These are a few of my favorite things.....Blogmas #3

These are a few of my favorite things, to do with Beekeeping.

You Tube Channels
Although there are lots of beekeeping videos on You Tube, these are my 2 favorites. One  of them lives in Tennessee the other in Manitoba 

Kamon Reynolds- Tennessee's Bees
I have been watching and following Kamon for quite some time. Although he is located in Tennessee and has a totally different climate then us, for me, that is only one part of beekeeping. He is so good at explaining things and can easily laugh at himself....no big ego there!
He takes a practical approach to beekeeping and has a great sense of humor. He posts new videos almost every day.

a Canadian Beekeeper's Blog
This is Ian Stepplers channel and he is located in Manitoba. He too is a awesome speaker and although he is what i would call a commercial beekeeper (along as a farmer), he is very passionate about his bees. What i really like about him is that he really cares about his bees and talks about them like us hobby beekeepers do.
Kamon often mentions Ian in his videos so its nice to know a guy who has 400 hives and a guy who has 1200 hives have a lot in common. I was so lucky to be able to  meet and listen to Ian speak this year at the BCHP's conference.

My favorite beekeeping chore
I am not sure i can only pick one but here goes

I love to go and just sit out at the hives with a cuppa and listen to the constant hum. I love the feel of when  a bee lands on our bare arm and walks around. It does feel pretty neat. (not sure that is considered a chore though)

I love the smell when you crack open a hive in the summer during the nectar flow.

But one of my favorite things to do is......dealing with the wax. Not sure why i like this so much but maybe its the smell. The smell that reminds me of when my Grampa first gave me a bowl full of beeswax.  Ummm ok so that wasn't just one thing.........

My Favorite beekeeping tool
Ummm that may be a tough one to narrow down to one.
I love my  J-tool.
I love my 5 gallon bucket with tool bag on it. It holds all my beekeeping tools and supplies.

But i think the #1 tool would be....the meter to test my electric fence, so i don't shock myself with 2.5 Joules of power on the inside of my leg crawling thru the fence (ouch)

Well thats it for now. Merry Blogmas everyone.

Telling the Bees.....Blogmas #2

It is said, if you tell your bees about the deaths in your family and kept them up to date on all family happenings, in return this would prevent terrible losses to happen with your bees. It was important to sit outside the hives and discuss things, not unlike you do to the bartender at the pub or your hair dresser.
So the other day we thought perhaps it was time to go have a chat with our bees. We have had a couple tough years with our bees, so we would try anything. So armed with a lawn chair and cup of coffee we brought them up to speed on what was happening in our world. I am hoping this prevents them from dying off during the winter. It was worth a try and besides there is something quite relaxing about sitting listening to the constant hum of a happy hive. (even though it was -15C and the plastic lawn chair was cold on the arse)

Having a chat with the bees

A Strange Tradition

There was a time when almost every rural British family who kept bees followed a strange tradition. Whenever there was a death in the family, someone had to go out to the hives and tell the bees of the terrible loss that had befallen the family. Failing to do so often resulted in further losses such as the bees leaving the hive, or not producing enough honey or even dying. Traditionally, the bees were kept abreast of not only deaths but all important family matters including births, marriages, and long absence due to journeys. If the bees were not told, all sorts of calamities were thought to happen. This peculiar custom is known as “telling the bees”.

Merry Blogmas everyone

Let it snow Let it snow Let it snow

Welcome to my very first Blogmas. I will be attempting to write a post once a week until Christmas. Not too much happening with the bees right now. But i will be writing about the winter, some honey recipes. some photos and other bee related "stuff". So here we go.......

I know...some of you will think i am crazy but i love snow. Always have....always will.  There is something really magical about it, (in my mind anyways). I can never be sad if its snowing.
Monday night (Dec 2) was our first snow warning of the winter.  And it began before we went to bed. I had to stop the urge to get up every hour and look out the door. But i wasn't disappointed when i got up and saw it was still snowing. All i wanted to do was curl up on the couch with a blanket and a good book. But instead we spent the day putting wall boards up in the loft but took lots of coffee breaks so we could sit and stare out the window.
The next day i thought i should wander over and make sure the snow hadn't piled up in front the hives. While crawling thru the electric fence, it dawned on my the last of the bears were probably denned up by now so tomorrow we are taking in the battery for the winter. The entrances were fine so i just cleaned up a bit and left.  With all the snow the spirit of Christmas is starting to set in.  In my next Blog i may make some Honey Fudge or some Honey Sponge toffee. I think it may also be time to start to decorate

Remembrance Day November 11, 2019

      It seemed only fitting that today was the day i found a box that hadn't been unpacked for years. When opening it i discovered 2 bottles i hadnt been able to find for a few years now. As i gazed down it brought back the memories of the day i got them.

     Grama and Poppa Forrest had put their farm up for sale and were having a big garage sale. It was an emotional day for me as that was where i spent many happy years growing up and helping them on the farm. Wood cutting, haying and just spending time exploring the fields. I remembered out in one of the fields the rock with fossils in it and the little skull with movable lower jaw that hung off a keychain, which was always kept in the glove box of the red Farm All Tractor. But one of my favorite things was  the old wooden cupboard that hung on the wall in the barn and kept all the cow medicines and teat cream. It had been built out of Dynamite crates. During the garage sale, Poppa asked me if i would like that old cupboard. We walked to the barn and took it off the wall. It is one of my prized possessions.

Also that day, he found a case of what i thought was canning jars, but on further inspection they were glass jars in the shape of bee skeps. Each jar still held honey, which at that time was close to 50 years old. He gave me a couple of those jars and also a bag full of old beeswax.
My Grampa and Great Grampa owned a commercial nursery when my Mum was a child. They also kept bees. Each summer they would attend the local fairs and the PNE and set up displays of their flowers, honey and wax. My Mum and her siblings were in charge of melting the wax and pouring it into little decorative molds. The molded wax was used as part of their displays at the fairs.

Grampa and Great Grampa's honey jars

     Anyways, today i found those 2 little jars. I removed the lids hoping to still be able to smell the golden honey that once filled it. But the scent of honey was gone. I filled the sink with hot soapy water and when dry i decided those cute little bottles would once again hold honey.  I am not sure if it was allergies or if i got soap in my eye, but i felt a tear run down my cheek. I miss my Grampa, but i think  he would of been happy that i put some of my honey in his jars


A little about the jars:
The Hazel-Atlas Glass Company of Wheeling, West Virginia started out at Washington, PA and later plants included Clarksburg, WV; Zanesville, OH; Ada, Oklahoma; Montgomery, Alabama; Oakland, California; Pomona, California and other locations (1902 – 1964).  Hazel-Atlas made the Beehive Jars and listed them in 1935 Bee Culture magazine. They were made in three sizes from ½ pound to two pounds.

Prepping for winter

Frosty leaves

    Well here it is October 31, and i have to ask myself...where has this year gone. I had always heard that the older you get the faster the time goes....but enough already! I am having trouble keeping up.
    Over the last month, we have been working hard getting ready for winter. I have been canning, James has been hunting and we are trying to get the insulation put  in here and there around the basement ceiling area.

Cold room is filling up

    The hunting so far has been unsuccessful but we are hoping that will change soon. We both enjoy game and its so rewarding to look down at your plate and most of the food on it is food you harvested yourself. So hopefully in the next week or so he will get us a moose or deer.
    We had no garden this year as there wasn't enough time, but this winter we will be planning out the new greenhouse. I did manage to buy fruit and was given some vegis out of our neighbors garden so I was able to put away a few things for the winter.
     Last week James moved a lot of the "stuff" that was laying around the yard, stuff that hadnt been put away since we got home. So we can rest knowing we won't be hitting anything while plowing the driveway this winter.  At the same time I worked on getting the bees ready for winter. I got them moved down into 2 boxes and gave them some Apipasta fondant as a treat. I had also made them 8lb candy boards for each hive. So along with their 2 boxes of honey, they should have more than enough food for winter.

Ready for winter

     So this winter, we will be keeping busy putting in the shower and vanity then organizing the basement more. Then on those real cold days we will be sitting with a steaming hot cuppa and drawing up plans for the new greenhouse. So this winter i will be updating you on whats going on inside the house, new plans for next year, how the bees are doing and the new batch of mead i plan on making.and maybe a few honey based recipes.
But for now....bee warm and have a safe winter.
,

BC Honey Producers Conference

For the past 4 years while running the Motel, i sat and watched (and whined a little, ok  a lot!) how people got to go the BCHP's conferences. I was envious and swore once retired...I would go too damnit.
So I was pretty excited when the PG beekeeping club was going to host the next conference in Prince George in October.
James and I registered and were set to go for 2 of the 3 days. We opted to drive in each day since staying at a motel wasn't really going to work with our clingy 14 year old dog who howls when ever you leave. So this was easier.

Conference

They had a great line up of speakers from all over Canada and the US. The one i was really excited to hear was Ian Steppler from Steppler Farms in Manitoba. I follow him on You Tube and really have learned a lot from him. So to see and hear him in person was pretty neat. The conference was 3 days long but we only attended the Sat and Sunday. During one of the talks, we had a lesson in honey tasting. Like wine tasting but not quite as fun...heheheh. We were given  6 different samples of  honey to analyze by taste and aroma then write down what you tasted. It was amazing when you really concentrate what you can taste and smell. My favorite honey that day was from Meadowfoam flowers and it tasted like chocolate, vanilla and maybe a little caramel thrown for good measure. Each honey tasted so different.

 Ian Steppler,

For fun i had decided to enter some honey and Mead into the competition. I had never entered anything like this before so i was completely out of the loop on how it worked. The first thing i did was put the honey in too big of jars (it was suppose to be 500g or a pound) according to the rules. Then i didnt fill the jar full enough to hide the level under the lid. Oh and i didnt filter the honey through a fine enough filter to get the specks of pollen out.The honey were critiqued but disqualified because of the bottle size. But saying all this, i learnt so much and now i know better for next time. But we did get full points for taste and aroma, so i was pretty pleased about that!

But my mead looked good, it was clear and the right size bottles, so i felt good about that. But i entered it without any expectations since this was only the second time i had ever made mead...i didn't even know what it was suppose to taste like....but we liked it so that's what i went with.
Well Saturday night on Facebook a friend who was at the Banquet posted that my mead won 1st in its category....what??? Really??? No it couldn't of.
But sure enough when we arrived Sunday morning...i was given a blue ribbon. I was shocked.

Mine are the ones with no professional label or fancy bottle. (far right). Yup these were recycled Cattle Boyz BBQ sauce bottles!

Photo Credit: Bini Ball

The rest of the conference was great. The speakers were really informative and we brought home a ton of info and some goodies. One of the best things of the whole weekend was meeting in person, some of the folks i had only chatted to one some beekeeping pages i belong too. We even brought home a gift of 2 jars of honey from friends in Terrace. Thank you Tavis and Christine. We are loving this very interesting mystery honey of yours.

But now its back to getting ready for winter and putting the bees to bed. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.
Until next time......

Bee Inspection

Last spring our area got news that we would finally have a Bee Inspector. It had been years since our area had one, so it was great finding out the news.
 Barry, our inspector, had attended several of our bee meetings and our Bee Day in May. He had asked if anyone in the club would like their bees inspected. I never turn down the opportunity to learn new things and work along side someone who had been keeping bees for years. So i said Yes, i do.
With the very wet summer, our inspector had to keep delaying his road trip out this way until after he was able to get his hay off the fields. So on the 22nd of August he arrived. Barry is a great guy, very easy going and willing to share his years of knowledge and never makes you feel bad for doing rookie mistakes or asking dumb questions.

Barry and I checking out the hives

My hives had suffered a bit early in the season with Chalk Brood, a fungal desease and this summers damp weather really didnt help the situation. However they rebounded and had really taken off. The populations had grown and judging by the inspection. ...were doing well. Barry and I tore apart each hive, looking at the frames, checking for brood, desease and looking at their overall health. 

There was only very minor indications of chalk brood, which i was so happy about and everything looked good. 

The one thing he noted was .....our equipment. He suggested perhaps it was time to replace our brood boxes and supers. James and I had already planned a trip to Bee Maid before winter to purchase a bunch,since all of ours are.....almost classed as antiques. We thought that perhaps some of the boxes were homemade since the frames didnt fit in some of them very well and kept slipping down inside. Also with the size difference there was all kinds of very ornate burr comb under the frames. We left all that mess in place and when we get the new boxes...i can clean them up then.

Next came the testing for Varroa Mites. We took a sample of approx 300 bees (around a 1/2 cup) and put them into a 2 cup Mason jar. It was fitted with a screen and then 2 Tbs of icing sugar was pushed thru the screened top and onto the bees.  The jar was then rolled around and given a shake then let sit for a minute or so. The process was repeated. Then into a white container, the contents were shaken out thru the screened top leaving the bees inside the jar covered with white icing sugar. They were returned to their hive where their sisters would clean them off.  In the white container we poured a small amount of water to dissolve the sugar and  looked for mites. You are hoping for 2% or less mites. (well actually you are hoping for 0 mites) If your numbers are higher than you need to treat the bees. We were really happy as we counted 0 mites. However i will test again near the end of Sept and see then. There will be less capped brood then, so you may find you have more mites (the mites like to rear their young inside capped brood).

Setting up the mite testing station

Bees coated in icing sugar

Returning the sugar coated girls back to their hive

Anyways, it was a good day. I was so thankful to find out my bees were doing good and was very grateful to had learnt new things

Until next time.....Bee Happy