Currently Reading: Honeybee Democracy by Thomas Seeley.

Winter is a good time to pick up on more knowledge while there ain't so much work to be done in the hives. THere is also less I could do anyway so I just borrowed Honeybee Democracy by Thomas Seeley from the library. Its understanding bees swarming in a whole different angle. I"ll add more to this post when I turn more pages in the book. I found this video that decoded the illusive waggle dance.

Hive Status Jan 30th

Today is the 1st sunny day after a long week of rain. I have been aching to visit the hive  All the short sunny spots that occurred this week were on weekdays and I was at work. Receiving emails from fellow beekeepers noting that their hives were bringing in pollen made me envious to check on how mine were doing.

I opened Bombay first. There was a small cluster in the upper brood chamber and lots of honey left. At least 6-7 frames of honey. I was hoping to find the cluster extending down to the lower brood chamber as it seems too few bees are left. I lifted the upper brood chamber to take a peep and there was nothing below. I had a bad feeling if they would survive or not. I rotated one frame where the cluster was closest, to get access to more honey and shifted the remaining pollen patty left behind in November over the cluster. Hopefully, if the queen is laying they can slowly replenish their numbers. I lifted the entrance reducer to clear some dead bees and there was so many dead bees. The screened bottom board was just chalked up with dead frozen bees. I closed up the bottom to maintain their heating system just in case the dead bees were somewhat of a wind/cold breaker.

I opened Matilda next. The hive looks better. At least 2 frames of bees remaining and tightly clustered. Honey storage levels seems the same. At least 6-7 frames left. Did not need to shift any frames as the cluster was on a frame full of honey. After opening, they started to fly out to gather pollen from catkins hanging from the hazelnut tree.

Lastly, I opened Camille. Clear dead out. It was as expected but I was hopeful that it wouldn't come to a tragic end. From the previous post, the hive only took in 3 gallons or less of 2:1 sugar syrup. Below is what is Camille. The bees were not frozen. The bees at the top were dry and it seemed that they died together just 1-3days ago.

Hive Covered in December

Only Matilda and Bombay are covered with Bee Cozy. Camille is not as an experiment to see if it is necessary to cover in our Vancouver winters. They don't look well wrapped as the Bee Cozy was bought on my 1st winter with the bees and I was wintering them in a single chamber. All the hives are on screen bottom board fully opened year round to promote maximum ventilation. Between the outer cover and the inner cover there is a styrofoam board to prevent a cold front on the inner cover that will cause condensation from the bees heat generation and the cold air outside. 

On Dec 4th, Matilda and Bombay were treated for mites with 100ml of oxalic acid. I made sure the treated sugar syrup was nice and warm. I made 150 gm of 1:1 sugar syrup with 4 gm of oxalic acid. Camille was not treated as an experiment as well. 

Matilda and Bombay were clustered in exactly the same manner except the bees in Matilda was on the right and Bombay was on the left of the hive. They filled 6 frames in the upper and lower chambers = 12 frames of bees.

Preparing the Hive for a Vancouver winter

After harvesting honey from the Matilda and Bombay, its time to give back to ensure they had enough storage to last through the winter that starts in Vancouver from November till end of February. Winter really starts for the bees when the last Sunflower and Aster flowers withers away. That is when there is nothing left to forage eventhough there may be nice sunny days that are ideal for the bees to fly out.

So to prepare for this I started to do price comparisons of Rogers 10kg sugar bags. The good thing about preparing the hive for winter is that there are no big holidays around the corner where everyone likes to bake for the family which is the best time for beekeepers to stock up on sugar. A 10kg bag of sugar during mid-August cost $8.88 - 9.99 at Superstore and when comes Thanksgiving or Christmas is near a bag will cost $$12.99-$13.99.

 I bought 8 bags of sugar. I've never bought so much sugar in my life before at a time. When I looked at the amount of sugar I bought, it felt I was running a bakery shop. Friends with cars are my best friends when I need to cart around heavy stuff. Ted was the driver of the day. Of course, Ted got a gorgeous jar of honey for helping.

I took a day off from work to mix the sugar into a 2:1 sugar syrup. Borrowed a propane burner and a witch concoction pot to deep fry turkey from a friend.

All the white pails behind the pot is to store the sugar syrup over the 10 weeks of feeding. My first winter with the bees, I used to make sugar syrup every week at home and pour them into one gallon containers. Then lug at least 2 one gallon container on the skytrain and then on a bus to get to the hive. It was too much of a hassle and that had to change. Making the sugar syrup at the gardens is the best method so far to save time and way more manageable. With the Witch Pot I could make 15 litres = 3.96 gallons at a time. That is about 10kg of sugar with 5 litres of water. But somehow I don't get why when I mix sugar with water in that proportion I don't quite get the 3.96 gallons I expect. I always get about 3.5 gallons or little less. The density of water must be quite expandable that it absorbs the sugar and does not add to the volume. If anyone has  got the science of this, I would like to try out your formula. Anyway, boiling 5 litres of water with the propane burner takes about 10mins or less which is really fast.

At the end of all the pouring, stirring and mixing of 80 kg of sugar with 40 litres of water, I yielded 30 gallons of 2:1 sugar syrup which was perfect for 3 hives to have 10 gallons (40kg) each to store for the winter. They stored perfectly well from September till it was all gone which was 1st week of November. I also added juice of 1 lime/lemon to 1 gallon of syrup every 2 weeks to boost Vitamin C intake.Hopefully, there will be some benefits to doing that.  Fumagilin was added as well for the 1st and 3rd week of feeding.  

After the 10 weeks of feeding 2:1 sugar syrup, Matilda and Bombay was back breaking heavy in the top brood chamber. The bottom brood chamber were mostly filled with pollen. I thought that was interesting, that the bees organized it in that way. Since I placed the frame feeder at the top chamber, it would be just easier and closer to just store the sugar syrup at the top and foragers can dump pollen at the bottom chamber to shorten the time to unload and do the next trip. The only problem was Camille was not taking in the syrup like the other 2 hive. In total it took just about 3 gallons. I cross my fingers that Camille will make it through the winter. 

Lastly for mite treatment, the hives were only sugar dusted. 2 cups of blended sugar per hive for 10 weeks. 1 cup per brood chamber. They were dusted on the same day each week for 10 weeks. I did not stay to count the mite fall after each dusting. Partly because I did not want to get disheartened by the number of mites I'll find. I did the sugar shake mite count every 3 weeks and my infestation rate is high! It was sitting at an average of 15-20%. The application was not consistent as well as sometimes I'll get 100 nurse bees and the week after I'll get 300 nurse bees as I was reading different articles that recommended differently. After doing some reading on this method, I'll only collect 1 cup of bees which is an approximate of 100 bees. I really like the sugar shake method as none of the bees in the test dies. They come out of the jar groggy but after 2 minutes, they are back in the hive. I also figured that if I am taking nurse bees who are mostly carriers of the mites, they are too important to lose. The caring for the thousands of larvae (big demanding job), feeding the queen, building comb and etc. Plus nurse bees have the highest levels of vitellogenin and it is vital to the health of entire colony. I am very conscious of the efficiency levels in the hive and I strive to not affect that efficiency by reducing the amount of bees I injure or kill in anything I do in the hive. 

Video Tour Around my Bee Yard

I just got a Kodak Video with digital camera 5 MP functions that can also immersed in water up to 3meters. So after some of you who had to tilt your head and putting up with mute video clips. This HD video tour around my yard would be a step up.



Leave a comment if you liked the video or let me know what else you would like to see in the hive.

Biggest day ever for beekeeping- My 1st Honey Harvest

On Aug 15th , I got my very 1st honey harvest. A honey harvest to me felt like passing my driver's licence test at the 1st attempt. I remembered all that nervousness taking that test, lips all getting dried, shaky hands, a bit wobbly on the feet, knowing that not many pass on their 1st try and when the tester says "You have passed!", all that cooped up feeling of joy just bursting out. When the honey started flowing from the extractor into the bucket for filtering, that was my "You have passed!" feeling. Hard to describe but I think this "You have passed!" feeling is quite close. Ok I gotta do the thank yous now. So I would like to thank the bees from Matilda and Bombay for providing 57lbs=25kg of honey. For the 1st year, this amount is excellent. Let me show you the pictures of the harvesting process.

There are 15 frames to harvest in the 2 supers. The stainless steel drum is a 2-frame extractor. So 2 frames get spinned at a time. The spinning was very time consuming. 

Here I am using an uncapping knife which is like a hot iron to melt the wax that the bees had made to seal the honey on the combs. Now for the build up of the "You've passed!" feeling.

Yes still empty. I am just about to turn on the tap. Hold on.....................

Let me show you a video, still pictures doesn't really cut it for the "You've passed!" feeling. .............

Sorry that you had to tilt your head 90degrees to the left to watch the video. I will improve my video taking next time. That golden flow is just gorgeous! Now this video below, I am pouring my 1st bottle of honey.

Then I start putting my orders together.

As a special touch and only for the 1st year, I placed a honey comb in each bottle. Each bottle of honey here is 1kg. The bottle weighs about 0.339kg so thats why the weighing machine shows 1.4kg.

This completes my 1st Honey Harvest. I am sold out of honey for the year. The white pail that was used to store the honey, is empty. Thanks to all who bought my honey. All that support you've shown allows me to carry on what I do best for the bees. On behalf of the bees, hope you enjoyed the honey if you were lucky enough to have got a bottle.

Bees Drink Water

In Vancouver, we've had 3 weeks of hot weather, temperatures averaging above 28 degrees. All the grass turned brown and forest fires in the Interior of British Columbia are raging. Inside the hives, the temperature were definitely above the 30 degree range with the thousands of bees moving in/out of the hive to collect nectar. When I visited the hives a couple of times after sunset, the bees were bearding at the hive entrance. Bees beard at the hive entrance as it is too hot in the hive to rest. It is just like some of us who will sleep on the floor if our mattress is too hot or set up tent in the backyard where the temperature is cooler. When the ambient temperature in the hive cools, they will go back inside. Bees have a couple of ways to cool the hives down. They organize a few rows to fan the hot air out using their powerful wings. Another row of bees, on the other end of the hive entrance will be fanning air into the hive. Air circulation in the hive is now excellent with all these bees fanning. If you are lucky to be at the hive at this type of moments, place your hand slowly in front of the hive entrance and feel the power of the wind they create from those tiny bodies while at a stationary position. To top off the cooling strategy, foraging bees are sent out to collect water instead of the usual nectar. Below is a picture of the bees drinking water from a pail in the community garden. This pail is about 25 metres from the hive.

 As bees don't swim well or at all, they use their long tongue to reach into the water. When the water level, is beyond their tongue's reach, they may take the risk of swimming and that is when they will get into trouble. As a beekeeper, I should anticipate this. Know where their usual watering holes are and provide floats for them to land on, drink their fill and take off easily. Good floats can be sponge, ice cream sticks or clean wooden stakes. The water the bees source from is hard to control. However, if I can establish a watering hole near the hive, I'll provide water that I can drink as well. The water should be changed regularly and the container scrubbed off debris and algae.