Packaged Clover Honey

Packaged clover honey at a hotel's in-house breakfast buffet.

Packaged Clover Honey

I was spending a weekend at a hotel in Kansas City, Missouri - well, Kansas, actually, just over the border - for a friend's son's wedding. The hotel was chosen because it was within 10 miles of all of the wedding-related venues - rehearsal dinner, wedding, wedding reception and bride and groom's new home.

It was a great opportunity to reconnect with friends I had not seen in awhile as well as a chance to meet my friend's family.

As we settled in for breakfast, I spotted the honey package on the buffet and helped myself to one. It was honey made in USA so I was reasonably assured it was real honey. I wondered in passing if Pooh Bear wondered if the honey he found was also real.

Although I try to stay away from applying heat to honey so that the beneficial enzymes in honey remain, it was the perfect addition to my lemon tea after a long day of parties and chaufferring.

I'm sure Winnie the Pooh would have approved.

Good morning!

Charlotte

Thought for Today

My honeybees after the hummingbird feeder sugar water at Bluebird Gardens.

"Lovely July…with the evocative murmur of honey bees on the wing and the smell of suntan cream." -- Cynthia Wickham

Charlotte

Comfortable Salem Swarm

The caller said the swarm was in her backyard tree and sure enough, there it is!

This is a typical swarm size.

2016 was a busy year for swarm calls. Every call had a twist and this one was no different. The lady in Salem, Mo. said she had been ill for the past week and only today looked outside her back door to find a bee swarm in her backyard tree.

As we removed the first bunch of bees, the comb they had built on the branch became apparent. These bees had been in the tree long enough to start building comb.

Comb on fruit tree branches under where the swarm was hanging.

We also found comb built on the back of tree leaves.

Once we scraped the comb off the tree limb, no bees returned to the swarm spot.

Brand new comb being built on the back of leaves.

Bees follow the queen into the hive under the careful watch of my bee buddy David. After we had most of the bees, we sealed up the front, tucked the hive in the back of the car and headed home.

The colony is doing well in its new home so far. 

Charlotte

Happy Mother's Day, girls!

My little nuc welcomes a new Russian queen just in time to celebrate Mother's Day.

It's my last little nuc of spring, or so I keep telling myself. My goal this year was to  have all hives queen-right before the flow AND host two extra queen bees, just in case. Easier said than done.

It's not the bees that were the problem; I had to get my mind around what colony had what queen swarm cells and when they might be hatching, a guess as good as divining with a crystal ball. Or so it seems.

After a number of different combinations, Mother's Day approached with only one nuc being queenless. It was a small number of bees so I was getting ready to combine them with a larger colony when I was able to buy a new Russian queen.

She's in the little white plastic queen tube with several worker bee attendants, waiting for worker bees to help her chew her way out of the sugar tube stopper.

I gave them a little help this morning by removing some of the sugar. After all, it is Mother's Day.

Happy Mother's Day, girls!

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

Peeking Under Hive Lid

Bees eat a sugar patty and festoon under the hive lid at the end of winter.

End of winter is a challenge for most beekeepers, including me. It is so tempting to want to open up the hives to see how the bee colonies in my garden are doing but it is not a good idea. Bees have carefully sealed up their homes in fall and, if opened late winter, they don't have the worker bee numbers, or energy, to reseal their homes.

To make sure my bees don't starve towards the end of winter, I add a two-inch wired shim to the top so I can easily feed them if I think they are running out of food. The shim also gives me an easy way to peek into the hive and see my bees, something I love to do.

On this particular February 2016 sunny day, the girls were festooning, or hanging together under the lid over a sugar patty I had given them earlier. By peeking under the lid I did not break their sealed home and I could easily check to see if they were making it through winter. 

So nice to see them still alive and well!

Charlotte

Swarm Season Starts

My car packed for swarm-catching with both a ten-frame hive and a nuc.

The middle of April used to be tax season for me. Since I started beekeeping, the middle of spring is more importantly swarm season, when bees split off from their mother hive and set off to establish a new colony.

I went on my first call this morning but the bees had moved on. They had chosen a blooming holly tree for their temporary home, a good bee choice since holly has a great deal of pollen. Only issue is that swarms don't collect food when they are on the move; they are waiting for scout bees to come back and communicate they have found a wonderful spot for a new home. While bees wait for that news, they have left their mother hive gorged in honey so not only are they sluggish but they aren't interested in collecting pollen just yet.

Someone contacted me several weeks ago interested in catching a swarm but he didn't have an extra hive, a bee suit or transportation, all three major components needed when swarm-catching.  If you can only focus on one, get a bee suit and be ready for the call. Bees don't wait!

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

When to Unwrap Bee Hives

Missouri welcomed spring 2016 with a good dusting of snow covering a "sprung" garden.

One of the frequent discussions I have with my beekeeping friends is when to uncover my winterized bee hives. As soon as the weather warms and the sun comes out, both bees, and beekeepers, seem impatient to get a start on the most exciting of seasons for beekeepers. Winter can be a very long wait away from spending time with our bees.

Although I am as impatient as the next beekeeper, I have lived in Missouri long enough to know our weather is precarious at best. Adding our rapidly changing climate to the mix means today it is even harder to have a reliable seasonal weather pattern, and forecast.

As the first day of spring rolled around, I was not among beekeepers taking the winter, quilted plastic wrap off my hives. I was glad I didn't. I woke up the first day of spring to snow blanketing my garden but my girls were warm in their hive homes. 

Sometimes it does pay to wait.

Charlotte

Winter Sugar Patties

One of the recipes I like to make for my honeybees is sugar patties. They serve to absorb moisture inside the hive in winter and, when placed correctly, can supplement honey when stores run out.

After breaking my dominant right wrist September 2015, I knew I couldn't stir the wet sugar to make the patties. Enter my beekeeping friend David who one day in November showed up with pie tins full of sugar patties for my girls.

"Let them dry out for a couple of days," he said, stacking them on my garage work table.

My stack of winter sugar patties ready to place in hives.

Some beekeepers object to feeding bees anything additional over winter. Having lost one colony to winter starvation, I prefer to give them the sugar patties so they don't starve. They will eat honey first so the sugar patties are for when they run out.

To make sure they can access it, the sugar patties have to be placed over the cluster, which may or may not be in the center of the hive.

Sugar patty broke up when I took it out of the pan; bees don't seem to mind.

Bees will visit the sugar when temperatures warm up a little. It can also provide supplemental food if they run out of honey.

My girls thank you, David!

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

Midsummer's Night Eve

June 23, 2015 is Midsummer's Night Eve, or St. John's Eve. St. John is the patron saint of beekeepers.

June is also the leading month for U.S. weddings and the month when hives are full of honey. The full moon is called the Mead Moon because fermented honey is made into mead. It's also the basis of the expression "honeymoon."

There's a Swedish proverb that says "Midsummer Night is not long but it sets many cradles rocking."

Charlotte

A Video Visit to My Bee Garden

Lauren Kastner was warm and friendly in her initial email. She had read about my keeping bees and wanted to visit my apiary before she graduated from University of Missouri's Journalism School.

Several dates postponed due to weather and a head cold later, we were ready. 

Sit back, relax and take a video tour of my Missouri bee garden.

No stings, promise!

Charlotte

Bee Friendly

These dark pink Bee Balm monardas on sale were barely out of my car before bumblee bees were all over them.

I now follow bees in garden nurseries and keep an eye out for plants they visit to get marked down. Although I have been gardening for several decades with an emphasis on native plants, I can always find more flowers on sale I think my bees will like.

On this National Pollinator Week June 15-21, 2015, celebrate by adding a group of bee-friendly plants to your garden.

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

Pass the Beer, Please!

On a lunch break from bringing a nursery bee hive back home May 2015, I captured one of the honey bees flying loose in the car. To keep her safe, I shared an orange peel in a cup to give her a safe place to light.

The bee came out of a "nucleus" box destined for a beekeeping friend. As we were ordering lunch, other friends selected beers to go with their lunch.

Knowing my friend was a beer connoisseur, I asked him in a text which of the beers his honeybee would like.

Not that bees regularly drink beers. They will be attracted to any sweet beverage, especially if there isn't much blooming.

I suppose I should have guessed the answer. He said she would take one of each!

Charlotte

Bee Happy Sign

My office door used to have a message board so people visiting could easily track me down. Until I came in and found this charming sign hanging in its place.

There really is something happy about happy bees.

There also is something very happy about working with someone kind enough to leave me this sign.

Hard not to start one's day with a smile, or two.

Thanks, Nikki!

Charlotte

Off to See Bees!

As a beekeeper, winter days can drag on seemingly forever, keeping us from seeing our "girls" to make sure they are healthy and happy.

On the first warm, sunny day of March suggestive of spring, beekeepers head to their apiaries to see if their bee colonies made it through winter.

It's too cold yet to open up hives so verdicts are rendered based on close observation.

These are my friend David's hive, down the hill from where we hold our monthly bee club meetings.

Honeybees are flying in and out of all hives so the verdict - so far, so good!

Charlotte