Keeping Bees: Day 7

Starting out you need:
    Hive
    Some sort of veil
    Hive tool
    Washing soda (to remove propolis)

Probably a good idea:

    boiler-suit with attached veil

    Wellington boot

    Rubber/nitrile gloves

    a nucleus to collect swarms

Unless you can borrow:
    Uncapping pot or tray
    Extractor with sieve (1-5 mm gaps)
    Course filter (1 mm gaps)
    Fine filter (<1 mm gaps)

For the harvest:
    glass jars + lids
    settling tank with a good gate
    jar labels

Keeping Bees: Day 6

Notes:

1.5 l water + 1.5 kg white sugar ~ 4 pints

Terms:
 Raiding
 queen-excluder
 super (as in the Latin for "above")
 brood
 brood-chamber
 crown-board
 dummy-board
 landing-board
 eek

Keeping Bees: Day 5

Transferred "my swarm" to a new hive. I built them five brood-frames, (better to have an odd number so that they can start work on the middle frame.)

I put 1 litre of water in a pan and added 1 litre by volume of white sugar and put it on a very low heat while I transferred the swarm to their new home in a hope that they will have time to build up and live through the winter.

Once they were in the new brood-chamber with the dummy board and with the crown-board and roof in place I went back and put the syrup in a 2 litre plastic milk bottle.

I dripped a little of the syrup on the top of the frames just under the off-hole in the crown-board, (being VERY careful not to drown the swarm, though a few drips were not a problem.) Then the crown-board was replaced and a few drops on the edge of the crown board opening. Then the feeder was placed over the hole and I dripped a trail down the inside of the feeder to lead the bees up, and then another splash in the feeder to lead them down to the syrup. Then the inner cover was replaced and the feeder was filled. I replaced the feeder-cover, added an empty super and replaced the lid.

Steve suggested that I find all of the local liquidation-sales of hotels and restaurants and buy up the sugar that is individually wrapped with the name of the establishment, (they are no good to anyone else.) These can be used to create heavy syrup for your bees.

Steve keeps referring to the swarm as mine, but as his student, (and all the equipment is his) I feel that they are his. Both of us are wrong as honey-bees are WILD ANIMALS and don't technically belong to anyone, though the hives that they live in _do_ belong to the bee-keeper, so I can't just help myself to the honey in other  people's hives.

This will probably be rather mute as the swarm is really a cast and probably too  small to make it through the winter.

Keeping Bees: Day 4

So exciting! Collected a swarm or bees! (Well they are probably just a cast.)

Steve has received a call almost each day about swarms, (one day this week he had twelve!) Each time I could feel that he was quietly hopeful that it would be local, but before today they were all over the U.K... until today.

I was sat next to him at the moment when he realised that the call was about a swarm that was just down the road. I didn't know the local geography but his reaction said everything. We rushed off to a small sea-side town called East Preston. They were hiding under a sawn-off branch of a tree down by the sea. Very docile. I put the "nûc", (nuke) in the apiary with the door open. We will inspect them tomorrow.

A cast is a small swarm.
A "nûc" is short for nucleus, which can either mean a small, (hundreds or a few thousand) with a queen, OR the small hive that they live in. So a cast becomes a nucleus the moment you get them into a nuc. I guess that a it is called a nucleus because it is the smallest viable bee colony.

This makes an interesting philosophical question about life, (which, once again I have to give Steve credit for this idea): Is a worker-bee a living animal? The obvious answer seems to be yes until you consider, "is each cell of your body a living animal?"  A worker-bee can't survive on its own for more than a few weeks and it certainly can't continue its species. 

Keeping Bees: Day 3

Made my first Frames, (from kits). I was tasked with making brood frames for a national super.


1. Cut the spare from the top with a sharp knife.

2. Hammer the sides into the top. Make sure that the top lugs of the sides are flush with the
top so that it is easier to take off the propolis with a hive tool at a later date.

3. Lay the frame on its side and drive one small nail vertically down through
the sides and into the top to lock them to the top.

4. Put in one of the bottom spars, (above the thicker part of the top.)

5. Turn the frame so that it stands on its top and drive one nail
vertically down into each end of the new bottom piece.

6. Take the foundation and if it is wired, bend the loops at right-angles to the foundation.
Slide the foundation into the frame so that the loops face out and touching the top. The loops
will be sandwitched betwen the top piece and the piece removed in the first stage.

7. Using three small nails tack the long piece that was cut from the top back into its original position.
The nails go diagonally down into the top piece from the side of the last piece. I used the Dyer method
so the three nails are placed just next to the loops so that frame recyceling is easier.

NTS: Some bee-keeping tests demand that you put the nails through the loops for strength. Some keepers use a dab of wood-glue to hold the sides to the top. The nails are put into the ends of the bottom and NOT horizontal, as with the sides so that the bottom can be removed more easily for rebuilding.

NTS: The spaces inside of the hive are VERY exact. Where they are not a bee-space the bees will probably fill the space with propolis.

A bee-space is between 5 and 9mm

NTS: Buy a Pin Pusher Tool like this one:

The tacks drop inside the tube and then you simply push them in rather than using a hammer.

Keeping Bees: Day 2

Propolis is very sticky, but can be removed using washing soda.
Opened my first hive solo today and later removed two queen-cells, (supervised).

The elastic at the end of the boiler suit arms goes over the gloves and round the thumb,
(until the rubber perishes and then it goes over the middle two fingers.)

My teacher advised me, "HTS Hive tool is bad because it can cut your wrist if you grab it the wrong way up." Which, like everything he says, makes perfect sense.

Bee keeper supplies in the UK:

http://www.peak-hives.co.uk/ (seem like a nice family)

When I saw the prices of some equipment I started thinking latterly, (well sort of) and found a Beekeepers Suit from a pest-control equipment supplier.

http://www.thorne.co.uk/ (been round for ages)
http://www.bjsherriff.co.uk/ "Sherriff" do top-of-the-range suits (beesuits.com)
http://www.thebeehiveworkshop.co.uk/ not tried them yet,

but good clean second-hand stuff is much-much cheaper. By "clean" I think he means

• Never had foul-brood
• No varroa mites
•  or molds 
•  or fungus 
•  or wax-moths
• Not too much propolis on everything

I should ask him.

Keeping Bees: Day 1

Got stung on the front of my left foot - off to a good start.
It hurt less than I remember and a LOT less than I expected and/or feared.

Found a very young, recently mated queen, (longer than a worker but not as fat as a drone.)

Removed, searched and replaced my first super.
 Must practice the "lower at an angle, then twist into place" method of replacing a super.

Removed, inspected and replaced a national deep from a brood chamber.

I must remember to invert the queen excluder when placing it on top of
a super that has been above the excluder.

It is easier to search for eggs than a queen!

Keeping Bees

I've spent much of my recreational reading time of the last winter and spring devouring as much of the public and open-source bee-keeping information that the Internet has to offer.

Many years ago I was introduced to bee-keeping by the Rev. Nevil Webb. He was one of the first impressive people in my life and the first person in my life to die.

I remember the first time that I saw a swarm in flight, and tracking it as it collected in a ball on a tree branch. I was probably eleven years old.

Many years later, while living in London, I saw a swarm that turned the blue sky dark. The sound was amazing.  Next week I'm finally taking my friend Steve up on his offer to teach me his way of bee-keeping.

I know many people that, like me, feel, "I should keep bees" and though I've had a few other minor brushes with bees over the years, I've actually had more interactions with wasps, (finding nests, removing them, being stung.)

This should be fun, (though I'm more scared of being stung than I care to admit.)

I'm going to keep simple notes of the things that I learn each day.