The start of it, my blog
And here we go!
I’ve been thinking about blogging about beekeeping and honey for years now, but with anything, things get in the way, sometimes you can’t motivate yourself, it seems daunting or overwhelming, and on and on and on. But here we are now, today is the day. There aren’t too many weeks that go by that I am not working on bees or honey in my life and I have so much knowledge to share and I hope this space becomes a place where I can do that just that. I want to educate the public who purchase my product on where it comes from as well as help out new and old beekeepers in their ongoing bee endeavors. I see these pages likely containing my log of what I am currently working on and sometimes something random in between. Stay with me friends, we are in this ride together.
Today was very hot in Louisville, Kentucky where I live and where my bees live. It’s currently 97F degrees and sunny and just a few hours ago when I was working on one of my apiaries, it was already in the 90s. I had every intention of going out super early today before it got too hot, ideally before 9 a.m. when it was still in the 70s, but it didn’t happen. I had to mix up sugar water this morning, to feed a new apiary that I started establishing in mid June. These are all new hives and weren’t there for Spring, they were either what we call “nucs” with queens or nucs with a queen cell. I had been running double hives on many of my established hives through a system with what is called a snelgrove board, so some of them were queens, bees, and brood from one of the double hives, and others were brood that I pulled from hives that were busting at the seams and had enough to steal from. On the latter, I added queen cells to them, that I had raised from the dna of one of my best queens and hives to further that line. The intention was to feed them heavy through the rest of the year and get them so that they are able to over winter and start on their own come Spring. When I installed them, they all were fed at that time.
The new apiary in Highview, Louisville, Kentucky. Down a big hill but very peaceful. Lots of clover, lots of flowering trees around for Spring honey production.
Queen cells I raised for the new hives in the new apiary.
The nucs ready for installation.
Nucs installed into the starter hives and apiary setup complete. Well, half of it any way, there's another row that I will do next year.
Rock put down for under my new hives.
I need another truck again, but for now, I'm using my convertible to load things up. Here is Mini loaded up with equipment for the new apiary.
What happened and what didn’t happen. What happened? Long story short, I had a three week trip planned overseas for late June where I was also having surgery on this trip. So I got everything established in the new apiary so that when I returned, they would be ready to be fed more and taken care of. I had every intention on being recovered enough when I returned to be able to throw a bee suit on and feed them, something that I would just need to lift the cover on the hive to do. Afterall, I would already be two weeks post-op when I returned. What I didn’t really expect was NOT to be ready to do any of that when I returned. Two weeks was definitely not enough, I was still far from recovered and the thought of a bee suit touching my incisions on a hot day in July, was too much and I didn’t even try. 3 weeks went by, still not ready, 4 weeks, yep nope, not yet. 6 weeks, I was officially off restrictions, ready then? Yes, finally ready, but wait, no, I don’t think I am yet, I needed more strength, as I had lost some not being able to exercise. It wasn’t until nearly 8 weeks that I felt good enough to put on a bee suit and get out to my bees again, much later than I ever had planned. So I went out to the apiary planning on doing a quick assessment, treating them for mites, and then going back and feeding them. What I ended up doing was much more than that, I had some of the nucs in double hives and two of them were busting at the seams, so I had to move things around with boxes, frames etc. I spent a lot of time doing it and then didn’t have time to feed them.
9 weeks post-op and they are finally fed again. I also had the intention of going back and feeding them after that initial assessment 10 days prior, but then the State Fair took place and I made a last minute decision to both enter exhibits and sell my honey there, which took up all of my time. Today was the day. I finally made it out there to get them started with food again. After an initial assessment on each hive, I added two, one-gallon ziplock bags full of sugar syrup to the feeder on top of each hive. I poked holes in them so they could feed from there. I plan on going back in another 10 days and reloading them through the rest of the Fall until they either have enough resources to survive the Winter or it gets too cold and I change over to sugar bricks.
Example of what it looks like to feed them with ziplock bags internally. You set a feeder on top of the inner cover, which can just be a two inch or more shim, poke holes in the center of the gallon zip lock bags, and then lay them flat. You can set the bag directly on the frames or above an inner cover. At this time of year, I put them above the inner cover. The bees will come up from below the inner cover through the center hole, gather the sugar nectar, and take it back to the hive to use.
*image from betterbee.com
Why am I feeding sugar syrup? Doesn’t this make my honey fake? These are all new hives and we are not in a “honey flow” at the moment, so this is a substitute for nectar, which they naturally gather. They will use this sugar nectar to build out their hive, feed any remaining brood, and change it into honey to utilize over the Winter. None of this will be collected by me, the beekeeper and is necessary to keep them from dying on me.
It was so hot. By the time I made it back up the hill with my cart, I was covered in sweat and dehydrated, it was so very hot today. I downed the water I brought in the car and even stopped to get a bottle of water, which I never do, as I carry an insulated water bottle with me everywhere. Next time, no matter what, I’m getting out there early before the heat hits. Make me live up to it!
Thanks for sticking around until the end! I did it! I finished my first blog! Yay me! I think I did forget how much I like to write and I’m glad I made that first move and started. That’s the same with beekeeping, if you want to become a beekeeper, you just have to start somewhere! I started by walking into a local beekeeping association meeting on a cold December evening. Next thing you know, I’m committed and 8 seasons later, I’m still around, taking care of bees, making honey, and now, talking to you about bees!