Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Finally, a new post!
I'm still in Gainesville, however I had to make a short 3 minute video on "where honey comes from" for one of my online courses.. It's not easy explaining the entire process in only three minutes while trying to meet requirements.. but here it is anyway. ENJOY
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Gainesville Livin
I'm away from the bees for awhile, however, I need to make a film for one of my graduate classes and I've decided to do it on the wonderful life of bees. It's going to be three minutes long, so it's short enough to post on the blog. Working til then.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Makin' That Honey
A couple of days ago I pulled off a shallow super full of a honey (shallow is the size). Almost all of the comb was capped, which is a sign of readiness.
Remember,
a super is a box that sits on top of the hive and on top of the queen excluder, it's sole purpose is to store honey.
the comb is what the bees build to store honey, pollen, eggs, brood, etc... its their home, made out of beeswax. Beeswax is fat.
the frames hold the comb so they are easily mobile for us humans. In other words its a wooden frame filled with comb. (Picture)
So now we have a super, full of frames, full of comb, filled with honey, that is capped. (below is one frame from that super)
What next? Now we need to get the honey out of the comb! We first start by opening our capped frames. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures, but it's a pretty simple process. You take your frame and you use a tool called a scratcher ( pic ), and literally scratch the openings of the comb. You don't have to dig deep or press hard, all you have to do is make sure that the comb is "uncapped" or open. Once they are uncapped, you place them into an extractor.
<---After loading the frames in, it does the rest!
Result: I got about 30lbs of honey off of this super.
**Note the honey that isn't capped in the first picture is OK because it was tested. (The bees don't cap honey unless its perfect, so putting uncapped honey into an extractor is risky, because it could ruin all of the good honey!) To test the honey, you simply hold both ends of the frame and give it a good jerk. If the honey goes flying out, it wasn't ready because it was still to moist. If it sticks, its good enough!
Remember,
a super is a box that sits on top of the hive and on top of the queen excluder, it's sole purpose is to store honey.
the comb is what the bees build to store honey, pollen, eggs, brood, etc... its their home, made out of beeswax. Beeswax is fat.
the frames hold the comb so they are easily mobile for us humans. In other words its a wooden frame filled with comb. (Picture)
So now we have a super, full of frames, full of comb, filled with honey, that is capped. (below is one frame from that super)
What next? Now we need to get the honey out of the comb! We first start by opening our capped frames. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures, but it's a pretty simple process. You take your frame and you use a tool called a scratcher ( pic ), and literally scratch the openings of the comb. You don't have to dig deep or press hard, all you have to do is make sure that the comb is "uncapped" or open. Once they are uncapped, you place them into an extractor.
<---After loading the frames in, it does the rest!
Result: I got about 30lbs of honey off of this super.
**Note the honey that isn't capped in the first picture is OK because it was tested. (The bees don't cap honey unless its perfect, so putting uncapped honey into an extractor is risky, because it could ruin all of the good honey!) To test the honey, you simply hold both ends of the frame and give it a good jerk. If the honey goes flying out, it wasn't ready because it was still to moist. If it sticks, its good enough!
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
How To Catch A Swarm
A little late on this post, this was actually about two weeks ago...
We received a call that there was a swarm (probably from the Bee Man's hive) that had ended up in a neighbors tree. A swarm is when the colony is either abandoning a hive, or the hive is splitting. A swarm is a group of worker bees and usually a queen, from the original hive. Once a swarm has landed, they all latch to each other and protect the queen. It literally looks like a ball of bees. The fun thing about swarms (at least for me it is...) is that they are usually not aggressive. There can be thousands of bees flying around you and they have zero interest in attacking anyone. This is because they aren't in a defensive mode, but rather they are in a survival mode. Most stings are from bees defending the colony!
So here is my theory... one second let me step onto my soapbox... You know those guys that always try and break world records by covering themselves with 100s of thousands of bees and walk away with minimal stings?? Well, I've lost some type of respect for them. Don't get me wrong though, anyone who covers themselves in bees is pretty audacious to begin with, but here is my theory that doesn't make them as brave as we think. I believe that they use swarm bees. The people who do this are covered in queens from separate swarms and all of the worker bees from the swarm jump onto the queen to protect her. So here a guy is simply covered in swarming bees that are not aggressive whatsoever. They are really just trying to "hang on" and protect the queen. Which doesn't make it nearly as exciting knowing that information. It's just my theory and could be completely untrue!
Anyway, back to the story; my Dad and I went out there to catch our first swarm, and here are the videos:
VIDEO I: Simply shows the swarm in the tree.
VIDEO II: The capturing of the swarm. *Yes we did find the lid.
VIDEO III: The ATTEMPT to release the bees into the hive body!
VIDEO IV: Recapturing the swarm. Closeup of the swarm and what it should look like after a successful capture!
We received a call that there was a swarm (probably from the Bee Man's hive) that had ended up in a neighbors tree. A swarm is when the colony is either abandoning a hive, or the hive is splitting. A swarm is a group of worker bees and usually a queen, from the original hive. Once a swarm has landed, they all latch to each other and protect the queen. It literally looks like a ball of bees. The fun thing about swarms (at least for me it is...) is that they are usually not aggressive. There can be thousands of bees flying around you and they have zero interest in attacking anyone. This is because they aren't in a defensive mode, but rather they are in a survival mode. Most stings are from bees defending the colony!
So here is my theory... one second let me step onto my soapbox... You know those guys that always try and break world records by covering themselves with 100s of thousands of bees and walk away with minimal stings?? Well, I've lost some type of respect for them. Don't get me wrong though, anyone who covers themselves in bees is pretty audacious to begin with, but here is my theory that doesn't make them as brave as we think. I believe that they use swarm bees. The people who do this are covered in queens from separate swarms and all of the worker bees from the swarm jump onto the queen to protect her. So here a guy is simply covered in swarming bees that are not aggressive whatsoever. They are really just trying to "hang on" and protect the queen. Which doesn't make it nearly as exciting knowing that information. It's just my theory and could be completely untrue!
Anyway, back to the story; my Dad and I went out there to catch our first swarm, and here are the videos:
VIDEO I: Simply shows the swarm in the tree.
VIDEO II: The capturing of the swarm. *Yes we did find the lid.
VIDEO III: The ATTEMPT to release the bees into the hive body!
VIDEO IV: Recapturing the swarm. Closeup of the swarm and what it should look like after a successful capture!
Nuc Buzz...
It has been awhile since my last post, but with good reason: too much to type! Yesterday, I did minor inspection on the nuc and it was full of bees. Compared to last post when I thought the nuc was doomed (even with the queen), there is now hope. When I opened up the hive and looked through the frames, it was obvious that there were three times the amount of bees than last time. There was larvae and brood which suggest a healthy egg-laying queen. There weren't enough brood to really recognize the queen's egg laying pattern, but just to see the brood is definitely encouraging enough. I also noticed that there were a considerable amount of baby bees so I must have had a lot of brood recently hatch. Which leaves me with an army of tyros, and because the bees develop through stages of work, these bees will not be foraging for about a month(22 days give or take...). So the nuc may still be awhile before it reaches 'full potential'. As for the stages: As soon as a bee is born they have to take care of their cell, in other words, they have to clean up the hole they just came out of. Then they become a nurse bee that takes care of larvae. Next, there are many things that the bee can do, which includes hive maintenance, helping/feeding the bee, and fanning the hive, etc... The last step before it can become a forager is to become a guard bee for protection, and finally it can become a forager. So like I said before, full potential of my "money makers" or foragers, wont really be up and running for awhile. Other than that, there was nothing too exciting with the nuc. The only physical changes I made was inserting a beetle trap.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Coronation of the nuc!
So today's news is a little interesting... We have been observing the nuc for the past couple of weeks because there was a huge problem, an absence of bees. The entrance of the hive has been very weak, it seemed almost vacant. Although I didn't post it, we checked for a queen a few days ago. We opened the hive and to our disappointment we couldn't find a queen, nor could we find the three cells that we observed earlier [last post]. After looking through the frames it was evident that the bees were definitely diminishing. Well, not good news, so we scratched our heads a bit and thought what could be going on. Well, the only plausible scenario is that the queen bee was out on a mating flight. This seemed highly unlikely and it would be a huge coincident,but it's possible.
That leads us to today's event... Because things were looking so bare, we figured we should check out the nuc and see "what we have left". As we approached, my dad told me to "quick, check this out!" I ran over there, looked, and sure enough there she was. The queen herself flying right in front of the entrance about to land. This was the first queen I had ever seen. She was twice the size of any other bee, and she looked b-e-a-youtuhful. So I quickly threw together some 1:1 sugar:water and started feeding them. Hopefully this queen is ready to get to work, and the nuc will finally take off!
That leads us to today's event... Because things were looking so bare, we figured we should check out the nuc and see "what we have left". As we approached, my dad told me to "quick, check this out!" I ran over there, looked, and sure enough there she was. The queen herself flying right in front of the entrance about to land. This was the first queen I had ever seen. She was twice the size of any other bee, and she looked b-e-a-youtuhful. So I quickly threw together some 1:1 sugar:water and started feeding them. Hopefully this queen is ready to get to work, and the nuc will finally take off!
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Checking Things Out
Today was my first official look inside the nuc. I was looking for one specific thing ....any guesses?...... that's right, a queen cell! It has been about 6 days since we took the *three (I know in the previous post I said two, but it was actually 3) frames from the mother hive. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me so I was unable to take a picture of the queen cells. However, I did observe three healthy-capped queen cells on the middle frame. This is a great indication that the bees are doing exactly what they are supposed to; in the absence of a queen they are making a new one. Because there are three queen cells there may be some bloodshed in the near future, remember only one queen reigns the hive. I'm expecting a new queen to be running the show in roughly 21 days. I'm not sure how old these queen cells are, but if I had to guess, a queen should hatch around March 26-29.
After googling a few images, I appreciated this one the most because of its resemblance to the cells I observed today.
http://www.tassotapiaries.com/images/Queen%20Cell%2004.JPG
Side notes:
-I'm feeding them on a daily basis. 1:1 sugar:water.
-I'm leaving the reducer on the front of the nuc because they are still too weak to defend themselves.
-Because of the uncertainty of my allergy I'm using a full bee suit which was kindly given to me by Jim the Bee Man. (I helped him take out about 100lbs of honey last weekend, lots of fun, but some other time/post)
-We now have two new hives being made. The hives are built, just remain untreated/unpainted. The plan is to eventually move my nuc into the hive when they are a stronger and more established colony.
-My Dad may want to remove one of the queen cells from the nuc. If we do anything I will post the pictures and explanations.
Until then, lets hope everything runs smoothly.
After googling a few images, I appreciated this one the most because of its resemblance to the cells I observed today.
http://www.tassotapiaries.com/images/Queen%20Cell%2004.JPG
Side notes:
-I'm feeding them on a daily basis. 1:1 sugar:water.
-I'm leaving the reducer on the front of the nuc because they are still too weak to defend themselves.
-Because of the uncertainty of my allergy I'm using a full bee suit which was kindly given to me by Jim the Bee Man. (I helped him take out about 100lbs of honey last weekend, lots of fun, but some other time/post)
-We now have two new hives being made. The hives are built, just remain untreated/unpainted. The plan is to eventually move my nuc into the hive when they are a stronger and more established colony.
-My Dad may want to remove one of the queen cells from the nuc. If we do anything I will post the pictures and explanations.
Until then, lets hope everything runs smoothly.
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