Fruits

-Posted by Isaac

Good evening bees.

Good morning bees!

There is a lot of shifting this time of year. Day and night, bees going everywhere. 

This week we saw the first of our babies leave their nursery. Pictured above, Laura Urban puts the finishing touches on the first of two big loads. She texted me later in the day. They made it to their new (temporary) home safe and sound.

150 down, 300 to go.

And maybe there will be a few stragglers becoming Honeyrun bees.

There is a story behind this. I just got 100 new queens on Tuesday, opened the box, set it on the AC unit then started in on something else, forgetting all about it. Several hours later we had a small tornado of bees surrounding that box. Taking the box away, the tornado remained. For the next hour. I guess the queen pheromone was that strong. At that point I thought I'd just gather the bees by putting a queenright nuc there. I think it worked!

The nucs become the fruits of our spring.

But others are thinking about the fruits of summer and fall. So this week, by day we worried over the nucs, by night we moved our pollinators into the orchards.

If it's cool enough in the evening, you can use the last of the light to load, but mostly this work is done in the dark.

Yesterday I took the last load to the Lynd Fruit Farm above Pataskala. 

This is always a fun one. We drop the hives on baling wagons, then pull the wagons into the orchard. And after that, it never fails, Lester Lynd fills me with apple knowledge. Honeycrisp, Evercrisp, Autumn Crisp, Pixie Crunch, Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, Fuji, Jonathan... and about 10 others. The man is a fountain. He can ramble about apples the way a beekeeper rambles about bees. 

We tour through the orchards and watch other people work. 

Then I drive home bleary eyed, and think about all the research, technology, chemistry, physics, hard labor and plain old blind luck that goes into producing a quality fruit.

And I can't wait for summertime!

Pollen time!

-Posted by Isaac

See those cells filled with orange and yellow?

That's pollen.

The bees bring it in on their legs.

Then they stuff it into the cells by ramming it with their heads. 

And there's been a lot of pollen ramming this week. In fact, this is the week that turned the corner. The cold is gone and the world has come alive!

If you're a central Ohio beehive, clinging to life through the last of winter, this is the week you must think you've died and gone to heaven. Or if you're a jihadist bee, martyred and gone to paradise.

Tell me that's not paradise??

I'm not sure where the 72 virgins fit in, but we're too busy to worry about the details. There's pollen out there! 

I was out working on our apple pollinators yesterday and decided to take a little stroll. The air was so alive with bees, and the multicolored pollen was coming in so fast. I just had to see for myself.  Within about 100 feet of the hives, I found the cause of the ruckus. Or I should make that plural-- causes. Not only the fields covered with dandelion and purple deadnettle (pictured above), in the garden I found the bees roaring about the henbit:

And this white ground cover... don't even know the name.

Then walking under the willows, I noticed that they're still kicking out the pollen.

And look who just decided to bloom-- our pear tree!

The bees found it almost the minute the blooms opened.

Then there was another nearby tree I hadn't noticed on other years. Out giant cottonwood was vibrant with noise.

I'm sure there was much more. This was all noticed during about a two minute walk. It's a wonderland! 

It all leads to what a commercial beekeeper calls 'pollen porn':

The pollen leads to feeding the next generation.

And the next generation leads to more workers to gather more pollen.

Leading to bigger and bigger hives.

Which is a good thing because we like to take big hives into the apples. The apple boys don't like to pay for dinks. We're moving the girls in tomorrow night.

And not a minute too soon.

Apple pollen on the menu for next week!

The Swinging life

-Posted by Isaac

No, not that kind of swinging.

We capped off our week with some sunshine swinging.

Let me tell you how we got there.

About a week ago we once again plugged away at the bee work despite the miserable weather.

 I even had the bright idea of bringing a tent along.

We had to make up the first 150 nucs. Weather be damned. 

And just when I thought it couldn't get any worse... when I thought I'd cursed the very last of my nasty weather complaints...

It snowed.

At this point, I don't know why I was even surprised.

But I was. How could it happen? Again? Our poor poor babies... out there in the cold cold wind. On April 19th!

I realized I simply needed to make a habit of checking the forecast.

Looking at my favorite Facebook page, I also realized it could be worse. This guy in Minnesota had to install package bees this week.

No one will argue that it's been a tough winter/spring for midwestern honey bees.

Then, finally, things turned around. Late in the day on Thursday the sun actually showed itself. And by Friday we were kissing the sixties again. Things didn't feel quite so futile.

It was a joyful moment. Rare sunshine!

To build up some of the weaker nucs, I simply steal brood. We have a lot of big hives that will soon be going into the apple orchards. Some of those can spare a frame. I mark the weak nucs, then it's about a two minute walk across the yard to the big hives.

Between the two bee yards, I came across Maizy doing some rope swinging. Her first of the spring. It was finally warm enough and sunny enough.... Oh be joyful!

She insisted on being filmed. As I accommodated her request, I thought, well that looks kinda fun. And I was feeling kinda happy. With the sun, you know?

So Maizy returned the favor, capturing this rare footage of a happy beekeeper.

The show must go on

-Posted by Isaac

I couldn't sleep last night. Nerves? Or maybe it was Eden screaming at 3 am for no apparent reason. Sometimes she likes to sleep scream.

But I think it was bee worries that kept me up. The last three days have been dawn to dusk in the bees. It's splitting time.

We'll put together 150 of these nucs each week for the next three weeks.

This involves a lot of running around and a lot of looking at bees.

I've been prepping hives, finding queens, shaking bees, etc... and in about an hour we'll fill the first of our nuc boxes. Hopefully knocking off 50 a day for the next three days. The queens come on Tuesday.

I guess I'm nervous because most of these hives have no business being split. It's still too early, and they're a bit small. Winter lingered around too long. But I'm tired of pushing things back. We're already two weeks behind schedule and the show must go on. We'll just have to sacrifice a good portion of our spring honey. 

But at least things turned around this week. The temps finally made it into the 60's. And despite 40mph winds, our girls fought their way to some pollen.

The blood red pollen comes from the purple deadnettle covering the unplanted fields, and the orange is dandelion. 

Yesterday I was working a yard near some dandelion and it made me realize just how hungry our girls are.

Then when you start pulling brood, it really hits you. A normal hive right now has about five frames of brood. At this time last year, it was eight to ten frames... capped brood! We just haven't had the weather for growth.

Oh well. At least the queens are easier to find.  About half the time, I don't even bother shaking the bees down. With only four or five frames, it's just about as quick to pull the brood and find the queen.

It's especially quick when she's marked. Thank you, Dan Williams!

So that's what I've been doing. Finding queens, and getting ready to split small hives. It makes me nervous.

But at least I had a vote of confidence from my Super girl.

Mom was at a three day food safety meeting this week. So Eden hung out with dad in the bee yards. 

But she doesn't fool with the bees. Usually there is plenty of entertainment in close proximity to any given yard. And if the entertainment isn't nearby, she'll wander until she finds it.

It was interesting, to say the least-- dividing my time between finding queens and finding Eden.

When the days finally warmed later in the week, I was very happy return my Super girl to Mamma.

First Splits

-Posted by Isaac

What a fun week we've had.

Here's our Monday starter:

Followed by a Tuesday teaser:

And after that, things took a turn for the worst.

Tornados, floods, sleet and snow throughout the state. Maybe my whining a month ago was too early? In fact, as I write, I'm once again looking out across our snow covered yard. What a spring! Is this April 7th? It's almost laughable. I complained my way through last week's post, and I told Jayne I'd try to stay positive this week. But it's just so damn hard.

It's hard to stay positive and it's hard to make splits with this horrible weather. But no matter, a little bit is better than nada. We're going to start with a few and go from there. We're doers here, right Honey?

I mentioned making these 20 splits in the rain last week. For this week's post, I thought I'd show you the steps. A little tutorial. But keep in mind, there are about a hundred ways of splitting a hive, and I'm no expert with any of them. Take notes on what you like, and discard what you don't.

First, you need a strong hive. Hard to find in this, our never-ending-winter. But they are out there. By late April, hopefully, there should be many many more.

You want brood in the top and bottom box. Preferably four frames in the bottom. A hive with four or five brood frames will still be big enough to make you some spring honey a month and a half from now. Or even split again in May.

Second, you want to isolate the queen. You don't need to find her, just know which box she's in. I like to accomplish this by shaking all the bees into the bottom box, then putting a queen excluder between the boxes.

The problem with this is that it requires another trip to the yard. If you find the queen, you can do it all in one trip.

Next you need to gather your equipment. You're doubling your hive count, so you'll need to basically double everything. 

And oh yeah, don't forget the feed.

When you get back in the bee yard a few days later, you can start pulling brood from that top box. I like to make my early nucs with two to three frames of brood and a frame of honey.

I then replace the pulled frames with foundation and give the original hive a hefty slurp of feed.

Don't forget to take out the excluder!

It's too early to make your own queens in Ohio, so you have to order them. By mid May, you can try your hand at queen breeding. Unfortunately, this timing doesn't work for us. Most of our nucs are sold by May. But I still try my luck at home bred queens later on.

The first batch is a big deal in this household.

They don't stay in a shoe box for long.

I usually wait a couple days with a queenless nuc before putting in a new queen. Possibly better acceptance? I'm not sure if this is true, but it's what I've been told. Anyway, what's the rush?

A week later, you can check to see that your queen is out of her cage and all is well. You may even find eggs, but sometimes it takes a little longer.

A little protein and a touch of syrup doesn't hurt.

And off they go!

The willows (in the background) will be feeding the bees a week from now. The dandelions and the purple deadnettle (presently beneath the snow) are coming on strong. If we could only get a little heat... stay positive!