Bee Tea for Blue Heron

On Thursday I checked on the Blue Heron hive. They had emptied the Boardman (interior) and had emptied the baggie feeder. It is increasingly cooler at night. As winter approaches I may start feeding with an upturned jar but instead of the Boardman, simply balance it on two end bars.

Jennifer Berry talked about this at our bee meeting on Wednesday. She feeds her hives through the winter. Most of her hives have a larger (jar accommodating) circle cut out of the inner cover and she has a cut in the top cover on which she can upturn a jar. So she can feed the hive without opening it. However, an alternative she suggested would be to use a box as a surround for a jar feeder sitting on end bars just above the cluster so that the bees can access it easily. To access a Boardman, they have to leave the cluster and walk into the feeder, a challenge when you are a cold bee.



I brought bee tea to this hive both for the baggie and in a jar. I lower the bag gently and slowly to allow the bees to get out of the way into the cracks between the bars.

Still going very slowly down (I even had time to take a couple of pictures, as you see!)


Once down I left this hive for the weekend, fed with the interior 1 pint boardman and a baggie with about 2 1/2 quarts in it. Julia's second hive at Blue Heron is not doing well - small hive beetles everywhere - so we are concerned about all the Blue Heron hives and their ability to get through the winter.

Feeding Topsy on Tuesday

I fed Topsy on Tuesday. They are really going through the food. I found both interior Boardman feeders empty. I'll need to think about this hive as winter approaches. They are only occupying 10 bars of the 40 in the hive.

I'll need to move the follower board close to bar 10 to make the space smaller for winter. I'll also have to rethink feeding. Currently the feeders are far down the hive from the combs in unused space. I don't know how to locate feed close to the used bars for winter feeding.




You can see in the comb below that the bees are back-filling comb that has been used for brood raising with honey as the cells become available.



They are doing the same in this comb.



I have a ways to go to learn how better to handle the top bar hive. I still squash bees even using the scissor method of lowering the top bar. However, I find this a very calm hive and often wear open-toed sandals and just a jacket and veil when I am working with them.

Ross Conrad's Bee Tea

 August's Bee Culture has an article by Ross Conrad (he writes an article every month) on beekeeping in the northeast.  As it is autumn, he talks about preparing the hive for the winter.  Included as a sidebar for the article is his recipe for Bee Tea.  I decided to try it for feeding the bees at Blue Heron.

Here's the recipe:
16 cups white cane sugar
6 cups hot tap water
2 cups Chamomile or Thyme tea (already brewed)
1/2 tsp natural sea salt with minerals

You add the hot tap water to the sugar and salt and stir thoroughly (?).  You do boil the water for the tea and steep it for 10-15 minutes.  Then you mix it all together and store unused amounts in the refrigerator.

I have a hard time making 2:1 syrup without using really hot water.  Maybe the water out of the tap in Vermont where Ross lives is hotter than here in Atlanta! (note:  comment below indicates it's probably the chemistry of the water in Vermont compared to my Metro Atl water).

So  I heated my water and then stirred in the sugar and salt.  Even at that, I couldn't add the last four cups because the first 12 had not thoroughly dissolved.

My answer was to stir the last four cups into the hot tea after it had steeped.

The next time I make it, I will steep the tea and then stir the steeped tea into the water heating on the stove.  Then before the water boils, I'll turn it off and then stir in the sugar and salt.

Making the tea:

 Stirring all of it together:

Adding the syrup to my Blue Heron hive (notice it is more yellow than the usual clear syrup, courtesy of the Chamomile) :

You may wonder why I have both a baggie and a Boardman inside this hive.  It's an 8 frame hive and can't take two baggies, so I put a Boardman in so that I could put more feed on the hive at the same time, since there's room for the Boardman inside the medium box that is surrounding the feeding mechanisms.

Another post about Ross Conrad

Hive Inspection at Blue Heron on September 25

Noah and I took about a dozen people on the inspection of the Blue Heron hives on Saturday at 11.  It was a little cooler (thank goodness) and we looked through the two remaining hives.  You'll see the slideshow below.

On the inspection we did a powdered sugar shake and fed the bees with baggie feeders.  The participants asked good questions and seemed to have a good time learning about the bees at Blue Heron.

And on the deck, another inspection

This not-exactly-queenless hive is not doing well, but I don't understand what is going on. They have a queen who isn't laying. They've had a small hive beetle problem but that appears much more under control. They aren't consuming the sugar syrup I've had on there for two weeks.

What's going on?

The Sonny-Mel trap is accumulating dead beetles by the day. I saw no beetles under the cover and only two on the under side of the inner cover. There are lots of dead ones in the trap below. I also had an AJ's on this hive and it was full. I refreshed the lure in the Sonny-Mel trap and put more oil in the AJs. I also added a second AJ's beetle trap.



I didn't go deep into this box. I pulled up two frames of honey from the bottom box, so they do have some honey. Maybe that's why they aren't laying or consuming.



The nuc hive is going great guns. They had emptied the two Boardman's feeders. I replenished their supplies.



In the hive there is laying going on and you can see at least five eggs in this picture and two tiny c-shaped larvae. The eggs are at 2 and 3 o'clock. The queen is eager.


I keep thinking about Don K in Lula who points proudly to his nuc hive with five boxes on it and says, "How much closer to a tree can you get?" His nuc hive is very productive. I am going to add another box to this nuc hive and have a tree hive on my deck myself!

Two Packages, Two Installs - Let's hope for SUCCESS!

I had the privilege to stop in Lula, Georgia at Don Kuchenmeister's lovely beeyard to pick up two packages on Saturday. It was raining cats and dogs. Don had a ton of bees in his basement. I asked him to pick my two packages. Here he is holding the two packages of bees.



I've had a couple of telephone conversations with Don. He is a gem of a beekeeper. He colors outside the lines. He has lovely bees. These bees were so calm and easy to install. I want to go up and spend some time with Don. He only lives about an hour from my house and he's right on the way to my mountain house, so you can rest assured that I will be visiting him again.

BTW, he had PINK nuc boxes in his beeyard. His beehives were in a pine grove and he was about to go to work the hives in the RAIN. He's quite the renegade beekeeper, and I'd love to learn more from him.



I drove to Rabun County where I was supposed to install the bees and then give a talk to the community gardeners. However, the weather (part of the system that spawned the tornado in Yazoo City, MS) was in Georgia all day yesterday. I gave my talk to the gardeners (Meet the Bee, I called it!), but I couldn't install the bees until this morning.

Today I set up the hive box and took out two frames in preparation for the installation. I've, BTW, never installed a package in my beekeeping career. So I was a little nervous.

First I sprayed the bees (who spent the night in the basement of my mountain house) with sugar syrup. They immediately calmed down.



I wasn't sure if the queen cage was secured so I put a tack in the tape that secured it.  I've seen videos on the Internet with the beekeeper dropping the queen cage into the bottom of the package as he/she lifts out the syrup can.

Then I pried up the thin piece of wood serving as a top.



I pulled up the can of syrup which was still quite full, and then pulled up the queen cage. I took the cork out of the candy end of the queen cage.

This wasn't the easiest thing I have ever done - it was hard to pry up the staples.  But I succeeded.  Then I found that the queen cage was also stapled.  I have an Italian hive tool which has a curved end, perfect for prying up the staple in the tape holding the queen cage.

I took the queen cage and hung it into the hive body by tacking the tape to the top of a frame.  Then I turned the package upside down and dumped the bees in.  I had to slant the package back and forth a little to get all of them to leave it and go down into the hive.

Then I returned the two frames to the box and closed it up.   I  put a shim around the top to contain a baggie feeder of sugar syrup to help the bees get started.

I hope this will help these bees since I can't come back until Sunday, May 1.  

I left the hive with the almost empty package container in front of it to leave any errant bees a chance to get with their queen.  I put a brick on top to secure the hive top.  And then I drove back to Atlanta until next Sunday when I come back to check up on them.

They are behind and back of the community garden and I hope they don't draw too much attention.  See them in the back in the center of the picture.  I hope they are of great benefit to the gardeners!