Beekeepers Friend

I have an appointment in the morning for a show and tell with a Kindergarten class. I cleaned my observation hive and went to the back yard where I had four hives ( two nucs and two full hives). The observation hive has a place for one deep frame of brood and a deep frame of honey in the second story. It helps the kids and keeps their interest up to see real live bees. I was real unhappy to find that the 2 nucs and 1 hive were empty. The one hive that still had bees only had one frame of bees and no brood. I have lost the queen and consequentially the hive is on its way to oblivion.

I must talk about bees without any to show the little ones. This is my own fault. If I had been more attentive, I would have known that I had a problem and could have gone to one of the other apiaries out in the country to get my frames. This is part of the procrastination that I had mentioned before.

When one has a project, one must spend some extra time and get all his equipment gathered up in a timely manner so he will have everything he needs to complete it. I have no doubt that the kids will not mind as they do not know. But the teacher will as she has me come every year to teach a new set of students. It can be embarrassing. I tell you this so you will be forewarned. I am making the mistakes so you will not have to. I will let you know how it goes tomorrow.

There will be a workshop in Pensacola, Florida on September, 15 2007. The link above will take you to the application. Needs to be received by September 6 to be pre-registered. I am encouraging all to come to this workshop. We will have some big named speakers who actually work in their subject fields and really knows what they are talking about. It will be fun and informative for beginning beekeepers on through advanced and master beekeepers.

There will be hands on demonstrations (if you want) as well as classroom lectures. Also, at least one bee supply company will be there to sell us equipment and take orders for anything they didn’t bring with them. It will be a learning experience for all beekeepers and non-beekeepers alike.

There will be a yard sell after the meeting. Bring any equipment that you no longer need and trade or sell it to someone that needs what you have to offer.

Come join the group and have fun meeting other like minded people and exchange ideas with them. See all yawl there.

Yesterday, I had a call from one of the farmers where I keep some bees. “One of your hives is laying down and there is still some bees in it. What do I do?” These are words you really don’t want to hear, “What do I do?”

I was sitting in a barber’s chair at the time. I had on my shorts, T-shirt, and sandals.  “Don’t do anything. I’ll be there just as soon as I can.” When you have farmers that know nothing about bees and are trying to help, you most likely do not want their help, so I was on the way from the barbershop as soon as I paid my bill.

I keep a bee suit, vale, smoker, fuel, hive tool, and water in my truck all the time so if I get an emergency, I can go right then. About half way there, I realized that I didn’t have any shoes, just my sandals. When I got there, I saw a brood box and 3 honey supers face down on the ground. Now I had to figure how to keep the bees from stinging my sandaled feet. I just happened to have some plastic Walmart sacks in the truck, so I slid them over my feet. Wow! that worked. I wouldn’t recommend that as a working relationship, but you use what you have at the time and make plans to keep an extra pair of tennis shoes in the truck as part of your emergency equipment.

The reason the hive fell over in the first place was, my hive stand is made of 2 plastic milk crates and 2 old landscape timbers that is 8 feet long. The milk crates have been in use for over 2 years at that place and I don’t know how old they were when I acquired them. But the point is that plastic milk crates will deteriorate with time and that is what happened. Since I did not have any 8 inch blocks with me, I had to reuse the milk crates. I will have to go back soon to rebuild the hive stand with the concrete blocks.

All this is just to let you know that you can use some material some of the time, but plan ahead so you can build your stands to last a little longer. I now use most of my milk crates to haul honey bears, bees, pints, quarts, and half-gallon containers to and from my various festivals. That is a better use of them.

I am not late in writing another post.  I am tardy though.  I have no excuses, but my reasons are sound, I think.  I have been sick and down in spirit.  It took me 8 days just to mow the front yard.  Usually only takes me about 2 hours.

Now I have to concentrate on the swimming pool.  I have a torn liner and I need to empty the water and get ready to reline the  pool.  Believe it or not, this is all going someplace.  When I get all this ready, then I will start cleaning bee equipment, replacing frames, foundation, and building screened bottom boards.

If I start now, maybe I can be through by Spring 2008.  I will paint all the wooden-ware last.  When I start working the bees in the spring, I will change out the boxes and bring the old in to be refitted.

More later.

This may seem strange coming from an experienced beekeeper, but I told you I am not the final voice on beekeeping. I have a honey super in my truck bed that has been there for about 3 1/2 weeks now. If you want to save your comb, then do not leave you frames in the bed of your truck in the middle of summer when the temp is high. I now have to re-wax several frames because the comb melted to the floor of the bed.

While we are at it, if you have a hive that is overcrowded, then by all means, split it before the big swarm. Check the hive at least once a month to see if you have beetle larvae. That is what has nearly killed the swarm that was in the stack of boxes to be cleaned. Now I don’t know if I can save them or not. I could not find a queen and the Small Hive Beetle and it’s babies have decimated the comb. They are in a new box with their honey and new foundation. More later.

I have really not gotten anything done since my last post. I have had rains that kept me from working in the yard getting the equipment cleaned. Nor have I gotten the back yard totally cut all at the same time. I have a personal problem called overweight. I have not been able to cope with the temperature. So my excuses are too wet or too hot or too humid.

The swarm that I still have in the messed up boxes is still there. I looked outside today and I saw a lot of bees hanging on the box and more had bearded the front and side of the stack. I called my wife to see what appeared to be bees flying all over the place as in a swarm.

I had to get another box ready and set it next to the stack of brood boxes and raked about 2 pounds of bees onto the landing board of the new box. I had hoped that they would decide to go in and make the decision to move there with the swarm. Didn’t happen. I looked later (about 15 minutes) and noticed that there was only about 15-20 on the outside of the old stack. I went out to see if they were still around and maybe in the new box. I saw them up in the popcorn tree that was hanging over my back fence. Good, I could catch them and put them in the new box and take them to another location.

I located my bucket with the extension pole on it, but discovered that the pole was bent and would not extend. Now that is a kick in the rear. Another pole will have to be purchased so I can use the bucket, but now I will just have to let nature take its course and forget the swarm.

About 25 minutes later, I saw a bee beard on the old stack again and went to investigate. The swarm was not in the tree anymore and was probably back at the original location. That was when I decided to take some pictures.

I am sorry to say that my photography skills are not the best in the county and I am having technical difficulties in pasting them to this post. David, my missionary son in Mexico, who is now visiting South Texas with his family and having vehicle problems, is my photo/computer guru. So I will have to wait till he is available to help me paste the photos of the bees to my post. It may be some time before that happens. However, Bettie suggested that I get up early in the morning while it is still cool and transfer the bees to the new box. I will take some pictures as I go and hope that I can get them posted in the near future. I will let you know how the transfer went soon.

The Workshop was a success. There were over 100 beekeepers there. A few wives and some young ones. We had seven stations and each one was a class in itself. The classes were approx 20 minutes long with a 5 minute break between each. We received information about Grafting queen cells and growing them into mature adults; Diseases of the hive, Integrated Pest Management (IPM) procedures; three ways to check Varroa Mite infestation; Splitting a hive and introducing a new queen, Extracting honey using an automated decapper and radial extractor.

We had 4 classes then broke for lunch which was served at the local volunteer firestation and then we had a PowerPoint presentation of Honeybee Plants of Florida.

We went back to the honey-house and finished the other 3 classes then had the sale. I sold everything I took except for the 2 extractors belonging to our 4H club. Oh well! There is always another workshop or seminar somewhere.

I am getting ready to go to a workshop tomorrow. After I mow the grass in both front and back yards, I will get some bee equipment (two extractors — 1- 4 frame solid basket and 1- 2 frame flip basket) ready to take with me to Chipley, FL to sale for the 4 H club here in Pensacola. There will be some equipment that the beekeepers have either outgrown or they are getting ready to upgrade and need the room in their apiaries or honey houses.

The workshop will be for training and learning about new products and/or procedures for beekeeping. These workshops are open to all beekeepers and the general public. Any who wish to know more about beekeeping, will find friendly folks ready and willing to talk about their bees. All yawl come if you can.

I have told of having to move bees into another box before I went to Texas. Did I procrastinate if I didn’t do what I said I was going to do? I had to clean the extractor and get the honey house in order so I could extract honey before I left. I had to pack clothes and then load the car. My conscience says yes to all that. I should have started earlier to get some of these things done so I could complete all my chores in a timely manner. Well what ever. I am now back home and I am going to get some work done yet.

By now you should have guessed that I still have the swarm in my uncleaned stack of boxes. They are not hanging out on the front porch or hanging under the porch like they were 1 1/2 weeks ago. Yup! They swarmed on me. Now I have a smaller weaker hive to baby during this time of little nectar.

I wonder, should I just leave them where they are and let them clean the boxes? Naw, I still have to replace that bottom board. Might as well build a screened bottom and replace it the way I wanted to in the first place.

I wonder, should I put another nuc super on the one of two nucs I had but only one is still alive? I think if I am going to be a beekeeper and not a beehaver, I should start tending to business. I will super the nuc and start thinking business thoughts and stay a beekeeper. That means that if the thought is thunked, then do it. One shouldn’t waste time and energy just thinking without following through with action.

I wonder, will I have any readers if I just say one thing and end up not following my own instructions? I must change my wonderings and procrastinations to decisions and actions. I am shooting for at least two barrels of honey for retail by Nov.

This doesn’t portray me in good light. I sometimes have good intentions, but some things just do not come together for me. For instance, I needed to relocate the swarm in my stacked supers before I left for Texas, but I also needed to move some bees from the 4H camp.

In order to make the move, I first had to pull six supers of honey, the seventh had brood in it and I needed to leave it with the hive. The reason it had brood was I didn’t have a queen excluder installed. Normally, the queen does not cross capped honey so she stays in the brood box to lay. That is why the queen excluder is used until the first honey super is capped. Then you can remove the excluder so the workers can carry nectar to the upper supers without having to crawl through the excluder.

I moved the two hives to an apiary about 40 miles away. Now I had 6 supers of honey that needed to be extracted. If not extracted within 48 to 72 hours, the Small Hive Beetles would take over and slime the honey. So now I began the extraction process. First I had to clean the extractor, set up the decapping box, and round up some five-gallon buckets. By this time, it’s too hot temperature-wise to extract in my honey house.

Four o’clock A.M. the next morning, I got up and checked the temperature in the honey house, and it was tolerable so I began my extraction. Using my wife’s dinner fork as a scratcher (I couldn’t find my store-bought scratcher), I proceeded to decap each frame of honey. I could place twenty frames of honey in my radial extractor, which means I have to extract three times. The whole process took me until 7 A.M. to finish extracting, clean-up, shut the lights off, and close the door. I ended up with 15 gallons of honey off of the six supers. As you know, honey weighs 12 pounds per gallon and that gave me 180 pounds.

Basically I could get started for Texas in a very timely manner; however, by the time I finished packing, taking my shower, loading the car, watering the tomatoes, waiting for the neighbor to mow my grass, and round up a few items that I had forgotten, it was now 11:30 A.M. My wife insisted that I take her to lunch before I left. By the time I got on the road, it was 12:45 P.M. So you see, the best of intentions don’t always go according to Hoyle.