Beekeepers Friend

I asked my grandchildren what they wanted for Christmas and got a list from each of them. Short list. They all wanted one present each. The baby, at 3 years old, didn’t say so we got him 3 presents. Along with the one present for the other three, we added one more. They got Momma to ask if I could spare some honey so they could give it to their teachers at school and church.

This is an idea you can kick around. Have the grandchildren help bottle the honey in 8 or 12 oz. bears and put the lids on. Then have them to make some bows to put around the necks. That way the young’uns can say they bottled and decorated the gifts. It gets them involved with your honey and maybe later, they will become your bee apprentices.

This is just one way to recruit new beekeepers, and spread your honey and fame around so that the public will know that you are in the business of keeping bees and you will soon be asked to talk at a meeting or two. We need to spread the information to the general public about African Bees, pollination, and how to use honey for cooking, medicine, and homemade cosmetics.

Think of some other ways you can utilize your honey and wax. Get ready to make some extra money when you do.

Now I gotta go and strain some honey to take with me to Indianapolis. Merry Christmas

I had a bee inspection the 1st week in November and we gathered some samples from each apiary to send to the bee lab.

I received a phone call from my state bee inspector yesterday saying that I did not have American Foul Brood or Africanized Honey Bees. I was very pleased with that report, however, the next sentence was a puzzler. He said that the bee lab needs samples of bees from each of my hives in two apiaries. The reason—my bees are too big. They have not seen bees that are over sized like mine apparently are.

The weather was rainy today and he doesn’t work on Sunday, so maybe Monday or Tuesday, if the weather is kind of warm and sunny, we will go and get the samples. I don’t know just how big my bees are, but from the way he talked, my bees are larger than European Honey Bees and smaller than Bumble bees. I haven’t done anything different than I have done in the past.

I’ll let you know when I get the results back.

Straining honey takes some thought. Why are you wanting to strain your honey? What is in the honey that you need to strain it? With what equipment or material do you use to strain the honey? How do you prepare the honey in order to strain it?

Just after extracting, there are bees and bee parts in the honey as well as beetles and wax from the decapping that needs to be strained out. But the honey is too thick to strain easily. How will I get around that?

I place the honey buckets in the heater that I made. Before I do anything, I have to clean the heater. When you spill honey in the bottom on your heater, it is always a good idea to clean it up so the buckets are not sticky when pouring the honey into the strainer. The last time I used the heater I had an accident and was rushed for time, so I now have to clean the heater before I get started.

Soap and water with a good rag and lots of elbow grease is good to clean up after I use a solid spatula to get the majority of the honey scraped off the floor of the heater. Normally, when I clean up, I use some bleach to disinfect the inside. Not really necessary, but it doesn’t hurt either.

I put two pails of honey in the heater for 8 to 24 hours, so the honey is hot enough to pour through the strainer and run/drip into the honey bucket below. Usually I strain honey, straight into the bottling bucket because I am getting ready to go to a festival. Sometimes, though, I strain honey just to have it ready for bottling when I need to supply my customers. When that is the case, I usually heat it for about 8-10 hours so when I pour the honey into the bottling bucket the bubbles can rise to the top to keep the bottled honey clear.

Now is the time to inventory your bottles and jars to make sure you will have enough when the next festival arrives.

To strain honey you need a 5 gallon bucket. Cut the bottom out and leave about 1/2″ to 3/4″ inside the the bucket. This is for a screen to sit on. Then cut the top out of a lid. Sit the bucket inside the cutout and using a hot glue gun, glue it to the bottom of the bucket. When it dries, you can cut a stiff screen wire to fit inside the bucket to sit on the lip. This is so the strainer will not stretch down into the honey bucket. Now the strainer bucket will sit directly on another 5 gallon bucket and not fall off.

Get a 5 gallon sized paint strainer and drop it in the strainer bucket with the edges wrapped over the lip. By using a round rubber gasket, rope, wire, or anything you can, secure the strainer to the top lip of the strainer bucket. You can use cheesecloth folded several times, or you can buy a strainer from one of the bee supply houses. Use whatever you are comfortable with.

I have this upright freezer that has been modified into a honey heater. The motor has been disconnected from the electrical wires. Two light receptacles were hung in the freezer, one on the inside left wall just higher than a 5 gallon bucket and one on the opposite inside wall, same height. The electric power wires were ran to each receptacle in parallel so if one 100w bulb burns out the other will keep burning. A thermostat was hooked up between the power source and the first light. The thermostat is set on 125° F.

I was abruptly, but nicely reminded that you cannot get out of an inspection even if you have a certificate stating that the bees have already been inspected. I received that same certificate in the mail from the Florida State Dept of Plant Industry, Apiary Inspection. I called the local bee inspector to inform him that we could skip this year. His reply was that the certificate was issued as a receipt for my money, contingent on the physical inspection which I had not scheduled and was swiftly approaching a month past due. If I did not get an inspection from him, the state would revoke the piece of paper and I could get a slap on the wrist.

Needless to say I quickly made an appointment and we headed to the apiaries. The inspection reveled that I have Small Hive Beetles (SHB) but no mites that we could discern. No American Foul Brood nor any of the other viruses. Discussion was made as to the best way to get the SHB back down to a tolerable threshold.

I had already lost one colony to the SHB and the inspector really didn’t want me breeding more beetles to take over my other colonies.

Samples of bees were taken from each apiary to send to apiary headquarters lab to confirm that I have no Africanized Honey Bees (AHB). I feel that I do not, but I went to the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico and those bees were not aggressive either. However, even the AHBs have their calm days too.

I am now awaiting the paperwork to show I do not have AHB and that will open fields for possibly more apiaries. I do not need any more places at this time, but you always keep a lookout for a good spot in case you might need it.

That’s all for now, but remember, now is the time to get your equipment cleaned, replace broken frames, and replace old comb with new foundation. Think of the pros and cons for wax coated plastic foundation and even plastic frame inserts. More about different foundations later.

Thursday, I got to the school late. My alarm didn’t wake me and it is an hour and a half drive from my home. Anyway, I arrived and got the third period students to help me wash buckets, set up the extracting area, and get the extractor ready to go. By that time the class was over. Not to worry, though. I planned to extract the rest of Thursday and all day Friday. Everyone would get a turn scratching the caps off the honey combs, loading the extractor, and then take turns at turning the crank.

Some of the students were there last year and were disappointed that I didn’t bring the motorized extractor. But they fell into the program and helped some of the new students. Since this is an Ag class, not all of the students were interested in the honey aspect. Some were into Horticulture, Farming, and Animal Husbandry. That meant that over half of the class was milling around and trying to horseplay. I had to call them down several times, but all in all they were a good group of students. We got very sticky and I had to remind them that honey is water soluble and no soap was necessary. While some of them were extracting, I could talk to the others about the properties of honey and other products from the hive. Such as, honey can be used to treat burns, abrasions, and cuts. The honey’s enzymes and the sweat on the body combine and makes a form of Hydrogen Peroxide. That promotes healing and in some instances, will keep scarring down to a bare minimum.

We figured out that two full medium supers would produce about four and half gallons of honey. That is about 55 pounds per bucket. Honey, by the way, weighs 12 lbs per gallon. That first day, the students, with my help at spinning, extracted about 30 lbs.

After school let out, I went to the last of my apiaries that had four hives. Each hive had three supers on them except, one of the colonies was slimed by the Small Hive Beetles. The hive beetle lays her eggs in a honey cell before the bees put nectar in it. When the egg hatches, the larva will eat the honey and poop in it then drills its way through the wax wall to the next cell. Then proceeds to eat and poop. The Small Hive Beetle will lay several eggs in each cell until all the eggs have been expelled from the body. Now just imagine that there are several hundred beetles laying eggs at the same time. You have a very large group of larva working your honey comb at the same time. With that many larva, the top bars of the frames are coated with slime (poop) and that is how you know that you lost your honey. The only thing you can do at this time is take the boxes home and wash out all the honey and beetles, larva, and the brood that is left behind when the bees absconded. Let the comb dry in the sun and wind and use them again next year. The bees will clean the comb before putting anything in the cells.

I lost 3 supers of honey approximately 80 or so lbs. I also lost the bees. We are now looking at about $200-250 added to the approximately $1000 dollars I lost at the second apiary. The cost of neglecting the bees has increased again.

One of the supers I pulled from this apiary was a deep super. I used my leaf blower, that I have renamed my Bee Blower, to blow the bees out of the boxes. The deep was heavy (about 75 to 100 lbs) and I had to carry it about 30 feet to the truck. I have a two man lifter that I use when I have help to move the deeps (honey and brood), but I was alone this time. When I put the deep on the truck, I heard lots of bees in there. I didn’t think too much about it other than I just didn’t blow it good enough.

The school was having a wiener roast that evening so I decided that since I was only about 15 miles away, I would take the honey back to the school so it would be inside.

Friday morning when the first class came in, I decided to extract the deep and get it over with. I pulled two frames, had the students scratch the caps and extract the honey. When I went to the next two frames, I found brood. Now I know why I couldn’t blow the bees out. The nurse bees will stay with the brood almost through a hurricane. They wanted to keep the brood warm. Since there were not enough bees to cover all the brood, I figured that the brood would die soon and went ahead and extracted all the honey I could. The frames with the brood, I left alone. I did not want to get brood bodies in the honey for no reason.

All in all we extracted 10 buckets of honey. Two of them were a full five gallons each. I gave those buckets to the FFA-Ag class for helping me extract my honey and with the 9 gallons of honey from their bees, that set them up to have some money for some of their extra activities. I ended up with five 4 1/2 gallon buckets of honey. Not bad for thinking I didn’t have any at all, but still a far cry from the two barrels that I was shooting for.

Until next time, clean your boxes, replace frames, foundation that is no good, and get ready for the spring flow.

After the state convention, I spent couple of days with my son’s family in Orlando, FL. We played golf until about 1:15 Monday afternoon. That’s when I started back home to Pensacola. I had already planned to pull honey on the way home.

I spent the night at a friend’s home in Chipley. Tuesday, I visited with the new president of the FL. State Beekeepers Association. We discussed the pros and cons of pulling honey and leaving it in my pickup bed overnight. If you pull honey, you need to get it inside away from the bees if you are not going to extract for a day or two. As it was going to be in the middle to high 30s that night, then it would be a while before the bees would fly on Wednesday and I would be okay.

I had one hive in Holly, and when I checked I found that 2 medium supers did not have any honey in them. The other super was a deep super that I wanted the bees to draw the comb out, but didn’t get back to it before they capped honey. Since I am leaving one super of honey on each hive, I decided to leave the deep on for this winter’s feed. I normally like to leave a medium super for this purpose. It was the first hive on the way home and the closet hive was about 20-25 miles down the road. I could not switch a smaller super with the deep one.

The next apiary had 4 colonies, but one had died. There was no extra honey. I need to go back at a later date and see what happened.

The next morning, I left town to go to a single hive in a garden owned by a little old lady. I collected one super there.

I left there and went about 45 miles to two apiaries in the north part of the county. There were 11 hives and between them I collected 9 supers of honey.

The final apiary of the day was just 10 miles farther north from where I was , and out of the 12 hives there, I had 5 living. I pulled 5 supers there. Now I had total of 15 medium supers of honey. The FFA had 3 supers of their own honey to extract. I only had 4 more hives to check which I was going to do the next day after extracting.

Now I have spent some time in telling this story to make a point. You really don’t know what kind of shape your colonies are in, or how much honey you have to pull if you don’t check your hives at least every 4 weeks. I have been indisposed for most of this year for one reason or another. I wasn’t able to get to my bees regularly. This is the only time this year that I have pulled honey. Normally, I would have pulled honey 3 times with a possible forth time. I had no idea of how much honey I would end up with or how many hives I would have left until I actually went and checked. Your bees will make you some money if you practice beekeeping as you should. I probably have lost over $1000 in honey and bees for lack of attention.

Back to the story. The next day, I carried the honey to a local high school in the north part of the county so the FFA – Ag classes could learn how to extract honey from the comb to get it ready to bottle. Last year, I had enough honey supers and they had several supers from the FFA – Ag group, that I had taken my 30 frame extractor out there to use. This year with so few supers, the Ag teacher and I decided to let the students use a two frame hand crank extractor to show them that it can be done. Not all new beekeepers can afford a motorized radial extractor nor is it advantageous to use one with just 2 or 3 colonies.

To be continued—-

Well, I made it to the state convention in plenty of time. I arrived in Haines City, FL about 9:30 pm on Wed. Oct. 31st. Spent the night and made it to the Holiday Inn in Winter Haven at about 6:45 am Thursday. The first activity was for the CEU’s for the pesticide applicators. I do not have that license, so I listened for a few minutes and nearly went to sleep. That’s when I decided to go and have coffee. I then looked at the schedule and found that the next activity was at 6:00 that evening. It was a fish fry that was hosted by the Florida State Bee Inspectors. That I could attend. That night I drove to Orlando to spend the night with my son, daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren.

The next morning I left at about 5:30 to go back to Winter Haven for the all day speakers. We received a good deal of information, so much so that I will be reading and studying my notes for several weeks to be able to ingest all that was said. The speakers were from Florida’s Plant Industry, University of Florida at Gainesville, and Farm Bureau. We also had a speaker from the National Honey Board (NHB).

That evening was the awards banquet and auction and the guest speaker was Marty Bolin, President Pro Tem on the Florida House of Representatives, (R) from Winter Haven.

Saturday was the day I wanted to attend the Hands On workshop for beginners, no such luck. Someone sent the newspaper reporter to talk to me and she kept me for about 3 1/2 hours. I had a little paragraph in the whole article. Oh well! That is the life of a little beekeeper.

Wednesday I had an appointment to go to a grade school to participate in a Country Day activity.  This is where the different farming and agriculture instructors set in classrooms or in the playground and the students are moved from one station to the next.  Each instructor has about 20 minutes to tell about their chosen field of employment.

Now, back to multi-tasking. I had to get the materials for the school’s demonstration, and get my equipment (laptop computer, notepad, pens, and directions to get to the meeting to take to the Florida State Beekeepers Association  meeting and also load the equipment I would need for pulling honey on my way home. I am scheduled to extract honey with the help of the FFA students at Northview High School in Bratt, FL.

I arrived in Haynes City last night and stayed in a motel about ten miles away from the meeting place. This morning, I found out that I was still early. Even when my wife started telling me three weeks ago that I was trying to go too early, I still managed to get here a day early.That makes me wonder if I am losing it.

This is what makes beekeeping fun and interesting. Now I have to get ready for tomorrow and enjoy the rest of convention starting with a fish fry this evening.