According to my previous post, When is It Time to Harvest Honey?, it’s about time to harvest some honey now. Which means it’s about time to add some escape boards so my bees can “escape” from their honey boxes, which then makes it easier for me to steal their honey. You know, I think I might have a video of me from earlier today that shows how this works:
Pill Bottle Queen Cage
I had to install a mated queen into one of my hives and I couldn’t find a proper queen cage, so I drilled some 1/8-inch (~3mm) holes in a pill bottle and put the queen in that instead. Here’s what happened:
IMPORTANT NOTE: I would normally not release a queen into a new colony after only two days of sitting in the cage. But this queen originated from this hive and the bees were already familiar with her scent. It normally takes 5-7 days for a colony to feel completely at ease with a new caged queen. A queen released after only two days could easily be superceded by the colony.
When is It Time to Harvest Honey?
For me, I know it’s about time to harvest honey when the fireweed has gone to seed…
…when the bees are spitting out drone pupae…
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My First Time Using a Pollen Trap
I’ve had a plastic pollen trap banging around for a couple years but I always forget about it. I think it’s the kind of pollen trap that can found on Amazon, probably a knock-off of a more expensive one, which is often the case for most beekeeping gear sold on Amazon. Here’s a record of my first attempt at using it:
I know pollen is considered a “super food.” I could probably charge a fortune for it if I called it something like Newfoundland Organic Artisan Pollen. That’s total bunk, but it seems to be a valid marketing strategy for some. I know a beekeeper — the “bee whisperer” as he likes to call himself — who in the past has marketed his honey as a pure organic monofloral honey even though he has never provided certification or proof that his honey is either of those things. But he has plenty of customers keeping him in business who have no clue they’re being duped. I’ve come to realise over the past few months that if it wasn’t for the Benevolent Beekeeper image the general public buys into without question, some commercial beekeepers, who are essentially snake oil salesmen, wouldn’t be in business. Yup, there are some sneaky things going on in this town. Caveat emptor.
A Newspaper Combine
Here’s a short video that demonstrates a newspaper combine:
A newspaper combine is when two honey bee colonies, one of them usually without a queen, are combined into a single hive as one big colony by using a piece of newspaper to keep them separated for a few days as they get used to the smell of each other. Those are the headlines. Now the details:
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Checking on Mating Nucs
I checked on the two queens I marked from the other day, both of them set up in my version of a mating nuc. I have one colony that’s had a poorly-laying queen all year. I should have replaced her way back in June, but mated queens on the Isle of Newfoundland aren’t usually available until mid-to-late July, and I couldn’t get any of those. I’ll skip the sad details of my previous failures with mating nucs this summer (I’m sure I’ll post a video about it eventually anyway). What’s important is that my efforts have paid off. I’ve got two young mated queens filling up comb with little baby bees. Here’s the video that captures my satisfaction:
I’ll add more details to this post when I have more time.
Addition: I mention in the video how some brood are about three days old. I was confused. I was thinking about about a different bee. The grubs in the video are big and fat and the cells are ready to be capped. They’re about 5 or 6 days old.
Beeyard Visit – August 27th, 2020
An unedited visit to my beeyard that happened 30 minutes ago after a big rain storm we had last night, just me yakking and explaining a few things as well as I can explain them:
My last words in the video are a reference to the 1979 film Alien that probably no one will get, as is usually the case for references I make. I’m cool with that.
How To Mark a Queen Bee
As with everything in beekeeping, there’s more than one day to mark a queen, but most methods usually involve catching the queen, holding her down in some way so she can’t move, and then dabbing her with a paint pen or marker.
A quick-drying water-based paint marker.
I’ve never bothered marking queens myself because, until now, I’ve been pretty free wheelin’ with my queens. I usually have little need to hunt them down. But this year I had a colony that was ready to swarm and it would have been great if I could have found the queen then. A marked queen in a few other situations would have made my life easier too. So I got myself one of the new fan-dangled queen catchers and I marked a few queens, the first time I’ve done this in 10 years. Here’s a video that shows how I did it:
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A Silent Movie featuring Honey Bees
I took a break from screens over the past two weeks. Social media. The news. Who needs it? Here are some random slow motion shots I took of honey bees and other insects that were attracted to the Fireweed and Malva Moschata that’s been in bloom lately. I’d go into full screen mode for this video at the highest resolution setting to sit back and take in about three and a half minutes of silence.
One of the bees does something kind of gross near the end.
A Queen on a Rampage
A video about queen bees. I’m completely off screens for at least the next 10 days. I’ll add more details when I get back. See ya.
00:00 — Thirty seconds of silence because we could all use 30 seconds of quiet contemplation once in a while. It’s a black and white slow motion shot of Comfrey.
00:28 — Torn open queen cells, destroyed by the first queen to emerge.
01:05 — The virgin queen.
01:59 — Photos of the open queen cells.
02:05 — Introducing a queen into a new hive. If the queenless colony is ready for a new queen, they will cover her cage and try to feed her lick her so they can bathe in her pheromones and be happy.
02:29 — Watching what the bees do. Are they trying to attack the queen or accept the queen? Watch the rest of the video to find out.