Category: Favourites

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.

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.

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

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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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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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Proud Dad

Like a proud Dad, I can announce that there are larvae in both beehives*.  Absolutely, definitely this time. You can see the larvae curled up in the first photo below and you can also see some larvae that have been capped in the second photo (bottom left) … beautiful.

uncapped honeybee brood

 

proud dad

Like any new born, they don’t look pretty but you’ve got to think long term. In about 21 days these little grubs will reach puberty and then fly the nest (only in this case, I won’t need to fork out for tuition fees).

Having essentially ‘fathered’ these hives, I experienced intense relief, which lasted about 5 seconds, and some joy, which lasted about 3½ hours.  However this joy was quickly replaced by newly developed worries; timescales I suspect most new-Dads can appreciate.

Like two small children – my hives already have distinct personalities …

Beehive A – ‘the late developer’

Now this one had me worried. I had adopted Beehive A and so I couldn’t be sure of anything and as soon as I got it, it went off the rails and swarmed.  Seven weeks later, the colony has settled down in its home and despite keeping me on my toes with little evidence of a Queen, nature has come good and I’m very proud.

Beehive B – ‘the productive protégé’

These amazing bees have drawn out 9 of the 11 frames (in a 14×12 brood box).  The sugar syrup I fed them has done the job.  There were cells containing brood and some capped honey around the edges.  Very pleased.

Of course, with both hives, come worries…and my main one is whether they will produce any honey.

Worker bees take 21 days from egg until they hatch.  They then spend their first 18 days on jobs in the hive.  We’re looking at the end of July before these bees start foraging but the second main nectar flow finishes about then too.  Let’s hope there is some nectar and pollen for the bees to collect in August.

I also saw a moth during my “inspection” but at the time I didn’t consider it due to my usual panic.  However, I am now a bit worried that it might have been a wax moth.  I will look out for this next time I go in.

I need advice. Perhaps a little fatherly pep talk from more experienced beekeepers who know more than me?

  • Should I remove a super from the old hive (so they can cap more of the current honey in the first super)?
  • Should I add a super to the new hive or let them draw out more brood frame?
  • Should I feed the new hive again due to all this poor weather?

Let me know if you know!

* I should also probably tell you that the 20 week scan my wife and I went to this week shows that we are probably going to have a baby girl.  Hurrah!

Postscript: You might want to read It’s A Girl.

An encouraging(?) email

Sometimes I am not sure if friends are encouraging or just a bit too jubilant when things go wrong.  This email arrived a few days ago …

“It seems bees are all the rage, the National Trust is selling a book on bee basics.  It includes a few handy tips and 8 don’ts. Number 3 is don’t let your bees swarm, number 4 don’t upset the neighbours (swarming bees in their garden is a no no), I can see these little insects are a real commitment, bring on the baby!!!”

 Note: My new wife is pregnant.

Postscript: For an update you might want to read Proud Dad.

Bee stings – numbers 2 to 15

Even walking through long grass brings me out in a skin rash … so perhaps I should have known better.

I had become blasé.  When we next went to check on Darren’s hives, I tucked my jeans into my socks and put the top half of the bee jacket on.

I already knew from experience that my jeans were not bee proof and I was rather nervous as Darren’s bees tried penetrating my button fly, only half of which were done up.  I have noticed bees make a high pitch whine when they are stuck or in the process of stinging you.  I hoped the whining sound coming from my fly was just a stuck bee.

And then it happened.  I got stung where there was only a thin layer of sock.  No not there, the sock on my foot.

The other bees identified my weak spot and in text book fashion my ankle was attacked by several bees, then my other ankle, then the top of my upper thighs!!

I made my excuses to Darren and headed to the other end of his garden.

I counted about 7 stings in one ankle, 4 in the other and 3 in my thigh.  I pulled about 30 bee stings out of my clothes.  What had Darren just said, it takes 200 bee stings to kill you … or was it 20?

A bee stingbee sting My swollen foot the next daybee sting reaction

I woke up the next morning at 6am with my ankles itching like crazy, my ankle swollen so that it looked like an elephants, bruising and an over welcoming feeling of tiredness.  Later that day, I felt slightly feverish and it was all I could do to hive a swarm of bees that a new bee friend had caught the previous day.  Honeymoon arrangements will have to wait!

My pregnant wife, who has a natural tendency to negate my feelings at the best of times, told me to man-up.  She will be horrified by the following analogy: Like a hippy woman approaching labour and not wanting to use any drugs or an epidural, I initially resisted anti-histamine pills or cream.  But 24 hours later I was smoothing in cream like it was suntan lotion.

Three days later, I was still exhausted, swollen, itchy and bruised.

I have been reading Beekeeping by Ron Brown over recent weeks.  He has a whole section on the make-up of bee venom (pages 131-134) which I have learnt is made up of: several toxic substances, several agents that help the venom spread around the body, protein irritants, steroids and an alarm pheromone.  Crikey!

Ron explains there are two types of people, those who produce more immunoglobulin G (IgG) and those who produce more immunoglobulin E (IgE).  Asthma and hayfever sufferers tend to produce more IgE (that’s me!) and this group of people suffer progressively worse from stings.  Those people who produce more IgG build up their resistance to stings.

He says that no beekeeper needs to give up because of an allergy because it is possible to have immunotherapy which results in becoming someone who produces more IgG.  I will have to look into this!

I also need to reduce the amount of stings I get in the first place so the plan is to: buy a full bee suit and wear wellington boots.  Get kitted-up and be prepared:

Buy beekeeper suits from £37Beekeeper suit

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Hive envy – according to Freud

I braced myself and decided it was time to check out Darren’s hives. I’d showed him mine so, you know, it only seemed fair.

Like most of my friends, Darren is more manly than myself.  He likes making fire, snowboarding at speed and wears chunky, S&M style wrist jewellery.  He likes BIG hives and aggressive bees.  He likes them aggressive as he believes they make more honey.

His garden extends into an allotment.  He describes himself as a low intervention beekeeper and I knew what he meant as we hacked our way through undergrowth to reach his hives.  It was actually quite magical when we got there, not least because his hives towered into the lower braches of the trees … one of the hives was on a triple brood box and full of bees!

Every frame was bursting with bees and filled with eggs, brood, honey and pollen in near perfect form.  As we got to the 33rd and final frame in the brood we found the Queen that he had marked last year.  He had found her last year, picked her up by her legs and marked her with Tipex.  I can’t even pick up a daddy-long-legs by the legs.

The visit re-established my bee-keeping inferiority complex, but it was a useful session.  I now know what eggs look like, how to see them and what a Queen looks like.  She’s a lot longer than the other bees.

Some beautiful wild honeycomb in one of Darren’s hives:

wild honeycomb

A bumbleebee on the wild honeycomb:

bumblebee on wild honeycomb

 

A busy brood box (one of the triple brood box colony):

busy beehive

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The Honey Jubilee – but where’s my Queen?

The Queen is everywhere. On a boat in the rain; standing beside a hula-hooping Grace Jones; her face is even on Tesco’s cupcakes. But while there’s no escaping our long standing monarch, my Queen is nowhere to be seen.

It’s been one month since my hive swarmed and two weeks since the last inspection.  Some expert advice might be needed so I pick up my beekeeping friend, Darren, to provide an extra pair of eyes.

He’s the Harry to my William. While I’m more cautious, he’s all gung ho, a bit of a rogue and likely to dress-up inappropriately at a fancy dress party. He’s a manly beekeeper and someone I need to learn from.

The good news: We cannot see any varroa and there is plenty of capped honey in the super, see photo, makes my mouth water.

Super with honey

The bad news: We cannot see any brood, eggs or Queen.  And if the Diamond Jubilee has taught us anything – it’s that we need a Queen (if only to give a disapproving look to Elton John).

All 6 Queen cells had hatched out and it looks like each one had taken a cast (= after swarm) with it.  I had hoped the first Queen to hatch out would kill her sisters (after all there’s a bit history of this with those royal folk) but this obviously hadn’t happened and now I only have about 5,000 bees left.

Suddenly I wish Darren wasn’t here to size up my hive. I also wish I had killed the Queen cells as advised and maybe I would have had more of a hive to size up.

Maybe sensing my slight-despair-with-a-hint-of-embarrassment Darren did offer some solace. “Don’t worry mate – the weather’s been pants so maybe the Queen’s just gone out on her mating flight. And worse case you can just buy a new queen for £25”.

When it comes to bees … royalty is cheap!

Then we went to inspect Darren’s hives and I got Hive Envy.

Hiving a swarm

The thing about swarms is that it can be a blooming disappointing (verging on soul-destroying) when you lose one, but rather brilliant when you catch one. And it can even be pretty good when your beekeeping mentor catches one – and you benefit from it…

At 8.08pm I got a text from Jonathan saying that he had caught a swarm. His hive had swarmed (sad to say, this was music to my ears, see Swarmy Bees post, and made me feel a bit less of an idiot). He didn’t want any more hives and he very kindly thought of me as he knew I wanted a second one to play with. (At this stage he didn’t know I’d partially lost the first colony).

It was only as I was driving home with a box of Angry Bees in a cardboard box in the back of the car that I began to wonder … what would Jonathan have done if I didn’t want them. The Queen Bee is laying about 2,000 eggs a day (I have even read up to 6,000 in the BBKA News, I’m scared to read it these days). That’s 60,000 new bees a month and they only take about 21 days to hatch out.

I have visions of my beehives doubling every year and my life generally getting out of control in proportion to the number of beehives. Is this how people suddenly find themselves with 25 dogs, 13 cats and 8 budgies living in a one bed flat? Am I just going to have to be a beekeeper in-denial and ignore the fact they need to swarm and just let them? Is that what beekeepers do? Or am I going to wake up one day with 100 beehives somehow integrated into my house?

I am going to have to stop writing this post as I’m starting to feel a bit queasy.

…………………………………………………………………..

OK. I got over it and I’m back. In short, I had another beekeeping session in the dark, with my Dad, and chucked the bees in the hive we made a month ago. There were some issues about me getting in a panic, not opening the cardboard box properly and shaking the bees around and making them angrier. But Dad saved the day. One day … I’ll save the day. One day I’ll be a Dad.

Oh by the way, I should mention my wife is 15 weeks pregnant. The vicar was a bit surprised when I told him the day after the wedding.

Here we are hiving the swarm.

Beekeepers - Dad & I Hiving a swarm

And here’s a video:

Post script: Funny, how looking at my old posts I was worrying about varroa, but I haven’t thought about varroa for 3 weeks now. CRIKEY!!! The varroa!!! I’d forgot about the varroa!

In the hive – looking for bee eggs

So there I was again – and this time is was hot and sunny – this is what dreams are made of.

I am on a mission.  I need a structure to my hive checks.

Status: One hive which swarmed 2 weeks ago

Objective: Look for eggs, Queen and Queen cells

Results: I found 6 Queen cells (I know what these look like now).  I could not see bee eggs or a Queen (which does not mean they were not present).  Photos, like the one below, played tricks with my mind, but I think the white lines you can see when you zoom in, are light reflections rather than eggs.

Queen cell
Post hive check research: I checked beekeeping books and the internet to double check what bee eggs look like.  Nope – none of them.  I had a few texts and made a phone call – advice ranged from “assume there is a Queen and destroy all the Queen cells”, to, “you won’t have a Queen yet, but destroy all the Queen cells bar one (or two)” – to reduce after swarms I presume.

Analysis:  Risk that there is no Queen yet – hence, best to keep some of the Queen cells.  Risk that I might destroy the best Queen cells.  Eek.

Decision: Let nature take its course.  Let a Queen emerge and kill the other Queens and take a risk of further swarms. Sorry neighbours – but any swarm will be small as they already swarmed 3 weeks ago.

Good news: The Super appeared pretty heavy and a number of cells were capped, so I added a second super.

Reflection #1: It’s a relief I only have one hive as I am struggling just to keep up with building flat pack parts and manage the one hive.

Reflection #2: I am starting to feel more confident.  I am starting to let go of being a perfect beekeeper in my first few weeks.  I am starting to learn about the bees.  A former boss used to say “just do what you can”.  I think I am beginning to be able to adopt this attitude to beekeeping.

If you liked this post you might want to read some of my favourite posts.

Breaking an unwritten family rule

Beekeeping can be quite stressful at times and as a result I broke an unwritten family rule and swore in front of Dad.  In fact, I broke a whole load of rules and swore at Dad, who was “only trying to help”.

I have read the books about 10 times already.  In theory I know what to do.  In practice, when it comes to it, I get into an immediate panic and forget the basics like making my beesuit bee-tight.  And that’s just the start …

As if I wasn’t stressed enough, Dad kept annoying me by mentioning my back was naked and exposed.  It wasn’t long before I felt something crawling on the inside of my beesuit.  Up my neck, past my ear and onto my forehead.  Now, I was really annoyed at Dad.

But, crikey!  I was getting married the next day.  A bloated face was not an option.  Whilst I moved away from the disassembled hive to sort the problem, Dad ordered me to man-up and get back because the bees were getting angry and a bit chilly.  I can’t remember much at this stage because I was in a near blind panic, but I don’t think I swore at this point.  As a beekeeping side note: You don’t want Chilly Bees as they die.  You don’t want Angry Bees because they are a lot less fun than Angry Birds.  And you don’t want your Old Man telling you what to do because, because, because … well, we all know why!

I thought of my wife.  I thought of the photos.  I thought of the pain of a sting.  The 7 year-old in me manned-up, said “No” to Dad and went to find a tree and lose the other guard bees hassling me.

The 39 year old “might” have used an expletive, rather than the word “No”, but I am trying to keep this blog family-friendly.  I have never sworn in-front of my parents in all my years but since getting bees I have done it a few times.  These first Spring days of looking after bees are not quite how I imagined them on my Sunday mornings with a coffee in bed listening to Steve Wright’s Love Songs.

I am sure you will be relieved to know that I got the bee out of the bonnet without too much of a problem and I headed back to abuse my Dad before realising I needed a second pair of hands and that I had better behave.

Beekeepers - Dad & I

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Bees on the outside of the hive – is this normal?

I confess, I am a very nervous beekeeper.

My wife is in awe at my supposed bravery in taking on such a ‘scary’ hobby – but the reality is, I still don’t feel comfortable beekeeping unless I have a professional by my side, or at least, my Dad.

He stands there calmly saying “focus on what you are doing”, I go into a panic-like zone and forget the basics like making my beesuit bee-tight.

Last week, I plucked up the courage to open the hive for a second time.  I had to.  It was the start of May – the swarmy season – and apparently I have “swarmy” bees.  The books said I needed to:

  1. Check if they were making a Queen cell, because if they were they would soon swarm and cause chaos
  2. Look for a Queen and mark her, so that I could undertake an artificial swarm to prevent a real swarm and chaos
  3. Make sure there was honey, pollen and brood in the frames, confirming that everything was OK
  4. Give them a sprinkle of icing sugar, to help reduce varroa

Only four little “to do’s” but one massive, noisy hive with 30,000 bees in it!

Crikey, it was busy (see photos below).

Step 1 – Looking for a Queen

No chance!  30,000 bees (many strangely on the outside of the hive after I had been examining the frames) versus one panicky, novice beekeeper with bees crawling inside his beesuit.

Yes – admittedly on my side I also have a calmer novice beekeeper (i.e. Dad) but unfortunately he’s an ally with macular degeneration who hadn’t had his Lucentis injection recently and now has a view of the world with an aspect ratio of 124:1.  To my Dad, all the bees looked like long, stripy worms.

Step 2 – Looking for a Queen Cell

Dad thought he saw a queen cell – but what did he know?  (Quite a lot apparently, see my next post).  In my panic-driven rush, I told him it was a drone cell.

Steps 3 & 4 – Checking the frames & using icing sugar

The frames seemed to have enough pollen, nectar (not capped) and brood. And I finished off the session by throwing icing sugar about, some of which went in the hive.

Phew.  Another encounter with bees leaves me stingless. Success in some form at least …

Help! Am I doing this right?

Beekeepers – how did I end up with so many bees on the outside of the hive?

Beehive covered in bees  Close up of bees outside hive

Postscript: You might want to read some of my swarmy bee posts!

Swarmy bees – am I responsible?

What I wanted to do was post the video below onto my blog and then ask if this was normal but getting married delayed the uploading process. Now, I can tell you that this is what a hive looks like 30 minutes before it swarms.

I missed the actual swarm but my neighbours didn’t – they were lucky enough to get a full frontal. It flew into one garden. Landed on the branch of a tree and snapped it. Do I have to buy them a new tree? They reported the swarm was a metre high and half a metre wide. Being a novice beekeeper, I believe them.

It then went over their roof and into another neighbour’s garden and terrified the bejesus out of them. They hid in their garage. It was last seen flying off over another neighbour’s roof.

By the time I got back from my wedding it was game over. There were lots of bees looking for a new home in nooks and crannies in all the neighbours’ houses but I did not know where the swarm was. I just hoped they didn’t end up in a chimney pot, as I’m not quite ready for swarm catching at heights.

I felt really disappointed that my rubbishness at being a beekeeper had led to a swarm within 2 weeks of owning bees. It led to a few days of malaise which was probably comparable to the lows of my Port Vale FC supporting ex-housemate when they were thrashed by Stoke City.

But unlike The Valiants footballing prowess, it seemed all was not lost with my beekeeping. I could still see bees buzzing round the hive, and having read the books, I hoped that there were indeed some lazy leftover bees who had decided they couldn’t be bothered to swarm. Hopefully a new queen will emerge. I will look in a couple of weeks. I just hope there isn’t a second and third swarm and that I don’t annoy the neighbours too much.

Want to know more about bees, swarming and beekeeping, buy one of the books I recommend or please read some more of my swarming posts.

Beekeeping – Smoking the hive & more to worry about

The BBKA news arrived today – this is the monthly newsletter of the British Beekeepers Association.  I thought it would be a wonderful antidote to newspapers and current affairs but this month’s articles include headlines like “Taking & Hiving A Swarm” with photos of giant swarms about 1m high and 0.5m wide (… interesting, perhaps something for next year); “Allergic Reaction to Propolis” (yikes, hope my skin will be alright); and a front page headline of “Neonicotinoid Effects on Bees” (hhmmm, let me guess, bad effects rather than how it makes them into bees with super powers … must read more).  Also, on page 24 are photos of burning pyres of beehives being buried in pits.  It’s like a scene from bee armageddon.  All terrifying to the novice beekeeper and surely off-putting for wannabee keepers!

I plucked up the courage.  It had to be done.  The plan:

  1. Open the hive
  2. Replace the closed floor with an open mesh floor (so the varroa fall out)
  3. Dust bees with icing sugar, so the bees clean each other and the varroa drop off (yes – that is what beekeepers do)

I managed to get the paper, cardboard and chippings to light straight away and off we set to the allotment with the smoker.  I just want to make it clear that I took Dad with me as I want him to be my Deputy (rather than hold my hand and protect me from the bees).

I’d read the books.  Been on the courses.  And was anxious to just get on with it and naturally the plan went out the window.  If you are a beekeeper, you might not want to read the next paragraph.

Before: me, pensivefirst time at beehive After: beehive without landing board and without entrance excluder (this was not the plan, eek)beehive without landing board

I puffed some smoke into the front and back of the hive. So far so good.  I lifted the roof and placed it on the ground.  The crown board was full of 1000’s of ants.  Hmmm – another worry to add to the list.  There did not appear to be ants inside the hive though.  The bees seemed really good natured and friendly, ie. they did not hassle us.  I put the super on top of the roof on the ground.  Picked up the Queen excluder.  Worried about the Queen hanging onto it, but felt powerless and relied on the fact that she probably wasn’t.  I lifted the brood box and put it on top of the excluder.  Removed the closed floor and replaced with open mesh floor.  At this point realised that I had now got rid of the bees landing board at the same time.  Hmmm – another worry to add to the list.   Reassembled the hive, trying not to crush too many bees, but everything might now be at right angles to what it was before.  Sprinkled 50g of icing sugar over the brood box.  Hopefully bees are robust.  Hopefully bees can find the entrance?

[If the language above is confusing please read about beehives.]

There seemed to be a bit of confusion and a lot of bees around the entrance for the next 30 minutes.  I left the entrance reducer out so there was a massive entrance for the bees.  Was not sure if this was the right thing to do. Another thing to worry about and Google.

I went back later to use secateurs to cut the grass below and around the hive and replaced the entrance reducer (based on Google evidence).  I studied the hive a bit to discover quite a lot of dead bees around and about 100 clinging to the bottom of the open mesh floor on the outside of the hive.  Hmmm – another two worries to add to the growing list.

So much to worry about.  So much to learn whilst making life and death, success and failure, decisions.   The best bit of the day was watching white bees flying around covered in icing sugar.  Magic! I’ll try and take photos next time.

If any real beekeepers are reading this, please give me some advice.

I feel over-whelmed and so am trying to break down what needs to be done into small steps.  So next time:

  • Do a varroa count on the board
  • Check they have stored honey in the supers
  • Check to see if they are building a Queen cell
  • Try and find the Queen
  • Dust with icing sugar

I think I can do this.

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Manliness – Learning to use a hammer at the age of 39

Renting flats and house shares for 20 years has meant that I have not needed to do any DIY or look after a garden EVER in my life.  Despite having an engineering degree, the only hand tools I have used have been a knife, fork and spoon.  Ever the modern-man, I have sensitive skin, use Marigolds and Head-To-Toe baby wash.  As a consequence my hands have a softness that Fairy Liquid models gush about and which my more manly friends are shocked by.  I feel this might change as I type this with hands bearing blisters and holes where I pulled splinters out.

Hammering has got to be simple, right?  It’s like one of the first things that our hominid ancestors did before they discovered fire.  I banged at the first nail with the enthusiasm and dexterity of an 8 year old child wielding a Bob-The-Builder tool-kit.  It went in at an angle and ending up poking out dangerously from the brood box.

My 70-year-old Dad, then showed me how to hammer nails in straight.  I always saw myself as a late developer, but not this late!  Should I be embarrassed writing this?  Not sure.

I looked at the flat hive pack with only slightly less trepidation than I look at the beehive.  So many parts.  So much that could go wrong.

Dad was keen for us to use his Black & Decker Workmate and he patiently showed me how it worked.  I’m glad he’s got the kit.

black and decker workmate beehive construction

Two hours after we started we had a hive stand.  Only a brood box, frames, supers and roof to go.  I don’t have time for this!  This is where the ready-assembled beehaus would have come into its own.

I thought beekeeping was going to help me regain my sanity but these last few days it has been making me feel anxious.  I am on a schedule.  I only have evenings and weekends.  I’m getting married in a week.  I have a load of to-do’s and a speech to write.  But the bees are full of varroa and on the edge of swarming.  If I don’t build this second hive now I won’t be ready to artificially swarm the bees.  I need to read up about varroa and how to get rid of it.  And this blog needs feeding, even though I only have 3 Facebook Friends.

Hopefully, the slow-paced, regaining my sanity moments will come later, right?

Other manly stuff I did this week (with Dad metaphorically holding my hand):

  • Went to a building product suppliers and talked with men – they treated me gently
  • Bought 2 flagstones to put under the hives
  • Got my first splinters in 20 years and enjoyed the pain
  • Built most of the rest of the hive (20 man hours so far)

PS. I am still worried about opening up the hive.

The next time I had to man-up was when I broke an unwritten family rule.

Communicating through the medium of dance

Bees do the waggle dance to let fellow bees know where to find nectar and it works just as well as a Joanna Lumley voiced Sat Nav.  So I am going to try some bum-waggling to improve communications with my nearly-wife.  I will test this new method of communication by trying to describe directions to the biscuit jar.

If you liked this post, you might like to read some of my other favourites.

Is Foraging The Answer (to regaining my sanity)?

I am still alive!  Who would have guessed that foraging is like an extreme sport with more bravado than a skate boarding park?  Is that a delicious, edible plant, or a deadly looky-likey?  You first!

Whilst my nearly-wife ate blackberries from a bramble for the first time last year I have to admit that I am not much further behind in the foraging stakes.  Despite the advantages of growing up in the countryside and a Dad who studied botany I have walked past wild garlic and other wild foods all my life.

The half-day foraging session by Dave Hamilton was inspirational and has challenged my food boundaries.  This introduction has made me want to spend time on the process of finding my food and cooking it rather than a quick trip to the supermarket so that I can spend my spare time in front of the TV.  Foraging will provide food for my soul as well as my body!

Dave Hamilton explaining how to make tea from pine needles

Me frying and eating Woods Ear mushrooms
 gardner and forager  Eating Woods Ear

My new resolution is to buy Food For Free (classic foraging text by Richard Mabey) and go foraging one day a month for nuts, berries, fungi, leaves and birch sap.  Well, that’s the plan.  Bees forage every day through necessity. I hope I am strong-willed enough to do this once a month!

So, what did we learn?  We tried numerous foods but here are my favourites.

Wild garlic: Eat the leaves and flowers. Add to salads, make pesto Sorrel: Tastes fresh and lemony.  Add to salad or eat with fish Dead Nettles (not to   be confused with regular nettles that have died): Squeeze the flowers and suck out the nectar
 Wild Garlic Flower  Sorrel  Dead Nettle Flower

Warning: Make sure the food you eat has not been sprayed with pesticides; take a bottle of water with you to wash the food; know what you’re doing.  It’s this last one that’s the stumbling block!

Books written by Dave Hamilton and his brother Andy:

Recommended links:

You might like to read some of my other foraging posts.