Wild Things in a Box

It's been a minute.

2024-05-29T22:48:00.001-04:00

I'm wondering if this thing still works.

2015-12-14T16:52:00.001-05:00

BLACKBERRY TRELLIS - This is version 2.0 of our blackberry trellis. We are modeling this after our grape trellis and using knowledge gained from building our muscadine grape trellis.
TRELLIS - POSTS - The ends of the blackberry line are 4"x4"x6' pressure treated posts that are sunk in the ground 2 feet with 50 pounds of concrete and tamped dirt.
YELLOW LINE - We used yellow tree climbing line to eyeball where our trellis was going to go.
...

BUTTERFLY BIT - Drilled 4 holes in the wooden posts, 2 in each post, for wire vices for 9 gauge wire. The holes are about 1 1/2" in diameter.
RUN THE FIRST WIRE - We inserted the wire in one post and ran it the length of the blackberry line cutting off the excess 9 gauge wire before running it through the other post.
GREEN HEAVY DUTY METAL FENCE POSTS - We observed other vineyards used heavy duty metal green fence posts to support the 9 gauge wire in the middle of the line. We used 4 posts for about a 100 foot line. The metal posts have metal hooks that can be opened and bent over to support the wire.
TENSIONER - There is a tool that tensions / tightens the wire.
2 WIRES - Run the second line and we are done. Saw where someone else uses 3 wires and tilts the poles at a 30 degree angle for easier berry picking. Perhaps that will be version 3.0.

Where does our honey come from???

2014-06-17T16:47:00.001-04:00

Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) has been cherished for its unmistakable aroma and its therapeutic properties for thousands of years! Lavender is widely used and acknowledged for its calming and relaxing qualities. Our bees love our Lavender and there is a little bit of Lavender nectar and pollen in our honey.

Stay tuned for more posts on what are bees are landing on!

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Millions of bees swarm Georgia interstate after truck overturns

2013-11-04T15:17:00.000-05:00

Just posted to Yahoo News. Thought you might bee interested.

http://news.yahoo.com/millions-bees-swarm-georgia-interstate-truck-overturns-184635021.html?action=-1746220161

ATLANTA (Reuters) - An overturned tractor-trailer let loose millions of honeybees on Sunday and left a sticky mess on a major highway south of Atlanta, after hitting a guardrail and spilling its cargo of hives and honey.

"It looked like there was a rain cloud around everybody," Monroe County Emergency Management Agency director Matthew Perry said on Monday. "There was a giant mound of honeycomb and bees."

A portion of Interstate 75 was closed briefly, and clean-up of the honey and swarming bees took 15 hours, Perry said.

Authorities sought help from beekeepers, who arrived with protective gear to assist with the potentially dangerous swarm.

The debris was pushed to the median with a small bulldozer and then beekeepers began piecing the broken hives back together so the bees would return, Perry said. The hives were loaded back into bee boxes and hauled away.

No one was stung or injured, in part because the weather was cool and the bees docile, Perry said.

"When you have an interstate like I-75, you never know what's going to come passing through," he said.

(Reporting by David Beasley; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Alden Bentley)

Dinner on Plan Bee

2013-11-01T16:19:00.000-04:00

It has taken us awhile but after years we are becoming more comfortable on our property we have named "Plan Bee".

As beekeepers we have been taught that the most valuable item for a healthy bee yard is a trained beekeeper. Therefore we want to be sure to take good care of the beekeepers on Plan Bee.

Er ah, that would be us. :-)

Now that the Bee Inn (our new shed) is up and mostly finished, we have place to spend a night. We strategically placed the Bee Inn behind our picnic shelter. This compresses the human footprint on Plan Bee's 23.5 acres and is more convenient for the Beekeepers.

As you may be able to see above, we are eating our dinner of chicken, pitas and Turkish coffee at the picnic table. I cooked the chicken on the grill using charcoal right on the table. One the other end of the table we have a Coleman stove that is used to heat water we use for coffee, tea or oatmeal.

If you want to come and visit, send us an email at BeeBoy @WildThingsInABox.com and we can work out a date.

A Sweeter Tax Than Most

2013-09-24T10:56:00.000-04:00

Beelieve it or not, some accountants have a sense of humor. One in particular I have the pleasure of knowing is Ed Lloyd of Ed Lloyd & Associates, PLLC ( ed@elcpa.com, www.elcpa.com ). I just received permission to post one of his sweet honey related tax articles that is both informative and funny. One point in particular to be sure to harvest from this article has to do with Chinese honey and transshipping.

Here is the article

When you hear the word "tax," you probably think of something the IRS takes out of your paycheck. Or you might think of something they take out of an inheritance. But taxes affect virtually every financial transaction you make. Take, for example, that simple jar of honey lurking on the shelf in your refrigerator.

Americans eat more honey than anyone else in the world — about 400 million pounds of it a year. Most of it goes towards sweetening foods like cereals, cookies, and breads. Even whiskey producers are adding honey to their blends to attract younger drinkers. (The Scotch Whiskey Association just stung Dewars for labeling their new "Highlander Honey" as "scotch" rather than "spirit drink.")

Where does all that honey come from? Well, China is the world's largest honey exporter. But Chinese beekeepers sometimes use pesticides banned here in the U.S. They sometimes dry their honey by machine, which lets the bees produce more, but leaves the honey with a foul taste similar to sauerkraut. Worst of all, Chinese producers sell their honey at prices as low as half of what our domestic producers charge.

Back in 2001, the U.S. government slapped Chinese honey with punitive tariffs, currently set at $2.63/kilogram, to protect American producers. Those taxe$ can triple the cost of Chinese honey. So today, about 40% of our honey comes from here in the U.S., with the rest coming from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, and other countries.

What's a poor Chinese beekeeper to do? Enter the "honey launderers." Chinese producers send their honey to nearby countries like Malaysia, Vietnam, India, or Korea, and re-label it as coming from those countries. They add rice sugar, molasses, or fructose syrup to hide any unpleasant tastes or smells. (Ick.) They filter the honey to remove the pollen, which palynologists, or pollen specialists, can use like a natural "fingerprint" to track down a honey's origin. And they pocket the savings they create by evading the tax.

How much tax does the illicit honey avoid? A lot. Back in 2008, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials charged 14 people with a globe-trotting scheme to evade $80 million in payments. And in February of this year, officials busted two of the nation's biggest suppliers for evading $180 million more. In a scene reminiscent of Donnie Brasco, officials launched "Operation Honeygate" and planted an agent "on the inside" for a year. The agent served as one supplier's director of procurement, and the investigation led to five individual guilty pleas, two deferred prosecutions, and $3 million in fines.

What's the lesson? Taxes are baked into the price of everything you buy, whether they're even paid or not!

There's not much we can do to help you avoid hidden tariffs on baked goods. Fortunately, we can help with the taxes that really count — taxes on your income, your payroll, and even your estate. If you're busy as a bee, you deserve to keep everything the law allows. So call us for the plan you need — and remember, we're here for everyone else in your hive!

If you liked Ed's article and would like more advice on Tax $aving$, you can contact him @ 704-544-7600.

Bee sure to let him know the Bee Boy sent you.

Minding our own BeesWax --- and making candles

2013-06-14T21:32:00.000-04:00

Many years ago I heard the expression, "mind your own beeswax". I thought it referred to minding your own business. Turns out I may have been right for a change.

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There is an absurd story, much repeated on the internet, that 18th-century ladies used to fill in the pockmarks on their faces (this was when smallpox was a common and disfiguring disease)with beeswax, which would melt if the lady sat too near the fire. If someone else warned her about this, she would retort "mind your OWN beeswax!" This story is only mentioned to say that there isn't a shred of truth in it. Though beeswax was often (and still is) a component of cosmetics of all kinds, it was not used as a pockmark filler in this way. The beeswax saying is of 1920s origin, a garbling of "mind your own business." While it might seem harshly rude to say "mind your own business," changing the last word to "beeswax" softens the blow, and makes a jovial point of the same sentiment. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Where_did_mind_your_own_beeswax_originate
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Transition --- As my wife and I are working more with our honey bees, we are looking for other products from the hive. The Bee Boss gave us a 5 gallon tub of the beeswax years ago and my wife dutifully promised to make something from it. Well, time slipped away from us. We bought a crockpot to melt the stuff and after seeing another beekeeper simply melt wax and pour it into a mold we thought it would be easy. WRONG!

sO like many things bee, we had to go back to the beeginning.

Where does beeswax come from anyhow?? Found these nifty photos on Bing that show you the source of beeswax.

A honey bee worker has four pairs of wax glands in her ventral abdominal segments.

Note that PURE beeswax is clear. (See the three small beeswax chips above and new wax on the abdomen of a honey bee below.)

This is a direct product from a honey bee worker. Honey bees use this material to make the comb that is used by the honey bee colony to store honey. The queen lays eggs in hexagonal (6 sided) cells that are between 4.5 and 5.4 millimeters in diameter to make more honey bees. (brood) From what I have read, honey bees naturally make their cells 4.5 millimeters while commercial wax foundation is the larger 5.4 millimeters. The purpose of the larger cell size is for larger bees and more honey. This has made for some problems in the honey bee world that are not so sweet. Back to the subject.

Our purpose in using the comb for now is to make beeswax candles.

Why use beeswax to make a candle?

One reason My wife found in the write up below @ http://www.busybeebeeswax.ca/waxfacts.html. If you go to the web site, note the other types of candles, their composition and byproducts.

BEESWAX is the only all natural candle wax. It’s a sustainable and renewable resource. When you buy a beeswax candle you’re supporting beekeepers, which means supporting those busy little insects that pollinate food crops and keep the world green naturally. Beeswax candles burn cleaner, brighter, hotter and longer than other candles. When natural golden beeswax burns it gives off a soft glow* and sweetens the room with its natural scent — no artificial scents or colors required! Many people are allergic to the artificial waxes and artificial fragrances common in today’s candles, even in church! Beeswax is non-allergenic and is a natural air cleaner, recommended by the American Lung Association. It’s the best choice for asthma and allergy sufferers. Beeswax candles burn cleanly, don’t drip when properly used, and have long burn times, saving you money. Be sure that the candles you buy are 100% beeswax – some countries allow as little as 10% beeswax in candles labeled as ‘beeswax’.

*The light spectrum emitted from a beeswax candle is the closest of all waxes to natural sunshine

Another reason to use BEESWAX for candles has to do with their efficiency in burning. I read somewhere, can't find the source, that one of the reasons beeswax candles were used exclusively in medieval cathedrals is they release NO SOOT. Beeswax candles actually clean the air whereas all other candles leave impurities (soot) in the air. Soot /ˈsʊt/ is impure carbon particles resulting from the incomplete combustion of hydrocarbons. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soot

So whether you want to support a beekeeper; see pure light (sunshine) or experience cleaner air, beeswax candles are a really neat option.

ONE WAY TO MAKE BEESWAX CANDLES

We will offer classes in making beeswax candles. If interested contact me @ beeboy@wildthingsinabox.com.

We are now going to discuss how we make beeswax candles. My queen bee and I have spent many hours over the old stove and read many an article to get where we are.

Step 1 - Gather beeswax

The best beeswax to use is either the cappings off the end of the comb (a byproduct generated when harvesting honey) or newly formed and unused wax comb. This wax will be a white color and have a minimum of impurities in it. BEESWAX with impurities will NOT BURN. We know we tried. We used a crockpot with no temperature control and reheated some old beeswax. We did a minimum filtering of the wax and poured it into a neat glass candle form with a medium wick. The results were a candle that would NOT sustain a flame. Useless!

Step 2 - 5 -- Clean/filter your beeswax

You will need a double boiler and a wax thermometer to melt your wax. Beeswax has a relatively low melting point range of 62 to 64 °C (144 to 147 °F). If beeswax is heated above 85 °C (185 °F) discoloration occurs. The flash point of beeswax is 204.4 °C (399.9 °F).http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeswax

Pour your melted wax through panty hose, t-shirts or whatever your little heart desires into Tupperware or other container and let it cool. The neat thing about a Tupperware container is you can see the wax separate from the honey. The wax will be on top and the honey on the bottom. Depending on the quality of your wax/honey mixture, you can retrieve some additional honey in addition to the beeswax. Pour off the honey; rinse off the beeswax in water and repeat.

Why do I have this step listed three times? So far we have found it necessary to triple filter our beeswax to get all of the impurities out. After the first filtering it looks like we have everything out of the beeswax however once we repeat the melting/pouring steps more impurities are revealed. In step one above you will note our experience with impure beeswax.(The candle does NOT remain lit.)

Interesting note - Biblically the number 3 is the number of perfection. Turns out the third word in Genesis 1:1 in Hebrew refers to Elohiym (God).

Step 6 - Selecting your wick and candle form
From what we have read the best wicks are pure cotton and thick. We tried medium and wooden wicks with no success. By no success we mean the candle would not stay lit.

Step 7 - Pouring the wax
Once you have everything ready:

Pure wax
Wick secured into candle form
Candle form stable and ready to receive beeswax

Pour in your melted beeswax.

Step 8 - Letting your wax cool
We let our beeswax candle cool overnight. The color of the candle is a light brown/tan color.

Step 9 - Burn baby burn

Now for the moment you have been waiting for, light your candle. The wick should have been trimmed to about 1/4 inch above the wax. Keep your candle out of the wind as beeswax candles are very sensitive to air movement.

The glow is magical and after all of your work you can really appreciate the gentle sunlike glow of the candle.

Bee Boy out!

Getting ready for Spring

2013-02-09T12:00:00.000-05:00

We had planned on taking a quick look at our honeybees but knew that if the weather allowed we wanted to provide them a little extra food. We are focusing on raising survivor bees so we don't want to spoil them.

As you can see in the picture above it was a nice day and the temperatures were actually above 60°. We had fed all of our hives sugar fondant to help them through the winter but to avoid such detrimental issues as moisture dripping onto the cluster and hive beetle hiding places with a normal hive top feeder. The hives that were surviving had consumed ALL of the fondant. The hives that died had fondant left.

Yep dead bees don't eat.

We took all of the sugar fondant we had prepared and spread it out on all of the remaining live hives. We started the winter with 6 but have lost 2. So for us 3rd grade math students, we have 4 hives left.

Who is making it? The two hives that died were Russian bees. We bought one hive (second year for this hive) and the other was the result of a swarm from the first/mother hive. (2012) We took NO honey from either hive but fed them little as well. Both hives were is some of the more exposed areas of the property so they may have gotten colder. So far this season we have touched the 20's but not colder.

The four remaining hives include our original 2010 Aleph and Gimmel. One hive is a Minnesota hygienic we bought from Carl Chesick & Stuart Van Meter of the Center for Honeybee Research in the Hendersonville, NC area. We split Gimmel last year creating Hey (using Hebrew letters for our hives) and that hive is surving so far as well. The last survivor is also from Carl Chesick & Stuart Van Meter of the Center for Honeybee Research and we have them in a Warre` hive.

When we looked at the dead hives, it was interesting to observe not ONE small cluster but a number of them in each hive. Little honey so I am guessing they may have starved out. Does this make me a bad beekeeper. Perhaps. It is interesting to note that we applied the same methods to our other 4 surviving hives.

WINTER IS STILL NOT OVER.

We inserted mediums boxes on the bottom of our 3 Langstroth hives (nadiring instead of supering). We have done nothing so far to our Warre` hive but may do a split in March/April.

Well that's about all of the news that is news from Plan Bee.

Bee Boy out.

The ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM or ---------Shed ready

2012-12-06T11:17:00.001-05:00

My Queen Bee and I live in a condominium in Charlotte, NC most of the time. Our little slice of heaven does not have lots of room but is a very efficient place to live. With the kids gone and the dog dead, we are reorganizing. My old office is being converted into a guest room and our upstairs bedroom is now our office. My old office used to house lots of bee equipment but with the reorganization, we moved the beekeeping equipment to our living room. What a mess. It is the elephant in the room. We discussed what to do with all of the gear until we had an "ah ha" moment.

Living room mess.

Shed Ready - On Plan Bee we have about 23 1/2 acres. One bright sunny day I asked myself why not take advantage of that space. After all we use our beekeeping equipment almost exclusively on Plan Bee so wouldn't that make more sense?? So I have begun clearing out an area behind our Plan Bee Picnic Shelter. Plan A for Plan Bee is to clear the area, level it up with dirt, pour a concrete slab, lay down some 6x6 beams and then put up a shed.

Area being cleared behind the picnic shelter.

The big tree in the back is about 3 feet in diameter but it was rotted away in the middle. Interesting enough without proper felling, it would have fallen exactly where we wanted to put our new shed. So we beat it to the punch. So far I have spent 2 days of chainsawing and dragging away trees and brush to get this area ready for more dirt and a concrete pad. Good news is there are few bugs this time of year and it is a great area to work on.

Fixed error with well head dusk to dawn light. We have a regular 60 watt light bulb under our well cover. During the winter it keeps it just warm enough so that the well head won't freeze. I noticed the electric bill did not reflect electric useage but instead showed the same value on the meter. Upon inspection, after removing the black widow spiders, I noted the light bulb needed a few more turns in to work. Tested it again with the on setting and then the dusk to dawn timer setting and that seems to have fixed the problem.

Chopped an irrigation pipe in two which is not good for water pressure in the line. At first I was going to wait until next trip to repair the line as I didn't have my drip irrigation repair kit with me. Then I remembered there was an end piece/ end cap to the line. Used my machete to make a clean straight cut and repaired the line. Yea!! Problem solved.

Bee Grim -- regarding my name. I wanted to use my nom de plum (Pen Name) or "Bee Boy". Alas, Google said the name did not comply with their naming standards. I then thought, how about "Bee Happy", guess what, same deal. Mr. Google has allowed me to use my desired first name, "Bee" but requires I use my real last name, "Grim". Yea, I know. So anyhow as I tell my friends and others I try not to bee Grim but alas, it is my name. So Bee Grim I am as far as Google is concerned but I hope to either Bee Happy or bee a Bee Boy one day soon.

Langstroth Hive Stand Instructions

2012-06-26T19:21:00.000-04:00

We just had someone ask about our hive stands and I thought the question would be of interest to a number of beekeepers.

Hello from Southwest Louisiana.

We have started keeping bees and were on the net looking for a bee hive stand that would work for us.

Ran across your blog showing the long hive stand that you moved a hive to. On some property you had purchased.

Had about 8 hives on it in the photo.

Looks like you used several single post in the ground with y arms to hold double rails.

Do you have plans or the details for the hive stand? Looked on the blog but did not see dimensions, material, etc.

We currently have 5 hives.

Sincerely,

Steven & Nola

So here is a step by step for building a hive stand for a Langstroth Hive. This stand is designed for two (2) Langstroth hives with plenty of work space between them. The hive stand referenced by Steven & Nola is not very functional. It is difficult to get around to work on the hives. We find a stand that supports 2 hives at a time to be the best. When we take off the telescoping cover to our hives while working them, we place them in the open space between the hives on the stand instead of putting them on the ground. We work our hives one at a time. Convenient!!

Building a hive stand is best done in comfortable weather or just before the bees start flying. Somehow doing this in the summer in a bee suit is just NO FUN.

Materials:

2 2"x8"x8' pieces of STRAIGHT pressure treated lumber
4 2"x8"x12" pieces of pressure treated lumber (we use pine)
24 4" screws (galvanized so they won't rust) (Phillips head ONLY)
4 cinder blocks (we use the small ones)
1 or 2 bags of sand (optional)
Wood chips or mulch (we have a pile of it so not sure how to measure this)
Black plastic bags or black plastic sheeting (This will make sense in a minute)
Wooden shims
Level
Tape measure

Tools:

Electric drill & screw driver
Flat head shovel (Not the pointy version)
Compass
Beekeeper's assistant.
Picnic table or other flat surface to support the stand under construction (optional)

Steps to construct & install hive stand:

Be sure you have a sunny location to set up your hive stand. If you have a shady one you invite hive beetles & other unwanted pests. In North Carolina our bees like it hot.
Your hive will face southeast so be sure BEFORE you start this does NOT represent a problem. We have our hives facing southeast to maximize daylight for the bees.
Begin assembling the hive stand.

a. Using your tape measure, measure roughly equal spacing

for your cross members, the 12" pieces. Some

beekeepers want the support pieces to come under

the edge of each hive. Think through your strategy before

you begin the next step.

               b. With you cross pieces in place, drill 24 pilot holes in the
                   side of your hive stand. This represents 3 pilot holes for
                  each cross piece on each side.
                c. Using your electric screw driver, screw in the 24 4" screws
                   to assemble the stand. (Note - I tried 3" screws, they
                   were too short.  I also tried only using 2 screws per
                   support, not enough support. I already made the mistakes
                   so you won't have to. But......)
               d. Your hive stand is now assembled

4. Preparing your hive stand location

a. Using your compass, determine which direction is

southeast.

b. Place your hive stand on the ground so that it faces

southeast and to determine what you need to do to

level the ground where your hive stand will be placed.

c. Using your level, flat head shovel & beekeeper's assistant

to level the area where the hive stand will set up.

d. Place the 4 cinder blocks a foot or so in from the end of

the hive stand and the place the hive stand onto the cinder

blocks. See above.

e. Relevel the stand that now is on top of the cinder blocks.

(2 cinder blocks per side)

               f. Remember I said straight pieces of lumber. Chances are it
                  was not as straight as we had hoped. This is where the
                 shims come in handy. Using the shovel, shims, level
                  and beekeeper's assistant, finish the leveling. The
                 Beekeeper's assistant can stand back and eyeball the
                 stand to point out obvious mistakes. My assistant is
                 excellent and finding my mistakes and not just with
                 the hive stand. Ha!

Here is the finished project with hives on the hive stand. At this point we were ready for yet another hive. We ended up moving these hives to our property in Liberty, NC, Plan Bee.

Hope this is of value to you. If you have questions we will try and respond.

That's all folks. The Bee Boy out.

Bee Die In

2012-05-30T11:11:00.002-04:00

Every time we meet new people and they learn we are beekeepers, other than do we sell honey, the next question is, "Why are bees dieing?" or "Have they figured out what is causing Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)?" At this time, no one claims to have all of the answers but evidence is mounting that we humans are killing bees through our use of systemic insecticides and in the process may be killing ourselves. Some folks in Berkley stated their opinion a bit stronger when they staged a bee die in at a Bayer Chemical plant.

Dressed like honeybees, one by one they dropped dead at the main gate to this Bayer plant. You can read more about it in the story "Berkeley's Bayer Stung by Critics" in The Berkley Daily Planet.

Queen of the Sun

2012-05-17T18:05:00.000-04:00

Here is a really great bee video if you haven't seen it yet. They are trying to make a difference and save our bees.

Warre` Hive or What goes up will come down

2012-05-07T00:15:00.001-04:00

My wife was listening to a podcast and heard something about a Warre` hive. (When going to Wikipedia to research scroll down a bit to find out about this type of hive.) She reads and researches far and wide. Once she thinks there is something of interest, she calls me in to discuss and do more in depth research. So it was with a Warre` hive. If you haven't heard of these before, you are not alone.

Langstroth Hive - It turns out the modern hive that most beekeepers use today is the Langstroth hive.
In 1851, the Reverend Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth (1810-1895), a native of Philadelphia, noted that when his bees had less than 1 cm (3/8 inch) of space available in which to move around, they would neither build comb into that space nor cement it closed with propolis. This measurement is presently called "bee space". During the summer of 1851, Langstroth applied the concept to keeping the lid free on a top-bar hive, but in autumn of the same year, he realized that the "bee space" could be applied to a newly-designed frame which would prevent the bees from attaching honeycomb to the inside of the hive box. This attachment of comb to the hive wall was a difficulty with frameless designs, such as Dzierżon's frameless movable-comb hive (1835). US Patent 9300 was issued to Langstroth on October 25, 1852, and remained valid despite numerous attempts to challenge it based on its alleged use of prior art.
Rev. Langstroth subsequently published a book called A Practical Treatise on the Hive and Honey-Bee^[2], nowadays commonly known as The Hive and the Honey Bee or, under the title with which it was recently (2004) re-issued, as Langstroth's Hive and the Honey-Bee: The Classic Beekeeper's Manual. In this book, Langstroth described the proper dimensions and use of the modern beehive as we know it today. Prior to discovery of the dimensions of "bee space", bees were mostly hived in skeps (conical straw baskets) or gums (hollowed-out logs which approximated the natural dwellings of bees), or in box hives (a thin-walled wooden box with no internal structure).

When my wife and I went through bee school, we didn't hear or at least it didn't register about different types of hives other than skeps. We were taught that skeps were bad and illegal because you had to kill all of the bees to harvest the honey. Not very ecofriendly

Back to Warre`.

As you can read below, Abbe` Warre` researched 350 different hive systems before coming up with his own model.

Details here, you can skip read later.
Abbé Émile Warré (1867 - 1951) lived in France and kept bees in a wide variety of hives with the aim of finding the best hive for both bees and beekeeper.

L'Abbé Eloi François Émile Warré was born on 9 March 1867 at Grébault-Mesnil in the Somme département. He was ordained a priest on 19 September 1891 -- Amiens diocese -- and became the parish priest of Mérélessart (Somme) in 1897 then of Martainneville (Somme) in 1904.

He disappeared from the records in 1916 subsequently to reappear at Saint-Symphorien (Indre-et-Loire) to devote himself exclusively to beekeeping. He died at Tours on 20 April 1951.

Abbé Warré developed The People's Hive based on his studies of 350 hives of different systems that existed at his time as well as of the natural habits of the bee.

Resume Warre` (Great reference link)

We just became Certified Naturally Grown beekeepers and wanted to have a hive that does the following:

Have the bees build out their own comb to reduce chemical contamination found in bees wax from ALL commercial wax foundation.
Have the bees build foundation that is bee size. From our research, commercial wax foundation is 5.4 millimeters but bees normally build out at 4.5 millimeters. This creates bigger bees that can't fly as far and some theorize allows external pests to enter the bees internally.
Allow for a systematic way of cycling wax and honey that is friendly to the bees. We want to cycle out our wax over a three (3) year period. Old brood comb becomes black and is more susceptible to disease and pests.

So, we decided to try this type of hive. Below is picture from a friend's backyard of 2 Warre` hives.

Thank you Malcolm Campbell for the nice picture and woodworking.

Here are some specs for you to ponder:

Each box is about 12" by 12"
8 top bars per box (really light)
We have a viewing window in the back of each box to watch the bees build down on the top bars.
Bottom box has a screen bottom with a solid slide-in option.
Top box is a quilt box filled with saw dust.
When adding boxes, they are nadired instead of supered.

Nadiring versus Supering

Supering - When beekeepers place a hive body with frames on top of the beehive, this is called supering. Supering is derived from the word superior (thanks Michael Bush) which refers to something or someone higher in rank or above you. Hence, when we place a box above, we are supering the hive.

Nadiring - When we nadir boxes in a beehive, we place them below. Think of it this way. If something is at its zenith, it is at its top/peak. If something is at its nadir, it is at its bottom.

How nadiring affects the operation of the beehive

In Langstroth world, we are taught that bees always move up but in Warre` world we say they go down. Which is correct? As usual, we need to ask the bees. In observing them I believe both are correct. How so?

If we look at natural honeycomb it is teardrop in shape and is built from top to bottom.

Honeycomb built on the bottom of a warre`top bar

Honeybees seem to go to the top, (go up), but build down. In Langstroth world we add supers believing that bees will place honey in top boxes and place brood in the bottom boxes. In Warre` world, boxes are nadired with boxes placed on the bottom as the bees build out each box.

Harvesting Langstroth & Warre` beehives

Langstroth harvesting - The supered boxes fulled of capped honey are removed from the top of the hive. Honey is normally removed via extraction which requires a machine to spin the frames and remove the honey via centrifugal force and gravity. The brood boxes are not touched during this operation. So the bees live in old comb until it is replaced.

Warre` harvesting - The top box is removed and the comb is crushed and the honey strained. Only gravity it used. Since the hive is nadired, the comb at the top will be darker than a Langstroth hive but the brood comb will always be fresh. Hence a natural recycling of wax in the hive just like when bees swarm and establish a new colony.

Today we visited our Warre` hive and are happy to report that are bees are building out the top bars just like Abbe` Warre` said they would. Below are some pictures of what our current hive looks like.

Above is a view of comb being built out from viewing window in the back of the Warre` hive.

Current Warre` hive with 2 boxes and interface Langstroth nuc.

Thanks Dietlinde Zipkin for taking these great pictures

Looking down into the Warre` hive with one frame removed. See the fresh comb being built out by the bees on frame 2.

This photo is looking up at the BOTTOM of a warre` box. Note the comb hanging down. We believe the bees had built out 6 of the 8 bars so we nadired the hive to give them more space. Our hope is that by the end of this season we will be able to remove the Langstroth nuc and have the hive be totally warre`

We would like to thank our friends at Center for Honeybee Research. We purchased our nuc of bees from them this year and their quality was just fabulous. Our bees are really building out VERY nicely. You can see the marked queen above. The colony seems vibrant with lots of bee activity. Of course we are also fortunate to have a great bee yard with lots of great bee food. If you are interested in obtaining nucs of bees, please reach out to Carl Chesick or Stuart Van Meter located in Hendersonville, NC. When we picked up our bees, we spent the night at the Pisgah Inn and arrived the next morning to pick up our screened bees.

Here are some great Warre` links if you want to investigate more on your own:

Bee Boy out.

Swarm - 03/12/2012

2012-03-13T23:46:00.026-04:00

So it was about 2:00pm, the temperature was right and the bees were in flight when the call came. "There is a swirl of bees!!!" After a brief discussion and being happy I had just purchased the necessary equipment to make yet one more hive, I headed to the action.

When I arrived, I could see the bees were in a very neat cluster.

We proceeded to ready our new deep brood box to receive the swarm. To ready our brood box we did the following:

Positioned the box near the swarm. The box had a screen bottom and was up on cinder blocks so when the process was completed it could easily be picked up.
All of the 10 frames were sprayed with sugar water.
A hint of Lemon Grass was rubbed over frame # 5.
A screen inner cover was within arms reach.

With everything ready we just had to get the swarm into the box. Fortunately the beekeeper with me had a wonderful ladder that was just the right height.

So I climbed up the ladder and simultaneously clipped the branch with one hand and held it with another. The trick is to gently lower the branch until you are ready to get the bees into the box and then you shake them in with one or two shakes. The bee boss showed me this a few years back. It is interesting to watch. The one bee we want in the box is the queen. She naturally goes down into the box looking for a dark spot. Note there is a bottom screen under the box so no bees fall through.

The next part of the process is timing. When we looked at the swarm on the tree branch they were debating. We learned this from Dr. Thomas D. Seeley in his book "HoneyBee Democracy". The bees were deciding where to go. If we snag them before they take a vote, we can move them where we want. Well, that's the theory but, of course, the bees didn't read Dr. Seeley's book.

With the bees in the box we wanted to give as many as possible a chance to join their friends. So a pause of a minute seemed prudent. Too long of a pause and they will orient themselves to this new location and the beekeepers rule of 2 feet or 2 miles comes into play. Also I put a screen top on the box to keep bees in and encourage them to cluster in the box. Seems to work.

So if we have our timing right and a nicely prepared home for them, hopefully our new little bees want to stay. If we treat them nice we can get the bees to send out their little pheromones in front of the hive to tell their buddies, this is where we go. A cinder block and ladder had some lost bees so we brought that over to the hive. They left their cinder block, the ladder and finally the screen to go inside.

We poured a thin sugar water solution into the Mann Lake hivetop feeder to stimulate wax and cell building.

Finally our new hive "Chet" is in for the night.

Here's hoping we got it right.

A special thanks to Dietlinde Zipkin, the beekeeper behind the lens, for all of her great photography. In addition to taking all of the pictures, she was busy working with me in many ways to pull this off.

Bee Boy out.

Confusing Bees and installing a Hive Stand

2012-03-10T23:04:00.016-05:00

Just returned from the NCSBA (North Carolina State Beekeepers Association). Great meeting and learned lots. My wife and I have enjoy watching Gold Rush on the Discovery Channel. This is about some common American guys that make lots of mistakes as they try to strike it rich by mining for Gold in Alaska. Turns out to get an ounce of gold takes sifting through tons of material.

One of the nuggets from the NCSBA meeting we rediscovered is the idea of confusing honeybees. Turns out that honeybees are three dimensional navigators and when returning to their hive they don't check out the box the way we humans would. Instead they fly to the 3 dimensional coordinates they remember and go in. If you have been following along with us you will remember we recently captured a swarm off a rock in front of our Charlotte hive. The swarm is a small one and the bees are just a small cluster.

So how to beef up the hive?
Wouldn't it be a nifty thing to get a larger hive of bees to help out the smaller one?

Solution, CONFUSE OUR BEES.

The plan called for us to swap the location of the larger hive with the smaller one. When the bees from the larger hive return to their old location, the smaller hive would be there to welcome them in. The theory goes that returning bees with pollen, nectar or propolis are welcome. Lots of bees, lots of comb built out in a hurry so the new hive's progress is accelerated.

STEP 1 - Build and Install a new Hive Stand

STEP 2 - Confuse the bees

The reason for the new bee stand is we have larger plans for the bee yard and want to have extra room on the beehive stand. We have gone from a 4' hive stand to 8'. To make life easier, we put the longer stand in front of the old one.

Once we had the larger stand in place, we proceeded to swap beehive locations. Moving Tzion, our new swarm hive, went well. The bees seemed to be reading their manual and nicely flying into the new hive at the old location.

Vav Hive and the problems begin - Our old hive consisted of 1 deep (brood), 1 shallow (brood), 1 shallow (honey), 1 medium (wax foundation - hey, this was all we had). When we bought the hive about a year ago, we hated the wooden ware. A nice warm spring day seemed like just the opportunity to move our bees into clean new wooden ware and a screen bottom. We went from 9 frames to 10 deep frames with 2 new frames installed and 1 old frame removed. Spotted 3 supersedure cells but didn't have the gear to split the hive. UGH!

The deep move completed - We moved, shook and brushed bees into the new box praying we didn't roll our queen. Thinking about it, with all of the queen cells, this was an okay time since we had tons of bees and new queens on the way. Few hive beetles and no mites to speak of.

The bees hated us.
Smoke and a blizzard of bees.

You will probably disagree with our decision but we added a deep with new frames above the old deep. We like deep brood boxes and think shallows don't provide enough room for the bees.

Shallow of brood, shallow of honey and an medium to build out for honey and we were done.

Did we kill our bees in both hives?

Time will tell.

Bee Boy Out.

Simply Bee

2012-03-07T22:33:00.005-05:00

Not lots to say here. A new beekeeper and great photographer sent these my way and thought you might like to see them as well.

Finally found the maple trees

Look carefully in the middle of the picture to see our little honeybee closing in on the maple tree blossom.

Myrtle Spurge

New & Older colony of bees

Sure hope our new swarm makes it.

Photos are courtesy of Dietlinde Zipkin.

Bee Boy Out

500 mile warranty or the life of a Honeybee

2012-03-05T14:00:00.041-05:00

As my wife and I go into our third year as beekeepers, we continue to not only learn but to relearn about beekeeping. We have gained some new beekeeper friends that are just starting out and have wisely chosen to take a class from our local bee club. (Mecklenburg County Beekeepers Association) As we discuss beekeeping with our new friends we find ourselves saying, "Yea, we learned that a few years ago but some of the details aren't so fresh." My wife, my queen bee, is always on the lookout for more bee knowledge and brings me along to add another set if eyes and ears. Recently we have started to listen to podcasts that are extremely helpful to both refresh and expand our beekeeping knowledge. Below are my notes from a recent podcast. Feel free to go over and listen to it for yourself. Any comments or things I misheard are welcome. http://www.bkcorner.org/pages/episodes/episode-026.asp

So what are the numbers again on a honeybee?

American Bee Journal Feb 2012 pg 131

21 Days - It takes 21 days on average for a worker bee to become an adult.

3 Days in the egg stage    Day 0   - Day 3 (Queen determined here. Best on day 1.)
6 Days in the larva stage   Day 4 - Day 9
12 Days in the Pupa stage Day 10 - Day 21

Honeybee warranty beegins (About 38 days in summer or 500 miles)

If you listen to the podcast, Kevin Inglin does a great job detailing the life of a honeybee once she emerges until her final flight.

4   Days - New bee                            Day 1 - 4
8   Days - Nurse bee                          Day 5 - 12
9   Days - Middle Aged Bee (MAB)      Day 13 - 21
17 Days - Forager bee                        Day 22 - Day 38

Please note these are average days and are subject to change depending on the environment. (temperature, abundance of food, abundance of workers in the colony, overall health of the colony)

New Bee jobs - New bees mostly hang out continuing to develop and cleaning their cell. They spend time sleeping as they develop.

Nurse Bee jobs - Nurse bees feed the queen, brood and foragers. Turns out that in addition to Queen pheromone, there is also Brood pheromone. According to Kevin's information, it acts as the fountain of youth for bees. The closer to the brood pheromone, the longer they live. That is one explanation for the length of life of a winter bee which can bee as long as 200 days.

Honey bees deposit vitellogenin molecules in fat bodies in their abdomen and heads. The fat bodies apparently acts as a food storage reservoir. The glycolipoprotein vitellogenin has additional functionality as it acts as an antioxidant to prolong Queen bee and forager lifespan as well as a hormone that affects future foraging behavior.^[1] The health of a honey bee colony is dependent upon the vitellogenin reserves of the nurse bees - the foragers having low levels of vitellogenin. As expendable laborers, the foragers are fed just enough protein to keep them working their risky task of collecting nectar and pollen. Vitellogenin levels are important during the nest stage and thus influence honey bee worker division of labor.
A nurse bee's vitellogenin titer that developed in the first four days after emergence, affects its subsequent age to begin foraging and whether it preferentially forages for nectar or pollen. If young workers are short on food their first days of life, they tend to begin foraging early and preferentially for nectar. If they are moderately fed, they forage at normal age preferentially for nectar. If they are abundantly fed, immediately after emergence, their vitellogenin titer is high and they begin foraging later in life, preferentially collecting pollen. Pollen is the only available protein source for honey bees.

Middle Age Bees (MAB) jobs - These bees are best at comb creation, guarding the hive and receiving nectar.

Forager Bee jobs - Finally we get to the last stage of a worker bee's life. They literally work from sunrise to sundown gathering pollen, nectar and propolis. They also act as guard bees after they return to the hive at night to sleep. Foragers literally work themselves to death. As their wings wear out, it works their little flight muscles more and more. According to Kevin's information, the muscles last about 500 miles worth of flight.

Push pull phenomenon - According to Kevin's information, bees can change jobs to a certain extent. If there are insufficient foragers, MABs are drafted. Too many foragers, they can revert back to a MAB. The closer to the brood, the more of the elixir of life. So adult bees are pushed through the different stages of life but can bee pulled back as needed, to a certain extent. I don't think a bee can go from forager to new bee.

Wow, how miraculous.

Final question for beekeepers to debate. Design or Chance? If you are a Darwinian evolutionist I would love to hear your explanation of all of this. If you believe in a supreme omnipotent being, I think I know your answer. According to Occam's razor the simplest approach is usually the correct one. Guess we could ponder this for quite awhile.

Bee Boy out...

Oh, for more information, here is a great book.

Honeybee wrestling or our first swarm

2012-03-02T12:55:00.002-05:00

I have worked with the Bee Boss over the past two years and have watched him wrestle bees. I guess for real beekeepers the term would be going on a "swarm call". So yesterday was a nice 75 + degree Fahrenheit day and I wanted to check out our Charlotte bee yard which is located in the backyard of some new friends and new beekeepers. I put the call out to our friend and she said "sounded good". A short time later I received a happily frantic call with the news that there was a swarm in one of the nearby trees. The bee wrestling/wrangling had begun.

It took me about an hour to load up the bee mobile. A second call from her indicated there might be 2 swarms so I had to come up with additional gear for a possible second swarm. The good news was that everything was close to the ground.

When I arrived to assess the situation, one of the swarms had vanished. Upon closer inspection it appeared that perhaps the bees had been overzealous and gone out on a limb so to speak on one of the swarm locations. My wife and I discussed theories as to why bees would swarm on a warm stone on the ground rather than in a high tree branch. Perhaps, once again, those darn bees had not read their bee manual and were not swarming the "right way".

So with assistance from my new bee assistant, we shook the stones and bees over a new hive body. I had prepped the hive body by spraying the frames with sugar water. There appeared to be a flurry of bees but they started clustering in the hive. I put a screen top over the hive but to the bees, screen schmeem. I gently attempted brushing them into the box to no avail. My next plan of attack was to spray them with sugar water and gently use a dust pan and escort them one by one into the new hive. My thinking here was that if we got enough bees inside the hive, their little pheromones would kick in with the come home scent and the rest of the swarm would join them.

When I left, there were a few bees flying in and out but not enough to convince me we had a queen, the bees were happy and they would stay. Give it a day or so and we'll see.

Bee boy out.

Heresy - Let's not always smoke the Honeybees

2012-02-27T23:29:00.002-05:00

Haven't stirred the pot in awhile so I thought I'd ask the unaskable question.

Do we always need to smoke the honeybees before entering the hive?

For those of you that may be just joining us, this is considered heresy. Let's go to Wikipedia to get a full understanding of heresy.

Heresy (from Greek αἵρεσις, which originally meant "choice") is an accusation levied against members of another group which has beliefs which conflict with those of the accusers. It is usually used to discuss violations of religious or traditional laws or codes, although it is used by some political extremists to refer to their opponents. It carries the connotation of behaviors or beliefs likely to undermine accepted morality and cause tangible evils, damnation, or other punishment. In some religions, it also implies that the heretic is in alliance with the religion's symbol of evil, such as Satan or chaos.^[1] It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause,^[2] and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion.^[3] The founder or leader of a heretical movement is called a heresiarch, while individuals who espouse heresy or commit heresy, are known as heretics.

Efficiency asks "What is the best way to do something?"

Effectiveness asks "Do we need to do it at all?"

Clearly we are in the realm of an effectiveness question.

http://www.brushymountainbeefarm.com/Brushy-Mountain-Pro-Smoker/productinfo/750/

http://shopdixiebee.com/?page_id=53&category=13

Above is a picture of the smoker I currently use. From an efficiency point of view it is great. I can load pine needles and smoker fuel and go about my business with my bees.

Pros for using a smoker: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-bee-smoker.htm

When smoke is blown into the hive first, however, the guard bees' receptors are dulled and they fail to sound the pheromonious alarm.
Conveniently the smoke has a secondary effect in that it causes the other bees to instinctively gorge themselves on honey — a survival instinct in case they must vacate the hive and recreate it elsewhere. This gorging has a tendency to pacify the bees.

Cons for using a smoker:

It is a bad idea to dull the senses of one of natures most sensitive olifactorily endowed creatures. Honeybees can smell a flower burp a mile away.
Like the idea of smoking? Let's go to your house and light up. Bet you'll run for the exits and gorge on honey too. :-)

Observation of an astute mechanic:

If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem better be a nail!

So how about this for middle ground?

Let's not smoke every time.

If we are just putting in sugar water in a Mann Lake hive top feeder and not going into the hive, why smoke?
If we are putting on sugar fondant on a cold day, let's not smoke.
If we are doing a quick inspection, the bees are happy and not pulling EVERY FRAME, let's not smoke.

So what is smoke good for?

When you need to move bees from something, smoke clears them out/away.
If we are going deep and need to do a detailed inspection and the bees are cranky, smoke can calm things down a bit. (Really it just confuses them and covers the attack pheromones. )

Can we still be friends even if I ask the unaskable?

If you have a different opinion, I'd love to hear from you.

The Bee Boy out.

New Trees on Plan Bee

2012-01-12T14:31:00.001-05:00

We are still working our forest plan and after having an official NC State Forester visit Plan Bee we were told we were an acre short of the required 20 to become a forest for tax purposes. As luck would have it, we took our Bee Mobile for routine maintenance @ the local Subaru dealer and discovered they needed to get some extra trees planted for the "Share the Love" event.

The folks @ Subaru were kind enough to provide lots of trees that needed a new home. We took them to our humble abode in Charlotte, NC and asked our planting team to look over the trees. Below you will note that in addition to my wife and I, our local planting team consists of a fairy and rock frog. They both quietly approved of the trees. Fairies are some interesting creatures anyhow.

So as soon as possible, we drove the trees up to Plan Bee to find them a new home. After a quick stop at a local supply store for good dirt, we had them planted in the ground.

It took us hours but by the setting of the sun our new trees were sharing some love on Plan Bee.

We will keep you posted on the progress of our new trees. By the way, these are Eastern White Pines. As a boy scout years ago I have a fond memory of finding a dry place in an Eastern White Pine forest during a rainy camping event. The needles are fairly long and soft. My wife and I look forward to having our very own Eastern White Pine forest.

The Bee (HoneyBee) in Scripture

2011-11-21T23:18:00.000-05:00

In our last Mecklenburg County Beekeepers Association newsletter page 3 referred to the honeybee as being referred to in The Holy Qu'ran. I have a friend that is familiar with The Holy Qu'ran and he referred me to Surah 16 entitled, "The Bee" or in Arabic "Al-Nahl". The Holy Qu'ran is comprised of 114 Surahs/chapters. Unlike The Holy Bible, it is organized from longest to shortest Surah. It was completed around 632 AD and written in Arabic. While we do not have the original document, those that are most familiar with it speak Arabic and state The Holy Qu'ran is accurate to the letter.

Below are some interesting facts as reported to me by my friend about The Bee in The Holy Qu'ran.

********

hope you doing well, here is part one of the answer

THE BEE

“And thy Lord taught the Bee To build its cells in hills, On trees, and in (men’s) habitations; Then to eat of all The produce (of the earth), And find with skill the spacious Paths of its Lord.” [Al-Qur’aan 16:68-69]

Von-Frisch received the Nobel Prize in 1973 for his research on the behaviour and communication of the bees. The bee, after discovering any new garden or flower, goes back and tells its fellow bees the exact direction and map to get there, which is known as ‘bee dance’. The meanings of this insect’s movements that are intended to transmit information between worker bees have been discovered scientifically using photography and other methods. The Qur’aan mentions in the above verse how the bee finds with skill the spacious paths of its Lord.

The worker bee or the soldier bee is a female bee. In Soorah Al-Nahl chapter no. 16, verses 68 and 69 the gender used for the bee is the female gender (fa’slukî and kulî), indicating that the bee that leaves its home for gathering food is a female bee. In other words the soldier or worker bee is a female bee.

In fact, in Shakespeare’s play,“Henry the Fourth”, some of the characters speak about bees and mention that the bees are soldiers and that they have a king. That is what people thought in Shakespearean times. They thought that the worker bees are male bees and they go home and are answerable to a king bee. This, however, is not true. The worker bees are females and they do not report to a king bee but to a queen bee. But it took modern investigations in the last 300 years to discover this.

*******

So I was curious. What does is say about The Bee in The Holy Bible. Turns out there is one reference to "The Bee" in The Holy Bible.

KJV Isaiah 7:18 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria. (Isa 7:18 KJV)

The word for Bee in Hebrew is transliterated Devorah. We have Anglicized the word to be the name, Deborah. If you are a male beekeeper and in your youth you have been stung by a Deborah, now you know why. Turns out that had old Shakespeare read and studied The Holy Bible or The Holy Qu'ran he would have learned that in Hebrew or Arabic, a Bee is feminine.

Let me end lest I drone on.

Winterizing Plan Bee

2011-11-19T16:02:00.075-05:00

Hard to believe it is almost December on the Gregorian calendar. This morning after a slow drive up to Plan Bee because of grass mowing on I85 I arrived to a bright sunny Plan Bee. Near the beehives it is a balmy 70 degrees in the sun. Bees are out flying and I noted they had drained the 2 gallons of sugar water I had left for them in the chicken waterers.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

When you are out in the open like we are on Plan Bee, you have to think like a Bee. We are getting our property ready for winter in warm weather and shining sun. We know cold freezing weather is just around the corner. Now that we have water if it gets really cold, pipes can break, the well head can freeze. If we have our well burst it could cost thousands of dollars to repair. In speaking with local rednecks, we have come up with a very economical solution.

A light bulb. HA!

So I popped off the well cover and put in a light with a timer. Checked the bulb from last year and it was burned out. Thankfully I had a replacement ready since I thought it a high probability a bulb would go bad. Just a lightbulb turned on under the well cover that is set to come on from dusk to dawn to come on protects the well from freezing.

With the tested light and timer in place, I simply drop the well cover over the well head and again and we are in business. Done

Next Job - With cold weather we have taken off the Mann Lake hive top feeders. Instead we now have a solid inner cover on all three hives. (Aleph, Gimmel & Dalet) Much to the chagrin of other beekeepers, we have elected to do some open feeding. When the weather is warm and the bees are hungry we set up 2 one gallon chicken waterers. You can get a five gallon version that is easy to refill from the Tractor Supply store. I refilled the one gallon chicken waterers with sugar syrup. I get my sugar syrup for $8.00/ 5 gallon bucket. Refilled them and replaced my bumblebee marbles in the waterers so my bees won't drown. Such an idiot. Ha

Turned on the water for my fruit trees. Yea. Used to haul water now just turn it on from my frost proof yard hydrants. With our drip irrigation system in place, as I work I water. Well worth the money. Next year will extend the drip irrigation to water the front nut trees. I recently planted 2 replacement pecan trees.

So I did a quick weedeating job around some property markers and in front of the beehives. With the sun out and warmer weather, our bees found the sugar water and are really enjoying their meal. At a usually safe distance in our picnic shelter I am being buzzed. Stepping away from a curious bee seems to work well.

With a setting sun and a beautiful happy day, I bid good bye to Plan Bee. Winterized and ready to go.

Dear Mom, a Plan Bee update

2011-11-06T11:56:00.001-05:00

From: David @ Allen & Associates of America, Inc.
Sent: Sunday, November 06, 2011 5:28 AM
To: JG
Subject: Visited Plan Bee yesterday.

Hey Mom,

Plan Bee is located near Liberty, North Carolina. On the way there I visited Julian Milling Company located in the one street town of Julian, NC. The store stocks seed and hardware much as another hardware store we remember your dad owned in Herrick, South Dakota.

The other picture is of chicken waterers that we filled with sugar water for our bees. This time of year is interesting for our bees. The bees are leaving the hive for cleansing flights but are behaving curiously. They are mildly interested in food other than honey. While over at our picnic shelter I noted that the bees were scouting our last year’s boxes filled with frames of built out comb. There were about 20 bees flying in and out and just plain sniffing around. Meanwhile back at the chicken watering devices filled with sugar water there appeared no interest. Maybe they haven’t found it yet. I did grab a bee and dropped her in the sugar water thinking she might go back and tell her friends. Alas, no luck. Oh well.

Last item of note on the chicken waterers. I filled the area where the water comes out with bumble bee marbles. The theory here is that when our bees finally find the sugar water they will not drown while loading up with the liquid. We had purchased the marbles in an attempt to be clever. There was an article in a bee journal about a beekeeper giving new beekeepers marbles and every time the new beekeeper made a mistake he would throw out a marble. When the new beekeeper had lost all of his marbles he would then be an experienced beekeeper. As with many of our ideas, the only ones that thought it was clever was Rayleen and me. Hopefully the bees will take advantage of the marbles to drink from unless they think it is a stupid idea as well.

Thought you might enjoy the pictures.

LOL, your son, aka, the bee boy.

***************************************************************************************************************** David A. Grim

Allen & Associates of America, Inc.

Office: (01) 704-554-7469 Fax: (01) 866-409-0789

Time Zone: (GMT - 5)

www.AllenAssociates.net ******************************************************************************************************************

Plan Bee Honey

2011-07-25T09:45:00.002-04:00

Plan Bee Honey

(Why is it different?)

What we don’t do	What we do do
No chemicals in our hives	Wild flowers make the nectar
No chemicals on our land – Plan Bee	We filter the honey with a 600 micron filter
Not pasteurized	We prefer glass to bottle our honey
Not produced with sugar water

No chemicals in the hives – Something most consumers don’t know is that many beekeepers use chemicals in their hives to combat other insect pests that attack honeybees. While these chemicals target the pests, they weaken the bees. The chemicals also make their way into the honey. If you eat honey from chemically treated hives, you are eating chemically treated honey.

No chemical approach - According to our best information, the best protection for a honeybee hive is a strong honeybee hive. The bees themselves attack their pests and literally drive them out of the hive. Another natural way to protect bees is to put them in a sunny area (healthy bee environment). You see the pests don’t like it as hot as bees do. It only takes a few degrees to keep out the pests and protect the bees.

No chemicals on Plan Bee – One way to control weeds and pests is through the use of chemicals. Yep, if you pour chemicals on the land, weeds die, flowers die and bees can die. Taking this one step further, people can die too. Don’t believe us, top off your next beverage with your favorite insecticide or herbicide. I believe they call it suicide.

No chemical approach on Plan Bee – On Plan Bee we do things differently. We don’t mow the approximately front 4 acre field. Instead we just let it grow. It grows a variety of wild flowers. We have also introduced other vegetation as well. We have added lavender, apple, peach, cherry, fig, apricot and pawpaw trees. We just planted some buckwheat which will produce little white flowers as a cover crop in the fall for our hungry bees. We don’t spray for clover, we plant it. The bees love clover flowers.

Not pasteurized – Most honey is pasteurized which means it is heated at 145° Fahrenheit for 30 minutes.

Why pasteurize? Bakers in particular look for honey that has been heated to a point where enzymatic activity has been destroyed. Enzymatic activity in honey can interact in some products, reducing shelf life. For instance, if raw honey was used in a butter frosting, the enzymatic activity will make the butter turn faster than normal.

The first method for producing whipped honey was patented by Elton J. Dyce in 1935 (U.S. Patent 1,987,893). In this process, raw honey is first pasteurized to kill any yeasts that may be present in the honey. After pasteurization, previously processed whipped honey is added to the pasteurized honey to produce a mixture of 10% whipped honey and 90% pasteurized honey. The mixture is then allowed to rest at a controlled temperature of 57 °F (14 °C). This method will produce a batch of whipped honey in about one week. A seed batch can be made by allowing normal honey to crystallize and crushing the crystals to the desired size. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whipped_honey)

Honey is not recommended for children under the age of 1 because of one medical case years ago traced a case of botulism in an infant to the honey served the night before. The undeveloped digestive system of an infant could make it susceptible to such toxins. Unfortunately, the study did not determine how the botulism was introduced to the honey (ie, was something dipped into it?). However, because of this case, the honey industry recommends that children under the age of 1 do not eat honey.

Not pasteurized honey approach - Raw honey still has enzymes, proteins, and minerals that would be destroyed if honey was heated. Discerning critics believe raw honey tastes better than heated honey. Anecdotal evidence says that a spoonful of local honey each day, taken over a series of months, will help build up resistance to allergies. The idea is that the body receives small doses of pollen over a period of time, similar to allergy shots. (Please note: We have not seen scientific studies that prove or disprove this idea, although it is our understanding several studies are underway right now.) (http://www.beefolks.com/shopcontent.asp?type=faq6)

“The Revolutionary Effects of Honey on Human Metabolism” (Dr. Ron Fessenden, specialist in honey’s many health benefits and author of The Honey Revolution and other soon-to-be published books on honey and health). Honey is uniquely metabolized in the human body; unlike sucrose, glucose, and high fructose corn syrup, it directly forms liver glycogen, the brain’s main fuel reserve. By keeping the liver glycogen reserve “topped off,” honey is safe for diabetics and also therapeutic. And it helps prevent or eliminate metabolic stress, which can lead to hypertension, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, hypothyroidism, osteoporosis, depression, sleep disorders, Alzheimer's disease, and ADHD in children.

Honey is made from nectar which bees gather from different plants and flowers. Nectar is changed into honey by enzyme action in the bodies of the bees, and is stored in wax cells in the hive. It is then left to ripen, and in time, it thickens because of evaporation caused by the fanning of the bees' wings. Bees produce honey for their own use, as their main source of food. Honey has been in use for thousands of years. A jar of honey, still in perfect condition, was found in an Egyptian tomb, where it was placed over 3,000 years ago. Honey contains an enzyme which prevents it from molding; therefore, it needs no preservatives. Because bees are very sensitive to pesticides, honey is fairly free from contamination; the bees, if exposed to sprays, usually die before returning to the hives. http://www.trivia-library.com/a/information-about-food-honey.htm

Not produced with sugar water –When most consumers think of honey, a picture comes to mind of bees flying from flower to flower gathering nectar and returning to their hive to make honey. In fact, here is what Wikipedia has to say: (Honey is a sweet food made by bees using nectar from flowers. The variety produced by honey bees (the genus Apis) is the one most commonly referred to and is the type of honey collected by beekeepers and consumed by humans. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey) )

Honey can be produced from sugar water. It does not have the benefits of pollen and other elements from the flowers. Bees don’t even have to leave their hives to get it. The reason some beekeepers would use sugar water could be cost, convenience or environment. If you have your bee in a location without any bee food, they have to feed them sugar water. We think this is bad for the bees and bad for people.

The no sugar water approach (Wild flowers make the nectar) – To be honest we will feed our bees a mixture of sugar, thyme, salt and chamomile tea in the summer if there is no bee food around and AFTER the honey harvest. Particularly during the honey flow, our bees can find plenty of food. But during the summer months when everything is past bloom and before the fall/autumn nectar flow, our bees may be hungry. We carefully examine their nectar stores and if deemed insufficient, we feed them until they can find good bee food again. Fortunately with a wide open field in a rural setting, they seem to be doing really well. Therefore, the honey we obtain from our bees is wild flower honey with a unique flavor and color. It is full of pollen and propolis which is healthy for people.

We filter the honey with a 600 micron filter - Pollen grains vary in shape, coloration and size. The smallest grain of pollen belongs to the alpine forget-me-not, measuring three micrometers. The largest is from the cucumber flower, measuring at around 200 microns. Read more:

Pollen Grain Size Facts | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/facts_7399786_pollen-grain-size.html#ixzz1T3X63hyZ

If you look at the picture below you will see honey directly from our hive. The white specs are wax cappings from the end of each honey producing cell.

We use a Hackler Honey Punch which punches little holes in the end of each honey cell. After the frame is put into the honey extractor, the wax cappings just flow with the honey. We use the 600 micron filter to remove this wax from the honey.

That’s it. We hate to use words like “PURE” but as you can read from our process it doesn’t get much “PURER” than that.

We prefer glass to bottle our honey – Honey does NOT react to glass and like “PURE” water just seems to taste better in glass. According to our best information, the honey you receive from Plan Bee will last indefinitely.

Questions to ask of those selling you honey

#1 – Where are your beehives? I don’t care much where they bottle it but if you are counting on “local honey” you want to know where the hives are. (Ours are located in Liberty, NC)
#2 – Do you use chemicals in your hives? That’s a yes or no. (Again, our answer is no.)

Hope this helps and if you have other questions, please reach out to us via email.

SavtasCreations@gmail.com

If you post a neat comment, it might earn you some Plan Bee honey. Wouldn't that bee a sweet deal.

Like beekeeper Geno says, "Hope to see you by the hive."

Taj Mahal

2011-06-08T20:38:00.067-04:00

Naming our outhouse began as a stupid Appalachian Trail joke. Plan Bee is rugged and rural to say the least. We have few amenities save water, picnic shelter and an outhouse. My wife said she could forgo most niceties but insisted on a privy. So once we had begun developing the land, an outhouse moved to the top of the list as a project.

While hiking a section of The Appalachian Trail from Iron Master's Mansion Hostel to Duncannon, PA I spent a night in the Darlington Shelter. Someone had a sick sense of humor like me and had named the outhouse the Taj Mahal. As I pondered our privy while enjoying a little Trail comfort on the throne I decided we had to have the same name for our outhouse.

Taj Mahal @ Darlington Shelter

For those interested in a little history, Taj Mahal was named after a princess in India that died giving birth to her 14th child. Her husband made a promise to his dying favorite wife to never remarry and to build her the richest mausoleum over her grave. The name translates to crown of Mahal. Her name was Mumtaz Mahal or "Jewel of the Palace".

The good news is my Princess is doing fine and my promise to her for this project is complete. It took me a lot less than the 22 years it took Shah(Prince) Jahan. Of course our results are substantially different but then he had the help of 22,000 workers while I had 4.