Order Ahead

If you know you want to give Ruth & John's for Christmas, you can help yourself out by ordering in advance. Call or text Ruth at 618-559-6252, and let her know what you want (leave a message if she can't pick up and she'll get back to you right away). She can get your order ready and you can pick it up next weekend at the SIU Holiday Craft Sale. If you wait till the show to make your selections, we may be sold out of your favorite items. Not to worry, she can make more, but ordering ahead means you know we'll have what you want.

Holiday Craft Sale '18

It's coming!  The SIU Holiday Craft Sale!  We love this show, and look forward to it every year.  Come join us at the SIU Student Center Thursday, Nov. 29 through Saturday, Dec. 1.  We will be in our usual spot at the bottom of the escalator with a lot of new items, most of your old favorites, and, of course, dragon eggs.

Arts and Crafts Extravaganza, Show Me Center, Cape Girardeau, Missouri

The shows keep on coming.  After a great show this past weekend at John A. Logan College, we're busily making new product to refill our shelves for the Arts and Crafts Extravaganza at the Show Me Center in Cape Girardeau, Mo.  This annual event takes us a little farther afield than we usually go, but it's still close enough that you can come see us, as well many other artists you won't at other local shows.  This is a great opportunity to get out and knock off some of your holiday shopping.
 

 Annual Holiday Art Event
Christmas Arts & Crafts Extravaganza
Cape Girardeau, Missouri

November 17 - November 18, 2018

 

 And if you've not yet seen them, you've got to come out and take a look at our dragon eggs.  Yes, we have dragon egg soaps, just like you see in your favorite fantasy television show.  Fortunately for you, these dragon eggs do their magic in water rather than fire. 

So stop by this weekend and say hello.  We'll be looking for you.

AutumnFest 2018

One of the really good shows coming up this weekend; AutumnFest at John A. Logan College.  We've done this show almost as long as we've been doing shows, and it has consistently been one of the best.  Best in terms of the level of art to be found, best in the sheer number of people who come by, and best in the number of pieces that go home with our customers.  The year promises to be another great one, and we've been working hard to gear up for it.

 If you're a Game of Thrones fan (and who isn't?), you've got to stop by and see what a little special item we have.  I hate to sound immodest, but I think it's good enough to make Jon Snow smile.  And it's the perfect thing for the Khaleesi in your life.

So stop by and say hello.  We'll be looking for you!

Vulture Fest in Makanda, 2018

Coming up this weekend is one of the best events in Southern Illinois.  I'm speaking, of course, of Vulture Fest in Makanda.  This is, perhaps, the most Southern Illinois event we do, not in terms of geography, but in terms of culture.  This event draws a wide slice of people from all walks of life, and has what is probably the greatest variety of citizens of any other in the area.  If you enjoy people watching, this the place for you.

A recent email from the organizers informed us that vendors will not be able to set up in their usual places on the gravel parking lots.  I'm guessing that this is because of the railroad company.  This means I don't know where we will be set up, so you might have to look around a bit for us.  But I promise it will be worth the hunt.  We have lots of new items and some very special gifts for the people on your list.

Are you or one of your loved ones a Game of Thrones fan?  Yes?  Then you really need to stop by and see what we have for you.  I don't want to give away any spoilers, but suffice it to say that

Christmas is Coming.

See you there.

Wine and Art Festival at Rend Lake

We are returning to Rend Lake for our 14th year for the Wine and Art Festival.  We love this show and look forward to it every year.  It's been moved this time, both on the calendar and on the ground.  It used to be the fourth weekend in September, when it was often hot.  Now it's going to be this weekend, October 13 and 14.  And we're happy to report that it will return to the grounds of the Illinois Artisan Center.  This excites us because it means, among other things, indoor toilets (it's the little things).

We've got some exciting new products for you, on a weekend which promises to be cooler than in past years.  Come on out and try some wonderful Illinois wines, listen to some good music, and take a look at all the wonderful items which have been hand-made by local artisans.  We'll be looking for you.

Our Fall Schedule

Looks as if we have our fall season firmed up, and we wanted to share it with you.  Below is the general information about the shows we will be doing for the rest of the year.  Keep an eye here and on our Facebook page for more detailed information as the time for each event gets closer.

September 8

               Riverside Art Wine & BLUES Festival

               Riverside Park, Murphysboro, IL

Sept 14-15

               MurphysboroApple Festival

               Murphysboro, IL

October 13-14

               Wine andArt Festival at Rend Lake

               Artisan’s Center, Whittington, IL

October 20-21

               VultureFest

               Makanda, IL

November 3-4

               HeritageFestival

               Southeastern Illinois College, Harrisburg, IL

November 10-11

               AutumnFest

               John A. Logan College, Carterville, IL

November 17-18

               Arts andCrafts Extravaganza

               Show-Me Center, Cape Girardeau, MO

November, 29, 30, December 1

               HolidayCraft Sale

               SIU Student Center, Carbondale, IL

Ruth & John's on TV

We were at a new event this weekend, the Southern Illinois Made Expo at the Pavilion in Marion, Illinois.  This was a first time event, and not a craft fair so much as a showcase for a wide variety of goods and services available from Southern Illinois producers.  We saw a lot of new people at this show, and had a good time at it.

While we were there, a reporter from WSIL came around and interviewed us.  Our footage made the on-air report, and you can see the results here:

Odd Looking Bee

Looked at a couple of the hives today.  When we took the outer cover off of one, we found the strangest looking bee perched on the inner cover.  I wonder if this one makes green honey?

Honey Harvest II

We've been doing a honey harvest over the last two weekends.  A couple of our hives had several honey-filled supers on them ( supers are the boxes used to store honey above the brood boxes, where the queen lays eggs) and we were eager to get at them.  Last week we took two supers off of one hive, this week two supers off of another. 

We harvest using the crush-and-strain method, whereby we remove the honey filled comb from the frames, and, using gloved hands, crush the comb to release the honey.  The crushed comb goes into a mesh bag which sits in a bucket which has a number of holes in the bottom.  This bucket sits above another bucket, which catches the honey as it drips down.  Most of the honey runs down right away, but by leaving it sit for a day or two, we get a fair amount more.

We are left with buckets of honey, and a bunch of crushed wax which still has a surprising amount of honey left on it.  There are various options for dealing with this residual honey.  Our choice is to set the crushed wax outside on a table, and let the bees do the job of cleaning it up.  This is a job they perform quite happily, as a cloud of honeybees descend on the trays of spent wax, picking them clean of all available honey.  This honey gets returned to the hive to be stored, so very little is lost in the process.

Well, maybe not so little.  Harvesting honey is a messy business, no matter how you go about it.  We get drips on the floor, on the counter, on ourselves.  Clean-up of sticky honey takes some time.  We can leave the outside mess for the bees to deal with, but the inside mess requires lots of water, soap, and elbow grease. 

In addition to the honey, some four gallons worth still waiting to be bottled, we also have beeswax as a product of the hives.  So far we've rendered about one and a half pounds from this harvest, with more still to be done. 

We've also put up fourteen containers of honeycomb, natural comb with the honey still in it.  We plan to have these for sale, is anyone is interested in them. 

So a lot of work, but a very gratifying job.  We are nearing the dearth, a time when flowers are scarce, and the bees are doing well to gather enough nectar for their daily needs.  During this time they don't make enough to have a surplus for us, and that's OK.  There is also a fall flow when the autumn flowers come into bloom, and we might get a bit more then.  If not, it will help the bees make stores for the coming winter months.

In any event, we've got plenty of honey for our own use, and will have some to sell as well.  Though that was not our purpose for getting into bees, it's still a satisfying dividend to the process.

Irony

I've been in San Antonio, Texas for the last three week on business, and living in an Air B and B while I'm here.  I haven't had a lot of time to get out (did I mention I was here to work?), but I have had some long walks and I've been looking for bees wherever I go.  Haven't seen a one.  Even on blooming trees, usually a good food source for bees, not a bee to be seen. 

I'm leaving today.  Yesterday, I discovered that we have a colony of bees in the house we're staying in.  Up at the top of the second floor you can see them darting in and out around the flashing.  No idea how long they've been there or how extensive the hive is, and now I'll probably never know.

Life is funny.

The Harry Potter Hive

I'm out of town, so Ruth had to pick up the latest swarm and take pictures for me.  This particular swarm was in a bait hive on her brother's land.  She got it well after dark on Sunday night, so nearly all of the foragers had made it in.

Her brother and his daughter, Keira, went out to the bait hive to help, her brother by shining the headlights from his car  while she worked, and then by going to get a blade to separate the hive from the cleat from which it was hanging (paint on paint, they kinda got stuck).  Keira watched in fascination while Ruth screwed the screen cap over the opening, then carefully lifted the hive down from its cleat.  Ruth replaced it with another hive box, so we may capture more swarms still.


Ruth covered the hive with a plastic bag, lest any bees escape, and drove home with the covered hive in the front seat of her car.  She placed the hive out in the apiary, removed the plastic cover, and called it a night.

I should explain at this point that earlier in the winter, Emma, who is Ruth's granddaughter, and Keira, who is Ruth's niece, painted a set of hive bodies for us. These bodies, which will form a single, complete hive, will go in Emma's yard eventually.  While they were at it, Keira painted another hive box to look like Harry Potter.  We had been keeping this box for an appropriate occasion, and this seemed like the one.

Early the next morning Ruth transferred the bees from the bait hive to the Harry Potter hive.  Here, we see the swarm box when she first opened it.

If you look closely, you can see all the bees down between the frames, as well as the ones crawling around on the top.  This was a large swarm, probably four or five pounds worth of bees, and they filled the box.  This is the kind of swarm we really like to catch.  With these numbers, they will fill a hive quickly, and are strong enough to defend their hive well.

This picture shows the hive as Ruth puts the frames from the bait hive into it.  Again, you can see the frames covered with bees.  In the frame at  the top you can see some freshly drawn comb, another sign that we've got a good swarm getting down to business.

Once she had all the frames from the bait hive transferred to the permanent hive, she pushed them all together in the middle and added empty frames to the outside until the box was full.  These empty frames give the hive room to make more comb, to be filled with brood (eggs) and honey.  A swarm this big should make short work of this box and need another one added on top before very long.

This is what it looked like at the end.  The hive has been filled, covered, and strapped shut to keep the lid from coming off.  The cover and box from the bait hive are left nearby so the bees which didn't yet make it into the permanent hive can still find it easily and join all their sisters.  By nightfall, all the bees should be reunited, back at work building and growing the colony.

The really neat thing?  Keira knows that "her" bees from her land are now in the hive she painted.

Pretty cool, huh?

This Makes Me Happy

Nothing extraordinary, just a shot of our apiary.  The hive on the left is from last season and has had some issues, but seems to be doing all right now.  The two on the right are also from last season, and, as you can see, they are booming.

The remaining three, in the middle, are swarms we brought in a couple of weeks ago.  Ruth just did an inspection and reports that they are coming along nicely.  We also have another hive with its own story.  I'll pass that along when I have a picture to go with it.

In the meantime, these hives bring us closer to one of our goals in beekeeping - having enough beeswax harvested from our own hives to use in all of our beeswax-based products.  It's a fun journey.

Swarms

Honey bees make new colonies by swarming.  About half of the worker bees and the old queen fly out of the hive to find a new place to live, leaving the remaining workers to raise a new queen.  The departing bees are a swarm, and they land somewhere, typically a tree branch or some other resting place, and form a clump or ball, where they will will stay for as little as fifteen minutes, or as long as three days.  While they are in this clump, scout bees go out looking for a new place to live, some suitable hollow or cavity where the swarm can take up residence and build a new colony.  Before they leave the old colony, the bees put the old queen on a diet to slim her down so she can fly, while the worker bees gorge themselves on honey to be ready in their new home.

Once they have found a new home, the workers set to work immediately, using the honey they have stored in themselves to produce wax and make new comb.  Once they have sections of comb built, the queen can begin laying eggs and the colony's numbers can grow.

Beekeepers love swarms (at least, the ones from hives not their own) as they represent a way to get new bees in their apiary.  We acquire these swarms in two ways.  When the swarm has just left the parent hive and is still out in the open in a clump, the beekeeper can capture this swarm by shaking or brushing it into a prepared hive.  The bees will, we hope, look around at this enclosure and decide that it is the home they've been looking for.  We can then close up the hive and bring them home.

The other way is with a bait hive, also called a swarm trap.  This is a box designed to appeal to a house-hunting swarm.  The ones I use are forty liters in capacity, just the size that swarms like.  I've rubbed the insides with beeswax and propolis, a sort of all purpose glue and binder which the bees make.  I've also used slum-gum, the residue left over from refining beeswax, a black tarry goo full of bee scent and pheromones.  And to top it off, I add a  couple of drops of lemongrass oil which mimic the queen's pheromones.  All these things make the bait hive smell like "home," and should entice the swarm to move in.  Once they do, I wait until dark, close up the box, and bring the bees home to join the others in our apiary.

Neither method is better than the other.  The swarm trap requires planning, building, labor to put the boxes up and down, and luck in placing them where the bees want to be.  Once they have moved in, you can deal with them on your own timetable.  On the other hand, open swarms usually just need a hive to catch them in, but you are subject to their whim, as you never know when or where a swarm will appear, so you have to be ready to grab your equipment and go as soon as you get a call.  But catching these swarms is a lot of fun, and can be addictive.

Swarms can come from some other beekeepers hives, or they can come from feral hives.  We like feral colonies, as they have not been managed and treated, yet still have survived out in the wild, and so have demonstrated good genetics.  There's no good way of knowing which is which when you spot a swarm, so we just take them all in and let them grow.  This raises the question of when does a swarm in the wild which originated from a managed hive become a feral colony, but that is a question for another day.

Reds, Whites, & Blues Festival

We're off the Blue Sky Vineyards this weekend for their Reds, Whites, & Blues Festival. Three different groups will be playing, and we will be there with new soaps and wine racks. Whether you are celebrating graduation, the end of the semester, or just the end of the week, come on out for a good time in the sun.

Red, White, & Blues Festival

Saturday, May 12, 10:00am - 8:00pm

Spring Shows

I've been talking about bees a lot lately, as there are very few shows in the spring to talk about.  But it turns out that we have two shows coming up in the next few weeks.

Saturday, May 12, Blue Sky is having their annual Reds, Whites, and Blues Festival.  Things start at 10:00a and run till 8:00p with the bands playing from 11:00a to 7:30p.  We've had a lot of fun at this event in the past, and are looking forward to it this year. 

The next weekend, Saturday, May 19, we will be at Walker's Bluff for their Art and Wine Festival.  This one runs 11:00a-5:00p on the beautiful grounds of Walker's Bluff.  We love shows such as this, as you get a chance to go around and sample wines from a number of wineries without having to travel, and it gives you a much better opportunity to compare and contrast the wines of the region.  We'll be there along with a number of other artists, so come on out and see our spring collection.

Defeated

I had hoped to report on how we rescued a colony of honey bees from under someone's concrete steps today, but the concrete got the better of us.  We thought the sides were made of cinder blocks, and the demo hammer we had would have gone through that pretty easily.  Turns out they were made of poured concrete.  We chipped away at the back edge, and got through the wall.  Behind it we found...another wall of poured concrete.  And we were still nowhere near the bees. 

The demo hammer we were using wasn't getting us through the concrete, and I think it had plenty of power.  So either we need a different tool, or we don't know the right technique for using this one.  Anyone out there have any expertise on breaking down a concrete wall?  OK, we thought of dynamite, but the homeowner vetoed that idea, no reason given.   (sigh).  We eventually had to admit that we weren't equal to the task (we are, after all, beekeepers, not demolition experts).  So we packed up the truck and went home to lick our wounds.  We'll keep working on it, though, as we really want to get these bees out of this person's home.  Further updates as they come.

Bee Cut-Out

We are having an adventure today.  We're off to do a cut-out, removing unwanted bees which have taken up residence in someone's house.  This particular colony is under a set of concrete steps, so we have to knock out the side of the steps before we can extract the colony.  We will remove each piece of comb from the cavity.  Brood comb, that is, comb with eggs and/or larva, will be placed in frames and secured with rubber bands.  Honey comb will be collected in a bucket to be extracted for our own use.  Any other comb will be collected to melt down.  Bees will be brushed off into a new hive filled with the frames of brood comb, or gently collected with a specially made bee vacuum. When we're done, the home owner will be rid of a nuisance and we will have a new hive in our apiary.  We'll try to get pictures, but the first priority is getting the bees.

Cherry

We had a great day yesterday.  One of the wonderful things about life is the way things pop up out of nowhere and take you places you never imagined.  We came across a post about some cherry lumber, so we went to a local sawmill yesterday to check it out.  Sure enough, the guy had a couple of bundles of beautiful cherry boards, and at a price too good to pass up.  We wound up with some 500 board feet of local cherry wood just waiting to be made into something for our loyal customers.  It took us two trips in the pickup truck to get it all.  Right now it's sitting on the floor in the wood shop while I try to figure out where the heck I'm going to store that much wood.  We're looking forward to seeing what other wood he has in the future.

In the meantime, I'm dreaming of all the things I can make with this stash of lumber.  Do you have something you've been dreaming of that you'd like to see made in cherry?   Give us a call or drop us a line.  We'd love to hear from you.

The Season's First Swarm

I was setting out this morning on my early morning walk which takes me past our apiary.  It was a little after 6:00a, there was light in the sky, but the sun had not yet come over the horizon.  Just past the hives there is a honeysuckle bush which I've been meaning to take out, as it is an invasive species.  But today I saw something in it, a decent-sized dark mass.  When I got close I could see that, yep, sure enough, it was a swarm.

Now this was a bit of a surprise, as we have been keeping an eye on our hives and they seemed to have plenty of room to grow.  Colonies typically swarm when they feel they are running out of room and have the resources to start a new colony.  But here was the proof that we were wrong in our assessment, hanging on a branch a little less than waist high.

My first thought was to grab a standard Langstroth hive and put them in there, as we have done with all our previous swarms.  But then I had another idea.  This swarm, compact and close to the ground, was about as easy a swarm to catch as I was likely to find.  And I had been trying to figure out a good way to populate my top-bar hives.

A top bar hive is different from what you probably think of when you hear the word "beehive."  Instead of a Langstroth hive, a rectangular box which can be added to vertically to increase the available space and in which the comb is built inside frames, a top-bar hive is usually horizontal, all on one level, and the bees build their comb which hangs down from a bar which runs the width of the hive.  It's neither better nor worse than a Langstroth, just different.

I went in the house and grabbed a cardboard box.  I shook the swarm off of the bush and into the box.  Then I carried the box over to the top-bar hive and dumped them into it.  Then the waiting and worry began.

It was about 6:30a when this was happening, and it was about 42 degrees outside, much colder than the bees find comfortable.  As long as they were clustered, they could maintain their temperature.  By shaking the swarm loose, I caused them to lose their thermal advantage, and they didn't like that.  I could have waited until the temperature rose to tend to them, but as I was pretty sure they had already been there overnight, I was afraid of losing them if the scout bees found another location.  So I took a chance.

Even at that there was, and still is, a chance that they might abscond, that is, leave the hive I had placed them in to try their luck with a different site.  Adding to my worry was double-handful of bees clinging to the original swarm site.  I tried several times to shake them into my cardboard box and add them to their sisters in the top-bar hive, but the only took to the air until they could re-settle on the branch.  If I had missed the queen, and she was still in this small cluster on the branch instead of inside the hive, then more likely than not, all the bees already hived would fly out and join her on the branch, leaving me back where I started.

I finally took my morning walk, and when I returned, things were about as I had left them.  Most of the bees were in the hive, a somewhat larger cluster was hanging on the branch.  I made coffee, had my breakfast, and went to run an errand which took me away for a couple of hours.  I fretted all the way home, sure that I would find an empty hive, a swarm back on the bush, or worse...nothing at all.  No bees in the hive, no bees on the bush, no sign of where they had gone.

Imagine my relief when I parked and saw bees hanging off the entrance of the hive, and no sign of a cluster in the bush.  They're still flying in and out, and I hope they are getting down to business and building comb in which the queen can lay eggs so this colony can grow.  They could still abscond, based on what I've read, but I'm hopeful they'll like their new home.

We'll see.

Never a Dull Moment

I've been keeping a close on the hives the last couple of weeks, looking for drones.  Drones are the only males in the hive, whose main purpose is to mate the queen.  The hives won't swarm until there are drones available for the queen, and since all the drones get kicked out of the hive to die before winter sets in, we need a new crop of drones to hatch in the spring.  I'm trying to anticipate when swarming will start, hence the close eye out for drones.

Imagine my excitement when I saw my first drone of the season on the porch of one of the hives!  OK, it was a dead bee, but still, the first drone is a sign of things to come.  Now imagine my feelings when I rolled the "drone" over, only to find that not only was it not a drone, it was actually a queen.

Yikes!

A colony has to have a queen to lay eggs and ensure the continuation of the hive.  A dead queen on the porch is not a good sign.  We were concerned.  But a dead queen is not, in and of itself, a calamity.  If the old queen dies, the colony can create a new queen out of an egg cell.   Sometimes they raise new queens in anticipation of needing a new one, as when the old queen is failing, or is perceived to be weak.  Colonies reproduce by swarming, and to do this they have to raise new queens. We weren't sure what was happening.

Fortunately, the weather moderated, the winds died down, and we had a window of opportunity to get in and look around the hive. 

We set the top box off to one side and went frame by frame through the bottom box, the brood box.  We started at one side and checked them carefully as we took them out.  We saw some drawn comb, then some nectar filled cells.  The brood that we saw were drone cells, so they're coming along.  Then we saw what seemed to be a queen cell which had already hatched.  Ruth wanted to stop at that point, but I wanted to check one more frame.  Pulled it out, it was covered with bees, and lo and behold, Ruth spotted the queen! 

Now how, I hear you asking, could she see a queen alive and kicking in the hive if there was a dead queen on the porch?  Apparently, the deceased queen was felled by the surviving queen.  Two (or more) queens hatched at the same time.  When that happens, they fight it out.  The winner takes over the hive.  The loser...well, we found her on the porch. 

So there you are.  A peek into the inner workings of one our bee hives.  Pretty cool, isn't it?

Giving the Solar Wax Melter a Workout

I said some time ago, all I need is a sunny day.  Today, we finally got one, and I put our solar wax melter to good use.

Here is what it looked like when I started around 10:30 AM.  This is the comb from the extraction we did last weekend after it has been crushed, strained, and cleaned up by the bees.  I put it out in the melter, aimed it towards the sun, put about three-quarters of an inch of water in the receiving pan, shut it up and let it do its thing.   I checked back every fifteen minutes to see how it was getting along.

Fifteen minutes later.  Not a lot of difference, but I could see some melting here and there; the whole mass was slumping a bit.

More noticeable now is the brown at the bottom of the pan.  This was left from the last batch.  I was pretty sure there was a bit of wax left to extract from it, and the older dark comb actually helps filter the newer wax as it runs through it.

After half an hour, there was definitely a difference.  See how it's pulled away from the top, and the whole thing has become more compact.  By this point, it resembled a tray of rice crispy treats.

Forty-five minutes in.  Now we're really getting somewhere.Not only is the melting obvious around the edges, but you can see the melted wax starting to pour out of the bottom of the tray.

One hour, nearly half the original volume is melted down, and an appreciable accumulation in the receiving pan.

One hour, fifteen minutes, and we're almost all the way through.

It's worth noting here that the melter remained in the same position through the entire process.  I never had to turn it to follow the sun.

Here we get a better look at the melted wax coming out of the upper tray.  It drips, pours, and plops down into the receiving pan below.  The water I put in at the beginning helps keep the wax from getting stuck in the pan, making it much easier to remove than it would be without the water.  Don't ask me how I know this....

About an hour-and-a-half after we started, and we're pretty much all done.  Everything has melted, and there's just a bit more to run down into the receiving pan. Pretty neat, huh?

I love that we are able to this without using any energy other than that provided by that enormous nuclear furnace some ninety-three million  miles away.  Even though I was constantly watching this, it would have gone just as quickly, and just as well, without me anywhere near.  Melting wax on a stove comes with all kinds of warnings, since boiling over can cause the wax to ignite.  In a solar melter...not so much.

And here's the final product, the pan of wax fresh out of the melter.  As you can see, part of it is still liquid in this picture, but it solidified fairly quickly once I brought it inside.  This block of wax weighed out out just over one pound.  It still needs further refining, as there is still a bit of residual honey and a few impurities in it.   But this wax is well on it's way to becoming a lip balm or lotion bar for one of you.

Giving Back to the Bees

After this weekend's harvest, there was still more to do.  The crushed wax with the honey was put in a nylon mesh bag and suspended over a bucket for two days to allow the honey to drain out.  Once this was finished, there was still a fair amount of honey within the crushed comb, not enough to make it worthwhile to go after, but more than I wanted to deal with when we went to refine the beeswax.  There are several ways to separate the residual honey from the comb.  Our preferred way?  Let the bees do it!

We set the comb out on trays on a table a ways from the hives.  The first few hours were too cool and cloudy for the bees to take any interest.  But once the sun came out, they went to work.  Bees will take out whatever honey is left in the comb and return it to the hive.  The comb gets cleaned out, and the bees get an easy feed.  We like it because it strengthens the colony, doesn't waste any of the precious honey the bees have already made, and cleans the residue out of the comb with minimal work on our part.  Win win!

Another day of good weather (that's two in a row -  a rarity this spring!) and the beeswax will be ready to go in the solar wax melter.  Thursday promises to be warm and sunny, so we will get a first true test of our new tool.  I'm looking forward to watching the wax melt.  Hey, that's what we do for fun here in East Pomona!

Honey Harvest

We did our first real honey harvest this morning.  We had a super (upper box in the hive) full of honey which we had left over the winter, but which the bees haven't eaten.  Since the flow is upon us (or would be if it would ever warm up!) and they still have plenty of honey in the hive, we took off the super to make room for more empty ones to catch the honey yet to come.

This was a box of foundationless frames, meaning that instead of  a piece of plastic with the honey comb shape molded on it upon which the bees draw comb, these were empty frames with just a strip of wood at the top to act as a comb guide.  The idea is that the bees will line up their comb with the strip of wood, building it all within the plane of the frame, at least that's what the books say.  Unfortunately, the bees never read the book.  The comb was wonky, a term beekeepers use for comb which is built across two or more frames, or for any comb which doesn't fit neatly into the space of the frame.  Some of this ran across five frames, making it a challenge to remove.

We knew this comb was wonky, as it had been there since last summer.  Normally, the plan is to catch wonky comb as it is being built, then straighten it out so it is all within the frame, resulting in ten frames of parallel comb.Unfortunately, by the time we caught it, the whole box was built out, and the comb was full of honey.  At the same time, we had to deal with some health issues, and wonky comb became a much lower priority.  So we decided to leave it for the bees and extract what they didn't eat whenever we could get to it.

Some of the comb went directly into storage containers as comb honey.  If you've never eaten honey straight from the comb, you've really missed out.  There is truly nothing like it in this world.  The rest of the comb was crushed to extract the honey.

This extraction is being done via the crush-and-strain method, whereby we crush the honey-filled comb and place it in a mesh bag to drain into a plastic bucket.  This draining will take a day or two.  Once it is complete, the bag will contain the remaining beeswax, still covered with a layer of honey.  We will put this out for the bees to clean up.  They do a very good job of taking the honey off of the wax and storing it in the hive.  This way, nothing goes to waste.

The wax will then go into our solar wax melter to be rendered and refined.  The result will be several jars of pure, fresh honey, and a good chunk of new beeswax.  We are already looking ahead to the products we can make with the beeswax from our hives. 

Honey Bee Swarms

Dear Friends of Ruth and John:

We could use your help.  As you probably know, we’ve taken up beekeeping, and we’re having a pretty good time of it so far.  In the next week or so, the bees will begin swarming, and that’s where you come in.

Bees form new colonies by swarming, whereby the old queen and about half the worker bees take off and look for a new home.  Rather than find a new home first and going directly to it, the swarm alights somewhere, usually a branch, but occasionally on another object.  This swarm, usually about the size of a football, forms a compact mass which will hang around for a few hours or up to a few days while the scout bees go out looking for a new place for the colony to build their new home.  We’d like to collect that swarm and give it a home in our apiary.

 

If you see a swarm, please let us know ASAP.  We will need:

-           The address

-           The placement of the swarm, i.e., in a tree, in a bush, on a fence, on a building, etc.

-             The height from the ground

-            Permission of the property owner

-            If possible, a picture

If we can, we’ll be right out to hive the swarm before it can fly away.  If we can’t, we’ll pass the word on to another beekeeper to come and collect it and give the bees their best chance at survival.

If you see a swarm, please call me at 618-713-4101.  We would be ever so grateful.