A Honey of a Harvest

A year ago I wrote about extracting honey from the hives at the college with my friend Hugh. In July we did it again, with a few more helpers including my niece Crys from Aurora, Colorado. I will say that Crys spent more time sitting in the shade than she did playing with the bees, but she was there and was a good sport! The best part of the day was that, after everything was cleaned up, we got to take the extractor and some tools home with us for our own harvest!

Our two beautiful hives of honey bees were ready to be robbed. We were just days away from our first harvest and we were ready. We had all the tools we needed and we had all the people power we wanted, two of us and the dog.

4-frame extractor

bucket with gate and lid

 

uncapping tray

On Friday we put the bee confuser on the hives. It is really called a bee escape board and it allows the bees to leave the honey frames but they can't get back in. The fewer bees in the honey frames when we take them off, the fewer bees in the house, in the honey and in my hair. I have vivid memories of my Dad taking honey frames and using a brush to push the bees away. He did his extracting in the cellar of our house with bees flying everywhere and yes, they did manage to get into the house on a regular basis.

We put the honey supers into big plastic containers with covers and brought them to the side yard. We brushed away any straggling bees and brought the frames into the sun room. Using a heated knife, we scraped the cappings off the frames and collected that wax and honey in the capping bucket. Once we had 4 frames open, we put them into the extractor for spinning. The extractor is a centrifuge which is spun by hand. The honey comes flying out of the frames and collects on the bottom.

Jim and the hot knife uncapping the frames

We had a total of 16 frames from the two hives. In 3 hours we had uncapped, extracted and filters 48 pounds of pure beautiful honey. Of course, the entire room was sticky and we were sticky but we were really excited about our first harvest.

We let the honey sit for a day in the bucket and then we put it into .5 pound and 1 pound jars, ready to sell or gift. We are very proud of ourselves for keeping a hive alive through the winter, managing a second hive and getting both hives in shape to produce. We are very proud of our bees too!

Buddy & Jim bottling

beautiful wildflower honey

We are selling it locally. If you are interested in buying some McBees Bergen County Wildflower Honey. please send me an email or a message. We aren't shipping it anywhere because that doesn't make sense to us. so here is our label, created by DeepCereal.

Here's to you Dad!

A swarm of bees in May is worth a bale of hay

A swarm of bees in June is worth a silver spoon

A swarm of bees in July, just let them fly! 

This is a rhyme that most beekeepers know. Apparently, it comes from the mid 17th century and puts a value on catching a swarm if you see one. If you can catch a swarm in May or June, you'll be able to have a harvest and keep the bees alive through the winter. If you find one in July, there isn't enough time or food to keep the hive going so you shouldn't bother collecting it. 

As a kid, I often went with my Dad to collect swarms of bees when he got a call. I got to be his helper and hand him his tools or tell people to step away from the swarm. He was on the State Police call list and was pretty busy in May and June. He drove a yellow Volkswagen Beetle with a Mr. Bee license plate. He pulled a small trailer behind full of swarm catching stuff. I remember that he always had a deep super with a top and bottom, a white sheet, his smoker and some burlap, his hat and veil. Wherever there was a swarm there would be a crowd of people to watch and comment.

He was very calm and talkative while he figured out the best way to get the swarm without hurting the bees or any of the people around. He was really patient with the questions-

• Do they bite?
• Have you been bitten?
• Where is the honey?
• Are you going to kill them?

Catching a swarm was the way Dad increased the number of hives he had. We always had 10-12 hives in our back yard and he had hives at his parents' house and in several apple orchards around town. He did order bees in the Spring, but mostly he increased his have count by catching swarms.

One time, there was an article in the New York Times about him called "The Queen wore polish and laid eggs". The article profiled his appearance at the local public library where he brought an observation hive and all sorts of beekeeping tools and spoke to a group of people. The article quotes my sister who said she thought of the bees as pets. That's true! Dad would find drones and bring them to us to play with.

Dad was very protective of his bees. We had to save them if we found them floating in the pool and he'd get upset if we got stung, not because we got hurt but because a bee died! One sister tried to help the bees by putting some daisies into the hive. Nice thought but this did not turn out well for her. She got stung many times and had to go to the emergency room.

We even had bees living in our house between the outside and inside walls of my brothers' room. You could put your ear to the wall and hear them buzzing. You could see them coming and going from a small space at the roof line. Dad just left them there. He didn't want to remove the wall to take them out. I think he enjoyed having them living in the house along with his family.

My sister tells me she was with him one time when he retrieved a swarm from a golf course. The golfers were all standing around watching him and waiting to play through. One golfer asked him what enjoyment he got out of playing with stinging bugs. He responded that he got as much enjoyment as the golfer did chasing little white balls around.

My family has dozens of bee stories and bee memories. Funny how it took me so long to decide to follow in Dad's shoes but here I am. Maybe one day I'll drive a yellow VW Beetle with a small trailer on the back full of bee equipment. 

What the heck is that? Or that? A look inside the hive

The hives are looking good from the outside. Bees flying in with pollen bags full. The first hive (now called '14) has a honey super on. The other hive (now called '15) is settling in to its new home. time to take a look inside.

We donned our suits, lit the smoker, gathered our tools and went inside the hives for a closer look over Memorial Day weekend. The weather was just right...sunny, not too hot or muggy....and the bees looked very busy.

Right away we found some beautiful capped honey in '14. The honey is light in color because of whatever windflower nectar the girls brought home. Now we're really looking forward to harvesting!

Looking beautiful!

Then we began to see some other things that we didn't recognize. We did see capped and uncapped larvae, brood, worker bees, drone bees and many drone brood. We didn't see eggs while in the hive but we think we see eggs in the pictures. It is hard to tell the difference between an egg and light glare.

Drone brood on the left, brood, larvae and maybe eggs on the right.

Other things we saw and can't identify-

This looks like a bunch of drone cells stuck together

Here is a queen cell and the arrow shows a drone cell

These lumps are on the bottom of a frame and seem to include drone cells and queen cells

Two more queen cells

We've been watching the '14 closely for any kind of weird behavior. The hive has been a bit grumpy with groups spending time outside on the landing board and there are a lot of drones around. Just a couple of days ago, everything changed. The hive seems calmer and more in control of itself. We didn't see a swarm so we don't know if there was one or if there was a queen death and replacement or what happened. Any thoughts from more experienced beeks would be greatly appreciated.

I'm wishing I could give my Dad a call and get some old time beek advice!

Just adopted about 20-thousand more daughters!

Really! It is true! I now have two daughters, two grand-daughters and about 50-tousand bee daughters. Thank goodness for a husband, a grandson, two sons-in-law and a male dog to add the testosterone to the family!

Last week we picked up our nucleus hive and brought it home. Our club had taken nuc orders and the truck arrived on Wednesday with a delivery of 150 nucs! We brought it home, set it in the yard next to the first hive, opened the door and promised the girls we would move them into their new house the next day.


Nuc waiting to be housed

Installed and flying happy!

The nucs came to us from Grant Stiles, a NJ beekeeper and bee business person, so they are native to the state and relatively local. Other club members and long time beekeepers swear by the quality of the bees they get from Grant so we were happy to be able to get some for our own.

Well, of course, it was cold and rainy and snowy the next day so they had to wait. Then we had freezing temperatures overnight so they had to wait again. Finally on Saturday it was sunny and warm and we were able to put the nuc into its official permanent home.

It was fun to inspect the frames in the nuc and try to find the queen. We always take pictures of each frame so we can more closely inspect them later. I'm happy to say that we had eggs, capped and uncapped brood, pollen, nectar and the queen!



Caught in the act of laying an egg!

It's Alive! We made it through the winter!

What a tough month February was around here! snow, snow, snow and freezing temperatures had us really worried about the bees making it through.  We had seen them out on a few sunny days in January and then BAM! February arrived and didn't let up.

The hive had been wrapped in insulation on the north and west sides and we kept the doorway free of snow and ice and added an entrance reducer to help keep the chill out. We started feeding the bees sugar fondant (bee candy) because it can be quickly placed on top of the frames, close to the cluster of cold, hungry bees and their queen. We actually made our own fondant because we didn't want to wait for an order to arrive. See how to do that- http://www.honeybeesuite.com/how-to-make-fondant-from-table-sugar/

On Feb. 22, we breathed a sigh of relief when we the sun came out, the temperature went up a bit and we saw bees flying! They were taking cleansing "poop" flights and bring out the dead and coming out just to stretch their wings. We were very proud bee parents! Our first hive had made it thought its first winter!  We have talked with may beekeepers since February and learned that we were very lucky. Many hives were lost this winter even though the beekeepers did everything possible to help them along.

Cleansing flights Feburary 22, 2015



We kept up with fondant feeding into March and then, at the beginning of April we were brave enough and the temperatures were warm enough to go into the hive for a quick inspection. The bees had not only taken to munching on fondant, they had discovered their own warehouse and were eating honey they had put aside. Some of them were venturing further from the hive in search of water. Take a look at these girls, finding snow melt on our back deck.

So here we go, into our second year as beekeepers with hopes of honey and pollination and good stewardship!

Jars and Labels and Packaging.....Oh My

For as long as I can remember, my Dad's honey label was the same, yellowish with brown text with his name and a space for the weight. At some point, he added a small label to the back of his jars explaining about granulation and how to fix it. He also used the same classic jars in various sizes and the plastic honey bear container.  

 

 Nothing fancy because my Dad was a classic New England Yankee. His label clearly says "Here's honey which I put in a jar. It is pure and it weighs 1 pound. What you see is what you get." I can still picture the full jars on the kitchen table, lined up for labeling back in the days before self-sticking labels. Everyone in town probably had one of these jars in their kitchen and they would return the empty jars to him for refill.
 

He added the back labels when he got tired of listening to people tell him that their honey "went bad" and turned to sugar. Honey does not go bad. In fact there is documentation of honey found in ancient tombs and it was still edible. Read this article from Smithsonian Magazine- The Science behind Honey's Ancient Shelf Life for a real explanation.

All the bee supply vendors sell labels. Some can be customized with your own apairy name, type f honey (wildflower, raw, pure ). Most are generic and have blank space for the weigh and type of honey. Labels can also be custome designed and created. It all depends upon what you, the beekeeper, want to say. Take a look at Google images for an idea of just how many honey labels there are- Honey Labels.

This past fall, my club, Northeast New Jersey Beekeepers Association, held a honey label contest. Club members submitted their labels and other club members voted on which they considered to be the best, most interesting, etc. the label designs were interesting, as were the choices for winners. Winning entries were- J First place, I Second place and A Third place.



Northeast NJ Beekeepers Association Sept. 2014 Label Contest
 

I've been pondering my packaging and my labels. What do I want my brand to look like? First, I'm not really looking to have a brand nor do I expect to have a honey crop large enough for world-wide recognition. I love the traditional, glass jars used by my Dad so that decision has been made. I also like the idea of clear labels so you can see through the jar and through the honey.

A talented artist that I have know for her entire life has created various labels for me to use. I'm not going to share them with you now because I am not yet sure which I like the best. I also don't want anyone to borrow my label and use it for themselves! I can tell you that she does some really interesting art which you can see at her Etsy Store-DeepCereal. Her work has a sense of whimsy that I really like and it isn't too serious.

So, while my bees rest up in their hive, I'm busy getting ready for spring and my 2nd hive and thinking about jars and labels and packaging as well as extracting and swarming and bee stings.

Happy January!

 

Updates and Plans for 2015

*So it has been warm this Christmas week in northern New Jersey. Bees have been flying here and around the state. Some have been bringing in pollen. Others have been house cleaning.....removing dead bees, stretching their legs and wings, pooping. Yup....they do that too!



Dec. 27, 2015

*The beginning of a new year means new calendars. One of my girls has become a calendar girl. Jim's photo of a honeybee in a cucumber flower was chosen by the New Jersey Beekeepers Association to appear in the 2015 calendar. She's on the May page.



NJ Beekeepers Association 2015 calendar
 

*All the experienced beekeepers and the books say winter is the time to catch up on reading bee literature and to plan for the spring. So that's my plan. In preparation for Spring, we are putting together supers and frames for a second bee hive, getting honey supers in shape and thinking about planting bee friendly flowers. In anticipation of a honey supply, I am investigating types of jars...glass, plastic, size, shape.....there are tons of choices and I'm deciding on a label style for the McBees.

Happy New Year everyone!