The Orchard and Honeybees in May

The bees arrived this year on May 1st, I went down to pick up the 2 packages I had ordered from Beez Neez Apiary the first thing in the morning, so I could install them by the early afternoon.  They arrived just as the cherry tree and plum trees started blooming, then over the next two weeks all of our fruit trees bloomed, the pear, apple, crab apple, asian pear, and quince.  The honeybees are the heartbeat of my vegetable garden and small orchard, we have about 30 adult fruit trees, 15 young fruit trees, and many small baby fruit trees.

 

My Spring walks about the orchard were filled with the delicious smell of fruit blossoms, it carried through the air for many glorious days.  The first couple weeks of May we had the most amazing weather, it was warm with temperatures more like the middle of summer, it was in the 70's and 80's with warm evenings.  My days were spent tending the animals, but the major focus was on amending the vegetable garden soil and planting seed.

Shiro plum tree in bloom, early May

 3lb package of bees

This is a picture right after I installed the 3lb. box of honeybees with a queen.  I waited until the next day to release the queen, and set them up initially with one deep hive box for 10 days, then when I checked them after 10 days it was time to install the second deep hive box.  Now that we're into the third week of May and it's cold and rainy, I'm making sure they have sugar syrup on at all times if it's not flying weather.  New hives without established food reserves can starve in the NW in late May and early June.  If you ever have any dead bees on the entrance you should suspect starvation and put sugar syrup on asap, or you could lose some or all of your new colony.  I know about this from first hand experience, so now I'm diligent about feeding them.  The other thing I made a commitment to do is to check the hives and frames once every week to ten days.  This is to catch them before they need more room, as well as to check for them making queen cells, which must be removed and more space given.  I also want to keep the frames clean, so I'm able to manipulate them.  I check for newly laid eggs to make sure the queen is still laying.  I look at the overall laying pattern and see the pollen reserves and honey reserves.  Being a successful beekeeper means you fuss over your bees faithfully, this will prevent swarms, and keep them alive so they can gather honey and pollen to feed and raise their young, that will in turn give you more workers who will gather more than enough honey for a bountiful harvest.

My first check of  the bees, they were doing a fantastic job on each frame, eggs, larvae, pollen and honey.  I didn't have to feed any sugar syrup the first couple of weeks because of the beautiful weather and abundance of blossoms. I could see them flying in with pollen sacs full and could tell there was a nectar flow going on just by watching the hives. 

 

During my first check I noticed they had formed some burr comb honey where they weren't suppose to, it was in a spot that I had to remove to be able to manipulate the frames properly.  I ran into the house and got a bowl to save it because they were capping  honey on the comb.  We have been enjoying a special early season honey treat made from dandelion, fruit, and maple blooms, the flavor is out of this world, and is one of the rich rewards of keeping honeybees.  Your own blossom and terroir in an edible form... honey!

Asian pear trees in bloom, early May

Bee Keeping ~ is not for the faint of heart!

Bee keeping is both humbling and exalting, their are thrills to be had in swarms, and adrenaline running through your body as you are capturing a swarm, the energy of thousands of bees all around you.  During these moments, I lose sense of time, as I'm totally focused on working with my bees.  I am in awe of them, the more I learn about them, how they are so in harmony with one another, the hive, the scouts, the workers and queen.  They dance and communicate, they work tirelessly for the good of the hive.  They protect with their life, and feed and tend their young with faithfulness. 

They are vulnerable in the Northwest however, and need a nurturing hand to watch over them, a good beekeeper to guard them, helping them to stay warm and well fed, and adding additions at the right moment.  They will reward us with honey, wax, pollen, propolis, and pollination.  Possibly by keeping them and watching them, we can be lucky enough to learn some of their noble ways. 

The cold days of late winter and early spring, I regularly peeked in and added sugar syrup if they needed it. I fussed over them all Spring, and now that it's getting warmer it makes working alongside my busy little  garden partners all that much sweeter.  I try to organize when I work with the bees at times when I'm not rushed.  I like to be relaxed, as I check hives with my suit on, I lift out frames, holding them into the light, looking for tiny eggs that look like a grain of rice.  If I see those nice and uniform, I know a queen is alive and laying eggs.  Are they uniform, how are the workers capping them, are they bullet like drone cells or are they nice worker cells?  Do you clean the frames as you work them, I do with my scraper.  Look for queen cells, peanut like, they hide them, so look carefully, I usually cut them out, and give the bees more room.

Honeybees in the Northwest need to be fed a lot in June, it's hard to believe because June seems like it should be summer.  If you don't feed them, they could starve to death within a very short time.  If you ever see dead bees on the front of the hive in June, check to be sure there is still sugar syrup left on.  The reason I know about this so well is that several years ago both my hives starved to death almost totally in June.  I caught it in time to salvage some, but not until almost all the bees had died in mass over a 2 day period.  I had no idea what was happening, due to a lack of knowledge.

They can also swarm in June, this year mine swarmed on June 2nd.  I had never experienced a swarm happening before the beginning of July, so was unprepared, and wasn't checking the hive thoroughly every week.  I got a call at work from my husband who watched the huge swarm come out of the hive and swarm away, he valiantly tried to capture it, but it was 50 ft up in a douglas fir tree.  We both felt sad, as a swarm takes away half the workers or more along with the old queen.  You are left with a huge loss of workers for gathering honey, and a new queen that won't hatch out any babies for several weeks.  So you lose workers and valuable time getting a new queen established.

I had a very strong hive this spring, and had been feeding them since late February.  Next year I will know to check early, and put supers on by early to mid May just to be sure they have plenty of room to grow and make comb.  The new young bees like to make comb and the queen was laying perhaps hundreds of eggs per day, exponentially this translates into an army of bees that needs way more room faster and earlier than I, in my inexperience (only 5 years) got to learn another valuable lesson the hard way.  Which happens more often than I like to admit.

Serendipitously, on June 7th my swarm of bees, or possibly someone else's came back.  I thought my bees were swarming again, and knew I didn't have enough left to create the black cloud of bees circling the front of the hives.  As I came near the roar of bees was everywhere, they were on the ground, on the bushes, on
the hives, landing on me, several swarms were forming.  Thankfully I was home and not at work, and had the time to gather 2 more hives to put together, very hard to do when you don't have that many frames with wax in them (I'll address having the proper equipment ready in another post)

I was running back and forth to the barn in my suit with bees all over me, sweating and panting, and gathering everything I need, then realizing I needed my nuc hive, which is the smaller one on the left.  I managed to patch together enough hives, gather the swarms in a box, then dumped the box into the hive, set the box in front of the hive to let the rest go in. This all took a couple hours of running around and then gathering them all before the evening cooled down.  I was strung hard in the right hand, and it was swollen for 2 days.  I've made sugar syrup twice already, and they're all doing ok.  On the next nice sunny day, I'll be checking them thoroughly, and possibly combining a couple.  All three of these hives are almost full of bees, and the small nuc on the left is half full.  I feel so blessed for a second chance at a good honey harvest for this year, and will be diligent in checking them regularly.

harvesting dandelion pollen

One of my worker honey bees gathering the dandelion harvest of pollen.  There are thousands of bees gathering pollen this time of year, dandelion pollen is a favorite.  They feed it to their young to help them grow from babies to adults.  Can you see the pollen she's gathered on her sides, she's getting full and will then carry it back to the hive to unload and go out again.  Honeybees are tireless workers when the weather's nice, they are wonderful to have and watch through the different seasons.

The Smallest Livestock ~ Bees

This year my bees are doing incredibly well, so far, so good, this has not been the case every year, I have lost my share too.  I would venture to say all beekeepers have lost hives if they've been raising them for any length of time. Yesterday I fed both my hives with sugar syrup, I began feeding sugar syrup back in the middle of February even though it was early, when I gave it to them they seemed hungry, and drank it up, I've made 3 batches so far.    Over the winter on real nice days I will peek under the cover to make sure the bees are all dry, humming away, and will smell the sweetness of honey that comes from a healthy hive, if it didn't smell sweet like this, I would be checking them closer.  I wipe off snow throughout the winter from the top, so it doesn't drip down over the hive, and the entrance so they have a breathing hole. 

In early December I added an insulating pillow case filled with wood shavings to the top box to absorb moisture and insulate the hive.  Bees make moisture in the winter, and this needs to be absorbed somehow, or the condensation can drop back down on them like freezing rain and will chill them, good ventilation is important, and will prevent condensation.  We are not in a cold enough climate here in the NW to have to wrap in tar paper, according to the bee expert at our local bee store.  Every other winter I have wrapped the hives in a wall of straw bales around 3 sides, with a plywood roof, covered in plastic to keep the rain and wind off.  This year I didn't do any of it, and they are stronger than ever.  I did medicate with Fumigilan B in the Fall, however this Spring I will not, and instead put menthol crystals on the top bars.  I will try to allow nature to guide in a more natural approach, and will be watching them closely, and seeing how they are doing.

One of the most valuable lessons I've learned in beekeeping is to treat the bees like mini livestock.  They need to be fussed over and cared for just like chickens, and rabbits.  I will walk by them everyday just to look at the entrance, and see any activity.  I'm now aware of what they need at different times of the year, I say now because in the beginning I wasn't in tune with them, to be attentive enough.  I now watch to be sure they have enough food in the Fall, and late winter, they also need to be fed in June sometimes, they can starve to death in June if the weather gets cold and wet. I lost almost every bee the second year I had bees in June, when the weather turned.  I watch the hive for dead bees at the front, and put food out right away if I see any.  By July I don't have to worry about them starving, but I will have to check inside the hive every week to 10 days to make sure they're not planning to swarm, and that there are no new queen cells being built, I make sure they have a good laying queen, watch the brood pattern, and add supers for extra room before they need it.  I have learned lessons about all these things.

Yesterday I took a few pictures to show what my hives look like when I peek inside this time of year.  I added two jars of sugar syrup to each hive, the bees hungrily lick it up, and within a short time of giving a the colony a drink of sugar syrup they are flying and real active, if the weather's warmer than 45 degrees that is.  The sugar syrup stimulates activity, and gives food for growth.  I'm looking forward to the fruit tree blossoms and dandelions this Spring, the bees get pollen and nectar from both.  The hives really come alive during nectar flows, our main nectar flow in the NW is blackberry blossoms, so most honey we harvest has blackberry as the main nectar, along with wildfowers. 

The beehive journal blog has a good reference for feeding sugar syrup and the ratio's, basically I remember
2 to 1 sugar and water in the Fall, and 1 to 1 ratio for the Spring.  In the Spring it's thinner, so 1 to 1 means, one cup water, one cup sugar, in the Fall it's thicker.  I usually mix a whole 10 lb bag at once.  I heat the water first, and then add the sugar to just boiled water, taken off the burner, then mix it thoroughly, let it cool, and pour it into jars.  I feed on the top of the hive with a holder that can hold 4 jars of sugar syrup.  You don't want to make too much of the syrup, as it can go bad, and possibly mildew if the weather is wet and cold before it gets used. 

Good cleaning is important to a healthy hive. I regularly swipe a stick on the bottom board to remove any dead bees, paying particular attention to the back corners. There shouldn't be a lot of dead bees, but I always find a few and sweep them out.  I plan to build a screened bottom board for both hives to put on during the nice Spring and Summer weather, they also help with preventing a build up of mites, and give air flow. I've put on mouse guards during winter, and make sure they are removable so I can clean.  I also make sure I have an entrance reducer on during most of the coldest days of winter, and will remove it for a day or two when it's nice weather and not too windy.  Basically I fuss over my bees like every other animal on this farm, everything requires tending to, and bees are no exception.   I'm still learning new lessons every year, out of 4 winters, I've lost my bees twice, there is a learning curve, just like everything new you try on a farm. I like to call my garden, an experimental garden, and my bees are no exception.  Each climate has it's own unique features that need to be taken into consideration.  I can only speak from my NW climate perspective concerning bees.

Spring Beekeeping Inspection is copied from the Beekeeping for Dummies cheat sheets,

you can go check them out, I include their link at the bottom of this page.  I'm not doing everything they recommend, however I have in the past.  I'm experimenting more with natural beekeeping as much as possible.  If it works I'll continue, and if not, I'll try something different.  I will write out more later about what I'm doing with natural methods. I do reverse the upper and lower deep hive bodies, and check the hive thoroughly, feed them sugar syrup, and put on menthol crystals.  I will do the screened bottom board and check for mites, and treat them if I find they need it.  Sometimes people medicate when they don't even need to, which is what I'm trying to be careful not to do.  If the hives are healthy I want to focus on keeping them going as naturally as possible.

Spring Beekeeping Inspection

Spring is a busy time for bees and beekeepers. Your spring beekeeping inspection is the first of the season. It’s time to start bee colonies or bring your colonies “back to life.” Here’s your spring inspection chores list:

• As winter crawls to an end, pick the first mild sunny day with little or no wind to inspect your bees (50 degrees Fahrenheit or warmer).
• Observe the hive entrance. Are many dead bees around the entrance? A few dead bees are normal, but finding more casualties than that may indicate a problem.
• Is there brown spotting on the hive? These are bee feces, which indicate the presence of nosema disease. Even if you don’t see the brown spotting, your first spring inspection is time to medicate your bees with Fumigilin-B (antibiotic) by adding it to the first two gallons of sugar syrup you feed them.
• Lightly smoke and open the hive. Do you see the cluster of bees? Can you hear the cluster?
• Remove a frame or two from the center of the top deep-hive body. Do you see any brood? Look for eggs (eggs mean you have a queen). If you see no eggs or brood, consider ordering a new queen from your supplier.
• Does the colony have honey? If not, or if they’re getting low, immediately begin feeding syrup to the bees.
• Feed your colony a pollen substitute to boost brood production.
• Use a screened bottom board or the sugar roll method to determine Varroa mite population. Medicate if needed.
• Place a packet of menthol crystals on top of the brood nest to control tracheal mites. Putting this on a small sheet of aluminum foil will prevent the bees from covering the packet with propolis.
• Dust the frame’s top bars with a mixture of Terramycin (antibiotic) and powdered sugar to prevent foulbrood.
• Reverse the deep hive bodies to better distribute the brood pattern. Use this opportunity to clean the bottom board.
• Later in the spring, add a queen excluder and honey supers (all medication must be off the hive at this time).  If you'd like to read more: http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/beekeeping-for-dummies-cheat-sheet.html#ixzz1HB3ySs5B.

the bees are flying

Today felt like spring in the garden it was sunny and 54 degrees, the bees were out in full force.  I checked both hives by peeking inside and lifting the upper deep hive box to see what was going on.  I found both deep boxes still full and heavy with winter honey, and way more bees than I thought I would find.   They are doing so much better than they ever have through the winter.  If all goes well I will go into Spring with strong colonies, and may even be able to divide them in half, and end up with 4 hives, which is my goal.  2 hives just barely gives enough honey for us to last through half the year, and to give some as gifts to family and friends.

Northwest Honey

Applegarth Farm is located at about 1200 ft in the Cascade foothills.  Most of our harvest is about 2 weeks later than in the valley.  This includes honey gathered from blackberry and wildflowers.  The early honey I collected in August is light and fruity, and so delicious, the best honey I've ever tasted.  The darker later honey is also delicious with more mineral notes to the honey.  They're both a Connoisseur's delight!  We gathered this honey, plus another gallon of the dark, and several more jars, along with a couple of trays of honeycomb.  Which we just like to nibble off of as a dessert, or yogurt topping.  We have 2 beehives, that I've had for 4 years, last April I replaced both of them with new bees.  We had a wonderful nector flow this last summer, that was extended due to mild conitions, the blackberry blossoms lasted a long time, and produced a large portion of the flow. 

Farm and Garden

Meditating in the garden...This time of year as everything has totally died back, I enjoy looking at pictures from the summer and fall.  And I begin to dream about my garden coming back to life in the spring. 

Notice "Sierra" our great pyrenees laying down looking out of her new pasture.  This is the entry gate that Jarin built in October for her new 1 acre pasture.  She is 1 year old purebred Great Pyrenees. and if let loose will wander off  and explore for miles around.  She will return, but the responsible owners of this breed will understand the need to be fenced or on lead, until they are mature enough to not want to wander, this may take 4 or 5 years.  They are wonderful livestock guardian dogs, when they are fenced with the animals.  This is my my husband Jarin's dog, and she goes everywhere with him.  Someday when we get milk goats they will share this pasture with her, along with another one that will be their paddock off the barn.

The chickens get to free range several times a week, they go all over the upper pasture, and stay in range of the chicken coop, I imagine so the hens can go back throughout the day to lay their eggs.  They love to eat all different types of grasses, weeds, and bugs.  The favorite place to scratch under is the rabbit hutch.  I guess thats where the best bugs are.  The trees surrounding our property are large douglas fir, hemlock alder, cedar, wild cherry, some grand fir, and noble fir.  Back when Jarin bought this land 30 years ago this was an old christmas tree farm.  The trees have grown over the years, and he has cleared the  upper and lower meadows.  Milling up the good logs for timbers to build with.  Or the alder and hemlock for firewood.  He doesn't build with hemlock ever, mostly douglas fir because it has more integrity. 

Henrietta gets the best mom award in our coop, she has raised 2 sets of babies last Spring and this Fall.  It is a delight to watch her and her chicks.  They obediantly follow her around, and she clucks to them to come for food.  She makes sure they are tucked in every night all cozy under her feathers.  As they get older she is still next to them teaching them always how to be a good chicken, and what to do.  They have to learn how to stay out of the way of Rodney the rooster, and the dominant hens.  They have to watch out for any chicken that has a higher rank than them.  It is interesting to watch the whole dynamic within the flock.  They all accept the baby chicks, and are curious to check them out when she first ventures out after 21 days of sitting on the eggs.  After raising chicks with a light, and letting the mom raise them.  I will vote for lettin the mom raise them everytime.  It's much easier that way.  They have a mom to take care of them, and don't seem like little orphans.

This photo was taken around the beginning of October, I had already taken the supers off, and have sugar syrup on for the fall medicated feeding.  I use fumigilan B to treat for nosema.  Any frames that came off the supers and had honey on them, I extracted.  This was a good year for honey, I got both light early  honey, and dark later honey.  Around here our honey is made mostly from blackberry, and wild flowers. 

Some of the frames didn't have the caps fully sealed over, so I set those out in front of the hives this time of year, and they totally clean them up of every drop of honey, and take the food in the deep hive bodies to be stored for winter.  You need to leave approximately 60 lbs of honey for the bees to last through the winter.  That's 2 deep hive bodies.  At the end of Fall I take off the top box with sugar syrup, and wrap the hive bodies, put a cover over the top, and a mouse guard on the entrance.  They will stay in the winter cluster usually  from around the third week of November until a beautiful sunny/mild day around the 3rd week of January.  They will come out then for cleansing flights to go to the bathroom, and stretch their bodies. 

The bees are the lifeblood in my garden, I love the hum of energy they bring to every fruit and flower.  They are busy little workers, and always interesting to watch.  I have spent many hours studying them, and what they are gathering and bringing into the hive.  I have had bees now for 4 years, and will have to spend some time, and write and share all of the hard lessons I've learned from trial and error.  To be a good beekeeper takes time and money.  There is a learning curve to be sure, queens, drones, pollen, propolis, swarming, starvation, adding supers, mites, and nosema.  You will want to read and study up on beekeeping before getting them.  Once you have them, you will never want to be without bees, and your own honey, and pollinators.

My favorite plant I grew this year was Amaranth or Love Lies Bleeding.  I bought heirloom seed for all my vegetables from Baker Creek Heirloom Catalog.  I have been very happy with all the seeds this year, well except for the tomatoes, which none ripened, but that wasn't the seed companies fault.  That was our cool summer, and not having the heat to ripen them. I have tried to save as many varieties of seed as I can this year.    The amaranth is still laid out drying, and I will be threshing it soon for amaranth grain, and will add it to breads I make. 

The Bees Arrive

Last winter I studied bee keeping, it's something I've always found interesting, and wanted to try. Being a gardener, and orchardist, it was also appealing knowing they are also pollinating my fruit trees, and helping create food. After reading and studying some books on bees, I slowly bought everything to start my adventure, we are lucky to have a first rate bee keeping store right here in the town of Snohomish, it's called Beez Neez. First I bought the hive bodies, suit w/ veil, gloves, smoker, hive tools, and many frames to fill the hives with. I painted the outside of the hives, and all the exterior parts with a primer first, and then a green shade of exterior acrylic paint. They say for our NW climate, we need the color green to help absorb heat, any shade of green will do. My husband also had copper roofs made, although any roof will do, metal preferably.

My first year of bee keeping had it's share of ups and downs, and learning experiences. We got a large amount of honey, although we didn't weigh or keep track of how much we got, we definitely will this year. I told so many people that I would give them honey that we giving almost all of it away. Unfortunately last Fall and Winter we had horrible weather, and my bees didn't make it through. I didn't give them a medication called Fumagilin-B in the fall, so we believe they died from nosema, or dysentery, the symptoms were they just slowly died. Also the location may not have been sunny enough, because the hives also had some mildew in them. In any event, I had to clean everything very well, and disinfect the hive, and start over.
So, this Spring I bought 16 lbs of bees, and installed them a week ago. They are thriving, and happily setting up home. When I stand under my large cherry tree, I can look up and see hundreds of them pollinating, and the sound of the buzzing underneath is incredible. I've learned the importance of regularly checking on my bees, and doing the rountine chore or medicating. I did give them menthol/ thyme patties, and that helps the mite problem, I also learned there is a lot to learn about keeping bees, so having someone to ask questions and can help is really nice.

When you install bees they are very calm, and not yet territorial, so you can see my daughter Kaley and I watching them up close, she was facinated with them. I also plan to buy this year a pollen trap, and a propolis tray, it will be nice to have fresh pollen to eat, it's the perfect vitamin, and propolis for cuts, abrasions, sore throats etc. Keeping bees has many rewards like wax for candles and lip balm, pollen, propolis, fruit tree pollinating, and of course the honey. I will keep you posted on my progress with the bees this year, and will having fun learning more about their amazing world.