Becky's Bees & Blooms

November snow in the beeyard

2011-11-06T13:17:00.004-07:00

Late October and early November snow came before the leaves fell from the trees this year. Good thing the bees were all tucked in for the winter.

Final Flowers of Fall 2011

2011-10-16T12:20:00.005-06:00

Final Flowers of Fall 2011, a photo by D.Broberg on Flickr.

Red Dahlia

Final Flowers of Fall 2011

2011-10-16T12:20:00.003-06:00

Final Flowers of Fall 2011, a photo by D.Broberg on Flickr.

Pink Hollyhocks

Final Flowers of Fall 2011

2011-10-16T12:20:00.001-06:00

Final Flowers of Fall 2011, a photo by D.Broberg on Flickr.

Yellow/Red Dahlia

A perfect fall day in the garden

2011-10-16T12:19:00.001-06:00

A perfect fall day in the garden, a photo by D.Broberg on Flickr.

Fall Inspection 2011

2011-10-15T18:05:00.002-06:00

HoneyBees, a photo by D.Broberg on Flickr.

A warm October day is ideal for a fall inspection. This image shows our new colony of Minnesota Hygienic bees. They are usually quite aggressive and today was no exception. They were crawling all over themselves on this frame, but we didn't see the queen.

They had a number of empty frames, so we ended up replacing them with five frames mostly filled with honey that we held back from our harvest. Their winter stores should be in good shape otherwise. We did see some brood and pollen, but not a lot.

The survivor colony was far more mellow today, not too bothered by our inspection. They had good stores with the top box almost 100% filled and capped with honey. Below had some honey along with the brood and pollen. We didn't need to add anything to that hive. Let's hope they survive another winter.

Honey Harvest 2011

2011-09-10T16:13:00.004-06:00

We completed our honey harvest over the Labor-Day holiday weekend again this year. The weather cooperated and we received a moderate harvest from the two hives, one of which was a brand-new colony this year. The first video shows the decapping process where the wax caps are removed, exposing the raw honey for harvest.

The next video shows the raw honey coming from the centrifugal extractor and dropping into the straining bag that removes any leftover wax or bee parts. We use a rather large screen so that all the pollen passes through to the honey. Everything is done at room temperature. This year our total harvest was 81 pounds.

Vegetable Harvesting

2011-09-08T21:17:00.003-06:00

Fresh yellow pear and sungold tomatoes

Fresh and canned roma tomatoes

Fresh peppers, green beans and romas

Inspection - August 20, 2011

2011-08-20T13:32:00.001-06:00

Honey frame - August 20, 2011, a photo by D.Broberg on Flickr.

This frame is from super #2 on the new colony. That box is about 30-40% capped. Hope they can complete their work before Labor day when we come in and steal it all.

The 2-year-old colony has 2 full supers - all capped. We put an empty frame on a few weeks ago to give them more room, but they haven't got around to even pulling the comb yet. Looks like 2 will be their limit this year.

Inspection, July 23, 2011

2011-07-23T16:11:00.002-06:00

Inspection, July 23, 2011, a photo by D.Broberg on Flickr.

Let the nectar flow! We have honey from the new colony. Over the past two weeks they have filled this super and have it about 40% capped.

We added another super to give them room for August nectar. Looks like it could be another bounty year for honey.

There are now five honey supers on our two colonies. If the nectar flow continues in August, we could end up with more than 200 lbs of honey this year!

4th of July Honey

2011-07-04T11:53:00.003-06:00

4th of July Honey , a photo by D.Broberg on Flickr.

The "old habits" are now fully broken and the bees are content with the bottom entrances again. Based on our inspection this morning, it looks like we will have about 50 to 60 lbs of spring honey this year! We could harvest it now and it would be that wonderful light amber that won the Blue Ribbon at the Boulder County fair a few years ago, but we will wait and harvest it together with the late summer honey around Labor day.

There are now two supers of capped honey on our 2010 colony and they are going strong. We added a third super to the hive today to give them more room for the late summer honey.

The new 2011 colony seems to have a strong brood chamber, but hasn't made much progress in storing the honey up top. They will do good to fill one super this year.

Old Habits are Hard to Break

2011-05-01T14:35:00.007-06:00

"Don't worry about the bees loosing their entrance, they'll figure it out." That's what I said last week when the bees were still clustering at the top of the hive where we blocked their top-entrance for the summer. Well, they figured it out all right. They pried the duct-tape up and went underneath it this week - a break-in.

So this weekend we added the first honey-super for them and installed the queen excluder. I also re-taped the top-entrance cover more securely. Later they are still clustering near the place of the original top entrance while the bottom entrance is wide-open! How long before these bees break their old habits?

The picture below was captured from our web-cam today as we were installing the honey-super. The "bee-cam" provides a fresh high-resolution image every 15 minutes and can be seen directly at this link anytime:
http://brobergs.us/Weather/weathercam.jpg

Teaching Old Bees New Tricks

2011-04-24T17:18:00.004-06:00

Can old bees learn a new entrance procedure?

We covered the top entrance to the beehives yesterday. After the problems for the last two years with spotty honey stores and pollen inside the honey supers we decided that this top entrance would be limited to the winter season only. It was fairly cool yesterday and not many bees were out, so when we covered it, not too many were confused.

Today they all left from the bottom entrance (no reducer), but when they return they still seem to be lost and can't find their way back in. Notice the big pile near the black duct tape covering the upper entrance on the hive on the left. This hive is our survivor colony from last year. (They have never known anything but a top entrance.)

The new colony is in the hive on the right. They were installed one week ago and have an entrance reducer. The top entrance was open for the first week, but they seem to have adjusted quickly.

Installing the Bees

2011-04-22T19:22:00.003-06:00

The video is in 3D. If you don't have 3D glasses you can view it in 2D by selecting the "3D" pop-up in the lower right corner and selecting "Other Options", then "View video with no 3D device". Once that preference is set, go back to the 3D button and select "Left Only" or "Right Only".

Snow on the Beehive 3/29/2011

2011-03-30T21:30:00.001-06:00

January 29th Inspection

2011-02-13T16:50:00.002-07:00

A warm end to January was an opportunity to open up the hive and do a brief inspection. We found a large colony was in good shape and still had plenty of honey stores in the upper box.

The lower box was quite light and mostly empty. We've saved a few full frames of honey from last fall that we are ready to give back to them if they seem to be running low, but they weren't ready for it just yet.

Just after this inspection the weather turned very cold and we had quite a cold spell with temps dropping to -20 overnight. Today the we were back in the 60s and they were once again out flying. We'll check again in late February or early March and see if they need the extra honey.

The Fable of the Bees (updated)

2010-09-27T19:48:00.007-06:00

A hive of bees is in a field,
Within a climate sunny.
It will survive to multiply
If work supplies the honey.

The queen supplies a stream of eggs
Which soon turn into workers.
Except for one dependent class
Who live full-time as shirkers.

These are the drones, and every hive
Supplies them with a living.
They dance and sing and whoop it up,
Consuming, but not giving.

The drones spend days and nights enthralled
By pleasures of a season.
Convinced that life is far too short
To waste on prayer or reason.

They are supported by the queen,
The mistress of seduction.
She has a plan to make them wish
They’d labored in production.

But that comes later, this is now.
Each drone, content, relaxes.
So, worker bees work extra hard
And grumble at the taxes.

And so, drones while away their time
In games and food and squander.
That is her plan, because she knows
That drones are prone to wander.

The drones play on and on for weeks,
Oblivious to hunches
That there might come a time to pay,
For hives have no free lunches.

To serve the drones, some other bees
Supply a range of vices
That only queens can subsidize
So high are vices’ prices.

But where, you ask, does cunning queen
Accumulate the treasure
That celebrating hordes of drones
Can waste in weeks of pleasure?

The hive itself, without a plan,
Produces streams of honey.
The system runs on payments made
In liquid golden money.

The queen has passed a law of iron
That drones must gain a portion
Of honey gold, which they will spend,
Which workers think extortion.

So, in the hive two classes form
Which scheme like rival brothers
To profit from the hive’s output
Without the claims from others.

One class grows rich by selling goods
To drones, who live by spending.
The other class works day and night,
In labor never-ending.

The drones grow fat, and specialize
In ever-greater pleasures.
While worker bees begin to plan
A host of counter-measures.

The workers come before the queen
Ten thousand wings a-humming.
She says to bide their time instead;
Payday is surely coming.

They are not sure she speaks the truth,
But great is their devotion.
They give her time to prove her case,
Suppressing dark emotion.

The merchants of the drones grow rich.
For honey flows like water.
The hive’s economy hums on,
And drones foresee no slaughter.

The drones resent worker bees
Who grouse about the favors
Displayed to drones, who spend the wealth
Produced by others’ labors.

They set aside some honey sweet
To hire a solution.
A group of masters of the arts
Of specious elocution.

These hired experts write reports
That show that flowing honey
Can only be preserved intact
If drones are spending money.

They say that worker bees do not
Perceive what makes hives wealthy.
To stop the flow of funds to drones
Is fiscally unhealthy.

You see, they say, the flow of funds
Must without drones be severed.
Without our drones, the stimulus
Can’t save the banks, full-levered.

Without the banks, which serve the drones,
As well as worker legions,
The wealth of all will disappear
Into the nether regions.

So, we must save the hive without
The envy-driven blaming
Of useful drones who make us rich
By partying and gaming.

The worker bees do not perceive
How this concatenation
Of arguments implausible,
is valid explanation.

But these are experts with degrees
From famous institutions,
Which get their funding from the queen
And rich bees’ contributions.

Therefore, the worker bees begin
To doubt their own suspicions
That drones are liabilities
Not worthy of provisions.

The hired experts collect their pay
For having duped the masses.
Then chortle in contempt of those
Whom they regard as asses.

They take their graphs and charts and chalk
And go back to their places
Of tenured and secure success
With academic graces.

And so the drones indulge themselves,
Which they find stimulating.
For that’s what stimuli are for:
“Let’s not be hesitating!”

Whenever their accounts run low,
And bankers grow suspicious,
The queen expands the flow of funds,
Which bankers find delicious.

And so the lending class gets rich,
For drones have endless shop lists.
To lend to them is safe, they think,
The queen will never stop this.

The lending class then borrows short
To lend long-term to spenders,
Short rates are low, long rates are high:
The system has defenders.

The experts back on campus see
The many permutations.
They think that they may strike it rich:
Computerized equations!

And so the tenured quants come forth
To serve the lending classes.
Who borrow even more from fools
Who wear rose-colored glasses.

And so the permutations spread
Throughout the hive’s insiders
Complexity now reigns supreme,
With kooks the sole deriders.

And then, one summer’s day, the queen
Calls forth her close attendants.
She lays the eggs that will decide
The future of descendants.

Each egg is fed, at her expense,
To test the heirs’ survival.
One will emerge first and impose
A death sting on each rival.

Then up she flies, drones in pursuit
In hope of one last action.
A few achieve what all would like:
Their last full satisfaction.

“Payday has come,” the queen declares.
“Free lunches now have ended.”
The worker bees blockade the hive,
The golden fund defended.

The drones, now spent in every sense,
Beg for continued feeding,
But worker bees ignore their pleas:
The new hive needs no breeding.

Word spreads among the lending class:
The formulas so splendid
Have crashed the flow of funds outright:
Liquidity suspended.

And then the sellers who rode high
On drones’ relentless spending
Discover they must switch careers:
Their sector is descending.

The money that the drones had spent
Will now be spent by others.
The queen cuts taxes and declares:
“You now can have your druthers.”

The flow of funds continues on,
Though drones are not surviving.
The experts with their charts and graphs
Were wrong: the hive is thriving.

The lending class must now survey
The shape of new conditions
Without the hope of queen-backed funds
To guarantee ambitions.

The tenured experts, still employed,
Release a memorandum.
They all insist that these events
Were all black swans and random.

And so we see that scarcity
Asserts its jurisdiction.
There’s greater wealth for workers now,
Due to the drones’ eviction.

The worker bees survey the scene
Of greater wealth for labors.
There’s always more down at the store
When drones are not your neighbors.

One worker bee begins to think
About the drones’ defenders.
The tenured masters of the charts
Who justified the spenders.

“It seems to me,” declares the bee,
“That other drones are living
High on the hog, beyond the rules:
They’re taking without giving.”

Considering consumption by
Those bees in tenured splendor,
The other bees begin to doubt
Their claims to legal tender.

Why should these experts with their charts
And graphs and dense equations
Be paid by all to generate
Post-crisis explanations?

What is the use of expertise
When experts tell you little
Of what will happen next, and why?
They’re always noncommittal.

And so a wave of terror spreads
In tenured education.
To meet a market on your own:
A frightening innovation.

They live secure from having to
Explain their public errors.
Without the queen’s own guarantees,
The world is filled with terrors.

And so they send a delegate,
A master of compliance,
To once again persuade the queen
Against their self-reliance.

She welcomes him into her court,
And smiles at his submission.
She loves to see her experts squirm
When facing competition.

“My queen,” he says, “you must beware
Of worker bees’ complaining.
You still get value for your grant
Of pay for all our training.”

“We serve the court, and serve it well,
Delaying that dark day.
When worker bees at last decide
It’s time to disobey.”

“I see your point, and see it clear,”
She says to feckless minion.
“You serve me as the shapers of
The climate of opinion.”

“And so I’ll still extend your pay,
To guarantee the ridding
Of competition’s terrors,
But you all will do my bidding.”

“We’ve always understood the deal,”
Is his firm declaration.
“When it comes time to praise the court,
Expect no hesitation.”

And so the minion brings the news
For academe’s elation.
Between the market and the school:
A wall of separation.

So now I end my poem short
Of hival operations,
Of politics and pay and deals,
And queenly expectations.

But this one fact I hope prevails
From concepts you’ve now seen.
There’s always value rendered sure
For benefits from the queen.

Author: Dr. Gary North

Gary North received his Ph.D. in history from the University of California, Riverside in 1972. Gary is the author of over 42 books including "The War on Mel Gibson: The Media versus The Passion," "Unconditional Surrender," "Conspiracy: A Biblical View," and "Crossed Fingers: How Liberals Captured the Presbyterian Church." Gary is one of the most insightful and thought-provoking historians and economists in modern times.

http://www.garynorth.com/

Upside-down Beehive!

2010-09-05T16:28:00.003-06:00

It was harvest day and we went about our business of harvesting the two honey-supers we were hoping had been filled by our new colony. We were using our usual procedure that makes use of a leaf-blower to clear the bees from the frames as we move them to a closed container near the hive. As we were moving the frames from the edges toward the center, I noticed there was brood in the honey super! (This is bad, since we were using a queen excluder, designed to keep the queen out of the honey boxes.)

We had already blown a lot of bees off these frames and they were quite mad at this point. We stopped in our tracks and pondered what to do. If there was brood upstairs, it could only mean the queen was up there. There was a good chance we had already blown her off the frames.

We put the brood frames back into this box and proceeded to carefully blow off the rest of the edge frames that were capped honey for harvest. We went to the next super and only took the edge frames, leaving the brood frames in the center alone. We combined these two partial brood frames to place them back on the hive. But we wondered what was going on downstairs?

Had the original queen simply migrated to the upper boxes through the top entrance? Or had they requeened in the upper boxes? There was no immediate signs of queen cells, so we began to inspect the lower boxes to see what was going on below. We found more honey down there than was above, but we also found empty brood chambers with no sign of brood. We pulled a few more of the honey frames from below and replaced them with some of the partial honey/nectar cells from above.

After all this mess, the bees were quite mad since we were doing this inspection without any smoke and they were already agitated by our honey raid. I even got stung through my clothing! We put it all back together without the queen excluder and headed for safety.

The harvest turned out to be a total of 36 lbs, which is not really a bad year for a first-year colony (we've done worse.)

But the excitement wasn't over. We took the empty frames from our harvest and put them back into the hive to be "cleaned" by the bees. Need I say they were not at all glad to see us return? After that they formed a huge beard/ball on the front of the hive near the top entrance. We couldn't really tell what was going on and why they wouldn't go inside.

Normally as the sun goes down they will eventually all go back inside, but not that day. We went out to observer the entrance after the sun went down and they was still a very sizable ball on the outside. Was it a raiding party? Was the queen inside that ball? Maybe there was actually a second queen now and she was being attacked? We watched and saw a few bees circle and fly off to the south, but most stayed put.

By the next morning this group sitting on the porch was still there! I took the photo below at about 8AM the next day. This is most puzzling and we're not sure what happened here or what we might have done wrong.

Any speculation on the situation is welcome as comments.

Bright Green Bees!

2010-08-01T19:45:00.002-06:00

I saw some of these collecting pollen from the Ecinaceas. It might be augochlorella species.

New "South Garden" update

2010-08-01T19:32:00.005-06:00

The new garden is going full bloom. Here is an updated photo:

New "South Garden"

2010-06-05T21:52:00.007-06:00

Not because it has any southern style, but because it is on the south side of the house. Anyway here is our new garden with the white picket fence, finally completed.

The next picture shows just before the fence was added.

Pathways and beds completed and ready to plant.

The fountain installed and the pathways started:

Starting to take shape:

A New Season for New Bees

2010-04-17T19:51:00.009-06:00

We picked up a new package of Minnesota Hygienic Bees today. Here are a series of photos showing the sequence. First the pick-up - finding the best package.

Next, bring it home. Of course you just put 10,000 bees into your trunk, right?

Suited up and ready for installation:

Take the feeder can out, and dump them into their new home:

Install the Queen cage, she's a real beauty, sure hope she is vigorous:

Put the lid on and your done!

R.I.P. 2009 Honeybees

2010-03-06T17:20:00.005-07:00

They are gone, all gone! None of our honeybees survived this long, cold winter. I guess that means we are disqualified as beekeepers since we didn't do so well keeping them.

What happened? We did an inspection today and found they all had plenty of surplus honey stores so they didn't starve to death. We also found that they did not die in a cluster formation, which means they didn't freeze to death. The few dead ones that remained were scattered around the hives in random poses, none with their heads poking into the comb. There were no signs of any disease, mites or other pests. Perhaps it was CCD? Perhaps it was bad genetics? Perhaps it was pesticides?

We'll order more and start again. Maybe we'll go back to Italians again or try some Russians.

Winter Blues

2010-02-27T20:10:00.002-07:00

Winter has been long and blue this year! The photo above is a typical scene from our front windows at breakfast time. The blue-light and the snow have persisted. We have probably set new records this year for the most number of days with snow on the ground. By my count through the end of February we have had 77 days of snow cover since October 1. These were not consecutive days, but total days with many separate snowy days.

It has also been FAR COLDER than we can ever remember. For November the Average temp was 37.7, December was 21.1, January was 25.6, and February was 26.7. January and February normally have average temps above freezing, but not this year! Compared to average: Nov = -2.6°; Dec = -4.7°; Jan = -7.8° Feb = -9.1°; Brrr...

March is usually the month of our heaviest snowfall. Where is spring?

As for the Bees, as it warmed up briefly to 50°F today, we saw some bees from the feral colony we captured last spring. The other two look like they are goners.

The birds (chickens) don't seem to mind the cold as much. They consume more feed in the winter and produce fewer eggs, but we are still getting plenty with an average of about 2 Dozen eggs per week over the winter. Based on the going rate for the feed, we figure these eggs are costing us about $1.60 per dozen. Not bad considering the store price for organic free-range eggs is about $3.50 per dozen.

Wintering Bees

2009-11-15T16:46:00.004-07:00

Another early snowstorm in the bee-yard.

2009 Harvest Summary

2009-11-10T19:56:00.005-07:00

Another growing season gone and Thanksgiving is fast approaching, that means its time to review the year's harvest totals and give thanks for the blessings from our garden. As of Nov 10, most of the 2008 harvest is in(we still have a few carrots remaining). We had some challenges this year with the weather and the bees but we still got plenty to be thankful for.

July in the Garden, before the hail

We didn’t set any new records this year for production but we were above the average yield in several categories. A hail storm ravaged our garden on July 28th destroying a lot of the produce. Despite the damage we were still above average on our garlic, green beans and snow peas. We also added laying hens for fresh eggs this year. We have five layers that are produced as much as 30 eggs per week before the winter set in.

2009 harvest totals:
• Carrots 21.7 lbs (so far), 56% of average yield
• Cucumbers 26.3 lbs, 94% of average yield
• Eggs 25.6 dozen (new category)
• Garlic 5.2 lbs, 128% of average yield
• Green Beans 23.3 lbs, 139% of average yield
• Honey 107.5 lbs, 86% of average yield
• Beeswax 2 lbs
• Lettuce & Salad Greens 5.2 lbs, 86% of average yield
• Onions 1.5 lbs (volunteers)
• Peppers 23.8 lbs, 46% of average yield
• Rhubarb 5.4 lbs, 49% of average yield
• Snow Peas 8.8 lbs, 194% of average yield
• All Squash 83.4 lbs, 52% of average yield
• Tomatoes 172.9 lbs, 98% of average yield

2009 Climate Summary:
This summer's growing season was longer than normal and had an early start. This should have set us up for great harvests, but the hail came. We had our last frost of spring on April 19th and our first frost of the fall on October 2nd giving us a growing season of 166 days this year. We had good consistent rains from April through July this year, which was above average, but 64 days were rainy, which may have kept the bees inside more than normal at least partially accounting for our lower honey production. Our total summer rainfall was above normal with 9.8" from April through October with August being our driest month with only 0.12” for the month. September was also dry, so the late-summer required a lot of extra watering again this year.

It was also a cool summer with average temps peaking at only 69°F in July, and once again with no days above 100 degrees. The maximum temp for the entire summer was only 96°F on July 24th.

Hail stones

Fall Beehive Inspections

2009-10-18T17:32:00.001-06:00

We had a wonderful weekend with highs in the 70s and low 80s and light winds. It was ideal to do an inspection of our beehives to see if they are ready for winter. It was mostly bad news again.

This is one of the center frames from the upper box of Hive #1 (survivor colony). They have a bit more honey in the edges of the box, but they are in bad shape regarding reserves and will starve without more honey.

This is brood chamber (lower) from Hive #1. As you can see there is nearly no brood and we saw no larvae and no eggs. This looks like a death sentence for this colony. We put on a pollen patty and will start feeding winter syrup, but it may be too late.

This frame is from the upper box of Hive #2 (feral colony). They seem to have one box full of honey, with a bit more in the middle box. We harvested nothing from this colony this year.

This frame is from the middle box of Hive #2. There was some capped brood, but we saw almost no larvae or eggs.

This frame is the honey stores from the upper chamber of Hive #3 (2009 package colony).

This frame is from the center brood chamber of hive #3. Where is the brood?

Lower level frame from hive #3. No brood, no pollen, no honey.

We put pollen patties on all three hives to try to encourage some new brood, but it looks like it's going to be a tough winter for our bees.

Honey Harvest 2009

2009-09-21T19:56:00.004-06:00

Well it has been a tough year for the bees. Our bees only produced 1/3 of what they did last year. The total production this year was just over 100 lbs, making this liquid gold even more precious this year.

We're really not sure what happened though. The newbees we purchased in April that gave us fits with the failed queen release have been nothing but trouble this year. They were supposed to be Minnesota Hygienic bees, but I'm not so sure. They don't behave at all like those we've had before. The queen must be a party animal, she is very productive and the colony built up very fast and very strong. This new colony is also the most aggressive bees we've ever had - they are HOT! The last few times we've been out to visit the hives, just as soon as we take the lid of of these hundreds come pouring out and go straight for your face with aggression. It wouldn't be so bad if that is what we were accustomed to, but the other colonies are gentle lady-bugs by comparison.

The other thing strange about this colony was the unusual open patterns in the honey frames as shown in the photo in the previous post. Even at harvest, we found nearly all of the frames half-empty, and dotted with pollen as shown below - very strange. This really reduced our harvest. It was not as if they had been raided or even got hungry, rather the open parts were never touched. I'm putting blame on bad genetics and we'll replace the queen.

The survivor colony was slow building up in the spring and slow to fill the honey supers too. There was nothing particularly unusual about them this year, no ailments, just generally not very strong. Looks like another candidate for queen replacement, should they actually survive the winder again.

Finally we have the feral colony we rescued from a tree. They seem strong enough, but not too aggressive. But we got them so late they didn't really have any opportunity to compete for production this year. They now seem to have a good population and hopefully they'll survive the winter and be our most productive colony next year. We'll see. Maybe they will produce another queen we can use on one of the other colonies too.

Honey progress

2009-07-25T20:55:00.003-06:00

Well it is late July and we have a total of 5 honey supers now installed on the three colonies. We installed the first one today on the new colony we captured as a swarm in June. We did an inspection of the others today and there was some mixed news.
The survivor colony was doing well and got its second super just one week ago. Today they have done a good job of filling most of it with nectar, but nothing capped yet. The patters look typical (see the photo below):

Now we moved down to the new colony of Minnesota Hygienics we started from a package in April. We noticed something strange as we pulled a few frames out for inspection. One edge was completely capped and the other edge had untouched comb, with some spotty places where there seemed to be pollen being stored. (This hive has a queen excluder installed.) Here is a picture of the pattern:

Here is a close-up of some of the pollen on that same frame:

So what is going on with this colony and the honey?

First Eggs!

2009-07-02T20:14:00.003-06:00

July 2nd, 2009: Our chicks are nearly 16 weeks old and we got our first eggs today. One little egg and a medium sized one. We're not sure which hens were responsible but based on their maturity, probably Beau and/or Ankita.

June Update

2009-06-23T20:55:00.005-06:00

With all the rain we've had this spring, the wildflowers are going crazy this year, but the bees are not. Perhaps it's been too wet for them or just too cool, but they have not built up very fast nor filled the added space we gave them a few weeks ago and have done little or nothing with the honey supers we put on. The one survivor colony is building up rather slowly and the brood patterns have not been very good. The queen is showing her age.

The new colony has built up faster and seems to have a good queen, but they are still a new colony and haven't done much with the honey yet.

On this past Sunday, we found this swarm in one of our trees:

Fortunately for us, it was not very high so it was easy to remove and capture. We're pretty sure it was not from one of our hives since they have been struggling. We scrounged some spare parts and kludged a new hive together to put them into. We learned the lesson from the last swarm capture that escaped and we taped up the entrance hole for 2 days before letting them out. So far they seem to be settling into their new home. So hopefully they won't leave and we'll have some "freebees"!

Spring build-up

2009-05-25T21:06:00.003-06:00

May 16th: We did a hive inspection and found that both colonies seemed to be thriving and needed more space. Since this is peak swarming season around here, we wanted to be careful and make sure they didn't feel crowded. The spring fruit trees were also peaking a bit later than usual this year, so we also wanted to try to capture some of the nectar flow.

Click here to see a 3D version of this picture (use red-cyan 3d glasses).

We added the third brood box to the new colony. On the survivor colony we installed the queen excluder and the first honey super. During the inspection of this hive I caught a brief look at the queen, which hadn't been seen in almost a year. She is still productive, but the brood patterns weren't quite as impressive as last year.

Honeybee on our cherry blossoms.

Honeybee on our chokecherry blooms.

May 25th: We've had quite a bit of rain and the bees have been busy. I opened the hives up briefly to see how things were progressing. On the new colony I saw some new larvae in the recently installed frame, but no capped honey. I was hoping this hive would be ready for the first honey super, but it was not.

On the survivor colony I hoped to see some progress with the honey, but there was 0% capped and it seemed as if those bees returning to the hive were simply ignoring the new super and going straight down to the brood chamber with their loads. Perhaps it was not quite as ready as I expected.

June is just around the corner and with all the recent rain there should be a good nectar flow coming.

Springtime Blossoms

2009-05-16T20:22:00.002-06:00

Red Columbine in our cutting garden.

The first iris of spring.

3D Lilac blossoms (you'll need the 3D anaglyph glasses to view)

Queen Updates

2009-05-03T19:27:00.004-06:00

We opened up the new colony of hygienic bees today to check to see if the queen we released last week has been accepted and is productive. There was good news as she has been busy and there was some good brood now at various stages. Here is the picture:

It looks like the new queen was ready and waiting and is now working hard.

On to hive #1 and last year's Minnesota Hygienic colony; they seem to have fully survived the winter and we finally found the queen today. There was some good brood pattens on some frames, but also some spotty brood patterns on others. We rotated the deep boxes this time too.

Introducing... Chickens

2009-04-26T15:18:00.004-06:00

We just became "chicken-keepers". Here are a few pictures introducing the new chicks at six weeks:

"Ginger" is a Buff Orpington and is very friendly. She is the first one to come running to greet people. Click here to see Ginger in 3D (anaglyph 3D glasses needed)

Above is Beau-Peep. When she was a young chick, she looked just like one of those marshmallow Peeps you see around Easter. She is a Red Star and is friendly and even tempered. Click here to see the 3D image of Beau (anaglyph 3D glasses required).

Next is Gracie. She is named Gracie because she lays blue and green colored eggs or "Easter Eggs". She is an Araucana/Americana and is very shy and skittish around people and does not like to be handled. She is a beautiful bird and notice she has green skin on her legs and feet! Click here to see the 3D image of Gracie (anaglyph 3D glasses required).

This is Leia, a Speckled Sussex. She is a little shy, but will take food from your hands and will lay brown eggs. Click here to see the 3D image of Leia (anaglyph 3D glasses required).

Finally we have Ankita the Plymouth (Barred) Rock. She is friendly and even tempered. She will also lay light brown or pinkish eggs. Click here to see the 3D image of Ankita (anaglyph 3D glasses required).

Below is a photo of their new chicken coop and run:
We have to net the top of the run, to keep the hawks and eagles from stealing our chickens. The coop was painted to match our barn.

Queen release and other troubles

2009-04-24T21:06:00.002-06:00

Well last weekend was cold and rainy and we weren't able to check up on the newly installed colony. I took today off and it was warm and dry, so we went to check to see how the bees were doing. We expected to see all the burr comb in the empty space where the queen cage was hanging, but we didn't expect to see the new Queen still inside the cage! To our horror the bees did not eat through the marshmallow and release her in 13 days. Instead they built burr comb over the opening, sealing her inside.

She was still alive and being fed by attendants through the screen. We quickly released her and she dropped into the hive with her attendants. But was it too late? Some of the burr comb had a new queen cell. It takes 16 days to produce a new queen, but when did they give up on the caged queen and decide to produce another? Will she be accepted now? Will she begin producing? Stay tuned for another update next week.

On to the surviving colony from last year. This hive was weak, but somehow survived the winter. There was new brood, but we did not find the queen. The brood patterns looked good and there was still some stored honey remaining. We hope this colony is now past the worst and will recover fully. Here is a picture of the brood from today's inspection:

We had some good rain last week and everything is greening up nicely. The dandelions are in full bloom and our fruit trees are just about to pop. We hope this translates into a good nectar flow soon.

A Fresh Start

2009-04-12T21:29:00.003-06:00

We got a new package of Minnesota Hygienic bees and put them in this weekend. Between the cloud cover and rain, there was only a narrow window where it was warm enough and we took advantage.

See a 3D version of this picture here.

Removing the queen cage from the package.
View a 3D version of this picture here.

Shaking the bees into their new home.
View a 3D version of this photo here.

BTW, Becky was the excellent sterographer for these pictures.

Colony Collapse Disorder?

2009-03-14T17:15:00.004-06:00

It was a warm sunny day today and fearing the worst after seeing no activity from the hive in the past few weeks, I opened up the Italian hive today to find them substantially gone:

There was about 40lbs of honey still in the hive, so they didn't starve. It has been a mild winter and they have been well protected, so they didn't freeze. In today's inspection I found only a small handful of bees still present:

These few remaining bees were just barely alive and hardly moving. They were as good as dead (RIP). I did not find a queen present and there has been no brood of any kind since last fall. These were very productive bees during the last season and always were gentle. They will be missed, but replaced by another colony of Minnesota Hygienic Bees coming next month.

We also inspected the other colony of Minnesota Hygienics today. They are still very much alive and seem as vigorous as usual. They were out gathering pollen from somewhere and still had a good population and significant honey stores. However we are still concerned as we did not find any brood in the larvae stage today. While we did not spot the queen, it looks like she must be there somewhere. There were no queen cells and only a very small quantity of capped brood.

More info on CCD (videos): TED

Warm January Day

2009-01-18T16:36:00.004-07:00

Still concerned about the survival of our bees this winter, I took advantage of the warm weather today to have a look at the Italian colony, which is the one that seemed to be in the most trouble. The good news was they are still alive!

This photo shows a rather small cluster pattern for a warm day, which confirms the lower population of this colony.
The most amazing thing was that there was now MORE honey stores than we had placed in the hive during the November 1st inspection, when we first noticed they were in trouble.

I counted six full frames about like this one mostly untouched in the upper box. Even those in the very center had not been consumed.

We were encouraged by these findings today and still hold out hope that both colonies will survive through the winter.

January Wildfires!

2009-01-11T11:46:00.004-07:00

This week we had the Chinook winds, which are typical for this time of year. We had some wind gusts that peaked at 55 MPH and lost some shingles from the house. But these warm, dry winds also accelerated a local wild fire in central Boulder County. At a time when snow is usually covering the ground, it seems odd to have fires this time of year.

The Old Stage/Neva fire can be seen from our webcam snapshot above as the bright flare in the center of the image. Click the photo to see the full size, high resolution image.

The Daily Camera map below shows the exact location of the damage, which was about 8.6 miles west of our house.

Daily Camera News Story

Photo and video Gallery of fire

The Satellite image below is from the RockyMountain News story:

High-resolution DigitalGlobe satellite Imagery (PDF)

Denver Weather Examiner Story here.

Still Alive

2008-12-28T16:10:00.002-07:00

We've had an extremely cold December this year, with record low temperatures. On the 15th we set new records of -19F and had an average daytime temp of -6F. For the past week it has warmed up somewhat and our 7-day average was +23F, which matches the average temp for the whole month. Today felt like summer again with highs reaching into the mid-50s with warm sunshine. This change brought the bees back out for some cleansing flights and some foraging.

We were relieved to see they were still alive after the cold weather and their dangerously low stores. Since they were almost out of food, I took the opportunity to feed them a bit of honey and let them have a pollen patty. They took to the honey, but didn't seem too interested in the pollen patty today. Anyway, it looked like both colonies were quite alive and active today, which is good news.

2008 Garden Harvest Summary

2008-11-10T21:14:00.006-07:00

Here it is almost Thanksgiving again and a great time to review the year's harvest totals and give thanks for the blessings from our garden.

As of Nov 10, most of the 2008 harvest is in(we still have a few carrots remaining). We had a bumper crop of honey this year and the bees were also busy in the garden with pollination.

We set new records this year for production of green beans, tomatoes. We lost our cucumbers and a few squash plants to bugs, but still did well on those. We missed most of early summer due to travel so the early crops like rhubarb, lettuce and cilantro were way down.

2008 harvest totals:

Basil (not measured)
Cantaloupe 2.0 lbs (why bother?)
Carrots 34.3 lbs (so far)
Garlic 0.5 lbs (volunteers)
Green Beans 26.9 lbs (new record)
Honey 312 lbs (new record)
Beeswax 3 lbs (new category)
Lettuce & Salad Greens 1.5 lbs
Onions 18.2 lbs
Peppers 62.1 lbs
Pumpkins 57.5 lbs
Rhubarb 7.0 lbs
Shallots 0.7 lbs
All Squash 322 lbs
Tomatoes 357.6 lbs (new record)

2008 Climate Summary:
The length of this summer's growing season was a bit longer than normal. We had our last frost of spring on May 11th and our first frost of the fall on October 7th giving us a little longer than normal 149 days of growing season. We had good rains in May and August this year, which probably helped the nectar flow for the honey production. Our total summer rainfall was also very close to normal with 7.94" from April through October with July being our driest month with zero rainfall the whole month. June was also dry, so the mid-summer required a lot of extra watering again this year.

Average temps were generally equal to last year through July, again without any days above 100 degrees. We had our only 100 degree day in early August, then it was a bit cooler from August through October compared with normal averages.

To Bee or Not to Bee

2008-11-05T19:19:00.003-07:00

Anyone who has watched the news or picked up a newspaper lately has been witness to the extreme position in which the human race has placed itself. The precarious feeling of standing on a teeter totter with one foot trying to balance feeding the world, while the other is trying to balance nature and doing what is best for the earth. In one part of the United States we see farmers trying to defend their crops against the invading pests and just a few miles away we find a commercial beekeeper opening his hives to find that he lost up to 80 percent of his colonies over the winter. These two situations may not seem related but in fact they both have a common theme, the honeybee. This small, flying insect that seems to be as much a part of spring and summer as the gardens and flowers that they pollinate is in danger. It faces threats on every front. Unfortunately, we as a human race, are responsible for many of these threats from the pesticides that we use to the way we handle the bees. If these issues are not addressed soon, we could lose a valuable part of our food and our future.

The honeybee has been pushed into the news recently with the mysterious disease that is called, Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD. During the winter of 2006-2007, there was a reported loss of 30% of all the hives nationally with the winter of 2007-2008 reporting 37% loss ^{(Mendes 2).} This is devastating news to the world’s food supply. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, every 3 out of 10 bites of food we take is thanks to a honeybee. They are directly responsible for pollinating crops like blueberries, almonds, squash, cucumber and most fruit grown on trees. They pollinate 15 billion dollars worth of food grown in America, annually ^{(CSBA 1).} With these figures in mind, the world is racing to find a reason for CCD. So far, there have been many theories ranging from pesticides to bad nutrition, but there is not a definitive answer. Perhaps, it is because it is not just a single cause but a combination of causes that have been waiting like a time bomb to explode.

Bees are an insect and they are not the only insect that is part of the equation. There are insects that are good for plants like bees, ladybugs and preying mantis. These insects pollinate and keep other insects that would destroy a plant under control. Then there is another insect that will eat and destroy crops. Farmers deal with the threat of these other insects destroying their crops. According to the Southeast Farm Press, this past June farmers faced the loss of their corn crop due to the stink bug. These insects can survive over the winter in wheat fields that were plowed in the fall and will be then planted in the spring with corn ^{(Robinson 9).}

Corn is important to the economy not only for food, but with the demand to steer away from the use of fossil fuels. With Ethanol now being produced from corn and used as another way to fuel cars, farmers are turning over more fields for growing corn. If their crops are destroyed they lose not only their income but America loses a valuable fuel source. Unfortunately, many of the choices that the farmers have in killing destructive pests also kills the other insects like the honeybee. One solution that farmers use is neonicotinoids. This is a group of pesticides that were introduced on the market in the mid 1990’s. “Basically, neonicotinoids block the insect neural action. In other words, affected insects often just sit around doing nothing until they desiccate, get sunstroke or become picked off by a predator or disease” ^{(Shetlar 80).}

So far, these pesticides have been effective in preventing pests, but at what cost? The pesticides that fall under neonicotinoids, which includes clothianidin, have already been banned in Germany and a similar insecticide banned in France. Germany’s Federal Agricultural Research Institute is quoted by the Sierra Club as saying, ”It can unequivocally be concluded that poisoning of the bees is due to the rubbing-off of the pesticide ingredient clothianidin from corn seeds” ^{(Harmon par. 3).}

The response to these actions in Europe has fueled the debate here at home but with the income and need for corn being so great it has been harder to get action. According to the Colorado State Beekeepers Association website, the Natural Resources Defense Council has filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency, (EPA), for “withholding the toxicity of pesticides to bees”, they also are stating, “EPA granted a registration to a new pesticide manufactured by Bayer CropScience under the condition that Bayer submit studies about its product’s impact on bees” ^{(CSBA 1).} The pesticide in question, being manufactured by the Bayer Company, is one of these neonicotinoids. Why would the EPA not release the results of these findings? We could make lots of conclusions one of which could be the money that the Bayer Corporation has to help hide the issues. Let us not forget what David Hackenburg of the U.S. Department of Agriculture said, “Massive bee die-offs started occurring after regulatory agencies rubber stamped the use of neonicotinoid spraying and coatings” ^{(Harmon par.7) .}

Pest destroying our crops is not the only issue we have to take into account. There are also pests that are destroying the bees. During the mid 1980’s a threat was found to have invaded the U.S. beehives. This tiny threat is the mite. It has also had a devastating affect on the survival of our honey bees. The two main mites that can destroy a hive is the Varroa and the Tracheal mite. These mites have not been attributed as a cause of CCD but the way we treat this threat might be. Again the issue is a pesticide but this time it is one that the beekeeper used directly in the hive.

When the mite emerged on the scene, beekeepers rushed to find an answer and a quick fix. Keep in mind that commercial beekeeping is also a big money maker. Trucks carrying hives of bees are transported around the country to pollinate a specific crop. When the bees are done they will be packed up and moved to another field, perhaps across the country. If farmers do not have bees then their crops will not produce. Again we find ourselves on a teeter totter deciding between money and food and the bee. In response two hard pesticides were presented.

The first miticide to appear was Apistan and when mites became resistant to that then CheckMite entered the market. According to Bee Culture Magazine, “It is well known that both the above materials accumulate in the comb and can cause if not acute, at least persistent ongoing problems that interfere with the delicate biology of a honey bee colony” (Sanford 19). Keep in mind that both of these “miticides” are still sold in beekeeping catalogues today and even encouraged to be used. In the book, Beekeeping for Dummies, written by Howland Blackistan he says, “Regardless of whether you detect varroa mites, I suggest that preventative miticide treatments be administered to your hive once in the spring and again in autumn” (A180).

The fear of what might happen is often the reason preventative medicines are used. We have seen this example in humans. For too long doctors prescribed antibiotics to children to prevent them from getting sick and now we have found that many diseases have mutated or become resistant to the very thing we used to prevent it. So too is the case with the bee. Bees, like humans, have always had a chance of getting sick from certain diseases. Foulbrood is one such disease. The way to treat it is antibiotics.

Antibiotics are helpful when used correctly. That statement is also true when caring for a hive today. The problem is that many beekeepers feel pressured to give these antibiotics regularly as part of their seasonal management of their hives. They have been scarred by the threats that bees are facing and trying to keep up with the quick fixes that we as humans try to pass off as science. Bruce Royden Brown of CC Pollen Co explains, “Science tries to present a stable picture of its findings and in the end, it’s only partial, fragmented truth that is always moving”. He also adds, “Most science is driven by economic, profit driven pressure”(A1). In the end, a beekeeper is once again trying to perform a balancing act, how to protect their hive from disease and how to stop the weakening trend of bees in general.

Any beekeeper who has lost a hive can tell you of the guilt that is felt. To see a hive become sick or weakened, to open a hive at the end of a long winter only to find that it is dead or queenless is a beekeepers nightmare. They find themselves asking what they could have done to prevent it and could they have done more. These are the feelings that companies who sell the medicines and antibiotics play upon when selling their products.

Let us try to imagine the guilt that would be felt if we lost the bee population. Could we survive the loss of such an important part of our ecosystem? Bees have survived for millions of years without the aid of humans but may be destroyed by the science of humans. In our response to this situation we need to step back and take a look at the bigger picture. Colony Collapse Disorder is the current disaster hitting our environment but it’s really just a consequence of our over indulgent behavior concerning pesticides and our intrusive behavior into a highly organized part of nature. If we are going to succeed in balancing food and nature we need to take money out of the equation. Perhaps Bruce Royden Brown said it best, “Go back to the basics; give the bees what they need…It is vitally important for us as human beings, maybe even for reasons beyond our comprehension” (A4).

Works Cited

Blackiston, Howland. Beekeeping for Dummies. New York: For Dummies, 2002.

Brown, Bruce R. "Bee Nutrition & Bee Medication: What the bee Really is not What it is Getting." Total Health 08 Mar. 2008. 24 Sept. 2008. EBSCOhost. Front Range Community College, Longmont. 24 Sept. 2008.

Harmon, Alan. "The Sierra Club Wants Neonicotinoids Treatments Stopped, Now!" CSBA. 23 Sept. 2008. Colorado State Beekeepers Association. 23 Sept. 2008 http://www.coloradobeekeepers.org/articles.htm.

Mendes, David, Vice President. “Health of Bee Pollinators”. Wash D.C.. FDCH Congressional Testimony. 24 Sept. 2008.

"National Resources Defense Council Sues EPA to Get Public Records on Pesticides." CSBA. 18 Aug. 2008. Colorado State BeeKeepers Association. 23 Sept. 2008 http://www,coloradobeekeepers.org/articles.htm

"Organic Farming Can feed the world...Can Conventional farming?" Natural Life Sept.-Oct. 2007: 40+.

Robinson, Ray. "Corn Growers given plant bug alert." Southeast Farm Press 04 June 2008: 7+.

Sanford, Malcolm. "CCD-The Role of Emerging Pests, Pesticides and Pathogens." Bee Culture July 2008: 19+.

Shetlar, Dave. "Get to Know Neonicotinoids." Landscape Management Apr. 2008: 78+.

----------

This above was an English paper written by Becky Broberg, © September 25, 2008

Pesticide impact?

2008-11-02T16:55:00.002-07:00

A brief update on the hive troubles: We continued feeding today with leftover honey. We made about 8 lbs available for each colony in the hive-top feeders. It was certainly warm enough for them to take it today. We'll see how much we can get them to pack away before it gets too cold.

I spoke to the former president of the local bee club today. He said this problem seems to be fairly widespread throughout Boulder County this year. He has some theories that it may be related to neoniconoids (a type of pesticide) being used on local corn crops. His advice was add a pollen patty to affected hives to see if that will get the queen laying again.

More resources on connections between neoniconoids and colony collapse disorder (CCD):
USDA website article
Bee Culture Article

They're in trouble!

2008-11-01T21:09:00.002-06:00

We've had some nice warm weather this week and the wind was calm so we did an inspection today, Nov 1. What we found was rather disturbing. The bees, both hives are in real trouble now, and just a few weeks ago everything looked great. Most of their honey reserves were gone and there was virtually no brood. What happened? Will we loose them?

This frame is one of the best frames from the upper deep of Hive-1's honey reserves, most were completely empty. Just 4 weeks ago, these were completely full.

Going downstairs to the brood chamber revealed frames like this. Most were just empty and a few had some pollen and we saw only about a few dozen cells with capped brood, no eggs, no larvae, just empty cells. Are they queenless?

Hive 2 wasn't doing much better. We found most of the frames empty and in the uppermost chamber there were just four frames at the far north end of the hive that still had capped honey like this one. Since they seldom venture to the north end of the hive during the worst of winter, I decided to move these 4 frames with the honey closer to the middle of the upper chamber.

Hive 2's brood chamber was also mostly empty now. Like hive 1, we saw a few cells with some pollen and just a few cells with capped brood, but no eggs, no larvae and very little honey. We couldn't find the queens today from either hive. Hive 1 was quite agitated and we ended up having to put our gloves on in the mayhem, which made it a bit hard to snap some pictures.

In our panic, we decided they urgently needed some food. After we closed up the hives I went back and returned with 8-10 partially capped frames we didn't harvest from September. Most had open cells of nectar and a few were partially capped with honey. I set these about leaning against the hives for feeding and they were all over them in just a few minutes. They were having a feeding frenzy the rest of the afternoon. We have a bit more unprocessed honey we will try to feed them tomorrow, but if they are really queenless, it probably won't help.

These bees were so good to us this past season with the tremendous production and now it looks like something has gone terribly wrong. We hope they find a way to make it somehow.

Halloween Bees

2008-10-25T17:33:00.002-06:00

Our son was playing in the marching band at the Longmont Halloween Parade today, and I couldn't help snapping a few shots of the cute little bees.

Even the little dogs were dressed up like bees today!

First Frost and Fall Hive Inspection

2008-10-07T19:37:00.002-06:00

Well the Indian summer is over and we had our first frost last night. Here is how the Squash plants looked today:

Now begins the preparations for winter. I inspected both beehives and found that they were in good shape and had stored plenty of honey away for the winter season.

This is an example of how the top 10 frames from hive #1 are looking. This is all capped honey and is quite heavy. This will sustain the bees through the winter.

The frame above is from hive #2 and shows an area in the center that was previously occupied by brood and has been recently been refilled with capped honey for winter. This hive has more than a dozen frames like this in good shape.

This will be the first fall that we have decided not to feed our bees any sugar water. We have left them to gather their own honey to store for winter which must be much healthier for them anyway. If they run out, we have some reserves of their honey from previous harvest we can feed back to them.

Fall Colors in our Garden

2008-10-05T17:59:00.019-06:00

Well fall is here and the leaves are changing, but we haven't had our first frost yet. This is unusual for our location and it means we get to enjoy a second burst from our garden. The mild weather has given the garden a new burst of color and blooms that makes this a great time of year. Today was a bright overcast day, which made it perfect for snapping a few pictures. I thought I'd put some here to share the color we are enjoying. All of these were taken in our own garden today. Click to see full size.

Maple leaves from our one and only maple tree.

Yellow Flowers

Red & White Dahlia and a Red Poppy

Pink Holly Hocks

Bicolor Zinnia and Blue Delphiniums

Pink-Yellow Rose

As you can see from the pictures that even though the asters, russian sage and spirea have all faded, the bees are still finding plenty to feast from in our gardens.

Giant bee from Japan

2008-10-02T06:21:00.002-06:00

I was in Japan recently and while walking around the Japanese Gardens at Makuhari Seaside Park I saw this giant bee on a flower. I've heard of the giant Japanese hornets, but this one didn't look like a typical hornet and with all the hair it seemed more like a very big honey bee. Can anyone identify it?

(Click the image for an even larger view.)

Making Whipped (spun) Honey

2008-09-27T20:35:00.002-06:00

We took some of the surplus honey and decided to experiment with some whipped or creamed honey this year. Depending on where you are from, different names are used for this type of processed honey product. Some call it creamed honey, others call it whipped honey and some call it spun honey. It's all the same thing and it has no cream, is not whipped nor spun. It is 100% honey with nothing added and nothing taken away, but it has been processed to optimize the crystallization process by a heating and cooling process. To start the crystal process, a "seed-honey" is used much like using a sour-dough seed to start a sour-dough bread recipe. The seed-honey is already creamed and has the needed crystal structure which spreads throughout the honey when mixed.

The photo below shows the seed honey being combined with the batch of heat-treated honey that has cooled back to about 80F.

When it is done right, you end up with a creamy-light colored honey that has the consistency of peanut-butter. It should stick to a knife without dripping, yet liquefies quickly on your tongue or on warm toast or muffins - Yummy!

The process also requires a week or more stored at just the right cool but not cold temperature. We'll have to wait a few weeks to know if ours came out just right.

Honey for Peaches!

2008-09-18T19:07:00.001-06:00

We traded some of our Golden Harvest for another kind of golden harvest: Fresh Utah Peaches!

Another Honey Harvest: 9/13/08

2008-09-14T19:12:00.004-06:00

We recovered the last frames of surplus honey from the hives yesterday. When we harvested the six medium supers on Labor day, we sorted out all that were less than 100% capped and put them back on the hives. It amounted to about 1 super on each hive or about 10 frames each. Since it is getting late in the season, we gave them just 2-weeks to finish capping them, which really wasn't enough but we're out of time now and what they pack and cap from now on must be for their winter stores.

From the 20 frames we took there was only about 10 that were completely capped now and the rest we'll just freeze and give back to them in the spring. We've been too busy to process the honey and bottle it, so we don't know what the final total will be, but up until now we have already bottled 279 pounds. It will be close, but we might even break 300 once it is all processed. We're both amazed at the bounty this year.

The photo below shows just a portion of the 156 lbs from Labor Day:

UPDATE (9/27/08): We have totaled all the honey harvests from this season: 312 lbs!

Robbing the Bees (video)

2008-09-03T06:24:00.003-06:00

I made a time-lapse video of our harvesting process: "Robbing the Bees"

The best honey around, really!

2008-08-10T11:34:00.002-06:00

We entered this bottle of honey from our first harvest this season in the local county fair and won first prize!

Tomato Season in Full Swing

2008-08-07T20:20:00.004-06:00

August is here and the tomatoes are coming on in full glory. Here are a few snapshots showing todays harvest:

Click either picture to see the notes in Flickr that identify the varieties.

Yum, yum!

Death in the Russian Sage

2008-08-03T12:03:00.003-06:00

This time of year, a popular landscape plant called Russian Sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia) is a favorite for the local bees.

Yesterday evening I went out to watch the bees foraging on this plant. There were hundreds bobbing in and out and going from flower to flower gathering nectar for my fall honey. I like to see them working hard, but there was something wrong among the flowers. I saw several bees that seemed to be motionless or just hanging by the flowers apparently victims of some tragedy.

This death in the Russian sage was troubling. I saw maybe a dozen dead bees spread over 4 large plants. I shook a few to see if they were alive and one flew away, while the other fell to the ground. I posted questions about this mystery with photos over on the Beemaster.com beekeepers forum and got a quick reply; mystery solved.

What I wasn't seeing at first, was a very small predatory bug called an "assassin bug" or an "ambush bug". According to Wikipedia, these bugs capture their prey with sticky feet and inject a paralyzing saliva into their bodies then ingest them by literally sucking the life out of their bodies. While this seems gruesome, there are many hazards waiting or the foraging bees and the number taken by these bugs is far less than what would happen if insecticides were used on the flowers.

After getting the answer from BeeMaster.com, I went out for another look, to find the bugs. Here are a few more close-ups showing these nasty bugs in action:

This one shows a native bee (species unknown) also falling victim to the ambush bug, which can be seen directly above:

Hottest July on Record?

2008-07-31T18:26:00.011-06:00

We got this from the National Weather Service today:

THU JUL 31 2008 ...Heat advisory in effect from 1 pm to 9 pm MDT Friday... The national weather service in Denver has issued a heat advisory...which is in effect from 1 pm to 9 pm MDT Friday. Temperatures across the plains Friday are expected to be in the low and mid 90s by early afternoon. Readings are then expected to peak between 100 and 105 degrees in the mid afternoon. The mercury will probably remain above the 90 degree level until mid-evening. A heat advisory means that a period of hot temperatures is expected. Sunny skies...hot temperatures and low relative humidities will combine to create a situation in which heat illnesses are possible. Drink plenty of fluids...stay in an air-conditioned room...stay out of the sun...and check up on relatives and neighbors.

How hot was it? According to some reports, it was the hottest July on record, possibly the hottest summer ever:

On Wednesday, we tied a 134-year record for consecutive days in the 90s, with 18. Today, number 19, enters the history books as the new sweatiest summer run... You can call the temperatures pleasant or oppressive, but this streak is unquestionably historic. It ties a record set in July 1874 and the same month in 1901.

Well, I suppose it depends on how you measure. How many days did we have over 100 degrees?

We had none at my house, and only a single 100 degree reading in Denver.)

How many new record high temps were set?

None officially, not a single new high temperature record for July.

So how do recent years compare? Well let's not be too quick to forget that sweltering July we had just back in 2005. Remember we had 25 days 90 or above and 7 days over 100 and we set 8 new high temp records for the month. July 2005 also had a higher average temperature for the month. See data here.

So what's the big deal? Nothing really, but it seems the news media wants to make a story anywhere they can. If it is something they can tie to that ever popular topic of "global warming" they will. My advice is before you get too excited, verify the data yourself.

Another Honey Harvest!

2008-07-26T20:30:00.004-06:00

For the second time this month, we found that we needed to harvest honey. Those bees have been busy bees. We took the first honey super (placed in May) from the Minnesota bees, which was now fully capped. We also took the oldest honey super from the Italians. That brings the tally up to 3 harvested supers for the Italians and one for the Minnesotans.

This is Becky from her vantage point high up on the ladder getting ready to harvest from the Minnesota Hygienic bees.

Here are some of the frames of capped honey we took today.

And here are just two jars of the 60 lbs of freshly bottled honey we processed today.

Midsummer Climate Update:

2008-07-25T14:02:00.003-06:00

It has been a very dry summer so far. According to the national weather service, Denver has officially received only 3.26” inches of total precipitation since January 1^st while the average for this time of year should be 9.76”. That’s only 1/3 of normal rainfall! At our weather station, we have gone for 37 days with no measurable rain and 50 days since we had more than 1/100^th of an inch. Our total precipitation since Jan 1^st is only 4.16”, which is a bit ahead of the airport, but still way behind! Everything is very dry and the garden and lawn have been suffering.

It has also been hot, but thankfully not as hot as Denver. The official highs for Denver, (recorded at DIA) have logged twelve consecutive days over 90º F, which is not yet close to the record of eighteen days. At our weather station, we have had fifteen days over 90º in July, but no consecutive stretch longer than five days. Hoping to match the trend from last year, so far we have not had any days that reached 100º, our highest recorded temperature so far this summer was 99.0º on July 20^th. Our growing season began about normal, with our last freeze recorded on May 11^th this year, three days later than last year.

What does this mean for the garden? Well we have been spending a lot on water to keep everything irrigated, but no matter how much water you put, it never seems to do as much good as natural rain. The tomatoes and peppers seem to be enjoying the heat as we’d expect as well as the squash. For some reason the bees are having a great year so far. The trees however, seem to be suffering the most.

News story on Denver’s heat wave.

Check-out our our Garden Weather Page.

Washboarding observed

2008-07-14T21:22:00.003-06:00

Okay, taking a closer look at the behavior with full motion, reveals something different: Sort of a dance or waggle back and forth. It is easily discerned in this video of the Minnesota Hygienics being well, hygienic. This cleaning behavior is called "washboarding". It is not well understood, but here is the video:

The Italian hive is up to the same shenanigans, but they aren't quite so organized about it:

Swedish Beekeeping

2008-07-11T19:48:00.003-06:00

On our recent trip to Sweden, we stayed on several farms and saw some local bee yards. This one was in the Southern province of Skane near the town of Degeberga (map). I was intrigued by the different design of the boxes, compared to the common white ones we use here. Since I didn't open one up, I'm guessing that the lower brood box is insulated for the long winters. It looks like most have a queen excluder and one honey super on them now.

I had to also wonder if these came from Ikea, but I checked their on-line catalog and couldn't find them. It could be a business opportunity for them! Here is a closer view:

Bee Bearding Observations

2008-07-10T19:38:00.005-06:00

Why do honeybees sit out on the porch doing nothing? This is commonly called "bearding". This is not the kind of bee bearding that Wikipedia describes when people "wear" a swarm of bees as a beard. No, this is when they hang-out on the outside of the hive. Most sources say this is because they are hot or croweded in the hive. Take a look at the two photos below:

The top photo was taken June 25th when it was mid-70s F. The bottom one was taken July 10th when it was 99 F. What is the difference?

Both hives have the same ventilation. The hive on the right seems about the same. The hive on the left is bearding much more in the second photo. This started only after we harvested the honey last week from the live on the left. We took two full supers, left one that wasn't quite ready and added an empty one. Perhaps they are simply too crowded now? Perhaps there is some other explanation? Perhaps they are unemployed and don't have any jobs to do at the moment?

We don't know, we are only the humans trying trying to learn how to take care of these colonies. Maybe I'll add another super to the one on the left and see if that helps get them back to work.

Surprise Honey Harvest

2008-07-06T14:06:00.004-06:00

We got up Saturday morning to go check on the beehives. We discussed the options just in case my busy bees had filled the super we placed there just 2 weeks ago. We had only one empty super left for both hives. Sure enough, when we opened it up, we found that the top super was fully drawn and mostly filled with nectar!

With three supers already installed, I was worried that if I placed a fourth I couldn't see down in to the top one, much less would I be able to lift it off, once it was filled. There was only one thing to do, go down and see if the lower supers had enough capped frames to harvest.

To our great surprise while we were off vacationing, the bees were home working hard the whole time and we found 18-1/2 out of 19 of the frames for the first two honey supers were already capped and looking great. We realized that we didn't even have the tractor nearby to haul the weight of those supers once we took them. I hustled back to the barn and hooked up the little John Deere trailer to the tractor and came up to the honey yard ready to haul it home. Becky restocked the smoker and waited for my return.

The removal went very well, and I'd say the bees were not too upset with us considering. We ended up using the blower method (leaf blower) to remove the last of the bees clinging to the frames, which worked very well.

Now we had to change our Saturday plans and work on the harvest of the 18 frames we removed. Here is one of those frames as Becky worked the heated knife on the wax cappings.

It was a long day, but we got it all done, bottled and cleaned up by 5PM. In all we harvested 65 lbs from this early summer harvest. Now we are still nubees at this and this is only our third year, but let's put this outstanding spring harvest in perspective. Last year we had one harvest in September from both hives and got a total of 34 lbs (not a good year). In 2006 we had only one hive and it was our first year, and they started a bit late in the spring. We harvested once in August (27.5 lbs) and again in September for a total of 48.5 lbs.

So realizing that we still have 2 months of production time left and that 2 more supers are well on their way to being filled now on each hive, we could have a very good year indeed. Here is a shot of a few bottles of this "Golden Harvest":

Naturalizing for nectar

2008-07-04T20:15:00.003-06:00

Last year I noticed a small weed in the natural parts of the yard that the bees seemed to be fond of, so I didn't have the heart to mow over it when I was cutting the lawn. I never identified this weed but it had small yellow flowers, and I've seen it in early summer since we've moved in. Since the bees liked it, I thought I'd let it go and spread as it didn't seem to cause any harm.

Well this year the weed is back and it has spread. Here is a shot next to the gardens in back:

The camera angle was quite low, so it makes the plant look taller. Actually it is only about a foot high. Well once again the honeybees, the bumblebees and the butterflies all seem to love the blossoms. It must be a good nectar or pollen plant for the bees, so I looked it up and found it was called Lotus Corniculatus or the common name: "Birdfoot deervetch". It's actually a pasture plant for grazing animals that is high in protein and high in nectar, which means my bees are turning it to honey!

Here is a close-up:

June updates

2008-06-29T19:42:00.002-06:00

We inspected both hives on June 18th and found a good brood pattern and signs of an effective queen in the new Minnesota hive.

Meanwhile the Italians seem to be working hard on a good nectar flow. Both supers were nearly full so we added a third! The shot below is some of the new honey in the upper super on that inspection:

We did another inspection June 28 and found that Italians had already made a good start filling the new super we had just added. The Minnesotans seemed to be getting lazy with the warmer weather and had started hanging out on the front porch:

May 3 Inspection

2008-05-04T21:45:00.003-06:00

Becky's new queen seems to be producing. We did another inspection on the new package we installed 14 days ago and saw lots of new larva and capped brood as shown in the photo above.

Progress was also going well on the other hive today, so David installed the first honey-super there.

Here is a brief movie of some of the bees returning to the hive with loads of pollen and nectar:

April 27 Inspection

2008-04-27T16:26:00.002-06:00

I caught these two sister bees cleaning up some of the spilled honey during our inspection today. If you look at the larger image, you can see the complex mouth parts and the nectar tubes (proboscis).

We caught a glimpse of the new Minnesota queen today. She seemed to be getting settled into the new hive and apparently everything went well with her release from the marshmallow plugged cage. We didn't see any eggs today, as hard as we looked, but she was moving around the hive with a busy determination.

While looking at the hive that overwintered, we caught this new baby bee just emerging from the cell. Most of the cells on this frame had already opened, but a few more were just starting.

This is the baby bee just as she fully emerged from the cell. This frame was from the middle box, which had been switched with the lower box previously.

Minnesota Hygienics

2008-04-19T19:13:00.008-06:00

It was a great spring day and perfect for installing new bees. Becky picked up her new Minnesota Hygienics yesterday and after they spent the night in the sunroom, she installed them today.

The camera battery gave out on me before I finished filming the entire process, but the portion the video shows is the processing of the new Queen. Here are a few more pictures showing the new bees and a close-up of the package that contains about 10,000 bees and the small queen-cage. The hive shot shows this hive was installed in the original hive, using one deep frame.

April 13th Inspection

2008-04-13T21:20:00.002-06:00

It was a warm sunny spring day today in the mid-60s, so I did another inspection to see how my bees were doing. Even with what seems like a late and terribly dry spring, we now have dandelions and daffodils blooming and a few hyacinths remain. There are a few wild flowers also blooming and we've seen the forsythia blooming nearby. No tulips yet and no fruit blossoms yet.

The pollen patty that's been out there for six weeks now has hardly been touched. After conferring with Becky on this, we decided to remove it, apparently they now have enough pollen. The upper box still was quite heavy with stored honey. There were about 8 frames like this one mostly capped, but showing signs of consumption.

The bee population seemed strong, but not crowded. The middle brood box had several frames like this one with capped and uncapped brood. We didn't see the queen today, but it looks like she's been doing her job. There were also a few frames that were starting to fill with pollen and several bees legs full of pollen could be seen returning from the fields today.

We did our spring rotation today, moving the bottom brood chamber up and moving the middle one down. We left the honey stores on the top. We also removed two empty frames (from the north side) of the middle box and replaced them with two frames partly filled with nectar and honey that had been stored in the freezer since last fall.

Becky's new bees will be arriving on Friday or Saturday, so if the weather is cooperative, she should be installing them next weekend. Hopefully some of the fruit trees will be blooming just in time to greet them.

Spring is here!

2008-03-28T18:44:00.004-06:00

The daffodils are about 10 days later this year, but the first ones started blooming late this week. Here is a shot of an early riser.

The bees have also started gathering nectar and pollen in earnest, this week with some dandelions, daffodils and hyacinths now blooming. The second shot shows one of our bees on an early hyacinth.

Hive Inspection 3/15/08

2008-03-15T20:39:00.002-06:00

I did a quick check of the surving hive today. They seem to be growing and still have sufficient stores. I also saw some larvae, so even though I didn't see the queen this time, she must be doing her job. The pollen patty I placed in the hive two weeks ago seems untouched. I left it out there to see if they'll take any interest, but there was no need to add more.

A Preview of Spring

2008-02-20T20:27:00.002-07:00

Here is an early sign of springtime for us. This is a time-lapse video of the first bloom of our Valentines-Day Orchid.

Winter Losses

2008-02-16T16:35:00.003-07:00

It was a tough winter for Becky's Bees. The Hive #1 that perplexed us most of the year, finally fell victim to what ever disease had afflicted them. As noted in our October entry from last fall, we found this hive in bad shape during that inspection, but didn't know what the problem was.

Here are some of the conditions we observed:
The population of bees seemed good.
The bees were easily agitated during the inspection.
A few yellow-jackets were observed (under attack) while inspecting.
The upper and lower deeps were nearly void of all honey stores!
The brood area was spotty with some dead bees just emerging in brood area with their tongues outstretched (See photo). But, we didn't see any sunken or punctured cappings. Nor did we see any melted down larvae or black scale.

We had already treated for mites and we began feeding them immediately. The queen was also seen during the inspection (see photo). Also we observed no drones during this inspection, while during the summer they were several. But I think they have probably been given the boot by the ladies at this point in the season.

After we had a full top-feeder with that sweet syrup on for two weeks, they were not interested! Surprisingly there is no evidence they took any! We went out after the first week and topped it off, and checked again after two weeks and there might have been some evaporative loss, but very little if any. Also there were no visible bees in the screen area near the feeding opening.

We've had plenty of warm days in the first two weeks we fed them. We also saw them circulating about and even some congestion at the entrance late in the day.

We had some warm weather again on November 11, so we did another inspection of the troubled hive. There was some good news which was encouraging, but further mystery surrounds this hive.

First, we were all prepared to take the upper deep and push them down to just one deep for the winter, but when we opened the hive, we found good news - HONEY and lots of it. Mysteriously, there were now several very heavy frames completely capped with honey in this hive. I would estimate the upper deep at 50%-60% capped honey by that time! The frames that weren't full, were being worked furiously to store necter and get it capped. Here's a photo of one of those frames not yet filled:

Full Size Image

The mystery goes to the source of this new found honey. The top feeder was still full and there were still almost no bees feeding from the syrup in the top feeder. Where did they get all these new stores? Maybe they stole this honey from somewhere else?

Strangely, we also did see a number of dead yellow jackets floating in the syrup. How they got in, is also a mystery. Perhaps this is what made the syrup unappetizing for the bees? We cleaned it up and removed the dead yellow jackets, but left the syrup. Here is what that looked like:

Full Sized Image

Finally, we did see some brood and larvae in the upper frames:

Full Size Link

We also saw the queen on one of the brood frames, but didn't get a photo this time. After all this, we decided to leave the upper deep and keep feeding. I was a bit more hopeful they will make it by this time. I also saw one stray yellow jacket on the frames while we were inspecting and one later on the hive cover after we closed it up, but how they got into the hive-top-feeder has us puzzled. There were some small cracks between the frames, which seemed to be attracting some attention from the outside. Perhaps the yellow jackets were squeezing through? To make sure that wasn't happening, I sealed the cracks with some duct tape.

On January 5, 2008, we finally had another warm day and I went out for another look. The troubled hive was still alive with quite a few bees going in & out for some fresh air. However, it seemed to have a dysentery problem. That must have been what weakened them last winter and we didn't catch it.

Here are the shots I took when they were out on January 5th 2008:

Full Size Image Link

Full Size Image Link

And these pictures were taken of on January 26th showing the condition of the outside of the hive:

The troubled hive. Full Size Image

The healthy hive nearby. Full size image

The second hive seemed immaculate by comparison. At this point we were pretty sure it was some form of nosema. (Nosema causes dysentery and weakens the hive, reduces production, etc.) They were seen flying about on January 28th, but we didn't open the hive to see how many were alive.

On February 13th, we had another day in the 70s, but the battle had ended, the disease won, the bees lost.

BeeGood went out that day to assess the condition of the hives. There were a few bees out taking cleansing flights, but inside was a sad story. Most of the frames in the upper deep had clusters of dead bees. Many died with their heads deep into the comb, but even more died just as they were standing, stuck permanently in a somewhat natural pose. This picture shows there was some remaining bee-bread in the comb right where they died. Some honey was also found in other frames but very little - they surely starved. There were many small groups of dead bees scattered throughout the hive. There didn't seem to be any single cluster. The bees in the photo below looked natural in the photo, but all were motionless and dead:

View 1200x860 image

With it pretty clear they had nosema, I'm beginning to wonder if this was a case of the more severe Nosema ceranae strain.

Randy Oliver wrote:

Amazingly, in a few short years N. ceranae appears to have supplanted N. apis throughout much of North America and the world! In many areas, it is now difficult to find the previously common N. apis!... One European researcher feels that we have been so distracted by varroa, that we have simply overlooked the poor buildup, queen failures, poor honey crops, and colony collapse due to N. ceranae.

More from Randy Oliver on Nosema: http://www.scientificbeekeeping.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=48

The good news was that the nearby hive #2, seems to be doing much better. After a quick peek into that hive, she verified that they still had good supplies of honey stores and had a much larger population. She decided not to start feeding after inspecting two nearly full frames, near the center of the upper box. This second (healthy) hive also seems to be amazingly clean compared to the dead hive. The wax and comb appears clean and very light colored, while the dead hive has very dark colored comb.

2007 Harvest Summary

2007-11-22T18:14:00.000-07:00

Thanksgiving is a great time to review the year's harvest totals and give thanks for the blessings from our garden.

As of Nov 22, most of the 2007 harvest is over (we still have a few carrots remaining). We didn't set very many records this year, but we had a right-sized harvest. We intentionally cut back on some veggies to better match our consumption. We also had some trouble with squash bugs that totally destroyed our winter squash & pumpkins this year. While the peppers did well, we had some early losses due to high winds and had to replant some varieties from the nursery.

We set new records this year for production of garlic and peppers, but with the busy fall football season, we totally missed the garlic planting time and won't have any next year.

This year's harvest totals:

Basil 0.9 lbs
Cabbage 3.2 lbs
Carrots 33.3 lbs (so far)
Cucumber 15.2 lbs
Garlic 8.1 lbs (new record)
Green Beans 9.6 lbs
Honey 34.2 lbs
Lettuce & Salad Greens 9.3 lbs
Onions 20.2 lbs
Peppers 87.1 lbs (new record)
Rhubarb 11.9 lbs
Snow Peas 1.7 lbs
Summer Squash 49.5 lbs
Tomatoes 171.4 lbs

2007 Climate Summary:
This summer's growing season was longer than usual. We had our last frost of spring on May 8th and our first frost of the fall on October 8th giving us a very long 153 days of growing season. Our summer rainfall was also very close to normal with 7.63" from April through October with June being our driest month with only 0.27" of rainfall this year. July was only slightly more, so the mid-summer required a lot of extra watering this year. Average temps were generally lower through July this year too, with no days above 100 degrees. August through October was slightly warmer than normal, helping to achieve the late frost.

October 20 Inspection

2007-10-20T17:10:00.000-06:00

This was the first deep inspection we've done in several months. Here are some photos.
The first one shows the first bad news we saw from Hive#1. This is one of the center frames from the upper deep. This time of year, this frame should be filled with capped honey, which will be used late in the winter or early spring as the cluster moves up in the hive. If the frames are empty now, they will starve later this winter. To keep them from starving we will try to feed them as much as they will take until the temps get too cold to feed.

This next photo shows what we saw deeper in the hive. This brood area is showing two partially emerged bees, that were sadly found dead during our inspection. This is more bad news.

This last picture from Hive #1 shows the new queen. We haven't seen the queen of this hive since late spring when we had the swarming troubles. This confirms that we did loose our original queen, and this is the one that superseded. Our tentative plan is to replace her in the early spring, if this hive survives then winter.

Now on to Hive #2, where things looked a bit more normal and a bit more encouraging:

This is one of the frames fully packed with capped honey in Hive #2. they seemed to have an excellent supply of reserves.

This is the original queen from Hive #2. She remains in charge of the hive and has the original markings (yellow dot) that helps identify her.

2007 Honey Harvest

2007-09-12T20:15:00.001-06:00

The harvest is done! It was nice and warm today and I took the day off to help with the honey harvest. It went a LOT smoother than last year, and the bees didn't seem too bothered by it all. I think this was mostly due to the more appropriate weather. (Note to self: Limit honey harvesting to sunny days over 80.)

While we took three supers from the two hives, the overall harvest was down significantly from last year's bounty. I guess we'll have to chalk this one up as a learning year. We sure had our share of troubles, which seemed to set the bees back considerably. Anyway the honey tastes great and we are very thankful for the 34 lbs we got this year.

August 25th Inspection

2007-09-01T21:20:00.001-06:00

Hive-1
Originally uploaded by D.Broberg

Well, things continue to go slowly in hive #1. This photo shows the nice capped honey from the first super we installed back in June. Most of the frames were quite nice like this, but that is the way it looked a month ago. We were tempted to harvest this box now, but decided to wait and do everything together.

When we inspected the upper super, we found little or no activity. Many of the frames still have no drawn comb and are just sitting there waiting for some bees to get working. The second photo shows the same empty frame with a bit of pollen on it that we saw weeks ago. Little or no change.

Hive-1
Originally uploaded by D.Broberg

Were not sure if this is weather related or what, but last year at this time we had far more honey being packed. We suspect the hive lost the queen and has made another, but is suffering from low productivity. We decided to rotate the supers and moved the nearly full super to the top and placed the nearly empty one lower on the hive.

The new hive seems to be fairing a bit better. Considering this hive had a late start this spring and was more than three weeks late, compared to the start of our first hive last year, they seem to be doing well. The population of the hive is up and they are now packing honey in the first super.

Hive-2
Originally uploaded by D.Broberg

The photo shows one of the frames from the honey super with partly capped honey and the rest of the frame nearly full. Our plan is to let them keep working until the 2nd week of September, then harvest what ever we have.

Guest beekeeper

2007-07-29T19:11:00.000-06:00

For our July 29th inspection, we had a guest beekeeper. Our niece from Ohio came for a visit and helped with our inspection this week. The bees were very cooperative and offered a nice demonstration.

The #1 hive still seems to be stuck in suspended animation. No activity since last week that we could see. The upper super remains almost untouched.

Hive #2 has made some good progress since last week. This hive has three medium supers for the hive-body instead of the deeps. The third (upper) super is now about 80% drawn comb and is filled equally with brood and capped honey. We'll be adding our first honey super this week - hooray!

July 21 Inspection

2007-07-21T22:12:00.001-06:00

IMG_4274a
Originally uploaded by D.Broberg

We checked the hives today and found little progress since we added the second super to Hive #1. There was some drawn comb, but no honey that we could see. It seems strange that we found one frame where the girls seemed to be packing pollen. This back-lit photo captured some of the colors of the pollen (and the bees!).

It seems that there is plenty in bloom lately and the bees are working the flowers long and hard, but what are they doing? Where is our honey?

June 23rd Inspection

2007-06-23T17:13:00.000-06:00

June was a busy month! We haven't opened the hives for three weeks until today. We first took a look at Hive #1 and found the bees still present and busy. We noticed that the first honey super was about 80% capped! The bees were very calm today, so this was a good sign and we decided that if they are collecting honey and not bothered by our inspection all must be well in the decks below. We didn't open it up further to look for the queen or brood, but assumed all was well. We added the second super and closed it up. We will be getting honey this year, despite all our trials with the bees - hooray!

Next we opened up Hive #2. A month has passed since installation and there was already a good collection of brood, honey and pollen.

We also got a better shot of the queen (yellow dot) this time.

Notice that today, David has gloves on? After a accident with a screw driver earlier in the day, he didn't want to risk tempting the bees with the smell of his fresh blood.

June 2, 2007: David is a Beekeeper too!

2007-06-23T17:05:00.000-06:00

After returning from the road trip, David wasted no time doing an inspection of his new hive. This is his first inspection, after the hive has been installed for one week. Everything looked good for the new hive and he even got to see the queen. Notice in the pictures his hands are bare for this inspection.
If you click the photo and view the larger image, you may see that the queen (marked with a yellow-dot) is barely visible in this shot.

May 25th: New Package Installation

2007-06-23T16:48:00.000-06:00

Just a few days after the swarm vacated Hive #2, David's new package of bees arrived from Georgia. They had been delayed by weather several times and it was getting late to install them. To make matters worse, they arrived after David had left for a long weekend away with Kenny.

Had the swarm stayed, I have no idea what we would have done with them. I guess it all worked out in the end.

Becky and Austin volunteered to do the installation while David was gone. Here are some snap-shots that Colin took of them installing the new package in Hive #2.

Swarm update: May 20th, 2007

2007-06-23T16:30:00.000-06:00

A lot has happened since our last post, here is a brief update. Later on the day of the capture, we noticed a huge crowd of bees on the front of Hive#1 (the original hive). We hadn't opened that hive, but it was within about 10 feet of the new hive where we placed the swarm. It appears as if the swarm was attacking our original hive.

On May 20th (the next day) we went out to inspect. The photo below is the top of Hive #1. It seems to be more crowded than we've ever seen it. This makes us think one of three things happened:
A: It must not have been bees from our hive that swarmed, otherwise we would see few bees at home.
B: It was our own hive that swarmed, and they decided to return to the home base.
C: The new swarm wasn't satisfied with the new digs, and came over attacked and took over Hive #1.
Anyway, were not really sure what explains the very full hive at this point, see both of the photos below:
Later we opened the new hive (Hive #2 below). This was where we had just installed the swarm the day before. Guess what? Nobody was home! Where had they gone?
We sure don't have this beekeeping stuff figured out. If anyone has an explanation, please post a comment.

Swarm Capture: May 19, 2007

2007-05-19T20:14:00.000-06:00

We were scheduled to get our second package of bees yesterday, but no joy. The supplier called and said they had some weather delays and it didn't ship as promised. They proposed next week. This is the third delay and we're almost to the end of May.

I was out getting things ready in the bee yard this afternoon and setting up the new hive-box, when I looked over and saw a huge swarm resting on a nearby pine tree. Now we don't know for sure if this swarm is a split from our hive or someone else's, but it was a big one. We changed our afternoon plans and went right to the books to see what we needed to capture it.

Anyway, here's a video showing our exciting afternoon capturing the swarm.

EDIT: Below is a snap-shot of the swarm on the pine-tree... It was a very nice young tree that was going to grow up and shade our hives, but we had to sacrifice it to capture the swarm.
The picture below shows the swarm marching into the new hive. This was fascinating to watch. You can see a bit of it in the video.

May Flowers

2007-05-13T21:17:00.000-06:00

May Day 2007

2007-05-01T21:07:00.000-06:00

Happy May Day! Spring at our place is in full bloom. Virtually every one of our fruit trees are blooming at the same time now. We've got three varieties of crabapple trees, Granny Smith and Gala apples, cherries, plum and the choke-cherries lining the drive are all blooming this week. There are also a few flowering shrubs blooming and even the lilacs have started to bloom just this morning. I suspect the bees think they're in heaven right about now.

We've had a wet April and everything is so green too. It's quite a switch from last year. Yesterday (April 30) also marked our first harvest from the garden: 4 lbs of fresh rhubarb.

We've got about two more weeks before the new bees arrive.

The Drones! (April 22nd Inspection)

2007-04-24T21:59:00.000-06:00

We've been continuing to provide syrup for the bees, at about a gallon a week. They seem to be gathering plenty of pollen, so we are not providing any pollen patties.

During this most recent inspection we saw plenty of drones (as shown in the picture above). There also seemed to be plenty of brood, so we did not completely open the hive looking for the queen.

EDIT: The picture below shows some more of the (now empty) burr comb on the top of the frames. Was it drones?

The most unusual thing, was the extended comb on the bottoms of the frames. Now that the top burr comb was empty, the bottom was occupied by larvae. In this picture (below) notice we accidentally broke open some of this capped brood and can see the nearly formed bee (is it a new queen?). Can you see the eyes?

In the yard, there is an abundance of dandelions this year, perhaps from the wetter spring we've had. The bees can be seen frequenting the dandelions and the pear blossoms. Soon our crab apples will be opening, followed by the choke-cherries and lilacs.

EDIT: Here is a visitor on the dandelions:

Pollen & The Queen (Mar 25th Inspection)

2007-03-26T07:58:00.000-06:00

Spring is in the air as well as the bees. What a great time of year especially after the long, snowy winter that has lingered over Colorado this year. As you can see by my husband's great photos, we have been to the hive several times. The first time was to see how much food the bees had consumed and whether we needed to fatten them up, so to speak. The other couple of times we were in search of the queen. This is not always as easy as it sounds since she doesn't sit on a throne or wear a crown but she is bigger and always surrounded by her loyal subjects and in our case, she has a big white dot in her back. I guess we were looking in the wrong area the other times because she remained elusive, but this time she was there, in all her glory. After the tiny, trumpet fanfare we moved on to check out the nursery. Lots of tiny bees will soon be emerging. So despite our fears of this mysterious disappearing bee syndrome and our general lack of beekeeping experience, it seems our bees will emerge to pollinate and make us some more of that wonderful honey!

Worker bees bringing home the pollen

Her Royal Majesty the Queen

March 4th & 11th Inspections

2007-03-05T21:04:00.000-07:00

March 4th: Good news: The hive looked very strong today! However, it looked like most of their honey stores were gone, so we began the spring feeding.

EDIT: We also noticed some comb building at the bottom of the frames... Not sure if that is normal or an indication of a pending swarm?

We inspected again on March 11th:
This time, there was quite a bit of comb up top too. The shot below shows more of this comb on the top. It looks like some had larvae.
We also cleaned out the bottom board. Here is what the gunk collected over the winter looked like.

The Bees Have Survived!

2007-02-05T14:04:00.000-07:00

After the worst six weeks of winter I've ever seen in Colorado, the bees came out for some air today when the sun was shining and the temps reached up to the lower 40s (F). Until today, we hadn't seen any sign of them in over a month.

January was a record-cold month and we had snow-storms every week since before Christmas. How bad was it? Dave the weatherman reports:

The Average Temp for January was 18.7 F, that's more than 20 degrees colder than normal.
We had 13 days with below-zero temperatures. The coldest average low for January is normally +11 F.
The coldest January temp was -11.9 F, on Jan 15th. The record cold for that day is -12 F.
The coldest February temp was -22.4 F on Feb 2nd, breaking the old record by more than 10 degrees!
Our coldest wind-chill reading was -35.2 F also on Feb 2nd.
We've had 65.6" of snowfall so far this season.

The simple fact that the bees survived January is cause for celebration! Let's hope the worst is past us now.

Red Snow, Blue Snow?

2006-12-30T08:19:00.000-07:00

Red Snow, Blue Snow?
Well, think about the recent elections for a moment. Now we just had about 3 feet of snow in the past two storms and I've noticed a sort of Red/Blue divide in the reaction. We live in the country and have some 400 feet of driveway. All of our neighbors are in a similar situation - there are no "cul de sacs" around here. When the snow storms hit, there was a drive to demonstrate self-sufficiency. People cleared their own drives, dug out the best they could and helped their neighbors dig out too. People expect and prepare for every situation.

So when we watched some TV news coverage of the storm from Denver recently it seemed to be a quite different reaction. There was a lot of complaining, moaning and blame going around. "Why hasn't CDOT cleared my cul-de-sac?" "Where are those road crews anyway?" There seemed to be a sense of: Poor pitiful me, why hasn't the government stepped in to help me out?

So sometimes it takes a crisis like this to bring out the world-view of people. Some believe they should take care of themselves and be prepared, while others seem to think everything should be the responsibility of someone else.

December Blizzard v2.0

2006-12-29T15:41:00.000-07:00

Posted 3PM December 29th: Just like the original but with new features. This is the second major blizzard in a week. This time we got a new feature with the blizzard - a power blackout. This new blizzard hit last evening and by 10 PM we had about 8 new inches on top of the old snow from before Christmas. About 9PM last night, the power went out suddenly and without a flicker. We could tell it was going to be out for a while. We scrambled to locate flashlights and candles and thought we were set for the evening.

But then I remembered that while we did fuel the car & truck before the snow started, I had neglected to get some extra fuel for the generator or for the John Deere. I got the tractor out and started plowing a path to the road and by 10 PM, was ready to go out looking for gas. Kenny and I took the SUV and drove about 6 miles south and passed by a half-dozen gas stations - all closed and all without power. We turned west toward Louisville and went a few more miles and saw no power anywhere except for a few emergency generators. By then the blizzard was ragging and the winds were blowing the snow at 30 MPH. We turned around and returned safely home empty handed. We got a few extra blankets out and decided to leave the generator off for the night (no heat).

Sometime during the night the snow stopped and the power was restored. In the morning I finished plowing the drive and went out again with Kenny for fuel (just in case). The weathermen were saying that the situation would get worse later this evening when the second wave would hit. At the first station, we found power, but the pumps were closed - no fuel! We continued on a few more miles down the road and found another station pumping the precious unleaded. We returned with a fresh five gallons of the stuff and felt ready for the next wave.
Get up to the minute weather data for our storms at this link: http://www.leyner.org/

Here is what the National Weather Service said today:

Urgent - Winter Weather Message National Weather Service Denver Co 1125 AM MST Fri Dec 29 2006 ...Heavy snow to continue today for most areas of northeast and north central Colorado... .bands of moderate to heavy snow will continue to affect the northeast plains of Colorado through this afternoon. West of interstate 25...only light snow is expected through the day. Stronger winds over the northeast plains will also cause near zero visibilities in blowing and drifting snow. North winds from 15 to 30 mph can be expected with some gusts up to 35 mph. The storm is currently centered over southwestern New Mexico and is expected to move slowly northeastward into the Texas panhandle by Sunday morning. This track will produce strong winds and heavy snowfall for the northeastern border counties of Colorado now through much of Sunday. This storm track could also produce heavy snowfall for the rest of the plains of northeast Colorado, the front range foothills and higher mountains east of the divide for much of the weekend. This includes the Denver metro area and all the urban corridor. There are still uncertainties regarding the duration of the heavy snow west of interstate 25 and whether heavy snow will redevelop near the mountains this weekend. Because of this a winter storm watch continues through Saturday night for the north central mountains and front range foothills and the plains through Sunday afternoon. All people planning to travel across northeastern and north central Colorado today through the weekend should be prepared for road closures and very difficult winter driving conditions. Roads will be icy and snow packed and blowing and drifting snow will become more of a problem on the plains with time. You are urged to avoid any unnecessary travel and carry items such as a shovel, food, water and warm clothing if you do go out. The storm has also disrupted air travel at Denver International Airport. Air travelers should check with their airlines for delayed or canceled flights.

Northwest Weld County- Boulder And Jefferson Counties below 6000 feet/West Broomfield County- including...Fort Collins... Hereford... Loveland... Nunn... Arvada... Boulder...Golden...Lakewood...Longmont 1125 AM MST Fri Dec 29 2006: Winter storm warning is cancelled… Snow and blowing snow advisory in effect until 6 am MST Saturday. Winter storm watch now in effect from Saturday morning through Sunday afternoon. The national weather service in Denver has issued a snow and blowing snow advisory, which is in effect until 6 am mst Saturday. The winter storm warning has been cancelled. The winter storm watch is in effect from Saturday morning through Sunday afternoon. The bands of heavier snow showers are expected to remain east and south of Denver. Therefore the winter storm warning has been downgraded to a snow and blowing snow advisory. Additional accumulations of 2 to 6 inches are still possible through tonight. The potential still exists additional heavy snowfall and strong winds Saturday through Sunday as the storm continues to move slowly northeastward. Additional snowfall accumulations of 6 to 12 inches will be possible over the weekend along with areas of blowing and drifting snow. A snow and blowing snow advisory means that visibilities will be limited due to a combination of falling and blowing snow. Use caution when traveling, especially in open areas. A winter storm watch means there is a potential for a hazardous winter weather event in and close to the watch area. Significant snow accumulations may occur that could impact travel. Stay tuned to the national weather service or your local news media for the latest updates and possible warning concerning this potential winter storm.

Blizzard Update: Dec 21, 2006

2006-12-29T15:39:00.000-07:00

Update: 10AM, December 21st: We are officially "snowed-in". After about an hour attempting to clear the driveway, I gave up on the John Deere. The snow was so far over the top of the snow blade, it was not able to go straight down the driveway. See the pictures below. The boys are having a great time digging forts in the snow. We've got fresh bread in the oven and plenty of hot cocoa to keep us warm. My official report was 25.5" for the 24 hour period ending at 7AM this morning (see map), but as you can see from the new yardstick photo, it is showing 28" now. (Be patient while the pictures download. The snow drifts may be impacting our broadband connection.)

Blizzard Report: Dec 20, 2006

2006-12-29T15:38:00.000-07:00

Posted: 10PM December 20th: This has been the biggest blizzard we have had since we lived in Colorado for the past 7 years and it's not over yet. We measured from 14 to 20 inches of snow in most places of the yard. With the winds some of the drifts were over 4 feet deep by sunset.

Here is the weather service warning for that night:

URGENT - Winter Weather Message
National Weather Service Denver Co 359 pm MST Wed Dec 20 2006
...Strong winter storms to continue over northeast and north central Colorado tonight into Thursday morning .a major winter storm will continue bringing widespread moderate to heavy snow and blizzard conditions to northeast and north central Colorado this tonight into Thursday morning. The storm producing this weather is centered over the extreme southeast corner of Colorado. It is expected to move little through Thursday morning.

At 4 pm MST...snowfall amounts over the plains range from about 6 to 11 inches so far with the storm. The urban corridor has seen about 9 to 14 inches so far. The foothill and Palmer Ridge...including the southern and southwestern great Denver area have had 14 to 21 inches thus far. The higher mountains east of the divide have had 12 to 22 inches so far. Wind gusts of 30 to 40 mph are widespread across the plains with snow drifts up to 6 feet. Travel has become impossible this afternoon across most of northeast and north central Colorado. Travel is not recommended through Thursday morning.

Boulder and Jefferson counties below 6000 feet: 359 pm MST wed Dec 20 2006: A blizzard warning remains in effect until 12 pm MST Thursday. Snow heavy at times will continue into Thursday morning. Total accumulations of 12 to 24 inches are expected in most locations by Thursday morning. As much as 30 inches of snow will fall in the southern and southwestern metro Denver suburbs and the Palmer Divide area. North winds of 20 to 35 mph will produce blizzard conditions. Travel is not recommended through Thursday morning.

Harvest Update

2006-11-24T21:14:00.000-07:00

We pulled the last of the season's carrots this past week. The carrots kept going all the way to Thanksgiving this year! The total harvest for carrots this year was 74 lbs.

The first carrots were planted April 1st, then more about every 2-3 weeks later through June. With the staggered planting we had a nearly continuous harvest of carrots for 22 weeks, with an average of 3.36 lbs per week. We planted nothing but organic Scarlet Nantes this year. They are very sweet, tender and very well suited for this climate.

A Taste of Winter

2006-10-30T18:24:00.000-07:00

Prepping the bees for winter

2006-10-15T20:44:00.000-06:00

We did some of the final preparations of the bee hive for winter this week. Our recent inspection showed so much stored honey and nectar that we decided a fall feeding was unnecessary. After the bees filled all available space in the deep frames with honey, they must have got busy building burr comb in nearly every crack and crevice and filling them up. When we pulled the frames to inspect the upper deep, we cracked some of this burr comb and the honey leaked out below. The picture below shows the view down inside the upper deep box, with some of the spilled honey. The capped honey can be seen on the outside frame. Some of the burr comb also remains between adjacent frames.

So with plenty to eat, we needed to focus on treating for the mites. Still being new to this, we chose to go with a natural product and stayed away from the chemical fumigation processes. We chose to go with Apiguard, but some shipping problems delayed our installation until the weather cooled off last week. We began the treatment on October 10^th.

We also added some top ventilation to the hive in the form of a homemade 1”x 2” spacer that sits directly above the upper deep box, just below the inner cover. I notched a portion of it to match the middle opening of a standard entrance reducer. This opening sits at the top of the hive, increasing ventilation and air-space above the hive, and makes room for the Apiguard tray. The bees can also learn to use this as a secondary entrance while it is installed.

Finally we installed the mouse-guard entrance reducer. This is a metal cover for the main hive opening that is tacked in place and has small holes for the bees to enter & exit. It helps them defend the hive against raiding bees and keeps the mice out. The upper spacer and the mouse-guard can be seen in the photo below:

2006 Harvest Summary

2006-10-01T22:01:00.000-06:00

As of Oct 1st, most of the 2006 harvest is over. We had a very early freeze this year, which hit us on September 17th. This ended the production more than a month earlier than in recent years. We've also had a severe draught this year, with only 4 inches of rainfall between April 1st and September 30th. The spring was very, very dry with only 1 inch of rain for the critical period between April 1 and June 30. We kept the irrigation going in the garden this year at normal levels, but it doesn't seem to satisfy in the same way as natural rain. We cut the watering of the lawn areas way back to barely maintain life in the lawn and the trees.

One notable difference this year was the addition of the bees. They arrived too late for the spring fruit blossoms and perhaps as a result, or maybe from the draught we had virtually no fruit harvest this year. No apples, no cherries, no blueberries, no strawberries, but our vegetables did well overall with a total production of 801 lbs.

This year our overall champion for single plant production goes to Colin's pumpkin which produced 112 lbs.
We set new records this year for production of carrots, cucumbers, garlic, tomatoes, peppers and rhubarb
And we harvested our first honey!

This year's harvest totals compared to last year:

Cabbage: 11.2 lbs (new)
Cantaloupe 10.3 lbs (new)
Carrots: 74 lbs (up 89%) [updated 11/27/06]
Cucumber: 83 lbs (up more than 2x previous record)
Garlic: 4.2 lbs (up 24%)
Green Beans: 15.4 lbs (up 57%)
Honey: 48.5 lbs (new)
Mixed Salad Greens: 5.8 lbs (down 49%)
Onions: 23.4 lbs (up 23%)
Peppers: 54.4 lbs (up 11%)
Pumpkins: 121 lbs (down 25%)
Rhubarb: 23.3 lbs (up more than 2x previous record)
All Squash: 83.3 lbs (down 48%)
Tomatoes: 175.7 lbs (up more than 100 lbs!)

September Hive Inspection

2006-09-25T21:30:00.000-06:00

We attempted to do an inspection of the hive today. This was to be the first full inspection since we put the supers on and removed the honey. There was some good news and some bad news.

The hive presently has two deeps and we removed the honey supers 2 weeks ago.

First the hive seemed very strong, even on a hot, calm day when many of the bees were out foraging, the hive was very crowded. We also found pollen stores, brood, larva and even spotted the queen in the post-inspection review of the photos. (She's in the photo above.)

The bad news, after combing more than a dozen close-up pictures later, we did spot one bee, tending the larva with varroa mites on her back (center in the photo below). This means we must start treating for the mites.

Even after our first freeze and several frosty mornings, we still have many warm days and many flowers still quite active in our garden. On warm days we see many bees on the late blooms including: aster, butterfly bush, spirea, russian sage, salvia, stonecrop and other hearty perenials. The photo below shows one of the workers on an aster, taken yesterday.

Apple Blossoms?

2006-09-18T20:19:00.000-06:00

Here it is later summer, after the first freezing temps of the season and I'm out looking over the impact in the garden and what do I see? Apple blossoms in full bloom! This tree is confused.