National Honeybee Awareness Day

Saturday August 21st was a national day of outreach and education for honeybee awareness.
I had pulled what little honey stores I could take from my only hive the evening before and was able to take 4 partial frames of honey to the bee event that our local Beekeepers asssociation had at a local park. Other club members had an extractor and were demonstrating how honey is taken from the comb. I was able to extract the frames I had brought ... and secured about 3/4 gallon on honey. I stayed for a while chatting with visitors and helping to extract addtional honey from other members' frames. The event was a success with honey samples and raffles, native plant sales, an observation hive and information about this amazing insects. It was a good day.

G-farm Bee move home ...

Where has this year gone ... its nearing the end of August and my beekeeping has changed quite a bit of the past year. Over the winter I lost 2 of 3 hives at G-farm. The remaining hive I moved the evening of August 17th. Jake and I arrived at the farm just before sunset. A large number of bees were congregated on the outside of the hivebody ... a little smoke and they all returned into the hive. We easily placed a entrance reducer, wooden plug in the smaller opening and tie-strapped the hive together for the 30 mile trip in the back of his pickup to my home in Sarasota.

Over the summer I lost the wild hive of bees that I had captured over the winter. Wax moths, and placement too close to a A/C unit were the probable causes.

I now have only one active hive.

News and Video Training from the Florida Melitto Files

I received my most recent copy of the Florida Melitto Files: News for Bee Lovers in the mail.
Its a great resource for news and updates on the happenings in Florida. Dr. Jamie Ellis from the UF Honey Bee Research and Extension Laboratory announced a series of videos: A Video Field Guide to Beekeeping. They have created 4 training videos with a 5th on its way. The four are:

1. Varroa Mites
2. Small Hive Beetles
3. Traceal Mites
4. Nosema

The fifth will be on American and European Foulbrood. These are 100% free and available from their website: UFHoneyBee.com Click on "Extension" on the left of the page and you'll find where they have the videos posted or here:
http://entnemdept.ifas.ufl.edu/honeybee/extension/index.shtml

View the current and past issues of the Melitto Files at:
http://entnemdept.ifas.ufl.edu/honeybee/extension/melitto.shtml

May Day with the Farm Bees

I decided to head up to the farm today ... in between volleyball matches at a local tournament at State College of Florida. While I was at the farm, I picked up my share of veggies. Adam the farm manager and others stopped my while I was working around the hive.

I only have one hive at the farm, since two others died out from CCD early in the year.

The remaining hive was overgrown with grasses and a large Brazilian Pepper tree and quite shaded. I spent an hour or so carefully cutting the branches so as to not disturb the bees. I also trimmed the grasses around the base of the hive. Hopefully the additional direct morning sunlight will get the bees active earlier and more productive.

A volunteer, Mike came over to observe and lend a hand after I had offered for him to have a look. The 2 top regular supers had drawm comb and a little honey, but not full frames or any capped. The Ross Round super below was also not with much activity since the last visit. Foundation still had yet to have comb drawn. The brood chamber was active and my inspection showed eggs, larvae, and capped brood. I found a few hive beetles, and some ants had nested in the rotting portion of a corner of the brood box ... Several frames contained queen cells which I removed. In the near future I plan to replace the brood box with a new one and exchange the solid bottom board with a screened bottom board.

Adam said the field of clover had just been cut, so the bees had a good amount of flowers with nectar for the past several weeks.

Today we went from spring to summer ... temperatures up near 90 with a return of the humidity so familar during our summer season.

I returned to the volleyball tournament with a large bag of veggies ( zuchinni, yellow squash, sunburst squash, onions, 2 types of lettuce, turnips, carrots, and mustard greens ) and a single bee sting to my left ring finger.

A good day ... happy to see that this hive made it through a particularly difficult winter and will hopefully put on a good amount of honey of the next several months.

Wild (Starfruit) Bees Move into permanent home

Thursday April 8, 2010

The plan was to move the wild bees from the temporary waxed cardboard nuc that they have been living in since Stacey and I captured them in early December into a newly assembled and freshly painted hive body.

I thought we would have to completely rip apart the existing comb, brood, and honey in the existing network of comb that the honey had originally drawn out on the branch that we took from the starfruit tree and just placed down inside the nuc box along with 1 frame with foundation and no comb. Since December, the bees have drawn at least 3 times as much comb out in irregular pattern (at least to me) within the enclosure and a bit on the one frame that we placed in with the existing hive.

Luckily, another beekeeper, Earl, stopped by and had a much better idea. He had cut a piece of plywood about the same size as the hive body with a square cut out in the center. We place this board on the top of the new hive body and then place the waxed cardboard nuc, top down, on top of the board. This setup will force the bees in and out of the new hive body and allow them some time to drawn out new comb on the 10 frames with wax foundation in the new hive body and still allow the brood in the old temporary quarters to fully develop and the new bees to emerge, allowing the bees to use the existing pollen and honey stores as well as time to gradually get used to and migrate into the new digs. It worked great and was much less stressful on us and the bees and quick.

The bees are quite active now with the days warming up into the 80s ...

I've refurbished the older hive bodies from the 2 hives that died out, repainted them and I'm now ready to find 2 more wild hives and get a total of 4 hives up and working for me. I purchased 2 new screened bottom boards for these older hive bodies and hope this will help with the moderation of the summer heat in the hives as well as helping the bees to manage the mites and other pests in the hives.

Mini-Nuc Comes Home

Wednesday April 7, 2010

I was able to go up to Bradenton yesterday to pickup a mini-nuc ( 2 frames with brood and a bit of honey) from a friend that had recently re-queened one of her hives and instead of killing off the old queen, just moved her and a small entourage over into a temporary nuc box.

Moving them was quite easy and I drove the 25 miles home and setup the waxed cardboard nucs in the backyard near the other nuc of wild starfruit bees (see previous posts).

It will take quite a while for this hive to grow in size and drawn out the other 3 frames in the nuc box, but its a start and with the spring nectar and pollen, I'm hoping they will get at it right away.

Watching bees is very relaxing and the sound of the "buzz" inside the hive is a comforting sound to the ears. Thank God for bees!

Two hives die

Yesterday, Saturday Feb 20, 2010, I stopped at the office to pick up the last of 3 packages, a hive body on backorder. Most of the afternoon, I worked on assembling 1 hive body, 2 supers and several super frames, glueing and nailing each to ensure their strength. I then got a first coat of primer paint on the hive body, supers, bottom board, inner cover and telescoping outer cover. I decided to drive up to the farm … they were having a Movie night, Food, Inc. … and I wanted to check on the 3 hives. I got there about an hour before the movie and with a enough daylight to see the bees coming in for the evening. To my surprise, 2 of the 3 hives had absolutely NO activity. I pulled the tops and found both of the hives “dead” … both with lots of rotted comb, wax moths, ants, cockroaches … ugh!

I didn’t have time (or my equipment with me) to inspect the other 3rd hive, but bees were coming and going and I could hear a strong buzz when I put my head up side the hive body. I’m not sure what happened … cold weather and not enough stores of honey? … colony collapse disorder? … a queen that died off or wasn’t replaced in time? I grabbed a stick and attempt to scrape off as much crap as I could from the hives and placed the hives unassembled as they would fit and the blocks there were on into my car to bring home.

Today, I spent most of the day working on cleaning up the hive body and supers that were up at the farm ... scraping the wax moth silk and larvae from the frames and boxes. It was nasty work. I also worked on painting the 1st coat of exterior white on the new hive. This will be the new home for the Carambola bees.

Stacey came over this evening and helped. We inspected the wild bees in the waxed cardboard nuc and they we gentle, but active in the hive with new comb and more bees ... a good sign. We assemble more deep brood frames and added foundation to some of the super frames. I'll continue getting the new hive ready and we hope to move the bees into their new home soon.

Starfruit Bees are very active today!

With a cool start to the day ... in the 50's F ... I mixed up another batch of syrup and placed it outside the hive. Little activty this morning ... by 10:30am the sun was upon the hive and the bees were swarming everywhere and in a frenzy and quickly consuming the syrup. It is a good day for these newly domesticated bees in sunny Florida! I ordered a proper hive body and related equipment yesterday from Brushy Mountain Bees ... it will need assembled and painted after it arrives. I hope to have the bees "moved in" to their permanent home by March and ready for the spring nectar flows.

Starfruit Bees move South

The wild hive is now setup on my A/C unit just outside my lanai. I placed them there on Monday morning and setup a feeder with sugar/water syrup. I watched early that morning as the first bees exited the hive ... they flew out and straight up in a spiral movement to about 30 feet and then off into the neighborhood. By late afternoon when I returned to check on them, the bees were quite active on the feeder and foraging bees were already returning to the hive with orange pollen on their sides. Seems they are adjusting quite well. With the colder temperatures, I"m sure they are enjoying being out of the wind and in their nuc. A picture of the new setup is top right ... a waxed cardboard nuc (small temporary hive) sitting on my A/C unit near the lanai. The yellow container is a feeder with a 2-to-1 Sugar/Water mixture. The other smaller container is a water source.

Wild Bees in a Averrhoa carambola Tree

A few weeks back I attended a book club gathering of the Slow Food Sarasota group ... they were discussing a book, "Fruitless Fall", about the decline of honey bees. It was held in the Rosemary District the evening of Rosemary Rising, an annual holiday open street party and event.

I met someone who was interested in learning more about beekeeping. She told me about a wild hive near her house in a Starfruit tree.

Yesterday, December 20th, was the day we had decided to capture this wild hive and give it a proper home. It was a small hive without much comb or honey stores and it would not likely make it through the cold temperatures.

The hive was attached to a dead branch that was stuck in the "V" in the trunk of the tree. I started by smoking the hive, although the bees were huddled tightly in the comb, probably due to the cooler weather. I trimmed the ends of the branch with a saw and then used my hive tool to loosen the hive where it was attached to the tree trunk. I was then able to easily lift the hive and place it in a box. We left the box open at the base of the tree and returned near dusk, to allow time for foraging bees to return.

This morning, I tranferred the hive into a waxed cardboard nuc box and set it up in a sunny location near the lanai in my backyard. I also set out a feeder with a sugar syrup ( 6 cups sugar and 3 cups water).

I watched the hive this morning as the first bees exited the hive flying in a spiral pattern straight up about 30 feet, then away.

By late this afternoon, bees had found a pollen source and were feeding actively on the feeder and returning to the hive with bodies laden with pollen. Amazing, after being transplanted from the Starfruit tree to a location almost 15 miles away, they wasted no time in locating a source of pollen in their new neighborhood.

Thanks to Stacey for her help in getting the bees captured ... And for the chocolate chip, peanut butter, oatmeal cookies and coquito that we enjoyed afterwards. With a little help, this hive should survive the winter and be in good shape once the spring nectar and pollen sources are more abundant.

Two pictures of the hive as it was in the Starfruit tree are to the right!

Summer persists in Mid-October

With temperatures still in the 90's a friend who wants to learn about beekeeping and I ventured back up to my apiary. My goals were to add to supers which I had cleaned and added new foundation, inspect the three hives for evidence of active queens, and install several AJ Beetle Eaters to help control populations of Small Hive Beetles (SHB).

It was a sunny, very hot morning and we were setup and working the first hive by 11am.

Activities included:

First Hive (middle)

• pulled 1 super for extraction and replaced with empty super with new foundation
• may need to enlarge the small entrance to allow for better ventilation
• Added AJ Beetle Eater
• Inspected brood chamber, mostly honey stores and a few drone and queen cells
• No visible queen activity or worker egg and/or larvae
• note: 3-4 plastic frames in brood chamber to replace on future visit

North Hive

• Top super had 1.5 capped frames and others partially full, pull for extraction on next visit
• Added empty super with new foundation
• Lots of comb and honey built on and around inner cover and queen excluder
• Removed inner cover
• Added AJ Beetle Eater
• Lots of bee in brood chamber, Lots of Drones, capped worker brood, pollen cells
• No visible queen found

South Hive

• Hive has brood chamber, Ross round super, and two regular supers
• Added AJ Beetle Eater to brood chamber
• 1 plastic frame in super to replace on next visit
• No supers ready with capped honey.
• Lots of bees and activity in supers and brood chamber
• No inspection of brood chamber, too hot and needed to stop for the day.

Afternoon work included extraction of 9 frames, producing about 2 gallons of honey
I'll work to cleanup and add new foundation to frames in this super in the near future.

I hope the next visit will be in much cooler weather.

Wax and Honey ...

Sunday July 5th ...
Yesterday I made another trip to the farm and swapped supers on the northern hive ... pulled the full one and replaced it with the empty super from last weeks' activities.

Today I extracted ... 9 or 10 frames in this super had honey ... another 2-3 gallons ... also cleaned off the wax from the plastic frames in the other super from last week and wash and melted the wax into a disc.

Now what to do with all this honey ... I think I'll have to give Mead-making a try ...

More Honey ...

10:00pm Monday June 29th ... finally was able to motivate and get the 1-plus supers extracted. The first super was full with 10 frames of lighter colored honey ... probably from this spring floral and nectar flows. The other super with mostly plastic frames was quite uneven in the comb that was drawn and with several frames without comb or honey. The honey in this super was quite dark and I believe was probably from the late fall brasilian pepper flows. Overall my daughter and I were able to get about 4 gallons of honey extracted. It took us about 2 hours from start through cleanup. The honey still needs to be strained from the bits of wax and such ... work for another day. I placed all of it in a 5 gallon bucket and snapped on a lid to await another day.

Summer and the bees are a buzzin'

I arrived at the Farm about 10:00am ... it was already quite hot and the weatherman called for rain showers throughout the day. Clouds were moving in from off shore from the Southeast.

I started out by doing a bit of landscape maintainence around the 3 hives. With a pair of hedge shears, I cut away the tall grass and weeds that had grown around the hives since my last visit. I also cut some overhanging crepe myrtle and several long brazilian pepper branches that were beginning to block the morning sun on 2 of the hives. A rain shower began and so I took cover under the covered work area next to the shadehouse and waited out the rain.

At 10:30 I began by working the 1st southern most hive. After a split about 2 months ago, I was not sure what to expect. Five full frames of brood had been transferred to a new hive my friend had purchased and she had taken them home and installed a new queen. This hive had 3 regular supers and 1 Ross Round super on top of the hive body. With five new frame in the hive body after the split, I was hoping to see freshly drawn comb and a busy queen with lots of eggs, larvae and capped brood. Instead the brood chamber had fully drawn frames, but in the place of the next generation of bees was instead lots of cells filled with honey. I saw no queen or any activity leading to new bees. What does this mean? The supers on top also showed little to no sign of any new comb or additional honey stores. I replaced the hive to order leaving a super partial full of honey with incomplete plastic frames on top. I would perhaps remove this super toward the end of my visit, if I had honey on the others hives that I could retrieve.

It was quite hot and I sat back in the shade and rested and re-hydrated a bit. ...

The 2nd northern most hive is one of the 2 I split in late April. After smoking the entrance, I took the cover off and the removed the first super. It was quite full ... perhaps 60 lbs. and I took the super and set it aside to home. The other super had some honey stores. The brood chamber looked similar to the first hive ... lots of honey, no sign of a queen, eggs or larvae ... the hive did not look queenright. I reassembled the hive and took another break in the shade.

The middle hive between the other 2 is the other half of the split. The hive had 1 full super which I placed a bee excluder under before putting the hive back together. This hive also did not look queenright ... lots of honey in the brood chamber as the others.

Do I have any of the hives with a queen? What's next? I'll be back next weekend to remove the super from the second hive and check on things. I have questions that I hope others at the next Suncoast Beekeepers meeting can help answer.

Split 2nd hive

Today, Friday April 16th on an overcast afternoon, I met Jennifer about 4pm to split the 2nd hive. Her queen had arrived my mail that morning.

After removing the supers, we began the task of locating the existing queen somewhere on the 10 brood frames completely covered in bees. It is probably a good thing that I split the hive now, as while searching the frames for the queen, I removed several swarm cells.

Luckily for us, we spotted the queen on the 5th frame. The first four frames I had already moved into the new hive. Isolating the frame with the queen, we removed one more frame, giving her 5 full brood frames with LOTS of bees, honey, eggs, larvae, pollen ... everything for a good start. We closed up the existing hive and then proceeded to place the queen in her cage with attendants into the new hive. We closed it up and Jennifer took it to her home for setup. I will check with her in a couple of days to see if the queen was accepted and freely moving about her hive.

I also checked on activity in the two hives I had split 2 weeks ago. I was afraid that all of the bees would mitgrate back into the hive with the queen, since I did not separate this new hive farther than two miles away. To my surprise and delite, both hives had quite a bit of activity at both entrances. I left them alone and I will return another day to look for queens in both hives and do another inspection.

Overall, a successful outing.

Removed One Super

On Tuesday, April 7th I called the farm manager and asked if he would bee willing to remove the top super now that most all of the bees shouldbe out. He agreed and we made plans to meet after work in Sarasota so I could get the super.

That evening I worked to extract about 6 frames of honey, resulting in about 19 lbs of a darker colored honey. I was able to get the extracted super back to the farm manager that evening and he agreed to place the super back on the hive the next afternoon.

Thanks Adam ... your kind assistance is greatly appreciated!

Spring Inspection

It was a beautiful spring day and my friend and new beekeeper, Jennifer joined my daughter and I for a trip to the farm on Sunday April 5th in the afternoon after Quaker meeting.

We started by splitting my 2nd hive which had 2 hive bodies and 2 supers. Not knowing which one of the hive bodies had the queen and not wanting to search 20 full brood frames of bees, we just split the hive, adding one of the hive bodies, a queen excluder and one of the supers to a bottom board set on cinder blocks about 20 feet from the existing hive and topped it with a hive cover. Both hives bodies were overflowing with bees looked very healthy.

Next we turned our attention to the 1st hive. This was Jennifer's first time with bees since childhood ... she had her new bee suit and was ready with hive tool and smoker. We started by removing supers, 3 regular and 1 Ross Round until reaching the 1 hive body. It was again overflowing with bee, which was good because we plan to return in 2 weeks when her mail-ordered queen arrives and we split this hive. We inspected about half of the brood frames looking for mites and hive beetles.

When re-assembling the hive, I place a super that was quite full near the top with the bee excluder in between it and the rest of the hive. I hope to return in 2 days to remove this super and extract a bit of honey.

Overall it was a successful inspection and all is well my apiary.

Adding a Ross Round

My daughter and I had an evening 5K race on Friday March 20th in NW Bradenton, just across the road from my hives. I took the opportunity before the race to make a quick visit and add a Ross Round super to my 2nd hive. It was in-and-out ... I'll be back soon to do splits of the 2nd hive and then when a friend gets her queen in the mail (she's already built the new hive) we'll return to split the 1st hive and install her new queen.

2009 Hive Inspection

On March 4, 2009 Mr. Jameson from FDACS inspected my hives. He said both were in great condition and that I could do splits if I was interested. In keeping with the Florida BMPs (Best Management Practices for beekeeping, he took a sample of bees (50?) for genetic testing to determine the % of Africanized bee genetics of my hives.

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.