Putting the Bees to Bed for Winter

Posted on October 13, 2016 by onedogrunning

Hive 3, bursting at the seams

Well, today looked like it might be the last nice day for awhile, so I decided to get my hives set up for the cold season. My plan was to move them a couple of feet forward so they would get a little more sun, check for hive health and honey stores, and remove any supers with undrawn comb. Big job!

First I opened my nuc hive. I’ve been a little worried about this hive since the population seems to have dwindled and I sometimes see a wasp go inside. Upon opening them though they seemed like they had pretty solid numbers and I returned the two harvested honey frames I took out in August for them to clean up.

The girls carrying out wax debris from the harvested frames

Hive 2, my split hive that kept the original queen was not doing as well as I thought. Here I was thinking they had so much going on that they were overflowing the brood nest into the honey super, when the reality was that their bottom deep hadn’t been touched all year. What the heck ladies? That will teach me not to check. I removed it and left them with one deep and one medium for the winter.

Both these hives seemed a bit light to me so I decided to start feeding them. I don’t like to feed if I don’t have to, but I would rather feed than lose hives to starvation. Since it’s fall, they are getting a 2:1 heavy sugar syrup which they will be able to store more quickly since it needs less time to reduce in moisture content.

Then we have Hive 3, the one that requeened itself with feral drones. This hive is like a bee explosion went off inside! All three mediums and one deep totally overflowing with bees. Tons of honey and tons of attitude. Working this hive is like dealing with a lion while the other two hives are pussycats. Once I started taking boxes apart they freaked out and all jumped out at me, letting me know how annoyed they were. I didn’t get stung but it was still pretty intimidating! I decided that this hive didn’t really need to be moved two feet and left it in place to avoid total chaos.

It was very interesting to me to see how well this locally queened hive has fared this year. They were the ones with the most disadvantage as they had no queen for weeks after the split. Could their extra defensiveness have anything to do with how well they did? At least I can be fairly confident that this large healthy hive will survive the winter. Of course, it also means that I have to deal with touchier bees in spring. In a way I don’t really mind but I’m not sure I would want to give these genetics to a brand new beekeeper.

During my inspections today, I still did not see a single hive beetle, wax moth, varroa mite (alive or dead) or any signs of k-wing disease. I know at the last bee club meeting some people reported tons of mites while others reported none. I hope I’m not being naive in assuming my hives are relatively clean. I didn’t treat for anything this year so we’ll just have to wait and see.

A few last things that need to be done before it gets too cold are to put on entrance reducers with mouse guards and construct some top quilts to control moisture. All easy and quick projects.

Supposedly there is some very nasty weather headed our way over the next few days that is projected to be as bad as the worst storm in recorded history in the Northwest. Wish us all luck!

How Much Honey is in a Single Frame?

Posted on August 7, 2016 by onedogrunning

I never realized how much honey a single beehive can produce!

Just from one deep frame harvested yesterday using the crush and strain method, I got a total of over 5.5lbs of honey! That’s even after all the honey I managed to eat yesterday during the straining process.

Blocking out the sun

As you can see, the honey is very, very dark. It’s impossible to see through even when held directly up to the sun! You’d expect it to be strong-tasting, but it’s not. It’s incredibly light and citrusy. I assume the dark color is because my bees have primarily been foraging on wildflowers. I did notice while processing that the honey at the top of the frame was much lighter, and mixed with the darker honey lower down to produce the final color. Quite interesting.

Clean up crew

You’d think honey harvesting would be messy work and it kind of is, but don’t forget that any sticky equipment can be placed out near the hives and the bees (and wasps) will do the cleaning up for you. Zero waste. Honey also cleans up very easily with plain water.

Thank you ladies!

First Honey Harvest!

Posted on August 6, 2016 by onedogrunning

I decided to go into hive 1 today, the one started from a nuc this year, as last inspection it looked like they might be honey bound.

They were. Although I did find a little bit of capped brood in the top deep, all available cells were quickly being filled up with nectar and there was nowhere left for the queen to lay. Since I need her to rear bees now so we’ll have bees to overwinter, I decided to free up some space. I know I said before that I wasn’t going to harvest from this hive this year, but that honey had to go somewhere!

I decided to remove two deep frames that were completely full of capped honey. I also did some rearranging of the frames in the two deeps and added two fresh frames with foundation into the brood nest for them to get started on. I would have used foundationless, but so far all my deep frames have plasticell foundation, so I guess it needs to be used somehow. Here’s hoping they’ll draw it out quickly and give the queen room for more egg laying.

I shook off as many bees as possible and brushed the stragglers off with a bee brush. It was fairly straightforward and the bees were not too agitated. The frames weighed probably about 8-10 pounds each and I transferred them to a clean, lidded Rubbermaid bin once they were free of bees.

Once inside my kitchen, I scraped off the comb into a large container with a wooden spoon, and then strained it through a stainless steel sieve into jars. It is a very dark colored honey on very yellow wax.

I have to admit, I’ve never been a huge fan of honey and I don’t eat a lot of it. It always seems to have a bit of a strange aftertaste to me. The harvest from one frame is more than I generally consume in a year. Well, I’m now a fresh honey convert. This is the most delicious honey I have ever tasted! It’s tangy, floral, citrusy and light with no weird metallic aftertastes. I could see myself eating it out of the jar with a spoon and wanting to drizzle it on everything. I managed to spill a drop on the counter where it hit a stray szechuan peppercorn from an earlier recipe, and it was an amazing combination! I even drizzled some on the soft boiled eggs I had for lunch and it was divine. Apparently fresh honey goes with everything!

I’m so excited to have some to bring with me to share with my family on my upcoming Seattle trip!