Im sorry to the few people who read this blog, I have been remiss. So, Sarafina and I switched boxes and put the full one on bottom and the empty one on top in the beginning of August in the hopes that the ladies would start to build up.

today, we saw proof.

Looky what I found!

They are full of honey!

The combes on the side were works in progress, and unpulled, or partially unpulled, so I took them out and put them in the middle. 

Last push till winter, and we will feed through out winter. I will get them through the winter, I WILL PREVAIL

I get a top feeder this week and we will continue on. Beekkeeping is about patience and letting nature take its course, with guidance. Ill keep you posted.

good news/bad news

Good news...girls are alive...making babies and gathering pollen and nectar
bad news...they haven't pulled as much comb as i would like to see.

I need to research what to feed them to kick them in high gear on that

I also got a couple in my hair. I guess i really will need to get a hat.
wont need too till August tho, cause Im not doing anything but feeding them till right before I go to the retreat.

I have got to get them through the winter. That HAS to happen. that is my goal.

wish me luck

Grease Patties

These are grease patties. They are made one part Crisco, two parts granulated sugar and half part syrup with wintergreen essential oil.

There are a lot of grease patty recipes out there on the interweb, and even my dad has one, but I chose to go with the simple recipe I got from nice gentleman at http://www.ruhlbeesupply.com/ in town. He said to mix it until its the consistency of mashed potatoes

I mixed it with my hands, but you don't have to. I than took parchment paper and made them into sandwiches and put them in a plastic ziplock bag. The next day the sun is out, I'm going to put a couple in the hive.

I believe you are suppose to lay them on top of the frames....pretty much forces them to eat it and the wintergreen in it helps keep the mites down.

Ill post more when I have more.

The Ladies, an update

Well, look at my girls. They are just buzzing and rocking it. It was the perfect day to take a look at them, and they seem to be on the right track.

If you will remember in the last post, that we had to take some rouge combe off and I took the combe out and placed it in the top of the hive, in the "bee attic" in the hopes they would hatch the babies and clean the combe.

well, it worked!

Look how beautiful the combe is! It is the very definition of Organic homegrown natural combe! It brood combe, but it still smells like honey. :) I have the largest piece at home on my shelve. It's awesome! 

So, today I chose a different way to access the hive. It was a perfect day, the sun was out and it was toasty and I didn't use the smoker. I went to Ruhl Bee's and got another pollen patty, cause they have tore the last one up! That's a good thing, getting their groceries on. :) They told me to add some wintergreen to the syrup I'm feeding them, as it helps keep the mites down. I'm also going to make a grease patty, but first I have to research ingredients. Dad says to use powdered sugar, but the bee guys say that they corn starch in it is something the bee's don't like. The recommend using crisco, sugar, and salt. Apparently, they need salt and don't get it naturally unless they get it from animal urine. I'd prefer to feed it to them. Bee Salt Lick? hahahah

Anyways, I used a spray bottle with wintergreen/sugar water and misted the bee's and they didn't fly crazy, and didn't get all butt hurt and let me inspect and it was super easy. So, as long as its a sunny super warm day, I'll use the mist. You should only open it when its a nice day, but there is a little leeway. I'm going to err on the side of caution and only use the mist when the sun is blazing down. :)

So, that is about it. We are up to date now. I'm thinking next month we will open them up again and rotate all the empty frames to the middle...get those pulled and filled up! :) 

Bye!

going rogue.

Mistakes happen. That is a fact of life, and today I thought I had made one. The ladies had made some comb in an odd direction. They had made it into brood combe in a natural way. Now, this would be ok except that it would have made inspecting hard and it was precariously connected to the foundation. So, we took it off.

This is what we took the top off to. It is basically what the bees do naturally, but having it precariously attached to the top of the box is no good. It had to go. :( IT came off on its own.

This is this inside of the box with more of the off comb.

We checked the other frames and they are in process of being pulled and filled. Our Queen is going like gangbusters. I put the pieces in what I like to call the bee box attic and the girls are going to keep the brood good and once they have cleaned and hatched the brood that was in those pieces, I will take them out again. I place the two left over empty frames in so that there is no extra space and they wont feel the need to make free style comb. I also put one of the brood frames in the bottom to get them to start pulling comb in both the boxes. I probably wont open up again until the beginning of June. They need to be left alone for a while Ill put the honey box on top some time in June. They should be well on their legs by than. I'll keep you updated.

We have BABIES!

So, I am extremely relieved, as we checked the hive and they are going. I mean, after 9 days they have babies in and honey going. The honey is because they the world around here has been just blazing with pollen and nectar and so they have taken the opportunity to make honey. It was a quick and dirty inspection. I just needed to have confirmation that all was well. First we got the smoker going!

Than I applied the smoke to the bees and waited.

Than we opened it up. The brown thing is the pollen patty. They have made a dent in that.

The girls are keeping to one side. If you look close, you can see they have been building out off the comb. hmm.

One frame of babies!!! YAY BABIES!

This is them building OUT instead of building on the whole frame.

It's really awesome. I rotated the two frames and put a couple of empties in the middle. Im going to research more about how to make them spread into the whole hive, but after 9 days, Im super happy with what we have. There are little curly white brood in there, which means that Queen reigns supreme and is making the next generation. I want to howl my success to the world! Till next time ladies and gents!

Queen Bee Death Match!

So, tomorrow is the day, day 9. The day that we will be cracking the hive open and taking a look to see how they are fairing. I admit, I have had a bit of anxiety about the queen leaving, which of course I know to be irrational, but this was quite an investment in time and in money and if the queen left, we would be screwed, and I would cry. I want this to succeed so much! We went to the Bee Shop in Sellwood and I got a second opinion that all should be well since the bees are still there en-masse and have been eating and coming and going. I also picked up a bee brush while we were there. You should check them out, their blog is really informative and they are local to me, literally blocks from my house. The only real difference between them and Ruhl Bees is that they don't sell packages as they prefer to deal in swarms and they prefer to offer top bar hives. They also do not sell foundation. They are very much against foundation. Who knew? Really solid people though. Which leads me to todays question, what is a swarm? A Swarm is the natural way that beehives reproduce and spread in an area. This may or may not be the way you want to make your hives multiple. What happens is that the old queen stops laying due to a swarming urge or that the hive is too crowded so she needs to start a new colony. There are several ways to stop this, but that is a post for another time. She stops laying and stops eating so that she can be light enough to fly. Than she takes about 60% of the hive with her and flies out of the hive. Queens rarely ever fly, in fact, if you keep them from swarming, she never will in her life, but during a swarm she flies to a spot a few yards from the old home. At this point, without a colony to defend, the bee's can be pretty docile. The still will sting if you are messing with them and they feel threatened, but wouldn't you? At this point, the swarm will stay at that first landing point anywhere from an hour to three days. The most experienced forager bee's will become scouts and go looking for a suitable place for them to settle in. They all come back and present their findings to the colony and promote the places they think are best. This includes getting the other scout bees to agree with them. It is very democratic actually. Once a spot has been decided on, they fly there and start all over again. Meanwhile, the parent hive will groom queen cells that had been drawn on the bottom of the comb and the first queen out will sting all the others to death in their cells. If multiple queens emerge at the same time, then a Queen Bee Death Match will happen and the strongest quickest Queen will triumph and go on to be mated and begin her life as supreme lady of the hive. Queens are fed exclusively on Royal Jelly. This transforms a regular worker into a reproducing queen. Here is a queen bee. The REALLY dark spot on top and being bigger than the others gives it away.

They sometimes come with a spot on them. I haven't seen ours yet, but perhaps we will get lucky and see her tomorrow. Hopefully, photos to follow. adieu

Anxieties with a new hive

I have been resisting the urge to babysit my hive since we installed them on Thursday. This is the critical part of the process, and I admit, the last few days they have not been sucking down the syrup and pollen patty as I expected. I spoke with my father, who has been a beekeeper for some time, and he reassured me as we have had some intensely beautiful weather, warm with sunshine....and he reminded me that bee's, as people, prefer the real thing to the fake. So, they have been out getting nectar and pollen when the sun was out. My father in law sent me this photo

The syrup is down due to the rainy day yesterday, and they are buzzing about due to the sun being out and warm. I confess, I am worried that too may were killed during the process of bringing them to their new home, or that the queen said "dueces" and left, but my father assures me that the queen leaving is rare. I did sneak a peek on Monday and they had started drawing comb, so hopefully they are sufficiently fed. Sunday, we will open up, look for the queen and some eggs and than move the comb over so that the will begin to even up the drawing of the comb. Photo's to follow.

Three Days into the experiment...or Move in Week

So, on Thursday, we put the bees in the hive. The video we posted helped make it quick, easy and smooth. The girls gave no resistance yesterday when I took what was left over of the syrup and put it in the front feeder and put a pollen patty on top. Also known as a grease patty and took the empty box and queen box out.

These are the girls, as we got them


The empty box after the Ladies were done moving into the hive


They were concentrated on the the couple of frames that I had the queen strapped too and i took the queen box off and she was not in there, so I'm assuming all signs point to the first step of success.

So, I'm not going to count my bee's before they brood, but I am confident we are on the right track. So, going forward, the plan for the next week is to feed them nonstop, basically get their wax glands working so they get some comb drawn, cause hopefully, if we continue on the right track, we will be able to open up the hive next week and see brood starting.

keep your fingers crossed.

So, what do you feed hungry new hive bees? The answer is simple, Simple Syrup! Sugar water can have different concentrations, depending on what you need the bees to do, everything from start making comb to making it through the winter to making more babies.

I went with the 1:1 concentration. Three cups sugar to three cups of water and it took all of 5 minutes.
I got the recipes and info from here .

Once its all cooled off, Im going to take it to the bees, check what they have so far and how far they got on their pollen patter and refresh their supply. I will probably keep the front feeder full every day for the next week and a half,

The ladies safely in their new home. ahh, yeah




My father in law, the co-conspirator on the bee operation, says they are looking pretty good. I'll update as soon as I have anything exciting, or at least exciting to me comes up.

Nora, Beekeeper.

Countdown till package arrives!

Today is Monday. Thursday, the bee's come. Please, anyone reading this, pray we have sun on Thursday, cause doing this in the rain will suck.

I have been watching a LOT of youtube videos and reading about the best and easiest way to settle the new bee's into the hive, and I have stumbled upon this site.

The Fruit Guys

He has explained the technique in the simplest easiest least invasive way to start the bees.

Wish us luck. Photo's will follow.

Nora

Painting bee boxes

I lied...this isn't about honey comb...that will be next.....but..

I have been painting. Bee boxes need to be protected from the sun/wind/rain and the elements.
Generally, people paint there boxes white. WHAT!? WHITE!! BLA!!! How messed up is that?
I choose something other than white. I chose yellow. A gentle, pleasant and nice yellow

here is the box while I got the glue off the corners. We went a little tiny overboard with the glue, but this sucker isn't going to come apart.



Here they are put together. I had to test to make sure all the frames fit into it.



one coat of primer. I cannot begin to express my amazement at how fast this dried!



And, finally....the boxes with their first coat of yellow on.
I think we are going to dedicate this to Grandpa...so once its dry and put together, its going to be the Grandpa Azevedo Memorial Beehive. My father in law said he would have been excited and happy about this, as he was a farm boy growing up. I miss Crotchety old Grandpa. :)



My FIL (that's his gansta name. :) ) checked with the neighbours about this, as we don't want a hive near someone that has an allergy, and sometimes you just don't know with neighbours. My in-laws are old school...they know their neighbours, so that was an easy thing to bring up. Everyone seems pretty excited about the bees. Even the family with two little girls are excited....apparently the girls are familiar with bees and wont have issues. I love it when kids are let out to play in the back yard and aren't addicted to the computers like we are. lol. To be fair, I grew up playing outside and getting dirty, which is part of why I'm so freaking excited about the bees. It was really therapeutic to paint the boxes knowing that soon, I will have a little colony to take care of. I am researching how to do the transfer. Ernie and I will get this handled..The Hive with my harem of ladies will be going soon.....three weeks till we expect packet delivery.

the saga continues

How Bee's make honey

Have any of you heard of a process called Inversion?
Probably not. This is the name of the process that honey bees use to turn nectar into honey.

The average hive has 50k in population at any time. Our hive will be less to begin with, but hopefully will grow and prosper.

Here is the basic process:

Bees fly to flowers, they aren't too picky about what type of flower, and they do two things. First, they attract pollen via static electricity to their legs and the hairs on their body. Then, they use their tongue to suck the nectar out of it.

Pretty much all flowers have nectar of some kind, and this is what the bees suck into their "honey stomach". This starts the process of inversion. The bee's stomach starts to break down the natural sugars in the nectar into more simple sugars.

When the bee gets back to the hive, she regurgitates it (yes...honey is bee puke) into a cell. Another bee than eats it and her honey stomach continues the process of inversion. Sugars becomes simple and more concentrated. The second bee regurgitates it back into a cell and another bees eats it and continues the process.After a point in time and once the cell is full, they start to fan. The water content of this virgin honey is very high and still have yeasts from the sugars in it, so the bee's fan the virgin honey until the water is mostly evaporated, somewhere between 12 and 14%. This prevents the yeasts and sugars from fermenting.

No one know how the bees know to get it to that stage or why the bees eat and regurgitate over and over again until the desired quality is attained, or how they all know what the desired quality is. They just do.

Finished yummy product



Just remember, anything you get in honey, little specks of things....is always pollen or wax and can't hurt you. Put it in your mouth, eat it! Enjoy it. Its nutritious AND delicious!

next post: honeycomb

The Premier Post

Sadly, this blog isn't in Portuguese, but "abelhas manutenção" means "keeping bees" and since this project is the Grandpa Azevedo Memorial Bee Hive and he was a proud American of Azorian decent, it makes sense.

So, far I haven't found anything online about beekeeping in the Azores, but, that doesn't mean they don't. In fact, there is not a lot online about the Azore islands at all, so I am not suprised. I suspect that since there is grapes growing in massive quantities on the islands..Bees are integral to the wine process.

I personally, grew up with bees in my life and I am convinced they are magic. How can they not be? No pun intended. They take something as small as pollen and turn it into honey and royal jelly and make wax.

Honey and beekeeping goes back pretty far. Bee's and honey are supposed to have a history dating back 10 to 20 million years and that actual jars of 2000 year old honey have been found uncorrupted in Eqyptian tombs, and it was edible. They used honey for medicine and sacrifices. Honey wine is the oldest fermented drink, the vikings, my ancestors made it and enjoyed it, a lot.

Honey never goes bad. Comb can, but not honey. The only thing that destroys this is adding hot water. It kills the natural enzymes in it. Luckily, I only do that when I am about to consume it in a cup of tea with my friends. Many people think that crystallised honey, or powdered honey is bad or usable. In fact, that is simply not true. Put your jar of crystallised honey in hot water (don't add the water too the honey, it can handle heat) and it will soften and clear up again and taste just as delicious as it did in the first place.

Honey is technically, in a measurable sense, sweeter than sugar. Many people don't realise that, but in a scientific sense, it really is. Personally, the different variations in the flavor of honey is what fools my taste buds.

Honey doesn't have just one taste. People think it does because they are used to the clover honey you get in the stores. DON'T FOR THE LOVE OF GOD EAT THAT!!! Many commercial company's pasturize and add sweeteners to the honey, this keeps a consistent taste and kills any of the health benefits of the honey. KILLS THE BENEFITS OF HONEY! You are basically eating corn syrup flavored as honey. FAIL.

Honey tastes like the flowers, or combination of flowers that the bees ate. They eat a combination of pollen and honey for their food...the make honey from the pollen as a way of putting away food for the winter. Man just figured out a way to steal. So, if you have a field of poppies....and you bees just eat that pollen and make honey from it, you will have poppy honey. Don't worry, its not opium honey...thats a human process of the sap...I wonder what poppy honey would taste like?

Generally, at farmers markets and such, you will find what ever is more prolific. In my part of the world (not the Azores) we get fireweed, blackberry and raspberry and sometimes pear and apple, depending on the time of year and exact area. My father's bees had a lot of fireweed, so that's the honey we are when I was a kid. My bees will have a lot to choose from, roses (nom nom) and various flowers that my amazingly green thumbed Mother in Law grows as well as her garden and the farm land near the hive.

Here are some photos from the building process.

My father in law loading the kit from Ruhl Bee supply
the black comb is for the brood boxes and the white is for the honey box.



This is the boxes and frames done. All I have to do is paint and insert the foundations


This is me applying water based glue to the box joints.


This is the honey comb base for the honey box. It smells AMAZING


Thanks for viewing my blog. I look forward to chronicling the ups and downs, joys and sorrows of beekeeping. Stay tuned for more information, painting pictures and in April, when the bees get here....the beginning.