Happy New Year

As I sit here, with a hot coffee in my cold hands, I am glad I don't really have to go outside anymore today. The last couple days has been cold and I hope our bees are keeping warm all clustered together in their house.
As the year is winding down, i reflect on what a year it was.  It was a year of ups and downs. Last winter was a long one that didn't ever seem to want to end. But it did and everything after that was a blurr.  Once it warmed up, it stayed hot and dry. BC seen one of the worst forest fire seasons in years. Highways were closed, 1000 of people was evacuated and we had smoke like you wouldn't believe.

Crazy smokey morning

But the Bees handled the smoke like little troopers. They continued to pull in pollen and nectar even though some days you could hardly see across the field. The days were also very hot and dry and it occurred to me (with my vast knowledge of beekeeping hahaha) that the amount of honey could be low because of the nectar drying up. . But we managed to get a decent amount of honey. We also have lots of honey to give back to the bees in the spring.

In September, our local Wannabee beekeepers club, decided to come to the motel and have a pot luck bbq and have our meeting next to the bee yard. It was a splendid evening. Good food and  great conversation. I am so thankful for our club, i have learned so much from them.

Sadly we went into winter with only 2 out of our 4 hives. Sad as it was to lose some, i always learn so much. And this time it  was no different.

So whats new for 2018
I have signed up for a Webinar in late Feb, put on by the Ministry of Agriculture. I am really hoping i am able to attend it and not cleaning endless rooms.
Big plans are in the works in hopes of the motel sale going thru and moving back to our home in Dome. We have purchased a good electric fencer, solar panels and have decided on which building we have, will be the new bee workshop.
I have ordered a nuc and all going well our bees will survive the winter and perhaps be able to split one of them in June.
I have also purchased a "new to us" electric 4 frame extractor. Im really excited about trying it out.
So keep your fingers crossed, the motel sells, and we get to retire and move back home.
Riverside Apiary will be officially up and running and i will be able to spend more time with my bees.

Happy New Year everyone.

2017 A year of highs and lows, part 2

Oct 14
Panic set in...its really started to feel like winter today. Wrapping up the girls for winter was going to be challenging this year. It wasn't just a case of wrapping them up and wishing them well. There is a chance we could be retiring this winter and heading home. So that means the bees will be going on a road trip. So with that in mind....we had to do some prep work before they were wrapped. James cut strips of wood and we screwed all the hive boxes together, so in case we moved, the boxes wouldn't. Then we had to make sure, come moving day, the pallet they sit on wasn't frozen to the ground . So we stacked a second pallet on top. Then wouldn't you know it, the hives couldn't be sitting close to each other, nooooo they had to be at each end of the bee yard.  This was going to be fun! But somehow we managed to get the first one moved over and lifted onto the 2 stacked pallets and place. The next hive moved equally as easy. Then we wrapped them as usual and put them to bed. Our hives each have 3 boxes, a brood chamber, a deep honey super and candy board and a deep attic box.
Oct 20
Holy moly...we go from chilly wintery temperatures to a balmy warm day. The bees took advantage of that and did some house cleaning.
Dec 9
So far, the winter has been kind. The winds have been nuts but thankfully no deep freezes yet.  I stuck my finger in the upper vent holes the other day and could feel warm air. So for now, i know they are still ok.

Bee jackets put away for the winter

2017 A year of highs and lows and smokey days

March 24
It was a cold winter that seemed to go on and on. But by March 27 we knew all 4 hives had survived it. It had warmed up by the 24th enough to slip pollen patties in each hive and to see that the big hive had completely eaten their candy board. (all 5lbs of sugar)

April 8
Wow the bees are pulling in pollen, spring is finally coming. Some was yellow some orange.
April 21
Bees seem to be doing good. They all have honey leftover from the winter. Found new brood in hive 3.
May 2
Finally removed the winter wraps.
May 19
Need to check out the hive with my Russian queen. They don't seem to be very robust. Will tear hive apart tomorrow and check
May 20
Opened up the Russian queen hive and found lots of  pollen and nectar but no brood.  Queen Anna must of died, I couldn't find her. So I Robbed a frame of uncapped and capped brood from one of the other hives. Hopefully they will build a new queen.
June 1
Did a hive inspection to see if there was any queen cells in the russian hive. All the brood i put in there had hatched, so lots of bees, but still no queen. I will try one more time giving them uncapped brood from another hive. Checked all the other hives and everyone else looks good except for the "nuc" hive, it had way too many drones, and drone cells. We will replace the queen in that hive.
June 5
No sign of queen cells in the Russian hive, so out of desperation, we combined that hive with the "swarm hive".
Checked the nuc hive again, it had produced too many drone cells last time so wanted to check them again. Lots of new worker cells, everything looked good inside it.
June14
All hives out working. The combo hive is doing good, the paper has been chewed thru, so they are combined now.
July 31

Smokey days in McBride

Smokey days

Too busy at the motel to do any inspections inside hives. Bees appear to be doing good. During the weeks of the forest fire smoke they are very slow. Not sure how much honey we will get with all the smoke in the valley. It has also been a very hot dry summer.
Aug 1
Pulled 9 frames of honey. Looks like we will get more honey than i had thought.

Aug 15
I had ordered a bucket with gate valve and 3 filters so when it arrived we extracted the 9 frames of honey. To our surprise we got 3/4 of a 5 gallon bucket full!

Aug 26
Pulled 6 more frames of honey, but will extract them later.
Sept 10
Finally got around to testing for mites. I had big plans to do a sugar roll to test for them but jeepers we were still so busy at the motel. So i made sticky boards. I also made up some syrup and will put
it in the hives tomorrow. I used 2 cups of sugar to 1 cup of water for this time of year.
Sept 12
Decided I needed to treat the mites. I was surprised to see how many mites were in one of the hives, not a ton but enough to treat.

Sept 14
Compressed all the hives down to 1 brood box and 1 honey super (plus the attic box with syrup feeders in it) added pollen patties in each hive also.
Sept 28
The weather has been incredibly warm and the bees are still bringing in  yellow and greyish pollen. I am still feeding syrup. (probably til early 0ct)
Oct 5. Bad day. Lost most of one hive, not exactly sure what went on. Some robbing going on, cant find a queen and not many bees left. The remaining bees were busy working still in the upper honey super. No time to waste, winter is almost here, i can't lose anymore of the bees so combined them into the next hive, so they have a chance to survive..
Oct 7
Made 2 candy boards yesterday and put them in the 2 hives today. (8lbs of sugar this time) Got the attic box all ready. Will insulate soon.
Oct 10
Put tarps up on fence to block the wind. Snowed hard, very damp out.
Oct 12
Insulated the attic boxes
Oct 14
Cold and windy. Panic set in that winter has arrived. Insulated the hives and got them all wrapped and ready for winter.

To be continued............

Very Creamy

So on Sept 7 of this year, i decided i wanted to play around with making creamed honey. Since then i have  made 3 batches.
The difference between regular honey and creamed honey,(also called whipped honey or spun honey) is the size and shape of the crystals in it. When honey naturally crystallizes the crystals are fairly large and sharp. You can definitely feel them when the honey coats your tongue. In creamed honey the crystals are oval and smooth, hence giving it a creamy mouth feel.  Under the right conditions, you can make creamed honey in a week or two depending on the temperature. Mine is taking longer as its been warmer in the room i have it stored.
So since this is the first time i ever made creamed honey, i had to buy seed. (fancy name for bought creamed honey). But next year i will be able to use my own. Make sure you start with clear crystal free honey.
Anyways in a jar of honey i removed a heaping spoonful of honey, then i Incorporated the same amount of seed honey. Stir to mix completely, you will see the white steaks when you first start stirring.
Once blended in, put the lid on and leave in a cooler place. Once set you can try it and feel the difference in the size of the crystals. Either way, both honey's are delish.

Bye bye summer, part 2

After our little snow storm and 3-4 inches of snow on the 10th, i thought i better get the bees wrapped for winter.
Oct 14
Panic set in, not sure if it was because today i turned 60 or whether it is the cold and wintery day. But i felt the urgency to get the bees put to bed. This year it involved more work than usual. The reason for that is, there is a chance the motel could be sold and we will get to go home mid winter. So we had to think about that when wrapping. If we were to move, the bees would have to be picked up and placed in our truck and taken almost 100km away. So we wanted to strap the boxes together so they wouldn't separate while moving them. James cut long strips of plywood that would be screwed from the top box to the bottom box, we put them on all 4 sides of each hive. Then we had to consider, what if there is ice and the pallet is froze to the ground and we cant pick it up. So we placed another pallet on top of the existing one. Then we set out to slowly move one hive at a time, up a ramp on to the top pallet. It worked really good and was way easier than we thought. The odd bee stuck its head out to see what we were doing, but all and all, they were pretty laid back.
Once the 2 hives were side by side on the pallet, we wrapped them up. So each hive this winter, have one deep super full of honey, whatever they had in the brood box for honey and a 8lb candy board. So all going well, that will keep them happy for the winter.
Oct 20
Beautiful mild day. The bees have been busy dragging out all the dead summer bees. Lots were out flying around too.
Oct 21
Winter has returned.
Hang in there bees...spring is only 5 months away.

Playing with wax

For me, one of my favorite things to do is playing with the wax the bees make. For some its all about the honey but I love the wax.
Bees are amazing little creatures, and the  fact that they make so many by products is genius. Did you know that the glands of worker bees convert the sugar contents of honey into wax , which oozes through the bee's small pores to produce tiny flakes of wax on their abdomens. Workers chew these pieces of wax until they become soft and moldable, and then add the chewed wax to the honeycomb construction. Like how did they come up with that???
So when i scrape off the burr comb or cappings when taking honey, i wash it and let it dry. I throw the bits and pieces in a bucket and leave it until i get enough to melt down.
Just recently i tried a new method of melting it down. I looked at the way a solar melter works and applied it to the oven. It worked like a charm. Next year i am hoping to make a solar melter so then i can do it outside.
So basically what i did was put a oven proof dish in the oven, i added some water in the bottom of that, oh maybe a inch. On top of the oven proof dish i placed a old cooling rack (you wont be able to cool your cookies on it anymore so make sure its a old one) Then i laid a couple sheets of paper towel over top the rack and spread out the wax bits.
Place in a low oven, i normally turn the oven on to somewhere between 200 and 225 degrees. It will take a while to melt all the wax.  Once all the wax melts it filters thru the paper towel  and lands in the water. Remove from the oven and let cool til the wax solidifies. Here's a few pictures

Add water in bottom of dish

                                               

                       Paper towel filter over dish with melted clean wax floating on the water

 This is what to expect the paper towel to look like, but it depends on how clean your wax is when you start

Being frugal I hate to waste things, so after the paper towel had dried out, i broke it into pieces and we use to to start fires with. It works really good and its not gone to waste.
Have fun.

   

Bye bye summer

Well it is October 17th. All signs of summer have gone and fall is definitely here. (even hints of winter are appearing)
I have managed to blunder through another season of beekeeping with hopes of having more time to care for the bees. But with all the forest fires and extreme heat, and a really busy tourist season, the motel kept me way to busy.
With the heat and smoke I didn't really expect the bees to do as well, honey wise, as they did. Such little troopers they are.

After we got the hives ready for winter, except for the wraps, the weather turned warm again at the end of Sept. The bees were busy collecting a few different kinds of pollen. By Oct 5th the weather started to turn cooler. Lots of frosts overnight. While checking on the bees one day, we noticed fighting going on with the hive we had combined during the summer. I also noticed the odd wasp just walking right in the front door. So that afternoon we tore the hive apart and was sad to find quite a few dead bees, no queen and not much honey in the lower box. There was still lots in the super and the extra attic box which housed a few frames of honey. Most of what was left of the bees were in the attic box, tending to those frames of honey.
I was sick. Was it robbing? Guess we won't know for sure. So once again we packed up what was left and deposited the remaining bees into a neighbouring hive.
Oct 6th
Went to work making 2-8lb candy boards. James was so nice to make me extra frames this year for all the hives.
Oct 10th
Put the tarps around the north and east sides of the fence enclosures. It was such a cold windy day and was snowing like crazy. We had gotten about 3-4 inches. Jeepers I guess winter is really coming......
To be continued