Visit to a Lithuanian Bee Supply Store: Wilara

Visit to a Lithuanian Bee Supply Store: Wilara, a set on Flickr.

We don't even have a bee supply place like this in Atlanta. You can get some supplies from Buster's Bees in Jonesboro or drive to Pigeon Mountain Trading Company in Chattanooga, but there is no real bee supply place here. I did go to Brushy Mountain when EAS was in Boone, NC, but that is the only supply store I've visited in eight years of beekeeping!

You may have noticed that my slide shows have changed.  Google's Picasa no longer makes slide shows or embeds them.  Flickr is my new choice.

Created with flickr slideshow.

Metro Atlanta Beekeepers Holiday Party

The Metro Atlanta Beekeepers Association Holiday party was held at the Atlanta Botanical Garden (where we have our monthly meetings) on December 12. Below is a slideshow of snapshots from the event. A great time was had by all!

Learning about Lip Balm

I made my first attempt at making lip balm today and it turned out OK - not great, but I learned a lot. Here's what I did:

1. I bought Coconut oil (organic and virgin) from the Internet
2. I bought 100 containers from the Internet and some from the Container store
3. I bought 1" circular mirrors from EBay
4. I followed the recipe in Kim Flottum's book: The Backyard Beekeeper.
5. I weighed and melted the wax
6. I put the glass jar of coconut oil into a boiling water bath to melt it
7. When both were melted and both were 150 degrees F, I stirred them together.

Now the problems start. The recipe said to take the mixture off of the heat and stir in the vanilla and honey. As soon as I took the mixture off of the heat, it started solidifying. I poured in the honey and vanilla but they never really mixed well despite my using a whisk.

So I put the glass measuring cup with the mixture in it on top of one of the boiling water baths with the burner turned off and the mixture came together much better. I filled the containers by using a syringe that the pharmacist at Target gave me. I put the container filled cookie sheet right beside the boiling water bath on top of which sat the balm mixture so that it wouldn't solidify before getting into the container.

Filling the containers wasn't easy - somewhat messy, but I succeeded in filling 90 small containers and five larger ones. As they cooled I realized that in about 20 of them, the honey/vanilla mixture was on the bottom of the lip balm and that those would not be usable because there was liquid below the balm mixture.

I don't know if I can wash and re-use these containers - I hope so - it's a lot of effort if I have to throw out 20 of them.

My camera lens had a smudge on it, but I made a slide show anyway to show you the pictures:

Making and Boxing Cut Comb Honey

Today I took a super of honey off of my Bermuda hive with the plan to cut comb and box it in plastic boxes. I've never done this before so I didn't make a movie but instead I made a slide show. Maybe I'll make a video of it next year!

I learned a lot doing this harvest method.

1. I had a difficult time cutting the comb and not dripping the frame onto previously cut squares of comb. I finally figured out that to help with this problem, I needed to lay the frame of comb on top of the draining rack. Then cut the squares all out at once before moving the frame.

2. My bees made all of their comb from starter strips this year. Sometimes they didn't make straight lines of cells and my comb isn't as pretty as it might have been. I appreciate their hard work, however. Next year I might look for the straightest lines of cells in choosing frames for this process.

3. I have another hive, Mellona, that produced some gorgeous comb, but I kept waiting for them to fully cap all the frames in the super before harvesting it. It took them so long that when I harvested that super I had to use crush and strain as a harvest method because there were too many travel stains on what had been gorgeous white comb. Next year I may harvest frame by frame for cut comb, rather than wait for the entire super to be ready.

4. On the Internet forums, I was advised to use a serrated knife. I didn't because I have a wonderfully sharp Victorinox knife with a really thin blade that went through the comb like butter. If you try this at home, however, you may want to use a steak knife with a serrated blade. I cut on the inside of the cutter to make sure the squares actually fit into the 4" boxes.

5. I bought these plastic boxes from Brushy Mountain. They snap shut but not really tightly. I think if I do this again, I'll find a different container. When I take these out of the freezer and label them, I'll probably use tape to keep the box securely closed.

The slide show should start automatically. If you want to see the pictures larger, then click on the picture and you should go to my Web Album where you can see the pictures more easily.



From the eight frames that I harvested, I got about 26 pounds of honey product (since comb is included in cut comb and chunk). This brings my harvest this year to approximately 103 pounds of honey from 32 frames or about 3.2 pounds per frame. That isn't a particularly useful statistic since some of the frames were mediums and some shallow.

Note:  (added 2011)  I learned an improved system posted after this was made.  You can read about the changes here.

Today I'm Trying the Solar Wax Melter

Today I'm taking the cappings from the crush-and-strain harvest I did to fill the chunk honey jars and trying to see if my solar wax melter works.

Some of you may remember that I built the solar wax melter last year, but didn't do it until October when it wasn't hot enough long enough in the day. The outside temperature needs to be at 79 for most of the day to make it work.

Today the high is supposed to be 92, and when I put the box out at 9:15, the temperature was 76 and rising. We'll see. I'll report back later and let you know if it worked this time.

As you will see from the slideshow, it worked just great! I wish I had left it alone until after dark. When I removed the paper towel, melted wax that hadn't filtered through it yet poured onto my counter and I would have saved that mess if I had waited. I pulled it indoors at 4 PM and the results were gorgeous as you'll see in the slide show. I can't wait to use it again, with my new lessons learned from today's first trial.

The pictures below will play as a slideshow, but if you click on the picture, you can go to the album itself which has captions explaining the pictures.

Young Harris Beekeeping Institute and Bill Owens' Demonstration of Hiving a Package

I came home today from a wonderful five days in the N Georgia mountains. On Friday and Saturday I took part in the Young Harris Beekeeping Institute, sponsored by the University of Georgia Entomology Department. This year marked the 16th year of the Institute.

There are several learning tracks one can take. Since this is my first year at the Institute, I took the beginner courses and sat for the exam to attain the certificate for Certified Beekeeper. It involved a practical exam as well as a written exam. This wasn't easy. Lots of material was new to me and I felt very challenged. I am thrilled to say, "I PASSED!" I am now a Certified Georgia Beekeeper.

The next level (Journeyman) is even more challenging, but I'll probably try for it next year or the year after.

There were presentations all day long both days. The first day I went to a wonderful demonstration of how to hive a package of bees. It was given by Bill Owens, a Certified Master Craftsman Beekeeper (the very highest rank you can attain). Click on the album to see the pictures and read the descriptions of what we learned.

The Honey Harvesters Hard at Work Slide Show

Honey Harvesters Hard at Work

Sep 10, 2006 - 23 Photos

To view this album, click on the picture above and see what you think about our hard work.

Things I have learned from this honey harvesting experience:

1. Next year get mosquito netting as a filter since the Internet site from which I got the idea used that. Our filters took days to filter the honey through and I think that was way too long.

2. It's much more fun to do the bee thing with kids than without - can't wait until my grandson is old enough for a bee suit!