A follower of this blog emailed me the other day. She was concerned that something had happened to the bees and that's why I hadn't been blogging. I'm happy to report that the bees are doing fabulously well. It's just that I've been swamped. What with summer guests, gardening, and now harvesting and processing the fruits of my labor, well, I guess the blog just took a back seat. Actually, I was so on top of things in June that I started a blog post that I never finished. I'm going to post that June draft now, because it will set up the current scenario a bit:
Over the last month I have been trying to aggressively manage the hives, moving frames around so that I can eventually replace the cruddy, old, original deep nuke frames with nice, new, properly-sized medium Pierco frames. The theory is this: bees keep their colonies organized in a spherical cluster. The nucleus of that cluster is where most of the egg-laying and brood-rearing takes place. By gradually moving center frames out toward the edge of the brood box, the bees will convert that comb to honey and pollen storage receptacles instead of brood cells, once the existing brood hatches. Empty of brood and, with luck, filled with honey, the over-sized old frames can be removed without compromising the population of the colony. So far I've managed to remove all 5 of these deep frames from the Yellow Hive, and 3 from the Red Hive.
Some of the frames I removed contain uncapped (or 'unripe') - and some capped - honey. One of these I placed atop the Yellow Hive, sitting inside the now-disused hive-top feeder box. Theoretically, the bees will go up into the feeder, unload the frames of its sweet cargo and re-pack it down below, either in the brood boxes or in the honey super.
I couldn't help myself. I brought out a metal spatula and plastic storage container from the kitchen. I reached into the feeder box, held fast the frame and dug deep into the soft comb. Honey oozed and flowed as I pushed the spatula through the wax. I spooned the luscious, gooey ribbon into the plastic cup and stole away to the house to savor my loot. Can I say that it was the most deliciously fragrant, palest, most delicate honey I'd ever tasted? Yes, I can. The aroma of something like lemon blossom lingered in my mouth long after I'd swallowed.
It's been a month since I captured the swarm from the yellow hive. I wanted to give them some time to settle, so I waited two agonizing weeks before I did an inspection. But Ray, my bee teacher, had instructed me to get a second story on the single brood box as soon as possible.
I didn't know what to expect in this new hive. Either my original Yellow Queen was in there, or there was a newly-hatched queen who would have had to go on a successful mating flight before she started laying. What I found surprised and delighted me. The queen practically introduced herself to me when I pulled out one of the center frames. She was dancing and wiggling around in the middle of the frame. It was a new queen. She was born here. That means that this is a 100% Montauk colony of bees. And the most thrilling discovery was that the queen was laying. She had flown off into the 'drone zone' and had found her way back and was busy depositing countless tiny, rice-shaped eggs in the bottom of the cells. I also found larva, but no capped brood yet, so she'd been laying for about a week.
The fact that this was not the original queen from the yellow hive, but a newborn queen, would seem to indicate that I had missed the primary swarm from the yellow hive. Most likely, the old queen had gone off with a large contingent, and this was a secondary swarm. I don't know where they are, but I wish them well. The new queen's small band of daughters who had accompanied her from the yellow hive were feverishly drawing comb and tending to their tiny larval charges. I was worried that there were simply not enough of them to get the job done. It would be about 2 weeks before new bees hatched and were able to help with the household chores. I added another box with new frames, put some more broken, nectar-filled comb into the feeder and went away, fingers crossed.
So far, it looks like I needn't have worried. Last week I added another frame of honey, from the super above the red hive, just to help them out with a house-warming gift of stored food. I didn't see the queen on this most recent inspection. She may have been in the lower level of the hive, which I didn't check. I did see plenty of eggs, larva, and capped brood this time, and so it looks like the swarm hive - Team Purple - is settling in nicely. Now that I have a viable third hive, I will be ordering proper hive parts - a cover, a couple of more supers with frames, a bottom board with a varroa screen.
Below are some of my favorite late-spring things:
New garlic
The last of the robin chicks about to fledge from my front porch
over-wintered giant leeks (about 30 inches worth)
Well, that was then, and this is now. And it's hard for me to know where to begin. I ordered the parts and organized Team Purple into a proper hive. It's been about a month since then, and they seem to be doing fine. I stole some partially-drawn frames, and some nectar-filled frames, from the hard-working red hive, and added them to the purple hive in order to give them a running start on building their colony. I didn't add a honey super, thinking they wouldn't have the time or 'girl power' this year to make excess stores; I wanted them to concentrate on filling out all the frames in the 3-box hive. Now, I have to say, I'm actually thinking of putting a super on, even though it's late in the season. That's how well they seem to be doing.
The taste of honey I had in mid June was just the beginning. A month later, I started to extract honey, mostly from the red hive. I also extracted some honey from the discarded large nuc frames that I took out of the red and yellow hives. These are now all gone, replaced with new black Pierco frames, with the exception of one that remains in the red hive. I will be removing that soon, and replacing it with two drawn frames from which the honey has been extracted.
Some of the honey I harvested by hand - mushing and mashing the wax to break it up, then pushing against a sieve, and finally straining through a coffee filter cone lined with a new nylon stocking. Messy. Then I was invited to join a newly-formed group of bee enthusiasts in Sag Harbor. We met at a lovely woman's home, named - wait for it - Bea! Bea had a new extractor that she allowed us to use. I extracted 4 more frames. So far, I have harvested 22 lbs. of honey!! It is the palest of pale gold and wonderful.
I would have been quite happy with 22 lbs. of honey, but it doesn't end there. Team Yellow looks like it will be filling its honey super, and team red just keeps going and going. There are 2 supers on and I took a peek a few days ago and I think they may both be almost ready to harvest. If that's the case, I could have as much as 60 more lbs. of honey. Frankly, it is unfathomable how much of the sweet stuff they're producing.
We just experienced Hurricane Irene yesterday. Today is clear, calm, dry and sunny. Yesterday and Saturday were another thing altogether. And, of course, the bees were my biggest concern. They are on high ground, so flooding was not a concern, but the wind was. I bungied them to the hive stands and put cinder blocks on the covers and on the hive stands as well. They survived, and are out and about today, doing their thing, appearing no worse for the wear.
It now feels as though the hives have been here forever. Was it really just a couple of months ago that I doubted that they would thrive? Soon it will be time to prep for winter, and that will offer another reason to fret. Still, I just can't imagine life without bees any more.
