Beemused: A Blog

city-dwellers-swarm-to-urban-beekeeping

More and more people are beekeeping in the city - it’s a great hobby, and at $15/half pound, pretty lucrative!

This is a very interesting article from the New York Times about how bee species give a clue to how early North and South America were joined by a land bridge (it’s earlier than geologists thought).

Bees Migration Holds Clues to Geologic History
Two new bee species shed light on Panama’s history as a land bridge
between South and Central America, scientists are reporting.
By SINDYA N. BHANOO
Published: October 24, 2011

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/science/25bee.html

I took advantage of the nice weather and the Columbus Day holiday to take off the remaining honey super and to give the girls their first powdered sugar bath of the season.  The theory is that the powdered sugar causes the bees to groom and in the process to dislodge varroa mites, which fall through the grating at the bottom and can’t crawl back up into the hive.  It certainly doesn’t seem to bother the girls much.

The last honey super was pretty light, actually lighter than I remember it being the last time I checked.  So I guess the bees have robbed from themselves a bit?

I had put an empty super on our best honey producer, and they’ve already made considerable progress on it.  I wasn’t expecting it, because it’s really getting late in the year for honey production here.  I’m kicking myself, because I could have put several supers on that hive a bit earlier and had much more harvest than we got.  Well, next year I won;t make that mistake!

Well, the time came to take the honey super off Amelia.  The bee escape had allowed most of the bees to migrate down to the brood chamber, but not all.  I was able to remove the super and brush the bees off the frames, so that part went OK.

The next step was to put the bee escape board on the other new hive (Susan having once again failed to store any honey beyond her 2 brood chambers).  Unfortunately, the girls had created a matrix of burr comb between the super and the top brood chamber, which I had to remove before I could install the bee escape.

Well, let’s just say this didn’t go over well.  As I scraped off the burr comb the girls got increasingly upset, and eventually found their way inside my bee suit!  I ended up being stung at least 7 times (6 times on my neck and one on my leg).  Nevertheless I persisted and managed to install the bee escape.   Next time I make 100% sure I have the veil on the helmet correctly!

We wanted to take off the supers this weekend, and found that 2 of our 3 hives had filled their super to capacity, while Susan (always the poorest producer) had stored almost nothing.  Interestingly, Susan’s brood chambers look great, the hive appears healthy but unmotivated.  I have had a series of medical problems this year that made working with hives difficult; the good news is that hives are thriving, the bad news is that we didn’t put on extra supers when we should have.  Next year I am not planning on having more medical issues!

Unfortunately the bee excluder didn’t exclude any bees this year (did the hive figure out the maze?), so I’m going to have to resort to stronger measures in a week or so.

http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/08/honey-laundering/

This is utterly shocking and frightening -US honey producers are being undermined by cheap, contaminated, and adulterated honey from China.   Meanwhile the push is on the cut FDA staff and budget.  Get real, people!  It is the responsibility of the FDA to protect our food supply, they need the budget to do the job.

Yesterday I picked up 2 packages of bees (3 pounds of bees and a marked queen per package) and installed them in the two hives that starved over the winter.  We had guests to observe the installation, and their toddler was utterly fascinated.  When a package is installed, the bees pour like honey, and if you haven’t seen that before it is quite a sight.

Today I gave the 2 new hives a full feeder of syrup, and put a super on the hive that made it through the cold - she was already honey-bound.  We had to give her something to keep her busy!

The girls are busy, and it was time to give them a super to fill with honey.  We had already put a super on our oldest hive, although on inspection she hasn’t done much in it yet.  She’s been busy refilling the upper brood chamber with honey.  Judging from the color of the bees I’d say she has some Russian in her - much darker than the pure Italian bees in the new hives.

(edit:  Just noticed earlier post that she was honey-bound.  This time she definitely was not.  Now I am concerned - will have to inspect lower chamber)

The new hives were reaching capacity, so we got the supers on just in time.   Since the weather didn’t cooperate and the packages arrived so late, we were worried that the new hives would be lagging far behind.  But clearly they’ve been working hard!

Wow- it’s been a long time since we posted. My apologies!

Currently, we have 3 working hives: Susan- a survivor from our first set of packages, and 2 new ones that I have not yet named.

All are doing well at the moment, and the 2 new ones need supers.

Susan is being balky about supers, yet again. Justin says that she’s decided to wall the super off from the hive proper, by building all over the queen excluder. Sigh. Susan has never given us anything in the way of harvest; however, she’s so damn hardy that we keep her going..!

I’m thinking we should remove the queen excluder, and see if she’ll use the super then.

We also need to build frames and super the 2 new hives ASAP.

It’s lovely to have 3 busy hives going again! And the girls are so pretty as they zoom in and out on their trips.

Leaked Memo Shows EPA Doubts About Bee-Killing Pesticide
By Brandon Keim   December 13, 2010
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/epa-clothianidin-controversy/