...here we go again!

You may have noticed that my posts dropped off last October. I am ready to tell the world the sad truth....I killed my bees. Unknowingly, of course, and indirectly, but nevertheless, dead.

I checked in on the hive the Saturday after Thanksgiving; they were alive. It was a beautifully warm day so we checked in on Rachel's too. They were also alive, and they were in a perfect bee cluster. Bees stay in a cluster in the winter that resembles a ball of bees. They do this to stay warm by sharing body heat.

Two weeks later, we had another warm day, and I decided to go knock on the hive to see if I heard buzzing bees inside. Tap tap. No buzz. Tap tap. No buzz. So I suited up and went in the hive....not a bee in sight. No dead bees and not a single live bee. They were gone. Flew the coop. So inadvertently, I must have done something to cause the bees to leave. Chances are they had varroa mites causing them to sense inevitable disaster and collapse of their colony. They had no choice but to leave and build a new home. It was so late in the fall that I doubt they were able to build a new hive with enough honey supplies to last through winter.

Two weeks later, Rachel's bees met the same fate. She went to look in on them. They were still in their bee cluster, but they were all dead. She shifted through the bees, and she wasn't able to find the queen.

Needless to say, we are starting over. We are going with two hives each this year to better our chances of survival. The bees will be delivered at the end of March. We needed new woodware in order to house 2 colonies of bees. Yesterday, we finished painting and priming all of our hives. Here are some photos. I look forward to sharing round 2 with you all.

R.I.P Priscilla and Gwenevere

...making honey

Although this post is super delayed from the actual date of extraction, here is the story about extracting honey.

A couple weeks before our actual extraction, we met with all of the mentor class to learn how to extract.  Our mentors made the process look extremely simple (we learned that this was solely due to experience...we have none).  While at the extraction class, the hive boxes were removed, tilted on their side, and blown with a leaf blower to remove the bees.  Simple right?  After the bees were removed, the box was placed under a blanket to keep the bees from returning to the frames.  The extractor was set up in a building where the frames were removed individually.  Once the frame is taken from the box, the caps are cut off and scraped with a hot knife and a cap scratcher to access the honey.  Four frames are placed in an extractor.  The extractor is a cylinder that has either a hand crank or an electric motor to spin it.  As the extractor spins, the honey is thrown out of the frames and is funneled to the bottom of the barrel and out a hole.  The honey then goes through a double strainer to remove debris (wax, bugs, dead bees) and into another bucket where it is ready to be put into jars.

This is how our extraction went...

Rachel and I are very lucky to have strong colonies.  We planned to take 16 frames off each hive.   As we approached the bee yard, Rachel's hive appeared to be missing.  As we drove closer, we realized her hive had been knocked over.  All the boxes had separated and were scattered about the yard.  There was obvious chaos as well inspected the hive.  The bees were fighting to the death to prevent honey robbing.  Because the hive was open, the honey became an easy target for the 30 hives in the bee yard.  Many of Rachel's bees were dead and some of her honey had been taken.

This shows the robbed honey from one of Rachel's frames.  The empty cells to the right of the frame have been robbed.  The cells on the left are full of honey and still capped.

After setting Rachel's hive back up, we removed 2 supers from her hive and 2 supers from my hive. As we walked over to the leaf blower, it began to rain and thunder.  We should have taken that as a sign, but we didn't.  Leaf blowing turned out to be an awful idea...the bees clung to the frames with all their might and if I was able to blow them out of the box, they quickly flew back in.  I was stung pretty immediately causing a much needed time-out.

Notice the epi-pen in front of me.  I'm allergic to everything...except bees! Better safe than sorry though.

After talking out our next move, we decided to ditch the leaf blower and do it the old-fashioned way; remove each frame, smoke it, and brush the bees off.  After 15 minutes, we had cleared all the bees from the 32 frames and were headed home.  The extracting went seamlessly, and we were soon left with about 7 gallons of honey.

Rachel diligently cleaned each piece of equipment.

Our extractor was bolted to a pallet to hold it in place.  The honey ended up in the white 5-gallon bucket.

Hot knife

After using the hot knife to remove the caps, you use a scratcher to remove any remaining low-lying caps.

This was the 2nd 5-gallon bucket.  It is about half-full.

...educating the masses

So much capped honey!

Today marked the monthly meeting at the bee yard.  Marcus' wife is expecting a baby any day so we had a substitute instructor...Ken.  It was interesting having someone else teaching today.  We got a different point-of-view.  He gave us a few tips and tricks that have helped him over the years.

My hive is doing incredible.  I have 2 full honey supers that will yield about 4 gallons of honey.  We will be learning to extract honey on August 18th.  Ken suggested that I add a 3rd honey super in order to ensure that my bees do not swarm.  Swarming occurs when colonies become too large and need to divide.  They will lay and raise a new queen.  The reigning queen will leave the hive with half the workers and a few drones.  They will fill the air around the hive often surrounding a branch until the new location is found.  Bees usually swarm in the spring.  Ken said if they swarmed in the late summer or fall, the existing colony would not survive the winter.  So I will add another honey super....this can only be a good thing: no swarms and more honey!

Hive beetle.  In the next couple weeks, we will be checking our hive beetle count.  If we have an excessive amount, we will treat the hives.

I also wanted to touch on the title of my post this week and expand on the title of my last post.  I mentioned the dying colony last post.  I took some photos this week of the dead colony.  The Tennessee Valley Beekeepers Association (TVBA) have examined the dead colony and had the Tennessee State Beekeeper involved in discovering what happened to the colony.  The TVBA and the State of Tennessee could find no disease that would have caused the decline and eventual death.  The colony was strong and very suddenly died.  It turns out that 2 other hives died as well.  They were not as strong, but being cared for by a master beekeeper with experience since young adulthood who makes his living on hiving bees.  It appears that the hives were sprayed with pesticide through the small entrance at the base of the hive.  The hives have not been tested for a particular pesticide, but TVBA has come to this conclusion due to the positioning of the bees at the time of death.  The bees were pushed toward the back, sides and top of the hive like they were trying to run from something.  The bees also spilled out of the front of the hive as if they were ready to attack, but died immediately outside the entrance.

These bees are the ones that tried to escape/attack through the hive entrance.  They died immediately after leaving the entrance and fell to the ground.  It is very difficult to tell, but there are thousands of dead bees laying just outside the entrance.

This is a photo of the bottom super from the dead colony.  You can see that there are no bees except for a few against the top of the box.

This is the dead colony.

It turns out there has been a bit of drama at the bee yard that the students were unaware of.  A large company has a building near the bee yard.  When I say near, I would say it is at least 10 football fields...not that close.  The company noticed the bees a couple months ago when 2 Top Bar hives were placed about 20 feet away from the student's hives toward the company's building and new TVBA signs were placed at the edge of the bee yard.  These hives were a little bit more noticeable due to their placement, and the company now knew who to contact.  Their first complaint was that the bees were pooping on their cars.  Ridiculous.  If the bees were flying over to their parking lot in swarms and pooping, I wouldn't be as concerned about the mess on my car, but much more terrified of the bee masses flying above my head.  So silly!  When TVBA ignored this first report, the company sent another complaint about the safety of the employees in regards to the proximity of the bee yard.  This is where education is so important.  Honey bees are not aggressive unless you are robbing their honey or hurting them.  They will fight back if squished or swatted.  They also will protect their homes and belongings.  As beekeepers, we wear protective gear and smoke the bees in order to protect us as we "break in" to the bee's home.  I will need to knock on wood after writing this, but I have not been stung, and Rachel was stung once, 30 minutes after we left the bee yard when she unknowingly laid her hand down on a bee who had flown into her car.  I know that I will be stung.  I am fearful of it only because I am afraid I will scream embarrassingly and throw the frame full of bees that I am holding.  Although this colony death is obviously man made,  no one at the bee yard or TVBA is pointing fingers at the company next door.  It could have been a group of kids or someone trying to make a point.  We will probably not figure out who or why they did this, but it proves that the majority of the population is unaware of the benefits and need for honey bees, as well as, the non-aggressive nature of the honey bee.

I will get off my soap box now, but I am more than willing to answer any questions that you all have about the hives, bees, etc.  I don't know everything, but I have some amazing connections.  The TVBA was put in to place to encourage education and beekeeping, and they will give us the answers to the questions if I can't.

...beware of the robbers

My full honey super...35 lbs!

Last Sunday, we went to bee school.  It had been very dry and very HOT here in Chattanooga.  The clover surrounding our hives is pitiful.  Marcus explained that this is a prime time for bees to rob other nearby hives.  Because of this, we needed to be very quick when we opened our hives.  As we approached the hives, Marcus pointed out a hive 2 down from Rachel's.  The hive had thousands of dead bees laying outside the entrance.  So many that when Marcus reached down, he was able to completely fill his palm so that it was spilling over and there were still several hand-fulls left on the ground.  So sad!  The hive had been robbed!  Robbing of a hive means that bees from another colony attack a hive to steal the food supply....honey.  The bees will fight to the death to defend their food causing the dead bees at the entrance.  If the attacking colony succeeds, they will take the hive's food supply for their own hive.  Marcus informed us that by revealing our honey supply for any extended amount of time would encourage and almost invite robbers.  Bees are very sensitive to the smell of sweet honey and by uncovering it makes your hive very enticing.  Therefore, we spent only minutes in our hives to estimate our total honey production. 

Both of our colonies have been very successful this year.  Marcus estimated that I have about 2.5 gallons of honey.  I have an entire super that is full of capped honeycomb.  When I picked the box up, I could not believe how heavy it was.  The box was almost difficult to lift.  Because the bottom honey super was full of honey, Marcus suggested that I undersuper my boxes.  This means that I take the unfilled honey super and place it under the full honey super.  This encourages the bees to fill the empty space.  Rachel has a significant amount of honey as well.  We estimate 1.5 gallons of honey.  We will be extracting together soon, and we can't wait to taste our honey!

Inside Rachel's honey super.  You can see the comb and bees.  On the left, the comb is capped for preservation.  You can tell because it is covered in a white layer.  On the right, the comb is uncapped or open.  The bees are still filling these cells with honey.

Undersupering.  Rachel moved her top box down and put the full honey super on the top. 

Full honey super moved to the top to encourage the bees to produce more honey.

...sweating in the hive

This title refers to what Rachel and I were doing when we checked on the bees yesterday afternoon. The thermometer at my house read 109 degrees. Turns out this is too hot to put on long sleeves, pants, shoes, and a bee hood. As we went into the hives, sweat dripped through my hood onto my bees. I think they prefer sweet rather than salt. We were glad we looked in on them though. In a week and a half, they have completely filled and capped the majority of the 1st honey super and have built out comb and started to fill the 2nd honey super. We are very hopeful to take honey off the hive in the next month or so. We can't wait for everyone to taste it!

...tasting and stinging

Rachel and I had bee school today.  It was such a great day.  Many of our frames were completely filled with honey.  You can see the capped honey in the above frame.  These frames were located in the 3rd super on the outside edges of the box.  The middle frames still had brood in them.

A look into the 3rd super.  So many bees!

We added a super to the top of the stack making it 4 boxes high.  Before adding a super, we removed two frames from the 3rd box that were full of honey (no brood or eggs).  We put these frames into the middle of the top super.  We replaced the frames from the 3rd super with empty frames.  The goal of this exercise was to establish a honey line in the surplus honey super (4th or top super).  Marcus (our mentor) told us that this honey line will often keep the queen from moving up to the surplus honey supers if you don't use an excluder.  Moving the frames also means moving the bees that were on the frame.  So now there are established frames and bees in the 4th super.  I also put a queen excluder between my 3rd and 4th supers to keep the queen out of the top boxes.  From the research I have done, many master beekeepers do not use excluders.  I, however, am nowhere close to being a master, and I worry about not being able to locate my queen when I extract honey.  If she is in the top honey super, I risk hurting her on accident. 

Adding 2 additional frames in 3rd super.

All honey in this frame

Removing a frame full of honey to add to the top super

The queen excluder

The 4th super...surplus honey!

When Rachel removed her inner lid, she had a good bit of burrcomb filled with honey.  We scraped the comb and honey to take home.  Our first taste of Priscilla and Gwenevere's honey was delicious, and we can't wait for you all to try it!

We scraped all this comb and honey off and deposited it in our bellies

We scraped this off too.  I'm drinking it in my tea right now!

Cup full of honey...and bees...and comb

So proud of ourselves until Rachel pointed out that we did nothing except give the bees a place to live :)

 Little did we know that our adventure was not over.  As we were driving home, Rachel started screaming.  Turns out one of those little worker bees found its way into Rachel's car and stung her for taking it so far away from home.  She handled it like a champ.  There is a little swelling as you can see below, but she reports relatively painless after the initial sting.  I stood by with my epi-pen.  I tried to get her to let me test it out...she declined.

Right pinky sting

Swollen right pinky

...building more supers

Our bees have been so quick in their honey making that we decided to buy more supers. I went to Pigeon Mountain Trading Company in LaFayette, GA.  They have very reasonably priced supplies.  Because I am cheap, I decided to save $10 and assemble my own hive parts.  I bought 2 medium hive boxes, 16 frames, 16 honeycomb foundations, and a queen excluder.  I am glad I made the decision to assemble my own hive parts for two reasons: it wasn't very difficult to put them together and I enlisted some help from my wonderful husband!  With the purchase of these hive boxes, I have the potential to gain 70 lbs of additional honey.  CRAZY!!! 

Un-assembled Frames

Here is a description of the above parts:

- Medium hive boxes come in 4 pieces un-assembled.  These boxes hold 8 frames each.

- Frames come in 4 pieces as well.  These take the longest to assemble due to installing the foundation inside each frame.

- Foundations are made of honeycomb and must be secured into each frame.

- A queen excluder is a metal or plastic grate that sits above your brood boxes (the boxes containing eggs; usually 2 or 3 boxes).  The excluder keeps the queen from moving into the surplus honey boxes.  This keeps your queen from laying brood in the boxes and keeps her safe when you remove the frames to extract honey.

Un-assembled Frames

Un-assembled Boxes

I also came up with a new way of painting the boxes.  This saved so much time and energy.  I hung the assembled boxes on a pole.  As I painted a side, I was able to turn the box and paint another side.  I also used a paint gun to paint.  The paint gun was only worth it because I was painting Rachel's hives as well.  Note to self, paint guns are a pain to clean.