Metro Atlanta Beekeeping Short Course Coming Up

The Metro Atlanta Beekeepers will offer a short course again in January 2010. The course is invaluable for getting started in beekeeping. Here's a link to the information about the short course.

If you live anywhere near Atlanta and want to learn about beekeeping, please come - I took it before I got started and it made a huge difference to hear real people talk about their beekeeping rather than just reading information in books.

There will be great speakers, a honey tasting, good lunch and discussions. I'll be there, too. It's my job this year to put together a table about how to do a hive inspection. We'll have a slide show running continuously on a computer to show you the aspects of an inspection.

Please come - you'll learn a lot and it will be fun.

Missing Blogger

Hi Everyone,

Several of you who are used to getting at least weekly posts from me have emailed to find out if I am OK. I'm sorry for the gap in posting. I had a death in my family and have been in my hometown of Natchez, Mississippi several times in the last two weeks.

I am back in Atlanta now, though, and will be back up and posting on my bee blog.

Thanks for checking in with me.

Linda T

The Fate of the Crystallized Sugar

You'll remember that yesterday when feeding the bees, I found a baggie feeder with crystallized sugar in it. Rather than take it back into the house, I spread it out on the railing of my deck.

I went out this morning (you can see on the thermometer that the temp is below 60 degrees) to find the sugar covered with bees.



If you click on the picture below so that you can see a larger image, you'll see the bees sticking their tongues into the sugar. It was raining this morning and probably some of the sugar liquified.



As I studied this picture, I realized that in addition to honey bees, there were yellow jackets and a bald faced hornet feeding on the sugar.



If you couldn't find them, I have circled the yellow jackets in red and the bald-faced hornet in blue. Everyone's hungry, I guess!

Last Call for Lunch

I'm about done feeding my bees to build them up for winter. Today when I opened my hives at home, the hives felt heavy enough to satisfy me as far as their having enough supplies to make it. I went ahead and added food today, though.

I have made the sugar syrup for the bee trees and will make one more trip over there either tomorrow or Saturday.

Here's the newly placed baggie feeder on Bermuda.


When I opened Mellona, the sugar baggie that was there had crystallized sugar in it. I don't have good luck with the method I am currently using if I don't heat the water some after adding the sugar. This baggie represents a sugar syrup baggie in which I boiled four cups of water and then stirred in 8 cups of sugar and turned off the heat. The sugar syrup never lasts as well that way.

When I leave the pot over the flame for a minute or two after adding the sugar, then the suspension works better.



I didn't know what to do with the sugar crystals. I could mix it back into water. I decided for now to put it on the deck and observe how the bees handle it. It is supposed to rain tomorrow night and on Saturday, so I may bring these crystals in tomorrow and mix them back into water for more syrup.



Finally Aristaeus2 got their baggie. These bees had a bag with some syrup still left in it but I replaced it all the same.

Rainy Fall Morning

The other day I woke up to find a chilly rain outside. I wondered what do the bees do inside in the rain - no TV, no entertainment. The house bees all have jobs but what do the foragers do when it rains?

For some reason, thinking about the bees indoors reminded me of a Sesame Street video from long ago that my grandson likes to watch on You Tube about the ladybugs sitting around. For your entertainment, here it is.

Interlopers in the Bee Hive

When I opened my hives I found roaches living on top of the inner cover. There were none in the hive (that I saw). I believe they are on the inner cover to take advantage of the heat, the dark, and the shelter of the hive. But GROSS is how I felt when I saw them in each of the three hives.

It's amazing - always some creature - the last time I looked I had small hive beetles. They seem to have subsided for the winter and the cockroaches have taken their place.



In some parts of the country (probably in Atlanta as well) mice sometimes move into the hives for the winter. So far I haven't had a mouse, but I could do without these roaches. In Beekeeping: An Illustrated Handbook, Diane Stelley says, "Even with the entrance reduced, a small mouse can still wriggle in, make a nest, and tear up the wax combs." She and other beekeepers suggest using a piece of 1/2 inch hardware cloth nailed across the entrance to keep mice out but still allow bees to come and go.

None of my books mention roaches, but Michael Bush, in a post on Beemaster, says that roaches between the inner and top cover and normal. If they make their way successfully into the hive itself, that is a sign of a weak hive.



YUCK!

Dead Bees on the Landing in the Early Morning

Unusual for October 18, we had 37 degree weather last night. This morning there were dead bees clinging to the landing of both Bermuda and of Mellona. Dead bees look like living ones, but these had no life in them. I wondered if they had come home too late or if they were ready to die and were pushed out of the hive, but not all the way to the ground.

They have the appearance of perhaps trying to cluster together but there certainly weren't enough of them to manage the cold.



There were also dead bees on Mellona's landing area. These looked more like they had been pushed out. Maybe when it's cold the mortician bees simply drag the bees to the front of the hive and don't fly out with them.

Dinner with Honey

The National Honey Board sends out a regular email with interesting facts and recipes for using honey. I grew exactly two butternut squash in my garden this year before the stem borers killed the squash. So I was thrilled that the honey board sent out this recipe for Butternut Squash Soup, to make soup using honey from my bees.

My mother says that a good cook is generous, so I followed the recipe but was quite generous with my ingredients. Here's what it calls for and I'll put what I really did:

2 T butter
1 onion chopped
2 cloves garlic minced
3 carrots diced (mine were small so I used about five organic carrots)
2 celery stalks (I chopped up the center three stalks of a heart of celery)
1 potato peeled and diced
1 butternut squash, peeled, seeded and diced (mine were small so I used both of them)
3 cans chicken broth (14.5 oz each) - I used boxed organic chicken broth which comes in 8 oz containers, so I used almost 6 of them
1/2 cup honey
1/2 tsp dried thyme leaves (I have it fresh in the garden so I used about 1 tsp fresh)
salt and pepper to taste

With the soup I had a slice of oatmeal bread (also made with honey) with cheese melted on it.

So honey made my dinner quite lovely and delicious.