The Healthy Honeybee

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Today I'll be taking my observation hive to my daughter's class! Should be fun. I took a sweet photo last night while checking them out (above). It was late and dark, and the hive was backlit by my back door light.

Why late and dark? Because everybody's home then. I need to lock them all in for safely transporting and showing the kiddies in the class. If I had waited until this afternoon, a lot of the bees would be out foraging (provided it's not pouring down rain like it is right now) and they would be very confused upon returning home to where their house once was.

Grade 2 here we come....
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So here you can see the hive I fretted and worried over, thinking it was dead. Busy as can be! I'm so happy to have two good hives. Next trip out will be for cleaning, this one was just to check on them, take off the tar paper and move the straw bales out of their way.
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On Saturday the 3rd, I went to the beeyard to feed one of my hives sugar syrup. They hadn't filled out the frames as well as they could have, and it's important for winter survival that they are full to maximum capacity. So, despite not wanting refined sugar in my life anymore, back in it came. In the top picture you see the hive with a honey super on top - I had to leave a space for the ziplock bag of sugar syrup between the frames and the lid. After Ken's comment on a previous post, I thought I better follow his recommendations, so I built myself a rim. I went to the beeyard today to feed them again, and switch over to the rim. That's the next pic, showing the rim I made, and the inner cover on top:


It makes more sense to have the least amount of empty space possible, because the bees have to heat up all the space in their hive. More space to heat means more energy expended by the bees, so they'll be eating more honey, and as a result they'll have less honey for the winter. The less honey they have for the winter, the more likely they are to die before the nectar flow in the spring.
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It's been quite a few years since pennies held any fascination for me, but beekeeping has brought them once again to a significant place in my life. My first sting as an adult was in Ken's beeyard, and right away Steven put a penny on it for me. No swelling or pain. Weird! But wonderful. I started telling everyone who had the potential to be stung by a bee, that they should put a penny on it because it really works. My second bee sting, same story. Penny to the rescue yet again.

Along the way, people questioned what it was about the pennies that gave them these magical bee-sting-soothing powers. Some wondered if it mattered whether it was Canadian or American, or whether older or newer pennies were better. I had no idea, I just knew it worked for me.

Then.... my day of foolishness, tearing apart a beehive with only a veil as any significant sting protection. Well, the pennies didn't work so well that day. I thought because I had so much venom pumping through my system, perhaps the pennies were no match for it.

Well - here's a new piece of information from my fellow beekeeper Margaret, who also started beekeeping this spring:

I discovered the copper content of pennies is less than 5%, except the older coins (pre 1982 for the American ones) are 95%. I'm still skeptical about the copper cure.

Perhaps the level of copper makes a difference, or maybe it's all in my head, but I'd rather put a penny on it than a piece of onion. (That was Todd's trick.)

The photo above is of Margaret, scraping off the inner cover of one of her beehives. She rides her motorcycle to check her bees, and finds that the leather makes a good bee jacket!
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This picture comes to you courtesy of Todd, a fellow newbie to the world of beekeeping. He and I, along with a few others, met at Little City Farm when we attended a small workshop on beekeeping. Those few of us that went on to take a more in-depth course at the Townsend House, University of Guelph, keep in touch on a semi-regular basis. We thought it might reduce the collective number of painful mistakes, if we could share our newbie experiences with the group of us. Still, we've all had our own 'learning moments', and it's been good to grow together in this endeavor.

Anyway, back to the pic - this was Todd's experiment: he tried using some top bars, rather than frames with foundation, to allow bees to build their own comb. This method is used by beekeepers who want to go even more natural with the bees. Unfortunately it seems these bees were a bit confused, and started to build from the bottom frames up, instead of heading up to the top and building from the top down like they would normally do in nature. I asked Todd if I could use the pic, because I think the comb is pretty. Functional? No. I would tear it up too, as Todd did, but I like this pic because it represents the more wild and natural side of the bees. It's a good reminder that the bees are still wild creatures, after all our attempts at "domestication", and they do have minds of their own, however small.
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Thanks to my wonderful sister for carpet!

It's a good way to keep the thigh-high grass from crowding the hives. Yet another trick I learned from Ken. There's so much value in learning from someone who has many years of experience! I'm very grateful to have accidentally stumbled upon this family during my research days. I've learned something from each member. Even Jill, who gives good (usually) directions.
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Here is a pic of my screen bottom board. Normally it's under the brood chamber and I only see the front entrance part of it, but it's on display here because we were cleaning the bottom board. (And by 'we' I mean Ken.) The screen bottom board is there to enhance the health of the hive. Mainly as protection against varroa mite, which can be incredibly damaging to a colony of bees. The screen mesh is wide enough to allow the varroa mite to fall through, but narrow enough to keep the bees away from them. Varroa mites will wait there on the bottom board for a bee to come along and grab onto it, but it won't try to climb back up the sides through the holes.

I don't think I have any problem with varroa yet. I didn't see any on the bottom board. Keep your fingers crossed....
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Today turned out to be pretty exciting after all. Around 10:30 I received a phone call from Michelle, Ken's wife, asking if I wanted to come help capture a swarm. I would say I didn't do much 'helping' - but it was amazing to be there. Here you see Steven sizing up the situation. He's considering his options for capture. He's placed a hive box under the swarm on the ground, and now the options for getting them into the box are being pondered.

It didn't take long - I had the camera ready to show the process, but by the time I took the picture it was over:


He bent down the branch, then gave it a good whack to shake the bees into the box. Most of them landed right on the box. Some were in the grass, and others still clung to the branches of the bush. Steven thinks the queen landed in the box, though, and that's the important part. If she's there, the workers will find her and make the box home.
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Somebody got stung on Monday when we were out inspecting the bees. The bee had crawled up her sleeve and found it a bit too claustrophobic and threatening, so she ended up with a sting. No big deal, that's what the pennies in my pocket are for.
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This pic is a bit blurry, but it captures the moment. These bees are connected to each other by their legs, forming a chain that bridges the gap between the two frames. This was after I had completed the inspection and was putting the frames back into their proper places, I noticed the gap at the end had a pile of bees forming chains. I'm not exactly sure why they did this, but I suspect it has a lot to do with the large gap that was left with the frame missing.

If you squint a bit you can also see the bit of wax that are leftovers from the scraping I did last week. The bees have completely cleaned it of any residual honey.

Beekeeping definitely not a monotonous hobby - there's something new to see every time I open the hive.
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I have to say a big thank you to Ken and Steven for letting me tag along as they inspect their bees, and for all the sage advice I've received so far.


Here are Ken and I, looking for a queen in this colony today. It took awhile, but Ken found her. She hadn't mated yet, so she looked more like a big worker than a queen. I never would have spotted her!

One thing I'm learning as I watch Ken and Steven is that it's important to keep good records. They use a voice recorder to take notes on the temperature and weather conditions, what they see in each hive, and plans for the next trip out. I may not be so technologically advanced - pen and paper will probably be my recording tool of choice - but I can see the value in keeping track of how the hives are progressing through the season, and anything I might learn along the way.

Here's one for the files:

Question: How do you get rid of ants that are crawling all over the inner cover of your beehive?

Answer: You get out your propane torch and blast them into the afterlife.
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I was able to hitch a ride with an experienced beekeeper today, as he went to check on his bees. Here's what I learned, in order of importance:

1. If a bee stings you, scrape off the stinger and put a penny on the spot with duct tape. I swear it works. Normally I would have swelling but there's absolutely none from the sting I got today. Before the penny was put on, I could feel it starting to swell into my thumb and wrist (sting was top of my hand/base of thumb). After the penny went on, the swelling went down and you can't even see it now.

2. Use old carpet to keep down the grass around your beehives - put the carpet down first then the hives.

3. Put each hive on a large patio stone, it's easier to shim than 4x4s.

4. Double brood chambers are probably better for the bees. Better winter survival, more space to prevent swarming, more room for bees to store honey for themselves (related to winter survival). So I'll probably rethink my single brood box plan.

5. Spring is actually the trickiest time for bees - they could be alive in March but dead in April.

So much to think about, but I'm enjoying the learning curve.