  and was looking around and then spotted me.  I asked him what his plans were and he turned and ran up the hill behind the house.  I am sure that if I hadn't gone out, he would have gone toward that fence.  I sort of wish I had watched it all play out but I was too afraid of losing my bees!

Now is the time, I think, when the bears are out trying to find as much food as possible to fatten up for the winter.  I was very glad that I had changed the batteries on my electric fence so that if our bear friend did touch it, he or she would be happy to find food elsewhere.  At least that's my hope!
 
I sure am glad I didn't try to have hives without that fence or I'd have been doomed...no doubt about it in my mind.

Honey in year two? A list of all the things that went wrong

I'm hoping I can harvest some honey this summer but I'm not sure what I'll end up with.  Here are the issues I have run into this season.

• Started out with good hive that wintered over - that was very encouraging...but that didn't last

• In early May, I tried to split off a new hive by grabbing brood, bees and honey from last year's hive and start a nuc

• A cold spell, that lasted at least a week killed all the bees in the new nuc I started

• Then I realized the queen died in last year's hive 

• I bought a new queen, put it in the hive in its little cage that it and the other bees were supposed to eat the candy plug so the queen could get out.  You give it 5 days to do this.  I checked in 5 days and the queen was dead.

•  I bought a new nuc with a queen to start another hive...still on my quest to  grow my business

• By this time, it was June and the rains started.  It rained practically the entire month of June.

• I was advised to merge the nuc with the old hive to try to get a good strong hive.  I did this and it worked. 

• However, I was told to add the queen excluder which I left on until early August.  Then I read that adding the queen excluder would reduce the amount of honey you get.

• Queen excluder came off and I started feeding the bees sugar water, something I did last year but didn't do this year. Not sure if it'll help with honey production but it will feed the bees and hopefully help them get through the winter.

•  I have people clamoring for my  honey...but last year's reserves are almost gone and am not sure what I'll get this year.

• I did say that this blog would tell my bee story...good or bad.  I'd say that this was a real learning year...and most likely a lean one.

Blogger a bit too busy to blog

This has been a busy summer so far and I expect it will continue to be the same until it's over and beyond.  Readers who have been with me for a while saw that last summer was what I think of as a "building year". I spent a lot of time digging out paths and covering with landscape fabric and wood chips, building my $40 patio, described in a few of my earlier posts, and of course starting my beehive.

This year is being spent maintaining!  And this year, I am needing to maintain two homes and a school garden.  Sadly, I need to spend several hours to get the school garden in shape for September.  I've gotten there about as often as I can, given the other maintenance that I've been doing but still feel like it's my orphan garden. The maintenance I'm speaking of has mostly been in gardens although I've spent time getting my Maine house back in shape and getting tasks done that it needed. 

My Maine home, rented the last few years, became vacant at the end of June.  That is two years of virtually no garden work occurring so I have spent time each weekend bringing those gardens back.  I also had the front porch refinished and trim painted so that it looks inviting again.  I'll snap some photos next weekend.

I bought this house in 2004 and it had no landscaping at all except for a few piddly shrubs.  It had an above ground pool there which I had taken out when I bought it.  That left me with this big bare grass-free circle area in the back yard.  I turned that into a pond and garden. Here is the back yard the next year where I used two existing trellis's and a board to make an archway, put a few chairs there and a birdbath and a few shrubs and called it a patio.

Back yard, year 2005

Back yard, year 2007

A few years later, the area looked like what you see above.  The pond is about 8' in diameter and about 3-4 feet deep, which I dug myself.  I had a load of field stone delivered because southern Maine, in my area, is all sand so it's easy digging. I used the field stone to trim the pond and get somewhat of a path from the side door down to the pond.  The path was never finished though.  I ran out of field stone and just never got around to it. Then I got some pea stone to make a walkway around the pond and added the outer plantings.  So there are plantings around the pond, a path and then more plantings.

Back yard August 2013 --  slightly tilted shot...not the garden's fault

This weekend, I will take another photo from the same spot so that you can see how things have matured in this section of the yard.  It really looks like I imagined it would as I was building it, forming a little private retreat in the midst of nature.  With the addition of a little waterfal to the pond, it's so peaceful to sit and watch nature all around. It's a lovely spot.  A glass of wine; a plate of cheese...frogs croaking, bees humming, butterflies circling...what could be better?

Today's mushroom find - Polyporus umbellatus

Like I said at the start, this blog would end up being about  more than beekeeping.  I also have an interest in foraging and one item I love to forage is mushrooms.

I knew chanterelles were out because I picked a basket full last week in Southern Maine.  I have a few spots here in Southeastern Vermont too so I decided to take a walk and find some more.  I did find them in  my usual spots and also in one new spot so I grabbed them.  Most were a bit too old...they should have been picked several days ago. But they were still good enough to cook up and so that's what I did with them.  Then I froze them.

I've tried to dry chanterelles in the past but they get tough and chewy so I now will cook them in olive oil with a bit of butter until done...then freeze them. They are delicious after thawing and using.

But today's big find was this Polyporus umbellatus that I found on a slope in leaf debris and surrounded by various deciduous trees.  It looked like a Maitke but I knew it wasn't because of some various differences, including timing.  Maitke come in September, not early July.  Each leaflet looks like a little trumpet.  I guess someone else thought they looked like little umbrellas, hence the name.

 

The top mushrooms were perfect.  Towards the stem at the bottom, I could see insect damage.  But the top little "umbrellas" were clean and white and so I chopped them up and sauteed them in olive oil with a bit of butter for flavor.  Another delicious  mushroom...one I'd never found nor eaten. 

A Wiki entry says that these mushrooms have "Polyporus umbellatus may contain bioactive compounds with immunostimulating, anticancer, anti-inflammatory, and hepatoprotective properties".

No one should ever eat a mushroom based on this blog.  Any mushroom you eat should be researched in depth to make sure that it's not poisonous.  If you haven't learned about mushrooms from experts, you should not ever try to eat them.  BE WARNED and HEED THIS WARNING.

Back to beekeeping 101 and one hive

In beekeeping, I am learning that one needs to be patient. Earlier this spring, I tried to create a new hive by taking 5 frames (loaded with bees, pollen and honey) and creating a Nuc.  Since then, I have talked about how this failed for many reasons.  The main reason is that I tried to rush things.  It was too early in the spring to do this.  We had had some very warm weather early in the spring and I thought it would stay that way.  How many years have I lived in New England?  Most of my life and I'm no spring chicken.  How is it that I can still be fooled by some warm days in early May?  Well, I was fooled and I believe the bees in the newly created Nuc all died or went to find someplace warmer, except for the few who were in the Nuc when I picked it up to bring it home. 

I tried to get ahead of myself and the outcome was that I got nowhere. Because the hive...last year's hive...was impacted as a result of taking 5 frames from it.  In retrospect, I think I may have put the queen in the Nuc because the next thing to happen is that last year's hive (#1) did not thrive after that.  It got so dismal that I wanted to go buy a new queen and tried.

But a Charles Andros up in Walpole, NH, who I contacted to buy a queen, called me to find out what was going on with my hives...I had a new Nuc I bought that was thriving, and my #1 hive that was not.  His suggestion was to combine the hives.  He said he didn't want to sell me a queen because that probably wouldn't have fixed the problem with hive #1. I probably didn't have enough brood there for the hive to survive and of course, it had no queen either.  Doomed.  I loved it that he wasn't trying to sell me something.  He was trying to help.  And his suggestion appears to have worked.  Here's what I did, from the bottom:

Bottom board
deep hive (from #1)
deep hive (mostly #2)
queen excluder (so queen stays below making babies)
Super (for honey production)
Top Hive feeder (which I should not have put on there so I must take it off today...apparently shouldn't use feeder if there is a super on the hive)
Top Cover

I've been watching the hive and it seems back to normal, with bees loaded with pollen coming into the hive regularly.  Later this summer, hopefully, I will try splitting my hive again so that I can have two hives... early enough for them to move from a Nuc to a hive before the cold weather arrives. If that doesn't work, I will wait until next spring or early summer to make a Nuc...I will be patient; I will be patient; I will be patient......maybe next time I'll remember how the weather is in New England.

In retrospect - the early spring nuc was too early

I am looking back at my posts and see that I tried to make a Nuc way too early.  Early May is not a good time to do it.  I should have waited until mid-summer when the hive was strong...then do it. But I was over anxious and I think I have caused some of these issues I'm having due to being impatient!

I knew beekeeping wouldn't always be easy

The saga of my bees....or lack thereof!

Hive #2 continues to flourish.  In fact, I think that when I can get into the hive again, I may add a super because they are running out of space in that deep hive. But I may not need to with what I hope is the solution to Hive #1's issues.

Hive #1 is still struggling.  All week I have been thinking, reading and having conversations about what my next steps are for #1. One person I talked with was Charles Andros, a NH beekeeper who I didn't know.  He was great, spending a good amount of time on the phone with me and not selling me the queen bee I had asked to buy. Instead he offered me some good advice.

His advice was to merge the two hives.  He feared just adding another queen to Hive #2 might not get me anywhere because it might end up the same way with the queen dying. He said something about not enough brood, I think.  (It was a lot to absorb).

But I did understand some other stuff :).

I remove the queen cell in Hive#1...the one I spotted last week during an inspection.  If that queen is born, one of the queens will be killed. It's best it's the current queen in Hive #2 because we know what she is and she's clearly producing well based on the growth in that hive.  I sort of hate to upset the balance.

Next I will add the new hive to the top of the old hive with a sheet or two of newspaper between them. The bees will begin to adjust to their new friends in the upper hive while they are eating through the newspaper. By the time they do that, they should be acclimated. I will also add the queen excluder under the newspaper.

For those of you who don't know, a queen excluder is a a thin cover that has, in my case, metal slots that bees can fit through.  But the queen can't fit through it.  By adding that, should there be another queen down below, she wouldn't be able to get up to where Hive#2's bees are in the deep hive above.  After a few weeks, I'd remove the excluder. 

I sure hope this works.  The idea is that by doing this, the new hive can bring back the older hive and later on this season, I can make another nuc to try to expand into two smaller hives rather than one large hive. I'm not sure how I'll handle these deep hives. I won't be able to lift them off.

I may need to reduce Hive #1 which has two deeps, by consolidating into one deep. I can handle two deep hives but not three...not if they need to be lifted. I'll think about this for the next few days until I can do this. The weather here has been too rainy to want to go into the hives. I'll wait for a sunny day, hopefully Sunday. 

Stay tuned.

The queen bee is dead

Hive #1 - The queen I put into the hive in its cage is dead. That is a waste of $30, plus costs of going to get the bee. Oh well. It could have been worse. One of my friends, or I should say a friend of a friend, had the bees in a brand new nuc swarm the next day. It's difficult to understand some of this...but not so difficult to understand why some people don't continue beekeeping. It's a rather expensive start-up. These issues I've had are not uncommon...not at all!

My latest plan is to wait for the bees to make a new queen. If bees live in the wild all on their own, they can make their own queen. I need to go in and fully inspect the hive to look for eggs to see if there might be one now. I just don't want to disturb them so I'm not sure if I'll go into the hive quite yet. It's getting close to a month since I realized I no longer had a queen so perhaps they have one or are close to having made one on their own. I don't think so yet based on the lack of pollen gathering.

 I keep observing the hive almost daily and haven't seen enough pollen gathering. Yet when I looked into the hive yesterday to ensure the queen got out of her cage, and found her dead, I did see the few frames I looked at with uncapped pollen on them. So some bees must be gathering pollen but I saw none yesterday and only a few bees loaded up with it a few days ago. I think the outside activity is a good indicator of what's going on inside...or not going on inside.  

Hive #2, the new hive, needs to be opened up. The front entrance still has the entrance reducer on. I need to now allow the full opening so the bees can more easily get in and out. Bees were coming in yesterday, I noticed, and it looked like a traffic jam out there. I'll do that today.

 I also want to check how full the deep hive is at this time. It's been a month and the bees had 5 frames to fill up. Once they get to two frames that are still empty, I'll add a super to give them room to grow. I only want to use supers on that hive since they are shorter and lighter.  Manipulating deep hives was too heavy for me to manage alone.  I couldn't lift them last year so had to figure out a way to slide them over. So I'll probably   add two supers to equal one deep hive. I want them to grow numbers of bees right now so they need that additional space to grow.

Let me just add that this new hive looks like #1 looked last year.  Healthy, busy bees intent on growing and producing. It's fun to watch them.  I am looking forward to seeing both my hives looking like this one does right now!

A new queen for Hive #1

I received input on what's wrong with my hive and was told I need a new queen.  Once I have that, things should improve. 

I decided to purchase a queen rather than wait for the bees to make their own.  Summers are too short here to waste up to a month while that happens. I purchased mine from Jodi Turner who sold me one of her Carniolan queen bees.

The Carniolan bees are resistant to mites and are gentle.  I don't care as long as they produce honey.

I added it to the hive on Wednesday evening and am told not to look in the hive until Sunday, to see if she got out of her cage.  For those of you who don't know, this little cage has a sugar plug that the bees and the queen eat through until the hole is large enough to release the queen.  If they haven't done that by Sunday, I'm to help the process along.  We'll see how it goes.

I know I can be over anxious sometimes but yesterday I took my binoculars out to look at the hives toward the end of the day when the bees are bringing in pollen.  In the new hive (#2)  bees were coming in loaded with pollen and there was a continual stream of bees going into the hive.  It looks normal and good.

Hive #1 showed me a bit of promise.  I actually saw a few bees going in loaded with pollen but not nearly enough.  I was happy because it is more than I saw the other day.  It made me wonder if the new queen was already out but I doubt it would have been that quick.  And if it was that quick, the colony could have killed her as an intruder.  Having time to get used to the queen is very important or she'll be killed.

Oh oh...Hive #1 in trouble - there's a list of issues

I've been observing hive #1 over the past few weeks.  Prior to that I had been happy they made it through the winter.  But something is wrong.

1.  I think I have more drones than worker bees
2.  Some of the frames in one deep hive didn't look right.  They were spotty and what was there looked too dark.
3.  Only saw a couple of eggs but even they didn't look right because there was more than one of them in the cell.  I think that's the same overabundance of drones issue.
4.  The new hive has worker bees coming in with bags of pollen. I saw none go into the old hive today.
5.  None of the bees in the old hive were drinking the sugar water. I think they had enough honey already in the hive so they didn't need it....hopefully that's why.
6.  The bottom board has some fine brown powdery stuff  on the floor.
7.  I don't believe there's a queen anymore.  There WAS one because several weeks ago, I saw eggs and brood and thought everything was fine.  So now, given I just spent $130 on another Nuc, I will wait for the bees to make a queen. It can take up to a month.  I suspect they've been without one for a few weeks.  Now I am wondering if I didn't ruin things by trying to make my own Nuc from that hive.  Maybe, by mistake, I sent off the queen. Clearly, something happened.  I hope the hive is strong enough to even be able to make a queen. 

I don't know yet what is going on is really bad or if I'm overreacting to some of the symptoms above. I think I'll copy this entry and send it off to my beekeeper mentor to see what she has to say.

What I'll do or have done in the meantime

• Give bees some patties I made to help with varroa mites that is made with Crisco and sugar.  It helps bees shed off the mites.  You just place a patty on top of the frames and it'll take them about a month to eat it. I put one in each hive as a preventive measure.
•  Removed the bad looking frames from the hive and replace them with frames that were drawn out and clean. 
• Clean that bottom board of that brown powdery stuff by hosing it down...scrubbing it with a brush.  I'm hesitant to disturb them again so soon after disrupting them over the weekend, replacing frames, etc. but will do this task later on this week.
•  Removed both the top hive feeder and the super from Hive #1.  I don't need either at this time. 
• Think about medicating bees for mites now. If I decide to medicate the bees, now is the time...IF they'll go for the sugar water. I'd need to remove all the honey from the hive, I think, in order for them to go for the sugar water (with medication). 
• Watch Hive #1 very closely and monitor the activity while I hope and wait for them to make a new queen.

A new hive has been started

Instead of purchasing the package of bees, like I had planned, I bought another Nuc.  The bee package had some issues:
1) I never heard from the vendor after trying to arrange shipment to ship after Memorial Day
2) Vendor charged my account without being able to contact them so I was suspicious
3) Vendor's voice mailbox was full so I couldn't leave a message
4) I tried emailing them twice with no response

So I disputed the charge on my credit card and ordered a Nuc from Imaginethathoney@hotmail.com.  These folks in Swanzey, NH are the people I took a course from last year.  This year, they had some Nucs to sell so I bought one for $130...the same as it would have cost me for the bee package.  Shipping was costing, from that crappy vendor, about $40-45.  I would have paid the same amount of money for fewer bees.  I was glad I contacted Jody in Swanzey because I hadn't realized until then that they were offering Nucs.

I added the bees to their new hive on Sunday and they seem to be thriving.  This one has a marked queen which will make it so much easier.  I gave up, last year, on trying to find the queen.  I figured that if I had plenty of workers and eggs were being laid, that I probably had a queen.

I'm watching last year's hive closely.  I'm not sure everything is great in that hive. I'm going to add a patty I had made last year that is made with sugar and crisco.  It helps with mites, making the mites slide off the bees. I will add that to the older hive this weekend.

Let's see how this year goes.

One thing I want to do before winter is to figure out if there's another, better way to insulate the bees.  I'd like them to be thriving in the spring.  I was lucky to not lose all of them this year, I think.

I asked about one member of last year's class to see how his bees fared over the winter and I learned that he lost them all!  He had such a great hive that he was splitting it in the fall, like I did.  But I don't know what he did in terms of insulating the hive.  Hopefully I'll see him around sometime to see what happened (and learn).  I do know he lives in a higher elevation but I would think that with proper insulation, they could survive there.  But again, I'm not sure what his strategy was, if he even had one! I think I'm learning that some of this is just luck.

Nuc failed - Ordering new bees

Well, my nuc failed.  I thought I had enough brood, drones and worker bees, and honey and took the nuc about 5 miles away from home.  I left it there for over two weeks.  In that time, they should have made a queen.

When I picked it up early yesterday morning and got them home and opened the Nuc, I saw there were hardly any bees left at all!  And certainly no queen.  I was very disappointed.  I didn't see any dead bees at the bottom so it's a mystery what happened.

One though I had is that we had a few cold nights during that time and I worried they might be freezing. These small Nucs just don't generate the same warmth as a larger hive does with their extra frames and larger numbers of bees producing heat.

So....I ordered a package of bees with a queen which cost me, with shipping, $130.  I will use these new bees to start my new hive and hope to get it well established before winter and hopefully have two thriving hives next spring.

Last year, I ordered a nuc with 5 frames of bees and a queen.  And I picked them up in Massachusetts.

This year's bees is a "package" versus a "nuc" so there won't be as many bees and they won't be on frames. And they'll be coming via USPS, which may traumatize them.

So I need to study up on adding the queen and the bees into the hive.  I've seen it done and read about it but actually doing it will be brand new to me.  Can't wait! 

The ramps are in

I learned about ramps (or wild leeks) while foraging for mushrooms with a group who also likes these kinds of activities. In the spring, before many mushrooms are out, what we look for are these delicious bulbs.  At this time of year in the Northeast, you can find them in wet places and you can see the leaves.  But later in the season, the leaves disappear so you can't see where they are growing.  This was my first find this year.

My ramp find

Ramps on table

 I then cleaned them up, removing leaves and roots and I got about two cups of ramps from the batch.  I just slipped them into a freezer bag just like you see them below, and they freeze wonderfully. 

They taste sort of like a cross between garlic and onions.

The leaves are also good to eat but I haven't used the leaves for anything myself.  I'm told they make a delicious pesto.  Also someone else told me they make a great soup too. 

I like them as a side dish.  I saute them in butter and/or olive oil until lightly browned and nearly cooked through.  Then I add a bit of cream to that and add ramps and cream to a small au gratin dish, lightly oiled.  I then add some parmesan cheese to the top and pop it in the toaster oven for a few minutes until the cheese melts and the ramps are cooked through.  They are awesome!

Ramps all cleaned up, leaves discarded

New nuc started May 2013

A few days ago, I went into my hive for a thorough inspection. Here's what I saw:

- I had practically no bees in the super that was directly above the two deep hive bodies (so I took off the super for now)
- In the top deep hive body, I found some activity and from here, I took out two frames that appeared to 1) not have the queen 2) had brood 3) had honey.  I put those two frames, plus another three empty frames into the nuc box and moved that box about 5 miles away where it will stay for the next 2-3 weeks. 
- In the bottom deep hive body, I found frames that were loaded with honey so I had to extract 3 frames of honey.  This was not at all in my day's plan but I had to deal with it.  I think I have at least 1 1/2 quarts of honey from that little harvest!!  I interspersed empty frames amongst the full frames in that deep hive.
- I thought there would be more bees but a lot died off over the winter. I should be glad I have enough bees to start me off this year....I hope.
_ I was gratified to see that there was larvae so even though I didn't find the queen, I knew she was there within a couple of days.

Yesterday, I sat and watched the bees come into the hive after being out foraging for pollen and their little pollen sacks were coming back very full of yellow pollen...probably the dandelion flowers.  But there are a lot of other wild flowers blooming too so I'm sure they are grabbing as much as they can hold.

I will be watching this hive closely to hopefully see a lot more bees in the coming weeks.

Year 2  spring hive with one super removed and top hive feeder added

Fence from scrap wood installed

I finally got the side of the shed waterproofed so that I could install the trellis I made.  The trellis is made from strapping lumber and then painted. I made a little raised bed with that box that's at the foot of the trellis.  I will grow Hyacinth Bean vine there this year. 

The little fence is made from scrap wood I had left over from other projects.  I decided to keep the uneven top.  It's purpose is to hide the compost bin behind the shed.

Spring projects list

There are plenty of other projects I'm working on. I find I have a lot of energy in the spring with lots of ideas pent up from my winter musings.  Here is this year's list.  We'll see how many I end up completing.

1.  I move the compost bin  behind the shed so it's not an eyesore when you drive into the driveway - this is completed already. One down!

2. I am building a short fence to hide from view the compost bin..  I had seen on a TV project where someone used up old boards that were kicking around and made a fence out of them and I loved that idea so that's what I am currently building. You can see it in progress below.  On the TV show, they rounded the top.  I am not sure that I will. I sort of like the straight line right now, but will decide once it's in place. Cost is $0.00.

Fence in progress. Will show again when installed.

3.  I will be expanding my patio this spring so that I can add a lounge chair out there.  It's small so if I try adding the lounge chair to the existing size, it will just be too crowded.  I have wood chips left from last year so will use them with the landscape fabric.

4.  Build a fire pit out next to the patio.  I'm still trying to figure out the best place for this.  Not sure I'll get to it this year or not.  But it's on the list.  I also am considering just buying one with a cover.  Not sure yet.  There's a lot of stone in the area so a stone one would be nice too.

5.  I'm trying to clear out the invasive Japanese Barberry from the area along the driveway.  If I can get that cleared, I will cover it with a tarp and let everything die in there this year.  Then next year, I will plant it with native plants and perennials.

6.  Add a trellis I built to the side of the wood shed and will plant Moon Flowers and Hyacinth Bean Vines to grow up there, for this season.  At the same time, I may pick up a Clematis fine so that over time, the Clematis will take over the space in the summer.. Any choice I make will change the view from just a solid wood to a white trellis with climbing plants and flowers.  And the piece of fence will also give it some interest and that will attach to the back left side of the shed and hide the compost bin.

Did I remove insulation too soon?

April 15, 2013,

A week or so ago, I removed the plywood from the top of the hives and also removed the roofing paper from around it.  Then I removed the piece of insulation under the hive cover.  Then we had some cold nights so I'm worried that I removed things too early.  Later today should be over 60 degrees so I hope to see bees flying around.  If I don't...it will be very sad.

Note: Two days later, I'm reporting that the bees are just fine.  The last few days, as predicted, were warm, so the bees were flying all around.  Now we need something to bloom so they can eat.  Soon.

I also checked to see when I should start a new Nuc to replace the one I had started in the fall.  I am told I should wait for dandelions to be flowering and then start the new Nuc.  So that's my plan.

Once the Nuc gets established and they have made a new queen, I will move them into their new hive.  I am trying a color this time. Some people say to keep the hive white. One beekeeper I know who was very successful had black hives. So we'll see if my bees are happy in a blue hive.

Year two: The fence is up to protect beehives from bear

It's April 2, 2013.  It's my second year at beekeeping.  The large hive made it through the winter although the number of bees has lessened.  I scraped out a lot of dead bees from the bottom of the hive last week, but I'm told that's to be expected.  I'm just glad they overwintered at all.

If you recall earlier posts, here's how I winterized the hives:

• surrounded my hives with bales of hay. 
• wrapped roofing paper around hives for insulation leaving about 6 inch gap between hive and hay
• added a piece of 1 inch insulation to the top of the hive, under the top cover 
• Topped it all with a piece of plywood
• Lastly, added rocks and bricks to top of plywood, as added precaution

2012-2013 winterized beehives before adding the plywood which covered half of the bales of hay and all of the hive, for further protection

The small hive, the Nuc, didn't winter over at all.  I've seen no life there for months.  I think the hive was too small.  I had added two frames to the Nuc in the fall and hoped to build a new hive to start off the spring.  But that isn't going to happen.

New hive plan

Since I can't start off with my Nuc, as I had hoped, my plan is to take some bees out of my existing hive and do exactly what I did before....if there are enough bees to take from the existing hive.  If not, I'll wait until the hive is large enough to take some of the bees for the new hive...hopefully later this spring. 

Then I'll take a few frames, add them to the Nuc, and move the nuc to somewhere about 5 miles away for two weeks.  By then, they should have made a new queen and then I'll have a new hive, ready to go. 

I'll then bring the nuc back home.  At that point, I'd like to move them into a new hive I have bought and painted for them (photo to come).  I want to get them into the new hive and let the colony expand well before winter so that they'll survive it.

Bees aren't the only pollinators

A friend from UVM sent me this link entitled " For Crops, Wild Pollinators Needed.

The gist of the article is that honeybees only account for about 14% of the pollinators needed for crops. Other beneficial insects account for the rest.

What that means to us who love to farm and garden, is to make sure our habitats are all inclusive and that we have the biodiversity needed to sustain all these pollinators. 

I know that last year, in my own garden, I had a wealth of butterflies.  I hadn't thought about their role in pollinating the garden but as I think about them now, I see them as some very beautiful pollinators and will continue to plant native trees, shrubs and plantings to bring more of them to my little part of the world.

Bees survived the winter

Here's what my hive looked like yesterday, March 9th, 2013. Bees were flying all around, even out to the back of the house.  Temperatures were in the 50's. 

I will leave the black tar paper on the hive for about another month.  Today I will also take off the Christmas wreath.  It's looking somewhat out of season! :)

I spent a good part of the day yesterday working in the greenhouse, getting it reorganized and cleaned up. While I was in there, I also planted some Kale and Cilantro.

Inside, I moved the parsley and lettuce that I had growing in the basement out to the porch.  I may need to move them in periodically over the next month, but hopefully they will be fine on the porch until they, too, move into the greenhouse.  I have eaten fresh lettuce and herbs for most of the winter.

 Of course, my electric bill doubled this year because of the grow light and because of a new air exchange system I had installed in November. Between the two items, my latest bill showed usage was double over last year! I don't like that part but I did like having the fresh lettuce.

Bluebirds are here

Bluebirds on tree

 I've been watching these beautiful bluebirds come to my feeder.  They are so colorful and pretty.  When I went outside to take these photos, they naturally took off and were watching me from the tree out front.

I'm so happy to see bluebirds in the area. I know they were hard to find for quite some time.  Now I want to build a bluebird house, or a few of them, to put up around the yard because I'd like these guys to stick around!

A family of bluebirds waiting for me to go inside again before going back to my feeder.

Spring is in the air

Today is March 1st, 2013 and I just finished painting a new beehive.  It'll be my second hive that I hope to populate with bees from last year...and not need to buy any bees at all this year.

I have been told that beehives should be painted light colors and my last one was white.  But I know a beekeeper who has his painted black and he seemed to be doing very well with his bees so I decided to not paint mine white this time.  I painted it dark blue, the same color as my exterior doors to the house and shed. I like this hive because it has a gabled top cover with copper so it'll look pretty as well as be functional for the bees.  I'll let you all know how the color works out.  I bet it's ok but we'll see. So here's the hive, missing the bottom board (where bees enter and leave). I have since added that, nicely painted blue as well.

New hive for 2013

Yesterday was in the 40's so I decided to go check on the bees even though none were outside.  I guess it needs to be in the 50's before they venture out.

But I had done a foolish thing a few weeks ago when I added more fondant to the hive.  I had put the fondant onto a paper plate but turned the plate over, thinking the bees would get to it easier.  However, the fondant melted down into the hive over the frames.  I see it killed a few bees that got caught in the melting fondant.  I was very worried I had killed all the bees by this because I hadn't seen any outside since.  Or course, it's been cold so that's the real reason I hadn't seen them out.  So I looked deep into the hive and heard buzzing and saw bees down there so I have not killed them.

In another month they'll be out flying with warmer days to come.  I can't wait for spring to arrive.  I have some plans for more pathways, using up my wood chips.  And I want to finish cleaning out the area I started in the fall where eventually I want to plant a cut flower garden.  I also want to till up some ground down near the lower pond. There I will plant native plantings that the bees will love.

I am also thinking of lining that lower pond too.  But it will also need a pump to keep the water circulating. But it would be very pretty to have that pond as part of the landscape. I'll think more about this.  When it rains, that pond fills up and looks so pretty.  I would then need to bring in a lot of stone to trim around it or use all the rock walls around my property, which I'd rather leave alone.  So I'd buy stone and then use it to trim the pond.

Winter thoughts bring spring work! 

I've begun selling beeswax skep candles!  It's a fun wintertime hobby and I made enough to sell a few on Ebay. I also made come hand-dipped tapers from beeswax which I'm selling. Especially the skep candles burn for a long time and have such a nice scent.

No, the beeswax isn't all my own.  I bought some as well. But some of it came from my hive.

After the Blizzard of 2013

How beautiful it is after a storm.  We got about 18 inches of snow last night so in between shoveling, and shoveling, and shoveling, I took a few photographs as shown below. 

I also trudged over to the beehive to make sure the snow wasn't covering the entrance to the hive and it was all clear.  I will probably shovel a little to open up the area more but think that the snow will help insulate them.

Until yesterday, this table was empty. I wish I could find the yardstick but think it's about 18 inches high

Last year, I built this birdhouse and attached it to the remains of a tree. It makes a nice winter visual.

This shoveling was the first step in getting the cars mobile again

Shrub is focal point on front lawn, at least at this time of year.  It was prettier before last year's plow woman plowed right into it.  Now it's slightly lopsided.

Woodshed as see from front porch. It's since been shoveled out

Checking on bees in mid January

Yesterday, January 10th, brought warmth and sunshine so I put on my boots and walked over to the beehive to see if there was any activity.  There was.  Bees were flying about, and seemed like they were looking for food...doing what they always do.

But unfortunately, I also saw a lot of dead bees lying in the snow away from the hive...like the bees flew out but never made it back to the hive.  In doing some reading, I learned that this is normal and that if I see bees at all, that's a good thing because they are still alive in the hive.  At least some of them are.

It doesn't look like there are any surviving bees in my little nuc on the left.  I will be surprised if there are any that  make it so if not, I'll need to start another in the spring, hoping that I have enough in the big hive to start another one.  I think it's just too small and they couldn't get warm enough in this Vermont climate.  If I try another Nuc in the future, I may keep them in the greenhouse where they can be warmer.  I was told, however, that the fluctuating temperature might be too much for them. Not sure but the cold getting to them in a small hive doesn't seem to have worked.

Bees getting some fresh air in January

Happy bees venturing outside

Bee in the snow...taking a drink?

Bee looking for nectar or pollen, fruitlessly

 The next day was still warmer, for January in New England, so I went into the larger hive and added some fondant to begin feeding the bees.  I'm told that they begin to get ready for spring during January and begin eating more.  So this supply of fondant should carry them over until the next warm day when I can open the hive to check on them.

It's funny how one begins to worry about them when they've been surviving on their own for thousands of years...well, at least until man began using pesticides.