New Hobby: Bee Keeping

[stearns]

Very cool walkthrough of the process, thanks for all the pictures. Very curious to see the final products of the wax

[icehog3]

I guess you really do mind your own beeswax.

[AdamJoshua]

That's very cool indeed! I like how calmly you said "or bee parts", at least i imagined it being said calmly but yah at risk of sounding foolish... ew.

[Conch Republican]

Cool stuff to read about. My neighbor and I talked about a hive - or at least starting with 1 of those hanging housing things to promote more bees/pollination of our gardens

[IBQTEE1]

Very cool Vinny.

[bonjing]

Massphatness, can you save the propolis or is it a pain trying to render it out?

[massphatness]

Originally Posted by bonjing

can you save the propolis

Not sure on this one. I don't know that I would have a use for it or if the bees can re-purpose it. The stuff is literally like cement. It's made from sap and other sticky compounds, and I think mixed with beeswax. The result is a glue that's pretty tough.

I did put the cheese cloth strainers I used during the wax rendering out by the hive. I had read that the bees will clean them up and take whatever they can from it. And they did! The cheese cloth that I had originally used to wrap up the wax was sticky with honey. A few days out by the hive and there was nothing but bits of dried up wax on it. I should have grabbed a photo. At one point, there must have a few hundred bees on working away on it.

Once the bees were done with the cheese cloth, I rolled them up and used them as a fire starter in our fire pit this past weekend. Beeswax & propolis are super flammable, and make a great fire starter.

[bonjing]

I have heard the propolis is good for you/things.

https://www.healthline.com/health/pr...ancient-healer

[massphatness]

It opened right to Cold Sores & Genital Herpes ... go figure

[bonjing]

[markem]

Mickey Dees is also into bees!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...&v=lng4n3FI7SQ

[CigarNut]

Very cool!

[massphatness]

We pulled the honey supers off a couple weeks ago. I think I got over-excited about our honey haul from earlier in the year, and I put three supers on after we had extracted instead of just going with one and adding as needed. The bees ended up working a little bit in one box, a little bit in another and a little bit in the third. As a result, we only ended up with about 12 lbs of honey. Most of the frames were only partially built out. No biggie. I don't know what I would have done if had gotten a lot more honey anyway.

The previous couple years I haven't done a fall feeding and thought I'd give it a try. I know the bees haven't starved out the past two years because there's been a good amount of honey in the frames when I've popped them open in the spring. Had the colony died of starvation, there wouldn't be anything in the frames. Still, better safe than sorry. The feed is a sugar syrup in the ratio of 2 parts sugar to 1 part water. (Interesting tidbit: a container of water weighs about the same when it's filled with sugar; not exact but close enough to make the syrup.)

At a 2:1 ratio, the syrup promotes honey production which will give the ladies extra food stores for the winter. In the spring, the ratio is 1:1, and that promotes brood rearing. No idea why.

I'm using an entrance feeder. The feed drips into it & the bees crawl in to slurp up the sugary goodness. Will be interesting to see how quickly they go through it.

[IBQTEE1]

Very cool. Thanks for the update.

[icehog3]

Slurping up sugary goodness.

Bees got a good life.

[BigAsh]

Originally Posted by icehog3

Slurping up sugary goodness.

Bees got a good life.

.....though short-lived at Casa Stolo....

[icehog3]

Originally Posted by BigAsh

.....though short-lived at Casa Stolo....

The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in Littleton?

[markem]

Originally Posted by icehog3

The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in Littleton?

Whoa! Major shrinkage.

[AdamJoshua]

is it keto-friendly?

[357]

Hey Vin, any colonies make it through the winter? I'm 0-fer again. I had 5 going into fall, 1 I was certain had no chance but I didn't want to go through the trouble of combining it with another. All but 1 was dead by December 1st. That one died before it warmed up in late January. I don't have any packages on order yet. I might take this summer off.