Holt's Bee Farm

Cell Block #9

2011-06-22T13:42:00.005-05:00

I have just finished reading my favorite bee blog, "Bee Mans Daughter" (Father’s Day Blog). I suggest my readers (all four of them) read this blog. It is innovative, informative, entertaining, and also says nice things about me. You can’t beat that. (Did I mention the author is also my daughter?) Any way the blog is really good, although a fact check sometimes would be in order. As a new-bee, sometimes she doesn’t quite know her head from her hind-end. Here at the Bee Farm, we do not have a Father’s day because when you have a special daughter like we have, every day is Father’s day and Mother’s day. We are truly blessed. (I bet that doesn’t get edited out.) – a note from the editor: You would be correct.

As you know, we have been experimenting with queen rearing. For Bee Keepers, the ultimate high is seeing a beautiful brood pattern, especially knowing he or she grafted the larva, placed the cell in a breeding nuc, and ultimately placed the new queen in the hive. But it is just not as easy as it sounds; there are things like setting up the starter hives, breeding nucs, and watching the calendar (very important). A lot of hardware and bees are also required. You start to think you have done everything right and then you go in to get your new cells, cells that you checked two days earlier, to find them all torn down by a covert queen who either hatched early or came in to this hive by mistake and set up housekeeping. For a big operator, this would be no big deal. But for me, it shut down a third of my queen operations down do it twice and I have nothing to show for twenty days’ work. This makes a chicken rearing hobby look good (until you remember what you wife said about that. Chicken sh*t between your toes as a child can scar you for life apparently).

I am told virgin queens are hard to introduce to a hive, especially if you change races, like Russian to Italian. While in Byrdstown a while back cutting out cells, I cut two open and out came two virgins. I put then in queen cages I always carry in my pocket, took them home, marked them, and placed them in intro-queen cages. I now have two nucs with as good a brood pattern as I’ve seen. They are beautiful, dark Russians. I don't know if I’m good or just dumb enough to try anything (the latter most likely).

As I look up at my meticulously kept records, which consist of a bunch of yellow notes on my computer desk, I see I have a busy week at the end. On the 23rd, I need to take cells out at the home bee yard; on the 24th, I have to take cells out at Dwight's house in Rickman; on the 25th, I need to take cells out in White Co. and also at Moss yard. I’m looking forward to the White Co. cell take out; that is where some of our best survival queen mothers are located (they won’t die). I mistakenly placed a queen in the starter hive last graft and came up with zero cells. I checked the Byrdstown yard Friday and five out of eight nucs had new queens, however some looked a little motley. I'm sure they will improve; it was a bit early to assess.

I have one last thought to share with you today. As you know, I like to work with young people who are interested in bees. Last week while at Dwight's house grafting queens, his daughter Jessica lent a hand. She shows great promise in the grafting field, if for no other reason she can see.

Happy trails!
Greg

Brief Updates from the Farm

2011-05-27T15:50:00.006-05:00

I think I may have forgotten everything that was hot on my mine to report; maybe you all will settle for bits and pieces from this old bee mans memory. If not, maybe you should bring up the The Bee Man's Daughter blog; her mind is still nearly new.

First, I would like to bring you up to date on the Shook Swarm from my last blog. Like many of other things I do, I'm not for sure it worked out so well. The original hive was left weakened and the new hive looks very well; the amount of comb honey we get will tell of our success or failure. We have also finished a resent graft and have another underway, yet the weather has not been good for breading queens, as we hit somewhat of cold snap.

May 7th, we had our Cookeville Beekeeping meeting here at the farm and about 20 or 25 people were in attendance. Mike Haney, president of the Cookeville club, did a great job showing some of our "new-bees" what to look for in a hive. The info he passed along should be helpful to them, as well as to the more seasoned bee keepers. Refreshments were provided by Carolyn, and they were great as usual. I enjoyed meeting new members and talking bee stuff with all who attended, and I would like to thank them for coming. Our door prize, a new swarm that came out one hour before the meeting and rested 65 feet up in a pine tree, was rejected by everyone . The swarm now has been added to our local feral stock. We wish them luck as they will provide good breeding stock for our queens. I'm cutting this short as not to bore you with our day-to-day bee stuff (just a few swarms and what not). I really need to learn to keep better notes.

Enjoy a few pics from the recent bee meeting!

Shook Swarms, Brother Glenn, and May Update

2011-05-20T14:32:00.006-05:00

I think I have checked all our hives and most everything is doing well; we have experienced growth this year more than expected. I have done almost everything I know to stop the bees from swarming, sometimes I think it would do better just to let them go, but that would cut down on our honey production. I’m sure some have swarmed unnoticed and added to the feral population in the woods.

I watched a video last winter, “Making Comb Honey” with Ken Lasing of Windermere Farms and Apiaries, using the “shook swarm” method I've been dying to try. Here is a link to the video. It is about half an hour long. Also, here is a page of bee keeping videos that may be of interest. (Note: while we attempt to stay "apolitical" in this blog, the editor must mention that this bee keeping video selection page seems to support a certain political candidate.)

What you do is move the parent hive to a new location nearby, place a new bottom board than a medium super with foundation, than a queen-excluder, then two supers with thin foundation. Place a sheet in fount of the old location for a path into the new hive at the old location, than take all the frames of bees and the queen from the old hive at the new location give them a good shake over the sheet. Then place them back in the old hive with the bees that did not fall off. I think the idea is to make the bees that you shook on the sheet in front of the old location and all the bees returning from the field think they have swarmed. This is just what it takes to make good comb honey-- a lot of bees with nothing to do, but make comb and honey; no eggs or larva to feed, no more ideas of swarming and you (hopefully) leave some bees in the old hive to feed and take care of the brood and maintain the hive. After the honey harvest, you can combine the two hives or use them for increase.

So, that is just what I did after being inspired by this video. James assisted, but with that look in his eye he gets when he thinks I have lost my mind. Let me tell you, it was a sight to behold—mass confusion for the bees and James. I was not worried because I know God takes care of drunks, little children, and damn fools. When we were doing the shake down, I had all the confidence of a fool! Now, I wonder…

Last but not least, a year ago we took some bees to Crossville to Brother Glenn's house for the sour-wood flow and did not bring them home. Carolyn and I went up to do a spring inspection and Brother Glenn was waiting with his new bee suit, all white with no spots or dirt; a perfect picture of a new-bee.

We found the bees had done very well without me to bother them; in fact, one of the hives was one of the best wintered hives I’ve seen, but they were about to swarm. Something had to be done, but perhaps a little too late to prevent them from swarming. I used a double screen board on each of the hives, a device we use to temporarily separate the boxes for re-queening and swarm-prevention. In about 30 days, we will put them back together after assessing the queens and leaving the best one to head the colony. We also made a couple of splits; these were really strong hives. Saturday, Glenn was concerned the bees were confused and disorientated. Carolyn, who took the pictures while Glenn and I worked the bees, said who wouldn't be after that treatment? If they don't swarm, we can say what good bee keepers we are; if they do swarm, we will just say that once the bees get swarming on their minds, nothing can stop them ( I should be in politics). By the way, Glenn did very well and seems to have a feel for the bees, after I convinced him to stand closer and stop backing up.

A queen cell: a sign of intentions of swarming

I hope somewhere out there on the WWW, there is someone that that enjoys reading this blog half as much as I do putting it together. Also an update on the job posting for a new blog editor: we are no longer looking for a replacement. Jess is doing a fine job and despite her attitude. In fact, starting next year she gets a 100% raise (education pays off). Farewell until next time!

Happy trails to you!
-Greg

(A letter from the editor- The job posting/contract renewal negotiations/attitude adjustments may have delayed the posting of this blog a couple of weeks... ;)

Special Delivery!

2011-04-21T18:38:00.006-05:00

What a week!

Last weekend, Carolyn and I went to Athens, Ga to pick up bees (NUCS) from Jennifer Berry, for the bee farm as well as some for Jess. She is starting her own Bee Yard in Athens. These were some of the nicest bees I've seen; really, they were very NICE. They hardly got upset or irritated at all. They were very gentle. We were very pleased with them. I don't know what Jess will call her bee yard, maybe something like "Dudes Bee Ranch".

We rushed home early to make it easy on our cargo (we left before dawn. This is not unusual for us, but we had a reason this time). We arrived home safe and sound after taking the bees out for breakfast at McDonald's around Chattanooga. James and I installed the bees without a hitch; we've done that a few times now.

It's so much different than the first time some thirty years ago. I didn't know what or how to install the bees, but I was dumb enough to try and lucky enough to pull it off. Jess will be apprehensive in the beginning as well. My advice to any "new-bee" is do your homework first, than do what you think is best for the bees. Don't worry-- the bees have existed for thirty million years, despite well meaning beekeepers.

The first part of the week was spent catching up around the farm. Bees had to be fed, checked for swarm cells, and supers installed. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday the Tennessee Masters program class was held in Livingston. John A. Skinner was the professor. He is one of the best bee men anywhere; we were lucky to have had him. Twenty hours would of instruction would be a long time with someone not so prepared as he. The weather was stormy all three days, which made staying inside not so bad. We were fortunate not to have damage as other places did. It was almost a year ago that bad weather brought terrible flooding to our area. Read this article to learn more about that.

This is for sure the most exciting time of year in the bee yard; there is so much to do and so little time to do it. The bees are extra excited as well. Spring is wonderful and I feel blessed to part of it. I did my first queen graft for the year this week; only one took, but it was beautiful cell. Sorry, I don't have time to go into details. I will save that for another post.

In blog news, there was some discussion here at the apiary of looking for a new editor for the blog. We want someone who will do as good of a job as Jess, but who expects as little pay and as little thanks as she gets. We want some one to do the same job without the same "I'm the boss" attitude. If you know anyone interested in the job, please pass their name along.

-Greg

(Editors Note: I felt free to share this job opening, as I feel confident no one else will want my post. I did want to issue a warning to a certain beekeeper- It is not a good idea to get on the wrong side of your publicist...)

Here are some more pics from Jessie's installation.

Greg, showing off in T-shirt and shorts. :)

Updates, New Colonies, and Musings from the Bee Farm

2011-04-05T14:43:00.003-05:00

As I have just finished reading Queen Rearing Essentials by Lawrence John Connor for the fourth time, I'm reminded of a quote from C.S. Lewis: “I can’t imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once.” Queen rearing is big on my list this year, I think that is the height of beekeeping.

It seems most of the bees came through winter well with few exceptions. I lost the one of my best hives to "Whoknowswhat",the name I gave to the affliction that kills bees when I don't have a clue why. Actually, I do in this case, but I don't want to talk about it because it could reflect back to the beekeeper (or bad "bee-havior", no pun intended, or rather, no fun intended) and regardless, I'm not sure the real cause anyway.

The winter was bad, the spring was somewhat better. The bees seemed to fare well, and I must claim credit whether I deserve it or not. Beekeepers are charged with the task of swarm prevention as well as early spring build up; unfortunately, the two don't go hand and hand. I have reversed the hives that need it (putting the top hive on the bottom and bottom on top to give the queen room to lay eggs and prevent swarming. The queen will almost always move up to the top box and not move down, even if the top becomes crowded. The bees will think they have no room and will make preparations to swarm). I have split what needed to be split, meaning I took bees and brood from some to give space for egg laying to prevent swarming and ensure a good honey harvest .

Hanna, Catalina, and their dad Bennett, are pictured above, shaking their girls into their new home.

As always, as part of my giving back to the bee community, I have spent some time helping other beekeepers, cousin Dwight for one as well as others. This always is a learning experience for me and hopefully for them as well. One thing we are proud of is our effort in helping new- beekeepers get started. This year it was helping sisters Hanna and Catalina acquire bees to pursue their new hobby. They have been interested in beekeeping for some time, and they have visited and helped with our bees for several years . Sometimes I wonder if the draw is Carolyn's cookies she always makes when she finds out the girls are coming.

Carolyn and I are looking forward to traveling to Athens, Georgia to pick up bees at Jennifer Berry's Queenery and helping Jessie set her own apiary. Also we hope everyone will check out Jessie's new bee blog The Beeman's Daughter; for us, it is like reading a letter from our favorite Daughter (Jessie maintains that she is not favorite, just first. Our other "daughter", Sheba, went to rest many years ago after a devoted life of chasing chickens and protecting bicycles).

Greg and Eddie Cope pictured above setting up a Moodyville bee yard.

I recently spent some time with Eddie Cope of Pickett County who helped set up some hives I purchased from him . It is always good to spend time with someone as knowledgeable, has such a feel for bees, and willingness to share as Edd . I can't say enough about him; if I do Jessie will just edit it out anyway (the editor maintains that all judgement calls are in the best interest of our readers, and are not subject to shameless pandering). All in all, everything is going well here at Holt Bee Farm. Look for more frequent future updates. As we all know in the bee world, springtime is when it really gets exciting! Wishing you all a happy Spring!

Correspondence with the Queen Bee: Nosema

2011-02-09T08:33:00.006-06:00

In January, we had some correspondence with the "Queen Bee" Jennifer Berry at UGA. She has done wonderful research and is just overall a very helpful bee keeper. Greg wanted to get her view on Nosema. He wanted to know if nosema is a problem for her hives and if so, what to do about it. Greg had read about it, but was reluctant to treat for it. Nosema is a parasite spread by spores, or rather spores are an indication of the parasite. If you would like to know more about this troublesome disease, check it out here. Healthy queen stock can help protect your bees from disease. Here is a picture of a marked queen.

(Image from http://bees.tennessee.edu/diseasepest.htm)

Jennifer reported that she does not treat for nosema at the lab or with her own colonies at this time. She does check for spores periodically and has yet to see any. She mentioned that many people have been using Honey B Healthy (which is available through many bee supply companies like Brushy Mountain). She suggested just being aware of what you have in your hives can help. This can be done at home if you have a compound microscope and preparing the slides. Since we are located in Tennessee, she suggested John Skinner from UT as an excellent resource.

We very much trust Jennifer's advice. Greg has mentioned that if there is a Holy Grail of beekeeping, she knows where it is. We hope you and your bees benefit from this information.

If you would like more information, check out this document about diagnosing and treating nosema from UC Davis. The more information you get on this topic, the more informed your treatment decisions will be.

Hope, Change, and other Plagues

2011-01-05T15:58:00.001-06:00

There are those that can and those can’t. And those that can’t, teach. I am fearful that I come in the last category destined to be a professor of last resort. I grew up hearing this “can and can’t” saying of old and it’s troubling to have put so much effect in to something I love so much, but still be unable to make everything work the way it should. I am rambling about Beekeeping after spending much time and work in the hobby that has become my obsession, it seems. I think I know less now than I did 30 years ago.

Taking into account the changes beekeeping has undergone in these 30 years, we may all be a little behind. There are at least two new kinds of mites, new species of hive beetles, dangerous pathogens both new and old, not to mention chemicals, which are now thought to be the cause of a new sort of hell on the poor honeybee. Not to be dramatic, but plagues of biblical proportions have been experience by both the honeybees and the bee keepers.

You may ask why someone so distressed would not just move on to something less stressful, like raising chickens. My wife said I couldn’t. Enough said.

Now that all the gloom and doom is out of the way, let’s get on with this article that is supposed to give hope to old and new bee keepers alike. The aforementioned warning is something a prospective new beekeeper should consider before buying their first bees. Once they get past all of that, let me tell them there is no other hobby or vocation that can give so much back to them in the way of satisfaction as bee keeping (and I have tried a few).

In light of sparking new excitement for beekeeping, I would like to list some of the joy I receive from beekeeping, or rather a listing of “Greg’s Favorite Things”.

· Making queens (my favorite)

· Working with Nucs and Splits

· Finding swarms, catching swarms, keeping swarms and figuring out why they swarm and dreaming up ways to prohibit swarms

· Wintering bees (this is most difficult)

· Experimenting with survival queens

· Harvesting and eating honey made by your own bees

· Just sitting and watching the bees go about what bees do and have for millions of years without us

Yes, it is worth my time and yours, if you are one that can enjoy just one of Gods greatest creations.

In closing, let me say I think one main trouble honeybees face today is PPB (Piss Poor Beekeeping). I’m guilty and I am sure many others are as well. Let’s all pledge to start the New Year with a promise to ourselves to learn more, do the best we know, and teach the little we do know to the next generation of beekeepers, in hopes that they will see a renewed love for the art of beekeeping.

Goodbye 2010!

2011-01-05T15:35:00.002-06:00

Here is a holiday letter from our Bee Master here on the farm. Warmest wishes to you and yours for a blessed new year.

December is almost over. Our hives are all closed up with mouse guards in place, upper ventilation installed, and supers stored. We have done everything we know to help the bees survive another winter, except use chemicals for mites and other pathogens. I haven’t used chemicals in several years for a variety of reasons. One, because I think if you raise your queens and bees from survivor stock, the bees will work it out, like they have for millions of years before we started helping. Another couple of reasons could be stupid and stubborn and may do more harm than good, but with beekeepers moving bees all over the country, importing bees and pathogens the world over, plus bad beekeeping, what could we expect? Of course, all this high minded thinking has cost me lots of money and, at least for the short run, kills a lot of bees. I hope I live long enough to see beekeeping as it was when I first started fooling with them. For sure the hobby has been interesting for the past few years, as well as expensive and sometimes heartbreaking.

We have purchased some poplar lumber for supers, built them, and are now waiting for more lumber. I love working with it. We are also ordering frames and foundation, so this is a busy time for everyone here at Holt Bee Farm (of course that is just me most of the time).

Nucs have been ordered from Jennifer Berry, some for Tennessee some for Athens, Ga for our daughter Jess’s new bee yard. I am excited about that, She has been good help for me most of her life; I think she will make a good Apiarian.

Today is the last day of the year. It’s been about 60 degrees and the bees were out. I did not look inside, but everything looked great from the outside. We have had the coldest December I could remember, but the girls seem to have fared very well. I suppose I can breathe easy now. I got a call from Cousin Dwight and he reported the same; his girls were out and looking good. This is his first winter of beekeeping and I think he was worried they were all dead, even though his bees looked well when he put them to bed.

Every year I try to lay out new ideas I have put together from reading, studying, and experiences from the previous bee season. Then I try to put the ideas to use for the new year. Most of the time I find out I was wrong. The new idea for this year has to do with nucs and queen rearing for replacement of poor or missing queens, to replace dead outs, and even producing queens and nucs for possible sale. I think one should have a nuc for every full hive you own, just in case something goes wrong at the hive. My plan is that all these components work together: the hive, nuc, and queen rearing. You build the nuc up by taking brood from the hive, plus a queen. You can build a hive by simply making a nuc strong, and of course, you use the nuc and the hive to make a queen. By the way, in case someone doesn’t know, a nuc is just a hive in miniature.

I’m sorry if I have not made this clear, but it has taken me thirty years to come up with this idea. It is nothing new, but rather it is just a way to make everything in the bee yard work better to maintain healthy bees at less cost and to be more self-contained and less reliant on outside resources. A beehive is a super organism and my plan is to work within that mindset and back up our investment.

I have a special thanks and wish for a happy new year to my favorite and oldest follower Tom Pruitt of Georgia, for his support, friendship, and advice. Tom has done much for this beekeeper, as well as for the beekeeping community. He is like a brother to me. Thanks again to Tom and of course his lovely, "trophy" wife Debbie Sue.

All in all this has been an exciting year in beekeeping and life, since the two are the same for me. Jess and Adam have been able to spend some time with Carolyn and me over the Christmas Holiday and we are thankful for that. We now look forward to starting a happy new year as we wish everyone the same.

Bee Happy,

Greg

Swarmin' Norman

2010-09-29T14:31:00.003-05:00

Ok, there is no Norman. But we will report about some swarms we have been seeing lately and also pass on some interesting links that you may be interested in.

Greg has spent the last month managing swarms and queens all over the region. According to Greg, every swarm is as exciting as the first one; so as long as his bees are staying put, swarms are good fun. After much experience as a bee keeper, one may find his or herself able to tell whether a hive is doing well or doing poorly just by passing by. This skill has helped Greg keep abreast of all situations in the fields.

Greg and Dwight have spent a lot of time together. As this is Dwight's rookie year in the field, Greg has spent much time teaching him the ropes and helping him manage a rowdy bunch of ladies. It seems as though his girls need constant reassurance. Speaking of drama queens, we have been working diligently to keep up our supply of queens so that we can replace who needs replacing without additional expense. David Laferney, a partner in grafting, didn't need his share of the queens from the most recent graft, but would rather have the combs. So Greg was happy to put those lovely ladies to work.

Here is some excellent info about Queenless Bees. This document helps you diagnose if your hive is queenless and perhaps at what stage of queenlessness you are experiencing. This FAQ from Bushfarms also helps answer other interesting common questions.

Also this is a beekeepers almanac that is very helpful in keeping up with what you should be doing. This is great for experienced and new beekeepers alike.

We also wanted to link to BeeKeeper Linda's visit to the Jennifer Berry Queenery. If you will remember, we have a few of her queens and have been nothing but pleased with them. Here is one post where we talk a little about them (and here is another).

More updates on Fall Maintenance and Winter Preparation soon!

The Story of Three Hives

2010-09-03T15:00:00.005-05:00

Friday, August 20th was a perfect day to relax at the home apiary and enjoy the bees. We will report on three of the hives in which we have recently been making some changes.

Hive #1: This was a hive that held a newly grafted queen introduced with a double screen queen excluder. Four days before, nothing much was going on in this hive so Greg decided there were not enough bees in the top. So he decided to move some from the bottom to the top. However, these relocated bees did not show their corporate ID's at relocation and it turns out Greg moved the Freight Division rather than the H.R. department (in apiarist's terms, he moved the Field bees, not the nurse bees). The way we discovered this problem was that the bees went right back home to the bottom, but not before they had cleaned out the top of the hive completely!

Hive #2: Greg had earlier observed that this one just wasn't right. As usual, his diagnosis was correct. This hive has a laying worker, which is a big problem since she can only lay Drone bees (for our younger generation, they are the "Scrubs" of the hive: no job, little ambition, no ummm...stinger). This situation calls for swift action.

Hive #3: This was a nuc with a beautiful queen who had been made into a full-fledged hive with lots of promise. However, looks are sometimes deceiving. Despite her beauty, she was useless in the laying department. This situation may call for a manual coup d'etat.

With news like this, there could be no more relaxing with the hives. Greg turned to the bee lair for a planning session.

Saturday morning after honey and biscuits, Greg and James took off on a "fix or destroy" mission (in this writer's opinion, that phrase could describe each mission these two embark upon). Here are the updates on these by hive.

Hive #1: Here they found the old queen and took her out of the hive to place her in temporary confinement. Plans are to wait 23 hours before replacing her with a small breeding nuc and a new proven queen by the newspaper method. This method is simply placing a newspaper between the main hive and the nuc, placing small cuts in the paper, hoping the merger will be peaceful.

Hive #2: If you recall, this is the hive with the laying worker. They began by taking a nuc and a queen from an out yard (Jimmy's yard) and placing it in the place of the old hive. They took the old hive about 300 feet away and dumped all the bees out on a sheet, with hopes that only the worker bees would make their way back to the hive. Greeting the returning bees would be the new nuc and new queen placed in the old hive. Greg put a queen excluded on the bottom box in hopes that she would deter the drones and laying worker from returning. We have not had very much luck in instances of laying workers. In the past, we have been successful by simply placing a frame of open brood in the old hive. This had to be done twice, but they finally made a new queen.

Hive #3: This hive also got a little treatment with the newspaper method. We will continue to post updates on how the sisters are getting along this fall!

Lord willing the creek won't rise...

2010-08-23T13:00:00.006-05:00

The French writer Stendhal said it best when he commented, "The man of genius is he and he alone who finds such joy in his art that he work at it come hell or high water. " Well, we've at least been tested through high water this week, and hope is all we have to keep hell at bay for now.

Last week our area got about 8 inches of rain in just a couple of hours. Check out some pictures here. As most of our apiaries scattered around town are well above flood-prone areas, the bees were safe. However, Greg did have to wade through swift flood waters to rescue our entire marketing division (a hand-painted "Honey For Sale" super placed down beside the road!). We of course were luckier than some to escape the damage this heavy rainfall has ravaged upon our state this summer.

In other news, we wanted to update everyone on the results of our latest queen grafting. About 50% of the grafts took and then about 50% of those mater and are now laying. They are looking great so far!

Greg is also working on a new experiment. He took one of the nucs that was unsuccessful at creating a laying queen and other one that we had moved the old queen out for re-queening and took them to a couple of nucs with eggs and larva. He grafted some of the larva in the correct stage of development and placed them in plastic cups and inserted them in the queen-less nucs. Three days later, one was beginning to build out the queen cell and the other had failed. You can see the queen cell in the picture below.

Upon closer inspection, Greg had over-looked a queen earlier, who have just begun laying. This of course was good news. Inspired by good news of early success in both nucs, Greg decided to do two more nucs the same way to see if this method will produce quality queens. We can neither promote or refuse this method at this time because of its unconventional nature; however, this was a good opportunity to get some more grafting experience without too much of a commitment.

Some of the hives are already receiving sugar sugar to help build up their supplies for the winter. We prefer not to feed, but we MORE prefer the bees not to starve. We can all agree that would be a terrible way to go.

Updates on the status of the water cannon experiment... it's not good. The few survivors have since been moved to another hive, which effectively ends that chapter. Speaking of terrible ways to go....death by water cannon is not at the top of my list.

Back to School...Back to School....

2010-08-18T07:11:00.002-05:00

In light of schools starting everywhere, we wanted to share a neat article shared with us by Alan Wood. The article is entitled "10 Valuable Life & Business Lessons You Can Learn from Bees". It highlights many of the enviable characteristics of bee and bee society. Enjoy!

Blue Eyed Queen

2010-08-05T15:24:00.004-05:00

Just a few minor updates for the week:

We are anxiously awaiting the results of our mating nucs we mentioned in the grafting post. Greg has already had a peek of one and the prognosis is not good. This is the one with just a few bees. We are optimistic about the others, but time will tell (time should tell us on Saturday).

Greg and James have cooked up more adventure. A small swarm dared to venture out of the bee man's reach, much to their own detriment. After repeated warnings to stay OUT of the trees, Greg proceeded to attempt to spray them out of the tree with the water hose. A bait hive was placed on the ground as their new home and the Bee Squad went on the offense with the hose. On the fourth down (fourth time knocking them down and them going right back up to the tree that is), Greg decided to drop back and punt, waiting to see what plays the swarm had up their sleeve. The swarm, severely tired out by the watery pounding decided home wasn't such a bad place to be. They retreated to the safety of the bait hive and settled in for the night. While Greg and James emerged victorious, there was little basking in the glow of their victory, as few of the small swarm were strong swimmers (read: survivors of Hurricane Greg). Greg strongly urges our readers NOT to try this at home for obvious reasons. We are feeding what is left of the swarm, but have not located the queen (who was most likely a victim of the watery assault).

Similarly, as you know Greg attended the Apicultural Society Conference at TTU. One of the classes he took was a Finding/Marking Queens class taught by Bill and Nancy Troup. This was a wonderful class and has helped Greg very much in finding and marking his queens. The first queen he found, he marked has blue eyes, one blue wing, and a blue mark on her abdomen. She should be easy to find again, as long as the rest of the hive does not tune into TLC's "What Not to Wear" and kill her for being too flashy.

The honey harvest is pretty much over for the summer. We are now getting ready for winter and selling our honey. It is sure is going fast. We have many loyal customers who were waiting anxiously and have stocked up again until next summer.

Past and Present

2010-07-27T15:14:00.010-05:00

Warning: Today's post is graphic!

(As in, we only have pictures to post. Enjoy!)

Future #1 Sales Person...

About 20 years later, still learning from the Master.

A HOT day! This is their air conditioning.

The Master at work.

Beautiful capping

Lined up like soldiers

One of the new hive locations

Also, just in case you are very observant, it is not perpetually January 2007 in our world. Our camera is calenderically challenged. :)

Back to School! (And an Update on Grafting)

2010-07-26T13:29:00.006-05:00

The Heartland Apiculture Society's 9th Annual Conference was held July 8-10 at Tennessee Tech University. Greg attended this conference and was pleased to take sessions by Ed Holcome, Bill and Nancy Troup, Kent Williams, and many more. Some topics that were particularly interesting were Seasonal Hive Management, Hive Increase/Making Nucs, Queen Finding and Marking, and Queen Rearing. According to Greg, this was the best conference yet! He learned many new things and got to spend time with lots of beekeeping friends, like Eddie Cope and James Crockett of Pickett County and David Laferney of Putnam County.

As previously mentioned, we tried a little grafting on July 5th. We grafted 23 queen cells in one week. Greg placed the only cell that was successful in a mating hive. 4% is not too successful, but we were pleased that the one we successfully bred was from the Jennifer Barry queen. One reason for this low rate of success could be attributed to the fact that Greg doesn't like to do things by the book. :) Often he has found that he learns more by fumbling around and trying things (or rather is FORCED to learn more BECAUSE of fumbling around). But live an learn, right?

So grafting round two... On July 14th, Greg and David Laferney tried again, grafting 30 larva. David furnished the starter hive: one running over with bees with no queen. Greg provided the larva from the Barry queen. On the 16th, we determined that we had about a 50% success rate! This weekend Greg installed the cells in mating nucs. We will wait to see the results of that.

One more update pertains to one of our new friends we have mentioned a couple of times in this blog, Dwight Johnson. Greg went to check on him and his bees on July 16th; because of his hard work and dedication, he has been given an A+ in bee keeping from Greg Holt, Ph. Bee.

Grafting Again

2010-07-08T15:40:00.004-05:00

Earlier this week, Greg decided to give grafting another shot (we have had fair success with this for producing extra queens). He started at the Jennifer Berry hive, since they have settled in nicely and currently are the best performing queens we have. He pulled a frame of eggs, or brood, and took it to the bee lair (or the basement, as laymen may call it). He grafted 23 larva into the prepared plastic cups (fake queen cells) and then installed the cups in a queen-less upper hive body that he had made by shaking all of the bees in the front of the hive and installing a queen excluder underneath, so that only the worker bees can go into the second story.

This is a queen cell (looks like a peanut with a hole in the top). Pic is courtesy of this site.

This is a plastic queen cup. Pic is courtesy of this site.

The queen-less hive body contains brood. The idea is to keep the queen in the lower hive body performing as usual, while in the top hive body, the nurse bees will consider themselves queen-less because of the excluder. Then they should proceed to make queens from the grafted larva.

In about 8-10 days, Greg plans to retrieve the queen cells and place them in a mating hive, which is a small hive prepared for this purpose with one frame of bees and food (like a honeymoon suite, if you will). We will see what kind of success we have this time.

We don't need an abundance of queens, yet it would be nice to have a supply ready to replace old or poorly performing queens before the weather starts getting cold. It would be extra nice to have a few extra to share or sell (Probably only to local buyers...cheapqueens.com turned out to be a bad idea).

Greg has begun robbing and is spreading the harvest out over the month of July. The honey, of course, is the best we've ever had. Yet, we have never experienced a year where it WASN'T the best we've ever had. For the record, it is always a true statement.

In other apiary news, we have located two new hives to Crossville, TN. We hope that the higher elevation will yield some sour wood honey, famous in that part of the region. If that is successful, we will begin looking for a location for more elaborate extension to the east.

SWARM!

2010-06-29T15:51:00.008-05:00

As Greg arrived home from town last week, he saw the biggest swarm he had ever seen. It looked as though all of the bees were making a run for it! The air was FILLED with bees. He watched it for about a half hour until it finely landed about 40 feet up in a red oak, much too high for a wise man to even think about going after it.

(You can see where this story is going...)

It only took a little encouragement from James to get Greg up on the ladder with the saw. Once the cut was complete, the bees decided to test Greg once more by going even HIGHER! They settled nicely about 75 feet up in the tree and closed shop for the night.

It sure would have been nice to hive them, since there were probably fifteen pounds of bees on the loose, enough to fill a wash tub halfway. But that is how it goes. Greg says maybe next time. Bean says maybe next time he will stay out of the trees.

Getting "Laid"

2010-06-18T15:09:00.003-05:00

Sorry to get your hopes us, but the only thing risqué about this post is the title. Bee keeping is sexy, right? Anyways, this post is about a laying worker, which is a death sentence for the hive.

While checking the White County apiary, Greg noticed that the activity at the entrance of the hive was not right. An experienced bee keeper knows that you don't even have to look in a hive sometimes to know something is wrong. Often times you can tell as much about a hive from watching the entrance as you can from a full hive inspection. After a look inside, a laying worker seemed to be the culprit of this misbehaving hive. Perhaps the queen died, or swarmed and didn't take everyone with her, but she was gone and a worker bee had taken her place. Only a queen bee is able to lay fertilized eggs (which will make worker bees) so a laying worker means that all the baby bees are male or drones (which means they just lay around sitting on bean bag chairs, eating cheetos all day) :).

Just an aside, if you are wondering what makes a queen different than a regular worker bee is how long the bees feed her royal jelly. All bees begin the same and the amount of days they are fed royal jelly (which is a substance secreted from the head of the bees, akin to nursing) decides their role in the hive.

To remedy this situation, a frame with eggs and young brood was placed inside the hive. With any luck, the bees will decide to make a queen from one of these cells. Sometimes this solution works and sometimes it doesn't. Generally nature has a better way to fix things, so it is just a bee keeper's job to nurture the bees and give them resources to make them successful (like with having kids!). Often the best thing we can do is get out of way and let mother nature work.

We will follow up with this hive soon. Our historic losses on this problem are pretty high, so we will see if the "less is better" option works out for us. So in this case, we are really more concerned about who is doing the laying rather than who is getting "laid". They don't call it the "birds and the bees" for nothin'.

"Queen" of the Hill

2010-06-18T13:07:00.004-05:00

Last week we received two new queens from Jennifer Barry (via Brushy Mountain). We were very proud to receive them because of their good stock and reputation. We think it is a good investment despite the price tag. We took enough frames of drawn out comb and brood from six different good performing hives to make nucs for the two queens. We did this on Wednesday. On Saturday, Greg checked on the queens to remove the cages. On Monday, he checked one of the host nucs and found several queens cells. We suspect that we accidentally took one of the old queens from one of the six hives with us to the new nuc. There was no need to panic, as Greg had a five frame nuc ready to be a home for one of the queen cells. He moved that nuc out to the Smith Apiary and can use that nuc as an emergency replacement or to help prevent late season swarming.

Tuesday, James and Greg checked on the two new nucs and all seems to be well. We thought that the host queen was killed by the new "Jennifer" queen, but it turns out that we didn't move the host queen. She was still creating some queen cells in her own hive, which meant they are thinking about swarming. So we put the extra queen cells in the queen castle to harvest those queens to replace old or ill performing queens. We also put two more queen cells and a frame for each into two separate apartments in the queen castle. Two good queen cells were left in the host hive for requeening. We will keep you updated on these queens soon.

From Mistakes to Double Takes

2010-06-07T23:08:00.003-05:00

Double screen wire that is! This entry was inspired by a loyal follower, Steven C., who keeps us on our toes. Jessie made a typo in the last post and shook up the bee keeping community with the elusive "bubble" screen method. Whoops! (A lot of good an English degree did her editing skills!)

Anyways, we decided to make a teachable moment out of our mistake and talk a little about the double screen method, the why's and hows' to this technique.

First, use a double screen 3/4" frame with #8 wire in both sides with one entrance on top side of one end . Find the queen put her in the lower box with capped brood and pollen/honey. Place the eggs and open brood in the top with some honey and pollen and either a queen cell, caged queen or let them make their own queen. Place the screen between them with the entrance in rear . The virgin queen will use this entrance for her suiters. :)

In about 30 days look and see if you like the egg pattern of the new queen. If so, you have some options: kill the old queen, move her to a bank for emergence replacements, or just take your chances and put the two boxes together. If you do this, the new queen will most likely kill the old, but you never know. Use a newspaper combine for the two boxes . With this method the hive will think it swarmed and will not swarm. Use this method to requeen cheaply and easily while having the advantage of two queens laying eggs for a while and end up with a strong hive for honey production. You can also use as a split and move the top hive to a new location for replacement of winter losses.

If you have questions or comments or stories to share about your own tips and tricks, please post them in the comments area. We will try to be a little more careful about our typos, but thought it was a good opportunity to do a little explanation. Wishing you all a honey filled summer!

Adventures in Bee Keeping

2010-06-06T14:36:00.004-05:00

Despite the exciting title, things are running along on schedule at the bee farm. We are close to the end of the honey flow and look forward to at least some honey this season. Around the end of the month, we will be able to take a look at the fruits of our (but mostly the bee's) labor.

Here are some updates about the action going on around the apiary:

We have recovered from winter losses, but not without pain, cost, and a reduced crop. We did see as much swarm activity this year yet (good and bad. Good we haven't lost too many of our bees and bad because we have no acquired new swarms from elsewhere). We ended up with two, but one was unsatisfied with the housing provided and left for greener pastures. Nukes were purchased this year from Walter Kelly in Kentucky and we bought some stock packages from Rossman in Georgia and Wolf Creek in Tennessee and Georgia.

In more swarm news, we used the double screen split method to prevent swarms this year. This method was quite effective, yet out timing was a little off due to slow build up or just because we still just don't really know what is going on with those bees. After 30 years, there are still surprises. Next year we plan to use this same method and tweak the plan according to the lessons we learned this year.

At this time, we have a few extra queens for replacements and splitting, from collecting queens cells. Greg's homemade queen castle didn't work too well. That is what we get from just going from pictures. Next time, we may try reading the actual directions... We ordered two more recently; they are terribly expensive, but they are needed in order to start getting ready for a strong winter.

Those two queens were ordered from Jennifer Berry at UGA via Brushy Mountain. We hope that these renowned queens will improve our gene pool, along with some survival stock from White County that refuses to give in to the mites. Greg hopes to do a little more queen grafting later in June for replacements. We will give updates on that, as we are still experimenting with this.

In other experiments, we learned a little something this year about queen excluders. We initially were using these to keep brood (eggs) out of the top super, where we wanted the bees to produce more honey. Our results were inconsistent. Some hives worked like gang busters in the super and proved the theory of the queen excluded. Yet some were really just honey excluders; the bees would not even have a presence in that super. This leads us to believe that while it serves the purpose of keeping brood out of the honey, this is less significant problem that not having honey. We have since removed most of the queen excluders and will deal with the brood in the honey in another way.

We want to mention a new friend/cousin/rookie bee keeper Dwight Johnson. We have been working/mentoring him this summer and we would like to wish him well with his new venture. We have found it immensely rewarding and hope he finds the same fascination with these wonderfully amazing creatures.

Greg's daughter Jessie has moved to Georgia but is still able to edit our blog postings. She is excited about pursuing bee keeping at her new home in Athens. We hope to get her started in the Spring. This is exciting as we will be able to learn even more about bee behavior as we see the differences in taste, timing, and maintenance from a more "southern" perspective.

We are looking at a promising new apiary site in Jackson County. There is LOTS of clover and it may be a good idea to take advantage of new accessible locations.

So this is an early summer update. Expect many more posts as we get ready for honey harvest, late swarms, hive build-up, and preparation for winter. As Greg says, it is amazing how much there is to learn about bees; you just have to learn by doing. The trouble with learning from experience is that you have to take the test before you take the course! He just hopes to last long enough to re-take the tests once the course is complete!

A Farewell...

2010-03-18T19:09:00.002-05:00

It seems some congratulations are in order for some of our staff / family . Our son-in-law Adam has been offered a new position in Athens, Georgia (UGA campus Minister). We are very proud of him and wish he and Jessica well in all their endeavors. Jess has been a helper, partner, and #1 sales person from age two, when we rolled the arms and legs on her mothers bee suit so that she could help; she has never been one to just watch.

Jessie’s humor and sound advice will be difficult to replace. Upon looking at my bee records, she suggested I would need a bigger truck in order to make money . After using her mother's bee suit for almost 30 years and getting a new one for her birthday last year, she bragged to James,"See what you get for 30 years service!" I am hoping she will continue writing and editing this blog from Athens. Maybe we can put bees in Athens, then I could count my milage. Her mother has informed me there would be a lot. Adam hasn't been that enthusiastic about bees, but we will miss him none the less. A quote from uncle Joe, " Hard Work and Success Go Hand and Hand." I guess Adam and Jess have proven that.

Something Lost. Nothing Gained.

2010-02-25T19:37:00.003-06:00

We've been busy, as you can see, getting ready for spring and hoping that our bees were tough enough to make it through the winter. We've checked on them periodically and have a few losses to report. We lost one hive in January and five in February. This is disappointing of course, mainly for the fact that we don't know exactly why we lost them. We have some theories, but no good evidence.

One potential reason for the loss is of course the weather. Bees know how to survive in cold spells typically. They stay in the hive and cluster up around the queen to protect her. They surround her and begin to shiver to produce friction and thus heat; they eat stored honey to produce the energy to shiver all winter long. As the bees on the outside fringe begin to get cold, the move towards the center, and bees in the center move towards the outside. We used to believe that as long as they had enough to eat, they would be fine during the winter. Yet, this winter we found hives of dead bees, some just inches from many frames of honey!

Another hive we found, we suspect fell victim to a laying worker bee. This can occur when the queen dies or leaves. Worker bees can only lay drone eggs (male bees). Male bees occur when the egg remains unfertilized. So strangely enough, drones have no father, but they do have grandfathers. (It's not quite as Jerry Springer as it sounds). Hives cannot subsist with a laying worker and eventually die out.

Mites are also another lethal foe to the honey bee or it could have been dysentery. Really, we have no idea. We will just keep trying to keep them fed and hope for the best.

We hope to have no further losses. We managed to save the honey in the lost hives to use in early spring to build up and hopefully split some strong ones we have left. Time will tell. Some times things go your way and sometimes you end up with a mess....

Whoops.

New Designs for a Long Winter

2010-02-25T19:07:00.004-06:00

We have been trying a new strategy with a few of the bee hives this year (i.e. it's been a long, dreary winter and Greg and James have numerous "projects" going in order to keep busy in the bee lair).

This picture is a more rustic design of bee hive, which is both functional and interesting. First, we will describe the functionality of this design. According to some, a different type of hive can serve as a compass of sorts. Bee hives normally look the same, and are lined up like soldiers ready to be sent to battle. Some apiarists choose to use different colors and graphic designs on the hives to help the bees determine the "address" of their home hive, while also helping the keepers to determine which hive is which. Another good reason for this design is to provide extra weight on the top of the hive. We have had some instances of hives getting blown over and thought this may provide a bit of protection from the wind.

As far as attractiveness, well beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The lady of the apiary was none too thrilled with the new design and made a royal proclamation: "Not in my yard!" Time will tell how many of our regular hives get converted. It may well depend on the weather and how much longer our bee squad is trapped inside.

Here is a picture that provided inspiration for the new, rustic design. We honestly don't remember where we stole, I mean, obtained this image. If anyone knows to whom to give credit, please let us know.

If You Can't Run With the Big Dogs...

2010-01-27T18:38:00.003-06:00

Here are some updates for January:
In January, we visited our friends in Frankfort, Kentucky at Dadant to purchase some supplies. We got more frames and foundation and headed back to Tennessee. We stopped in Byrdstown to get some lumber for the supers. Since then, we have been building the supers and frames to get ready for Spring. We have also been feeding them lightly (to keep their spirits up) and sprinkling sugar on a piece of newspaper and placing that on top of the frame. This serves to give them a little boost as well as absorbs moisture in the hive.

Given the cold weather, we had gotten lax about using smoke to subdue them since the cold does that to some extent. The Cookeville hives were fine without the use of smoke, yet we visited Sparta on a warmer day. When Greg popped the top on the Sparta hives, they met him with guns a'blazing. Without smoke, the only casulties of this battle were Greg, James, and Glen's dog (who took particular offense at this and rightly blamed Greg and James).

Bees-1 Bee Squad-0

Next time, there will be smoke.

The Tennessee Chainsaw Massacre

2010-01-27T18:07:00.003-06:00

One thing you don't expect the day after Christmas is a call about bees. We received a call from a friend whose son had cut into a hive while cutting wood. This particular acquaintance has had his share of run-in's with our flighty friends and has called us several times before. He knew the bee squad responds to calls in rain, sleet, snow, and despite post-holiday food induced comas.

Upon arrival, we witnessed a freezing flurry of activity coming from a freshly cut oak log. Our friends had unknowingly chosen a feral colony's home as their firewood and the bees were unamused at the disruption of their winter's slumber.

Upon inspection, Greg decided that some rubber mats would do the trick. The chain saw had cut directly into the colony and left the entire hive exposed; the mats were cut into strips and nailed onto the log to cover the damage (this was to mainly keep the rain out). A piece of plywood was used to cover the exposed end of the hollow log. We think this solution will keep the rest of the colony safe until Spring and that if the queen survived the "chainsaw massacre", they should be in good shape. If she didn't survive, they have little chance of making it through the winter.

We will go back in the Spring and check on the status of this hive. If they are survivors, we will relocate them to a new home on the farm.

Feral Honeybees are a valuable asset to your collection of hives. These survivor hives have proved strong through winters already, without chemicals. The idea is to raise your queens from strong, survivor hives so that you can introduce them to hives to breed stronger, healthier bees, with little to no chemicals. Finding and making use of these feral survivor colonies could be the key to saving bee keeping.

Winterizing

2009-12-10T17:53:00.005-06:00

Well, we've done the best we can do for this year. We took some losses in the fall due to a lesson learned the hard way. We have learned that sometimes you just have to let go of the weak ones. We need to concentrate more on good queens, combining when we should, and management. As a wise man once said, "Our doing hasn't caught up with our knowing." We knew better than to baby the weak hives as much as we did. Combine them with strong hives and good queens and they have a better chance of making it.

We are ready to go for the spring, and now all we can do it hope. Yet, hope and change has not always worked for us.

In October, Greg attended the Tennessee Bee Keeper's Association meeting, held at the Tennessee Tech University's Hyder Burks Pavilion. Overall, the meeting was excellent. Kent Williams from Kentucky was our favorite. Here is a YouTube video of him, well worth watching.

We are looking for a good bee candy recipe for the early spring, to keep them fed and healthy till the warmer weather brings the blooms. For now, we are studying up on new techniques and better techniques for next season.

In other news, Greg just finished a course on bee health from the University of Minnesota. One could say that he has officially earned his Ph.Bee. :) Greg found it very interesting and highly recommends this course to anyone interested in keeping bees. Beginners and experienced apiarists alike could benefit from this course (it is well worth the $25).

We have supplies ordered for more boxes, frames and foundations. We have some new bees ordered and we have decided to change to the medium size supers from the large. The large are extremely heavy when full, and let's face it: no one around here is getting any younger.

One of the goals for next year is not to order any more packaged bees. We would like to get our own strong enough to divide and not require any more than what we can produce. We also plan to do more survivor queen grafting.

We will leave you with a "Did you Know?" from some of our blog friends.

A tablespoon of honey tastes about 60% sweeter than the same amount of sugar, yet it has 20 less calories. When substituting honey for table sugar, use about 3/4 of the amount of honey instead of sugar listed in the recipe. If baking with honey, reduce the oven temperature by 25 degrees.

Update on Bee Removal Using Cone Method

2009-10-03T11:11:00.002-05:00

We wanted to update you on the progress of the bee removal from a house using the cone method. Overall, it was a huge success! We did have a few set backs, involving time and multiple trips, heavy hives, and poor taping methods. We now know to recommend Gorilla Tape rather than Duck Tape (on second thought, obviously a gorilla has superior grip over a duck, however, now we know for sure). We ended up with a pretty good hive that has been able to fortify itself for the winter, so we hope it will continue to thrive.

Summary of bee removal for this house: success. A lot of trouble, but at least we ended up with a strong result and learned a lot along the way.

Genius or Desperation?

2009-10-03T10:46:00.004-05:00

In August, we noticed we had one hive in particular that was performing well beyond expectations. As many times before, we can't leave well enough alone, we decided to do a little experiment that may prove genius or disastrous.

This hive originates from a divide of a thriving June hive that we built up from a package received in April from Clay Guthrie from Kentucky. As it is a good idea to requeen in the fall, we decided to see which hives would benefit from requeening. We got down to our last queen with no real place to put her because we couldn't find one of the old queens to replace (there were too many bees). On this particularly excellent hive, we had an extra super on top full of honey because they had been fed to maintain the strength of this hive (for later emergency feed to ensure they stay strong through the winter).

We decided to remove the queen excluder which had been keeping her out of the extra super. We wanted food, not brood up there) and we replaced it with a double-screen board. A double screen board is a board with two #8 screens on it that acts as a separation device. It keeps the top separated from the bottom, but allows the heat to transfer from the bottom hive to the top. It also provides and entrance from the top or the bottom. We put the new new queen on the top because it seemed as though there were enough bees already up there to take care of her. Also, we think that this queen is far enough away from the original queen to not be under the affect of her pheromones so that they will not kill her, thinking they already have a queen.

So the long and short of the story is that if it does not work, the top bees will kill our new queen and we are back where we started with a single great hive and down 1 queen. If it works, she will get to work and we may end up with two great hives and two great queens. Only time will tell, and then we'll know.

Our associate James is on vacation at this time, taking advantage of the paid vacation time provided to him. So for now, we are going solo. We treat our employees well to avoid dealing with those troublesome labor unions.

Fall is Here!

2009-09-25T17:28:00.004-05:00

This is a picture of the payoff for pollinating crops! This watermelon is from Jimmy's house were we keep several hives. They gave us this 80+ pound watermelon in late August. Lilian had never seen a watermelon this big in all her years! (she's nearly 2).

Fall is a busy time for bee keepers (as is Winter, Spring, and Summer!) as we attempt to build up and maintain for the winter.
To start, we have had some calls about late swarms (which is not a good sign if they are your bees!) but we were happy to get them when they are getable. Some decided to stick around, and some left again. We have also had some calls for a couple of cut out jobs.

Fall is the time for building up and strategic analyzing, deciding when to combine and how to make them stronger. Part of this strategy is re-queening. New queens are more vigorous and help build up the hive. Some queens can be good for up to five years, but in most cases they can do well for a short time, maybe one or two years. However, a young queen is less likely to swarm so it is best to replace when given the opportunity.

Another part of the strategy is pest prevention, meaning mouse guards and powdered sugar treatment for mites. Mouse guards are essentially made up of 1/2in hardware cloth. It is best to put them on in late September. The worry is not that the mouse will eat all the honey; the problem is really that they make a mess. We changed over to screen bottom boards in order to effectively incorporate the powdered sugar treatment.

Powdered sugar treatment is one good way to get rid of mites. The mites get on the bees, so when the bees themselves are sprinkled with powdered sugar and they clean themselves off by licking their bodies, it makes them slick. The mites fall off of the bees and down though the bottom screen board and can't make it back up into the hive. Supposedly, this cuts down your mites by 20%. This is a good, non-chemical way to prevent these mites.

We also got some fancy new suits. Jessie got one on her 30th birthday and Greg and James were able to get some new hoods and jackets with the proceeds from a cut out job. Let's just say it was about time.

In other news, we are looking for a new apiary site. We have maxed out capacity here at Holt Farms and are scouting our new territories for hives. Ideally, this site would be drivable as hives can weigh upwards of 150-200 lbs. They are heavy and hard to move, so it would be best to be able to drive right up to the hives and put them on the truck.

So as the temperature drops and the leaves fall softly to the ground, we are busy as "bees" getting ready for the long winter.

Late Swarm

2009-07-20T17:57:00.004-05:00

Greg was mowing today and saw what looked like a swarm of bees in one of the oak trees in the apiary. The swarm was very small and it is late in the season-- which is not necessarily a good sign-- but it is good to catch them! A late swarm will most likely not survive through the winter without special care (extra feeding, close monitoring, etc...). We like to use these swarms to combine with other hives that maybe small or weak.

So to catch this swarm, since they were only about 8 ft up, it was easy to climb up, shake them in a bucket, and pour them into their new home-- a nucleus hive. We don't pass up swarms if we can do anything about it.

School Days!

2009-07-20T17:37:00.005-05:00

This weekend we had a visit from two young ladies who wanted to learn about bees. Hannah, Catalina, and their dad, Bennett, came over to check out the hives and learn more about bees and being a bee keeper.

We went through one hive entirely to see if we could see the queen, but she was elusive that particular day and we didn't find her. We showed them the different stages of development and the different types of bees. The girls seemed to think it was "so cool"! Well, we thought Hannah and Catalina were pretty cool themselves. You are welcome back anytime girls!

The girls got some honey to take home for sampling and also got a birdhouse. Greg has been building birdhouses with the scrap wood left over from building supers and gives them away for donations of materials or free. They have a lifetime warranty-- the builder's life time, not the life time of the owner. If it breaks or you are unsatisfied, we will give you your money back. :)

Something Smells......

2009-07-14T12:01:00.004-05:00

We caught a perpetrator who has been suspected of eating bees. Skunks are a common nuisance for beekeepers. They visit the hives at night and eat any bees that come out of the hive to see what is going on. You know you have a skunk if the area around the bottom of the hive is scratched up and muddy.

We caught this skunk on Saturday and proceeded to engage in the "skunk removal" process (for all of you skunk rights activists that is all you need to know). We have not seen further evidence of skunks (although we did catch a raccoon, who we suspect has been a prisoner of ours previously) but we plan to proceed with skunk preventative techniques.

The way to keep skunks away from the hive is to put a piece of 1/2 in piece of hardware cloth between the hive and the block or the base. This keeps the skunks from feeding on the hive bees and hopefully will send the message that is best for them to be on their way. You can see from the pictures the tell-tale signs of skunk scavenging and the perpetrator himself.

Harvest!

2009-07-06T20:18:00.010-05:00

Today we robbed most of the bees (the Byrdstown hives and the ones here at the farm) using the brush method as well as the blower method. We prefer the blower method if things are set up just right. The brush method is very suitable for just a few supers if you only have a couple. We decided not to use the fume board to extract the frames because it was a cool day. Fume boards work better in the hot sun. We were happy about the cool weather today especially as James and Greg were trying to pull the heavy, honey laden supers up the hill!

We found one hive that was interesting. In June, we found brood in the top of the hive, so we shook all the bees down to the bottom and inserted a queen excluder. Upon our arrival today, we were surprised to see that the brood had been maintained and the bees on top had created their own queen. So we ended up with a complete functioning hive on top and bottom.

Also, we noticed the dire need for some new equipment. It seems the bees have conspired to find every hole in the bee suit and gloves. Greg came away with no less than 25 stings today. Perhaps if the sun would have been shining, there would have been less bees in the hive on the attack!

So with several rogue bees still hanging around the basement, we began to spin the honey. This season we got a new uncapping knife, which all in all works pretty well. To make the knife worth our while next year, we plan to put only nine frames in the super rather than ten. Nine would allow the bees to build the comb a little deeper allowing us to uncap it easier. Also it seems to burn a little hot (by the looks of Greg's finger anyway!) . Then we used the fork to uncap what didn't get uncapped with the knife. Then we put them in the spinner. The key is to uncap them REALLY good. If not, it seems no amount of spinning will get that honey out.

The Byrdstown honey is darker and is most likely poplar honey. It is slightly stronger than what we have here in Cookeville. The Cookeville honey is lighter and most likely a mixture of locus, clover, and popular. It has a much milder taste.

We still have several frames from the Cookeville apiary to spin out tomorrow. We have three more locations to rob before the honey flow is over.

In the pictures you see the super transport (a full super can weigh over 50 pounds), the new uncapping knife, and the spinner at work.

Bee Removal Techniques

2009-07-01T09:01:00.004-05:00

We received request from interested parties about the cone method of bee removal. We are happy to describe the process in more detail.

A simple but time consuming way of removing bees from a natural nest is to plug all entrances but one, and put over it a cone of wire mesh with an opening at the tip of the cone just big enough to allow one bee at a time to escape. A nucleus colony ( a small colony containing a thousand or more bees, and some brood ) is placed within a foot or two of the cone . As bees come forage from the natural nest and are prevented from reentering their home , they will join the small unit. After several (6) weeks the bulk of bees will have been captured . Then you can remove the cone, put some honey on the entrance, and the captured bees will then rob the natural nest of honey, after which you can carry the hive to a new location.

Generally this is more trouble than it’s worth but it’s a good way to save the bees with out destroying the building or wall. Every beekeeper should try this at least one time. I find it interesting . Every time I do this I swear Ill never do it again, but I can’t seem to turn down a request.

-Greg

House Arrest

2009-06-17T13:18:00.004-05:00

We got a call from a fellow who works at the phone company telling us about some bees in the block foundation of a house out on Shipley Rd. So this was a good opportunity to use the weakest hive of the lot and use it to capture and build up the hive we hope to extract from the wall of this house.

Upon arrival, we noticed that the biggest challenge would be the height of the wall. We counted 12 blocks up from the ground as the main entrance for the hive hidden in the wall. We spent some time the first day blocking many of the holes where the bees traveled in and out. We went back today to put the hive in place. We will be extracting these bees using the cone method- using a funnel to allow escape from the wall hive, all the while using the funnel to prohibit the bees from returning to the wall hive and instead going into the new hive (which was our weak hive).

We expect the extraction to take about six weeks, based on the lifespan of the bees. In six weeks, we will go back to the hive hopefully to find a full, well functioning hive.

We have a few concerns about this particular extraction. The existing queen in the weak hive is a little aggressive. She is the original queen for this hive and this hive is what is left of a swarm captured in Sparta several months ago. It had never been very strong. If things are going well at the end of the extraction period, we will determine whether to replace her or not. Another concern is that the hive is pretty far off of the ground. If a big wind comes, the hive body should stay together because of the way it is strapped on, but the bees will NOT be happy!

The pictures show the cone extraction set up. You can see the how high the hive is from the ground with the pictures of Greg and James.

Building Brood

2009-06-17T13:07:00.008-05:00

On April 4th, we ordered six new packages of bees. We spent two months building up those six hives and by June 4th, it was time to split them make room for more growth. Where we found a queen, we left her and allowed the other six hives to make a new queen for themselves. The six hives were split into twelve and stacked up on each other with the openings facing different directions. This did save some space but created some problems when we wanted to check on the bottom hives! We had to move the top two or three supers on each hive to get to the one below which was hard work in the hot June sun!

In addition to the six new ones we split, we also split one existing hive. So far after three weeks, all but one of these hives are looking good. One is still weak and struggling. But we had plans for it...

Welcome to Holt's Bee Farm

2009-06-11T12:03:00.003-05:00

Welcome to our Bee Farm Blog!

This blog will be used to chronicle hive progress and honey flow status throughout the year. We will post some pictures periodically.

Please contact us if you have any questions or comments.

Sincerely,

Greg Holt

Apiarist, Holt's Bee Farm