New Hobby: Bee Keeping

[massphatness]

Was going through our hive photos from last year, and came across some pretty convincing visual evidence that this year's hive is significantly stronger than last.





More bees = Stronger hive

[Tio Gato]

That's amazing Vin. Thanks for sharing,. Oh, and thanks for the honey. Yum.

[massphatness]

Soooooooo my first foray into melting bees wax produced unexpected results.

I ended up rendering another pound or so of honey from the wax cappings, but the wax didn't really melt -- it just kind of stayed in semi-soupy form in the melter.

Did some research and found you get much better results if you drain the remaining honey from the wax then rinse the honey comb in cool water to further remove any sweet, sticky stuff.

I bundled up the cappings in cheese cloth and pressed it over a metal strain to squeeze out the last bits of honey then rinsed it as instructed in some cool water.

I was left with some slightly sticky wax globs that I broke apart and put back in the solar melter to see if a second go at it would produce better results.

It was warm, but overcast yesterday -- not much in the way melting took place, and I was a little discouraged.

However, today was bright sun and hot all day. I came home to this:



All the wax had melted leaving behind the impurities on the paper towel filter.

The wax itself looks like this:



There's not a lot, but I didn't expect a lot -- maybe enough for one candle? Not worried - hoping to get a bit more this fall.

Bottom line though, the solar melter works if you prep the wax carefully!

[icehog3]

Cool stuff, Vin, it gets better and better.

Now if you can just train about 90 of them to attack Roger on command....

[8lug]

Originally Posted by icehog3

Cool stuff, Vin, it gets better and better.

Now if you can just train about 90 of them to attack Roger on command....

Now that's funny.

[markem]

Seriously cool, Vin!

[357]

Great looking beeswax Vin. That's exactly what it's supposed to look like, lemon-ish colored. It can vary widely but they have shows/contests for this stuff and that's the color the pros aim for. Well done.

[massphatness]

Got a chance to do a hive inspection on Saturday.

Not a lot is happening in the honey supers. That's to be expected as the spring flowers are done blooming in this area. The one area where I see a lot of bees is in our Rose of Sharon bush which started blooming in mid July and continues to flower now - though I think that's starting to ebb.

Here's a shot of one of the girls getting her pollen on in the flower:


Didn't take any photos during the hive inspection because the girls seemed a little agitated. In pulling some of the frames, I did see a decent amount of brood in various stages from egg to larva to capped brood, so I know the queen is doing her thing.

Also managed to see the queen scurrying around one of the frames. Always reassuring to me when I can find her among tens of thousands of other bees in the hive.

Looking forward to the fall honey flow in a few weeks.

[mosesbotbol]

We get a lot of bees still around on Lavender & Basil patches. There are always several bees in them. Never seen them without bees actually.

[massphatness]

As the temps have started to get cooler in New England, Grace & I decided to harvest the fall honey this week. Unfortunately, there just wasn't all that much of it vs. what we got in the spring. Earlier this year we were able to take out about 30 lbs of honey. I was expecting A LOT more in the fall based on what I had been told by other beekeepers -- some of whom say their fall yield is 75%+ of the total year's volume. So I was expecting to blow past the 30 lbs we had taken this spring.

It was pretty clear we weren't going to get a whole lot because a couple of the frames looked like this - just a smattering of cells being filled.




In the end, we got about 12 pounds of a deep amber honey. Honey's color depends on what flowers are blooming while the bees forage. The bright gold honey you see in stores -- often labeled Clover Honey - is almost certainly produced in the spring and early summer when clover abounds. Darker honeys, at least in this area, are a result of late summer blooms of flowers and trees.

Here's a side-by-side look at our spring honey and our fall honey. The lighter spring honey has a more floral taste to it while the fall honey has a caramely, brown-sugar quality. I've read that the darker honeys are more nutritious. Both are freaking delicious.



Going to throw some honey into the next troop auction if anyone's interested.

Grace and I have had such a good time with the bees this year, that we're going to add a second hive next spring. Fingers crossed that our current hive over-winters successfully. Otherwise, I may just have a whole bunch of firewood when the snow melts next year.

[Black Coral]

Looking forward to the troop auction

[Tio Gato]

Originally Posted by Black Coral

Looking forward to the troop auction

Me too! I'd love to the dark honey.

[AdamJoshua]

That's awesome congratulations on a thriving hive and bountiful harvest! Holy **** I sound like a Quaker


Actually thought this was very cool, saw it a lot in Europe on the breakfast buffets, that's if they are regular wax and not pre-made which it looks like they are, but this is still cool damn it!

[massphatness]

We’ve thought about trying out foundationless frames in the future. It’s awesome to be able to cut chunks of comb with honey right from the frame. The downside for me is that the bees then need to completely re-create the comb instead of just focusing on honey production. Also, the guy who does our extractions charges more if we use foundationless frames because it apparently takes longer and makes a mess of things. For now, we are going to continue to go with the pre-printed plastic frames, but I’d love to try the foundationless frames once I have some more experience under my belt.
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[BigAsh]

that dark amber honey looks delish!!..reminds me of a dark Amber I once knew...😎

[357]

Originally Posted by massphatness

We’ve thought about trying out foundationless frames in the future. It’s awesome to be able to cut chunks of comb with honey right from the frame. The downside for me is that the bees then need to completely re-create the comb instead of just focusing on honey production. Also, the guy who does our extractions charges more if we use foundationless frames because it apparently takes longer and makes a mess of things. For now, we are going to continue to go with the pre-printed plastic frames, but I’d love to try the foundationless frames once I have some more experience under my belt.
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You can get an inexpensive manual extractor and do it yourself. The decent ones have a clutch so the crank handle doesn't take your arm off once you let go. The nicer ones yet spin the frames radially, allowing you to skip the step of flipping the frames over (like you have to on a tangential extractor) , plus is much friendlier to foundationless wax. With a manual extractor, you can carefully control the speed to prevent blowouts.

My extractor is a $120-ish 2-frame tangential but I have my eye on a 4/8-frame preferably with a clutching handle. There are a few manufacturers, and all will do 4 frames tangentially or 8 radially. I just haven't picked one I want yet. They run $250-300 or higher for name brands.

[AdamJoshua]

This had me in the mood for toast with honey. I went out The kitchen before I realize there’s no bread here why would you be bread here. Then i was realized that there is no toaster here. Sure if there was bread i could use the oven, but really a house without a toaster, well there gonna s mood edit plan with taking a bath, notthst i would get in that tub even if i was going to play battleships with a plugged in toaster. I mean that’s just gross.

[massphatness]

After we bottle the honey, there's always a little bit left in the bucket. Washing it down the drain seems like we're asking for problems, but thanks to some research on Google, we found the answer is, as usual: bees.



I put the bucket a few feet from the hive, and within an afternoon, the ladies had slurped up all the good stuff leaving the bucket squeaky clean.

It was suggested that i put some grass in the bucket to give the bees something to hold on to as they can drown in their own honey.

What they took from the bucket is stored in the hive for future use as food during the upcoming cold weather months.

I wasn't prescient enough to take a photo of the honey remnants in the bucket before putting it out next to the hive, but there was a pretty decent amount. I remember thinking, "no way this works" and as usual, I was wrong. Will try to remember to take more pics next time.

[BigAsh]

Originally Posted by massphatness

After we bottle the honey, there's always a little bit left in the bucket. Washing it down the drain seems like we're asking for problems, but thanks to some research on Google, we found the answer is, as usual: bees.



I put the bucket a few feet from the hive, and within an afternoon, the ladies had slurped up all the good stuff leaving the bucket squeaky clean.

It was suggested that i put some grass in the bucket to give the bees something to hold on to as they can drown in their own honey.

What they took from the bucket is stored in the hive for future use as food during the upcoming cold weather months.

I wasn't prescient enough to take a photo of the honey remnants in the bucket before putting it out next to the hive, but there was a pretty decent amount. I remember thinking, "no way this works" and as usual, I was wrong. Will try to remember to take more pics next time.

Genius.....gotta love nature....and way to use "prescient" in a sentence...bonus 10 points

[Dux]

How are they doing on winter reserves?