It has been a long long while since I have posted last. Mainly because I have had more activity in my life than a Charlie Sheen neuron.
I went out to visit the hives in early March. All of them were strong in population except for one which had a crucial flaw in their population management plans. The queen was shooting blanks into her six sided nursery cells and as a result my comb looked like my Light Bright toy from years past. Hundreds of little bullet shaped drone cells were protruding from the comb where the vital female variety of honeybee was desired.
Despite this, it looked like I had the better of the two infertile queen scenarios. If it was a laying worker (No Hope Scenario) there would be eggs scattered all over the comb in random layout because laying workers don’t have the same laying discipline as full fledged queen. Finding the false queen would be impossible because she is a worker like the other 30,000 + bees in the hive. However these eggs were clustered tight together in a solid brood pattern albeit of male offspring. In China this might be a good thing but in the bee world this is a disaster since the drones do nothing but sit around eat, sleep, and well…you know the rest.
But because the real queen was present I might have a chance to reverse the trend by replacing the queen with a new one. Unfortunaly it was early March and there was nary a bee breeder willing to ship out a new queen to me so my next best bet was to order a new package and hoped it arrived in time before my hive turned into Delta fraternity from Animal House.
In the meantime I gave the bees an early dose of watered down sugar to spur their population forward.
It must be noted. The middle hive, despite its queen problem looked strong and healthy. The other hives likewise. Not once did I feed any of my girls any form of pesticide, miticide, or any other kind of herbal colonic to shield them from natures barbs. I have seen no varroa mites in the hive or any sign of the tracheal mite. I attribute this to superb genetics of the bee which are supposedly bred from survivor stock only and are not treated with medications by the breeder. However these bees are still some real bastards to work with. Very temperamental and like The Hulk, quick to anger. But I guess this is what is needed to survive in nature’s crucible. Those who are the meanest, toughest, and hardiest will survive. These bees were purchased from Bee Weaver apiaries.
As May arrived my middle colony had dwindled to nothing. There were just a few slacker drone bees sitting out front of the porch(bottom board) with a small skeleton crew of workers running the operation. I also received notice from my breeder that because of the drought in Texas, not to mention the fire storms, my shipment would be late. This is the death notice for that colony but by the time the package arrives at least the hive will be empty and the new residence will have a clean house to work with, with all of the furniture already laid out for them.
Such is the life of a beekeeper. On a fun note I will be doing a beekeeping demo for my daughter’s pre-school. I even will bring in a fresh frame of Grade A honey for the children to sample.
Twas a Rambling Thought Before Christmas by
The Weekend Beekeeper
Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the hive
Not a creature was stirring, was there anything alive?
The apistan strips were hung on the frames with care,
In hopes that Varroa mites would soon disappear.
The larvae were nestled all snug in their rooms,
While the sweet smell of honey filled all of the combs.
And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my white suit,
Had just tapped our glasses for a long winter’s whoot.
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
Oh crap its the bees what the hell is the matter?
Away to the window I flew like a drone,
Tore open the shutters and uttered a moan.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below.
When, what to my wondering eyes should I now see,
But a new deadly virus called CCD.
With an often used curse, I yelled smartly and quick,
I knew in a moment this was no trick.
More rapid than foulbrood or that other damned mite,
My bees began dying what a pitiful sight.
“Now Menthol! now, Apistan! now, Fumidil B!
On, Formic Acid! On, Oils! and Garlic by me, !
From the top of the cover I dump you in enmasse!
This one is sure to work I nervously laughed.
Mount Toxicitus forms on my bee’s bottom most boards,
With compound eyes pleading they utter their last words!”
“Why oh Why do you treat us this way!”
“We give you free honey nary ask you to pay!”
And then, with their last gasps they fall down into the cloud,
Of Terramycin powder, their burial shroud.
As I drew in my head, and began turning around,
The wallet on my wife’s dresser began making a sound.
Ha Ha! You fool this entomological hobby you do,
Will cost you another two thousand hundred and two.
How much honey last year did you sell,
Did you give it all away again. Please pray tell?
I knew he had me, the game was all up.
But I laughed anyway and through my hands up.
“So what!” I shrugged, and gave him a look.
At least I dont R.C. model, get drunk, or scrapbook.
Beekeeping is different than most hobbies you do,
It requires perseverance, OK, having money helps too.
But even aside the troubling expense,
It’s done for personal enrichment am I making some sense?
Life moves to fast and always sprinting that race,
robs you of appreciation for a much simpler pace.
Beekeeping gives you focus on a single moment in time,
Beyond yesterday or tommorow and only the sublime.
Startled, I realized what was happening to me,
I was talking to a wallet at AM quarter to three.
It was Christmas Day and the hour was soon here,
when up from my bed I would jump with a cheer.
But now its too early and the my wife will be peeved,
if I wake her up on Christmas eve.
So to fellow beekeepers who struggle to read what I write,
I wish you all a Merry Christmas and have a good night.
Holy crap. Has it really been that long since I wrote last? Life has been zooming by at near light speed during the last few months. After almost 4 months of having a tree land on our house we are nearly half-way through getting the work done. The outside looks trim and proper but the upstairs bathroom looks like hell. Just last week they blew in all of this foam insulation into the rafters, as a result it looks like the Stay Puffed Marsh Mellow Man set himself on fire in our bathroom and stumbled all over the place.
I also just landed a new full time job as a Cartographer for SNL Financial, a locally based research company that provides an exhaustive amounts of research to the business sector at a national and international level.
The bees have been doing fairly well. I plan on heading out this weekend to provide them one last dole of heavy sugar syrup to tide them over until early Spring. My friends hive..well we will see. They don’t share the same robust nature of my insectoid demon spawns from Texas.
So far I have not provided any Apistan strips, Menthol packets, Checkmite, essential oil colonic s or one gram of Terramyician powder to my bees and they seem just fine. The true test will come next year when I wait and see if they pop out from the dark side of the moon come Spring alive and well or in a wooden mausoleum. They seem strong.
Before I moved to the Central Virginia area I took off about 60 pounds of frames from my older colonies to extract as soon as I moved in. Well 1.5 years later I extracted the honey in my driveway within the city limits. What a mistake. I thought I would encounter less bees. I forgot that Charlottesville is an agro-friendly community. We can have goats, chickens, and yes even bee hives on our property.
Within 10 minutes of uncapping they began to come. The scout bees. The scout bees must have danced a highland jig because within 40 minutes every honeybee within the Charlottesville area was at the Rugby Road Honey Free For All Festival. It was almost absurd trying to extract but it had to get done. Hundreds of bees perished in my extractor whose lid had been torn off by the movers. If you looked down into the sea of Fructos you could see the poor souls trying to extricate themselves one leg at a time to no avail. Eventually they went under and were later filtered out into a mass of sugary death. I probably only pulled about 40 pounds of honey but it is enough to give away to people who count in my life. So much for reaping huge profits again.
With the cooler weather came Halloween. This year I dressed up as a Zom-BeeKeeper. The makeup kit provided to me by the Halloween store assured me I would have the skin of a Ghoul if I followed the simple directions. About an hour later I looked like a white guy in black face. I quickly had my wife take a few pictures and washed off the makeup and put on the less controversial Cowboy Action Shooting costume. Happy Halloween to all.
Oh Nooo A Zombee Keeper!!!
More braiiiiiiinnss!!
I pulled this article from AOL. Interesting and scary.
http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/11-execs-6-foreign-firms-caught-in-huge-honey-sting/19618562
The other day I received an email from a fellow named Timothy Sellers of the band Artichoke. He wanted to see if I might be interested in reviewing his bands album called “Bees”. I said sure. What could it hurt. He mailed off a CD for me to listen to. It must be said before my review that the last album or CD I have bought was Guns and Roses last recording, Chinese Democracy, a true stink festival of music that should not have seen the light of day. I fully expected “Bees” to be as good as that or any form of Christian Rock and Roll music used in those “hip” teen church services. It sounds like music but is just as bland and tasteless to the ears as a generic .25 cent can of fake Coke.
Arriving in the mail box a few days later I ripped off the mailing package and looked at the box. First impressions are important to me and it was nice to see a real CD in a case with nice graphics and not some hand scrawled note of “Listen To This” sticky noted to a generic Panasonic 750MB data cd. So far so good. Driving to the bee yard was a perfect time to listen to this album. How was it?
Pretty darned good. Instead of music engineered for a Raffi concert I heard real music with real love and heart packed into it. These guys were not just singing flim flam songs about bees with touchy feely vocals and healf hearted strumming of the guitar. They believed everything they were pouring out of the speakers. From listening to the lyrics you get the feeling that at least one of the band members has bees because their lyrics spoke truth to the biology and the behavior of Apis Mellifera.
This album is just fun to listen to, more so if you happen to bee a beekeeper and can understand the inside the hive humor. If I had to label them as sounding like another band it would be hard but for the sake of the review I would say a combination of The Violent Femmes, maybe a little They Might Be Giants, The Presidents of The United States, and a dash of Weezer or The Sex Pistols. Good fun music that is catchy and should be paid for with a modest payment to Amazon or using their website found at the link below.
I give them 4 jars of honey. Of note, 5 jars of honey equals something like the greatest song in the world and has never been acquired in human history.
