New BeeKeepers local group

Last evening about 15-20 beekeepers met in Eastern Manatee County to discuss the formation of a new local chapter of the Florida State Beekeepers Association. Bethany and Patrick hosted the evening with wonderful drinks and desserts. Thanks!

We started with a round of introductions to get to know one another. The group varied from hobbyist beekeepers with just one hive to several commercial beekeepers with up to 1100 hives. The group represented a broad area from Sarasota and Manatee Counties from as far South as Nokomis, Siesta Key to areas around Palmetto and NW Bradenton. We hope to encourage more beekeepers and have others join us from Hardee and DeSoto Counties.

Two members of the State Beekeepers Association were on hand to describe how other local chapters operate and discuss startup procedures. We decided to meet again next month and move forward to getting our local chapter setup. Tasks for next meeting may include: selecting a club name, getting temporary officers in place, setting the dues amount for our local chapter and planning for speakers and educational opportunities.

This was a great time and a wonderful way to meet other local beekeepers and socialize. I look forward to an active local chapter and hope others will consider joining us.

What to do with the BeesWax?

October 3, 2008

So now I have these (2) 5-gallon buckets of honey. Each is just the raw unprocess honey right out of the extractor. The honey is mixed with bits of wax and a few bee parts. All of this "extra" floats to the top. Today I used a slotted spoon and lifted off most of this extra staff, leaving the honey behind in the buckets. I placed the wax/honey mix in a colander, lined with a piece of cheesecloth and placed the colander on top of a large pot. I set the honey/wax mitures out in the sun to warm and the honey drained out into the pot. I was able to get about 1 more quart of honey from this process. The remaining wax I placed back in the pot and added water and put this on the stove and heated it. This should not be heated to boiling, but as I am always multi-tasking, I returned to the kitchen and it had already begun to boil. I quickly removed the pot from the stove and set it aside to cool. The result was a thin disk of wax floating on the top of the water. I removed this and placed it in a plastic ziplock for later use. What's next candlemaking?

A photo of the resulting wax is posted.

The Bounty of the Honey Harvest

Tuesday September 30, 2008

I worked with Bethany this evening after work to extract honey from 3 supers (30 frames) using a 4-frame hand crank extractor. Thanks to Michelle and Mark for loaning me the extractor. This would not have been possible with an extractor.

We got setup and quickly got into a routine working to remove the frames 4 at a time from the supers and placing them in a bucket. From the bucket we took each frame and held it in a de-capping tub and scraped the capping loose with a fork, exposing the honey. The frames were placed into the extractor 4 at a time. We would then crank the extractor and spin the frames allowing the honey through centrifical force to drain out of the cells in the frames and into the base of the extractor. After about 8 frames, we opened the valve on the extractor and drained the honey into our storage containers. It took us about 2 hours to complete the task and we ended up with about 11 gallons of honey weighing about 132 pounds. What a fun and rewarding evening. I loaded the now empty supers back into my trunk and I will return these to the hive very soon. We are coming into the Brasilian Pepper bloom and I want to get these supers back into the hives so the bees can begin to fill them up again!

Bethany and I hope to help start a local chapter of the Florida State Beekeepers Association. We have scheduled a first meeting for October 23rd and will have official from this organization on hand to help us get things setup. We hope to get other hobbyist and local beekeepers together on a regular basis to share information, socialize and learn from one another. More details to follow ...

Pulling Supers for Honey Harvest

Monday September 29, 2008

I used my lunch hour to complete today's task.  I am able to drive out to the farm, complete several tasks and return to work in my allotted hour for lunch.  Today my task was to remove 3 supers (2 from hive #1 and 1 from hive #2) and to trim the brasilian pepper bush ... yes I did remember to bring a hand saw.

In the first hive I removed the cover and found as expected that most of the bees had vacated the supers through the bee escape.  I carried the super over and place it in my trunk.  I estimate the super weighed between 60 and 70 lbs. each.  I carried the 2nd super to my trunk and returned to replace the hive cover on this first hive.  The bees seemed little disturbed and I quickly moved to hive #2.  I had prepared my smoker and gently smoked the entrance to the second hive before removing the cover.  This top super had quite a bit of bees and activity.  I smoked the top of this super to get the bees to move farther down into the hive and out of this top super.  I then remove this super and shook it to dislodge more of the remaining bees.  I placed this super in my trunk (now full of supers)  ... 3 is all my small car's trunk will hold ... 

I returned and replace the cover on the 2nd hive.  I then proceded to trim the bush and allow a clear view of the southeastern horizon at the hive entrance.  This will allow early morning sun to hit the hive entrance and hopefully encourage the bees to begin their day a bit earlier than when the entrance was quite shaded.  I removed my bee suit and returned equipment to my car.

It was a nice sight to see that the board covers and dripping with honey from my last visit was now "clean" and showed no signs of ever having any honey on it.  The bees had recovered all of this honey are returned it to the hive ... such efficient work they do!

How onto the next phase in my journey as a beekeeper ... honey extraction.  I will be working with my mentor tomorrow evening to extract the honey from the 3 supers and 30 frames contained in them using a 4-frame hand crank extractor.  With a trunk load of honey, I returned to work ...

Preparations for a honey harvest

Saturday September 27, 2008

It was a bright day with mostly clear skies and slightly drier with less humidity than we've had for some time now.  It is obvious from the changes in the amount of daylight that we are entering another season.  I had several tasks planned for this visit:  painting over the old registration numbers on the hives; stenciling my registration numbers to replace the old ones; trimming and weeding around the hives; rearranging the supers in preparation for harvesting some honey and doing a general inspection on the healthy and activity in the hives.

I worked outside the hives first removing the old numbers and using my stencil to paint on the new ones.  The weeds had grow up quite abundantly around the hives over the summer months, and I pulled quite a bit of grass and other plant material from around the base of the hives and from in front of the hive entrances.  I noticed that a clump of brasilian pepper bushes had grown quite tall and wide near hive #1 and was shading the entrance to this hive.  I made a note to remember my saw and trim and cut this plant on my next visit.  After this initial work around the hives, I prepared my smoker and began to get into the hives.

Hive #1 had 4 supers.  I removed each one and inspected each for activity and how many of the frames were drawn and filled.  I had set out 2 boards and placed the supers on these as I removed them from the hive, setting the 2 I would eventually take on one board and the other 2 supers on the other.  2 of the supers had 7 plastic and 3 wood frames in each.  The plastic frames do not seem to be the bees favorite, because these were the frames that were not completely drawn with comb and/or filled with honey.  After stacking the supers, I removed the queen excluder and examined the hive body frames.  I did not notice any mites, although I think they are just too small for my eyes to see ... at least through a veil.  The brood pattern looked good with an active queen and lots of capped brood, eggs and developing larva.  I did not see any small hive beetles (SHB).  I also did not find the queen in this hive although it was evident that she was there and busy rearing young bees.  I worked now to reassemble the hive, replacing the queen excluder and stack the supers back onto the hive body, ordering them so that the 2 fullest supers would be on top and placing a bee escape between the lower 2 and upper to supers.  This would allow the bees in the supers to be later removed to escape and leave those supers relatively empty of bees on my return in 2 days.  I did rearrange several frames among the supers prior to restacking them, moving 2 plastic frames from one super to another and replacing them with 2 wooden frames.  This made 1 super with 5 plastic and 5 wooden frames and the other with 9 plastic and 1 wooden frame.  While swapping frames and reinserting them into the supers, some of the really full frames were difficult to place back in.  In doing so a couple of the frames had the cappings scraped off and honey oosed out and puddle down on the wooden board that I had stacked them on.  I will leave the board with the honey and hope that the bees will gather this excess and return it to its proper place in the hive.  I hope in the near future to replace all of the plastic frames with wooden one.  Also the 2 of the older super boxes are beginning to show signs of wood rot along the edges.  I will eventually order new super boxes and replace these.  This completed my work on the first hive.

Hive #2 had 2 regular supers, 1 Ross Round super and 2 hive bodies.  I began by removing the supers and queen excluder.  By this time in the day I was quite exhausted and decided to make just a brief and spot inspection of the top hive body.  I had place this 2nd hive body on the hive only a couple of month back and I wanted to see how the colony had works to fill it.  The outside frames were almost completed full of honey stores and no brood.  I pulled and examined an inner frame again looking a brood pattern and signs of stress, mites, deformed wings, SHB, etc.  I was also going to look for the queen ... this has so far been a challenge for me to scan a frames filled with moving bees and to identify the slightly larger queen bee.  To my surprise, I notice her of the first middle frame and watched her for a while.  Each time I turned the frame she would scurry around to the bottom side.  I was worried about replacing the frame in the hive body and the possibility that she would get squashed as I slid the frame back into place.  I waited until she moves up into the middle of the frame and then gently slid the frame back into place.  Satified that this colony was also doing quite well, I replaced the queen excluder and began to reassemble the hive.  I placed one of the supers that was only about half drawn with comb on top of the hive, and then the Ross Round super.  It was about half drawn and filled with 4 of the 8 frames completed.  I placed the remaining super, completely drawn out with comb and filled with honey on the top and replace the cover.  I will also remove this top super from this hive on my return visit in two days.

I was now quite tired, down at least 2 quarts of liquid that had been released as sweat into my drenched clothing and with a bit of a headache.  I had acquired only about 4 stings and all in the same area on the top of my hand.  My cotton gloves just don't seem to to the job protecting my hands.  Note to self:  purchase canvas or leather gloves on next order.  Its not that I really mind the stings, but its the swelling and pain the next day that is the most irritating.

Overall it was a very successful outing and I was now in a position to return in 2 days to remove the supers and prepare then to extract and harvest the honey.  Each visit I seem to learn a bit more about my hives and have a better idea of what to expect.  I also this time was better prepared with a list of tasks and the equipment organized and ready to go as I needed it.