Burned Out Smoker

Burned Out Smoker

Even experienced beekeepers will tell you one of the hardest skills to develop as a beekeeper is keeping one's smoker going.

A smoker is a soup-can like shape with a lid and bellows attached to keep the small fire inside going as beekeepers inspect their hives. One theory is the smoke keeps bees busy gorging on honey to escape the hive. Another theory is that the smoke calms the bees. Regardless of theories, smoke does move bees out of an area.

I inherited a very old smoker when I started keeping bees in 2010. The smoker was part of several pieces of used equipment I purchased from a local commercial beekeeper. No skep, as I had initially thought I would get, but he did "throw in" the used smoker. Although the smoker had seen better days, I didn't have the heart to give it up. It was my first smoker, who doesn't think of their first one as being special!

Keeping the fire going inside the soup can is an art form. After trying a number of items, from pinecones and dry mulch to newspapers and twine, I found it worked best as long as I could use pine needles and had the patience to get it properly started.

Once a fire is taking off, it helps to tilt the smoker to one side and gently puff oxygen through it. Not too much, just enough to keep the fire going so smoke getd produced and some embers get formed at the bottom.

Recently I was cleaning out the old smoker and noticed that the little metal table at the bottom, which allows oxygen to circulate, has a hole burned through it. When it cooled off enough for me to remove it, the little circle also appeared to be loosing a couple of legs so soon the grate surface won't give the bottom of the smoker enough clearance for oxygen.

Guess it may be time to put a smoker on my Christmas list.

What do you use to keep your smoker going?

Charlotte

Prospective Beekeeper Gift

One of the beekeeping books I recommend to new beekeepers.

The wife of my step nephew contacted me a few weeks before his birthday. She had bought him a bee hive and wanted to know where to find bees for his birthday gift.

He had never kept bees before so I suggested she instead add a good beekeeping book to his beekeeping gifts first and donated one of my favorites, Diana Sammataro and Alphonse Avitabile's The Beekeeper's Handbook, fourth edition.

I picked up a copy from Bluebird Gardens' supply for Rolla Bee Club students and added a card about our next meeting date. Getting to know other beekeepers and learning about local conditions is a critical part of being a successful beekeeper.

Adding a gift tag and Bluebird Gardens gifts label completed the beekeeping book gift-wrapping.

Once gift-wrapped, it was just a matter of adding a gift tag, ribbon and label, and getting it delivered before the birthday candles were lit.

Happy birthday, Nathan!

Charlotte

Good Use of Beekeeping Pants

My beekeeping pants wrapped around a compact apple tree to fend off spring frost.

I bought the beekeeping pants early in my beekeeping career, a lightweight white fabric designed to keep honeybees from stinging. 

I may have worn them once since I bought them, preferring either a pair of white chinos or worn jeans with a beekeeping jacket and built-in veil. 

When I heard the March 24, 2016 weather forecast for a deep frost, I decided to wrap my blooming compact fruit trees to try to salvage the blooms. As I ran out of towels and lightweight blankets, the pants caught my eye. This is a compact dwarf apple tree wrapped up for the frosty evening.

If you are a hobby beekeeper, skip the pants when buying your beekeeping clothing. Your trees may wear them more often than you do!

Charlotte

Using Recycled Suet Holders for Sugar Patties

Most bird suet is packed in clear plastic containers that can easily be recycled.

I stumbled on this idea but it turned out to be a good one.

I had just dried several clear plastic suet containers to save flower seeds from my garden in later. I like the size because I can line them up on a cookie sheet and easily keep my drying seeds separated.

As I remembered my beekeeping friend David was going to have eye surgery, I decided to make sugar patties for late winter feeding in case it was necessary. David had kept my bees in winter food last fall after I had broken my right wrist so this was a good opportunity to return the favor.

David's recipe was for pie tin size sugar patties. After a little trial and error, I came up with the right combination of sugar and water so the patties dried out enough to be moved but were not so dry to make it difficult for bees to eat it.

The recycled clear suet containers came in handy to hold the sugar patties.

After a couple of days sitting in my oven to dry, the sugar patties were ready to provide late winter food to David's colonies. 

Here is one of the sugar patties David made in a pie tin for my bees:

Bees eat sugar late winter when they run out of honey supplies.

Either container will work, the bees don't seem to prefer one container over the other. The advantage of the suet containers is that they can easily be stacked against one another for easy storage.

Charlotte

Choosing Hive Paint

There are a number of ways you can get paint for your bee hives. I started by raiding my own leftover paint stash in my garage, where I found a half gallon of white primer paint ready for treating my hive bodies.

My friend David, who has his hives color-coordinated, shared his leftover tester paints available in small jars that will cover 6 deeps or 8 mediums. Each jar cost around $3.

Most paint and hardware stores also have a section with paints customers rejected. Those paint cans usually have a smudge of the paint color on the top and have been marked down for a quick sale.

Whatever paint you use, make sure it's a water-based paint and allow hive bodies to dry for several weeks before using. Even though paint is sold as usable within 24 hours, hives need a little time in the sun to fully dry or you will have more than propolis to try to pry apart when you are moving hive bodies.

If you can't wait, go ahead and use the hives but understand they may stick together because the paint hasn't cured.

Why no, it's not true bee hives have to be painted white. Who told you that?

Charlotte

Building Up, and Up, and...

It's spring and honeybees are busy building wax comb so they can expand their numbers.

One of the challenges beekeepers have is deciding when it is time to add a new story to the hive. Some say when 80% of the frames are full of bees it is time to expand.

Bees themselves have their own way of letting beekeepers know when they need more room. They start building comb straight up from the top of the frames.

They look ready for more room, don't you think?

Charlotte

One-Handed Bandage

There are a number of unusual items in the beekeeping bucket I carry around when I visit my honeybees. The latest one are these one-handed bandages I can easily apply when I get a cut.

I discovered the bandages when I was treating skin cuts as the result of an allergic reaction to benzoic acid, a component of essential oils I use when feeding my honeybees. The cuts become nerve-ending deep so until they seal, I have to cover them with bandages to reduce the pain.

If you've ever tried to apply a regular bandage, you know it's not easy with just one hand.

These new bandages have packaging designed that first, easily exposes the bandage and secondly, allows for easy, one-handed application.

It's the little things that make me very happy. And pain free!

Charlotte