My First Sting...

...wasn't so bad, and now I know I'm not allergic. I was standing right in front of the hive entrance when the teacher lifted off the bottom brood box. We'd been monkeying with their home for the better part of an hour, so by the time that bottom box came up, the girls were ornery, and I was the closest target.

She got me in my muffin top. Hey, we all know bees love sweets, right?

It felt like a really big mosquito bite. I quickly moved away from the hive lest the "Sting me again!" pheromone reached the rest of the crabby Patties.  She got me through my shirt, so there was no stinger to scratch out. I waved my shirt around for a minute, then went up and stood next to the smoker to mask any lingering scent. Then I went and watched the calmer hive. I figured I'd seen enough of the other.

But, boy did I see a lot! This was a hive that had overwintered successfully and was really going strong already. We saw capped brood, drone comb, and even some supercedure (new queen) cells. If the intermediate class didn't split that hive this afternoon, they were for sure going to swarm.

For the most part, the girls were calm, save the one brave guard bee who gave her life to sting my soft underbelly. I got some great shots.  Notice in one of them, all the bees in flight. You can see their little landing gears... very cute!

Not too much happening in this frame

Lots of capped brood and a few drone cells 

Nice capped brood

They built burr comb on top of the frames that got damaged when we pulled off the box

Notice all the little bee landing gears (legs) dangling beneath them

Busy gals working on the burr comb

The countdown is winding down now, with my girls getting here in less than a week. I'm more than a little nervous for them. I hope I can give them the right kind of home, the right amount of food, and give them a chance to get themselves through the winter.

In the meantime, I'm going to admire the tiny red spot that is my sting and be very thankful I'm not allergic.

A Week Away!

I can't believe the day is almost here. A week from tomorrow I'll jump out of bed before the alarm, throw on my Saturday yoga pants and run out the door to pick up my Uncle Steven on the way to pick up my bees.

Uncle Steven was beekeeper back in the '60s when he was a teenager. He kept them on the garage roof. He also had a pet alligator, but we're not here to talk about alligators, we're here to talk about bees. He earned a Boy Scout merit badge for beekeeping.  The Scouts have since discontinued it, but I have to wonder if they shouldn't bring it back. Grandma and Granddad had to sell his bees when he got shipped off to Vietnam, but he kept all of his books, which he recently gave to me. They're absolute treasures!

Treasures from the 1950s

A couple weeks ago, I went to an equipment build at the farm of one of the bee club members. Newbs like me brought their pieces and parts to get help from the old timers. One thing I learned...I need a frame jig! There were power staplers and plenty of bottles of glue, and a frame wiring thingy that I didn't use.  I used bobby pins instead, since all my frames are mediums.  The larger frames need the reinforcement of a horizontal wire to help support the beeswax foundation, but my smaller ones would hold up just fine with $.99 bobby pins. The old timers showed us how to put things together, then helped us out when we inevitably overshot the staple.

Bobby pins hold the foundation in place.

Frame jigs are a must have.

It was a nice way to spend a morning, and I even managed to get my pretty spring coat all covered in glue.  I didn't mind though, it makes me feel that much more of a beekeeper. I didn't manage to get a picture of the farmer's dog, Phoebe, but I did snap one of our other helper...

Nice day for a rooster!

This Sunday is bee school again, and for the first time, we're actually going to get to play with some bees! I'm super excited and have a dozen questions about how to set up my boxes next weekend, and whether I should spray my girls with sugar water or dust them with powdered sugar. I know not to do both, lest I end up with candied bees. It's supposed to be warm next weekend, but there's also a chance of thunderstorms. I just hope I get a good window to hive them. They'll have been in tiny screened boxes for days, the sooner they can move into their new houses, the better. 

Seven more days!

Oh, geeze, I almost forgot! (Which would be shameful, since I'm sitting right next to them on my deck) I finished painting the hives!

Nice and girly, waiting for the girls.

California Girls

This evening  was a special edition of bee school; the installation of a new package.  It was the first time I've seen any bees up close and personal since last summer, and these ladies were just as friendly as can be.

After having been in a screen box on a truck for the last week, they got ceremoniously unceremoniously dumped into their new home, which they seemed to like. Some of them lingered in the travel box, but by now they're all tucked into their top bar hive, munching on sugar candy and keeping warm for the night.

We were only there for about an hour (complete with questions and lingering, trying to get a bee to rest on my finger), and I'm even more stoked for the arrival of my girls next month. It also reminded me that I still have a handful of little things to finish and/or buy, and that I'd better get a move-on. I stopped by the grocery store afterward to pick up 20lbs of sugar and some mason jars so I can make sugar syrup to feed them.

Only 32 more days!

Bee School, Bee Conferences and 53 Days until Bee Day

The brutal winter has finally broken, and so have the surviving clusters of bees and solitary humans. It's warm enough for the girls to make cleansing flights and for me to paint the hive boxes that have been sitting in my basement since Christmas.

The last couple of months have been spent going to bee club meetings, getting involved in the running of the club, going to bee conferences and the long awaited bee school.  

I was surprised at the February club meeting when over 80 people showed up. We had to go find extra chairs and everything.  That's the first time since I started going in August that I've seen so many people. Newbies like me are peppering the old timers with questions, and the more answers we get, the more our heads want to explode.  

The first thing most people notice is the vocabulary.  Beekeepers generally speak English, but for a total novice listening in for the first time, it might as well be Binar or ancient Sanskrit.  Just figuring out what to call the pieces of a hive was confusing enough. I learned that a hive body is the same as a brood box is the same as a super, and they can be deeps or mediums. Then there are frames, foundation, queen excluders, telescoping covers, feeders; the list goes on for days.  If you're really curious, this link is a good place to learn bee words.

There are so many variables to consider, but in the end, the bees will do what they're going to do. Our instructor, a fascinating youngish farm girl with over 20 years experience with bees, assures us that no matter what we do, it's totally fine. The bees don't care. I find this helpful since there has been a philosophical battle going on in my head over what type of foundation, if any, I should use. Gah! After having purchased 60 frames worth of wax coated plastic, Winn, the reigning king of the Old-Timers, said that the bees would rather have all wax sheets, and if you put the two types next to each other, they'll draw out the wax twice as fat as the plastic.  Wonderful. I still had 40 more frames and foundation to buy, so I ordered myself some pre-wired, natural wax sheets. Ok, good. My bees will be happy.

Then, on Saturday, I went to the Michigan Beekeepers Association conference and listened to another wizened old expert, and he said that he doesn't use ANY foundation in his hives.  He lets his bees choose the size of their cells instead of having to follow the embossed pattern on the stuff we give them.  By drawing their own comb from scratch, his bees no longer have a problem with the varroa mites, one of the horsemen of the current bee apocalypse.  Well, alrighty then. Maybe I'll just go without foundation. In the next session I attended, the speaker cautioned against going au naturel as the bees will  build a giant labyrinth of comb that will be impossible to inspect.

Uncle already.

I've decided to compromise...I'll start the bottom two brood boxes with the natural wax, and when they've drawn that out, I'll add the plasticell.  Eventually, I'll start swapping out frames with starter strips and let them go to town.  (see what I mean about the Sanskrit?) In the end, the bees won't care and the cease-fire in my head will let me get some sleep.

Yesterday was the second day of bee school, which was pretty fascinating. We learned about bee biology. They're adaptable, intelligent little creatures. Did you know that while most insects have either a proboscis (for sucking nectar) or mandibles, bees have both! 

They also have two sets of wings that are stitched together with bee velcro so that they can have more control over direction, height and speed. When they're clustered in the hive, their bodies have a little "clutch" that disengages their flapping muscles from the actual wings so that they can shiver to keep warm without slapping their sisters in the face all winter long.  In the summer, they bring water into the hive and flap their wings to evaporate it, keeping the hive cool. It took humans until the last hundred years or so to invent "air cooling" but the bees have had it for millenia.

Class ended with the "Great Smoker Race" to see who could get their smoker lit first. I'd been talking smack with Garland from class, seeing as how my claim to fame is the ability to light a perfect campfire with one match, one match only.  (It's even in my online dating profile!) Not to mention, I lit the smoker in the bee class I took last year, so I thought I was a shoe-in. I've been collecting smoker fuel around the neighborhood, including parts of my Christmas tree. But, as luck would have it, I choked. The damned thing wouldn't light! Turns out my fuel was too green. Blah. Lesson learned, but I'm still not going to change my dating profile. 

It was nearly 60 degrees yesterday afternoon so I finally hauled up all the boxes and painted them. Of course I'm still going to decorate them with stencils and all kinds of girly stuff, but this is a good start. 

Note the tree trunk in the background....*sigh* the condo association cut down all our shade, but it made for good painting.

That color is called "Pink Peonies" after my favorite flower.

Yes, the set on the right is the same color as my bathroom. 

I don't know where that pelican came from. He showed up on my deck sometime this winter.

There are only 53 more days until Bee Day, which coincidentally is Mother's Day. Instead of babies or cats, I'm going to be the mother of 80,000+ sweet little honey bees.

Why Bees?

What possessed me to consider becoming a beekeeper?

Firstly, I like honey. I like it on my English muffins with a lot of butter, I like a little bit in a glass of warm milk, and I like to bake with it instead of using sugar. It's not only tasty, but it's good for you, too! Eating local honey is supposed to help folks with their allergies, the healing properties of honey have been known since ancient times. 

Several years ago I started hearing about how the honey bees are disappearing.  A rare and mysterious ailment known as Colony Collapse Disorder is the catch-all bucket of variables working against the noble bee. Varroa mites, tracheal mites, hive beetles, beekeeper error, and the emergence of neonicotinoid pesticides and round-up ready seeds have been a perfect storm that's only getting worse. Commercial beekeepers are experiencing staggering losses, but, ironically, it's the urban and backyard beekeepers who are having success.  Backyard bees get more of a variety of pollen, and are exposed to fewer pesticides and industrial chemicals. 

Two summers ago, I just missed the waiting list for a hands on beekeeping class through the Chicago Honey Co-Op.  I found out about it too late, and had to wait until the next season. Last summer, I got a spot in the class. When I opened the hive and saw my first frame of bees, I was hooked, and then we found the queen! I spoke softly and sweetly to the busy ladies, I petted the stingerless drones, and pulled the frames without any gloves. I was a goner. I knew then I wanted my own bees, bad.  I started looking through baby name websites for old-fashioned girls names to call my queens. I came up with dozens of name pairs that weren't derivatives of Beatrice and wrote them all down. Myrtle and Maud will be my first queens, but I'll save all the other names for later. Can't spoil all the fun, right? 

When I made the decision to move back to Michigan to be closer to my family, one thing I promised myself was that I would look up the local beekeeping club, and figure out a way to get a hive. Well now I have done that, and through the generosity of a bee club pal, I have a place to keep my not one, but two hives that's close to where I live.  I'm meeting new people through the club, and although I'm soaking up as much information as I possibly can, I realize how much I don't know and that even the oldest and wisest beekeepers are still learning new things every day.  A lifelong learning project? Sign me up!

Being who I am, nothing is without some kind of meaningful significance; so Myrtle, named after a lovely lady from my childhood, full of life and energy, who lived to be 99 years old, and Maud, named after an island in the South channel of Georgian Bay, near Parry Sound, Ontario, will be my first queens. I'll think of the real Myrtle and Maud whenever I'm near my hives, and not only will I be reminded of happy childhood memories, I'll be building new happy adult memories, and hopefully my bees will reward me with a little bit of honey. 

Zeus' Nymph

I've done it!

After years of thinking about it, I've jumped in and ordered two packages of honey bees for the spring. My holiday treat was driving to the middle of nowhere to buy hive equipment, and my cold winter evening project is to paint it and put it all together.  When the snow melts, I'll scope out the best place to put my two hives so that my travel-weary girls will be able to set up a comfortable home.

I've had my queens named for months now, and with any luck, Good Queens Myrtle and Maud will like their names and produce happy, healthy colonies.

With a name like Melissa, I guess it was only a matter of time before I became a beekeeper.

Melissa, μέλισσα