Just Add Sugar

The temperatures have been in the 60s for a while now and the bees are still flying.  The trouble is there's nothing for the bees to gather this time of year.  When it's cold, the bees cluster and they require much less food.  When it's warm, they're more active and they eat up their stores.  So, just as a precaution, I put a sheet of newspaper on the top of the frames, and poured sugar on the paper.  I misted the sugar with water and Honey B Healthy to help the sugar clump and to keep it from sliding down into the hive.  I placed a hive box around the sugar and the inner cover and telescoping top on top of the box.  This is called the mountain camp type of feeding.  Some call it emergency feeding.  But it seems to me that if they need it, it's there, and if they don't need it, I'll make it into syrup next spring.  I put sugar in both hives, so hopefully they'll all make it into next spring.

The Year In Review

Some of the people in our beekeeping association are so talented!  At our 2012 Harvest Dinner, there was a compilation of the year in pictures made into a video presentation and showed to the members.  They have added it to the Cherokee Beekeeper's site.  Click Here if you want to see it.

Catching Up

Things are slowing down for the winter.  The feeders are off now and there's not much to do.  Hopefully there's enough food in the hives for the bees to survive until Spring.

Kelley and Brushy Mountain had free shipping after Thanksgiving so I ordered enough woodenware to make two more hives (two deeps and two mediums for each hive, all 8-frame).  When I get some time off, Dad and I will put that stuff together and paint it so that it'll be ready.

Since I started with a spit, and captured a swarm, I thought I'd try package bees.  I ordered two packages from Kelley to be delivered in April.  So, depending if one or two of the hives make it through the Winter, I'll have two, three or four hives going next year.  Hopefully, the honey production will match!

So for the next few months, it will just be a monitoring routine to ensure the bees make it.  I do have 30 frames of uncapped honey in the freezer I can thaw and add if they use up their stores.

But, if I have to start over with the two packages, I've learned a lot this year and hopefully I can add to that knowledge base with more experience in the years to come!

Harvest Dinner

The Cherokee Beekeepers Association (CBA) had the 2012 Harvest Dinner last night and there was food and friends galore.  Tennessee Beekeeper's Association (TBA) President Lynda Rizzardi addressed the membership and told us about the recent meeting and how the TBA and 4H work together.  She also told us about grants available next year for new beekeepers.  Our delegates to the meeting gave reports as well.

A video was shown capturing most  of this years events of the CBA from the spring short course to the present.  It was well done and they had tried to get pictures of as many members as they could.  It brought back a year's worth of memories.

I took my world's famous (well, around here anyway) banana pudding and it went over like it always does.  It really tastes good.

Door prizes were given away and many left very happy (all left full of supper!)

New officers were elected for next year, and we all wish them well and much success.  We thanked the outgoing officers and wished them well, they did a great job.

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I haven't done much with the bees.  I am currently feeding them a gallon every few days.  I'll probably keep that up until the hives get really heavy or it gets too cold for liquids.

On my 10-Frame hive last year and now since today, I've used a BM plastic hive top feeder. It holds a gallon easily, and maybe even two gallons (but I've not tried that much in it).



For the 8-frame hive, I got a Mann Lake hive top feeder. It is made differently, with the opening in the middle and a gallon-sized holder on each size. It is screened in so that the bees can't get out and they have something to climb on so that they don't drown. I will probably get one for the 10-frame, as the plastic one seems to want to warp, and it didn't want to seal good this year.

Getting Ready For Winter

A couple of weeks ago, I extracted three 10-frame medium supers. I put the supers on top of the inner cover of the strong hive because I had read that they'd clean up the comb and move any remnants down into the hive. Since I've had to work a lot, I only got back into the hives today. The three supers that were to be cleaned out were full of bees and a lot of honey.

I also have the swarm hive that I caught a couple of months ago in an 8-frame deep. They are OK, but not great. There are a lot of bees, but they're not drawing comb and I didn't see any eggs. They are, however, bringing in pollen and there was capped honey in the hive. I looked, but I didn't see a queen (but that doesn't mean there's not one).

I've been feeding both hives with zip lock bags on a table out in the yard. I'm sure a lot of that has ended up in the three supers on top of the strong hive.

My goal today was to get each hive to two boxes for the winter.

I had to use the fume board and the spray stuff to get the bees out of the supers I wanted to remove. The bees weren't too happy about that.

I put an empty super on the 8-frame hive. I had to use a medium, I didn't have a deep. I took the best 8 frames with a lot of honey, pollen and bees and put in the super on the swarm hive. I put a piece of paper between the boxes just to ensure there were no trouble between the bees (I don't know if I had to do that, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. I had never done it and wanted to learn about doing the combine thing). I have the inner cover and telescoping top on top of the super and will look into it in a week or so to see if they're doing OK.

I put the three 10-frame supers and remaining frames in a freezer where they will probably stay until next year.

I was really surprised that the bees had started filling up the supers again. I had read that somebody put an empty super between the inner cover and the super(s) to be cleaned. Maybe that would have been better.  Maybe I should have taken them across the yard and just left them open for the bees to clean out.  I'll try different methods next year.

I will probably do a mite check next week. I know I should have already done that, but until I get my work schedule more regular, I'm just going to have to do things when I can get to it. Luckily, it doesn't really get cold here until January. After that, I should be good until next year (I hope).

Anyway, this has really been a learning year. And the bees have remained buzzing despite my actions (some good and some not so good). I've harvested about 80 pounds total of honey this year. So it's been an introduction into beekeeping, to say the least.

Honey!

Friday 9-14-12

Well, I took the three medium supers off of the 10-frame hive today. That leaves two deeps for them to winter in. Some of the frames were completely drawn with comb and filled with honey and capped. Some of the frames had some capped honey, some uncapped honey and some pollen. I ended up extracting 16 frames (out of 30).

The fume board worked pretty good. It got cloudy, so the fume board didn't get real hot. But the bees left the honey (well, except for a couple of really dedicated bees). When we got the box to the shed, we tried the leaf blower idea. It works ok, but some of bees can really hang on when they want to!

Some of the frames that have pollen and honey are going to go into the other hive where I put the swarm. They're still drawing comb on empty frames, so I figure that drawn comb with pollen and honey will be a big plus for them. They're still in one deep (8-frame), so I need to get that deep finished being drawn and another deep on with drawn comb so they can have two deeps for winter.

I have finagled the use of an old freezer for a while, so I will put the leftover frames with comb in there for a few days.

I used the heat gun to uncap the frames. It works well. But there's no wax to be had that way. I don't think it caramelized the honey, as I tried to keep the gun moving. But I'll have to taste it to see. I think I'm going to end up with about 2.5 gallons (9.46 Liters) or maybe a little more. I wanted to take pictures and videos, but the battery in my camera was dead.

This is the first time I've used the extractor since I mounted it on the pallet. It worked pretty good. Balancing the frames is the key to smooth operation. I had to swap a few around to get it to balance out, but I did get it up to "fast" speed and it worked great.

I've got to go back in the morning and finish up. There was a frame that just didn't want to empty, so I left it draining tonight. And, the honey was still going through the mesh filters into the bucket. So I put a lid on it and I figure it'll be drained by in the morning.

Ended up with 10 quarts of honey.  It's really dark and has a complex flavor.  But it's really good.

So things are coming together and getting ready for winter, I believe. I think it's been a pretty good first year.