Charlotte's sweet beekeeping adventures at Bluebird Gardens
Bees keep the hive inside at 90F since they're also managing a nursery.
To help bees keep the hive warm in winter, and to minimize intruders like mice, beekeepers close hive entrances with "entrance excluders." I also pop the excluder on if temperatures get too cold some spring nights.
Once danger of frost is over, the excluders are removed until fall. I also re-attach excluders when we have warnings of major storms and hail damage.
I lost about 1,000 bees the first year I had two hives due to hail hitting the hive entrance at an angle.
Charlotte
Bees will visit pollen sources within 2 miles radius of their hive.
Before setting up hives, make sure you know what's within those two miles. Access to high levels of pesticides will contribute to your bee colony's failure. Recent studies confirm exposure to nicotinoids disorient bees and may contribute to whole colonies disappearing in what's been generally called colony collapse disorder.
On the other hand, if you want to treat your bees to favorite sources of pollen, scientists have also determined bees prefer plants in yellow and blue tones, such as perennial Midnight Blue Salvia, which are long blooming and will re-bloom if spent blooms are removed.
One of my honeybees has found salvia planted close to the bee hive.
Charlotte
It would have helped if I had been a Girl Scout.
This was the hardest thing I had to learn, how to make a sustainable fire in basically a 16 oz soup can with a lid. The smoker helps a beekeeper distract bees long enough to safely access the hive.
To make a fire, I use dried orange peels as fire starters, then add dried twigs from around the yard. Once coals have developed, I add dried leaves to generate smoke.
Stories vary on what smoke does to bees, from making them panic and horde honey to just distracting them. Smoke is applied around them, not on bees.
I've also been known to apply smoke around my head. I wouldn't recommend it as a substitute for perfume.
Charlotte
One of the most wonderful scenes at a bee hive is the arrival of bees "packing pollen."
Bees will fly about 2 miles from the hive to find a pollen source. After getting their leg pouches full of pollen, bees will fly back to the hive and sometimes literally fall into the hive with their heavy baggage. Their pollen-filled legs are obvious as they slide into the hive entrance.
Once they lighten the load, they do a little waggle dance to communicate to other bees where they found pollen.
Pollen is the basic ingredient bees use to make honey.
Charlotte
You know you have your doctor's full attention when he walks into the examining room, glares - hands on hips - and declares "BEES???"
Well, not "B-E-E-S, " more like one itty bitty little angry honeybee; ok, maybe two, but nothing like a huge, gigantic, woman-eating swarm or anything. Scientists have now confirmed bees have feelings so I'm thinking this was one, very hot, and VERY surly little honeybee that stung me on my right cheek. I don't recommend it instead of Botox but hey, it does get rid of wrinkles. I was harvesting my second batch of honey, moving the most beautifully-full honey frames from the hive to outside my garage door. I had moved four of the six frames into the kitchen, leaving two frames of honey in an empty hive box outside. Make a note - NOT a good idea.
Wild bees are as important to our garden and food diversity as European honeybees.
Recent research confirms wild bees are major contributors to pollination, and they are also dying in record numbers. Wild bees are pollinators that keep plants genetically-diverse while plants produce vegetables and fruits we enjoy eating.
Did you know wild bees pollinate tomatoes and peppers?
Butterflies are also part of the pollination cycle, moving pollen as they flit around flowers. Although they don't make honey, wild bees have a major part keeping our environment healthy, and delicious.
Charlotte
Bees also have natural predators, such as this red spider that spun her web next to one of my bee hives.
As bees flew in and out of the hive, they got caught in the web. The spider wove webbing around them until she could eat them.
I moved the spider once, only to find her back.
The second move was to the other side of the garden. Bees have enough of a challenge without becoming a spider's McBees right outside the hive.
Charlotte
Do you see what I first spotted after taking this picture?
Bottom right, at the front of the hive - a lizard. At first I thought oh no, another predator eating my bees!
After watching it for awhile, the lizard went back to its clean up patrol, eating dead bees along the front porch of the hive.
My bee mentor confirmed later that lizards play an important role around a hive, keeping the area clean.
Charlotte
One of the larger wild bees in my garden is the carpenter bee. The carpenter bee literally drills holes in wood to lay eggs and raise brood. About as big as a bumble bee with a smooth black back, these large, solitary bees flit from flower to flower with acrobatic grace, moving quickly, and sometimes dizzily, until they find a place to light.
This carpenter bee spies a nice grove of Missouri wildflowers Virginia Cowslip, or Bluebells. I'm guessing these lovely wildflowers would look like giant trees to a carpenter bee...
Do you see carpenter bees in your garden?
Charlotte
According to US Department of Agriculture, beekeepers loose about 30 percent of their hives during winter. Although there are a number of theories why honeybees are dying in record numbers - one out of every three fruit or vegetable we eat is courtesy of honeybee pollination - not having enough good pollen sources is sometimes mentioned as one of the factors. After getting my two honeybee hives settled in, I thought I would find a list of favorite honeybee plants and start adding them to my garden. It wasn't that easy.
My assignment was to find one of my honeybee queens and (sigh) kill her. One of my two honeybee hives had been struggling. The verdict from more experienced beekeepers was that my queen bee - she's the only one in the hive of 40,000 plus honeybees that lays - is not laying her 1,200 eggs or so a day so she needs to be removed. Normally a queen bee will live 4-5 years, as opposed to a worker bee's 6 weeks of life producing 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey.
Want to help honeybees?
Stop using pesticides and plant a wildflower, or three. Purdue University researchers have found nicotine-based pesticides are contributing to 1/3 of honeybees - and wild bees - dying each year. Lack of habitat has also been a factor so plant a variety of native plants so bees will have something blooming all year.
Why?
Besides all the benefits of having honeybees in a garden, bees - both honeybees and wild bees - are also responsible for pollinating 2/3 of all of our food.
Eye-opening, isn't it?
Plant yellow and blue flowers, those are bees favorites!
Charlotte
Honey is made by bees in one of the world’s most efficient facilities, the beehive. The 60,000 or so bees in a beehive may collectively travel as much as 55,000 miles and visit more than two million flowers to gather enough nectar to make just a pound of honey!
The color and flavor of honey differs depending on the bees’ nectar source, the blossoms. In fact, there are more than 300 unique kinds of honey in the United States, originating from such diverse floral sources as Clover, Eucalyptus and Orange Blossoms.
In general, lighter colored honeys are mild in flavor, while darker honeys are usually more robust in flavor.
Charlotte
When I started keeping honeybees in 2010, I had no intention of falling in love. Bees, I thought, would be fun to add to the garden to help plant pollination.
I now teach and lecture on beginning beekkeeping and started a bee club to help beekeepers share and learn from each other.
I’m also developing my own lines of honey and bee-related products, not to mention being hooked on my own homemade whipped honey.
Have you tried it yet?
Beekeeping Information & Tips
