Humming Bee Honey

Wasn’t yesterday a mixed up mishmash of weather? I think it may have had something to to with the earthquake in Chile.
 
I was in my shed (outdoor living space:-)) for most of the morning. I came out at lunch time and was headbutted by bees – silly me being in their flight path. I took a look under the roof and saw they had begun taking down the sugar patty which they haven’t touched all winter.
   
Crocus and snow drops are out up here. My girls have slightly grey white  and pale yellow pollen on their legs,  The girls are ramping up their activities and now is the time to be seriously hefting hives for weightloss.  The danger now is they starve to death in the midst of plenty. They may be flying and bringing in pollen but if we get another series of cold snaps they won’t break cluster to get to new frames of stores.
 
A couple of bees had landed on the roof and were starting to curl up with cold. Last Thursday at Blackhorse John was showing the newbies around and picked up a bee curling in the same way. He said by letting the rest on his hand they could warm up enough to be able to fly back into the hive. So I did and they did. Marvellous. Obviously I’m not going to spend all day being a bee warmer but so uplifting to help a few life forms live alittle longer.
 
I have made up four new hives for the coming artificial swarming proceedures and bait boxes and will be making up a few more brood boxes so I can give my girls new des res’s for the season.
 
I find that in November spring seemed so far away and now it is galloping towards us with barely anytime to breathe.

Which Year Reared Great Britain

This being the year of our lord 2009 the colour coding used in the hives is green.  Since the advent of Varroa this important part of the Integrated Pest Management system has become vital for the health of the colony. By using a colour coding system the bee keeper can know at a glance the age of the frames in the hive and the age of a queen. The caption I used for this photo is taken directly from Beekeeping Study Notes (Modules 1,2,3&4) by J.D & B.D. Yates – the preferred BBKA manual.

White for years ending 1 or 6, Yellow for years 2 or 7, Red for years 3 or 8, Green for years 4 or 9 and Blue for years 5 or 0.

Due to pesticides and other contaminates it is advisable to replace wax in frames regularly, although the wax discarded, rendered into blocks, are often sold to the large beekeeping suppliers to turn into new foundation. How much contamination remains in the new foundation sheets is any one’s guess!

Marking the Queen

Hive Inspection

On first opening a hive in early April the first thing I noticed was the warmth emanating from the hole in the head board. During the winter months the bees maintain a steady 60 degree F  – this is the reason for their need for so much in the way of winter stores. To maintain such a temperature while the outside chill can be as low – 10 (in the U.K. currently in my location) requires the girls to turn stored honey into heat energy. Later in the winter months in preparation for the spring they have to increase this temperature to 95 degrees F – astounding – in order to bring the queen into lay.

This is the time to be biting your finger nails that all your hard work began in August preparing the girls for winter pays off. Have I killed off enough of the Varroa, was their hive well insulated against condensation, did they have enough stores, did ………. Worse than giving birth I can tell you. I jump ahead of myself.

Cracking the head board and lifting out the frames - wonderful!

In this picture you can clearly see all the components required by the bees in a healthy hive  (except queen cells). Around the outer edges at the top are stores of capped honey. In the center and slightly to the right is a ring of capped worker brood cells surrounding a number of cells with larva, to the bottom right are a few capped drone brood cells. Between the capped honey and capped brood cells there are plenty of pollen cells interspersed with unripe uncapped honey cells. The bees going about their business are workers.

Take a good look at the pollen cells – are the colours a surprise?

Capped brood a la shortbread biscuit style

This frame encapsulates all that is desireable to a bee keeper. Beautiful compact brood cells capped with a lovely shortbread coloured seal of wax. Plenty of attendant house worker bees. Note the hi-tech gloves

All this brood is the product of the winter bee, those hardy little souls who have endured the winter, brought the queen into lay and then tended the larva, capped the brood and survived long enough to see the new generation take up their duties.

Time now for the Totally Terrific Tutors at Blackhorse. Second only to John Hamer,  Alastair Welch commands the respect of all newbies – yes, he’s the dashing chap on the right. Using charm and humour Alastair leads us into the intricate world of the honey bee with a deep understanding for not only the subject but the needs of the students too. Alastair runs a commercial apriary with his partner that totals more than 300 hives. This exposure provides him with a greater understanding of the bee and it’s husbandry than many of us will ever experience.

The gracious lady beside him was Sue Harris. I say was because this very sweet and lovely lady passed away quite recently and will be missed by all who knew her. Her love of bees and her ability to convey that love was demonstrated to me over the spring and into the summer. I regret her passing.

Here’s Dave Arpino, a great bee buddy! Dave has a love of being involved in a holistic way of beekeeping and is a font of great sites to visit on the web. He keeps poultry along side his own hives and I’m sure any drones coming from them have to keep a wary eye out  – they make great chicken treats!

Dave put me in the way of Dave Cushman’s site and jolly good it is for hive plans. Another thought provoking direction Dave supplied was that of foundation and cell sizing.

Operating on the theory that the increased sizes of bee’s and consequently their cells in the honeycomb have increased the number of days a bee spends in the sealed brood chamber, Dave supports the theory that, if the bees were to be reverted to their more natural sizes, there would  be insufficient time in the sealed cells for the Varroa Mite to complete it’s life cycle and so reduce the impact of infestation. It’s an interesting concept to me but as I have insufficient experience it is a theory I will have to consider for a couple of years before trying it out.

Here’s Chris Green, also a great bee buddy! Chris got a quick start to his bee keeping when he managed to obtain a swarm. So envious! Chris ia a true gentleman and charming. He is very patient with my (how should I say this?).. urgent enthusiasm.. (others would say … and have …pushy assertiveness). As I have said a true gentleman.

Chris is more conservative than Dave, and I think, balances the team when Dave and I go off into flights of fancy.

Both chaps are happily married to wonderful, supporting ladies both of whom compliment their husbands. Mrs Arpino is a driving force in their poultry endeavours while Mrs Green is happy to let Chris run with his interest in bee keeping.

There are others on our Thursday course who are fun and fascinating too. One young chap – Carl- even has his employer paying for his course and all the equipment, including bees, so he can operate hives in the grounds where he works. Another bee buddy – Caroline- travels up from Bath every week to get her training – I thought I traveled far…….

Having worked hard to create a safe environment for both my colony and my neighbours I spent a few days just sitting and watching the girls as they began to fly. Pretty soon they were bringing in great quantities of pollen. The colony benefited from convenient tree close to the hive which had just started to bloom. They had loads which beggared belief – mine certainly!

The garden was now effectively divided into our area and the bee’s area – not good! And the house was beginning to fill up with all kinds of paraphernalia, something had to be done. Enter the Outdoor Living Space – a shed!I decided to rip out the old back fence, demolish the raised flower bed and lay the foundations for the new all singing all dancing shed. I recruited the assistance of a couple of friendly chaps  (with muscles) and set to. The whole project extended over a couple of weekends and the girls carried on their business without causing a problem. We all soon got used to being bumped by bee after bee.

We were very ably assisted by Luke – who looks pretty cute in black bootees! After a couple of occaisions where he got too curious,  resulting in bees buzzing in his coat (mad panic – lots of dashing about while looking over his shoulder) he settled down and now gives a wide berth to the girl’s flight paths.

Finally the shed was up and a new position found for the hive – you can see the old base, a much more sensible location as it allowed for easier access into the shed.

Salsa approves as she can now sunbathe and survey her territory free of Luke’s interference. Once again no hint of a reaction from my girl’s.
While all this fun stuff was happening in the garden, my girl’s on the roof at work were also hustling for pollen and nectar and doing a bit better than the garden girls. Their locale was not so salubrious as they have to content with a bare roof and a closer arrangement of fencing – more of this in another blog later (haven’t got photo’s yet!).

The first hurdle was to find a beekeeping association to join, then starting so late in the season ( March 09) training courses were over subscribed. Wonderfully there are people out there just a concerned as I and willing to do something to help in a practical way. Membership of the British Beekeeping Association is up by over 1500 new beekeepers this year- one of whom is me. Hurrah!

After lots of telephone calls and lost cheques in the post, I joined The North London Beekeeping Association, a wonderful collection of diverse personalities, with whom I am eagerly looking forward to sharing such a fascinating activity. Their generosity of nature is startling and heart warming.  Unfortunately for me they had such an intake there were no training places left.

So further investigation on the web provided an introduction to the Blackhorse Apiary and what a lucky discovery. The Blackhorse Apiary is owned and run by the marvellous John Hamer.

His Apiary is a wonderland of knowledge and an entrée into that steadfast society I described in the beginning of this blog. P.S. An Apiary is a place where honey bee hives are kept. Below is the Blackhorse Apiary.

Finding a site for my hive wouldn’t be a problem, I thought! My neighbours agreed to my having a hive in the garden so long as I took steps ensure the installation didn’t cause a problem. That is until I was hi-jacked by one set of neighbours waiting for me in my living room the very next evening declaring they had researched the impact of having bees so close to their gardens and had now decided they would rather I didn’t keep them in mine.

I agreed to search for an alternative site and duly set about contacting my local allotment association, two presentations and a number of conversations later I’m still waiting for their answer. Their final words were they would consider my request in the coming weeks and months…….Time was slipping away, my nuc’s (a half size hive with five brood frames, bees and a Queen) were prospering with no where for me to site them.

My boss at work, Louis Halpern, the Halpern in Halpern Cowan Ltd, agreed to let me site one hive on the flat roof at work, bless him.

B day was four days away when I took the decision to site my second hive in my garden. By now I was aware that any research my neighbours had conducted was superficial to say the least and when the need became acute I acted. The Law allows for people to have hives in their gardens – along with chickens and rabbits – both of which would be enjoyed by my dogs and cats. Too much I think, so we won’t go there!

Two 7ft 6in nets the length of the garden, one concrete slab and a clearance of ground later and the hive was set. Just in time for B day. Both nuc’s were in place by 10.30pm on the Thursday evening and hived by the following evening. The Great Adventure had truly begun.

While awaiting the first day of training and having joined the BBKA(British Beekeepers Association), I decided to attend the Annual Summer Show held at Stoneleigh in the Midlands, where for the princely sum of £65.00 one could take the Hive building course and make your own very first hive! This course was conducted by none other than John Hamer himself, owner of the Blackhorse Apiary. Could anything get any better?

First day at the apiary, talk about Virgin Queens – that was me…. Totally new to the whole business, the closest I’d been to bees was as a child in the Far East where there are bees with blue bums, yes truly blue – I wonder if we could touch up Cameron for more funds for the cause…..

Our first lesson was to be an inspection of a hive but no, a very flighty Italian Mama decided to swarm just as we neared the hive. Suddenly we were surrounded by thousands of well fed, motivated worker bees searching for the Queen, buzzing and floating around our heads. A wonderful, natural, phenomenon.  We have become so insulated by virtue of our own civilisation we rarely experience these phenomena – unless Nature throws a complete wobbly and sends a deluge such as that at Boscastle or Katherine in the States to mention but a few.

So there we were agog and searching for the main swarm when it was discovered 20 feet up a pine tree. John sprang into action and in short order had cut the branch holding the swarm and brought it down. There followed a mad rush by all to have their photo taken holding the branched swarm.

Using a vacuum device John sucked up the remaining bees and added them to the main mass which had by then been hived in an empty hive.

The rest of the afternoon proceeded on plan and we all got to look inside a fully functioning hive. Starting so late in the season I tagged along behind those who had taken the Winter Theory course, muttering to myself as I recited all the relevant passages from the book I had been advised to purchase as the Beekeepers Bible. This excellent volume is entitled ‘Guide to Bees & Honey’ by Ted Hooper MBE – not a glossy, high colour publication but jam-packed with sound advice written in an interest retaining style.