Dead Bees

I'm sorry to report that the honeybees at Red Bucket Farm are all dead. It was not the polar vortex that secured their demise. I suspect the hive was dead before Christmas.

We last noticed bee activity in early December. Usually, we see some evidence of them over the winter. The housekeeping bees will toss dead bodies out into the snow, and little bits of bee poop will be obvious near the hive. But this year there has been no sign of life at all.

Due to various complications from the previous season, we entered the winter with only one populated hive. In the spring we will clean the dead hive and try to determine what killed them, but it's very likely this will remain a mystery.

I've ordered two 3-pound packages of bees (at $92 each!) to re-populate the hives in the spring. The packages will look similar to the photo above. We can use some of the comb and honey from last year to give the new girls a head start. If we're lucky and the weather is favorable, we can then divide one of the hives to populate our third hive box.

Meanwhile, I'm begging you to not use any lawn pesticides this spring. Urban bees fare better than rural bees because urban foraging opportunities are far more diverse than mono-culture farming methods provide. Nevertheless, lawn chemicals are completely toxic to bees. If a bee guardian can keep bees alive through the winter until the spring dandelions bloom, then all is well. Please remember,

dandelions = bee food

Harvest Totals

I haven't posted about our successful harvests because I was afraid it would sound like bragging---and Heaven knows that bragging is one of the seven deadly sins. Nevertheless, I want to tell you about it as inspiration for your own gardens. Remember that Red Bucket Farm is just my backyard in an average 1970s neighborhood with less than a quarter acre property including the house. You can do this, too.

Harvesting began in June with a lovely supply of currants and strawberries. I made the currants into jam and sauce. Some of the strawberries became jam and others were frozen. In July we harvested cherries from three cherry trees. We made a few pies and have several bags of cherries in the freezer.

The summer raspberries produced nicely, too, some of which became jam, some frozen, and plenty of them enjoyed fresh. The blueberry bushes are coming along, and we were able to freeze a few for winter use. Our peach tree did very well---90 pounds of peaches! My freezer and canning shelves are full---jam, peach rum sauce, spiced honey peaches, peaches in light honey syrup, and plain frozen peach slices (for pie later on).

In July we harvested honey from our one surviving hive. We made mead and strawberry melomel (a fruity mead variation). Honey is shelf stable and will last the winter.

Vegetables in raised beds have also done well. I harvested 50 pounds of potatoes and 50 pounds of onions in early August, and immediately replanted those beds with spinach, arugula, Swiss chard and beets. We'll hoop those beds to stretch the growing season through November. The butternut squash have exceeded 60 pounds, and there are still more growing on the vines.

This year the tomatoes have outdone themselves. I grow only six Amish paste tomato plants and I have enough tomato products to keep us until next year----plain tomato sauce, pizza sauce, tomato paste, and two kinds of salsa. I'm not kidding---only six tomato plants and they're still producing. Green beans continue to produce into the fall. We have dilled beans and frozen beans to last the winter.

What have I forgotten? Lots of basil/pesto, herbs, carrots, beets, scallions, and garlic. Fall bearing raspberries are awesome!

You can do it, too. If there is a secret to successful gardening, it's not a very well-kept secret: sunshine and compost. Start planning for next year's garden!

Harvest Time

It's the time of year when fruits and veggies mature as fast (or faster) than we can bring them in and process them. It's a good problem to have, because it means the urban farm is increasingly productive and we'll have plenty of organic food to eat all winter. 

Pole beans are growing like crazy. We pick a bucket of beans every day, blanch and flash freeze.

The tomatoes continue to arrive at an impressive rate. This is a fruit with plenty of options. I've roasted, pureed and frozen some of it, and canned simple tomato sauce. Soon I'll make pizza sauce, barbecue sauce and salsa, canning it for stable shelf storage because my freezer is getting quite full.

Our little peach tree has hit its stride. We've harvested more than sixty pounds of fruit from one tree, virtually without blemish. I've frozen peach slices for future pies; canned peaches in spiced honey syrup; canned more peaches in rum sauce; and canned even more peaches in a simple honey syrup. When I'm too exhausted to care, I just cut them into a freezer container, sprinkle it with a teaspoon of sugar, and put it in the freezer. We're approaching the end of the peach crop. Whew!

So if I seem like I haven't written, called or blogged lately, now you know why!

Honeybee Orientation Flights

Early this afternoon, I noticed a group of bees outside the red hive taking orientation flights. These bees have recently hatched and so far they have worked exclusively inside the hive. Today they came outside for the first time, stretching their wings and practicing flight for foraging later. Orientation flights occur only three or four feet away from the hive, giving the bees a chance to learn their neighborhood and program their internal global positioning systems. This is an excellent sign that the hive is producing new babies, so their queen must be alive and well.

Of our three hives, this is the only hive to successfully survive the long winter. The blue hive was completely dead, so we harvested the honey, cleaned out the dead bees, and closed all the entrances. The green hive had a few surviving worker bees but no queen. We transferred the survivors to the healthy red hive, harvested honey, removed dead bodies, and closed all the entrances. We use the low-tech crush and strain method of honey harvesting, and we put by about 30 pounds of honey from the two hives.

As the red hive multiplies, we will transfer a few top bars of comb with eggs and larvae into one of the empty hives. This is known as making a split or splitting the hive. The bees should crown a new queen because any worker egg can be groomed into a queen. Beehives grow at an astonishing rate in the spring. We hope to have two or even three hives thriving in a few months.

Honeybee late winter update

On Saturday, March 2, we conducted a partial inspection of two (out of three) top bar bee hives. At noon the weather was 40 degrees and sunny, so we worked very quickly. We had to shovel snow out of the bee yard to access the hives. Our main purpose was to insure the bees would have enough food to survive the late winter.

Last week, I made fondant bee candy following the recipe in Christy Hemenway's new book The Thinking Beekeeper. Fondant is a good way to feed bees in the winter because it won't freeze like sugar syrup. It's important to get the fondant as close as possible to the bee cluster.

We opened the red hive first because we're certain there are still living bees in that hive. Sure enough, those girls assured us that they didn't appreciate our intrusion. Since we found plenty of honey dripping from the combs, we quickly closed the hive.

Next we opened the blue hive where we also found plenty of honey. Rather than annoy any remaining bees, we closed up the hive and covered it with the insulation blankets. There hasn't been any activity from this hive in the last few weeks, and I'm unsure if there are any survivors.

Our green hive hasn't shown any activity since December. We presume it is dead and didn't bother to open it in winter conditions. There was plenty of honey in that hive last fall, which we'll retrieve in the spring.

Reports from other beekeepers have been discouraging. The survival rate this winter is very low mostly due to mites. If we can keep just one hive alive, we will consider it a huge success. Bees reproduce quickly in the spring and we can use the increase to make splits for the empty hives. Late winter is the most challenging!  

Crush and Strain Honey

When we pulled on our bee suits Sunday afternoon, we didn't have any intention of harvesting honey. We had noticed through the hive observation windows that one hive seemed significantly stronger than the other, so we thought we would transfer one top bar of honey comb and perhaps one top bar of brood comb from the strong hive to the weaker hive. This would help build up the weaker hive and moderate the stronger hive so it would be less tempted to swarm (permanently leave).

First we opened the weaker hive. We used our hive tool to gently release the top bars which are stuck in place with propolis, a fantastic glue that the bees make to secure their homes. Then we carefully removed top bars one at a time and inspected the combs and bees. We found yellow and orange pollen, plenty of honey, a moderate number of bees, and we even found the queen. Although we didn't see any brood (eggs or larvae), we decided to leave this hive alone and not harass them. We assume the brood comb is situated closer to the entrance where we did not remove the top bars. It was reassuring enough to find the queen.

The second hive was full of honey comb, so much that we decided it was time to take some for ourselves. We simply broke the dripping honey comb into a bowl, trying desperately to brush off bees before they got crushed in the process. (Note to self: buy a bee brush and another hive tool.) We took comb from three top bars and then quickly shut the hive because the bees were getting agitated. There is plenty of honey remaining for the bees.

We used an old fashioned enamel colander and potato masher to begin crushing the honey comb. We bottled eight cups of honey in canning jars, then transferred the crushed comb into another strainer to gain two more cups of honey.

The next day we noticed that the small bits of suspended comb had risen to the top of the jars where it could easily be spooned off and strained again for that last tablespoon or two of golden deliciousness.

Perhaps someday I'll learn to wash the comb wax and use it for candles, but today I'm very grateful for the work of the bees and the wonderful harvest they share. It's been only eleven months since we started keeping bees and we're thrilled with the results. We still have much to learn, but the bees will teach us.