Swarm!

A swarm in May is worth a load of hay, a swarm in June is worth a silver spoon, but a swarm in July isn't worth a fly - so the saying goes.  Well, I just got myself a fly!  Yesterday while I was at work I got a call from Abigail about a swarm of bees on her block near 21st and Fitzwater.  I couldn't leave work until 7:00 so I was hoping the bees stayed put and fortunately they did.  My first chance for a swarm capture - I was pretty damn excited.

I loaded up the car with equipment and the family and headed across town.  We arrived and saw the smallish swarm about 12 feet up in a Callery Pear tree (it's the light brown colored mass at the top of the picture) -

 Here's a close-up -

I only had a 6 foot ladder which wouldn't be high enough.  My lovely wife had the idea of pulling the car underneath the swarm and putting the ladder on top of the car.  Then, helpful neighbors Abigail and Chad grabbed a perfect sized piece of plywood to put under the ladder to give it some extra stability.  Here's the set-up -

 The swarm was very mellow (as they usually are), it's an amazing site to see this roiling mass of bees hanging out on a tree limb.  Swarms are usually not aggressive because they have no home to defend and, before they leave their home hive they fill up their bellies with honey for the trip into the unknown and this helps keep them calm (like the post-Thanksgiving dinner kind of feel).   So all I had to do was clip the branch off and drop it into a nuc box that I had handy.  The scariest part wasn't the bees but being on the ladder, on top of the car.

Here are the girls in the nuc.  I would say that 95% of them stayed on the branch as I dropped it into the box.  The few that were flying eventually made their way into the box on their own.

 

Again, none of the bees were at all aggressive, they paid virtually no mind to any of the humans nearby.  I had about 50 on my hand at one point but they were just hanging out, not trying to sting me.

So my job for today is to get this swarm set up in a new home.  There is a good chance that they will not make it through the winter because they won't have enough time or population to build a strong colony but I figure it's worth a try.  Worst case scenario is that maybe they will draw some nice honeycomb for me that I can use in the future.


Here's helpful neighbor Chad, first time wearing a veil.  Thanks again for the help!

Growing Up

In the last week I have checked on all 5 hives and they are all doing well. I have added new boxes to all of the hives as they grow their population.  The queens need room to lay more eggs so that the colonies can expand and prepare for the rest of the nectar flow.  Some of the hives were stronger than others, some had better laying queens but we'll see how the hives progress through the rest of the summer.  There is a bunch of honey in the hive at my house and the larger two hives at the Field St site.  I am going to harvest some of it next week and bring it to the next meeting of the Beekeepers Guild.  We are going to do an extraction demo and I will be doing the crush and strain method.  We'll also demo how to use a honey extractor.

For the most part things were unremarkable when I checked on each hive, but one of the hives at Folsom St (this is the site where the tree was cut down) was sharing its home.  I opened the hive to see tens of thousands of little black ants and their eggs scurrying around on the inner cover of the hive (unfortunately I didn't get any pictures). It looked as though they were living in the outer cover - between the aluminum and wood. I quickly took the cover and dumped it off on the other side of the park.  The bees didn't seemed bothered by the ants but this hive did seem a little weaker than the one right next to it.  There are so many variables that it's hard to know if the ants were a problem.  (I have been back to check on this hive and it is fine.  The ants are gone and the bees are carrying on with their business.)

Here are a few other observations and pictures.

We had some really hot days in the past few weeks, some near 90 degrees. On one of those days I was watching the hive on the roof and I saw this -

Look closely at the front of the hive and you will see a bunch of the girls with their butts sticking up and facing outwards from the opening of the hive.  They move their wings while they are in this position in order to create a current of air to help keep the hive cool on really hot days. Basically, air conditioning!


In this shot you can see a new bee about to emerge from its cell.  On the left side of the photo look at the cell with the little hole in it.  The bee is chewing her way out the cell in order to join her sisters.  Pretty amazing to watch (I tried video but my little camera didn't do well with the close up).  The glistening liquid in the adjacent cells is nectar on its way to becoming honey - yum!!

 Here is some beautiful foundationless comb being drawn.  These are the Carniolan bees from Vermont - you can notice that some of the bees are much darker, almost grayish-black in color.

On this particular day of inspections, I did take a few stings.  You can see how I react - my left hand took one sting on the knuckle. 

 

This was about 24 hours after the sting, when the swelling was at its worst.  The itching wasn't too bad this time.  I am hoping that as time goes on and I get stung more that my reaction is not quite as severe.  From what I gather, it can go either way - you can become less sensitive or more sensitive. 

Thanks to fellow Guild member Dave Harrod, I found a book called Clan Apis - it is a graphic novel that basically describes in accurate detail what life is like inside of a honeybee colony, told through the eyes and mouth of "Nyuki" the honeybee.  It is an entertaining and informative read.  I am currently reading it to my daughter and she loves it.  To get a sense of his style, click on Clan Apis link above and then click the link on the right called "Killer Bee" and you can read a true story about the author (a bee researcher) rendered in his cartoon style.

From the Green Mountains to the Concrete Jungle

I promised more stories so here they are...

When I ordered bees way back in February, like last year I ordered two packages from the Seaborns in Tennessee and I ordered two small-cell nucs from Denny White in Williamsville, VT.  Small-cell nucs are not easy to find and Denny does not ship bees so I would need to drive to Vermont to pick them up - a bit of a long drive but I figured it would be a beautiful one.

So I left Philly on Saturday afternoon and drove to Pittsfield, MA where I spent the night with my friend Nicole (thanks Nicole!).  Then I woke up early and drove 2 more hours to get to Williamsville. I arrived and Denny was ready to pack up the nucs for the trip back to Philly. I was picking up two for me and two for another member of the Philadelphia Beekeeping Guild.  We drove a short distance from Denny's house to one of his beeyards. The setting was absolutely beautiful and idyllic - all I could think was "Wow, these bees are going to have a much different view when we get back home!"

Being up in the mountains presents different challenges than urban beekeeping.  Denny has had bears disturb his hives in the past. The white fence is electrified and that slab of meat on the fence is bacon - the idea being to get the bears to go after the bacon and touch the fence and ZAP!

As we packed up the nucs Denny and I had a little chance to talk about beekeeping and related topics.  He is a great guy and I could tell by the way he handled the bees and talked about them that he really cares deeply for the bees.  I think I could learn a ton from him and it's too bad we don't live closer - he would be a great mentor.  It is not easy to find people who have a lot of experience practicing small-cell, organic beekeeping and Denny is one of those people.

After packing up all of the bees and making sure there were no holes for the girls to escape from, we loaded them in the car. I drove home with 50,000 or so bees riding in the trunk behind me.  Fortunately we had done a good job sealing them up!

After about 5.5 hours driving, I was back in Philly.  I installed the bees in their new home right away - with some help from my assistant.  This site is a small abandoned park a few blocks from the other site.  Penny is planning on using it as a staging area for plants for her greening projects and also for raising cut flowers.

Here's a good shot of the queen - she is marked with a blue dot.  This makes her easier to find but also each year has a designated color so that you can know how old your queen is.

The installation went very smoothly.  The bees were mellow and no stings at all.  They were set up in their new city home.  I came back the next day to check on them and to feed them some honey to help get them started.  Much to my surprise, I arrived to a scene of destruction.  This was the view right outside the park.

Somehow, one day after I installed the bees, the owner of the vacant lot next to the park had decided he wanted to have the LARGE tree, which overhung the park, cut down.  I mean, give me a freakin' break - look at that tree, it has to be at least 15 years old if not more.  What are the chances that the day after the beehives were installed, the tree has to get cut down? I go inside the park and this is what I see - a large branch at least 6 inches in diameter is literally touching one of the hives.  The hive had moved a few inches but nothing was broken or damaged - unbelievable!  A few more inches and the hive could have been toast!

I was in complete shock.  I called Penny and she had no idea that this was going to happen.  The guys that were cutting down the tree had no idea there were bees in the park, just a few feet from the tree they were cutting down.  I showed them and they came in and cleaned up the area and were more careful with finishing their job.

So, the Green Mountain bees got a rude introduction to city life, but I think it will just make them tougher!  The plan for now is to keep them in this spot, but as I have quickly learned, with beekeeping you never know what will happen next!!

Bees That Way Sometimes

My stepdad has all these crazy sayings that he spouts when he wants to succintly comment on some absurdity of life (actually, usually he just says them because he likes to say them).  Last week he busted one out that I hadn't heard in a while "Be(e)s that way sometimes" - now with my new hobby, that saying has taken on new meaning!  (One of my other favorites is: "It's not so oft the cough that takes you off, it's more often the coffin they take you off in.)

What a spring we are having - the bees are loving it - the pollen and nectar are flowing and they are busy working. We have had some really hot days already - this past weekend it felt like July.  We've also had some good rain, which will ensure that a good nectar flow continues for the bees.

With all of the crazy snow we had this winter, our roof sprang a few small leaks.  I enlisted the help of Cory Suter, from BioNeighbors, to repair our roof. We agreed on him installing an environmentally friendly white roof coating. Other than Cory deciding to move the beehive by himself and getting stung on the head, everything went smoothly! The bees are happy with their new, cooler roof -

Unfortunately I will no longer be keeping bees at The Spring Gardens community garden.  After the hive there died, I decided that I didn't want to keep trudging up to the top of that shipping container where the hive was.  It was a pain in the ass and I didn't feel very safe up there either.  I asked them if we could find a new spot within the garden for the hive but they were unwilling to allow the bees to be anywhere but up on the shipping container.  It's kind of a shame because the garden is a great place and I would love to be able to keep bees there and use the hive as an educational tool.  Oh well, their loss.

The good news is that I have made a great contact in our neighborhood who is totally supportive of the bees.  Her name is Penny Giles - community activist, environmentalist, general go-getter and I would say, unofficial mayor of Francisville (this is the name of the neighborhood where I live).  Penny has found me two sites where I can keep hives and I have already set up two hives at each of the new sites for a total of 4 new hives.

Here are some shots of the first spot. Penny is planning on putting in a bunch of grapevines and other garden beds in this lot -

 

 While I was cleaning up the site, I saw a couple of these little guys - kind of cool to see them in the city.  As totem animals, snakes are a sign of change - and change is coming to this run-down lot - so I saw it as a good sign.

 Here are the two hives -

While installing the packages of bees, I royally screwed up the entire process.  I lost one of the queens (she flew away!) and almost lost the other (so I had to order one replacement queen).  In addition to that, I was stung 8 times on the head and face, which was tons 'o fun - here's a look -

Speaking of stings - here is a great article on remedies for bee stings - the winner for best drug remedy was caladryl and the best home remedy, toothpaste!

Something interesting happened while I was waiting for the replacement queen to arrive.  I went back to check on the hives one week after installing them and I saw that the hives were incredibly unequal in terms of population.  About 2/3 of the bees from the queenless hive had migrated to the queenright hive.  This left the queenless hive very weak and low in population.  But, because the queenright hive had so many bees, they were able to fill ten frames of comb with nectar and brood in just one week (that is fast!).  Once the new queen arrived, I did a little switcheroo to try to equalize the populations of the hives.  I installed the new queen and then swapped the positions of the two hives.  Now, when all of the field bees from the strong hive returned they would, unbeknownst to them, become part of the weak hive.  Well, it worked.  I did that maneuver about two weeks ago and I checked on those hives today.  The populations are not totally even but they are much closer than they were.  The strong hive is still really strong and the other one is now about average size.

So, lessons learned from this adventure - wear my veil, be better prepared, don't rush, stay calm and most of all, be very careful with the queen!

I have some good stories from installing the other hives too, but I will post those adventures later.

What's in Your Honey?

Think you know what's in your honey?  Just plain ol' honey, made by honeybees, right?

Wrong!  Think again!  Unless you buy your honey from a farmer's market or direct from a beekeeper, you have no idea what is in that honey.

What are some of the things that could be in your honey - besides honey?  How about white sugar? Or high fructose corn syrup? Or rice syrup?  Or maybe chloramphenicol - a highly toxic anti-biotic?

And that doesn't just apply to raw honey, but especially to any foods that contain honey as an ingredient - like your healthy granola bar or your Honey Nut Cheerios.

Think that honey you just bought from Whole Foods is really organic?

Wrong again!  There is no such thing as organic honey in the US.


Last year the Seatte Post-Intelligencer did some incredible investigative reporting on the state of honey production, importation and consumption in the US of A.   Take some time to read this and you will be pretty shocked - here's a little excerpt -

"Big shipments of contaminated honey from China are frequently 

laundered in other countries -- an illegal practice called "transshipping" --

in order to avoid U.S.import fees, protective tariffs or taxes

imposed on foreign products that intentionally undercut domestic prices."

and this too -

Since 2002, FDA has issued three "import alerts" to inspectors

at ports and border crossings to detain shipments of tainted Chinese
honey.  The order in 2002 came after Canadian and European
food-safety agents seized more than 80 shipments containing
chloramphenicol, which can cause serious illness or death among a very
small percentage of people exposed to it."

Then there's this piece - this happened last week - busted! But he'll probably end up walking, free to continue his unscrupulous business practices.

Now howya like dem apples?

Spring is here!

A lot has happened since my last post - all of the snow has melted, the sun came out and the trees are blooming.  In other words, the winter that wouldn't end has finally ended.  I wish I could say that all of the bees survived and are thriving but that is not the case - one of my hives didn't make it.

Shortly after my last post I went to check on the hive at The Spring Gardens and they were doing well - I was actually surprised to see that.  This was the hive that was really weak going into the winter and I had been feeding them honey all winter.   A month later on a warm sunny day I went to check on that hive again and this time the news wasn't so good - no activity at all in front of the hive and when I looked inside, all of the bees were dead.  They still had ample honey in there so they didn't starve.  Being that there was no obvious sign of disease, the most likely explanation is that the colony was too small to maintain the proper temperature inside the hive.  When a hive doesn't make it through the winter, beekeepers call it a "dead-out".  I was pretty bummed but not totally surprised. Here are some pics -

This is the view when I opened the cover, big pile of dead bees -                                  

After removing all the boxes, lots of dead bees -

I tried to find the queen in this mess but I couldn't.  Dead queens can be soaked in alcohol to make "eau-du-queen" - basically a tincture that can be used to attract swarms or wild bees to an empty hive.

A few of the frames looked like this:

This pretty much confirms that the bees were too cold - they climb into the cells in order to try to get warm.  All those little bee butts sticking out - a sad sight.

There is a silver lining to the loss of this hive.  All of the comb - some of which contained honey and pollen - can be used when I set up my new hives (oh yeah, I am getting 4 new hives this spring!).  The energy that this colony used to draw the honeycomb and collect nectar and pollen will not be totally wasted.  Using this drawn comb in the new hives will save them time and energy - they will have a nice head start.  The honey in these combs should also be enough so that I won't have to feed my new colonies any additional honey.  So I cleaned out this hive and separated all of the comb into 3 groups - comb with honey, comb with pollen and empty drawn comb.  Even the empty comb is helpful as it takes the bees significant time and energy to build the wax combs.  Here is a great shot of the start of some empty comb -

In honor of the fallen bees, I decided to take one of the frames of honey and harvest it for the family.  I used the simplest method for harvesting honey - crush and strain - pretty self-explanatory.  Cut some comb, mash it up and strain it - 

There was over one pound of honey in that frame and it was only partially full.  And let me tell you, that honey is AWESOME tasting - so flavorful.  Hopefully there will be lots more of that this year - so far the weather this spring is shaping up to be a much better year for honey than last year.  We shall see...

Check it out - email subscription!!

So I am pretty new to the whole blogging thing - still trying to figure things out. I just recently added a "Subscribe via Email" link on the side - look to the right - there it is! This should make it easier for some folks to subscribe to the blog and follow it. So, what are you waiting for - click on that link!!! That way you won't miss a moment of the non-stop excitement in Beeland!!

More snow...

Well, blizzard #2 has come and gone (though still lots of snow on the ground) and the bees have survived. Philadelphia has broken it's record for the most snow in a single season - 72.1" this year so far - average is 12.7" by this time of the year. We're far ahead of Portland, ME, Concord, MA and Albany, NY - all of which are usually pretty snowy places.

Here is the home hive -

I finally had a chance to check on the garden hive - I hadn't been there in about 6 weeks or so. I was worried that they had kicked the bucket, but to my surprise, there was a small cluster of bees still alive and buzzing. I fed them more honey while I was in the hive. Here's what it looked like - I had to shovel off the top of the shed because there was about 2 feet of snow on top of it -


In other exciting news, our fledgling beekeepers group is growing up. We have an official name - The Philadelphia Beekeepers Guild and a new website -

www.phillybeekeepers.org

There are some great events and classes upcoming too - they are listed on the website.

And, my plans to set up a new apiary in my neighborhood (technically called Francisville) are coming together. I have 3 new hives ordered for the spring and I have an awesome place to put them. They will be located on a vacant lot that is set to be transformed into an urban farm this year. I am very excited about it and it should be a great situation for the bees and for me. More to come on that...

Winter in Beeland

It has been ages since I blogged - it's quiet time for the bees so I guess I was taking a break too. Also, there is not much observable activity going on with the hives during winter. But, there is activity going on in the hive - here is a great little article explaining some of what happens in the hive during winter.

On sunny, warmish days the bees will leave the hive to do "cleansing flights" (yes, they won't defecate in the hive so they hold in their poop until a nice warm day comes and then they take a little trip to do their business). They will also clean house on warm sunny winter days - they will drag out the dead bees that accumulate on the bottom of the hive. This is natural and actually a good sign that the bees are keeping their home tidy.

My home hive seems to be doing well - I have seen them flying on warmer days and they have done lots of housecleaning. This has been a record season for snow in Philadelphia but so far it hasn't seemed to bother the bees -


In fact, we are getting another blizzard as I type - I will have to take new pictures when the snow is done. I am not sure how the other hive at the garden is doing. I have been feeding them honey and the last time I checked on them, about a month ago, they were doing fine. I will check on them again on the next semi-warm, sunny day.

Otherwise, I have been planning for the spring. I am hoping to get three more hives this spring. I have them on order and I think I have a place in my neighborhood to house them on but it's not 100% guaranteed yet. Once I figure it out for sure I will write about the new apiary site. I have been getting my 3.5 year-old daughter excited about helping me with the bees this year - we did a little project together - we have the best looking bee boxes this side of Paris -







Next post I will talk about my first venture into bee-sting therapy! Fun Fun Fun...

Bye Bye Boys...Hellooooo Honey!

Well, it has been quite a while since I last wrote. Summer has been busy, not just for the bees but for me and my family too. I have been in the hives many times since my last blog entry and overall things are going well. The rooftop hive continues to look very strong - they have put away a full super of honey (pictures later) and the population seems large. They are still bringing in tons of pollen, which most likely means they are bringing in lots of nectar too, so they are still making honey. The late summer weather has been much more cooperative then the early summer, so this means a better nectar flow.

The garden hive is still a little behind but they are trying hard to catch up. I just added a 4th super on this hive (the rooftop hive has had 4 boxes for a while now). I also fed this hive some honey to give them a little extra boost - they gobbled up 3 pounds of honey in a few days (actually, they most likely just moved the honey I fed them into the hive's honeycomb for storage). I also took a full frame of honey from the rooftop hive and gave it to the garden hive. In the words of the outspoken, queen guru of small-cell, zero treatment beekeeping, Dee Lusby, this is the Robin Hood style of beekeeping - steal from the rich (strong) and give to the poor (weak). Hopefully we will continue to have nice mild fall weather so that the bees will have plenty more time to work. This is what a frame full of capped honey looks like (notice there are some uncapped cells on the sides) - it weighs about 3 pounds -



At this time of year, one of the interesting things that happens with the hives is the "expulsion of the drones". In preparation for cold weather and a smaller winter population, the worker bees get rid of most, if not all of the drones. Those poor boys get dragged, bitten and stung as the workers kick them out of the hive. The "hive-mind" views the drones as a drain on resources and as little help in maintaining the hive. The ground in front of the hive is littered with drones - some dead, some half-dead and some wandering around aimlessly. They will not be allowed to re-enter the hive should they try. I did at one point get to see one of the drones being dragged out - there were 3 workers herding and corralling the drone out the front door! The workers will also chew out and expel any drone brood that are growing in the comb. Don't mess with these girls!

A few other fun, bee-related things have happened in the past month. We went to visit our friends and one of my bee mentors, Vicco von Voss, at their farm on the Eastern shore of Maryland. While we were there, I helped Vicco check on his hives - he has five or six, most of which were swarms that he captured this year. Here are some pics of us at work -

Here we have taken comb from one of the cut-outs that Vicco did and rubber-banded it into a frame - the bees will fill in all of the gaps, attach the comb to the frame and chew up and discard the rubber band.

Love the satellite dish coming out of my head - really looking like a space cadet!

And finally, a very shaky video (Teresa was holding Jonah & trying to take video!)

And one other exciting development is the founding of the Philadelphia area beekeepers club. We had the inaugural meeting at the historic Wyck House in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia. This effort is being led by Germantown brothers Joel and Jeff Eckel - who were recently part of a great article on hobbyist beekeeping in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Until now, Philly didn't have its own beekeeping club. This is why I have been hauling out to the Montgomery county beekeeping association for the beekeeping classes - but that is a good 45 minute drive - pain in the ass! There was a great turnout for the first meeting - about 25 people attended. I am excited to share with the group all that I have learned about small-cell, zero treatment beekeeping and I think that they will be quite receptive to hearing about these methods. Viva la small cell revolution!