Sunday, August 11, 2013
Extracting Our First Honey Harvest
We ordered our extractor from Walter T. Kelley Company and are very pleased with it. The extractor was easy to use and since the strainer and storage tank with honey gate are all included, harvesting the honey was not as tedious as I had imagined it would be.
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Mid-Summer Starvation?
Well, a lot has happened with our bees since re-queening Hive 4 a couple of weeks ago.
We started out by going to BeeWell Honey in Pickens on Monday morning to get a fume board and Natural Honey Harvester. Hive 4 had a fairly full shallow super of honey and the bees just weren't looking that good, so we were going to try and salvage what we could of the hive. When we returned home, Husband went into Hive 4 and we were amazed to see that our Queen was alive and well! She was busy laying brood! We were so happy! He still pulled the shallow super off and moved it to Hive 3 to give the bees an opportunity to concentrate on reproducing within the hive. Last week, Husband had also built a boardman hive feeder and had started feeding the Hive 4 bees a sugar water mixture to help them along.
Currently, Hive 3 has 3 shallow supers ~ 2 are full of honey + the partial one from Hive 4. Hives 1 and 2 each have 2 shallow supers. After checking the shallow supers, it seemed to me that Hives 1 and 2 had "lazy bee" syndrome (my terminology). There was an abundance of bees and lots of activity, but no honey and very little comb.
Yesterday, I called one of my beekeeper friends to see if "lazy bee" is really a syndrome. When I explained to him what was going on in the Hives, he said that the bees were probably starving. I was shocked! As a new beekeeper, it seemed like all of the rain would have helped the bees, not hurt them.
I'm so thankful for people who are willing to share their bee knowledge! Husband mixed up a big pot of sugar water and filled 6 quart jars and placed them on a table away from the hives for the bees. They immediately began drinking the mixture. As of this evening, all of the jars are empty. It has poured rain all day, but the bees have ventured out to get sugar water.
Husband built more boardman feeders today and we plan to fill them tomorrow and place them on each hive with quarts of sugar water. Then the bees will be able to access it without having to fly out in the rain.
I would have never dreamed that bees would need supplemental food in the summer. I'm learning something new every day as a beekeeper.
We started out by going to BeeWell Honey in Pickens on Monday morning to get a fume board and Natural Honey Harvester. Hive 4 had a fairly full shallow super of honey and the bees just weren't looking that good, so we were going to try and salvage what we could of the hive. When we returned home, Husband went into Hive 4 and we were amazed to see that our Queen was alive and well! She was busy laying brood! We were so happy! He still pulled the shallow super off and moved it to Hive 3 to give the bees an opportunity to concentrate on reproducing within the hive. Last week, Husband had also built a boardman hive feeder and had started feeding the Hive 4 bees a sugar water mixture to help them along.
Currently, Hive 3 has 3 shallow supers ~ 2 are full of honey + the partial one from Hive 4. Hives 1 and 2 each have 2 shallow supers. After checking the shallow supers, it seemed to me that Hives 1 and 2 had "lazy bee" syndrome (my terminology). There was an abundance of bees and lots of activity, but no honey and very little comb.
Yesterday, I called one of my beekeeper friends to see if "lazy bee" is really a syndrome. When I explained to him what was going on in the Hives, he said that the bees were probably starving. I was shocked! As a new beekeeper, it seemed like all of the rain would have helped the bees, not hurt them.
I'm so thankful for people who are willing to share their bee knowledge! Husband mixed up a big pot of sugar water and filled 6 quart jars and placed them on a table away from the hives for the bees. They immediately began drinking the mixture. As of this evening, all of the jars are empty. It has poured rain all day, but the bees have ventured out to get sugar water.
Husband built more boardman feeders today and we plan to fill them tomorrow and place them on each hive with quarts of sugar water. Then the bees will be able to access it without having to fly out in the rain.
I would have never dreamed that bees would need supplemental food in the summer. I'm learning something new every day as a beekeeper.
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