It’s good to be back, after 2 weeks of crazy learning experiences and field work. Just like Parky told me, so many moons ago: "Learning is 10% book and class work and 90% field work and actual practice." Boy oh boy Parky, if you could see me now!
So, I performed my first inspection last week and that was a huge learning experience. 1st of all, because our hive top feeders were covered in TONS of mold. Green and furry, black and spotty, it sure knows how to crash a perfectly good party and ruin it upon arrival. I attribute it to the warm weather, the massive amounts of open sugar water, the lack of proper ventilation and the increased amounts of humilty within the hive top feeder. Now, just so we’re all clear as to the specific type of feeder of which I’m speaking, it’s the wooden hive top feeder seen here
The mold was everywhere and I had to do something about it, so I threw out the sugar water and quickly took to my mold killing solutions. I first cleaned every bit of the hive top feeder with water. Then I took my distilled vinegar and my sponge and scrubbed the entirety of the hive and the inner cover until the mold was either no longer visible or non-existent. I then rinsed everything out with fresh water and proceeded to take fresh lemon juice to add a final acidic layer of mold killing goodness. Finally, I added my fresh sugar water, placed the feeder on top of the hive, placed the inner cover and capped it with the outer cover. All after a thorough inspection of the hive.
As for the actual inspection, I performed it frame by frame, with the greatest of care and caution not to sqwash any of the bees in the process. The hives were doing great, with tons of new comb and wax, fresh honey, newly deposited pollen and hundreds of teeny little grains of mini-rice shaped eggs spread throughout the combs and the frames.
Seriously, what a beautiful thing it is to see a new hive, to read about it and then to see it live, in action, right there in front of you. But then again, I guess when you open up the hive for the first time and you see tons of grotty mold starring at you in the face, it’s not quite a beautiful thing, now is it?
Let me backtrack a little bit to give you a history of recent events:
So I went to Miller Bee Supply on Friday and picked up my Queen, so we would’t be “Queenless” in the Russian beehive. Check! Problem solved! I also took the opportunity to buy a couple of quality hivetop feeders so the bees wouldn’t starve at this moment of their grey, little lives (I’ll talk about feeders in my next post)
I went to visit the bees yesterday afternoon to install the queen in her new hive, so I suited up, lit up my smoker and proceeded to open the Russian hive. What an experience! I’d been gone for one day and already the bees had started building comb. I could only wonder what the other hive looked like. It was nuts!
Every infusion of smoke triggered a high pitched agitated buzzing sound from the bees and it worried me for a minute, because I thought it would make them angry and cause them to attack me. But after reading up on the process of smoking bees upon visiting a hive, it turned out to be a normal reaction from the bees.
I first took the ziploc bag of syrup I had filled to feed the bees and it was pretty much already gone. I then created some space between the frames and placed the queen in the hive, candy side poked in and took a few moments to make sure her majesty was out of her cage and into the new hive. I then placed a frame full of bees to surround her from the front and from the back. Here too, I was worried that they would attack the queen, kill her or not accept her, but I guess we’ll have to wait a week to make sure that she’s alive and laying eggs. I then proceeded to install a hivetop feeder on the Russian hive and to fill it up with syrup. I then placed the inner cover on the feeder and the top cover on top of that. My day was done!
So I went back today, because I had yet to install a hivetop feeder on the Italian beehive. What a difference the sun really makes! (I can’t believe I just wrote that obvious fact, but it’s so very true, especially for the bees). Yesterday, it was overcast, cold, rainy, just a day for sleeping and lounging and the bees were no where to be seen except for inside the hive. Today? It was sunny, about 62 degrees, blue skies and just perfect. I didn’t know what to expect from my bees when I got there, but I think this video will show you what I saw when I reached the hives
It was an amazing sight to see! Seriously, if you’ve never seen bees up close like that or have never been a beekeeper, the sight will blow you away! I just had to take this (and another) video and then sit on the bench facing the hives for about 15 minutes just observing the bees, because I had never seen anything like this before in my life: the sight of hundreds of hard working little girls going in and out and flying all over. They were so curious too: I must have had 30 or so plus bees flying on me only to fly away a few seconds after landing on either my arm, my shirt or my pants.
I was in a bit of a predicament, because I didn’t want the Italian bees to starve, but I had to place a feeder on the hive. But at the same time, I did’t want to place some sort of feeder out in the open where any other bees would have access. But you’re also not supposed to disturb a new hive until a week after you set it up, because the bees might kill the queen. I really did not know what choice to make.
Finally, I opted for placing the hivetop feeder very quickly on the Italian hive in order not to disturb the bees. I said a quick little prayer and made what I thought was the best decision. Hopefully, just opening the hive, taking out the ziploc bag and immediately positioning the hivetop feeder won’t cause the bees to kill the queen. I guess only time will tell.
Overall, it was been a very intense experience that has taught me so much about the art of beekeeping in such a short amount of time. Some mistakes were made, some equipment was obtained later than scheduled, but the bottom line is this: we all learn from out mistakes and grow from these learning experiences.
A wise man, who I’ll just call Parky, once told me: “I doesn’t matter how many books you read, how many drills you do or how many exercises you’ve completed on paper. Real learning comes from going through the motions and forcing yourself to do something and to do it again and again . . . Only then will you master what you are trying to learn.” So while reading something like “Beekeeping for Dummies” or “The Backyard Beekeeper” is good, there will come a time when one has to take what one has read and learned and apply that learning by actually going through the motions of an actual beekeeper.
You know, I never told him that he was right, not only about what he was talking about, but about many things in my life. Maybe, when the time comes, I’ll send him a bottle of honey attached with a note saying: “Thanks for teaching me that learning comes from actually doing and not just reading a book.”
I think that would be a sweet gift; but not as sweet as the sight of hundreds of busy little bees!
As I posted yesterday, our bees came and the level of excitement went up like a million percent! At times, the bees were quiet; at other times, they were stirring up quite a brouhaha. At one point, I even took a brush and smeared the wire with honey I had sitting in the kitchen cabinet to calm them down. It seemed to work, because they all zapped over to the wire walls and sucked that liquid sweetness up their little straws (i.e. their chewing-lapping mouthpart also known as a proboscis).
I went to bed rather late last night and heard the alarm go off this morning at 5 and I did not want to get up! “‘F’ this, man . . . Forget this, yo!” is the only thing I thought when the alarm buzzed its stirring, but annoying ringing. But I had to get up, if not for work, then for the bees.
I quickly gathered everything and headed to the car and traveled the 40 minutes to my friend’s house way out in the county. I arrived on the scene only to find my friend half-asleep and in his sweats. We instantly got down to business, after the formalities of the morning were exchanged.
We turned on the smoker and thanks to the leaves and the multiplicity of twigs from all the surrounding trees, we able to create some awesomely thick smoke. We prepared the syrup bags, since we were going to pick up our feeders later that night. We then suited up and proceeded to perform the daunting task that lay before us: placing the bees in their respective hives.
Now don’t believe what they say or what you see on YouTube: Opening the box of bees is a real challenge! (Ah, but what’s better than a good ol’ morning challenge to start the day off right, right?) But with some patience and quick and easy maneuvering of the syrup can we were able to open the box of bees and get the queen out of the box. Here’s where the morning ordeal took an interesting turn, and not for the best, I would say.
I opened the queen box, the small little box containing the queen and a couple of her attendants and placed it in the hive. I then grabbed the box of Italian bees and with one big jolt, shook them up and put them in their new home. Bees started flying left, the started swirling right. And as crazy as it seemed, it wasn’t the pandemonium that I expected. They were actually quite calm and gentle. After all the bees were released, we then placed our Ziploc bags of sugar syrup on top and began to wrap things up and move on to our box of Russian bees.
The Russians were a big more trickier and louder as well. Call it an old Soviet grudge, but they actually came out flying and landing on us from the get-go. But with patience and a calm hand, we were able to pull out the queen and start preparing this second hive for its new tenants. But right as we were removing the cork from the thin side of the Russian queen cage, she quickly squeezed her way out and took off like a MiG-29 fighter jet, you know, the ones you can pay and ride over the skies of Moscow. I was dumbfounded! I looked at my friend and said: “There goes your queen, my friend.” His reply: “There she goes . . . flying back to Russia!”
We were both shocked and in awe at what had just transpired: the Russian queen bee had flown away, never to be seen or heard from again. What a tragedy! What a lost to those poor Russian bees! How the hell were were going to fix this undesired and unexpected situation?
I quickly called Geneva Miller and told her that we needed a new queen bee. “Is the Queen dead?” she asked. “No, no . . . she, uh, just, um, flew away?” was my answer/question/response. I didn’t want to lie to the old lady who had helped us out so many times before. Rather, I wanted to be honest and straight with her. So I told her the truth. Luckily, she told me that it happens more often than not and that I should call her this evening to see if they had any spare queens from their shipment.
Call it Karma, call it the Baby Jesus, call it God, Jehovah, Allah, Buddha, Krishna, Mother Mary the Virgin, I called her this evening around 7:30 p.m. and she had good news: they had 4 spare Russian queens and one of them had my name on it. “Pffew! What a relief!” were the only words that came out of my mouth as I got ready and drove over to pick up her second royal highness.
Now, you may ask: “Why are you telling this story?” Well, to be 100% completely honest, I thought I would mention this to save someone out there some time, money and much unwanted stress. Just remember: you want to be working with your candy end, which is most likely, the thick end. Remove the cork found on the thick end and poke a hole through the candied sugar and let the bees so the rest of work. If you are a beginner, don’t even mess with any of these fancy techniques like removing the wire and then pinching the queen onto the comb. Just play it safe and let the bees do their thing.
If you want to see how this is best done, save yourself some and check this video out
I can’t begin to tell you how excited I was today, all day! It started when I received a telephone call at around 10 this morning from Geneva Miller, who “was just calling to let [me] know that [my] bees had arrived safe and sound and that [I could] come pick them up anytime before 8 this evening.” The entire day, I couldn’t wait to finish work and drive to pick up my girls, all 30,000 of them (30,000 since I was also picking up my friend’s order as well)
For starters, I arrived at the Bee Supply and I was soooo anxious and nervous, because I couldn’t wait to see how my bees looked, what they were doing, how they were going to react and what they were going to sound like. I was utterly shocked! No buzz . . . No high-pitched kazoo-like vibrations, NADA! Just a faint and steady hum of almost deafening proportions was all I heard coming from the two little boxes of wire and wood. “I thought bees were supposed to be loud!?” is what I asked the gentleman, Edward, who was helping me carry them to my car. “Well, it actually goes tuh show ya, that bees ur actually vury calm ‘n passive . . . in my 20 years of raisin’ bees, they’ve always bin quiet ‘n docile.”
The drive home was a slow and steady journey, with every bump and pothole causing me to cautiously and worriedly look over at my bees, which were placed in the leg-area of the front passenger seat. I was thinking the worst case scenario with every major car movement (i.e. that all my bees would fall to the bottom of the box after being suspended to each other and the metal can of sugar syrup and cause all sorts of ruckus and agitated commotion within the box), but they turned out to be just fine riding on home with me.
What can I say? I love these little creatures already! And I seriously can’t wait until tomorrow when I will head on over to my friend’s house in the wee hours of the morning, dawn the suit of a beekeeper and together with my friend, introduce them into their new home, along with their respective queens to reign over them in consecrated unity and sweet prosperity!
