March 21 Maple Tree Sap and the Honeybee

Just for fun a week ago my daughters "tapped" our large Sugar Maple tree in the front yard and attached a small empty plastic water bottle below their "tap".  Low and behold, hours later it was filled with sap.  They ran to tell Dad, who caught their excitement and by that evening the tree had two official taps with 5 gallon buckets below and we had a book titled, "Maple Sugaring at Home."  Today is one week later and my husband and the girls started boiling approximately 15 gallons of sap this morning on an outdoor fire. The maple syrup we will obtain from that 15 gallons and the entire day spent  boiling it will most likely provide enough for one Saturday morning pancake breakfast.  I'm sure every drop will be savored!
This tree they tapped is about forty feet from my hives.  In between checking on the sap and keeping the fire going, my husband and I were putting together ten hive bodies for spring splits.   When I had finished pounding in the last nails, I walked out of the garage into the sunshine and  noticed some action around the Maple tree. I walked over to the tree and there on it's trunk crawled 10-15 honeybees.  It appears they like the sap too!  It is only 45 degrees F. today and close to 20 mph winds, but these girls are out there doing their thing!


The tap with the sap dripping down onto trunk of the tree.

Getting a drink.

Honey bee hunting from sap on the trunk.

Honey bees on Maple tree trunk that has sap dripping down onto it.



Honey bees flying in 20mph wind to visit our Maple tree that has sap dripping down the trunk.

High hopes for a good Spring and healthy bees to split. Deep hive bodies put together today. Plan to use Mel Disselkoen's method of On The Spot Queen Rearing again this year. All my OTS queen colonies from last year  have made it through winter and are doing well.

Happy 1st day of Spring, 2015!

As if on cue, my crocuses opened today.  It is spring, amazing spring where everything is renewed and new life abounds everywhere.  I love it!  I think those of us that endure long winters of snow, ice, wind and subzero temperatures cherish it all the more. You can imagine my joy today when I bent down to inspect the crocuses and found honeybees scurrying around inside the cupped petals.  The cup or bowl like shape protects the bee from the wind so she can do her work.
 All three hives appear to be doing well.  I placed a pollen substitute patty on each hive on March 11 and continue to monitor the need for more sugar brick or pollen. I have left the tar paper wrap on for now as the temperatures are still dipping below freezing at night.

1st day of Spring, 2015.  Honeybees on Crocus. Wish I had planted more Crocus bulbs last fall.



Honeybee on Crocus.  Pollen!! March 20, 2015. West Michigan.

My youngest excited to be able to help now that she has a suit and pumped up about Spring and the Honeybees!

Why? and Spotty Snow.

It was near 35 degrees F. today with bright sunshine.  A nice afternoon to watch the hive entrances for any activity.  About 10 feet from the hives I noticed a dead bee here or there in the snow. Coming closer, I encountered little orange blots dotting the once pristine white blanket of snow.  Moments later a honeybee flew right by my face. I got closer to the hives and could see Honeybees coming out of the top entrance hole of Hive A.  Many a bee must have decided the bright sunshine meant warmer temps because one after another they would leave the entrance, fly about 5-10 ft. and then dive bomb into the snow.  This concerns me as I can't imagine the cluster is all that large at this time of year and to lose so many bees to this activity they seemed so keen on doing cannot be helpful to this hive's survival.  I realize the bees must take cleansing flights, but it seemed a bit too cold for this activity today.  Many never made it back to the hive.  The other 2 hives only had an occasional bee leaving the hive.  Honeybees, they always leave me wondering.

 Bees from Hive A exiting their top entrance hole thinking it's a beach party just because the temp. is over 30 degrees F. 

Dead bees outside the hive with dotting of bee excrement in the snow.

Blessed Bee!

Today is March 2, 2015 and my bees are still alive! Despite the coldest February on record, the girls are still hanging in there. I placed sugar bricks on each hive, the last weekend of January.  Hive C took to the brick right away, Hive A did not bother with the brick until about mid February and Hive B still has not touched their brick. Hive B has the medium and 2 deeps, they sound like they are in the middle box and haven't even touched the 10 frames of honey in the top box so understandable that they haven't bothered with the brick.

I was blessed to be able to leave our sub zero Michigan temps in February and head to Florida where I could get my honey bee fix. My happiest memory there was of a multitude of honeybees hovering and enjoying a Bottle Brush Tree (I'm sure that isn't the proper name, but you'll understand when you see the pictures of it).  The buzzing and activity was so intense, I expected the bees to abscond away into the sky at any moment with the tree in tow.

Placing the brick gently over the cluster, January 31, 2015.  People have told me the sugar brick looks like an ice chunk or snow.  Trust me, it is just sugar, water and essential oils.

One week after the brick has been placed the bees have taken down a decent amount!

 

Honey Bee on Bottle Brush Tree. Thanks to the nice man in Saint Cloud, Florida who let me stand in his yard and gawk at his tree for a 1/2 hour! 

Honeybee on Bottle Brush Tree bloom.

Bottle Brush Tree. Wish I could grow one in my yard. The bees loved it!

 

January 6, 2015 Brrrrrrrrrr

I just came in to warm up after having my bare ear frozen against the frigid side of a hive box while listening for the honeybee's "humming" inside.  I place my ear all over the outside of the box seeing if I can locate where the cluster is.  I do this after dark of course, so the neighbors can't see me. Tonight, it is 6 degrees F. with a wind chill just below 0 degrees.  I was able to walk back towards the house through a foot of snow with a big grin, all three hives are still alive.
I am starting to think about ordering more boxes, frames and the like.  Ordering now and building more boxes in February or March sounds like a good plan.....but, what if the bees don't make it? A fellow beekeeper and friend told me to be optimistic, so I'm going to think positive  and make plans for more bees.  I've been making a few sugar bricks every week, so come February, March I'll be able to get them to the bees if they need it. I love the smell of the lemongrass and spearmint essential oils in them, hope the bees do too. 

November 18, 2014. And so, it has come to this.

This is November 18 in West Michigan, our first winter storm of the season. Luckily about two weeks ago, I winterized the hives.  I placed a queen excluder over the top box.  I did this so I can put sugar bricks on later in the winter if needed. Mel Disselkoen's book OTS Queen Rearing has a great recipe with instructions for making the sugar bricks. I have an empty shell on top of the excluder with an upper entrance. The lower entrance is still available, although if this snow keeps up I will be going out often to clear the snow from lower entrances.  I also wrapped each hive with tar paper. Only thirteen days ago there were bees flying and even bringing in pollen.  I have no idea where they were getting pollen from on November 5. For now, I have to be content with putting my ear up to the side of the boxes and listening for the faint hum of the cluster inside.



October 2014, taken a month before the picture above.

September 28 Where did all the flowers go?

Honeybee on Autumn Joy Sedum in my yard early September 2014.

Summer has flown away with the birds and butterflies.  The pumpkins were harvested from the garden today and mouse guards were put  on the hives.  I can't believe how fast my first summer with the honeybees went!  They, thankfully, have not left me.  I find them on my asters, sedum and the few remaining zinnias and cosmos in the garden.  They found me at my kitchen window yesterday morning. I looked up from the sink and noticed four to five honeybees right outside the window. I looked closer and counted approximately thirty honeybees in the pampas grasses  next to the house. They were gathering pollen from the tips of grasses where the plume was about to flower?    I would not have expected that, but they were very busy little acrobats scrambling up and down the tips gathering large amounts of pollen. I don't know how some of them were able to fly back to they hive as large as their pollen loads were!
Three of my hives are very strong and stocked with ample amounts of honey going into winter. One of the hives is not.  It was the hive that was queenless in August. I gave them of frame of brood with which to raise a new queen and they were acting as if they had a queen. They were not aggressive when I checked them, so I gave them more time thinking they may have a virgin queen in the hive.  Unfortunately, this hive developed a working layer. That fact, combined with dwindling numbers and obvious queenlessness, made it a very weak hive. I can't combine it with a stronger hive because of the working layer.  I saved the comb from this hive and distributed it to two of my other hives.

The Honeybee on  my grasses doing acrobatics to gather the pollen. This is her underside. It was a nice warm September morning and there were 30-40 bees in this thatch of grasses scrambling up and down the soon to be plumes collecting pollen.

Honeybee on grasses gathering pollen.

Had to smile when I realized my hives were surrounded by Goldenrod.  I did not realize this in May when I chose the location.

Honeybee on Goldenrod.

So busy!  I just sat in a patch of Goldenrod and marveled at all the bees working.  We had a lot of rain before the Goldenrod bloomed, hope this helped with the nectar flow. It seemed to end too quickly though.



 Honeybee alighting onto Goldenrod bloom. September 2014.

Honeybees on Autumn Joy Sedum. The bees seemed to enjoy this only for a week or so when it first started to bloom. From what I could see, they were only taking nectar.

Remember my friends with the top-bar hive that planted buckwheat? They gave me a bag of  Buckwheat seeds which I planted in the middle of August. I planted about a 40 square foot area.  It popped up five days later and was blooming with my honeybees all over it by the middle of September!  It bloomed for a couple of weeks, but has now turned brown. I may try to harvest it and enjoy some buckwheat pancakes.  It was great forage for the bees. Wish I could have planted more. Maybe next year.

Honeybee on Cosmos in my garden. One of the few flowers still blooming. Today is October 2 and there were still a few honeybees on it.

Honeybee on Aster.

Zinnias still blooming! Honeybee enjoying a warm autumn day.

Honeybee on Aster.

My bees coming and going from the hive late September 2014.  I will miss this sight. I've enjoyed sitting out there a few minutes (OK, more than a few minutes) or so everyday just observing them.  They are relaxing, kind of like people watching fish in a tank? Anyway, I love it and I will miss them this winter.

Beekeepers warned me that Goldenrod stinks up the apiary.  I would agree that it does have a very distinct smell, but it didn't smell horrid or make me want to gag like some smells do.  My kids would get a whiff of it in the yard on occasion and say, "What is that weird smell"  Others say it smells like sweaty gym socks.  I try to avoid smelling people's socks, so I can't compare.