Of Bees and Beers...

Package Bee Installation

2010-03-31T06:08:00.010-04:00

Spring is in the air here in the ATL and my 2010 bees arrived just in time. This year I bought two packages from the Walter Kelley company, hoping they would be less aggressive than last year's nucs from Moultrie, GA. They shipped from Kentucky on Saturday, arriving on my doorstep on Tuesday afternoon.

My coworker and fellow beek, Oz, came over to lend a hand, as neither of us had installed a package before.

It's a very straightforward, well-documented process, but neither of us was prepared for the number of bees that took flight. I quickly went from t-shirt and veil to "full monty" suit - getting tagged 3 times before I got changed. You can see all the airborne girls in these two shots.

Once suited up, everything went smoothly. Both queens were alive and well. I installed one and Oz took the second. We were done in less than an hour.

After a cold beer and dinner, I went back out to check on things and found everyone had gone inside for the night.

First Honey Harvest - July 11th 2009

2009-07-24T10:18:00.020-04:00

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

2009-06-15T09:00:00.006-04:00

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)

2009-05-28T10:10:00.005-04:00

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...

2009-04-21T20:55:00.010-04:00

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!

2009-04-12T00:38:00.002-04:00

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

2009-04-12T00:24:00.009-04:00

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!

2009-04-06T20:53:00.006-04:00

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...

2009-04-03T12:14:00.008-04:00

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.

2009-04-03T12:09:00.005-04:00

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.

2009-03-27T09:25:00.003-04:00

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

2009-03-18T21:00:00.005-04:00

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

Swarm Checkup

2009-03-17T20:48:00.004-04:00

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.

Capturing a Swarm

2009-03-14T16:49:00.010-04:00

My friend, Keith, got two nucs of bees last Sunday, just like I did. Last night I got a "911" text message from him with only one word: "swarm!" We can only speculate that one of the frames in one of the nucs had a queen cell that he missed during the transfer. I drove down to his farm in Merriweather county and saw what he was talking about.

They were on a branch about 10 feet from his two other hives. The picture above was taken after we had cut the branch down.

Luckily, I had an old 10-frame hive body with some drawn comb in it (foreground) that we could shake them into. They really did *not* want to leave that branch, so I used a bee brush to "sweep" most of them off.We got most of them off of the branch but there was still a large cluster left on the ground.

I had no idea where the queen was, so I decided to just scoop them up with my hands.

It was only 45 degrees outside at the time so they hardly moved during them move. I dropped them in the center of the frames, sealed up the hive and drove them back to Decatur. They make a nice addition to the bee yard.

Tuesday is supposed to be warm enough to check on them, so stay tuned...

Installing the Nucs.

2009-03-10T11:23:00.009-04:00

Monday afternoon was warm and sunny enough to try and move the Nucs into their new hives. I invited a fellow newbie bkpr over to the house to watch/photograph. Some neighbors and their kids came over to watch as well.

We heard the buzzing from the minute we pulled into the driveway. The source turned out to be my old 10 frame hive from last season (above photo). There are about 4 frames of capped honey still in it and they were determined to get in there.
Based on P.N.'s description of "these are stout nucs," I was a little concerned about their stress level, etc. They confirmed my worry by stinging me above my right eye before I could event get my gear on. (no photos, please).
I got my smoker lit in a hurry (I still don't understand why people have any issue with this). I use cedar shavings as fuel with some toilet paper as kindling. It works every time, see:

I opened up the first nuc to find more bees than I ever saw in my entire first season. The photo below is what they call "boiling with bees." They were pissed.

Once I figure out how to embed a slideshow, I'll post it. Here is the final shot before we closed up the second hive. Everyone seems happy for now.

A diet of sugar syrup will start for everyone tomorrow.

Bringing the Girls Home

2009-03-09T21:28:00.011-04:00

Last night at 6:30pm, I got the call from P.N. Williams that my nucs were in and ready to be picked up. I got in the car and drove down to Forest Park, about 30mins away. When my turn came, he asked if I had done this before, which I have, so he said "go put this one in your trunk." This is what he was talking about:

I loaded up 3 more just like it, only one of which had a screen, and headed back to Decatur. I fully expected to open my trunk to the mother-of-all-swarms, but instead I was greeted by this:

Instead of going into the hive on the ride home, they decided to come on out and play in the trunk. I let them rest for an hour, moved the boxes to the ground next to their new homes and went to bed.

This morning, I found a small group of girls that had decided to "spend the night" in the trunk. This is an overhead shot of the back of the Passat.

The bee suit went back on. I grabbed a bee brush and an LL Bean catalog and moved them to the back yard. Several sisters rode in to work with me, nonetheless. Later today, I plan to install the nucs into my new Brushy Mtn hives.