Beekeepers Friend

Let me tell you, there are some people that just refuse to change. Two years ago, we changed our Workshop to Chautauqua just to bee different from all the rest of the workshops nationwide. Chautauqua means gathering for the purpose of exchanging information, ideas, and to trade goods.

That is what a workshop is.. basically. However, there are some in our local association that just cannot seem to be able to make the connection. It has been a workshop for as long as they can remember and besides, “It was good enough for my dad and granddaddy, it is good enough for me and I’ll be danged if I change.”

So at the time this year when we were discussing the workshop, the non-changer was in the powerseat and had it changed then stepped down from his position of authority. By that time the other members decided to keep the Workshop over the Chautauqua.

So my friends, it is that time of the year again that the North Escambia Bee Association is gearing up for the annual workshop. It will be held on Saturday February 19, 2011 at the Northview High School in Bratt, FL. So far the Entomology Dept. of the University of Florida will be represented by Technician Mark Dykes. There will be a representative from the USDA Bee Lab – Baton Rouge, La, but I don’t know just who yet. I’ll have more information no later than Feb 10th.

I do know that there will be honey judging along with bee related photos and art. There will be a section for homemade gadgets that was made to aid the beekeeper, along with liquid honey, creamed honey, comb honey, beeswax candles, beeswax art, and black jar honey.

We will have a Welsh Honey Judge, Roy Smith and his steward, who will conduct the judging event. Also, Fred Rossman of  Rossman Apiaries & Bee Supplies, said a representative will be there and if you want to order something that he can bring shipping charge free, then please contact him by Feb 10th.

There will be class time as well as general assembly. Also we have set aside an area outside the building proper to put all your unwanted equipment for trade, sale, or give away. Bring as much or as little as you wish and have a great time in the mix. Lunch will be supplied by the Northview FFA Alumni and will be served by the FFA students.

In the meantime, have you gotten your bee boxes and supers cleaned, repaired, and resupplied in anticipation of the spring honey flow? It will be here before you know it along with lots of honey beeing stored and swarms galore! Is your nucs ready for swarms?

Until the next time………

To break even or maybe make a little profit, you should make some financial plans. First you need to know how much money you can spend at the beginning of the venture. If you have enough money on hand that you do not need to borrow from the household, then you are well on your way. If you have to borrow from your household finances, then you need to take a loan from your spouse (household) and make plans to pay it back as soon as possible, just like a bank.

Now, when you buy your equipment, bees, and all the other stuff you think you need, be sure to keep records of all transactions. Record keeping is a must if you want to know how much you spend, for what, when, and from whom. If you decide to use chemicals, you need to purchase them and that is part of your finances. If you decide to use you vehicle to go to bee meeting or to go pick up you’re supplies, that takes gasoline and that is more finances. You get the picture.

Now another consideration is the money you receive either from loans or sales. You need to keep it separate from your household  money. This is a good time to start thinking about a cashbox and/or a separate bank account. I have a separate bank account just for my business, with my wife as co-signer, just in case I am incapacitated for some reason or other, or she goes to the suppliers for me.

After you have gotten big enough to have surplus honey for sale and you have bottled enough to go to fairs, flea markets, or festivals, then you can sell your wares, bank you money, and start paying your loans off (Mama included). The excess money can be utilized for trips to State, Regional, or National meetings. You can even drag your spouse along with you and pay for his or her meals and room. But remember, you need to keep receipts and records because eventually you will need to declare the income on your federal taxes.

Also records are good for proof of lost equipment or bees in case of devastating weather, fire, or even theft. I hope not the latter. Records are good to be able to see how you have improved (or not) so you can do something different if need be. Oh! One other reason. If you decide to go commercial, the bank would like to see good books and by those, the loan officer can decide how much money he could loan you for expansion.

I went to the American Bee Federation (ABF) in Orlando, FL. last January, and I met some people there from all over the world. I asked some of the different beekeepers that I got to know quite well and felt comfortable enough with to ask a personal question, “Are you rich or how did you finance your flight from your country to this meeting?” (You can tell I am shy, hehe.) The answer was the same in all cases. “My bees paid for my trip.”

It is true that most of these beekeeper has thousands of colonies, but did you know that over half of the attendees from the US alone and some from Mexico and Canada, have between 25 to 100 hives of bees? They all say the same. If you keep strong colonies and have plenty of supers to put on the hives, one strong colony will outproduce 3-5 medium strength colonies every time. I say that you can make more than enough honey from a few colonies to sell to you customers and make enough money to support your hobby and give you spouse a payday too.

I sell all my honey retail to my customers. There have been times that I had more honey than I could sell retail. That was when I bought some barrels and put my excess honey in them and sold wholesale to the packer. I didn’t get as much for the honey per pound as I was getting retail, but I did free up some needed space so I could get ready for the next year. Commercial beekeepers ship lots of barrels of honey, because they get most of their money from pollination contracts and from sales of bees. That doesn’t leave much time to go to fairs and festivals.

If you have any questions, then leave a comment and I will contact you and probably write another post. Now would be a good time to prepare for the coming spring. Read your bee books and magazines, then think about what you want to accomplish this next year, write it down and place on your cork-board or refrigerator so you can review it during the year. Clean your smoker. There will be a buildup of creasote in the barrel. Replace the bellows if needed as you will have to take a timeout if you discover a hole in the bellows after you have opened up the hive and thousands of angry bees are trying to find a chink in your armor.  Check you veil and repair or replace it. Nothing is worse than bees in your bonnet because of that hole you didn’t sew up. And don’t forget to sharpen your hive tool. A dull hive tool will slow down your cleaning process.

Stay warm and get ready!! Spring will be here before you know it and it will be too late to clean boxes then. Until next time—

Last year I was at the Santa Rosa County Fair selling honey and talking about bees and showing my Honeybee Observation Hive. While I was there, I was fortunate enough to be able to walk around the exhibit building. There were many exhibits that could have been classified as hobbies and businesses. Example, there was a model train layout with houses, cars, small people strolling along flower and tree lined streets and sidewalks that were lit up with little street light posts.

There was an industrial park in the center of the layout with trucks and forklifts. Right in the middle of this area, there was a train yard with work engines having the capabilities of moving cars to each of the 10 main line tracks. There were 10 trains moving at the same time, with 2 going right through the town and several going around the display on three different levels.

I asked the man if he made money with his trains and he said no, he just showed them at the different fairs and festivals. This was clearly a hobby and I estimated that the whole layout cost over $10,000.

Later, I went to a model airplane park and talked to several of the participants. They just come together to fly their models and socialize. Again, I asked if they ever made money with their planes and they said no even when they were invited to exhibitions. Again just a hobby.

Raising honey bees can be a hobby also. Just spend you money for woodenware, essential equipment, and bees. Then you have to get buckets to collect your honey in after you extract it. You can only eat so much honey and cook with so much honey, what are you going to do with the rest of it? Buy bottles and jars and give it away to family, friends, and neighbors. This is called a hobby.

What do you do if you want to at least break even with your hobby? That is the main question that should be on your mind if you want your hobby to pay for itself. Even if you don’t want to declare the income from your hobby, you need to treat it as a business.

Think about this for a while and then read the following post.

Just so you will know, my Thanksgiving was wonderful. I had my youngest son and his family up from Orlando here for a whole week. Didn’t get anything done on my bee equipment, but I had a fun-filled relaxing week of just playing around.

I did have several days of stomach virus, but I am over that now. My wife and I went to a workshop committee meeting tonight and put in our 2 cents worth. Now we are getting ready for Christmas and our oldest son and his family to visit from Indianapolis.  Of course, during the month of December, we will be attending Christmas dinner with two separate bee clubs here in NW Florida and one in Southern Alabama. Again nothing will be done on the bee equipment unless a young lady who is learning the bee business from me decides to come over on a Saturday and we will clean more boxes getting them ready to paint or burn.

For those who aspire to become beekeepers, you should hook up with a beekeeper who will be your mentor and learn how to clean wooden ware. It is part of beekeeping and you will have to do this in your own apiaries sooner or later even if you have only one box with frames. There are several things you need to know and this is a good way to learn. Also, this is a good time to talk and ask questions.

Enough of this rambling, have a Wonderful and Merry Christmas. Have a Happy New Year. This is the last post this year. The next one will be in 2011.

The FFA teacher/adviser, Perry, called me last month to go up to Northview High School in the northern part of the county to show the FFA students how to decap and extract honey. I do this every year (six or seven years now), but usually one or two months earlier. He said that he hoped to have around 6 supers of honey, but as it turned out, he only had 3 partially capped supers. I said that I could bring some honey supers (6) that I had not gotten around to pulling and that would last all day for the students. I was kinda disappointed myself. I only had four supers.

The students usually do all the work with me guiding them along. I had 2 classes that were brand new and no one knew me. So I had to start at the beginning explaining the importance of pollination over honey. As well as explaining that the honeybees put up more honey than they can use. That is why we can collect some of their honey for ourselves.

The equipment they have at the school is a electric decapping knife, scratcher, decapping bin, and  an electric six frame extractor. Since there was not a wax melter this year, and no place to set the hot knife, we used only the scratcher to decap with. Don’t laugh. I had 50 hives with 100 supers and a two frame extractor that I had to turn by hand before I got wise and purchased a 20 frame electric extractor.

Sorry, didn’t mean to chase rabbits. Anyway, after showing the student how to work the scratcher and he or she decapped the frame, he or she had to place it into the extractor. This is not a very efficient way to work, but it gives all the students a go at the process. Over the years, I have guided 10-15 students into keeping a hive for their own use. Maybe some will actually grow bigger and join the ranks of what we call the sideliner beekeepers. We are trying to get away from the terms hobby and sideliner beekeepers and call them small backyard beekeepers.

The honey the FFA has is light amber and very attractive as well as tasting good. Mine on the other hand is very dark, thick, and has a strong taste. I have some customers that think if the honey is not black as the ace of spades, then it is not honey.  I am thinking that for the  customers that really don’t want something they cannot see through, I will pour up and label the honey as a specialty honey that is hard to come by and up the price in the specialty range. They will then buy because it is a special honey.

The reason it is a specialty honey is that the bees have kept it long enough to really dry it out and it is a thicker honey than normal. The reason the bees kept it so long is that I just didn’t get to pull it in a timely manner. You understand that the honey will get darker as it ages. And also the more you heat it, the darker it becomes.

All in all, the frames lasted all day and all the classes had their turn decapping, extracting,  and tasting the honey. They got about 2 1/2 gallons of honey from their bees, while I ended up with about seven gallons from mine. The reason was that the FFA supers has 10 frames in each box and I only have 9 and all mine were completely full. The less frames in a super, the more honey the bees store because of the deeper cells.

I have gone to 9 frame supers but I still have 10 frame brood boxes. There are pros and cons for each of the frame counts. The bees have to have the same depth cells for the brood and if you take one of the frames out of the brood box then the bees will pull the combs out further for the honey. Between the honey parts of the frame the bee will have a 3/8″ bee space, but the brood will have a 5/8″ or wider space and it really tears them up.

You see, if the space is smaller than 3/8″, the bees will fill it in. If the space is greater than 5/8″, the bees will try to put more comb in that space. But with babies there, putting in more comb wax will hamper the babies being born. It make a hard decision for the bees and I try to help them not to have to change their ways.

That is enough for now. At this time, your bees should have one super of honey with one empty super on top so they can put up more nectar that is presenting itself from now till they cannot fly because of the cold temperature. Be sure to check the weight of the hives periodically to make sure they have enough honey. Also have some sugar on hand so you can feed sugar syrup if you need to. Now is a good time to clean boxes, paint, build frames, wax frames (plastic), or put new foundation in the wooden frames. Don’t forget to read. Until next time have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

I was asked what kind of books should a person read if he or she was interested in knowing more about bees. The answer is not as simple as one would think. There are many many books written on the subject. I think that I should try to break it down by categories.

A novice beekeeper and those who just want to know should start out with The Magic School Bus Inside a Beehive. Believe it or not, this is a very educational book that children and adults can learn from. The next book, Honey Bees & Beekeeping. A Year in the Apiary, by Dr.  Keith Delaplane is an excellent book for the beginner beekeeper. It also has a video (sold separately) that goes along with the book to actually show how to… . How to Keep Bees and Sell Honey, by Walter T. Kelley, is an excellent book for the beginner. These will get you started on the road to knowledge.

The next books are more for advanced beekeepers. Honey Bee Pests, Predators, and Diseases, Third Edition, by Roger Morse and Kim Flottum tells about the pests such as Varroa and Trachea Mites. Predators would be skunks, raccoons, and even bears that feasts on the honey and brood. Mr. Morse and Mr. Flottum has gathered this information from 40 or so beekeepers,  bee inspector, and scientists from across the Northern hemisphere. I purposely left out the diseases  so you would have something to read that I didn’t tell you about.

Honey Bee Biology and Beekeeping was written by Dr. Dewey M. Caron and is a must read for the simplicity of beekeeping. Two more books are companion books in as much as they compliment each other, but each could stand alone in its on merit. They are the: ABC-XYZ OF BEE CULTURE, 41st Edition, by A. I. Root, and The HIVE and the HONEYBEE, first written by L. L. Langstroth, and are considered the bibles of the bee world.

There are two magazines that is a must for up- to-date information. Bee Culture and The American Bee Journal. These are monthly published and well worth the money or you may opt for the electronic version to be sent to your computer..

All these books can be purchased from the bee supply stores of your choice. Even if you decide not to keep bees, you will want to continue reading about them so you can inform you family and friends about the bees and the wonderful things they do and give us. Pollination + Honey = Food.

Happy reading and have a wonderful Halloween and Thanksgiving. Then get ready for Christmas!

I am in a quandary! Here I am telling you what is needed to be done in a timely manner and I am guilty of putting off what really needs to be completed. You should have been finished with your honey pulling and extracting by now. The honey should be either in your bottling tank, or holding bucket, or settling tank, if you don’t already have it in your shipping barrels.

I only have three hives and one observation hive and am caretaker of tow other observation hives. Out of all this, I have 5 supers of honey  to extract. Should have done this about, at the latest, October 14th. If I had not procrastinated, I would have had an empty super on each of the three hives and the bees could have been putting on Goldenrod honey for Winter to go along with the one full Illinois super of honey I originally planned to leave. This would have insured that I would not have to feed the bees in the late Winter and early Spring.

This is one of those time that “do as I say and not what I do” comes into play. Remember that at the beginning I said that this website is to tell you what I do in my apiary and not what the book says. Common sense tells us that to keep the bees healthy and to keep the beekeeper from getting jammed up, one should do the things necessary as they come up and spread the work around over a longer period of time. After all you only have a certain amount of time to work because you need to rest, eat, sleep, read, plan, study, and have time to go to the different bee meetings that we all need to attend.

Have a good day and enjoy your little friends.

Friday and Saturday were my work evenings. I worked the Escarosa honey booth with a young lady about 7 or 8 years of age. She is a very knowledgeable young beekeeper. After watching her find the queen in record time and explaining about the bees to the visitors of the booth, I decided I could concentrate on talking about the differences of honey by way of taste and color, the uses of honey for medical purposes, and the reason that different honeys cost’s vary.

Zoie’s dad and mom was working the booth with us. I was there as the most experienced beekeeper, but you wouldn’t have known that as the two adults had as much knowledge about the bees as I. The only thing that I really have on them is experience and probably more of the scientific information than they do. There were so very few questions directed to me by the other beekeepers that I almost got bored, but not quite.

All in all I had fun both days. The Fair will be continuing of until Sunday 31st. If you have time and the want to, please come to the Pensacola State Fair and visit the honey booth. We will be glad to jaw with you about honey and honeybees.

I am having problems with my email and I really didn’t know that I had developed a dependency on it. I am having withdrawals and anxieties because of it. My son in Argentina will be working on it from his end of the world.

Also the Pensacola State Fair is going on for the next 9 days and I have been recruited to work with a young beekeeper at the honey booth. I assume that I am to show him the ropes, but I have a feeling that he knows as much or more about the bees than I do.  It will be fun finding out anyway.

I still have not found my camera. I really want to take some pictures to show on this website. Sorry for the inconvenience, but you will be the first to know after my wife when I do find it. <]:-)

Have a good weekend.

I had a beekeeper to call me and wanted me to post some of his beekeeping equipment for sale. He has had some medical issues that have slowed him down from keeping a lot of bees. Then some one rear ended him and made him retire for good.

He has some new, barely used, and  used equipment. You can get in touch with him directly or through me at this post. His name and phone:

Richard Nodhturft, The Beekeeper

850-458-9110

Email: beekeeper2u@hotmail.com

He lives here in Pensacola, FL.  I am just trying to help a friend out.

Until next time—-