Natural Bee Farm

My Bee Stuff Pile of "Junk (tm)"

As usual, my hobbies tend to generate a lot of clutter. Most of my projects are a WIP – Work in Progress – which usually end up with what my wife would call “Junk ™” that tends to accumulate as my gumption meanders. For most of the year, this merely festers, but with the advent of the holiday season and the imminent visitation from our relatives, these piles of very useful Project Components – “Junk ™” – can become a sore spot in any relationship. So, it’s time to clean things up. Part of that includes assembling the rest of my beehive woodenware and getting that out of the way. Since I don’t have a workshop yet, this stuff tends to accumulate in the dining-room – a room that we really don’t use all that much for most of the year but that becomes a focal point during the holidays. Hence – a huge pile of “Junk ™.”

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Happy bees very quickly filling up their one-box home.

I borrowed a frame of brood and nurse bees from my strong hive to bolster a struggling hive and I put an empty in it’s place. While I was in the strong hive, I split the brood up. I opened up the brood-nest, leaving an empty frame between every two drawn and populated brood-frames. I only had three empties – they were filling up the box fast! That was last weekend. Today I decide to go give the hive another looksee. Normally I’d ignore the hives for several weeks while they’re busy working, but with seven of ten frames of this hive occupied, this one is nearing maximum capacity and in need of another box. If I wait too long, it will form a swarm-cell to raise another queen and then it’ll swarm, removing several thousand bees from the work-force and setting back honey production for that hive.

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The pallet just fit in the back of my Ranger.

Up until last year, I had no need for an extractor. Top-bar hives only require a knife, a bucket and a strainer. I still have tubs of honey-comb in the freezer that I take out once and a while to chew on some for a snack. I could probably leave the comb out now – I put it in the freezer to ensure that any wax-moth eggs are killed. However, for serious honey production, especially for a side-line honey business, an extractor is an essential tool for the job.

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Wood JHH Style Cutout Hive

A while back a co-worker notified me of a lightning damaged tree that had bees in it. The city had tried to remove the tree by pulling it over, and the top split off down the side, exposing the hive. Needless to say, they scooted out of there pronto. I’m sure they were planning on coming back with some poison later, so this became a rescue operation, as are most cutouts.

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Current bee’s-eye view

Most of the routine work involved with bee-keeping seems to be inspecting. Going out periodically and giving the combs a good gander. Is the queen laying? Is the laying pattern consistent? Are there queen cells? Drone cells? Are there honey and pollen being stored. Are there any bees with malformed wings – an indicator of mites? How crowded are the brood-combs and do they need more space? Are the bees drawing new comb? Is that new comb straight and orderly? Does the comb need to be separated from the sides or need to be straightened? And the questions seem to continue.

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Bee’s Eye View

Since the cutout, I left the bees pretty much alone. It’s been a week and they’ve been busy foraging. It’s strange to conceptualize the thousands of bees inside that box and only see a few bees coming and going as they forage. I’m not seeing a lot of pollen coming in – perhaps they bring that in later on in the evening. Nevertheless, duties await me – I need to see their progress on connecting the combs to the top-bars, clear any comb-work that doesn’t belong like wall attachments, tie up some scrap comb for them and just give them a good gander.

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Assembled hive.

Having my own honeybees has been a desire of mine for years – decades even. I can eat honey all day long, and there’s just something about having a honey-factory out back that seems like a touch of magic. Empty it one day, come back in a few weeks and lookee – more honey! These bees are tireless and work constantly building up honey stores, pollen stores and tending their babies. All I have to do is give them a home and a nice location where flowers and water are easily accessible.

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