Helping The Honeybees---2

The second phase of my beekeeping endeavour was "the Mentorship". Book-learning and educational, but superficial basic practical training is all well and good, but I was still at a sub-novice level of competence. What I needed was a mentor. I had my curriculum all figured out. I knew the way that I wanted to take this on and I wanted to do the various phases in a logical order (for me). Like the physician--one does not just come out of school and immediately begin practicing--they must first undergo an internship applying the things that they learned during the theoretical phase before being turned loose on the general public. It all made sense to me.

A mentor...how do you find one. The school did not supply one, or even interviews. They recommended that the students do this for one year.
The first thing to do was join a beekeeping club. One meets other beekeepers there. I had bought honey alongside the road a few times in the past, and so I began there. I went to see the man, told him that I had finished the course and was wondering if I could see his bee setup.

He was more than willing to show that and during the conversation, one thing led to another and he actually offered to be my mentor. I was surprised and happy about this because he had told me all the courses that he had taken and that he had been an instructor in the craft when he was younger. This chap was deep in his 70's. It seemed to be an ideal mentor with a wealth of knowledge and 35 years experience as a beekeeper himself. He at one point had more than 60 hives and bow was tapering off. He had at that time about 10. He said that I could buy my supplies for half price from him. This, in itself was a boon because the price of new hives and accessories can be expensive. I needed stuff and he needed to get rid of stuff. Perfect.

Well, I will not tell all that we did together during the whole season, but I will show some pics and talk about a few things.

If this were a normal situation, I would begin with an introduction...but you know how it is on the Internet--it is a question of privacy. So, I will begin by showing his bee shed set-up. Most everyone here has a bee shed or bee stall (translated literally). Have a look:


Inside the shed are the supplies, close at hand. he had empty frames, skeps for catching swarms, smokers instruments for opening hives, catching and marking queens, extra hives of various sizes and treatment supplies just to mention a few. During the course of my mentorship we would use almost everything in that shed...plus some.
One task that is very important to me is cleanliness and disease prevention. Tja--the bees have it difficult enough with all the external influences of man without me adding to their difficulties by ignoring hygiene.

What I want to show here is the cleaning of season-old hives to make them ready for switching the following spring. The idea of letting a colony begin the new season with a clean hive and frames is a concept that I like personally.

--First of all, one collects propolis in small bits throughout the year and then collects it (like he does wax) and saves it an some kind of container.

--He then makes a veggie jar 3/4ths full with it and tops it off with what we call, "white spirits" and lets it stand for 24-48 hours.

--Next, one then takes a second jar and pours the solution through a discarded panty hose and lets it drain into that second jar. This may take a day and night.

--Once it has completely drained, the jar is topped and put away until needed.
What we are going do with this solution, I will show you later, but first I want to describe the handling of the hives BEFORE the propolis comes into play.

A concoction of soda and tap water is brought to a boil. The hives and hive parts are then bathed in this hot soda water. The outside is scrubbed with a stiff brush with the soda water (but not the inside). The cleaned hive components are then stacked out in the sun and wind to dry. In July that doesn't take long. One can get out of the sun and sip lemonade in the shade and have a sandwich whilst waiting.


Like everything else with bee work--you get everything set-up and ready to go before you begin.
The soda water cleaned components were stacked upon two palets. When ready to apply the propolis, we took a section of the components away and placed them near at hand over at the propolis-applying table. As each component was painted, one of us took it back to this open area on the palet and brought a new component back.
So there was always room to place the painted components. We worked like a well-oiled machine.

So then, this is where the propolis solution comes into play.


You sit or stand at your work table and take a brush and dip it in the solution and simply "paint" it on all the internal surfaces of the hive and hive components.


Once all the components have been coated, you let them dry, and store them away until march or april of the following season. Nice and clean. Propolis is a natural antiseptic.

The nuts and bolts work that is done I needed to actually perform myself and become used to the routines as well as looking for and seeing the clues which would give me hints as to what is going on in the hives. My mentor checks his hives about every 10 days (sometimes longer if the weather is not good (windy, rainy or cold).
An important thing to learn is to get the smoker started. I do not always use a smoker, but sometimes it is absolutely essential. here my mentor shows me how its done.


The basic task of frame observation is one of the most important things that I learned.


Swarm control, presence of a laying queen, a balanced supply of food (nectar and pollen) being present in the hive are some of the most important things that my mentor wanted me to learn. Knowing when the situation arises to supplement the bees with a little bit of sugar water is also something important and was less clear to me.
Inspecting the frames/identifying the queen.


This queen has a little white dot on her back indicating what year she was born in...and she is easy to see.


The varroa mite is a bad pest here that has to be monitored and combated. There are ways that this is done after the last nectar flow, but one thing that many imkers (beekeepers) do during the "busy"months (april-july) is to place a honey frame next to the last brood frame. It is half the depth and drone cells are built here by the worksters. The mite has a preference for the large drone cells which stay closed for enough time for them to pupate and become adults.
What happens is the cells are built and become full of larvae and is capped. When all the cells are capped, then the beekeeper cuts the comb off and feeds grubs, mites and all to the birds or simply destroys the whole thing.
We inspect the honey frame with a row of drone comb on it, before cutting it off.


Here is a long piece of comb with cells full of drone larvae with mites.


A little close up. Can you see the mites in that cell that was torn open?


The varroa mites suck the bees dry. they also pass on viruses that will eventually wipe out the colony if steps are not taken. I quite dislike this aspect of beekeeping, but as all the beekeepers here tell me--if I let nature take its course nature will take my colony. For now at least; I will treat, but I am looking into the possibilities of strategies that are the least caustic.

One final aspect--scooping a swarm. At one time or another, a beekeeper will scoop a swarm.--either their own, or a "wild" one. This past summer my mentor got a call to go and scoop a swarm. He tried to get me on the fone, but couldn't, so he went alone. When he got there, it turned out to be one of those large, grey" paper" yellow jacket nests. That happened to Jane too, I believe she recently wrote.

Upon another occasion, it was the real McCoy.


This small swarm was close to the ground luckily. My mentor showing me how to use the skep. He places it under the mass and gives that stem a stiff jolt.


Gottit!


Now to take it over to the table and carefully turn it upside down with a brick keeping it ajar so that the rest of the circling bees can find their way to the skep. The pheromones will guide the loose bees in.


We kept the bees in the shade and left them for several hours while we did other things. Later, we returned and had a look--all bees were in the skep and calm.


He placed then on a moist diaper and secured the corners on the skep's weaving for transport to the bee shed.

We dumped them; more poured actually, into an empty small hive.


Some frames were placed in there and a bit of feeding syrup placed on top...and Bob's yer unkle!


The new swarm was ready to begin its existence as an independent entity. Good luck, guys!

The mentorship is now over and I am on my own. I can call some fellow beekeepers if I run into problems, and that is a good feeling...but operating free of the security blanket is now the order of the day.

This was the second in a series of three postings. The next and last one will be "My First Colony".

 

Sjoerd, you are a natural-born beekeeper with your logical, practical, and step-by-step approach to keeping bees. Bees are very orderly, and so are you!
You are so lucky to have a mentor. There is nothing like hands-on experience to rely on.
What do you use in your smoker? Since it is so important to have "cool" smoke, we use grapevine cuttings or cotton (both abundant around here).
I noticed that the hives were painted a dark color (green?). Here we paint them white because of the summer heat. I've spent many happy ( ) hours scrubbing the inside and outside of hives. I wish our house was as clean as some of those hives!

 

wonderful post and descriptions sjoerd! keep them coming!

 

I love to read about this but it is not for me. It gives me the heebie-geebies. YUK...

 

Thanks a lot, MG--That is such a nice thing to say. What I use in a smoker is a mix of plant debris like lavender and such. I would like to use jute sack material. Ach--what do you call that again...burlap. Yes, I would like to use that, but I have so little and the sacks cost more a bit of money. I am going to ask some farmers around if they have some sacks for me.
As for the hive colour: I bought those hives second hand from my mentor. I may change their colour someday, but on the other hand, when I get my bee shed erected, it will keep some direct sun off them.
Yeah, cleaning those hives is quite a job, isn't it? Hard work, but I feel that it is good to do it. I feel that a clean hive gives the bees a little extra support in terms of disease prevention.

Glad that you liked this posting, BUNKIE.

That's good news, EILEEN-- I hope that you will succeed in getting your bees one day. I am so glad that you like the postings and find them helpful to you. I will do that last instalment in a couple of weeks or so I hope. If the weather stays bad, it may be sooner.

WARETROP--Sorry to hear that those little beasts give you the heebie-geebies. That's not a good feeling, is it. I am glad that you liked reading the posting though. Thanks for your comments.

 

Very good post. One of my former customer use to have hives. Had pictures just covered with them in her white suit.And also here in Iowa painted white. For heat and if they crop fields with planes. Get Fined big time if they come near them. And last year learned certain weeds the honey bees need.

 

Very interesting post. It explains why we are seeing so few honey bees now.
What a lot of work goes into keeping bees.
We used to have a bee tree on our place. Every spring when it started to warm up some would come down to our house & gather on the greenhouse screens.Sometimes a few got in too.
I would always say"spring has sprung,the bees are awake!".
sNs

 

Although this is something I'd never try, I really did enjoy reading your second installment. And good for you for finding that mentor and supplier. I bet that makes a big difference just knowing there's someone there if you need them.
Congrats and good luck!

 

I just read my notes on weeds if destroyed no more honey bees.It was stinging nettles

 

Thanks KOSZ-KID--I always have a few nettles on my lottie too.

sNs-- Thank you for liking the posting. Well, keeping bees can involve lots of work...if you want it to. Some folks do not put a whole lot into it but the colonies do well. I guess it is down to the keeper and the keeper's time and responsibility schedule.
Heh heh heh...that was a cute saying that you had. I have to remember that one.

I appreciate your nice comments, CHERYL--You are right that knowing that someone is available if I need help is a comforting thought. I don't think that anyone can learn all there is to know about bees in a lifetime, so new situations may be challenging and require consultations and a concerted effort.

 

Great post S,
I thoroughly enjoyed it.

We have a similar way to deal with the varoa mites, except we pull the drone frame out, place it in the freezer and place an empty drone frame (or one that was already frozen and them thawed) in the hive for another 3 weeks. Either method is some work. I tend to not be able to keep that schedule in the colonies, myself, so I haven't purchased any drone frames to try it. There is a screened bottom board that is supposed to let mites fall through the screen and away from the bees. I have one, but I am not sure it really works. I wonder if for some bee keepers it does and for others it's a "fail".

 

That is a very informative post and makes me want to keep bees. My neighbours will definitely report me to the authorities so this time is not my allergy that is stopping me ... BIG SIGH!!! Can't wait for your next posting ........

 

Hey Carolyn--Thanks for responding to the posting. That drone frame you mentioned. That method exists here as well. In fact you can but wax foundations that have the wider cell foundation beginnings in it. As time goes on, I may try that as well.
Some folks pop the drone brood combs in the freezer prior to setting them out for the little birds to clean and some do not.
Every imker that I have met had screened bottoms for their hive boxes. I do too.Some mites will indeed fall through the mesh, and are cleaned-up by the ants. I like to count fallen mites before and after Rx's sometimes.
I do not know if it works for some and not for others, as I have not seen beekeepers that did not use the mesh bottom. I personally feel that the extra ventilation is helpful.
I tilt my hives slightly so condensation during the winter and the hottest summer months will run out and not hang-about in the hives where fungal colonies could sometimes form.
I appreciate your comments very much.

Glad you liked the posting KK-- Yeah, you don't wanna get in trouble with the law.Better stay clear. Being allergic is also not good.

 

I recently watched a documentary on the disastrous effects man made Electro-Magnetic-Frequencies (EMFs) and Radio Frequencies (RFs) are causing to our health, the environment etc. I think the title of the film is "Frequencies" but I'm not certain that's correct.

In one of the segments a man told a story about a bee colony that had built a nest somewhere near the window of his home office. Upon investigation he found that the nest was actually built in a hollow spot between the exterior panel and interior wall of his house. But after determining that there was no danger of the bees gaining access to house, and that the bees were well behaved and were in a location where they weren't going to be disturbed or were in any danger. A couple of seasons go bye without incident, and the bees are thriving in their new crib. But then he noticed one day out of the blue, activity seemed to dissipate along with the "buzz", and from that point it took less than a week before the colony collapsed.

Searching for answers, he began to suspect the new wireless access point that he had just bought, which was about the same time he noticed the bee activity dwindling. The unit was set-up in his office on a table along the wall, the other side of which was were the bee hive was.

Based on this story, another guy, a scientist I think, conducts an experiment at a bee farm. He has the bee keeper set-up a colony in an isolated area, and he then places a cell phone right next to the nest in the locker thing. The phone was powered on and in auto answer mode. He then called the phone, and the phone would automatically pick-up, and he would let it stay connected for five or so minutes, disconnect, and then call again. This went on all day, and before it's over the colony collapses. I think he repeats the experiment with no change in the results if I remember correctly. They had a video camera focused the nest and recorded in time lapse, and other cameras set-up in the surrounding area. You can see clearly that the bees stop returning to the nest. The Radio Frequencies emitted from the cell phone interfere with the bees navigation equipment, and they leave the nest, but are unable to find their way back home. Bees quickly expire if they become separated from their colony. It's really sad because they get themselves more and more lost, further and further from home and go into freak out mode and start flying erratically, and die either from exhaustion or flying into things like trees or cars or walls at high speed.

FYI: Both devices (WiFi AP and Cellphone)operate in the 2-3 GHz range, WiFi at 2.4 and Cell at 2100 - 2300 MHz (which is 2.1 - 2.3 GHz, but is usually represented in MHz by the Cellphone industry in official literature such as user manuals) also,GPS navigation equipment and wireless home telephones for your traditional land line operate in the 2.4 GHz band.

It turns out that Cellphones effect us at the cellular level, and no in a good way. Insurance companies are no longer covering manufacturers or carriers of cellphones against torts arising from the adverse health effects caused by those devices, compounded by prior knowledge of the health problems their products cause. It will be a hundred times the tobacco scandal.

ZooS