Author: Roger

regaining my sanity through beekeeping

Sugar dilemmas for beekeepers and parents

They say “you are what you eat” and us beekeepers can dictate what the bees eat throughout the Winter.  I must admit to feeling slightly guilty to raiding the bees larder of honey and substituting it with sugar last Autumn, but it was the only way if I was going to get any honey in my first year.  This week, I have been forced to see the reality of how much food dictates well-being and maybe I need to be a more considerate when I harvest honey later this year.

This change of heart was actually ignited with my Wife’s breast-feeding.  Using the analogy again, if you are what you eat, my Wife is a veritable Sugar Monster.  She kicks off the day with either Coco-Pops or Sugar Puffs.  Then has a hot chocolate (on a bad day with marshmallows).  Then a Ginger Bread Man.  Then the left over chocolates from Christmas.  Topping off the evening with the half-price Ben & Jerry’s chocolate fudge ice cream.

In essence, she fulfills every Scottish, culinary stereotype.  Over the years I have resisted preaching to her over the lure of the more natural sweeteners you can get from healthy things such as honey.

But a conversation with a friend made me realise that what she was feeding herself was also feeding our baby and our baby might not be such a fan of the e-number diet as my Wife.  My friend’s Wife is an alternative therapist and understands that a lot of problems in children and adults are down to nutrition.

All the baby handbooks might have said that many new born babies are likely to be fussy, grisly and/or colicky but the dramatic change we saw when Heidi substituted the chocolates for meat and veg was dramatic.  Literally the next day we had a different baby.  From one that cried a lot, was wide awake all day and difficult to put to bed, to one that hardly cries, naps during the day, and goes to bed easily.

Just this one change has helped me regain my sanity enormously in the last few days.

This has made me think more about what impact sugar has on the bees.  The honey they have made for themselves from nectar has to be better than the sucrose I fed them in September.  This year I will do my best to leave them with sufficient honey and in the meantime, I am trying my best to resist biscuit watching my Wife.

For information, the book we are using to help raise our baby is called Your Baby Week By Week (USA Link) and we have found it to be excellent.

Click here, to read more New Dad stories or please subscribe for updates.  WordPress users can specifically sign-up for just New Dad posts.

My Beekeeping Highlights & Lowlights In 2012

* Heidi would like me to point out that these highlights and lowlights are only to do with bees and not my life in general.

My top 5 highlights, in order:

  1. Discovering eggs and brood when I was sure there was no hope and all was lost
  2. Hiving a swarm that actually stayed
  3. Spotting the Queen, once
  4. Savouring my first teaspoons of honey
  5. After a few  months realising that I was less afraid of the bees

The lowlights:

  1. Four swarms from my only two hives
  2. Not knowing if I had a Queen for most of the year (including now)
  3. Permanently high varroa count (and it remains high)
  4. Combining two hives but in the process I think a Virgin Queen killed a Laying Queen (not sure)
  5. Preparing myself for the death of the colony over the next few months due to a possible lack of Queen

I have spent most of the year dealing with the unknown, dealing with uncertainty, dealing with nature.  And as someone who likes some certainty and a plan, this has challenged me.

It has more driven me more crazy than brought me peace.  But hopefully, 2012 has been about learning; learning about the bees and learning a bit about myself.  Hopefully I will be able to apply some of what I have learnt in 2013.

If you haven’t voted yet, please let me know your attitude to beekeeping.

What is your attitude to beekeeping? Please vote.

Quarterly Beekeeping Attitude Survey

01 January – 31 March 2013

I was surprised when I started beekeeping, how many beekeepers were frustrated and fed up with it.  Fed up with the effort, fed up with the bad weather, fed up with all the bee mites and parasites.  But history records that beekeepers have been planning to give up beekeeping since at least the 1600’s due to the challenges of beekeeping and the weather; and there is hope for the future.  There are efforts to select more hygenic bees which are better able to live with varroa.  There is more information about beekeeping good practice.  And the weather, surely cannot be as bad as 2012. (OK – it probably can).

So, with this in mind I thought it would be interesting to run a Quarterly Attitude Survey to see how people are feeling about beekeeping as the seasons progress.  Is the first quarter of 2013 to be the Beekeeping Winter Of Discontent or Winter Of Hope?

Please vote in the survey below and encourage your beekeeping mates to do the same.  I’ll write up some conclusions and keep running the quarterly surveys.

What is your attitude to beekeeping at the start of 2013?

  • A. Negative - I am planning to give up (1%, 1 Votes)
  • B. Neutral - I will see how it goes this year (6%, 7 Votes)
  • C. Positive - I find it very frustrating but will continue (12%, 13 Votes)
  • D. Very positive - I love it and plan to continue for the rest of my life (81%, 89 Votes)

Total Voters: 110

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I am most likely to stop beekeeping, because:

  • A. Generally it's too frustrating and too much effort (2%, 2 Votes)
  • B. Varroa and other baddies take the fun out of it (10%, 9 Votes)
  • C. The weather is not good for the bees (2%, 2 Votes)
  • D. My colonies got wiped out (8%, 7 Votes)
  • E. I am not producing much honey (3%, 3 Votes)
  • F. My back is now aching (4%, 4 Votes)
  • G. It's too expensive (2%, 2 Votes)
  • H. My bees keep swarming and annoying neighbours (2%, 2 Votes)
  • I. I am allergic to bees (3%, 3 Votes)
  • J. Nothing could put me off (55%, 51 Votes)
  • K. Other (please comment below) (8%, 7 Votes)

Total Voters: 92

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What is the single most important reason you enjoy beekeeping?

  • A. I am a commercial beekeeper and it makes money (3%, 3 Votes)
  • B. I love honey (1%, 1 Votes)
  • C. I like working with bees (48%, 48 Votes)
  • D. It connects me to nature and grounds me (26%, 26 Votes)
  • E. The challenge - I don't like to give up or be beaten (12%, 12 Votes)
  • F. I want to save the planet (4%, 4 Votes)
  • G. It gets me out of the house (2%, 2 Votes)
  • H. Other (please comment below) (3%, 3 Votes)

Total Voters: 99

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How many years have you been a beekeeper?

  • A. 1 year (21%, 22 Votes)
  • B. 2-5 years (45%, 46 Votes)
  • C. 6-10 years (10%, 10 Votes)
  • D. 11+ years (24%, 25 Votes)

Total Voters: 103

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Any further thoughts or feedback on the survey, the questions or the results, then please comment below and I’ll aim to improve on this first attempt.

If you want to receive future posts and conclusions of this survey, you might want to subscribe.  Or before you subscribe, you might want to check out some of the posts such as The Honey Jubilee – But Where’s My Queen.

On being a Dad

And now, the questions you have all been asking.

Q. How is it being a Dad?

A. It’s alright!  It’s pretty good.  (Heidi – this is an understatement, I just don’t want to tell everyone how brilliant it is)

Q. What’s your role as the Man Of The House?

A. Hmmmm.  Good question.  It seems to be cooking, cleaning, shopping, winding.  When it gets too much, I sometimes go into the garage to build beehive parts.  I would describe myself as Man In The House, rather than Of.

Q. How are you getting on with all the blokey, technical stuff, like sorting out the pram?

A.  I can’t talk about the pram.  It brings me out in cold sweats.  OK, I can talk about the pram [fakes a deep breath].   It takes me about 20 minutes to either fold it up to put in the car, and the same time to take it out of the car and put it up.  Each time I go through this process (which has been twice now), something breaks as I force it into position.  I don’t think my baby girl’s life is in immediate danger in the pram, it still seems to work OK.  Each time I go through the process of collapsing and reassembling the pram, I have no idea how I got from A to B or B to A.  The pram is currently in a collapsed state in the garage.  Last time I went into town I didn’t have time* to work out how to use the papoose (baby carrier) so I carried Senen over my shoulder, in a manly way, like a sack of potatoes.

* When I say I didn’t have enough time … 30 minutes seemed plenty at the time, but it was not enough.

Q. And what is your role with the other gadgets like the breast bump and 2-way intercom?

A. I’ve delegated them to Heidi.  I can’t look at one more set of instructions – unless someone comes round and shows me how these things work.  The man doesn’t have to be in charge of all gadgets, does he?  I am choosing to be a New Man in this area.  No one needs to know.

Q.  How do you feel walking around town pushing a pram?

A.  Have you ever seen My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding?  A man’s relationship with a pram is complex.  It’s a bit like asking me how would I feel wearing a handbag or a dress or using one of those shopping trolleys that older people take to the shops?  There’s nothing wrong with it.  It’s practical.  It’s just that, errr, it does not fit comfortably with my self-image of Being A Man.  I prefer the baby carrier, but that does not fit my self-image of Being A Man either.  I’m looking forward to carrying her on my shoulders.

If you are wondering where all these male insecurities started, you might like to read I Am Not A Beeman or if you like the Dad theme, try It’s A Girl or Proud Dad.

It’s a girl! I tell the bees of the new arrival

It’s a girl

Whilst Queen bees can easily bang out up to 2,000 eggs a day … this is not the case for humans.  In fact, at times on the day of the birth, it seemed like humans were not designed for natural childbirth.  I will spare you the details, but I finally broke down when I was ushered out of the operating theatre for Heidi’s c-section.  Three minutes later a nurse came out and told me mother and baby Senen were fine.  It took me another 15 minutes to man-up and we are both still getting over the experience.  Next time we’re booking in for an elective cesarean!

We’ve had a few questions about the name, so in anticipation of further questions … There is a place we like in Cornwall called Sennen Cove and about two years ago Heidi thought it would make a great name for a child, boy or girl.  We looked it up in the baby name dictionary and there was a Senen, meaning “wise boy”, an Irish name.  We reckoned it could also mean “wise girl”.  We made a token effort looking through the rest of the name book, but our hearts were already set.

I took two weeks paternity which was the best holiday ever and at the end of this found the time to go and visit the bees and tell them the news.  One of the guard bees seemed particularly interested and I had to run away.

Postscript: For an update on how I am getting on you might like to read On Being A Dad.

Bee update

I have not had much time to think about bees in the last six weeks.  There were quite a few flying in and out on Sunday when it was about 12C … but I still don’t know whether there is a Queen in there.  I might not know, until it’s warm enough to open it up in the Spring.

I am planning based on the scenario that these is a Queen and will phone a friend to discuss sugar fondant and oxalic acid.

Christmas present

As a Christmas present to myself I bought another flat-pack beehive (14×12 brood box, 2 supers, roof, floor, stand).  It will take me about 16 hours to assemble but will keep me entertained during the dark Winter nights, especially as Senen should soon start having a bed time at 7.30pm.

So this my third hive … just need to catch a swarm … or better still, hope that someone brings me one in a cardboard box … and if they want to tip them in … please go ahead … they are scary those bees!

Regaining my sanity without bees

Just a quick update on the bees:  they took down 14Kg of sugar in October, so that should help them through the winter.  On my last inspection I could not find the new Queen even though she was marked.  There were 43 varroa on the board over 9 days and this calculates at 660-1,300 varroa in the hive – too many.  There’s not much I can do now.  Oxalic acid in Dec/Jan and hope there’s a Queen in there.  I need to get better at this.

However, I am finding some other ways of regaining my sanity.  I saw a bloke picking some berries and asked him what they were.  He explained they were sloes.  I have tried my friends sloe gin in the past, so thought I would give it a go.  Heidi and  I picked 1kg of sloes at the weekend and made some sloe gin. Recipe: 750ml gin, 500g sloes, 340g sugar.  Have to resist drinking it for 3 months.  Using the liquer as an ingredient in crumble and mixing the left over fruit with dark chocolate sound like good ideas too. (Nat – do you have any sloe gin cocktail recipes you can share!)

sloe gin

I have also really enjoyed gardening (now that I have a garden for the first time in my life).  It’s a lot less stressful than beekeeping.  I planted some honeysuckle at the weekend.

Planting honeysuckle

I would love to hear summaries of your 2012 bee experiences.  Have I been a terrible beekeeper (possibly losing both my colonies even before Winter), or has my experience been common this year?

You might not hear anything from me for a while.  Heidi is due on 18 November.

Let’s hope I am better at babies than bees.

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Giving My New Queen Bee A “Good Home”

The Queen Bee Man called me back.  He had a spare Queen and he just wanted her to have a “Good Home”.  Crikey, what a responsibility.

The words “Good Home” were ringing in my ears as I drove to near Bath to collect this Queen.

We had a chat and then headed towards his hives.  He had 2 here and 8 others dotted around.  It seems that having 10 hives in a variety of locations is not good for ones sanity.  Here was another beekeeper with 20 years experience whose hobby had become a bit too much.  He was doing beekeeping stuff every day.  It seems that having 3-4 hives in a nearby allotment will be about the right level.

As we approached his 2 hives plus nucleus he showed me his wasp trap.  There was an enormous European hornet in it like the one in the photo below.

British hornet

He opened the nuc with bare hands and within seconds he found the Queen, marked and clipped her.  The instructional video clip below is pretty much what happened, except he used scissors rather than clippers.

He gave me the Queen inside a Queen cage.  I popped her in my shirt pocket and off we went.

I wanted to treat her well and give her a “Good Home”, so I started by turning down the volume of Sunday Love Songs (Radio 2).  She was suffering enough disruption for one day.

When we got to my hive I popped some grass into the end of the Queen cage – apparently it will take the bees about 4 days to get through the grass and in the meantime they will get used to her pheromones.

I carefully placed the Queen cage in the centre of the hive and closed up.

Hopefully she won’t get bullied, beaten-up or killed by my worker bees.  Hopefully, they will accept her.  Hopefully, they are all getting on just fine and singing “Home, Sweet Home”.  I’ll check in a couple of weeks on a warm day.

PS.  They have now eaten all 12Kg of sugar and I have just given them another 2Kg (in a sugar syrup).  Can you feed bees too much?  Will they leave room for the Queen to lay eggs?

Post script: if you want to know how the Queen fared, please read Regaining My Sanity Without Bees.

Breaking News – No Eggs

It is a lovely day here and I have just been to visit my one remaining colony hoping to find evidence of a laying Queen.

Well, I now know what frames are meant to feel like that are full of honey, as the bees have so far taken down about 10Kg of the sugar I have been feeding them.  I’m not sure what my bees have been living on all Summer.

Due to the weight and my lack of strength, it was a struggle to hold the frames high with the sun behind me as I looked for eggs and larvae.  I could see neither.  This leads to the following possible scenarios:

  1. There is no Queen
  2. There is an unfertilised Queen
  3. There is a fertilised Queen but she’s not laying at the moment

I have left a message with a local Queen maker.  So hopefully he has a spare one and then I’ll have to learn how to re-queen a hive.  I am a bit worried that if it is scenario 2, the unfertilised/resident Queen will kill a new Queen.  I’ll discuss this with the Queen Bee Man.

Postscript: To see what happened after phoning the Queen Bee Man please read Giving My New Queen Bee A “Good Home”.

What is going to kill them first: Varroa, starvation … or me?

My brain went into overdrive trying to understand a complex problem of why there was no brood or eggs (see previous post).  With only my novice understanding I had to phone a couple of beekeeper friends and posted the situation on a forum.

Possibilities (most likely to least likely):

  1. After I harvested the honey the bees were left with no/little stores and the Queen stopped laying as there was not food for the eggs (other beekeepers have reported similar events)
  2. The Apiguard stopped the Queen laying
  3. The Apiguard made the bees destroy their own brood
  4. The Queen was killed during the last inspection 3.5 weeks ago
  5. When I combined the hives, there was a Virgin Queen in the weak colony (hence, no brood) and she killed my laying Queen in the strong brood box, leaving me with the Virgin Queen

I would have fed the bees earlier, but I needed to use the Apiguard.  It was a case of what was going to kill them first: Varroa or starvation … or me?

Plan:

  • Keep feeding the bees as much as they need
  • Inspect in a weeks time to check for eggs and if there aren’t any buy a Queen
  • Start a Varroa count in a weeks time

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Postscript: if you want to know what happened next, please read Breaking News – No Eggs.

The course of true love never did run smooth

I made some sugar syrup this morning:  2kg of sugar mixed with 1200ml of water, heated gently. Delicious.  Tasted as sweet as Coke.  My girls were going to love it and having harvested their honey a few weeks ago this was the least I could do for them.  Like any healthy relationship, it’s a balance of give and take.

I was looking forward to the morning inspection with the same thrill as date night. I was not anticipating any problems or hard conversations, just good times.  I had removed the newspaper a week ago (due to combining hives) and had witnessed loads of bees toing and froing – 10 a second were shooting out at some stages.  I had more bees in this hive than at the height of Summer. Some might say this is too little, too late … but having a strong colony going into Winter is positive.

The result of today’s bee date:

  1. There were 10 bees in the top (weak) brood box – so that was easy to remove.  Good.
  2. About 10 drones dying above the Queen excluder – so I helped the bees and got rid of them.  Good.
  3. Strong brood box full of bees – every frame teaming.  Good.
  4. I am still not using smoke and the bees are amazingly gentle – no stinging, no aggressiveness – it feels like they know and trust me.  Good.
  5. No capped brood, larvae or eggs – eek!  I was not expecting that.  BAD.  VERY BAD.   Crikey – was another colony going to die on me?

This is when beekeeping can be a headache.  You just want to enjoy the bees.  You don’t want problems.  Just good times.  But as the saying goes “The course of true love never did run smooth”.  I guess the principle is that real relationships have real problems.  And that there is something more fulfilling in having to work through problems.

But the truth is I much prefer “plug n’ play” and auto-setup than fiddling around at the back of the television, phoning help-desks and seeing relationship councillors.

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Learning from mistakes – the cheesecake story

Learning to be a beekeeper is a constant struggle.  I keep reading books and asking for advice but I think it is true that you learn best from your mistakes.  Or do you …

This is not a bee story but it is a story of learning and it makes me laugh every time I recall it.

Neither Heidi and I are very good cooks … but we do own a lot of recipe books and one day Heidi decided to learn some “signature dishes”.  She chose to make a lemon cheese cake but when I got home even I was surprised at what I found.  Heidi evidently did not know what lemon zest was.  She had unpeeled the lemon and painstakingly picked out the white pith on the inside of the lemon skin and added that to the ingredients.  It was too late.  The cheesecake was in the oven.  Despite my concerns, she proudly served up the cake to my unsuspecting parents insisting the pith was softer than the outerskin of the lemons so surely it must be better.  To be fair even stringy cheese cake is surprisingly edible.

Anyway, I thought Heidi had learnt from this and she now knew her zest from her pith.  But when she made fish cakes last week I realised she still did not fully appreciate where the zest ended and the pith started.  Yes, the fishcakes contained the zest of lemon but the lemon was now bald and the fishcakes also contained all the pith on the lemon.

So maybe we don’t always learn from our mistakes but I find these cooking episodes rather endearing.

On a similar note, this is a carrot cake she made recently:

carrot cake

If you enjoy these posts, you might want to subscribe to this blog.

Conversations with bees – an opportunity to unleash all your crazy ideas

I first heard about the “Conversations With Bees” project via an email from the Bristol Beekeepers Association and since then I have seen articles and adverts in the honeybee press.  In essence, they (Brunel University, The Honey Project, researchers, designers, do-gooders and young-media-trendy-types) are looking for beekeepers to engage in a conversation about honeybees and a collaboration in designing a beehive.  I am not quite sure what is in it for them and I was even less sure what was in it for me but it felt like a worthwhile and interesting project to respond to.

Their covering letter is fill of social media jargon which didn’t make sense to me.  “The principal aim of the project is to research the environment of beekeeping from an ethnographic standpoint … We are examining the effectiveness of currently available digital and fabrication technologies for the potential of creating a mini-revolution in user-led open design and the ways in which products and services are designed and consumed.”  After reading two more pages along these lines I was still none the wiser but luckily the actual questionnaire was fun and included amusing cartoons which was akin to my sensibilities.

The questions have an emphasis on stimulating our imagination through considering what we would like the bees to be able to tell us and how we would use sensors inside and outside the hive (touch, smell, sight, sound, taste).   I saw this project as an opportunity to unleash my madness and put down every crazy idea I have had about beehives.  It also made for another reason not to build flat packs (due to the housemove).

This is the advert I saw and has their contact details:

Conversations with beesPostscript: I am now conducting Beekeeping Surveys.  What is your attitude to beekeeping?  Please vote.

Combining hives = less to worry about

One of my hives was Queenless and the Bee Inspector had advised combining the hives using the “newspaper method”.  The theory behind combining hives is that it will strengthen the stronger colony and help it to survive the Winter.  How would they manage without us?!

The so-called “newspaper method” involves putting one colony on top of the other, separated by a single sheet of newspaper and pierced with some holes.  The theory is that the bees smell each other, eat their way through the newspaper and are then happy to be united as a single colony and not get into fights with each other.

As you will see from the video clips the hives were a bit light which is a bit worrying because it might mean they don’t have much food in there.

Dad was getting a bit confused about his role as Camera Man and my role as Beeman/Presenter/Director.  I think he is still holding onto his role as Parent & I Know Best and his perspective of me as Son & Utterly Clueless. So rather than one long clip where the viewers can decide when they have watched enough, we ended up with Kodak Super 8-style 30 second clips.  Please see the first clip below.

The Combined Hives

Combining Hives

After I had finished there was a lot of flying bees and I could see the hive-less bees trying to work out where to go, but it only took 5 minutes before the scene was peaceful once again.

During this uniting of hives, I added the second dose of Apiguard as 2 weeks had passed since the first dose.  I have been counting the varroa on the varroa board over the last couple of weeks and so far about 300 have fallen off the stronger colony with the high varroa count.  When I have finished the Apiguard treatment I will take another varroa count to calculate the mite population.

My plan is now to leave the colony like this for a week before removing the 14×12 brood box and then a week later, remove the Apiguard and start feeding with sugar syrup.

More On How This Story Panned Out

  1. The course of true love never did run smooth – Read this post to find out what happened next
  2. What Is Going To Kill Them First
  3. Breaking News – No Eggs
  4. Giving My New Queen A Good Home
  5. Regaining My Sanity Without Bees
  6. RIP Bees
  7. Laying Workers Killed My Queen

Relevant How-To Guides

EU Honeybee Surveillance Programme (Visit 1 of 3)

I do, I do, I Scoobie do

No sooner had I signed-up to the National Bee Unit’s, BeeBase, than I was rewarded for my enthusiasm by receiving a letter asking if I would like to participate in the “European Union Pilot Surveillance Programme for Honey Bee Health”.   Crikey!

My apiary (of two colonies) was one of 200 apiaries (out of 32,000) from across England & Wales randomly selected from BeeBase and they were going to inspect my hives three times over a year, starting in August.  In this programme, they are collecting baseline data on colony losses and honeybee health from across the EU.   Not only did it sound very worthwhile it gave me some relief that whatever I did during June-August, at least a bee inspector would have a look and perhaps give me some pointers.  It felt like some kind of insurance policy, so I immediately replied with an “I do, I do, I Scoobie do”.

The Bee Inspector

I wasn’t too worried about what the bee inspector would find.  I was just really excited about what I could learn about my bees.

She came last week.  Within minutes she was stroking the bumble bees in the lavendar at the bottom of the garden.  Hmmmm.  I would try and impress my wife and friends with similar displays of affection and try and convince them that I had a deep connection with bees.  Whilst I would be sham, I was convinced the bee inspector knew her stuff.

When it came to inspecting the hive she asked where my smoker was.  I haven’t used smoke for the last couple of months and as a result they have even been more friendly.  She seemed OK with this but she wanted the smoker to hand just in case.  We didn’t need it.

Bee Inspector studying my hives for the EU Pilot Programme

 Bee Inspector from National Bee Unit

Diseases The Study Is Looking Out For

An EU Paper (link at bottom of page) explains ” The focus [of the pilot study] will be on the following main honeybee diseases and/or pathogens: varroosis (V. destructor), American (P. larvae) and European foulbrood (M. plutonius), nosemosis (N. apis, N. ceranae), chronic bee paralysis virus (CBPV) and the two viruses strongly linked with V. destructor (Deformed wing virus (DWV) and Acute bee paralysis virus (ABPV)). These are known to be present with relatively high prevalence and/or impact in Europe. Additionally, the two following notifiable pathogens will be also searched for: A. tumida and Tropilaelaps spp. (currently considered absent from Europe).”

Basically, this means the inspectors are looking for the baddies.

The Inspection

She started out by collecting some dying bees around the outside of the hive and put them in a sample jar with ethanol (I think it was ethanol).  When she got into the hive, she took a couple of bees with Deformed Wing Virus (DWV) and put them in another sample jar.  She put a couple of dodgy looking larvae into a jar.  She also took a frame of bees, shook them into a washing bowl and put a couple of hundred of my workers into a fourth sample jar.  She did this for both hives.  See video below.

She looked for my Queen but could not find her but she could see eggs and larave in my first hive.

After the inspection we had a tea/coffee and she asked me a few questions.  I told her about the history of swarming and high varroa counts.

Sample of honeybees

European Union Pilot Surveillance Programme for Honey Bee Health

Good News & Bad News

Despite the dying bees and couple of bees with DWV, she declared the hives looked healthy based on a quick visual analysis.  However, the bad news is that my hive that swarmed six weeks ago is Queenless and no sign of brood or eggs.  She reassured me that this was common this year.  She also let me know that her honey production was 60% down on last year and my three jars was not untypical.  So as a result of having a Queenless hive she advised me to combine the two hives using the newspaper method.

So I will shortly be down to one colony … lets hope this one makes it through the challenges of autum and winter.

I will get the results of the tests in a few weeks time and will post the results.

Juggling priorities

So I need to reduce the varroa count, feed the bees AND combine the hives.  Somehow I have to juggle the following:

  • Four weeks of  Apiguard treatment whilst it is still above 15C (I’ve done nearly 2 weeks now)
  • Feed the bees before the end of September, but do not feed whilst treating with Apiguard
  • Combine the two hives – I think I can do this when I want (any advice on optimal times to combine hives welcome)

Basically, I am keeping my fingers crossed that it remains warm until the end of September in order to achieve all the above.

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The joys and guilt of harvesting my first honey

An important day in the honeybee calendar just happened without much of a plan and definitely without a fanfare of trumpets.  One minute I was unpacking boxes due to the house move, then I got distracted and thought I would check the bees (which are now 30m round the corner).  I decided to remove a couple of frames of honey from the supers as a small reward but as I got them in the house without too many bees following me I thought, “what the heck”, and went back for the whole super.  I just shook the bees off into the hive.  No smoke was used.  No clearer boards.  No stings were received.  It was easier than I had expected.  Too easy …

My spontaneous reasoning for harvesting the honey went something along the lines that due to the high varroa count in my hives I needed to treat with Apiguard as soon as possible and I did not want to taint the honey in the one super I had with the thymol in the Apiguard.  Both hives now have an Apiguard treatment and I’ll update you on the impact in a future post.

Having placed a super on the kitchen table I then had to be deal with it there and then.  The only part that was remotely planned was that I had a borrowed extractor to hand.

Method

There were four frames that looked extractable.  They contained 20% capped honey, and 50% unripe/uncapped honey (i.e. it was very liquid with a high water content and the bees had not yet flapped their wings enough to completely turn it into ripe honey).

Uncapping honey

Uncapping honey

I uncapped the capped cells with a serrated knife and placed the four frames in the extractor and turned the wheel.  This extracted the unripe honey.  As I got increasingly desperate to extract the ripe honey I first tried a hairdryer to soften it up (this had no effect) and then I used a knife and scraped it into a jar.

I must admit this this lustful frenzy of “harvesting” felt more like robbing.  Was I really stealing the bees winter lifeline for the sake of some sweet porridge in the morning and my beekeeper ego?

I reminded myself that though humans are the reason for the decline in honeybees (destruction of habitat, importing the varroa) if it was not for novice beekeepers, like myself, there would be no chance for the blighters at all.

And so I kept scraping …

Warming honey for extraction with no success

Warming honey for extraction

Results

Two jars of unripe honey (liquid) and one jar of honey scraped from the comb (this honey seems to be a mix of wax, pollen and honey and is quite granulated).  They all taste delicious and are sitting in the fridge to preserve them the best I can (unripe honey ferments).

My first honey

My wife has so far not participated in the honey tasting sessions as (A) she does not like honey and (B) she prefers to buy food from supermarkets.  I am working on both of these elements.  We picked some blackberries and made a pie last year!  And now that we are living in the countryside, she is getting more exposure to allotment food, bees, spiders and nature.

Unfortunately, the honey I have is definitely not of the quality (or quantity) to demonstrate my thanks to the friends who had lent the extractor or to the various neighbours who had experienced at close quarters the swarm in May.  Hopefully, next year will be more productive.

Conclusion

When I started beekeeping my “business plan” was modelled on having hives with an average of three supers producing 120 jars of honey.  I have since learnt that honey production is highly correlated to the weather and that to produce honey I am going to have to be a better beekeeper: manage swarming better and aim to have hives bursting with bees for the two nectar flows of April and July.  I am also keen to get my other colony into a large 14×12 brood box as soon as possible as this will allow them to store enough honey to last them the winter without me being tempted to take their supers.

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We have swarmed

We have swarmed.  We have left our nest in Bristol, started a new colony (of two) in the countryside and the Queen is ready to lay.

Men.  I don’t advise moving with a pregnant woman.  If, at the best of time we have to do the heavy lifting, when your wife is six months pregnant you have to do all the lifting. Somehow the utilities and changes of addresses fall in my lap too.  I do Heidi a dis-service.  The Queen Bee was able to hang “cute” baby clothes in the child’s room and she has done an amazing job in the kitchen.  She has definitely been as occupied as me … I just don’t know what she’s been doing exactly.

My parents and sister came round to have a look.  They all look horrified when I said I had been banging in nails to hang up paintings and the like.  Dad looked extremely worried, “nails?”.  “Don’t worry everyone, I meant pins.  Picture hooks with those skinny pins”.  There was an audible sigh of relief.  I mean, a 39 year old man, banging in nails …

I got Dad round to hang up the mirror.  It needed heavy duty screws and wall plugs and hence drilling.  I have drilled two holes in my life.  Both are the size of 2p pieces.  I started on a third.  When it started looking like a 5p piece I got the Old Man up the ladder to show me his stuff.  He advised me to practice in the garage.  Yes!  I have a garage.  And Heidi wants me hang my “art” in there so I’ll give drilling a go.  I’ve also got a small but wild garden.  My first one.  I haven’t a clue what to do, but there are plenty of bees in it.  Now I am living 30m from my hives I know that some of these bees are mine (not that ownership is important or indeed the right word to use).

I went to harvest my honey last weekend but more about that in my next post …

The garage – good place for bee stuff and putting up my posters

We have swarmed

A bee-heaven garden Bee Garden

If you want to read about some of my real swarms try My dad – The Swarm Catcher.

“Look, no smoke” & a Varroa problem

I thought I would try and be a bit more of a natural beekeeper and not use smoke (or water spray) this time I opened my hives.  It’s harvest season and the bees definitely have something to defend, so I was not sure of the wisdom of trying this approach at this time of year, but what the heck.  If it got tough, I’d go back with smoke.

Well, there was no noticeable effect of not using smoke.  The bees were no more aggressive, perhaps less so, as I received no stings and was not even aware of any high pitched squeals, or vibrations on my gloves or clothes that would have meant a bee was trying to sting me.

This might be an exception and I might have friendly bees.  It was definitely not because I am a bee whisperer.   I will keep going with my non-smoke approach.

Update on my hives.

Hive A / Original Hive

One super was pretty full of nectar.  About 30% capped.  One super seemed to have some mildew?  I called one of my beekeeping mentors and he advised leaving the super on until the start of September and hope that the bees cap the rest of the honey.  The risk is that they will eat it though!  Is this what other beekeepers would do?

Super with capped honey and nectar – hope they cap the rest?

Capped honey

A moldy super?  Will the bees clean it up?

Molder super

There was some nectar in one frame of the 2nd super.  But I just removed the whole lot so the bees focused on capping the honey in the first super.  Not sure if this was the right thing to do?

I had put the Varroa count board under the open mesh floor 24 hours before.  I counted 15 Varroa mites on the board, some of them were obviously alive and walking around.  From reading the FERA National Bee Unit guidance on Varroa we don’t want more than 1,000 Varroa in our hives otherwise there is the risk of colony collapse.  You can roughly calculate the number of Varroa in your hive by taking the daily mite drop and multiplying as follows:

  • November to February: daily mite drop x 400
  • May to August: daily mite drop x 30
  • March, April, September and October: daily mite drop x  100

There is also a handy Varroa calculator at Bee Base …  It would have been best to do a count over a week, but I can do that in a few weeks time.  Essentially, it seems like I have about 500 Varroa mites and this will grow rapidly over the next few weeks.  Crikey.

A Varroa mite (middle, middle)

Varroa mite

I have looked through the FERA guidance.  It’s too late in the season to undertake further biological controls beyond my open mesh floor (essentially, drone brood culling and artificial swarms) and it seems I am in a pyrethroid resistant area.  The oxalic acid treatment sounds a bit rough on the bees and one of my bee buddies killed all his bees when he tried it one year.  Hence, I am going to try Apiguard which is described as a natural product and thymol-based.  From reading the Apiguard instructions it seems one has to close the open mesh floor to keep in the fumes of the thymol.   I hope it’s OK just to put my Varroa board in.  Should I tape up the back of the hive as well?  Feedback welcome from beekeepers.   I plan to do this after I take the honey off at the start of September, and I plan to feed them 4 weeks later, after the 4 weeks of Apiguard treatment.  Will the bees be OK if I don’t feed them until October having robbed their super of honey?

Hive B / Swarm I hived in June

No honey or nectar or anything at all in the super.  They have drawn out 7 or the 11 frames in the brood box though.  They swarmed 2 weeks ago and I could not see any eggs or uncapped larvae.  Varroa destructor mite count 5 per day.

Healthy looking 14×12 brood frame – but no eggs or larvae yet

14x12 Brood Frame

You can see bees hatching out in this photo

14x12 Brood Bees Hatching

Plan:  Check this hive again at the start of September and hope to find eggs.  Add Apiguard at same time as Hive A.  Feed in October after Apiguard treatment.

Again, welcome any thoughts on this plan.

If you just want to watch the bees, here is a video clip I took before opening the hives.  You can see the yellow pollen they are bringing in on the backs of their leggs.

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Varroa Management – A how-to guide

My Dad – The Swarm Catcher

It wasn’t meant to be like this.  I was meant to be The Man, or better yet, The Beeman.  But The Old Man is taking all the glory.  To be fair, he is far more relaxed around the bees than me, so he probably did a far better job.  I can only take credit for the fact I gave him instructions down the phone.  After I put the phone down,  for a couple of seconds I thought “Crikey – I hope he’ll be alright” … and then I buried my head in some metaphorical sand, stuck my fingers in my ears and started a mantra along the lines of La La La.  This is the closest I get to meditation these days.

The bees swarmed … yes, again.  It was Friday 20th July and I was at work.  You might be wondering, which hive?  Depending on how well you remember the bee story so far, you might know it as Hive B, or the New Hive or the-swarm-I-hived-near-the-start-of-June.  Yes, they’d only been in there 6 weeks and half of them were ready to take off again.  I’d given them a nice, big, 14×12 brood box and whacked a super on top for good measure.  What was there not to like?  Me?  Anyhow, not to worry, there are still bees coming in and out as I write this – just rather fewer than a few weeks ago.

I told Dad to get the cardboard box and bee brush, don his beekeeper suit, find someone to take photos, brush the bees into the box, flip it upside down with a rock underneath to give the remaining bees space to get in, call the local bee association for them to collect (I had no where to put them), wait a couple of hours for all the bees to go in and then seal them up and put a few holes in the box.  Easy!

Here are a few photos and video clips of my Dad being manly, filmed by The Chicken Man (aka the chap who owns the chicken coop where the swarm landed).

 The Swarm – on a chicken coop in the allotment

 

Curious Cows – the cows come from the other side of the field to check out the action

Cows watching bee swarm

 

 Dad – The Swarm Catcher! Brushes bees into box

 Swarm Catcher

 

 Remaining honeybees find the Queen and rest of the swarm through pheromones

Catching a swarm

 

Dad fancies himself as David Attenborough

 

Dad seals bees in the box for collection

Swarm in a box

 

So yes – Dad not only survived but succeeded.  Thanks Dad!

Someone from the local bee association came to collect the swarm and whilst he was there he looked in the new hive with Dad.  When Dad told me this my Inner Beeman, who is already feeling a bit of a loser, took quite a confidence knock.  Crikey, am I so inadequate that I can’t check be trusted to check my own bees?  Anyhow, he spotted a Queen cell and thinks this is the hive where the swarm came from.

I have not looked in the hive for a few weeks now because (A) I’m a bad beekeeper, (B) I don’t think I have had any reason to check them and (C) it fits my new philosophy of Evidence-Based Beekeeping.  However, I am definitely inspecting the bees this weekend for the following:

  • Check how much honey there is and consider harvesting
  • Check their stores of honey and pollen
  • Make sure both hives have laying Queens, eggs and brood

Amazingly its near the end of the nectar flow and I need to start thinking about getting the bees ready for Winter.  I know the days are getting shorter but I’m still, looking forward to some Summer and I’m not yet ready to think about the colder months ahead.

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Evidence-Based Beekeeping

Reading The Barefoot Keeper, inspired me to do some further reading of scientific papers on honeybees with the aim of trying to understand how I need to adapt the classical methods I had been taught on courses and in beekeeping manuals.

One of the key issues raised in The Barefoot Beekeeper was the use of pre-printed wax foundation.  In his book, Philip states that, given the opportunity honeybees will “build slightly smaller worker cells than those dictated by the preformed sheets of foundation, used in framed hives”.  Philip goes on to say “according to the observations of a several long-time top bar beekeepers, these smaller cells appear to be less attractive to Varroa mites.”

Crikey.  If this is true, that’s important to know.  But was there any rigorous, scientific research into these issues?  I am shifting my reading from beekeeping manuals to science papers.

Scientific Papers

So where does one find the evidence?  I made contact with a leading academic in honeybee health and he pointed me in the direction of Google Scholar and SpringerLink.  The ApiNews Beekeeping Research page publishes new research every week.  The International Bee Research Association publishes research.

I have only had a limited amount of time, but my searches on keywords like “varroa destructor” and “brood cell size” have already yielded interesting papers (like the ones described at the end of this post).  What I have read so far led me to understand:

  • Dusting honeybees with icing sugar does not reduce varroa destructor (Whoa!! I was not expecting this.  Numerous experts had told me this was effective – and this evidence has been known since at least 2009.  See papers below.)
  • Natural selection in some wild colonies has helped improve mite resistance (not forgetting that many wild colonies have died due to varroa infestation)
  • Small-cell combs do not inhibit varroa mite reproduction

Evidence-Based Beekeeping

So, what does this initial research mean for how I keep bees?  Is there enough evidence here on which to base my beekeeping practices?  I’m not sure.  But if you want to join me on this journey, follow this blog (top right of screen) and you’ll find out what happens.  In the meantime, read on …

Dusting Bees With Icing Sugar

I might as well stop.  The evidence is pretty clear and on reading the FERA guides on varroa again, I notice there is no mention of icing sugar.

Natural Selection

It seems that if I don’t get involved in artificially selecting the Queen then my colonies might become better at resisting or living with varroa. But that said, how much can I (novice beekeeper) influence gene selection of my honeybees? Not a lot.

Action:

  • Perhaps at some point in the future look into Queen breeding for positive characteristics such as: productivity, not swarming, naturally resistant/hygienic to varroa mites – but not for the time being

Natural Comb

I like the idea of natural comb in the brood box.  I like the idea that the bees make their own sized cells, but evidence suggests this does not impact on the level of varroa infestation.  In The Barefoot Beekeeper, Philip, suggests that it is possible that there are less pesticide residues in new comb, as opposed to the recycled wax in foundation that we buy.

Actions:

  • None

Summary Of Research

My reading of scientific papers has only just started.  I have only “read” Seven so far, two in full and five abstracts.  So in the scale of things, this is very little.  If there are other useful scientific papers you think I should read, please let me know.

Here is a summary of the seven papers including links:

2012 Paper (link / pdf of full article): Host adaptations reduce the reproductive success of Varroa destructor in two distinct European honey bee populations; authors: Barbara Locke, Yves Le Conte, Didier Crauser, Ingemar Fries (Ecology and Evolution, Volume 2, Issue 6, pages 1144–1150, June 2012)

A key sentence in this article is “Besides suppressing mite reproduction, both Varroa resistant European honey bee populations in this study also share the fact that they have been unmanaged, enabling natural selection (as opposed to artificial) to shape the evolution of their mite resistance. This is an important consideration since it highlights the impact that apicultural practices otherwise have on these host–parasite interactions (Fries and Camazine 2001), suggesting a human interference in coevolution between species.”

There is a good reading list at the end of this paper.

2011 Paper (link): Small-cell comb does not control Varroa mites in colonies of honeybees of European origin

I have not paid for the full article but the abstract concludes, “We suggest that providing small-cell combs did not inhibit mite reproduction because the fill factor (thorax width/cell width) was only slightly higher in the small cells than in the standard cells (79% and 73%, respectively).”

2010 Paper (link): Brood-cell size has no influence on the population dynamics of Varroa destructor mites in the native western honey bee, Apis mellifera mellifera

I have not paid for the full article but the abstract concludes, “there is no evidence that small-cell foundation would help to contain the growth of the mite population in honeybee colonies and hence its use as a control method would not be proposed. “

2010 Paper (link): Brood cell size of Apis mellifera modifies the reproductive behavior of Varroa destructor

I have not paid for the full article but the abstract concludes, “No significant correlation was observed between brood cell width and number of offspring of V. destructor. Infertile mother mites were more frequent in narrower brood cells.”

2009 Paper (link): The efficacy of small cell foundation as a varroa mite ( Varroa destructor ) control

I have not paid for the full article but the abstract concludes, “We found no evidence that small cell foundation was beneficial with regard to varroa control under the tested conditions in Florida.”

2009 Paper (link): The efficacy of dusting honey bee colonies with powdered sugar to reduce varroa mite populations

I have not paid for the full article but the abstract concludes, “Within the limits of our study and at the application rates used, we did not find that dusting colonies with powdered sugar afforded significant varroa control”.  I.e. It had no effect in the conditions they used.  Crikey. Now there’s a surprise.  The researchers dusted every two weeks for 11 months with 120 g powdered sugar per application. They treated by sifting icing sugar over the top bars of the brood nest and then brushing it between the frames. That’s how I’ve been doing it!

2001 Paper (link / pdf): Effectiveness of confectioner sugar dusting to knock down Varroa destructor from adult honey bees in laboratory trials

I have attached the full paper.  I thought it worth including this paper, as it is probably the origin of all the icing sugar dusting that has been going on.  It seems that in lab conditions varroa are knocked off but please see the 2009 paper above for evidence of what happens in real life conditions (or at least conditions similar to how I have been treating varroa).

There are also some interesting papers on using biological plants extracts and essentials oils to reduce varroa but this area needs more research:

  • Repellent and acaricidal effects of botanical extracts on Varroa destructor (2011): link
  • Biological activity of some plant essential oils against Varroa destructor (2011): link

Future

I am going to start developing an Evidence-Based Beekeeping page.  I will rely on blog readers to improve my amateur notes.

If there are any other useful scientific papers, please let me know.  I will read them and see what conclusions I can draw or we can all draw.  Alternatively, please let me know what the conclusions are!

If you would like to be one of the first to receive this new page, please follow this blog.

The Barefoot Beekeeper

I’m a sucker for old ways of doing things, new ways of doing things, different ways of doing things, so I was always going to have a soft spot for a book like this.  And despite advocating natural beekeeping methods, there was no mention of feeding honeybees chamomile tea.

So what did I make of this book?

The Synopsis

Philip is very concerned about the traditional Langstroth hive, conventional beekeeping methods and the use of pesticides.  He’s made me concerned too!

Philip is an advocate of the Top Bar Hive (TBH).  The key reasons for this, is that he believes, the thicker material makes them easier for honeybees to maintain their colony temperature and he likes bees to make their own wax foundation to their natural specifications.  He also believes they are more ergonomic due to their height and they are cheaper and require less equipment than the Langstroth. He uses a horizontal TBH (hTBH) as opposed to a vertical TBH, which is the Warre Hive.  I’m learning!

Philip is an advocate of “natural beekeeping” which means lower, but adequate, intervention, not smoking the hive and not doing things like clipping queens.  It also means taking less honey and spending more time observing the bees.

I also understand that barefoot beekeeping allows for the use of swarm management techniques and feeding the bees when they need it.  It also allows the use of sprinkling them with icing sugar and use of oxalic acid (if needed).  But hopefully, if you get the rest right, the bees will be in better health to look after themselves and hence less intervention is required.

More research is needed into the health of honeybees and how conventional methods might be having a negative impact, and hence the book is based on a mix of ideas and facts.

One of the authors’ objectives is to challenge the conventional approach to beekeeping.  This is a big task.  From a personal experience, all the courses and books and most of the beekeepers I have so far been exposed to are the conventional type.  (Conventional in terms of beekeeping, unconventional in terms of personality).  I had taken it as fact that I needed to smoke my bees and use wax foundation.  Who was I to challenge this?

The author can consider himself successful in his impact on my thinking and behaviour:

  1. He has made me curious about natural beekeeping
  2. I am going to experiment with doing a few things differently with my Nationals immediately
  3. A TBH would be an interesting addition to my hive-mix and I will consider buying one
  4. I am going to further research any scientific papers available to help me make decisions based on evidence

I have already done some reading and am in the process of writing a post titled “Evidence-Based Beekeeping”.  If you would like to be one of the first to receive this post, please follow this blog (top right of page).

Will I Use A Top Bar Hive?

Making a TBH as cheaply as possible seems to be an important part of the initiation into being a barefoot beekeeper, though the author does talk about using champagne corks from his cellar to plug entrances as required.  Corks from our wedding have long gone and I don’t have the tools, skills or innate ability to take a hive plan, some bit of wood and make a hive.

But Yes, I will definitely consider buying one.  I love wild comb and I believe in focusing on bee health as a way to creating honey.  The only thing putting me off is that others have said they have tried to use one with limited success.  So before taking this step I will investigate more and also I need to think about where I can put more hives.

Read the Dave Loveless review of the Top Bar Hive for more information.

Will I Be A Barefoot Beekeeper?

In writing this blog and researching hive types, I had started to pick-up on this fringe of natural beekeepers so some of the ideas had already started to infiltrate my psyche.  These included:

  • I wanted to focus on the health of my bees as a route to honey production
  • I located my hives in the countryside with plenty of flower and plant diversity, no rape in sight and fields devoted to live stock rather than crop (hence less pesticide I think)
  • I had bought a 14×12 brood box as I felt this would give the bees more space for brood and to store their own honey for winter
  • I was also planning on insulating the hive in winter so they used less honey during this period
  • I had considered a beehaus for their insulation properties and ergonomic height (though natural beekeepers will shudder at the use of plastic)
  • I already had no intention of clipping Queens (though this might have been more to do with my fears than for natural beekeeping reasons)
  • I wanted to have fewer and faster inspections than advocated in many books as there is a direct impact on honey production
  • At every chance I speak to fellow allotmenters about the bees and explain swarming so as to reduce anxieties

As a direct result of reading this book I am going to try the following:

  • Not using smoke or anything else when I inspect the hive
  • With future National hives experiment with using wax starter strips in the brood box to at least give the bees some chance of creating the cell sizes they want

I will let you know how it goes! I might discover for myself why people use smoke and wax foundation!  Any thoughts before I embark on this experiment?

Reminder of some useful links

If you want to buy The Barefoot Beekeeper, or other natural beekeeping books, please click here.

As I have said elsewhere, whilst building your own TBH is to be encouraged (it’s part of the initiation process), if you are like me, this is not an option. These links below might be helpful.  A particiapant in a beekeeping forum says “don’t faff about with a 3′ hive, go for 4′ “.

3’ TBH with viewing window

4’ TBH with viewing window

(US Link)

Reading this book led me to Evidence-Based Beekeeping.  Note: evidence gathering is still in progress!