Did Someone Turn the Spigot Off?

This past week was a bit weird. I caught some bug from my lovely daughter – it is very painful for a beekeeper to get sick in May… More importantly, I noticed a couple of big changes this weekend. To begin with, the rate of wax build-up dropped substantially in my outyards in both Henrico County and Charles City County. I really only checked 3 yards, but two of them were my two strongest yards. The rate of wax buildup/nectar storage dropped by a large margin this past week, compared to the three weeks before that. My guess is that we’re going through the temporary lull until the next set of blooms hit towards the end of the month. But, we’ll see.

Hybridized Daily from Wilton Gardens

Returning to my home yard (which contains immature hives and a ton of Nucs), I made another (clearly related) discovery. The Nucs had pulled much more syrup this past week. Clearly, the weather or the available blooms made the syrup more attractive. I have even heard of a couple of cases of robbing (from new beekeepers, so this is not confirmed and may just be orientation flights! I remember my days as a new beekeeper well!) Regardless, all signs point towards something different. We’ll see how they look next weekend.

The honey harvest has been good thus far. I have taken something between 20 and 25 gallons of honey off of two outyards (and I did not take all honey supers from each.) I now have a bunch of empty (although wet) supers to super any hives that need it. I should have done this before now! It’s nice finally feeling like you’ve caught up!

Finally, I’ve been getting really good feedback on the Nucs. All of the work and patience are paying off.

Early Extracting Adventures

This year has really been a banner year for honey in most of my outyard’s. As posted previously, I have been having a devil of a time keeping up with my hives. This weekend, I was already down to the last 4 Mediums from the 20 that I ordered a few weeks back. I also found a hive that had just swarmed because they had simply filled up 3 Mediums and a Shallow and were starting to fill the bottom two supers (the brood nest) – I simply dropped the ball on this one. It was time to take a new tactic. I decided to extract now, instead of waiting until late June. Taking honey from the oldest supers on my hive (capped only), I could return the next day and give them empty supers to refill (well, that’s the plan…)

Pulling 1 Medium and 4 shallows, I ended up with a little over 10 gallons of honey and a big mess in the kitchen (I’m still trying to get this process down to something that is more ‘wife friendly’…) In the process, I experimented with the ‘leaf blower’ tactic. Basically, you pull the full super off of the hive, set it up on its side and then hit it with a leaf blower to get all of the bees out of the super. I am somewhat neutral on this.

On the one hand, it was much quicker than my normal ‘take one frame at a time, brush off the bees and stick it into a sealed holding tank in my truck’. On the other hand, I did NOT get all of the bees out of the supers. When you blow them, a bunch of nurse bees (who really don’t fly) end up on the ground in the outyard. I hope they made it back to the hives. On the other hand, the bees that CAN fly simply fly back into the super as fast as you can blow them out. So, in the end, I took a bunch of bees from that yard and had to hand brush them off anyway, before I could take them into the house to extract. This would probably make more sense for someone who was extracting from a hundred supers.

The actual uncapping process probably took the longest. Since I have been in an ‘increase’ mode (this is where you split or create nuc’s from strong hives, before they can really store much honey, with the overall goal of increasing your hive count, not extracting honey), I really had mostly foundation at the start of this year. So, most of my supers required a fork to uncap, with is a bit of an arduous/tedious process. The good thing is that I put the wet supers back on with evenly spaced 9-frame setups. If they happen to fill them up again, I should be able to use my heated uncapping knife and make short work of it.

The other thing of interest was the temperature. Last year, I took honey in late-June/early-July (and again in the Fall.) It was much hotter. On the day that I extracted this weekend, the temps got into the low 50’s at night. I was worried that the honey wouldn’t come out well. Honey at lower temperatures has a higher viscosity and simply does not flow well. I could really amp up the extractor, but this was the first year that I had a bunch of frames without wires. I was already worried that they might ‘blow up’ in the extractor. It seemed a certainty if I had to really turn up the extractor to a high speed.

But, it all ended up simply being a bit of a longer process. I was able to get the honey out at lower spin speeds by simply letting it spin longer (I had plenty of time, as I had to uncap so many daggone frames with that accursed fork!!) All of the wax frames came out perfectly with no damage.

The real challenge comes later today, when the wife and daughter return from their Mother’s Day trip to her family. There seems to be wax and honey in a lot of places in this daggone kitchen and I have my doubts that I’ll get it up in time…this may be my last blog post…

Let’s Have a Picnic!

The other evening, around 6 pm, the cellphone rings and a fairly nervous fellow begins to explain that a mass of bees has created a nest under the picnic table at his work! Based on the initial description, I immediately thought ‘yellow jackets’ (and that’s not something I tangle with…)! But, as he went on to explain the scenario, it became clear that he had a swarm of bees under his picnic table… Weird, I thought. I am used to swarms hanging on branches or gutters, but under a picnic table?! His business was down in Colonial Heights, just to the south of my home outside of Richmond, Va, so I assured him that I would be down there in a little over an hour to take care of it.

Colonial Heights Honey Bee Swarm

From this guy’s tone, I could tell that a little over an hour was a little over an hour too long. But, there was nothing for it. I had Anne Katherine in my charge and I wasn’t about to take my daughter on a swarm call. That would be bad for both daughter and pop (once mum found out….) So, I waited for my relief (mum-in-law), placed a call to confirm that they were still there (Oh Yeah! They’re still here!) and off I went, arriving about 1.5 hours after the initial call.

And there, handing from the bottom of the picnic table, was a very nice swarm. In addition, several fairly nervous men were about, keeping their distance. I could tell what the problem was, as the picnic area was just outside of the main work entrance to the warehouse. Interestingly enough, the men all thought the bees were building wax and creating a new home. Of course, this got me to talking about bees and how they were not building a home, but ‘hanging out’ while the scouts found a new home for them, either in a tree or someone’s attic. They mentioned that the maintenance guy had offered to spray the bees with Raid, but they decided to try to save them instead! I owe the manager some honey for that one.

Hiving the swarm was pretty easy. The Deep body slid perfectly beneath the seats and under the mass. I got on one end, lifted the table about a foot off the ground and dropped it. The ball fell neatly (well, not THAT  neatly, but good enough) into the hive body and that was that. I waited around for about 45 minutes for the foragers to come home and off I went.

Beekeeping Supply Companies

Well, I am not a whiner. Take the bad with the good, is what I say. But, my current experience in the bee shop (translated, messy garage turned into workshop) may have had a profound effect on me.

Three weekends ago, I realized that I was short on Mediums. I use them as the top ‘hive body’ on my brood nest and for honey supers (I also use shallows for honey supers, which I was running short on, but figured I had enough for the honey.) Right now, I needed second stories to several swarms that I had caught earlier in the month.

I am mainly a Dadant customer, so I first checked them. The freight was nearly $200 for my order (and this was just to tide me over until Mother’s Day, when my wife would be in Chatham (Dadant’s Va branch) to be able to get a bigger load)! I couldn’t stomach that and even considered, multiple times, just driving down there. Finally, I ordered from Mann Lake, since they had free shipping. The merchandise was more expensive, but the total cost (Dadant included freight) was less than Dadant. I started building and painting supers.

Two weekends ago, I went out to hives that had between 1 and 3 honey supers on them, to check to see who needed more. I have already used up the meager supply of drawn wax supers, so I am in the ‘add a super of foundation’ phase, which has to take place 1 bloody super at a time. When you have several supers of drawn wax, you can literally drop them all on (I have never put on more than 2, but I know some folks that put on 3) before the flow and the bees (assuming you’ve chosen a strong hive) will happily fill all of the frames in all of the supers with honey.

On the other hand, if you dropped a bunch of supers with foundation on a hive, it would start working on the middle and probably give you a  headache at harvesting time. So, I was looking to see who could use another super. I brought 6 with me, as I didn’t feel like trucking the trailer down to Charles City and 6 is about what I could store in the Trailblazer with the inspection gear, spare Nucs and other beekeeping junk that I drag all over the world.

As of the second outyard, I was out of supers… Heh. Those gals were really pouring it on (of course, I have the laggards that will probably become Winter Nucs this Fall, but most were really putting it away.) At the time, I figured no problem! I’ll grab a few more supers from my shed tomorrow and make the rounds again. Much to my dismay, when I returned home that afternoon, I found zilch on the super front. I didn’t have a single one left. I knew I was out of Mediums, but had no idea I was out of Shallows (I need to be better organized.) So, I open the box of Medium frames from Mann Lake to get to work and suddenly realize these things are not wedge  bars!!! The wax I have won’t fit it and the wax from Mann Lake hasn’t arrived yet!

Panic mode.

Again, I think about driving to Chatham, Va. But, then I remember a posting on the Richmond Beekeepers mailing list from Tiny or Anthony Abate regarding a fellow in Mechanicsville that sold bee supplies! I called him first thing and bingo! He had what I needed. He is a dealer from Brushy Mountain. I ran up to get enough for 10 Mediums, which I was hoping would get me through Mother’s Day.

So, here is where we get to the guts of it. Mann Lake and what this guy sold were identical. A bit more expensive, but amazing woodwork. I had grown used to forcing super rabbets to  fit together and the occasional warped frame. With these new ones, not a single problem. In fact, putting the stuff together was a  piece of cake. Not one single equipment problem (2 of the super sides were damaged in shipping, but Mann Lake was resending them at  no charge!) I have over 50 hives and only the Lord knows how many Nucs. Each of the hives have at least 3 boxes (2 hive bodies and 1 super) and most have 4 or 5. I have a ton of Dadant equipment. I like the folks at Dadant. But, this Mann Lake stuff has me thinking that I may change horses. With free shipping, it makes it much easier to swallow. I haven’t officially made the switch yet, but I’m leaning that way a lot!

On a final note, I ended up getting an open bottom on my frames. I have always used a closed bottom. No reason for it. It’s just how I do my thing! But, about 50% of the time, I have to trim the wax to make it fit without buckling. These open bottoms eliminated that task completely! All in all, I have decided to make this change for sure. Wedged Top Bars with open Bottom Bars! Easy as cake.