Talahi Honey

Surprise Harvest

2009-04-03T11:58:00.004-05:00

When the temp hit 65, I went out to crack open the hives and found both good news and bad news. Let's start with the bad; I lost one of my three hives. I didn't have much hope for them to start with, they were small and the queen seemed very week. I thought she quit laying pretty early in the season but wasn't sure. They must have frozen out early because, and here's the good news, they left 40lbs of honey. I have no idea why they didn't make it through the winter considering all the stores they had but none the less, I have 40 extra pounds of honey on my hands.

I checked the other hives and both of them still have enough honey to see them through any cold snaps, plus they're already starting to build up. With no plans to make spring splits, I decided to go ahead and extract the 40lbs and sell it. I just made arrangements with a local produce market to test out selling some of my Talahi Honey so we'll see how it goes.

Check back soon for results.

Ken

Visit "The Brink"

2009-03-07T11:54:00.006-06:00

Yes, this post is very off topic, but the bees are just waking up from winter and I have something creepy to tell you about. Meet my friend J.C. Hutchins. Now, I wouldn't call JC himself creepy, but the things that emerge from his brain are.... well, down right creepified. If you didn't know better, you would think he's broken.

You've heard me talk about JC and the 7th Son books over on my other blog here and here but today, JC is up to something seemingly more sinister. We're going to learn about a place called "The Brink" and it's not exactly a pleasant place to visit, let alone, live. What's so sinister about that you ask? Well, how do you feel about you being the patient who's committed? Yeah, I thought so.

From JC's site:
_______________________________________
J.C. Hutchins’ new horror thriller novel, Personal Effects: Dark Art, chronicles the story of Zach Taylor, a young art therapist. Taylor works at Brinkvale Psychiatric Hospital, a facility with a dark, bloody history. Locals call it “The Brink.”

From the book:

Brinkvale Psychiatric was not built over the [brownstone] quarry, but in it. Nine stories of howling, brain-boiling madness, stacked two hundred feet into the bedrock. If you’re at The Brink, you’re at the end of the line. Only dead-enders need apply.

And now, J.C. Hutchins and Personal Effects creator Jordan Weisman are opening the doors of their bloody creation, and allowing you to step inside. You’re not getting a guided tour of The Brink. You’re … being committed.

Welcome to a first-ever in publishing called Commit Yourself To The Brink. Here, you’ll find ways to inject yourself into the Personal Effects universe and become a patient of art therapist Zach Taylor. Create a patient profile (complete with backstory), receive your admittance papers, contribute artwork, video and more … and earn the horrifically cool privilege to appear on Brinkvale’s official website.

Get creative. Get crazy. Get committed.
________________________________________

There you have it friends. I'll be back to the bee talk soon but for now, enjoy the links below.

Ken

Read about it
Learn about it
Hear about it

#Beekeep

2009-02-10T12:18:00.008-06:00

Do you Twitter? I do. In fact, if you glance over to the right you'll see a list of my recent updates (aka, Tweets). By now, most everyone knows what Twitter is so I won't go into the fine print. What I do want to say is there are several beekeepers who post with some regularity over on Twitter and it's been insightful to say the least.

Many Twitterer's (yeah, that's not going to pass the spell check thingy) stay pretty top level, meaning they follow a few people and make a few posts, but don't dive into some of the truly useful features that Twitter has to offer. However, there are many other ways to utilize Twitter and make it more issue specific. Meet the hash-tag. Whenever I update Twitter with something about beekeeping, I write it out and then put #beekeep at the end. Everyone who does this will have all posts labeled with #beekeep show up on one page like this one. You can also subscribe to the group you want to follow and have all tweets from that group sent directly to your personal Twitter page. Pretty cool huh.

You're not usually gaining in-depth knowledge about any subject since all posts are kept to 140 characters, but we are meeting each other, getting top level info with links to more details and sharing in the beekeeping community.

So the question remains; Do you Twitter? If not, go here.

Ken

What To Say?

2009-01-14T14:06:00.003-06:00

Not sure why, but I'm dying to write something. I really don't have anything new to fill you in on bee-wise, the girls are hunkered down for the winter and I hope they're doing well and keeping warm. So far, this winter has seen it's share of sub 20 degree nights and I'm hoping for the best. We're certainly going to test out the polystyrene hives this year.

Speaking of the new polystyrene hives, I do have one concern. I'm worried that on very cold days the cluster will put off enough heat to generate a fair amount of condensation on the top of the hive and then rain down over the bees causing them to freeze. I would think that a regular wooden hive would breath a little more and allow the condensation to be kept at a minimum. With polystyrene, there will be very little air movement and that might present a problem. I guess the spring will bring answers. Anyone out there using Styrofoam hives care to chime in and let me know your experiences?

I also left on the polystyrene feeder (top feeder) for some extra insulation. I'm thinking about putting some granulated sugar in the feeder and removing the partition to see if the bees will come up and get some on warm days. Anyone else tried this? I know it's been done with newspaper sitting on top of frames with success but I'm wondering about the feeder.

Check in and let me know what all you beeks are doing to pass the winter.

Thanks for reading,

Ken

Starting A Collection

2008-12-16T12:19:00.010-06:00

Well, the girls are all put away for the winter and given last winters disastrous results, I have high hopes for this year. I think all four colonies have enough honey to make it through, and I've also placed straw bales to act as wind breaks around the hives. As long as we don't get another freakish January tornado, everyone should keep warm and make it to spring. I'll be keeping en eye on them and may add some sugar if the weather requires (and allows). What to do now??

Aside from a new hobby every once in a while, I don't collect much of anything.... but that has recently changed. If you take up beekeeping, people start giving you honey dippers, which is pretty cool. I have two, both gifts, and I'm very interested to see how many variations of such a simple utensil are floating around out there. The first one I have looks like the picture above. Very traditional in every way except mine has a cool little bee on the other end. The second one is much more modern and lies at the opposite end of the honey dipper spectrum. Here's a pic:

When I received it, I became very interested in what lay in the middle between the two. It's now official, I collect honey dippers and the collection has now begun!

There seems to be some difference of opinion when it comes to weather it's called a "dipper" or a "dripper. I left it up to Google to decide for me. If you Google images for "Honey Dipper", you get all kinds of pictures that look like the ones I've shown you here. If you Google images for "Honey Dripper" you get lot of pics of the band and a whole bunch of links to porn sites. Hence forth, it's a Dipper.

So here you have it. the call is out to send me your pictures, links, stories and thoughts about honey dippers from all over the world.

Do only good,

Ken

A Quick Word of Thanks.

2008-09-04T11:33:00.003-05:00

I just wanted to take a moment and thank those of you who take the time to stop by the blog. I was reviewing the blog stats and realized that there are people from 33 different states that have stopped by in the last month. Needless to say, I thought that was pretty amazing, but what I saw next made my jaw drop. When I read that people from 31 different countries, had visited the blog, I was speechless.

Okay, I realize that these numbers don't amount to a hill of beans for some other sites, but for me, well, I was a bit moved. Thanks to all of you who have taken an interest in my beekeeping and especially those of you who have written with words of encouragement or left comments about my posts.

Now, for a quick shout-out to my friends in Turkey. Next to the USA, my fellow beekeepers in Turkey represent the country with largest number of different readers. There are people from 17 different cities that I would like to thank personally (Ken quietly wonders if anyone in Turkey might want to fly him over for a quick beekeeping visit but then pushes the thought from his mind.), but a "thanks" from over here will have to suffice.

Anyway, I just saw the numbers and wanted to thank you all for being such a great source of encouragement and good will. Our world is indeed getting smaller everyday.

Thanks for reading,

Ken

I Have Honey!

2008-09-02T11:02:00.003-05:00

Okay, it's a pretty lousy picture but I only had my Treo with me and this is the best I could do. Oh sure, it doesn't look like much, but to me it represents a year-long effort of beekeeping. For those of you just tuning in to the program, I took up beekeeping about a year ago and have had more pitfalls than I care to mention. The Reader's Digest version looks something like this; In January 2008, my hives were hit by a tornado (who has tornado's in January!?!). It killed thousands of bees and 3 of my 4 queens. I didn't learn how bad things were until late March, finally got new queens in April and May, and then it rained all the way through June. Needless to say, Ken's bees got a very late start.

The picture above is bottle #1 and I'm pretty happy about it. I took about 25lbs of surplus honey and left enough for the bees to get through the winter. It may not be much, but it represents a year of learning about bees, how to keep them and what not to do.

For those of you who have requested to purchase my honey, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that there is enough honey to send to my friends who have asked, the bad news is it's going to be pretty expensive so I won't blame you for opting out. Here's the deal. The going rate in my region for a pound of honey is about $5, the issue is shipping. Depending where you are located, it's going to take anywhere from another $5 to $8 just to get it to you. That info came from the USPS, so I'll look into some more shipping options. You are all good friends but I certainly don't expect you to pay twice the price for something you can get at Wal-Mart. If you're crazy enough to pay such a price and would like to have a bottle, email me at ken at talahihoney dot com.

Thanks for all the encouragement and support over the last year. I may only have a few readers of this little blog but they sure are a very nice bunch.

Thanks for reading,

Ken

Planting for 2009

2008-08-29T15:49:00.003-05:00

This is yellow sweet clover and next spring I planning of seeing a lot of it! Directly in front of the hives are a few acres of Tall fescue, a nasty looking field grass that, if not controlled, could take over the world. Last year I tried to broadcast (scatter) several pounds of clover for the bees but nothing came up. The fescue had choked off any growth from the clover and not much (if any) actually came up. This year I'm taking a different tactic. Over the last couple of weeks I've been spraying an acre of the field with Round-Up, a pretty serious "anything" killer. The field is now dead and this weekend I'm going to disk it up to make sure the fescue won't make a come-back. Actually, I'm going to try and disk it twice, Illinois clay is unforgiving and really needs to be worked. After the field grass has been successfully murdered, and cooler weather arrives, I'm going to drop about 25lbs of yellow sweet clover (see above pic) seed and then harrow it in. With any luck, the bees will have lots of sweet nectar next spring.

On another note, I recently received a comment from Nick at The Bee Space. Following his link, I found his site to full of cool beekeeping information, so make sure to check it out.

One last thing, I'm going to go take a look at the hives this evening and see how close we are. I'm really excited about taking my first harvest and it seems everything is ready..... except the bees.

Bee good,

Ken

A few more weeks

2008-08-12T12:17:00.003-05:00

Just a quick update. After spending some time in the hives a few days ago, two things are pretty clear.

First, the bees still need more time. There are several frames of honey, but the honey hasn't been capped yet (see the picture of capped honey above). Capping the honey consists of applying a thin wax cap to the end of the cell after the cell is full and the bees have evaporated the water content of the honey down to about 17%. As it stands, only about half of the frames are capped and I expect it will take another 3-4 weeks before it's ready. Considering my bees got a late start due to several queen issues and tremendous rains in the spring, I'm not overly surprised that I won't be able to take an early harvest as I had intended. They got a late start so I'm getting a late harvest.

Second, There's not going to be as much honey as I had hoped for. In a nutshell, my hives are young and I've been told that I need to make sure that they have ample stores to get through winter since they're still a bit on the small side. If I took a large harvest, there still might been time for them to build back up for winter but with all the problems I've had getting to this point, it's just not worth the risk. I'm guessing there will be about 30lbs of surplus honey between all the hives. Basically, that's about 25 to 30 bottles. After I account for family (I have a very large family) and friends (Ken glances over to the BH crew) there will be a few left for Christmas gifts and that's about it. Clearly not as much as I had wanted but I believe my decision this year will reap healthy rewards for next year.

Stay tuned, September is just around the corner.

Ken

Getting Ready To Go!

2008-08-07T10:54:00.005-05:00

For the last 13 years, the term "extraction" meant something completely different than what it does now. As a firefighter, "extraction" was something that you never wanted to hear because you knew someone was in deep trouble. Today this word is taking on a brand new meaning and it's something that I'm really looking for to. In a few days I'll be extracting my first round of honey from my hives. Truth be told, I'm downright giddy with anticipation.

Above you'll see the first step in honey extraction, uncapping. More on that in another post. After uncapping, I'll place the frames in an extractor and that's where the sticky fun begins. I plan on recanting all that fun stuff after the harvest is complete. At this point, I have my beekeeping mentor meeting me later this evening to determine how much honey I have capped and ready to harvest. I'm also going to combine a few hives to make them a little stronger going in to winter.

It's been a long and difficult year for my bees, but the end in finally in sight.

Thanks for reading,

Ken

Getting Close To Harvest

2008-07-16T12:56:00.005-05:00

Maybe another month or so and it will be time to take my first honey harvest. I checked the hives yesterday and I have to say, I was slightly disappointed. I was really hoping to see more honey. I know that I shouldn't be too surprised considering the young age of the hives coupled with the tremendous spring rains that we saw this year, but..... I guess I was just hoping to see a little more. As it stands, I'm guessing that I could take about 40lbs of honey at this point. I'm crossing my fingers that another month of production will make a big difference.

Above you will see the label and bottle that I'll be using this year. Nine, a good friend of mine from London, was kind enough to create a beautiful label for Talahi Honey. I'm very, very pleased with the results and so heartfelt thank you goes out to him. My brothers company, Fastsigns in Indianapolis Indiana, will be printing the labels and to him, I am also very grateful.

I'm currently working on Talahihoney.com. I own the domain but have no idea how to design it so I'm exploring several different options right now. I hope to have the site up and running fairly soon. I know that 40-60 pounds of honey hardly requires a presence on the web but I'm trying to think a little more long term.

Well, that's it for the quick update. Cross your fingers that the bees pick up the pace a little in the next month and I'll let you know when the harvest begins.

As always, thanks for reading.

Ken

On the Grow

2008-05-21T13:32:00.005-05:00

Welcome back to the beeyard. Lots of changes over the spring so let me bring you up to date on a couple. First, the two hives without queens are about to become one. Hive #1 raised a fat little queen and she started laying yesterday. Hive #3 wasn't able to raise a queen and both hives are low on population and resources. I'll be combining them later this evening. The other hives are doing very well and growing like crazy. If I can get these two weak hives up to snuff, I stand a decent chance of getting a pretty good honey crop this year.

In the picture, behind the hives, is my workbench covered with a blue tarp. I brought it out a few weeks ago because with five hives, I really need a place to set things down and work with them. I also built a little frame holder on the bench to hang frames when I'm not working with them. It also serves as a great place to take pictures of the activity on each frame. I'm hoping to share some pics soon.

Next on the list is Beekware..... rather, HiveTrac. The newest name for our Beekware program is HiveTrac and we've even reserved our own little sliver of the interweb thingy at HiveTrac.com. We're hoping to begin writing a design doc soon. I'm amazed at how long this stuff takes, then I remember that everyone is basically working for free, so it's a litter easier to understand. By the way, I have no idea what a design doc is. Are you surprised?

~ Ken

Catching up....

2008-05-07T13:56:00.002-05:00

Things in my life have moved into whirl wind status. No reason to put you to sleep with the details, but suffice to say, May is a busy month when you sell ice cream for a living. Now on to more exciting things.....

NO QUEENS FOR YOU!

The bees have not had it easy this spring. After learning that both hives were queenless, I went into overdrive trying to rectify the problem. I added frames of eggs from a friends hive to no avail and had just started calling around looking for queens. Nothing, nada, ziltch, zippo....no one had queens to sell for the next month, time for a new plan. Called another beek buddy and he gave me a few frames that were loaded with queen cells, about ten in all. I split the frames into the two queenless hives and mid-month, if I don't see and eggs, I'm going to take up worm farming.

NEW FRIENDS

I took my guitar to be fixed and met Bruce. I didn't know this guy and I wanted to make sure he knew how to fix up my six string so I struck up a conversation about guitars in general. When he laid into a perfect intro of Hotel California on a twelve string classical, I knew Bruce and I would get along just fine. Anyway, somehow the topic of bees came up (imagine that) and he asked me if I could get rid of some bees behind the store. The next day I had my first swarm of bees and added to my beeyard by placing the new girls in a nice new home.

Yesterday, I received a call from Mike who said he was too busy working to go on a swarm call and wanted to know if I wanted them. Three hours later, I had my fourth hive of bees and I'm running out of equipment. The picture above shows the swarm (actually two) just before I removed them for the guy who lived there. I was happy to see another group arrive and he was happy to see them go.

Here's what I should have probably mentioned earlier; since I was worried about my two hives surviving since they didn't have queens, about two weeks ago, I decided to order new bees. Yep, the girls will be here on Monday and all of the sudden..... I have gone from two hives to five hives. My family is on the grow.

Last but not least, thanks to everyone who voted for my idea over on the Cambrian House site. My idea won and now moves to the second round of voting in August. In the meantime, there have been several people who have shown an interest in the hive management software program and I've organized a location for all of us to work on the project. I'll keep you posted on that front.

Be good to each other, at least until I get back.

Ken

I Have an Idea, Can you Help?

2008-04-11T11:25:00.002-05:00

Friends, I've submitted an idea to a site called Cambrianhouse.com to create a software program for beekeeping. It's something that the beekeeping community is in need of and I'm hoping to generate some interest in designing a comprehensive set of tools for hobbyist beekeepers everywhere.

Please take a moment to read up on my idea and vote accordingly. Thanks!

Ken

Beekeeping Software Program.... Beekware.

Vote:
1
2
3
4
5

Easter Eggs Indeed

2008-03-15T12:11:00.005-05:00

Long live the Queen!!

As you know, the bees survived the tornado but left me with the looming question about the queen.... did she survive? Well, yesterday I decided to break open the hives and go through the frames one by one in search of the queen or new eggs. My Russian girls were in the hive that suffered the most damage, their box was completely broken open and laying on its side on the ground. They were exposed to tornadic winds and cold temps. I decided to start with them.

Yesterday I moved them from the old make-shift hive to the new BeeMax hive that finally arrived (waited for almost six weeks from BetterBee) a couple days ago. As I moved each frame over, I inspected each one very carefully looking for the queen or recent eggs. Seeing a group of nurse bees clustered over an area on one of the frames, I blew on them gently and watched them scatter revealing a couple hundred eggs that looked to have been laid that day. YEA! My last concern from the tornado wipe-out has been laid to rest.... the queen remains. She must be on tough old bird.

The hive looks weak and is down about 50% in numbers from when I first started with them last fall. They still have a few frames of honey so and now that she's laying, I believe they will be fine once they get their numbers back up. I'm not sure I'll be able to split this hive in the spring as I had once planned but we'll see how well they rebound.

I spent so much time working with this hive that after I was done putting it all back together, the sun was fading. I didn't get a chance to dive into the feral bees but took the time to add a feeder box (feeding 1 to 1 sugar syrup) to the top of each colony. Providing the weather holds out, I'm hoping to open the other feral hive soon.

Also, during a cold, dark moon in February, I planted about two acres of Sweet Clover out by the apiary. Looking forward to a healthy honey flow this summer.

A quick note of thanks to all of my BH friends who have been following my bee adventures. Thank you all so much for your interest and supportive comments. You're all very kind.

Thanks for reading. I'll be back with more after I open the other hive.

Ken

Tornado vs. Bees..... Bees Win!

2008-02-21T13:47:00.006-06:00

A few weeks ago, a tornado hit the farm where I have my bee yard. We were called by someone who was passing by that our shed had been hit and was now MIA. Well, it really wasn't missing, it was just in a thousand pieces and spread over several acres of farm ground.

When I arrived everything was a mess. We spent time securing some of the necessary things and getting some more important items to a dry location. We took a lot of damage to the shed, dairy barn and a grain bin. The other grain bin was a few hundred feet away resting quietly in the pond, fully intact. Weird.

After this was done I went to check the bees. It was way too wet to drive back to the field, so I set out on foot while getting hammered by blustery winds and pummeling rain. The temp had fallen about twenty degrees to about 35F. As I approached, I could see that I was in trouble. Big pieces of metal from the now distroyed shed had impacted both hives and knocked them over. It was at this moment that I learned about one of the drawbacks of the polystyrene (styrofoam) hives. They break. It was on it's side and broken open, bees were exposed and dying off quickly. I looked at the wooden hive and even though it was on it's side, it was pretty much intact. That propolis is some pretty amazing stuff. The only thing I was worried about was the hive was on it's side and the bottom screen, along with all the bees, was exposed to the oncoming winds.

I quickly set the wooden hive back up then turned my attention to the styrofoam hive. This hive has the Russian bees inside. I did my best to put the hive together in such way that it would keep out the elements for an hour or so while I called for help. I called Mike and he was cool enough to bring some boxes out with a new top and help me salvage what was left. We did what we could to move five frames of bees at the same time to the new box and then moved the honey over. I was surprised to see that they still had a fair amount of honey left. We secured the hives and hoped for the best. I'm currently waiting on new hives from BetterBee.com to arrive so I can finish getting everything back in order.

About 10 days later, the temp approached 60 and I decided to have a look. Both hives looked pretty strong and I'm thrilled. I feel pretty good about the bees in the wooden hive but am still worried about the queen in the Russian hive. If I lost her in the storm, I'm going to have to get a new one early on in the season. I'm really hoping for an early spring so I can climb in and see how everyone faired. I'll follow up with another post after my next hive-check.

One finaly note; I just finished planting about two acres of sweet clover next to the bees. If all goes well, I still might get a chance to enjoy my first honey harvest this year.

Ken

Chilly Girls

2008-01-24T10:42:00.000-06:00

A few weeks ago during our last 55 degree day, I checked in to see how everyone was doing. I noticed several dead bees on the bottom board but there was still a good sized cluster in the brood nest, just under the honey in hive #1. The Russians in hive #2 don't have as much honey but they are very active. I placed a new box on each hive, laid down some newspaper and gave each a pound of dry, granulated sugar just to see how they reacted. Two weeks later, both hives have ignored the sugar.

Today it's very cold, about 17 degrees, but the last two weeks have seen temps range from 30 to 45 (daytime highs). I'm wondering if they'll only lay in to the sugar when the honey runs out.

Also, I received some wonderful beekeeping gifts this year for Christmas, the coolest being a two frame manual extractor from Betterbee. Now the pressure is really on the get the hives through the winter. If all goes according to plan, I'll be splitting each hive in the spring and bringing the total number to four. The apiary is indeed on the the grow!

Ken

Backfilling??

2007-09-26T22:14:00.000-05:00

Just wondering if anyone recognizes this as backfilling. If so, what am I to make of it?

Thoughts?

Polystyrene Hives

2007-09-19T11:01:00.000-05:00

When I made the decision to begin a second hive I decided to have a look at different options in terms of construction. I found myself spending a large amount of time reading about polystyrene (Styrofoam) hives and, for the most part, liked what I was learning.

My main reason for looking at these hives was insulation. Styrofoam is a great insulator and since I'm a little behind the clock with a new colony in terms of getting it ready for winter, maybe this would help keep them warmer. I've been reading Kim Flottum's book "The Backyard Beekeeper" and am learning a tremendous amount of information. So when I saw a quote from him in the Betterbee catalog that said something to the effect of "I wanted to hate these hives because they were plastic but I just couldn't because they were keeping my bees alive!" I decided to give them a shot.

I already had a Beemax Hive Top Feeder so I had a pretty good idea how dense and durable the material would be. This isn't Styrofoam like a cup that you might drink out of, or even a cooler. It's very dense and thick and very sturdy. You will have to take some extra care with it while using your hive tool but for the most part, this seems to be a very sound hive.

When I received the BeeMax Hive, assembly was easy. They advise a couple of coats of paint to help protect it against the elements and gluing the joints to make it strong, but other than that, it was a snap to get ready. The only concern I have right now is how the hive tool will affect it. It's sure to make gouges when prying boxes apart. I'm thinking about running a small strip of thin metal around the tops and bottoms of the supers to help protect it from my prying efforts. We'll see how that turns out.

There's not a lot of information on polystyrene hives out there because they are relatively new. I'll continue to post my observations and please contact me with yours. Together we'll judge for ourselves.

Thanks for reading,

Ken

Throwing the old lady out?

2007-09-18T12:50:00.000-05:00

Not sure what's going on here but something interesting is in the works. I decided to move my new Russian bees from the nuc hive over to their new home, a 10 frame deep hive body along with a brand new hive-top feeder. As I was moving everyone over, I spotted two queen cells, one low on one of the frames and one high on a different frame. I went ahead and moved everyone to the new hive but was able to snap some quick pictures of the cells.

Here's the deal; There are a few reasons for the workers to be making queen cells. 1) They could be getting ready swarm (Half the hive leaves with the old queen because the hive is getting a bit crowded). I don't believe this is happening because it's pretty late in the season for this. 2) The queen in getting old and is producing few eggs or maybe she has been injured or killed. When this happens, the bees all get together and find an egg that has recently been laid and build a larger cell around it to accommodate a new queen. This process is call supercedure. Basically they raise a new queen to replace the old queen

During my inspection, I was able see new eggs so I'm guessing that the queen is still in the hive but something is wrong with her. One option is to purchase a new queen and replace the current queen. Option two is to allow the supercedure to take place. It's pretty late in the year to do that but I think that's the direction I'm going to take.

I'll keep you posted.

Ken

Spetember 9th Inspection

2007-09-13T13:25:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to share a few pictures from my recent inspection of hive #1. Also, I just received the BeeMax bottom board that's been on back-order for what seems like a lifetime, and will now be able to paint it up and move the nuc colony over to their new home. I might be able to get that done by the end of the weekend. Hive #1 looks great. The picture of capped brood is interesting because is showes that the queen has moved up to the second box and it laying like it's going out of style. Since I started feeding, they've been drawing out comb like mad. There is also a quick shot of the lady herself. Enjoy the pics:

Thanks for stopping by,

Ken

New Hive

2007-09-06T12:42:00.000-05:00

See the little box on the right in the picture above? That's called a Nucleus Box or "Nuc" for short. A Nuc hive is just like a regular hive except it's smaller. Even though it's smaller, it has the same components of a normal hive; a queen, drones and workers. A nuc colony usually has 3 to 5 frames in it. These frames contain brood (baby bees), honey for feeding the brood and pollen which is also used for feeding.

Over the Labor Day weekend, I drove to St. Louis and purchased this colony. I will be feeding them heavily and when they're ready, I'll transfer them to a normal hive. The idea is to get them built up for winter so they might get going early in the spring. This way, they should produce excess honey (for me to steal) next year. If all goes well, I will have two hives ready to go for next years honey flow.

After I move them from the nuc hive to the regular hive, I will still be able to use the nuc box for other things as well. There's a chance that next year one of the hives might be strong enough to split. If so, I could try to move some frames of brood, honey and bees over to the nuc hive, purchase a queen (or see if they will raise one) and then have a third hive. Another option is getting a swarm. During the early summer months, bees tend outgrow their hives so the queen makes a command decision and takes half the bees and leaves. This is called swarming. The won't travel far and usually end up on a tree limb. As we see here, sometimes it's not a tree limb. People tend to call local beekeepers to come and get a swarm that's a little to close to their comfort zone and you end up with a free colony of bees. Not a bad deal but since I have yet yo do this, I'm betting that it sounds easier than it really is.

Here's a closeup look at the hive.

Behave,

Ken

Varroa Mites

2007-09-01T11:22:00.000-05:00

See that little red thing that I've circled in the picture above? That's not a good thing. It's a Varroa Mite and he's one bad little bug sitting tight on top of one of my bees. The Varroa mite made it's way to the United States about 20 years ago and has been slowly growing into a big problem ever since. The mite is a parasite that attaches itself to the bees and causes them all sorts of trouble. What's worse it that it lays little mite eggs in a comb cell housing a new bee where the mite attaches itself to the pupa. Not good at all.

Anyway, I was pouring over pictures that I had taken during my last hive inspection and this is the only one I found. Not to bad really, but still a sign that I need to be on my toes. I'm sure there are more so I'll be doing another inspection this weekend and I'll take another look. There are several ways to treat and monitor Varroa Mites and I'll now spend some time reading up on that topic.

On a lighter note, for those of you looking to watch a good movie this weekend, pick up Ulee's Gold. It's a story about a soft-spoken, Florida beekeeper with some pretty serious family issues. Excellent acting by Peter Fonda not to mention he's the spitting image of his dad. During the movie you learn about the rare honey Ulee and his bees get from the nectar of the Tupelo tree blossom. Make sure that you don't turn off the movie after it's over so you can close your eyes and listen to Van Morisson sing Tupelo Honey as the end credits roll. It's pure pleasure.

Enjoy.

Ken

Welcome to The Collective.....

2007-08-27T11:38:00.000-05:00

.....Resistance is Futile. You will be assimilated.

Over the weekend, I took my first deep look into the hive. It really was quite amazing. I felt very clumsy as I handled the frames but for the most part, everything went very well. While there I was able to take some very interesting pictures. Take a look:

Here is a great shot of the brood nest. You can see eggs, larve, pupa and capped brood.

I was having a difficult time telling if there were eggs or not when I was at the hive, but after I got home and took a look at the pictures, it was pretty clear that Her Highness has been busy. Click on the picture then zoom in for a closeup.

And finally, The Royal Highness her own bad self:

Everyone seems to be getting along just fine. I've also started feeding them and I'll take some pictures of that soon. Thanks for reading....

Ken

Signs of Life.

2007-08-22T10:57:00.000-05:00

I've been a bit worried about the hive. Since the bees were installed and then moved to the new location, they've been pretty quiet. Not much has really been going on....well, that I can see at least. However, that all changed this morning when I went out to snap some pictures. As I pulled up I could see bees flying in and out of the hive non-stop. Grabbing the camera, I knelt down and saw an excellent sign that the girls are doing well. Pollen. Loads of pollen! Nearly every single bee returning to the hive was packed full of pollen. I took the picture below and you can clearly see the orange pollen sacs on each bee.

Signs of life in the hive! The bees are most likely bringing in pollen to feed to the brood (new baby bees). This is a good sign that the queen made the trip and is doing well. Soon, maybe next week, I'll take a look inside the hive and make sure the queen is laying eggs.

Ken

I'm a What?

2007-08-21T14:36:00.000-05:00

All things considered, I think I'm in pretty good company. Along with the likes of Alexander the Great, Henry Fonda, several US presidents, Hippocrates, Mohammed Ali, Napoleon, Sherlock Holmes, Sir Edmund Hillary, Steve Vai (extremely cool), Leo Tolstoy, Aristotle and countless others..... I am a beekeeper.

On Friday August 17th 2007, Mike, a local friend and fellow beek, was kind enough to give me my first colony of bees. I purchased and built the hive but without Mike, I would have had to wait until spring to purchase bees and then would not have had any honey flow in 2008. To give you an idea of how this got started, you may want to read a post from my other blog.

The picture you see above is my hive. It's sitting out quietly by itself on a farm looking over several acres and currently preparing and storing food for the winter.

As it stands, this blog will serve as a place where I can chronicle my experience with the bees and post my thoughts, progress, trials and errors. Thanks for stopping by, hope to see you again.

Ken