All I want for Christmas is: A main floor honey house

Dad and I had been carrying our honey supers from the driveway down a flight of stairs to the basement. It’s a lot of heavy carrying. Sometimes we’d remove a few frames from a box to lighten it up a bit and other times we’d both take and end and carry it down together. Somehow no matter how many frames we’d remove those boxes would still feel really heavy.

The arms get tired after a few boxes and I was so nervous about falling forward down the stairs that I’d most often carry the supers down the stairs going down backwards. It actually worked well because if I was going to fall I’d fall forward into the stairs.

So I got to thinking about all this and how it’d be so very nice to have a main floor honey house. I did consider the garage for a bit. I could convert it or even close off part of it to create the honey house. I must say I’m the only family member that actually puts their vehicle in the garage—something I’m very proud of—considering the amount of organizing it took to accomplish. I didn’t want to put my truck out in the snow and hail AND I didn’t want to get gas fumes and exhaust around my honey. So I vetoed that.

Next I considered a small bedroom that is nestled between the kitchen and the master bedroom. That room had always been a bit of a junk room. When the niece and nephew were younger I used it for sleep overs but over the years it mostly stored stuff that I couldn’t figure out where to put. I’d kept some rabbits in there and foster cats over the years so the hardwood had some wet damage from spilled water dishes, etc.

The floor was a mess but the room had possibilities. I figured the floor should be torn out and redone. I was costing that out and then realized the best option was to refinish the hardwood. Even that was expensive. So, being a brave soul I thought I’d look at U-Tube to see how floors are refinished. After an hour of watching the pro videos I was certain I could to this myself.

And I did. First I bought paint, a nice terracotta colour. I painted the ceiling a bright glossy white and then I did the walls. It was July and it was right in the middle of this project that the lay off letter came. One good thing was that I had a major project underway, as well as the bees to keep my busy.

I rented a floor sander from Home Depot and bought floor brushes and Urethane. I chose a red mahogany stain for the floor to help cover up the damaged areas.  I can’t tell you what a feeling of achievement I got from doing this project myself. All through it I didn’t tell Dad what I was doing. I wanted it to be a surprise. His job is to sell our honey and to do all the extracting. So it was him who’d spend hours and hours tucked into the corner of our basement extracting. Now he’d be able to do it on the main floor.

The final part was to add patio doors. This would be the most important part because now we could walk straight from the driveway to the doors, up three steps and right into the bee room. My brother was home from Australia for the month of August and he built the stairs for us.

The project was done just in time for our fall harvest of honey. I did the reveal to Dad and he was really happy with the change.

[Photo - ignore the small loom sitting on top of the gray uncapping tank].

Through the summer I had increased from six to fifteen hives so we had a lot of work to do. We averaged from 100 to 125+ lbs of honey per hive, but more on that later.

2012 has been a good honey year for us.  We were fortunate not to have bee kills from corn planting like many other beekeepers did.  The summer drought did slow down the flow for a few weeks but the prolonged summer kept the bees busy.

It’s great to get back into the blog again. Sorry for the hiatus. I hope you had a great honey season this year.

Wishing you a blessed 2013 to you and your family and your bees.

Bee Dinner

This time it wasn't the bee having dinner.

The bee was the dinner.

The preying mantis is a skilled predator in the bee yard.

He/she is disguised to look like a twig.

She'll stay completely still until a bee comes within reach.

Then bam!  She lunges forward and grabs the bee in less than a second.

Next she'll bite off the bee's head.

That ends any arguing from the bee.

Now she can dine in peace.

Later that day I saw her again.

This time she was fifty feet away at the robbing table where I had put out supers of sticky frames.

This could only be described as an all you can eat bee buffet for this predator.

I must say her abdomen was looking kind of fat. 

That's why I think she's female.

She's certainly well fed.

A Beekeeper's Best Helper - a Bee Escape Board

The next best thing to have in the bee yard, besides a beekeeper friend to help, is a Bee Escape Board.

This simple board is designed with a small triangular maze on one side and a simple round hole on the other.

The clever idea of this contraption is that you slip it underneath a full honey super that you would like to remove.

How do you place it on the hive?  The round hole goes facing up under the super.  When the bees exit the hive they leave the box by going through the round hole.  As they come down there are three straight paths of the maze underneath that they exit through.

Later when the bee wants to return to the super and she tries to go up she won't be able to figure out how to get into the super.

Your job is to be sure to return the next day (24 hours later) to remove the super.

During that 24 hours most of the bees in the super will exit the box.  They especially will go down into the hive if the nights are cool because they'll want to cluster.

I do find if the nights are warmer that not as many bees will exit the super but using the escape board is still worth it to reduce the number of bees that will need to be swept off the frames.

Later when the bees want to travel back up into the supers they're faced with the maze which is too complex for them to figure out.

If you wait longer than 24 hours to return though the bees will have discovered where the entrances are to the maze and will travel back up into the supers.  So timing is important.

My success with this has been great.  Even on hives where most of the bees didn't exit (a warm night for example) there are still many less bees to sweep off the frames than there would be otherwise.

So be sure to add bee escapes to your list of bee equipment to get.

Stinky Bee Yard? Blame the Goldenrod

You can certainly tell when fall is in the air.  The goldenrod flowers are in bloom and boy does the bee yard ever stink.

It's true that flowers give honey its flavour so don't be put off by the smell of goldenrod in the yard as the bees process it.  The final product doesn't taste anything like the smell.

What does goldenrod smell like?  If you put your nose to a flower it has a faint but pleasant fragrance.  But when the nectar is being processed by the bees there's a very distinct and unpleasant smell that comes out of the hives.

It smells like stinky feet.  Image a hot day with lots of walking and you're wearing your shoes with no socks.  Then you pop off your shoes and within a few moments you've cleared out the room.  Everyone complains.

That's what golden rod smells like.

So don't panic and think you've got American Foul Brood (AFB) if it's fall and you get a whiff of something stinky.

Goldenrod is a plant native to North America and it grows abundantly in meadows and alongside roads and highways.  If you're lucky sometimes you'll get what I call a bird poop gift--a bird has eaten a flower seed and pooped it out in your garden where it catches and grows.  I have a goldenrod plants now in both my front and back yard.

I have to say that goldenrod honey is my favourite flavour of all the honeys flowers and bees produce.

The Most Amazing Toilet in Beekeeping

I know.  You are wondering what on earth a toilet has to do with beekeeping.

Well a lot actually.

First I'll tell you that last weekend was Clovermead's Bee Olympics.

Proceeds for the day were given to charity.

Four men this year volunteered to wear the bee beard.  I had my turn last year to wear the beard so this year I got to be a spectator.

It was a fun afternoon for everyone.  The bees were poured onto the willing volunteers.

Audience cheers and judges helped determine the winners.  It was all round good fun for everyone.

But the highlight of the day for me came after I left.  Because I came back.

I was at the car waiting for Dad so we could leave.  We got in the car and he asked me if I'd been to the bathroom.  I told him no because I didn't need to go.

That's when he told me that I needed to see the bathroom.

So he drove to the main entrance and I went back in.

I got in the washroom line and waited.  I waited and waited and waited.  Some people can take more time than others when it comes to doing their "business".

Finally the toilet was free and I went inside.  This is what I had to see:

Frames and frames of bees set into the walls of the bathroom.

Now if you do a little math, while you're doing your thing each bee is watching you.

Each bee has 5 eyes and there would be around 70,000+ bees per hive.

That translates into a lot of eyes watching you while you're watching them.

I figure this is as close to a beekeeper's dream come true as you can get.

While you sit on the throne you can look for the queen.

I also finally understood why I had to wait in line so long for the bathroom to be free.

With so much to see people were certainly taking their time.

After all, the job's not finished until the paperwork is done!

Water Please!

Life can be a beach if you're a bee.

Everyone needs water.  Without it we don't last so long.  With quite the drought going on in my area I noticed how bees were quick to lick up every drop of water that I spilled in the yard.

They'd even land on the wet dirt after I watered the garden.  So I decided to set out some water for them.

The biggest problem for bees and water is drowning.

I put two small Tupperware containers full of water out, high enough up that raccoons can't mess them up.  I laid many pieces of grass across the surface to give the bees a landing spot.

So far I haven't seen any drowned bees.

I also put my Styrofoam hive feeder on the robbing table, but filled with water.  But so far I haven't seen bees making use of it.

An instructor from my bee course advised that the best way to build a water feeder for bees is to create a beach.  He suggested a plastic child's pool be put in a slanted position.  Then pour sand in it and finally water.

The tilt puts the water to the back and leaves a beach area for the bees to land on.  They don't even have to walk to the water's edge to drink.

I thought I'd try that next.

Summer Santa

Dearth:  Scarcity that makes dear; specifically:  Famine.  An inadequate supply:  Lack.

We're in a dearth in southwestern Ontario.

With our strange spring blowing hot and then cold the bees missed out on the nectar and pollen from the fruit trees.  There are no apples or cherries this year.

Then it got warm again and flowers bloomed.

But now it's as if the creek's gone dry.  Not too many flowers have been in bloom.  We haven't had any significant amount of rain for a long time.

I put extra supers on three weeks ago and most have only one or two frames of drawn comb.  I know the bees are workaholics so if they are able in any way, they'd be building combs and filling them.

I can feel for the bees.  They're feeling a bit unemployed.  You know bees:  They need something to do to keep them happy.  They're so much like me!

I had a large roasting pan that was full of wet cappings from the capping tank from last season. I could tell you that I kept them to give the bees in a time of dearth but I don't plan that far ahead.

Truth is I've been so busy that the pan sat forgotten.  Until now.

This would give the bees something to do.

So I played Santa Clause.  I spooned out some honey on the front porch of each hive.  Just a little appetizer.  Then I put the roasting pan on my robbing table.

The robbing table is covered with plastic sheeting and a piece of corrugated metal which provides protection from the rain.

[Photo - a leftover piece of granulated honey in the comb.  The bees certainly don't care].

They'll clean all the honey up and leave behind the nice clean wax which I'll use to make candles.

I did notice Queen Anne's Lace is coming into bloom though I'm not sure if they work that flower much... but I have tasted jam made from the blooms and it's quite delicious.

My friend Henry said that we might not get any honey this summer except from soya beans.

I think he might be right.