Ulster Observation hive

During the week long International Plowing Match, held in St. Thomas, Ontario, we had two observation hives available for public viewing.

It was very interesting to see the two different designs and to make comparisons between them.

One design stood out particularly as being superior and and that was the Ulster 5 frame observation hive.

This hive was made based on the design available for purchase from BrushyMountain.com.

This design houses 4 frames in the bottom section and then one frame rests on top as the observation frame.

The workers can move freely from the top to the bottom. There's feed in the bottom for the bees as well. The queen is forced to stay in the observation frame due to a queen excluder under the frame.

The other observation hive housed one deep and one medium frame. There was no feeder inside this frame so the bees would be required to eat their honey.

I think this two frame design is better suited to a one day event. I noticed that the bees wouldn't have access to water either.

The bees in both hives were still alive at the end of the week. The weather had been cooler all week which may have helped. At night both hives were covered with a blanket, leaving their ventilation holes open.

Observing both hives, the bees in the 2 frame hive were much more aggitated and they moved around under the glass like bees that wanted to just get out.

With the Ulster design, the bees were mostly quiet and slower moving, not so aggitated. Later in the day though the bees did tend to move around in waves, seeking a way out of the hive.

Michael Bush, a long time beekeeper, has posted comments on his experiences with observation hives. You can read them at Bushfarms.com.

2010 Plowing Match in St. Thomas, Ontario

The Ontario Bee Association had a booth at the International Plowing Match in Sept 2010 at St. Thomas, Ontario. Over 80,000 visitors attended this one week event.

Our Bee Club was running the booth and we all signed up to do a stint (all the bee clubs in Ontario are umbrellaed under the Ontario Bee Association). Dad and I volunteered for all day Saturday, the last day of the event.

Years ago when I sold my art work I used to sell at the Plowing Match in the artist's tent. This time, as a volunteer, I found that we were so busy it was hard to get away to see all the other booths.

This event is HUGE. I'm not sure exactly how many acres of farm land were used for the event but it looked like between 400 and 600 acres.

Click here to see ariel shots of the event. It'll give you a perspective on the actual size of this event.

The committees and teams and groups that brought about this impressive event are to be commended, as well as our own bee club president.

I looked back as we were leaving and was amazed how hydro poles and running water were all installed in these fields to cover for a one week event.

There was "Tent City" where the booths were, farther back was the area where the actual plowing matches were held, and there was even a huge RV Park created for all the international travellers, complete with water and electricity.

Our booth was in the animal education tent and was very well attended. All week long thousands of children came through as school bus groups. This was a great opportunity to provide education to the general public and answer their questions about honey bees.

Of course, being an animal lover, this was my favourite tent. We were housed with pigs, sheep, chickens, cows and goats. There were demonstrations at the various events and children could see first hand cows and goats being milked.

The public is aware that bees are under stress and I found there was increased curiosity and tons of questions from them.

There were two excellent observation hives in our booth and we spent a lot of time showing people the differences between the Queen, the workers and drones. Many wanted to know how queens were made.


[This 5 frame observaton hive was made based on a design on the BrushyMountain.com web site. I'll blog on that next time. The bees did survive longer than a week in this setup.

We weren't giving out or tasting honey but we had bottles of it to show them. This I think is important because it shows the different colours of honey. Many people are unaware that honey comes in different colours--and flavours.

If you're a beekeeper you probably know that. Too many people buy the blended honeys from supermarkets. While nice, they just don't give the same taste experience that single floral or wild flower bloom honeys give.

Many are surprised to learn that its the flowers that give the flavour to the honey. Along with a little bit of bee spit.

We had frames of capped honey to show, the uncapping knife, an extractor and of course beekeeper protective gear such as hat, veil, jacket and smoker. The kids love to put on the hat and veil.

We had empty hives to show all the components and many people interested in beekeeping wanted to see how they worked together.

Beekeepers coming back into the hobby wanted to knowabout setups to deal with Varroa Mites, such as screened bottom boards. Many people dropped by to view the observation hives and to tell us about a beekeeper that lived next door, down the road, etc. It was a very positive experience.

There were tons of exhibits with demonstrations.

[Photo - This man is from a raptor society and is talking about different kinds of predatory birds.]

If you decide to come next year, wear your most sturdy shoes. There's lots of walking, however, their are tractors that pull wagons to move people from one exhibit to another. They also had electric carts that you could rent so you could save your feet.

Next year, I'll book a day or two when I can go and be the tourist.

Our 2010 Fall Honey Harvest

A couple weeks ago Dad and I got out to the bee yard to harvest the fall honey.

We took off about 16 medium supers from the 4 hives. Dad is the main extractor man and he's been spending quite a bit of time uncapping, scratching and spinning our frames of honey.

[This isn't all the honey, but is a good portion of it.]

Some of the supers had been extracted in July and then put back on the hives for the bees to refill.

I did take a camera to the bee yard, but as I'm sure you can guess, we were plenty busy. I didn't take very many photos.

The bees behaved very well but I could see they were more aggitated about their honey being taken at this time of year than they were in the summer time.

After the supers were off I added the following treatments: Sugar powder to treat AFB, a sugar water baggie set on top of the frames with Fumagilin - this to treat for Nosema.

[My H#2 hive seems to have the worst mites. This is a closeup of the sticky board.]

Prior to the Apivar strip, a mite count over a week was about 300 - really high. During the first week with the Apivar strip, the count looked like a thousand. So many mites. I'm really concerned about this hive.

After harvesting the supers I added 2 Apivar strips to the deep box of each hive.

The hard chemical treatment wasn't my preference. My preference is to use Formic Acid.

I used the large pads of Formic last fall and I don't think they were as effective in treating against mites due to the unusally cool and wet weather. Formic is reliant on temperatures of 10+ Celsius to work.

The mites this summer were heavy and this fall when I looked a the sticky boards from under the screens I was shocked. Every dot was a mite. Literally hundreds of them. So I opted for the hard chemical this time out.

[Apivar comes as plastic strips that hang vertically between the frames. A small 'v' notch catches on the top of the frame to hold it in place.]

Our two nuc hives were booming with bees. They looked like our other two established hives looked in the summer time.

In fact, after removing their supers, it was almost like there wasn't enough room inside to house all those bees--at least on hot days. We probably don't have too many warm days left and they'll be able to cluster well and keep warm.

It's time to think about purchasing hive wraps for winter. Another season has come and gone so quickly.

We certainly learned a lot about what to do and what not too and throughout the quieter days of winter I'll blog from my notes.

How did your fall harvest go? How many pounds of honey did you take off?

Don't Worry. Bee Happy.

I should have known.

It was our big summer event, the Bee Beard Competitions at Clovermead.

Dad had attended the previous year. But this year was different.

This year he was a beekeeper.

So it was special.

I had purchased several bee related t-shirts and I invited him over to look at them. He could select one to wear for the event at Clovermead.

My bright yellow shirt with "Beekeeper" across the middle was a bit too over sized for him but I could tell he liked that one.

He settled on the Don't Worry - Bee Happy t-shirt that I bought at Clovermead last year.

It was a really hot day and we all got pretty hot and sweaty. I left the shirt with Dad to launder and then return.

Except the shirt never got returned.

At the next event, the International Plowing Match (I'll blog on that next) Dad showed up wearing my shirt. We were volunteers at the Ontario Bee Association's booth.

Te took a short break to go visit some of the other booths at the event. He returned a while later carrying a toasted waffle covered in a dollop of whip cream and honey.

"When I went to the Clovermead booth and they saw I was wearing a Clovermead t-shirt, I got a waffle for free."

I gave him a dirty look. "That's my shirt you're wearing."

He showed his other hand. "Because I got one for free, I bought one as well. For you."

He was forgiven.

I never did get the shirt back.

Bad News: Small Hive Beetle Confirmed in Ontario

Here's a copy of an email received today from our Tech Transfer Team who work for the Ontario Bee Association (OBA):

"Good Day Beekeepers

Small hive beetle (Aethina tumida) has been confirmed in Southern Ontario.
It was first discovered on Sept 8, 2010 and confirmed this week by Ag Canada. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has been alerted of the find. Small Hive Beetle is an immediate notifiable disease that must be reported to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) upon official verification. The CFIA has made every indication that this is a provincial matter and the responsibility of the province to address this issue.

At present the Small Hive Beetle confirmed cases are all in Essex County, close to the Michigan border.
Small Hive Beetle have NOT been confirmed anywhere else in Ontario.

The apiculture program, through the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture Food and Rural Affairs, is conducting inspection and surveillance for Small Hive Beetle in Ontario to determine the extent of SHB distribution. An identification guide will be available in the near future.

Further information regarding Small Hive Beetle will be available in the next issue of the Ontario Bee Journal."

Bee Truck

We weren’t into beekeeping when we got the truck, but it sure has turned into a real blessing. It was time to harvest our fall honey. Dad and I went in two vehicles and met at the bee yard.

The bees were not a problem at all and we really didn’t even need smoke. The problem was our lack of foresight.

The first mistake was not actually counting how many supers we were taking off. It turned out that there wasn’t enough room in the truck for them all, due to the storage bin in the back. By the time we realized that, the supers were all sitting in front of the bin, making it really difficult to get to it to move it.

We started loading supers into Dad’s van instead, cramming them into every available space. Just imagine the passenger seat, sticky with honey…

What we didn’t notice was that one cover on a super was not sitting down flush with the edge. By the time we had finished taking the rest of the honey and we looked at the truck we realized our mistake.

Bees were flying all over the back of the truck, robbing the box. We then had to remove each frame again, and brush it off again, and put them into a fresh super. We managed this successfully. But the bees wouldn’t leave the truck.

Smoke did not dissuade them either. I ended up pulling away with bees swarming the back of the truck. Only a few flew away.

In the rear view mirror I could see the driver behind, his eyes open wide as he watched my bee laden truck. I pulled over at a gas station. I wanted to sit a minute to give the bees a chance to leave and fly home.

“Go home, you naughty bees,” I scolded them. Many listened and did. Many others did not.

All the way home every time I glanced up I saw bees flying at the back of the truck. Once home, I could see I still had a few left. Finally taking the hint to leave, the workers flew up, did a circle in the air to orient themselves and then headed off straight northeast, as the crow or—I should say—the bee flies.

We had robbed them and I guess they wanted to rob us back. I can’t say I blame them either.

Puddle Pants

There are few things that are better teachers about how to keep bees than the bees themselves.

They can certainly let you know when you’re not doing things right.

In early summer, the weeds in front of the hives had grown considerably to the point that it was time to cut them down.

Dad brought his weed whacker to do the job. I wasn’t sure how the bees would behave. I had him put on the full heavy bee jacket instead of the shirt and veil that we normally wear.

The bees didn’t seem to mind the noise or movement and they didn’t complain at all.

I think that’s the beekeepers’ folly. We get complacent and we forget about the stories we’ve heard about what has happened to others.

By the end of summer the weeds had grown back. Dad once again brought his weed whacker. This time he wore his long sleeved shirt and veil. I was remembering how calm the bees were last time and so I was at the back of the hives recharging sticky boards.

Suddenly bees were flying back at me and buzzing angrily. I looked up and I could see that tiny pieces of grass were flying at the bees like shrapnel. I saw our mistake then. Because it was cooler weather, the bees were clustered around the stoop.

The whacker was spitting these bits at high speed and they were pinging off the bees. Of course they weren’t happy about it. I could see they were circling Dad by that point with real purpose.

“Stop,” I said. “You’re hurting the bees.” I pointed to the bees who were staggering around on the landing platform. By that time they were buzzing my head too, and I wasn’t wearing a veil. We both moved back to the truck.

Then Dad made an announcement: “I think I’ve got a bee up my pant leg.”
“Well, you’ll get stung,” I said. It’d happened to me once when shaking a lot of bees.

I guess that wasn’t acceptable to him because the next thing I saw were his pants in a puddle around his ankles. All I could see was bee, after bee, after bee, flying out of them. How did so many of them get up his pant legs, I wondered? He did get stung too, but only once, on the leg.

Let’s just say that we learned not to be so complacent after that and when we returned to harvest our honey a few days later we both had our socks up over our pant legs.

For the honey harvest, the bees were extraordinarily calm and we had no problems at all.

It was almost enough to make us get complacent again.