Part 2: Enjoyment At The Beehive

So, when I last left you, Lorraine and I had installed one colony and totally wigged out during the first hiving. The bees didn't pour out of their travel crate as easily as I thought they would and I got to experience having bees fly all around. It was weird, when they would land on the face netting, they almost looked like they were inside of the bee suit with you. Yikes!

We suited up in our full bee armor and returned to the hives. We realized we forgot the instruction book and that Lorraine's camera batteries were running low, so we walked back to the house. Yes, we were stalling. Finally, we went back. There were still quite a few bees in the air from the first installation. Several had worked their way over to the unopened box of bees.

Feeling safer with the gloves on, I zoomed in for a photo. Lorraine sprayed the box and the bees on the outstide were licking up the sugar water. If you look closely in the above photo, you can see the tongue of the bee in the middle, lapping up the nectar.

Here is what the travel box looks like up close. From the top of the box, a can full of nectar is suspended and the queen cage is next to it. All the workers pile on top of the feeder and the queen. You could wiggle the box and watch the mass of bees wiggle back in forth together. Freaky. I gave the box one, good, hard BONK.

And all the bees fell to the bottom exposing the feeder tin. The queen is still covered in workers. I tried to pry the tin out, but it was lodged in with propolis. I tugged and tugged and couldn't get it out. Lorraine offered to give a whirl.

Okay, here it is. I know people who know her are going to be shocked, but yes indeed, that is Lorraine workin' a box o' bees! Who knew? It took several tries, and me holding the box for leverage, but we finally got the feeder tin out.

I pulled out the queen case. In the above photo, I am holding the cage and it is covered with worker bees. It was at this point when Lorraine snapped a photo of me that I realized we had gotten over our panic of the first hive installation and we were having a great time.

I held the queen cage over the hive, flicked my wrist and all the workers on the cage fell in. Lorraine offered to keep the queen in her pocket this round.

Even with all the prying issues with the feeder tin getting stuck, the worker bees in this box seemed way more relaxed than the first. Some were flying out, but not at the rate of the first box.

I poured them into the hive and this time they did go in like pizza sauce. I got most of the bees inside the hive in very little time. I don't know if this is just a more mellow colony or if the bees sensed that Lorraine and I were more relaxed so they were more willing to go along with the plan.

After the worker bees were installed, Lorraine took the queen bee out of her pocket, we opened the cage and the queen crawled right onto the frame with the workers. She is in the above photo. Can you see her? Let's zoom in:

Now do you notice her? She's in the middle, the one with the big eyes facing front. All the workers eyes are on the sides of their heads. Still can't see her? How about this:

She's in the middle of the red circle.

I was so relaxed this time that I was able to sweep excess bees onto my hand and put them in the hive.

We were covered in bees and this time instead of peeing our pants, we took photos of each other. Incidentally, you always have the most bees on you when the camera is off. Once it turns on, 90% off bees leave your body.

I placed the empty queen cage covered with worker bees next to the pollen paddy and nectar feeder and closed up the beehive.

We closed everything up and left our girls to begin the process of growth. Tomorrow we will check on them to make sure the feeder pails are working well and then let them build for the next week to 10 days. I'm glad I will be out of town, I want to check on them every day now. Based on reader advice, we have named the hives (Kitty--green and Olga--light orange).

Lorraine and I both feel like different people. This day feels like it's been a week. I really do feel different (don't worry, this won't turn into an all bee blog--it's still a bird blog). I think for me, I had a lot of fear about working with bees that I didn't want to acknowledge--I was forced to face it during the first installation. By the second hive, I was having a blast. I had survived the first installation, I had a friend with me who makes me feel comfortable and we could both laugh at our mistakes and discomfort.

It reminded me of when Non Birding Bill and I got married. We actually got married twice (another story for another entry). During the first ceremony, I was so overwhelmed and emotional, I really can't remember much apart from crying (with joy) a lot. The second ceremony I really got to pay attention and enjoy the moment and what was being said.

We almost started off with one colony, I'm so glad we did two. This way we can compare and on the off chance I really messed up installing the first hive, we have a back up.

Oh, and for the record--no stings today. I'm sure there are some in our future, but for now we are sting free.

Hiving Part 1: Panic At The Bee Hive

Today was the day when I finally got started on realizing my dream of keeping bees. You're really not prepared for that first moment, no matter how many books you have read, videos you have watched, or classes you have taken.

I stopped at B & B Honey Farms to pick up our two packages of bees. Each package had three pounds of bees inside as well as one queen in her own cage. The queen was put inside her cage and then placed in the box with a bunch of worker bees four days ago. That gives the queen a chance to release all her pheromones to get the workers bonded to her. Or as our beekeeping instructor said, "They work out all their differences."

I was prepared for the wooden box and having that in my car for two hours as I drove the bees out to Mr. Neil's, but I was not prepared for the "outsiders". There were, of course, escapees at B & B and so those bees just swarmed onto the boxes. They guys loading the bees wiped as many off as they could, but I still ended up driving the whole way back with about a half dozen unsecured bees. I made a deal with them that if they stayed on the box, they could travel in the car, if they wanted to fly around the car, they would go out the window. Only one bee ended up going out the window.

I'm proud to say that on the drive back, I only got seriously distracted by birds once. I'm sorry, but you just can't pass a pair of adult eagles sitting in a field so close to the road without trying to take one picture. It was weird, when the car was stopped, you could really hear the humming of the bees.

When I got to the house, Mr. Neil's assistant, Lorraine was there and was ready to document the hiving of the bees. Neil had to leave this morning and was sad to miss it. I was surprised Lorraine was so willing to go along, because she has been quite vocal and very clear that she was in no part going to be the beekeeper in this enterprise. If I'm out at a bird festival and Mr. Neil is out at a book signing and there's a bee emergency, she was not having any part of it. She doesn't like bees. Completely understandable. After all that fuss, I was surprised she wanted to come out with me.

The first thing we did was make sure all the hives were ready. They had been placed in the chosen spot, but I did move the two hives further apart (above). When it's time to start taking honey out of your hive, neighboring colonies will try to steal it, so a little space helps with that. And I think a little space makes for healthier neighbors.

Since having the bees in the car with me for a couple of hours without any mishaps and having watched many videos of smooth hiving of colonies by people not wearing bee suits, I decided that I was going to install our bees without gloves. I was going to wear that hat and net, but not the gloves.

However, when I got inside the house, I saw that our bee suits had arrived and they looked SO cool (seriously, they looked like astronaut suits...without the built in diaper). I decided that I would wear the bee suit, but not wear the gloves. Lorraine put on a suit too and we both took some gloves with us as we took our bees out to the hives--just in case.

Lorraine had the camera at the ready. I had my hive tool, this was going to be a piece of cake. All I had to do was spray the bees with sugar water, bonk the box so they all went to the bottom, remove the feeder can, remove the queen, scrape off any workers, put the queen in my pocket, spray all the workers with more sugar water, dump them in the hive, take the queen out of my pocket, spray her, open her screen and then have her crawl onto the frames with the workers, put on the feeder pail, the pollen patty, and close up the hive--simple right? I had Lorraine hold on to the instruction book to read each step to me as I went along.

So, far so good. I sprayed the bees and I bonked the box, they went to the bottom. I pulled out the feeder can--it came out so easy! I was fully expecting it to be stuck in there with some propolis. Out came the can, easy as pie...and then out exploded a few hundred bees.

With bees, flailing is a no no. They are more likely to sting if you flail. What happens when you remove the feeder can, which you can't really see in the videos (and now that I look at my photos, you really can't see in the photos either) is that many of the bees get confused and fly out.

Have you ever had that feeling on a roller coaster when you get to the crest of the first hill and you just feel this deep, guttural panic and are willing to trade ANYTHING to not be there at that moment to be ANYWHERE else but there. That's pretty much what I felt at the moment the feeder can was removed (that's Lorraine above doing a dramatic reenactment of the moment). I tried to collect myself--I had to get the queen out and get what bees I could into the hive. I sprayed everything with sugar water. Lorraine, sensing my panic kept reading instructions. I pulled out the queen, she was covered in workers, I tried to brush them off, but I could feel their little vibrating bodies on my bare hands and it freaked me out. I started chanting as calmly as I could, "Don't flail. Don't flail. Don't flail." It was pretty much a substitute for the river of obscenities flowing through my brain.

Lorraine just kept reading the instructions over and over in a steady pace, anything to keep our minds off of the massive amounts of bees flying around us and trying to land on us. I got the queen into my pockets and then went to dump the rest of the workers in the hive. "Stay calm." I thought to myself. "Lorraine doesn't like bees, if I panic, it won't help her." I later learned she was thinking the exact same thing, that she needed to keep calm because her freaking out wouldn't help me. I think we saved each other with that bit of logic.

I love the photo above, I can see that I'm trying to keep calm, but underneath I'm really just a freaked out mess--note my little pinky finger in the air as I'm trying to dump the bees in the hive? Yeah, trying to look dainty is really helping.

I bonked and I bonked the box, but I could not get the workers inside the hive, sure a few fell in, but many were flying out as they were being poured in and even more were just staying in the box. They were not pouring and spreading like pizza sauce (which is what is supposed to happen according to the video and the class I took). I kept shaking the box back and forth--they weren't coming out. Some were landing on my hand, startling me and causing me to flail.

Lorraine said in awe, "Oh man, you have SO many bees on you!"

"I don't want to know!" I warned. I finally put the box down and said as calmly as I could, "Okay, we are going to walk away and put gloves on."

Lorraine agreed with the plan.

We put the gloves on and then I tried to get as many bees as I could into the hive. I took the queen out of my pocket, opened her cage, and held it on one of the frames in the hive. She crawled on my hand and finally crawled onto some workers on one of the frames. I turned around to put frames back in the hive but I couldn't find her again. I lost track of her. I assume she is still in there...I hope she is. We'll find out in a week. Many of the workers were drawn to the empty queen cage so I laid that in hive, put in the feeder and the pollen paddy and closed her up. I had to close the entrance to get the bees to stay in the hive for the night and felt a pang of guilt for all the workers now trapped on the outside.

That hive was done, but we still had one more to do. Lorraine and I were both exhausted and decided to head back to the house for some tea and coffee to gird ourselves before the next hiving.

We walked to the house, shell shocked and shedding bees along the way. After removing the feeder, the whole experience was a blank. We pretty much quit taking photos, bees everywhere just freaked us out. I had helped at a beehive before, this was not my first time being around hives, but it was different when it's your own and when you have bare hands.

I was so glad Lorraine was there, we both kept the other from freaking out and running away like a big sissy. Neither one of us got stung with the first installation, but how on earth could we go back and calmly hive the next package? Only time and a cup of tea would tell.

Up next, Part 2: The Hiving of Kitty

Sunday Bees

Sunday was another unconventional holiday for us. Since we do not live near family we create our own fun. We ended up hooking up with the Fabulous Lorraine for some Easter Brunch and painting the bee hives.

Yes, we are adding the finishing touches for our honey bee welcome wagon, the hives are painted—we asked the ladies whom the hives are named after what colors they wanted: Olga—orange, Kitty green. We went pastel and the colors are actually creamsicle and pesto.

I practiced using my smoker. The beekeeping instructors said that they would rather work their hives without a bee suit than without a smoker. It will be an important tool to keep the bees calm, and I need to know how to light it and make sure I have enough fuel inside to keep it going while I work the colony. The smell of wood smoke make the bees think there is a forest fire and they go deep into the hive and eat hone. Also, if a bee stings you, it releases a phermone that communicates to other bees, “Hey, guys, I found something nasty over here and I stung it. Call in the cavalry to sting more!” If you puff smoke over the sting, that masks the phermone and keeps your from getting stung further.

Just another few weeks and then I get to hive my bees—can’t wait! The instructors said that when we install the bees that we really won’t need the bee suits—they even showed the video and the instructor only had on jeans and a t-shirt—no gloves. They said it’s more important that we be comfortable so if we want to wear the full suit for the installation we can, I wonder what I’ll do. Right now I am thinking I can install the bees without the suit, but that may change when I’m holding a buzzing box full of three pounds of honey bees.

I checked all the nest boxes around Mr. Neil’s property while we were there and they are all unoccupied at the moment. I only found one bluebird pair, but others may be further south waiting out this cold spell.

While digiscoping the bluebird, I had the feeling that I was being watched. Do you see anything in the above photo? Let me bring it closer:

In the middle of all that was a wary woodchuck giving me the hairy eyeball. Good grief, give this guy some floppy ears and he could qualify for a disapproving rabbit.

When we arrived, one of the feeder poles was knocked down and all the feeders empty. I was worried that they bear had returned that destroyed all the feeders last year, but all the feeders were relatively intact, no punctures from large teeth. Some smears on the baffle confirmed my suspision. With all the rain we’ve been having the ground was wet and we had noticed a few weeks ago that it was leaning. It looks like some raccoons tried to climb it and knocked it down. Even so, I think we will get an electric fence for our hives. Once we got the feeder pole back up, the birds moved in right away like the above chickadee.

And I think nuthatches are now my new favorite bird to photograph, they just strike all these great poses that seem to say--photograph me now! Remember from the pileated woodpecker post that it had white on the underside of its bill? Nuthatches have the same thing.

Assembling the Hives

I'm starting this entry with the tufted titmouse photo above. Non Birding Bill really liked it (that's sayin' something). I set some mixed nuts in a tray of one of Mr. Neil's feeders and EVERYBODY flew in right away. The titmouse is contemplating the large Brazil nut. Look at the size of that food morsel! Alas, it is way to heavy for this mere titmouse to carry away in flight.

Today we decided to assemble our bee hives. The bees won't ship until late next month but that gives us plenty of time to prepare for their arrival. This gives me time to order anything that I discover is missing after assembly.

We were told that we are supposed to name our hives (with women's names) so NBB put together Olga...

While I put together Miss Kitty. Some readers my recall that I was thinking of using screws, but thanks to Old Drone's assurances we went with nailing the hives together and he was right, it was easy. The wood was soft and many of the nails were small so I didn't have much chance to smash my fingers.

We had to put everything together: the boxes, the floor, the top, the individual frames where the bees will build the comb for larvae and honey--ten frames for each box! It was tiring. The wax in each frame is there to encourage the bees to build their comb in an easy to access form so I can check the hive and partake of the honey.

Between frames I did sneak away to watch the birds...

The juncos sure were frisky. Lots of chirping and chasing while feeding. You could see pin feathers on some of them, I'm sure molting in fresh feathers for the breeding season was bringing on a surge of hormones in them. I enjoy their mechanical twitters in early, early spring.

"Ugh, I don't know if I'm in the mood for that much nut."

Another bird flies in to contemplate the Brazil nut. This black-capped chickadee gave it some serious thought, but instead went for half a pecan. A hairy woodpecker ended up flying away with the large prize nut.

We did finish both of our hives, and after assembly I realized that our starter kit only came with two brood boxes for each hive. The class that I took recommended that for over wintering bees in northern states that I should have a third brood box for each hive, so looks like I'll be doing a little ordering this week.

I have to admit, I was really not looking forward to assembling these, fearing it would be really complicated. I think this stems from having to assemble aluminum purple martin houses at the bird store. I hated those things! Don't get me wrong, I think aluminum martin houses can work well to attract martins, but assembling them is about as fun as stubbing all ten toes. You have to follow the directions EXACTLY and if you get something wrong at step five, you won't notice until step 487 when the roof won't line up with the box--and you have to take it apart and start over. Whereas with a bee hive, if you make a mistake or split the wood--the bees will just fill it with propolis.

Ah, martin house assembly is coming back to me now...ahhhh....I would always try to tell customers that it was important for them to assemble their own martin house so they could truly understand it and I also would lie and say how much fun it is to put together on a rainy Saturday afternoon.

Putting the hive together was much more simple and quite pleasant and I'm looking forward to assembling the third brood boxes.

Incidentally, if you're thinking of getting a purple martin house, get the plastic gourds, they are usually cheaper, are easy to snap together (if not already assembled at purchase), are more resistant to predators and save bird store employees (and you) hours of assembly grief.

Me Want Spring Now!

"Dude, hold your horses, I'm molting as fast as I can!"

Note all the little pin feathers on this goldfinch's head--it's going full force for the breeding plumage--sign of spring.

Holy Mackerel! When I came home from beekeeping class followed by a Hera concert (loves me some Icelandic folk music) I found tons of messages on the Minnesota bird listserv on signs of spring--especially early migrants. People are seeing meadowlarks, killdeer, bluebirds and...brace yourself...grackles! Yo, if you are not keen on grackles and you want to try and avoid them, now is a good time to start switching one of your feeders to all safflower to give the other birds a chance to acclimate to it.

Today we learned about honey and wax extraction in beekeeping class. Yum. I also learned that among the beekeeping community "raw" is a four letter word when used in advertised honey. I have mentioned before that I am a fan of Really Raw Honey. Many in the bee keeping world aren't too pleased with honey being called advertised as raw, because all honey is raw. Also, there is some resentment that honey with visible wax, propolis, bee parts, etc. being advertised as raw and charged a premium is selling poorly filtered honey at an outrageous price. I don't care about the "raw" issue, I just really like the way Really Raw Honey tastes--it doesn't have that weird after taste that you find with liquid honey. I also really like the thick, creamy consistency of Really Raw Honey and wanted to know how to encourage my bees to create a thick honey. Apparently, it has to do more with the types of flowers than any kind of processing. One of the instructors told me that the bottom line is that the honey that comes from my own hives will taste better than any other honey I ever purchase because I helped create it. Makes sense.

This whole bee thing is fascinating. They are not native to North America, they were introduced. They evolved for pollinating Europe and Africa. We have hummingbirds in North and South America for our pollinating which they don't have in Europe in Africa. Honey bees really like to pollinate exotic plants (plants geared and evolved for attracting insect pollinators like bees) and that can be a problem. I actually found places on the Internet advertising Loosestrife Honey. If you don't know the woes of Purple Loosestrife, read about it here. We go to great lengths to cultivate the non native honey bee because it is an important part of our economy--it is illegal to set up a hive without arranging the frames in just the right way in order to prevent the spread of diseases. Coming from a birding background where non natives tend to be bad news, this whole bee attitude kind of throws me for a small loop. Imagine of house sparrows and starlings produced some kind of sweet edible liquid...

At any rate, I have my certificate and feel ready for the challenge of beekeeping this spring and summer. If you are remotely interested in beekeeping, I highly recommend the University of Minnesota's short course on beekeeping. The class had about 100 people and they were from as far as Vermont to take part. They do a good job of walking you through your first year and give you some great literature to get you started. I can't wait until the end of April when we get our two packages of bees!

Bee Class

Wireless! Whoot!

We're taking a break in the bee class. I just learned something fascinating! Nectar rich plants for hummingbirds won't do much for our hive. Bees do not recognize the color red and the plants that work to attract hummingbirds aren't as easily accessible to bees. Honey bees are very attracted to yellow, which is one of the reasons why yellow flower feeding ports are no longer recommended for hummingbird feeders.

I have to say, the class is huge! It looks like there are about a hundred people in here.