My gosh good thing you aren’t allergicWell, that went south: The "honey-harvest" was a total bust! - Three weeks ago there were five fully capped honey-frames super, plus three partially filled not capped.
Today there were just two fully capped frames plus four uncapped, partially filled ones, so there was less honey in the super than three weeks ago.
I decided to leave that little honey in the hive! I'm not running four medium frames through the honey extractor! Its just not worth the effort of cleaning it. My estimate is that there is about 4-5 Kg (8-10lbs) of honey in that super currently and i was expecting at least 20lbs.
A full medium honey super can contain up to 50lbs of honey, so i'm not greedy! (Am i?)
And as usual with me there is a longer story behind - and yes it contains some very scared ducks:
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As usual, i optimized my work-schedule, so today i tried to do four things at once:
It was a bad idea from the beginning…
- Move my surviving bee-hive from a solid bottom board to a screened one.
- Inspect the brood boxes for hive beetles, wax moths and other pests.
- Perform a sugar-roll to test for varroa-mites.
- Harvest my first honey.
At least for now i know that the hive is doing well, no pests and there's lots of brood, pollen and honey. Hopefully with that ant-nest out of the way, the hive is able to grow more in numbers and catch up with the honey production.
- First I removed the honey-filled frames from the honey super, then after just four frames i discovered that there was no more honey in there, so i removed the whole box.
- Moved the whole hive about a foot to the left - big ominous hum from the bees - and discovered what might has killed off my other hive: There was a huge ant-nest right under the bottom board of the hive! - My hives are standing on pallets, which are standing on cinder-blocks and bricks to make everything level. The pallet as well as the bricks were full of ants and ant-eggs. Used a hand-brush and the hive tool to destroy the ant nest. Too bad that i can't treat them with any insecticide there.
- After cleaning the other half of the pallet and removing any debris from under the pallet i set up the screened bottom and tried to pry the whole hive loose from its base… No freaking way! - So i removed the upper brood box and set it down on the ground, then pried loose the lower brood box…
- I thought i had freed the box entirely from the bottom board but i had not. Now the bottom board was dangling from the brood box, swinging back and forth before falling off… bumping straight into the side of the upper box, sitting on the ground…
- That's when all hell broke loose! - The bees were already upset, but now they went into full scale attack mode!
They were all over me, which did not bother me until they discovered that they can sting through the cloth-sleeves of the gloves. It is weird, usually if a bee stings you, the stinger becomes lodged in your skin and the bee dies, but when they sting through that fabric, their stinger won't get stuck and they can sting you over and over and over. And once they know your weak spot the whole swarm goes for it! These stings are not as painful as a real sting, but the sheer amount made me run. And the bees followed me all the way down the hill around the house into the duck yard - the ducks ran for their lives, quacking loudly when they saw a big headed monster, surrounded by a swarm of angry bees coming their way. Finally i got rid of the bees by using the garden hose in mist setting.- Went inside and undressed. My forearms look like i received the stinging nettle treatment, no real stings. Redressed with a long sleeve t-shirt and the thick plushy winter jacket (1" thick plush
), pulled the hoodie up, got into the bee-veil and the gloves. This time i pulled the sleeves of the shirt and the jacket as far down as i could and did not pull the sleeves of the gloves completely up. Letting them sit loose and in wrinkles over my wrists, so the bees can still push their stingers through, but can't reach my skin.
- Out to the bees again and i was greeted by lots of very angry bees bumping into the veil.
- Inspecting the bottom hive box: I pulled a couple of frames out and looked at those. I have not been able to spot the queen. Is it possible that i have two different breeds of bees in my hive? There were bees with shorter and longer bodies. None of them had a body longer than their wings (so not queens!). The shorter bees were colored much lighter than the longer bodied bees. And i saw a couple of drones. Can't miss them, even if if haven't seen one before. They are just phat! Compared to the other bees. And yes they also have larger eyes.
- Set the upper bee-box on top of the lower one - how can you avoid crushing bees while doing that? I tried to set down the box as slowly and as gently as i could but still not all bees made it out.
- In both brood boxes there were plenty of capped-brood in the center, surrounded by larvae, eggs, pollen and honey cells. The bees really organize the frames from the inside out!
- I took my sample of brood-bees (hopefully) from the upper box and detained them in the sugar glass. By that time the swarm was again attacking me so hard, that i retreated into the shade of my tulip tree, rolling the bees in the jar in the powdered sugar; they were not happy with that treatment! After rolling the bees for about five minutes ( i felt dizzy from all that rolling motion) i shook the sugar out of the jar through the meshed lid into a white $-store dish-bin and good news, there was not a single mite in the sample!
- Back to the hive, i released the sugar-bees back into the upper brood box, installed the queen separator and the honey super (again some crushed bees) and installed the frames back into the honey super as they were.
So i try to be patient and will check on the honey-super again in about two to three weeks, the next nectar-run is just around the corner, as the autumn-olive shrubs are about to bloom for the second time.
The big lessons learned for me is that bees can sting through the sleeves of your beekeeping gloves! My forearms still look like i encountered stinging-nettles and it is itching. Hope it helps with my joint-pain!Fun fact: There is a large hole in my old jeans and i was wearing just open slippers. Not a single bee stung me into my legs or feet.
The other lessons learned, personally for me, is that i should only do one single thing at the time with the bees. I got stuck in my hot protection dress for about 90 minutes in 30° (90F) weather. I have lost so much water, that i felt dizzy after that.
