Bee Keeping here I come!

[thecityman]

@Auburn and @Chikn - I’m very grateful for both of your input and really appreciate you taking time and effort to try and help. I’ve re-read both your posts several times and have been processing them mentally. However, I must confess that that I just don’t have the knowledge and experience to understand everything you said, so maybe you’ll be willing to help a little more and keep it on a 6th grade level since apparently that’s where my bee keeping knowledge is!

I think I understood Bills recommendation, so some of my questions about it are more “why” than “how” and “what” questions. At this point I’m satisfied to just do what you all suggest and worry about why it works that way later. Unless someone else strongly disagrees and has a good reason why, I’m probably going to followe your instructions. SO lets talk more about Phil’s entry.

Let me start by asking you the difference in nectar and honey. I’m honestly not even sure exactly what nectar is, even though I know its from flowers and is used by bees and hummingbirds and I think its a liquid. But when I look at a flower, I don’t see or feel anything liquid (except with honey suckle- I think nectar is the stuff we sucked out as kids). DO all flowers produce nectar? how is it related to pollen? Most importantly, if nectar and honey are both sweet liquids, what is the difference. For example, I must confess that twice this summer I have stuck a knife into one of my frames and cut out a tiny little 1/2" by 1/2" square. It tasted like really light honey, a little more like thick sugar water (a little like corn syrup) and was lighter in color than honey. I now am thinking maybe it was nectar- but it also had a bit of a honey taste. Maybe it was nectar on its way to becoming honey? I’m also wondering…many times I see comb that appears to be full of clear liquid but isn’t capped. Is that just nectar? Phil mention that 18.6 moisture is what separates honey from nectar but I didn’t quite follow that. Does that simply mean that once nectar looses enough water to hit the 18.6 mark it becomes honey? Is there also some kind of fermentation? How does that water disapate- just evaporation or do bees do something to nectar to remove water from it and/or ferment it?

Now a simple vocabulary question. What is wet comb? You both said I probably shouldn’t harvest any now but that I probably could get away with it if I can’t wait (I can’t! ) You both differed on what I should do if I do pull 1 frame out and rob it. Bill said replace it with an empty frame with just a sheet of foundation and phil said to replace it with “wet comb”. If wet comb means I should just cut the caps off the comb, drain the honey, and put the empty comb back, then I don’t think I can do that. I’m pretty sure I will destroy the comb when I harvest it. It don’t have a hot knife so I’d just be cutting with a knife and I’m pretty sure that will mash the comb up too much to be reused. This fall I will have access to a hot knife, centrifuge, and everything else- but not now. SO again…what is wet frame.

Phil…either your advice seemed a tiny bit contradictory or- more likely- I once again don’t understand terminology. On one hand you gave instructions for how I could harvest 1 frame early (though I understand you don’t recommend it) but later you said to stay out of the brood nest. So… definition of brood nest? Does that just refer to the frames that have brood instead of honey, or the whole super-box, or the whole hive? Another question- are honey comb and brood comb always on seperate frames? Are they usually in seperate boxes? I must confess I once tried to rob a tiny bit of honey and cut into brood (I was horrified at my error even though I only cut about 5 cells).

Many of your questions were unanswerable by me, Phil, thanks to my ignorance. For example “R you expecting a honey flow now other than fall honey”? I have no idea how to answer that one. Same thing about what started the chimney effect. I guess it was adding too many boxes too soon, right? I understand from your comments that some of your questions were just intended to point out my errors and “spank” me for them which is probably a good thing, but I didn’t get the lesson because I’m so uninformed/inexperienced.

You said now I should be focused on slowing down on brood production to save the honey I have because bees probably aren’t making much if any honey now. If that’s true, why not harvest all honey now? Maybe because there is still a lot of nectar that hasn’t been turned into honey??? (hope you already explained that process above!)

FInally- and this one is pretty easy…did I understand you correctly to say that you think its better for me to just let all my bees die and just buy new packages in the spring? If so, I guess that means I should harvest every bit of honey and not leave any for the bees to eat this winter? But you also said something about creating my own nucs to use in the spring. So please try again to tell me what you think I should do in terms of overwintering.

Perhaps this many questions would be easier to answer in a phone call, but I’ve gotten private messages from others who have said how much they are learning from this thread and the fact that my questions are so elementary (ie beginner level).and the wonderful answers that have been given here. I hope others are learning as well. This has sort of become the go-to thread for beginning bee keepers and those considering it, so if you all don’t mind, I honestly think these answers will help more than just me. And by all means, anyone who has experience and has something to contribute is welcomed to do so. THanks

[Chikn]

Thanks Kevin and others. Just to let y’all know,I’m no longer a beek but an exbeek. My wife got a sting Weds. night and suffered an anaphlaxic reaction. We spent well into the early hrs of the morning at the local ER. She will now carry an epipen where ever she goes. She recovered and is still mean. The next day I sold all my beek equipment and my bees(I got robbed but I can’t come home to find a yellow spot in the lawn in the shape of my wifey).

Kevin, Your questions bottom to top.
1). Yes, Yes. To overwinter, sit in front of your tv or other entertainment, look at garden catalogs,or pick out new fruit trees, don’t worry about live bees, and order your packages as close to Jan. 2 as possible. If your really on the ball, watch grocery store ads and buy several bags of cheap white sugar to make syrup to feed your new packages in the spring. In late winter, take a bee brush and hive tool and clean up your comb, frames and boxes. On a warm day give them a coat of paint and put them in the barn till a day or so before your packages arrive. I will explain the fundamentals of nuc building when I’m not so tired.
2). The difference in nectar and honey. Honey is nectar that the bees have mixed saliva and enzymes(mostly invertase) in and dehydrated it by fanning air over it with their wings. Technically, honey is below 18.6% moisture and that allows bees to store it in wax covered comb w/o fermentation.
Nectar is a sugary liquid that some flowers produce to entice animals to pollinate their flowers. It is supplied in various quantities and sugar concentrations. In order for a nectar source to be usable by a colony of hb there has to be enough flowers of the SAME plant producing nectar and the nectar has to be high enough in fructose to allow it to be converted and stored as honey with a net energy gain for the hb colony. Honeybees forage from one, same dedicated nectar source each day.

I’m sorry, gentle readers, I’ve had three long, almost sleepless days, and I’m going comatose. I’ll try to finish this tomorrow evening.

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[thecityman]

Phil, I’m so sorry about your wife and so happy to hear she is going to be ok, albeit with a pretty hard-earned education (that she has a bee allergy) that will affect her for the rest of her life (having to carry epi pens, etc). Its amazing that after all the years you’ve kept bees that this could happen now. I’ve always read that eating local honey helps allergies (the hay-fever type I mean) and I’ve always heard that people who work with snakes and have been bitten several times build a strong tolerance to the venom. So I reasoned that eating lots of honey for many years (as I presume your wife has done) would help build a tolerance to being allergic to bees. But that’s obviously not true.
And while I’m sure you had no hesitations about getting rid of your bees to protect your wife and maybe even save her life, it is still a very big life-change for you and one I’m sorry you had to make, even if it was for the right reason.

In short, it sounds like the last few days have been pretty scary, life-altering, and difficult for you and your wife. I’m sorry you both had to go through that but am thankful she will be ok. You can answer the rest of my questions any time you feel up to it…no hurry. Take care, Phil.

[Auburn]

The wet frame that the honey has been removed will be less work for the bees and will get them to add back honey faster. Unless you already have a wet frame on hand it will require an additional opening of the hive which I believe is not good for the colony but necessary at times. Some of my I E classes have lingered with me. My goals in beekeeping was to keep it as simple and effective as possible with a heavy emphasise on pounds of honey per hive. It took me 2-3 years to tune my method so don’t expect to get it all immediately. Each beekeeper has different methods which complicates the learning.

[mrsg47]

Oh dear friend, poor you and your wife. I hope she is fine by now! Epipens really work! xxoo

[Chikn]

One trick that bees do, is to segregate nectar, that’s why we get varietal honey such as clover, golden rod, orange, and sour wood. When I hear people say they are going to plant a flower garden for the HB’s, unless they plant acres of the honey plants, colonies of HB will ignore it, smaller sizes do not offer enough forage to have a colony react to it. Why? Colonies, at the start of the day, send out scouts to find nectar sources of sufficient size and sugar content to be useful to the colony ie, enough nectar and sugar to have a positive energy transfer to the colony. When scouts find a source, they return to the colony and present location, distance, and direction according to sun angle to the hive with a tail waggle dance. You should be able to find that on youtube if you’re not familiar. The scout will dance then present samples to other foragers. This is the same dance used to indicate new hive sites in swarming situations. The foragers will make judgement and leave the hive for this nectar source, upon returning they too will dance if it is a large source and more foragers are needed. This is where planting small flower plots runs into problems, a few flowers of a single type won’t get a scout’s attention, and the kicker is, foragers leave the nest with only enough food energy to get to a scouted nectar source, not to get back if they don’t find nectar. So if foragers are called to a small patch of flowers and they are dry from earlier bees, the arriving foragers, on not finding nectar, exhaust their food and die trying to return to the colony. So small flower patches are ignored by the scout bees.
3). Brood nest. Where the queen lays eggs and the nurse bees rear them, the whole super box or boxes. Messing in the brood nest, just because you are curious, will upset the colony sometimes to the point they will replace queens, giving you a 20-30% chance of a queenless colony. If the colony is producing honey, quiet, and gentle temperament; lift the lid and if it needs a super put one on. If no super is needed, close the colony and go to the next one.
4). Wet comb is a frame that has been extracted and the bees aren’t allowed access to it to lick it dry. These frames and supers full of them are extremely attractive to HB’s and are a very valuable resource. They allow you to use queen excluders because the attraction of wet comb gets reluctant workers through an excluder when in some cases the workers won’t go through them. If you don’t use a hot knife to open the comb, use a capping scratcher instead of a cold knife. They are available at bee supply stores. Pull it backwards across the comb using enough force to open the cappings and then extract the frame. You won’t damage the comb, you honey won’t scorch as on a hot knife, and you won’t need 10 stitches in your thumb when you cut yourself with the cold knife. Plus a scratcher never burns out and is quicker than a hot knife. I did 400+ colonies with a scratcher and didn’t scorch one drop of honey and I only cut myself once with the cold knife. The centrifuges are known as extractors.
5). Fall honey. You need to find out from your local beeks the order of honey flows in your area. Some honey is really tasty, others not so much. Go into a McDonalds and get some of there honey to put on your Mcnuggets. That honey is from tarwood and I find it more objectionable than our aster honey. I know in Ia., that I expect honeys in a certain order and a certain time. Just before the Ia. state fair in Augest, I pulled my honey. I could and did use one honey produced during and slightly after the fair but I knew if I waited too long the bees would work asters and that honey is nasty and dark amber. You have got to know the order of your flows in order to pull your honey at the right time to prevent unpalatable honeys from ruining your good honeys.
6). Slowing down brood production to increase honey production. This is controversial. I have explained that I don’t overwinter bees so the only purpose I have for bees in the colonies after harvest is to prevent wax moths. About 3-4 wks. before the end of the clover flow, late June, I go through my colonies and pinch all the queens, yup, smashed dead! The colonies are at their peak population and production and full of brood. The bees start new queens and of course there is no new brood being produced for 6 wks. For 6 wks., all incoming nectar is stored, not used for feeding new bees which will just hang on the front of the hive in the coming nectar dearth. I have found my honey production to increase by up to 90# a year doing this. If you still overwinter, you get nice, new vigorous queens, well breed because there are lots of drones w/o any chemical issuses, for winter and good egg laying when your older queens may be failing. Hard on queens, but really makes a difference at extraction.
So you know: My bonefides, I have kept bees commercially, 400 colonies, for 20+ yrs, I taught beginning and intermediate beekeeping classes, and I inspected bees for the state of Ia.
More coming, Chikn.

[thecityman]

Phil-

You’ve already helped me and undoubtedly others so much with you posts, and that one was the best ever! In fact, it seems selfish for me to continue to ask for advice, but I can’t help myself. Maybe Bill or someone will give you a break and answer my next few questions.

Yesterday is the first time all year that I took a look inside my good hive beyond the top box. I know I shouldn’t have done it. I even opened and examined the brood box…but in fairness when I did it I hadn’t yet seen your warning about disturbing the brood boxes! I won’t do it again…I promise! But I’m worried about what I saw and want to hear your (or other BK) thoughts about it.

The hive had just has a total of 3 boxes. The first 2 are intended as brood boxes and the queen excluder is on top of the 2ed box/under the third.

Let me first say that I think I have more than enough bees in this hive. In fact, when I open each box, there are more bees than I see in most videos…they are just everywhere. I’ve included a photo showing how thick the bees are.

So, what concerns me is in spite of the fact that its august and there seems to be an abundance of bees, only about 4-5 frames in each box are being used. In the very bottom box, there are just 5 frames of brood. It looks normal (from what I know) and most are capped today. I poked into a couple and they had live brood. so I think all is well with the frames that are being used, but I’m confused about why so many bees with so much time have only used 5 frames in the whole box.

The middle box is basically the same story- tons of bees everywhere but only 4 frames have brood, the other 6 frames are still empty. What gives? Also, as you will see from the photos, the comb is extremely dark. Darker than I’ve seen in most photos and videos. But it does have some live brood, so maybe that is ok?

The top box has 4 frames that are full of either honey or nectar. It looks great, but again, after almost 4 months, I’d have expected them to have drawn and filled more than 4 frames. Or is that normal?

THanks all.

This is the top of the middle box. As you can see, there are tons of bees in and around almost all the frames…but only 4 of them have any comb. what gives?

This is a frame out of the bottom box. As you can see, it is almost completely covered with capped brood. SO I think (???) that all looks well, but only 5 frames have this so that seems strange (?)

Here is a frame from the middle box. You can see how dark the comb is, and how almost all the cells are empty. And thoughts? And remember, only 4 frames in this box have anything at all on them, including this empty comb.

Finally, here is one of the frames from the top box. I think (For what that is worth) that it looks good, but I’m disappointed that there are only 4 frames out of the 10 in this box that have any comb at all, though those 4 are mostly full. Most of the other 3 are capped and/or full of liquid,

.

[Chikn]

I have some questions for you now, the pics show medium depth supers, are all your boxes that deep or do you have a mix of deep boxes (9 1/8") and meduim boxes? BTW the brood looks excellent. Don’t worry about the comb color. If I was seeing right, I enlarged the partial brood comb and saw eggs in the unfilled cells. They are the little rice shaped things(white) in the bottom of the cells to the right of the frame.
Do you see any drones? I enlarged the photo of the bees and didn’t see any. Usual compliment of 16-18% drones, nothing to worry about.
Comb building has a great deal to do with incoming nectar or carbs(sugar water). Don’t feed with honey supers on, but later you can feed a 2/1 sugar/water. They will store it and you can use it for spring feed on nuc boxes.

[thecityman]

Whatever size I have, all my boxes are identical. I know most set ups have bigger boxes on the bottom (brood boxes) but my local advisor just had me get all my boxes the same size. I asked about that here and the consensus was that was ok. Do you agree or should I have bigger bottom boxes?

I didn’t see eggs in those empty cells but I may not have looked.

AS for drones, its kind of interesting. About a month ago I was worried because I had tons of them…a lot more than the 15-18% you and others say is typical. However, after 3-4 weeks I guess nature corrected itself…and may have even gone too far in the other direction. Because now I see very, very few drones.

soo…back to my most important question…I only have about 4 brood frames in the bottom box, 5 brood frames in middle, and 4 honey frames in top. So less than 1/2 of my frames in each box have anything at all going on. Is that a big problem/shortage or fairly typical. I don’t know how much incoming nectar there is.

[Chikn]

Three medium supers are the equivalent of two deeps, easier to lift a medium.

To judge incoming nectar, take an upside down frame of unsealed honey and give it a firm downward shake over the top of an open hive. The nectar will shake out on the top bars readily.
You’re still fighting the chimney affect. There may be other problems with equipment, bees, forage, and queens, speculation on my part though The first year of beekeeping is the most intense learning curve and w/o any education or hands on mentoring, you’ve done well. You have a lot to learn yet, Padowan. Read through the beekeeping material you have and compare to what you see in the hive. Watch for locally produced beginning beekeeping classes at your community college, join the local beek club, resist doing things like every one else.
I’ll explain nuc building next time.

[thecityman]

Thanks phil…I have been doing a lot more internet reading and picture viewing this last week or two. I also plan to do a lot more serious reading this winter. I must confess that with everything else going on, I haven’t even read the stuff you sent me cover to cover yet- but I will this winter. My local advisor sort of petered out. He hasn’t been here but once since we set up my hive and that was a couple weeks after set up. Yesterday I called the state AG DEPT. I read online that they have someone on staff who will come look at hives and offer help. I left him a message yesterday so we’ll see if that works out. I also called and left a message for the local bee keeping associated President. Turns out he lives less than 4 miles from me and his credentials are impressive (head of 3 bee keep association, on the national honey board, teaches a class for clemson university about BK) so maybe he will help. In other words, I’m doing just what you suggested.

now…to be clear about the nectar test…if I shake uncapped cells over my top bars, are you saying liquid should come out if nectar flow is good?

thanks, as always

[Chikn]

The more nectar drops on the top bars, usually the better the flow. I hope your local president can help you find a good mentor. Makes learning bees much less expensive.

[thecityman]

Well, so far my friend Phil has been my savior and my one and only dependable mentor. My original mentor is a super nice guy and means well but 1) I’m not all that confident in his depth of knowledge and answers, and 2) he is just too busy to be much help. The guy from the state Dept of AG has not called me back and its been almost 4 days. THe president of the local BK association also hasn’t returned calls or emails after 4 days.

So, it turns out that a super nice guy from hundreds of miles away in Iowa, who I only know from a web site, has been my savior. He’s actually mailed me a great beginners guide, talked me through a couple complicated issues on the phone, and repeatedly responded to my giant, over-the-top e-mails with great care. If I get a single drop of honey this year it will only be because of the very generous help and support of @Chikn . If I haven’t said it before, THANK YOU, PHIL! You really have been a Godsend to me and my first year of beekeeping. Maybe someday I can pay it forward.

[Chikn]

Now quit it City, you’ll make me blush.
Brother, I’m paying back Harry Hunter for teaching me to beek. Harry kept 2000 colonies of bees and worked a 40 hr. wks. also. He showed me how to squeeze #100 of honey out of a year when every one else got #25. Mean. cantankerous, and generous beyond belief. Probably the best beek I ever knew. RIP Harry!
I can’t think of anything more rewarding to me than to have a mentee? become accomplished in the bee yard. Just like this forum, we’re teachers at heart.

[thecityman]

I’m very mad at my bees! They are still actively flying out somewhere working flowers, but I have a 3/4 acre watermelon patch about 30 feet from my have, it has thousands of blooms in it now, and no matter how hard I search, I cannot find a single honey bee on any watermelon bloom!!! What gives? I guess the only answer is that they must have a bigger/better pollen source somewhere else, but when I watch them come in I don’t see any with those little yellow pollen sacks- and I’ve looked hard. Whats the deal!!!

[clarkinks]

It really burned me when mine went and worked thistle on my neighbors property one year. I hate thistles and knew there would be a better crop the following year and they flew past my summer squish and cucumbers. Turned out the bees were right those thistles were putting out a good flow of nectar.

[thecityman]

Well there we go…the perfect example of what I think is happening to me- though I’m not sure what they are working. My land is surrounded by open fields for quite some distance and they are all planted in things that are not blooming now, so I’d love to know where my bees are going! But like your squash and cukes, they aren’t going to my watermelons. Funny thing is (and lucky for me) there are lots of small bumblebees working my watermelons. Funny how they come for the melon blooms and my bees 30 feet away turn their nose to them! Nature is strange.

[clarkinks]

The bees made some real dark honey one year and there was not a thing blooming so I was at a loss. A few months later a neighbor from down the road ran into me in the grocery store and said they were feeding the cattle in troughs and the bees were right in there with them! Come to find out the little bandits were stealing molasses! I took them some honey lol.

[Chikn]

Don’t worry, they work cucurbits till dawn to 10-11 am.

[thecityman]

I sure hope you are right…I’m gona check at sunrise the next few morning and see if the little buggers are at it!