2011 Bee Installation Part 2

This is Kelly McCullough, he came out with us to help hive four more packages of bees on Sunday.  His family kept bees when he was kid and I have to say, he's the first person I've ever seen get almost every single bee out of the travel cage.  I can't remember if it was in the comments or on Twitter, but they wanted to know how the bees got into the travel crate.  They were sucked out by vaccuum and put into the crate with a new queen in a cage.  It's pretty incredible when you think about all the "trauma" these bees have been through.

Happily chugging along with a queen in a hive in sunny California (or Texas or some other warm state).  Suddenly a big sucky beast invades their home, transports them into a darkness and then a cage.  They've lost their queen pheromone, the guiding force they've come to trust and are now in cage with thousands of other bees, suddenly a new queen pheromone works its way to them but they are trapped in a cage with no comb.  They have food, but just carbs, no protein.  Then they are shipped and jostled to colder parts of the country, colder than they have ever experienced in their lives.  A bit more jarring and tossing (akin to a huge earthquake and they are dropped into a mostly empty box.  A sense of duty based on age tells them to evaluate the home, explore the region and build.

Pretty resilient and pretty cool when you think about it and completely understandable that some bees look exhausted when they arrive.

The hiving of the four new packages went fairly well.  It's interesting to me that at this point, I'm happy to fall into naturalist/educator mode for installing bee packages.  I think having done just about all of them since the first year that I enjoy letting anyone else who wants to hive a package a go and be there for moral support and help getting queen cages open.  Lorraine has been there for most but still has some understandable nervousness since she had an unfortunate wasp incident as a kid.  Phobias are hard to conquer, but she still goes for it.  Kelly got a video of her installation and you can view it on YouTube.  It's kind of like watching some odd family therapy.

After all the new bees were installed Non Birding Bill and Kelly helped me check on the Russian bees we hived earlier in the week.  If you recall, there was concern that one of the queens was dead on arrival so Mr. Neil and Lorraine ordered a replacement.  Since that queen would be totally new to the hive, she would have to stay in her cage for a few days for the workers to absorb her pheromone.  Mr. Neil put her in on Thursday to give the workers a chance to get used to her.  Non Birding Bill checked it the next day and said, "She's already out."

That was too soon, I thought bees not used to the new queen could kill her.  But I figured we hope for the best and deal with this later.  When we were checking that hive on Sunday, we immediately found the queen because she's marked with a white dot:

See the reddish large bee in the center with the white dot, that's the queen.  Then NBB said, "Hey, the queen I saw had a much smaller dot.  I gave Kelly this frame to hold while I searched for a second queen on a different frame.

"There she is," NBB said noting the second queen (she's on the right).  We have 2 queens in 1 hive (insert sad trombone here).  Not sure what we're going to do about this.  I was trying to formulate a plan and NBB said, "Don't do anything, let the bees sort it out.  Every time we try to help, we screw them up and the hive fails.  Leave it alone."

Sage advice indeed.

I know there are systems for 2 queen colonies, but that's two well built colonies not two new ones.  If the queens find each other, they will fight to the death.  However, both could die in the fight.  We put the hive back together and I put a frame between the two queens.  Maybe if they survive the next couple of weeks we could try and set up something like this.  I have to admit that if one queen dies, I'll feel bad for getting them in this situation.  Ah beekeeping, you always leave me with more questions than answers.

Maraschino Cherry Bees

Last week, I linked to the story about the bees producing red honey because the were gathering syrup from a Maraschino Cherry Factory--bees going for high fructose corn syrup, go figure.

There's an article over at The Grist about one of their writers went for a blind honey taste test to see if she could taste the difference between various honeys, including corn syrup honey.  Turns out, it was not as flavorful as some of the other honeys she tried.

It makes me wonder if urban bees will find other ways to access corn syrup and would people notice?  This one was discovered because the bees brought back red dye with them.  But what if some other candy factory out there doesn't have dyes?  Or will some crazy person out there think, "You know what, we can totally market this!  What if we put out vats of corn syrup with blue dye and we get bees to make Smurf Honey?"  Jokes have been made that the red honey looks like the beekeepers have vampire bees or zombie bees and I wonder if someone out there will find a market for blood red cherry honey?

As I was pondering this, I found another article from The Grist about the Maraschino Cherry Factory's response to the bees using their syrup.  The owner of the factory, Arthur Mondello did offer to provide different shades of syrup so that the bees could make rainbow-hued honey.  The beekeeper response was not favorable to that idea--that's not "true" honey and quite frankly, initial taste tests show that it's not that tasty anyway.

According to the story, Mondello is ready to go the extra mile and do what he can to prevent bees from harvesting the syrup.  The Grist reported that the problem is that cherry syrup spills when vats are moved around.  Once bees discovered the ample syrup supply, they soon found ways of bypassing the shrink wrap that covered the vats as well.  So, Mondello is looking into several options to block the bees, including covering the vats with vinegar soaked fabric to mask the sweet aroma.

It's an interesting series of articles, definitely check them out at The Grist.

Let's Get Weird With Honey

Here is a curious article about an interesting hurdle faced by some urban beekeepers in Brooklyn...their honey is turning out bright red!  Guess what the culprit is: Red Dye #40 from Dell’s Maraschino Cherries Company.  So people who want hives in the neighborhood to contribute to the whole slow foods/locally grown/organic/natural movement are being betrayed by bees who cannot resist heavy syrup no matter how many native nectar rich plants are around.

Speaking of weird honey, Lorraine and I finally got around to putting some of our extracted honey into jars.  Kind of fascinated by our honey colors this year.  We usually only have light colored honey, but this year we have both light and dark.  Both taste fabulous, the darker honey is a bit more...rich in flavor, while the light is delicate and subtle in its sweetness.

I was not having the best day.  A project I have been working on for some time received a setback yesterday.  Every time I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel with this project, I get the rug yanked out from under me.  This time it's a financial setback on the project. Lorraine and I had planned on bottling honey today, but when I saw the snow and ice as I got out of bed this morning, I texted Lorraine that I was bad company and decided to stay home to brood a bit about my problem.  She called and said, "No, that's not what you need to do, you need to come out here and help me with the honey and talk."

Well...how could I argue with that?

We have some honey that has been drained from comb and then we have comb with honey called Ross Rounds.  Both are safe for human consumption.  We decided to get a little arty with our bottling and put chunks of wax and comb honey in our jars.  We'd then pour extracted honey over it.  It looked cool and it gives our friends the chance to try comb honey if they want but still get plenty of the straight liquid variety.  As we admired how cool the wax comb looked in the jars...we wondered what else we could put in there...like the above Buddah.  We were quite pleased with the results and wondered how far we could go with this madness.

I noticed a Weeping Angel figurine and told Lorriane that I wished we could try that.  She said, "It's my figurine, let's do it."

The affect was cool and terrifying.  If you have seen the Doctor Who episode, you know why this is the most terrifying and dangerous honey ever.  If not...well...I guess Lorraine and I seem a little weird, but that's okay.

The shenanigans helped put my project in perspective.  I'm always thrilled to rediscover that no matter what life throws at me on a long project, friends and beekeeping are a great escape.

Drunk bees!

Hello all, NBB here. Yesterday was a pretty shining example of why, three (?) years into this process, I'm still the junior beekeeping assistant, the Barney Fife of the apiary world.

To get everyone up to speed: the bees needed to be fed, Sharon has to work, Neil is out of town, Hans is out of town, and Lorraine is sick as a dog. Which left me. Now, the last time I was sent off alone to check on the bees it was a comedy of errors, if by "comedy" you mean "it's funny because it happened to someone else."

This mission, however, was a simple one: feed the bees. I didn't have to switch boxes, combine any hives, or search for the queen. Just feed the bees by mixing sugar and water in a pail, then add the pail to the hive. A job so simple, an idiot could do it.

Which is why they sent me.

It was a cold day, about 44°, which meant the hives would be less active, they tend to stay inside and cluster for warmth. I got there in plenty of time, figuring to take about an hour to make the sugar water solution. Small problem:

The sugar, having been left in the garage all summer, was not so much as “easy pour” as more of a “solid brick.” After chipping away at the bags, I was able to produce several manageable chunks and also a large mess. So after about an hour I had five pails full of sugar water.

Too bad we have six beehives. Sigh... what can I say? Math is hard! Back to the house to make another pail, then back down to the hives.

Amazing, the bees were still alive by the time I got to them.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsJIUgrF0ws[/youtube]

We didn’t get as much honey as we were expecting this year. I wonder if the wetness of the season had something to do with this, or the fact that we had eight hives competing for pollen rather than two.

Regardless, the remaining hives seemed full. And thirsty...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAv3TBxv7-Y[/youtube]

For reasons that escape me now, I had to reopen one of the hives after I put the pail on. I noticed one of the bees had gotten splashed with the sugar water, making her the most popular girl at the dance.

Her wings were sparkling.

We’re heading towards the end of bee season. Soon we’ll be taking the hives down to two or three brood boxes (filled with honey, which the bees will eat over the winter). We’ll wrap the hives in insulation, put the entrance reducers on (to keep out mice and other pests that would make a honey-filled box a winter home), and that’ll be that. We’ll sneak down in the winter and press our ears to the side to make sure they’re alive, dreaming whatever winter dreams bees have.

Birds with Hats and Bee Stings

Hello all, NBB here. Sharon’s a bit swamped with deadlines, so she’s asked me to fill in with a blog post about all the exciting things that are happening in the birding world. But since I avoid knowing anything about the birding world with great vigor, I instead present you with Birds Wearing Hats.

Hilarious, I think you’ll agree.

I want to talk for a moment about the bee sting I got last week, mostly because it was the thing that made me most afraid of keeping bees, and is, I think the thing that causes most people to be terrified of them.

I was the last of our beekeeping group to get stung (heck, even the dog got one before me), partly because I’m not around the bees as much as the others (some of us have jobs that require us to be at the same place and time every week), but also because I try to give the bees as wide a berth as possible. Don’t get me wrong, bees are cute as all get out and I love looking at them up close... from the safety of my bee suit. I don’t stand around the hives without one on, I don’t walk through the “bee highway,” and above all, I don’t run and flail, especially while yelling “don’t run and flail! Don’t run and flail!”

So, here’s what happened: there’s a little piece of wood or metal that you put in front of the entrance to the hive to control the flow of bees in and out. It’s called, helpfully enough, an “entrance reducer.” You use this at the beginning of the hive to encourage them to stay inside and make it their home. After a while, you take it off so that the traffic of returning foragers isn’t slowed down.

The entrance reducer was held on with a screw and to get the screw off , we had to move the whole hive off the base board so that I could turn the screwdriver. This, understandably, caused some consternation, and one of the girls decided to register a complaint. With her butt.

I will tell you now, all in all a bee sting isn’t that bad, at least in the ankle, which is where I got it. It’s like stepping on a nail, there’s a shock of pain and a sudden urge to move away. Afterwards it was like a twisted ankle, but like I say the first thought it “I think something really bad has happened,” followed quickly by “hey, when they sting you, don’t they release a pheromone that makes others want to sting you?”

Remembering neither to run nor flail, nor to do them while yelling “Don’t run! Don’t flail!” I hobbled over to the work table and said a few choice words. Well, one word, over and over. Take a guess. As Sharon and Neil made sure I didn’t get stung again (and wasn’t, you know, dying from a bee allergy), I took a deep breath and stock of what my body was doing. Did my feet itch? No? Was I short of breath? No. Was I going numb? No.

Really the only thing I was aware of was a lingering pain like a stab wound and wait, what was the other thing? That pulsing sensation kind of like oh my god I can feel the stinger pumping venom.

How Neil was able to pull the stinger out of my ankle using his still-gloved hand I do not know. I can only assume that writing a Newbery/Carnegie winning book has given him the tactile sense of a dozen men!

And that was it. It hurt. It was sore. I saw the bee that stung me, and stepped on her, not out of anger but to put her out of her misery. Wasn’t her fault, I was the one who took her house apart. Poor bee.

Then we put the hives back together, hobbled back and grilled up some dinner.

I guess what I’m trying to tell you is that you don’t need to be afraid of bee stings. You should definitely avoid them but it’s not something to go through your life being terrified of. On the grand scale of pain I’ve experienced, hitting my thumb with a hammer or getting a really bad sunburn are worse and last longer. Keep in mind, though, I was only stung once, and I had friends with me who’d been through this.

I’m curious to see how I act the next time I go out to the hives. I’ll probably wear boots--the ankles are the only part the bee suit don’t protect, after all--but I don’t feel any more afraid of them than I did last week. They’re still these fascinating, cute creatures, and I like to think that we’re helping them survive. But we have to be careful.