First sting of the season and updates on the bees

Last night I was feeling pretty frustrated. Just angry. So I went out to sit by the bees to relax. One of my favorite things in the summer is to sit outside, read a good book, and watch the world drift into twilight. I especially like doing that out by the bees.

So I sat down with my book and a drink and was just started to relax when… ZOT! Right on the cheek!

So much for relaxing….

I was hoping to make it through the season without a sting, but I’m also glad to get one. I am slightly swollen on my cheek, a little itchy, and warm, but I’m not having the bad reactions like I was at other times.

Back to the bees in general. I took a month off to just not worry about the bees. I was glad for it. I needed the break to reset and figure out what I wanted to do.

I was out there a week and a half ago, though, and I did a few things:

Hive 1

Hive 1 is doing pretty good. They are the second strongest hive and seem to be adjusting to the new queen well.

Hive 2

Hive 2 is, as usual, pretty similar to 1 but smaller.

Hive 3

This is where it starts to get interesting…. If you remember, I had suspected that I had a laying worker in this hive. That turned out to NOT be the case, which I’m glad for, but I had done a split to try and isolate that worker. What I did was I moved the hive itself back about 5 feet and put an empty hive in the old location. All the foragers returned to that hive and the nurse bees (including an egg-laying worker) stayed in the moved hive, which I promptly named Hive Stupid.

A few days later, I went and added a queen cell from Hive 2 to Hive 3 hoping that they’d raise her and just go. Then, I could take care of Hive Stupid when I felt like it.

When I looked into Hive 3 the other day, they had done… nothing. Not even drawn out comb. There were quite a few bees in there (I’d say close to 25,000), but no queen, no eggs, no drawn comb, nothing.

Instead of losing those bees, I decided I would combine Hive 3 back onto Hive 1 and Hive 2. I gave Hive 2 the fuller of the two boxes from Hive 3. I placed a sheet of newspaper between the two boxes, put a couple of slits in the paper, and walked away. I will see what happened on Saturday! Hopefully my first two attempts at combing where both successful. Looking at the bees from the outside, I noticed a population jump, so I’m assuming yes, although that may be from the first brood hatching from the new queens.

Thus ends the days of Hive 3.

Hive Stupid

And thus is the rebirth of Hive 3!

I moved Hive Stupid, now Hive 3, into the spot where Hive 3 had once stood. Going through that hive, I found eggs, larvae, brood, and a very active and healthy hive. This hive (old Hive 5… trust me… the numbering makes sense for me…) has always been doing really well, so I wasn’t surprised. I was surprised, however, to see, once again, no evidence of egg-laying workers. None.

I may do a bit more than I usually do in my inspection this coming Saturday with this hive. I want to really look through it and see what is going on.

One general concern I have about all my hives is that the hives themselves are seriously disorganized at this point. I just have not even tried to help them keep any organization. Pretty much every box has honey, brood, and pollen. There is no solid brood nest and no solid honey storage. They have brood and they have honey, but there’s just no organization.

I plan on trying to remedy that on Saturday, probably just one hive at a time. I bought some queen excluders, which I’ve never used, early this spring because I noticed this disorganization starting last year. Hopefully this will help some with that.

My plan is, starting with Hive 3, which was once Hive Stupid, which was once Hive 3, which was once Hive 5… No really… It actually does make sense in my head…. Anyway, I plan on starting with Hive 3, tearing the hive apart as much as possible and moving the heaviest brood frames down, the heaviest honey frames up, and then making sure the queen is low and throwing on the excluder. Between the two sides, I will make sure to put enough empty frames to give plenty of expansion room.

If Hive 3 goes well, I may do that to Hive 2 and 1 on the same day, but I recognize my limitations, especially now that I’m largely doing this alone.

As for my general malaise for beekeeping from earlier… I just don’t know what to say. I still want to do it. I was out watering the blueberries in front of the hive a week or so ago, and I had this surge of desire to keep going. The next day, I could have sold them all. In fact, I tried to. Last night, I could have taken a can of Raid to all of them for the sting!

So I just don’t know. My dad told me to just push through the summer and figure it out then. I think that’s wise. There’s enough going on in life right now that I’d do better to NOT make some of those life-changing decisions just yet.

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Beekeeping Disaster

Remember how I mentioned a while back that I was feeling a bit off with beekeeping? Well last Saturday certainly did not help.

Earlier this year, Mackay and I sold four nuc hives, and Saturday was the day to see three of them out the door. The fourth was built on Saturday for delivery in mid-May. And good thing it was, because Saturday was a disaster. First, Hive 1 and its nuc went really well. The hive is strong, the nuc is strong, the queen looked great and was easy to spot…. No issue. In fact, midway through, Mackay looked at me and said, “The magic is back!” And it was. On to hive 2!

Hive 2 and its nuc, as it often seems to be, was a duplicate of Hive 1. In fact, we found the queen even faster. Oh how nice this trip was turning out to be! On to hive 3!

If you remember, Hive 3 (formerly Hive 5) was our gynormo hive of two weeks ago. From this hive, we had split off two nucs and still had a fully supered hive. It was incredible. So in we went to find the queen. No queen. No queen anywhere. But the nucs looked okay with eggs and brood and so on. We did see quite a few drone cells as well. Definitely on the high side, but not so high that I panicked, which I think I should have now.

At this point, Mackay had to leave, and we were approaching about 75 minutes in the hive. However, since one of those nucs was going out today, I had to find the queen. So back in I went by myself, this time using some extra boxes I had from some unused equipment to make the search a little easier. I searched everything. The hive, the two nucs… everything. No queen. I was at this point pretty frustrated, but I had seen eggs in both nucs and the hive. I had even seen eggs on the bottom of the cells instead of the walls. Again, lots of drones, but not so much that I was panicked.

By now, this particular hive had been open for about 90 minutes. Definitely time to close it up, especially since the bees were getting pretty darn mad (I used gloves for the first time in a long time). I determined that I would tell the guy who was buying the nucs that evening what I had found (or hadn’t found), and see what he thought.

That evening, he came by. I pointed out that the first two nucs were ready, were solid, and that I had seen the queen and everything looked great and ready to go. I mentioned that I hadn’t seen a queen in the third nuc, that I was concerned about it, but I thought it okay to go. I told him that if he didn’t see evidence of a queen within a week, I would send him money to get a queen (there is a supplier pretty close to him). That seemed fair, and we both agreed to it. I wasn’t too concerned because I had seen that third queen pretty recently.

So today… I get an email from the guy asking for a refund for that third nuc. I can’t say I blame him. He had another friend (a beekeeper) come and help him install that nuc, and they looked it over and found some pretty strong evidence of a laying worker (groan…), something I had missed in the ordeal of Saturday and because, frankly, I wasn’t looking for one. I didn’t think to look for one since I had seen her not too long ago and everything looked well.

We talked about it for a bit, and I agreed to the refund (I’m not in this for the money). But then I started thinking about the rest of Hive 3 and that fourth nuc we created from Hive 3 on Saturday. I started to put two and two together, and I’m thinking now that Hive 3 is a goner. If there was a laying queen in that nuc, my guess is she came from Hive 3 when I created that nuc originally. It would certainly explain the masses of drones. But it also means that those eggs I put into that fourth nuc? Drone. All of them. It would also explain the lack of the queen in Hive 3. At first I assumed I had just missed her (she’s not marked), but I don’t think so anymore.

So what to do…. Yes, I know what I could do, but I’m wondering what I will do. See, Mackay and I are both exhausted. When we sold the nucs, we were excited and ready to go. Now? We’re tired. We’re both feeling quite overwhelmed with school, work, family, and church responsibilities. Bees are something that is easy to drop right now, and we had already agreed to do just that, which is why we sold our two new packages to Lee. So what to do with Hive 3….

The hive is currently strong enough that if I can get rid of the layer, we’ll be fine. When we opened up 3 on Saturday, the hive was literally boiling over with bees. It looked like a full production hive in July. The thought of first moving and then dumping all those bees to get rid of the layer sounds… tiring. It really does. Exhausting. And yet, I know that I should. Had this happened last summer, this wouldn’t even be a question. Now? It’s a handy excuse to get down to just two hives.

Courtney and I were talking about it on my lunch walk today, and I came to the conclusion that I’m done. I’ve really enjoyed it, but I think I’m done. And not done-done, just taking a rest. Maybe.

I’m not going to kill off the hives, but I honestly can’t quite get up the desire to launch into managing them either. Having, yes. Managing, no. Not right now.

I’m going to talk to Mackay about it tomorrow, but don’t be surprised if we commit to getting that fourth nuc done (I’m a man of my word), and then leave Hive 1 and 2 fully supered and see you in August. As for Hive 3, I’m not going to buy a new queen. I just don’t care right now. I might shake out the layer. More than likely, I’ll stack some empties on the bottom, put the old hive on top, wait for the foragers to come into the bottom hive, and then let the top hive die (the layer will be in there). Then I’ll throw in a frame of eggs, stack the supers, and see you in August. Maybe.

Sigh… I admit that this is all kind of depressing. And then again not really. I think it would be more depressing to keep pushing through after the passion is gone. Mackay has already announced that he’d love to get rid of all of them. I’m starting to agree….

So here’s my question, fellow beeks: Have you burned out before? What did you do to get back into it? What would you recommend? Did you take a break and then come back later? I’m not one to just have the hobby; I want to be the hobby. Whatever the hobby.

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Hiving Packages with Lee

So one thing Mackay and I have talked about is a loss of magic with bees. We think there are a few reasons for this:

• We tried to monetize it. I’ve found for me that monetizing happiness is typically a poor choice.
• We took on too much.
• We’re both feeling overwhelmed.

Like I mentioned previously, we have tried to help this by dropping down to three hives and really practicing our lazy beekeeping this year. Oddly enough, at the same time, I’ve convinced more people than ever to join in the fun. One of those people is Lee.

A week or two ago–when Mackay and I realized we didn’t want to do two hives–we offered my two empties plus the already-purchased packages to him, and he snatched them up. Last night we helped him install the packages, and it restored a bit of the magic Mackay and I had lost.

It was fun to watch a new beekeeper really getting into it. Not only that, but a random guy on the street saw us unloading the equipment. He was interested, so we invited to come back and join us, which he did. So we had two people getting excited and interested. You can feed off of that energy, and it is contagious!

On an interesting note, I did my first beekeeping without a veil yesterday. It was very comfortable and relaxing. No stings as well.

Mackay and I will be supporting Lee as he needs it over the summer, but I’m excited to see how his hives do!

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Dropping down to three hives

One of the questions I come back to frequently with bees is the idea of “being” a beekeeper or “doing” beekeeping. My mentor, Aleisha, did beekeeping for a few years before setting it aside to see where she really fit in. I still think it is a truly great thing to be able to walk away from such an intensive hobby (in terms of time, emotion, and money investments), and I take a great deal of encouragement in honestly answering that question myself.

This last Saturday, Mackay and I were out at the hives, and it just was not fun. It was work. In the purest sense of the word. Work. And we’ve been kind of feeling that way for a little bit of time now if we’re being honest with ourselves.

I consider myself very fortunate to have a friend like Mackay. A big part of that is that we can honestly and openly talk about virtually anything without fear or concern of judgement. It’s just awesome! I hope everyone has a friend like that somewhere in their life. As we’ve talked about the bees for the last few weeks and remembering that Mackay will likely be moving to AZ come December, we’ve come to realize that the biggest joy in beekeeping is NOT the bees. It’s doing it together. It’s sharing that experience, talking about it, spending that time as best friends.

That’s not to say that the bees aren’t high on the list and still enjoyable, but if we’re being honest, they are NOT why we do beekeeping.

So this year, we’re going down to just three hives. A few reasons for that:

• We’re not quite ready to abandon it outright. It still has a place and is still something we enjoy.
• Five hives was a lot of work last year, and the minute this becomes work is the moment this stops being fun for us. We’re hoping that three hives lets us continue on the fun scale without burning out.
• Three hives fits better in my apiary. It’s a cleaner, smaller set up with more space to work and really get into the hives.
• If/when Mackay leaves, I can handle three hives alone much more easily than I can five. Five is simply too intimidating for me to handle by myself.
• And yes, there is an emotional association between beekeeping and Mackay. I’m man enough (we both are really) to admit that about ourselves. I’ll be the first to say that the first time I’m out there and Mackay isn’t won’t be all that fun of an experience for me.

On Saturday, I offered the equipment from my two empty hives plus the two packages I had already ordered earlier this year to another friend who has wanted to get into beekeeping. He said he’d take all of it, which both Mackay and I were glad to hear. We’ll get enough to mostly recover our costs, which is all we care about–This has never been about making money–and he’ll get started. We’ll support him as needed through this first year as well, which will be nice.

So there it is… I’m still not sure if we are beekeepers or if we do beekeeping. I think we’ll know for sure by September/October. If I had to answer that now, I think I do it. It’s an honest assessment even if it is one that’s a little hard to work through right now.

PS–A short hive inspection report:

• 1 is okay. Not great, not bad, just okay. We saw brood and eggs. Last time we had reversed the hive bodies, so the queen is still roaming throughout the hives. We will need to figure out a way to consolidate that brood nest down to a normal size, and we bought queen excluders just for that purpose.
• 3 is about the same as 1.
• 5… Oh Moses…. 5 is fully supered. In April. And I’m worried that I’ll have to add more boxes soon or do a harvest. We opened 5 on Saturday, and every single box was full to the top with bees. Drones are in full production as well (drone comb everyewhere!), lots of honey, and the brood nest fills pretty much all three supers. It was an amazing sight. I honestly think I could split this out into 3 hives today if it weren’t for the cold. What a sight!

 

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First Inspection–March 16

First visit of the season!

Hive 5 is doing incredibly well. Super strong, full to the top, and ready to keep marching forward. I will definitely be able to get a nuc or two out of it.

Hive 1 and 3 on the other hand…. They are okay, but not great. Small coming out of winter, and I will be hard pressed to get solid nucs out of either one without causing some problems. I’m going to keep my eye on them for another week or two before building out the nucs. If I don’t think they’ll make it, I will have to decide whether to cancel the sales OR combine hives. I do have two packages to work with as well, but I really want to sell good nucs.

Anyway, it was awesome to get out among the girls again. I’m definitely ready for a good year!

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They’re back!!!

Maybe “they’re out” would be the more accurate title….

We had our first nice stretch of good days this weekend, and Hives 1, 3, and 5 were out in full force today. I even saw them gathering water and a touch of pollen, which always makes me wonder where on earth they find it this time of year. Nothing is in bloom just yet, though spring is truly just around the corner.

I’m happy to note that all three survivor hives are quite heavy still and had large numbers of bees. All good signs for the nucs I’m hoping to get out of them here in the next few weeks.

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Nucs Sold!

And that is that!

I just sold all three nucs to a single buyer, which I’m thrilled about! And even better, it only took two days.

I’m glad to have the “selling” process done with, because now I can turn my attention to ordering the nuc equipment and preparing them. I decided I’m going to ship off my existing queens. They are all still strong and in the prime of their lives, and I feel more comfortable sending a mature, proven queen as opposed to a brand new queen that is an unknown.

I’m hoping to time this right to catch a good chunk of the spring nectar flow before my hive replaces the queen, but even then, there will be enough strength to get most of what I want, and then they’ll requeen during the hotter, less productive late spring.

I think the best part of all of this is that with this sale, I’m pretty much starting the year cost neutral, which is a first. We’ll make a bit of money, which I’m planning on pushing right back into the apiary in the form of wax foundation in preparation for the farmers market season. Here’s hoping to a happy, busy summer!

Now if it would just stop snowing….

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Selling Nucs

So in the consistent drive to find ways to pay for my hobby, Mackay and I have decided that we’re going to try and sell off three nucs from our survivor hives this year. At $100 each, that will more than cover the cost of the two packages I bought and give us a bit of money to split.

You might be asked why sell off nucs AND then buy two packages. Fair question. The reason is because I already ordered the packages before I decided to sell the nucs. Secondary is that I wanted to branch out to include Italians in my mix instead of having all Carniolans. Next year I will definitely try to repopulate from my own stock rather than buying packages.

I would post the ad, but it has quite a bit of personal information (phone number, access to my e-mail, and so on), so no…. But if you are interested, let me know. Nucs are a great way to start your beekeeping adventure.

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It’s January! Do you know where your bees are?

Today is the first day since Christmas that it has risen above 40 degrees or so. I was sitting in my chair looking out the living room windows at the brilliant sun shining this beautiful Sunday afternoon wishing I could go and sit with the bees. And then I realized they’d probably be flying for the first time in a long time. I ran out, and sure enough, we have bees!

I didn’t do an inspection (too cold, and it’s Sunday), but here’s a basic report of what I saw just sitting there.

Hive 1

I didn’t see a single bee, so I pulled the entrance reducer. Behind the reducer was a solid wall of bodies with no gaps for bees to get out. I grabbed a small stick and used it to brush aside the bodies, at which point a flood of bees coming pouring out–not defensively. I have this image of these bees being cooped up inside the hive waiting desperately for a chance to go to the bathroom, and finally….

By the time I was done watching, there was enough activity in front of the hive to mistake it for a nice spring day. I’d say close to 40 or 50 bees doing little orientation flights. Awesome!

Hive 2

Deceased. We already knew this of course. I’ve ordered a package of Italians to replace them. I decided both against doing any splits (I want to see what a full production hive looks like since I’ve yet to have a winter survivor that I didn’t split), and I also wanted to branch out from Carnies. I love the Carniolans, but I have noticed that my dad’s Italians seem a touch more gentle, which is one of the keys for a good experience for me.

Hive 3

These were the first bees of 2013 for me. I could see a few fliers from the back window, and these were what prompted the mad rush outside to see more. Not as much activity as Hive 1, but they weren’t trapped either. I couldn’t get the reducer off due to space issues, but I did mange to crack it enough to give them room across the entire face to come out. Tomorrow morning I will pull the entrance reducer when they are all back in their beds. They look great.

Hive 4

See Hive 2 really. That’s about the same report. I will, by the way, pull all the frames from 2 and 4 pretty soon and do a total harvest of everything. I want to start those frames as clean as I can. I may even put some of my new, unused frames in those boxes just to give my new bees a completely new start. Both 2 and 4 were presumed victims of CCD, and I’d like to start as fresh as possible.

Hive 5

No fliers AND no bodies. I pulled the reducer thinking that maybe the entrance was just blocked, but my stick only pulled fifteen or so. Certainly not enough to block the entrance. I decided I would pop the top just to see what they looked like, and the top is broiling with bees. I’m a little worried that honey stores might be a bit low for them, which I will check all three survivors tomorrow. I left plenty of honey on all the hives, but hive 5 seemed a bit light for some reason.

Of course, I immediately called Mackay to tell him the great news and the same for my dad. Sigh… We still have about ten weeks until we can really get going, but man… I’m ready.

 

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Seems appropriate

Happy MLK Day. And Inauguration Day, I guess.

Usually, I would review Obama’s Inauguration speech, and that would seem appropriate, but I just don’t want to. Honestly, I haven’t been inspired to write all that much lately. At least not here. I’ve been keeping a journal more regularly, which is pretty cool. I started some time ago, but most of my thoughts lately are literally my thoughts. Not to share. So the journal seems appropriate.

But I haven’t forgotten the faithful readers who still check in from time to time.

I think I already mentioned this, but I decided that my theme for life this year would be “go.” As in get it done. Stop wasting time deciding or waiting for a better time or whatever. Just go. So about 24 hours from right now, I’ll be walking out of the dentist’s office once more officially a metal mouth. I’ve asked a few very select friends to make sure to tease me gently Tuesday and Wednesday to make sure I don’t get too caught up in myself, but today I’m caught up in myself. I didn’t sleep last night because, in a lot of ways, I’m not all that excited and yet I am. And eager. And nervous.

There are so many changes going on right now that I’m feeling just a touch overwhelmed. I was accepted to grad school and start in roughly five weeks. I’m exercising more (finally) and also seeing results (again, finally). There may be changes afoot at work, which I’m anxious to see happen. And I even stopped biting my nails! That’s something I’m not sure my mom or dad would believe…. When I was about five or six, they put that nasty tasting nail polish on to help me stop. Even at that early age I reasoned through it that I could suck it off quickly and get back to biting my nails. I can still remember the taste and the thought process like it was yesterday. I wonder if that’s when my parents looked at each other and thought, “uh oh….” I know there have been at least a few times I’ve thought that about my own kids, but nothing like Carolyn these last few weeks. She seems to be developing faster than our other kids did, which is awesome and worrisome at the same time.

And in all this change, I keep wondering where spring is. We’ve had an abnormally cold winter this year. This month has only infrequently risen about freezing so far, and We’ve still got a good 8 inches of snow sitting on the ground from the Christmas storms. Frankly, I’m tired of it. I go outside in the morning to scrape the ice of the cars and think how much more I’d rather be scraping propolis off of frames.

My three surviving hives are still alive. The only reason I know that is because there are still bodies showing up outside the front door. But that’s all I know. I was talking to Mackay about it the other day, and we’re both starving to get some bee time. After thinking about it, I’m still not sure if we’ll do four or five. Okay, let’s be honest… it’ll be five.

 

 

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