Smokin' hot

What can I say. It's full-on summertime in north Florida, with 98 degree days, 60% humidity, and a heat index of 105. Walk outside and you feel like somebody slapped you in the face with a warm, wet washcloth. It's July. Things will cool down in just four more months.


People deal with the heat by staying inside in where it air conditioned or jumping into a cool spring or sinkhole. The cats lie as flat as they can on the porch, preferably in the shade under the porch swing. The chickens take dust baths and retire to their roosts earlier than usual. Even the bees have their ways of coping.

Late in the day - just before dusk - they gather on the front porches of their hives and furiously flap their little wings, trying to fan some air into the hives so they can keep the inside temp near 90 degrees (the honeybee comfort zone). Hard to do when it's five to ten degrees hotter than that outside and their hives are sitting out in the full sun.

Others line up on the outside of the hive and rythymically rock themselves back and forth in what looks like an odd kind of bee line dance. Entomolygists call it "scrubbing" or "washboarding" and nobody seems to know for sure why they do it, but you see more of it in the heat of the summer. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the hive and scrub.


I love to watch the forager bees out slurping up water wherever they can find it. These hard-working girls spend almost every day of their lives flying up to three miles out, scouting for sources of nectar and pollen and bringing it back to their sisters who must work inside the hive attending the queen or taking care of baby bees. I've worked out in the garden in the summer heat, and I don't know how they do it day after day. Staying hydrated must take up a lot of their time when it's this hot. One of their favorite spots to get a drink is on the soaker hoses in the garden. Stray drops can also be found dripping from the outside faucets, around the compost pile, or from any place where the dew collects overnight. Even though I put out a large planter saucer of fresh water for them every day, and there's a good sized lake just across the fence, their very most favorite hangout is - unfortunately - the community swimming pool. Something about the chemicals in the water appeal to them, the experts say. Or maybe they just want to be sociable. I sometimes spot them stopping for a pool-side drink when I'm hanging out there, and pretend that I don't see them or that they're not "my" bees. "Those bees?" I say, when a neighbor asks if they're from my hives. "I think those are wild bees."

And who knows? Maybe they are.

Don't weigh your honey before it's extracted

I try not to count my chickens before they hatch, so I know better than to weigh my honey before it's extracted. Nevertheless, if the 2010 summer honey flow is supposed to be over in these parts, nobody has told my bees.

I went to the monthly ABA meeting Tuesday night. The subject was small hive beetles, and I was pleased to come home with 4 new beetle traps - 2 of Mr. Cutts' Beetle Blasters, which I already use, and a new one that I'll try too. I asked a question about what we should be doing/looking for/etc. at this time of year and got some great answers and suggestions.

At the end of the Q&A, the consensus from the experts was that, if we new-bees had managed to keep our bees alive at this point, we were doing good. That's slightly depressing news, and says volumes about how rough a year this has been for beekeepers in general. Just in this area we've had loads of hive losses, more than average swarms back in the spring, loss of queens, heavy varroa mites, and worst of all - foulbrood. Bob L's entire beeyard is still under quarantine and he had to have several hives burned, which means he lost his honey crop for this summer and a good bit of his monetary investment as well.

The good news is - all 3 of my hives are going strong at the moment, so I'm happy not to have been one of the people raising my hand when Bob asked how many folks had lost at least one hive this year. All in all, it's been a hard, but interesting few month since my girls arrived. I've had 3 swarms, captured one, started a new hive, requeened, treated for varroa mites, and lost all the honey because of the Apiguard treatments. On the bright side, I ended up with 3 hives instead of 2 and now have loads of honey for the bees to eat over the winter. I recently installed a second super on my green hive because it was simply bursting with bees and the super was completely full of honey and brood. I just this morning checked the second super and they're drawing it out nicely and already putting in new honey so, as I said before, if the honey flow is supposed to be finished for this summer, nobody has told these girls! The only thing I see blooming right now is crepe myrtle, but there's tons of it in our neighborhood so they must be finding enough to keep them busy. Since I've already treated for mites, I am keeping my fingers crossed that I will at least get a couple of frames of honey to extract before the winter - especially once the goldenrod begins blooming. And with all the signs I've seen lately that we'll have an early fall, that just might happen.

But . . . until the honey's in the jars, I'll try not to weigh it!!

Honey!!

I’ve been so busy enjoying summer in Tallahassee that I’m having to go back and catch up on things I should have posted long ago!

Almost two weeks ago now, I had one of the most fun days ever when I spent the morning with my friend Jayne – who is also a new beekeeper – helping her extract honey from her beehives. Jayne’s bees have been good girls. They didn’t swarmed, haven’t gotten varroa mites, and have been busy making tons of honey while mine have been out causing trouble. As a result, she had loads of honey that needed to be extracted and I volunteered to help out so that I could learn how to do it – in the event my bees ever decide to make enough to share with me!

First, we visited her hives. Jayne and her husband Jack have a beautiful piece of land that’s loaded with blueberries, goldenrod, gallberry bushes and loads of other plants that the bees obviously love. We opened up both hives and

decided that there were 6 frames that were fully loaded and completely capped with wax that could be taken from the hives. She had decided to try using fume board to get the bees out of the honey supers – which we all agreed smelled bad enough it would get rid of just about anything (the general consensus being that it smelled like rotten cheese). She put on the fume board and we waited 5 minutes, but still ended up having to brush a lot of

bees off the frames. After being stinked out of the supers AND brushed, they were not too happy! We all 3 worked as fast as we could, brushing bees and stuffing frames into an ice chest, then slapping on the lid to keep other bees out. Finally, we headed back to the house in her truck with our frames of honey.

Back at the house Jayne set up the honey extractor that she’d rented from the beekeeper’s club for the day. We set each frame on the top of the extractor and gently scraped the wax cappings with a fork, then loaded them one by one into the extractor. It only took a few spins of the handle to sling all the honey out of the frames. It didn’t look like much in the bottom of that big extractor, but when we opened the valve and let the honey flow out into my 5-gallon bucket, it filled it almost half full! We lifted the bucket onto Jayne’s bathroom scales and it weighed out at almost exactly 20 pounds. Not bad for only 6 frames of honey! If she’d extracted 10 frames each from both hives, I figure she’d have gotten about 70 pounds!

The honey really tasted good – a light clear golden color. I got a jar to take home, and drove home hot and sweaty, sticky with honey, but happy as a clam.

Can’t wait until I get to do this at my house - thanks for sharing your first honey extraction with me Jayne!

The dreaded varroa mite

It's been a while since I posted on the state of the bees, and much has been going on in that time. Being a new beekeeper I have nothing to compare it to, but all my experienced beekeeper friends agree - it's been a strange year for bees.

First, there was the epidemic of swarm activity back in the spring. Then it seemed that just about everybody whose hives swarmed ended up queenless. And now, to cap it off, there have been several cases of AFB, or American Foul Brood, in the area. AFB is the mother of all bee diseases - the ONE hive disease you don't want to end up with. It's so harsh and so contagious that, in the state of Florida at least, hives that are found to have it are required to be burned - bees and all.

The good news is that my hives don't appear to have it. The bad news is that beekeeper Bob, who lives only about 1 1/2 miles away (and from whom I bought my 2 queens a month ago) did have AFB in several of his hives. Bad news not only for Bob (who lost 4 of his hives) but potentially bad for me, since bees travel up to 3 miles from their hives to forage.

So . . . I called bee inspector Jeff to come and check out my hives earlier this week. They all looked clean for Foul Brood, but 2 of the 3 were carrying a heavy load of Varroa Mites, which can weaken and stress a hive and make them more susceptible to diseases. Such as Foul Brood.

Yesterday, I applied the first dose of Apiguard on both boxes, which is a natural thyme-based treatment that apparently doesn't kill the mites, but makes it so unpleasant for them that they pack up and head for greener pastures. After catching a whiff of the stuff, I can see why they wouldn't want to stay. I feel sorry for the bees, but am hoping that this will solve the mite problem and strengthen the hives. I'll apply the second dose in about a week, then will check for mites a few days later and see if the Apiguard has worked.

Keeping fingers crossed . . . .

Movin' on up

Seems like there's always something to figure out or fiddle with in the beeyard. The problem of the week: why aren't the bees moving up into the honey super on the green and yellow hives? The past few times I've opened these hives I found a handful of bees walking around in the supers, but it seemed more like they were just out for a stroll rather than busily drawing out the comb and storing nectar.

I posted a question on the ABA site and was quickly advised to remove the queen excluders I had placed between the lower, deep hive and the upper honey super. The excluders were put there to allow the smaller worker bees to move up into the super to store honey, but to keep the larger queen from being able to move up and lay eggs there.

So on Saturday I opened up both green and yellow hives and removed the queen excluders. Last night I lifted up both lids and just took the tiniest peak inside. Both supers were LOADED with bees, which means they have clearly taken the hint that it's time to get down to work in those supers! Next task: checking to see if they're drawing out the comb and storing nectar there. If so, the excluders will go back on to keep her majesty down in the deep hive laying eggs, and hopefully - if all goes well - the supers will soon contain lots of beautiful honey that the bees and I can share!

Ballet, bees, and busy-ness

It's been a busy, busy 2 weeks filled with rehearsals for Eliza's ballet company's spring performance, and at times I've felt like a worker bee taking on all roles at the same time - nurse bee, forager, guard, queen attendant. You name it and I've done in the past 14 days!

So . . . time to get caught back up to date on what's happening in the beeyard. When I posted last time, both blue and green hives had been re-queened with queens I bought from Bob L. down the road. I checked them a week later and both had been released from their cages, so I took Bob J.'s advice to "leave those bees alone" and closed up the boxes to let them get down to business.

Yesterday I checked again, frame by frame. Blue is still going slowly and has fewer bees than the other 2, but I did see a few young larvae and some capped brood on one frame. The curious thing was that I did NOT see the new marked queen, and I heard a sound I've read about in my bees books - "piping." At first I thought I was hearing a bird off in the distance, but when I put my ear a little closer I realized it was coming from a bee! Just a small, but strong little "toot" about every 2 seconds. From what I've read this is sometimes a sound made by a virgin or young queen. I'm just guessing here (as I always seem to be doing!) but I'm thinking that Bob and I must have missed a queen cell when we requeened, and that my purchased queen was bumped off by one that this hive produced. Interesting, since one of the new ballet pieces for the performance tonight is called "The Queen's Game" and involves an evil queen who likes to do away with her subjects. Hmmmm . . . . Anyway - whoever the new queen is, I'm glad to see that she's laying eggs and doing her job!

Green hive is doing well too, with lots of new eggs and larvae and capped brood on several frames. I actually spotted the marked queen, which was exciting since I've never managed to find her before! There's still not much happening in the honey super, so today I removed the queen excluder. We'll see whether this encourages them to move "upstairs" and get down to the business of storing honey while there are plenty of things blooming in the area.

Yellow hive, which was my captured swarm, continues to lead the pack. It's literally bursting with bees, hundreds of which are hanging out on the outside of the hive during the days and up until dark. I removed the excluder from this one too to give them a bit more room. This one too have plenty of everything - eggs, larvae, capped brood, honey, and pollen. If they do decide to make honey in the super, they'll probably need it all to keep this large group going during the winter. But that's OK with me. I can always go to the store and buy honey, but they can't.

All in all, things are buzzing right along! Stay tuned for more updates, and "merde" to all the beautiful ballet dancers for tonight's performance!!

Hail to the queen!

Much has happened in the beeyard since last I blogged. And given how quickly things have changed since I started this venture, I figure I'd better hurry up and catch the blog up to date before something else happens.

Last time I posted, it was 2 weeks post-swarms and both the original hives (blue and green) were queenless. Not only that, but the number of bees in the blue hive had dropped noticeably. I posted a message on the ABA website asking if anyone had queens, but wasn't too optimistic that I'd find any at the end of April. Luckily Bob Livingston, a beekeeper who lives just a mile or two down the road from me, had some that were mated and ready to go!

Bob showed up Tuesday morning with 2 Italian/Carniolan mix queens and showed me how to install them. But first, he very patiently helped search through each frame of both hives to make sure that both actually were without queens. This was one time I was really hoping that I was dead wrong, and that he'd tell me I just hadn't learned how to spot a queen yet. Unfortunately, not only were both boxes queenless, but there were also no signs of eggs or even larvae in either one. There were still plenty of bees in the green box (although nothing was happening in the honey super yet). But the number of bees in the blue box had dropped noticeably and there were large areas of empty cells in all the frames. Both boxes had a pretty good store of both honey and pollen in the lower hives. Given the low number of bees, we decided to remove the super from the blue box for now.

There were a few queen cells in the green box. Since they hadn't yet hatched I could have put a cell or two into the blue box and waited for both colonies to raise their own. I decided instead to go with Bob's already-mated queens - just to give the bees a chance to get back up to speed a little faster. With more experience under my belt I probably would have let nature take its course - or even taken the queen cells and tried raising my own. Another project for another day!

As of now, the new queens have been in the blue and green hives for 5 days and, hopefully, have been released and accepted by their workers. I'm planning to open up both hives on Tuesday just to be sure and, if all goes well, will be able to return the honey super to the blue hive in just a few weeks.

I'll update again next week, and hope to be able to report that both queens have been accepted and have started laying eggs. Stay tuned . . . .