2010's First Honey!

So, we extracted honey from Hive #1 on July 17, 2010. Had one well needed helper as well to make us a team of three.

Oh yes, most importantly, the names of the Hives are no longer #1, #2 and #3. #2 and #3 don't have names yet but Hive #1 is now called Queen Cleopatra's Hive. Obviously, the actually honey will be named Queen Cleopatra's Honey. (Queen Cleo for short.) Good name?

The super on Queen Cleo is half size. A serrated bread knife, instead of a hot honey knife as I believe they call them, was utilized to uncap the comb. This idea came from this website/blog: http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php?topic=17854.0.

Why spend the extra dough when you don't need to?

Having 2 people, instead of one, to uncap the slides and one person walking back and forth from Queen Cleo's hive and the extraction spot replacing the slides and ensuring their were no bees on the slides sped up the process substantially. Having to slice the capped part of the comb extremely thin is a time consuming process and having 2 slicers instead of one is almost necessary.

To the Honey! This years honey came out a much darker color than last year's production from this hive. Queen Cleo last year produced a golden yellow honey. This year the honey was much browner. A completely different color. On this point, Hive #3 (no name yet) also had inserted into it 7 missing frames into its super. Those bees had produced quite a bit of comb and honey in their super which was kept in a separate metal bowl which overflowed and that bowl was placed into a larger metal bowl to collect any overflow of comb or honey, but more on this issue later. Yet, the comb itself that they built as well as the honey they had produced in Hive #3, to date, had no color whatsoever. It was completely clear. Now this hive is only a few months old. Queen Cleo's first production was after an entire summer and it turned out yellow. Now, after one year, Queen Cleo's honey is now a deep brown. The theory that I've come up with that the bees have not inserted some sort of pollen or other substance into the comb that would change the color of the honey from clear to another color, gradually getting to be a deeper color. With this said, how is it possible that the bees produce honey, or sugar syrup for that matter, with no color? What is the difference between the 3 substances (Clear sugar syrup versus 2009 Queen Cleo's yellow honey versus 2010 Queen Cleo's brown honey)?

In total the half size super on Queen Cleo produced a total of 8 liters of honey, minimum. This includes what was actually collected in the extraction vat, the pools of honey collected in the bottom of the decapped comb bowl, as well as any extra comb collected. All sources of honey were kept separate from one another.

A good system of converting the honey produced from volume to weight is required as honey is sold by weight, not volume. Also, anyone with a large supply of cheap high quality cheesecloth please contact me.

My sting. Once we got home that night I got stung. A fluke. A complete fluke. But a good lesson. The sensation of guilt when a bee dies has long past. There are 50,000 ladies in there and you can't feel guilty when a couple die now and then. Naturally, a bunch of bees follow the comb, get trapped in a honey pool and drown or get stuck and make the journey with the comb back to the house where the honey is separated from the guck. Inside one metal bowl was a second smaller bowl that was holding all the comb. This was comb from Hive #3 and did contain what looked like dead bees. Reaching my left hand down into the first bowl to attempt to pry the second bowl free was a sticky job. As I pushed my sticky hand in between bowls the back of my hand brushed up against the comb. On my third try to pry the smaller bowl loose the back of my hand, specifically right between my middle finger and ring finger brushed up against a bee stinger. It was dead wasn't it? The pain from the sting was immediate and considering the location on my hand I knew right away was going to get ugly. The bee was still alive!! Even if only barely alive, alive enough to give me my worst sting yet. After hours and hours the lady managed to stay alive and build up one last once of strength to jab me with her stinger deep enough that by morning, 12 hours later or so, my entire hand, almost halfway to my elbow was completely swollen without any hint of regression. Making a fist was no longer possible and it was itchy all over the hand and not just near the sting. An extra-strength Benadryl knocked me and the swollen hand out however. I now have liquid Benadryl in my bee tool box in case of a sting in the future. It was a good lesson to learn.

Tu ta loo,
J

Classic scene yesterday at the bee hive...

S shows up with Q and Kil and if you didn't know, they LOVE tractors and LOVE people who drive tractors or other motorized devices.

So, there I am dumping bees from the nuc into hive #3. Forgot the smoke, so the ladies are pretty upset. But I can't stop and go find smoke. Smoking them now is not going to help the situation. I stole all their honey comb and honey and now I'm whacking the box to dump them into the new hive. So I put the nuc down on the grass and start working on the roof which was completely full, as they've built up (down) quite a bit over the last 2 weeks. Drop the tool bag beside the nuc and start using the hive tool to scrape the roof.

Delicious honey by the way. 2 clear identifiable flavors.

Then, what do I see, is The Big S, coming down the steep lawn in his big motorized lawn mower, Q and Kil cheering him on from the driveway, and I see he is mowing right to the back edge of the lawn beside the bees. This doesn't look good, I thought. As I look up I see him begin to swat bees. I look down and am covered in bees and honey. My fingers are sticking together I have so much honey on me. The hive is open and bees are everywhere as I'm still dumping the roof. The bees are angry and they don't like lawn mowers. They don't like me today either. Why is The Big S jumping off the lawn mower? Why is it still moving forward?

Oh no, the nuc is on the grass right beside the tool bag. Oh no, The Big S has bailed from the lawn mower and its heading for the nuc and tool bag. Oh no, the nuc and tools are going to get mowed. Oh no, I am now standing in front of the lawn mower in drive as it is pushing forward against me within an inch of the nuc and has already rolled over the tool bag. Oh no, I can't yell to The big S because the lawn mower is on and he won't be able to hear me.

This is how the war between the moving lawn mower and the bee keeper began. Apparently, Q and Kil found the whole episode quite amusing.

Eventually, The Big S realized that I wasn't going to let the lawn mower move an inch further as it would have ruined the tools and everything else in the bag. He didn't realize there was anything in the bag. And I, smart me, wasn't going to reach down into the mower and pull out the tools. I did think about it though.

It's hard holding back a moving lawn mower.

July 4, 2010

Independence Day

Hive #1 - All good. 'Independent' confirmation of a new queen alive and kicking. The old one must have kicked the bucket. Seems the hive was much healthier than last time. Fewer drones and more workers. It appeared at least. The queen excluder that was put on last time produced results as Super #1 is ready to have the honey extracted! Hopefully it can be done this week.

I also need to pick up some new beeswax for the frames as I've run out. This is why in Hive #3, there are only three slides in the super. But that's Hive #3. I also need to replace the box with the nice one in the garage, but this also, is another story. Finally, before I forget, a hot honey knife is required. It will bee much more effective than putting a knife in warm water.

Hive #2 - Also all good. Found the queen and she didn't have a dot on her as expected. Last time she had a green circle but the queen this time had nothing. Put the queen excluder on this hive today. Bees were not as active as the bees in Hive #3.

Hive #3 - Very active today, meaning they were moving around quite a bit. Very impressed. Along with Hive #2, the queen excluder has been put on. The effort to find the queen was abandoned on Hive #3 as the amount of grubs/babies found was extremely high. As such, their was no purpose in continuing to disrupt their activeness.

Does opening a chamber where a baby bee is evolving at all harm it? Will the other bees close up the opening to protect the grub after the hive is closed up?

And it was HOT today. Just thought I should add that.

Blog one

Long overdue, even though it's the first.

Pointers from the last visit to the hive(s).

Hive #1

For some reason the amount of drones appeared to be huge compared to what there normally is. Almost 4/10 is a fair guess. The main purpose of the visit was to put the Queen Excluder on and to do so I had to make sure that the Queen was on the bottom apartment. It took some time and a close inspection of almost every frame to find the Queen. If my memory serves me right, the Queen on hive #1 had a green dot. Could not find her though. After a good solid 30 minutes I think I found our new Queen. Please take a moment to acknowledge the solid effort of our first Queen. The long stinger. The lack of stripes on her back. Had to be her. Our new Queen. Of great concern, firstly, was the lack of honey throughout the bottom apartment. The upper apartment seemed quite full yet the bottom seemed quite empty. Additionally, on the bottom, there were very few babies. The ladies also built between the frames a brand new comb, full size, which did contain babies. So, it's not all bad news. Unfortunately the new comb was also removed.

My theory is that the increase in drones and their need to be fed is what is causing the decrease in honey. But what do I know.

The mite problem did not appear to be as evident as it would have seemed after cleaning the mite catcher during the last visit to the hive with Q and K, with K being stung.

Hive #3

Inserted the tenth frame. But with the frame on the furthest right, part of the comb had become torn and only attached by a small piece at the top. Unfortunately, it had to be severed.

With the severed piece of comb from hive #3 as well as the new comb built by the ladies from hive #1 quite a bit of honey was made available.

And what do we like?

Honey!