A blog originally for keeping track of my hobby of being a Beekeeper which has evolved to include Home Brewing and even more recently to follow me and my families approach to "The Good Life". Eventually I hope to include baking recipes and stories of our flock of chickens also reporting on the success and failure at the allotments.
In the last few weeks I have been busy getting ready for the new Beekeeping year. Firstly I have purchased plenty of jars in anticipation of a good honey crop. Even if I don't fill all the jars next year, which I don't expect to do, then I will have spare for the following year or some nice jars to use for jam making! I bought my jars from a glass company in Leeds called Spinkscompak. They have a wide range and as a member of Yorkshire Beekeepers I received a discount.
A full box of 108 hexagonal jars
These will look great with my honey in and labels!
A larger 1lb jar. I have 72 of these.
...and of course the lids for the jars!
I have also been making frames ready to go into my second hive that I hope to get occupied with Bees in the spring. I have made enough to fill 2 supers and just need to make the frames to go into the brood box now. Below is some pictures of me making frames.
All the pieces of a frame before assembly.
This piece gets cut out and nailed back in on top of the foundation.
The frame made up without being nailed together yet.
A nail in each corner, both sides, keeps the top bar in place.
Remember the bit cut out earlier, it is now nailed over the foundation securing it in place
The finished frame ready to be "drawn out" by the Bees ready for honey storage!
Last Tuesday I went up to the apiary to remove the honey that my Bees have kindly made for me. I didn't want to take too much from them as they have worked so hard for it so I took 5 completely capped frames and left all the half full ones. The Bees will continue to collect honey up until the flowers have gone but what they collect from now will all be theirs and hopefully this will reduce the amount of sugar syrup I'll need to feed them over the winter.
This time I was on my own and didn't take any pictures and will be taking less pictures in the future as I don't want too much repetition. When I arrived the first thing I did was light the smoker and then suit up. When I was suited up I went to the hive and removed one of the supers and swapped around the frames so I had 5 full frames of honey and 5 frames the Bees haven't got round to drawing out yet. The weight of the frames were impressive and later on worked out to be over a kilogram each. When I'd got the frames of honey I closed the hive up and collected the debris underneath to do a Varroa count later. I didn't inspect the brood chamber this time as the hive had been open a while by then.
When I got home I sent an email to the secretary of Wakefield Beekeepers asking for the contact to hire an extractor for the day. I was sent details of a man called Keith that lives a couple of junctions up the motorway so was in short driving distance. I called him on Thursday and arranged to pick the extractor up after work. The extractor is a 9 frame electric one and it cost £2 to rent for the day, bargain.
The frames in the super
A almost fully capped super frame
Using a sharp knife the cappings are removed
A sticky job but fun
The frames are placed in the extractor which spins at high speed forcing the honey out of the frames
The liquid gold running into a storage bucket via a pair of tights! This filters out bits of wax in the honey. I will need a better filter if I intend to sell the honey
The first jar of my honey
I took the above bottle to work to let people taste it and I think it went down well.
You may have noticed that there has been no mention of the varroa count up until this point. I haven't forgot, I just didn't have time to do it until today. There were 71 mites that I counted which was over 15 days. Below is the report from Beebase. I will be treating them ready for winter on my next inspection even though the count is still low as it's increasing at a alarming rate.
Average Daily Mite Fall = 4.7 varroa mites
Estimated number of adult varroa mites in the colony = 190
Treatment is recommended in about 9 month(s) time (counting from day of first monitoring).
This inspection both me and Steph went as my sister was babysitting. As Steph was a little more hands on with this inspection I'm letting her write the bulk of this post. I will be back at the end with the varroa count.
There's a change in author this week! I am very scared of bees, but I am facing my fear. Slowly, I am getting a little braver. I started off near to the closed hive without a suit, but standing very close to the apiary door so I could make a quick getaway should I panic. Next, I put my suit on and went right into the apiary while the hive was open, and Morley did the full inspection. And this time with a suit on I actually held a couple of frames! The rest of the time I play role of paparazzi to the bees. Apparently I'm doing a full inspection (under supervision) next time we can get a babysitter... So this is to prove that I listen to my other half and pay attention when he talks about his buzzing girls (and few boys)!
The roof of the hive and the two supers were removed to expose the Queen excluder, which can be seen above. The bees can be seen building foundation in the wrong place, and most of this was removed.
The first frame in the brood chamber to be examined; the damaged area is where the dummy board had stuck to the stores, and it looks like the bees set to repairing the damage immediately. There are capped stores to be seen at the top of the frame.
Me, inspecting a frame. It was heavy and covered in bees, and also had many cells of larva. It was the first time I'd been able to clearly see the babies.
Me, relieved that I did it! It wasn't as bad as I expected. In fact it felt safer to hold the frame than stand next to the open hive with individuals buzzing around my head!
Handing over to the expert for the really busy centre frames. Next time...
A busy centre frame; Queen Beeatrix is in the middle to the left.
Me again! This time checking out a super frame. No problem after doing the one absolutley covered in bees before!
A super frame, almost fully capped, full of honey. It was extremely heavy! Thanks ladies :-) Can't wait to sample it!
And now for the technical bit...
Thanks for that Steph. Also mention that I added a wasp trap to the allotment; this is basically a large jam jar with some diluted jam in, then a wasp size hole in the lid. Apparently this will trap lots of wasps without harming the bees. I'll try to get a photo of it for next time.
When we got home I got onto counting the varroa mites within the debris. I found 21 mites which is 7 more than last week, however I am still not worried as the estimated amount in the hive is still well below the danger level. Also I have not seen any sign of varroa related disease.
Average Daily Mite Fall = 3.0 varroa mites Estimated number of adult varroa mites in the colony = 120 Treatment is recommended in about 9 month(s) time (counting from day of first monitoring).
Today I did a quick inspection of the inside of the hive. Technically not a full inspection though as I didn't check all the combs due to time allowed. The main point of today's visit was to add a super to the hive. Unfortunately this time I was on my own so was unable to get any pictures of the inspection, though I did do this short video of the activity in front of the hive.
After I'd lit the smoker and sent a few puffs into the hive I removed the roof and started my inspection. From the few frames I did manage to check there were eggs, larva and capped brood present, as well as plenty of food. The amount of Bees inside the hive seems to have risen a lot since last time also, so all in all I'm happy with the progress so far of my Bees.
Once I'd checked a few frames I tried to remove as much of the wax that the Bees had made on top of the brood frames so I had room to put on a Queen excluder. The Queen excluder is used to stop the Queen getting into the supers and laying eggs as this area is meant just for honey storage and not brood rearing; no Queen, no eggs, no brood. Once I'd removed as much comb as I could I added the excluder and then put the super on top. The Bees will now, hopefully, start to draw out the comb in the super and then start making honey!
Once home I took a picture of the brace comb I'd removed and then washed it in hot water to get rid of any syrup that was in the cells. When it was nice and warm I rolled it into the ball of wax I already had. When I have enough wax I may have a go at candle making!
Brace comb. The ball in the corner is what I've collected already.
After I'd packed up all my equipment I collected 1.4 kg of raspberries and a handful of cherries from the allotment.
Today's inspection was an especially good one as my better half came with me. We started off by suiting up and getting the smoker going. Steph took plenty of pictures so will use them to tell the story,
Smoker in one hand, hive tool in the other - Ready!
Bees flying outside th hive entrance.
Hive roof removed, just checking the feeder; they had plenty of syrup left.
Lots of brace comb to be removed before the crown board is replaced.
Loads of Bees! A few puffs of smoke across the top and most will retreat into the hive.
The Bees have drawn out the comb on the left and on the right where it is just foundation still.
A closer look at the comb. Clever Bees.
Plenty of syrup stored and to the left of the comb where they have capped it ready for later.
First frame of brood.
This frame is full of capped brood, eggs and larvae.
Mainly capped brood. In a few days these will hatch into new workers. Also the Queen is in this one!
