The Universe Forgives My Ineptitude

Posted by liz on with 1 Comment

I had a happy sighting yesterday. Remember that split I made exactly 24 days ago? No? Well, let me remind you:

I took a frame containing some queen cells I’d found in Tomboys, and I made a split…which means I began a new colony from an old one by placing that queen-cell-containing frame in a box of it’s own. To it’s new box I added a nice frame of honey (in order to provide food until the new colony begins its own foraging), two frames of brood (so there’ll be a force of nurse bees available once our newly hatched queen begins laying her eggs), and all the nurse bees that were on those frames at the time of the split (to care for the brood I’d moved in there as it develops).

But I worried about how few bees there were in the new colony, so a week later I did a swap: During the day when all the foragers were out in the field, I moved the entire Tomboys colony to the place occupied by the new split and the split to Tomboys’ old spot. I hoped that all the foraging bees who thought they were returning to Tomboys would actually return to the new split (with their food stores) and decide to live there. This is one way to build a work force in a weaker hive.

But there’s been little activity over the past week or so in the new split. I thought that perhaps the queen had failed and the whole colony had absconded. I really had little hope for this experiment’s success.

Yesterday, though, I noticed a little activity in front of the hive…it looked to me as if new bees were orienting to the front of the hive. It’s a cool thing to see. So, I went to check it out…sure enough, new bees were hovering around the front of the hive trying to zero in on home. They always do this late afternoon around my hives. At around 4 PM, all the new bees fly all around the face of the hive—they face it—as if to say, “Okay, if I leave this place, this is what I’m gonna look for when I come home. This is home. It looks like this at this time of day. I don’t go to the hive next door. I come here.”

You know when you park your car far away from wherever you’re headed? And you sort of look around to get your bearings? You turn to look at your car; then, you turn all around to see where it is in relation to where you’re going; you say to yourself, “Okay, I parked near this big light post…the light post nearest the entrance to the Great American Ballpark. The one from which you can see the river.” Well, that’s what bees do. They do it before they ever leave their hive, and then there’s no need for them to reorient unless I move them.

I’m so happy to know that new bees have just emerged from the split hive…these new bees have to be those which were only eggs when I moved the brood-containing frames from Tomboys. It’s still too early to expect brood from the new queen (if she’s in there). It’s been 24 days now since I created the split. The new queen should begin laying eggs about 21 days after she emerges—that should be sometime this week. I’m not gonna check for at least another week. Well, I might pop the top and peek inside, but I’m not gonna pull any frames. I’m not gonna upset their delicate balance so early in their game.

I’ve held off giving them a name for fear they wouldn’t make it.

To Do 8/5/10

Posted by liz on

To Do 8/5/10

  1. Build all the medium boxes stacked up in the basement before the wood warps
  2. Finish all the frames in the basement
  3. Rework the hive stand with cinder blocks and 4×4’s
  4. Order the Top Bar Hive from what’s-his-name I met at the conference
  5. Buy a good table saw
  6. Buy rough-cut lumber
  7. Start making Top Bar Hives for myself and friends
  8. Decide whether or not to collect the bees the guy in Mt. Lookout called me about
  9. I mean, there are a hell of a lot of bees somewhere in his attic. I saw them. I just can’t figure out where the hive is
  10. And once I find the hive, I don’t know how to cut into the attic to get at them
  11. Deb says Rick could figure out that part…all I’d have to do is get all those bees into a box :) (sorry about the yellow smiley face. I hate it, but I can’t find a way to keep WordPress from transposing my quiet little colon : and parenthesis ) into a big fat yellow smiley face. What a stupid idea)
  12. Call Rick

Waiting for the Brain to Clear

Posted by liz on with 3 Comments

Now that I’ve had a day for my brain to clear, I can offer a brief report of my responses to the 2010 Northeast Treatment-Free Beekeeping Conference: It was tiring. I mean…it was three and a half 13-hour days of programming. And that’s an awful lot of exhausting.

But it was also approximately 45 hours of bee school, and that makes for a much smarter beekeeper…as soon as all that information sort of settles in, that is. Right now, it’s free floating.

Okay. Maybe I’m still too tired to give you a good reflection. I’ll do it one day soon, though, yes? Because my emerging beekeeping philosophy continues to develop, and I know you’re on pins and needles wanting to hear about it. :)

Let me simply remind you of this for today: If you buy your honey from the grocery store, it probably comes to you from China, and the bees that made it were treated with some very serious chemicals inserted directly into their hive.

If you buy your honey from a local source such as a farmer’s market or from that nice old guy at the end of the lane, the bees that made it were almost certainly treated with the very same, very serious chemicals that were inserted directly into the Chinese hives. And even though the bottle says your honey is pure honey, it’s not. It’s full of chemicals that 99% of the beekeepers believe is necessary to use in order to keep their bees alive. And I’m serious about this shit. It’s appalling.

I tell you this because I am experiencing it first hand. I have been sold (and I am still in possession of) the assortment of chemicals of which I speak. They are in my garage near the trash can. They’ve been there for over a year. Every single solitary beekeeper I know—other than those with whom I gathered this week—use those chemicals without even thinking about it. When to treat the bees is taught in beginner’s bee schools. And then everyone wonders why the bees are dying.

It’s not the beekeepers’ fault. Most of them know no other way and have not considered alternatives. But there is another way. And it’s up to a small number of curious beekeepers who naturally gravitate to research and who are hell-bent on returning to natural beekeeping (which, I admit, it a problematic term as there is nothing “natural” about beekeeping) to change the thinking of an entire beekeeping culture.

Have I whet your appetite for more? I hope so.

Here’s what you can do to help, Reader:

  1. If you want to begin keeping bees, consider the very fun return to natural beekeeping. To do so, you can start by reading the wonderfully smart and surprisingly enjoyable Complete Idiot’s Guide to Beekeeping. It’s not for idiots. It’s for smart people, and it’s written by smart people whom I now know. They’re even smarter in person. The book series simply has a dumbed-down title. It’s a wonderful beginning point for those wishing to keep bees without the use of chemicals.
  2. If you already keep bees but want to stop the insane chemical applications and stop losing your bees every single winter and have healthier, faster, smaller, calmer bees, begin by reading the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Beekeeping. And join the Organic Beekeepers Yahoo group. And read Michael Bush’s delightful website (you can find the link on this blogroll).
  3. If you don’t keep bees but you want to eat pure honey made by happier, healthier bees that have not ever been treated by UNBELIEVABLY STRONG CHEMICALS APPLIED DIRECTLY INTO THE HIVE AND INTO YOUR HONEY, then please begin asking your honey supplier to consider the above two points. Gently and gently and gently remind your supplier each time you purchase your nice jar of honey that there is another way. It’s scary and difficult to change the way we do things…we all know that. That’s why we’ve got to be gentle. But it’s also very fun to do what we all know is right. It’s exhilarating. And your local beekeepers want to do it…they simply need encouragement. And they need to see others doing it. Which is where I come in. :)

Here’s one thing I’m thinking. I’m considering the paint-free approach to hive boxes. It saves time and money, and I think it looks kind of cool, too. What do you think, Reader?