Growing a Greener World on Public Television - just not in Atlanta

Joe Lamp'l, host of Growing a Greener World on Public Television, lives in the northern parts of Atlanta.  However, his wonderful show about organic gardening is not available to the Atlanta market.  He films here and all over the country on issues of gardening and visited me to talk about the bees a couple of months ago.

I fed him and his camera guy biscuits and honey when we were all done.  Nothing better than Southern biscuits with honey soaking into them!

Here's the episode he filmed in part in my backyard with my equipment and my bees. (Even if we can't watch it in Atlanta, we CAN watch it on the Internet.)  Check out some of Joe's other wonderful episodes while you are visiting his page.

Joe is signed up to take the MABA short course that Julia and I are putting together for the bee club.  I am hoping I will get to help him get started in beekeeping in that way as well.

What You Need to Get Started in Beekeeping

My brother Barry wants to be a beekeeper and I promised him a list of the basics he would need. I decided to post it here for any of you who are curious to get started.

Here's the list - then you'll find descriptions of my thoughts behind it. This is my list and how I would do it if I were starting this year. There are all kinds of points of view and mine is not the only one. I am particularly biased about some beekeeping issues, as you who follow this blog already know!
Basics:
Good beekeeping book
Protective clothing: A bee suit (or long sleeved shirt, pants) and gloves
Hive equipment:
10 medium 8 frame hive boxes
80 frames to fit the medium boxes
Sheets of wax foundation for the frames
2 Telescoping covers for 8 frame equipment
2 inner covers or 2 ventilated inner covers for 8 frame equipment
2 screened bottom boards for 8 frame equipment
2 slatted racks for 8 frame equpiment
A smoker and something to use to light it (lighter, matches, whatever)

A hive tool (preferably 2 - they're cheap)
That will get you started. The descriptive list below includes some description and explanation as well as some extras to add to the basic list above.
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The basics for the beekeeper (the elaborated list):

A good beekeeping book for beginners:
Here are some suggestions:

Beekeeping for Dummies by Howland Blackiston
Natural Beekeeping by Ross Conrad

Protective Clothing:

A Bee suit – if not a bee suit plan to wear long pants, long sleeved shirt and a bee veil

Bee suit thoughts: It's hot inside a bee suit. You need one that you can stand to wear in the heat. The head gear is often a problem for me. My original suit is from Dadant and comes with a hard hat and veil. The hard hat is regulated by a head band that I hate because it never fits right and slips down over my eyes all the time.

The ventilated suit from Golden Bee (504-456-8805) is great in hot southern weather. I don't like the veil particularly – it relies on a headband to keep it centered and that doesn't work well for me, but the suit is cool (all ventilated material) and I can manage the head part. Also the mesh of the veil is painted white which is great for bees not bothering you but hard for someone else to see your face inside the suit. (Matters to me because I wear it for teaching inspections).

A similar suit is made by UltraBreeze although their website says that at the moment they are not taking orders.

I love a hooded jacket that I have from Mann Lake that is great to throw on for a quick visit to the hives or to use when I'm not doing a full on inspection.

Gloves - Many beekeepers work without gloves, but I don't like being stung on my hands – it's inconvenient.

Gloves present their own problems. Most beekeeping gloves are big, making it awkward to grasp things in the hive well. When you order gloves, talk to the company from whom you are ordering to understand how their gloves are sized. If I am using leather gloves, I like the ones I FINALLY got from Dadant that are XXS and do fit.

However, I take pictures all the time I am in the hives and now prefer nitrile gloves because they allow me more dexterity. I have been stung through them (they are used by surgeons and are not supposed to be penetrable by a knife, but leave it to the bees!)

Glove possibilities: Dadant has these
My favorite nitrile gloves are 8 mil blue ones from Gemplers I'm not doing surgery so I reuse them (!) and the box of 50 lasts about 1 ½ bee seasons

Miscellaneous clothing items that I take with me to the beeyard:

A bandana (there are about 100 uses for the bandana in the world – several in the beeyard – if only to wipe your brow – but I use it to keep my Dadant helmet from slipping),
A lanyard that I hook my camera on around my neck,
I always wear tennis shoes and socks – the only time I have been stung on my foot by a bee was when I stepped on a dying bee in my house

Basic equipment needs:

Hive Woodenware

Enough for two hives – you should start with two hives – this way you have something to compare to when one hive seems off in some way. You also can kill one hive with over zealousness and let the other survive more on its own!

Most beginning beekeepers start with a deep and a medium box for brood and shallows for honey. This is the old way and if you are starting with nuc hives, unless you've made special arrangements, the nuc will be in a deep nuc box.

However, for switching frames back and forth between boxes and for many other advantages (weight when lifting, etc), I would encourage everyone to do all of their boxes as medium boxes. For two hives you need a minimum of 3 medium boxes per hive and probably a couple of extras for each hive in the event that your bees get going well enough to produce honey the first year. I would also encourage 8 frame boxes – much easier to lift and manage

This means you need 10 medium eight-frame boxes. I would order based on shipping prices for your area. Shipping costs can be as much as the cost of the equipment you are ordering. I like to order from Brushy Mountain Beekeeping because the shipping to Atlanta is less than most of the other companies, but I order from Betterbee which is in New York and Dadant which has a warehouse in Florida. There are many good bee companies and you may be able to find a local supplier from whom to get your equipment.

Here are 10 medium eight-frame boxes from Brushy Mountain.

Like I said, you can order them from any bee company. These come unassembled – you nail or screw them together – keep the sides right side up and the inside on the inside! They should be painted which is a good thing to do while you wait for your bees – the Oops cart at Home Depot is a good source of paint. I paint all of mine the same color and keep a large gallon of paint available to do so. There's a post on my blog showing how to assemble them.

Frames for the 10 boxes:
Each box takes eight frames. These also come unassembled. You'll need 80 frames. I don't use foundation at all any more, but starting out, you'll want to use foundation – wax, not plastic. There's a video/slide show on my blog about how to assemble frames. These frames have a groove in the bottom for the wax foundation and a wedge at the top to nail it into the frame.

Foundation for the frames – I would stick to pure wax. Brushy Mountain offers this. It's less expensive than Dadant for the same thing and if you are ordering your equipment from them, it all ships with one shipping charge. But you can get foundation from any bee company. People will tell you to use plastic, but I've now thrown out all of my plastic. The bees don't like it and wax is natural in the hive. In the end, you'll probably switch to foundationless, anyway, and let the bees build their own. Each hive needs a telescoping cover and an inner cover. You're going to be using 8 frame equipment, so be sure the inner cover and telescoping cover are for 8 frame equipment. Here is a telescoping cover and an inner cover.

Brushy Mountain (and others) make an English garden hive top – which is pretty to look at but not practical for an inspection – feel free to get it instead of the telescoping cover, if you would like. My friend Julia likes (and I want to order) the ventilated inner cover – great for the hot summers in the South. If you ordered it, you would not need the inner cover.

You'll also need a screened bottom board.

Ventilation is the issue in the heat of the summer. The screened bottom board helps with this as well as Varroa mite control. The ventilated inner cover would help as well.

I keep slatted racks (a place for the bees to hang out rather than waste their energy fanning the hive) on all of my hives. Brushy Mountain doesn't make them for 8 frame equipment. Betterbee does.

Smoker:This is an essential piece of beekeeping equipment and you'll use it a lot. Here's a basic one from Brushy Mountain. I rarely use mine except to let the bees know I'm coming by puffing one puff at the door. I don't think it's worth buying one of the fancier ones unless you plan to have so many hives that you'll need to relight it a lot.

Propane lighter: Available at any hardware store (I can't find a picture, but I put one in everyone's stocking for Christmas – cheap and useful)

Hive Tool Another essential piece of beekeeping equipment – buy two so you can always lay your hands on one of them.

Helpful Things to Have that aren't Essential:

Frame Rack: Very helpful – especially if you are looking for the queen, trying to see the differences in the bees, taking photos – I obviously love mine, but everyone doesn’t use them.

Frame Grip I've always relied on my hands – I don't want to inadvertently squash bees – but I'm putting it on this list because almost every other beekeeper I know uses this. I just never got comfortable with it.

Bee Brush I use this a lot – especially when harvesting honey since I remove one frame at a time from the hive. If you are going for crush and strain honey, then this is essential.

Harvest Equipment (Hopefully you'll have a harvest!):

Bucket and Filtering system

This is all I need for harvesting and filtering honey. I also use a sharp knife and some basic kitchen equipment. You'll also need jars, but that is your preference. What kind of honey your produce dictates what type of jar you use. You are going to be able to cut comb (the foundation you are ordering will allow crush and strain as well as cut comb honey) or produce chunk honey (comb in a jar of honey)

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OK, I think that is what is needed (at least what I would need) to start beekeeping. This is my list and others out there will want to add or suggest other things. There are other items that you will find useful – a sifter from the kitchen for powdered sugar and a few other things that I carry in my bee basket, but you'll come up with what works for you.

You'll notice that I didn't put any medication or feeding systems on this list. I don't use any medications or poison of any kind in my hives. I also tend to feed with Ziploc baggies inside the hives. A Boardman feeder may be useful for water for the bees, but there are other ways to provide water. I also didn't put an entrance reducer – not going to be necessary in the hot South but would be in other parts of the country.

Note: I did this post in Word's blog post section and uploaded it from Word....never again. The margins are awful - many apologies!

Bee Tree Gets a New Second Story

First I put the hive box on so that it slanted side to side. This seemed like a problem. I called Wally (Iddee on Beemaster and Beesource) and asked him what to do.

He responded that the hive box in your own bee yard would normally be slanted back to front, but side to side was a problem. You can imagine - the bees would draw comb up and down as per gravity, but up and down would not be in the frames - a big future mess, assuming they move up.

Then I realized (DUH) that all I had to do was turn the box and then it would slant front to back, making the back lower than the front by about 3/4 inch. Easy to do that so I immediately turned the box, problem solved!



I laid the bag of 2:1 syrup that I had brought with me on top of the frames and slit it with my knife.



Then I put an empty hive box around the baggie, put the bottom board on for a top and left it with lots of hope that the bees will move up.



Here it is in its final resting place. I'll check back on Saturday to see if the bees are eating the syrup. I wonder if I should prop the top to allow them to continue to use the top "entrance." Seems like that would encourage them to move up into the box as well.

I'll ask about that on Beemaster and then let you all know what I will do about that.

Looking at this picture, I'm a little embarrassed that I didn't bring a newly painted box for the surround for the sugar syrup. Maybe I'll replace it so it can look pretty in this public location.

How Does Martha Stewart Keep Her Beehives So White and Clean?

As winter is in full swing in Atlanta, I look at my aging beehives and wonder how Martha Stewart keeps her hives so clean and beautiful. One of my friends on Beemaster took the picture above of Martha's hives herself (so this picture is not doctored up for the magazine)! It was in April, but even in April, my bottom box is dingy from the year before.

Here's a video of a Martha Stewart show on harvesting honey. She uses an extractor and makes it sound as if that is the only way to harvest, but I don't use the extractor and get great (prize winning) honey. In the video she says she gives her bees all new homes for the winter. Even if mine go through the winter in new boxes, they would look a little done in by spring from the vestiges of the weather.

My bees, if they live through the winter, are in an old box at the beginning of spring. I wonder if it's worth giving them a new box? My bees are on my deck in full view of anyone who visits my house and a new box would certainly be more attractive. But would it be worth it to disturb the hive just for beauty? HMMMMMM.....

Unwanted visitor to the bee yard

Yesterday I stacked my unused boxes up in a corner of the deck. Leaving the boxes in the light keeps the wax moth from taking over the frames inside the boxes. I am in the process of removing boxes that the hives don't need so they can get compact for the winter.

I also did a hive combination yesterday and removed a feeder bag from under the Imrie shim. I set the almost empty bag on top of the stack of boxes.


This morning the bag is being worked over by bald faced hornets. I've seen them cannibalizing my bees but never taking sugar water.


Their faces are those that only their mother could love. They look like the stuff of horror movies to me when you gaze at them like this, up close and personal! They even fought among themselves, sending one of the group off to look for live bees to carry home to the nest.



Below is a picture I found on Google of the other cannibal in my bee yard:

The other hornet I see daily in my bee yard is the European Hornet. It seems to be a predator for live bees as is the Bald-faced Hornet. It is brown with a large yellow abdomen. Ugly and threatening, it flies toward bees in the air, trying to snatch them.

My Apiary 2008

This year I am starting the season with seven hives. Here are four of the deck hives - left to right:

• Bermuda - starting her third season with a queen they replaced in the fall

• Mellona - starting her second season - I haven't seen the queen yet this year

• Small Swarm collected on 4/8 in Chamblee - may or may not have a viable queen in two medium hive bodies and isn't named yet
  

• Swarm collected on 4/1 from an office parking lot shrub in Sandy Springs in my former swarm lure hive - also without a name
  

In front of Bermuda is my first as yet unnamed nuc hive, hived on 4/11

In my yard in a flower bed is nuc hive #2 also unnamed as yet, hived on 4/11

Also in my yard under another tree is nuc hive #3 unnamed, hived on 4/11

So I need five hive names - Greek/Roman mythology, here I come!

My yard guys are going to quit. I've let them ignore the deck because they are uncomfortable with the bees. I've been thinking I'd hang a veil for them to use on the fence so that my backyard gets cut this summer. We'll see.

A couple of years ago, I went to an Appalachian festival in Frostburg, MD where my daughter, Becky, lives. A woman there had goats that she named alphabetically according to year. The year we met her goats, they all had names that began with M: Muriel, Mabel, Maryanne.

I love this yellow paint that my friend Tracy gave me. I think for the year 2008, every box I paint will be yellow and every top, SBB or bottom board will be painted blue.

Burning out Old Equipment

Tonight I am going to work with the members of a Girl Scout Troop who are getting ready to set up their own beehive and to make an effort to keep bees. In the process they are developing a "Try-it" for the Georgia scouts. They have ordered their bees. A good friend of mine who had bees 30 years ago is cleaning out his barn in north Georgia and gave me old hive boxes for these girls. To try to kill any spores for AFB (American Foulbrood) the interior of the boxes has to be burned.
Beekeeping for me has expanded my home construction skills - non-existent before this endeavor. To burn out the hive boxes, I purchased a propane torch. It took me all morning to get the courage to figure out how to use it. (The hardest part was how to get the white top off of the propane container, but I was finally successful). I burned the interior of each box. It was a little scary - the flame is very hot and outdoors I could hear the flame but couldn't see it. I had a bucket of water sitting ready in case I needed to put out a fire.

The package says menacingly not to do this on concrete (see the floor of my carport) because some concrete explodes with heat. I certainly wasn't going to flame inside my house, so the concrete carport was the place of choice and I simply crossed my fingers. Well, I didn't really - it took both hands - one to hold the torch and one to steady the hive boxes.

In the end I burned out a deep, a medium and three honey supers as well as a telescoping cover and an inner cover.

Determining Equipment Needs for 2008 BeeSeason

Tonight while watching the eclipse, I took some pictures of the boxes I have stored in my carport to determine what I need to order. I have three nucs coming in late March, early April. I have the equipment to set up two more hives with medium 8-frame boxes. I have screened bottom boards, slatted racks, inner covers and telescoping covers for those as well as about six 8 frame boxes.

I have lots of shallows like these and a number unbuilt in my basement. My next trip downstairs should be one to determine what built and unbuilt equipment I have down there. I know I have a deep, a couple of solid bottom boards, and some unbuilt shallows, but there are other things there as well. Oh, yes, and I have the deep cypress unbuilt hive box from Rossman's that I won at the Georgia Beekeepers meeting a few weeks ago!

Here are the 8 frame items - slatted racks, etc.

So it looks to me as if I have the possibility of setting up three hives easily - two in 8 frame equipment and one in 10 frame equipment. I will try to have the 10 frame hive in medium boxes.

I don't plan to use foundation except for starter strips - and I have enough thin surplus and other wax foundation to give the bees a start.

I think if I order more equipment, it will all be 8 frame mediums. I might order another SBB and slatted rack as well as an inner and telescoping cover in hopes of a split or a swarm.

Next week I will bait the empty deep 10 frame box on my deck and give it a squirt of lemongrass oil weekly to see if a swarm will find it attractive.

Questions that were on my Mind as a First Year Beekeeper

As the beginning of my third year in beekeeping approaches (I started on Easter Sunday, 2006), I have been thinking about the questions I wish someone had answered for me as I got started.

One of my recent assignments was to give a presentation at the Short Course on "Bee-ing a Beekeeper" which was about my experiences and the stories of a panel of several others. I focused on the fun(ny) parts of Bee-ing a Beekeeper. I've thought about posting the PowerPoint presentation I did and then thought it wouldn't be the same without the stories to go with the pictures, but I may post it anyway.

In thinking about what I might address if I were asked again to talk about first year experiences, I generated (in no particular order) the questions that were on the top of my mind when I got started. They are:

• How hard is it to put together a hive box?

• What do you use to light a smoker?

• How do you put the bees in the hive and what are the scary parts?

• How do you deal with your neighbors?

• What is it like to be stung the first time?

• How much is the initial investment and do you have to have an extractor?

• Will you have enough wax the first year to make candles?

• What's the purpose of a hive inspection and how hard is it to do one?

• What are the most confusing parts of the first year of beekeeping?

I think I'll post on these questions over the next few weeks as many people begin their beekeeping experience for the first time. I've recently addressed how to build a hive box and how to deal with your neighbors. Stay tuned for posts on the rest of these questions.

How to Build a Hive Box

In 2006 when I got my first hives, I had no idea what to do. I hadn't ever seen anyone build a hive box. So for those of you who are starting this year and may be as intimidated as I was, here's a primer on how to build a hive box. Now, I'm a novice beekeeper so the experienced beekeepers are going to be much more expert than I am but I am posting this so that you won't be as alone in your efforts as I was the first year.

Note: Be sure to read the comments as more experienced beekeepers have already written some about what I have posted....and they are (probably not older) but certainly wiser than I am.

At this time of year, most new beekeepers are crossing their fingers and ordering their initial equipment. To have bees, if you are going to use Langstroth hives as most of us do, then most new beekeepers order hive boxes. These are wooden and come in pieces for you to put together. (Note: some boxes are Styrofoam and others can be ordered already assembled...for a price.)

Some of the catalog companies send nails with the hive boxes. I have a ton of left over nails, enough to fill a 9 inch cake pan. Since I am moving to all medium boxes, I am screwing my boxes together in order to be able to take them apart if something gets broken.

If it looks like I am doing this assembly in my living room, it's because I am. I like to put these things together in front of the TV. What's really boring is building frames - that I definitely do in front of the TV!


Step One in hive box construction:
Make sure the cut-in handle is facing the same direction on each box part. In this medium box from Brushy Mountain (I think - I've had it since last year) you can't put the box together wrong, but in some box sizes and from some companies, the notches are exactly the same either direction and it's possible to turn one side so that the handle is upside down. A comment (see below) also notes that it doesn't work if you have the handles on the inside of the box, so also make sure that you have the handles facing to the outside of the box!


Step Two: I use a rubber mallet to hammer the notches in place before I permanently attach them. These boxes fit quite tightly and need the mallet to fit together. The boxes I ordered from Dadant fit together with more ease.

At this point most people (see comments on this post) put glue in the joints. I haven't been doing that and will probably regret it, although since I screw my boxes together, I expect them to stay more securely than if I nailed them.


Step Three: Make sure you have the box notched together properly and the handles are all facing the same direction.


Step Four: Nail or screw the box together. My daddy taught me to lubricate the screw with soap. You can also use beeswax for this purpose. Whether you nail or screw, I go around and do one fastener (nail or screw) in each corner, rather than screwing all of them in at once on one side. I don't know if that is good construction or just what I do. It seems to make sense to put it together in a balanced way.

Then you are done and you paint the box. I used interior paint on all of my boxes and they've held up just fine, but ideally you will use exterior paint to help your box last longer. You only paint the outside of the box - not the inside and not the rail inside for hanging the frames - simply paint the outside four sides of the box.

I'll post another beginner help post in the next day or two...maybe how to build a frame with a word or two about foundation.