Off to a Good Home

Today my beekeeping mentor stopped by to pick up my hive boxes and random gear. He keeps bees for one of the Audubon sites and will be able to use the boxes and frames. He even took the flow hive even though he's not a huge fan. They're definitely harder to get bees to use, so maybe the fact that I had some comb built in mine might help his bees find their way.

I must admit I have mixed feelings here. I enjoyed keeping the bees, and watching them work. I learned a lot about the natural world around me by doing so. I did not enjoy those times when I lost colonies, or got stung a lot (obviously). But there has been too much on my plate for a while and I needed to take a few things off. This is one of those things.

My backyard will still be a bee and bunny (and other wildlife) haven, hopefully the neighbors aren't too upset about that. I'm really leaning into the "No Mow May" movement. I seeded the patches in the grass in the backyard and covered everything with burlap and hay to hopefully get the yard growing well again. I did see a vole eat up a bunch of seed so hopefully the critters don't eat all of it before the grass sprouts.

For The Record

The tin of mustache wax I made for my husband lasted almost exactly two years.

Today's batch was identical except for two things - I added bergamot essential oil with the myrrh and I played with the amount of jojoba oil because I'd had to add some after the fact the last time. 1.5 ounces of beeswax, 0.7 ounces jojoba oil, plus about 8 drops of bergamot and 3 drops of myrrh. 

Also, for the record, his pandemic-stache is a thing of beauty. 

Post-Mortem on a Hobby

Cybeele and her colony did not survive the winter. 

It's over 60 degrees today, and I went to see if there was any activity at the hive, as there should be when the temperature is this warm. Nothing. So I opened it up. Dead bees everywhere.

I took the hive apart, and I think there might have been moisture. There was so much honey. But there was almost no brood and there was mold, which generally grows after the colony has weakened or died. I plan to contact my mentor and get some insight, perhaps. 

Meanwhile, I am extracting what honey I can. After all, there aren't any bees to use it so I may as well harvest it. Of the four flow frames, only one had any honey in it, it wasn't much, and it's not working as intended so I don't know if I'll ever get it out.

What I do know is that I think this is the last attempt for me. I started keeping bees in 2015, and successfully overwintered some, but not all, of my colonies. Perhaps if I was doing this on a larger scale it wouldn't have such an impact when I lose a colony, but since I can't do that where I am, it's a significant setback each time. I'm frustrated and I think it's time to let go.

Final Check

After a string of typical November weather, today is almost 70 degrees and beautiful. Last week I picked an overcast day to put the mouse guard and "bee cozy" on the hive, but today was the day to open the hive and put the fondant in.

Because I didn't want to take off the flow hive, but I also didn't want the queen up there, I made fondant in pieces that I slipped between the flow frames. The queen excluder is still in place. That way, the worker bees can get to the fondant from below and bring it lower into the hive, and there is still a lot of honey in there. At least, there was, the last time I checked. Hopefully that will work for them. 

The colony seems to be doing well, they didn't get super aggressive which would indicate that they were feeling pinched for food, and I did all I needed to do without my bulky gloves on. 

That's it until the spring, at which point I am hoping they will finally and fully move into the flow frames and I can, after 2+ years, harvest honey more easily. Wish them luck!

Bee Hood Failure Mode

It's been a while so I went to check on the bees. They're generally doing well but it is later in the season so, despite my smoker, they were definitely trying to defend themselves against me. I guess they thought I was going to rob the hive. Not to mention it took me a while to get the Flow hive off the rest of the boxes and once I got into the upper brood box I inspected a few combs and then decided to leave them alone as they were getting agitated. 

Normally, my hood works great, but there must have been a little gap today between the hood and my coveralls because a bee got inside my hood and proceeded to sting me on the side of my nose, up near my eye. All I could do was catch it in the hood netting and get it out, and then I grabbed my spray bottle of rubbing alcohol and sprayed my face. Yes, it did burn in my eyes, but I needed to neutralize the alarm pheromones and keep the rest of the bees away. That did work, but I was certainly done for the day. I closed everything back up and got out of there, quick!

Good news, though - I did see lots of honey and definitely larvae and capped brood. I have not yet seen Cybeele but I'll trust that she's in there somewhere. 

My nose doesn't hurt too badly, either. Could've been a lot worse. 

Cybeele

My beekeeping mentor has guided me through many confusing years of beekeeping and this year has been no exception. My hive has successfully requeened themselves and, while I haven't seen her, I know she exists because as of today my hive is full of worker brood. There is no other way that can happen. Long live Cybeele!

The other good news is that they have started to build proper comb in a flow hive frame. If they can just move into all of them, maybe next year I'll be able to harvest honey from them and not have to disrupt them too much. They have so much honey they should be good for the winter unless we have a drought, which could still happen, so I'll still have to keep an eye on things. 

Sorting Themselves Out

I checked the bees today as it's 20 degrees cooler than it was yesterday and my bee suit is very hot. Even with it only being in the 70's, I'm still roasting! 

What I found were two hopefully promising things. One is that I found sporadic larvae, suggesting I have a new queen. I did not see the queen but I didn't want to disturb things too much and I had already taken everything apart so I could examine the lowest box so I didn't take out all the frames. I did not see any capped brood of any kind, suggesting that the worker bees didn't try to lay eggs in the meantime. Hopefully my assumptions are correct here. I've emailed my bee mentor to see what he thinks.

The other thing was that there was nectar in one of my flow frames. Hopefully that means the bees are starting to consider them as viable frames and will start to build in them. It is clear that this is going to be a multi-year process to get them to the point that they build them out completely. But if they have successfully requeened and I can get them through another winter it just might work. 

Hoping for the Best

The bees are continuing to be confusing. Today I really got into the hive and found a couple of things. (1) They still haven't started drawing comb on the flow frames, so I rubbed beeswax all over them in the hopes of enticing them to start. (2) There were more queen cells, including a few emergency queen cells. (3) Close inspection of every single frame showed me there were no larvae anywhere. Which means there is a problem with the queen.

So I left the queen cells I found, and closed it all up again, and emailed my bee mentor. Hopefully he has some ideas. They definitely haven't swarmed, and they definitely have room in there, so fingers crossed this is the right decision.

Still There

It's been a week since I moved combs around in the hive in an effort to get the bees up into the Flow hive and prevent them from swarming. Today I went to check on them and they are definitely up there now, but not laying wax down on the flow frames just yet. They do seem to be getting ready to build comb on the last regular frame up there. They appear healthy and appropriately active.

While still feeling weird about it, I destroyed another 4-5 queen cells that I had missed last week. It seems like the correct way to manage a potential swarm. I am still hopeful that they'll figure out they have a whole other box of frames and move in for good. If they still haven't made much progress by next week I'll bring some beeswax to rub on the frames as extra enticement. 

Meanwhile, the backyard is full of nesting birds: cardinals, robins, even an oriole made an appearance but I'm not sure he stayed. Also, two baby bunnies have been sighted amongst the other small mammals. We have the ubiquitous squirrels and chipmunks, several adult bunnies, and a vole. 

I Hope I'm Doing the Right Thing

It's a nice sunny but cool day and I have been meaning to check on the hive. I got the smoker really going today and took a look around. First of all, the bees haven't started drawing comb in the flow hive, which apparently isn't unusual. But, because they think they don't have enough space, they are preparing to swarm. I found several queen cells and lots of brood, and lots of honey filled comb in the middle box. I did not look into the bottom box. 

After a little thinking, what I decided to do was move the comb that just had honey and no brood up to the flow hive. The four flow frames are in the center and there are four regular frames on the sides. Since I found three frames in the middle box with honey and no brood, I moved those into the flow hive and brought empty frames down in their place. I also destroyed most of the queen cells I could find, about which I felt badly, but I need to try to keep a swarm from happening as best as I can. I do think that Alcibee is doing fine given the large amount of worker brood I'm seeing and the fanning behavior the bees were doing while I was in there. 

The other thing I found were several scouting ants, the large kind like we find in the house in the spring. I hope the bees are dealing appropriately with them. 

Spring Bee Update

Today I went out and fed the bees another quart of syrup. This is the fourth week in a row I've been doing that, and I think after this they'll be okay without it. It's warming up, they're bringing in lots of pollen and so many flowers are out right now. I have the flow hive in place and I am hoping they start to work on it. There were some bees in there today, but no evidence that they are laying down wax yet. 

From an overcast start it's turning into a lovely sunny day. I'm looking forward to a short hike later. 

99.9%

Almost done. Really, about 99.9% done. The inspector signed off on it last Thursday.

All that is left is the bathroom threshold, the shower door, a ring to go around the radiator pipe (because basic chrome wouldn't do for the bathroom with the tin ceiling, so we found one to match) and we have to replace one of the shower heads because it leaks. Apparently it's a design flaw, hopefully the replacement doesn't also leak. 

But what that really means is that we're back in the kitchen. And starting to unpack. And definitely baking! Yesterday I started a batch of cinnamon rolls and froze half of them before they were proofed. They can be thawed and proofed when we're ready. The other half of the batch went in the fridge and slowly proofed overnight; this morning I took them out and let them finish proofing on the counter. Then we feasted on cinnamon rolls!

Also yesterday I started a batch of bread which I just baked and, in a little bit, I will be making a cake for my husband's birthday. He has a vision of what he wants and hopefully I can make it happen. I am, as usual, winging it. 

Speaking of wings, I fed the bees today, dug out the flow hive box and put it on the hive, and generally checked on things. They seem to be doing fine.

So Many Updates

The renovation is almost done. YAY! It's been such a long time. 

We are starting to move back into the kitchen, and have a little more cleaning to do before I can fully move everything in but I'm getting everything sorted and even made my first batch of bread in the new kitchen. It just came out of the oven about an hour ago. Everything smells so good!

There are things that are yet to arrive but they are not critical to functionality: the shower door, the light for the kitchen sink, more shelf liner, and so on.

In other news, I made some syrup for the bees who seem to have made it through the winter and observed them to be bringing in pollen already. Where they are finding it, I have no idea, but they seem to be doing what they are supposed to. I'll keep feeding them for a bit longer and then once it's consistently warm and there are flowers, I'll stop. I'll also get the flow hive box on top around the same time. I also got to use my new bee helmet and it's such an improvement on my old one, I'm no longer looking through mesh but a clear panel and it feels more secure. 

Progress and Frustration

We have walls. And a floor. 

The radiant flooring will be installed in the master bathroom soon. We identified that we needed a few extra pieces of tile for the shower and I was able to order them. Our contractor is really happy with how the plaster was applied as it dried perfectly. These are the signs of progress.

The frustration is that the cabinets aren't ready; we were promised 8-10 weeks, this is week 10 since I signed the work order. Apparently an integral worker on the cabinets is currently quarantined. I guess this is what happens in a pandemic. It does mean we had to delay the appliance delivery by an additional three weeks. I have been informed that it is unlikely I will have a functional kitchen by Christmas. We're trying to remain calm.

In other news, last week I made fondant for the bees and put the sheet of fondant between the top of the bars and the inner lid. Hopefully that, plus their own honey stores and the insulation I applied, will help them stay alive and healthy through the winter. 

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. It's weird to not be making any pies. 

Bee Happy

At least, I think they are? They did okay during that cold snap and today it is 70˚ and they are very active. There is honey in almost all the frames of the second brood box. I didn't dig through very much because I don't want to disturb them as much as possible. Since the hive is now coated in styrofoam panels it would be exceptionally hard for me to take the box off and look at the lower brood box. 

What they are doing is breaking through the styrofoam I put between the inner and outer lids. I am not sure why they would do that. I suppose I can remove it but I am hoping it can continue to provide some insulation. There is a fine white powder that looks like ash in front of their entrance, after a beat or two I realized it was styrofoam dust. 

One thing I will need to do in the next few weeks is make a fondant sheet to put across the top of the upper brood box to give them a little more food for the winter. Just in case. 

As far as the home construction goes, the valve for the shower was installed so now the hot water is hot and the cold is cold; prior to that the water was mixing at that point and everything was basically the same temperature which made showers...interesting... The electricians are still working and tomorrow the AC vents will be moved. We hope to do the spray insulation this Friday. The tile is all here and accounted for and waiting in the garage for their step in the process. 

Because 2020, Why Else?

It snowed yesterday. Not just a light dusting, either. Five inches of snow. In October, in eastern MA. The last time it snowed around Halloween was about 8 years ago and not nearly this much. We lost one decent sized branch because our trees are still covered with leaves and the snow is very heavy, and all the other branches are weighed down and bent toward the ground. It's very pretty. Everything is melting now as it should be in the 40's today and the sun is shining. 

I'm not sure how the bees are doing. I'm glad I got out there to insulate the hive before this happened. There were a bunch of dead bees at the entrance to the hive, but not a huge amount. I hope they are OK. I did see one bee moving inside the entrance and I'll check on them in a few days when it's warmer. 

The construction had to be put on hold for a week while we made sure our contractor, who was ill, didn't have COVID. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, last week he did some of the framing and the electricians came and did most of the wiring. I think they have more to do next week, but it's a start. There will be no shortage of electrical outlets anymore, as the new building codes specify how many I need and it's way more than I'll ever use. Maybe when this is done we can have the coffee pot, kettle, and toaster run at the same time? Wouldn't that be nice. 

Construction Update

The aforementioned instant pot is incredibly useful. After making a venison stew last week, yesterday I made egg noodles in it, set them aside, and then made chicken piccata. Well, a simplified version of piccata, but it tasted good and didn't take long. The egg noodles mostly cooked but some were more al dente than others. 

As far as the house goes, the bulk of the plumbing is done, and we're supposed to have the electricians here soon. Yesterday our AC person came by to discuss where to put the vents. When we put the high velocity AC in 16 years ago, we were not able to have vents in the living room because he couldn't get the ducts across the firewall we found on the center joist. Now, while the wall is open, we discovered he can run the ducts underneath it and into the living room ceiling so we are planning on getting two vents in the living room and leaving two vents in the kitchen. 

We need to pick out vanity mirrors asap.

Lastly, it's been chilly at night so I went out and installed the mouse guard on the hive and used styrofoam panels to insulate the hive. I'm worried that if they use up their honey stores now, they won't have enough for winter. A little extra insulation won't hurt. It doesn't look super pretty but it works!

Some Assembly Required

I've been planning to add a FlowHive super to my hive for a while, and purchased it at the same time as the Langstroth. However, it came in 3 boxes, completely in parts. I wasn't ready to assemble it and then have to find a place to put it all before I set it out. So I left it in its component parts until two days ago when the youngerchild and I put the box together. 

This is essentially a medium super with four Flow frames and four regular frames. There were no instructions. There was a link to their website that had a video of the assembly of a similar but not-quite-the-same box. We assembled the box as best we could. We made sure the Flow frames worked and were set at the proper setting for the bees to get started. Then I looked at the box with the pieces for the last four regular frames and discovered that I needed foundation to make them. At least, I thought I did. Again, no instructions. I ordered foundation sheets from Amazon.

The foundation arrived yesterday just as I was headed to work so today I found a video posted by "Beekeeping for Dummies" and assembled the frames with their foundation. There were small pieces of wood left, I'm not sure what those are for. Regardless, I got the frames together and into the box, like so:

Then I got into my bee suit and brought it out. First I quickly peeked in the upper box on the hive and saw lots of capped honey. This is a great sign. Then I set down the queen excluder which is what prevents the queen from laying eggs in the Flow frames and ensures they will only have honey in them. I placed the Flow super onto the rest, put the cover on, and now we just have to see what the bees manage to do before the weather turns cold. 

Back

Front

Bees and Bunnies

Today is a very warm day and I was overdue to check on the bees since I added the second set of frames about a month ago. So I got myself into my bee suit and checked on them. I only checked the upper box, because to move the box would have been hard and would have really riled up the bees. They seem to be doing quite well, there was a lot of capped honey, a lot of new brood, and most of those were worker bees so I know Alcibee is doing well even though I didn't see her. To be fair, I didn't look too hard. I only checked 8 of the 10 upper frames and none of the lower ones. Mainly, I just wanted to make sure they weren't planning on swarming soon.

Found him again, hiding under some yard waste, so put him back under the bushes

After checking on them, I set about watering all my potted plants and, when I went around to the front of the house, found a baby bunny in my path. It was so small! It's ears were only about an inch long. After a while, it got tired of me looking at it and hopped away, on gangly little legs. We have lots of bunnies in the yard, probably because we don't have a dog or cat that would scare it away, but also possibly because we dump the litter from our rabbit's litter box into the compost heap and I think it attracts the wild rabbits. We love having them in the yard enough that I don't even mind that they have methodically destroyed all my hostas. 

Recap and a Bee Check

The last time I checked on the bees, about 3 weeks ago, they were doing fine and starting to fill up all the frames with comb. I gave them a little extra time before this check, mainly because it's been overcast or rainy most days I had time to go see them. Today was a better day weather-wise and I had time so I went out to inspect them plus I brought the second brood box back out. It's a good thing I did, there was plenty of brood, honey in the frames on the sides of the colony, and it was time to add that second box. I did see Alcibee, and she seemed fine.

On my way back from the side yard I discovered poison ivy growing in my yard! Taking advantage that I was still in my bee suit and gloves, I pulled it out, hopefully getting enough of the vines as well to get rid of it but likely I'll have to keep a close eye on that area in the future. We're all so sensitive to it so I'm glad I saw it before I ended up in it by accident.

Otherwise, I've been baking a little, making bread when we need it, and yesterday I made a batch of flan to celebrate the youngerchild ending school for the year. Nothing too exciting for now, which is probably a good thing.