The Lady Beekeeper

The Bear the Bear and the Maiden Fair

Posted on July 14, 2013 by lexicolton

I opened my hive again today and things went very smoothly. I checked all the frames and found about six and a half frames fully built out. Several had a layer of honey, a huge layer of brood, and finally a layer of pollen. There were all levels of the life cycle from egg to pupa. I even saw the miracle of life! A new born worker bee was slowly emerging from her cell! So basically things looked great. It was completely uneventful – I’ll post that semi-uninteresting video tomorrow.

As I was leaving the hive my husband remarked on the uneventful visit (well uneventful for viewers like my husband and you folks – extremely interesting for me!). He said it would make for a boring blog post. Well he was almost right, except for the events later. Later that evening, around twilight, while we were sitting next to the sliding glass door that adjoins our screen porch, we heard a rapping at the screened window. I thought a large black bird had hit the screen window but my husband swore he saw a large black cat jump up on the window. We were the only two who noticed anything. My husband immediately walked outside to investigate and our friend followed. After returning from his investigation, my husband detailed the situation and claimed that he saw a huge black cat stand on his hind legs and put his paws on our garden to peer in (we have a 4×8 raised garden bed covered in bird netting held up by PVC piping to deter deer). He swears it was a giant black cat or perhaps a bear. We chuckled and believed he was seeing things.

Fifteen minutes later my friend (who is facing the window) shouts that there is a black bear in our yard. My husband and I turned around in time to see a small black bear lumber into the empty wooded lot behind our house, 8 feet from the beehive. I guess my husband wasn’t crazy after all. (Except for the fact that he ran out after the bear to investigate, despite my shouts of disapproval.) For reference about how terrifying this is to me and my bees I must add that Winnie the Pooh’s addiction to honey is based on fact. Bears indeed love honey, and will gladly destroy a whole hive to consume the sweet larvae and honey inside. I am really hoping he didn’t find my bees attractive.

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As Promised… Video of My First Hive Visit

Posted on July 12, 2013 by lexicolton

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Smoke and Mirrors

Posted on July 10, 2013 by lexicolton

My second time interacting with the bees was much less chaotic. I lit the smoker and filled it with pine needles. (I recently found out that some people recommend preparing the smoker even before hiving your first package. Too late for that). I suited up. I slowly puffed smoke into the doorway of the hive then lifted up the outer cover and puffed smoke in there as well. When I finally opened the hive it was perfectly organized, nothing like the frenetic mess I had created when hiving the poor ladies. They were busy as bees working hard to draw out their honeycomb.

And let me tell you – in just a week they had done a ton of work. They had built out several frames, and filled in the open space left by the queen cage with burr comb (see picture below). I felt very bad removing it because they had clearly worked very hard at it. It was a beautiful pearly white marvel of engineering. I saved it and will melt it down into a candle or something later. After removing the burr comb I checked for eggs – the place was chock full – our queen is definitely a fertile Myrtle. (Myrtle! That would have been a good name!).

So overall a much better experience. I think it was partially because the bees were busy and orderly, and partially because the smoker really works wonders. It’s like a snake-charmer’s flute. When the smoke billows out onto the bees they immediately retreat downwards into the hive. When reflecting on this later my thought was, “oh my gosh I hope I wasn’t roasting my bees alive”. (I have read in several books you can smoke the bees too much, or literally burn the bees if you have too much fuel in your smoker.) I felt very guilty about that for a few days until I lit the smoker again and felt the temperature of the smoke coming out of it. It was warm, but certainly wouldn’t roast the ladies alive. (Thank goodness.) For those who are curious, the idea behind the smoke is twofold – first off it triggers an instinct in the bees to gather up as much resources as possible, so they can move their colony if necessary. This causes the bees to gorge on honey to take with them if they need to move. The second principle is that the smoke interrupt’s the queen’s pheromones. These pheromones normally provide the communication the hive needs to function as a unit (“Build comb here”, “Bring in fresh water”, “We need more pollen”, “Attack the intruder”). The smoke breaks down communication in the hive, particularly the alert/attack pheromones that the queen emits when she realizes someone is ripping the roof off of her home.

Oh and we finally named her. The queen that is. Since I can’t name all my pets I decided to name each colony for it’s queen (she does all the real controlling inside the hive anyway). So this one is named Rosalinda. Don’t ask why, there is no real reason. Other options were Waltraud and Tricia, two of our grandmothers’ names. After reflecting on it a while, we decided our grandmothers might not be overly enthusiastic to learn they are namesakes for thousands of bees…

Long live Rosalinda, long live the queen!

PS – The next video should be up tomorrow.

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Convincing 10,000 Bees to Move in

Posted on June 30, 2013 by lexicolton

Last Friday I finally received my long awaited package of bees. I was supposed to meet my package provider in the parking lot of a Red Roof Inn to pick up the bees. Many of my co-workers and friends thought this was a bit shady. Reflecting on the meeting-in-a-motel-parking-lot part, I guess it was. Despite my co-workers’ warnings that I would be murdered, I left work a bit early and got to the rendezvous point just after the bee truck pulled in. Luckily, kidnapping prospects were low since there were several other local beekeepers already on site picking up their packages. (Not to mention that the gentleman I dealt with was very helpful and more interested in keeping the bees safe than anything else. Plus I didn’t see any ‘F’ ratings on his BBB page for murdering former clientèle.)

I thought the truck organization was the most interesting part of the whole 10 minute process to get the bees. To get my order of Italian queens he went to a section of this 3 dimensional array of shoebox-sized bee packages in the back of the trailer. In order to fetch my package he actually sawed off one of the packages from the grid and handed it to me. I nearly dropped it. When I ordered a 3 pound package of bees, I imagined it would be 3 pounds – this thing was closer to 10 or 12 pounds. (Later I realized that most of the weight came from the sugar water – which caused me some difficulty when prying it out of the package. See the video!)

My first bee package!

Once I got the bees home, and my videographer (aka husband) was home from work it was game time. You can watch my whole experience (well whole experience shortened to 12 minutes) in the video below!

Before you watch the video, I should note something obvious. There were thousands of bees in that package. According to The Backyard Beekeeper there are around 3,500 bees in a pound. I’ve never been one of those girls that freaks out when a bee is nearby, but the sheer volume of bees was pretty terrifying, and they were everywhere, crawling all over my hands and body. I had prepped myself mentally for this moment for weeks by trying to stop my flinch reflex when bugs or other crawly things were on me. (Not a good reflex to lose when you’re dealing with mosquitoes.) Even with all my mental preparation I began to get very nervous when I was pulling out the sugar syrup can. You’ll notice in the movie that I drop it once. At that point the bees started crawling out of the hole beside the can in droves. I must have released a couple hundred of them. My husband went inside to grab me pliers so I simply sat there and let these honeybees crawl all over me and lick my hands which were sticky with sugar syrup. It was overwhelming – but after a few minutes I must have hit a neural melt-down, or zen moment, or something because I felt completely calm and serene.

After the whole process was over I admitted to my husband that I had two fears before getting the bees. My first fear was that I would be so terrified during the initial process that I would give up and be unable to hive the bees. My second fear was that after a terrifying first experience I’d be unable to go back to the hive ever again. At least I conquered that first fear…

Posted in Beekeeping | Tagged bee package, bees, hive, package of bees, video | 4 Comments

The Long Wait for my New “Pets”

Posted on June 24, 2013 by lexicolton

The months following my internet purchase of bees consisted of prepping the hive, reading beekeeping books, and telling friends, neighbors and family members about my decision to become a beekeeper. The reactions from all parties varied dramatically on the last count. Almost everyone to whom I mentioned my new hobby asked me for a jar of honey. With all the jars that have been requested by friends and perfect strangers I don’t think I’ll have any honey available for mead for several years. (Sorry friends – mead first.)

Universal requests for honey aside, there were three schools of thought on the subject: those who were enthusiastic, those who were neutral and those who strongly opposed the idea or thought I was completely crazy. I must admit there were not many in the latter category (thankfully). Our neighbors, coworkers and friends were enthusiastic and frequently would ask when “the girls” were coming to town. (For those who aren’t aware 95% of bees in a hive are female. The male drones serve no function other than to mate with other colonies’ queens, so many people omit these males when referencing their colonies.) My dad was enthusiastic about the idea – but believed I was completely insane, and he tried many times to reiterate the point that honeybees sting. Other family members were intrigued.

The only person completely opposed to the idea of honeybees was my mother in law, who (still) is convinced that my husband is going to be murdered by bees. It turns out that despite all the talk about dog allergies my husband omitted the fact that he has had some pretty dramatic swelling occur after bee stings. Saddened that he hadn’t mentioned this before ordering my new pets, I convinced him to go to the allergist for a test. (It turns out despite all his talk of allergies, he has never really been diagnosed by an expert for any of them.)

A couple weeks later my husband returned from the allergist with his arms covered in bumps from a scratch test. I asked which one was honeybees and he handed me a sheet. Everything on the sheet had an “x” for “positive skin test result” marked, except… dogs. It turns out that our bees vs dogs agreement was made on false pretenses! I also noticed that honeybees were not on the list at all. He explained that the wasp/hornet/bee test is administered by injecting poison through needles rather than the normal scratch test (ouch). It is apparently very painful, and not recommended unless a severe reaction with the blood sample occurs, or you’re into masochism. In addition the allergist asked my husband if he’d ever had swelling anywhere outside of the sting site, or a shortness of breath. He hadn’t and the allergist concluded that he was not allergic and had experienced “severe local reactions” that are not fatal in any way. My next thought? Hooray! Bees AND dogs!

Excerpt from my husband’s actual skin test. Yes he’s allergic to everything… except apparently bees and dogs.

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Bees or Dogs, an Easy Decision (for some)

Posted on June 22, 2013 by lexicolton

First, let me describe to you why and how exactly I became a lady beekeeper. With all the hype about CCD (colony collapse disorder) the popularity of beekeeping has risen, and many have made a foray into the hobby to preserve the dwindling bee population. Though I believe that backyard beekeepers are doing their part to help maintain the European honeybee population in America, my decision to become a beekeeper wasn’t initially because of this noble cause.

It was a bit more selfish really. You see, my husband and I had been brewing beer in our home for several years, and we wanted to up the ante. As a self-proclaimed Ren-faire addict my obvious alcoholic beverage of choice is mead, the ancient honey wine. Unfortunately the sheer volume of honey required for good mead makes mead batches expensive. After a quick internet search I discovered that I could obtain honeybees and equipment for the price of a few batches of mead. Seemed like a good investment to me, and how medieval (in a good way, as a renaissance nerd would use it) is farming your own bees?

The next step was convincing my husband to say yes to bees. At this point I had been toying with the idea of beekeeping for several months. I had mentioned it to my husband a couple of times offhand, but he almost certainly thought it was another one of my half-cocked ideas that never quite pan out. Another point of note is that by this time I had been trying to convince my husband for about a year (since we moved into our new house) to get a dog. He was (and still is) adamantly against the idea of a dog.

I finally broached the bee subject again late one night after returning from a long day of work during a very stressful crunch-time. The conversation went something like this:

Me: “Can we get bees?”

Husband: “Sure.”

Me: “Wait, are you kidding? What about a dog?”

Husband: “I’d rather not get a dog, I’m allergic to dogs.” (He isn’t. More on that next time…)

Me: “So you’d rather have thousands of bees, than one cuddly dog?”

Husband: “Yes.”

Me: “You know most people would prefer the dog.”

Husband: “I know.”

Me: “Well, bees it is.”

The next morning before work I ordered a beekeeper starter kit from Honeybee Headquarters that included a 3lb package of Italian bees. And that is how I ended up with 3lbs of honeybees instead of a dog.

There is mead in that glass... thank you bees! And thanks to Joe K. for taking this photo.

A toast to bees!

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