Archive for the ‘Animals – Bees’ Category
September 24, 2011 – A Sweet Day
Today was honey extraction day. As GJ says, it’s all about separation today. First, you separate the supers from the hive and therefore separate the bees from their honey. Then you separate the individual frames from the supers.
Then you separate the beeswax from the frames. Emma with the heated knife and gj with a wax scraper.
Then you separate the honey from the frames in the extractor.
Then you filter out all the bee parts and remaining wax from the honey.
A final look at Emma with a nice frame. We ended up with about 15 gallons of honey from two hives. Shortly after the aerial jockeys sprayed around our farm, the hive at our place ha greatly reduced activity. After the bees died, the wax moths took over and there was no honey – but the two hives at another location adjacent to about 15 acres of prairie, did very well.
one year ago…”U of M Public Relations Disaster”
July 31, 2011 – Bees Gone Wild
We have a couple of beehives at a friend’s farm. The hives are at the edge of a woodlot adjacent to about a 20 acres of prairie. Lots of flowers and pollen out there.
Today we went and checked, and had to add some more supers to the hives. They’re almost as tall as Linda. Should be a good year for honey, even if it isn’t a good year to get all dressed up in a bee suit.
April 29, 2011 – Bees at Work
Bees are fascinating little creatures. They are no doubt among the happiest creatures that spring has finally sprung.
Here’s a bee gathering pollen from a daffodil. Notice the little yellow sacs on its legs where it collects the pollen.
Here’s more of a close-up which shows the sacs a little better. The pollen is the protein that makes the hive hum.
There’s also busy on the first flowering tree, this plum.
one year ago…”Thingamajig Thursday #206″
September 20, 2010 – Honey Extraction Day
Today was a big day at high hopes – honey extraction day! It was a rough year for beekeeping. We have three hives. Two of the hives were new this spring, so first year’s don’t often produce to much as they have to get organized and numbers bred up. The other hive swarmed, so lost some worker bees as well. Then, with the wet weather, it was hard for the bees to get out.
I missed Linda retrieving the supers from the hive – but here they are in the back of Sube. The idea is to get the supers during the day when many of the bees are out foraging. Then, you need to protect the stolen supers from the hive as they will try to retrieve the honey and the supers will be surrounded by an angry swarm. So, they are locked in the back of the car.
Extracting is best done in a hot environment. The high today was 90 degrees, so the honey was warm and would flow easily. In addition, I turned on the propane heater in the garage to keep it warm after the sun went down. Since the garage is not bee proof, we wait until after dark and the bees are all back in the hive after sunset. Here Linda removes some frames from the supers. (No we are not on the payroll of the Ely, MN chamber as the car bumper sticker and Linda’s shirt may suggest.)
Here’s a blue-ribbon frame – full and robust.
Worth its weight in gold is the electric uncapping knife to slice off the wax caps from the comb.
Here’s a really angry-looking guy spinning the manual extractor. The spinning of the extractor slings the honey out of the frames. Spin for a bit and them turn the frames around and spin again. He must have known that the next morning would bring aches of muscles usually not used!
Martin guards the honey gate at the bottom of the extractor.
The honey filters through three filters – a coarse mesh filter and a finely-woven fabric supported by another metal filter.
Finally, the honey safely tucked in jars. We ended up with about 10 gallons in total! The honey this year was very amber. That color is not what is typically is commercially available, despite the fact that dark amber honey has up to 20 times the anti-oxidants of run-of-the-mill commercial light honey.
one year ago…”Inaugural Chicken Butchering”
August 20, 2010 – Bees Keeping Cool
In this hot weather, the bees also have to keep busy. Here a bunch of them are hanging out on the front porch of the hive.
When you are this close to the hive, it sounds a bit like the roar of a distant waterfall from the sound of the bees vibrating their wings to keep the hive cooler.
one year ago…”First Day of School”
July 3, 2010 – Bee Swarm
Although there’s never a good time for a bee swarm, the day they swarmed was a particularly bad time. We were running late getting flower and fruit orders out the door, running behind on starting to put the last 50 chickens to rest, and about to head to town to pick up the kids. We had about 5 minutes together to deal with this.
We set up a hive, got a box to catch the bees as they dropped after cutting the branch.
We misjudged the size of the branch/swarm/box and when they fell, most of them missed the box. I had to head to town, and they reformed even higher up a tree and while Linda waited for me to return to figure out the best way to get the next branch cut, they flew away a few minutes before I got back home with the kids. It’s always disappointing to miss a chance at a “free” hive, but maybe next time we’ll have better luck!
May 11, 2010 – Spring Bee Renewal
The spring beekeeping tasks are at hand. Two of the three hives needed to be rejuvenated this spring. So two hives have new queens.
The new queens were put in the hives in mid-late April and now it’s time to check on how the hive is doing. The smoker is ready in anticipation of opening the hive.
They are all off to a good start – with more brood cells and great hive activity – so the queens stuck around and are laying eggs.
one year ago…”Ship Harbor, Acadia National Park”
March 15, 2010 – Checking the Beehive
Now that the temps have warmed to the 50′s, it’s time to make sure the bees have enough honey left in the hive to sustain them until the first blooming commences.
Linda is taking over the beekeeping this year.
We were happy to see that this hive was still active after the winter. Today the black cover came off the hive and the honey supply looked adequate to keep them going.
November 29, 2009 – Putting Bees Away for Winter
It’s time to tuck the bees in for the winter. By the end of this week, the highs are supposed to be in the 20s.
Martin and Linda add the insulated cover to the hive.
Here, they pose after finishing the job – the black cardboard has been slipped over the hive and we wait until spring to do anything else with the bees.
one year ago…”Gift Box Assembly”
March 29, 2009 – Beekeeper Martin
Martin and GJ brought their beekeeping show on the road this Sunday. They brought some of the equipment to Martin’s Sunday School class and did a beekeeping demo.
Here the kids keep clear as they are not convinced that the beehive is truly free of bees while Martin and GJ have their suits on to open the hive.
March 13, 2009 – Getting Bees Ready for Spring
Another sign of spring is removing the winter protection from the bees.
Here the black cardboard box that slides over the hive is removed. The black helps warm up the hive whenever the winter sun comes out. It is rather amazing to think of the bees surviving through the -20 lows and long cold days in the hive.
Now that the temps are in the 60′s and 70′s some days, but the flowers are not yet out, the bees are out and about and here they get a dose of sugar water to tide them over and some mite protection.
Finally, a check to see if the queen is still alive and all we have to do now is wait for the spring pollen and flowers to arrive.
one year ago…”Thingamajig Thursday #109″
August 30, 2008 – Honey Extraction
Today was honey extraction day.
Martin, GJ, and Linda donned their beekeeper’s suits and robbed the honey. Here Martin helps smoke out the bees before GJ takes off a super.
A beautiful frame full of honey.
The newest addition to the honey extraction process is an electric uncapping knife – it worked spendidly removing the wax tops from the frames.
Emma shows off an uncapped frame, ready for the extractor.
We use a manual extractor, just put in four frames and turn the hand crank, wait for it to stop spinning, flip the frames around and repeat the spin.
Martin’s job is to run the honey gate at the bottom of the extractor to filter the honey through a couple of filters. It’s always a hot job as the room should be 85-95 degrees to allow the honey to flow more freely through the extraction process.
one year ago…”Thingamajig Thursday #86″
June 24, 2008 – Bee Swarm
This week we had a bee swarm on the farm. Bee swarms are fascinating. They occur when the hive is successful and needs to split or reproduce. We happened to see this one swarm on a fence on the boundary between our farm and the adjacent corn field.
The bees, all 35,000-50,000 of them, are fairly docile as they are homeless while the scouts are out looking for new lodging.
We called gj and she ran out and got a “nuc” or small hive box with some frames that used to contain honey to convince them that this is their new home. Beekeepers love swarms in June, because you can double your hives for free. Here she scrapes all the bees into the new hive box.
In this photo, the bees have nearly settled into the new hive while gj is building some new hive boxes for the new permanent hive.
We all know that in games of sport and heart attacks, minutes and seconds matter, well, we found out that is true with beekeeping. As the new hive boxes were traveling towards the nuc box in a cart, literally 45 seconds away, one of the giant field sprayers came down the road and entered into the field despite two people in white suits flailing their arms to attract attention to the driver. The drive into the field literally has six vehicles a year enter it and as it entered the drive, the swarm got spooked and lifted off and headed out across the field. I followed them for about 1/3 of a mile before they got out of my eyesight as they fly a bit faster than I could keep up. If we had left literally a minute earlier or the spray truck left a minute later, we’d now have another hive of bees, but as it is, they are now lost to us.
one year ago…”Anniversary/Roadside Natives”
April 13, 2008 – Six Pounds of Bees
It’s time to replace the evil hive that was invited to fly away on a 3 degree morning and start some new hives.
gj brought out six pounds of bees. It looks like a bee prison you might see in the “Bee Movie.”
Each box contains about 2000 bees and a queen bee. They will be put into the hives tomorrow. They were to be stored in a cool dark place (not a problem this spring!)
one year ago…”New Committee Duties”
