May 27, 2007
Hi Everyone,
Another check of the hive yesterday. Population seems to be good, and it's actually getting a little intimidating to see so many bees when I open the hive. When I checked the hive I noticed that the frames were about 75-80 percent filled with honeycomb so I put a second box on.
I also was a little worried to see a couple of what I thought might be queen cells. They were about one third of the way down on one of the outer frames. Two little peanut looking things sprouting out of the honeycomb. They were each about .75 inches long, and I'm really not sure if they were queen cells, and my wife wasn't around to take a picture but I cut them out because I was worried.
I plan on moving the hive out to my in-laws place in the winter (they live on 10 acres) but I wanted the bees close by the first season so that I could watch and learn better. I am hoping that I don't end up with a swarm. I think I'll wait a week and give the hive a thorough check and see if I see more of these cells, and make sure I have a camera handy so that I can take pictures.
Stay tuned.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
My First Three Stings
May 20, 2007
Not my best day as a beekeeper. I made a couple of mistakes that ended up being quite memorable.
The first was to open the hive when it was cloudy and overcast. The hive was crowded, which was not a big deal, but the real mistake I made was leaving the hive open when it started raining.
I was almost done checking the hive so I decided to stick it out. The bees didn't enjoy the rain at all.
This wasn't too bad, but the real mistake I made was I didn't check my suit and I think somehow I didn't have my veil properly zipped. I'm checking the hive when I notice that someone is crawling across my cheek and I see a bee on my veil, but it's on the INSIDE of the mesh.
I am proud of the fact that I didn't panic. I closed up the hive, walked a little bit away, and took off my gloves so that I could unzip and remove my veil. Unfortunately there was a bee sitting right on the zipper so when I reached for the zip pull I got a handful of unhappy bee (sting 1). Then I was trying to unzip the zipper, but it's not easy to do as it's a zipper that goes all the way around your neck, so I managed to upset one of the bees that was walking across my neck (sting 2). I finally got the veil off and unzipped my suit and there were probably a half dozen or so bees in there with me. One got me on my ankle as I was removing the suit (sting 3).
I'm actually pretty pleased with the fact that I handled it pretty well, though I wish I knew for sure exactly how I incorrectly attached my veil. From now on I have my wife check me real quick before I go outside to make sure I'm properly done up.
The hive was progressing well, population seemed to be growing and as near as I could tell all looked good.
Not my best day as a beekeeper. I made a couple of mistakes that ended up being quite memorable.
The first was to open the hive when it was cloudy and overcast. The hive was crowded, which was not a big deal, but the real mistake I made was leaving the hive open when it started raining.
I was almost done checking the hive so I decided to stick it out. The bees didn't enjoy the rain at all.
This wasn't too bad, but the real mistake I made was I didn't check my suit and I think somehow I didn't have my veil properly zipped. I'm checking the hive when I notice that someone is crawling across my cheek and I see a bee on my veil, but it's on the INSIDE of the mesh.
I am proud of the fact that I didn't panic. I closed up the hive, walked a little bit away, and took off my gloves so that I could unzip and remove my veil. Unfortunately there was a bee sitting right on the zipper so when I reached for the zip pull I got a handful of unhappy bee (sting 1). Then I was trying to unzip the zipper, but it's not easy to do as it's a zipper that goes all the way around your neck, so I managed to upset one of the bees that was walking across my neck (sting 2). I finally got the veil off and unzipped my suit and there were probably a half dozen or so bees in there with me. One got me on my ankle as I was removing the suit (sting 3).
I'm actually pretty pleased with the fact that I handled it pretty well, though I wish I knew for sure exactly how I incorrectly attached my veil. From now on I have my wife check me real quick before I go outside to make sure I'm properly done up.
The hive was progressing well, population seemed to be growing and as near as I could tell all looked good.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Population Boom
May 17, 2007
I opened the hive up to fill the feeder and noticed that it seems like the hive is a lot more bustling. It could just be that I caught the hive when a lot of the workers had come in for the night (it was in the early evening) or it could be my imagination, but it seemed like there were a lot more bees in there than before. I hope this is a good sign that the hive is established and getting well populated.
My plan is to check the hive on Sunday and see if they're ready for a second hive box.
Some other highlights:
-As I was pouring the syrup into the feeder bin I saw bees run up and start drinking the syrup straight from the little stream of syrup that came from the pouring.
-As always there were about 50 or so bees on the inside of the lid so I am always careful to set it so that they don't get crushed. When I put the lid back on I did so slowly to make sure I didn't crush any bees and I noticed that as soon as the lid got close to the open hive top the bees all started to meander in the direction of the hive. Perhaps they were following the phermone scent of the hive, but it was kind of cool to see all of the bees suddenly marching in the same direction right into the hive.
I opened the hive up to fill the feeder and noticed that it seems like the hive is a lot more bustling. It could just be that I caught the hive when a lot of the workers had come in for the night (it was in the early evening) or it could be my imagination, but it seemed like there were a lot more bees in there than before. I hope this is a good sign that the hive is established and getting well populated.
My plan is to check the hive on Sunday and see if they're ready for a second hive box.
Some other highlights:
-As I was pouring the syrup into the feeder bin I saw bees run up and start drinking the syrup straight from the little stream of syrup that came from the pouring.
-As always there were about 50 or so bees on the inside of the lid so I am always careful to set it so that they don't get crushed. When I put the lid back on I did so slowly to make sure I didn't crush any bees and I noticed that as soon as the lid got close to the open hive top the bees all started to meander in the direction of the hive. Perhaps they were following the phermone scent of the hive, but it was kind of cool to see all of the bees suddenly marching in the same direction right into the hive.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Solar Wax Melter
Hi Everyone,
Since I had accumulated little bits of burr comb over the last few weeks I decided it would be fun to build a solar wax melter.
My goal was to have something that could turn a small pile of honeycomb into a nice clean brick using only solar power. I had a secondary goal of having the contraption be cheap, not too big and using as many "around the house" parts as possible.
I based my design on common designs I found on the internet, I mostly had to work on scaling it down since I wanted a much smaller version of what I generally found on the internet.
Here are my trials and tribulations:
Version 1.0 - a black plastic mini paint roller tray that had a hole poked in the paint reservoir part so the wax can leak out. Under the hole is a strainer and a margarine tub to catch the wax and the whole contraption goes into a rubbermaid bin with a sheet of glass over it. I liked the fact that the paint roller tray had a nice slope to it already.
Results: It worked if anything too well. It got so hot that the paint roller tray melted! I came back to a puddle of wax at the bottom of my rubbermaid and a paint roller tray that was so melted it was practically unrecognizable. I went to the hardware store to hopefully buy a tray made of metal or heavier plastic but they didn't make mini paint roller trays in metal, and the full size trays wouldn't fit in my rubbermaid bin and I didn't want to buy a new bin if I didn't have to. So much for my first attempt.
Version 2.0 - instead of the paint roller tray I bought one of those small disposable cookie sheets from the grocery store. I put it in the bin so that it had an incline to it (using a piece of styrofoam to elevate one end of it) and used a nail to poke a drip hole at the bottom of the incline. Same strainer, tub, bin, glass.
Results: Much better, the wax melted beautifully and all of the gunk (larvae, pollen bits, etc.) were left on the tray. The problem was that I think the melting heat was coming from the temperature of the metal sheet, so when the wax dripped out of the pan it cooled quickly so I ended up with an "icicle" of cooled wax coming from the drip hole and a blob sitting in the strainer (it had cooled to the point where nothing came through the strainer). Plus the drip hole seemed almost plugged up by the cooled wax.
Version 3.0 - I removed the strainer entirely (it seemed to be superfluous anyway), and instead of a little drain hole I made a bigger drain slot.
Results: Better still, I got a nice wax melt and the wax flowed into the margarine tub. The only problem was that I think the wax cooled the moment it dripped off of the hot pan so I had a stalagmite of wax sitting in my margarine tub.
Version 4.0 - Instead of a margarine tub I'm using a mini pie pan. I'm hoping that the metal pie pan will hold enough heat so that the wax will cool more slowly and I'll get a nice flat disk of wax. I'm trying it out today (assuming we get some sun).
Since I had accumulated little bits of burr comb over the last few weeks I decided it would be fun to build a solar wax melter.
My goal was to have something that could turn a small pile of honeycomb into a nice clean brick using only solar power. I had a secondary goal of having the contraption be cheap, not too big and using as many "around the house" parts as possible.
I based my design on common designs I found on the internet, I mostly had to work on scaling it down since I wanted a much smaller version of what I generally found on the internet.
Here are my trials and tribulations:
Version 1.0 - a black plastic mini paint roller tray that had a hole poked in the paint reservoir part so the wax can leak out. Under the hole is a strainer and a margarine tub to catch the wax and the whole contraption goes into a rubbermaid bin with a sheet of glass over it. I liked the fact that the paint roller tray had a nice slope to it already.
Results: It worked if anything too well. It got so hot that the paint roller tray melted! I came back to a puddle of wax at the bottom of my rubbermaid and a paint roller tray that was so melted it was practically unrecognizable. I went to the hardware store to hopefully buy a tray made of metal or heavier plastic but they didn't make mini paint roller trays in metal, and the full size trays wouldn't fit in my rubbermaid bin and I didn't want to buy a new bin if I didn't have to. So much for my first attempt.
Version 2.0 - instead of the paint roller tray I bought one of those small disposable cookie sheets from the grocery store. I put it in the bin so that it had an incline to it (using a piece of styrofoam to elevate one end of it) and used a nail to poke a drip hole at the bottom of the incline. Same strainer, tub, bin, glass.
Results: Much better, the wax melted beautifully and all of the gunk (larvae, pollen bits, etc.) were left on the tray. The problem was that I think the melting heat was coming from the temperature of the metal sheet, so when the wax dripped out of the pan it cooled quickly so I ended up with an "icicle" of cooled wax coming from the drip hole and a blob sitting in the strainer (it had cooled to the point where nothing came through the strainer). Plus the drip hole seemed almost plugged up by the cooled wax.
Version 3.0 - I removed the strainer entirely (it seemed to be superfluous anyway), and instead of a little drain hole I made a bigger drain slot.
Results: Better still, I got a nice wax melt and the wax flowed into the margarine tub. The only problem was that I think the wax cooled the moment it dripped off of the hot pan so I had a stalagmite of wax sitting in my margarine tub.
Version 4.0 - Instead of a margarine tub I'm using a mini pie pan. I'm hoping that the metal pie pan will hold enough heat so that the wax will cool more slowly and I'll get a nice flat disk of wax. I'm trying it out today (assuming we get some sun).
Results: The best so far, in fact I think this design will work. I got pretty close to a uniform piece of melted wax.
Here are some photos of the "final" design:
You can see the bits of pollen, larvae, and other gunk that was left behind on the tray. The chip clips were so that the piece of glass didn't slide down. I put a piece of wood under that end of the plastic bin to elevate it.
This is the melter with the glass and baking sheet removed. Not much in there, just a piece of styrofoam on on end to keep that end elevated and the mini pie pan that I used to catch the wax.
The wax collected in the pie pan. If I'd had more honey comb I might have gotten a nice disk of wax, but since I don't have much comb I got a half moon of wax instead. The wax is clean and solid, so I would consider this a success.
One Month In
May 14th, 2007
Well the bees have been in for almost a month. They have still only drawn out about 60% of the comb, so I'm going to wait a week before putting another hive box on.
Some things I noticed:
-They use the ventilation hole in the hive almost exclusively. They actual bottom entrance of the hive is pretty much unused to far.
-The newest honeycomb seems to be a slightly different color. The original honeycomb was almost white while this new comb has a yellowish tinge. I hope that I can attribute the new color to the bees gathering more nectar and pollen.
Well the bees have been in for almost a month. They have still only drawn out about 60% of the comb, so I'm going to wait a week before putting another hive box on.
Some things I noticed:
-They use the ventilation hole in the hive almost exclusively. They actual bottom entrance of the hive is pretty much unused to far.
-The newest honeycomb seems to be a slightly different color. The original honeycomb was almost white while this new comb has a yellowish tinge. I hope that I can attribute the new color to the bees gathering more nectar and pollen.
Two weeks in
May 6th, 2007
My first real check of the hive. I got my suit on and my smoker lit and opened the hive.
The first thing that surprised me was honeycomb was being built in the gap inside the feeder and a little was on the inside of the lid. The bees were really busy!
I removed that comb for the burr bucket (removing it carefully to not injure any bees), and then removed the hive top feeder.
Wow, the inside was pretty busy. The first frame I removed was almost entirely empty (I was a little disappointed).
However, as I got closer to the center the frames got considerably heavier and more impressive:
I think that's capped brood in the middle, and even though I tried I never saw the queen.
I then put all the frames back in carefully, put the hive top feeder back in place and closed up the hive. It had been a really fun first look at the hive. It's like a super-cool ant farm.
As I continued to feed the bees I noticed that new comb was often built in the center gap of the feeder. I noticed that if you're new to this like me it was nice to have new comb that I could check for eggs. I figured that if I saw eggs in the new comb it meant the queen was still doing okay.
The next major milestone will be the second hive box.
A few days in
April 19th, 2007
A quick check to make sure the queen had been released (she was) and to see how the hive was doing.
Some highlights (sorry no photos) were:
-Quite a bit of comb had been drawn (I would say as much as two or three frames).
-I actually saw the queen!
-I saw eggs and larvae.
So for this visit to the hive all I did was remove the queen cage and then added the final frame in and then buttoned the hive back up again.
A quick check to make sure the queen had been released (she was) and to see how the hive was doing.
Some highlights (sorry no photos) were:
-Quite a bit of comb had been drawn (I would say as much as two or three frames).
-I actually saw the queen!
-I saw eggs and larvae.
So for this visit to the hive all I did was remove the queen cage and then added the final frame in and then buttoned the hive back up again.
Installing the Bees.
April 16, 2007.
The bees arrived! I was told by the bee supply store that I could pick up my bees anytime so I went down there that same day.
The box of bees was a little bigger than a lunch box and was quite impressive. The box was filled with bees, but I was surprised by how quiet and peaceful they were. Instead of a buzzing box of activity it was just a quiet box with a "beard" of bees sitting inside.
The bees arrived! I was told by the bee supply store that I could pick up my bees anytime so I went down there that same day.
The box of bees was a little bigger than a lunch box and was quite impressive. The box was filled with bees, but I was surprised by how quiet and peaceful they were. Instead of a buzzing box of activity it was just a quiet box with a "beard" of bees sitting inside.
It was a tense car ride home with thousands of bees riding shotgun, and then I installed them that evening.
Here are some photos and my experiences, I won't give detailed instructions as those can be found in various books or web pages, instead I'll focus on what I specifically learned.
The first surprise was that as soon as you open the box the previously quiet bees start buzzing and as soon as possible they run out of the box like a mini stampede. It was a little intense.
The first mistake I made was when I sprayed down the bees with sugar water before installing (to calm them down). I had my glove on so when I sprayed the backsplash went onto my glove so for the whole installation my left hand was a popular place for the bees to hang out. Here is a photo of the bee box right after I opened the box:
The second mistake I made was when I removed the queen cage from the box. I tried to be very careful but I was a little clumsy (thanks to the gloves) so I ended up dropping the cage into the box. I would highly recommend a pair of pliers next time.
Here are a couple of photos of me trying to get the cage out of the box:
Reaching into the box just resulted in a glove covered with angry bees (once again some pliers or tongs would have been nice).
I ended up having to dump the box over and shake out the queen cage:
With the queen cage finally in hand I proceeded to put the cage in the hive. I knew that you need to hang her so that the other bees can get to the screened part of the cage to feed her. I had to fiddle with it a little to get her in their properly. Next time I would definitely ask at the bee supply store for an example cage so that you know what you're dealing with. Once I saw the cage I realized I could have hung the cage easily by having a bit of wire handy, but since I didn't know that ahead of time I had to sort of hack it together.
The other surprise was that I had read that the cage hole would be blocked with a bit of bee candy. Not sure if it was a mistake or if there was some other reason but there was no candy in my cage. I pulled the cork out and the queen made a break for it. Luckily I had read that if the candy falls out you can use a mini marshmallow, and luckily we had some on hand so I sent my wife to fetch one for me while I kept the cage hold plugged with my finger. Definitely ask your bee supplier details about the queen cage to avoid these hassles.
Here is the picture of me putting the queen cage between the frames:
Once the queen was in it was just a matter of shaking the bees into the hive. This actually worked pretty well, though you ended up with a lot of flying buzzing bees. Again, pretty intense.
The only additional things that I learned was I left the bee box outside the hive entrance figuring that any straggler bees would move into the hive eventually. Instead the next day I saw a small clumb of bees in the package box clumped where the queen cage used to be. A quick posting to the Bee Source Exchange told me that the bees were probably sensing the residual phermones from the queen and were getting confused. One person suggested that when you shake the bees out into the hive to really do a thorough job of it and to then move the box far away so that the bees can't get to it. I just took the box the next day and shook the rest of the bees out into the hive and then took the package box away and it seemed to work fine.
At that point it was just a matter of feeding and waiting.
How I got started.
Hi Everyone,
Welcome to my beekeeping post documenting my trials and tribulations as a first year beekeeper.
To start off I wanted to describe how I got into this.
About one year ago I was at a Farmer's Market and started talking to this guy who had a booth selling honey. Talking with him sparked an interest I'd always had in beekeeping so I contacted a local beekeepers club.
Conveniently the club was having a bee day where they met at a beekeepers place and worked many hives. I borrowed a bee veil and went out there and was fascinated by the experience of keeping a bee hive. Since it was too late in the year to start my own hive I spent the year reading up on beekeeping and accumulating equipment and going to the beekeeper club meetings.
A few things I learned:
Definitely check around for used equipment. I found a guy who was getting out of the hobby and he sold me all of the equipment I needed for very cheap.
Definitely spend some time reading. I bought and read "Beekeeping for Dummies" which I still refer to frequently.
Definitely find a peer group. I really enjoyed the beekeeping club, or if you can't find one I would suggest an online forum (I really like "The Exchange" at www.beesource.com). I use both my beekeeping club and the online forum all the time for questions. People are friendly, helpful, and have a lot of good experience you can draw on.
I decided to start a bee hive from scratch with packaged bees. I had all of the equipment set up and ready, so I just ordered my bees and waiting for them to arrive.
Next post, the actual installation.
Welcome to my beekeeping post documenting my trials and tribulations as a first year beekeeper.
To start off I wanted to describe how I got into this.
About one year ago I was at a Farmer's Market and started talking to this guy who had a booth selling honey. Talking with him sparked an interest I'd always had in beekeeping so I contacted a local beekeepers club.
Conveniently the club was having a bee day where they met at a beekeepers place and worked many hives. I borrowed a bee veil and went out there and was fascinated by the experience of keeping a bee hive. Since it was too late in the year to start my own hive I spent the year reading up on beekeeping and accumulating equipment and going to the beekeeper club meetings.
A few things I learned:
Definitely check around for used equipment. I found a guy who was getting out of the hobby and he sold me all of the equipment I needed for very cheap.
Definitely spend some time reading. I bought and read "Beekeeping for Dummies" which I still refer to frequently.
Definitely find a peer group. I really enjoyed the beekeeping club, or if you can't find one I would suggest an online forum (I really like "The Exchange" at www.beesource.com). I use both my beekeeping club and the online forum all the time for questions. People are friendly, helpful, and have a lot of good experience you can draw on.
I decided to start a bee hive from scratch with packaged bees. I had all of the equipment set up and ready, so I just ordered my bees and waiting for them to arrive.
Next post, the actual installation.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)