Category: Beekeeping

This past Saturday, I finally went inside the beehive.  Of course, I”d thought about getting my daughter to take pictures, but the time that thought crossed my mind… I was already elbow deep inside the Warre hive. Another time, perhaps…

Unlike the last time I opened up the hive there weren’t any nurse bees greeting me; Instead, I saw honeybees busily milling over one another as they carried out their hive tasks. The scent that greeted me, was earthy sweet… a great sign of a vibrant and healthy hive. I’ve come to love that smell, thankfully I don’t need to open the hive to smell that.

During my inspection, the honeybees paid me no mind. They were busily cleaning, adding honey  and capping the comb. The queen wasn’t in the first box, based on the swarming activity I saw in the second box I believe she was in there. I took out two bars. My brother and nephew were in town so were able to sample some raw honey.

After everything was set right in the honeybees hive, I laid the tools I’d used on one of our picnic tables. I told my nephew to pay attention, because I explained that the honeybees would eventually find those tools and clean off every spec of honey.  We didn’t have long to wait in about thirty minutes about ten honeybees were on the scene busily licking up every spec of honey with their tongues.

My nephews eyes were as wide as saucers as I touched a honeybee and pointed out various parts of it body and explained how something seemingly  as this tiny insignificant is a major contributor to our food supply. The honeybee crawled and explored both our fingers. My nephew smiled and told me that it tickled.

But now ask the beasts, and let them teach you;
And the birds of the heavens, and let them tell you.
⁸ “Or speak to the earth, and let it teach you;
And let the fish of the sea declare to you.
⁹ “Who among all these does not know
That the hand of the Lord has done this,
¹⁰ In whose hand is the life of every living thing,
And the breath of all mankind?
¹¹ “Does not the ear test words,
As the palate tastes its food?
¹² “Wisdom is with aged men,
With long life is understanding.

Job 12:7-12 NASB

Did this happen by accident, I have a hard time believing that is possible. I know there has to be a master designer that has created all the things we see in this world.

I did take pictures of the honeycomb, I just haven’t had a chance to upload them to my computer… yet. When I do, I’ll be sure to share a few pictures here.

I just realized that it’s been a while since I’ve posted about my honeybees.

The hive is growing strong, all the females; workers, cleaning bees, nurse bees, etc.,  have come together to create a healthy & vibrant hive. I’m so proud of them. I still walk in our woods and check them out several times weekly. I love observing them, as they leave and return to the nest. I walk right up to their hive as they buzz about me. Thus far, I haven’t been stung. I’ve always found honeybees to be very docile, at least the ones I’ve encountered, and they pretty much have left me alone. I also enjoy peering inside the observation window too. One thing, I don’t do too much is open up their hive.

I guess I differ from some beekeepers in that sense, and perhaps someone might change my mind about getting in their more often, but it’s highly unlikely. I think they will be much healthier, the less I’m in their disrupting their bee space. This is a newbie beekeeper (although very well researched beekeeper) talking, but I could be wrong. If I am, I’ll admit my error. Because of the observation windows, I tend to stay as hands off as possible and let the honeybees do their own thing.

They say, that your garden will usually increase in produce if there is a hive close by and I must say that we have seen an overabundance of produce has been okra, onion, celery, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage cucumber, squash, etc., You get the picture. The thing is… we always see a lot of produce but this year it’s been over the top with our one acre of garden. We’ve been truly blessed.

Have I harvested any honey?

I haven’t harvested any honey and I’m not sure that I’ll do so this year, I’m not a big honey eater, but I would use it as a facial mask since it’s so good for your skin. It’s the honeybees food, and I want to make sure they have enough food to sustain them through the winter. Judging by the Farmer’s Almanac, it’s going to be a cold winter. We’ll see if their forecast is right, they were right last year.

Two weekends ago, I actually went inside the Warre hive. The hive is healthy, vibrant and really didn’t pay too much attention to me. This time around, I did something I normally don’t do.

I actually pulled off the first box (filled with comb I might add) and got a closer look at the second box. All I can say is those honeybees are hard workers. Many of the bars were filled with honeycomb! I marveled at how industrious the honeybees were. That excitement brought on some unexpected clumsiness. Can I just say that, I’m hardly ever clumsy, even under pressure. I bumped a bar as I was putting it back inside the Warre hive box. The honeybees immediately let me know they weren’t thrilled about that and rose up in a tiny cloud, only to drop back down inside after realizing I wasn’t a threat… I guess?

So I went to close up the hive and made another mistake. Instead of sliding the box along the length of  the box below I placed it down even with the box below.  Here’s the problem, when you do that the honeybees don’t have a chance to move out of the way and will get crushed if they happen to be along the edge. I thought I had made sure all the honeybees were out of the way, but there were a few stragglers. I crushed about six honeybees. 🙁

When you slide the box along the length of the box below, you give the honeybees a chance to get out of the way.  That’s how I’ve been doing it when checking on them in the past. I could kick myself for doing it the wrong way. I felt awful, in fact I still do. I learned an important lesson, stay alert when interacting with the honeybees.

I’ve been so busy writing about bunny rabbits, knitting, sewing and  vegan cuisine I haven’t been posting about my adventures in beekeeping.

The honeybees are going strong! Because of the recently hatched adults (mostly workers) there’s a buzz of activity inside/outside the hive. I observe them daily, watching hive activity is truly amazing. Admittedly for this new beekeeper, it’s also reassuring to see them like this. I have an active hive that is thriving and their numbers are continually increasing!

Bouncers: You shall not pass!

Outside the hive is alive with activity. I see a tiny cloud of the foragers (about 100 or so) some are flying away to gather nectar and others are returning once the are loaded with pollen/nectar. The guard bees do their thing and inspect every honeybee before she enters the hive. That’s their job. I think of them as bouncers. Bees that belong to a hive share a certain smell, if the guard bee doesn’t detect this scent the worker bee might get rejected. Of course, they will usually make exceptions for honeybees that have mistakenly gone to the hive bearing gifts (nectar/pollen.) They’re not going to turn down free food!

Honeybees with pollen baskets are one of the cutest things to see. The pollen attached to their legs reminds me of leg warmers. The few insects, that I have observed, attempting to enter the hive have not received a warm welcome from the guard bees.

Undertaker Honeybees

I didn’t see any dead honeybees, the last time I opened up my Warre hive. However, I did see a few dead honeybees about 100 feet away from the hive. So why weren’t any inside the hive? The honeybees remove them. The worker bees all have jobs in their home, none of the females shirk their duties. They’re all hard workers. One of the duties assigned to some bees is keeping the hive clean. Part of keeping the hive clean is removal of dead honeybees.

I must say, that it is truly fascinating to observe the honeybees that are assigned the job as an “undertaker.” I’ve actually seen them carry the honeybees outside the hive. to their “honeybee graveyard.” The neighboring ants have  quickly learned about this spot and I can see ant activity within that area. There’s not always a dead bee, but sometimes they get lucky. Then you’ll see  a flurry of activity as the quickly cart of  bee to add to their food supply.

Let the Honeybees be Honeybees!

I firmly believe that beekeepers can do more harm than good, by constantly interfering with honeybees home. You won’t see me doing that.  Relax, take it down a thousand! Let the bees do their thing and be BEES!!! They know how to this better than we do.

Because of my hands off approach, I won’t be inside my Warre hive that much. However, I most likely will check on them this weekend just to ensure everything looks fine inside the hive. I’ll be on the lookout for wax moths, verroa mites, and any other signs of trouble.

But judging by the hives healthy & vibrant community I shouldn’t have anything to worry about.

As mentioned in my earlier adventures in beekeeping posts, this morning, when I checked my Warre hive, I discovered larvae!  Here are a few of the photos that I took this morning.

The pictures are kind of blurry, my apologies for that. These were taken about 5:00 a.m., my bee photographer (ten year old daughter) was still asleep. The next time I check inside the hive, I’ll make sure my daughter takes pictures. It was challenging holding my Nikon D80 and maneuvering the bars to get a good picture.

 

If you look closely, you might see the “white things”… those are the larvae.

 

In the above photo you see the honeybees slurping up some water and you’ll see that there is pollen (dark reddish brown/orange dots) scattered along the bars.

The second box is almost full of honey. I enjoy watching the honeybees. I’m usually not opening up their Warre hive. When I’m not taking apart the hive, on my visits I’ll squat beside and observe them without wearing a bee suit. Our honeybees are fairly docile, they go about their daily tasks and ignore me completely.

Earlier this morning, I realized that I hadn’t looked inside my hive since I went inside the Warre hive five days ago. Which is fine by me, I want the bees to do their own thing. I observe them daily, I’m just not inside their hive.

Since I know the queen has been busily laying eggs, I decided to check to see how they were faring. While opening up the top box of my Warre hive,  I noticed a large amount of honeybees inside the first box. They were nurse bee and they were busily tending to the larvae. Oh that’s a good sign! The nurse bees were milling about feeding the larvae. I must say it was quite fascinating to watch them.

I did notice that two combs (in the top box) were merged at the end and so I took a butter knife to gently pry them apart. I have pictures, I’ll try to post them later today.

In one of my earlier posts, I mentioned that the honeybees have found a great nectar source, so they have been ignoring the feeders.  I did add water to one of the feeders so they can have a steady supply of water, but I won’t be adding any more sugar water.

Angry Honeybees

While checking the comb I banged one of the bars that the comb is attached too. Whoops, sorry honeybees! Naturally they didn’t like that and I had a small swarm of highly pissed honeybees checking me out to see what the heck I was doing.  I was safe inside my bee suit, and after a bit of bouncing on my head and a few squirts from my spray bottle that contained water,  they were fine. They went about grooming themselves. I looked at them a bit more before closing up the Warre hive and trudging back to the house.

Fun Fact:  Did you know that the honeybee queen has a smooth stinger? Unlike the worker honeybees that have a barbed stinger, so they’ll die after they sting, she won’t die since her stinger is smooth. You might wonder why she’s different? The newly emerged queen kills other queens (by stinging them) before they come out of their queen cells. Remember, there’s normally only one queen per hive.

 

Edited to add: I’ve posted a few of the photos I took of our honeybees this morning.

Since acquiring our honeybees, I check on them daily. I love watching them. I must say they add additional joy to my already sparkling days. Life is too short, to spend it grumbling/complaining. I make the most with what’s been given to me.

Bee watching is fascinating…

While it’s true that I have gleaned a lot of knowledge about honeybees from my years of research about them that experience is  completely different than actually having your own hives. Since introducing honeybees onto our property, my knowledge (and love) of these amazing creatures  has increased! I’m enjoying my adventures in beekeeping immensely.

 

When I check out the honeybees, I rarely open up the beehive and I’m not always peeking into the observation window. I just like watching what they do.

 

From my observations I’ve found that around 6:00 a.m., most of the honeybees are still inside the hive (for now).

 

If you were to think they’re sleeping at that time, you would be wrong. As you can see they are fairly active with their inside hive duties.

 

 

As the day progresses, you’ll see the foragers come outside the hive to gather nectar (some collect water) and I enjoy watching them return to the hive. The guard bees are at the entrance to greet them and make sure they actually belong to the hive.

It’s amazing watching a healthy and busy beehive.  And for me, it’s another sign of how truly awesome our God is.

Thanks to the added insect repelling plants and neem solution my daughter and I are able to sit outside and watch them without being bit!