December meeting

Instead of our usual meet the first Wednesday of the month in the Harrington (which would normally be tonight), we are having a pre-Christmas meal next Monday 9th December - meet at 7-7.30pm in the Shakespeare, Shardlow - either eating there or go across the road to the Indian, whatever the consensus. All welcome!

Winter preparations

Winter preparations in top bar hives?

Yes its a question that we all need to be thinking about. Firstly do we do any at all. Well this depends on how 'natural' your natural bee keeping is going to be. Does nature do anything for the bee's? The very simple answer is nothing more than the bees do for themselves. So if your being really true to nature you will have taken no honey during the summer and will leave them to last out the winter on their own.

When would you consider assisting them by feeding?

This summer has been a pretty good one for the bee's lots of nice weather so plenty of forage time. What this has also meant is an increase in swarming and most importantly the production of casts (small swarm with virgin queen). Usually these are produced slightly later in the season and don't always have time to build up sufficient winter stores. Also wasps and in my case hornets have been more of an issue this year, and a weak colony can have all its honey taken by persistent wasp attacks(hornets also kill the bee's).

How and when to feed?

 Liquid feeding is probably coming to an end around now, the bees are still collecting from the ivy so its obviously not to late but I wouldn't leave it much longer. If you do liquid feed make it a 2Kg sugar to 1Ltr water mix. Several feeder types are available I now use inverted honey jars on a adapted follower board as the bulk feeds in my mind drown to many bees.

Inverted Jar Feeder bees access bottom of jar lid has several small holes in the lid.

Bulk feeder larger capacity with float (tends to drown bees)

 Later in the year/early next year feeding has to be by fondant (I buy it as I cannot seem to make it) the bee's have no way to evaporate liquid feeds during winter. Fondant is a slight problem since it has to placed over the winter cluster of bees. Tim and myself both came up with the same solution, drill 8-10mm holes in the joints of the bars above the brood area and place the fondant above this in a inverted takeaway container.

Two of my four hives are being fed as we speak, one has been constantly bothered by wasps(sorted it finally by closing down entrance to half a hole). The other looks like it repelled a hornet attack at a cost(decapitated bees in abundance). Both had very little in the way of stores and I don't want to lose them.

The other hives have plenty so I've left them.

So things to do :-

• Nothing at all if you think they can manage by themselves.
• Feed them if they look like being short on stores.
• Close your entrances down to one hole to help maintain heat and avoid drafts.
• Prepare for fondant feeding now as a winter cluster objects to drills coming thru the roof.

Things not to do

• Don't go out of your way to keep them warm, no wrapping them in quilts and bubble wrap. A warm colony will consume much more honey than a cold one.
• Don't completely seal them in they need to get out once in a while to spend a penny.
• Don't liquid feed in winter months, chances are they will ignore it anyway. 

Are we all prepared, only time will tell.

See you at the next meeting, where I beleive discussions will be had regarding christmas feasting.

Cheers 

Dave.

The Honey Harvest (Part 2) …

When we left it, you had a box of comb, mostly honey and probably with live and dead bees in it as well, and a kitchen prepared for a little extraction. The following is a description of what I do but your mileage may vary. Please have a go and find your own methods - then let us know what you do.

I take my box to a quiet corner of the garden with a flat surface, ideally a table but I use the bonnet of my old Series 2 Land Rover (yet another project). I put the box gently down and then, using a handy piece of wood, quickly prop open the lid and run. Any flying bees, and there may well not be many, will have gorged themselves on honey and should slowly emerge from the box and attempt to find their hive. They should not be in a mood to sting but you never know - although I've never had a problem I prefer to run and then come back.

After a tea break I can then come back to the box knowing that those bees left are either too gummed up with honey, drowned or squashed to be of any danger to me. It now becomes a rescue and cleanup process. I use cutlery to go through the folds and pieces of comb in the box as carefully as I can. I fish out any bee I find and flick them onto the table/bonnet; I think that most become sweets and delicacies for the robins and others that nest nearby. Having gone through the comb and removed the bees you then come to a difficult decision. If you have taken comb that is purely honey or pollen then please skip this next bit. However, some comb may have brood in it is well. Now, I don't differentiate in any way and, callously, regard brood as a beneficial protein source. Whilst I don't deliberately seek comb that has brood in it I won't mind if a small amount of brood are in the comb I take. This often happens with a first year colony as the bees struggle to work out how to organise themselves. Why does this matter? Well the next stage could be difficult for some if you have brood present - although it is too late to put it back. If the thought of your honey including cells from squashed brood that make it through the filtering then you should seek those bits of comb, cut them out and remove them from the box. You will need to find a way to destroy them that suits you. Some freeze them and then crush them; worth thinking about carefully.

The honey extraction process I use is called 'crush and strain' and the first stage of the process is the 'crush'. With all bees, and brood if necessary, removed I set to with a metal potato masher and turn the comb into a runny, slightly lumpy, paste. After 5 minutes or so I then carefully pour the paste into the open end of the stocking which sits in a suitable bowl. It helps if you can persuade someone to help with this bit but it is possible to organise things so that you can pour into an open stocking. I do recommend having both hands free to hold the container with the mash in it - call it experience. I then hook the stocking over a number of pins nailed to a piece of wood held over a work surface - it works for me but you need to have thought about this before the mashing; the mash can weigh five or six pounds or more if you are processing a couple of combs at once.

Then its cleanup and a cuppa. Most of the honey will filter out over the first hour or so. During this time I sterilise my first set of jam jars, usually enough for five pounds of honey or so. Then I juggle containers so that I can remove the honey that has filtered and pour it into the jars - I try to avoid pouring into warm jars as I'm conscious that any heat will destroy the enzymes that make the honey you are extracting so unique. Then its a waiting game. I leave the suspended mash in the warmer air of my kitchen to slowly continue dripping gently for a couple of days. Once I'm happy I've got most of the honey out/another batch is waiting to go/wifey is fed up of getting her hair stuck to the suspended column, I peel out the remains from the stocking into a container and dispose of the stocking. The container is then gently warmed so the wax/remains/honey separate and I can peel or pour the wax from the slurry. The cold slurry is then added to the wormery or compost and the wax collected to be made into candles for presents over christmas.

Now you have the enviable problem of how to use the honey you have processed. I have seen small jars for sale for as much as £5 but I tend to give jars away to friends and people who have helped with the honey creating process; hive neighbours, swarm sources, and so on. Some people I know want to experiment with using natural local honey to help with hay fever - however there is a far more effective dietary way of doing this - another post if folks are interested in that. Please be aware that there are regulations regarding the sale of food items and you should do your research carefully so you don't get stung. I don't produce enough honey for my own and friends' needs yet so I've not had this problem to explore.

Hope this helps. Please use the comments to let me know if you want me to further expand on any of this.

Tim.

The Honey Harvest (Part 1) ...

The end of July is my last harvest deadline. Its a personal thing. I'm happy to take the occasional comb from a hive during the flush of summer; it gives the bees space in a rapidly expanding colony and stops the queen from getting herself restrained in her egg laying by lack of available empty space (becoming honey bound). But the end of July is, for me, my personal limit as I want my bees to have their own honey available to them throughout the winter and spring months. The much maligned himalayan balsam is the botanical marker for me. As the first flowers of balsam light up the rougher areas of my garden I know that my harvest limit is upon me.

The summers for the last two years have been too poor for me to collect any honey so I had to brush off a significant build up of cobwebs from some of my honey straining system that has been hibernating outside the back door. Once the filter suspension system (a piece of wood with a row of tacks hammered into one end of it - it wedges between a roof beam and the top of a wall cupboard in the kitchen) is in place and a suitable clean filter stolen (one of my wife's best plain stockings) all is ready.

I choose a warm, windless day with no threat of rain. Then I take an old plastic bread bin (any large clean container with a well fitted lid will do - this bread box is handy as it will only take a maximum of two combs so I can't be too greedy). I choose the most active, and usually largest, colony and assemble all the necessary bee wrangling equipment next to the hive. For this task it is important to have a clean bee brush to hand - I use a large goose feather and I make sure I have at least two of them available. Please note - the bees will get stroppy when you do this raid. Dress appropriately!! I then start at the end of the colony furthest from the brood area and sort through the comb until I find the edge of the brood, keeping in mind those combs I come across with the most capped honey cells on them. Then, working back from the brood area, I take out those combs I've found with the most capped honey. Each chosen comb is carefuly removed, brushed clear of bees as best I can, and then folded into the bread box. Then I scrape off the wax from the top bar and put it back into the hive from the place it came from. If I'm removing two bars next to each other I make sure I slide a full comb in between them so there is less risk of cross combing. A second bar, if available and the bees have at least two or more others for themselves, gets removed, brushed and folded onto of the first in the bread box. You have to work fairly fast as bees will try to collect onto the comb you are removing to rescue their honey and you don't want to trap too many bees in the folds of comb - see later. Get a lid onto the box you are using as soon as you can. I always try to make sure I limit myself to two bars per raid as I would rather they had the honey they need to get through the bad times ahead. If necessary put in one or two extra bars as you think fit whilst you are there and the bees are already getting stressed.

Then close up the hive and move all equipment and your box of spoils well clear before removing gloves and veil. Note that even with the lid on your chosen treasure chest you may have bees crawling around under the edge of the box lid so be careful when picking it up - check first.

And thats it, raid over. You have the spoils captured securely in a bee tight box. But it is still unusable on your toast or in your smoothie so now what do you do? More to follow ….

The Ones That Got Away....

In their excitement (at the prospect of the Wimbledon Final obviously) my bees decided to swarm yesterday, the children ran in to tell me that they were 'going mad' & it truly was an impressive site, the whole of the back end of the garden filled with buzzing bees covering a huge area. They eventually settled in the old apple tree & since I've never dealt with a swarm before & the prospect of having to knock them into the box off quite a solid branch while up a ladder, I then called for help.

Thanks so much to Tim & Mike for responding so quickly. As I shot up to the Co-Op for a larger box than we had, Tim arrived & just as he & Iain walked to the end of the garden, the bees just upped & left in the direction of Thulston!

I think the temperatures were so hot yesterday, an hour in the tree was all they could manage. Gutted to lose them by a matter of minutes, but will know to be quicker next time!

Plenty of activity still in & around my hive, so will keep my eyes out in case of a double whammy, as Mike & Monique have experienced!

Alison

Wheel bees.

I got a call from a friend in the village asking me to come and help get some bees out from under her car. She had gone out to change a front nearside wheel with a slow puncture to find a swarm had taken up temporary residence in the wheel arch. Would I please come and move them on.

So I grabbed my wrangling gear and an empty box and whizzed over. The bees had taken up residence in the back of the wheel. To be able to see and get to them I had to start the car so that I could turn the wheels out - the only way to disengage the wheel lock on this nearly new car.

Anyway, while checking to see just how I was going to be able to get them out, I noticed a flash of movement on some nearby gravel. There was the queen, marching about in the open, and unattended!! I had spotted a flash of yellow paint out of the corner of my eye that some beekeeper had painted her back with to make it easier for them to find the queen in their hive. So I gently allowed her to crawl onto my glove and gently set her on some comb in the transfer box, quickly closed the bars up, opened the front entrance by removing the cork, sat back and watched. The bees in the wheel arch began to stream steadily from the wheel to the box in a thin wriggly line. Over the next 4 hours all the bees crossed into the box and settled in for the night. At dusk I came back, put in the cork and brought all the bees home. Got to be the best and easiest capture yet!!

Tim.

Bee Wrangling Pt2 (cont ...)

Well, indeed, they stayed with me for a few days of holiday before being picked up by Jacquie. I picked up the bees from Mike and Monique early evening and took them home, driving very carefully. I always take extra care when driving with bees, as it only takes one careless road user to really spoil everyones day, so I'm extra vigilant and keep loads of distance between myself and the vehicle in front.

When I got home I then set about transferring them from their cardboard box and into a mini top bar hive (5 bar nucleus box). This was simply a matter of tipping them out and into their new home, trying to be as gentle as possible. Anyone who has ever done this knows that bees' feet can really cling on when they want to and that when they give way a whole lump of bees can tumble into the depths. As it was getting dark I was just hoping that the queen would be somewhere in the middle of such a lump. You can never get all the bees out so I got most of them to drop in and then held the box over the mini-hive and tapped the sides of the box to encourage the last few out. As soon as the box was empty I threw it as far away from me as I could to try to stop any bees flying back in towards any scent that may have been left on the cardboard after their stay in the box. Then it was just a matter of closing the bars and leaving the end hole open and then walking away. After dark I returned and, very gently, carried the box to its resting place, being mindful of any bees that were under the box. I spent a few minutes on the following evening just watching the entrance and they all seemed very settled.

They seem to be fairly calm bees and the box had put on quite a bit of weight during its stay here. It felt like an excellent colony to begin a new hobby with. I just hope that Jacquie has room enough between the combs to get them and their bees out!!