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UPDATE I just posted a few pics of how I extract the honey on this post right here. Check it out! --- It all started on a random whim late last summer. "I should get a beehive," I thought. I put out the idea to a couple of friends of mine, and one of them had a whole bunch of beekeeping equipment that her family didn't use anymore. The next day I was the proud owner of a bunch of semi-gross looking beehive equipment: 4 white boxes with 10 frames full of dust and spiders, a smoker, and a de-capping tool. Naturally, I had no idea how any of this stuff worked, so I turned to the internet. After I got a rudimentary education via pictures and ill-spelled blogs, I figured I was ready. I called up the beekeeping supply place in town, and they dashed my hopes by saying I couldn't buy bees this late in the season. The bees wouldn't have time to stock up enough honey reserves to survive the winter. So sadly, I waited until this spring. On April 18th, I bought my bees: 2.5 lbs of them, plus one queen. I also bought a gallon of super dense sugar-syrup, which is what the eat while they have no honey or pollen to snack on. It was a lovely windy day, and while I was picking my bees up, a man came into the store and sheepishly told a worker that his queen had flown away and needed to buy a new one. I asked how I was supposed to install the bees in the wind, and they told me to simply turn their bee-box upside down over the frames and let them come out on their own. Normally, installation of bees into your hive involves opening the bee box and shaking the poo poo out of them until they're all plopped into the hive. Here you can see the bee box that they came in, being protected by an empty hive box. I'm wearing a veil merely because i was slightly nervous about them getting stuck in my hair. Honeybees are suprizingly well tempered when they have a queen around to keep them in cheque.  This is the queen cage. She's sequestered on her own in this little box, so that the bees will get used to her smell and orders, without simply killing her. The bees clinging to her box are her royal attendants, feeding her through the screen, and taking away her excrement. There is a small hole on this queen cage that is corked. In theory, you're supposed to remove the cork and replace it with a marshmallow. The attendants will eat away the marshmallow, thusly releasing the queen and introducing her officially to the rest of her servants.  Of course, this didn't all occur as planned. My queen was evidently a feisty one, and as soon as I removed the cork, she sprang for it. Remembering the poor sap back at the bee shop, i immediately put the queen cage down into the bottom of the hive, hoping for the best. Here's the hive all closed up, waiting for the 2.5 lbs of bees to exit their traveling box and make themselves at home inside the new hive. At the bottom is their entrance, which I have reduced to 2-bee width, since it was still chilly.  OHGOD BEES  Day 1 sting count: 0 The next day, I went out to check on their status. They were supposed to have followed the queen out of their traveling box, into the hive. Well, it seems like the queen ended up going up into the box instead of everyone coming out. I had to resort to shaking the poo poo out of them, which made them come pouring out like a giant bee-faucet. After almost all the little suckers were in the hive, I closed it up, and began to wait. Day 2 of beehive sting count: 0 One week passes, and it's time to do the first beehive inspection. I was nervous the whole week, hoping to god that I hadn't squished the queen in my box shaking. In this picture, you can see the frames, and the black thing on the far right is a vertical feeder, full of that gooey sugar syrup for them to snack on.  I'm looking for eggs, larvae, and I'm trying to spot the queen. You can see that they've started building honeycomb on the foundation. The foundation on each frame is made out of a very pliable plastic that's dipped in wax and stamped in a honeycomb pattern to help the bees build with a little bit more order.   Finally, after playing "Where's Waldo" for the queen, she's spotted! Out of all the pictures that were taken, the only one that came out blurry is the one of the queen. But anyway, here's her majesty's butt. She is large, very long, and the bees in her presence act more slowly, more serene. It's strange.  I put the frames back, happy to have found the queen alive and well. I refilled their sugar syrup, and left them for another week.  The lid to a beehive has 2 parts; an inner cover with a hole in the top, for space and ventilation, and a larger outer cover for protection. You can see the inner cover on the hive, and the outer cover behind me.  Week 1 of hive sting count: 0 I let two weeks pass without opening the hive again. I spent a lot of time sitting in front of the hive, 2-3 feet away, and watching them bustle about during the day. They began to become very endearing to me. As each one would leave the hive out of the small hole I gave them, every single one would stop, rub their little eyes with their front legs, stretch out their wings, and then take off to forage. They paid no attention to me, as I wasn't a threat. Occasionally one would clumsily bonk into my head or arm, but they would just back up and go around me. The third week of having the bees, and 2 weeks after the first opening, I inspected them again. I was astounded. They had been so busy. Most of the 9 frames had been filled up with pollen, nectar, and new brood. Here's a shot of a frame full of pollen. Notice how different the colors are of pollen.  and the other side of the pollen-filled frame.  They had began capping small amounts of honey in the brood frames.  Here's the magical thing, to me. This is a frame chock full of brood. Each one of these capped cells has a baby bee in it, almost ready to be born. The masses were nearly ready to double in numbers.   Look closely in the uncapped cells in the pic above; in each one are different stages of bee larvae. As soon as these larvae begin to pupate, the bees will then cap their cell and let them grow in privacy, until they're ready to chew themselves free. They come into the world with downy soft white fur, which becomes fluffy and golden as they age. Check out the baby bees below.  This is a closeup of a baby bee barely emerging from her cell for the first time. She's surrounded by her newborn sisters, and nurse bees. Her responsibility to the hive for the first two or so weeks of her life, is "nurse bee" in which she takes care and babysits the larvae. Afterwards, she'll become a forager and work gathering nectar and pollen until her wings literally tear apart from her body, and she dies.  Since the bees were doing so excellent in their foraging, I removed their sugar syrup feeder and gave them the 10th frame for the box to fill up.   The rule of thumb is: when 7 out of 10 frames are full, put a new box of frames on top. 3 days later, we put a new box of 9 frames and the sugar syrup feeder on top of the first box. It's like they got a new story to a house, just like that. Week 3 sting count: 0 I let two more weeks pass before getting into their new box of frames to see how they were doing. Holy poo poo, were they doing. They had begun filling out nearly every frame with comb, and the center frames were chock full of larvae, and eggs. At this point, I had lost nearly all fear of my bees. They're very gentle, and while a few would fly around willy nilly when I opened up the hive, none of them ever attacked.  Here's a SEA OF BEES  The following picture is of a drone. Now, drones are the boy-bees of the hive. All the pics you've seen thus far are of workers: girls. The hive is run by girls. Drones are larger than a worker, have gigantic bulbous eyes as opposed to the worker's streamlined, smaller eyes, have no stinger, and can't even feed himself. He spends his life inside the hive, loafing about, getting fed nectar and honey by nurse bees. His only function of the hive is to possibly one day go out and fertilize another hive's virgin queen. Maybe. Sounds like the life, right? His whole existence is one prospective gently caress. Except, come autumn, the workers then push every single drone out of the hive, to freeze and die. They can't afford to feed a drone when they need to keep precious workers and their queen alive with the honey reserves throughout the winter. Who wants to feed a loafer, anyway?  One way to tell your queen is alive and well is to spot eggs. If you spot eggs, she was fine at most 2 days ago. Look inside the cells of this honeycomb, that tiny little rice-shaped dot is an egg.  This is a look inside the 2 boxes. I've pulled 2 frames out of the middle to peek inside the bottom box. I now have WAY more than 2.5 lbs of bees. They've easily tripled in number, and will keep growing.  They have filled up the required 7 out of 10 frames in the top box, now is the time to put on what's called a honey super. It's shallower than the brood boxes, but contains the same amount and type of frame, just shorter. They will begin filling up these frames with honey as soon as they finish filling out their brood boxes.  Week 5 sting count: 0 I leave the girls alone for another 2 weeks, to let them work on getting that honey super filled up with gooey, golden goodness. When I opened it up, I was amazed. They had started drawing comb on nearly all of the 9 frames.  I took the honey super off to inspect the brood box below it. The frame that had a tiny corner of capped honey was now close to weighing 10 lbs. It was filled on both sides with comb chock full of honey.  The queen was still chugging along, as indicated in this frame totally full of nearly-hatched brood.  As I was hefting the honey super back on top of the brood boxes, a curious bee decided to investigate what was up my pantleg. The one-legged-honey-super-balancing-bee-in-pantleg dance was born.  Since they were going to town on the first honey super, a few days afterward, I stacked one more shallow box of 9 empty frames atop the first one. They now have 18 frames to work on filling up with honey. Week 7 sting count: 0 I have a garden near the beehive that I built to specifically fill with bee-friendly plants. One evening I was out watering it, when I got into the flight path of the bees. One poor little girl timed it just right that I put my arm down at the exact moment she collided with my armpit. POW! First sting. I immediately scraped off the stinger (it takes 4 seconds for the venom sac to pump you full of all its venom, if you get it out of your skin faster, it hurts less.) and went inside. I'm sorry little bee, I didn't mean to take your life in such a pointless manner! Week 8 sting count: 1 Two weeks pass, and I now have a screened inner cover for the warm summer breeze to waft through the hive, giving it nice ventilation. The weather is turning hotter, and the girls are chilling out on their front porch more during the evening, enjoying the cooler breeze, and generally relaxing. I open up the top honey super and find that they've nearly filled this sucker out. Busy as a bee, indeed. Industrious little fuckers! I take the top honey super off to check out the first one. They had completely filled and almost totally capped both sides of all 9 frames. I'm wearing a windbreaker that cinches down on the waist and wrists, my bee hat and veil, and I've pegged my pants in order not to repeat the bee-dance. I'm beginning to be a little bit wary of breaking into the beehive and stealing honey, as further into the summer months, the bees start to become territorial. However, they didn't seem to give 2 shits that I was there, taking their honey.   I took off the first honey super, which weighed around 50 lbs, to inspect the brood box. Each of the shallow frames, when filled out with honey, is 6.5 lbs. There were 9 of them in there. Remember the frame that had barely been capped on a corner, and then was filled up with honey? Here it is again, completely capped on both sides, ready to be used during the cold winter months.  Bee foot-traffic tends to make the honeycomb darken into a reddish brown patina. It's a beautiful color.  I ganked 2 frames of fully loaded and capped honey from the first honey super, and replaced them with 2 empty frames for them to work on. The result of 2 frames of honey? 10 lbs of beautiful, delicious, raw, wildflower honey.   It tastes like spring and summer; golden afternoons with the scent of blooming flowers wafting on the warm breeze, and a very slight hint of mint. I've never had anything like it; it's simply amazing. Week 10-to-current sting count: 1 Since the first 2-frame harvest, I've harvested another 3 frames with 12 more pounds of honey, and am going to harvest more probably this week. I'll conclude this post here; as harvesting honey can be considered the fruition of my beehive endeavor. I hope you enjoyed learning about honeybees, and I sincerely hope you leave with a little more respect for them. They're a very important part of life itself, and destroying them en masse is an immensely ignorant behavior. If anybody has any questions, please ask them, and I'll answer them to the best of my ability. I'm full of stupid bee trivia. melodywise fucked around with this message at 03:51 on Jul 22, 2008 |
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Jul 14, 2008 23:28
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god the last two shots look delicious.
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Jul 14, 2008 23:33
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Something I always wondered was do you have to do any sort of processing for the honey or is it just "scrape out into jar?" Also, that little bee picture is oddly cute considering it's still a bee.
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Jul 14, 2008 23:33
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Really beautiful, and a job well done, I hope the bees got a present for their hard work
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Jul 14, 2008 23:33
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Revdomezehis posted:Something I always wondered was do you have to do any sort of processing for the honey or is it just "scrape out into jar?" Also wondering this. Is it hard to 'shake off' the bees for each frame you're about to harvest without them getting irritated? Very interesting pics, thanks.
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Jul 14, 2008 23:36
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I have a question: Can you re-use the frames that you pull out and take the honey out of? And are you keeping the beeswax?
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Jul 14, 2008 23:39
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Wonderful post. Bees are great. I was a little worried about the very flower-like tattoo being the cause of future misfortune, but it seems my fears were unwarranted. Only one sting and that was more or less an accident? I'm impressed.
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Jul 14, 2008 23:40
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That is awesome - bees are one of the few bugs that I do not absolutely abhore. Not sure why either, since I've been stung quite a few times. Could you change your garden with different flowers and have the honey taste different?
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Jul 14, 2008 23:41
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Revdomezehis posted:Something I always wondered was do you have to do any sort of processing for the honey or is it just "scrape out into jar?" We scrape all the comb and honey into a sieve and let it drain out of the comb, and then simply pour the honey into jars. Big production honey farms pasteurize their honey. Bud Wiser posted:Also wondering this. Is it hard to 'shake off' the bees for each frame you're about to harvest without them getting irritated? There's a "shake" that you do, with a slow upward movement and quick downward movement. It knocks a whole bunch of the bees off, and they just sort of mill around, confused. I'm sure by the end of summer they'll not appreciate that as much, and i'll use a soft bristled brush to brush them off instead of just shaking the crap out of them.
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Jul 14, 2008 23:41
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Three-Phase posted:I have a question: Yes, I can reuse the frames. Bees are very neat creatures, they will take all the leftover honey scraps and wax, clean the frames all off, and start building again. There are honey extractors that remove the honey via centrifuge, so you can keep the comb intact, but I kind of want to keep my bees busy building more comb since they're so industrious. Looselybased posted:Could you change your garden with different flowers and have the honey taste different? Bees will travel up to a 5 mile radius around their home to gather pollen and nectar. Only if I set their hive in the middle of a massive clover/grass/whatever field would I be able to control what the honey tastes like.
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Jul 14, 2008 23:44
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Thank you for posting this, it's really rather wonderful, a great read. I'm still mortally terrified of the buggers, mind!
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Jul 14, 2008 23:44
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While this is awesome I would absolutely hate to have you as a neighbor. I think I'll stick to my vegetable garden for now.
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Jul 14, 2008 23:45
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I've been mulling over the idea of getting a bee hive of my own but have been reluctant since I travel a fair amount and unexpectedly. However, it sounds like raising bees is a pretty hands-off project. Is that really the case and if you don't mind, what's a typical schedule when working with the bees?
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Jul 14, 2008 23:46
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Oh and you get beeswax for making stuff like candles. If I had a house I'd love to keep a beehive.melodywise posted:Bees will travel up to a 5 mile radius around their home to gather pollen and nectar. Only if I set their hive in the middle of a massive clover/grass/whatever field would I be able to control what the honey tastes like. Wow, I can barely imagine a little bee going five miles.
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Jul 14, 2008 23:48
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This is really neat. Normally, I'm petrified of bees but they don't seem so scary after-all! And you only got stung once...great job!
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Jul 14, 2008 23:48
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It's pretty crazy how much better fresh raw honey tastes compared to the pasteurized stuff you get in stores.
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Jul 14, 2008 23:50
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Wow! Good stuff. I've planted some bee-friendly plants around the yard but wouldn't dare attempt to keep them myself (I'm allergic and it's no fun getting stung). Your description of the honey sounds absolutely amazing. I'll trade you for some homemade/homegrown plum jelly and/or apricot butter! I just canned some a couple of weeks ago.
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Jul 14, 2008 23:51
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I love threads like this. How much did the first 2.5 pounds of bees and the queen cost?
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Jul 14, 2008 23:53
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Amazing stuff. What are you planning on doing with the honey? SA Mart?
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Jul 14, 2008 23:53
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So what happens when you're... done? I mean, after the "honey season" or whatever is over. Do you preserve part of the hive, order a new queen/other bees, or what?
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Jul 14, 2008 23:56
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Your bees are doing amazingly well. That honey looks extremely delicious, and I hope you give it out to friends and family or whoever. My family used to have a few boxes ourselves. However, we ended up having a huge moth problem that completely destroyed our colony. I'm guessing you haven't run into any of those fuckers yet...
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Jul 14, 2008 23:58
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Homagnet posted:It's pretty crazy how much better fresh raw honey tastes compared to the pasteurized stuff you get in stores. My stepfather's sister has a couple of beehives and I swear to God that stuff is liquid amazing. The only commercial product I've found that comes close is tupelo honey. It has a lighter color and consistency than clover honey, and approaches the golden sunshine mouth-orgasm that is raw wildflower honey. Melodywise, have you considered planting anything in your yard to enhance the bees' product? I remember reading someplace that the flowers from fruit trees produce really amazing honey.
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Jul 14, 2008 23:58
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I hate to be the guy that brings this up, but how well did you clean your frames before putting your little bees in? Did you burn them off with fire, or just scrub them with soap? Unfortuately European Foul Brood can enter a dormant stage inside old frames and will remain that way for decades if not longer. Old frames need to be set of fire sometimes in order to burn off the dormant spores. Hopefully your bee's don't get diseased.
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Jul 15, 2008 00:00
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chimpParade posted:I love threads like this. How much did the first 2.5 pounds of bees and the queen cost? 2.5 lbs of bees and a queen cost me $65, and there was a $4 return fee for the traveling box. Anonymous Zebra posted:I hate to be the guy that brings this up, but how well did you clean your frames before putting your little bees in? Did you burn them off with fire, or just scrub them with soap? Unfortuately European Foul Brood can enter a dormant stage inside old frames and will remain that way for decades if not longer. Old frames need to be set of fire sometimes in order to burn off the dormant spores. Hopefully your bee's don't get diseased. i scraped the crap out of the inside of the boxes, threw away all the old frames and bought new ones. They're building on 100% brand new foundation. El Scorcho posted:So what happens when you're... done? I mean, after the "honey season" or whatever is over. Do you preserve part of the hive, order a new queen/other bees, or what? The bees need to have 60 lbs of honey to themselves to stay alive and well for the winter, and then come spring, they start the whole mess up again.
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Jul 15, 2008 00:03
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This is a pretty amazing post. Hope colony collapse disorder doesn't hit. Do you have neighbors? Do they know that you have thousands of bees in your back yard and have they complained about it? Edit: I hope SA's charity Bee Drive donated a bit feistier bees. These guys are kinda chill.
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Jul 15, 2008 00:04
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Faux Crow posted:Amazing stuff. What are you planning on doing with the honey? SA Mart? I'm not sure how much honey i'll get as of yet, I've gotten 23 1/2 pint jars so far, and they've almost all gone out to friends and family. I think I'm going to start stocking up, and then I'll see how much of it i'm willing to part with for money.
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Jul 15, 2008 00:04
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Bees are my favorite and you are my favorite for posting this. 
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Jul 15, 2008 00:05
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Aero737 posted:This is a pretty amazing post. Hope colony collapse disorder doesn't hit. I have neighbors, yes, and one of them one house down from me has his own hive as well. I never had any clue, until one day a couple of years ago he showed up at my door with a jar of his own backyard honey. They're very unobtrusive, minding their own business. I keep a water supply near their hive so they don't have to find the neighbor's hoses or rain buckets to get drinks.
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Jul 15, 2008 00:06
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Fantastic pictures. I'd love a Hi-Res one of the honeycomb with the different colors of pollen. It wants to be a desktop wallpaper for all of us 'worker bees' stuck in the office.
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Jul 15, 2008 00:06
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Faux Crow posted:Amazing stuff. What are you planning on doing with the honey? SA Mart? Yes please. I want to try some of that stuff. :e Beaten!
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Jul 15, 2008 00:06
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Homagnet posted:It's pretty crazy how much better fresh raw honey tastes compared to the pasteurized stuff you get in stores. I've never tried it where can I get some  Somethings been bugging me when you scrape out the frames do any baby bee/larva get killed?
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Jul 15, 2008 00:06
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chimpParade posted:I love threads like this. How much did the first 2.5 pounds of bees and the queen cost? This and a typical amount for the brood box and the honey box on top, i'm pretty curious. Also, for the smoke, what do you use, anything special? Great post, I found it really interesting, and my former dislike of bees has turned to respect, pretty neat.
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Jul 15, 2008 00:10
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Pissing Art posted:I've never tried it where can I get some Don't worry! The bees are smart enough to know that those honey supers are for honey and not for babies. So it's all pure honey, and not any baby-bee death.  RazorBunny posted:Melodywise, have you considered planting anything in your yard to enhance the bees' product? I remember reading someplace that the flowers from fruit trees produce really amazing honey. I've planted a few flowers that I've read the bees totally love, but as for fruit trees, I haven't planted any yet. I was thinking a peach tree would be great.
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Jul 15, 2008 00:11
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melodywise posted:I have neighbors, yes, and one of them one house down from me has his own hive as well. I never had any clue, until one day a couple of years ago he showed up at my door with a jar of his own backyard honey. They're very unobtrusive, minding their own business. I keep a water supply near their hive so they don't have to find the neighbor's hoses or rain buckets to get drinks. The only time that hive had ever been a problem was one really warm summer day where they were making bee lines (har har) at anyone that came within view. Doing combat with attacking bees was kind of entertaining for the first few seconds until your little kid brain remembered they had stingers. Captain Candiru fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Jul 15, 2008 |
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Jul 15, 2008 00:12
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This is amazing. I am now slightly less afraid of bees. Thank you.
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Jul 15, 2008 00:13
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This thread has almost given me a panic attack. I think a groovy way to ditch my irrational feer of anything buzzing would be to get a huge loving beehive.
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Jul 15, 2008 00:14
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Penguin21512 posted:This and a typical amount for the brood box and the honey box on top, i'm pretty curious. For my smoker, I use sticks of dried rosemary, merely because it's not as stinky as burning the "smoker fuel" fluff-stuff you can buy at the bee supply store. Sometimes I throw in a handful of dried pine needles, that smells pretty good too. A full frame of honey in the brood box can weigh up to 10 lbs, maybe more. The brood comb doesn't weigh as much, but still heavy. I haven't actually hefted a full brood box up; I try to be as unobtrusive as possible. You don't know how happy it makes me to read that you have a newfound respect for bees. They more than deserve that respect.
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Jul 15, 2008 00:15
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I always enjoy your project threads. After reading this, I briefly considered a bee box for my balcony (to go with the zucchinis of damocles, and other projects to terrorize my tower block). Though upon further consideration, I really don't like honey all that much. Do you like honey well enough to have a use for upwards of 20lbs of the stuff per year? Has the Colony Collapse Disorder news coverage dramatically improved the fortunes of beekeeping shops selling single servings of bees to concerned citizens?
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Jul 15, 2008 00:24
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melodywise posted:Don't worry! The bees are smart enough to know that those honey supers are for honey and not for babies. So it's all pure honey, and not any baby-bee death. That's p awesome. The way you randomly gave yourself this project carried it out and are now enjoying the tasty rewards is really admirable if you don't mind me saying. I wonder if there's anyone keeping a hive in my neighbourhood I can befriend and get free unmeddled with honey 
Pissing Art fucked around with this message at 00:28 on Jul 15, 2008 |
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Jul 15, 2008 00:25
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Way to make me like bees, that's awesome.
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Jul 15, 2008 00:26
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