December snow! And yes, you can tick off guard bees...even in the snow!

Greetings everyone! As promised, I made pictures of the snow storm we had here in the Piedmont Triad area of North Carolina. Not just here mind you...I see Lynn at Walter Bee (who is in the mountains of North Carolina..to the west of me) had a doozy of a snow fall there too. Parts of our state definitely became a winter wonderland overnight -- and weather forecasters are saying that we might, just might, have another system moving in on Christmas Eve!

I decided to make pictures of all sorts of things, including my bee hive, and of course, each picture has a story. You can click on the picture and it will open up in a new browser in a larger size. So here we go...

This one really doesn't need a description. He's everywhere...

Thank goodness that the hummingbirds are farther south for the winter. If they were here now to see this, they would be totally irritated with me. I just have a feeling that I'll need to buy a new feeder before the spring comes.

Fritz, my 13-year-old Dachshund. He is almost totally blind now. He was extremely reluctant to "do his business" in the yard with all the snow, but after a little coaxing, he finally did it. When he was a pup, he loved the snow and would run like a rabbit through it. But today, after being outside for a new minutes and completing the task at hand, he let me know he was ready to go back inside and get under the blanket with Klaus, my 5-year-old Dachshund. By the way, Fritz was a shelter dog and just a baby when I got him. Animal control officers picked him up wandering and he was scheduled to be put down when I rescued him. He's the best dog I've ever had and there will never be another like him.

My snow covered bee hive! When I got to the hive, a bee, who was dying, crawled out and fell on the ground. I figured that others had to be dead inside, probably from the cold, so I decided to take a closer look while I cleaned the snow away from the entrance hole. It was a sad sight to watch her dying, but I suppose it is a part of nature.

As you can see, I was right. There were casualties of the cold lying inside the entrance reducer..all dead. Not wanting the dead bodies to pile up and trap the living bees inside, I cleaned it out as best I could. But here is where it gets interesting. Pay attention to the upper part of the entrance. See it? That's the cluster of bees. While I was raking out the bodies of the dead bees, I heard them tune up a little -- the buzzing started -- and out comes a frisky guard bee. Oh yeah, I had to dodge that one..and she flew within inches of my head. I have no clue where she went, but I hope she got back okay. She still had plenty of light to guide her back to the colony.

This is a sad picture. This is what I raked away from the entrance -- all dead. I know it only seems like a few bees...less that fifty, but it still bothers me. And yes, I know its nature...like all living creatures, bees are going to die. But something gnaws at me and I always wonder if I did something wrong. The hive is still bustling with bees on warmer days, so I think they'll do okay for the rest of this winter. But whenever I see dead ones, I tend to think the worst. Maybe its because I struggled with this colony when they first arrived in June. I just don't know. Paging Dr. Freud!

Not wanting to let it get cold inside the hive, I hurried myself and put the entrance reducer back in place, then I cleaned off the snow from the top. Now when the temperature warms up and the girls decide to make their cleansing flights, there won't have anything to stand in their way. Plus the mortician bees can clean the rest of the dead bees out of the hive.

I just had to snap this picture of the creek below the house. This is the same creek that sits just feet from my hive and where my girls get their water supply. The picture would be a lot better if it didn't have that pipe that runs across the creek, but I can't help that...it is part of the city's water system. I understand that several years ago, before I moved here, a tree fell across it and when it cracked the pipe, around 400 people lost water until it was repaired. For the sake of the beauty of the creek, you'll just have to pretend it isn't there.

So there you have it. Some of the pictures I made of the great December snowfall of 2009. I hope you enjoyed seeing them as much as I enjoyed making them!

And now, its off to make some hot chocolate!

These girls don't know the meaning of a holiday...

Thanksgiving is a day of rest for many. A day of over-indulging in all sorts of rich foods, parades, movies, football - and then dozing after all that fun. I'm no exception to that rule, after all, who am I to turn down my own generous helping(s) of my Mom's turkey and dressing with cranberry sauce? 

The one common denominator for many on Thanksgiving is that its a day off from work. Some people get the one day off and many turn it into a long holiday weekend. But whichever it may be, usually very little work gets accomplished during this time.

Not for the honey bee!

Oh no, not my girls. As you can see in the picture above, the early morning of Thanksgiving, the temperature was still in the low 40s and the girls decided to sleep in some. But take a look at the picture on the left and you can see that by 11:00am, the temperature was up into the low 50s and the hive was wide awake. There was a flurry of activity, the traffic coming and going from the reduced entrance was constant, and lots of buzzing all around the hive. While I stood there to make the pictures, a few of the girls flew around me to check me out..but otherwise I guess they were too excited to take advantage of the warm, dry weather. 

The one thing I noticed is that amid all this buzz of activity, quite a few of the girls were bringing in lots of pollen. It seemed that over half of the incoming foragers had varying amounts of golden yellow pollen in their leg sacs, a darkish yellow, and when they landed, they would scurry inside the entrance. Then some would exit, flying up and around, and take off. I'm not all that wise on flowers, but I have seen pansies and other wintering flowers out in full force now, so maybe that's where they're getting it from. I'm lucky that many of my neighbors work hard to landscape their yards with flowering plant, so my bees found a treasure of pollen somewhere close by. Although I've sprinkled some pollen substitute across the frames of my hive, it looks like my busy bees decided to find their own -- and they're doing a darn good job of it too.

Side note: My brother told me that he's noticed more honeybees at his house this year that ever before. He lives about a half mile from me and said he believes they're my girls. I have no clue if that's true or not but I've had several people stop when they see me working my hive (remember I'm within seeing distance of the city's scenic walkway) to thank me for putting a hive in my yard. They're hopeful that my current girls (and a new hive coming this spring) will make their gardens more fruitful than ever. I hope my bees won't disappoint -- many people have great expectations from them this coming year!

I've been asked what I would like for gifts this year. First and foremost: shallow honey supers! I get the oddest looks when I say that I want honey supers and frames for gifts...but think about it. What else could a beekeeper want...or need...especially when its something that will be nothing but an asset? This year -- I hope Santa brings shallow supers from Brushy Mountain.

Dear Santa, don't you let me down!

Finally drying out from rains and floods!

 Take a look at what my area has experienced for the last week. Rain, rain, and more rain! The eastern section of the United States is waterlogged -- all thanks to what was left of tropical storm Ida turning into a nor'easter and pushing non-stop rain here for days. From the Carolinas all the way to the northeast, the region has been absolutely soaked. And tragically, a local woman was killed when a tree fell on her vehicle and crushed her. The tree was within inches of her two-year old son, who was in the back seat, and he somehow survived. Ironically, the first person to find the woman was her husband who was talking to her on the phone when it happened -- he heard it. It is a gut-wrenching story, but just one example of how the weather can have tragic consequences, even in the late fall.

I was able to get out last Sunday, one week ago, to do a brief inspection of my colony. The girls were very docile during the inspection, only a few head-butts, the rest of the time they just flew around. One thing I noticed is that they can't stop building burr comb on the bottom frames of the upper deep. They love to get crazy with their comb building even this late in the season, and so I had to go about cleaning up the frames yet again. The honey that came from the comb was golden and beautiful, and I was tempted to taste it, but I decided to wait until next year. Curiously, I noticed a few of the girls flying into the hive with dark golden pollen in their sacs. I have no clue where they're finding it, but they're bringing it in. To help them out, I put some Mega-Bee pollen substitute on the top frames because I am still giving them winter syrup, so I added some "pollen helper" to the mix.

Overall, the hive looked great. While the boxes are still full of bees, it did seems like the numbers were slightly thinner, and I'm assuming that its the usual winter thinning of the population. Although I didn't see her, her majesty is alive and well because I found capped brood in the bottom chamber. Not as much as before, but she's still laying and rearing.

I expect that will be the last full inspection before spring. I don't see the need of breaking the hive apart at this point since I know they're okay and since the weather is clearing up and they're flying all around on warmer days. The front of the hive was busy yesterday, the reduced entrance was covered and a flurry of girls were coming and going. At this point, just to make sure they'll be okay, I plan to feed until the first hard freeze - which hasn't happened here yet. But I think it is coming soon...as soon as we get out of the remnants of hurricane season...in November!

Hope all is well with you and your hives! Talk soon!

New entrance reducer works like a charm!

Sorry for the less that stellar picture, but I made it with my cell phone. Its rainy and gloomy so I decided to head out and see what was going on around the hive.

As you can see, I have a new homemade entrance reducer in place. I made it over the weekend. Luckily for me, I have a duplicate hive set-up in my garage, so it was easy to measure and make the wooden reducer that would fit my hive. As I mentioned before, since I'm using the new Dadant heavy-duty plastic screened bottom board, a standard reducer is worthless -- too long and to thin to work. So I made my own and its working great it seems.

I'll share manufacturing details later, but for now I can take satisfaction in knowing that unwelcome visitors will have a hard time getting inside this hive. And none too soon either...I found the girls dragging a wasp out the day I put the temporary reducer on. Then this past Sunday, when I put the new one on, the guards were fighting a honey bee at the entrance. It wasn't a member of this colony either...she was extremely dark colored (my bees are a bright Italian orange)...and they were giving her a hard time, dragging her out and letting her go, then doing fly-by knock downs when she would land on the front of the hive. So it looks like it is working as it should. 

More later! 

I didn't excel at wood shop...and it shows!

Fall. According to the calendar, it arrived weeks ago. Even though the season is officially here, the daytime highs have still hovered in the 70s with the lows at night getting into the lower 50s - maybe down to 48 and then stop.

That was until today. Fall arrived here like a lion, complete with cold temperatures and blustery winds. Actually it got up to 50 on my home thermometer...but the constant barrage of heavy winds made it seem much colder...almost like winter. And for the next week, forecasters say the temperatures at night are expected to reach 35 to 38 degrees.

As most of you know, I've been concerned about winterizing my hive. A few weeks ago I put a mouse guard on...but then I took it off because I'm sure that the metal bar with the small holes was causing an air flow issue on warmer days. Plus I worried that if the bottom board got cluttered up with trash, like dead bees, that the colony could die from being trapped inside. Even though I know it is a necessity and serves a purpose, I am just not too crazy about the mouse guard. But as the season progresses, I'm sure I'll probably put it back on, just not right now. And I don't want my girls getting too cold from the cold winds whipping through the entrance and the bottom of the hive. 


Now before I go any further, let me say that I'm not a carpenter. Truthfully, I hated wood shop in school. I barely made the required wooden key, one to hang your car keys on. But I made it so I could pass the class and to this day it hangs in my parent's kitchen (my Mom acted as if it was the greatest thing ever). I picked up enough skills in the class that if the need arises, I can create something. It may not be great, but hey, I can make it. And today was one of those days. I needed an entrance reducer to keep the wind out, and the ones I got from Dadant would not work. So with the few tools I possess, I got cracking in making a homemade entrance reducer, Mark-style!

If I had kept the old fashioned wooden bottom board, I could still use the usual Dadant reducer -- but with the new plastic screened board they sell, it will not work at all. They're too long in width and too narrow to cover the entrance (with gaps top and bottom). Sure I could trim the excess off, no problem there, but I can't fatten them up. They're worthless to me now. I sent Dadant an email and explained to them that their old fashioned reducers don't work now. Who knows what they'll do, maybe just ignore it. 

Remembering I had some old political campaign stakes in my garage, I took them out and decided that they would work perfectly. So I got the current measurements of my hive entrance and went to work. It would be a little tough to trim it to fit inside the entrance with a hand saw, so it would have to sit outside the entrance -- but that's okay, at least it would block the cold wind.

So with my hand saw, I cut it to the width of the hive entrance which worked out fine. But then the question came up inside my head...how would they get in and out, Mark? No problem! I took my drill and a wood bit and cut a hole at the bottom, then trimmed the round part out...making an upside down U-shape for the girls to come in and out. Oh, and to keep it from tipping forward and falling off -- I came up with the dandy idea of placing two popcicle sticks under it and slightly forward, so I stapled them to the stake, thus keeping it upright!

So now was the time to test my homemade reducer. And not a minute too soon either, as I got to the hive, there was a fight underway -- the girls were dragging out a wasp that tried to sneak into the front entrance. 

Okay, a drum roll please? TA-DA! Well, it fit okay, all except that I trimmed the width slightly short, leaving a slight gap. You guessed it, the girls were going in and out of the sides! It was a true Charlie Brown moment..I felt like a total block head. But after a few minutes, they started going in and out of the hole in the middle, although they were still using the gaps on the sides too. Oh well, at least the cold, blustery fall winds will not penetrate the front of the hive and chill the nest, not now anyway. 

I plan to tweak this idea some, and I have a cousin who is a cabinet maker with tons of tools, so I'm going to see if he can work on an entrance reducer for me. Until that time, I think my girls will stay toasty warm at night, and be able to get in and out and maintain housekeeping in the daytime. So even though it wasn't perfect, it was still a success.

You know...that mouse guard might not be such a bad idea after all.

Until next time, BEE warm!