Thanksgiving storm

We'll see if it happens, but an 8-12-inch snow storm is expected starting tomorrow.

I'm thankful, of course, for my family and friends but my bee-related thanks are for these things.

• I came home from summering in Maine 6 weeks ago to enable me to get some stuff done before snow came...which ended up coming very early so glad I did it in time.
• Then before the cold snap about 10 days ago, just before, I wrapped my hives in roofing paper and added bales of hay around 3 sides...again, whew..I just made it.
• I also added the cedar filled pillows that, hopefully, with fingers crossed, will take care of the moisture in the hive.  I added the pillows to a super with a screen stapled to the bottom so bees can't get to it.  I made two pillows per hive so that as one pillow gets wet from condensation dripping down, I will swap out the wet for the dry pillow. I swapped out the pillows just before the storm but they weren't too wet yet...again, I think that's a good thing.
•  I'm thankful I closed up the entrance, leaving just about a 1 inch opening. Last year, I forgot. This is to keep cold out out of the hive as much as possible, while leaving a small opening for bees to get out as they need to (one note on that...I should have a one-inch hole somewhere near the top of of the top deep hive so that, if snow accumulates, they have another opening...also just for ventilation.)  I haven't done that yet until I have an empty deep hive.  I can't very well do it with bees inside.   I've yet to see an explanation on how others do that. I'm thankful I remembered this detail this year.
• I have a bee food source in patty form that I made a year or so ago.  So far, the bees haven't touched it in either hive.  I hope it's because they have plenty of honey so don't have to resort to that.

Now it's December 1 and see several months ahead of cold weather. I do hope I've improved my bee knowledge enough to get through the winter. 

Getting ready to winterize the hives

I've gone two months without posting anything!  It's been an interesting summer trying to be a beekeeper when I wasn't living where the bees are. It made me nervous and then there were two bear incidents and a new fence and new electric solution which I'll try next year.  This year, I used the same battery pack controller as in the past few.  Next year, I'll use a car battery to operate the fence since it'll last longer without losing its charge.

However, even with the trouble, in late August, I extracted about 5 gallons of honey.  I was surprised I got that much after the bear visits.  But getting Jeff over to install a new fence quickly and getting it electrified with a strong current really helped save the hive.  It's expensive honey though when you add up all the costs.

Mouse guard on hive that is wrapped for the winter.

A few weeks ago, I noticed that the  mouse guard for one of the hives was laying on the ground about 3 feet away from the hive.  I opened the hive, and looked at some frames and didn't see any mouse signs.  I thought for sure that was what knocked the guard off the hive entrance.  I hope it's in place when I go back next week.

Mouse guards typically go on the hive in the fall when mice are looking for a warm place to live. Later on, say November in the Northeast, it will be replaced by the entrance reducer using its smallest opening.  This helps block out cold air.

It's getting near the time to winterize the hive.  This year, I will use cedar shavings in pillowcases that I've made.  These will catch any moisture that drips from condensation.  I will have 4 so that I always have two dry to replace the two in the hives.

I'm trying to decide whether or not to wrap in roofing paper.  I was told by a Maine beekeeper that the paper needs to lay out in the sun for some number of hours prior to using it.  That gets rid of toxins in the paper.  It also might be what killed my bees last winter.  I've read that many beekeepers don't wrap their hives and the bees survive.  I think I might be able to do that if I pile bales of hay around them as insulation.  Of course, that attracts mice too so some people don't use hay for that reason.  But I have not noticed mice around but I've seen a few snakes around the hay.

I believe I can keep this fence in place all year without needing to remove it.  The old sheep fence had to be brought in.  I was always nervous about when to  bring it in...I needed to be sure the bears were in hibernation first.  But this year, I will check, but think it stays in place. I may not have to electrify it in the winter though so I'll move that unit in or cover it.

So I'm feeling it's time to go to Vt. and spend the winter as I have a lot to do there.  Speaking of the Vermont house, if you remember, I built a $40 patio a year or two ago and I wanted to report on it, after some time has gone by.

Here are some thoughts:

1.   Weeds just love wood chips. They will creep in quickly.  Notice the mint growing to the right in image above. I'm I'm struggling to keep it in check.  I'm pulling out the most vigorous roots I've ever seen for mint and I know they have strong roots already. These roots are huge and far-reaching!

Bugleweed

Also, I love bugle weed but not on my patio.  Bugleweed is great for places that are eroding because it grows fast, and spreads fast.  It also flowers a beautiful deep blue in the spring. But I'm needing to pull it out of my patio by the handful.  I am reusing some of it in a hilly area where I've had trouble growing anything else and hope it fills it in.

2.  You'll need to keep replacing the chips as they decompose.  My patio needs another layer of wood chips that I hope to get to before the snow flies. Fortunately, I have a pile left that needs to be used.

3.  I've used wood chips on my pathway to the side of the house as well as the patio.  What I found on the pathway is that it's sloped, and the wood chips are light so they wash down to the bottom of the slope in heavy rain.  And we've had a lot of heavy rain.  So I'm needing to rake it back in place quite a lot.  And because some washes right onto the lawn, I seem to lose more of the chips so they'll need replacing too.

4. Use wood chips on flat areas.  I think the pathway would be better with pea stone or maybe even slightly larger stone so it doesn't wash away.

An expensive hobby

Another $450 spent on fencing and labor.  The honey I get this year, no matter how much, is going to be expensive. It's amazing how much  money that can get poured into this hobby.

Tomorrow I will go and see the new fencing.   The car battery happened but only for a few days and then we went back to the D cell battery pack to electrify the fence.  According to the hired beekeeper, something came back and moved some of the fence a little.  It sounded to me like the bear came back again but got a very good shock this time so no damage was incurred.  Thankfully.

I will take time to mow around the fenced in area while there to make sure that no grass or weeds touch the fence so that it stays charged enough to keep out the bear.

The hired beekeeper, Jeff, also said the hives should be 6 feet apart.  They are now 1 foot apart.  This is for disease control.  If one hive got mites, it wouldn't so quickly get passed on to the other hive.

There's always something new to learn!

7.27.14 -- Bear came back last week

Well, a few days after putting the hives back together, reenergizing the fence as well as putting it back in place, the bear came back!

This time, he probably got a shock though because he didn't get to the hive and just knocked over part of the fence.  Thankfully.

I had to get more aggressive.  I hired a local beekeeper to go over since I couldn't make the round trip drive again during a work week.  His recommendation was to give up my current fence which is the mesh that is movable and used a lot as a temporary enclosure that can be moved easily.

He suggested a more permanent fence and use a car battery to electrify it so that the shock will be much greater and hopefully a great deterrent.  That was Tuesday.  This is Sunday.  I have no phone calls telling me of additional bear sightings or damage so it's probably working.

I will take photos when I go there next Sunday.

Bear attack on beehives

A dreaded event took place sometime Friday night into Saturday morning....bears attacked my beehives. These were the hives at the end of the day. I prayed the bear wouldn't come back again during the night so that I might possibly be able to salvage something. I'd leave in the morning.l

I made a 3 hour round trip today to put them back together again, fix the fence and reelectrify it.  The issue was that the fence had lost its charge in my absence. And I guess the bear were hungry. I had hired a beekeeper to check the hives and change the batteries last week but this happened before they came. Not sure if I mixed up the hives putting them back together (I had two different varieties). So who knows what those repercussions might be.  I guess we'll see. 

The bees were busy these last several weeks. Even with what we lost, the boxes were all heavy with honey.  I had a tough time moving them.  The super I had put on them were almost full so I added another super to each. We might still eek out a honey crop in spite of it.  We'll see. If there are no further attacks.

 The bear took 6 or so frames of honey...but it was honey the bees need to survive the winter. I'll most likely have to give them some of "mine" to help them out if they can't replace what was taken. I gave them blank frames with no comb so they'll need to work hard. I hope we continue to have cooperation with the weather.

I only found two of those frames no longer in the box or anywhere around.. Maybe I'll come across them licked clean somewhere in the woods during mushroom foraging.

I apologize for being so far away in this shot.  The bees were furious and even with a full bee outfit on, I was stung many, many times in the three hours I worked on the site putting things back together.  The photos were taken just before I left for my return trip so was without my suit now.  I wanted no more stings.  It'll probably take days for them to settle down.  And me.

competition in the chanterelle field

Yesterday I took a walk at my favorite spot for chanterelles.  I've had my eye on them for a few weeks and was told that they are slow growers.  But I wanted to see how much they grew over a 4 day period when we also had some rain. 

Previously, they were too small to pick and I have been waiting for them to grow before I pick them.  But as I walked, I saw a few that were still small and decided to wait for my return before I decide whether or not to pick them. 

Then I got to a patch that had been loaded with the mushrooms and I found nothing at first.  Then, I saw that someone had cut them at the base.  That means another good mushroomer has discovered my patch.  Or perhaps I discovered his or hers.

In one place, I saw they had marked the spot by tying a ribbon to a branch.  I took the ribbon!  And I covered the tiny mushrooms there with leaves so they couldn't easily be spotted.

They missed a few.  Any other time, if I didn't have a mushroom thief to deal with, I would have let these fairly small mushrooms grow another several days.  But this time, I picked them. 

It was either pick them small or don't get any at all.

I just fried them up and these will go into the freezer for some future day.  It's hard though because they smell so good!

June 28 bee check

I went to Vermont to check on the bees yesterday.  Wow.  Two hives is double the work and double the time.  I need to factor in more time on my next visit.  Here's what I found and did:

• I removed the feeders.  They were empty and probably had been for a few weeks.  The weather has been so nice though that I wasn't worried about feeding them really.  But I had made sugar syrup for them and then forgot it in Maine.  That made my decision that I was done feeding until the fall.  I'll feed in the fall until freezing so that they won't have to use up their store of honey.
• I looked at almost every frame.  I cut away some queen cells which makes me nervous.  I sure hope I didn't miss any as I don't want them to swarm!
• The frames otherwise looked good.  They were filled with brood, pollen and honey.  I saw evidence of a queen with many eggs but I didn't see the queen.  In some ways, I hate inspections because I'm afraid I might  kill the queen unknowingly.
• Supers were added to each of the hives so that now I have two deeps and one super on each of them. I hope that, in a month, I can add another super to each hive.  We'll see how it goes.
• The electric fence seemed to have plenty of power so I didn't change the batteries this trip.  I'll probably want to go back in a few weeks anyway to check them as well as the bees.