Tag Archives: Bees

March 30, 2014 · 9:16 pm

Signs of Life? Or Not.

We were blessed with a beautiful spring day here in Minnesota with temperatures reaching into the 50’s. Finally!

It was a gorgeous day to get outside and start checking for signs of life around the farm.

Since the snow finally started melting, Jesse decided to make his way out to the beehives to check on them. After 50 plus days this winter of high temperatures not even reaching zero degrees Fahrenheit, our expectations were very low about the likelihood that our bees survived. When our bee supplier called in January, we decided to play it safe and order two more nucs of bees to install this spring to make sure we were not left without any bees. As it turns out, we made the right decision!

We knew it was a bad sign this afternoon when Jesse pulled the covers off the hives and we saw the carnage of dead bees on the inside hive cover. There was also an eerie silence that was a tell-tale sign that the bees had not survived. It was the same scene when he opened the second hive.

No survivors. No signs of life.

We will start fresh with new bees this spring. Again.

Our snow cover was melting quickly today with the warm temperatures. The turned soil is starting to reveal itself in the plowed field next to our house. The neighbor planted a bean crop last summer and plans to re-seed an alfalfa crop this spring. This will delight our new bees.

Wherever we wander on the farm, including out to the bees,we can always count on Sofie being somewhere close by. She is a constant sign of life on the farm, even in the bleakest of times. Dogs are such comforting companions.

After visiting the bees, I trudged through the heaps of piled snow to get to the edge of my vegetable garden to take a picture. With a solid foot of snow remaining within the perimeter, there is sadly no sign of life here. It is hard to imagine that in a few short months this will be green and brimming with new growth and possibilities.

The warm temperatures today did manage to stir awake the juices of the maple trees. We ventured in to the woods and discovered the first signs of the sap running. Although it was not a very productive day (only about 1 gallon), it is a start.

And after this long winter, I will celebrate any sign of life that reveals itself around here!
-Lynell

Starting Over Again – Bees 2013

As I mentioned in an earlier post this winter, we had a roller-coaster of a summer last year with our bees.

After being so thrilled that we had successfully wintered our bees for the first time since starting beekeeping, we were devastated to discover that they had swarmed in May because we waited too long to divide the hives and they became too crowded. The early spring last year and the warm temperatures moved everything ahead and because of our inexperience, we missed the signs that they were preparing to swarm.

All was not lost however, because when bees swarm they leave behind a portion of the worker bees along with new queen cells, one of which eventually becomes the new queen. We observed the hives over the next few months and it appeared that things were back on track, they had a new queen, and were rebuilding their population. Of course, the hives were not nearly as strong as they would have been had they not swarmed, but we knew we would still get a honey harvest.

The honey started flowing and the bees had built up a good amount of supers of honey. Once again, our optimism for our honey harvest was shattered in October when Jesse went out to the hives to check on them and discovered they had been robbed! Yes, hives can be robbed by feral bees. All the frames that the bees had worked so hard to fill all summer long were stripped completely clean, as if they had never had a bit of honey in them. The other unfortunate effect from robbing, is that the honeybees usually die in the process of defending their hive against the invaders.

Needless to say, we lost both hives of bees and only ended up with a very small amount of honey to harvest…another year of learning about all the things that can go wrong beekeeping. We have just put in our order for two nucs of bees this spring. We are not giving up; we’re just starting over again.

So, spring finally arrived and so did our two nucs of bees. The bees arrived to our supplier on a rainy and dreary Friday afternoon. Jesse and our daughter went to work getting the hives ready to add the nucs, which are about 5-6 frames of bees with a queen and brood.

After adding a few frames to each hive of honey from last year’s bees, it was time to get suited up and put the frames in the hive.

The bees were very riled up and it was a little scary, so I did not stay too long to photograph. I don’t think they enjoyed the ride across the plowed field in the back of the 4-wheeler, even if it was a slow one. 🙂

Our daughter braved the angry bees for the installation of one nuc and only received one sting on her leg. She decided to let her dad install the other hive.

We have not examined the hive to look for brood, but after about 10 days it was clear that the bees were multiplying and Jesse decided to add another brood box. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and he can take a peek inside soon to see how things are going.

In the meantime, I can tentatively say that things appear to be going well so far this season with the bees. I know all too well however, that any number of bee disasters might be ahead yet this summer. We are continuously learning and expanding our knowledge of beekeeping, so I am hopeful that it will be an uneventful beekeeping season.

For any beekeepers out there, how is your season starting out?

–Lynell

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Tagged as beekeeping, Bees, nucs

January 25, 2013 · 2:10 pm

Back to Blogging?

Here I am again, with six months passing and no posts. Time goes by so fast and life just seems to get in the way of sitting down at the computer to keep our blog updated. It isn’t because nothing has gone on around here…our summer was just as busy as past ones. So, since the holiday chaos has passed and the cold temperatures have me trapped indoors, I am feeling inspired to finish some posts about some of our projects around the farm last summer.

The funny thing about blogging is that it is easy to get hung up on putting together the perfect post with great pictures and clever writing. I have to remind myself that the reason I started this blog was simply to share our experiences and to connect with others who have similar interests, and to create a history of our projects and improvements. Keeping that in mind, I will just plow forward and try not to worry too much about the details, so bear with me. 🙂

We are well into winter here in Minnesota. We have had several subzero days in the last week. Even with the cold temperature and snow on the ground, there are some pretty sights to behold on the farm.

Have I mentioned how much I love our barn??? No matter the time of year, it is one of the most charming parts of our landscape.

But anyhow…back to last summer. We enjoyed three separate home visits by our oldest, the West Point cadet. He came home during his breaks from his summer military training and it was such a treat to have him around. As you will see in upcoming posts, we put him to work and he helped us complete some fun projects.

We also had a roller-coaster of a summer with our bees. After being so thrilled that we had successfully wintered our bees for the first time since starting beekeeping, we were devastated to discover that they had swarmed in May because we waited too long to divide the hives and they became too crowded. The early spring and warm temperatures moved everything ahead and in our inexperience, we missed the signs that they were preparing to swarm.

All was not lost however, because when bees swarm they leave behind a portion of the worker bees along with new queen cells, one of which eventually becomes the new queen. We observed the hives over the next few months and it appeared that things were back on track, they had a new queen, and were rebuilding their population. Of course, the hives were not nearly as strong as they would have been had they not swarmed, but we knew we would still get a honey harvest.

The honey started flowing and the bees had built up a good amount of supers of honey. Once again, our optimism for our honey harvest was shattered in October when Jesse went out to the hives to check on them and discovered they had been robbed! Yes, hives can be robbed by feral bees. All the frames that the bees had worked so hard to fill all summer long were stripped completely clean, as if they had never had a bit of honey in them. The other unfortunate effect from robbing, is that the honeybees usually die in the process of defending their hive against the invaders.

Needless to say, we lost both hives of bees and only ended up with a very small amount of honey to harvest…another year of learning about all the things that can go wrong beekeeping. We have just put in our order for two nucs of bees this spring. We are not giving up; we’re just starting over again.

In the garden, we added two raised beds with blueberry plants, something we have wanted to do for some time. More on that later…

My perennial garden, particularly my Echinacea (coneflower) plants were hit with yellow asters and I decided to pull every one of them out in trying to rid my garden of the disease. I was a very sad gardener.

Our vegetable garden was very productive and we enjoyed fresh veggies for months on end. We decided to forego any preserving this year and to just enjoy the bounty as it ripened. Now that we are in the depths of winter, I am questioning that decision. I think we will take the time to do at least a minimal amount this coming season.

Around the first of the year, the seed catalogs started arriving. I have started pouring over them, marking pages, and making my wish list. I plan to expand my winter sowing into some annuals and vegetables this spring and am anxious to get started.

Like every other gardening nut out there, I cannot wait to get back out into the gardens and start digging in the dirt. In the meantime, I will share some of the projects we accomplished last summer. To be continued…

–Lynell

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Filed under Bees, Daily life, Miscellaneous

Tagged as Bees, blogging, gardening

March 18, 2012 · 9:49 pm

March Madness

The strange winter continues here in Minnesota…

On February 29th, only two and a half weeks ago, this is what it looked like outside our window.

The snow started during the night and by morning, we had almost a foot of heavy, wet snow. School was cancelled and we were officially all “snowed in.” It was the first snow day of the school year and nobody was complaining around here about staying home.

March rolled in the next day and as quick as it had arrived, all that snow started to melt away. The temperatures soared and before too long, there was no trace of snow left.

When the temperatures started hitting the upper 60’s and 70’s several days in a row, we started to notice some interesting things happening around the farm.

We checked the bee hives and were happy to see that they are definitely still alive. This good news means that we have successfully wintered our bees for the first time! (Most likely due to the warm winter temperatures we have had, rather than our beekeeping skills).

We also noticed the bees were out foraging. They seemed to like the sap leaking out of the maple trees that we pruned in late February.

Since they are active so early this year and there is little food supply available yet, Jesse decided to start feeding them some sugar syrup to get them through the next month or so. He also took off the black winter hive covers because of the warm temperatures – we don’t want them to cook in there! The hives both seem really strong, so we are excited to see how this season turns out.

After a week of continuous March temperatures near or over 70F, we also noticed that my gardens are starting to wake up and spring to life. These poppies were hiding under the leaf mulch.

My tulips have also decided it is time to make an early appearance.

With our warm weekend temperatures (more 70’s), we spent most of our time outdoors and in the gardens. Although we realize it is very early in the season by Minnesota standards, we started the process of cleaning up the raspberry patch anyways.

After digging up all the rogue plants to reduce the rows back down to about 12″ wide, we cut our all the old canes and re-strung the wire that holds the plants upright.

We then trimmed all the remaining canes to about chest height, applied a 10-10-10 fertilizer, and lightly tilled along the sides of the rows. When we get around to it (hopefully within a week or two), we will put down a chopped straw mulch to try controlling weeds.

Since the frost was already out and the soil was so dry (we have had very little snow this winter), Jesse went ahead and tilled the whole garden up. We like to work it up several times in the spring if possible, before we do the bulk of our planting.

And finally, the last crazy thing we did on this 18th day of March here in Minnesota, was to plant some lettuce (mild mesculun mix) and spinach. These crops can handle some colder temperatures, so even though I know better, I am taking a risk and giving it a try.

(Last spring, my first planting of lettuce was on May 7th, after a very cold and wet spring.)

So, the madness of this Minnesota winter continues into March. I’m hoping we have seen the last of snow, but after living here my entire life, I know that just about anything can happen yet this spring.

But whatever happens, I’ll be ready. I couldn’t be happier to be back out in the gardens.

Hope you are enjoying some March madness wherever you are too!

–Lynell

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Filed under Bees, Flower, Gardens, Vegetable

Tagged as Bees, feeding bees, pruning raspberries, raspberries, wintering bees

May 23, 2010 · 7:37 pm

Queen Bee Update

Our adventure as beginning beekeepers keeps providing us with new challenges and opportunities for learning. After getting our two packages of bees in early April, we soon discovered that the queen in one of the hives had not survived. I picked up a new queen from our supplier and re-queened that hive (read about it here). Following his instructions, we did not open the hive to check on the how she was doing for a full two weeks.

Excited to see how things were coming along, it was finally time to open the hive.

Even with our limited experience as beekeepers (one season), we knew right away that things did not look right. The brood pattern was uneven and had this popcorn look, which are actually drone cells. Drones are the male bees, which are from an unfertilized egg. The drone cells are similar to, but larger than worker bee cells. The number of drones per colony should be only around 15 percent of the total population. We saw very few worker bee cells. Continue reading →

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Tagged as Bees, failing queen, Honeybees, queen supersedure, uneven brood pattern

May 11, 2010 · 6:25 am

Our Buzzing Crabapple Tree

The Prairie Fire crabapple tree right outside my kitchen window is in full bloom . It is quite a sight and smells delightful.

Apparently, we are not the only ones that are enjoying the tree. After two days of rain, snow and freezing temperatures, we were outside Sunday enjoying the sunshine when we noticed a distinct humming sound coming from the tree. A closer examination revealed that the tree was loaded with honeybees and a few random bumblebees. Continue reading →

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Tagged as Bees, crabapple tree blossoms, Photography, pollen collection

April 10, 2010 · 10:46 am

All the Way from Chico, California…

Our package bees arrived last night after a long and harrowing trip from sunny Chico, California, to the cool weather of Minnesota. Their arrival was delayed a day after they were temporarily stranded in Wyoming due to a snow storm. Our bee supplier, who lives only about 15 minutes from our home, received 800 packages of bees from the truck carrying around 2,400 packages (about $100,000 worth of bees!). These are some of the pallets sitting in his yard when we arrived.

Although most of the bees were inside the packages, there were several “hitch-hikers” flying around too. You can see some of them on top of the packages.

I was hesitant to approach the crates to take pictures, but the bee guy reassured me it was safe.

“They won’t hurt you. Come closer. They’re good girls.”

So I bravely told our son to go over by the bees so I could take his picture. 🙂

Once we got the bees home, it was time to install them in their new homes. Jesse sprayed them with sugar syrup to slow them down and make them easier to shake out of the package.

He was not wearing any protective gear because we only have two bee suits and both of the boys wanted to help.

Our youngest….

Our oldest…

After spraying them with the sugar-water, Jesse first removed the queen from the package. She is in a separate little cage inside the package. Her attendant bees stuck close to her.

Time to shake the bees out of their package and into the hive.

The bees explore their new digs and after shaking the majority of the bees out of the package, they released the queen down in hive. She was quickly surrounded by her attendant bees.

Because it is early in the season and no pollen is yet available for the bees, we are providing them with some supplemental food in the form of pollen patties (on right).

We are also feeding them a sugar syrup mixture to get them through the next few weeks until the first crops are available (usually dandelions). The feeding bucket has tiny holes that drips the liquid out when inverted on top of the top board.

Notice that Jesse ended up having our youngest hand over the bee suit after being stung on the head! Turns out the bees were a little cranky after being banged around and dumped out of their package and into the hive. I would not be surprised if they were also a little upset about being relocated from warm and sunny California to Minnesota. That would make me crabby too.

The installation of the second hive went a little smoother and by the time we finished it was almost completely dark. It is best to install the bees at night so that they can acclimate to the hive for several hours before the worker bees take off to forage.

Here is the queen for our second hive.

After putting the queen into the hive, Jesse carefully replaced the remaining frames being very careful not to squish the queen.

The bees are now installed into their hives and ready to start their work today. We are hopeful for a successful beekeeping season with healthy and productive bees!

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Tagged as Bees, Honeybees, installing bees, package bees

April 5, 2010 · 9:21 pm

Bee Students

Saturday we attended a course entitled “Beekeeping in Northern Climates” at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Marla Spivak and scientist Gary Reuter from the Department of Entomology taught the course. There were about 160 people in attendance (the interest in beekeeping has dramatically spiked in recent years). It was a very informative course and we came away feeling like we learned several ways to improve our beekeeping this year. Below are a few of the highlights.

Wintering Bees

After the loss of our first bee colony last winter (described here), some of the most pertinent information for us was on successfully wintering a hive in our cold Minnesota climate. The first tip that we learned was that a larger bee population would increase the odds of the colony to survive through the winter. Wintering with 2 brood chambers in Minnesota is possible, but the UofMn recommends the use of 3 brood chambers to increase the colony population and honey stores. We will definitely increase from 2 to 3 brood chambers to improve our odds next winter.

Bottom two boxes are the larger brood chambers, and the smaller boxes are honey supers. We will have them fill three brood chambers before we add honey supers this year..

Jesse believes that moisture build-up due to insufficient ventilation was the primary cause of the colony failure this winter. The dead bees were black and wet when we opened the hive in February. There were also honey stores still remaining in the hive. We learned that the UofMn recommends drilling a 1 inch diameter hole 3 inches from the bottom edge of the hive body. The hole is normally plugged, but in the winter the hole in the top brood chamber should be left open for ventilation. Another recommended practice is to place a piece of “buffalo board” over the inner cover to help draw the moisture out of the hive, and one flap of the hive protector should be tucked along the hive to create more space for air flow.

Disease and Pest Control

It was very interesting and refreshing to learn that the UofMn is promoting that beekeepers move away from using chemicals and antibiotics in their operations, except as a last resort. Dr. Spivak believes that over-treatment of the bees has led to poor natural resistance and the bacteria, viruses, and pests have become resistant to these treatments. For example, Terramycin is a common antibiotic that research has shown is becoming ineffective at treating American Foulbrood (AFB). Instead, the UofMn is advocating that better results can be achieved by improved management techniques and using bees bred to exhibit hygienic behavior.

Some of the management techniques we will follow after attending this class are: (1) replacing brood combs every 5 years; (2) shake, requeen, and burn comb if AFB is detected; (3) order MN hygienic queens next year; (4) use the 2 hive horizontal rotating method to keep our colonies strong and young queens; and (5) buy Varroa mite traps for our hives to improve colony health.

Our bee supplier called today to tell us our packages of bees will be arriving some time this week. After attending this class, we are even more excited to start our second season of beekeeping!

The Bees are Dead!

It was our understanding as beginning beekeepers that it was possible to winter our hive here in Minnesota so long as we took steps to help them through the harsh season. The first task was to provide the bees with sugar syrup (since we harvested most of their honey) for them to cure for their winter food store. We prepared the sugar syrup (a 2:1 ration of sugar to water) and put it into a feeder in the hive. It was still warm enough that the bees were active and they went to work curing the syrup.

As the cold weather set in, Jesse continued to prepare the hive by building an insulated hive cover to help keep the bees warm and block chilling winds.

Around the beginning or middle of December when Jesse checked on the bees, they were still alive and thriving in the winter cluster. According to our go-to beekeeping information source,“The Beekeeper’s Handbook” by Diana Sammataro and Alphonse Avitabile, bees form a winter cluster in the late fall and winter that expands and contracts as the outside temperatures rise and fall. The bees remain active in the cluster and continue about their business. However, their activity continues to produce water vapors, which must be allowed to escape the hive.

After the extreme cold snap of weather that we experienced over the holidays, Jesse went to check once again on the bees. The scene was quite different this time when he removed the hive cover. Silence. No bees. No activity. Nothing.

With our limited knowledge and experience, we have concluded that the bees did not have adequate ventilation and that too much moisture built up inside the hive. Another possibile reason for the loss of the bees is those extreme holiday temperatures. In any event, despite our best efforts, we failed our bees.

We went out to the hive yesterday to take a closer look. After taking off the cover and lifting off the boxes, we saw the carnage.

All of our wonderful, hard-working bees…dead.

So we end of our first year as beekeepers with feelings of mixed success. We managed to make it through the summer and fall with no failures in the hive or diseases. Most importantly, we enjoyed a moderately successful honey harvest for our first year. After these successes, the loss of the honeybees this winter is quite disappointing.

Like all failures, however, there are lessons to be learned. Beekeeping is a fascinating hobby and we intend to continue our education and become more knowledgeable in all aspects of managing bees. We have already placed our order for two packages of honeybees to arrive some time in April. We will also be attending a one day course offered at the University of Minnesota on beekeeping in northern climates this spring. Hopefully our next year with honeybees will have a better ending than our first year!

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Tagged as beekeeping, Bees, hive, winter

February 12, 2010 · 10:58 am

Our First Honey Harvest

After our first summer as beekeepers, we were fortunate enough to enjoy a moderately successful honey harvest. Jesse collected the full frames from the hive and we brought them into the house to start the messy process of extracting the honey from the comb. Using an electric uncapping knife, we sliced away the waxy caps of the honeycomb to allow the honey to drain out.

The hot knife cuts right through the wax. You can see it starting to ooze out already.

Furthering our investment in beekeeping equipment, we purchased a honey extractor from Mann Lake, Ltd. The extractor holds three frames. Once the frames are uncapped, we placed them into the extractor for spinning. We learned from a demonstration at the State Fair to only partially spin one side out and then turn the frames around and spin the other side out.

The extracted honey sits in the bottom of the drum until opening the drain valve. Passing through a double-strainer, the beautiful golden honey drained into a five-gallon bucket.

After finishing with the extraction process, we were ready to put our honey into containers. We ordered 25 of these great honey bottles from our favorite bee supply company.