First Honey Harvest - July 11th 2009

First, I have to clear the bees out of the supers. I chose to use a fume book with Bee Quick sprayed on the inner lining. It is supposed to smell "less bad" compared to other types.

The bees immediately started making their "very unhappy" buzz, but did not coming flying out the front after me. After leaving it on top of the super for about 4 minutes, they were mostly out.

There were still a few clinging to the honey on the bottom, but a leaf blower cleared them out, leaving them slightly stunned in the grass. ;)

After about a half-hour, I had cleared everyone out of all 4 supers and headed over to the Parris' house for extracting.

Getting the supers off was the hard part. Now the fun begins, starting with the "cap scratching."
Here is a pristine frame of honey, nicely capped, just pulled from the super.

Scratch, scratch, scratch...

Then it goes into the extractor. Here's the before shot with lots of dripping honey.

And after the spin cycle...

I was lucky to not have a single blowout (where the centrifugal force rips the foundation from the frame). A few hours later, we open the flood gate and out pours the fruits of their labor.

Straining, and bottling was done the next day.

And the end result: 4.25 gallons nicely packaged.

The bees got to enjoy the strained wax cappings spread out on a cookie sheet. It was quite a scene!

Dangerous Work

Our loveable yard man, Jerry Jackson, recently showed up wearing a rain slicker despite the weather being sunny and hot. When I asked him about it, he said he had gotten stung twice the prior week and was being careful. He then jokingly said, "You know bees don't like black people." I about lost it from laughing. Feeling guilty, I told him to stop cutting about 15 feet from the front of the hives and I would cut the rest. A picture is worth a thousand words...





I did give the guards a few puffs from the smoker before starting and I managed to burn the heck out of my little finger.

Quite a blister! Ouch!

Night Fever, Night Fever (Bee Gees)

As the summer nights get warmer and more humid, more and more of the girls are starting to "chill out" on the landing area of the hive stand and the front face of the hive. Check it out:


A close up of the entrance:

Another friend joins the ranks...

Last night, I went down to Grant Park to help my friend Ozzie install his two nucs.
Aside from having problems getting the smoker fuel to generate any smoke, it was completely by the book. Here's Ozzie getting his suit on.

Nope, still no smoke. Let's try to light it again. :)

The bees were very calm compared to mine, which made life easier. The frames were well stocked with brood.

One down and one to go.

Wait for the shake...

Of course, after we were all done, the smoker started working.

Overall, a good time. Burgers and beers for all after we finished. We did have one casualty, however, when Oz's girlfriend got stung on the cheek. Ouch.

Baby Beekeeper!

My sister had her first baby on Monday, April 6th, making me a proud Uncle. Please welcome Charlie Brunt to the future beekeeper's club!!

Swarm Insanity

Jumpin' Jeebus, have I had swarm fun. I have gone from two hives to five in 7 days. Here are the photos from this morning's capture. I had to buy a new Nuc box from P.N. this morning to house them. This group was clumped on the fence between my house and the neighbors.





Once I got them into the cardboard box and let them calm down, then transfer into the Nuc box was a cinch.


Here's the latest picture of my ever-growing bee yard...


Happy Easter!!

Swarm Saturday!

A really cool thing happened during morning tea on Saturday. While I was sitting in between the two new Nuc-based hives, one of them decided to swarm. I had captured a swarm cluster several weeks ago, but seeing it happen was unbelievable. Judge for yourself.

Here are some still photos.

I rushed down to Forest Park and bought a new box but by the time I got back, they had "disappeared." Right before I left it appeared that they were trying to "go back in."

Strangely enough, I ended up finding a Queen on the ground in front of the hive, so I grabbed her and put her in the new box with some other bees just to see what happens. The weather in Atlanta is getting so cold that she'll probably die anyway. We'll see.

Like son, like father...

My stories of the first year of keeping has prompted several friends and a family member to get into the act. My father received his bees from Walter T Kelley on Tuesday and got them installed in textbook fashion.

The queen was alive and well.


Syrup Spray got them ready to pour.

Pouring was "a little anti-climactic."

The final view of happy bees.

Time to add a super.

I went out to check on the hives late last week and found them to be slightly overcrowded.
Usually when I open the top, there are a few girls on the inner cover. As you can see in the photos, both hives had a lot of bees coming out of the top. I added a medium super to both and they immediately spread out.

Got me good.

I got tagged by a very ticked off guard bee yesterday while swapping out a feeder jar. Can you guess which hand? :)

Backyard Flight Patterns

It is a lot of fun to sit outside between the hives and watch the various flight patterns that they follow.

Swarm Checkup

The temperature got up into the 70s today in Atlanta and I was very interested to see how the swarm hive was doing. When I got home, there was still plenty of daylight *and* activity, so I decided to go ahead and clean out all of the leaves and things that got in when I scooped them all up off of the ground.


Once that was done, I put a hive-top feeder on, filled one side with 2:1 syrup and closed them up for an hour with the intention of checking it in an hour. When I came back, I was very pleased to see them take to it like crazy.


They were still too clumped together to try and find the queen, but hopefully I'll be able to find her this weekend.