Bee Divide

Today we divided our bees into two. We took one whole box of bees and brood but no queen and placed it on a new hive stand. that box of bees will be given a new queen in a day or two. The old colony has had honey supers to it and it will be our honey producer this year. Now we need a good source of flowers to kick start the honey season.

The chicks are getting big and are nearly ready to move to their coop.

Plants have been transplanted and are nearly ready to get in the garden.

More in a few days.

Spring?

Current view of our garden.

Despite a loooong winter, we are gearing up for spring. Tomatoes and peppers are about 2 inches tall and perennial flowers, herbs, onion, and broccoli are planted in trays. Cucumbers, squash, and melon will be started in about three weeks to give them a jump start on the season. Erin, Jon, and Ceili finished maple syruping last night with just shy of two gallons of finished syrup. Jon plans on building a wood burning evaporator for next year so that he can more efficiently evaporate the syrup. He spent alot of time working with propane this year.

Erin and Ceili decided to get chickens this year. Jon and Doug worked for two weekend days to salvage the materials from an old tree house and build our new 4X6 chicken coop. It is fully insulated and has three nesting boxes with an access door from the outside for collecting eggs. The ladder style roost is removable for cleaning. Inside, the coop is finished with fiberglass panels to make cleaning and disinfecting easy. All material, including the two south facing windows and roofing, are salvaged from other projects from other projects. The total bill to this point is around $150.00 for finish, fiberglass panels, and wiring. Jon has to build a chicken door, add latches to all the other doors, and finish the outside with a clear stain.

Our bees have made it through winter, to this point, and we are anxious to get the snow melted so they can get out there and start foraging for food. This week is supposed to be pretty warm so that will help things. The first food sources for the bees will be maple pollen followed soon after by dandelion.

How 'bout a Bit of Sun?

Checked the Bees today with the help of a couple buddies. Eric came into the yard and assisted in holding frames and video taping a bee emerge from a brood cell. It was kind of neat to watch him cheer on "Theodore", as he called her. I didn't have the heart to remind him that worker bees are all female! I understand that excitement and love the feeling of seeing new life emerge Eric's encouragement was just another reminder of the small things most of us take for granted. Joe watched with Erin from behind the fence but certainly had a front row seat to the excitement. The weather continued to be overcast but the rain held off so I squeezed in a much needed inspection. the temp was 64 degrees and a bit humid. I brought a third brood box along in case it was needed. My reports from around the state are that bees are WAY ahead of normal and some keepers are already adding honey supers. I knew it was early but you never know.

We smoked the entrance and removed the cover. Bees everywhere and comb being drawn out nicely. The Box was about 50-60% full very good but not enough to add another box. We removed an empty frame and worked through them watching for the queen, looking for brood, larvae, and eggs. We saw alot of brood, both capped and emerging and loads of larvae ranging in size from very small to ready to be capped. I didn't notice eggs or the queen. We moved onto the first box and saw much of the same but this box was nearly 90% full. I scraped off some burr comb (excess comb built on or around frames) and what appeared to be the beginning stages of a swarm cell. I tried not to panic and simply removed it. My research to this point re enforced what I eluded to two posts ago, that there are MANY reasons why a colony produces swarm cells and MANY things that can happen within a hive. I checked for the queen once more and not finding her closed the hive and called it a day. With so many bees in the hive and with me having an unmarked queen it is not unusual to not see the queen.

After everyone left I hit the books looking for an explanation. Did I kill my queen? Did she get sick and die? Did I just miss seeing eggs? Here is what I believe happened and why. I believe that my queen is still there and still producing. We found several stages of larvae, some very small some large and ready to be capped. An egg is laid and remains an egg for about 3 days. At this time it hatches into a larvae which molts everyday for about 6 days. After four days it secretes a scent that alerts the workers that it is time to cap the cell. After about 15 days it emerges as a new worker. I was in the hive over two weeks ago so the queen laid eggs and larvae was born since I was there. I didn't hurt her. The sky was overcast and I am new at beekeeping. I also am using light colored foundation which makes it difficult to see tiny eggs which stand on end within the cells. As for the swarm cells, they may have just been burr comb, or, possibly they were swarm cells. Jim from Nature's Nectar in Stillwater wrote on his blog this weekend about the weather keeping the bees inside for so long that it triggers a pre-swarm response. I think of it as bees getting cabin fever like we do in winter. They can't get out to forage and they make these cells to prepare to swarm. He and others recommend removing the cells and the bees will go back to normal once the nice weather arrives and they can get out foraging again.

I went back to visit the bees several times today from a distance and observed tons of activity as bees came and went. many were loaded with pollen. I believe everything will be fine and that the arrival of some sun will get things back on track.

Rain on the Whey!

I know it's cheesy but Erin and I have been having alot of fun making our own cheese lately. We started with mozzarella, then made a farmhouse cheddar and are now making Gouda. Cheddar and Gouda are hard cheeses that need to be pressed. Rather than buy a press for around $200 we decided to build one. The first design didn't work well at all and we ended up using a cement block (48lbs.) and a can of pineapple. The second design is still being tweaked but is working pretty well. Both designs can bee seen here.

Rain is here and it is amazing to see the garden grow! This is one of my favorite times of year because with a bit of rain you can quite literally see the garden grow if you slow down enough to pay attention. We have harvested spinach, radishes, and one cucumber from the garden and are waiting for the strawberries to ripen. new cucumbers and squash are popping up everyday on the vines and the peas, beans, and corn are rocketing skyward.

With all the rain the bees have been cooped up inside the hive hopefully drawing out comb, and raising brood. When the rain stops and the sun comes out the air is filled with activity as they scramble to gather pollen, clover nectar, and water. At times there are so many bees in the air you wonder how they avoid crashing in to you or each other.

I visited a friend's bee yard last weekend to see how his first year is going. He started in a different way than me. He started his bees from nucs or nucleus colonies. He bought two nucs containing 3 frames each of bees, brood, pollen, a queen, everything. he put those frames into boxes and frames that he bought from an old beekeeper over twenty years ago. He had always intended on getting into beekeeping but never had the time. This year he decided to do it. His first colony seems very active and appears very busy. There are several stages of growth within the frames and the bees seem to be raising brood and collecting food. The other colony seems weak and quiet. We saw larvae, and emerging brood but didn't see eggs. It was a bit overcast so we may have missed it. The brood pattern appeared scattered and not nearly as full as the other. We discussed some of the possible reasons and he is going to ask the folks at his local bee club for ideas and suggestions. I wish him luck because I know how excited he is about finally being able to start keeping bees. On a side note, the Uof MN classes and literature suggest starting bees on new equipment and using package bees if you are new to beekeeping. They claim that if you start this way as a new keeper you should have a couple of years of experience under your belt before any major problems crop up. This is not to say my friend did anything wrong, any number of things can happen to any colony at anytime.

Amazing- a Bee Update

I just returned from the bee yard. It's 70 degrees, sunny, and very humid. we received 3.9" of rain last night and the forecast is for more rain and warm weather throughout the next several days. I was going to do my inspection on Wednesday but pushed it up to today because Ceili is sleeping and the sun is out. I brought my second hive body with me in case I needed to add it. It's about two weeks early but this weather has been very nice. When I arrived I smoked the entrance, and then smoked under the cover. When I removed the inner cover I could see fat drawn comb, and lots of bees! I figured they must be starting to emerge. As I inspected each frame I was looking for drawn comb, eggs, larvae, sealed brood, and honey. The first frame was undrawn with a few bees on it. the second frame was full of drawn comb on one side and the start of comb on the other. the third through eighth were completely drawn and very heavy. These frames were packed with honey along the top edges with some of it sealed. They also contained pollen, sealed brood, lots of larvae, and at least a full frame of eggs. On one frame I saw a sealed brood wiggle a bit and I paused to watch a bee chew its way out of the brood chamber and emerge as a new bee! I can't explain how incredible it was to witness this first hand. Hopefully I can figure out how to take pictures of the frames for next time. The final two frames were also undrawn. I figured that the first box was over 75% drawn and decided to add the second box. I also removed the entrance reducer and the cork from the first box. I moved a frame of broodless, drawn comb into the second box and spaced the remaining nine frames out equally. The second box containing the frame of drawn comb was placed on top, followed by the inner cover, and finally the outer cover. Good luck bees, see you in about 10 days!

Productive Weekend

We have been working very hard lately and the gardens are looking great. All of our plants and seeds are in. There is about a 16 square foot piece of garden left open due to the fact that we went vertical with our squash, cucumbers, and pumpkins. Although it seems like a waste of good garden space we are going to try growing sweet corn. We read about a variety of red sweet corn in Organic Gardening magazine called "Ruby Queen". Unlike most colored vegetables it maintains the unique red color when it's cooked. The area we have left open is right next to our squash and pumpkin patch. Squash and corn are natural companions and are often planted along with pole beans. This "three sisters" grouping was practiced by Native Americans as a way to increase yield. The corn offers support for the beans who in turn supplies much needed nitrogen to the soil. The beans also act as a sunscreen for the delicate leaves of the squash. The prickly vines of the squash help deter raccoons from attacking the corn by making it uncomfortable to walk in the garden as well as obscuring their view of potential dangers. Raccoons LOVE sweet corn but have to be able to see their surroundings, if they can't see danger, they will stay away (in theory).

We attended a local plant sale on Saturday and were able to find over twenty different perennials we didn't have in our garden. For less than thirty dollars we were able to increase the size of our gardens along the house and add a shade garden under the trees. Everything is still pretty small but we see the potential and are excited to see everything grow and fill in. The challenging part has been cutting out the grass and sifting through loads of rocks and debris on our 100 year old homestead. We have found many interesting things over the years including many nails and broken glass but also marbles, jacks, and a brass garden hose nozzle. It's nice to stand back at the end of the day and marvel that where there is now a garden was once a rocky weedy piece of lawn!

A local visitor stopped by the neighborhood on Saturday. Jon was working back by the bee yard and looked up to see the neighbor's Newfoundland dog roaming the back yard. But wait, the neighbors don't have a Newfie. A second look confirmed that it was in fact a very large, very healthy black bear! The bear was about twenty yards away and just walking around. Jon alerted Erin and Ceili and returned with a camera. The bear ate some seed from a bird feeder and continued on its way. Very cool to see in the middle of the morning, however, we hope it will stick to bird seed and stay away from the bees. Guess that's why we installed the electric fence for the bee yard.

Jump Start Summer

We started gearing up early this year in order to be more prepared. The weather this year, however, has been incredible. All of our plants from seed have been ready for weeks and are way ahead of the traditional planting date for Duluth of June 1st. Night time temps are no lower than upper 40's with daytime highs in the upper 60's to 70's and even approaching the 80's! This along with a beautiful 10 day forecast has encouraged me to roll the dice and get our transplants in the ground.

This year we started four varieties of tomatoes, squash, miniature pumpkins, cucumbers, broccoli, cauliflower, two varieties of peppers, basil, cilantro, sage, and dill. I may be forgetting something but that's the bulk of it. Hopefully these all go in today. We'll keep you posted.

On the left you'll see several photos of some things we're trying this year. The wooden trellis is one of four installed in our raised beds. In the past we grew pole beans on a makeshift trellis and tomatoes staked with wooden stakes to support them. They were difficult to maintain and the weight of the plants as well as wind often toppled the plans and we suffered some damage. these trellises are constructed of 2x3 lumber and are lag bolted to the beds so they can be moved around the garden every year. Our vine crops (squash, pumpkin, and cucumbers) will be grown on these to save garden space (think vertical garden) and increase air flow. we hope this prevents some of the problems we've had with these types of crops in the past. Also on the left is a photo of two large black cylinders made out of a plastic compost bin. We will be planting potatoes in these to save space in our garden. The idea is to grow them vertically and add dirt, compost, etc. as the grow. at the end of the season we simply open them up and pick up the potatoes. no digging, no hilling, and we use a piece of our garden near the house that we haven't been sure what to do with.

The sprouts in the third photo are the radishes we planted from seed about a week ago. we also have spinach, lettuce, carrots, and peas popping through the soil!


On the right is a photo of the inside of our bee hive. I have trouble taking pictures and doing my hive inspection so I'll have to have Erin suit up and join me. We'll get you some better pictures in the future. Anyways, the bees are doing very well. they are bringing in lots of pollen and are drawing out the comb nicely. I saw alot of eggs and larvae and had a couple of frames with sealed brood. Eggs are about 3-4 days old. Larvae molts daily as it grows. after four days it releases a pheromone that calls the bees to cap it with a wax cap. brood is capped after six days. About eleven days later (21 days total) the new bees will emerge and the population will begin to grow! Everyone appears happy and healthy and seem to be a few days ahead of where I believe they should be. I flipped the entrance reducer to the next larger opening to encourage the colony to get out and take advantage of the early spring. I'm hoping to add another hive body after the next inspection.