Comments for Mud Songs

Comment on Urban Beekeepers, Don’t Overfeed Your Bees by Phillip

Phillip — Fri, 17 May 2013 21:14:52 +0000

Whenever I feed the bees honey, they attack it, devour it, with more at least twice as much enthusiasm as they would with even the sweetest, most attractive sugar syrup.

I decided to feed my bees last year’s crystallized honey. The hive in the city that I don’t want to swarm hasn’t received any sugar syrup this year. I can’t risk overfeeding them. But I did give them left over comb honey that I didn’t eat from last year, and today I took pint sized Mason jar full of crystallized honey, put it on its side with the mouth of the jar next to the inner cover hole, covered by a honey super, and the bees have been going at it like mad.

I figure it’s just as good as any sugar syrup. Maybe not, but close enough.

Comment on Counting Bees by Phillip

Phillip — Thu, 16 May 2013 11:13:07 +0000

Southern California, probably L.A. In other words, it’s a completely different world from Newfoundland.

Comment on Counting Bees by Jeff

Jeff — Thu, 16 May 2013 11:04:04 +0000

Where does Jay live. I am curious to the location.

Comment on Counting Bees by Jay Floyd

Jay Floyd — Thu, 16 May 2013 02:57:57 +0000

My hives are exploding. At the top of the day when it’s warm and they are bringing in nectar and honey, I would hate to think I had to count bees coming and going. Just do a plus or minus 10,000 in 60 seconds. I really think this is going to be a good year for us. It’s been cool and the bloom has been slow and steady and we just had another pollen explosion. The girls are going NUTS!! I love it!!

Comment on Will My Neighbour’s Honey Bees Sting My Kids? by Jay Floyd

Jay Floyd — Thu, 16 May 2013 02:32:15 +0000

It’s an open ended question because the question doesn’t address how close you are to them, but I would for sure instruct your children on beekeeping and you can absolutely use it as an educational experience. We homeschool and they get credits for “beekeeping”. I would ask your neighbor, if possible, to let you suit them up. Your local beekeeping association (google them) should have small suits you can borrow. If you instruct the kids and let them look in the hives and show them the workings of the hive, they will be a LOT less likely to go out on their own investigating, which is a good way for kids and adults to get stung. We have hives in our backyard and as stated here, if you didn’t know they were they, you would never know as they are shielded by trees and you can’t see them. Funny thing is, I’ve been stung 3 times in the last 2 weeks just hanging out in my “bee yard” and all 3 times have been in the head. Once behind my ear, once ON my ear and once right in the middle of the forehead. All 3 times, I was within 10 feet of the hives. My wife, on the other hand, has NEVER been stung and the last time I got stung, she was standing right beside me. Weird, right? As stated here, one of my hives may have bees that are a bit more aggressive than the others and I think I know which one it is and I am looking at replacing that queen as well. Just introduce them to the hive, suit them up and let them enjoy having bees as neighbors. Who knows, they may get into it and do it for a living one day. We need good responsible beekeepers to help us keep the population up. Also, if your kids have never been stung and you don’t want to have them tested for allergies…..as a precaution, get your Doctor to get you an epi-pen and just keep it on hand. It’s not a bad idea to have one around anyway for yellow jackets, wasps and hornets….just in case.

Comment on How Many Honey Bees Can Live in a Typical Langstroth Hive? by Joe

Joe — Tue, 14 May 2013 14:14:54 +0000

did you take into account the 4 walls of the box and the bottom ? this would add a slightly higher number also bees have a tendency to be on top of each other so you need to add that variable to, drones and queens take up larger spots as well, I guess someone will just have to count LOL.

Comment on Cut Comb & Bottled Honey by Phillip

Phillip — Sat, 11 May 2013 19:59:23 +0000

That’s comb honey and I eat it like this or like this.

Comment on Cut Comb & Bottled Honey by kevin oliver

kevin oliver — Fri, 10 May 2013 19:44:52 +0000

what do you do with the little bricks of comb & honey in the little plastic containers ?

Comment on Combining Two Hives by Phillip

Phillip — Sun, 05 May 2013 17:18:10 +0000

One of the combined hives worked out okay. One of them didn’t. I found a pile of dead bees outside the front of the hive — the aftermath of a battle. There must have been a hole in the newspaper right from the start and they didn’t have enough time for their different scents mix.

It’s also possible the queen from what I thought was a queenless hive wasn’t actually dead, though I doubt it. I couldn’t find any sign of a queen last week. If it had a queen, she’d completely stopped laying.

I had to check to make sure the queen-right colony still had a queen after the battle. It did.

At least the the colony know has a near-full box of honey from the queenless hive to keep it going.

Comment on Fresh White Honey Comb by Phillip

Phillip — Sun, 05 May 2013 11:19:57 +0000

Damn. My comb honey has mould on it. Or at least I think it does. I had about 8 packages of comb honey from last year that I was saving for friends and people who help me with my bees. But I just noticed what appears to be white mould on the comb. It’s not fuzzy and fungi-like, so perhaps it’s only crystallizing honey, but I can’t take tell and I can’t risk giving bad honey to anyone. Shoot. Damn.

For now on I’ll have to make sure to keep all my stored comb honey in the freezer.