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.