Slideshow of White House bees

Here is a link to an interesting slideshow in the New York Times featuring the White House beekeeper. Pretty cool.

It's totally awesome that anarchist bees are living on the grounds of the most recognizable symbol of our republic. Yay anarchy!

Harvest time!

I harvested two medium supers of honey from my carnies. They made three supers of honey this year, but I am leaving them with one super for winter. The two supers I took yielded about 4 gallons of honey, which weighs about 50 pounds.

I used a honey extractor which worked pretty well. Some people prefer to use the "crush and strain" method, which boggles me. To me, that is akin to destroying the greenhouse to get out the plants. The most valuable asset a beekeeper has is drawn comb, so crushing the comb to get honey seems a little strange to me. By extracting, I can use the same frames with already drawn comb to give my bees a jump on storing nectar next year.

The worst part was getting the honey from the bees, mostly because it was a hot July day and it was no fun to wear a bee suit. I used a combination of a fume board and an air compressor to blow the bees off the frames. Both of these methods worked well.

I drained all the honey into a clean bucket, and I will filter and bottle it later. Yay!

Necar flow drawing to a close

The main nectar flow in my area is just about over for the year. I had a pretty good year, as I have at least 3 medium supers full of honey and I captured a swarm from one of my hives which is doing great. The second swarm that I captured appears to have absconded.

My Carniolans have done especially well this year. I have two full supers of honey from that hive and added a third super of foundation which they are drawing out. That hive is on a scale and I take daily weight measurements. One day they gained 17 pounds! That is quite a lot of nectar. They have had lots of other days in which they gained more than 10 pounds. During the month of May, they gained about 100 pounds (that 100 pounds is adjusted to account for the weight of stuff that I added like the super bodies, frames, etc., so it represents only the weight of what the bees have collected from flowers). They did not swarm and have worked hard all spring.

Another swarm!

My Italians swarmed again. In fact, they threw off two swarms at the exact same time, and I was fortunate enough to witness the entire thing. In fact, I was able to capture one of the swarms, but the other was much too high up in a tree.



Below are some pics of me capturing one of the swarms. I am fresh out of spare hives to put any more bees in, although I do have an order from BetterBee for two more hive bodies and plastic frames that shipped the same day I got this swarm.


Hopefully this swarm will not get too restless in a cardboard nuc box, which is their home for now.

Swarm is queenright!

I inspected the swarm that I captured earlier this week, and I located the queen. She is not marked, which surprised me because I thought she would be this queen. She is laying lots of eggs already (some can be seen in the photo of the queen below), and I am sure this is going to be a great hive.



The swarm is not drawing out the plastic frames at all. However, these particular plastic frames are not coated with beeswax which makes a big difference in how well the bees will draw comb on them. The reason there is drawn comb in this photo is because I put some frames in with my swarm that were already drawn. Today, I added three wooden frames with beeswax foundation. I'll be curious to see how quickly those get drawn out.

Swarm!

As I was afraid of, my Italians swarmed today. The good news is that I was able to capture the swarm and hive it. I don't have any pictures of the swarm, which is kind of lame, but it was a large one. Since my hives are scales and I take note of the weights everyday, I do know that my Italians dropped 6 pounds since yesterday. Most or all of that was attributable to the swarm.

The swarm landed on the ground which kind of surprised me. I basically started scooping them up and putting them in the box. I had some drawn comb in the box which they seemed to like. I didn't see the queen, which I know is marked. I'll do an inspection this weekend and figure out what's up with the queen.

Time to super up!

I saw dandelions on the way home from work! In my area, that is a sure sign that the nectar flow is starting. My Italians are already supered up with foundation (as opposed to already drawn comb), and earlier this week I finished putting a thick coat of beeswax on some more plastic frames so I can super my Carnies as well. The third year might be the charm for a surplus honey crop!

Just look at my Italians. They are kicking butt and taking names. If they don't swarm, they are going to collect tons of nectar.