crimson clover.

Crimson clover cover crop and a bee from Sole Food's Astoria site 

at Hastings & Hawks, September 2012. 

Hive Inspection #1: Ants, skunks and sweet honey.

We did our first hive inspection after installing the nucs. This was two weeks after the install. Rosario walks out just to check the area around the hives each day, but this was our first time opening up the hive and checking out all the frames.

Scraping off the burr comb.

With a hive inspection, its best to approach the hive from the side rather than block the front entrance that the bees use. We stood to the side and removed the telescoping lid which had a bit of burr comb on it – a sign that there is probably lots of burr comb on the inner cover. Burr comb is excess comb that is built in places other than on the foundation – we had lots on the top bar of each frame and on the inner cover.

The inner cover was sticking to the top of the frames with burr comb and sticking to the corners with propolis. We used our hive tools to gently pry off the lid. The burr comb on the lid had lots of bees working on the comb and producing honey. Instead of trying to scrape them off while they were still working, or having to smoke or brush them, we just laid down the lid (bee side up) by the hive entrance and by the time we had finished looking at the frames most of the bees had walked back into the hive making it simple to scrape off the excess comb. We also scraped off the comb on the tops of the frames. The unfinished honey was so sweet and light tasting which was probably due to its high water content, being uncapped.

Wax foundation on the bottom, drawn out comb towards the top.

The frames looked great – there were eggs, larvae, capped brood and open cells so it looks like our queen has been busy laying. The brood kept a pretty good pattern of being centered at the bottom of the frame and arcing out into honey. The bees have been busy drawing out comb on the wax foundation of the new frames. We didn’t spot the queen, but there were several big clumps of bees near the brood area that she may have been in. Also, our queens are unmarked and I’d like to mark both of them on our next visit to make it easier to spot her.

Scratches near the entrance. 

In the second hive we actually saw scratch marks at the entrance of the hive. My guess is skunks. Skunks like to sit at the entrance of the hive and knock – the bees walk out to see who is there and get swiped up and eaten. There were not as many bees in this hive which may help support our skunk eating theory.

Ants breaking down the wood of the inner cover. 

Also, when I lifted off the lid I saw some very large ants around the inner cover. I brushed them off quickly with the bee brush and saw that they had actually started to eat through the inner cover – there was saw dust from their chewing to get at the honey inside. I turned the cover around and have since learned that if we cut back some of the brush nearby that should help control some of the ants – my mom had the same idea so we will have to do that on the next trip.

The second hive also had more junk on the bottom board – I’m not yet sure that this is an issue, but it was a clear difference between the two hives. One question I have is how to clean a bottom board that doesn’t slide out? Should I purchase a tray or is there an easy way to do that?

We spent some time watching the bees with their pollen baskets walking around the hive. We then put the hive back together, set up the straps and added a bit more sugar water to their feeders. I think with the heat we are having this week we would do well to fill the feeders with fresh water.

We took home the burr comb and honey – the honey tasted so sweet we just ate it with a spoon in the kitchen. Can’t wait for the honey harvest. 

Burr comb and honey for taking home.

Installing Bee Nucs

The nuc and a hive tool. 

We started our new bee hives by purchasing nucs – short for nucleus, a nuc is essentially a mini hive. You get four frames, some with brood, some with honey, some bees and a mated queen. We picked up our nucs from Better Bee Supply in early June. When we arrived at the store, they had already eaten a hole through the top of the cardboard box they were temporarily living in. They were definitely ready to get out. We taped up the hole and carried the two nucs out into the van.

We first set up our hive boxes – they are both under a bit of shade and set up on cinder blocks that were on hand. We added a strap to help keep the lid on and avoid issues with crafty raccoons.

Opening up the first nuc. 

Once we got the hive boxes set up, I lit the smoker so that we had it on hand and we opened up the first nuc. They were so not happy about being in that box. Lots of flying around. I lifted out each new frame and looked for eggs, larvae, capped brood, honey and bees. I was also trying to spot the queen. I transferred the frames into the hive boxes but there were still tons of bees that were not interested in making their way into the hive – lots were flying around and lots were sticking it out in the box. I knew that the queen had made it into the hive so it was really just a matter of time before the rest of the workers and drones followed suit. Since young bees & nurse bees can't yet fly, I leaned both the box and lid up against the base of the hive so that those bees could walk into their new home.

We opened up the next nuc and did the same thing – the second box had more dead bees in the bottom (which I looked up and found is fairly normal) and the bees were way more agitated. I quickly looked over the frames and transferred them into the centre of the hive box. We then headed in for a lunch break in hopes that the bees would make their way in on their own.

Checking on the frames. 

When we came back out they had settled in quite nicely and had already started to draw out comb onto the wax foundation. We inspected the frames again and made sure that we spotted a queen in each hive.

Mom doing her first hive inspection.

If we did it again, I would have waited between opening up each nuc to let the first group of bees settle in. Also, I’ve since read that a spray bottle of sugar water can help distract them and send them down into the frames, rather then having them fly around aggressively.

We set them up with some sugar water in their feeders to help supplement their food sources and make the transition a little smoother. They are set up near a fresh creek and a field of clover and other forage that two donkeys live in. They should have plenty of forage in their new home. There is lots of conventional farm land nearby, so we are keeping a watch on any pesticide issues, but so far they seem to be alright. 

Bees already working on drawing out come on the new frame.

Beginning Beekeeping!

We bought our nucs and equipment through
Better Bee Supplies in Cambridge

Last week my mom and I headed out to pick up beekeeping supplies for two hives we will be keeping this season. The bees will be staying at a friend's farm in Milton, a rural property with two donkeys and lots of space.

Barney and Daisy are stoked
on a back scratch from mom.

My mom and her friend are paying for the cost of the nucs, hives and supplies and I am contributing my beekeeping experience and help with taking care of the hives. Then we will split any honey for this season. Such a good deal!  

I researched several options for getting bees and we decided on starting with nucs. A nuc (short for nucleus) is usually a split off of a larger honey bee colony - you get a few frames (some of capped brood, some of honey) and also a mated queen. We have put a deposit down on two nucs for this season that should be ready in May. It totally all depends on the season though and how the bees did over the winter. There's a chance that the beekeeper may not be able to create the number of nucs they have estimated for - but we're hoping!

We decided on two nucs so that we will have two hives. Lil at the store recommended we start with two so that we can compare their development and will also have access to a second queen if anything happens to one. It will be interesting to have two hives to work with.

From Right to Left: 2 feeders, a bee brush, a capping scratcher,
 two hook end hive tools and a smoker (with cage).

In terms of supplies, we purchased a beginners kit that includes the hive box + bottom board, entrance reducer, telescoping cover, inner cover and 10 Langstroth frames. We also bought two super kits - each with two supers and ten frames. For the foundation, we went with wax for the frames in the hive box (since we heard that the bees will take to it faster and will hopefully help them get established sooner) and plastic for the supers (since it lasts longer). The super kits also come with a queen excluder. We also picked up two feeders, a smoker (with a cage) and two hive tools. 

I'm most nervous about starting the hives - I've only ever worked with established colonies. I think it will be an exciting challenge and a great way to learn. Also, the shift from a more temperate Vancouver climate to the relatively more extreme temperature fluctuations of southern Ontario will be interesting. In Vancouver, you want your hive to have a southern or eastern exposure so that the bees warm up faster in the start of the season and are more productive with some heat - but in talking to the bee keepers at the shop here, they recommended we put our bees under some shade, as over heating in our hot Ontario summers is a real concern. This climate shift is also going to be a factor in my crop planning for the school farm this year - we'll just have to try our best and keep lots of notes. 

Glad I get to visit this face when I check on the bees. 

Capped Brood

When I wrote about the honey harvest I mentioned that capped honey looks different from capped brood. Here is a shot of a frame that is mainly brood. You can see that the capping is more papery, dull and brown. There is a bit of capped honey in the bottom left corner - those look a bit shinier and golden. You can also see how the brood cells tend to concentrate towards the bottom-centre of a frame and then arc out towards honey cells. That top right side of the frame is actually the bottom of the frame when it goes back into the box.

The wider cells are ones where drones emerged - these male bees are slightly larger than the female worker bees.

You can also see the queen in this shot - the queen has a much longer abdomen than the other female worker bees. Although this is an easy identifier, if you have 70,000 bees in a hive, it can be tough to find your queen so most beekeepers will put a paint spot on the thorax of their queen. Our queen has a yellow paint spot to make it easy to spot her. Many beekeepers will use a certain colour for each year so that they always know when that queen hatched and can keep track of her age.

Honey Harvest

We collected our honey in late July - we had a total of 9 full frames from two different hives. Both honey and brood cells are capped, but the capped honey has a waxier, shiny look and the capped brood has a papery, dull look to it. We looked for frames that were full of the waxier capped honey.

Lots of beekeepers use a super on the top of their brood box with a queen excluder in between. The excluder keeps the queen from entering the super which means she won't be able to lay any eggs in the super - keeping it for honey only. Our hives were set up with two brood boxes and no super, so we had to look for frames that had the least amount of brood. Typically, the brood is towards the centre-bottom of the box so the frames that are closer to the outside of the box were full of honey. 

It's important to only take what is surplus honey for the hive. The honey they are producing is meant to keep them through the winter. They will continue to produce honey and it's ok to take this surplus, but you need to make sure they will have enough food source to over winter successfully. Lots of beekeepers that sell their honey may prioritize harvesting honey and then supplementing their bee's food source with sugar water. I would prefer they have the more nutritious honey for their food. One thing I learned is if you are anticipating a cold winter the bees will actually require less honey since they will be less active, if it's a warmer winter they will be more active and will require greater energy. 

Also, if you do harvest honey it's a good idea to keep some to be able to feed to the bees if they need it. Instead of feeding sugar water you could feed the bees some of their own honey which would be more nutritious (and less processed.) If you are collecting from multiple hives, be sure to label since you should feed the bees only honey from their own hive. 

The Harvest

We pulled out each frame to see how much honey it had, we took frames that had about 95% capped honey. If you decide to take that frame, make sure you brush off (with a bee brush or a soft brush) the bees on the frame back into the hive. We then put each frame into a large plastic tote with a lid to keep the bees off of it and also any wasps that may be interested in the honey. When we brought them inside, we made sure we didn't have the windows open since we would most likely get some panicked bees concerned we were robbing. 

To start we scrapped all of the wax off of the frame with a uncapping scratcher. We put all the wax into an old ice cream pale to make lip balm with later. We were sure to do this work over some baking trays to collects any sticky drips. 

Once the wax was scraped off we placed the frames inside a honey extractor. The extractor holds two frames at a time - you insert them vertically and then close the lid. A hand crank causes the frames to spin quickly and the centrifugal force pulls out the honey from the frame and flows down to the bottom of the extractor. There is a valve at the bottom that can be opened and allows the honey to flow out into a container.

We transfered our honey to a collection of glass jars and we had tons! 

Afterwards we returned the empty frames back to the hive to be filled again by the busy bees. 

The two hives we harvested from were only 2 km away and look at the colour difference! The one on the left is from the Strathcona community garden and the one on the right was from the Mt. Pleasant neighbourhood.

Sugar Rolls

I’ve been taking a Community Hive beekeeping course through the Environmental Youth Alliance here in Vancouver. They are able to offer the course free of charge (amazing!) to train youth how to keep bees in a sustainable way. The class size is small and the teacher, Brian Campbell of Blessed Bee Farms is an absolute fountain of knowledge about bees. He also has a sweet sense of humour!

Can you spot the queen?

We’ve been able to open up the hives each session and I have successfully (without a veil!) opened up a hive and examined the frames for brood and honey. It helps that Brian and the other students are there to look over each frame alongside me to try and identify healthy bee habits or any possible pests, diseases or other colony problems.

Today we did a hive inspection and checked for Varroa mites. Now I am no expert but I'll share what I know. The mites enter the brood cells before they are capped and feed off the bee’s food, and then the bee itself while it is pupating. They prefer drone cells as they stay capped for longer and therefore more mites can develop in the cell. 2-5 Varroa mites can emerge from one drone cell! They either hang onto an adult bee and feed off of their blood, or drift into another cell to reproduce again. Bees that were fed upon emerge smaller and have shorter life spans. They can also develop deformed wings while pupating with mites in their cell. An untreated Varroa infestation will lead to decreased bee population in the hive and eventually the death of the colony. So, Varroa mites = bad news.

The Varroa mites are large enough to be seen, especially if you are checking out a white larva. They are a reddish brown colour. In our hive inspection today I noticed one walking on the frame and someone else spotted a mite riding on one of the bees, so a Varroa mite count was in order.

Introducing the Sugar Roll.

Equipment needed: a 1 cup measuring cup, a soft bee brush, a small mason jar with a screened lid, a few tablespoons of powdered sugar and a large bowl.

Rolling bees.

Choose a frame that has lots of bees on it, some honey and some brood. Make sure that the queen is not on this frame and not part of the roll. With short, downward brush strokes you brush one cup of bees into the measuring cup. This is a hilarious thing to do. They will buzz around a whole bunch but I have yet to be stung during this process (although, I’ve only done it twice – third time’s a charm?) Tap the cup on the hive or ground to knock the bees gently down into the cup to be able to fill it up some more.

Pour your one cup of bees into the mason jar. Put on your screened lid and start to add some powdered sugar over the top. I had to break up the clumps and sort of push the sugar in through the mesh. The bees will be loud and sugar will blow out the top and you will laugh because it is so mesmerizing!

Roll the bees gently by turning the jar over and over in your hands. Do this for a few minutes.

Bees returned to the hive after the roll.

The sugar knocks the Varroa mites off of the bees. Some say it’s just the gentle abrasion that does it, some say it removes the charge that is helping to hold the mite on. Either way, it works.

Now, turn your jar upside down and “salt and pepper shake” (a technical term) the sugar out of the jar. The mites will all fall out of the jar along with the powdered sugar. Start counting mites. Remembering that there are approximately 300 bees in a cup, you need to see what ratio of mites to bees you have in your hive. Anything higher than 1% or 3 mites to 300 bees should be acted upon.

In today’s test we found 10 mites for only ½ cup of bees. Which is around 6%, which is high. So we treated our hive with a formic acid treatment. Here’s hoping we get the mite population down before the hives go into winter mode.

You can return your sugared bees to the hive where their bee friends will never believe what happened. 

Tell me what you know about Varroa mites! So fascinating.