BEES: An Un-BEE-lievable July!

written by Tom

Okay, it's been a week. This was the moment of truth. Had my girls touched the honey super I'd put on top in just one week? I'd been told they'll likely ignore the super. But I'm a gambling man, and I'd rather watch them ignore it than not try. If they went for it, I'll be a major step up for next spring's nectar flow and so much closer to honey. I know, I know, I'm working hive Boris like there's no tomorrow. Just don't tell the honey bee union, or I'm in trouble. Here you can see the two beetle jails I installed last week, also.

Woo-HOOO, they're going for it. This is the end frame. You can actually see they've begun drawing out the first two-thirds of the foundation from the top down. Once they finish, the comb will extend beyond the support wires I installed on each and every frame for added durability, helping the comb to be strong from within (which is great come honey extraction time).

Not just the first end frame, but frames two and three also were being drawn out. SUCCESS!

Every frame, EVERY SINGLE ONE, had been worked in the honey super in just one week. Holey moley! This was a favorite of mine, since they'd reached the bottom with fresh beeswax they'd secreted and shaped into comb. I was ecstatic to see so much success in such a short period of time. This further ensures my love of Russian bees. They do take longer to gear up than the Italian variety, but they also defy odds and are amazingly industrious when they want to be. Wow! I'm going to have honey next year, people (okay, okay, I'll calm down now)!!

After the super, I moved onto the top brood box. I'd taken three honey frames out of the top brood box over the past two weeks. Last weekend I noticed they'd not touched one of the replaced frames on the West end of the box. But in the last weekend they definitely started drawing it out. In fact, there was an odd chunk of burr comb on the face of this that I removed.

Another previously untouched frame, underway. I also noted the increased number of drone cells I saw capped, too. There are more male eggs being laid by the queen. Hive Boris now has plenty of useless, big honey-eating male bees wandering around. I believe I will requeen this hive when I make the split for hive Natasha. This should help ensure overwinter success for Boris and honey next spring. I removed another strange biscuit of comb that was attached to this frame, which two weeks ago was blank. More success!

They're prepping for autumn and winter well, with lots of simple syrup honey on the brood box frames.

Lots of bees greeted me in the top brood box, and lots of comb.

I only checked the top box, not the bottom. I'm always wondering "is she still in there?" about the queen. More capped brood in a nice pattern, lots of honey stores, and drone cells out the outlying edges on this one. She'd worked the top box nine days ago. The hive was unusually calm and not at all defensive. I took all this as a good sign, and that her highness is alive and well.

And here's a shot of the last two frames, which two weeks ago were blank after I'd removed honey frames. These girls had fully drawn out these big deep frames. They're ready for food stores and eggs. Hive Boris has been working at full speed, in direct full sun with highs close to or hitting the 100-degree mark. This hive is boiling over with bees, and ready to split.

I am convinced the full sun has kept beetles and moths at bay, especially the beetles. Just in case, last week I put in four beetle traps. I've only seen three small hive beetles this season, and three wax moths outside the hive trying to get in. This week I saw no moths at all. But this beetle jail managed to nab one of the bad guys. The bees enjoy chasing the beetles into the traps, which contain vegetable oil and kill the beetles.  They'd also begun drawing out this end frame as well.

Now, if I was serious about splitting, I'd have to get my hands dirty. This wasn't necessary now. I could just let the bees rob the honey frames over several days. That just seems so unseemly to me. And I needed to get my extracting equipment in order. So why not spin out those four frames, get my hands dirty a bit and have them ready for Hive Natasha's queen to lay in? So out came the steam cleaner.

Doing this for the first time, in my own setup, on my own screened in back porch was wonderful. It took a while to clean and prepare, but once I did so, it was butterflies and excitement to remove those first cappings!

My tangential bench extractor can handle two deep frames at a time. After freezing the frames for about a week each, I'd moved them to my awesome, vintage Coleman cooler I inherited from my late dad. The cooler will hold nine deep frames of comb. It kept them safe and sound until I could extract.

It also makes for a great bench for this, well, bench extractor.

I spun and spun, but it didn't take much for the extractor to do each side (with tangentials, you have to spin out one side, rotate the frames and then spin the other). It was a lovely Sunday afternoon. And then I opened the honey gate. Wow, look at that "honey" they'd made out of the simple syrup I'd been feeding them.  collected 18 pounds, or a gallon and a half of syrup honey that I'll feed back to the bees via the top feeders.

It kept coming and coming. Yes!! This was a big deal. In just two months I'd gotten this far, and gotten the bees to prepare for next spring's nectar flow, and done a dry run of what it'd be like come honey time at T's Bees. Pretty cool. Next up, splitting and creating Hive Natasha.

VEG: Hot, hot, hot

written by Yvonne

It's hot outside. Very, very hot. Last weekend we started our outdoor stuff as early as we could and braved the heat to get some things done in the garden. Overall we've been somewhat disappointed with our summer garden so far. We just haven't had the success we did last year and are lacking some summer staples like tomatoes, herbs, hot peppers, and such. Aside from squash and cucumbers we have managed to grow one thing well; weeds. I worked on papering and pine needling the bit of ground on the side of the house we tilled up in spring, while Tom (and Olive) worked on the vegetable beds. This was the bed that housed the squash, green beans, and dill. We'd already pulled out the beans and squash so Tom set down a layer of newspaper...

and topped it with pine needles.  The newspaper will snuff out the weeds and the pine needles will be a nice mulch around our fall plants.

He did the same with the okra and tomato bed.

After sweating at least a rain barrel's worth of sweat, we moved inside to cool off. Last Christmas I gave Tom a device to use to make our own peat pots out of newspaper. Here's how it works.

Cut strips of paper 3"x10" long. Wrap three strip of paper around the wooden press.

Keep wrapping until the strips are fully around the press.

Fold the ends of the paper against the bottom of the press.

Mash the press into the form.

The form pushes the paper together so that it holds.

Newspaper pots!

Next post?  We'll see if these things actually work.

BEES: Mid-July Magic

written by Tom

So it's hot as blazes out there. The bees are permanently parked out on their front porch to catch the cool night air. Their nighttime hum is mesmerizing.

I asked Yvonne to permanently attach my boot bands to my bee suit (a pair of Dickey's coveralls she's been customizing for me). Olive was helping out, too.

It is haute couture. The beekeeping and fashion worlds have now collided. My friends at Belk and the local beekeepers group can both be proud now.

Ahhh, functional and easy to use. No more fumbling with the separate bands, trying to get a tight fight on my leggings so bees don't crawl up my sensitive legs and no more wondering, "Now where did I put those boot bands?!"

This end frame was blank two weeks ago. They'd drawn all of one side and most of another out. The summer feedings are keeping them hard at work building honeycomb.

Tight brood patterns were found this visit. I felt guilty working them in the heat, but it had been two weeks and I had work to do. The queen, though not seen, is doing well. Now she's laying drone cells (male bees, which are larger), at the bottoms of the frames in the middle of both boxes. You can see the larger bullet-sized cells to the right of this photo.

And for a closer view (cause one shot just won't do it).

Lots of tight brood patterns. I also found single eggs freshly laid in both the top and bottom boxes on this visit. This queen is all over the place and is laying, laying, laying. I think I'll keep her around over winter instead of replacing her in a couple of weeks.

This frame was only partially built out, and the queen had already laid eggs, both male and female, in the center of the frame where comb had been drawn out.

After having totally disturbed them on a hot, hot, hot July morning, it was time to give both boxes another powdered sugar dusting for mite control. One bee couldn't wait and hovered around the top of my sifter the whole time. I also added four beetle traps, even though I've only seen three small hive beetles this year. I think the blazing hot direct sun, and my Russian bees have kept the pests at bay. Still it pays to be prepared. The late summer is when the SHB really starts to pack a punch. They can ruin a hive, sliming it with secretions and larvae eating everything in sight. Not on my watch! Of course I was told to be careful, and I was, to not spill the oil in the traps. And of course I tipped one beetle trap just a little, but some oil leaked out. I quickly said a prayer in the hopes I haven't killed my queen. I seem to be doing that more and more. You just have to go with the flow and hope for the best ... hope that crunch you hear of a bee going to bee heaven isn't Her Royal Highness ... or that your next goofup doesn't doom your royalty. We'll see. Fingers are crossed.

I took a fourth honey frame away. This will make my split in two or three weeks go smoothly, thereby creating two hives. The new hive, Natasha, won't have to work as hard as hive Boris has. That's why I've been feeding them in the two months I've had them. They've drawn out 22 deep frames' worth of comb. I've reserved four for the second hive. Now I've added a honey super. I want Boris to draw out comb this year for honey supers, so that next spring they won't have to spend their time drawing out comb but instead bringing in nectar and creating honey. That way I should have honey next year. We'll see if they pay the super any attention. I added a queen excluder to keep her out of the super so she won't lay eggs up there. The screen is big enough only to allow the smaller worker bees up top.

After the super was added, I cleaned out the top feeder, which then went back in place atop it all. The hive has totally grown. Wow, look at Boris now!

 

For comparison's sake, here are some shots of my hive that I forgot to include, from pickup day back in May. There it sat at the far right, the only bright yellow box out there in a "nuc field", chock full of other nucleus colonies. Wayne Hansen of the Mecklenburg Beekeepers was waiting on us.

Here Libby Mack, treasurer of Meck Bees, preps the nuc box for moving.

I found these shots on my phone and regretted not putting them on the blog. While Libby was prepping my box, Wayne gave another beek advice on moving day. He also gave a lot of input throughout Bee School 2011. And, it was totally cool seeing all these nucs in a single yard.

What's even more remarkable to me is that my nuc came with five drawn frames of bees, brood and queen. And in just two months they've grown from just a few thousand bees to like a gazillion bees now. While I got a late start, due to overwhelming demand on bees and queens this spring, my girls have really worked hard and grown to an amazing strength. So much so that I'll be able to have two hives this year when I was only expecting one. The magic of bees is something else ... and always surprising.

If you garden, you'd better be friendly with your neighbors...

written by Yvonne

TYVeggiePatch has gone all veg advocate and high-tech!  Seems as though we can add a video to our blog. Who knew? (Probably everyone but me.)

Anyway, I received this story today in my weekly Organic Gardening Connect Newsletter. Click on the videos below to see the news story.  The first one is the initial story and the second is the follow up.

Oak Park Woman Faces 93-Days in Jail For Planting Vegetable Garden 

 

 

Oak Park Charges Dropped, New Charges Issued 

 

 

Side note: There is a elderly woman in our neighborhood whose vegetable garden is in her front yard. I was inspired and thought, "Gee, when I run out of room in the backyard, I am SO planting more vegetables in the front yard too." When we first moved here my neighbor told me that this woman was shunned from the neighborhood garden group back in the day, and that "no one" liked her front-yard vegetables. Then as new blood (like us) moved in, more people we accepting of it. Personally, I think grass is stupid and a waste of time and resources. Water, cut it, fertilize, repeat to infinity - and all with nothing actually produced. What a waste.

VEG: Additions and subtractions

written by Yvonne

We've added something new to our gardening equipment - a small, portable greenhouse. We looked into  indoor grow lights, but ultimately decided against it. Since winters here aren't THAT long, and we get lots of sun year round, we should be able to start seeds without having to go to the expense of indoor grow lights.

Tom started some fall seeds of broccoli and cauliflower so I popped them into the new greenhouse for a test drive. It's extremely light weight so it will be easy to move it around the yard so seeds get prime sun in different seasons.

We also purchased three more growing spirals. We like these better than tomato cages because 1. they look neat, 2. they use a stake in the center (so you can tie the middle of the plant to the stake), and 3. they store MUCH easier than tomato cages. Now, if only the tomatoes would grow...

(Sorry about the out-of-focus shot.) There is one tomato plant growing strong and five late, late starters. We are as embarrassed about not being able to grow tomatoes this year, as we were about not being able to  grow cucumbers the last two years. Incidentally to date the cucumber harvest count is 110. My theory now is we can grow EITHER cucumbers OR tomatoes, but not both at the same time.

Okra is slow going, but the the flowers are starting to appear. Haven't been able to get a picture of an open flower yet.

Not as much basil as last year, but that was planned.

This oregano looks like it's doing well, but I gotta tell ya it doesn't smell or taste like oregano. It tastes more like mint. I clipped a bunch this weekend to dry and now it doesn't smell like anything. Very disappointing. I'll be sure to note the variety and avoid it next year.

The rainbow bell peppers are doing well. We counted about 21 making their way. Look at how shiny and wax they are! This is about $5 to $6 retail value right here, my friends!

Ever been around someone who didn't respect your personal space? You know, they didn't know how to stay within their boundaries? That's squash! In the blink of an eye, it went from producing (yeah!), to producing (enough already!) to overtaking the yard. I think Tom was encouraging it so he'd have slightly less yard to mow. I thought I'd pull out the yellowing plants on the left and maybe get the part growing out of the box back in. But once I got to pullin' I just kept going and ripped the whole thing out. And look what I uncovered....

Olive! The squash that ate our dog!  (Just kidding.)