Beekeeping: Harvested honey for the first time in many years

Yesterday, I finally got around to opening our backyard beehive for the first time in about three years. The hive was chock full of honey, so I decided to harvest one shallow super (a super is a stackable box of comb on removable frames; generally, deep supers are used as brood chambers, shallow supers for honey storage. Each super has 10 frames in a standard hive). I got about 29lbs of honey and there are two more supers still on the hive, just as full. Twenty-nine pounds of honey will last us for years, though, so I may or may not harvest another super when I have time. 

This was the first time I've taken honey from the hive since 2013. The long pause in harvesting was partly because of losing the colony three times in the past ten years or so, but also because we had so much honey it took us that long to use it up. The honey this time is very dark in color, but it tastes pretty much the same as honey harvested in the past that was considerably paler. 

Beekeeping: New Bees Again (June 9, 2020)

Yesterday, friends notified me that their bees had swarmed and that the bees were hanging out in a very easily accessible location low on a fig tree. I was happy to pick them up. It was about the easiest swarm capture I've ever done. The bees dropped easily into my homemade swarm capture box and I drove them home on the car seat next to me. About five years ago I captured a swarm that subsequently left not too long after I installed them or they succumbed to the so-called "disappearing disease." I hope these new bees fare better. I still had the two deep hive boxes from the last swarm and today I added a super and a queen excluder to give them more room. I also decided to feed them a little to get them off to a good start. We'll see....

[Edit: Today is June 14, so the bees have been in the new hive for five days now. Today for the first time I noticed bees bringing in pollen, which is a good sign, as it means there is brood to feed or there will be soon. Until today, all the bees I saw coming back to the hive were bringing in nectar only. They need nectar to produce wax. As these were installed on bare foundation (no drawn comb) they will have had to build comb from scratch. It's amazing how quickly they work. They can build a significant amount of comb in a day, so I suspect things are progressing well. I won't open the hive to check on things, though, for a couple of weeks. You can tell everything you need to know usually just by watching the patterns of activity. And, as I say, pollen coming in is a good sign.]

Beekeeping: New Bees Settling In (June 3, 2015)

I captured a large swarm from my existing beehive this spring and, finding no one to give it or sell it to, I got a new hive box and installed the bees in what is now our second backyard hive. I painted the hive bodies the same color as the original hive.

The bees have been in there for almost a month now (I installed the swarm on May 5), so the first crop of truly new bees will already have begun hatching (a worker bee takes 21 days to develop). The population of the hive should begin to take off. In a week or so, I'll open the hive and have a look to see how much of the foundation they've drawn in to new comb, and to look for signs that the queen is laying.

Beekeeping: Bees Swarmed, Bees Captured (May 4–May 5, 2015)

Our bees swarmed yesterday. Rather conveniently, they initially landed in an accessible place in our next-door neighbor's yard. It was fairly easy to get them into a box and seal them up for the night. I was going to try to sell them (a swarm of bees goes for about $100 these days), but, with no immediate takers on Craig's List, I went down to Western Farm Center in Santa Rosa and got a basic hive set-up to give them a home at least temporarily. I may sell the whole shebang if someone's interested. I may keep them. For the moment, anyway, we now have two beehives. I'm giving them a little supplemental food (the sugar water feeder visible in the photo) to get them started. It's amazing how quickly bees will settle in to a new space. They start drawing comb almost immediately. Bees line up at the entrance fanning their wings, spreading the queen's pheromones, encouraging stragglers to come into the hive. I cut the swarm from a half-dead juniper. Inevitably, pieces of the tree got mixed up with the bees. Within minutes, housekeeper bees were pushing debris out from the front of the hive box. They're behaving as if they never left home. Next task will be to paint the exposed wood areas.

Beekeeping: Bees Are Back

I lost my bees last season--again. The hive has been sitting empty all winter, inhabited mostly by foraging ants. It was getting to be about the time to find a new swarm. I was going to post an ad on Craig'sList, as I did last time I needed bees.

Last year, I picked up new bees from a man in Vallejo with a couple of hives, one of which had swarmed. The swarm was hanging in a plum tree over his garage. Retrieving it involved climbing up on the roof. This year I've been spared that kind of trouble. I noticed a few bees around the hive entrance at home about a week ago and a lot of activity a few days later, suggesting a swarm had moved in on its own. Checking today, I see normal spring activity--a lot of bees coming and going. Bees coming in are packed with pollen, so they're raising brood. Nice to have the bees back.

Beekeeping: Harvesting Honey (March 5, 2013)

The past few days have been occupied with harvesting honey from my beehive. Sadly, we lost the bees again this year. With no bees to tend the comb, I decided I'd have to remove all the honey from the hive to avoid its being ruined or robbed by other bees or wasps. It took four days--mostly because I was extracting honey in the midst of doing other work, but it was still a big job. I harvested enough honey for a couple of years at least (55 pounds). Local friends and family will be getting presents, but I may try making mead.

The hive does not appear to be diseased. It's not clear what happened. I had seen activity as recently as about three weeks before I realized something was wrong. On one of the few recent warm days we've had, no bees were entering or leaving the hive and it was clear that the colony was lost. I'm hoping to find a swarm of bees as soon as possible, to get the hive going again. 

Beekeeping: Honey Harvest (February 27, 2012)

I got all the honey bottled up today. I harvested a total of 38lbs--quite a good haul--and there's plenty more in the hive. The flavor seems good. As usual, the kitchen is unexpectedly sticky here and there, but, everything went fairly smoothly this time. Now I don't have to worry about that again for at least 6-8 months.

Beekeeping: Time for a Belated Honey Harvest (February 22, 2012)

It was unseasonably warm today. I took the opportunity to open up the beehive for the first time in quite some time. It was filling with honey when I last looked, sometime in late October, perhaps, but there was enough empty space in many of the frames that I only extracted about 25lbs of honey in the autumn. There has been little activity around the entrance to the hive in recent weeks, so I've been a bit worried about my charges, but, if what I saw today is any indication, they've been--I hate to say it, but, busy as bees....

I took off a complete shallow super of ten frames, which should yield enough honey for friends and family for a while, and I suspect there is a second super that could be extracted as well. I expect to be busy tomorrow, if work permits such pastoral duties as honey extraction.

Beekeeping: Spring Honey Harvest

Last year I never got around to harvesting any honey, so my bees have been left unmolested for quite some time. Thinking it would be best to harvest some before they swarm, however, I extracted six frames yesterday. There is quite a bit more honey in the hive--another ten or twelve frames or so, but most of it incompletely capped with wax, so I will probably leave the bees alone again until late autumn. I usually harvest around October. This is the first time I've harvested honey in the spring. It's notably paler in color, less viscous, and less strongly flavored than what I usually get, but delicious nevertheless. Harvested about 20lbs.

Beekeeping: Opened the Hive Today (May 29, 2010)

I opened the beehive today for the first time this year. I currently have two deep hive bodies on as brood chambers and there are three medium supers on top. I cleared an ant colony out of the bottom of the hive and took everything apart just to see how the bees were doing.

The brood chambers are jammed with bees and so heavy they are very hard to lift. The supers have little in them at the moment, but the bees are beginning to store nectar there--and it's only late May. Harvest this year is likely to be substantial. Everything appears to be in good shape. The photo shows bees cleaning up honey that was in cells broken when I pulled the first super off of the queen excluder.

Wines I'm Making: Started Pruning the Vines

It's a Sunday. The sun is shining. In the past nine years, the honeybees have always swarmed on a sunny Sunday during a lull in the rain (with only one exception). I can't imagine what's keeping them in check today. A swarm is overdue.

The bees are very busy, however, bringing in big loads of pollen in various shades of cream, lemon, and orange. You can see a few bees with balls of pollen on their legs in the photo. I took advantage of the nice weather myself this morning to prune one of the two rows of grapes in the backyard. Tomorrow I will attempt to finish the job, but taxes loom....

Miscellaneous: Honey Harvest

Harvested 33lbs of honey on Sunday. It's considerably darker this year than it has been in the past. Most of it got made and stored away fairly early in the season. I'm not sure exactly what kind of nectar the bees were getting, but it's tasty. With that, most of the seasonal work is done. The wine is made--more or less. The honey is harvested. The figs are mostly finished. We have tons of apples and pears and a lot of basil for making pesto. Maybe we should get some chickens?

Beekeeping: Opened the Hive Today (June 15, 2009)

I opened the hive today for the first time this season. Even after the huge swarm that left a few weeks back, the place is humming with activity and packed with bees--and honey! It looks like two full shallow supers are nearly full of capped honey (see photo). It will be nice to have a supply again after having lost the bees two seasons ago. There are still many flowers in bloom and there is plenty of nectar around, so I expect them to quickly fill the third super I added today.

Beekeeping: Bees Swarmed Today

The bees decided to swarm today. I nearly walked into a huge ball of bees hanging from the arbor that supports the hammock. Usually bees hang out to congregate near the hive they are leaving before flying off to a new hive site, but I get the feeling they were planning to stay, as they had already begun to lay down wax on the wood for new comb. It's amazing how fast they work. I was surprised also by the number of bees in the swarm. I dropped the box I was capturing them in because it got to be so much heavier than I expected, and I got stung several times on the ankle in response--the first time I've ever been stung handling a swarm. My ankle is swollen and itchy already. Still, I seem to have got the queen in the box. I have no room for a second hive, so I aim to sell this swarm on Craig's List. Any takers?