Author Archives: gerry

More problems with the hive scale

I noticed the scale was starting to give a few erratic readings back in December, then it seemed to settle down again.  In January, after w e moved it the readings were very erratic, and it’s just been getting worse as the clock runs forward.  I did some research this morning, and the final conclusion is, after being abused for 2 and a half years by being left out exposed to the weather, the electronics in our scale are no longer functioning correctly.  I broke down and ordered a replacement. The scale we’ve been using up to now is the HD-300 from the folks at canadanweigh.com, so I ordered the same one to replace what we have now.  It’s not an ideal scale, suffers a bit from temperature sensativity, but I dont really want to spend the big bucks it would take to get a temperature compensated unit suitable for outdoor use, so we decided to just go ahead with the ‘devil we know’. At this time of year, the scale data isn’t very interesting, and not terribly useful, but I do want a reliable system running again prior to April 1, which is the date I like to start the year over year comparison graphs if I can.  Hopefully it wont take to long for the new scale to arrive, then we will need a day with some reasonable weather to go out back and put the new one in place of the old one, that’s getting rather erratic these days.  

The Blooms are starting

We’ve both been sick for a week, so, getting a little behind with spring chores around the farm, and yes, we are now legally a farm, even the BC Assessment Authority agrees. Today we went for a drive into town to pick up the pieces that will become the new greenouse.  On the way home, we spotted an important bloom.  The Pieris Japonica along the hiway in town, beside the Husky station, has some flowers open, the bloom is just beginning there.  We have a hedge of these in front of the house, and when they bloom, the bees are all over them, for most of a month.  Last year, we saw the first flowers on Feb 28 on ours here at the house.  This timing looks ‘normal’, things along the hiway in town tend to bloom a week or two earlier than they do here at the house.  In the front yard, the snowdrops are up, and in flower this afternoon.  It’s been wet and miserable for a few days, but, if we get a sunny day, I’m expecting to start seeing bees all over these plants.  The weather forecast says, that’s probably going to happen by Tuesday. After we got back and unloaded, I mixed up another batch of patties, and will put them on the hives tomorrow if the weather will let me.  I’m experimenting a little with this round, added one drop of lemongrass oil to the mix, otherwise it’s the same as before.  We’ve read so much about how different smells will make things more attractive to the bees, so, I thought I’d try this once, and see if it makes a difference in how fast they consume the patties.  We do have some blooms now, the bees will be bringing in some some pollen from natural sources when the weather lets them, but, forecast over the next week or so is mostly rain, so, we want to make sure they are not running out of protein and carbs for feeding themselves and the brood that’s on the way.  The long range forecast is looking nice, it shows a week of sun starting in another week.  But, it always seems to say ‘next week’ for the nice weather, so, I dont want to take a chance, we’ll get the patties on now while we can.  If the weather does hold up to the forecast, we should see a parade of blooms starting in another week or so.  The Pieris is another week or so off here at the house, then we’ll have the skunk cabbage and the willows should start any day now.

Hive scale ramblings

For the last couple of years, the hive scale has been located in the back yard, within reach of an extension cord.  It’s not the greatest place to keep a hive considering the back lot where the rest of the hive stands is well fenced, the back yard has no fences.  We’ve been lucky in that yogi has never discovered that hive and taken it apart.  But last fall we ran conduits out to the back lot for another project, so while we were at it, I had a power plug installed in the first row of hive stands, preparing to move the scale hive into the back lot with the other bees. We made the move on Jan 10 of this year.  After the move I’ve noticed the scale data has become somewhat erratic, and looking carefully, the large gains and drops seem to correspond to when it’s raining.  I’m going to re-visit the scale setup, I suspect it’s catching water during the rain, and possibly running back inside instead of off the front lip of the entrance, that would explain the sudden gains of a few pounds during each rain event. The scale has turned into an invaluable resource helping us understand what is going on with our colonies thru the season, and it’s never shown the erratic readings during rain event in the past, so, it must be something about how we set things up after the move to the back lot.  Yet another chore to add to the never ending to-do list.

Checking on the feed

Today the bee projects were minimal, just one chore that takes only a few minutes.  I wanted to know if the bees are taking to the patties we put down on the weekend.  It’s only been a couple of days, but, I tend to be the curious type, and always want to know if the things I do, are having the effect we want.  Here’s what they look like a couple days after putting the patties onto the hives. IMG_0548 At this point in the season, we aren’t trying to co-erce the bees to build to rapidly, but, we do want to ensure they dont run out of nutrition between now and the first real flow.  Today was cool, minimal flying, and I didn’t see any pollen at the entrance like we saw on the weekend, and that’s the whole rub at this time of year.  Once they start bringing pollen in the first time, they will start raising brood, and we dont want them to run out of feed for that brood when a few days of cold keep them confined.  Two weeks of strait rain, not exactly uncommon or unexpected in this area, at this time of year. But I look at this photo, it’s clear, the bees are interested in the patties, and starting to consume them, not at a tremendous rate, but they have made small dents all around.  And considering it’s still January, I’m quite pleased with the size of this colony at this time of year.  This batch will be boiling out of both boxes well in time for our first flow.  

Feeding bees

Yesterday we made up fresh patties for the bees anticipating nice weather today. Today we started opening the hives and putting in the feed. I was happy with the hives overall, some looked very strong, a couple had small clusters but still looked not to bad for the time of year. I took photos on the first hive we opened, which turned out to be one of the weaker colonies. image Overall a good day. Besides feeding the bees in the back, we started prepping more equipment anticipating more packages next month. We want to expand more than is realistic from splits this year, so we will start 10 more colonies from packages as soon as they are available. Stan at the Flying Dutchman in Nanaimo will provide them again this year. Barring a catastrophe in years going forward, this should be the last time we bring in spring packages.

Bee season begins

It’s the third week of January, and most folks still consider this hibernation season for the bees. BUT, the weather is warm, bees are flying a bit mid day, and the natural pollen is coming available. I thought it was early when I saw the hazelnut tassels last weekend, but, checking back in the records, it was only 4 days earlier than we had noted last year. With pollen starting to come available, it’s time to start thinking about patties for the bees. We can read endlessly online about the variations between results with different types of spring feed for the bees, but when you do, on thing will stand out clearly. The bees that get fed, will prosper, and those that dont get fed, not so much. The difference is huge. Now comparing the results with different bee food formulations, we can agonize over the minute details endlessly, but, what we eventually realize is this. As long as what we feed is a ‘decent’ pollen substitute, the variations between the different substitutes are small, as compared to the ‘feed / no feed’ variation. In the end, practicality will trump some of the minute details, and practicality say, we have to feed them what we can get locally. Our operation isn’t large enough to bring in large quantities of special order bee food. The other practical detail, we need to be able to present it to the bees in a manner they can consume, and not many folks will argue with the statement that ‘fresh patties’ are the best way to present food to our bees. So, it’s time to make patties. We aren’t feeding a large number of colonies, so, no need to set up shop in the garage with special mixers, this is a task we can do easily in the kitchen. I have a sack of BeePro in the garage, purchased thru local bee supply sources. Digging around online, lots of folks will suggest different ways to present it to the bees, but the best I have found is in post on Beesource. It’s a simple recipe that scales easy to working in the kitchen. To make a small batch in the kitchen, I’ll assume you have a kitchen aid stand mixer or the equivalent. Start by dumping a 2 kilo sack of sugar into the mixing bowl, then add 1 liter of boiling water. This part is really easy to measure out, because most kettles these days have markings, so it’s easy to dump in roughly a liter. Mix it well, and you will have a bowl of warm 2:1 syrup. Now add to that 1.25 kilos of BeePro and mix. I dont want to fuss all the time with the scale measuring it out, so I did it carefully once, it works out to roughly 7 cups of beepro. Mix well, and you will end up with a slurry about the consistency of a chocolate cake dough, and it _just fits_ in the mixing bowl. Pour it into an empty ice cream bucket and let it sit overnight, it’ll thicken up to roughly the consistency of peanut butter. Then tomorrow, it’s really easy to make patties. Lay out some wax paper on the counter, pour the mix onto that wax paper, you will likely need a spatula to get it all out of the bowl. Put another piece of wax paper on top, then use the rolling pin to flatten it out to a hight you can work with. Now get your handy dandy pizza cutter out, and cut it into pieces appropriate for use in the hives. For our first few rounds to go on, I’ll make the patties fairly skinny, so they fit between the inner and outer cover. This allows me to put them on, without breaking seals on the inner covers. I’ll leave that till mid February, at which time we’ll pop off all the inner covers and take stock of how our bees survived the winter. For now, we are just going to give them a good jump on getting started with spring brood. Last year we noticed activity on the scale hive already by Feb 10, and when we opened them to look, I found capped brood. That told me, they started the brood already in late January, roughly around the time we saw the first hazelnut tassles. So now we know, moving forward, when we see hazelnut tassles, it’s time to start thinking about protein for the bees. I know many reading will immediately start to say, it’s to early to feed bees here on the west coast, but, I disagree. If you were at the BC Honey Producers Association annual general meeting last fall, and watched my presentation on how we used the scale hive data to target a specific flow, then the math following will make sense. It’s relatively well known, the bees will start to produce brood when pollen becomes available, but, we also know, if they go for periods without being able to fly, they will start to cannibalize that bood to recover the protein. Our goal is to ensure that once they start brooding, they never run out of protein to support that brood. Last year, the goal was to get the spring buildup started by Feb 21, so we would have 3 complete bood cycles before the main flow arrives. This year, with some of the hives, we are going to do it a little different. Our target for these hives is the maple flow, I want them up to strength for a flow by the first week of April when the maples are in full bloom. To get them up to strength early like that, involves using the same concepts that folks headed for Almond pollination in California use, make sure the bees are fed early, and induce them to brooding up early. The risk we take, is a cold snap in February could cause the cluster to shrink, and we’ll lose some brood to chilling. That’s a risk, but, we wont lose any brood if there is none to chill, so it’s time to start getting protein on the hives. We are 9 weeks from the first maples, and that’s enough time for 3 brood cycles. The first brood is replacement of the winter bees, the second is expansion to fill one box, and the third will fill the second box. My goal this year, double deeps with 18 frames of bees by April 1. Of course, this will have huge ramifications for managing these colonies thru April and May, we are going to have them up to swarm strength a month earlier than what is typically considered swarm season in this area. I have a plan for that, so stay tuned, and by the end of May, we’ll know if the plan worked. It’s an early start, and, I think it’s going to be a fun year. This will be our second year managing the bees to target a specific population size timed for a specific flow. We are targetting maples with 1/3 of the colonies, and will be targetting the salmon berries and thimbleberries with 2/3 of them. And in between all of this, we will raise a whole bunch of queens this summer too, it’s going to be a fun season.

Small Hive Beetle

So the small hive beetle has arrived in the BC Lower Mainland. About a month ago, we were informed by the BC Provincial Apiarist that a single adult male beetle was discovered in a bee colony near Abbotsford. The ministry reaction was to impose a hold order, and start an inspection program of colonies located within a short distance of the border at zero avenue, on the assumption that the beetles had indeed arrived by flying over the border from Washington state. As the inspection program continued, they found a few more locations with adult beetles, but, no sign of reproducing populations as was reported to the BCHPA AGM in Courtenay on October 16. That changed early the following week, and we received another report, this time a colony of reproducing SHB had been found in the vicinity of Abbotsford. The discovery of this new pest brings with it significant ramifications for beekeepers in the lower mainland and here on Vancouver Island, as it’s not really known wether or not these beetles are just up for a summer vacation of sorts, or, if they can actually become established in our climate. This subject was discussed in much detail over the two days of education seminars at the BCHPA AGM, and I think those in attendance came away with some appreciation of what this new pest can mean for those of us that have potential to be exposed to it. My own personal take from all the information presented, the biggest ticket item for beekeepers in this area is we now have to be much more concerned about beeyard hygiene, and colony strength. The ideal breeding ground for these little critters is a box of comb, with honey and/or pollen stores, and no bees to protect those stores. So it’s no surprise, when they found a breeding colony of SHB just outside of Abbotsford last week, it was in a nuc deadout that had been left in the yard. The ministry put a burn order on the equipment in question to erradicate that beetle colony, so as beekeepers, we now know what to expect if the bee inspector finds breeding SHB in our bee yards. I listened to all of the presentations at the AGM with great interest around the SHB subject, and when it was all over, my own personal take-away from it was, this is not a catastrophic development for us, and it could well turn into a non issue if the beetles dont get established. But at the same time, we cannot ignore the fact they have been found, and need to educate ourselves on how best to deal with these nasty little critters, drawing on the experience of our friends in Ontario that have dealt with the problem for a few years now in the southern extremes of the province. I noted with much interest, a general commentary from folks that have dealt with the SHB problem, most of them said ‘It has made me a better beekeeper’, but, in many of the cases, they were rather light on just what that meant. In the end tho, it became clear. If we dont want SHB to overrun a bee yard, the first and foremost item on the agenda, make sure there are no places ready and waiting for the beetles to get established. That means no boxes with comb that dont have bees. Think about deadouts, and think about our long standing tradition of the ‘swarm trap’. We may have to start thinking of the traditional swarm trap now as a small hive beetle breeder box. In the short term, winter is coming, so we have a reprieve from any potential onslaught. A great presentation by Medhat Nasr from the Alberta agriculture department pointed out a few simple steps that will go a LONG way to preventing beetles from getting well established. Equipment stored in the cold room, ie cooler than 10C, for 48-72 hours will prevent the larvae from becoming viable. Apparently they need temps above 10C and humidity above 50%, so keep the humidity and temperature down, and the beetles wont survive. As we head into the cooler season here on the wet coast, mother nature will give us a good helping hand in keeping equipment in the colder temps, but, she wont help us at all in keeping humidity below 50%. Ofc, this is no help when it comes to adult beetles that join the bees in the cluster for the winter, which apparently they will do. So our best option is to employ preventative measures which will help keep the critters from getting established in the first place. The other area where we have to be vigilant is at the honey house, or where ever you store supers for extraction for those not large enough to have a dedicated honey house. If you bring a box of frames home that has been exposed to SHB, in 48 hours those larvae will be viable, and destroy the comb and honey in the combs inside those boxes. The cure is, when you bring boxes home, extract immediately, then either store the empty boxes back on strong hives, or, they need to get into a cold room to kill off any potential SHB larvae ready to start doing the damage in those boxes. A single adult will lay thousands of eggs, so this is a process that can destroy equipment rather quickly if we dont adopt management practises with the SHB pest in mind. For those of us that do this on a small scale, it has been somewhat normal over the years, we head out and start pulling full supers off of our hives on the weekend, then leave them stacked in the garage or barn, to extract honey next weekend. If you continue to do so with SHB in the area, now you are putting your entire honey crop at risk. Bring one viable adult female home by accident in those honey supers, and by the following weekend you could well find the whole works slimed and destroyed by the larvae produced when she lays eggs on those frames. If there is SHB in your area, then the traditional way of doing things on alternate weekends for the part-timers will have to change. Pull supers on Saturday, extract on Sunday if you want to protect your crop, unless you have a cold room to store things in for a few days. ofc, who wants to be trying to extract honey right out of the ‘cold room’, that’s completely counter productive. But, for those of us here on Vancouver Island, is the arrival of SHB into the lower mainland going to be catastrophic for our beekeeping efforts ? Not in the least. Compared to the Varroa mite, SHB is a minor pest, and there is a lot we can do pre-emptively to prevent it from becoming a major pest. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and if folks make some minor changes to how we manage our bee yards, then when a few of the SHB ultimately do make that trip over on the ferry, clean bee yards with strong colonies and no deadout boxes laying around will give them little / no opportunity to become established on this side of the water. If a few beetles do manage to ride the ferry, but find no spot to settle in and call home inside weak / dead beehives, they will die of natural causes before it becomes a problem. Adult beetles are not the issue when it comes to your equipment, it’s the larvae stage that is devastating to the colonies. Realistically, island beekeepers cannot prevent an occaisional beetle from hitch-hiking over on the ferry, but, we can go a long ways to making sure there are no welcoming new homes for them after they arrive.

Robbing

We took half a dozen hives up to the club fireweed yard, it’s a great location with lots of fireweed for the bees to put on nectar.  The forest fire hazard went to extreme the day after the hives were moved up, so we didn’t go back and check on them for 3 weeks.  When we did go up and check the status of the fireweed bloom 3 weeks later, we realized one of the hives was in poor shape, and a quick look inside made it obvious.  The queen didn’t survive the trip up, and they failed to requeen themselves.  There wasn’t a lot of bees, and there was no sign of eggs, brood, or a young queen.  So we took the hive home.  The original plan, after they were in the home yard, install one of the nucs and let them rebuild.  The hive had plenty of stores, it just didn’t have enough bees to be productive. Well the old saying of ‘best laid plans’ came into play.  We got them home just before dark and set it on a stand so that a nuc could be merged in later the next day.    By 8am the next morning, there was a frenzy of activity in front of the scale hive, and sure enough, they had already found the weak hive.  The robbing frenzy at the weak hive was unstoppable, every hive in the home yard had found a source of easy pickings.  The graph tells the story pretty clearly, and by the end of the day, they had pulled 20lb of honey out of the weak hive and taken it home.  Click on the graph to see a larger more detailed version.
Robbing Season

Robbing season

My best guess after lifting the hive to take it home, there was 60+ pounds of honey and nectar in the hive when we brought it home.  After the robbing event, it was essentially ‘licked clean’, not a scrap left.  What we were left with was just 20 frames of empty drawn comb, which will now get used to give more drawn frames to the winter nucs.  Not exactly what we had planned, but, it’s the choice we have left. Another graphic lesson which we have saved some scale hive graphs for future reference, this one gives a pretty clear idea of what can happen during a robbing event.  In this case, the graph is the home hive of the robbers, but if it was turned around the other way so the hive on the scale was the one being robbed out, it would be equally graphic, just going down instead of up.  As time goes on, I’m getting quite a collection of these snapshot graphs that are used in presentations to bee clubs, some of which provide us with new information, and some just re-enforce the things we hear from old time beekeepers. Another not so obvious lesson from this experience is something I have often wondered about.  Reading about folks and the experiences they have with bees, an often mentioned trend is along this line.  ‘I have two hives, one is a good producer, and the one beside it doesn’t not produce much honey’.  I’ve often wondered if indeed the reality is, both hives produce a similar amount of honey, but one of them is just good at robbing the other.  In our second year we had two hives sitting side by side, one produced nearly a hundred pounds of honey while the other was always short.  Over the years we have tended to make new queens from that line of bees, and today that’s the line in the scale hive.  When we thought we were choosing the best producers, were we in fact choosing the best robbers ?  It’s an interesting food for thought question.  

It’s a family effort

IMG_0424 Dad is 81 years old, and very fond of complaining about how he lacks the physical strength to be helpful around the farm. Well, that just is not the case, he’s been tremendously helpful along the way. After we did the first round of honey extraction, a time crunch presented itself. Our new bottles arrived, and the first opening at the Ocean Grove Berry Farm was imminent, so time was of the essence to get the honey bottled and labelled so it could be available for the first day of U-Pick raspberries at the Ocean Grove. While he may not have the physical strength for driving a shovel or pitchfork anymore, Dad can drive the Nassenheider Fill-Up machine as well as anybody. With Dad filling, Chris doing lids and labels, then myself keeping a supply of empties and stacking full cases, bottling a round of honey can be done in short order. After the honey was all bottled, next came the first garlic harvest. Getting it all out of the ground is the first step in the process, but, it still needs to be hung out to dry. Once again, we put the family to work, and here is Dad busy tying bundles of garlic preparing them to go into the drying area. There is plenty of work to go around, and everybody gets a chance to contribute along the way.

The fickle blackberries

As long as we have kept bees on Vancouver Island we have always anxiously anticipated the blackberry bloom because we are told they are the main flow.  Over our first four years with bees, we have never seen the bees make honey on the blackberry flow, and rarely have we seen the bees working a blackberry flower.  It’s a bit different this year, we now see lots of honeybees working the blackberry flowers.  Are they going to make honey?  So far the scale hive says no, it has been losing weight as the berries bloom.  I was ready to give up on them, but while taking the photo above I realized that even though the berries appear from a distance to be in full bloom, in reality less than a quarter of the flowers are open. Today the scale hive stopped losing weight after a week of steady drops.  Maybe there is still a chance the bees will make more honey on the blackberry bloom. We can only hope.