Prizes Won at my Bee Club!

My vacation coincided with the Annual Beekeepers' Picnic and Honey Contest held by the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers every September. My sweet friend, Martha, agreed to take my wax block and honey and enter it into the contest in my absence.

The wax block that I poured ten (10) times before finally feeling OK about my entry won FIRST PLACE and a blue ribbon. I am thrilled. The judge, Evelyn Williams, who is a certified Welsh honey judge, said that the block needed to be polished but was very clean and not sunken in on the top. I am so excited. I have looked all over the Internet to find out how one polishes a wax block, but I can't find out. Perhaps I could polish it with a well-worn men's handkerchief. I'll ask Evelyn, the judge, at our next beekeeper's meeting.

Pouring that block was something I did over and over again. Every time I thought the block looked perfect I would find another tiny speck of something. This final one I poured into a new pan that I bought just for the purpose and I left some wax in the bottom of the pot in which I melted it in hopes that the debris would remain there at the bottom of the melted wax. Guess it worked!

I am also grateful for my solar wax melter which did such a good job of melting the wax to begin my wax block journey.

My queenline jar honey was entered into the light honey category. I won second place. She said nice things about it: "Good fill, clean jars, pretty honey." I literally never touched these jars from dishwasher to contest. I took them out of the dishwasher by lifting them with a worn clean dishtowel. I held them with the dishtowel while I opened the honey gate and filled the jars. Then I put the top on, holding it with a worn towel. (The "worn" towel is important because it is less likely to leave fibers on the jar). I then put the jars into the box in which they came and took them to Martha to enter into the contest. I am so pleased that they won.

This means that everything I entered into the contest won a ribbon of some kind.

I can't wait until next year, but for now I am going to take the beeswax block and turn it into handmade lip balm. Stocking stuffers from my bees!

Honey in Quebec

I just got home from a 10 day vacation, hiking in Quebec in the Charlevoix area. While in Quebec City I went to the Marche du Vieux-Port to see the market and produce there.

I was so pleased to find a honey vendor. The nice guy running the stand is not the beekeeper (disappointment) but he was fun to talk to and he did sell me a jar of blueberry honey (below).

The fresh blueberries were in every stall in the market. The honey is good. I'm going to save the jar for our Bee club's honey tasting next year.

Nastiness in the dead hives

Amazing that I am in Canada on a 10 day hiking trip and can still post to the blog. This is thanks to the Internet and wireless service at my hotel.

Before I left I opened the dead hives to clean them up. In the first hive Proteus, I found wax moth mess throughout. I scraped moth cocoons and killed larvae by smashing it with my feet and with my hive tool. I threw most of the wax mess over the deck to the ground below and then left the frames leaning against an oak tree for the chipmunk to snack on as they are prone to do.

Then I opened Proteus Bee - roaches ran out of the hive and there was wax moth damage throughout. I took the hive apart and when I got to the solid part of the slatted rack just above the SBB, there were these nasty larvae. I think they must be roach larvae since they are not cocooned and were in this pile in the corner. I dumped them on the deck and smashed and stomped on all of them.

Amazing what housekeepers a good beehive contains. This damage is the result of creatures taking over when there are no bees to maintain the cleanliness of the hive.

Yuck!

Feeding and Sugar Shaking and Unwanted Critters

Since the two hives died, I am trying to keep my other two hives doing well as we approach fall. I started feeding about two weeks ago. Sugar syrup feeding means hive beetles galore! See picture of them in the corner of this hive being fed. The bees keep the beetles cornered but there are tons of them - and this with a working SHB trap in the hive that also has many dead beetles in it.
For extra good measure, I also did a powdered sugar shake on the bees. The two pictures below show you how the bees look after a good sugar shake. In the process I discovered that I had lost my bee brush. I'll order another because I often use it.

Cleaning the beekeeper's gloves

Recently there have been posts on Beemaster about cleaning the gloves we wear. I read somewhere about washing your hands with soap and water while wearing the gloves. In the first picture, you can see my gloves right after I washed my hands with soap and water. Then I put olive oil on my gloves - you can see it glistening in the fold in the middle of the hand in the second picture. I work the oil into the gloves as I would hand lotion on my hands. Then the glove remains soft and nice for wearing the next time I visit the hives.


My biggest problem with gloves is not cleaning them but rather the size that they are. My hands are small and gloves are made for men - so look at my hand on top of the glove and you can see that I have a lot of unused space at the tips of my fingers - makes for clumsy manipulation!

SHB on a rampage

You can see in the photo below the numbers of dead SHBs in one of my Sonny/Mel traps. This trap came out of the dwindled and gone hive, Proteus.


Because of the dearth and the terrible weather conditions, I decided to feed my remaining two hives. I put a boardman feeder (since that's the only feeder I own right now) into a box in each of the two hives.
Note: Look at the numbers of SHBs on the walls of this hive. There were also plenty in the traps.

I hope these hives have queens. I am leaving for Labor Day weekend and won't be able to check until next week some time.

Woe is Bee

I'm hanging crepe in my beeyard. I sat eating breakfast this morning and thought, "Oh, my, there are no bees coming in and out of Proteus!" I had about 30 minutes before I absolutely had to leave for work, so I threw on my bee stuff and went out to the hive. I opened it to find to my dismay that there were only the few bees in the picture below. So sad.


I guess the queen must have died some time ago and they have been dwindling but I have been very busy and not paying good enough attention. I haven't looked in the brood box in several months. I can imagine someone would look in this bee-less hive and say COLONY COLLAPSE - but I know it's beekeeper neglect.



When I pulled the frame only these few bees were on it and there was one other frame with about as many. The hive was infested with wax moth junk (see below). I decided to try to rescue the few bees left when I got home tonight by combining them with another hive, but there were only a few bees left when I got home, so I did nothing.


I also opened Proteus Bee to find absolutely no bees. When I moved it last weekend, I probably was moving a hive full of robbing bees.

So now I have two hives and will be feeding them like mad between now and fall.
The only good news was that the hive had a SHB trap in it that was filled with dead SHBs.

The Small Swarm is No More

I opened the small swarm hive today to combine it with Proteus Bee (both queenless). The hive was full of bees - I couldn't tell if they were robbers who just never went back home or if they were the bees who lived there.

The frames that were not honey-robbed frames were full of wax moth worms and wax moth damage. I removed all of those frames from the box.

In the top of Proteus Bee, there is an unopened queen cell, no brood and some bees. In the bottom of Proteus Bee there were a few bees and frames with wax moth damage. I removed those frames.

Then I went to Bermuda (strong queen, great source of brood frames). I took three frames - one beautiful brood pattern, one with lots of new larvae and eggs, and a third with capped brood. I put two of those frames in the top of Proteus Bee and one in the bottom. I then put the two boxes together with newspaper in between them. I cut a couple of slits in the newspaper to facilitate the combination.

Next step is to order a queen.

The bricks in the last picture are where the Small Swarm Hive once stood. Perhaps there will be bees for it next year. Meanwhile I took the hive apart and leaned all the parts against a tree. I'll wash them out thoroughly with a hose before I use them again.