Honey Beekeeping - Part 5 - By Petticoat Prepper

You know how I feel about the beekeeping thing.  If I was a bit younger and didn't have children who are highly allergic, I would be harvesting my own honey as we speak.  But I am not going to get any younger and the kids are not likely to grow out of their issues, so here I am, hoping that one of my neighbors will start a colony and sell that precious gold to me.

If you have not read the first four post from the Petticoat Prepper, then you have really missed out.  No big deal tho - you can click right here for Part One, Part Two, Part three or Part four.  Then you will be all caught up.

Petticoat Prepper has a real knack for describing the building and maintenance of your very own bee hive.  And in a language that you can understand.  Check out the latest of the series.

Honey Beekeeping Part 5

It’s now the end of your season and the bees have been hard at work laying in their winter provisions. Depending on your area they may need more than other warmer locations. My understanding for MY area is that the girls need 80 lbs of honey to make it to spring. Remember they visit about 5 million flowers to make one pint of honey. One pint of honey is about one pound; 80 pounds is a #$%@ load of flowers! I tried to be very grateful and respectful when I harvested my honey.

There are lots of different types of equipment for extracting honey. But given that I’m cheap or more nicely said ‘frugal’ and given the expense of startup (and two dead queens) I refused to buy any harvesting equipment. I will add to my supplies this season.

The girls will be very, very defensive of their honey and who can blame them? I did use a ‘fume board’ but found it didn’t do anything for me. It’s supposed to with the addition of some smelly stuff, drive the girls out but that didn’t happen for me. I ended up just gently brushing the girls off each honey frame. I then quickly removed that frame from the area. This year I’m going to get a plastic file box to hang the frames in so I only have to make one trip.

Honey is dried and ready to harvest when it’s capped. The girls will have a white wax cap over the openings. Again, there’s a piece of equipment you can buy to test the moisture content but cheap me…I figured the girls wouldn’t cap if it wasn’t ready. Robbing can be a problem and if you see strange bees fighting with your girls you should probably add the entrance reducer now. This will help them keep the thieves a bay.

I decided not to buy/rent an extractor as people have been harvesting honey for centuries without this little helper. I used one of my 5 gallon food grade plastic buckets to collect the honey in. A cap scrapper would be helpful or a hot knife better. I’m hoping for the hot knife. I of course had neither, so I used my freshly washed and dried fingers to break open the honey comb. I left each frame in the bucket at a slight angle and let the warm honey drip slowly into said bucket. Yes, this took way more time than a machine that spins the frames really fast to fling the honey out. Once both sides of a frame were done dripping I took it out to the girls and let them clean up the messy honey that remained. They made short work of it.

Once I had harvested all the honey I strained it through a fine sieve although you could use a paint strainer. Save the wax as there are many things to be done with it. I poured it into clean, dry pint canning jars with lids. This is the best honey I’ve ever had. No processing, no heating just pure honey from my girls.

In preparation for winter I gave the girls an extra half of a pollen patty. The deep supers were so very heavy that I stopped checking the bottom deep. The last check on the bottom one I realized I was in trouble when lifting the top deep super. It was extremely heavy for me. I did take it to the inner cover on the ground but thought it was a mistake as I did so. (See, listen to your gut!) When I went to replace it I KNEW it was a mistake as I couldn’t lift it up more than knee high. Of course, the bottom super on its stand is about waist high.

So, what’s a girl to do? Well, if you’re going to work with honeybees you’re going to get stung. I figured I just had to take the stings. I lifted the deep super weighing in at close to 80 pounds and gently slid my leg from the outside corner along the super’s edge to help me lift it the remaining distance. Imagine my surprise when the girls all moved out of the way and I didn’t get even one sting! I will not be lifting them filled again.

To help with mite control I gave the girls a heavy dusting of powdered sugar. Yes, I powdered the bees. This makes them groom each other and that helps to knock off the mites. If you’ve a screened bottom board the mites will fall to the ground and not be able to get back to the bees. If we were bees with mites it’d be like having rats on us that we couldn’t get rid of. I treated for foulbrood with terramycin following the package directions. I covered the hive with an insulating wrap, removed the entrance reducer and placed the mouse guard over the entrance. I also ran a tie-down strap (like for a boat cover) over the entire hive to help keep the top on incase of winds.

My girls were buttoned up for winter and on their own. Great now I can worry till spring…..

During winter bees stay inside and do not use the ‘rest room’ so on nice days when the sun is shining, there’s little wind and temps are close to 60 degrees F. they will do a ‘cleansing flight’. This means they fly outside to poop, try not to be in their line of fire.

Many hives die as they approach spring due to lack of food. If you have a nice day and the girls are out you can do a quick peek to see how their stock pile is holding up. If you fear they are getting low you can give them sugar cakes and pollen patties. Do Not give sugar syrup.

If you’re going to give them sugar cakes you’ll need a taller inner cover which you can get from your local supplier.

Sugar cake

5 pounds of granulated sugar

7 ½ ounces water

3 tablespoon of lemon grass and spearmint essential oil mix (see below)

Pour everything over the sugar and stir to mix well. Pour into a wax paper lined 9 x 13 pan. Cut into 4 sections, pushing the sugar mix to give about ½ inch between each section. Place in oven with the oven light on. Leave with the light on for 24 hours to dry out the cakes. Do not turn on the oven….

Place on the top of the frames to give emergency food to the bees.

Essential oil mix

100% pure food grade spearmint and lemon grass essential oils

1/8th teaspoon Lecithin granules (local health food store)

2 ½ pounds sugar

5 cups water

Bring water to a boil add sugar, stir until dissolved. Remove from heat and add lecithin stir well. Once this is cooled add 15 drops each of the essential oils.

To help combat tracheal mites you can give grease patties

Grease Patties

Grease Patties

1 pounds of granulated sugar

1 ½ tablespoon corn oil

1/4 pound Crisco (not lard)

1/4 pound honey

2 ounces pink salt (can use rabbit wheel salt ground up) 3 teaspoons lemon grass essential oil

Mix all together with gloved hands. Scoop into about 2 ounce portions and form into ‘hamburger patties’. Extra patties can be frozen until needed. Place two around the frames tops.

A few weeks before the first blossoms appear you’ll want to treat for Nosema and Foulbrood. Follow the package directions. Keep an eye on their general health. Again, the Beekeeping for Dummies is a great book and will give more detail than I’m going to.

The final topic for this series is reversing hive bodies. Again, spring time only and there is some discussion as to the importance of this. Your apiary, you decide.

On a nice sunny fairly warm spring day of not less than 50 degrees F. smoke the bees. Remove the outer lid and lay upside down on the ground. Then without removing the inner lid, lift the top deep super and move it to the upturned outer lid.

Look inside the lower super, it will probably be close to if not empty. Lift if off the bottom board and set it crosswise on the upper super. Scrape and clean the bottom board. Then lift the super that was the lower super and set it on one end on the ground. Take the original upper super and set it on the bottom board. Smoke the bees and then remove the inner cover. Place the old lower super on top of the new lower super; replace the inner cover and outer lid.

This is supposed to help with distribution of brood, honey, pollen etc. Plus bees like to move up so it gives them that too. In about three or four weeks you do this again, returning the hive to its original super positions. When you do, you can add your honey supers, assuming of course the bees are bring nectar and you’re not medicating any longer.

Remember, this is a very, very short tutorial on beekeeping. The book “The ABC and XYZ of bee culture” is considered to be the bible of beekeeping. You can find free downloads of it here: http://archive.org/details/abcxyzofbeecultu00root it’s very detailed and for the beginner the ‘Dummies’ book is much easier; at least in my humble opinion.

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Hopefully, I manage to give you bites on this elephant of a subject. Honey bees are very important to our food crops, 2/3’s of them need the bee for pollination without which they can’t produce the food. Colony Collapse Disorder, not disused here is a huge issue. There are several thoughts about what’s causing this problem and the EPA doesn’t want to hear that corn and soybean farmers, GMO’s, insecticide usage etc, could be the issue. One thing is pretty certain. If something isn’t done to help the little honeybee…by 2035 North America will not have any. So with that thought, I want to encourage everyone to practice backyard bee keeping. If you can’t do that, how about landscaping with the girls in mind? Thanks for hanging in there with me on this how to raise honey bees series.

For more great prepping/survival tips and stories, visit The Survivalist Blog by clicking right here.  

Raising Honey Bees - Just The Beginning

Raising honey bees may be one of the simplest things an avid prepper can do.  Imagine the benefits.  Not just that fact that you will have a great supply of honey but what about the trade value, if there is a long term disaster.  If no disaster exist, then you could make a nice little profit from this project.

One of my favorite sites is TheSurvivalistBlog.net.  This guy has a great number of followers who share a wealth of information that is amazingly useful.  Some is far beyond what I will ever use.  Some is perfect for people like me - the Granny prepper who is just doing the best I can for my age and expectations.  M.D. Creekmore had been gracious enough to allow me to share some of post from his site and this is one that I believe is just super.  It is actually a series and I will post them just as they were posted before.

I wonder at times why adults are so fearful of bees.  I understand why a child who has been stung or watched another child's reaction to the sting may over react in the presence of these little flying creatures.  I also understand why an adult who has a serious allergy to the bee sting would want to avoid contact.  But, a majority of adults should be glad that bees are around our homes and doing what they do best.  Pollinate our plants and then make that wonderful substance called honey.  Honey is by far, to me, the most amazing naturally made product that exist.

So, let me share the first of this series, by guest blogger Petticoat Prepper.

 

“Honey Beekeeping (Oh Lord, part one)” plus 2 more

A while back MD said he needed posts from all of us to help keep things moving along. My thought of offering to write about honeybees was encouraged and so get out your salt shaker and bear with me. Beekeeping is an inexhaustible subject. I haven’t a clue how many parts there will be to this but I know it can get very overwhelming and I’ll try to keep the parts shorter rather than longer. First let me say, I am no expert. I have been keeping bees for the past year. It’s been fun, frustrating, interesting and challenging. I’ll share what I’ve done and hopefully those interested will find a bit of help. Just keep in mind; it’s rather like herding cats. I am setting up to add 3 more hives to my backyard this year. I just placed my order for two more starter kits as I have one empty which I got for a swarm that left before I got back with it and then I’ve the original one (bees are still there). Once I have all of them set up I will have 4. The maximum number allowed by my city is 5. By law, if I have 5 or more I am required to register them with the State Agriculture Department. I don’t care to have the government in my back yard so I’m stopping at 4. The fee is very small and they check for diseases to help keep all the honeybees healthy. I am prohibited from selling any of the bees, honey, etc. as that would make them ‘live stock’ and I’m not zoned for live stock…gotta love ‘em! I would strongly suggest you look for a local beekeeping club to join. I would also suggest getting a decent book. My club suggests Beekeeping for Dummies. There are lots of YouTube videos that are very helpful and tons of web sites too. The first thing you need to understand is that it’s December 30, 2012 as I write this and that means you’re almost behind if you want to get going this coming year. Even if you don’t have a hive set up and clothes; get your bees ordered. You have no idea how hard it is to get them if you wait. My bees will come in April but I have to order them now. Bees come in 3 pound boxes. Yes, that’s 3 pounds of bees and one mated queen shipped with a can of food. 3 pounds of bees will be about 11,000 bees. Yes, 11,000 that’s a lot of bees and you’re going to let them out of that box! My bees are Italian; they are yellow brown in color with dark bands. They are gentle, produce a good amount of comb and large brood which results in quick colony growth. They winter over a large amount of bees so they need a good amount of food storage. Italian bees are the most popular followed by Carniolan. Ok, you’ve ordered your bees and now you need to start looking at a home for the ‘girls’ and a place to put them. There are a several options for homes but I’m only talking about mine. I use the Langstroth method named after the ‘Father of Modern Beekeeping’. I order my supplies from Ruhl bee supply as they are about 45 minutes from me. You can see their products at Ruhl Bee Supply depending on where you live you may want to order closer to home. I order their PNW starter kit assembled. I have no desire right now to put this stuff together and I pay them the extra $50 figuring it’s worth the loss of frustration. Plus I don’t have to make a second ‘oh crap!’ trip to get something I broke. This gives me everything I need to get the girls going. I also get a second medium super (terms are coming up hang in there), a queen excluder, mouse guard, and plastic feeder. Terminology on hive parts: ‘Super’ this is the box sections. ‘Deep Super’ this is where the girls live or stock pile food. ‘Medium Super or Shallow Super’ is where they make YOUR honey. ‘Frames’ this is the wood or plastic part that hangs from the super and to which foundations are attached. ‘Foundations’ this is a flat plastic or beeswax form that is held in place on the frames. They are stamped with a honey comb pattern and the girls will draw comb on this. ‘Draw Comb’ this is where the girls make wax honeycomb. ‘Queen Excluder’ a plastic grate that keeps the queen from reaching the medium supers so you don’t get brood in the honey. ‘Brood’ baby bees. ‘Entrance reducer’ a small board with notched section. This gives a new hive a smaller area to defend. ‘Plastic Feeder’ this is a small flat dish if you will that a canning jar of syrup fits into to feed the girls. Ok, the kit will/should have: 1 screened bottom board with sloped front (don’t get the solid flat ones) 1 entrance reducer 2 deep supers 20 frames (10 each super) 20 foundations 1 medium super 10 frames 10 foundations 1 inner cover 1 telescoping or English garden cover I also get cinder blocks from the lumber yard for the hive to sit on. I want them off the ground to help keep them dry. I want them up so any invading animals will have to stand on its back legs thus exposing their tender tummy’s to painful stings. When you site the hive you want dappled shade. The sun will wake them so you want them to get some but you also want to protect from the heat of the day. A wind break is important too as is a water source. I’m on a creek so the girls have plenty of water and the shade from my fruit trees helps keep them cool when we get hot. A 5 gallon food grade bucket with a line of holes drilled a couple inches from the top and filled with water and a couple inches of packing peanuts will work fine if you don’t have water within half a mile. Peanuts give the girls something to stand on so they don’t drown and the holes let rain water drain out so you don’t lose the peanuts. Wet bees are sick and unhappy bees. Take care to adjust the blocks or pallets so the hives lean forward a bit to help drain out any moisture. In the valley here we get lots of rain so I worry about drainage a bunch. The last I’m covering for this part is clothing and hand tools. Look through the style and types of beekeeping clothing and pick out what appeals to you. I bought a one piece pull over jacket with hat and veil. I like it as there is no zipper opening for a bee to find. The ‘hat’ part slides around a bit and I’m sewing a ribbon inside to tie under my chin to see if it will be still on my head. I find a bandana helps to keep my long hair contained and sweat out of my eyes while working the bees. I added painter’s coveralls for my pants. It’s a disposable one and I found it hot to work in during the heat of summer. I like it because the pant cuffs have elastic and I wear them outside my boots. I may look for just pants. I bought bee gloves with mesh at the wrist to help cool me off. The thing to think about when trying on the official outfit is being able to bend and stretch. AND how many openings are there?  Bees will search you while you work and I for one do not want one inside with me! Tools: Get a good hive tool. Don’t scrimp here you use this for just about everything. A smoker and fuel is a must. Learn to keep the smoker going. You want cool smoke for the girls never hot. A bee brush is nice. I used a small fresh branch with leaves before I got my brush and it worked fine, but I like the brush. A frame holder is great to have. This hangs on the side of the super and you remove the first frame and place it there while you work your hive. This gives you a bit of space to move the remaining frames forward. A frame grip is one of those things you think is stupid to have until later in the season when you’re trying to pull up a frame filled with pounds of honey and bees. Trust me you never want to drop a frame of bees. This stupid little tool is a must! In part two, I’ll explain how to get bees from box A into box B. Hopefully, this part wasn’t too long!