All our hives are now safely relocated to a space behind the garden, tucked up and out of the way and conveniently much closer to all the supplies (and my eyeballs). The Big Hive was the last one out in the field, and now that it's out of the way, that fence corner is coming down!
I'm so proud of my crew, who bravely suited up (Kyle) and photographed (kids) the whole thing. Team work makes the bees work!
Everyone that has heard this story so far has said, "You're crazy." Maybe it's true... but then again, maybe all beekeepers are crazy... after all, we voluntarily suit up in layered long sleeves, pants, socks, boots, hats & gloves and go stand out under the sun for hours in the peak of the afternoon in July in Texas, so I guess I can see the argument.
However this little tale is a different kind of crazy.
Yesterday I received two queen bees for a friend who couldn't be home to receive them himself; they're always shipped overnight and arrive hungry and thirsty and in need of immediate attention. Since I'm working from home, being available to be the bee-sitter until we could install the royals in his hives was no trouble at all, so yesterday morning there I was, taking videos of "pipping" and biding my time until they could go meet their new subjects.
That's when I noticed something on one of the attendants.
Side note: queen bees are always shipped with 3-4 attendant bees to groom and feed and tend to them, as they don't take care of themselves once their roles officially shift into egg-layer.
So anyho, while watching them eat the honey I'd smeared onto their screens, I noticed one of the attendants had a varroa mite tucked under one of the plates on her belly.
High-five to me for seeing/spotting it with just my glasses on, ha!
After forwarding the two photos above to some beek friends, however, their advice made our situation seem pretty bleak. I couldn't open the cage to try to get the carrier out because that might allow the queen bee to escape or cause her to be damaged in some way in the process. I couldn't achieve anything by killing the carrier because the varroa would just move to one of the other bees- maybe even the queen- because they're all going to be contained in that cage for the next 3-5 days. So what to do?
The general consensus was that I should try to stab the bee through the varroa with a pin to try to neutralize the threat. That got me thinking... what if I could actually knock the varroa off the bee with a pin instead of getting stabby? Then maybe the bee wouldn't have to die.
So I tried it.
And I did it.
And I didn't hurt the bee.
And when I sent this photo and story to my fellow beeks, they all said I was crazy.
I'm sure everyone has seen the memes... the cynical statements about how much 2020 has sucked so far... the politics, the environmental decline, all the terrible human tragedies, COVID-19 and the 'murder hornets,' and we're only halfway through it all.
It's enough to really get ya down, isn't it?
Well, I'm happy to report that despite all that, we found a little golden lining this week... we found a little something sweet in 2020...
Our strong last-man-standing original hive from last year has been finding nectar from somewhere (despite the drought-then-flood and early heat) and has managed to fill out their own stores in their bottom boxes and a honey super just for us (or at least that's how we'd like to see it)!
Six medium frames (we could have taken nine), about an hour invested in the process (pre-cleanup), and a gallon and a half later, and everyone was in agreement- this is and forever will be a highlight of this unruly and considerably dismal year.
I'm also happy to report that it's really, really good. Even Audrey agrees.
We're a week into May and almost 10 weeks in to this weird COVID-19 lock down. So far we've managed to purge and organize both kids' rooms, some kitchen storage, the laundry room cabinets, my closet, and our bookshelves.
We've completed the front yard water feature, cleared out some dead trees around the driveway, and fleshed out the rest of our landscaping design (at least on paper).
We've doubled our chicken setup, settled the peeps outside, and made plans to clean out and organize the garage and the garden shed.
This weekend, we took down the old wobbly fence around the original chicken yard, cleared out the brush, and took the first steps in making that area our new bee yard.
Yesterday our first new hive was introduced to the new bee yard, and this weekend we'll get a second, generously gifted by a dear fellow beek... then hopefully this winter I'll move my monster hive to join them and the old bee yard will go back to being a part of the hay field forevermore!
Oh, and if you're wondering why I included a picture of the piggies, I thought it was worthy to mention- amidst all the cleaning, purging, and reorganizing, we even made time to give Big Fat Charlie a really good scrub and trim, and now he's his brightest white and as light and airy as a big, fat cloud.
There's no telling how many more months we'll be kicking off still in quarantine, but one thing is for sure- I've been a little surprised by how easy it's been to find projects to do born of neglect and procrastination... if we keep this up, we're going to be in a pretty good place when things go back to 'normal'!
Here's hoping we can look at this new month through these newly-focused lenses and keep our momentum! Happy May!
We have been keeping bees since 2016 and have gone through three honey flows now, and all this time- for one reason or another (mostly because I ignored my responsibilities with regards to varroa)- we have sat them all out. There was of course the honey I got from a cutout and our serendipitous little harvest last year, but we have never done a real extraction with our own honey frames... until now.
This feels really big for me, you guys. I've never been so happy about being a hot, sweaty, sticky mess!
Five quarts of mild, floral, and maybe a little melon-y-golden success! A family effort with enough to share... I cannot tell you how good it feels to be a part of the harvest season this year!
A couple months ago, I figured out I had a hive suffering from European Foulbrood, so I requeened and have been feeding them ever since. About that same time I also figured out that directly due to my neglect, my other (strongest) hive had swarmed several times and had left themselves queenless.
So I put out a distress call, and a generous and much more experienced beekeeper-friend came over to help, bringing with her a frame of eggs/larvae/brood from one of her own hives. We stuck that frame in the queenless hive, hoping they'd jump at the opportunity to make a new queen for themselves (and thereby save themselves from oblivion), and we also treated both hives for varroa using Hopguard.
I then hit a string of weeks that consisted of either me getting home without enough daylight left to check on them, or rain (still not complaining about that one). Exactly one month later, I finally got out there to check on them...
...and those girls had let all those babies grow up to be workers and were still queenless. Still! So I had to requeen them, too...
...and then I moved on to South Hive (the sick hive with EFB) to see how their new queen was settling in.
Here you can see the Hopguard strips still on the frames
Right off the bat I could see their population was way better, and every frame I pulled had healthy-looking brood, larvae, and/or eggs. Then I saw Her Majesty herself- with her red spot all polished off- working hard for her new hive.
Once I saw her I closed everything up and left them alone. I'm still feeding them, but they're only taking about a quart every 3 days or so, and they're bringing in pollen like crazy, so I'm hoping they'll be able to get themselves ready for winter without much more intervention on my part. I'll keep checking on them, though, just to make sure.
And when spring comes, I'll be watching and ready... this time!
