Winter Bees

The weather at Red Bucket Farm has been fairly dreadful in terms of our honeybees. Towards the end of October, we covered the hives with insulation blankets and wrapped the entire bee yard with plastic to protect the hives from western winds.

November was just plain cold. Outdoor air temperatures were way below normal, hovering in the teens during the day and close to zero at night. The bees disappeared into the hives where they clustered together in a tight ball around the queen.

December has been warmer but cloudy, foggy, damp and drippy. It's normal for bees to take "cleansing flights" during winter months. They prefer to not poop in their hives and will slip outside on a sunny afternoon for quick trip to the ladies room. Unfortunately, we haven't seen the sun or the bees in weeks---until yesterday. Finally we had a few hours of sunshine and one of our hives took the opportunity to get outside.

This video is about one second long, but you get the idea. (Sorry that I'm not so clever with technology.) We'll be happy if even one hive survives the winter so that we can build and split with the hardy bees that make it. Replacing bees each spring is expensive---about $100 per hive---and we may not be able to justify the expense if they die each winter.

So, at the risk of repeating myself endlessly, if you still use lawn chemicals, please reconsider. Chemicals weaken the bee population significantly. If the bees approach winter in a compromised state, they can't possibly survive. Pollination is tenuous these days, and without it, we all suffer. Backyard bees are better off than rural bees because foraging is more varied, but lawn chemicals are toxic. Remember that dandelions are bee food.

Meanwhile, we have a glimmer of hope that some of our bees are still alive!

Bee Hatch

The red hive in the foreground and the green hive in the background are both exhibiting new hatches of bees. Notice most of the bees are taking short flights in little circles right at the hive entrances. These are known as orientation flights as the new bees get to know their surroundings. Soon these bees will begin taking longer flights.

Although the hives are slimming down in preparation for winter, it's good to see new bees and know that the queens are all alive and well.

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

Landscape Pesticide Registry

The deadline to register for the Landscape Pesticide Registry in Wisconsin is February 1. 

Go straight to the website for the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection at http://datcp.wi.gov.  Click on the Environment tab and then click on Landscape Pesticide Registry. It's easy to register your own address. Then you can register the addresses of any neighbors who use commercial lawn pesticide application. The lawn company is required to contact you (usually by telephone) and give 24 hours notice that they will apply pesticide. This gives you enough time to protect your garden crops, poultry, pets, bees, and children from the harmful effects of pesticide. 

Remember the deadline is quickly approaching. Don't delay. I've found this to be effective and helpful. 

Underplanting the Orchard

In his book The Holistic Orchard, fruit tree expert Michael Phillips offers recommendations for the overall health and productivity of fruit trees. Based on his concepts, we spent several hours over the weekend underplanting our home orchard. We removed the grass beneath each tree and added hardwood mulch to allow more nutrients and water to reach the roots of the trees. 

Phillips recommends planting a "living mulch," an understory of widely diversified plants, some that attract beneficial insects, others than repel destructive insects. We have plenty to learn in this area, but diversity seems to be the operative concept. 

Comfrey (above), known for its medicinal qualities, has a long tap root that pulls up nutrients from deep below ground and distributes them to tree roots. We planted oregano and lemon balm for their bee-friendly qualities. Chives are reported to help with peach leaf curl, so we planted that beneath the peach trees. Bitter herbs are thought to repel fruit pests, so we'll work on that next spring. 

Of all the crazy projects we've done around here, this one has garnered most comments from the neighbors because in addition to having function, underplanting is also quite attractive. 

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!  

Honeybee Cleansing Flight

On Monday, February 18, daytime temperatures at Red Bucket Farm approached 45 degrees with full sunshine. The honeybees in two of my topbar hives took the opportunity to come outside for quick cleansing flights (they poop outside of the hive). You can see them in this brief video. Unfortunately, my third hive appears to be dead. We hope to have enough surviving bees to make splits in the spring. Stay tuned for further developments!

Blizzard & Bees

A few days ago, Mother Nature delivered a significant blizzard---around 18 inches of snow and high winds. Since then, temperatures have remained below freezing and there has been very little melting. The day after the blizzard, I cleared the snow off the beehives and repaired the plastic wrap we use as wind break. Although the snow functions as insulation, I prefer to clear the roof of the hive so that the black tar paper wrap will help absorb as much heat from the sun as possible.

Yesterday I noticed a few dead bees laying on top of the snow immediately outside the hive entrances. I think this is a good sign that the housekeeping bees are cleaning house. I hope the hives are functioning normally in there!

Winterizing Beehives

A few weeks ago we began winterizing our beehives. We started by wrapping the bee yard with heavy plastic. The arbor-like structure around the bee yard is multi-purpose. In the summer we hang awnings to provide shade for the hives; in the winter we wrap the lower sections to provide a wind break.

Next, we wrap each top bar hive individually. We make an insulation blanket out of large plastic bags filled with 4" fiberglass insulation. We wrap the blankets carefully around the hive box and cover it with tar paper. It's cinched down with nylon web straps. We also secure the box to the ground with more nylon straps and hurricane anchors. It seems excessive in the calm of November, but we might be glad for it during a January blizzard.

Each of our top bar hives has six entrance holes on the small east-facing end of the hive. As the weather gets cooler and the bees less active, it's a good idea to close up some of the entrances to reduce cold air flow.

Evidently, the bees in my blue hive thought I was too slow in closing up entrances. They decided to solve this problem themselves by filling in all three top entrance holes with propolis, their own special bee glue.

The three lower entrance holes on that hive are partially closed. They left a little room to exit and enter. I guess I won't mess with their system since they seem to have it worked out. I'll be curious to see if they open all six holes in the spring. And if they don't, should I do anything about it?

We're optimistic about our hives this winter. In spite of various summer challenges, all three hives seem to have plenty of honey stored and they appear healthy and strong. Now we wait out the winter and hope for the best.

Apiary Update

This is just a quick update on our beehives. In July, we had such an extended heat wave that one of our top bar hives experienced a damaging meltdown. You can read the details of that on my July 22 post. But there is good news---the damaged colony is rebuilding. This week I noticed a new hatch of bees taking their orientation flights in and out of the hive, staying within a few feet of the hive while they get their bearings. (I avoided picking tomatoes in front of that hive while they were doing that!)  They have about eight combs now and the colony is obviously queen-right. We're a little more hopeful that this hive will be able to survive the winter. Aren't they amazing little creatures?

Apiary Meltdown

We experienced a disaster in the bee yard at Red Bucket Farm. Due to extreme heat in the first week of July (over 100 degrees for three consecutive days), we discovered that all the combs in the red hive had melted off the top bars and dropped to the floor of the hive, crushing hundreds or thousands of bees. This was our newest hive and it had been doing fabulously, building a dozen combs, laying eggs, tending brood, bringing in nectar and pollen.

Last weekend (July 14) we cleaned out the melted mess from the floor of the hive. The combs had not melted off the top bars. In fact, there was still an inch or two of comb attached to each top bar, but the bulk of the comb had dropped in the heat. I remember a day in the extreme heat (when I was preoccupied with trying to keep the chickens alive) that there were suddenly a large number of bees on the outside of that hive. At the time I assumed it was normal bearding behavior in the heat, but in retrospect I believe the returning forager bees clustered outside because of the disaster inside.

We also discovered bees building comb in the roof of that hive. This was new comb without honey or brood, so we suspect they began building there after the meltdown. I have to admire their work ethic and resourcefulness.

After cleaning up the disaster, we shook the bees out of the rooftop and back into the hive body, then replaced all the top bars and let the bees get back to work. We're rebuilding the rooftop to repair the warp and prevent them from accessing the space. We also built an arbor-like structure over the bee yard and sewed awnings to provide some shade from the summer sun. The awnings can be removed in the fall when the sunshine will be beneficial to the hives.

We're concerned that it's rather late in the summer for that hive to rebuild enough that it will be strong for winter survival. This morning we took two top bars from an adjacent healthy hive to share with the struggling colony. The borrowed combs were full of honey, brood and bees. Perhaps this will jump-start the red hive for a chance at survival. If the queen was lost in the disaster, they may be able to groom a new one.  We're also providing supplemental cups of honey.

There is some good news. One of the hives is quite strong. We harvested 20 cups of honey which we can use to feed the weaker hive. Maybe there will even be some honey for us to enjoy. It's been a fascinating journey. There is nothing like an emergency to teach us about bee life.

More Swarms

Perhaps I was too eager in my blog post this morning. At 12:45 pm, my brave little swarm of bees absconded the red hive. It took them three minutes to exit, and about ten minutes to form a cluster around the queen in my spruce tree. This swarm is slightly larger than a softball.

While I was photographing the smaller cluster, I noticed an even larger group of bees higher in the tree (see above). This leads me to believe that both of my hives swarmed yesterday while I was out. I'm guessing the larger swarm is from the stronger blue hive, and the smaller swarm is from the weaker green hive, which obviously isn't weak at all if it's got enough energy to swarm.

Fortunately, I'm expecting delivery of a package of bees this week for the new red hive. Perhaps I'll even remember to cork up the entrances for a day or so to encourage them to stay.

Catching a Swarm

On Tuesday of last week (April 24), I saw a "practice swarm" over the blue hive in my bee yard. A practice swarm is when several hundred bees prepare for a real departure swarm. My bees whirled in a cloud over their hive for about ten minutes at noon, in the heat of the day. After their practice drill, they all returned to the hive. But I knew this was a warning signal that the bees were preparing to leave.

In the spring, the queen begins laying eggs in huge numbers in one central location of the hive known as the brood nest. When the bees perceive that the brood nest is getting too crowded, they prepare their current queen for flight by slimming her down while simultaneously grooming a new queen in one of several queen cells. Before long, several hundred or even thousand bees will gather up the queen and leave for a new home, while the remaining bees will stay and carry on with their new queen.

Last week's practice swarm warned me that this exodus would happen soon, but the weather turned cold and rainy, postponing the event until yesterday. In the morning I could sense that the bee yard was agitated, but my day's events called me away. By late afternoon, I noticed a cluster of bees on the foundation of my greenhouse. They were certainly clustered around a queen, and the day was quickly passing with storms predicted for night.

We jumped into action and scooped them into a shoe box. Homeless bees aren't aggressive, so it's not as scary as it sounds. Then we put the shoe box into the empty red hive along with two top bars of clean new comb (donated from the blue hive). I also gave them a jar of sugar water.

This morning they are still there. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they won't abscond.

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.

Feeding the Bees

Yesterday the weather was warm and sunny. We reached a record high of 51 degrees and the bees took advantage of it. There was plenty of bee activity around the hives and the entire backyard for two or three hours during the warmest part of the day. Although I've seen them take short cleansing flights over the winter, yesterday they were stretching out for longer flights. I suspect that many of the older bees were leaving the hive for the last time, sacrificing themselves for the good of the group. Bees form an amazing democracy.

Today the weather is still warm but not sunny. There is far less activity outside the hives, as the bees are choosing to remain inside their shelters. We took the opportunity to unwrap the hive insulation covers and peek inside.

The blue hive looks great. The cluster of bees remains close to the entrance and they have plenty of honey stored in the combs. We looked only through the observation window, and chose to not open the cover or disturb this hive in any way. It's a big group of bees with mellow temperament, and they seem to be doing very well.

The green hive also looked busy through the observation window. We're more concerned about this hive because it's a much smaller cluster of bees, and they have fewer combs of stored honey. Nevertheless, this group seems more feisty than the blue hive, so I'm remaining optimistic. We quickly removed three top bars, creating just enough space to slip a hand inside. I removed three empty honey feeder cups that we had placed there in early November, and replaced them with two full honey cups. On warm days, the bees will be able to break cluster and gather the honey into the combs. We replaced the cover quickly and wrapped the hives again in the insulation blankets.

It's been an extremely mild winter. Perhaps Mother Nature is giving my bees a chance at survival. So far, so good.

Strawberries!

Due to graduation season in my neighborhood, it's been ten days since my last blog update and the strawberries have gone crazy. I love strawberries so much that I wish I could write poetry about their perfection. Instead, I guess I'll just keep eating them.

My strawberry bed is a 4x8 foot raised bed. I think we planted it about three years ago. It's always provided us with a steady supply of berries for our breakfast cereal, but when I wanted to make strawberry jam or freeze berries for the winter, we went to the u-pick farm nearby.

This year it's different. I pick strawberries twice a day and I half fill a gallon bucket with beautiful, perfect berries. What's the difference between this year and last year? Honeybees and sunshine. My two top bar hives of bees have been very busy and there is no doubt in my mind that this is making a huge difference. But I can't forget that we had three huge spruce trees removed in March, and the whole farm receives more sunlight.

If you garden, I urge you to consider backyard bees. It's a moderate investment for a wonderful return, and just having them in the farm lends an aura of peacefulness. I don't want to get all preachy about this, but it's our job to make sure the bees survive. And the strawberries appreciate it, too.

Installing Bee Packages

This noon we installed two packages of bees into our top bar hives. It was very exciting. We tried to get everything organized that we would need to accomplish the task---tools to open the packages, remove the cans of syrup and open the queen cages. We started without any protective clothing but quickly found our old mosquito netting hats for protection.

We opened the green colored hive and removed several top bars to make room to work. We carefully pried the top off the package and began gently lifting the can of sugar water out of the box.

After the sugar can is removed, we could grab the tab on the queen cage, which unforunately broke and the whole queen cage fell into the box with 10,000 bees. My brave teenaged daughter reached in and carefully rescued the queen cage.

The next step is to remove the cork covering the candy plug at the end of the queen cage. Both ends are corked, and we were supposed to remove the cork allowing the worker bees access to the candy plug. The theory is that by the time the bees have eaten the candy plug, they will have bonded appropriately with the queen and will no longer want to kill her as if she was an intruder. Unfortunately, in our ignorance we removed the wrong cork and inadvertently released the queen and her six attendants directly into the hive without protection. It all happened so quickly and my instinct was to get her quickly into the hive before we lost her entirely.

After that, it was simple. Shake those bees into the hive.

Replace the top bars. We tried to make sure there were no stragglers when we replaced the roof cover.

Then we moved on to the second hive, stained blue in the background. This installation went more smoothly now that we had one under our belts. The syrup can came out with some difficulty because the bees had begun to draw comb inside the packages and had already "glued" the can into place with propolis.

Guanshan is holding the queen cage, which is covered in bees. Cool, huh? Please notice that we didn't drop it into the package this time, nor did we uncork the wrong end. This queen cage is hanging properly between two top bars.

Shaking bees is kind of fun and very exciting.

Finally, we replaced the top bars and the roof on the blue hive and called it a day.

This is a piece of the comb that the bees had drawn inside their shipping package.



Bee Packages Arrive

The phone call came at 7:45 this morning informing me that my packages of live bees were at the postal annex ready for me to pick up. The voice on the other end sounded calm and somewhat bored. I wondered if this was a common occurance.

We ate breakfast quickly and drove over, somewhat nervous about what awaited. When the postal worker came to the counter to help us, I introduced myself.

"I'm the Bee Lady," I said simply.

"Oh, thank God," she exclaimed loudly, and immediately turned to the back room without checking my identification. I think she would have given those boxes to anybody who wanted them.

The two boxes of bees were held together with lath strips forming one package. The bees inside were huddled around their cans of sugar syrup and presumably the queen cage, which we haven't been able to see. They moved slowly, too cold to generate very much buzzing. The bees will cluster together to stay warm---about ninety degrees inside the hive. There were only a few dozen dead bees at the bottom of the box, which is normal, and one lonely bee hanging on to the outside of the box. Poor thing has been clinging for hundreds of miles.

We set the packages down on the sidewalk outside and sprayed them with sugar syrup, which initiates a grooming response. Then we placed them in the trunk of the car and brought them home.

Unfortunately, it's forty degrees and raining today, which is really lousy weather for bees. It needs to be at least 45 degrees for the bees to take flight. Tomorrow's weather is predicted to be warm and sunny, so we decided to store the bees in the basement for a day. (Our garage is too cold.)

Our indoor cats are fascinated by the bees, so we're monitoring that closely. I'm not worried about the safety of the cats; it's the bees I'm concerned about.

The bees have warmed up a little in the basement, which is about 58 degrees. They're making a pleasant humming sound, and the cluster is constantly moving to stay warm and rotate all the bees to the warmth in the center. The single bee on the outside of the package is still hanging on and moving around, and I don't think she'll leave the group. We'll spray them with sugar water to help feed them.

We expected this might be slightly scary business, but so far it's interesting and not at all frightening. Stay tuned for tomorrow's installation in the hives.

Bee Ready

Yesterday my two packages of honeybees were shipped from Long Lane Honey Bee Farms in central Illinois. I'm expecting delivery any time this week. It's been difficult to prepare for the delivery of bees this spring because of unseasonal snow, many days of dreary rain, and temperatures well below average.

Last night my team worked feverishly to make our final preparations. First we needed to finish building a level bee yard in our steeply sloping backyard. They made one more trip to the building supply store for landscape timbers and quickly had this finished.

Next we used a builder's level to make sure the hives were completely level. Since bees build comb perpendicular to the center of the earth, it's critical to make sure the hives are level. If the bees build crooked comb or "cross comb," the whole hive can quickly fuse itself together into a mess that's impossible to inspect or harvest.

By suppertime the bee yard was ready and the hives were installed. After dark, we melted a chunk of beeswax in a double boiler and painted a line of wax along the top bars exactly where we hope the bees will build comb.

The last thing to get ready is to prepare sugar water to use in a spray bottle. Sugar water will distract the bees into a grooming habit. This is in lieu of smoking them, which confuses them. I also need to prepare some sort of feeder for them. Many folks use sugar water in a jar feeder, but I think I'll provide honey instead.

Now I'm just waiting for the call from the post office asking me to pick up my packages. And yes, I'm a little nervous!