walking in forgiveness

working with bees is about so much more than just working with bees. it's about self-governance, attentiveness, patience, and faith. sometimes it is even about learning to walk in forgiveness.

and nowadays it even involves an epipen...

well, another interesting experience. i tried - against advice and against my better judgement - to load my observation hive after dark last sunday night. the boys and i were scheduled to give a demonstration to some school age children early monday morning, which meant leaving before the bees were up. andy was also scheduled to leave town for a couple of days early that morning. i needed his help, so we also had to work around his schedule.

it just wasn't a perfect situation, so i had to choose between a rock and a hard place. i could either: 1. stress the bees by loading them the afternoon before in the rain and adding more stress by keeping them penned up for too long, or 2. stress the bees by opening the hive at night, but keeping their confinement to a minimum.

i went with curtain number 2.

i passed the point of no return the moment i popped the super off the top. those bees just started boiling out! (this is where self-governance comes in. a little voice in the back of my head just kept urging me to "RUN"!)i feel certain that if i'd had a little more light i would have seen scowls on their grumpy little faces.

it was quite a humbling experience. of course i had suited up, but unfortunately, i zipped my hood AFTER i put my gloves on so i didn't realize that i hadn't sealed the velcro around the zipper securely. (aha, "attentiveness"!) bees like to crawl at night. they CAN fly, but they seem to prefer crawling as their mode of transportation after the sun goes down. well, 4 or 5 of those angry girls crawled right through that gap and let me have it. those bees were completely different creatures from the girls that i meet every couple of weeks out in the sunshine...kind of like that movie a few years ago with the cute little animals you weren't supposed to feed after dark... "gremlins" i think.

reader's digest version is: i spent the next 48 hours dealing with the symptoms of an allergic reaction in varying degrees. this was quite new to me, obviously unexpected, and VERY painful. ("patience" required. i knew it would pass, but it just wasn't passing quickly enough.)

by the time monday night rolled around and i was in the throes of a delayed reaction and it seemed that i had no one to turn to. (that's where forgiveness comes in.) but God has given me such wonderful friends. molly and jack came to the rescue! they drove 45 minutes or so to pick us up in the middle of the night - me, and two dogs, and two sleepy boys- and drove us back across town to spend the night with them. they gave me peace of mind and help in time of need. the comfort that gave me can never be overstated...

we didn't make it to the demonstration that day, which was a disappointment for all of us. but, God blessed me once again through Laney. i had to get the bees OUT of the observation hive and back into the brood box with the rest of the colony, but i certainly wasn't up for another encounter yet. Laney drove all the way down here just to let them out and put the brood frame back where it belonged. andrew was right there with him, watching and helping when he could. he's a brave little guy, and loves learning about the bees. he very gallantly informed me that if indeed i am allergic to bees, not to worry because HE would take care of them!

so much to be thankful for.

and now i am required to walk in faith. i will wait a few weeks for my antibodies to build up again, then go for allergy testing. i will not borrow trouble and worry about the results. i just have to trust that God is in this.

as always...

(notes from dec 31)

"as always", when i finally got into the hives i was surprised.

polyxena christina and agnes both had more honey than they let on to - both about 50% full. a little of it looked newly capped, so that might be the sugar water i have been feeding them. (hogs) i'm not giving them any more free lunches.

and again, "as always", i worked polyxena christina first. they were a little agitated. agnes was very calm. i checked each honey frame in each super, and in both hives i pulled out 2 empty frames from the outside, moved some half full frames to those spots and added 2 full honey frames that i had robbed and saved to the middle, over where i thought the brood frames were. ( i had an idea of where they might be because i had peeked in the entrance with a flashlight a few nights ago and saw that the bees were hanging on about 3 frames near the feeder. that showd me where the brood would be.) agnes had 2 supers on her. the bottom one was empty so i removed it. i set the partially empty frames on the ground beside the hives so the bees could rob them out. when they are dry i will cover and store with moth crystals.

both p.c. & a. had lots of activity in the honey super, and LOTS of bees covering about 4 frames in the brood box. however, i did not find any larvae or brood at all in p.c. and only saw 1 capped cell in agnes' hive. (which was hatching out at the moment i saw it btw!)

got into esther last. she has 2 supers on. the bottom one is 50% full, top about 75%. she had lots of bees. they seemed to be getting agitated too, so i briefly checked the brood box. found 2 full frames of brood, then put everything back together and left them alone.

did not see any queens, but i was trying not to linger any longer than necessary.

of course hindsight is 20/20, right? so now i'm thinking that i should have stayed in esther a little while longer, checked for more brood and moved some to p.c. and a.

sometimes i wonder if my little grey cells go on vacation without notifying me first.

rain, rain, go away!

(notes from december 28, 2009)

well, first a little update...

a week or so after finding 2 hives with no brood, laney came over and lo and behold - we were in the baby bee business! both hives had larvae and agnes even had capped brood. she must have had some larvae in there that i missed last time.

the rain had prevented me from getting in the hives for a couple of weeks, so on dec 16 i checked them all just by lifting the backs of the boxes and felt the 2 to be alarmingly light. esther was heavier, but she also has one more super than the others. she was considerably heavier though, so i think some of the weight was due to honey. i ended up feeding polyxena christina and agnes starting dec 17 (i think), then the 23, then again today, the 28th.

of course i worried when i felt how light the hives were - big character flaw. keeping bees is part of the cure. i am constantly being humbled, both by the miracle of God's design and by my own ineptness. when i was a little girl, i believed that life was a storybook and every day was a different page. recently, i heard it said that God has this wonderful drama, a great story, going on. at all times, it is either a comedy or a tragedy. the question is, how will i act in either situation? adds a new dimension to that old saying about hindsight and perfect vision.

ok, back to the bees...it was too rainy to get into the hives, so i went out after dark when i knew all the bees would be in the box, and peered in the bottom with a flashlight. saw girls in both hives, hanging from the bottoms of what was probably 3 frames, maybe 4. relief! i was afraid i had let them starve.

now, i have about 8 frames of honey that i robbed (and saved) back in the fall when i was preparing to treat for mites. i'm wondering if i should divide those evenly between the supers on both hives, and if so, should the placement be directly above the brood frames that are active, even if the placement of the brood frames seems to be kind of lopsided? or if the super is indeed empty, should i remove the super and hang the shallow honey frames down in the brood box on either side of the active brood frames? if i do add shallow frames to the brood box, what are the chances of the bees building comb in the empty space at this time of year?

also, i've been reading about splits, and have had lots of interesting potential "technique" questions for laney. i THINK i will add another hive this year. if i do, i will space the hives evenly on two benches. that means that agnes' hive will have to move about 8 feet. is that a big enough move to disorient the workers? and if so, should i then move the hive far away for a while before repositioning? i've heard and read that if you move the hive farther away than right next to where it started, you have to first move it miles away for a month or so, then move it back to the new position at your apiary. something to do with reprogramming their little gps systems.

guessing game

(notes from november 8, 2009)

one thing that this year has shown me is that no matter how interesting it seems, i am in no way ready to start rearing queens. luckily, all my girls so far have been pretty forgiving of my wacky unpredictable schedule. tried to get in them a couple of times last week, and SOMETHING always got in the way - including a trip to the er to get wil tyler's thumb x-rayed after an encounter with a hungry donkey.

well, polyxena christina faked me out again. once again, i was worried about her b/c there seemed to be SO little activity going in and out of the hive. (i don't know if i mentioned this before, but i found wax moths in her beetle trap last time i visited, which was another cause for concern.)

so this is what i found today...

1. POLYXENA CHRISTINA:

-a light super. i actually realized afterwards that i didn't inspect it, but there was definitely honey in it, though not much.

-lots of very busy bees in the brood box.

-no capped brood or larvae, and heaven knows i can't see the eggs, so who knows if there were eggs in there.

-lots of pollen and uncapped nectar.

-several emergency cells and one queen cell that i feel certain actually hatched. i'm guessing the others were cannibalized after polyxena christina the 4th or 5th hatched.

i did not see the queen. if a new one hatched, it had to have hatched recently based on the absence of larvae. they also had to be queenless for a while. last tuesday the 3rd was my 2 week mark to re-treat with apiguard. so, 17 days ago she had capped brood but i'm almost she had no larvae since i didn't make note of any.

now they've got me playing a guessing game. isn't this unusual? (the bee behavior, not mine - i'm always guessing it seems!)am i supposed to have brood at this time of year? i know the colony dwindles, but shouldn't they keep a few brood coming on to replace they dying ones?? so what in the world is going on? why would they hatch a new queen this time of year? it's not like she was an OLD girl!

2.AGNES:

-lots of very busy bees as well.

-no capped brood or larvae.

-a couple of emergency cells.

-uncapped nectar and lots of pollen. - bright orange and white. haven't seen white before.

-nectar and capped honey in super.

-i did not see the queen.

3.ESTHER:

esther had a bit of a surprise for me. remember that i put spacers above each brood box to allow for the mite treatment. when i removed the supers i found that they had built new comb diagonally across the frames, and there was capped brood in it! i didn't get into the brood box b/c i didn't want to disturb that new brood. what in the world is she doing? she apparently didn't get the memo that comb building only happens in the spring flow.

what to do? according to Laney, if i don't have a laying queen right now, my colony only has about a 50% chance of surviving the winter. i did see evidence of a new queen in polyxena christina's hive, so i feel confident that she'll get things underway soon. not sure about agnes. obviously esther is doing fine! in fact, i could wait until the brood in the new comb above the frames hatches, and then transfer a frame or two of brood from esther to the other girls - IF esther has enough to spare.

i did find out later that i probably should have treated for mites a few weeks earlier. there have been reports that, among other things, it stops queens from laying. also found out that this automatic re-queening -by the colony, not the keeper- seems to be the trend these days.

fruits of their labor

honeybee hot air balloons,

albuquerque, nm

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the boys worked hard all summer, taking care of the bees with me...extracting honey...selling honey and "bee happy lemonade"at the port city farmers market...

the pensacola news journal ran a snapshot of the boys at their lemonade stand earlier in the summer, and did a wonderful piece on us in late august or early september. what a huge compliment!

we decided to use the funds earned from all that hard work to take an educational field trip - not a vacation, a "field trip". here are a few snapshots from our 2 week excursion...

cerrillos, nm

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adrian, texas

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cadillac ranch, amarillo, tx

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wt helps anchor the honeybee hot air balloons...

all 48 pounds of him

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hot air balloon festival

albuquerque, nm

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half-way point on route 66

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palo duro canyon texas

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andrew reading the book of james to us at bedtime

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cerrillos, nm

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sandia peak, nm

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tent rocks, nm

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santa fe, nm

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welcome to the world

(notes from september 3, 2009)

a great day working bees with laney. we got to see several workers hatch, but i was the only one celebrating. there wasn't a little welcoming committee waiting for the newbies to hatch... no cake, no banners, no marching band. not even a pat on the back. they just climbed out and got right to work! hmmm, might be a lesson in this...

look closely and you will see larvae at different stages. they progress in a fairly orderly fashion from younger larvae at the bottom of the frame to capped brood at the top of the frame.


capped brood with one working her way out...


closer view of the new arrival...

the cell on the top right is working her way out all on her own. the one on the left had a little help. she was just beginning to hatch when i peeled back the cap with a pencil point so i could photograph her emerging.
a curious nurse bee. wonder if she is giving the baby her assignment in bee-speak...


notice that she is blonder than the older nurse bee. she also has more hair on her thorax, which often, but not always indicates younger bees. she'll stay in the hive for about a month before she graduates to "forager".
and she's on her way.

math and biology questions

(notes from august 22, 2009)


got in esther's hive yesterday and rejoiced! i found many larvae, a few capped brood cells, and a queen cell. but then i got to thinking (uh-oh, here we go) and it doesn't make sense.


doug, the state inspector, was here on mon aug 10 and we found no eggs, larvae and only a few capped brood cells, if any, i would have to check my notes to recall for sure...and 2 queen cells ready to hatch. yesterday was day 11. google says avg developmental period is 16 days, and start of maturity is 23 days and up.

so i'm trying to figure an earliest case scenario.... if we count day 1 as the day she was laid as an egg, and if she hatched out of the egg the very day that doug was here, then aug 10 would be day 16. that would make day 23, the start of maturity, mon aug 17. if she mated right away and started laying eggs, then the eggs would become larvae by thurs aug 20. that means that when i saw them friday they would only be day old larvae... i don't know how big day old larvae should be, but these looked kind of big, which makes me a little suspicious.


i have heard talk of laying workers, but i don't know what that looks like. can a worker lay an egg that will develop? i know it would be a sterile egg, but if those eggs could develop, would those eggs then become drones? (found out later that yes, these bees would be drones and that a laying worker will lay in a spotty pattern often with several eggs per cell. however, a worker will not usually start laying until the hive has been queenless for about 35-40 days.)



it should be clear now why i chose to study art in college rather than math or science.



also of interest... after i brought the swarm home, and dried everything out and put it away for storage, i left one frame out. there were about 15 bees that seemed so content on there. i wanted to see what they would do. eventually they capped off a cell, looked like a drone cell. i opened it up today and lo and behold there was one little bee that probably would have hatched out in a day or 2. what's up with that? did a worker lay that egg? or is it possible that the queen that i euthanized laid that egg while she was in the box for about a day? i shook the bees off in front of the hives but they didn't want to go back in. will check on them tomorrow and see if they are still hovering where the frame used to be.



as laney says, this is my year for recording "bench marks". they are really keeping me guessing.

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(notes from august 26, 2009)
P.S.

i dont think esther could have been gone that long, but i can't prove it either, so i'm thinking she was seduced at 23d. i guess someday when i have the time to closely observe the hive on a daily basis, i'll learn how to spot a 4d,5d,6d,7d,8 day old larva. i did scrape off some brood cells from the bottom of the frames when doug was here and stuck them in the deep freeze for the boys to dissect someday soon, so i went and checked on them to compare what i remember about the size of the larvae in the hive and the size in the freezer...the ones in the freezer were much bigger, filled up the whole cell. the ones in the hive looked big to me at the time, but they were still way down in the cell, so maybe what i'm seeing is the difference of 4 days...

since they were all laid together in a nice pattern in the center of the frame, i'm thinking they will be of royal birth! so now i can get back to my rejoicing...

inspection

had my annual inspection last week. another friend, chris, who is interested in keeping bees, came over to observe. all is well. healthy bees, found a few mites, and agnes had beetles, too, but over all, everyone is healthy. the inspector went ahead and dusted with powdered sugar while he was in the hives. (this makes the bees groom themselves and knocks the mites off.) agnes is the only one without a screen bottom board and beetle trap. we'll work on improving her living quarters soon.

they all 3 had full supers ready to rob, but i think i will leave them on for now. if we have a super heavy fall flow and they manage to fill up another, then i may rob. otherwise i want to leave them with enough honey to make it through the winter without having to feed them.

much to my surprise, i found that agnes has been replaced, so now we have Queen Agnes II, Queen Polyxena Christina I, and NO QUEEN ESTHER! based on the number of bees he saw in the hive, the inspector said that esther had swarmed, but left about 40% of the colony behind. there were no new eggs, no larvae, no capped brood, but there were 2 "ripe" queen cells, ready to hatch.

so, from the date of inspection it should be about 3 weeks before i start seeing any new workers i think. i'll have to watch her and make sure she hatches and gets to work laying eggs. hopefully she will, and her colony will be strong enough to make it through the winter. if not, if the colony doesnt' re-build itself, i'll have to combine her girls with one of the other queens.

now agnes is a different matter. no swarm involved there, just the old moving over to make room for the young i think. a very healthy hive. that's the one i have always wondered about. it has always seemed to have fewer bees than the other 2.

and old polyxena christina is still alive and kicking! - something that i found very interesting...and i would not have understood this last year, but the bees really do get to know their keeper. i could tell a difference in the attitude of the bees when the inspector was working with them.

they were agitated, not aggressive, but definitely agitated. the inspector said it was him, that the bees knew me and how i handle them, and they were not pleased with the way he was handling them. i have to agree. after working with these colonies for the last six months i guess we have gotten to know each other. that can also work to my detriment! for example, it took agnes' girls a few weeks to get over being upset with me for botching the "robbing job" i did back in the early part of the summer. every time i got into the hives they would fuss at me and buzz around with attitudes - no kidding. lucky for me, bees don't have a real long life expectancy, and "collective memory" only goes so far.

swarm!

had another first - caught a swarm!

i heard through a series of emails that a friend of mine, rhonda, had a swarm of bees bearding in a tree in her back yard. i had never caught one before but was very excited at the opportunity! i wanted the experience of catching a swarm, and i liked the idea of adding some new bees to agnes' hive, the weaker of my 3.

rhonda had been out of town for a few days, so she didn't have any idea of how long the bees had been there. now, there's a lot about beekeeping that i don't know yet, but there's even more that i don't know about catching swarms. however, i do know that they can be a bit unpredictable. it might be that you gather equipment and support troops, then make the trek to the area where they were spotted -only to find that their scouts have already done their job well and the whole colony has taken off to live happily ever after in the wild blue yonder. add to that, these bees had just weathered a pretty severe storm the night before i arrived, so i thought that perhaps the bad weather might make them more likely to jump at the chance to leave...

lucky for me, this was not the case. catching this swarm took place over a couple of days. unfortunately, cliff and laney - the dynamic duo - couldn't join me, so i was afraid i was going to have to fly solo. turns out i was anxious over nothing. ( i can hear the "i told you so('s)" now) rhonda is such a bee enthusiast, she was right there with me through the whole thing and it was fun! and of course i didn't go into this without an extensive email exchange with laney asking for advice and how-to's.

i had no idea what the temperament of the bees would be, so we chose to err on the side of caution. the bees were only about 4 feet off the ground, bearding on an oak branch. we VERY CAREFULLY cut the branch off, then VERY SLOWLY trimmed it down and VERY GENTLY placed it in the brood box with 5 wet frames and put the lid on. (wet frames = frames that still had a little honey on them after extraction)

here's where i made a mistake...i didn't screen off the entrance. i left it open thinking that the bees that were out foraging would find their way into the hive by evening and i would come back after dark to bring them all home.

well, by the time i had my gear packed up and had chatted a few minutes with rhonda, we looked out at the trees and saw a suspiciously large, agitated cloud of bees flying around under the tree again.

that ungrateful queen had left her new luxury condo to rough - it in the tree again! (this time 8 feet up) this abandonment did let me get a good look at the branch we had cut off... found that they had already started building comb on it, so apparently they were pretty content to stay put.

day 2, bring in the reinforcements, namely - andy and a ladder.

this time we misted them with water so they would be less likely to fly away. it all went smoothly. same thing as day 1, just screened the entrance, loaded them into the back of the truck and took them home.

kept them locked in the brood box with their wet frames and in the shade all day. at times throughout the day i walked out on the deck to check the activity. my bees seemed to go through cycles of agitation and peace. one moment there would be hundreds of bees zipping through the air and trying to crawl through the entrance screen. the next moment they would all be gone!

the next day, i opened up the swarm box. (rhonda came over for this part, too!) this was the sad part. i had to find the queen and kill her. andy took care of it for me and did it in a humane way. he euthanized her in a mason jar with a rag soaked in gasoline. so now the boys have a beautiful queen bee on the nature table to look at anytime!

so after we found the queen i opened agnes' hive and spritzed her girls down with sugar water. i then spritzed the swarm and simply shook as many bees into their new home as i could. what few remained in the swarm box were also spritzed, and i set the box over in the sun with the other wet supers that the bees were cleaning up.

no scuffles at all. everybody seems to be getting along just fine, so... mission accomplished.