Checking in with the bees

Well, one hive made it through the winter--one did not and here's the story of how it all happened.

Last April I started two hives with bees delivered to Maine from a bee farm in Georgia--being a transplanted southern girl myself, I had a great deal of sympathy for the 20,000 little honeybees and I committed to giving them the best life possible in this cold climate.

I named the two hives for the first two 4000 footers that I climbed. Washington and Madison. From the very beginning Washington seemed to be the stronger hive. They built their comb faster and seemed to be filling up their space with hive and honey. Madison was working hard but just never quite seemed to keep up with Washington. Then---tragedy struck in the form of the summer of 2009 with basically two months of rain, no sunshine or warmth. Veteran beekeepers said it was the worst summer ever for them and my two hives apparently had had enough and swarmed while I was away in Latvia and Sweden during August.

My dad and I consulted with the State Beekeeper--yes, indeed a sweet state job if ever I heard of one. He re-assured us and said that he had been fielding calls all summer about hives swarming. He told us to be patient and leave the hive alone for a couple of weeks.

Before a hive of bees decide to swarm--they plan--they are such smart little creatures. They begin their plan by building some queen cells. Queen cells are larger than the regular cells that the bees normally create for eggs and the nurse bees feed the larvae in the queen cell something called royal jelly. The royal jelly triggers her to grow larger and to develop sexually so that she can reproduce. Both my hives had created queen cells and when they swarmed they left behind nurse bees to take care of the developing queen.

So, during the time that the State beekeeper told us to leave the hive alone it was doing naturally exactly what it was supposed to--it was developing a new hive full of bees--no remnants of the Georgia bees any more except maybe a little bit of DNA telling them to seek out sweet tea and cornbread.

By early September, both hives were again producing and storing honey for the fall--despite our abysmal summer, the fall of 2009 was full of sunny warm days and the bees were busy. Washington completely filled its 3 "supers". Supers are the boxes that contain the frames on which the bees build their comb. The experts told us that we should have all 3 supers full before we could harvest any for ourselves--well under the circumstances we were just hoping that the bees filled the supers for themselves and we resigned to wait until next year for our honey.

Washington filled its 3 supers by mid-October when we were ready to cover the hives for the winter. Madison had filled 2 supers and the third was completely empty but we left the empty box on and hoped somehow that maybe they would be able to fill it. That was our mistake. We covered the hives with tar paper and watched the snow fall.

One day in between Christmas and New Year, we had a terrible storm full of fierce wind and the next morning when I looked across the field at the hives--I realized our error--the empty box on the top of Madison had blown off exposing the hive to the cold.

I threw on my snowshoes and ran to the hive--I could still see that some bees were alive--I brushed the snow off and covered it as quickly as I could but I knew that it was probably too late. So, I cried a little bit yet hoped for the best.

Last Sunday, the temperatures were in the 40's and the sun was shining so I went out to check. I was hoping to see little yellow spots on the snow around the hives--the bees will not urinate or defecate in the hive so they hold it until a sunny day then fly out to relieve themselves. I was encouraged when I got close and saw little yellow spots on the snow around Washington--and then as I got even closer some bees flew out to greet me. Washington Lived! I was so happy.

I opened Madison knowing what I would find and I did find a hive full of dead bees. But one hive had made it and while I am very sad about Madison, we fight on through adversity and so I came home and ordered another box of those Georgia bees--they'll be here in mid-April and they have a nice little hive to move into with beautiful comb and even a good bit of honey--all courtesy of Madison. The new hive will be called Lafayette in honor of that beautiful mountain in Franconia Notch--the third one I climbed on my personal journey to find new heights.

Beeing Productive

The bees are busy and happy now that the weather has turned to sunshine. Washington hive is ready for me to add the honey super. The honey super is the layer that will contain the honey for harvest.

Ever since the rain stopped on Thursday, the bees have been working hard--flying out and coming back to the hive with their little pollen baskets full. The worker bees have a short lifespan so some of these workers have probably never gathered pollen before these last few days.

When the bees die, they fall down to the bottom of the hive and are swept out by the workers and their little bee bodies are carried off. One morning during the height of our rainy spell, my mother called me, "Oh Beth, something terrible has happened--all of your bees are dead." She had noticed that there were no bees flying in or out of the hive and then noticed on the little lip of the hive (what we call the porch) there were piles of bee carcasses. I finished up my office work and then headed over to investigate worried that both my hives had fallen victim to too little sunshine. My dad and I lit the smoker and opened Washington hive. It was full of busy bees building comb and feeding larvae and the situation was the same in Madison hive. We surmised that the weather had just been too nasty for the bees on funeral patrol to do their job. A brief appearance of the sun and the porch was all cleaned up.

Beavers and bees--I guess I am partial to creatures with a work ethic and a commitment to neatness.

Checking in on the Bees

Because it probably is not that much fun to be hard at work and have a Giant come and remove your work station, examine everything with clumsy Giant hands, coo at you in a Giant babytalk voice and then replace your workstation nearly crushing some of your co-workers, I try not to check on my hives too frequently. Saturdays are my days to check in with them just to satisfy my curiosity--they have no need for my scrutiny.

In the last month, the hive that I call Washington has built comb in 8 of its frames, the newly-built comb is now filled with eggs, larvae, honey and pollen. The hive that I call Madison is slightly more productive, it has one entire super (10 frames) heavy with bee produce and the bees have started working on the second super. The supers are piled one atop another so the bees work their way up.

The bees in the hive at mid-day are probably the younger bees, newly emerged themselves they become the nurse bees to the eggs and the larvae--they care for the brood around the clock for roughly the first two weeks of their adult life. During this period the nurse bees do not display any circadian rhythm. An interesting article on this subject appeared in the New York Times last week. At about two weeks of age, the bees become foragers and at that time their circadian rhythm kicks into gear and they learn to make their flights for nectar at the time when the flower is releasing it in highest quantities. The foraging is hard work and the worker bees usually die by the time they are four weeks old, but by then the brood they had been tending as nurse bees are ready to take over their jobs.

I stopped feeding them sugar water last week as there are violets and dandelions blooming in the grass and forsythia, wild strawberries and azaleas showing color in the flower beds. Within a week or two my mother's yard will be a feasting bonanza for the bees as the lilac, apples and grapes blossom.

Sweet stuff

Who would have thought it would only take 2 days for 3 pounds of bees to go through a two-gallon bucket of sugar syrup.

The bees are busy filling their frames with comb and I suppose it must take a lot of energy to work so hard but it will all seem more natural to me when they get their calories from flowers rather than the baking aisle at Walmart.

To feed them, I boil a gallon of water and then take it off the heat and add a ten pound bag of sugar stirring to help it dissolve. When the syrup cools, I pour it into a two gallon plastic bucket and then struggle to fit the top on to the bucket.

The top of the bucket has two holes and then a screen over the holes. The bucket sits upside down in the top of the hive with the water held in because of a vacuum. The water drips out of the holes and into the screen area and the bees climb up and sip the water from the screen.

When I found the first bucket empty after only two days, I thought that perhaps the vacuum didn't work and it had all poured into the hive, but there was no evidence of a spill--the only explanation is that 10,000 bees can drink a lot of sugar water.

The Beeginning

Well, the bees survived their trip north and I survived our first date.

The hives are going to be at my parents' place in Sumner. They have lots of room, extensive flower and vegetable gardens, a fish pond and hundreds of acres of woods. So, after the bees were delivered to my house in Dixfield, I put their box into the back seat of my car and drove the 15 minutes to their new home.

Charlie and Archie were still at school and my mom was taking a nap, so my Dad and I were on our own for this adventure.

First we set up a "super" which is a box that contains the frames and base for the bees to build their combs on. We had put it all together in his basement over the last few weeks, but the snow just melted enough today to get things set up.

After we got the supers situated and got all of the equipment ready, I brought the bees down. Please note the duct tape stuck onto my shirt. I wanted to be totally prepared and you never know when a piece of duct tape is going to be necessary--so I wanted it handy--it is kind of a fashion statement in Maine to wear duct tape, but that's not why I did it.

Once I got my veil on, I opened up the first box and removed the small box that contained the queen. There was a queen bee and two attendants in the small box and it was plugged with a piece of soft candy. I poked two or three holes in the candy with a nail and then with a rubber band attached the queen box to one of the frames in my super. The worker bees should get the queen out within two or three days.

Once the queen was secured into the super, I removed a couple of frames and shook the rest of the bees in. Most of them just fell right into the super and then I carefully replaced the frames without squishing anybody and placed the box next to the entrance of the super. The bees who remained in the box immediately started marching in attracted by the strong pheramones from their queen.

It went much better than I expected it to. The hard part will be leaving them alone for the next day or two. On Sunday, I plan to check and make sure that the queen is out of her box, if not I will assist and get her out.

There were so many interesting observations in this first experience. There were probably a dozen bees from each box that were on the outside of the box but they didn't fly around, they stayed as close as they could to their own cluster. They were also surprisingly gentle and soft. I think that we are going to have a happy relationship my bees and I.

Bee Prepared

So, the bees are on their way.

Over the weekend, I painted their hives and am desperately hoping that the rain is melting the snow in the spot where I want to place them so that I can set them up before the packages of bees arrive.

White is the traditional bee hive color because it helps keep the hives cool in the summer sun, but up here in the cold north woods, we can use darker colors to assist the bees in keeping their hives warm. I used a dark red called Fireweed and want to paint whimsical designs of flowers and trailing honeybees and a logo--I'm thinking Beth's Bees.

The hive temperature needs to stay at around 93 degrees and we have very few days where the outside temperature tops that, so in Maine we are more concerned with keeping the bees warm than with keeping them cool. I am especially concerned about them when they arrive on Thursday to temperatures in the 40's and nights in the 30's.

Now for the the scary part. The bees are coming in 3 pound packages--there are about 3500 bees to a pound so that makes about 10,000 bees and I'm starting two hives---so that is 20,000 bees. There will be no gentle introduction to my new hobby as I dump them from their traveling box into the hives. I read the section on Installing Your Colony in my Bee Book and then re-read it and then re-read it again. I really don't think there is any margin of error when working with 20,000 bees for the first time. Then, just when I thought I had the book chapter memorized, I decided to check You-Tube. Well, wouldn't you know there are plenty of videos of people installing their bee packages--some good, some not so good--some cautionary tales, some instructive. I watched them all, some of them several times and now every time that my mind has time for any discretionary wandering--it replays the process of installing the bees over and over and over.

If I surivive the installation and if I can find anyone brave enough to photograph it, I will post pictures on Thursday of my hives.

Accessorizing

I think I look ready to penetrate the deepest darkest jungles.

Last night the material to put together two hives arrived. Over the next month or so, we'll get the pieces put together (if I can remember how--they did not come with directions) and then we'll be ready when the bees arrive via overnight delivery from Georgia. Oh, those poor bees are in for a nasty surprise. Whatever they were used to in Georgia in Maine, they will find that April is a winter month.

Until the dandelions bloom, the bees will get a sugar water solution--we learned several different ways of providing it--more on this as I begin experimenting. The point is to have the solution available for them to access with their tongues without the risk of drowning.

This all seems so complicated but I keep telling myself to take a deep breath, the bees know what to do even if I don't. Maybe, that's the way with a lot of things.

Bees-N-Me

Last night in bee class, a man brought in kits and taught us how to put together our hives. We brought our hammers (see my pretty flowery one) and snapped pieces together and hammered them tight and nailed them securely and then put a piece of wax in them. These little frames are what the bees use as a foundation for their work and where they build their combs and leave their honey.

A bee hive is several boxes (called Supers) filled with these frames. The bottom two or three supers contain the bees' honey and on top of those, we will put "honey boxes" for the excess--our honey!

I have to order my supplies by this weekend and have decided to go with medium supers because loaded with comb and honey they will weigh 60 pounds as opposed to the deeper, more traditional supers that will weigh 100 pounds. I think 60 pounds is all I want to be tossing around into a wheelbarrow, so we'll go with the smaller ones. Using the medium supers, I will have three rather than two for the bees' use and hopefully a whole lot for my use--honey--yummmmmy. (Note to self: re-read Winnie the Pooh and Too Much Honey)

We also learned that in Maine we should paint the hives a non-traditional dark color Most hives are painted white and that is to assist the bees in keeping their hive cool. But the hive temperature stays around 95 degrees and in Maine we don't have very many days where the temperature is over 90 so by painting the hive a darker color we can assist the bees in their heating.

I am ordering Italian bees. They are recommended as docile and hardy and the experienced beekeepers in our class all recommend them.

The bees will be in on April 11 and we have eight classes between now and then for me to learn everything I can.

Stay tuned!

What's all the Buzz About?

For the past two winters, a notice in the paper has caught my eye advertising a 12-week course in backyard beekeeping offered at one of the local schools. It has intrigued me each year, but twelve weeks seemed like a major commitment and do I really want to keep bees? Well, this year I decided to check it out and yes, maybe I will keep bees.

What really surprised me was the number of people filling the school cafeteria--there were at least fifty other people there wanting to spend the next twelve Wednesday evenings learning about bee keeping. The folks in the class have all sorts of different motivations Some had kept bees before but want to learn more about it, some are gardeners or farmers and want the bees for pollination, some want to start a honey or wax business, one couple makes goat milk soap and uses honey as an ingredient--some (like me) just love nature and want to learn more about the fascinating work of bees.

This should be fun--updates to follow in the weeks ahead.