Local county prison farm produces "Jailhouse Honey" and "Jailhouse Jelly"

I can tell you that jail is a boring place. That's because I worked in one for two years. In case you didn't know it, I was a deputy Sheriff for 18 years, and my first two years of full-time service was working in the county jail. It was one of the best experiences in my career because you learn a lot about human nature. And one of the most important lessons I learned while working there is that not everyone who goes to jail is a bad person. Yes, they did something bad to get there. Many of the people behind bars have some good characteristics too, but they made bad decisions for whatever reason and landed in jail. But as I said, jail is a boring place and much of the time, there is absolutely nothing to do. Some watch TV, some play cards, some sleep when they can - and the others may try to figure out some mischief to break the monotony. The mischief is what all jails want to avoid. It is better to keep the inmates occupied with something good than something bad.

One local Sheriff's Office is doing something to break the monotony of serving jail time and teaches some post-release skills too. The Guilford County Sheriff's Office, which is headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, runs a prison farm. Not just a prison farm but the only remaining county operated prison farm in the state of North Carolina. The prison farm has a capacity of 134 inmates and consists of 806 acres of land located in eastern Guilford County near Gibsonville. The prison farm is just that, a working farm. It includes cattle, greenhouses (the prison farm sells plants to the public), hay, corn, and lots more. And inmates maintain the farm under the supervision of ever-watchful detention officers.

In 2010, the prison farm added a muscadine grape vineyard. No, the inmates aren't making wine with the sweet grapes, but they are making what is called "Jailhouse Jelly". And to help the grapes and other plants to thrive on the farm? Yep, bee hives! Three prison farm staff members attended a basic beekeeping course held by the Guilford County Beekeepers and brought back their newly learned skills to form a 10 hive apiary on the premises. Between the acres of other crops, and the vineyard and the apiary, the detention officers share their skills with the inmates, and the inmates can use those skills when they go back into society. It is a win-win for everyone, plus it helps the honey bees too. I think it is a fantastic idea to teach these skills to others, and I hope more jails and prisons that operate farms will pick up on it.

Here is a clip with details about the prison farm apiary and vineyard. It comes from a weekly television show called "Guilford Sheriff 911" which is hosted by Sheriff B.J. Barnes and airs on Guilford cable and WGSR 47.1 in Reidsville. In the clip, Steve Carney, one of the detention officers and beekeepers, details how it all came about. I was graciously given permission to post the segment by Arch Embler, the public services liaison and producer of the show. Thanks, Arch!

And hats off to the Guilford County Sheriff's Office for not only helping the inmates learn something they can take with them when they leave, but for helping the honey bees thrive too!

Sourwood honey and soul food on a Saturday!

So on Saturday, I had the chance to finally meet Lynn, a fellow blogger and beekeeper who attended the Certified Naturally Grown workshop in Winston Salem. Lynn writes great posts on her blog, Walter Bee, and includes experiences and pictures of her bees and her beautiful garden. My friend Jared, a soon-to-be beekeeper who blogs at Jared's Adventure in Beekeeping also attended the class. He's the person that mentioned the class to me in the beginning and got me interested in the workshop, then Lynn decided to come down from her home in the mountains and go too. I'm glad she did because it was fun to finally meet and talk face-to-face.

Lynn came bearing gifts. She brought me some wonderful beekeeping literature from other sources in North Carolina and Tennessee. I can't wait to read them on these cold winter days when I can't get outside. She also brought some information on bee attractive plants for your yard which I'm sharing with Jared who has a jump on me in the planting department. While I've planted some things around my property, I could do a lot more, and I'm glad Lynn shared this information. She also brought some information on how to catch swarms. Lots of good reading to keep my eyes and brain busy for awhile.

After our morning workshop session ended and it was time for lunch, Jared suggested this nearby place called Mountain Fried Chicken. I had never been there and neither had Lynn so we decided to give it a try on Jared's recommendation. It was great! The chicken was terrific and they had a ton of side items like green beans, mashed potatoes, stewed apples, turnip greens, corn on the cob, and different fruit cobblers. It was definitely soul food, maybe it would be better described as Southern comfort food. I stuffed myself on chicken tenders and potato wedges and sweet tea (if you're Southern, you have to drink sweet tea). As we ate we had the chance to talk and catch up on life since we didn't have much time to do that in class. I really enjoyed it and I think Lynn and Jared did too.

As I mentioned, Lynn came bearing gifts. Not only did she bring me the wonderful beekeeping literature, but she brought me a jar of her very own sourwood honey! I love honey (after all, I keep bees) and Lynn's sourwood is a really light, golden brown. I knew as soon as I got home, I would have to sample some of it. It was almost as if it was calling my name all the way back. And I knew the perfect food to accompany my honey would be some fresh honey wheat bread. So later after the workshop, Jared and I made a stop at Dewey's Bakery and I got a couple loaves of bread, wheat and white. If you ever get the chance to go to a Dewey's...GO! But if you're on a diet, you can kiss that goodbye with a trip to the bakery! 

The pictures you see of the honey and the bread are ones I made myself (and my bosses at the television station would be very proud of me for making a visually pleasing presentation). But I just wanted you to see how light and beautiful Lynn's honey is. And it tastes absolutely terrific! There's nothing like sourwood honey. If people know you have it, it goes very fast. Unfortunately sourwood doesn't fare too well here is what I'm told..otherwise I would plant some just to have the same taste Lynn's honey has. Lynn, great job on the nectar of the hive! I know you're proud and you should be.

I learned that Lynn is a really great person and a lot of fun to hang out with. You can talk with her and tell she's passionate about her bees and about her gardening. When she talks about them, she positively glows. She has a lot to share with others on her ideas and passions. I know that if need to ask a question, especially when it comes to good things for my yard or bees, I would readily ask Lynn what she would do for sure. 

Lynn, thanks for coming down and going to the workshop and thanks for my bag of goodies! It was very sweet of you to do! Literally!

Call when you come back this way and let's all go to dinner.   

Old Time Theater - featuring - "Her Majesty, The Queen Bee!"

Let's take a trip back to 1933 and watch an old 35mm film on beekeeping. Its called, "Her Majesty - The Queen Bee!" I have tried to research who made this film and for what reason (I assume it was an educational film) but like many old movies of that time period, it seems no record exists. But it is a pretty cool film is I do say so myself. Its pretty short, almost six minutes, so sit back and relax and let's go to the orange groves with some hard working honey bees!

 

Eviction order lifted! The queen stays in my hive!

What a day this has been! I started out early this morning because I had so much to do. First of all, I wanted to catch the queen from my hive and take her with me to Busy Bee Apiaries in Carrboro. As you know from my previous posts, she's been a little fickle lately in laying eggs...and she stumped quite a few people who really know bees well including the state aviary inspector -- and Betsy, one of the bee experts at Busy Bee. So the plan was to catch her and take her back, but if I couldn't find her before I left, I would still get a new queen from Busy Bee and then give my present queen the big pinch. If anything, I wanted to save her so Betsy could hive her and watch her behavior. Honestly I just didn't feel right about pinching her...so my task was to find her before I made the hour trip to the east.

I went into the hive with the optimistic attitude that I would easily find her this morning. After all, the last two trips in the hive I found her, and I figured today would be just as easy. What a joke! I get into the hive and started with the frames in the top chamber -- she was nowhere to be found. I get down into the bottom chamber -- she's nowhere to be found there either. So her majesty was hiding from me this time...of all times that I wanted to find her (and save her from the horrors of the hive tool)..but she was in hiding. Talk about becoming frustrated. I think I said a few curse words in my head.

But them the most amazing thing happened. While I was in the bottom chamber, I shook bees from some of the center frames to see what they were doing in the cells -- and there they were! White, glistening, and healthy looking larvae! Not one larvae just here and there...but they were everywhere. The honey at the top of the frame was cresent shaped, but all of the cells under that had larvae! Then I found another frame in the top chamber with larvae too -- the pattern wasn't as tight, but they were alive and growing.

I ran for the house to call Betsy at Busy Bee. After all, she was out in the bee yard and catching my new queen and I didn't want her to go to the trouble of getting one since I had good news. Well, I was too late, she had already caught a queen for me. But being the super nice person she is, Betsy laughed and told me that she was glad things are working out on my end and that maybe my queen just went on a holiday. I apologized for putting her to the trouble of catching another queen and she said it wasn't a problem, she would find her a good home. I really like Betsy and everyone at Busy Bee. They're truly a class act in the beekeeping business. Honestly, if you need a queen or supplies -- they're the ones to call. You can find the link to them on the right side of my blog...and please tell them that Mark highly recommends them!

So that's the story. The eviction order has been lifted...and her majesty gets to stay. I have no clue why she stopped laying, and have no clue why now, all of a sudden, she's back to normal. I blame some of it on my eyes...I've had to start wearing reading glasses in the last year. But even the aviary inspector didn't find eggs or larvae either -- so who the heck knows what was going on with her? I find it hard to believe she can fool more than one person.

My neighbor watched me work the hive this morning and she offered this explanation as to the on-and-off laying queen: "Mark...she's a woman! What do you expect?" -- and she laughed. She's a woman...and a really great neighbor...so she can get away with saying that.

So here we go again. It looks like things are back to normal. I added a gallon of sugar syrup and closed up shop for another week. We'll see what she does now. Hopefully she is going to keep chugging along and doing what she does best. And if she doesn't, I'm calling in a bee psychologist! Does Dr. Phil make house calls?

GOOD NEWS and some BAD NEWS...

THE GOOD NEWS: So the good news is...I installed my hive back to its original location today without a hitch. Even though it was mostly overcast, I decided to go ahead and get it done since the threat of thunderstorms loomed in the forecast. Like I did when I moved it a few feet ahead to install my new custom made hive stand, I decided to move it piece by piece, and while I had everything apart, do an inspection. A few puffs of smoke is all it took, and that was at the entrance. I didn't even have to use any when I took the top cover off, and surprisingly, I wasn't swarmed by inquisitive bees wanting to know who was invading the premises. I moved the top super first and off to the side, then put the lower brood box in its new location. And while I had the boxes apart, I did my inspection of the top chamber first since that's where the queen laid eggs last week (she laid none in the bottom chamber at all last week).

So after I finished inspecting both boxes, I put it all back together again, then I put a piece of corrugated cardboard in front of the entrance to act as a landing board -- that's to keep the girls from falling through the cracks of the heavy mesh screen on top of the stand. A friend of mine owns a sign shop, and he gave me about ten sheets of the corrugated board that were considered mistakes and couldn't be used. Then I put the bamboo reed back over the entrance so the girls would re-orient themselves, but honestly, I don't think it was necessary. As soon as I got the hive back together and put the hive-top feeder back on, they were flying in and out like crazy, and I noticed that quite a few were buzzing all in front of the hive. Maybe they were re-orientating themselves -- or maybe just irritated by something blocking the front door. Either way, all is back to normal as far as location is concerned and all the moving around is over for now.

THE BAD NEWS! Unfortunately, it looks like something is wrong with my queen still. This afternoon I found one frame out of twenty frames that contained with eggs. That's it, one frame of newly laid eggs -- and no more. Although she has plenty of places to lay, especially in the bottom chamber, she's laid one frame of eggs in the top chamber, on both sides of the frame, and that's it. And what's really odd, I couldn't even find the eggs from last week's inspection with Don Hopkins, the state's chief apiary inspector. Its like she lays eggs and then they just disappear. And I didn't find one larvae or capped cell in the entire hive -- none at all. I found about six drone cells but nothing else. And they're bringing in pollen, there was plenty of nectar there, and they're making honey like crazy -- but that's it.

So I called Betsy at Busy Bee Apiaries in Carrboro, North Carolina, and we put our heads together -- and we're both perplexed by it all. She told me that the colony will sometimes eat the eggs when they have no other food coming in, but with the syrup I'm feeding and the pollen they're bringing in, that shouldn't be a problem. But it looks like something is causing her to be sporatic and not doing very well, so I made the decision to replace her. I ordered a new queen and I get her Wednesday morning -- so as soon as I get back home, I'll introduce her to the hive.

The old queen? Well, I may not have to "pinch" her after all. Betsy told me that if I could find her, please bring her and some attendants to the apiary on Wednesday..and she wants to hive her and see what she's doing. I told Besty that if I can find her before I leave on Wednesday, I'll certainly do just that. But if time escapes me, it looks like she'll have to go to that great apiary in the sky, but I plan to try to find her and take her with me. I really don't want to do anything to her, to have to put her down...I'd much rather her spend out her days as an observation queen and to possibly help the experts figure out what is going on with her. Who knows...maybe she has something that could be named "Mark's Syndrome" -- and my queen will go down in the history books!

More on what happens after my Wednesday escapade to Carrboro!

Until next time friends, BEE viligent!

I installed my custom made two hive stand. Take a look!

So I mentioned earlier that I was having a custom made two hive metal stand made. And here it is. I took the dimensions to a local welding shop here in town, Amos Welding and Machine Shop, and asked Wesley Amos what he could do for me. I told him I needed something wide enough for two hives, 4-feet wide by 2-1/2 feet deep, and the legs 24 inches long. And to help with debris, mites and ventilation, I asked him to include heavy duty screen for the top. Well, in about 15-minutes, Wes had it all figured out, and I really liked his design. Instead of four legs, he decided to go with six to give extra strength in the middle. On Tuesday, when I ordered it, he said it would be the end of the week and it would be ready. On Wednesday morning at 8:45, he called and said "come and get it" and so I did. I was very impressed with the design and the craftsmanship and know that this will last for many years.
To install my new two hive stand, I would have to move the colony I have now which was sitting on a concrete pedestal I created. That would be no problem but I was concerned about confusing my girls who were returning back and found the hive moved. When Don Hopkins, the state apiary inspector was here this past week, I asked if he thought it would be a problem, and he said no. His advice was to move the hive a few feet forward and that way, when foragers return, they would find the hive missing, but still be close enough to drift to the new location once they see it. So I moved it five-feet forward of the old location, and things went extremely well. The girls were well behaved and I used about four puffs of smoke from the beginning to the end of the move. While I was digging the holes for the legs of the stand, I had a few foragers buzz around me, but I watched them do just as Don said they would do..they flew around me and then eventually found the temporary location. By dark, I only saw a few bees flying where the hive was before.
After I moved the hive to its temporary location, I decided to put something over the entrance so they would have to re-orient themselves to the short move. So I used a couple of bamboo reeds with some foliage at the top to cover the entrance. Wihin a few minutes, they were all over the bamboo, crawling up the front of the hive, and then taking very short flying manuevers and returning. The bees that returned to the original location would fly around, then fly back to the temporary spot, so I knew they were getting it. You can see the hive top feeder on the ground. I will refill it tomorrow with sugar syrup so they can get back to building comb in the top chamber.
Next to my bee colony, I think this is my pride and joy. My new two hive metal stand with a fresh coat of paint. Under it, I planted some kind of creeping Japanese ground cover (the name escapes me) to control weeds. And to make sure it doesn't sink in the ground, I put Quikrete (fast acting concrete) in the holes I dug out for the legs. At the far end, closest to my smoker, the legs stick up 14-inches out of the ground, and almost 21-inches at the end closest to the camera. And it is perfectly level, front and back and side to side. After allowing the Quikrete to cure overnight, I'll put the hive back in the original location at around lunchtime tomorrow.

So there you have it, my brand new metal bee hive stand. Since I'm thinking about next spring already, I'll have a place ready for my second colony of bees. And just think, if I grow tired of beekeeping, I can always use the metal stand as a huge barbecue grill -- large enough for a whole side of beef! Ya'll come!

When I put the colony back tomorrow, I plan to do an inspection to see if my queen is back to laying and maintaining her duties. If not, I'll order a new queen from Busy Bee this week and requeen and get things going before I leave on vacation in September. But I hope she's back to normal..and I'm sure the girls will be glad to get back to their original location -- and with a new and improved hive stand to boot!

They mystery of the non-laying queen who is laying again! ARGH!

Leave it to me to baffle the expert!

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was completely baffled by my two month old queen who all of a sudden stopped laying eggs. When I say stopped, I mean completely stopped. As I said before, I went in the hive for two days (this past Friday and Saturday) -- and I found no eggs or larvae anywhere. It was like no queen existed even though I found her on my second visit and she looked perfectly fine. I figured it may be something internal -- or maybe, just maybe -- she needed some Prozac. Even though the hive was queenright, something definitely wasn't right.

So to make a long story short, I requested the state apiary inspector to come check my hive and see if anything out of the ordinary was going on -- and today he made the trip to meet my girls and to "counsel" my queen if necessary.

Don Hopkins is the state's chief apiary inspector for the state of North Carolina. Luckily for me, he made it to my house today. He lives and works out of nearby Alamance County, so he didn't have to travel too far to get here. Three words about Don Hopkins: SUPER NICE GUY! I was very impressed with him and his vast knowledge of beekeeping and bee disorders, and as soon as he got out of his truck and shook my hand, I knew I was in excellent hands. And I was even more impressed that he fired up his own smoker and wore a screened beekeeper's helmet hat -- but no veil, no gloves...that was it. Me? I was suited up to the max! But Don's gentleness was obvious because he didn't get nary a headbutt or sting, and used a total of four puffs of smoke for the entire inspection. It was amazing! I would have gotten some pictures but the batteries in my camera gave out and I was out of luck. Oh well, next time.

Don said that overall things looked fine. The girls were extremely well behaved during the whole investigation. They were bringing in lots of pollen, that was obvious by the numerous filled cells all throughout the hive, and they hit a gold mine somewhere...that was evident by the well filled sacs on the legs of several workers who made it back while we were inspecting. They're making comb on the empty frames in both deep boxes and that's because I'm still feeding them sugar syrup. And they've made quite a bit of honey in both the top and bottom brood boxes. So overall, the colony is doing just what it is supposed to and everything looked okay inside. Very few dead bees were on the ground in front of the hive too, Don said those may have been those that died from defending the hive or died when I was in the hive over the weekend.

Now...on to the perplexing problem with the queen who went on strike this past week! I guess you could call it the $25,000 question. When I found her on Saturday, she was in the bottom brood box -- scurrying along like crazy and looking fine. Today, she was in the top box and on a frame that was partially drawn with comb that was about the width of my hand. She was still moving around over the frame at a pretty good pace.

And guess what? Her majesty had laid eggs in all of the cells! No pun intended, but I had egg on my face because she filled all the that comb with all these tiny white eggs -- which honestly caused me some embarassment. But I felt better when Don said it was obvious that she had stopped laying, in his years of experience he could see that she wasn't up to snuff with doing her royal duty. But the question is...why? What made her stop? And what made her return to laying eggs in the last 24-hours. By the way, we found no eggs in the bottom brood box, just what she laid in the top box in the last day. A perplexing situation indeed.

We put out heads together, me being the extreme novice and Don being the seasoned expert -- and we didn't come up with a definitive answer. We both had more questions than answers. Could it have been when I moved the frames from one hive box to another and something upset her balance? Could it have been when I sprayed vinegar around the hive to kill the weeds? Could it have been the powdered sugar dusting to control varroa mites? Could it be the heat and humidity? Could some of the foragers have brought something into the hive? Could it be parasites? Could it be this and could it be that? As I said, we had more questions than answers. Yes, friends...leave it to me to stump the expert.

By the time an hour passed, we had theories -- but nothing we could put our fingers on as the exact cause. We closed up shop and decided to wait her out and see what she does.

As of now, she has one week. On Don's advice, I'll check back in a week and if she is back to normal, then we'll proceed with everyday life at the hive like nothing ever happened. But if she is being spotty or shuts down again, it looks like it may be time for a new queen. I am keeping my fingers crossed that she will move on down in the original brood box and go back to being her old self...even though she's not old...she's ruled this colony for just over two months. But if not, then I'll make the trip to Busy Bee Apiaries in Carrboro to get a new monarch to rule over this hive. Cross your fingers for her. She needs it...and fast.

Until then, I'm checking the colony for varroa mites too. I put some corrugated plastic that's covered in Vaseline under the screened bottom board, and I'll check back in three days to do a mite count. From there I should have an idea of how to treat the girls this fall if they even need a mite treatment.

So that's the story. I'm still perplexed by this situation. And if I can stump the state's apiary inspector, then it is a dilly of a dilemma! But hopefully all is well behind the four walls of the hive and I'll open it up next week and find brood everywhere. One can hope. Right?

By the way, my two hive stand, made from heavy steel and being fabricated right here in town should be ready on Friday. I'll be able to put another hive in my yard next spring, next to the one I have now, and I think its going to be really nice. More on that later.

Until next time, just BEE yourself!

BREAKING NEWS: MY QUEEN GOES ON STRIKE!

So it looks like my queen is on strike. Yes, that's right, on strike. While the rest of her children are working like...well, bees...it looks like she has shut down production.

On Friday, I decided to swap out hive-top feeders. I have two feeders, and I wanted to put a clean one on top of the hive since I had dead fire ants in the old one and they were glued by the sugar syrup to the bottom. And while I was in there, I decided to see how things are going in the hive, an inspection since installing the second deep brood box a week ago. So I fired up the smoker and went to work.

The girls were already drawing comb in the second brood box, and what they had made so far was filled with clear nectar. So after picking out a few frames, I took the top box off and got down into the lower brood box and started from the end. The end frame, or the wall frame, was new -- I swapped that one and another from the new top deep hive which had no drawn comb. I did that so the girls would have something already drawn to work with in the top box and maybe work a little faster upstairs.

In the bottom deep body, as I went frame by frame, I found honey near the tops of the frames, some nectar in other cells, pollen, and something that perplexed me. I found clean cells, lots of open and clean cells, but no eggs. I looked and looked, went through the frames carefully, but still saw no eggs. I had no clue what was going on, but I looked carefully and was even wearing my reading glasses, but still no little white eggs. And no queen either, she was nowhere to be found. I was interested in finding her, but the more I manipulated the frames, the testier the girls got, so I closed up and said I would try to figure something out.

I had a hard time sleeping on Friday night. I just knew something was amiss, and that the queen was possibly dead -- but just what was wrong, I didn't know. So I decided to go back into the hive and see if I could check for eggs again and look for the queen to see if she was there. I must have missed some things.

So Saturday afternoon, I fired up the smoker again and took the top deep completely off because I had decided to just concentrate on the lower box. So I started with the wall frame, no eggs. Second frame, comb with nectar and some honey, no eggs. Third, fourth and fifth frames, I found comb, some honey and nectar -- but no eggs at all.

But as I pulled the sixth frame out and was looking at all of the clean cells, BINGO, I saw her, the queen! The little green dot on her majesty's back was showing as she scurried across the frame, then under it, and then on the back side of it. I watched her carefully. She looked fine. Wings were fine, she was moving fast so her legs must be okay too. She had no visible signs of injury, at least from the outside. So I figured that it must be something internal. Did she become infertile for some reason? Did the foragers bring something like a poison into the hive to cause her to shut down? Or is it...dare I say it...something going on in her head? I guess the possibilities are endless and I'm no bee expert.

After posting the delimma on the Bee Source forums, I got all sorts of theories from beekeepers as to the situation. No one really had a definitive answer, but several said that I need a new queen as soon as possible. And I agreed, if she's shutting down in mid-August, the colony will die out before winter, and I'll have to restart the whole process in the spring. After babying this colony along since June, that's the last thing I want to happen. I just hope that they won't swarm anytime soon. I know that the queen shuts down before they swarm, but for the life of me, I don't know why they would swarm now. But what I hope and what they do are two different things.

I called Jack Tapp, the owner of Busy Bee Apiaries in Carrboro (and a super nice guy) and I asked him if I needed a new queen. After describing what was happening, he told me to hold off on requeening -- and to call the state's apiary inspection service to have an inspector drop by. Jack told me the inspector would do a thorough inspection, possibly diagnose any problems, and check for varroa mites too while he was there.

So then I made the call and spoke to Donald Hopkins, the inspection supervisor for North Carolina Apiary Services -- a division of the state's agriculture and consumer division -- and he's coming up on Wednesday to inspect my hive. He was really nice on the phone and said he will be glad to check it all out. That will be a huge help to me since I don't have the luxury of a "mentor" in my beekeeping, its just me and my books and what I learn from the Internet and advice from others. I'm thankful he can make the trip here to see what is going on in this hive.

Other than her majesty going on strike, everything else looked great. Unfortunately, a few girls got in the way of me putting frames back in place and...I guess you could say...flew off to that great hive in the sky. As careful as I try to be, sometimes there are casualties where the girls got in the way. Before I closed up the hive, mortician bees were already taking the bodies and throwing them out of the front of the hive. They do like to keep a clean and tidy house.

I'll keep you posted on what happens with the inspection. Wish us all luck! And thanks to everyone that's emailed me or posted on my blog. You ROCK!

BEE good everybody!