Linda's Bees

Report on January State of the Rabun Bee Hives

2012-01-26T14:15:00.000-05:00

There's good news and there's bad news. Both of these hives were small and not too great going into the winter. The dark green hive had been covered by kudzu at the end of the summer - the gardeners who maintain the area around the garden didn't realize I had two hives and let the kudzu win. I would take garden shears with me every time I went and cut back the area around the entrance but the kudzu definitely won.

I anticipated that these hives would not make it through the winter. I've already ordered packages of bees to replace them, assuming they would die.

Today on my visit to the garden, I found out that the dark green hive at the Community garden in Rabun County is bee-less. I'm sad, but not surprised that they are gone. At first without investigating, I put some food on the hive, assuming there might be bees, but when a hive is dead there is an eerie silent feel and I realized that there was no life there.

But then I went to the second hive and lo and behold there were bees flying in and out. They were really there and I was astounded. The hive felt alive when I opened it, even though I didn't see bees anywhere except at the front entrance. What a relief!

I saw as many as six bees at the same time, but couldn't snap a picture fast enough - are digital cameras irritating that way?

Anyway, I took the feeder off of the green hive and poured the contents into the feeder for the living, breathing hive - HOORAY! Hope for the future at the Community Garden.

Interestingly there were spiders nesting in the corners of the top cover of both hives. I like them better than roaches!

Live Bees at Blue Heron and at Jeff's

2012-01-15T21:27:00.000-05:00

The bees in the nuc at Blue Heron are ALIVE! I really can't believe it. These are the vandalized bees that are now housed in a nuc and locked with a bicycle lock against further intrusion. I did not believe they would still be OK and we are not out of the winter death possibilities until March. At least for now they are flying.

I couldn't believe it so I took four pictures to prove to myself that they actually are coming and going. You can watch a hive and tell if the bees entering and leaving it live there or are robbers from another hive. The residents enter confidently and in one fell swoop into the entry. Robber bees are unsure and tend to hover around the entrance before going into the hive.

These bees own this hive.

At my old house where Jeff and Valerie now live we have two hives we are concerned about - now three. Colony Square is doing great with bees all at the entrance. Lenox Pointe has bees but also evidence of nosema, possibly, in that there are streaks of bee poop on the hive box at the entry way.

The hive we call "Five" is still alive. It was tiny going into winter and we had talked about putting it into a nuc, but never did. It is housed in two medium boxes. Jeff hasn't seen any bees flying in or out, so we opened the top to take a peek. The rapid feeder was still on the hive and there were bees walking up and down the sides of the cone. We both whooped out loud to see actual bees alive in the hive.

Our fourth hive over there is the swarm we caught in June. Although small, it too is alive and had bees in the feeder cone of the rapid feeder.

Don't be disturbed by the mold in the rapid feeder or the "weeds." The weeds are actually sprigs of thyme and we'll clean out the mold on our next opportunity to open the hive.

Today it was still quite cold and we didn't want to remove the rapid feeder to clean it because it covers the hole in the inner cover and the bees are likely to have propolized any air space to maintain warmth. I'll take warmth over cleanliness if they can make it through the winter.

Jeff and I are following Jennifer Berry and Keith Delaplane's system for powdered sugar treatment for varroa mites. We are dusting the bees with the Dustructor - which means dusting without opening the hive - four times this month (three days apart) and then will repeat this in March.

Today was my third treatment and I dusted the bees at my house and at the Stonehurst Place Inn. Jeff will do the bees at my old house tomorrow. It's out of schedule but I dusted the bees at Blue Heron when I stopped there - they are actually part of Jeff's schedule, due to be dusted tomorrow.

Conclusions about the Dead Hive in my Beeyard

2012-01-15T21:09:00.000-05:00

Today I removed all the frames in each box of the dead hive in my yard. As I thought the hive died out from being queenless and through beekeeper error (I didn't realize they were queenless and didn't combine them with another hive, for example).

There were scattered dead bees throughout the hive. What looked like perhaps the last part of the living bees had died together (about eight of them) in box two on the tops of the frames. I looked through the bodies on the slatted rack and the screened bottom board. I saw no deformed wings, no varroa mites, no dead queen - just worker bees. All told there were about 30 or so dead bees in the hive.

In the picture below you can see numerous small hive beetles dead with the bees.

Because I had fed them bee tea, there was a lot of stored nectar. Here's one frame with every cell filled with nectar. There was only one frame of capped honey. Bees that are queenless can die out with honey in the hive because they simply come to the end of their life span and with no queen, there are not younger bees to replace them.

On the frame below, you can see some evidence of their attempts to make a queen. There was absolutely no capped brood or any brood of any kind.

This is clearly a hive that died out from lack of a queen. I should have paid better attention to it going into winter. It's also possible that their queen died fairly early in the winter and they didn't have resources to replace her.

I'm sad that they are gone, but satisfied that I know the cause and that gives me some peace.

Bee-wary of Late Winter

2012-01-14T11:28:00.002-05:00

In Atlanta we had a sudden drop in temperature from the highs 60s to the 20s where the temperature has remained for several days. When it's cold like this, we only have highs in the 30s at best. When this goes on for several days, the bees are in real danger.

The warmish weather fools the bees into acting like it is spring and they go out, forge for pollen, raise brood, etc. Then suddenly we have this kind of cold snap.

The whole hive can die, if the cluster isn't located where there is stored honey.

So I am crossing my fingers and hoping for the best.

I have one dead hive in my back yard. I looked through it the other day when I did my first powdered sugar shake. There is honey in the hive and dead bees scattered through the frames. I didn't take the bottom box off (too big a hurry to get back to the office), but I'll let you know what I find when I do.

My current theory is that the hive went queenless before winter and I didn't recognize that this had happened so I could combine it with another hive. I may find something else when I look further and then we'll know more, but for now, I'd speculate that the hive died naturally because there was no queen.

In the photo above you can see the few dead bee bodies on top of the frames. I'll look at these for signs of varroa or deformed wing when I get back into the hive.

For now, I put it back together until I have time in the next few days really to study it.

There was a rapid feeder on top of the hive still half filled with bee tea with a number of dead ants floating in the tea. I strained it into a jar and may put that on another hive if I don't find evidence of foul brood when I study the cells in the dead hive.

Metro Atlanta Beekeepers Short Course on January 21 - REGISTER NOW!

2012-01-11T07:17:00.003-05:00

Our local bee club, the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers Club, offers its short course on Saturday January 21 from 8 - 4:30. We have an agenda that is filled with experienced, well-qualified speakers and the course is second to none in Georgia. Some of our speakers include Jennifer Berry, Keith Fielder, Curtis Gentry (and even me!) To see earlier posts about previous short courses, click here, here, here, here, here.

To learn more, click here. To sign up, click here.

There's a continental breakfast beginning at 8 and the speakers begin at 9. We provide a delicious lunch for participants as well with the opportunity to sit at a table with an experienced beekeeper and talk about getting started.

Participants go home at the end of the day with enough knowledge to get started, with a list of places to order bees and best of all, with an incredible "Goody Bag" filled with beekeeping catalogs, honey, a candle, lip balm, and best of all, their own copy of Keith Delaplane's great basic book of beekeeping: First Lessons in Beekeeping.

We have had participants come from as far away as Mississippi - it's an informative, enthusiasm-generating, all-around-great course. If you can come, you won't regret it.

No Use Crying Over Spilt…..Powdered Sugar!

2012-01-09T21:32:00.000-05:00

I'm good at spilling things. I like wine glasses without stems for that reason. If something can be spilled, I'm your woman…..I can do it in a heartbeat.

Today I went over to Stonehurst Place to check on the bees. According to the research at UGA, if you want to treat the bees for varroa mites with powdered sugar shakes, then you start in January, treat four times, three days apart and then repeat the process every other month.

So it's January and time to get started.

Today I treated my hives at home and then got in the car to take the Dustructor to the Stonehurst Place Inn to treat the hives there. When I opened the back door of the car to get the Dustructor, the cap came off of the canister and powdered sugar went everywhere.

There was powdered sugar in every crevice near the door of the car. What a mess!

I gathered up what I could and returned it to the canister.

The good news is that on this day with 69 degree temps around noon, the bees were flying with enthusiasm out of both hives. I am relieved that they are alive and have high hopes for their making it through to March.

On each hive, as I had done at home, I slid the end of the Dustructor into the entry to about the middle of the hive. Then I gave five large puffs of powdered sugar into the hive with as much vigor as I could muster.

Down with the Varroa Destructor! Long live my bees!

Bee Holiday Goodies

2012-01-08T17:29:00.002-05:00

As people know I am a beekeeper, the more and more bees figure into gifts that are given to me and that I choose to give others. This year was no exception.

I bought a set up honeybee pjs for my 2 year old granddaughter:

Someone brought these bee slippers from Amazon.com to our Metro Atlanta holiday party and I just had to have a pair for myself, so I went home and ordered them:

Of course there are bee mugs and honey dippers:

And I was given a luggage tag (I had one already but my dog ate it - REALLY.....) so I was thrilled to get another! And a lovely mug for tea, and a canister...I bought the bee bottle brush on a whim - I'm sure I'll never use it but it's such fun.

And my daughter and son-in-law gave me a funny t-shirt with a bear on it wearing fake bee wings. The bear on the shirt is looking at the bee and says: "Honey?" I tried to take a picture of me in the shirt in the mirror and it came out reversed, of course, and today my sweet niece, Amanda, a fantastic photographer took my lowly effort and reversed it for me:

On a Warmish December Day....

2011-12-19T23:57:00.000-05:00

the bees are all over this plant in my neighbor's yard. It's a shrub with palmate leaves about 1 foot in diameter each and with nine "fingers" on each leaf.

The bees are busy collecting something from this plant when it's warm enough to fly as it was this afternoon. From looking around the Internet, it may be a Japanese shrub named Fatsia japonica.....or maybe not.

Anyone have an idea of what this is? Put your answer in a comment below.

Making Hand Cream

2011-12-16T15:23:00.000-05:00

Another beekeeper's winter thing-to-do: make hand cream. I still don't have the process down but here's currently what I am doing.

The recipe I used (always in revision):

1 3/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup sweet almond oil
1/4 cup + 1 T cocoa butter
7 oz coconut oil
4 oz beeswax
2 T lanolin oil
2 T honey
1/2 cup or so of water

Melt the first seven ingredients together. Pour into a blender container. Blend until it starts to thicken. Gradually blend in 1/2 cup water. Blend for 20 minute increments and stop blender and cool mixture for about 5 minutes. Continue until the lotion is thick enough to put into containers. (This takes 4 to 4 1/2 hours).

If you simply pour the mix into the containers, it will be hard as a rock. The blending is necessary, but I haven't figured out how to simplify this process. Let me know what you try and what works for you.

The finished product can't be slathered onto your hands or they will remain rather greasy. As in Brylcream, a "little dab'll do ya." I use a fingertip's worth to lotion my two hands.

Meanwhile, here's the slide show (click to see it full sized and read the captions):

Making Lotion Bars - A Winter Beekeeper's Joy

2011-12-14T08:33:00.000-05:00

Lotion bars are quick to make and a holiday gift that the recipients love to get. The ingredients are only three:

1/3 oil (avocado or sweet almond oil are best)
1/3 butter (shea butter, cocoa butter - I like a half and half combination)
1/3 melted beeswax.

Equipment needed:

A boiling water bath
A large measuring cup
Chopsticks to use for stirring
Molds for the bars (commercial ones can be purchased or you can use ice cube trays)

One caution: These smell great because of the cocoa butter. Once I gave one to someone and she took a bite out of it! Important that your recipient knows they are lotion (although nothing in the bar would be bad for eating!)

These take a short time and are fun to do. Here's a slideshow of the process:

Newest Grandba-bee

2011-12-04T23:03:00.001-05:00

Born Dec 2, 2011 and weighed in at 7 lbs even. My third grandchild and second grandson.

Think he's ready for a beesuit yet?

A Beekeeper's Guide to Cyber Monday

2011-11-28T14:14:00.001-05:00

Brushy Mountain is the only bee company I can find offering any benefit for Cyber Monday.

Brushy Mountain offers free shipping as per the paragraph from their Dec E-Flyer below:

"Cyber Monday: Cyber Monday is the internet's response to Black Friday at the brick and mortar stores and is always the Monday after Thanksgiving (November 28). No long lines, no rushing, just the comfort of your keyboard and mouse. This year we are offering free shipping anywhere in the lower 48 states as well as at least 10% Off on all items in the "Holiday Gift Ideas" section of our site. Here is the fine print: orders must to over $100 to qualify; excluded from the free shipping are buckets of corn syrup, honey, glass jars, and truck shipments; to get the free shipping and special prices,you must enter PCCM into the promotion code field of the cart. Once the code is entered the special pricing will be visible."

General Bee Report as Winter Approaches

2011-11-27T22:33:00.001-05:00

First, I'm sorry I've been rather lax in my postings. I hope some of you have taken the opportunity to review some of the old posts while you wondered where in the world I was.

Last week was my birthday, my middle daughter was visiting from Maryland, my youngest daughter here in Atlanta is pregnant, due any day, and I hosted Thanksgiving for my family at my house.

Needless to say, the bees have taken a back seat.

However, over this weekend I checked on most of my Atlanta hives. Most appear to be going into winter with good supplies. I fed the bees bee tea going into the fall and most of the hives were slow to take any food, which is a good sign. Generally they would prefer nectar and around my house we had a pretty good fall aster bloom (and therefore a decent fall flow). So they haven't taken the bee tea because they didn't really need it.

For example, I put these two feeder jars on the Blue Heron nuc on 11/14. Here it is almost two weeks later and they've barely touched it. So I can feel pretty sure that they don't need it.

One of the advantages of the rapid feeder is that it can stay on the hive during the winter. A second advantage is that thick sugar syrup rarely freezes so if it is warm enough for the bees to move around, the syrup is there for their taking. So my 8 frame hives will keep the rapid feeder through the winter.

Plans for winter:
1. Make creamed honey from the early honey this season that has crystallized
2. Build my unbuilt nuc boxes
3. Paint equipment and assess my equipment needs
4. Try to look for a possible local place to put the beehives from south Georgia
5. Make plans about our bee business Linda Ts Bees with Jeff to determine where we need to focus come spring
6. Work on my short course talk with Cindy Hodges on the year in the bee yard in a beginning beekeeper's year.
7. Work out a sugar shake schedule to begin in January for all the hives.
8. Decide about splits - surely I can split Colony Square and probably Lenox Pointe as well.

Bees in Winter at the Botanical Garden

2011-11-27T22:29:00.000-05:00

For the first time this year, the Atlanta Botanical Garden has a new event, a festival of lights that is really beautiful. We toured the whole thing the Friday right after Thanksgiving....along with about 2999 other people.

It was really spectacular - especially the display in the main plaza.

When we got to the back side of the garden, they have an herb wall garden. Each brick of the wall has herbs growing on/from it. In front of these herbs is a display of bees created from light. We, of course, just had to take pictures! My daughter took all of these below.

One of the bees up close and personal.

Here I am in front of one of the bees.

And again.

How One Beekeeper Approaches the Winter

2011-11-27T22:21:00.000-05:00

While walking my dogs past my friend and fellow beekeeper's house, I saw Jerry sitting in his driveway. He usually keeps a solar wax melter about at this place in his driveway and keeps it working all during the warm months.

But now we are about to have cold weather. Snow is expected on Tuesday (it won't stick, if it shows up, because the ground is much too warm) - snow in Atlanta in November.

Jerry has taken on a non-beekeeping task. He is hulling walnuts in a special frame he built for this purpose. He hauled five huge bags of unhulled walnuts from Missouri in the back of his truck.

Now he sits in his canvas chair and pokes at the walnuts with a shovel until the shell falls off.

Here is the second phase of the walnut after Jerry's shovel has had its way with them.

Beekeepers come up with many ways to while away the winter!

Queen of the Sun - a Great Bee Movie

2011-11-14T08:48:00.001-05:00

Last night Julia and I went to a screening of "Queen of the Sun" at a local food club meeting. We took food - it was a potluck dinner - to a local bar that opened just for this meeting. We had a great time talking to people there and watching this wonderful movie about the bees.

My favorite character who was filmed was this beekeeper, who keeps his bees without a shirt and wearing a necklace. His funniest moment was when he used his mustache to brush the bees.

The movie was well-done, in support of natural beekeeping and there are many interesting versions of hives in the film, such as the one below. There were also frames that were different sizes.

As you can tell from the comb attachment in the frame above, most of the beekeepers in this movie practiced foundation-less beekeeping.

The movie was filmed all over the world, which adds a lot of interest. My only regret is that most of the beekeepers interviewed except for one, who was shown without her bees, were men.

Beehive at the White House

2011-11-07T07:33:00.003-05:00

This past weekend, I met my daughter, Becky, in Washington, DC. One of my wishes for the weekend was to take a photo of the White House beehive. Of course, you can't get anywhere close to it, but we could from two fences away, see it and take its picture. The location under a beautiful tree facing south is just lovely.

I'm glad they situated it where the public could get a glimpse of it. I think everyone knows that there is a beehive at the White House because it has been in the news and because beekeeping magazines have featured it. But when I've said to friends that I am going to take a picture of the beehive, they to a person, said, "There's a beehive at the White House?"

Below you can see it in relationship to the White House from the Ellipse.

Just to record that we came, Becky and I got someone to take our picture together. The woman, who didn't know we were interested in the beehive was thrilled to tell us that she got us both with the White House just over our heads. I, of course, was more excited that the beehive is over my right shoulder (very tiny!)

Here you can see the beehive on the right side and the vegetable garden it is supposed to be pollinating on the left side of the picture.

We also saw, I'm sure, White House bees, when we toured the US Botanic Garden. There were bees on every blooming aster.

Here's a video about the beehive, posted in a comment by a reader below, but I thought you'd all like to see it as part of this post.

Blue Heron Bee Report

2011-11-06T22:45:00.000-05:00

Over last weekend, Julia called me from the Blue Heron with the sad news that she opened her hive and found it dead. The terrible vandal left it open to inclement weather, the bees had probably lost or balled their queen after that, and the hive had dwindled down to nothing. Very, very few bees were left in her hive and there was brood that needed to be capped and had died since the larvae was never capped. Very sad situation.

Julia had taken honey to feed her hive. My hive did not need food, so she left the honey on a cinder block with slits in the baggie for any takers. When I arrived to check my hive, there were bees enjoying the honey.

Here are Julia's hive boxes, now empty. We will scorch the insides for safety but the cause of death for this hive was mistreatment and exposure.

You can see bees on the landing of my nuc hive. The bees were flying in and out. I did see a few with pollen in their pollen baskets which was hopeful for the hive as a whole.

When I opened the hive, they had not emptied the jars of bee tea - when you have honey available why would you want bee tea? In addition the asters are still blooming profusely in the fields around the apiary.

I left them with the half empty jars and will check on them again this coming week.

Silence in Rabun County

2011-10-31T11:08:00.001-04:00

It was gorgeous in Rabun County this weekend, but very cold. The leaves were past their peak but still really lovely and a great depiction of fall.

Lark (my granddaughter) , my two dogs and I went to visit the bees and feed them. They were still and silent - not a bee to be seen.

We put food in the empty rapid feeders on both hives and left them. The temperature all weekend never went above 53. I checked again on Saturday afternoon and not a drop had been touched.

I hope they are cold and OK instead of dead inside the hive. This was the first time Lark has been into bee hives with me. I took a veil for her but she wouldn't put it on. It was a good first visit because there were no bees present!

Blue Heron Hive is Warm and Fed

2011-10-28T15:11:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I went over to check on the Blue Heron. This incident with the vandal has left me really nervous. I pulled up to the garden parking lot and I was the only car there, so despite Roswell Road traffic in full view, I turned my car to face toward the street before getting out of it.

Then I walked up to the hives to feed them and was so nervous that I did something by accident to my phone so that all the photos were black and white - not nearly as illustrative as color, but certainly a sign that I am massively uncomfortable at the Blue Heron alone - which never used to be my truth.

The hive was still locked up and undisturbed.

The boardmans were empty and bees were flying in and out of the hive.

I reloaded the Boardmans with lovely amber colored bee tea which you cannot begin to appreciate in black and white.

The aster is still blooming, the bees are still flying in and out. I will probably move these bees home next week when the weekend cold will still the aster bloom.

Using the Rapid Feeder

2011-10-23T23:24:00.000-04:00

The cone in the rapid feeder sits over the center of the angel food cake pan type container. The bees come up from the hole in the inner cover and can walk down the ridged surface of the cone to the height of the sugar syrup.

When Jeff and I fed the bees last week, the feeders on the hives were empty. In the photo below, Jeff begins to pour the bee tea into the rapid feeder.

In this picture you can see the bees through the cone cover going down to the height of the bee tea. We had to pour slowly to avoid drowning bees and to allow the bees time to crawl up to dry ground.

The leaves floating in the bee tea are thyme, by the way.

The level rises and the bees crowd the top area of the cone.

As the bee tea gets higher, the bees are forced to move up even higher.

When the container is full, the bees can't go down the sides to get syrup, although as the amount of syrup is brought into the hive, the levels will diminish and the bees will be seen more on the outside of the cone.

Just thought you might enjoy these up close and personal pictures of the bees endeavoring to take in the bee tea.

Kim Flottum Visits MABA and Speaks on Preparing for Winter

2011-10-21T09:01:00.003-04:00

Metro Atlanta was privileged to have Kim Flottum speak to our club at our monthly meeting last week. He talked about overwintering bees and after a break, addressed the small hive beetle problem.

I always enjoy hearing Kim speak - he's conservative in his approach to beekeeping and I appreciate that.

Kim lives in Ohio and he was shocked to find out that in Atlanta we only need about 40 - 50 pounds of honey on a hive for it to have enough to survive the winter. Apparently in Ohio, he needs to leave a hive with 145 pounds of food for the winter.

Another interesting thing he said was that when it is cold outside, the bees in cluster need to have holes in the honeycomb to more easily travel across the frames to the honey source. I've noticed in foundationless beekeeping that the bees often leave space (holes) in the comb they draw - passageways, as it were.

The most important thing he said the whole night came in this slide:

If we have put bees in a box to live and we are "keeping" them, then it is our responsibility to do everything possible to keep them alive. Made me feel so much better about feeding my bees last fall and this fall to make sure they make it through the winter.

Blue Heron in the Dark of Night

2011-10-20T09:15:00.000-04:00

As you remember, on Sunday I moved the Blue Heron hive into a nuc for the winter. On Monday night Jeff and I planned to move the nuc to my backyard - it would take two of us because it's a 2 story nuc. (Not to mention that he has the straps required to keep the thing together in the process of a move.)

On Monday in the middle of the day, I went over to see how the nuc was doing. The bees were blissfully flying into the nuc with pollen on their legs and full honey stomachs from the field of aster in bloom just outside the apiary in the garden.

I looked at the garden, at the football field's worth of land, covered in white aster with some purple in the mix as well. Each plant was weighed down with bees.

I couldn't justify taking this already damaged hive to a new place right now - it would be like saying they had to eat at MacDonald's when Godiva Chocolate was free for the taking. So I decided I had to leave the nuc there until the aster bloom is finished.

The other glitch was that I was going to Santa Fe for a professional conference (where I am right this minute) and wouldn't be able to oversee the hive, so we needed to do something to protect them.

I wasn't free to do this until after dinner on Monday and Jeff agreed. So in the dark of the night, we drove over to the Blue Heron. It WAS dark. We had flashlights and made lots of noise getting out of the car to scare the honey thief, or any other vagrant who might be around (there are supposedly two homeless people who live at the Blue Heron).

Jeff suggested that I leave the car unlocked so we could make a quick get away if we needed to, but I wasn't comfortable with that - his suggestion points to how unsettled we both felt.

Our plan was to lock up the hive with a bicycle lock as Julia had with hers. We set the combination in the car - we had to hook two locks together to be able to completely surround the hive. Then we headed for the hive.

We set everything up first - put the two boardman feeders I had brought together (set the jar of sugar syrup on each of them); prepared the nuc box that would serve as a surround for the feeders so we could place them on top of the inner cover; figured out what each of us would do to make this happen.

Jeff started to unlock the bicycle lock. "Don't say the combination out loud," I said, still worrying that someone might be hiding in the bushes listening.

The pictures are below. We did lock the hive up as best we could, but someone could still push the boxes out from under the lock, as they could at Julia's as well.

I suppose we needed another cable lock to make a "gift package" approach which would indeed secure the hive. Jeff's suggestion was that we do some sort of hinge lock system on hives that aren't in our backyard. Sounds like a plan to me.

BTW, Jeff was right about the car. When we got back, I fumbled with the keys and took forever to get the thing unlocked - good we weren't being chased or threatened! I don't believe we'll visit the Blue Heron at night again!

Oh, but we will have to go again at night to move the nuc when the asters are done......

As always, click on the slideshow below to see the photos full sized:

Hope for the Blue Heron

2011-10-16T23:46:00.000-04:00

Today I moved my hive at the Blue Heron into a nuc box. I will give the bees a day to orient to the new box and will move it to my backyard tomorrow night.

We talked via email all day about suggestions people made on this blog and ideas Julia, the Blue Heron board, and I had about ways to better protect our BH hives. I'm going to bed feeling a little more hopeful.

Thoughtless Vandals Damage Blue Heron Hives

2011-10-15T21:52:00.003-04:00

We are so sad to report that the Blue Heron hives have been vandalized by someone who apparently sought to steal honey. Julia's hive was the only hive in the apiary that actually had honey. The vandals removed her honey super and took three frames of honey away with them. They then left all of the hives at Blue Heron opened up to the elements.

I'm sure bees died.

These hives are not in a good location. They are not doing well and we feel violated as the hives have been, not to mention really discouraged.

Tomorrow I am moving what is left of my hive into a nuc and bringing it home for the winter. In the spring I'll either move it back to Blue Heron or start over there with a new hive.

The best part of the Blue Heron project is that I have something special to do with Julia and with Noah. Also the Blue Heron hives are a great central location for teaching new beekeepers about hive inspections and these hives have been important in that program for the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers.

But.....it's hard to get invested in those hives when we've now had the hives destroyed in two of the four years we've been there - first by flood and now by some thoughtless person.

Although Noah ventured the thought that perhaps someone thought that if the hives are at a public garden, then the honey is for the public to take. I thought that was incredibly generous of him.

I personally have mean and ugly thoughts about the vandal.

Julia took these pictures when she went to survey the damage: