Catch up Part 2

 When i sit and write this it is now July 25th. Already i am thinking about getting things ready for winter. I started to can today and we  harvested one of our cabbage out of the greenhouse. In another week or so,  I will be pulling honey. I think the bees did pretty good this year but until I take apart the hive I won't know for sure.

In early June while doing an inspection, we found Hive 3 was bursting at the seam. Not being able to get some queens, I decided to try a "walk away" split. I had never done one before but decided to try since I didn't want to lose any bees to swarming. So somewhere around the 10th of June I went in hive 3 and took some frames of eggs, open brood and capped brood, along with the nurse bees on those frames. I always number our hives so since was taken from hive 3, it became hive 3.5. Once it produced a laying queen, it would become hive 4. I left it alone for about a month, other than checking to see if there were any queen cells. There was a few so i was happy. After a month i decided to check inside for eggs.....and it was loaded. The queen in 3.5 must of inherited her mothers awesome laying genes! I was so surprised at the amount of eggs. 

On the 24 of June, James and I went over to the bee yard after supper as I felt we needed to do another split. We checked again for queen cells and found quite a few. So we quickly grabbed those frames and made another split.  Within 2 weeks, that queen had hatched, got bred and started laying. So I was over the moon happy.

On the 25th of June, James came running in the house, SWARM SWARM. He had been cutting lawn across the road and he spotted a small swarm in a tree about 15ft up. So we went back over there, set up a ladder, set up another hive box, grabbed the cardboard nuc box and set out to grab the swarm. Thankfully I got it and dropped it into its new home. But later that evening, when I checked on it....it had gone. Guess it didn't like its new home. Oh well easy come....easy go.

    

collecting the little swarm

Scrambling trying to find enough frames with drawn out comb.

We went thru some really hot weather. Temperatures we are not use too. The poor bees were bearding and going thru tons of water. So I decided to add vented attic boxes to the top of each hive, plus styrofoam insulation  on top as well. It seemed to work really well, little or no more bearding or fanning.

I am mentoring a young fella right now, he is 11. Our club has a mentoring program for young people who are interested in keeping bees. I was lucky to have someone here in Dome Creek who wanted to learn. Morgan is fearless when it comes to his bees, he is always got one on the end of his hive tool or sitting on his finger.. His hive is kept in my apiary until next spring at which point he can take them home.  Below is a picture of him.

Morgan the bee whisperer

Morgan with a creative frame of honey

3

We were glad when the heat wave ended as there were so many fires and the smoke somedays was pretty bad. Since then, we have some rain, which has been good and once again the bees are crazy busy bringing in food for winter. 

Our mosquitoes this year have been pretty darn nasty, too the point, we don't want to go outside. And why do they love the greenhouse and bee yard so much...WHY

So on the brink of cabin fever one day, I said to James....lets take the quad and go for a ride in the clear cut across the highway. So we packed the quad and headed out. There are quite a few fairly new clear cuts with some fireweed in it but it wasn't until we hit the older one that we hit the fireweed jack pot. I turned and said to James....I want to bring the bees here next July. Pack them up, bring the electric fence and a tent and stay the whole month. I could become a Bee Shephard!. Apparently it was a easy sell, cause he was all over it. We could get firewood, pick wild raspberries and escape for 30 days. But still close enough to run home and water the garden and greenhouse but far enough....just to be away.  Sounds like my idea of a great holiday. 

Well.......here it is almost the end of July. Time to pull honey off the hives and do another inspection and a mite test before winter. Plus its time to get more preserves put in the root cellar. And all them little projects that need to be taken care of before old man winter makes an appearance. So i guess i will end this here. Happy August everyone. See you soon

 

Catching up. Part 1

Spring has come. There are some Pussy Willows out now and the long droopy flowers (Catkins) of the native Hazelnuts and Alders and I suspect the Pollen the girls are bringing in are from both of these trees.

Spring can bee a busy time for those beekeepers who hibernates all winter and leaves everything until the warmer longer days come. I did manage to get up off the couch and get boxes assembled and painted and ready to accommodate splits or swarms during the upcoming season. But  mostly....I waited.

On the 16th and 17th of April, the weather was warm and sunny, so i took advantage of that and peaked inside each hive to see if the girls still had food. All the hives still had some honey left  and a little of their candy boards, so needless to say i was happy. 

April 14th

May/June2021

Time got away on me and here it is the 15th of May. The bees are in full swing now. They are bringing in tons of pollen now. In a week or so all our fruit trees will be in full bloom. But for now, there are only a few dandelions, some remaining pussy willows, skunk cabbage and something else that has green pollen.

We have a couple interesting projects going on in the beeyard. First of all, clean up. Once the winter wraps are off, there always seems to be bits of styrofoam, Tuck tape and little pieces of lumber laying around. So we finally got that all cleaned up and put away.

The bees had been doing good and hive 1 and 3 were a whole lot stronger in population than hive 2. So i decided to rob some brood from hive 3 to top off that one. While checking for swarm cells i noticed that Hive #3 needed to be split. It was bursting at the seams.

By June they had brought in a lot of dandelion nectar, i was surprised. But then, we had left most of dandelions growing in our lawn at the house and the bee side and only cut where it was needed. The bees loved it, and i loved looking over the sea of yellow flowers in the yard. We also have this ground cover growing in the lawn that have bright purple flowers in it, which we noticed the bees loved as well.

After about 2 1/2 months, we finally made a trip into Prince George to do a grocery run. But more importantly a trip to Art Knapps to buy plants. We had decided to add another Cherry tree to the orchard, but also some blueberries. It was exciting to expand our orchard and next year, i think we might add another blueberry and perhaps another kind of berry to the family.

We also thinned out our strawberries and replanted them in the second box in the orchard. Next year we will take over the 3rd and final box with more strawberries.

And i am sure the bees are enjoying have more fruit trees to pollinate so close by.

Speaking of Pollen. We are involved with a small research project that requires collecting small amount of pollen then sending it off to be analyzed to determine what kind of pollen it is. Our bees hated the pollen traps but we did managed to collect a small amount to get sent off. We kept track of what was in flower during that time. So it will be pretty neat to hear the end results. Our bees arent bringing in much pollen right now. But they should start again in August. 

Dried pollen the girls collected

Bringing in some Dandelion pollen

Alder Catkins

Skunk Cabbage flower

Well i am going to end this blog post here. It is now almost the end of July and i need to get the next post written.