I use feeder rims on my hives to make room for emergency feeding of dry sugar and protein patties in the winter, but once the bees wake up from winter and have enough to start building new comb, the rims have to come off before the bees fill in the extra space created by the rims with messy comb. That’s what this video is about. And, yup, I find some burr comb.
The first time I wrote about Colts Foot, I got it wrong. It was probably Meadow Hawkweed, which seems to bloom around July in my part of Newfoundland. Colts Foot (or Tussilago) shows up in May, even earlier in warmer inland areas of Newfoundland. In any case, the bees like it, so it’s going on my list of Newfoundland Honey Bee Forage.
Colts Foot finally blooming in Flatrock. (May 1st, 2021.)
I’m not a flower expert, so getting these things wrong from time to time is in the realm of possibility for me.
“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.
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This is probably the first natural pollen my bees have foraged on this year. The crocuses popped up through the snow around March 21st — a month ago — but the weather has been mostly rain, drizzle and fog since then. People saw the sun today for the first time in weeks and freaked out because it was such a weird thing to see.
Other beekeepers on the island reported seeing their bees bring in loads of pollen a couple weeks ago. But that didn’t happen where I live. A great reminder of a beekeeper’s #1 lesson: All beekeeping is local beekeeping.
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 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:
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.
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:
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I just got back from scraping out dead bees and debris from the bottom of some of my beehives and it looked a little something like this:
Lots of talkin’, but here are the highlights:
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It might not look like much, but with the melting snow exposing my dead lawn comes the crocuses, the first hit of pollen my bees will get to taste this year — as long as the plants don’t get covered with snow before they bloom.
Crocuses breaking on through. (March 21st, 2021.)
Not quite spring yet, but we’re getting there.
Crocuses on the first day of “spring.” (March 21st, 2021.)
Today may be the first official day of spring, but that doesn’t count until my bees are bringing in natural pollen, which is likely another month from now.
It’s always good to keep in mind that seasons in Newfoundland are usually at least a month behind everyone else.
A couple days later:
This is an edit of the second live YouTube stream I recently did from the small beeyard on the side of my house. The video is recorded through a WiFi signal that I pick up on my cell phone from from outside my house, so the video quality isn’t exactly high definition. That’s always been my main reason for not doing this before. But I realise quality isn’t really an issue for videos viewed on tiny cell phone screens, so let’s give it a shot:
Here’s a basic breakdown of what happens in the video:
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The following video is an edited version of the first live stream I did through my YouTube channel. (This post and this video replace the full unedited version which was just too long and boring to keep online.) I’ve done a few similar tests through my Instagram account, but I don’t like social media that defaults to portrait mode videos. YouTube wins.
Sort of, but I’m going to say no.
So what’s the difference between honeycomb and comb honey? Why do beekeepers call it “comb honey” when everyone else calls it honeycomb?
Well, for one thing, honeycomb refers to a type of comb, whereas comb honey refers to a type of honey.
A frame of empty comb, what most beekeepers call “drawn comb.” The bees can fill this comb with pollen, nectar (which becomes honey) or the queen might eggs in the comb.
Comb full of pollen.
At first glance, this frame might look like “honeycomb,” but closer examination shows some brood in the middle of all that honey. Click the images for a better view.
Comb honey. Nothing but honey and beeswax.
Honey bees produce wax. From that wax they build a variety of comb. Think of comb as rows and rows of Mason jars, but made of beeswax instead of glass, and lids or caps not made of metal but from beeswax too. What the bees decide to put in those jars — those honeycomb-shaped jars — determines what we call them. Sort of.
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This year’s round of chocolate-dipped comb honey didn’t work out as well as last year’s.
This is what I saw when I opened my hives in February during my first winter of beekeeping.
Adding a pollen patty to a very hungry colony. (February, 2011.)
I walked outside my house today and saw an unusual number of dead bees in the snow. So…
I went around the corner to look at my beehives and found this.
That’s a lot of dead bees. And a lot of poop.
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Generally I don’t think it’s a good idea to return dying bees back to the hive. The bees in this video probably came outside to poop. Took a rest on the warm concrete block. Enjoyed the warmth so much that they lost track of time and got stuck out in the cold. Too cold to fly back inside the hive. But honey bees, when they’re sick, often leave the confines of their hive so they don’t share their germs with all the other bees inside the crowded hive. They maintain their social distance. They create a circuit breaker to cut off the transmission of disease by leaving the hive. Picking up those sick bees and returning them to the hive can effectively re-transmit any disease they might have.
