Posted by: Pam B. Newberry | February 13, 2011

The Love of Bee Keeping

Where does a love come from? How does it evolve? For some it seems to come with a blink of an eye or as you’ve heard, “At first sight…” For others, it takes a knock on the head before you even recognize that something is happening between you and the guy lying next to you.

In my life, I tend to fall into the later category. I get so involved in daily life that I don’t even realize how much I come to depend on someone. I fell head over hills in love with Hobbit King almost 34 years ago. Imagine, I really had no idea until he told me one lovely spring day in 1977 that I loved him. You see, I thought I was in love with his best friend. Was I ever wrong! Hobbit King and I married a year later and have been best friends and lovers ever since!

In a similar way, I tend to love or depend on animals and inanimate objects with different degrees of intensity. Our daughter’s dog Myloh, we lovingly call Grand dog, is the light of our life. If he were human, I’m not sure I could love him any more. If he were to speak in English to me, I know I’d sit right down and carry on a conversation as though it was as normal as rain. Yeah, I do talk to him often. He sits and listens and paws and does his doggie sounds in a way I call talking. It’s as if he says, “Gees, Granny, I understand.”

And now, I find the same thing happening to me with our honey bees. The funniest part, we haven’t received them yet. All of the preparation and planning for them makes me feel as though I’ve known them for ever. I have no idea how I’ll feel when we actually get them, but I can tell you I love them already. It seems bee keepers have a strong affection for their bees, no matter how many or how long they keep them.

One of the early researchers of honey bees, Gregor Mendel (1822-1884), who is best known for his research of the garden pea, turned to studying and trying to produce superior stocks of bees. His failure was due to his lack of being able to control the mating behavior of honey bees.

Honey bee queens mate while in flight. The queen emerges from her cell as an adult and takes her first mating flight away from the hive about six to twelve days later. She may take several flights and mate with as many as twenty different drones. Each drone during mating can deposit as much as six to ten million spermatozoa into the queen’s oviducts and upon completion immediately dies. Those drones who do not mate by the end of the season are kicked out of the hive. The life of a drone gives a new meaning to being a gigolo.

After these matting flights, a queen never mates again, but is able to store about a third of the spermatozoa, which remain viable in her spermatheca throughout her egg-laying life. How many you wonder? How about six to ten million. A single queen lays all of the eggs that develop into workers, drones, and future queens.

Now a big question is how would anyone know this about the honey bee? Until E. Norman Gary decided to find out about honey bee mating behavior, no one did. Gary is best known for filming a honey bee queen tethered to a balloon and suspended in a drone congregating area. Through this work, he was able to discover and identify the queen honey bee’s sexual attractant pheromone. This information laid the ground work for later discoveries that enabled improved controlled mating of honey bees for the purposes of improving bee stock.

This raises another question, “Why do we humans feel we must improve on life?” There is a part of me that wishes we’d leave the world alone and let it be. But, we have already done so much damage that I understand the need to “improve” or better yet, “fix” the problems. The old technology adage, should we just because we can, should be a new battle cry for those of us who are learning how to “live and let it bee.”

Yet, I know that if anyone in my family, including Grand dog Myloh, needed special medical care requiring experimental treatments or the latest technology, I’d be the first to ask and agree for such help.  At what price? The work that is being done to improve bee stock is important in order to learn more about colony collapse disorder, to learn how to raise bees in environments that are hostile, and to learn how to maintain the various stock of honey bees we currently have available.

The answers to the questions are not easy, no different from those asked each day in your life. Knowing that the trade-offs, consequences, and choices are made with eyes-wide-open is paramount to making good decisions in the life of honey bees as well as in the life you choose to live.

Hobbit’s Bend Farm Status of Bee Hive Prep:

Hobbit King is on a roll. He has managed to put all of the parts for four hives together. And, he has built stands for the hives to sit when we place them in the bee yard.

Bee Hive Stands at the ready.

Side view: Bee hive on bee stand

Today, he is painting them. The outsides of each box is a lovely green. In the picture, he is painting the first coat. We plan on adding a second coat and after the sides dry, I’m going to try my hand at adding some decorations. We have no idea what kind of swirls , but we’ll have fun planning the look.

Painting the Supers

I’ve read where some people have added large numbers or letters on the top cover; sort of like an airplane landing strip kind of look. There is no research that says it helps the bees find their way to their particular hive, but it sure helps the beekeeper think he or she is helping the bees find their way home. Who knows for sure, but we may just give it a try. If nothing else, it will look interesting.

At this time of celebrating love of all kinds, have a glorious Happy Valentine’s Day! May you have love in your heart, in your life, and in your world, always!

Honey Cheers with Honey Love,
Hobbit Queen

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Posted in Bees, Hive Construction, honey bees, Love | Tags: , , ,

Posted by: Pam B. Newberry | February 8, 2011

Hive Building 101 – It has begun…

Last week, our Bee Mentor friend came by and helped Hobbit King and I start the construction of our honey bee hives.

It’s been a long time since I used my skills of working with Pine boards with finger joints, maxi-bond glue, Phillips head screws, electric drill, and a weighted rawhide mallet. The joy of seeing the hives take shape far out weighed the struggle of remembering what to do or how to do it.

So, what goes into making a beehive anyway?

Figure 1: Diagram of a Honey Bee Hive

Each section of the hive’s component parts (as seen above in the diagram) has a specific function.

The Hive Stand provides a means to hold the hive and support. We did not purchase a pre-made Hive Stand. We are planning to build our own out of lumber so that we can place our hives at a height that will lower the need to bend a lot.

The Bottom Board (in our case, it is called a Screened Bottom Board) serves several  functions. It provides a secure base, aids in controlling Varroa Mites, and provides optimal ventilation. In the picture below (See Picture 1), you see our Bee Mentor showing us how to insert a Varroa Mite board into the Screened Bottom Board to aid in keeping track of a potential infection of Varroa Mites.

Picture 1: Inserting Varroa Mite Board into Screened Bottom Board

You may remember from a previous post that the Varroa Mite is the most serious parasite of the honey bee in North America. Colonies infested with Varroa Mites will result in a colony death in one to two years.

The Hive Body is used to keep the brood (young) of the honey bees and is typically the deepest box.  Some of the experienced beekeepers and commercial beekeepers will also use Hive Body boxes to store honey.

The nine and half-inch deep box will hold anywhere from 8 to 10 frames depending on the beekeepers preference. Hobbit King and I decided to start with nine frames. Our Bee Mentor said that 10 frames are  okay to use, but sometimes it is very hard to get the frames out when the box is packed closely together. He recommended we start with nine frames as eight frames the spacing of the frames is harder to control and the bees will fill the space in making it harder to keep the hive clean and keep the bees from filling the extra space in with comb.

We are starting with four hives. So, we built four hive bodies. Here is a picture (See Picture 2) of a finished Hive Body.

Picture 2: Hive Body constructed

The front and side pieces of pine are pre-cut by the manufacture, which is a major work savings. Notice the ones laying on the table waiting to be joined. The yellow pails in the background will be the feeders that we will use next year at this time to help the bees if their honey stores become too low or winter lasts longer than the honey stores will cover.

Picture 3: Beginning Super construction

The Super is the workhorse for the honey bee hive. It also can come in one of three sizes:

  •  
    •  
      • Medium Depth (Illinois or Dadant depth) -6 5/8 ins deep
        Use for honey super or brood chamber
      • Shallow Depth -5 11/16 ins deep
        Use for honey super
      • Comb Honey Super -4 11/16 ins deep
        Use for section comb honey

 

We decided to start with Shallow Depth Supers. We have four we will use first, one for each hive for the purpose of gathering and storing honey for the honey bees personal use. We will not use the first super for our use. This next winter, the bees will need 40 to 60 pounds of honey to make it through the winter and one super will hold approximately 60 pounds. We have four additional supers to add later in the year if it turns out our bees are very productive. With an additional super added to each hive, we’ll be able to use the second super to gather honey for our personal use.

Super construction continued

Picture 4: Grand Dog checking out our work

The Inner Cover provides protection from weather and aids in ventilation. The Top or Outer Cover is of course designed to give most protection from the rain, snow, and wind, as well as provide support to the hive body structure, just like a roof does to a house.

Picture 5: Inner Cover sitting on Hive Body

 

Picture 6: Outer Cover sitting on Inner Cover on top of Hive Body

Well, as I said, we are on a roll getting the hives built. Next blog I’ll share about the frames, the foundation, and other inner components of the hive. After all of the hives are built, we will paint the outer surfaces of the hive to help prolong the live of the wood and protect the hive from the weather.

Hope you are having a wonderful February and you are looking forward to spring as much as we are here. Spring is around the corner and our bee nucs will be here  before we know it. Nucs are small lightweight wooden boxes that hold up to five frames and are used to transport bees to new hives. They are also used  as a means a bee swarm trap or for housing bees when a hive is split, for queen production or mating and more. We will be getting four nucs from our Bee Mentor sometime in late April.

Until next time, visit and read my earlier blogs if you haven’t already so you can learn along with us. Share your thoughts, questions, comments, experiences. Share this blog with your friends and help build interest in the wonderful world of bees. And, if you like what you are reading, be sure to vote by selecting the level of “Like” for this post!

Honey Cheers to You!

Hobbit Queen

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Posted in Bees, Hive Construction, Starting Out, Uncategorized | Tags: , , ,

Posted by: Pam B. Newberry | January 29, 2011

It’s a Hardknock Month for Us…

Hello Everyone,

As much as I love all seasons, it seems this month of January has tested my resolve to not look badly on a time of winter. After attending a meeting of fellow beekeepers at the Mountain Empire Beekeepers Association (MEBA) on Thursday evening and hearing the members’ struggles these last few weeks of watching their bees during these long stretches of cold, I can almost believe I can relate to how the bees must be feeling right now.

Today is an extremely lovely day, even with the wind, compared to the bitter cold, snow, and ice of the last few weeks. Right now the temperature is hanging around 48 degrees. If it makes it to 50 degrees I bet many bees will be out taking a cleansing flight. I feel as though I need one too!

Right after New Year’s, I came down with a horrible cold and cough, which still won’t go away. During our beekeeper’s meeting, we discussed diseases and parasites that can attack the bee colony this month. It is kind of sad when you hear what all a bee must face. And now, we are learning of the march of the Africanized bee along with more concern for the small hive beetles or hard-shelled beetles, as they are sometimes called. Evidently, these lovely little creatures are starting to be seen near our area and concerns were raised at the meeting for the need to be aware of them and what damage they can do.

The president of our association shared some pointers (based on his experience and what he’d read in the book “Beekeeping Basics” by Penn State – MAAREC) on what a beekeeper should do during this month and moving into February. He said, and many of the old timers agreed, it depends on the weather as well as the food stores, the colony strength (i.e., colony number), and the strain or race of bees you happen to own. Kind of reminds me of the old saying, “It’s always the weather, stupid!”

As a newbie, who doesn’t even have any bees yet, but we’ll be building our hives in the next few weeks. I can tell you it is hard to hear the challenges the honey bee must face in order to survive. I worry that my limited skill and knowledge may not help them much. Yet, all those who had been keeping bees over three years stated not to give in to that fear. The members of the organization who had been keeping bees over ten years shared how their love of the honey bee helped them through the tough times.

Kind of makes you think about us as we cluster together as a family with close friends. You see, Hobbit King and I lost an aunt this week. She had been sick for a while and she had grieved deeply for her husband, whom she loved dearly and had past several years back. I believe she is now at peace and is happy with him. This is no different from what has been learned about the honey bee colony and how they tend to their young (brood) with extreme care, keep their hive protected, and care for their dead in what I’d call a caring way. Life goes on when someone dies. Life goes on for the honey bee colony when its members die as well.

The experienced members at our association meeting shared different methods they use to try to help their colonies survive the onslaught of hunger for the honey bee during this time. Yes, hunger and even starvation! I was amazed to hear that the cause of the most loss of honey bee colonies in the winter isn’t the cold and severe temperatures, but starvation. Members shared how many times a colony will have plenty of stores, but because they are protecting their brood, will not venture away to feed even with honey just inches away. If it means leaving the brood, they will not move for the food. Amazing!

Many of the techniques shared were tips on how to use sugar-water in a 2:1 ratio in a mason jar with the inner cover riddled with holes, granulated sugar on newsprint (I found this one extremely fascinating), fondant, and pollen patties. All these different suggestions to help stave off starvation.

The saddest and most heart pounding piece of information shared was the beekeepers mantra: “If you do everything right, you can still lose a hive.”

Isn’t that the way of life and a family? As a mother or father, you hope you do everything right, but you can still lose your child. As a wife or husband, you plan to do all you can to have a long and happy marriage, but you can still lose your companion. As a daughter or son, you try to do all you can to be a good and productive adult, but you can still lose your parents. The more I learn about keeping bees, the more I see why others have been so passionate before me about the art of bee keeping. You see life before you!

Next month the Mountain Empire Bee Keepers Association (see their website to the right) will be offering a beginner’s bee class. Hobbit King and I have signed up for it. This will be our second beekeeper’s class. We find it invigorating, enlightening, and downright fun. We also want to continue to build a strong network with our fellow beekeepers in the area.

If you are a beekeeper, consider being a mentor. They say beginner beekeepers are more likely to stay in the hobby if they have someone to talk to about what they are experiencing. If you are thinking about becoming a bee keeper, keep on thinking it, but better yet, sign up for a class. You will “bee” so amazed at what you learn! 🙂

I’m so excited that we’ll be starting the construction of our bee hives real soon. Come back and read more posts as our journey begins to pick up and we learn more about this beautiful hobby of keeping bees! We’ll have pictures of our journey and other tidbits to share as us newbees learn along the way.

Again, thanks for understanding about my absence this last month. I hope you and yours are able to miss out on the lovely cold and flu. I’ve missed sharing and look forward to your comments, questions, or ideas! Do share this post if you think it is worthy and write and tell me what you think of the posts!

Always with Honey Cheers,
Hobbit Queen

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Posted in Bee Class, Bees, Starting Out | Tags: , , ,

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