Updates, New Colonies, and Musings from the Bee Farm

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

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

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!

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

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

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...

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.