Where art thou?

Order of business today:

• Check to see if I need to add a 2nd deep super on the Russian hive (the Russian queen is alive and well).
  
• See if my prayers to the bee gods to "Reveal my Italian queen or show some sign of her existence and health" have been answered.
  

The Russians are still one full frame away from needing a 2nd deep super, and the Italian queen was hiding her self today, if she is there at all. And there were no eggs, again.

Today I find myself humbled by the uncertainty of what is happening in the Italian hive. I speculate that there is not enough comb in the Italian hive for the queen to lay eggs, since the colony is building it at a slow pace. Once there is more comb, there should be eggs again. In lieu of finding the queen, which is 1 bee out of 10,000 bees at this time, a beekeeper may instead observe the presence of eggs. The presence of eggs means that as recently as a few days ago, the queen was present.

Today I looked for the queen, and eggs, diligently. I spent way too much time in the hive, but I wanted to be certain that I had given my best effort. It was a frustrating experience, and by the time I worked my way through all the frames twice, the bees were sensing my frustration.

I have noticed that as I work the bees, they mirror my emotions. Today as I became frustrated (showing no perceptible outward sign of that emotion), the bees buzzed very loudly. When I took a deep breath and became calm, they quieted down. I found it amazing that these creatures, who monitor the queen's presence and health through an endless chemical interpretation of what she excretes from glands on her body, should also be capable of reading my emotions as they occur. It may likely be through the pheromones, hormones, and other chemical singals that my body gives as I traverse a spectrum of emotion. Or perhaps it is my imagination.

Ken Kesey once noted that the most essential roll of our truest friends is to be an accurate and clear mirror for us, so that we may see ourselves as we are, and be better equipped to improve our selves because of it. My little friends are great mirrors for me. I am simply glad that they were compassionate today, and did not sting. I wonder if they can intuit the good will I feel toward them, and somehow understand the role I have assumed as their caregiver.

I worked the hive in a short sleeved shirt today, and given my emotional range today, and their accurate reflection of it, it was gracious of them to show compassion, and not sting me. What they should have done is dragged their queen to center stage....lol. I would have appreciated that.

So, I am going to leave the hive alone for a week, and hope that the bees build out enough comb for the Italian queen to start laying eggs again. This way, even if I cannot find her next Thursday, I will be able to confirm that she is alive and well. If not, I will order a new queen, and begin the process of introducing her. At least by then, there will be a lot of space in the brood comb to lay.

And the Russians, well, 1 week will be enough time for them to finish building out the requisite 6-7 frames of comb in the lower deep. Then they get room for expansion.

This week, I will continue work on my real estate blog, which is a bit more technical and jargonistic than this, and pray that the gods of honey will send word that my queen is indeed alive and well.

Monday, May 28th, 2007

I worked the hives today, without smoke, and Jenny took some pictures. It was nice to have someone else taking pictures, since I had a lot of work to do, and wanted to work steadily. The order of business today was to check the following things:

• How built out are the frames in each hive?


• Are the queens alive and healthy (are there eggs)?


• How are the food stores in the Mason Jars?

Russian hive:

I began with the Russian hive today. They have built out 5 1/2 frames, which means that I will add another hive body in just a few days. I might have been able to add it today, but I wanted to consult with Dan Conlon, of Warm Colors Apiary, first. His instruction is that a 2nd deep super is added to a Russian hive when 6 frames are fully built out and in use.

While I did not see the Russian queen today, I did see a few eggs, many larva, and masses of capped brood. Also, there was capped honey (capped with white wax), stored pollen (multi-colored substance in open cells), and nectar (liquid in open cells). The bees looked happy and healthy, and were doing a hell of a great job on eating the pollen patty and building out the comb. I will soon add some more sugar-water to their jars, and if I go to Warm Colors Apiary, I will get one more pollen patty. Otherwise, there is enough pollen in the environment right now that they don't absolutely need one.

Italian hive:

When I finished with the Russian hive, I opened the Italian hive. The first thing I noticed is that the Italians are taking a bit longer to consume the pollen patty. Also there were 2 frames completely built out, and (2) half-frames built out. So, a total of 6 frame sides, or 3 frames. While I was able to observe capped brood, and larva, I could not find a single egg in any one cell. This is rather worrisome, considering I am supposed to be confirming the presence of a queen by either finding her, or eggs, each time I visit the hive. This lack of eggs may be one of two things:

1. The queen is no longer present


2. There is simply no room for eggs right now, as the vast majority of cells I observed are in use.

I am hoping the 2nd scenario holds the answer. That there is simply not enough room for the queen to be laying eggs at the moment. I will call/email Dan Conlon, and Mike Keene, my two mentors. After talking with them, I will have an idea of what I can do to determine the right course of action. I am assuming that I will simply have to check back in 4-5 days, and see if there are eggs in there at that time. I will (first) check my 3 bee reference books and see if I can find some answers in there.

All in all, it was a good day to work the hives. I removed my veil part way through working the Italians so that I could get a closer look for eggs. Still, I saw nothing, but was able to get a clearer view of the bees, than is possible with the veil on. I wish I could work the bees, veil-less, all the time. Perhaps I can. I'll have to learn as I go.

In other business: Today a friends sent an email telling that her bees had simply vacated the hive. All that was left were a bunch of drone (male) bees, and a few workers. No queen, no eggs. She feels that this may be due to the excessive heat on Friday and Saturday. We are going to try and find an explanation. If we find a likely one, I will post it. In any event, she is a fellow first-year keeper, so I really feel for her. She is going to purchase a nuc (nuclear hive) from an acquaintance of ours, and start with it. Nucs are 4-5 frame hives with a laying queens, some built out frames (with brood, honey, pollen, nectar, etc...) The nuc is delivered, and the frames are placed into the hive of the person purchasing the bees. This should give her a head start on building up a strong colony for a good honey crop this year.

Installing a different hive-top feeder and checking for frame build-out with comb

Today I needed to work with the Russian hive. The hive top feeder, which I thought would make my life easier, ended up not working as well as I’d hoped. To begin with, the feeder weighed about 40 lbs when completely filled with sugar water, so it was inconvenient to remove from the top of the hive, when working the bees. Also, the bees did not consume as much sugar water, as quickly, as I thought they would, so the feeder began to grow a mold in and around the sugar water. Shortly after this mold appeared, the bees simply stopped eating the syrup. Lastly, because the feeder was difficult to handle, I would inevitably crush a couple of bees between the bottom of the feeder and the frame of the hive when placing it onto the hive each time. At any point, that could have been my queen bee getting crushed, which would be devastating for the colony, and set them back at a critical time of the year.

I found it interesting, though not surprising, that the bees avoided the mold in the sugar water.

Another purpose for today’s work was to examine how many frames the bees have built out with wax comb. There are 10 frames (see the pic below) in each wooden hive body (the wooden boxes that are stacked on top of each other to form the expandable hive). The bottom two hive bodies are called ‘deep supers’. When each colony is started, they start with one deep super with 10 frames. When the bees have built wax comb on enough of the frames in that body (6 frames for Russian bees, and 8 frames for Italian bees), a bee keeper will add another deep super on top of the first. When all 20 frames (both supers) are built out with comb, honey, pollen, and brood (young bees in various stages of development), the honey supers are added. Honey supers also have 9 or 10 frames, and are smaller boxes so that they can be lifted when filled with honey. Supers are VERY heavy when filled with honey. Supers placed above the bottom two are what the bee keeper harvest for himself at the end of the season. The bottom two are left as food store for the bees to eat over the winter months.

*Note: Bees only need to build comb on frames once. After new frames have been built out with comb, the bees simply need to reuse the comb year after year. Many bee keepers will say that 'drawn comb' is the bee keepers most valuable asset.

Both colonies this year are brand new. New bees, new queens, new equipment, so the bees have the added work of building new comb on all the frames. The Russians were installed on 5.5.07, and to date have built out 4 frames with comb. This means that they have built 28,000 honey comb cells in 2 weeks and 3 days. To me, that is a remarkable accomplishment. The Italians were hived on 5.12.07, and have built out just over 2 frames in 10 days.

Both colonies are laying lots of eggs, and appear to be very healthy.

Today, I also removed the entrance reducer on the Italian hive so that the bees have less restricted access to bring what they need to in and out of the hive.

All in all, today’s work was very good. I will now stay out of the hive until 5.29. By then, I anticipate that the Russians will have built out 6 frames with comb, and will require a 2nd deep super. Staying on top of this is important. It will help prevent the hive from feeling the impulse to swarm. I hope NOT to write a blog about swarming this year, unless it is just an informative blog, rather than an experiential one.

The Queens are Released and Laying Eggs

Today I checked to see if my Italian queen had been released from her cage. She had been released, and has also started to lay eggs. I also checked the Russian hive to see if the queen had started laying yet (it can take 2 weeks for a Russian queen to start to lay eggs, whereas an Italian queen will begin to lay much sooner). My Russian queen must have started to lay eggs right after her release, because there were some young bees, already in the larval stage of development, which means that about 1 week has passed since her first eggs were layed.

I also wanted to place some pollen substitute in each hive because it has been so rainy that the bees have been unable to gather pollen for themselves and for rearing young. Because it is a first year hive, the bees first have to build honey comb on all the frames before they can store anything in it. This slows the bees down considerably, and as a result, the food stores are built slower, and are therefor bare at this point. I didn't want the bees to starve to death in their first weeks in my bee yard.

When entering the hives today I did not use any smoke. I simply washed my hands with wintergreen rubbing alcohol, and quietly opened each hive to do what I needed to do. The bees were gentle and cooperative.

I was able to find the Italian queen, which I needed to do in order to keep her safe while I removed some burr comb from one of the frames, which was covered with thousands of bees. Removing this comb, bare handed, was a challenge for me, both practically and psychologically. In the end, I was able to get it done without injuring any bees or getting stung. There were about 100 or so bees on the small piece of burr comb I removed, and about 1000 eggs (one in each cell) in the burr as well.

Its too bad that it had to be removed, but burr comb is impractical because it is built where there is a too-big gap between frames, which there is while a new queen is installed. During the installation of a queen there are only 9 frames in a hive body designed to hold 10 frames. 9 frames are used, instead of the required 10 frames, so that the queen cage can occupy some of the space where the missing frame would otherwise be kept. This creates a gap, during the time it takes the bees to release the queen from her cage. The bees work hard to fill this space.

The nice part of having to remove the burr comb, is that the comb had some honey stored in it. After shaking all the bees off it and bringing it into the house, I was able to eat raw honey in the comb for the first time. That was a nice reward to receive so early in my first season. The flavor of the honey was wonderful. And I can't wait until I can harvest some more.

The next time I go into the hive I will check to see if the Russians have filled 6 out of the 10 frames with comb, eggs, pollen, and honey. When they have 60% (80% for the Italian hive) of the first hive body (called a Super) built out, and in use, I will add a second hive body (which holds 10 more frames) on top of the first. This will give the bees the room to expand. This process will continue throughout the season, for both hives, and all supers above and beyond the bottom two are mine to harvest when they are filled with honey.

So, I now leave the hives alone for a week, while I watch these bees work their magic of converting nectar, water, and pollen into energy for themselves and honey for the both of us to share.

Why bee keeping?

The first thing most people ask is, "Why would you want to keep bees?" It's fair question. The lunacy of handling tens of thousands of bees barehanded seems a bit obvious, but there is an answer. The follow up question, "How often do you get stung" is the one that I think most people are really interested in having answered. Well, this was my primary interest as well.

I have been stung once, so far, in the first 3 weeks of bee keeping (and it was my mistake that caused the bee to sting. I would have stung too). Seasoned beekeepers tell me that I will be stung much more frequently as each colony grows; from 15,000 bees to over 60,000 bees, over the next few months. A queen bee will lay up to 2000 eggs a day, when conditions are good, and they begin to be a bit more defensive as they have young and honey to defend. Still, keeping the bees' health in tip top shape is the primary job of the bee keeper. This blog will be updated each time I do any major work with the bees, which will be approximately once per week.

Getting back to the first question, I would first rephrase it: "How did I come to keep bees in the first place?" The answer to how I came to keep bees, and why I keep bees now are a bit different. This blog will address how it happened. However, now that I have a taste of it, I continue to do it is because these insects are fascinating, and instructive to me. They have become my teachers, and have provided a clear window for me to see into my self. This is proving to be remarkable in ways I could have not foreseen. But this topic is for another day, and will be unfolded over time.

I came to bee keeping through a separate hobby; the brewing and fermenting of beers, wines, and 'meads'. Grains and hops are to beer, what grapes are to wine, and what honey is to mead; The essence and spirit of the drink.

My making of alcohol can be traced to 1997, when I became a boarder/renter in a home on Appleton Circle, in Fitchburg. I had just returned home from travelling the US, and needed a place to hang my hat. I ended up rooming in a house with a couple of guys named Mark and Eric, who both had an interest in alcohol. Mark was a beer brewer, and kept large 5 gallon glass jars of bubbling mystery in an abandoned sauna in the basement, where he could easily maintain the 67 (or so) degree temps that he needed for fermentation. Eric was not a brewer, but was friendly with a group of Franciscan monks who ran a bakery called, "As You Like It." The monks made a drink called Mead, the making of which can be traced back thousands of years to the Vikings and beyond.

Eric kept cases of meads in the basement, and because it was bottled without preservatives, these bottles were likely to explode if not handled with the utmost care. It was actually frightening to watch him open a bottle...like watching a car accident in-progress. He would pick up a bottle, gingerly, with a towel, and gently push on the already protruding cork until it exploded across the room, like champagne. (I have since learned that it was the still-living yeasts, eating some of the remaining sugars in the sweet liquid, that caused the buildup of CO2, which created the pressure, making the bottle likely to explode. In fact, due to the high alcoholic content of meads, champagne yeasts are often used to ferment them, since these yeasts can survive a highly alcoholic environment.) The meads that Eric drank had a wide range of tastes. Some of the meads were sweet, and some were dry. The flavors were profoundly different based on the origin of the honey, and while I did not develop a taste for fine and distinctive alcohol until long after moving out of that house, I was affected by the uniqueness of what these guys were doing. And that left a lasting impression on me.

In 2004, after purchasing a house which had some room I had no prior use for, I thought that I would give beer brewing a shot, and fill some of that space with this new hobby (it had a built in bar to begin with!). My brother (who has been a brewer for quite a while) showed me the basics of beer, and after a year of making beer, I added wine-making to the agenda, and then decided to try my hand at making a mead.

I read a book on mead making, researched available recipes on the net, and finally decided on this one, which will be finished on 8.24.07: http://www.realbeer.com/edu/mead/worththewait.php . I put together the ingredient list, and began a search on the Internet for a local source of honey. The recipe called for 30-40 lbs of honey for a total of 10 gallons of mead. This would be two batches, and two different flavors. The first, a cinnamon/vanilla mead, made with organic cinnamon and whole vanilla beans from Madagascar. The 2nd, a standard, sweet, wildflower mead without added flavor. I ended up purchasing 30 lbs of honey, for a total cost of $150 (just for the honey!). Taking that money out of my wallet was painful, even if I was going to end up with a consumable product. And so, I decided that if I was going to experiment with meads, I better learn to keep bees. There was only one problem. I WAS TERRIFIED OF THEM.

Now, people who know me well can tell you that I love a challenge. I don't like feeling limited in any way, and if I feel confined by limitations I will work tirelessly to push beyond them. Learning to be unafraid of bees was no different...its just that this time, it was not some external constraint that was limiting me....it was ME that was limiting me. And as we all have experienced, overcoming our on psychological constructs can be the greatest challenge that we will ever face. Fortunately, I had an 'ace in the hole.' It was called Vipassana.

A technique I had learned during a 12 day silent meditation retreat in the heart of the Berkshires, in the month of March of 2006, was about to open a doorway that would have previously seemed impossible to open, and make those 12 days of internal torture and bewilderment, pay off in a way that never expected. Summed up neatly, Vipassana is the technique of observing the sensations of the body, without being swept away by what the body is doing and experiencing. I would use this technique to help me overcome my fear of bees. I knew it could be done.

The first time I went into a bee hive, using the techniques of Vipassana, my mind was observing: "Wow, it's amazing how this body is filled with fear. The heart is racing, sweat is forming on the skin, and the desire to run like an Olympic sprinter is overwhelming. Now, continue doing as you are being instructed. If the experience of a stinging sensation arises in the body, just observe it with equanimity and detachment." I did not get stung that first time in the hive, and by the time my body did get stung I was able to watch the sting happening with detachment, and continue working the hive. This was a remarkable accomplishment, considering my body still quivers with fear when I open the hives (I don't wear protective gloves anymore, which has increased the apprehension and fear). Thankfully, my mind is at the helm remembering: "equanimity, detachment, happiness, real peace."

After coming to terms with the fact that I was going to have to overcome the 'learned fear' of bees, I understood that I had no choice but to move forward.

I learned that the average well-managed hive produces between 40 and 150 lbs of honey each year, and this meant that to produce enough honey to make many different meads, I would need 2-4 hives; enough to guarantee at least 80 lbs of honey a year. This would cover at least 4 batches of mead annually and allow me to explore variously flavored meads at a very low cost.

I also discovered that properly managed hives will most-often pay for themselves by the end of their very first year. I had a win/win proposition going. I had a hobby that paid for itself, allowed me to afordably explore a separate hobby, and provided a brand new tool for self-improvement.

Now, 9 months after the impetus to explore the possibility of beekeeping was born, I am a beekeeper. I feel like a beekeeper. I am managing my bees as well as I am able, and I am LEARNING about my own self, by watching the lives of these amazing creatures.