Beekeepers Friend

I am getting ready to start the splitting process that I talked about two posts ago. My thoughts are to put two 5 frame nuc boxes side by side on top of the brood boxes so the bees can build comb. I am going to take one of them off when the comb is nearly complete and let the queen lay eggs in the nuc that is left, then later pull it off keeping the queen in the nuc and taking both nucs to another yard and double stacking so the bees will grow strong enough to place in a 10 frame hive. If all goes well, then I will have 10 colonies from the five colonies in that apiary.

Explanation time. When I ordered the nuc boxes from Rossman Apiaries, in Moultrie, GA., I had them to shave about 1/2″ off the end pieces so there would be no open space on the out side of the nuc boxes. Five wooden frames will just set in real snug. I have gone to the plastic frames and there is a little space in the nuc box so I don’t have to pry too much to get the frames out.

Now back to the narrative:

I really do not want to disturb the one colony that is still sitting by itself in the lady’s garden. It has been there for 5 years now and all I have to do to it is… super and pull honey. I have not had to do anything to it but make sure the bees have plenty of room to put nectar.

I will have to actually go into it this year just to change the brood box. It is still good, but I think a new paint job is in order.

This post is what I am going to do. The next post, hopefully, will be what I did do. If I do not procrastinate again, then you will able to know just what I did and how.

Until then, keep you veil close, your smoker lit, and your hive tool sharp.

Monday, my friend Doug, and I met at the Santa Rosa Extension office in Milton to talk about bees with an adult continuing education ladies group. We had a power point presentation and told of the bees coming to America in the 1600’s. Told about the pollination, honey, and the products that can be made from the products in the hive.

We lined up about eight jars and had the ladies taste the different kinds of honey from other places, including Alaska, Texas  and Mexico, as well as local. We then let the ladies compare the taste of the honey that we bought  from one of the local stores.  They were amazed at the different tastes and had lots of questions. We explained some of the medical uses of the products and bee venom apitherapy. There were even more questions.

We had lunch and made some salad dressing using vinegar and honey. It went over very well. Maybe some of them will be interested in trying their hand at cooking with honey. Could be another market for us.

At the end of the meeting, one of the ladies gave Doug and me a handmade Monster Rag Doll. That was great! This is just one of the perks of taking the information to the public. You should try it sometime.

Until next time….Keep you veil close, your smoker lit, and your hive tool sharp

Some of you might have read something about chemicals in the wax of bee hives. What about the wax we send in to the Supply houses? Do they take the chemicals out before making foundation to sell back to the beekeepers?

Unfortunately the answer is no. The wax is like a sponge. It sucks in the chemicals like water. Unlike a sponge, the wax cannot be squeezed to get the chemicals out. Sorta like a bee escape. One way in and no way out. This is one of the reasons to rotate the combs out of the hive. Not only because the comb darkens with age, but because it keeps collecting the chemicals year after year.

The only way to really have a chemical free apiary, is to have an area of over 6 miles surrounded with another radius of one mile thick around your apiary and you can control the non use of chemicals in the total area. That ain’t gonna happen! So the only way to cut down on the chemicals in your hives is to not use chemicals and to place your bees in an area that has no use for chemicals or at least very little use of chemicals.

I have used the word chemicals 10 times in all four of these  paragraphs. All the writings I have studied says to change the wording around so as to not be too repetitious. The illustration I am trying to impart is there is chemicals all over the place and in abundance.

Now that we have established that we cannot get free from poisons either man made or naturally occurring around us, we need to take pains in not using them unless it is the last resort. Do you take medicine to keep you from being sick, or do you take medicine after you get sick? The bees are living animals just like you, so why do you make them take medicine if you don’t?

Somehow I got to chasing rabbits and wondered away from the subject.  Bees need wax comb to store their babies in as well as pollen and nectar/honey. In order for them to build wax the direction we want them to, we must give them something to guide on. So here are some suggestions.

If you are a little strapped for money, but you have some empty frames, you can get some typing paper and cut a 1-1 1/2 inch strip long ways and glue to the top bar with some melted wax. the bees will follow it and build a honeycomb. Some beekeepers just fill up the groove in the top bar with wax and let it pooch up about a quarter inch and the bees will use the wax as a guideline. If you have comb and place them alternately with empty frames, the bees seem to work the empty frames correctly.

I have heard of some beekeepers using plastic foundation and cutting long strips about 2 inches wide and putting that in the frame and letting the bees build on that.

Now you understand that the bees will draw comb more readily when there is a honey flow going on, especially in the Spring. Otherwise, the bees will eat or use the wax for other things, so the frames with comb will be at risk if the bees are not using the comb. So the conclusion that you should come to is: Do not put more supers with wax on the hives than the bees can cover.

If you haven’t cleaned your boxes and frames and replaced the foundation, now is the time. In a month or 2 you will be too busy with splits, swarms, and broken boxes to be fixing the things you should have already done.

Be sure to repair or replace your veil, sharpen your hive tools, and make any repairs to your smoker now. You will need these things to work you bees this Spring. Enjoy your time off while you can. The bees will start to work before you know it and you will too busy to think of these things until you need something and it is not working right. HAPPY NEW YEAR!! Enjoy your bees and be prosperous.

I did attend the National Bee conference that was held in Orlando this January. There was just too much going on that I really don’t know where to start.

Several speakers were there that I knew or at least know of. Some I met and some I did not get the pleasure. A lot of the classes were being presented at the same time and I had to make a decision of which ones I would attend.

Kim Flottum, Dr. Larry Conner, Dr. Keith Delaplane, Dr. James (Jim) Tew, Dr. Thomas (Tom) Renderer, Dr. Malcolm Sanford Dr. Lilia de Guzman, Jerry Hayes, and Davids Barnes & Westervelt  were some of the speakers. I, Ernest (Peaches) Peach, also had a small speaking part for a 30 minute presentation. There were numerous other speakers there that I did not know, but were just as important.

Several countries were represented from among the 600 – 800 attendees . Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Chile,  Venezuela, Trinidad, and Tobago. France, Germany, and the United Kingdom also had representatives attending. There were more, but I cannot remember. This was a national bee meeting that turned into an international gathering. I personally met people from each of these countries mentioned.

I met the now, past National Honey Queen and Princess, and I shook hands with and hugged all six State Honey Queens that were in the lineup for the new National Queen and Princess.  All in all, you that did not get to attend, missed a great meeting.

The Canadian, US, and Mexican National Organizations met at the same time and joined us in the festivities. There were 20+ vendors from the US and Mexico with all kinds of new products, equipment, and at least 4 different kinds of beetle traps.  I wish I had taken pictures of the vending area alone. It was very interesting.

Next year the ABF will be meeting in Galveston, TX. I’ll give an update as we get closer to the meeting date. I also heard that the World Apiamondia will be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina in September of 2011.

Looks like I wrote another book. You should by now have your wooden-ware ready for the new season. Keep your veil close, your smoker lit, and your hive tool sharp.

To recap: A hobby is something that you spend money on and not make a dime. A hobby is something you do for your own enjoyment and if others enjoy it at the same time then it is doubly enjoyment. Fishing could be considered a hobby even if you get some fish to take home to eat. The reason this is called a hobby, is you could go to the store and buy a fish and not have to take the trip to the lake and get cold and wet while just sitting there hour after hour. Some people enjoy that. It is defiantly a hobby.

Now to turn your hobby into a self sustaining hobby. In order to keep your hands out of your wife’s pocketbook, you need to have your hobby bring in as much money as you are spending on it. That is called breaking even and I have put together a small plan to do just that. Now you can use this plan to work for one hive or 50 hives.

Step One

You need to keep records of the money you spend. It is just as important to know where your money goes and to how much money you take in. Without knowing where the money is spent and how much is spent, then how do you know how much money you are taking out of your household funds to finance your hobby? It could get as expensive as that train layout at the fair. Unless you have unlimited funds, you need to limit what you spend on the hobby.

If you have your bees at a place away from your home, then you need to know how much gasoline you spend going to and from your apiary. If it is costing more then the bees and honey are bringing in, then you need to move the bees closer to home. Normally, it does not cost to put you hives on someone’s land, so that is not a consideration unless the owners wants honey in return. That falls under negotiations.

Step Two

Keeping records of the equipment costs will give you an idea of how much honey you need to sell to break even again. A used two-frame extractor will cost around $100 – $300. That is a lot of honey sales.

Bee suits run from $60 – $150 depending on the type and quality. You need a smoker, hive tool, scratcher, veil, feeder, and wax melter to name just a few pieces of equipment you need. All this needs to be accounted for in your records.

Step Three

Other than the gasoline, all the equipment is one time purchases until they wear out and needs to be replaced. Now we come to the expendables that has to be replaced on a regular bases.

Plastic buckets break with use. They get brittle when left in the sun. Plastic bottles and glass jars will either be used and sold or broken. Either way they need to be replaced. If you use labels, then they have to be replaced. You will wash your bottles and  jars at one time or another, the detergent will be used up. You get the picture. All this has to be accounted for on record just to keep tabs on the expenditures.

All of the expenses has to be recorded. For instance, you go 50 miles to a fair. The gasoline and oil expenditures are recorded, the fair space cost so much. You have to eat, so you keep records on how much money it costs for each meal. If you spend the night, then the room rent goes in the book too. Don’t forget your helper, if you have one, needs to eat also. You are paying him/her, aren’t you? Then you are responsible for that room also, that is if you don’t share the room.

Step Four

Now that you have kinda got the picture and have your books labeled, you need to start selling your honey wares. 6 oz. Bears, 12 oz. Bears, 1 1/2 lb Pints, 3 lb Quarts, 6 lb 1/2 Gallons, 12 lb Gallons, 5 Gallon buckets, etc. This is your income. As you sell it, you need to mark it down. If you don’t worry about the amount of honey you sell, then you only have to count your money at the end of the day and record the net intake.

There is several ways to count your money, but I will not take the time to go through theses. If you have a question, then make a comment and I will get back to you via email and explain.

Step Five

Here comes the fun part. This is where you will see if all your hard fun work is fruitful. Monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, or at the end of the year, you take you income and subtract your expenditures. The answer is your profit or loss. If you show a positive number, then you made a profit and will be able to stay out of your wife’s pocketbook. If you show a negative number, then you will either downsize or you will be forced to sneak into your wife’s purse and take the chance of getting caught with your hand in the cookie jar. Good Luck!

Conclusion

The easiest way for me is to have a separate cash box from the house’s petty cash and to have a separate bank account to keep the hobby money separated from the Household or main account. That way you will know how much you have at all times for your hobby/business. I know a man that decided to build a honey house so he could have a hot/cold/chemical room along with an extraction room where he could work out of the rain, cold, or hot temperatures. His wife was very upset when she found out how much it cost to build. He very calmly explained that the honeybees made enough honey that they financed the facility. It’s HONEY MONEY! He still had enough to supply his expenditures for the next year.

Have a Happy & Prosperous  New Year but remember to keep your veil close, your hive tool sharp, and your smoker lit.

Thanksgiving and Christmas are over and I just sent my wife to Texas to visit her mother for two weeks. My middle son and his family, who are staying with us, just left to go up to the New England area to preach at one of his sponsoring churches, and maybe several other churches. I am all alone for at least one week. Now I can just do what I want to do. No, that is not right. I will do what I have to do to get ready to go to Orlando, FL in 1o days to the American Bee Federation convention. I have been asked to introduce a short documentary on film and tell a little about the producer.

Brynmore Williams was born on the island of Barbados. At an early age, he wanted to make documentary films. But first, he achieved a degree in Biology. He has made several documentaries and is the Senior Multimedia Producer at GlobalPost which is part of Global News in Boston, Massachusetts.

Bees in the Key of A is a short 8 minute film about how beekeepers are in love with their bees. The sounds of happy colonies and the pleasure that the bees give to them.

Now you ask me what does this have to do with bees in my apiary? Answer, Nothing except how I spend some of my time. I do get credit for attending a national bee meeting and also get credit for being sort of a speaker at a national level for the Bee College. You don’t have to do any of this if you don’t want to, unless you are getting a grade in school. I do speak in front of audiences, just not on this great of scale.

Now that I am home alone, I am getting my schedule ready so I can work my bees, such as, getting equipment gathered up to slop feed my bees that I have transported to one apiary. I have two barrels of peppermint candy that I have mixed water in with to let the bees get some winter feed. I have to put a screen on the top to keep the possums out. I had 3 possums drown two years ago and I don’t want a repeat.

My beekeeper friend, that I rely on heavily, and I are going to work my bees and then his to make sure all is well. Kinda like getting ready for Spring.

Right now, here in NW Florida, the temperature is in the low 40s and I would like the weather to be in the 50s before I go out to clean some more boxes and build frames and foundation. I am hoping that when I get back from Orlando in about three weeks, it will be a little warmer. I have plans to split some or all of my colonies this Spring. I have only 7 colonies and if I can, I want to have 14 before the swarming season begins.

Right now, you should be reading books, magazines, and watching training videos. If you do work your bees at this time, please keep your veil close, your smoker lit, and hive tool sharp.

First off, I forgot to wish my readers HAPPY NEW YEAR! I wish you all have a wonderful and prosperous year with your bees. Remember, you cannot go back and correct what is done and past. However, from this point on you can improve on your time, beekeeping practices, and attitude. So that leads up to the reason for this post.

I have lost all but six colonies. I cannot change that, but I can improve on the numbers by feeding my bees that I have now and getting them through the Winter. I am making plans to strengthen them to the point that I can split in March and April. I am not looking for a honey crop this year. If I do have any it will be a plus.

I have 1 hive at one place that the bees have ample stored honey and pollen. I really don’t have to do anything to that one as it has survived for 5 years with me doing nothing but pulling honey and thinning the congestion down so they wont swarm. Even at that, they grow so fast that I have had 3 swarms year before last within a 3 month period.

The other 5 hives are in an apiary that I am feeding Peppermint candy, slop method. Let me explain.

Instead of feeding each colony  separately, I have two barrels of candy that I put up several years ago, but had forgotten about. During the course of time, the rains came and puddled the lids and finally Mother Nature let the rust take place. The lids developed holes so the rain could get inside. Water and candy will mix and since I was negligent, the candy water has  fermented. A side note here. Fermentation does strange things to humans when they consume enough. The same thing happens to the bees. This is really not a good thing.

However, my thought is that the bees will only get out when it is warmer than 50 degrees. So as long as the temperature stays lower than that, the bees will eat what they have inside. In the Spring, Bee Spring – January, February,and March, the bees will be consuming more and more stored honey so they can raise babies (larvae) for the Spring honey flow. They, on a warm day, will go to the candy syrup to collect, to them, nectar so they can continue to raise babies and make caps for the nursery cells. By all rights, they will be too busy to collect very much to put up for honey.

About February 15th, I will be putting on supers that have just foundation. The bees will have to start making wax for new comb. I will close off the barrels with new lids forcing the bees to start using the little candy syrup that they did store up. They will have used up most or all of the syrup by the time the honey flow starts. The wax will have negligible peppermint in it as the production of new wax will have processed the peppermint out of their systems. Even if the peppermint is in the wax, it will remain in the first super that stays with the hive. I always leave the first super on the hive for the bees. All supers above the first super are mine to do with what I want.

By the time the bees use up the majority of the stored syrup, the honey flow will have commenced. The forgers will have started collecting pollen and nectar from the flowers and will not taint the honey for sale. This is the same principal we use for the corn syrup that we use for Winter feed. When the house bees get the first super about half drawn out, I will then put on one or two more supers of drawn out combs so they can start putting up nectar without having to build a lot of comb. This will help them store more nectar for honey production.

At this time I need to explain something else. If you don’t have last years wax comb, then naturally you will have to put on foundation. Remember, it take about 8-9 lbs of honey to make 1 lb of wax. So I am not expecting too much honey for me this year.

I am also going to split as soon as I can so I can start expanding my colonies. I will either divide my existing colonies into two per colony, or I will work the bees as quick as I can to make splits from the splits as soon as they have 4-5 frames of brood in each hive. Right now I have to concentrate on my next two posts that I have started and not finished. See ya soon.

Just when I thought everything was working out just right, I had a bombshell dropped on me. I had made plans with the school where the Bee Chautauqua was to be held. Now only 2 months away and several speakers have confirmed the date, I find out that the school had placed the time a week ahead of the scheduled day. Now I have to get in touch with all the speakers to see if they can attend a week earlier than was planned.

I also have to get with the vendors to  see if they can also change their plans. Then, I have to go through all the fliers and schedules changing the dates. And as if that is not enough, I have to tell my association and listen to one person telling me that I screwed up and that I should be replaced as the chairman of the planning committee. That I can handle, I just don’t know if I can live with the personal embarrassment.

Now that I have vented on you, my readers, I need to start getting all my paper ducks in a row.  See you later.

I have recently received information that explains the weight issue on less frames/more honey. You can go to my post that touched on this subject and go to the comment section,  so you can follow a little better.

A shallow honey super weighs about 25.30 lbs.

A medium (Illinois) honey super weighs about 30-50 lbs.

A deep honey super weighs approximately 75-100 lbs.

A deep brood super weighs approximately 60-80lbs with bees, brood, and honey.

Now all this is using a 10 frame set up. If you use 9 frames you can count on adding 10 lbs. to the  shallow, 15-20 lbs to the medium, and 20 to 40 lbs or more to the deep. If you use 8 frames in a 10 frame box then double the extra weight

You need to find out for yourself what the weight is by weighing your honey supers before you extract and after you extract to find the average honey weight is per super. Now I cannot tell you the exact weight of the boxes because of the different wood material used to construct them. Don’t forget the  weight difference between nails, screws, and staples. Frames also are made from different wood material. All this has a bearing on the weight of the full honey supers.

For my own use, I just use the 40#, 60#, and 100# figures as examples when I talk to other beekeepers. This is a side note. I use 10 frames in a brood box and 9 frames in my honey supers which are medium (Illinois) supers. I do not use deep honey supers because I cannot lift them by myself. I have to take 5 frames out and use a nuc to transport them to the truck then go back and get the super and the other 5 honey frames. This is the reason I am thinking of going to all Illinois boxes for the complete hive. All of the equipment will then be interchangeable. I am also thinking of going back to the 10 frame honey supers because of the lesser weight.

I have not ruled out using undersized boxes either. By undersized, I mean cut the width down to fit only 8 frames in a box. That will be even lighter and easier to life and carry by hand. Some women and older men have gone this way already and are really enjoying collecting honey and saving their backs.

There are websites already out there that explains the different sizes and frame configurations if you want to research them. I didn’t intend for this blog to be a training site. I started out just telling what I was doing in my bee business. I have found out that the two are inseparable. So please bear with me.

I hope this help some of you out there that really wants to know.

I never did find where the bees were coming from. By the time it stopped raining, it got cold and the bees are not flying. So I will just have to wait until a warm day comes back and try again.

My grandson and I finally went to the apiary to get the bees off the trailer. I put some pine straw in the doorways so the bees wouldn’t get mad enough to come out and sting us while we cleaned up. We moved the hives off the trailer and set them on 8″ x 10″ concrete blocks. Then we pickup up all the equipment that was not being used. You know- bottom boards, deadout boxes, top boards, screens, trash, etc. Just the things that makes an apiary look like a junk yard. By the time the equipment was cleaned up and loaded, the trailer looked like it would not hold any more, and besides I only had three straps with me.  We went home and had lunch with the family.

I now have only 6 colonies of bees. Five up at the winter feeding apiary and one in a garden where there is something to gather all year round. This is the best colony of all my past and present colonies. I am going to try to raise queens from this one colony to see if the queen has some traits that might be beneficial to the rest of the colonies.

After lunch, I remembered that I had not taken the pine straw out of the openings and that the bees would really be fit to be tied if they stayed cooped up for the two to four days that I was not planning on being back. I hopped into the truck and, still pulling the loaded trailer, I shagged back to the north end of the county and released the bees. Yup, they were mad! I really didn’t stay around too long. I left and seeing I still had some time before the Board of Managers conference call, I went to a close by apiary and picked all the equipment up there. Now I only have one apiary left to clean up for the winter.

I got home just one hour before the conference call and I even got to eat supper before I dialed up. That was a really good day’s work!

Stay warm and read play on the internet and research some of the bee questions you may have.  Have a great day. Talk to you later.