mamabear0213

A long overdue update!

I can’t believe the last post we made was November of 2019. Seems like 10 years ago with the year we all have had! The winter in Vermont was mild and the bees fared quite well.

This photo was taken in early January. Our hive was very happy.

In February I was dying to know if the bees were alive. This stethoscope worked like a charm. They sounded like a car engine.

In late February a good sign bees are alive is seeing specks of brown and yellow on the snow. This is from their cleansing flights on warmer days. Bees do not defecate in their home and can hold it for a long time. It’s also a good time to feed the bees as food stores should be getting low. Most bees die at this time of you don’t feed. I (Tiffany) made the bees some fondant that was placed on a sugar board. I never thought I’d be so excited to see bee poo and pee scattered on snow.

The twins wanted to hear what the bees sounded like.

It was very tricky this spring to figure out when to take off the winter covering. The snow melted then we were hit with some random snow storms all the way into May. I wasn’t able to get any pictures of what it looked like inside the hive. Due to the pandemic we had no one to watch the kids for us to both do it.

Underneath the blue hive wrap was a lot of dead bees. The hives were stained from the decaying bees and defecation. Once opening the hive it was so exciting to see all the happy bees that made it though winter.

I did a few hive inspections and things seemed to be going great. We experienced a a very dry June here. Vegetation and berries weren’t growing yet. I woke up the morning of June 19th and thought maybe it’s time to put a honey super on. Full of excitement to finally get some honey! The twins and I went to our friends to see their chickens and play at the lake. When I got to her house Eric called me. He was mowing the lawn and found quite the site at the bee yard. A very hungry bear had himself a day and annihilated our hive.

That cinder block was on top of the hive and thrown. Also where it lays was thick grass the bear dug out.

To the left you can see where the bear tried to get the hive. He was shocked by the electric fence. Then he dug a hole to the right and went under the fence. He also left a trail of frames into the woods.

Because this happened on June 19th, it was a little late to get another package or nuc built up to ensure the winter. At the time we thought we could build a platform behind the garage and start a hive there in the Spring of 2021. Our number one concern is the safety of our children.

Our county bee site was very helpful and gave us some usable tips. They suggested baiting the electric fence with tin foil and peanut butter. Also secure the hive with a metal ratchet strap sold by Mann Lake. This way the hive would stay together when a bear knocks the hive over and a bear won’t be able to get in.

Two days after this happened our fears of bringing danger closer to our children felt justified. A bear got into our trash (which is built right off the garage). For now we are taking a temporary pause for at least a year perhaps a permanent one. Honestly we can’t make up our mind and aren’t ready to commit to letting this hobby go. Nature is so humbling!

Also if you didn’t noticed we didn’t sugar this year. We were really enjoying our time skiing this winter. With juggling jobs, school and the kids we thought it was a good year to take a break. Then we all went on lock down. Sadly it was too late for us to get the trees tapped and the shack ready to go.

Stay tuned to our sugaring journey winter/spring of 2021. Grandpa will be here to help us. He and Tiffany plan to do all the boiling. While Eric and Grandpa will do the heavy lifting. In a few weeks we will walk the trees to check the lines to make sure nothing is blocking them.

We hope you all are staying safe! 🐝 🍁

-Eric and Tiffany

September Bee 🐝 Update

This has been a long time coming!

My last update on June 2nd we were baffled. We have good news, yay! We have one strong hive we are hoping to over winter! I also figured out how to take photos and still protect my allergic self from any stings. Wearing a disposable glove you would find in your drs office gives you traction on the touch screen to take a photo or video.

We inspected on June 7th and this time I took pictures. (Thank god!) The nectar and honey were dark, we couldn’t see anything with our naked eye. I sent this photo to a beekeeper friend and he must have laughed at us. He asked if we zoomed in on the photo. There are so many eggs in the cells! Yay! In the photo below; the blue square you can see all the eggs and the red circle is the queen cup our new queen hatched from.

At this point it is reasonable to assume our hive swarmed. I suspect Oprah’s hive didn’t had enough bee-space. (Meaning enough frames drawn out for everyone to live in. The number is empty frames are irrelevant if not drawn out.) Ellen’s hive died very quickly.l, most bees weren’t mated to a queen yet. I think a lot of bees jumped over to Oprah’s hive and with a laying queen there has to be some over crowding.

On June 23rd there was a new beekeeper in town. Eric has enjoyed learning the ropes but still a little nervous!

If you look closely in the frame above you will see the eggs from June 7th are now in the larvae stage.

July 14th we had tons of bees flying around the hive! Taking a closer look you will see bees around the hive with pollen bags on the sides of them.

We have treated for mites with oxalic acid a few times. A couple of of inspections I didn’t get any pictures. We hope the mite load is very low (non existent probably isn’t realistic) going into winter.

August 30th the bees are still happily flying. The Saskatraz bees are so gentle. Except when doing yard work. Poor Eric has been victim a few times while mowing and cleaning up the sugar bush. I have made it so far with one sting on my scalp while filming this video.

Friday September 6th Eric and I were getting ready to inspect the bees and heard an eerie sound by the trees to the left of the potting shed. Below is the little fella causing the noise. I still can’t believe I got that close to a black bear!

We were very happy with what we saw this inspection. Golden Rod is at an all time high here in Vermont. Allergies have been insane for us for the last three weeks. I the golden rod is why the bees wax is so yellow.

Today we started feeding the bees 2:1 sugar syrup. The bees may or may not take it. The goal is to back fill the hive with food stores to get though winter. We had one twin down and out today so Mama Bear did lots of research on winterizing. We are definitely taking a different approach this year. Stay tuned for the update!

Happy almost Fall Y’all! 🐝

This years bees have us baffled! 🐝

We all know my track record for keeping bees hasn’t been awesome. But I’d like to take credit where it’s due. I can decorate a hive and paint it in a useful manner. 😂

This year we used The Real Milk Paint Co’s Milk Paint again. It has less fumes and off gassing, hypothetically translating to bees happier with their home. (A beekeeper in Elmore, VT gave me this tip.)

Each box received two coats of the “Sandstone” color.

The next step has me question how can I put a design on my hives but make it functional as well? Arrows! You should always put the boxes facing the same way you removed them since the bees remember the location.

Colors are: Betsy Ross Red and Stone Blue.

Add in some vinyl work from my circuit and some Of my favorite Ellen quotes!

Bee package installation day! All went as planned. The bee packages were handed out randomly. I was told they were inspected for health. Last year we received certificate proof, this year verbal. Both queens seemed ok, they were put in their hives with the cork in their smaller screened box. This gives the bees time to accept her as their queen.

The Saskatraz bees came in plastic bee packages. They can snap together for ease of moving. I think this made it safer for their trek across the country. The bees were from California but, the queens were from Canada. This trip can be very stressful for all parties involved…even the beekeeper. This isn’t a cheap hobby but as you know any beekeeper doesn’t do this because of the cost.

Shout out to Eric for mulching the bee yard and expanding it outside the electric fence… all in the pouring rain!

This video was right after install. You will see lots of bees “setting their gps” oriented themselves to their new location.

The next afternoon we had to release the queens. When we got to the hives we noticed there was a good amount of dead and barely moving bees in the package that was installed on Ellen BEEgenerous’ (left) hive. My father in law and I found this odd but also thought they may have had a really rough trip. When we released Ellen instead of trying to go directly into the hive she went back into the box. I think if I was trapped in a small box for several days I’d be disoriented as well. We peeled back the screen and got her in. Oprah WinBees’ release was text book. We released her and she went into her hive to work. (So we think.)

See all the bees in the left package verses the right?

My friend Carey in Morrisville worked with the same beekeeper as us. When she released her queen it appears she flew away. In hindsight we wish we both knew of an alternate method of releasing the Queen. On installation day we could have removed the corks and inserted a mini marshmallow. The worker-bees would slowly eat through it to release her. Thus having less human involvement in the beginning but also allowing time for the bees to get acquainted with the queen.

Here comes the bad news….

Did you notice anything in the above video?

No bees are flying around Ellen BEEgenerous’ hive. Upon inspection they were all dead at the bottom of the bee box. I contacted the beekeeper I work with and she said this just happens and in two weeks we can split the other hive. I have been researching splitting a hive quite a bit. There is a local beekeeper in town that runs a class specifically on doing this correctly. There are so many trains of thought on this. Do we try and maintain one strong hive we can get though this winter? Do we watch for signs or a swarm and only split them if that happens? Do we go ahead and split them because two is better than one? All great questions and I honestly don’t have an answer.

The hive that died was the same hive that was our weaker colony last year. The only difference between the two hives is the location (two feet) and the bottom boards. The left has a screened bottom board and the right has a solid one. The screened bottom board has a removable insert. Is is handy when checking for mites. See picture below. We are suspicious where our hives are placed perhaps a screened bottom board allows for too much airflow. Especially with the cooler temps we had this winter and the cool and rainy spring this year.

Photo credit: https://beebuilt.com/blogs/backyard-beekeeping-blog/solid-vs-screened-bottom-boards-which-is-right-for-you

The awesome garden Eric & my FIL made me. How can the bees not like this home?🐝

This video was taken Thursday May 30th. The bees look super happy and busy. We inspected the hive today June 1st. There are a ton of bees and they all seem very happy. My father in law and I were shocked to see no brood nest. No eggs, larvae…and no queen spotted. This is why we are baffled…A queen less hive that is happy? I suspect the queen was laying eggs at one point since there are so many bees. Also my father in law thought he saw brood when we inspected a week and a half ago. We did however spot two queen cups on one of the frames (example of a queen cup below). I took to the Internet after the inspection and learned I should have looked inside the queen cups for a growing queen. Since we have never run into this before I was clueless. The few blog posts I read said if the bees are happy and not agitated that means they could be re-queening. I certainly hope this is right!

Photo credit: https://www.foxhoundbeecompany.com/beekeepingblog/what-is-a-queen-cup?format=amp

Incase you are wondering why I haven’t gotten any close up photos or videos this year. This is a reminder of how allergic I am to bees…luckily my parents bought me a new bee-suit for Christmas. My gloves don’t allow for touch screen use. Hopefully I will figure out a solution soon!

Fingers crossed for a new laying queen when we check the hive next week or maybe the original Oprah WinBEE needed a break!🤷🏻‍♀️

Happy June all! 🐝

A long overdue winter bee update 🐝 why did they die?

Sorry I haven’t written in so long. Life has been busy in a good way for us! Winter clean up of the hives wasn’t pretty it was labor intensive.

I attended a hive autopsy class in March. Once again my mind was blown with all I leaned. The main reasons why bees die in the winter are: condensation, mites, robbing, cold & starvation.

We treat for mites using oxalic acid or mite away quick strips. They are approved for organic farms and are safe to use if honey is flowing. Do you recall my post last year when I told you a mite on a bee is equal to a human having a bunny on its back? They also come with some not so great diseases. We treated our hives for mites 3 times last year; I learned that’s not enough. When bees are foraging they run into other bees…if those bees haven’t been treated or are infected after treatment your bee brings mites to your hive. One sign of bee demise due to mite disease is your bee is dead with their head cocked and tongue out. I was able to get a picture of this at the winter class and witnessed this in our hive clean up.

A bee from BEEonce’s late hive with its tongue out.

Robbing in a beehive? What’s that? (I thought the same thing). Going into winter, other insects are hungry. Wasps, beetles, hornets, you name it. You know your hive was robbed if you see what looks like wood shavings on the bottom board. Robbers drill though the honey capping(s) and make a mess. Honeybees clean up after theirselves and use the capping for another purpose in the hive. When robbers come into a hive they enter through the bottom. This pushes the bees up the hive boxes, typically leaving behind hive stores needed for winter. Once they move up they do not move back down. This is a big reason why bees starve out over the winter.

It’s Britney BEECh’s bottom. Sad dead bees and it looks like some wood carving was going on.

Look at all those cappings on the mouse guard.

BEEonce’s hive dies in a cluster on top.

We have some ideas on what to do differently next year. We definitely will add a wind break fence for the bee-yard. This is a huge learning curve and has been intriguing. We will get some honey…someday.

I was able to harvest two ounces of propolis from the hives. I have mixed 2 parts ground propolis (bee glue) with 9 parts 150 proof grain alcohol. (Grain alcohol is hard to find in Vermont!) Propolis can be used for many things and it’s antibiotic properties are known to be healing. You can make lotion, salve, ointments, throat spray you name it. (Another thing I’m learning).

I plan to update on the new bees we got in April after our second hive inspection this weekend. In short the news isn’t good for Ellen BEEgenerous but Oprah WinBEE is a rock star.

Enjoy the weekend friends! 🐝

Winter Bee 🐝 Update

Today it warmed up to 36 degrees and we still have so much snow on the ground. We took today as an opportunity to open up the hives quickly and feed the bees.

The twins helped Mama assemble the sugar boards. First we braced the bottoms of the boards; then laid foundation paper across the bottom (the bees will clean this out). Each board got a pre-made pollen patty. Then we packed moist sugar into the boards. The mason jars were used to leave a hole left for ventilation.

Finally we went up to the bee yard and Eric shoveled it all out. Sadly we do not have good news to report. Both hives appear to have died.

The right hive was our stronger hive going into winter (Beeonce’s). The cedar shavings we added seemed dry and were doing their job with moisture. I popped off the inner cover and there were a lot of dead bees in a cluster; my best guess is they starved. There is a small chance there could be live bees because we did not take out any frames to find out of there was a smaller cluster. We could not hear any buzzing. To be hopeful we left the sugar board on. 🤞🏻

The left hive (Britney Beech) wasn’t a huge surprise. This was a weak hive with very little food stores. We did make sure we left enough extra food for them. It’s possible they died earlier in the winter. They did not touch the food we left them in the top super. Eric did notice it was wet inside; likely a condensation issue with this hive.

My Beekeeping mentor is having a workshop in the near future on autopsy die outs. We hope to learn more definitive information. There are so many lessons to be learned in beekeeping whether it goes in our favor or not.

We will definitely tweak our process for next year. We plan to add Saskatraz Bees. They are gentle (great for the bee allergy), super honey producers, known for their overwintering ability and resistance to mites and brood diseases. They will be here April 28th! We have lots of work to do to get ready for them.

But for new Sugaring season is almost here! Maple Syrup anyone?? 🍁

Winterizing the bees 🐝

Hey all! Sorry it’s been so long since we have posted. It’s been quite rainy in Vermont and lots of obscure sickness at the homestead. Thankfully we are on the up and up!

We started preparing for winterizing last month. We built quilt boards and candy shims. On Saturday October 6th we started by reversing the bottom boxes on the hives; you want the heavier box on the bottom so the bees work their way up in the winter. Once they go up they do not go back down to the cold for any honey left. We also placed heaters our friend Scott sent to us to help with winters sub zero temperatures. Below are some pictures of that day. I also included a photo of the most epic bee-sting we affectionally call BEEtox. That bee stung me right though my veil. It made for one entertaining evening at the house!

The beginning of the quilt boards. I’ll explain them more soon but the candy shims look a lot like this as well. We won’t use them until the end of January/early February to feed the bees some more.

I promised back in July to talk about mites and why we treat for them. We treated in July, late August and while winterizing. When honey bees are infested with mites its like walking around with a rabbit on your back. Now imagine if you had to carry around more than one rabbit on your back all day? This YouTube video explains why we treat for mites, diseases that come with them and the worst case scenario; entire comply collapse. The great news about treating for mites is there are organic options available that won’t harm us, the bees or the honey.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-wDgd5yURo

For winterizing we tried a new method of treating for mites using a shop towel, glycerin and oxalic acid. We followed instructions from The Honey Bee Suite blog: https://honeybeesuite.com/oxalic-acid-and-glycerin-for-varroa-mites/

These shop towels were placed on top of the the second from the bottom large deep hive.

The next step in winterizing was to make sure the bees have enough to eat. We mixed B-Pro (a pollen substitute) in the center of the plastic frames. Then filled the rest with a thick sugar and water mixture.

Each hive got two of these plastic frames in the medium size deep which we placed them on the outer edges.

Next was the quilt boards. Bees biggest threat in the winter is not the cold but moisture that builds up in the hive. They have 1/2 inch metal screening on the bottom (Sorry I didn’t get a photo). The boxes were then filled with cedar shavings to absorb moisture. In the center is a small piece of pvc to create a chimney for moisture to escape the sides. On top of the chimney piece is foam insulation. The insulation has a hole to hold the pvc piece and some of the center carved out for ventilation.

Finally we stapled on tar paper to help with blocking the winter winds and put a piece of wood on top to block snow build up. We then secured it down with a strap and put a cinder block on top.

Here’s to hoping we make it though our first winter ❄️ 🐝 Bee well!

It’s been a while!🐝🐝

Hey all! Sorry we have been missing in action. We have been busy bees and enjoying our first summer as Vermonters!

We added a girl to Twin Bears Maple Works. Say hello to Lucy!

Momma Bear went back to school and Papa Bear celebrated a birthday! Memeré and Peperé visited from Florida. We treated the hives for mites. Luckily the weather cooperated and the treatment went well. I will do a follow up post explaining why we treat and the issues mites can cause.

‘This was taken at our last bee class in June. Look at the pollen this bee is carrying!

So hard to get a good picture these days!

Yay! We can walk around the beeyard again!

I finally weed wacked the bee-yard (jungle) and noticed one hive was running out of room. This past Saturday Grandpa and I added an addition onto the hives. This third hive box is an important one. This is the box that will get the bees through winter for the most part. It should have at least 50 pounds approximately of honey for them to survive. Along with us feeding them hopefully we will overwinter these bees and be able to extract some delicious honey next summer! You will notice in the photo with the taller hives there is a 4th box. This is a feeder box. My father and law and I decided we should be cautious and feed the bees to hopefully deter swarming. (Swarming is when there are too many bees in a hive and half decide to move out and they form a new queen.)

Our next thing to worry about is robbing. The next few weeks is when other honey bees, hornets, you name it rob hives. I will tell you how we deter this in the follow up post along with why we treat for mites.

Thank you for reading! We hope you are enjoying your summer! ☀️

Beehive inspection & weed talk…

No no, not that weed! Let’s talk about weed killer. I was not aware until recently that a lot of weed killers on the market kill honey bees too. Most of the commercial weed killers contain a chemical glyphosate that is responsible for killing the weeds and also honey bees. Farmers have run into issues since honeybees are needed to pollinate a good amount of their crops. Fixing one issue has only caused another. Here is a bee friendly weed killer, thanks to VT Beekeeping Supply.

This weeks beehive inspection my father in law and I weren’t messing around. We got the smoker ready and dressed in full protection. Here is a small video. At the end you can see Queen Bee-once! I wish I got video of the bees after you smoke them. It puts them in a state of calm confusion (I will get a video of that next time.) The queens are busy and the bees have been busy building out comb. Lots of eggs, honey and nectar!Check her out! We have yet to spot Britany BEEch but we know she is there since there are blood chambers!

Have a wonderful day!! 🐝🐝

Tiffany

Beehive inspection class 🐝🐝

It was a beautiful day for a beehive inspection class. I even got a little sunburn. We learned what too look for while inspecting. I saw for the first time bee eggs, larva,pupa and actual fuzzy baby bees hatch! I didn’t succeed at taking photos of these, but thanks to Encyclopedia Britannica we have a good explanation of a bees start of life.

The baby bees are born polite and clean their cells right out. You will see their bums in the air while cleaning. Check out this Nat Geo time-lapse of a bee egg to adult

We also learned how to differentiate capped brood (closed cell for the pupa stage), nectar & honey. Look at the honey 🍯 photo I got at class below.

In my last blog I talked about being able too see the bees carrying pollen in their pollen baskets. I was able to get a decent picture of this at class.

In class no one wore bee protection. The bees were so calm and gentle. I got stung once but that’s because a bee flew into my pony tail and panicked. (Ouch)

When my father in law and I got home we were overly confident and didn’t wear protection while inspecting the hives. BEE-once’s hive was calm and all went well. We got some pictures of all the bees work.

Do you see the honey? Yay! This honey isn’t for us but for the bees! The second hive It’s Britany BEE-ch didn’t go as well. They were quite angry. I got stung in the face, my father in law on the arm and another bee got stuck in my hair and stung me. Her hive was put back together very quick and we will inspect another day. We planted a rhubarb plant and some tyme (both great for bee health). Then called it a day.

My bee sting count is up to 4 for the year. We made two rookie mistakes today. Suit up and don’t inspect the hives too late in the day. Always learning!

We hope you had a great weekend!

Tiffany 🐝🐝

What does it look inside a hive?

It was another busy weekend and finished painting the medium supers & assembled the rest of the deep hive frames.

The hives were also very busy this weekend.

Today when I removed the entrance reducers (if you look where all the bees are toward the bottom there is a piece of wood with a small cut out. Those are entrance reducers. ) I could actually see the pollen baskets some bees were carrying in. It was so neat. I tried to get a photo later in the day but didn’t have any luck. Luckily we have google and below is a snap shot from a quick photo search of what they looked like.

We added the second deep hive body and got some video of what’s going on in he hives. Busy busy bees 🐝