Thunderbirds are go!

Having not had a single decent day since the year began, the recent spate of sunshine has obviously led to a huge catch-up exercise by mother nature. A very wise friend of mine, who spends more time outdoors than I do, had already commented on bees flying about. So, with temperatures mild and the sun balmy, I went to check whether the bees were out and about. And they were!
The Moon is picking up where it left off and is once again out to prove it is the better colony. Many bees crowded around its entrance and I saw some carrying pollen. The Star also had workers out, but not as many. So slightly more sluggish, as last year.

Star still slow going

The Moon takes the lead

But I am excited that the bees have taken to the air and will now have to make sure that all is ready for whatever antics they get up to. If the weather holds I plan to inspect the hives briefly next week and will probably start syrup-feeding them again, so number go up ready for the first honey flow.

Acid rain

With the cold weather the queen should have stopped laying altogether, or drastically reduced the eggs laid per day. This means that the varroa should mainly be on the bees, which is apparently the perfect chance to zap them with some oxalic acid. From what I know about acid, however weak, I can't imagine the bees like being sprayed or dripped with acid, but apparently they deal with it better than the mites, that just drop dead (oh, how I wish they all would!).

They say you learn from your mistakes - it's a lie (to quote Vaya Con Dios). Having once been unsuccessful in my attempts to access the bees without a beesuit (when I wrapped them up for the winter), I didn't think that it might be better to start out with a beesuit right away. There is something about the baggy blue boilersuit that makes me not want to put it on. Must be to do with getting legs and arms trapped in opposing sleeves and legs and being semi-strangled by the garment. Anyway, I did without it, believing the bees to be dormant, semi-frozen, huddled around the honey, having a nice winter meal.

Only fools rush in

Opening the hives was not easy as the bees had done a thorough job of sticking the crown board down and the insulation I had strapped on gave little purchase to the hive tool. As soon as I managed, the bees flew up and out. So much for huddling somewhere warm. They were not particularly fast or dangerous, more Sopwith Camel than Fighting Falcon, but even the Camel can get dangerous. There were also so many of them that I felt a retreat to reclothe might be wise. While not aggressive I was not sure how they would react when a syringe filled with acid approached their home, hive and castle, let alone how they would take being soaked in acid. Not without a fight, I imagined. Once again it was great to have pupils along, as they held the fort while I battled the boilersuit. Them I had of course dressed in beesuits right from the start.

Bees not where they should be

Back at the hives, I dripped the acid into the seams between the hives. It should be 5ml in each seam, but even though I had pratised getting the dosage right in the kitchen sink, it was a bit more difficult on site, especially when the volume markers are turned away. I managed well enough and I hope the bees will forgive me the fractions too many dripped in some seam and the varroa take the hint in the seams underdripped and die nevertheless.

Chemical warfare

Finally I placed some fondant on the frames, just in case the bees run out of food. While the hives felt heavy and the bees looked healthy, I don't plan on going into the hives till March, so in case their stores don't last till then, they have the fondant.

A packet full of fondant

Fingers crossed that all goes well till spring, if spring decides to come to this green and pleasant land.

Hefting

My first attempt at hefting - the watch is not obligatory

Hefting is an arcane art practised by beekeepers in winter, by which they grab hold of the hives, lift them a few centimetres above the ground and with much screwing up of the brows and hmmm-ing and aaahhhh-ing can calculate to the precise hexagonal cell how much honey the bees still have stored.
Apparently all it takes to be able to do this is time and practice.
Wanting to be a real beekeeper, I decided that I, too, must heft the hives. So I lifted the hives, which was not quite as easy as it sounds, because they somehow seemed to stick to the bricks they stand on. Having managed that, I screwed up my brows and hmmm-ed and aaahhhh-ed, but I had no clue how much honey the bees had. Both Moon and Star felt heavy, but then the hives themselves, being of wood, are probably quite heavy when empty. To cut a long story short, I am clueless. Perhaps the more often I heft, the more clue I will gain. Let's hope that's the case.
So, no matter what weather, it will be a hefty winter.

In a right lather

With the honey gleaned by hanging, I decided first of all to try and make some soap. For some reason the idea of honey soap had stuck in my mind and when one of the beekeeping magazines I get sent had a recipe in it for fast-hardening soap I thought I would try that. I even emailed the author, Dr Sara Robb, for more information, which she kindly supplied. I had no idea how long the process would take, so set aside a whole afternoon. I had previously acquired some moulds: honeycombed and a small elephant, as well as a baking tray for the good old square stuff.
Making soap is quite easy, but you need a few ingredients, namely three different types of oil, a mixer, caustic soda and scales, because the weights are important.

Let's make soap!

So, all equipment and ingredients prepared, I set about making soap. I prepared the lye, which is a mix of caustic soda and water, which it is better not to breathe in. While that was being nasty in its little glass jug, I mixed the oils and then mixed all together with the aid of a mixer. As soon as that was done it was simply a case of pouring the resultant custardy fluid (not that I would have wanted to taste it) into the moulds and making sure it was warm.

Wrapping the moulds up to keep them warm

To effect this I wrapped all up in towels and towels and towels. Unfortunately, as I did not know how quickly the saponification (as it is known) would take, I think I may have exposed the solidifying soap too early to the cold air of my kitchen, so that the soap did not congeal as it should have done.
At least that's what Dr Robb said when I somewhat disappointedly sent her the photos of the unevenly coloured bars of soap.

Unevenly coloured soap

Another thing that disappointed me was the fact that the soap did not at all smell of honey, although I had put in a generous helping of Ronian honey. Dr Robb (my agony aunt in this matter) said the honey in the soap recipes (yes, soap making comes in recipes) was mainly for reasons of moisturising and not for fragrance. If I wanted honey fragranced soap I would have to put in honey fragrance, as the amount of honey put in is too little to affect the aroma.

What all that means, I guess, is that I'll have to make another batch of soap. While the first batch was fine - it was all good soap and brought out a nice lather - I do want to make some improvements for the second lot. But the whole venture was exciting and if I continue in this vein I will soon join my local WI branch!

More honey

Although all the honey has been jarred and auctioned off, I had two sacks full of wax cappings mixed with honey from my honey extraction. It is possible to extract this honey, though it is generally said not to be of the same quality as the 'normal' honey directly from the frames. I guess this is because it might have more wax particles in it. However, that honey, I thought, should be ideal to make some other honey products.

I had been saving this honey to extract at some point when all the fuss has died down when I would also have some time to devote to making whatever products I fancied.

So, over the winter, I first of all extracted the honey. This basically meant hanging the plastic bags with the cappings and honey into a fine meshed bag, cutting the plastic bag and letting the honey drip through the muslin. This was a slow process, each bag taking a whole day to trickle through, but it did yield a bit of honey that I was able to use for other purposes (of which later). There is still some honey with the wax and the next step is to purify the wax so this can be used to make polish, candles or whatnot.

Even though the bees are resting, I'm not! But I'm not complaining: this is all fun and I'm working nowhere near as hard as the bees did throughout the summer. They deserve their rest.

Watershed

For those of you who don't live in Kent (which is the majority of the global population, which is, of course, all reading this blog), you may not know that we've had abysmal weather of late. In fact while I was holidaying in Vienna, winds and rainfall became so strong that most houses around mine lost power and my shed was blown apart. Before that the door, admittedly, was coming to pieces, but it was nothing like it is now.

This used to be a shed

So with the wind doing this, I was slightly apprehensive what might have happened to the hives. I had visions of upended hives, frames scattered about the place and bees somehow half in, half out, dazed, cold and dying in an incorrectly furnished and orientated hive. I really didn't know what to expect. You can imagine my relief when I found both still standing as if gale force winds hadn't taken down the electricity in half of Kent and brought South Eastern Rail to a standstill (ok, that's not such a major feat).

The hives: as happy and unruffled as lunar modules after landing

Shedloads of work

With the foul weather we've been having lately, it came as small surprise that the shed in which I had stored the bee equipment (I had usurped a corner of the shed of the school's gardening club) was not quite as waterproof as one would like it to be. Also, conditions being rather cramped, I was on the lookout for a special shed to keep just the bee equipment in and dry. There is a shed next to the gardening club shed, but this had always been used to store sport equipment. When I heard they were moving out, I bagsied (shot-gunned) the shed and the maintenance department did a splendid job re-roofing, re-flooring and re-windowing it. And now we have our very own bee shed.

Many times have I mentioned the advantages of working in a school environment. Getting the shed is just another example. And for those of you who aren't sick yet of me going on about how great it is to be beekeeping in a school, here's another example: I was on my way to the shed to transfer all the equipment from old to new, when two pupils came to me, asked me whether I was going to the bees and could they join and help me. There are always little helpers around, so a special thanks to JP and Lewfinn for helping to move the bee equipment to the new shed. Without their aid the move would have taken longer and would not have been as fun as it was.

Sealed with celotex

My niece being here, I decided that today I would insulate the hives for the cold months ahead and clad them with celotex. As two hands are not nearly enough for this, I was counting on Natalie to help me. It should have been a simple operation, as by now the bees should have all be inside the hive, clustered and keeping warm. However, as I have remarked previously, things with animals don't necessarily turn out as you expect them to.

Going to the hives with a pile of celotex

Anyway, to start at the beginning: we made our way to the hives, with a pile of celotex, straps to tie them tight and a saw for last minute fitting issues. Natalie had a beesuit on, but I thought I could do without, as there wouldn't be any bees flying around, would there?

Insulating the roof

When I got to the Moon, I realised the mouse guard had slipped. I don't know when this happened, possibly on Monday during the storm, possibly earlier. I haven't been to the hives for a fortnight, so anything is possible, really. When I fixed it, a host of bees immediately shot out from the hive, looking for trouble. Natalie ran away screaming, despite wearing a beesuit, and my sister (who took the photos) was stung almost immediately. It was at this moment that I decided to don a beesuit as the Moon colony was more active than it should have been.

Resizing celotex

After that initial shock, it was more or less plain sailing: I removed the contact feeder, left the eke and put celotex in that, as roof insulation. As those slabs were too large, I had to engage in some last minute DIY, sawing them down to size.

Natalie holding the celotex while I tie it down

Then with Natalie's help, I strapped four slabs of celotex to the hive walls.

Last slab of four

I did the same for the Star, where the bees were much calmer to not being active at all. The only thing I noticed is that their contact feeder was still pretty full, which may have to do with the syrup having crystallised against the mesh of the contact feeder. Am now worried whether they have enough winter supplies.

Two hives snugly wrapped up in space-age insulation

Somehow have the fear that come spring I won't have a sinlge colony - both having fallen victim to bad winter management.

Catching the winter cold

With winter drawing closer it's time to do some DIY again. Thing is, I'd like to insulate the hives over winter by wrapping them up (not literally, in whatever way you want to use that word now) in celotex. Although no bee book I have looked into so far recommends it, I read a newsletter in one of the beekeeping magazines I now receive which told of positive experiences with insulating the hives in winter. This makes sense to me. Most of the time the bees die because, although they have sufficient food, it is too cold for them to break cluster. So, if they're insulated, they can; besides, they should not need as much food, as they do not need as much energy to keep themselves warm.
With apparently so many advantages it is strange that not more beekeepers are celotexing their hives. I hope I don't find out why not in spring...
Luckily the school - a Victorian mansion that needs constant loving attention from our handymen - has scraps of celotex. So I nabbed these and cut them to size.

When to put them on the hives? I have no clue, but anytime now. As it's half term I'll do this without the pupils, but my niece is coming, so I'll wait for her. I'm sure she'll be excited to help and then see photos of herself on the web.

Beesuit becomes boilersuit

Slipped guard

Having discovered that the mouse guard in the Star was not doing its job properly, I decided to repair it today. I had taken it off so that the bees could access their hive freely again (and just hope that no mouse decided to set up camp in the Star last night).

It was a beautiful, sunny day, but rather chill and there were only one or two bees flying round the Star. They might have got the message that winter is now definitely approaching and they need to sort out their stores.
Anyway, armed with various screws and a screwdriver, I went to the Star and repaired the mouse guard. Sounds rather grand that: it was basically a case of putting in a screw that would support the guard - and done. A bee did come to have a look and landed on my arm as I was twisting the screw in. I think she approved.

Repairing the mouse guard

Preparing for winter

Have not been posting the past few weeks, as not much has happened.

Well, that's not quite true: the school was inspected and the bees had to yield before the exigencies of such academic spirallings. I do try and put the bees first in all, but last week was so intense that I really had little time for the little ones.

Nevertheless, I have been cooking up lots of syrup (my 1.5l bottle count is now up to 7 in an attempt to keep up with the speed the bees are taking the syrup down into the hives). Have also learnt how to handle the contact feeders and have a little bowl to catch the surplus when I turn them around. Amazing how beekeeping equipment just proliferates. My guess is the Moon is full up and the Star is also doing well. Bees are still collecting pollen though - no signs of any winter quiet or calm yet.

One thing that bothers me with the contact feeders is that whenever I replenish them, a number of bees are trapped in the ekes and die there. Is there no way to prevent this? I know, remove the wood covering one hole in the crownboard, but then my busy bees would start doing silly things in the eke. Not sure what else to do. It does pain me to trap a few, knowing they face certain starvation.

Combined feeder and deathtrap

Also put the varroa boards in, but left them in so long that the results are lots of muck, fuzz and bits and bobs and no way to count dropped mites. Not sure I will count them this year. There are still mites parachuting down, so will treat the hives with oxalic acid and then start afresh with the new season. While that makes me feel like a rotten beekeeper, there's really not that much I could do now. I guess part of beekeeping is taking decisions of what to do and what not to do - despite what the books say. Hmmm... Hope all goes well. Whenever I stray from the path of libral wisdom, I feel all my bees will die over the winter.

When going to check on feeders and see what hefting the hive was like (it told me nothing, but the hives seemed heavy), I discovered that the mouseguard on the Star had slipped, effectively blocking the entrance and making it impossible for bees to enter or exit. Will have to fix that tomorrow. Opened the guard and the bees very happily clustered around the entrance and seemed glad that the building works were over and their main thoroughfare free again.
Didn't even get stung. That's true gratefulness!