Fire in the Bones

Can you imagine fire in your bones?

I mean searing, swelling, mottled fire. Let me tell you about it. Better sit down. Better yet, elevate your feet.

We captured a swarm of bees a month or so ago, and I had them in one deep and two supers, nestled among the peach trees in the orchard. They had swarmed to that tree, and I set the box right under it, and there it sat. Well, it came to look like these were busy bees.they were spilling out of the entrance, and bearding along the sides of the hive body. We decided it was time to give them some more room.

So early this morning before I had to go to work, I set out in my bee suit to move the hive and give them some more space by adding empty boxes. I figured the hive would be normally quiet, and peaceful to relocate. No bees were flying yet. I took off the two honey supers, and they were loaded to capacity. In fact, the bees seemed to be just boiling out of the hive. (They were cramped for space.) things went downhill quickly from this point. I had not lit a smoker, thinking this was a simple operation of moving the hive a few feet, and adding some empty boxes. I did not have my boots on, but rather my office shoes since I was headed there shortly. Outside of my consciousness this left a vulnerable 2 inch ring around my ankles with only one layer of light weight socks.

The morning is starting to warm up. A few bees, to a small cloud is now flying around. Several menacing stingers point in through the veil of my bee suit. No problem. I take my hive tool down to separate the deep from the base board, and the instant I lift up on the hive body fire rockets into my ankles from ALL sides. It was like flipping on a light switch, it was that instantaneous. The bees are not boiling out, now the erupt. Smelling the success of fresh stings, hundreds of bees coat my shoes, ankles and legs. I did what only I could. I ran / hobbled away as fast as I could. My socks were littered with pulsing stinger sacks, placed by the desperate kamikaze missions to protect the hive at all costs.

At once the fire was in my bones. It occupied all spare corners and central part of my brain. I was followed by hundreds if bees, and it found it a tricky proposition to get my shoe off and not get more stings. I put on my boots and secured the lower hem of the bee suit to the boots. Ahh, at least now I was fully protected.

As I calculated the number of total stings, I realized my situation was not as serious as it could have been. As I returned to the hive body I had the unusual experience walking into waves of flying and hyper buzzing bees. They were mad. I was coated again from head to toe, thick with bees. If we lived south, I might have nick named them "killer".

I got the hive moved and put back together, and added plenty of more space for them to grow into. I went to work, and over the course of the morning, my ankles started to swell. My shoes soon became tight and painful, pressing back against the swelling. By lunch, I was walking with a definite hobble. I soaked my feet in cold Epsom salt water, I elevated my legs. (I am not sure either treatment did anything of lasting value to the swelling but the cold water felt good.) Throbbing beat in my ankles with each heart best, and then there was a shooting pain forming a faster tempo than my heart.

I walk painfully this evening, but I know the drill. I have had bee stings this bad before. Sunshine feels sorry for me, but rightfully thinks I should have known better. Sadly, tomorrow will not be better. The next day may have some slight relief, and then next day after that I will walk fine again.

The guard bees are on high alert all day today. No one could approach anywhere on the entire garden plot of 3/4 of an acre. I drove in next to the chickens and the car had bee guards all over and flying around it. I did not realize the hive was this wild.

Tomorrow the bees will feel better, and they have a lot more space to grow into.

So, do you have fire in your bones? I surely do. Such a small insect, with such a determined perspective! It would be good if each of us were as busy as a bee. I do not blame them. They were doing their job, and doing it very well. Would that the guards around our families were as successful as the these guards that dealt with me this morning. Consider the guards to what we allow in our minds. The guards to what we allow in our homes, and the guards to protect and keep pure our young people. The more valuable, the more we will guard it. Let's be determined to guard what we really value.

Winter Freeze Results

Well the results are conclusive: This past winter was so harsh that all of our peach blossom buds froze during a winter cold snap, and we had several this past winter. Not a one blossom this spring from the peaches. We have some temps as low as 20 below, which is very unusual for our area. I think a lot of the nation was affected by the cold winter. We will miss the peaches this year!

We are pleased with the strawberries. They are putting on a profusion of blooms, and the plants seem quite pleased with the warmer weather.

Our 10 day forecast shows no frosts (10 day low predicted at 44), so we may be past the spring frosts for this year. We set out pepper and tomato plants today (May 20).

Our raspberry patch is also a profusion of green. We mowed down every other row with the goal of rejuvenating the old canes and opening the patch up for better sunlight and access.

We planted 10 more grape plants, and have installed their trellis. These are the Jupiter variety, which we have enjoyed for fresh eating. They have a very unique taste. I am watching to keep up with bunch rot and apple scab this year with organic copper sulfate spray during hot, muggy and rainy times of the spring. Hopefully we will have a good grape harvest this year.

Cleaning Beeswax

Eureka!

I have been wanting to clean bees wax, and have not been sure how to do it. I have melted down a pot several times, but have not really been able to strain the wax, and it just ends up making a waxy mess. We have saved decappings and extra beeswax from our hives for a while, I have been hoping for an easy way to clean wax, and I have found it. And I will now share it with you.

Sunshine found a video that showed a method of wax filtering using a solar oven, and based on that idea, we made a very simple screen for a filter. First, the solar video is on YouTube.

We decided to do the same for the filter without the solar oven. The decapping (dirty) wax was melted down in a pot with a double boiler while we created the frame for the filter. We selected a large glass casserole dish, and cut out the filter frame from plywood to fit it. We cut out the center of the plywood creating a perimeter frame to hold the wire mesh.

We had some scrap hardware cloth left over from our Fort Knox chicken coup. It was a strip around 6 inches wide and a few feet long. My first impression would have been to prefer a large contiguous mesh, but the strips actually worked out to our benefit, and I suggest cutting your mesh into strips. With the mesh in strips, we were able to make a depression in the shape of the screen, like a small bathtub, with worked really well for holding the wax as it was being filtered through a paper towel.

The video shows the mesh being window screen size, but I really liked the hardware cloth mesh. It gave perfect support, and there is less wires to get clogged with dripping wax. As you can see in the image above, we stapled the hardware cloth to the plywood frame, and by this time all of the pot of beeswax had melted in the double boiler.

We took the large glass casserole dish, and placed an inch or so of cool water into the dish. Next we placed the mesh frame over the dish with the depression down, and completely covered the mesh with one layer of paper towel. (Ours used two sheets of paper towel. We did not separate them, so it was one piece covering the entire frame.) Then we carefully poured the hot wax onto the paper towel. We filed the frame as much as it would hold and let the clean wax drip down through the mesh to the water. When the filter could hold more, we continued to add till all of our dirty and melted wax was in the filter. We just let it sit at room temperature, and it worked fine. The double boiler had the wax warm enough that it was able to stay liquid through the filtering process.

I did not get a picture of the filtering, and had crumpled up and thrown the paper towel away when I thought I should show you the gunk and bee parts left behind. So I pulled it out of the trash, and by then it had hardened. It did not make a good picture of what it was like, but with that disclaimer, here is the filter pic.

And what was left behind was a remarkably beautiful and clean slab of bees wax. It was too easy, and special thanks to LDS Prepper for that video mentioned above. I think our improvements take it the next step further, and it was incredibly simple to construct. I would not mind doing it with a solar cooker, but do not have one. I was pleased that the wax held enough heat to go through the paper towel. Other filtering media I had previously tried was too thick, and slowed the filter time too much and it clogged the filter, and just made a mess.

Here is a picture of the finished slab. Note after the filtering was complete, I put the casserole dish into the oven set at 170 for 30 mins, and the wax remelted into a smooth slab, as shown. This reproduced the solar cooker smooth slab effect. With the cold water in the casserole dish, the water and wax seemed mixed in layers. Melting the wax in the oven allowed it to reform and float on the water.

So simple, and I am so happy to have clean wax to use in our soaps and lotions. (We are getting ready to sell soaps and lotions out of natural organic materials... so stay tuned.)

Bee Hive Boxes & Frames

This year we are blessed to have seven active bee hives on our micro farm. We expanded till we had used all of our existing hive bodies and supers. So, we ordered some more un-assembled hive parts, and will post about putting them together.

We get our bee supplies from Mann Lake (http://www.mannlakeltd.com/), and they have a referral program that pays a small percentage. If you place an order, enter my "BeeBucks" number: 208208. Thanks!


Hive Bodies and Supers

The Langstroth hive dimensions were established in 1852, and I like this stackable system of hive growth and enlargement. There are two outside dimensions: one that will hold 10 frames (the most common) measuring: 16 1/4" by 19 7/8". The other option is the 8 frame body measuring 14" by 19 7/8". I started with the 10 frame size, and the parts are not interchangeable. I would go with the 10 frame size if I were starting out, as I have been able to pick up used equipment on occasion, and all the options I have ever come across are 10 frame.

We have two options for the height of the boxes, with the "deep" being the standard for the brood chambers, and deeps or the smaller "super" being for the honey collection. The only advantage of a smaller height is that the box full of honey would weigh less as you move it around for processing. For several years we only used deeps for all our boxes (brood and honey), but deeps full of honey are heavy! So this year we are trying some smaller honey supers as well.

The deep hive bodies:

• 9 5/8" tall hive bodies
• 9 1/8" frames
• 8 1/2" foundation

The deep bodies and super boxes are assembled with glue and galvanized 7d nails.

The honey supers:

• 6 5/8" supers
• 6 1/4" frames
• 5 5/8 foundation

The frames are assembled with glue at all joints. 1 1/4" nails are used to attach top bars and bottom bars to end bars. 3/4" nails are used to attach bottom bars to end bars or under the frame ear going from the end bar into the top bar.

Hive bases, screen boards, queen excluders, inner cover, outer covers are purchased assembled.


Bee Vacuum

We have made a bee vacuum, which has proved invaluable for swarm capture and hive removal. I will show you how we made ours, and offer to make one for you assembled if you would like. We will build and sell our assembled bee vacuum for $125, shipping included to USA street addresses. (Post a comment on this blog with your email address, and we will contact you for more details and payment info.) If you have the time and materials, it is not hard to make your own.

Our Bee Vacuum is composed of a top box with a connection hole for a standard shop vac to provide the suction. In the center of the unit, you place a standard hive body with frames to contain and occupy the bees drawn into the chamber. Then at the bottom there is a slanted board deep at the front where there is a hole for the bee suction hose, and shallow at the back to encourage the bees to draw up to into the frames. We use pool hose for our bee suction tube, it is smooth inside the hose to ease trauma to the bees in suction. The customer would supply their own hive body and shop vac.

Now let's look at the top and bottom unit in more detail. The top box is 4" in height, and has the outside dimensions of a standard 10 frame hive body (16 1/4" by 19 7/8"). The standard shop vac suction hose has a 3" diameter, and we cut a 3" hole into the back side of the unit. The lower surface, we install a fiberglass screen to keep any curious bees from being drawn out into the shop vac. The upper surface, we permanently install a Plexiglas cover. This allows you to monitor the bee density and activity from the outside, looking down through the screen into the hive body which is collecting the bees. Also into this top unit we install a suction relief valve in case the shop vac is producing more suction than you want. Opening this relief valve will bypass some of the suction.

The lower unit is the same outside dimensions, and 4" in height. This allows us to drill a 2" hole into the front face of this unit that will accept the pool hose. If any of the hose connections are not air tight, we use a round of masking tape which will seal up the mating surfaces. Pool hose can be obtained in 30' lengths, and we cut ours in two for a short suction hose, and the other being a longer suction hose. into the floor of the lower unit, we placed an inclined inner floor, sloping from the intake hole being its greatest height to very shallow at the back end of the unit. This slope gives the bees a convenient way to walk up the ramp and into the hive body and frames. The inner mating surfaces of the units have a weather strip as a gasket to help preserve the suction. The entire unit is held tightly together with a ratchet strap.

We have completed several trials of our bee vacuum with excellent results. After sucking up an entire feral hive, we found only a few dead bees in the lower unit. The bees remained happy and healthy to this day. Installing the bees into the bee yard is an easy process, as you do not have to transfer bees to a new box. We simply remove the vacuum top unit, and then move the bee filled hive body into its final position in the bee yard. The bees are already "home" when you vacuumed them into the hive body. We also really like being able to look into the vacuum and see how things are progressing during the removal, a feature we have not seen in any other bee vacuum out there.

We found it important not to suction bees that are coated with honey. In one occasion, we found this developed into a clump of bees in the middle of the suction hose. The pool hose we currently use is not clear plastic, so other than suction decreasing it was not immediately easy to tell what was happening. With care to not suck in honey covered bees, we have not had this problem again. When finished removing bees, we remove the suction tube from the bottom unit, and close it off so bees do not escape.Then you can turn off and remove the shop vac hose from the top unit. Keep all three units (top, hive body, bottom unit) all tightly strapped together until you are ready to install the bees in your bee yard.

(pics coming soon)


Candles and Soap

This year our family farm has experimented with bees wax candles and soap making. Our soaps contain honey and bees wax. We may consider selling home made bars of soap and candles, dependent on demand. We will make a separate post on these activities in the future.


Hive Activities for August

August is the perfect month to treat your hives for Varroa mites. There are several treatments that can be applied during the honey flow, and by treating your hives now, they will have several generations of strong bees going into winter. Strong bees as winter comes on means a more likely hive survival. I suggest formic acid and hopguard.


Resources

• Mann Lake (online store)
• Cleaning bees wax (web)

Honey Bees

Beekeeping is sweet. Twenty years ago, we had up to 10 hobby hives at one time. Back then we got started with bees by capturing free swarms to start our hives. We are planning to work with bees again, a first for our northern homestead. So we revive the hobby again. Double sweet.

The process of working with animals is fascinating. We enjoyed searching out the queen bee and watching the entire colony interactions. We even created an observation hive, a three frame hive in our dining room. It was glassed on both sides, and one frame thick, so you could easily watch the bees and the queen.


2012 Experience

Today (April 24) we installed our bees, and they are doing great. The weather was sunny and temps in the lower 60's. We got a call at 7 am that the truck was 30 mins out, and to meet them at our pickup location. We got there just before the box truck pulling a trailer eased in behind us. They had driven non-stop from Florida and the vehicle was packed full of bees. Our stop was the fourth for them, and they had two more to go.

We had ordered 2 nucs, and they were at the top of the stack. The rest were packages of bees in the load. We helped them unload the 50 packages for this dropoff location, and then gently headed home with 50,000 girls in the back seat.

Two boys watching the bees. How fun!

Normally when you install a package of bees, they are calm, as they do not have a "hive" to protect. They are just happy to get out of the box and into a normal hive. I found that installing a nuc is not the same. I spritzed them with sugar water, but in retrospect I think some smoke would have been better. The 5 frames of the nuc came out ok with a frame extractor, and I was careful to not roll and kill the bees as I extracted the frames and installed them into their new home. You set the frame in with some space to spare, and then slide it up close to the nearby frame. We were able to locate the queen bee in both hives, so that was nice to be able to see them! The nucs have a good brood pattern, and we saw several new workers hatching out as we inspected the frames.

When the nuc box was empty of frames there remained several hundred bees hanging inside. I gave the box a rap onto the hive box to knock them out. That just made them MAD. They came out with stingers barred. I was expecting very docile behavior, but these guard bees meant serious business. They did have an active hive to defend. Within moments we were all running and wishing we had tightened down the access points of our clothing. I had bees inside my bee hat and veil, inside my shirt pockets and inside my shirt. Our dog was a victim as well. She was standing nearby and soon was a bee target, and she ran with good reason as we all retreated. The wiser, we approached the second hive with more preparation and better clothing.

One of the nucs was bulging at the seams with bees, the other was mostly full, but not crowded. As soon as we set them up the workers were out and looking for pollen and nectar. There was no wasting time looking around at the "new house." They got to work! We could see streams of bees coming in with pollen sacs on their back legs loaded with bright yellow pollen. It is fun to see them have something local to enjoy on their first day in their new home.

July 4, 2012 update: The bees have been busy! We have added a hive body a little faster than 1 per month. We are now at 4 hive bodies on each hive, and the bees are bringing in loads of nectar. We have entire hive bodies full of capped honey. In the two upper bodies on each hive, we have placed 9 frames, and spaced them evenly with a 9-frame spacer tool. This allows the bees to draw the comb out a little longer per frame. This is beneficial for honey extraction, as there are 2 less sides to uncap per hive body for the same total volume of honey obtained.

July 26, 2012 update: The bees have filled all four large hive bodies. Rather than go up and make the stack 5 bodies tall, I chose to remove some of the super honey frames, and replace them with new frames of un-drawn foundation. We have pulled 24 full sized frames, capped on both sides of honey. It is a lot of honey, and we will be extracting this first batch in a few days. The honey flow seems to be continuing even through the heat and drought. Lots of bee activity each day!

July 30, 2012 update: We extracted the honey from the 24 full sized frames using our 9 frame radial extractor, and obtained 12 gallons of honey.


Colony members

1. Queen - her primary duty is to lay eggs, around 1500 a day. She also secretes pheremones that keep the workers happy. Queen bees can live for 3-7 years. A queen will emerge from a queen cell in 16 days.
2. Drones - the drones only duty is to fly out and mate with a queen. I believe queens need only mate once. Drones take 24 days to emerge from the drone cell.
3. Workers - as the name implies, the workers do all of the work. They are non-fertile female bees and they have a very structured life from the moment they emerge from their cocoons. Throughout their life they will serve as nursery bees, construction bees, storage bees, guard bees and foraging bees. They live, on average, only 20-30 days from the time they emerge from cocoon. The time from egg to capping is 9 days, and the bee will emerge in a total of 21 days.

Hive construction

I have removed swarms from hollow logs and under houses. Bees can enter a hole and build a hive within a wall (making extraction difficult.) While bees can make their own home, it is more convenient for them to have the bee keeper construct a hive to their exact preferences. Bee hives, or boxes, have a specific size, and are slotted to hold the frames, suspended from a ledge at the top of the box. This gives the bees free access to the frames. The frames are "started" with a foundation sheet, imprinted with the honey comb pattern, and it jump starts the bees into comb production in an organized way.

Bees rear their young, and store honey and pollen in the wax comb, so it is a wonderful multipurpose structure.

I found it easier to purchase tools and hive parts and assemble the hives myself. If you have wood working tools, I don't think it would be difficult to construct the wood parts from scratch, but I would still suggest following the time proven patterns that bees prefer. If you wanted a home based business, producing hive parts could be a viable small income option.

The bee box is made of wood, painted on the outside and left bare on the inside. The bee box comes in three heights, the 12" box and the 6" super (or honey box) and I have seen reference to an even smaller height box. I used 12" boxes through out my bee system. A hive body full of honey (wood parts plus honey) can weigh 80 lbs. The 6" super would weigh in at around 40 lbs, and would be easier to lug around. My view was that if I can handle the weight, it would be half the work and parts, to use the full size or "deep" frames for both brood as well as honey production. The full sized frames yield 40-50 lbs of extracted honey per hive body or super. This yield equals 4-5 gallons of extracted honey per super.

For overwintering, a hive in the north where we live should have two deep hive boxes of honey stores, and they should be checked periodically on warm winter days to make sure they are not running low on honey. It is possible to feed your bees sugar water or sugar candy to keep them alive through the winter.


Protective clothing

You need to assume that you will be stung when working with bees. Generally they don't sting, especially if you do not rush and have a calm spirit when you work with your hives. Bees do crawl, and when they get under your clothing, it can create some excitement. As you move around, you may start to squeeze a bee, who likely was not in the best mood to begin with, resulting in a sting. Excluding the bees from clothing is a good plan. I found them rarely able to sting through denim. I would wear one pair of jeans, double socks, and rubber band the socks outside to the jean legs. Long sleeve flannel shirt, or double shirt. If it was cool I would wear a bulky sweat shirt. Their stingers are not all that long, so you just need to hold them away from your skin a bit. Bee gloves and a bee hat exclude them nicely.


Tools

• Hive tool (web order)
• Bee smoker (web order)
• Bee brush (web order)

Start up costs

It has been several years since I have worked with bees. I have kept my deep boxes, but other than that, I am basically starting over. When we moved prior, I sold all my frames and bees. My smoker was rusted through, and by bee hat and gloves destroyed by mice. I just placed my order for the needed frames and equipment, totaling around $500.00. I am planning on purchase of 2 nucleus hives at $100 each. If I was starting from scratch, I would guess it would total close to $1000. With that investment, you can start with two active hives, and grow with not much more cost up to 10 hives. In a good year, a hive could offer $400 value in honey.


Time required

Bees generally do very well just being left alone. There are some cases where it is good to know what is going on, but it does not take a lot of time to assess how the hive is doing. If the hive fills all the available space with honey and they need more space for the flow of nectar into the hive, they will prepare to swarm. If left to their own devices, they will swarm, and you will loose a strong productive hive. You would check for disease, pests, and queen cells signaling a coming swarm. A good management practice is to inspect your hives every two weeks. This should only take about 15 minutes per hive. For two hives, that could be an hour a month.

Extracting honey takes more time, but wow, you are richly paid for that time investment! With a few hives, you can definitely work with bees as a hobby. You don't have to be on a strict schedule, and they are busy working while you leave them to their own activities.


Bee Facts

• It takes 12 bees their entire lives to produce one teaspoon of honey. (web)
• A honey bee can fly up to 15 miles per hour. (web)
• A bee will visit 50 - 100 flowers per foraging flight. (web)
• Bees will visit two million flowers and fly 55,000 miles to produce one pound of honey. (web)
• Bees generally forage within 2 miles of their hive, but could travel further if needed. (web)
• A teaspoon of honey contains 22 calories (sugar = 18), and a table spoon of honey contains 64 calories (sugar = 46). (web)
• The queen will lay 1,000 - 2,000 eggs per day with warm temperatures and honey flow. (web)
• A strong hive will have 70,000 - 100,000 bees. (web)
• There are around 3,300 individuals in a pound of bees. (web)
• Bees will fly 150,000 miles, the equivalent of 6 times around the earth, to produce one pound of beeswax. (web)

Pests

Varroa mites to a bee are like fleas on a dog. Only the mites do more damage to the overall health of a hive if they get out of control. They are flat, saucer shaped red colored insects that bite under the honey bee scales. Watching the bees it is obvious that the bee is bothered by the mites presence. The bees are sometimes able to flick the mites off, and they fall to the bottom of the hive. There are screens that you can place in the bottom of the hive that will allow the mites to fall through to a sticky pad, trapping them from climbing back up to find a new bee victim, but the screen keeps the bees away from the sticky pad. Treat with 1 cup of powdered sugar all over the tops of the frames (1 cup per deep box). Perform this treatment exactly once a week for three weeks. The bees become covered with this dusty sugar, and so in an effort to clean themselves up, they also clean off the mites.

To address the tracheal mite naturally use a grease patty in the hive. Mix 2 parts powdered sugar with one part Crisco vegetable shortening. You can add a bit of honey-b-healthy or lemon grass oil extract. Compact this mixture between two sheets of wax paper to the size of a hamburger patty and lay on the top bar of each deep brood body. The grease patty cuts the tracheal mite population by disrupting the mite life cycle. It makes it more difficult to for mites to pass from older bees to younger bees either physically or by masking the scent of younger bees. It is ok to leave grease patties in the hive year round.

I once found a mouse carcass in the bottom of a hive. It appeared stung to death, and was encased in the bees propolus glue. Pests best not mess with a strong hive.

Consider working with bees. You will find is a rewarding study, and oh so sweet!


Resources

• Bee Keeping Lessons (web)
• Michigan Beekeepers (web)
• Mann Lake bee sales (web, catalog)
• Long Lane Honey Bee Farms, Fairmount, IL (web)
• Candy board instructions (pdf)
• Making Soap with Beeswax and Honey (web), Basic Soap Recipe (pdf)
• Tracheal mites info (pdf)