Honey Bee Keeping and other pollinators

[blissful]

Today is World Honey Bee Day, the third Saturday in every August.

Thank you. This is something I should know! We were out planting by the east hives today and the bees were getting into everything. They were smelling dirt and seedlings, flowers, and checking us out too.

The comb cutting is going slow. We cut it out of the frame, then into pieces to fit the containers, 3.75x3.25 or close to that. Then the need to drain over a baking rack into a 1/2 sheet pan. The next day they go into packaging and we do it all again.
We'll weigh them and label them once we get the labels. Pictures soon.

 

[Kathleen]

For years, my sister and I have enjoyed "Bee" things to share with one another. "Welcome to the Hive," "Bee Happy" and other such things. Love World Honey Bee Day!

 

[blissful]

We and mostly I have been cutting honey comb for days because it takes hours to wait for it to drain. Every cell that is cut drains honey and that takes time. I'm almost done!

A honey comb cut out of the frame resting on a rack over a 1/2 sheet pan. 18-19 inches long.

Cut into 3x3.5 inch sizes, with the end piece which goes into a jar of honey, and in front the trimmings which are reclaimed as strained honey and wax to melt.

The package w/o label of honeycomb. Ready to eat, spread on toast, dropped into some ice tea, eaten by the spoonful with the wax.

The beauty of comb.

Honeycomb in jars of honey.

honeycomb in honey in a pint jar.

 

[larry_stewart]

They look perfect!!!! Nice way to get rewarded for all your hard work.

 

[dragnlaw]

Agreed Larry - what beautiful rewards!

 

[blissful]

The guys worked on hives today, to look all the way to the bottoms, check them for queen cells/swarm cells, see how healthy the brood patterns are. They took off supers again, we have 6 off for extracting on Sunday. There will be another mite treatment coming up in the next month or so, a friend is coming over to apply the vapor for oxalic acid treatment. (the vaporizer is expensive, so instead we'll pay him for materials and time for 10 hives)

Anyone that has the want to do bee keeping can do it. It's a blast and an investment in a suit/jacket a couple hives a 2-4 supers. I would suggest starting with 2 hives, so you can move frames from a healthy hive to a hive needing a little help. Starting 2 hives with 2 nucs or 2 packages of bees will be less than $300. With a sieve a family could crush and drain honey without an extractor. It would keep your family in honey for a year. Roll with the ups and downs, watch lots of youtubes on it, read a few books on it, join a bee club, the people are great really great. They are so down to earth and very caring. If we can do it anyone can.

 

[Kathleen]

Bliss, the honey looks amazing and the jars with the comb look "Hollywood perfect." When is the mail order business starting up???

 

[blissful]

Bliss, the honey looks amazing and the jars with the comb look "Hollywood perfect." When is the mail order business starting up???

good morning and thanks! We're taking it one step at a time.
So far we've only filled glass jars, but the comb alone is in plastic. Glass doesn't ship well. I'll look around for some plastic containers.
The labels for everything haven't arrived but should be here this next week. @Kathleen I'm not sure we'll dive into mail order right away w/web presence. We will fill requests for mailing it if we get any.

 

[larry_stewart]

My son and I were actually going to take a Bee Keeping class together years ago. The year we finally decided to do it, the person running the class had to go out of state for awhile for some " Bee Emergency". My son then move to Montana and now China so doesn't look like we'll be doing it any time soon. After seeing all the work you guys put into it, I'm kinda glad things didn't work out for us at the time. I can definitely see myself doing it in the future at some point. But, Im living through you and your experience and loving it! I love the behind the scenes look at the process.

 

[blissful]

@larry_stewart, thanks!
Well, today, we took pictures of the frame of the most most most successful queen's work. The frame is almost entirely filled with capped brood, so that hive is going to be busting full of bees. This is both sides. I left the pictures at regular size so you can look at it close up if you want to see the frame better.
It is a medium and deep foundation in an extra long frame, for the insulated bee barns that mr bliss builds. (regular hives are 2 deeps stacked, or a deep and a medium stacked boxes)

the other side

That was a new empty frame 15 days ago, so that queen must have been laying on it from the first day. That's a crazy amount of brood for one queen in only 15 days. The bees cap the larva day 11. There are 7600 possible cells per one side of that frame, or 15,200 for the whole frame. The best laying queens can lay up to 2000-2700 eggs in a day and we think this one might be one of the best laying.

@Kathleen Mr bliss went to dadant (bee supplier) today and picked up a case of 24 plastic honey bottles and caps, 1.5 lb size (same size as our jars).

 

[Kathleen]

@bliss I would totally be into buying a bottle...and some honey comb. PM me details!!!

 

[larry_stewart]

When duo the bees start winding down for the season ?

 

[blissful]

When duo the bees start winding down for the season ?

Mid-september.
That one hive that is going in a good direction of more bees right now had lost their queen and we replaced it recently, so it has a lot of work to do to put up honey for winter survival. It's just catching up to the other hives.

All the hives are putting honey and pollen to eat in the hive boxes, we'll put feeders on them to help.

Then the queens lay winter bees (living 4-5 months) which live longer than summer bees (38-45 days). The winter bees keep the queen fed and the temperature stable at 95 deg F using their body heat and wings for air flow in the hive all winter clustering in the middle of the brood area.

Most hives are not insulated, they are stacked deeps or mediums and deeps. As the temperatures go down, insulating wraps are put on the hives, or insulating foam strapped around them to make it easier for them to stay warm.

No need to do a thorough check of frames in the hive when the temperature is under 45 deg F. Only a very quick check for curiosity or to put in fondant/pollen for food, if necessary in the winter.
Make sure that in deep snow that there is some air getting in, so move snow if necessary to allow air to come in the reduced entrance-bottom front.

So then, after this extraction there is the mite treatment, optional feeding, and not much else to do this fall.

@Kathleen thank YOU, our first order ever!

 

[Kathleen]

@blissful Well, I couldn't chance that you would run out before I ordered!!!

 

[blissful]

@Kathleen I don't know how this will go to be honest. We are told the comb is in very high demand, but we're new to it. We'll see.

 

[blissful]

We've been extracting honey since early this morning. I made up some peach lemonade dash of salt, to keep everyone hydrated. Zach loved that. His mom ended up at the emergency room last week with hydration issues too.

Zach's hives had about 40 lbs of honey, he was thrilled, it is his first year, second extraction. We filled quarts and pints in glass.

We've been extracting since then and it's been pretty hot so we took breaks. We still have some frames to decap and extract tomorrow. I put honey in pint jars, 2 cases. Then we moved it inside at dark and we filled the 12 plastic 1.5 lb containers, then 6 qt jars, now a case of wide mouth pint jars. Now we're debating filling plastic or glass 1.5 lb containers.
I'm wiped out tired.

 

[taxlady]

@blissful Please be careful and try not to overdo it.

 

[blissful]

@taxlady oh I'm fine, I worry about mr bliss.
Our labels are arriving today for the honey. Late afternoon.

 

[Kathleen]

I just received this raw honey and raw honeycomb that is literally dripping with golden goodness. It was delivered at my door and I cannot wait to try the honey, but I am chewing happily on a small piece of the honeycomb as I type. This is from a small artisan honeybee keeper and I highly recommend it

 

[dragnlaw]

Just checked with the Honey Lady at the Farmer's Market last week. She'll have some either this coming week or the following for sure. Anxiously waiting!
She also used to make soap but stopped - too much work and not enough returns.
But I loved her rose petal soap. Too bad.