Revisiting The Magic Forest

Taking a peek at a colony I plan to split this year. I hope.

I’ve got at least two colonies that are in tip top shape.

00:00 — Top box packed with bees.

01:35 — Review of my basic hive set-up. Includes open bottom entrance, top notched inner cover entrance, black-painted hives and a ventilation rim with a pillowcase full of straw and wood chips.

03:55 — Defensive bees.

06:05 — An open feeder used properly.

When Bees Toss Out Sugar Feed

A problem with the Mountain Camp method of dry sugar feeding is that sometimes the bees toss out the granules of sugar like they’re garbage. Maybe the bees are less likely to do that if they’re starving. All I can say for certain is that I use the Mountain Camp method — pouring dry sugar on newspaper over the top bars and sometimes spraying it with a bit of water — only when I can’t do anything else. Only when I don’t have sugar bricks available.


Continue reading

Keep That Mesh On

I know better than to remove the 6mm / quarter-inch mouse and shrew proofing mesh from the bottom entrances of my hives while temperatures are still cold (like they are now), but hope springs eternal whenever the sun comes out like it did a couple weeks ago, and silly me, I removed the mesh from about half of my hives. Then it got cold again — like it always does in April — and now it looks like I’ve got critters trying to find a warm place to cuddle into. Nice move, Phillip. Way to go. I have to keep reminding myself not to remove the mesh until the first full hive inspection of the year — when it’s warm and stays warm… At least I think it’s a mouse making a mess of my bees.

The video taps into other topics, but the mesh is the main one.

It’s Not the Cold That Kills the Bees, It’s the Moisture

A wet mouldy frame of uncapped syrup and/or honey. (April 16th, 2022.)

I’ve had to deal with a few hives in a wet condition this spring and I think I know why.

The furnace tape I used to seal in the cracks between supers was a mistake. I’ve used duct tape for years with no issues, but I’ve found more moisture beneath this tape than anything I’ve seen before. It was so wet under some of the taped up supers that the wood was beginning rot. So I’m thinking tape made of cold-conducting metal wasn’t a good idea?
Continue reading

Homemade Sugar Board

Here’s a short video of a homemade sugar board that was gifted to me. I normally don’t use sugar boards or candy boards because I’m not sure they provide enough upper ventilation for my bees in the winter, but this one seems to have worked out well. What I like about it is that there’s enough sugar in it to keep the bees fed for a long time — when or if they run out of honey. I love anything in beekeepng that let’s me set it and forget it.

Is This The Stink of Nosema?

I have reason to believe that the hive I found full of poop recently might not have Nosema, but I’ve been dealing with it, just to careful, as if it does have Nosema. Here’s a long video of me digging into the mess and dealing with it by knocking the colony down to a single medium super. I may update this post with more information later. I’m kinda busy at the moment trying to become an expert on Nosema. (Update: In the video, I leave an open feeder full of thin sugar syrup so the bees could clear out their guts of possible Nosema spores, but I changed my mind and removed it the next day. The risk of spreading Nosema through the syrup seemed too great. Maybe the risk is low, but I don’t want to take any chances.)


Continue reading

Syrup as a Medicine?

So…

The specks of poop in the sugar could be signs of nosema, a mild case of it. (April 4th, 2022.)

I think I may have discovered Nosema, possibly a fatal case of it, in at least one of my colonies — and I’m not posting a photo of that one just yet because it’ll make you barf. When everything inside the hive is covered with feces as if the bees were locked inside and couldn’t get out for cleansing flights, even though the front door is about two inches away from the cluster — that pretty much screams Nosema with a capital N. It could be dysentery, which is also gross and not as troublesome as Nosema. Still, everything points to Nosema at the moment.
Continue reading

The Sugar Express

What can I say? It cost about $3.00 to make a brick of sugar that has the potiential to save my bees if they run low on honey when I’m not around to save them. So here we go again.

Two colonies got only sugar bricks. Another one got a protein patty and a sugar brick. I’ll say this, though, these three colonies seem to be in good shape. They’re full of bees and I can still see frames of capped honey up top.

Last year some of my colonies didn’t break above the top bars until April. This year, all of them except one (out of 10) have broken above the top bars. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re running low on honey, but, like I said, a few dollars worth of sugar ain’t no thing to make sure they’re okay.

Feeding Bees Again

Honestly, I’m not out to publicly shame natural beekeepers who believe that sugar is bad for honey bees. I just happen to be dumping sugar into some of my hives because some of my colonies might run out of honey before spring. Here’s a 3-minute video that demonstrates how I dump sugar into my hives when I’m too lazy to do anything else. (I also posted a 20-minute version of this video too.)


I could have sprayed the sugar with water to harden it up, but I didn’t. Some other thoughts off the top of my head:
Continue reading

A Sugar Board

I dropped a sugar board over one of my weaker colonies today. Here’s a 3-minute video to prove it.

I gave the bees some protein patties too. Hopefully it’ll keep them going until spring. An 11-minute cut shows up after the short version for anyone with the time for a deeper dive.
Continue reading

Beeyard Update, Feb. 09, 2022

A beeyard update I recorded on my cell phone on the way home from work.

It includes what I’ve been told is public domain music by Duke Ellington. In the past two years, I’ve become more of an aficionado of his 1950s and ’60s records, but only in the E.U. are those recordings in the public domain. I’d fill all my videos with that music if I could. I love it. But for now, I’ll test the copyright waters with these early recordings from the 1920s. Oh yeah, and I also check on how well the bees are consuming some sugar bricks I added a few weeks ago and a few other things.

Comb Honey Instead of Sugar Bricks

I’ve enjoyed being able to check on my bees during my lunch breaks over the past while since Omicron shut down my normal office work schedule. What a lousy way to learn the Greek alphabet, eh? I’m burnt out from the pandemic like most of us, but being able to take a break from my office job and hang with my bees has provided a huge mental boost. Today, for instance, all I did was give some comb honey to a colony I suspected was hungry. It only took about five minutes, but it was so relaxing.

I did this so fast, it didn’t require smoke, a veil or gloves. The bees were too busy staying clustered to worry about me. The sun is beating down on the black hive now. What heat was lost will be regained quickly. I’m also planning to wrap the hive with silver bubble wrap to see if that helps.

Feeding Bees Crystallised Honey Again

I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again. Feeding honey bees a jar of crystallised honey because humans don’t want to eat it for some silly reason.

It’s a 75-second video that I shot as a 4K-test. About 100% of streaming video that’s labelled as 4K isn’t really 4K, but for anyone with a 4K monitor or TV, a “4K” video will look sharper than regular videos. And if you don’t know what 4K is, don’t worry about it.

These Bees Should Be Dead

One of my beehives, back in January 2019, had its top blown off in a windstorm. The top cover — along with the inner cover and hard insulation — might have been removed in other ways, but the point is, the colony of honey bees trying to stay alive inside the hive were completely exposed to the elements for about a week. The elements included high winds, rain, freezing rain, hail and snow. Hence, the title of this post: These Bees Should Be Dead.

Not exactly what you like to find when visiting a beeyard in the winter. (January 2019.)

When I approached the hive, I didn’t expect the bees to be alive. I found dark soggy clumps of dead bees on the back edges of the top bars. Some burr comb over the top bars had lost its colour from being exposed to the elements. The frames were soaking wet with a sheen of mould growing on the surface. Ice clogged up the bottom entrance. So yeah, I expected to find nothing but dead bees inside that hive.

But I didn’t.


Continue reading

Open Feeding – Part 2

“Don’t use open feeders for your bees… unless you know what you’re doing.” That’s the common wisdom flying around the backyard beekeeper’s world these days, and it’s a smart rule to follow. So, naturally, I had to try open feeding to find out for myself.

This isn’t the most informative video. I’ve written in detail about opening feeding in other online forums. While I understand why it’s generally discouraged, one doesn’t have to look far to see commercial beekeepers using open feeders in the spring to get their bees off on the right track.
Continue reading

Beekeeping on Facebook

I often post items to my beekeeping Facebook page that I don’t post here on my blog, which is generally reserved for content I create myself. For the stuff I had nothing to do with but still piques my beekeeping interests, the Mud Songs Beekeeping Facebook page is the place.  For instance, here’s my latest Facebook post that talks about how pollen patties can help maintain the brood nest when the weather turns to junk:

 

I didn’t create that video, but I would if I could. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again:  Ian Steppler’s beekeeping videos out of Manitoba are exactly the kind of videos I would post if I was a commercial beekeeper. I’ll likely never have the money or the land to keep bees on a commercial level, but if I ever thought about hitting the big time, I’d be all over his videos. Even as a backyard beekeeper, I’ve learned quite a lot from him.
Continue reading

Some Unnatural Beekeeping

I had to add some protein patties (artificial pollen) to my hives yesterday because my bees have been stuck inside their hives for a week, unable to forage for pollen just at a time when the year’s first pollen was beginning to come in. We’ve got at least another week of this lousy weather ahead of us. This is when I say enough is enough. Here’s what I’m talking about:


Continue reading

Practical Beekeeping Tips (Videos)

Here’s a playlist collection of videos I’ve posted over the years that somewhat falls into the category of Practical Beekeeping Tips. The playlist is sort of in the order that someone new beekeeping would experience, starting off with how to paint hives and how to mix sugar syrup, how to install a nuc — all that jazz.

 

While I’d like to update and modify some of the videos, that would take more time than I can spare (I have a full-time job that isn’t beekeeping). Much like my Beekeeping Guide, it’s not a comprehensive series of videos, but maybe it’ll help.

Live Stream Edit #3: Opening Beehives in The Winter is Okay With Me

Here’s another edited low-fi live stream from my beeyard (26 minutes, not much edited down). This time I check on some bees with dry sugar, add a pollen patty and I mess around with my smoker.

There’s a lot of talking in this video (hence the new Talkin’ Blues category), which is sort of what I’m leaning towards these days. In any case, here are the highlights from the video:
Continue reading