Journey to Greener Pastures...

Yogurt!

2012-01-19T09:12:00.000-08:00

Along with using the frozen blueberries in the fruit compote I posted about, I've been making blueberry smoothies for my son and I. But yogurt is not cheap and I've been thinking about making my own.

So I did Monday night. Heated up a half gallon of whole milk, added 1/2 cup of powered milk, heated to 180 degrees, cooled to 100 degrees, then mixed 3 tbs of existing yogurt to 2 cups of milk from the pot, mixed it together, then added it to the rest of the pot.

I had preheated the oven to 180, then turned off the oven, turned on the light, and put the pot in the oven for 7 hours. Now I have a half gallon of good tasting yogurt for smoothies. Yeah!

Blue, sweet stuff

2012-01-18T09:04:00.000-08:00

I've never liked oatmeal, not as a kid, not as an adult, I've tried ways to make it palatable for years. Until Jamba Juice persuaded me into getting one of their oatmeal cups with berry compote for $1. I discovered I like it that way. But it's too expensive to eat daily from Jamba Juice. And I don't know if there are any up here.
So I did an experiment, I have a freezer with about a gallon of frozen blueberries. So I threw together my own blueberry compote. Ingredients: 2 cups of frozen blueberries, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/4 cup water. Boiled it for a few minutes, scraping a lot since I hate to burn stuff. Turned out good, not overly sweet, but adds that fruit taste to the oatmeal to make it edible.

Biltong attempt #1

2012-01-17T08:30:00.000-08:00

I attempted my first batch at biltong which is a South African dehydrated meat. There are recipes all over the Internet, I choose a simple one. And messed it up. I dunked the meat in apple cyder vinegar, then rubbed in coarse salt and coriander and let it sit in the fridge for 24 hrs. Then I put it into my dehydrator w/o rinsing it off. So the biltong pieces are way too salty to eat by themselves. Luckily I did not spend too much $ on the meat...

It was a learning experience... Next time, I'll do better!

Set back a bit.

2012-01-15T23:12:00.000-08:00

Well, major changes at home have set back my Journey.... But I'm still moving forward on it! I'm just a few paces back.

Keep an eye on here!

Guest post on Wilderwolf.net

2011-12-09T14:10:00.000-08:00

I did a guest post on Wilderwolf.net for my friend Tiffany and Rich about bees and beekeeping. Here it is (link at the bottom, check out their blog, they are great people):

Guest Post: Keeping Bees

Bees. The very word strikes fear into people. The thought of small insects with stinger makes people vacate the area. I admit I was never keen on bees, I avoided them and therefore they avoided me. I never thought I’d ever get more intimate with them.But I have grown to know, like, and respect them. A few years ago I was experimenting making honey wine (mead) and decided I wanted to get my honey from a more local source. Off I went to attend a local bee keeper meeting and, pardon the pun, was stung with the idea of becoming a beekeeper myself.

Speaking of being stung, Yes, I have been stung by my bees. They have stung me 5 times in my 3 years of keeping bees. Mostly because I was hurrying and not taking time to be calm and work slowly with the bees. If you be calm and careful and know when the best times are to work with them, they will not sting you. Their job to to keep the hive running, they are not crazed insects just waiting to sting anything that comes by.

Bees are amazing creatures. They can take care of themselves quite well, they have been doing it for thousands of years. A beekeeper just helps them by providing a nice home, protecting them from marauding animals, and maybe feed them during the hard times of the winter.

In return they give us wax, propolis, pollen, and of course, Honey! Honey is the only food created by insects that humans eat. And what a wonderful treat it is, it never goes bad, it has amazing properties, and tastes so darn good.

How do you start? First you need to learn, the Internet is great for that. Then you need equipment, a few basic hand tools, a mask/veil/jacket/suit (depending on your comfort level) and a hive. A starter hive can cost around $200, less if you are handy with tools.

Now the fun part! Getting the bees! This can be free if you catch a swarm (an extremely exciting thing to do!), or buying a package or an established hive. A package is about $70, a establish hive more.

I know, the initial costs sound like a lot. But you can sell products of the hive, just don’t expect to make back your initial costs the first year. The bees need a year to get their hive established.

Once you have a hive, you can work with them every few days or very seldom. It all depends on what you want to do and what the bees will allow (they tend to get irritated if you mess with them every day or two). I like visiting them every weekend, I might go into the hive and check them out, or I might only sit next to the hive and watch them coming and going about their buzzy lives.

As you spend more time with the bees, you will become more comfortable. They can be a fun hobby, people are always asking questions about them. And after a year, you’ll be in the sweet stuff!

WilderWolf.net GuestPost: Keeping Bees

Hive update

2011-09-15T08:53:00.000-07:00

Summer is over, time to winterize the hive.
The local bee club had a meeting about this, so since they know the seasons here I'm following their advice.
I took out the frames in the super and put a boardman feeder inside the empty box (the super had wax but no nectar stored there). Right now the bees can get all over the empty super. I am going to do something to keep them from doing that. I am also thinking about putting some type of insulation in the empty super to help keep heat in during the winter. And I've played with the idea of a cover to keep the rain off the hive.

I noticed a lot of activity a week ago so I put on an entrance reducer, I was afraid they were getting robbed and I don't want to loose the hive to that.

I've been feeding them a 1/1 syrup, they are gobbling it right up.

Hive update

2011-08-17T16:37:00.001-07:00

Just checked the hive, the center 5 frames have brood have honey on the edges. the next set of frames the bees are putting nectar in in a nice arch on the bottom. the far left outside frames have nectar also there, the closet frame is still being worked. i put on a drawn out super on top with the queen excluder sideways so the workers can get to the super easier.

Beer update

2011-08-15T10:35:00.001-07:00

Well, the beer bubbled for 4-5 days, the instructions say that is normal. So I bought a capper and a bag of green caps. I'll bottle it Fri night and see how it tastes/goes.

2 new batches

2011-08-14T10:36:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday night I stopped by Trader Joes and picked up some supplies to make more cyder. I bought a bottle of Trader Joes Blackberry crush and one of Trader Joes McIntosh Apple Juice. I'm working on my cyder recipe that I last made a year ago that I opened last weekend and was really impressed with how it had mellowed out and tasted.

I also started a batch of maple wine using 2 32 oz bottles of Trader Joes 100% pure Vermont grade A dark amber maple syrup. Shall see how it goes. The recipes I used is at: http://hbd.org/brewery/cm3/recs/10_25.html

First batch of beer.... mostly

2011-08-07T23:15:00.000-07:00

Started my first batch of beer today. What a hassle! I've decided making beer in small batches in a pain in the ass. So here's how it went.

Last month I purchased a pico beer kit from the Portland Homebrew Exchange. I bought the Red Ale kit (http://homebrewexchange.net/product/pico-ingredient-kits). Looks promising.
First off, the instructions are not the most clear. Was not sure of I should mix the multiple pots together... But I figured it out after searching a few more recipes.

Then I had a small issue with the yeast. The yeast packet was stuck to the hops package with some double back tape. When I was moving pots around, I put a pot down on the tape and the yeast packet was stuck to the bottom of the pot. I put the pot with water on the stove and burned the yeast package. The yeast was scorched and useless. Luckily I had 3/4 package of ale yeast in the freezer that I use to make rootbeer.

It takes a lot of time and energy to brew beer! 45 min heating the grains, then 45 min of boiling the mash... And it makes the house smell like boiled grains, I did not mind the smell, the wife did.

So I put the beer together into the 1 gallon carboy after cooling it down. I then pitched the yeast and put in the cheapo hydrometer to measure it. Well, the hydrometer was covered up by foam, so I could not read it. SI I tried to remove it, the top was below the top of the carboy. So I used a pair of tweezers to gently remove the hydrometer. No good. The thin glass at the top of the hydrometer cracked and some fell to the counter, some fell into the carboy (FULL OF BEER). ARGH!!! I resisted the urge to throw the off the deck. I figured the glass will settle down into the lees, I'll filter it out when I bottle...

I setup the blow off tube and the beer is bubbling away...

grumble. I have a new respect for people who brew beer.

New Hive

2011-07-25T00:05:00.000-07:00

I have a new hive. I bought one from a professional beekeeper up here. It's an established hive in a deep. I setup the hive yesterday (Saturday) in my backyard and added a new deep at the same time. It was fun to watch the bees spiraling up in a bee tornado as they learn where the are and set their bee GPS.

Possible hive

2011-07-14T23:48:00.000-07:00

I met someone at a local Recycle Art Faire who gave me the contact info for a local bee keeper. He will have a hive to sell me, so hopefully I'll get a hive going again soon! He also called me a week ago with a swarm, but alas! I was in Klamath and not around to get them.

Bees are in the future! Yeah!

Different yeast products...

2011-07-13T23:41:00.000-07:00

I've been maintaining my sourdough starter, quite easy to do so. I've made 2 batches of bread by cheating and using the bread machine. Tastes good. Now time to do it by hand.

I've also decided to try making beer. I bought a small kit from 'The Portland Homebrew Exchange'. The kit I bought is the 'Red Ale Picobewery One gallon ingredient kit'. This will allow me to use my existing mead/cyder making equipment. I also get to learn how to make beer using malt and grain/hops. Hopefully I'll find time this weekend to get it brewing.

I checked out the following book from the local library. So far, it seems to be a good book on how to grow your own ingredients to make your own beer:

Dehydrating berries

2011-07-11T00:23:00.000-07:00

On the way back from taking the dog to the local 5-acre dog park, we stopped and picked some late season strawberries and early season raspberries. Both are so yummy! I decided to dehydrate a test batch. The strawberries came out really weird looking (but still taste good) and the raspeberries came out good. I'm looking forward to move berry picking since I want to make more jam/jelly and do some berry cyders.

Sourdough starter

2011-06-16T16:54:00.000-07:00

I started a batch of sourdough starter on Tuesday (6/14). I want to make my own sourdough bread by hand w/o using the bread machine.
The recipe comes from:

Future projects:

sourdough bread
make a maple mead
get more bees!

We've arrived in Washington!

2011-06-07T11:57:00.000-07:00

We have moved to Washington. Lovely area, rented a house on 1/4 acre, enough room in the backyard for 2 hives. I'll be checking into getting packages/swarms.

I picked up 2 wolfberry (also called goji berry) plants from craigslist.org. Shall be interesting to see how they grow.

My Status

2011-05-16T15:41:00.000-07:00

Well, I've decided to move my family and I up North to southern Washington state.
I've wanted to move for years, lots of stuff have stopped this. It's time to move. I'm being a pain in rushing it. We rented a house 2 weeks ago and are moving up this weekend.

Back in March before I decided to move, I ordered 3 packages of bees.
By the time they arrived, I'd decided to move. So I sold 2 packages to some new bee keepers and setup the 3rd package at someones house down in Morgan Hill. I'll be finding someone to take over this hive shortly.
Some pictures of the packages are here.

More to follow!

Almost gone

2011-02-22T09:44:00.000-08:00

Checked the remaining bees last night, not good. The cold/wet weather is killing them off slowly. I dont think they will make it one more week. So I have 2 swarm boxes out to get swarms.

Not quite dead

2011-02-14T10:45:00.001-08:00

Checked out the MH hive yesterday, it's not quite dead. There are about 50 bees in it still living and I saw the queen yesterday. I did not dig into the hive much to look for brood. I want to leave them alone for a bit. If I catch a swarm I'll drop it on top.

I made some fondant patties for them (5:1 sugar:water). I poured it into cup cake wrappers, let it harder, peeled off the paper, and put it on the top of the frames. They seemed to go after them, I'll check and see how if they are eaten next weekend.

MH hive is dead

2011-02-06T22:28:00.000-08:00

I checked out the MH hive today. It's dead, there are maybe about 2 dozen bees clustered in side, I did not see a queen, I did not see any eggs/brood at all. There are a few bees going in /out, but they could be robbers. I asked Lynn to cover the entrance up and I'd come back later this week to collect up the hive and clean it up. There are probably 5 full frames of capped honey total in the hive (2 deeps, 1 medium super).

My two spare hives have been cleaned up, freshly painted, and are at Fuzzys just waiting for swarms. I'll clean up the MH hive and leave it and my nuk in MH to try to get a swarm there.

Damn!!!

New Location found

2011-01-24T10:36:00.000-08:00

The place I checked out on Sunday looks good, I'll be cleaning up my hives and making a stand for the new place. yeah! Now I just need bees.
I put a feeder on the MH hive, they have not touched the pollen patty. Maybe they will drink some sugar water. There are bees going in/out, but not many.

MH Hive status

2011-01-21T09:21:00.000-08:00

The MH hive seems to be surviving, I've sat with them and noticed they bees are bringing in pollen. Not as many bees as I'd like to see, it's been a wet winter. Since it's Jan already, I added a pollen patty to the top so they have food for brood.

I left the top super on last winter since the frames were not fully capped off, the bees have moved into the top deep/top super and left the bottom deep. I'll have to swap the deeps and remove the super once the weather warms up and the population rises.

I am checking out a possible location for another hive in MH, just down the road from the existing hive. I am considering buying 2 packages of bees from the bee guild instead of waiting for swarms.

New Jam

2010-12-21T09:16:00.000-08:00

I've made a few batches of mixed berry jam using straw/blue/blackberries. The three berry flavor combo comes out great! I use Pomona Pectin with only 1 cup of sugar. This really lets the flavor of the berries come through.

You cam get Pomona Pectin here: Low Sugar Pectin, 1 oz. Box

Here's a picture of the berries being mushed:

Extracted honey frames from SJ hive

2010-11-16T02:57:00.000-08:00

I spent a few hours last Saturday night extracting honey from the frames in the medium supers that I saved from being robbed out at the SJ hive. Ended up with about 30 lbs.

Toyon hive gone also

2010-11-04T02:55:00.000-07:00

Checked on Toyon hive yesterday, it was empty. All the wax was gone. I inspected it and found some signs of mites and ants. Did not seem to be honey in the brood area in the deeps, the super looked to be about 2/3 capped. Darn!

Honey from SJ

2010-11-01T12:19:00.000-07:00

Fuzzy/I removed the 2 supers that were temporarily put on Fuzzys hive (next to mine that was robbed out). One super is full of capped honey, the other has only about 5% capped. I'll be extracting these shortly. Fuzzy/I used a leaf blower to get the bees out of the supers, worked quite well and the bees were not upset about it

I talked with Fuzzy about the wax moths and he suggested using BT (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diseases_of_the_honey_bee#Wax_moths). I purchased 2 oz of BT from him and followed directions to make it up and spray the extracted brood frames (only). Shall see how that works. I also think I saw a small hive beetle in the frames so I am going to cycle the frames thru the freezer to kill anything left alive.

SJ hive checkout

2010-10-21T10:13:00.000-07:00

Well, brought home the SJ hive. All frames are devoid of honey. No brood (eggs or larva). There are cells with pollen. There are about 6 empty queen cells. Looks like it swarmed then was robbed away. Darn! I'll post pictures of what I found in the next day or two.
Now I need to freeze the frames to kill off the wax moth larva that seems to be starting.

Hive status: SJ and MH

2010-10-10T21:15:00.000-07:00

Inspected the hives yesterday/today.

The MH hive is strong, lots of bees. I removed 4 super frames and consolidated the 2 supers into 1 super with the remaining partially drawn frames. The 2nd deep has lots of bees in it and capped brood cells in the middle of the deep with 2 frames of honey on each side. Looks good.

The SJ hive is kaputt. I checked it yesterday, the supers were only partially drawn/capped. The top deep was full of honey and there were very few bees in the top deep/supers. Looks like they had a late season swarm. The population seemed to be very low from what I saw going in/oiut and in the top deep/supers. The frames in the top deep were attached to the sides/bottom deep with lots of bur comb. In removing the frames for inspection, I tore open quite a bit of honeycomb. That was a mistake in robbing season.

Today when I came back to the hive to remove the supers, Fuzzy and I saw a cloud of bees all around my hive. They were at the seams between the supers trying to get in, they were bombarding the entrance, the hive was being robbed.

I decided to put the partially drawn supers on Fuzzy's hive next to mine to see if his bees cap off the honey. I removed the top deep and put it in a box to extract it tonight. I put an entrance reducer in the hive to try to help any of my bees who might be left (slim chance).

Fuzzy just sent me this email:
About 6:30pm, (sunset), I suited up and went over and popped the top and innercover on your hive. I figured that most of the raiders would happily head for their respective homes. Sure enough there was an immediate cloud of bees exiting.

Went back (suitless) at 8pm in the dark with a flashlight. It appears that there are now fewer than 100 bees left inside the hive. So I put the cover(s) back on and sealed it up.

Looks like I helped kill my hive. Darn!
The picture above is of the robbers.

Busy time of year

2010-09-27T09:09:00.000-07:00

Life has speeded up, lots to do at home.

Right now we are having a mini heat wave, my mentor said the heat will persuade the bees to cap off any honey they have left open. He also mentioned that the nectar flow has dropped off and they bees will be robbing until their numbers start to go down.

Yesterday I was mowing the lawn and left the garage door open. I have a nuc with 2 drawn, extracted medium frames in it. A few bees found the frames while I was mowing and I decided to put them out when I was done and let the bees cleanup what they could. That was a surprise. A few hours later I had hundreds of bees buzzing the nuc. The frames were full of bees! I waited until 10pm to go out and bring the nuc back into the garage. It was cleaned out of honey! This am as I left for work I could see a handful of bees buzzing around where the nuc had been, looking for the nuc.

This weekend I want to move the inner cover below the supers with the bee escape installed so I can get ready to collect the supers.

Update: I left the frames in the garage, they flew into the garage to get to the honey and wax.

Triple Hive check

2010-08-27T08:11:00.000-07:00

Was out of town last week/weekend so checked the hives the weekend of Aug 14-15th.
MH is going like gang busters. I might need to pull out capped frames to give the stingers room to work.

SJ is going well. Most of the new super frames are partially drawn out and middle frames are capped.

I added a deep with drawn frames to Toyon to give them a hand. I was afraid of them filling out the top super and having a late season swarm. That would be bad on the hive since winter seems to be approaching early this year.

Bottle the berry cyder

2010-08-09T10:17:00.000-07:00

I bottled the berry cyder last night. 7 500ml bottles, I added 2 sugar drops to four of them, the other 3 I did not use the sugar drops. Want to see how the carbonation works.
Taste test: little acidic, but tasted like berries. Not bad. Did not get a real strong alcohol 'zing'.

First batch of fruit leather

2010-08-04T08:08:00.000-07:00

My neighbor loaned/gave me an American Harvest Food Dehydrator they had laying about in a closet. So I started a batch of blueberry/strawberry fruit leather last night. 4 cups of blueberries, 1 cup of strawberries, 1/4 cup of my bees honey, and 1 tbsp of almond extract (which I spilled all over myself). I may have made it a little too thick. This is the recipe I used.

Started it around 10pm last night, when I left the house @ 7 am today it was still slightly gooey but smelled good. I asked my wife to check it around 10 and turn it off if it seems done. I'm curious how it will turn out. The puree tasted good last night. I remember my Mom making fruit leather when I was a kid and I enjoyed it back then (it also was a high value lunch time trade item).

2nd super on SJ

2010-07-28T22:44:00.000-07:00

I put a 2nd super on the SJ hive this evening. I was amazed that the top super frames I did not remove are almost all capped and the un-drawn frames I swapped in were almost all drawn and partially filled with nectar. Boy they are working fast.

Berries galore!

2010-07-26T13:07:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we went berry picking. We picked 20 lbs of strawberries and 8 lbs of blackberries. Combined with the 15 lbs of blueberries I've got a lot of resources for making jams/cyders/pies/etc!

Berry cyder racked

2010-07-25T13:02:00.000-07:00

I racked the Berry cyder, my taste test was that it is pretty good, getting close to a RF black cherry/raspberry cyder..

Honey collected!

2010-07-19T11:02:00.000-07:00

I borrowed a 3 frame extractor from the beeguild and extracted the 14 frames of honey last night. I have about 4 gallons of honey settling that needs to be bottled. Wheh! That's a messy job. You have to be vigilant to get every drop of honey that wanders or it makes a sticky mess.

Hive checks

2010-07-19T10:06:00.001-07:00

Checked Toyon on Friday, looking good. The super that was put on as the 2nd deep is partially drawn with nectar. No brood in this 'top super body' . But I did see brood in the bottom deep. So I've ordered a deep and I'll swap the deep in with 6 drawn frames and an excluder.

Checked MH and removed 8 frames from the top super. Then I moved the now mostly empty super below the partially drawn lower super. Maybe the bees will finish the 2 outside partially drawn frames of the ex-top super.

SJ Update - more honey!

2010-07-15T21:12:00.000-07:00

Just checked the SJ hive, was around 7pm and most of the bees were home and not very happy to see me. In 1 minute I was stung thru my jeans when I went to light the smoker. Ouch. I switched from the bee jacket to the full bee suit and got to work. I removed 4 full frames of capped honey, the other frames ranged from half capped to all drawn with nectar. I'll have to scramble and get a new super to keep them in space so they won't swarm again this season.

Picture of a small beard of bees.

Blueberry score!

2010-07-15T10:40:00.001-07:00

Yesterday at lunch I went to a local farmers market. One booth was selling an entire flat of organic blueberries for $20. I grabbed it quickly. It had 14 lbs of berries! I've washed/frozen them all. Plan to make/try:
-blueberry jam
-blueberry wine/cyder
-dehydrate some
-make lots of muffins and pancakes

Picture of the blueberries

Brew update

2010-07-11T10:36:00.000-07:00

I bottled the cyser I started on 6/5/2010. Was really sweet with a nice kick. I added 2 sugar drops to each bottle this time, want to see if that carbonates them better.

The current batch is still bubbling.

Brewing experiment

2010-07-04T23:28:00.001-07:00

Started a new brewing experiment tonight. Making a hard cyder, used apple juice, sugar, and blackberry crush (blackberry/apply/grape juice). Shall be interesting to see how it turns out. I plan to re-ferment in the bottle to make it sparkle.

2010-07-05: checked last night, bubbling quite well

Racked cyder

2010-07-03T23:11:00.000-07:00

Back on June 5th I started a batch of cyder using my own raw honey. Tonight I racked it off to a new carboy. Taste was nice and sweet, lots of apple flavor and has a small kick to it. Looks promising.

Grabbing some sweet stuff

2010-07-01T09:25:00.000-07:00

Fuzzy warned me that the MH hive might be getting ready to swarm since the top super was so full. So I decided to check the top deep. Last night I smoked them, took off the supers (man those are heavy), and checked the top deep. Lots of bees, the 2 outside frames had only honey. The inner frames had honey and open space and capped brood. So I grabbed the 2 outer frames, swapped in some empty drawn frames, and closed it up.

Now I need to extra those 2 frames. I don't have an extractor yet, maybe I should make one with my son.

Hive work

2010-06-28T09:00:00.000-07:00

Checked out the hives. Lots of busy bees!
Here's what I did:

Toyon: my co-beek added a super as the 2nd deep. I know, should have used a deep but I forgot to get one and the bees needed room. I want to minimize swarms!

SJ: Hive looked busy, they have about half the frames in the super drawn out and have started to fill the cells with nectar. They even have some capped cells already. I slid the queen excluder in under the super to keep her majesty out. I did not see any brood or her so I figured it was safe.

MH: Wow! Super is drawn out and only the 2 outside frames are not capped! I was amazed. I checked all frames, no brood. So I slid in the excluder and a 2nd super under the first super. Lots and lots of honey!

Links to pictures.

Taste test

2010-06-14T16:46:00.000-07:00

Taste/carbonation tested the latest batch. Carbonation was very light, hopefully more time will build that up (was only 2 weeks). Taste was still very acidic. Will try it in a few more weeks.

MH hive quick check

2010-06-13T20:52:00.000-07:00

I did a quick check on MH hive. Removed the upper cover, looked under the inner cover and was greeted by lots of bees looking at me. I decided since it rather late and I did not have my smoker not to go any further. Hopefully they have pulled out the super I have on the hive. Just need to see what they have in the super since I left off the excluder to encourage them to draw it out.

Bottling time!

2010-06-01T05:50:00.000-07:00

I bottled the apple cyser I have brewing. I purchased some 'carbonation drops' which are a small, lemon drop sized drop of sugar. Once per bottle, drop them in then fill the bottle. Gives the yeast enough of a boost to carbonate the bottle w/o lots of messy measuring. Shall have to see how they work out.

SJ bees are doing.....

2010-05-30T05:48:00.000-07:00

... good. Still there, just barely started pulling out the super. I've got to prevent the swarms next year or I'll never get any honey in decent quantities.

MH Hive check

2010-05-22T23:38:00.001-07:00

I checked the MH hive today, they are finally pulling some comb out in the super. But I had the middle 2 frames too far apart and they built a burr comb 'bridge' between them so I scraped part of it off to get the frames to set properly. There are a lot of bees in the 2nd deep, looks like almost 10 frames. See the pictures at the link below.

Current Pics

More honey

2010-05-16T23:32:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I borrowed a 6 frame extractor from the SCC Bee Guild. Worked pretty well, I extracted a total of 6 partially filled/capped frames. I ended up with about 3 lbs of not fully ready honey and 12 lbs of good honey. I think I will boil/make a new batch of cyder from the not fully done honey.

Toyon update

2010-05-15T23:30:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday I checked the Toyon hive. I only removed the top cover and looked under the inside cover. Hive looks strong. Lots of bees. I put in a entrance reducer, filled the sugar water syrup jar, and put a couple of Terro ant bait houses to get rid of the ants. Hopefully that helps.

Swapping in SJ

2010-05-03T12:47:00.000-07:00

Fuzzy and I moved around the frames in the SJ hive. Swapped the deeps, pulled 4 partially drawn frames out to put in empty frames. Encourage them to make more bees and stop swarming. Put a super on top w/o an excluder, they dont seem to like the excluder at all.

I need to check MH and see how they are doing.

Food for Toyon

2010-05-01T12:45:00.000-07:00

Added an entrance feeder to the Toyon hive. Also swapped in 2 frames that I had crushed the comb/honey off of. Hopefully that will give them a small boost up making comb. Hive looks good.

Toyon hive

2010-04-26T11:17:00.000-07:00

I checked the Toyon (East Side SJ) hive last Friday. Bees were in the hive, clustered on the right hand side. But quite busy. I did not bother them, just looked inside. I tried to setup a hive top feeder, but I ended up splitting the seam of the plastic bag and spilling the sugar water all over the ground. I am going to setup a entrance feeder tomorrow and (weather permitting) put some partially drawn frames in the hive for them to work on.

Some pictures of the hive.

MH Hive status

2010-04-26T10:53:00.000-07:00

I checked on the MH hive this last weekend. Here is what I found:

Honey super empty as expected.

Top deep had 2 frames of capped honey which I removed. Rest of the frames were partially capped/uncapped honey. I moved them to the outside and put empty frames in the middle.

The lower deep had a little honey with empty brood comb and capped brood and I saw the queen. I expect the brood is from the previous queen and will be hatching out soon.

So I removed the 2 full frames and swapped the deeps and put the super back on.

So now I wait to see what they do.

Cyser Racked

2010-04-26T10:14:00.000-07:00

I racked the apple cyser I started on March 31st. I also tasted it, it tasted acidic. Hopefully it mellows. If it mellows, I want to try to carbonate it in the bottle.

Frontyard progressing

2010-04-19T10:24:00.000-07:00

I pulled out the grass that was left in the new gardening area. I also planted a Calif Native plant (I'll get the name later). Sprinkler pipes tested ok and am swapping out the heads for what is needed.

Swarm #2! Darn It!

2010-04-18T10:26:00.000-07:00

I got a call from Fuzzy Sat AM around 1045. The SJ hive was swarming! Dang it! I rushed home, grabbed up my gear, grabbed up a few options for a temp holder for the bees, and rushed over. The bees were gathered in a peach tree buzzing away. Fuzzy held the plastic tote underneath the bees and I started scraping/knocking them in. You really get an adrenalin rush doing that. After I scraped/brushed the majority into the tote, we set it down on the ground with the cover partially on then used BeeQuick to spray the tree. The bees left the tree and buzzed around. They started to form on the front of the tote so we raised it up off the ground with a box. The collected on the box, so we brushed them off and sprayed BeeQuick on the box and tote sides and front. After letting them settle for 10 minutes I put the top on fully, taped it down. And took it to Eastside SJ. Once there it was an easy enough task to remove 4 frames, knock the bees in, and close the hive up.

Click for pics.

Bee-Quick info

Cyser brewing

2010-04-05T11:05:00.000-07:00

Last week I started a new batch of Cyder. I figured I'd try the recipe from my 'Wild Wines' book.

My notes:
2010-03-31
Ingredients:
-2 lbs 9 oz raw honey from Fuzzy, crystallized and had to be filtered thru a 200m filter to get crushed up left over wax out
-1 gallon whole foods organic apple juice, unfiltered pasteurized 100% juice

Making: 20081108
-used Star San (1 cap full to 1 gallon water) to sanitize mixing container, carboy, and mixing tools
-Warmed up the honey with most of apple juice in large pot.
-Added 1tsp acid blend and 1tsp pectic enzyme
-Warmed then filtered thru a 200m filter into carboy
-Topped off carboy with extra apple juice
-Capped and set carboy aside for 24 hrs

2010-04-03
-Mixed up the yeast (Red Star Premier Cuvee), 1/4 tsp of DAP, and half cup of orange juice.
-Fell asleep waiting for it to start and pitched it in Sat morning. So it was bubbling for 6 hrs. Quite a nice head of bubbles.

Link to book:

Hive Status

2010-03-30T16:11:00.001-07:00

Well, looks like both hives don't like the queen excluders. So last Sunday (3/21/10) I removed both of them. Let's see if the bees start pulling out comb in the supers. Fuzzy checked the SJ hive the weekend of 3/27 and said they had not started drawing out comb yet...

Root balls out

2010-03-29T16:14:00.000-07:00

Finally, the root balls of doom are removed! It took me 2-3 hrs per root ball to get them out. More time when I expected. But they are out. Now it's time to get the new clear area ready to plant. I already planted last weekend the 2 mandarin oranges we bought.

Mummy berries!

2010-03-19T20:58:00.000-07:00

My 2 blueberry plants have lots of flowers on them, but also some of the leaves are turning red. Last summer they also turned red and the berries dried up, we thought it was because the plants were scorched by the sun during the hellish weeks we had.

We started researching red leaves on blueberries and it looks like the plants have 'Mummy Berry' disease. This is a fungus that infects the leaves and flower and the fruits. The leaves turn red and curl up, the flowers change and create a sweet syrup (that entices bees to spread the fungus) and the berries turn hard and look like pumpkins. When the berries dry up and fall off, the berries sit on the ground. When spring comes little fungus 'funnels' come up from the berries and spread the spores. And so the cycle continues.

This fungus can kill the plants, so we did some research and found that Serenade can help with this problem (http://www.serenadegarden.com/). I just sprayed the plants and hopefully they will start to get better before they die off.

Swarm!!!

2010-03-18T20:48:00.000-07:00

Well, earlier this week was hectic. My step dad called on Monday saying he was out weeding the back, heard a humming noise, looked up and was startled to see a 'cloud' of bees. He quickly ran inside and called me. The bees settled into a mass about as wide as a football and about 2 feet long. Unfortunately, I could not run out there right away and the bees disappeared. I think they went back into the hive. I went out and checked the hive, the honey super I put on 1 month ago was barely touched. And the bees were a little touchy and did not want my face in their hive. I left the super on and closed up the hive.

Tuesday I was called again, the bees were swarming. I quickly packed up and headed down. As I got there, I went into the hive and could see the swarm had taken to the air again. I ran into the house and took my gear out on the deck. But they were moving. I ran out front and watched as the swarm wen over my head. And headed over the valley towards the other side. I ran down the hill and tried to follow them, but they were too high in the air and I lost them. Bummer!

I went back and checked out the hive. The amount of bees were smaller but there are still a lot of bees.

I emailed Fuzzy and he feels the bees have filled up the brood area with honey and since the queen does not have room, she feels crowded and the bees are swarming. So this weekend Fuzzy and I are going to move around the frames, open up the honey, and try to give the bees more room. Hopefully w/o getting stung.

Front-yard gardening

2010-03-09T21:57:00.000-08:00

I've been working on the garden in the front-yard the last 2 weekends. So far the wood borders have been removed, the black border is put in, and the right hand bed has had chicken compost mixed in. We bought 2 mandarin orange and want to plant them as soon as I get the time. I'll post pictures shortly.

3rd hive!

2010-03-09T21:38:00.000-08:00

I've found a place for a third hive and set it up last Friday (3/5/2010). It's at a house on the east side of San Jose (initials will be ES).

Just tonight I setup a swarm hive (NUC). It's a smaller deep hive box that only holds 5 frames. I've put the 3 frames I removed and scraped off the honey. The frames still have wax and honey on them wax so hopefully any swarm in the area will move in and setup house. While I was there I did a quick check of the hive. There are a small group of bees on the front porch bundled up on one side (about 20). I could feel the heat coming from the entrance. Wonder if I need to put the reducer back in. I did a quick peak under the cover, there were lots of bees in the top super. As well as about 12 small earwigs! Argh! I scraped them off of the hive with my knife blade, looks like I need to refresh the oil in the cat food cans the legs of the base stand in.

1st harest

2010-02-19T08:34:00.001-08:00

In case anyone is curious, 3 deep frames (almost fully drawn/capped) is around 10.5 lbs of honey. This honey is a amber color with a bit of red. Strong bouquet of flavors. I'm hooked...

Got me again!

2010-02-18T09:25:00.000-08:00

One of the ladies got me again. Stung me thru the pants. I think I need to get a full bee suit so I can increase the distance. Or get a smoker. Which I'll do, going to order one soon. I was trying to reverse the deeps, but the hive was FULL of bees. Must have been 16+ frames of bees. The top deep had 5 frames of brood and I wanted to move them down. But the slope makes it hard to move deeps, so I was moving just the frames. I got one fame moved and a little sister stung me right above my left knee. I ended up putting the hive back together, then putting an queen excluder a super on top (after spraying the frames with a 1:1 super water solution). We'll see how that goes.

Here's a picture of my first bit of honey draining:

Gardening tasks

2010-02-18T09:19:00.000-08:00

Well, I've finally become tired of the ugly hedges out front of the house. We had 3, one each in front of the windows and a 30' long hedge on the left of the lawn. So in the last 2 weekends I've removed all 3. I still have to remove 10 root balls on the long hedge, those are strong and will take a while to do. This weekends tasks are:
-tear out root balls
-mix in tons of compost into all 3 areas
-plant 3 mandarin dwarf orange trees in long area
-take out falling apart wood borders and put in black plastic commercial grade border

Lots to do.

Hive work and Honey!

2010-02-16T10:26:00.000-08:00

Fuzzy and I reversed 2 of his hives and my San Jose hive Monday morning. Reversing involves moving the upper deep to the bottom and moving all brood comb to the new bottom deep. All of the honey frames are removed except the outside ones. The upper deep is populated with empty or partially filled frames. The idea is that the brood hatches on the bottom and the queen stays down there. The bees see they have plenty of room and start filling the empty frames. And I was able to take out 3 frames of honey. My first 3 frames! Woohoo!

I want to do this on the Morgan Hill hive tomorrow. I'll try to take pictures, but the bees were not happy and all over the place. A good way to get them off of a frame of honey is to smack it smartly on something hard and knock them off. To say that gets them irritated is an understatement.

This should be the last big work on the hives until I start adding on a queen excluder and honey supers.

Hive status

2010-02-02T12:29:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday I visited both hives. I hoped to take out some extra honey frames so I could give the queen some room (and get my first batch of honey). But no go, the weather here has been wet and cold and they have been eating the honey. I also found that the frames I thought were fully drawn out were not.
I did give Fuzzy a frame with brood and nurse bees to help his hive that is next to my SJ hive. He told me last night at the BeeGuild Mtg (see links on the right) that the hive has lots of activity now.

Link to Pictures

Rainy day bees

2010-01-25T16:25:00.000-08:00

I checked the MH hive last weekend. It was too cold and drizzly to go into the hive, so I kneeled outside and watched the bees going in and out. The few adventurous ones are bringing in pollen so there is brood inside. There were also about a dozen bees on the weeds/ground in front of the hive, they were cold and wet and barely moving. I tried to help the ones with their pollen sacks full into the hive, they seemed to be ok. I tried to help a few others, but one was thrown back out right away. Hopefully it will be warmer so I can swap out some honey frames to give them room to make brood com. I want to try to stop having a swarm this year.

Strawberry wine taste test

2010-01-20T00:24:00.000-08:00

I opened a bottle of strawberry wine on 12/21/2009. It had a slight smell of strawberries, but the taste was really acidic. It was drinkable, but not enjoyable. I hope that with more aging it will mellow.

Book Review: Honeybee, Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper

2010-01-19T05:14:00.000-08:00

I recently finished by "Honeybee, Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper" by C. Marina Marchese. It is an enjoyable book, leading us through the authors progression from being scared of bees to leaving her old life and starting 'Red Bee Honey' company.

Right away she pulls us into her story by explaining when she received and installed her first box of bees. She explains how during the installation the bees were overly aggressive and attacked her. After finally getting the bees into her hive, they examined what went wrong. And discovered something that I've not heard of, that the bananas she had with breakfast had alarmed the bees. Seems bananas smells like the alarm pheromone and that is why the bees were aggressive.

The author leads us through history examining the part that bees and honey played, and then teaches us about bees, how to harvest honey, get them ready for winter, etc.

What is different from most books on beekeeping is that she explores how the honeybee venom can help with some illnesses.

She finishes her book with the sweet stuff, lots and lots of information about honey. The basics of honey, what is in honey, varieties of honey, and how honeys from different areas and different plants taste and feel and smell different.

Scattered through the book the author leaves us interesting tidbits, how to make lip balm, what to do with beeswax outside of making candles, and recipes for feeding the bees.

This is a good book, one I recommend as a good alternative to the dry, technical books on bees. Check it out!

You can buy her book at : Honeybee, Lessons of an Accidental Beekeeper

Hive ideas part 2

2010-01-19T05:11:00.000-08:00

Well, after a talk with Fuzzy (my bee mentor), I'll need to go back to using 10 frame supers this year. Seems that if you give the little buzzers 9 undrawn frames they will draw out strange comb. Fuzzy did that himself and learned that lesson. Time to change my order if it's not too late. It's good that I learned this now and not 8 months from now when I am looking forward to honey.

Hive Ideas

2010-01-18T10:00:00.000-08:00

I've decided to switch from using 10 frames in my supers to 9 frames. This will increase the amount of honey per frame and slightly reduce the amount of frames/foundations that will be needed. I'll also only have 2 supers on the hive and remove frames when they are full. Having less supers means less space needed to store them over winters. Shall be interesting to see how this works this year

Things to Do/Learn

2010-01-17T23:54:00.000-08:00

A list of things I want to do/learn and where I am at with them:

Electrical/Solar Classes - was beta tester for an on-line PV Designer/Installer course. Did not finish due to technical problems with the class.
Make candles - started
Make biltong
How do you cook with raw corn/beans/wheat? - I have a wheat grinder now so I can start testing.
Raise chickens
Mechanical classes
Learn Spanish
Learned basics - Make cheese
Learned basics - Can jellies/jams
Done - have 2 - Get bee hive
Done - Beekeeping classes
Done - CERT Classes

Book Review: Extreme Simplicity: Homesteading in the City

2010-01-17T23:18:00.000-08:00

I just finished 'Extreme Simplicity: Homesteading in the City' by Christopher and Dolores Lynn Nyerges. A very good book on their experiences creating and living on their 'urban homestead' in the outskirts of LA. They describe how the property they purchased went from a barren, run down duplex into a productive, semi-wild jungle. They share their feelings and thoughts on their house and yard and how the have created a system to produce food for themselves and their critter friends. They also share their feelings on trash, recycling, economics, and self reliance.

I find their perspectives on 'modern' life interesting and thought provoking. It has definitely shown me that a garden does not have to consist of only plants that you buy, native plants have

a place in a garden also. Even the plants you consider weeds.

This is not a 'how to' book, but a guide to one way things can be done and it will help you come up with your own ways to do things.

All in all a good book to make you expand your thinking and start new ideas.

Christophers website is here (unfortunately, Delores passed away in 2008).

You can buy their book at:

Extreme Simplicity: Homesteading in the City

Hive Prep

2010-01-12T09:20:00.000-08:00

Here is what I am working on for the hives currently:

-Order and build a total of 5 medium supers. That way, I can have 2 supers on a hive at at time and have one in spare for when I am extracting honey from one. Maybe I should make this 6 supers so I can extract 2 supers at a time.

-Order and build 2 drone frames (one for each hive). I am going to use a deep frame with 1/3 plasticell and a 2nd bottom bar so the bees can make their own drown frame. This way, I can control vorroa mites and maybe collect a little but extra wax every so often to make candles with.

-Order or build some type of swarm trap in-case the MH hive swarms again. I am looking for places to put future hives. I'd like to get 5 hives going. This should give me a good supply of honey/wax to sell.

Curerently I use plasticell/ritecell for my frames. I wonder how this compares to real wax foundation?

I'd like to build a TBH and see how that compares, just need the place to put it and a swarm.

Skills to work on - update

2010-01-12T09:16:00.000-08:00

animal husbandry
basic medical skills
bee keeping - been a beekeeper for almost a year now, have 2 hives
blacksmithing
butchering
baking - make bread with a bread machine, working on doing it by hand
camping - decent at this
canning - started canning jellies/jams
carpentry - decent at this
car repair - learning, have an old diesel VW for a project car
cooking - learning, making my own soft cheeses now
dehydrating foods - built a dehydrator, need to experiment with this more
electrical knowledge - took an on-line solar installer class
fishing - know basics, fished when i was a kid back in MN
gardening - learning
herbal medical uses
hiking - decent
horse back riding - took lessons decades ago
knots - learning
making alternative fuels (biodiesel)
map reading - know basics
marksmanship - I am a decent shot
mechanical
outdoor living
raising chickens and other animals
tanning
tracking
trapping
weather predicting

Hive check - doing good

2010-01-11T09:25:00.000-08:00

I checked the MH hive on Sunday. Lots of bees, lots of pollen being brought into the hive. In the top deep, there are only 3 frame sides not fully drawn out yet. But they are drawing them out with comb. I want to swap out a few honey frames with empty frames to give them room in a week or so. I also want to make some drone frames to add to the deeps to help with any possible Vorroa mite problems. I've not seen any motes yet, but I am not assuming they are not there.

Bee update

2009-12-07T16:06:00.001-08:00

I've not been into the hives much in the last month, the weather is cold and wet and opening the hives under those conditions are bad for the bees and bad for me.

I did inspect them a few weeks ago, the SJ hive looks like it's doing well, lots of bees.

The MH hive is still having problems, not many bees and no brood in the upper deep. I hope they survive the winter. I inspected them as a 'field trip' for some family friends who are in 4H and interested in being beekeepers. I inspected the hive with only my gloves, no veil at all. I was only 'bounced' in the face once and I backed off.

Cyser (hard apple cider) taste testing

2009-12-07T16:03:00.000-08:00

Last November I started a batch of apple cyser. I brought a bottle into work last Friday, my normal taste testers said it was quite good, my best batch ever. I think I'll focus more on cysers, I prefer them more over meads.

Canning lemon juice

2009-10-20T13:15:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I canned 6 cups of lemon juice to see how it works out. Easy, the lemon juice is acidic enough so you do not have to worry too much. I know canning it destroys the Vitamin-C, but it will be nice for making lemonade. Right now I have lots of lemon juice in the freezer and I'm running out of room there.

Sally has brood

2009-10-13T15:27:00.000-07:00

I checked the Sally hive last weekend, the top deep has honey and partially empty frames. But the bottom deep has brood! Yeah!
I put a pollen patty on the top to help them.

Sally update - bloody bees

2009-10-05T10:04:00.001-07:00

Checked Sally hive yesterday. Those bees are driving me nuts. Instead of drawing out the empty frames, they are building 'double decker' comb next to the empty frames. Weird...... Guess they don't like empty frames.. I also did not see any brood in the top deep, I'll have to go into the first deep and see what is happening. I wonder if this hive is being strange due to the limited food sources?

Here is a picture of the double deep comb:

From: More photos

More jam

2009-10-05T09:59:00.001-07:00

I made a large batch of strawberry/honey jam last night. It ended up being a double batch since I used 2 Tablespoons of calcium water instead of 2 teaspoons (used Pomona Pectin). I wanted to save the batch so I doubled it. I also added a 1/3 cup of sugar to help reduce the taste of the calcium water. Total honey used was 1 cup of raw wildflower honey. I also used the veggie/fruit squishier that De uses when she sauces tomatoes. This makes the pulp of the strawberries much finer and it blends better and does not separate in the jar. Turned out very well.

You can find Pomona Pectin here:

Pomonas Universal Pectin, 1-Ounce Container (Pack of 6)

Top bar hives

2009-10-02T08:54:00.000-07:00

I am thinking about building a top bar hive and trying that out the next time I get a swarm. They seem to be much more natural for the bees and require less invasive maintenance. But I need to figure out where to put it. I don't have the space where I have my 2 current hives. I need to get a place to live with more room!!

Susan update

2009-10-02T08:48:00.001-07:00

Did a quick update on Susan on Wednesday. Looking good, lots of frames with honey. Moved some of the honey frames to the outside so the bees can work on the few frames that are not drawn out yet. My daughter and I watched a new worker bee start to emerge from a cell. We saw a hole in the top of the cell, saw the bee moving around, then her antenna poke out. Then she was back to chewing at the wax. I'll have to remove a glove next time and take a few snapshots.

Quick check

2009-09-09T12:56:00.000-07:00

I checked the hives last Sunday. Both are looking good, they both have 3-4 frame they need to draw out still. I moved the frames around on Sally to give the Queen room for brood. Don't want her getting crowded.

Hive status

2009-08-26T08:45:00.000-07:00

I checked the hives last weekend.

Checked Susan hive, they have brood in the upper frames Fuzzy and I moved around. And are building honey comb in the upper frame. So looking good. Fuzzy mentioned it's time to stop feeding them sugar water.

Checked Sally hive, sort of. When I went out to check on them, it was 7:30 pm and the sun was going down so the hive was in shade. I opened up the inner cover a bit and was greeted by 10 bees in my face. They were not happy. I eventually only took enough time to put a honey super on top and put the inner cover with the smooshed on pollen patty. No more food for them, they are strong enough.

I need to order a few spare deep frames, I want to harvest a frame or two from each hive just so I can say I have honey from them.

Strawberry wine bottled

2009-08-26T08:44:00.000-07:00

I bottled the strawberry wine last weekend. 6 bottles for 1 gallon. The wine has a nice berry taste, but needs to age to take the edge off of it. I did not really notice a hard alcohol zing to it. I am looking forward to drinking this in 6 months.

More canning

2009-08-26T08:40:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was busy.

I canned 2 batches of strawberry jam, both using pomona pectin. The first used 1 cup of sugar, the 2nd 1/2 cup of honey.

The sugar batch came out nice, you can really taste the strawberries now. The flavor is not overwhelmed by the sugar.

The honey batch is smooth, you can taste both the honey and the strawberries. They both turned out good.

I also canned some peaches that Mom gave me. Found a recipe on the TSP forum for 'Honey Canned Peaches'. Canning was not to hard, not tasted it yet. I'll give the peaches away to others to review the flavor. No one at home likes them.

Strawberry jam... yum..

2009-08-17T10:51:00.000-07:00

I canned 4 pints of strawberry jam last Sat night. Turned out soo sweet and good. Of course it used 7 cups of sugar to 5 cups of crushed berries. Was not to hard to do, just have to keep to the recipe and follow the steps carefully. I will definitely be doing this again.
I also canned 2 lb. of salted/unsalted butter into 5 half pint jars. Supposedly it will keep 1 yr and I can use this camping (I hate soggy butter). Shall see how it goes.
I did a small tweak on my solar dehydrator and tested it with slices from a large zucchini. The slices dried nicely, but tasted bad. Probably because the zucchini was so large and going to seed.

Hives Updates

2009-08-17T10:39:00.001-07:00

Checked on both hives yesterday (8/16). Here's a quick update:

Sally Hive:
I have brood! Half the brood cells are capped so the queen creation by the bees is a success! Yeah! And the bees are stronger than I expected, I guesstimate there are 5 frames of bees in the upper deep and 8 in the lower deep. I threw on a pollen patty just to give them a little extra food since the privet trees have dried up. I'm rather happy about this. They are starting to fill in the empty frames that I moved around on top. I might put a honey super back on.

Susan Hive:
I put another gallon bag of sugar water on them, they are quite busy and I did not want to disturb them. Fuzzy checked them earlier and they are drawing comb on the frames that we moved around. good..

I seem to have 2 hives doing better.

SJ Hive status (Susan)

2009-08-13T11:44:00.000-07:00

It has been hot here this week, about 95. I went out yesterday and check on the SJ hive (Susan). Fuzzy went with me, it is next to one of Fuzzy's hive. Both hives were bearding:
Fuzzy's Hive, has 2 deep hive bodies and 2 medium honey supers:

click picture for full view.

My hive, has 2 deep hive bodies:

click picture for full view.

Fuzzy was concerned about this since the top deep has barely anything in it outside of some new honey comb in the middle. He was worried that they workers have built a band of honey around the lower brood area and since the queen will not cross honey comb, they might consider themselves overcrowded and be preparing to swarm. We took apart the bodies and found that there was a larger band of honey on the top of the lower deep and honey comb in the middle of the top deep. So we moved 3 of the brood combs from the lower deep to the upper deep, interspersing them with empty frames. We also scored the honey above the brood area so the workers will hopefully remove the honey so the queen can lay there.

We'll see how it goes.

Bee hive status

2009-08-03T09:25:00.001-07:00

Checked both hives over the weekend. Here's a few quick notes

Hive #1 (Sally)

Went through the frames again, did not find the queen, but I did see about 6 empty queen cells. An I did see a few larva, looks like they have a queen again. I had to move around the frames in the top deep, they are filling the brood comb with honey which can cause them space problems. If they do not have space for brood, they can swarm. But since they have not filled out the 3 east facing frames in the 2nd deep, I moved those to them middle for them to use for brood. They also ate all the pollen patty I put in there for them last time. I need to get out this week and out on another one.

Here's a picture of an empty queen cell, sorry it's rather blurry, but it's hard to take a picture using a cell phone camera, wearing gloves, holding a frame crawling with bees, and with bees in your face..

Hive #2 (Susan)

Did a quick look on top, the bees are busy, quite a few. Did not want to disturb them, so I added a 2nd deep for them and also swapped out the sugar bag in the experimental hive top feeder Fuzzy created.

I also helped Fuzzy take 3 honey supers off one of his hives so he can collect the honey. They each weigh about 35 lbs when full. The bees were so mellow, they did not want to leave the supers. He tried using an almost scented repeller, but that did not work to well. But he decided to let them get out on their own (through a 1 way bee escape). He was thinking about using the leaf blower, but did not want to do that.

Colony #2

2009-07-21T12:24:00.000-07:00

I checked on the new hive last night. They are doing well, lots of un-capped honey and new brood cells. Fuzzy/I are testing an experimental DIY hive top feeder with a plastic bag holding the sugar water. Seems to be about half gone, but I need to replace it, looks like it's starting to mold. They are also making lots of spur comb, I need to clean that up.

I did discover that they bees do not like the smell of Sharpie pens. Or they like it too much, I was trying to write numbers on the frames so the frames would be easier to track. When I wrote a #, several bees immediately ran over to the pen and mobbed it.

Where did the Queen go???

2009-07-20T10:58:00.000-07:00

I check my older hive yesterday, wanted to see if they started to fill out the honey super. No, they have not even started it, even worse, the population is down. I wondered if the swarm was from my hive. Due to the lower # of bees, I went though the upper deep. The middle 6 frames have honey in them and empty brood cells. Completely empty, no eggs, no larvae. Not good. I also had expected the outside frames to be filled with honey by this time.

I lifted off the upper deep and looked at the lower one. I found plenty of drones, I checked all but 3 of the frames, the bees were not happy with my intrusion so I skipped the rest. About 5% of the brood cells were capped, the rest were empty, no eggs or larvae there either. I did not see a Queen, but I'm not quite sure what she looks like. I also might have missed a queen cell. I hope so. I'll email the guild about getting queens, see if anyone has any. If my colony swarmed, the queen would have hatched soon or will be.

I'll check back next Sunday. If there are no eggs by then I'll get a queen to install. argh.

EDIT: Swarms can be caused by lots of things, I'm thinking there is not enough pollen/nectar and the hive is stressed from this.

Strawberry wine racked off

2009-07-17T13:17:00.000-07:00

Racked off the strawberry wine last night to a new carboy (1 gallon). Smell reminds me a little of a bad parenting experience (I won't sicken you with the story), took a small sip, strong flavor but I expect it will mellow. Needs lots of settling. Lots of pink particles. Does not look appetizing. Shall see how it goes.

Pictures of the swarm

2009-07-07T10:19:00.000-07:00

Here's a picture of the swarm and a link to 3 pictures of the capture:

Here's a picture of the swarm and a link to 3 pictures of the capture:

I moved it to Fuzzy's Grandma's house and into a normal sized hive. They are doing well.