There is Hope Yet

Well, Bob from the Department of Agriculture came out for hive inspections today. We knew we had one dead hive, and Bob verified that for us. He also helped us take apart our weak hive and come up with a plan to get it rocking again.

Here's a picture of Bob when he first showed up. Does he not look darn happy to be here?



Bob got busy right away on our "weak" hive. Notice how Bob doesn't wear gloves, a suit, or a veil? Bob really rocks. But Bob has been doing this a while. We have not. We still look like we are practicing for a space walk when we enter the apiary. And we will probably continue to look like that until we have 100 years experience like Bob does. Rock on Bob!



We quickly located the queen in our weak hive. Bob is pointing the hive tool at her in this picture. Look exactly below the tip of his hive tool and you will see her long body.



Here's another picture of her. Look in the lower right corner. Isn't she beautiful?



So the bottom line is that our weak hive is doing OK. We just need to feed it. So we put a gallon jug of sugar water in that hive to help it along.

The remaining four hives are really bumping right now. We'll be robbing honey from them in the next couple of weeks.

All in all, it wasn't the worst of news. In fact, it was pretty good news. We lost a hive and that's not cool. We'll know what to look for next spring. We have a better than average chance of saving a weak hive, and we'll definitely be robbing honey from the other four!

Not bad. Not bad at all.

Bee Happy,
Penny

One Hive Down - But We've Got Beeswax!

Well, we arrived on the homestead this weekend to face a dreaded reality. We have lost one of our beehives. We've been figuring as much, but really refused to face up to it. I suppose if we knew what we are doing, we would have gotten a queen earlier and tried to save the hive. But we really are winging this right now and we had hoped the hive could hold up until we got Bob from the Department of Agriculture got out here with queens again, but I'm afraid we waited just a little too long. Bob will be here Monday. But he'll help us deal with five hives instead of six.

On the upside, I do believe we will have honey this year afterall. We have four really rocking hives, and one that's appears to be doing ok. I guess we'll know for sure after Bob gets here on Monday and helps us go through each hive.


It troubles us a little that we found honey robbers trying to gain access to two of the hives. I put some pictures up on The Bee Buzz website. It really is awesome to watch these girls doing what comes naturally - but it is hard to not rescue the poor victim. Instead, I got pictures. Check them out!


Bernie and I have been collecting Bur Comb as we inspect the hives, and we cleaned up a few old hives that John gave us when we bought this operation. As a result, we had a fair amount of comb. As I mentioned in my last post, I rendered some wax from it over the past two weeks. It wasn't as easy as I read about, but it wasn't all that hard either. It just took some time and patience. I thought I'd tell you how I did it. As a side note I would say that I really think there has to be an easier way. If you know of one, please help a sister out!


I put a bunch of comb in a large stock pot (16 quarts) and covered it with water - and then another 2 inches or so.











Then I brought the whole ugly mixture to a boil. I boiled it for about 2 hours and then removed it from the heat. This is what I was left with:






I let that cool overnight and the next morning I could see the beeswax had hardened!

Then I took that lovely beeswax layer off (it was only about and inch thick) and was left with a bunch of goo in the bottom of the pot. I took that outside and disposed of it.

I don't have pictures of the remaining steps, but I will post some the next time. Next I took that layer of beeswax with all the trash in it and put it in a pot. I put the heat on medium low and stirred it until all the was was melted. Then I put a piece of an old cotton shirt over a bowl and poured the beeswax mixture into it. I let it filter through the shirt for a while, and then put on some rubber gloves and squeezed the balled up shirt to get as much was as possible out of it. As you can imagine, some trash made it through when I squeezed, so now I need to melt it all down again and filter it one more time.

As I said, rendering wax is a bit time consuming, but it is really rewarding! I made some more lip balm tonight with it and I am just tickled!

I'll be sure to get more pictures of the whole process next time. And I'll let y'all know how Monday goes when Bob shows up.

Bee Happy!

Penny

1000 Mile Checkup

I apologize for the delay in posting. You may remember in my last post that we had opened the hives for the first time and my friend, Iddee, had suggested we do a full hive inspection because he had concerns about one of the hives. Well we did that - and we had some serious concerns about a couple of the hives. We couldn't find the queen and it was looking like there was little or no brood. Not good.

I got pretty depressed about that. I know it sounds silly. We have six hives and four of them are doing pretty darn good, but I feel responsible for these girls and two questionable hives means we've done a pretty bad job at caring for them. I really couldn' t bring myself to post about it.

Out of desperation I called the Virginia Department of Agriculture (VDAC). I was hooked up with Bob W. (I know how to say his last name, but have no idea how to spell it). Bob was really cool. I told him of our concerns and he volunteered to come out and do hive inspections with us and help us figure out what's going on. So we set a date of two Mondays ago for Bob to come on out. As it turned out, my parents were here for a week long visit. That was cool. They seemed to enjoy sharing this experience with us.

I've got to tell you, I am really thankful for Bob. I was so worried before he showed up. But once he got here he was so calm and reassuring that I almost fell asleep. He talked to us for a bit while he started his smoker and then grabbed his veil and said "Let's take a look."

Bernie and I suited up and got my mom all set in a veil so she could go in with us. The three of us went into the apiary looking like we were ready for a deep space moon walk. Bob entered the apiary, threw his veil on the ground, rolled up his sleeves and began breaking down all of the hives. He was fearless and never got stung even one time - even though he picked up handful of bees with his bear hands to show my mother the difference in worker bees and drones. Bob rules.

Here's the skinny on how we ended up - we have one hive that has a drone layer and doesn't appear to have a queen at all. We have one hive that has a queen and some brood, but is very weak. We removed the super and left it with only the brood and food boxes. We have one hive that is really rocking and we added another super to that one. The other three have all swarmed and are doing ok, but need to get stronger. They each have one super on them.

My mom was there for each hive inspection and really did just great with all the girls swarming around her. I was really proud of her and snapped a picture to put on the website. Dad watched the whole thing from a distance and wasn't too interested in an up close and personal view.

Bob was really great and took a lot of time explaining what we are dealing with and offering some suggestions. I was so excited to get pictures of the bees and queen that I never even thought to get a picture of Bob! But not to worry. He agreed to come out again in a month and bring a queen for our queenless hive. I'll be sure to get some pictures then.

So that's where we are right now. It's not great news, but it's not horrible news either.

I'll update the website with some pictures - there is one of a queen that is pretty cool. Check them out!

Bee happy,
Penny