Birds with Hats and Bee Stings

Hello all, NBB here. Sharon’s a bit swamped with deadlines, so she’s asked me to fill in with a blog post about all the exciting things that are happening in the birding world. But since I avoid knowing anything about the birding world with great vigor, I instead present you with Birds Wearing Hats.

Hilarious, I think you’ll agree.

I want to talk for a moment about the bee sting I got last week, mostly because it was the thing that made me most afraid of keeping bees, and is, I think the thing that causes most people to be terrified of them.

I was the last of our beekeeping group to get stung (heck, even the dog got one before me), partly because I’m not around the bees as much as the others (some of us have jobs that require us to be at the same place and time every week), but also because I try to give the bees as wide a berth as possible. Don’t get me wrong, bees are cute as all get out and I love looking at them up close... from the safety of my bee suit. I don’t stand around the hives without one on, I don’t walk through the “bee highway,” and above all, I don’t run and flail, especially while yelling “don’t run and flail! Don’t run and flail!”

So, here’s what happened: there’s a little piece of wood or metal that you put in front of the entrance to the hive to control the flow of bees in and out. It’s called, helpfully enough, an “entrance reducer.” You use this at the beginning of the hive to encourage them to stay inside and make it their home. After a while, you take it off so that the traffic of returning foragers isn’t slowed down.

The entrance reducer was held on with a screw and to get the screw off , we had to move the whole hive off the base board so that I could turn the screwdriver. This, understandably, caused some consternation, and one of the girls decided to register a complaint. With her butt.

I will tell you now, all in all a bee sting isn’t that bad, at least in the ankle, which is where I got it. It’s like stepping on a nail, there’s a shock of pain and a sudden urge to move away. Afterwards it was like a twisted ankle, but like I say the first thought it “I think something really bad has happened,” followed quickly by “hey, when they sting you, don’t they release a pheromone that makes others want to sting you?”

Remembering neither to run nor flail, nor to do them while yelling “Don’t run! Don’t flail!” I hobbled over to the work table and said a few choice words. Well, one word, over and over. Take a guess. As Sharon and Neil made sure I didn’t get stung again (and wasn’t, you know, dying from a bee allergy), I took a deep breath and stock of what my body was doing. Did my feet itch? No? Was I short of breath? No. Was I going numb? No.

Really the only thing I was aware of was a lingering pain like a stab wound and wait, what was the other thing? That pulsing sensation kind of like oh my god I can feel the stinger pumping venom.

How Neil was able to pull the stinger out of my ankle using his still-gloved hand I do not know. I can only assume that writing a Newbery/Carnegie winning book has given him the tactile sense of a dozen men!

And that was it. It hurt. It was sore. I saw the bee that stung me, and stepped on her, not out of anger but to put her out of her misery. Wasn’t her fault, I was the one who took her house apart. Poor bee.

Then we put the hives back together, hobbled back and grilled up some dinner.

I guess what I’m trying to tell you is that you don’t need to be afraid of bee stings. You should definitely avoid them but it’s not something to go through your life being terrified of. On the grand scale of pain I’ve experienced, hitting my thumb with a hammer or getting a really bad sunburn are worse and last longer. Keep in mind, though, I was only stung once, and I had friends with me who’d been through this.

I’m curious to see how I act the next time I go out to the hives. I’ll probably wear boots--the ankles are the only part the bee suit don’t protect, after all--but I don’t feel any more afraid of them than I did last week. They’re still these fascinating, cute creatures, and I like to think that we’re helping them survive. But we have to be careful.

Life With 8 Beehives

Just an FYI: if you are at CONvergence this weekend, Mr. Neil and I have donated some comb honey and a rusty chipped hive tool (which could be used as a terrifying weapon or shank if one runs in those circles) to the silent auction.  Both items have been autographed by Mr. Neil and our comb honey took the blue ribbon at the county fair last year.  And the autograph on the honey is actually on the clear plastic case and not on the honey itself.

Part of me was kind of freaking out at the idea that we would have 8 beehives this summer, but thanks to the combination of several people on the bee team and a bit more of a "hands off" approach to beekeeping, it's going okay.  After our first summer when we took such heroic efforts to keep our two hives going and still had one fail miserably and then last summer leaving a hive I thought was about to fail to do what it will and have it come through the winter stronger than ever, I'm more and more inclined to leg go and let bee.

The biggest news to report is that my dear, sweet Non Birding Bill finally got stung--his first time in all the years we've been doing this.  As it was his first sting and they tend to be worst, I must say that he took it with much more grace than I did.  His ankle was a bit sore and he did have some musings that he was turning into half man/half bee but after I sang a few phrases of Billy the Half A Bee, he decided against it.

We are attempting the bees in a bell jar feat again.  Last summer, the bees removed the starter wax and the jar was full of condensation rather than a cool waxy looking sculpture.  Hans thought it might be a good idea to drill some holes in the bell jar to aid in ventilation.  We checked on the progress and found bees running around inside the jar.

The bell jar bees did what a sensible bee will do with a ventilation hole--they filled it with propolis.  After watching all of the activity in the jar, I'm still not certain if they were removing the foundation wax to use in other parts of the hive or seriously drawing it out.  Only time will tell, but this hive also has honey supers on it, so if they don't do the bell jar, they will make us some honey.

We checked our four new hives and three were excellent.  One has had a total queen failure.  There's no new brood and no eggs.  They have not drawn out comb and filled their box the way the other new hives have--only three frames are full and there appears to be far too many drones--I suspect egg laying workers.  Our four hives from the winter were all going strong and it looked like our red hive had recently gone through a swarm.  Mr. Neil noted that there were still a few unhatched queen cells in the red hive and suggested we add one to the failing new hive.  I was inclined not to but we really had nothing to lose by putting one in.  I felt that it would just delay the inevitable end of this new hive but on the other hand--not all of the queen cells would be able to survive in the swarm, so  maybe we could give a queen a chance in a new hive.

I did notice that when we took out the frame for a queen cell from the red hive that I wasn't seeing much in the way of eggs or young larvae in that hive.  I do have a bit of concern for the red hive but that hive seems to know what it's doing.  So we put a new queen cell in the failing hive, although without brood, I do not have high hopes it will work. But hey--if we only lose one hive--we still have 7 others going strong.

Bees on Wall Street

Friends have sent me this link to a story about bees swarming on Wall Street and apparently trying to get into Cipriani (bees with swanky taste no doubt).  I think my favorite part of the story is learning that New York City has Officer Anthony Planakis, their official bee handling officer.  Now there is a guy that TLC or Discovery needs to to a reality show about.  Officer Planakis roams the gritty streets of New York, busting stings and saving bees from a life of freebasing essential oils at swanky perfume boutiques.

Honey Auction

I know the reports for allergy sufferers has been rough this spring, but our bees our loving it.  They are returning to the hives with massive pollen baskets.  All four hives are still going strong this spring.  I think this early spring allowed us to open them up early enough to get them ventilated and get a head start on the brood and set up for this summer's honey season.

Our main goal with our hives is pollination and fun.  We have no intention of making money off of our operation but we love to give to family and friends or exchange it--like when I gave Melissa a jar for taking that pigeon off my hands.  We're now getting to the point where we have more honey even after giving it away and we need to figure out what to do with it.

My sister Robin called a couple of weeks ago (yes, seriously I do have a sister named Robin and no she is not a birder) and asked if I would give her a City Birds/Country Birds book for a silent auction to benefit a local community center in Indianapolis called Fletcher Place that helps people get out of poverty.  She's on the board and told me that it's a food related fund raising event.  I said, "I should send you some honey if it's food related."  I grabbed a round of our comb honey (that won the blue ribbon at the county fair last summer) and asked my beekeeping partner Mr. Neil to sign it and sent it off.

Above is a half eaten round that I have here at home to give you an idea of what it look like.  The one I gave Robin is a full round.  I love comb honey, you can eat the wax or if you put it hot tea, scrape it off the top and sip away.  We also like to eat it with Greek Gods traditional plain yogurt. I told Robin she should put the honey on eBay since not everyone can go to her fundraiser in Indianapolis and there might be strong interest...and there is. It just went up this weekend and it's already at $127. 50.  Holy cow.

It's not something we're going to do all the time, this is our first try with it but it all goes well, I'm sure Mr. Neil, Lorraine, Non Birding Bill and I will periodically link to organizations and people  we've donated our blue ribbon honey to to auction off.

Mites and Mice

Last week we did another check of all the hives last week.  All were still doing well, brood was cooking and the hives were building up for the summer.  We had some brood placed between boxes so we inadvertently killed some pupae, it looked like drone brood so I wasn't too bummed--we weren't killing the work force of the colony.

I did notice one big fat varroa mite on the of the larvae.  Varroa mites one of the biggest problems in beekeeping.  The mites crawl in and attach themselves to the larvae sucking out hemolymp (bee blood).  They stay attached to the bee for a bit after it emerges from its cell, I've seen one or two of our bees with a mite here and there.  Mites are going to be in your hives and your bees can deal with a small infestation but a large infestation can lead to deformed bees and the death of a hive.  I only saw one mite and we decided long ago not to go extreme measures to treat the mite--ie medications so we just noted it.  There's a method some beekeepers use to deal with mites--you pour powdered sugar all over in the hive.  Something about the powdered sugar makes it difficult for the mite to stay attached to the bee.  The bees also groom each other and keep grooming--removing even more mites and eating the sugar in the process--everybody wins.  There is some concern, powdered sugar has cornstarch  and is too much cornstarch harmful for the bees?

As we were checking out the deep insides of the green hive which seemed to be dealing with a little bit of moisture, I noticed a deer mouse near Non Birding Bill's feet.  We removed the base of the hive and sure enough found another mouse nest below the hive.  I think the screen helped keep the mouse from chewing up into the hive but it still could have gone through the holes nearby and chew.

I lifted the screen, admired the soft little cup nest, then removed it.  I don't want any mouse that close to the hives if I can help it.  It's too much temptation for a mouse who might want to move into the hive next winter.

So far, all four hives are still alive with signs of eggs and brood.  If all goes well, we might actually get the 3 Russian bees we were supposed to get last year.  The are tentatively scheduled to arrive the first week in May.  Seven hives this year...yikes.

Surprises In The Hives

This blog post is not only an update for those curious about the going's on, but also to serve as notes for how we prep the hives this fall.  What's nice about a blog is that is kind of a nice notebook.  Also, Mr. Neil would like an update on our bees while he is traveling the world. After last year when our bees were okay in February and then dying in March, moisture appeared to be part of the problem, so we tried a variety of solutions.  One being Mr. Neil's groundskeeper named Hans went out and cleared snow away from the bottom entrances.  We also had him go ahead and remove the insulation, last year was a colder winter and we left it on longer.  But the bees had been quite active and it's been so warm (it hit 60 degrees yesterday) that Hans took it off last week.  We didn't put the insulation on until late last fall, they should be able to take it if we dip down into the twenties again.

The green hive was three deep brood boxes this winter which is what I was taught we should do at the University of Minnesota's beekeeping short course.  She's been fairly noisy all winter.  The bees had taken advantage of the warm days and pooped up a storm (they don't poop in the hive so hold it up all winter and then let her rip on warm spring days).  We used a wooden entrance reducer on her--to control the flow of air from below and prevent mice from entering the hive.  She also had a piece of board on top, above the ceiling to absorb moisture during the winter.  It appeared to have worked, there was a little moisture on the board, a little mold, but none on the ceiling or top of the brood box itself.

This hive also has a slatted rack which is supposed to discourage swarming. Also a beekeeper told me that it's somehow supposed to aid in ventilation.  I'm not sure, I think it's one of those things where a beekeeper noticed less moisture in the hive when they have had it in there.  I took out the entrance reducer and used my hive tool to clear out some of the dead bees at the bottom to help with air flow and give the girls more room to work.  The bodies were wet,  I cleared out the bee pieces until a few live workers flew out from the bottom.  There was a nice, noisy active cluster of bees at the top of the hive.  I placed a feeder pail of nectar on top and added a pollen patty to help get them trough the next couple of weeks.  I tweaked all the pollen patties this time with a little actual honey from our stores.  I also brought each hive a piece of comb honey, more for my own benefit than anything else, kind of like a hive warming present.

This was a hive I did not expect to survive the winter.  She swarmed late in the summer last and I let her do it-- no heroic measures to stop it, even though I thought it a bad move on her part.  She went into the winter with just two brood boxes of food and a very small cluster.  Some beekeepers do keep their hives down to a 2 box system in winter--even our neck of the woods so she had a chance.  She was one of the most active hives I visited yesterday.  The green hive had the most workers moving in and out of the entrance, this one had the second largest highway going.  I even took some video down by her opening at the metal entrance reducer.  If you watch at the bottom left at the beginning you might notice a worker removing a dead body:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExVV-pN1cNA[/youtube]

Impressive activity!  I left on her entrance reducer because the bees seemed to be getting out at the bottom and top easily.  Mice are still somewhat of an issue but the reducer will probably come off in early April if the weather holds.

This hive does not have a slatted rack on the bottom but has four inner covers on the top and the moisture board.  If you look at the board on top--it has a wet spot.  I'd say it did it's job rather well.  The ceilings were dry inside this hive which I think aided in her survival.

The purple hive was a wee bit quieter but still active.  She went into the winter with three deep brood boxes, moisture board, double ceilings but no slatted bottom.

The workers were not coming out of the bottom, but using the top hole to poop, remove some dead bees and if you look closely you can see a forager returning with some yellow pollen baskets!

When I removed the entrance reducer, some of the dead, wet bees at the entrance had grown some fungus.  It was just at the entrance and scraped out piles of dead bees from the bottom until a few live ones flew out.  There was a good ball of bees at the top and they were very excited about the feeder pail and pollen patty.

I wasn't sure what to expect of this hive.  She'd been fairly quiet all winter.  You had to really press your ear up to the insulation to hear anything.  Her exit hole at the top of the hive was smaller than the others (barely enough room for one bee to come out and no one ever seemed to come out of the bottom.  She had three deep brood boxes, a wooden entrance reducer, a slotted bottom and a moisture board.  Bees took turns coming in and out of the top entrance.  I opened the top and she was very lively.  I put up the feeder pail and pollen patty.  You can see a video here (and see a worker come in with loaded pollen baskets while the others nom the feeder pail and nom nom nom the pollen patty.

After I removed the entrance reducer and started to scrape out debris, I couldn't help but notice that there were very few bee parts and an awful lot of wood shavings.  This did not look good.  I had a suspicion of what was going down--a mouse had moved into the hive for the winter.  Bastard!  The bees had a good harmonious hum going and this was a three deep box.  I wondered if maybe the mouse had kept to the bottom while the bees were on top?  Was this hive through or could it be saved? I had no choice, I had to open her up.

The mouse did not chew up from the base, it looked like it squeeze right through the tiny hole left by the wooden entrance reducer.  Then chewed through the slatted bottom and made its nest there.  The mouse worked it's way into the bottom brood box and ate quite a bit of the honey and wax, however it did not appear to have gone up into the top two brood boxes and there was still some food left there.

The mouse had chewed into the wax foundation of some of the bottom frames (hope it got a good tummy ache).  Looking at photos of other mice in beehive stories, this is typically where the mouse builds the nest.  Did this mouse get interrupted?  I scraped out the bottom board and found no mouse--not even a propolis covered mouse mummy.

I did find a couple of ginormous owl pellets near the hives.  Perhaps the local great horned owl took care of the mouse for me?  Maybe I'll find it's skull when I dissect these?

The hive otherwise seemed healthy.  I replaced the base board, and removed the bottom box, making this a two brood box hive like the red hive.  I put a third and empty box over the feeder pail and pollen patty.  I'll be curious to see how this hive does over the next two weeks.

I always knew mice were a possibility and we've had them try and get in the hives before when we find their telltale tracks in the snow leading to the entrances.  Usually a well placed snap trap does the trick but this time we didn't see any tracks.  The good news is that all four hives are still going and appear to be ready for this summer's honey production.  We'll feed all four for as long as they seem to need it.

Bees Are Getting Pollen

We're getting 60 degrees around here and I took a moment to check on our hives.  It's looking to be a much happier scenario this year than last year when we had only two colonies.  We had one that was weak that we thought would die and one that was huge and sounded healthy.  By February, all seemed fine.  By the end of March, both were about dead. Thanks to the help of Hans and a lucky streak in the weather, we're in a much better situation this year with our four hives.  I'll post more later this morning, but here's a teaser from yesterday.  I gave the girls some feeder pails and many foragers were out and about already returning with big baskets of pollen.  I wondered where they were getting pollen?  Trees I suppose.  The only flowers I saw blooming were snow bells but I don't think there are enough of those out there to justify the bulbous baskets on my girls' legs.  Here's a short video of happy bees on a snowy day:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHjgZb1wEE4[/youtube]