Bee .... .......ing busy, how busy is too busy ?

I am having a very busy year.

Last year I was put on a project at work that I knew would take a lot of time and need a lot of travelling. I will not go into the details of the project, but a good friend who is also on the project sent me the picture below. It sums up our world perfectly.

Knowing the amount of travelling I would be doing I decided to proceed with surgery for an ACL and PCL replacement, basically the ligaments that hold your knee together. For 2 years I had managed without this , but obstacles presented problems and I thought with this amount of travel it would be difficult.

Therefore, I started the year by having knee surgery on January 28th. I had a small window of opportunity between testing and training in the project, and I took it. My birthday, January 30th, I spent with my feet up and on drugs. That is not as much fun as it sounds.

I have a lot of good friends, without whom I would not have been able to manage after my knee surgery. I owe them a huge debt of thanks.

After a week off I worked from home, using the wonders of modern technology to train people. After week 3 I went back to work for a few hours a day then back full time. I had now added physio 3 times per week to my project.

As my knee improved I went back to having a social life and playing bridge. My first few outings were all on crutches, then one crutch. So we need to add a social life and playing bridge 2 or 3 times a week to the list.

Once I was on no crutches I started travelling, to date I have been to LA 5 times, Cincinnati twice, Miami, the UK twice and Poland.  So far I have been away for about 10 weeks in total.  During key times in the project I was working 7 days a week, and on many days there were long hours required.

Next week I am going to China and Japan. I can't even think about the amount of rent I pay on an empty apartment.

Ah, but now I think about it, this is a blog on beekeeping. That takes time too, my hives are at a friends house in upstate New York, and just over 2 hours away. Time constraints mean we have an agreement that I go up once a month, and, despite the demands of the project and my other commitments I have kept true to this schedule. I also managed to fit in a couple of beekeeping classes. So let's add beekeeping to the list.

So far so good, managing to fit it all in.

But beekeeping doesn't end at a weekend's beekeeping. I also make jams, lip balms and bee inspired products. The first few months when I was on crutches made this impossible, but once I was back on 2 legs I was back in business. Now I think about it I did use my week off work to write a database to manage my business

To support the business I maintain an Instagram account, I find that supporting social media is a full time job all by itself.

This month has been especially busy with 2 pop-up events to attend, in August I have made over 90 jars of jam and 111 lip balms.

Where do I find the time ? Well I can make jam in the morning before going to work, as well of course as my daily exercise regime and a spot of meditation.

Did I mention I have a global job ? That involves a few conference calls before "normal" working hours. It is true to say that on occasions I have been doing a call from home whilst putting hot jam in jars. But, what's a little multi-tasking ?, my herding cats project at work is all about multi-tasking.

Still doing fine on time.

After all I live in the city that never sleeps, so why should I ?

Speaking of which "Hotel Jo" is a well rated establishment on Yelp and Facebook. This year I have had visits from friends and family, which I always enjoy. To date 12 guests have enjoyed my hospitality and I have 4 more sets of visitors planned. I would not have it any other way.

So here I am, holding down a full time job, with more than 9-5 hours as well as extras of beekeeping, jam making, lip balm producer, New York hotel and tour guide operator, and bridge player, who expects to have a social life.

Let's say I am busy.

Am I too busy ? Nah, managing to fit it all in.

As if this wasn't all too much I have also embarked on a personal project which takes up one evening a week as well as requiring some other work writing.

I am not stressed, I intensely dislike the overuse of the word stress, when you get stressed over day to day stuff there is no room for the big stuff, there have been times in my life I experienced stress, moving to another country, twice would be two of them. But this is not stressful, just really really busy.

We had a small lull in the project at the end of July, which gave a colleague a chance to comment on the fact that we were so used to working so fast that it felt odd to not be working like crazy and not knowing what to do next.

But do you know what happens when you go really fast? You loose control.

This week has brought about a few things that have made me think about all of this, and the personal project I have been working on reminded me that writing things down is a good way at assessing a situation.

So I took some time out to write this blog.

Firstly I lost my 2 bee colonies, secondly there are times when you feel it is important to be home to support your family and this week is one of them. My knee has been causing me issues since I came back from my last traveling and a very dear friend who has supported me throughout my recovery told me last week that she was worried about it, this reminded me that I needed to keep up the work. Finally I messed something up at work, by not addressing an issue that needed to be addressed in a timely manner.

I cannot deny it, I am too busy.

I am not stopping, but I am being more mindful about priorities.

I am taking a break from full time beekeeping until I have the time to dedicate to it properly, that does not mean I am giving it up entirely, I was able to help with a very exciting New York installation on Tuesday, and I am being more focused on my knee recovery. I am also taking time to assess urgent and important at work.  I have a friend coming this weekend which I am looking forward to and I am doing a pop-up event, all of my stock is made so I can just enjoy sharing beeing inspired.

New BEEginnings

So after a bit of a rest from blogging I have 3 updates for you.

Firstly I am no longer keeping bees in Jersey City. Unfortunately Lynn, my bee buddy developed a severe allergy and the bees had to be removed from her yard. The bees have moved to Connecticut, which is too far for me to have a regular involvement in their well being. Moving them was a fun experience and I plan to write about that in a future blog post.

However, my friend Denise has decided to keep bees on her property upstate and I am helping her set up her "bee farm" This gives me the opportunity to have bees again this year. So hence the name of this post,

But, the most exciting news is that the bees from last year have survived the winter, and have been seen flying on Saturday when the weather was warm enough for them to leave the hive. Having looked after them last year it was so rewarding to know that they survived.

So my new project is somewhat different to last year. This is no longer urban beekeeping, this is very much a countryside project, which brings new opportunities and new challenges. A very interesting new challenge is that of using an electric fence to keep out the bears, not usually a problem in Jersey City. In addition this is very much a team effort with Denise coordinating and hosting 7 hives. That's a lot of building work, but there are 5 of us involved all with different skills.

I am the only one with any experience, but as limited as that is, I was able to help plan what we needed to buy to set ourselves up, and help on teaching how to build the hives. So Saturday found Denise, Kassidy and I in Hudson Valley Bee Supply for our first purchases.  A quick call out to Jorik and the team at Hudson Valley Bee Supply, Jorik was very helpful, he was very happy to talk through our options and I learnt some new tips and techniques.

I had planned to do a similar set up to last year using all medium boxes, but Denise is buying 2 nucs, so we needed at least one deep box each to accommodate them. For the rest of the hives we decided to go for the 8 frame medium boxes, they are much easier to manage than the 10 frames. The nuc will be Russian bees, which is also new for me, last year we had Italian bees which we will also be using for the rest of the hives this year. So this is what we needed for 4 hives.



And, in case you were wondering, it is possible to fit  the parts to build 4 hives in a Jaguar. Thanks to the team there for loading up the car for us.



Once we got back to Denise's the car was unloaded, by the others, ( still no ACL in the right knee) and we set about building the supers. After a quick tutorial from me, Kassidy, Christian ( Kassidy's brother) and Denise all set about building boxes. I then left for a party in the city.

What a team, by early Sunday afternoon all 20 supers were built and there then followed a teaching session on how to build a frame.  I was in the city, so You Tube proved invaluable to help explain things it is quite difficult to describe over the phone.

We still have a lot of preparation work to do for the arrival of the bees, estimated to be tax day, but we made a good start this weekend.

Many thanks to Denise for involving me on this project and for providing me a home for bee's this year. I am looking forward to some exciting times ahead, seeing how the Russian bees compare to the Italian bees, having bees in a rural setting, managing an electric fence and, not least of all, what colour to paint my hive.

I am thinking pink !

So I am on a PATH train from New York to Jersey City, with a box of bees

and the man sitting opposite me says “that’s a first” and I say “ for me too”

I am not sure that my adventures so far are what I expected from bee keeping but I have to say it is a lot of fun.

So regular readers will know that we have 2 hives, one of which has been quite challenging.  We had an issue with the feeder when they were initially put in the hive, the feeder was leaking which meant that the bees were not being fed well and some of them drowned due to the leaking. Although we were able to get them more stabilised and we had a couple of sightings of the queen as well as seeing our first bees emerging from the larva in this hive, but they did not grow at the same speed as the other hive and we probably added the second super too soon.

We did an inspection June 13^th and there were eggs and larva, but when we looked again on the 25^th there were no eggs, we had added a third super on the previous inspection which had no activity at all, and it seemed clear to us that we no longer had a queen. 

We decided to buy a new queen.

So we bought one. I was away that weekend and Lynn picked her up from Union Square and took her home. The installation is another lesson in beekeeping but suffice it to say that after some stings and stories the new queen was installed on the bottom board.

The following Thursday we were both very excited to see what was happening in the hive. We had to work our way down to the bottom and in the first super we saw what we thought was a hatched queen cell. There were a few eggs visible and some larva too, did we have a new queen that the hive produced or was the queen we bought active?

The second super also had a hatched queen cell, but there was no activity at all in these frames. Removing this super we saw the queen cage still on the bottom board surrounded by bees.  Removing the box we saw the queen among the bees, far easier to spot than our previous queen as she was a marked queen.  It was not clear if she had just been released or if she was being kept away from the rest of the hive by the bees surrounding her. Regardless of why, she was not going to be able to do her job from the bottom board.

What to do next………………

My first instinct, which I wish I had stayed with, was to put the hive back together and let the bees work it out. The next thought was to put her in one of the supers. Lynn was more concerned than I was that she was still on the bottom board, and offering the queen the hive tool she hopped on and I lifted her up to put her in one of the supers, and she flew away.

This was my worst moment in bee keeping so far, I deeply regretted not going with my first instinct, but it was done and we needed a new queen, or did we?

We had seen 2 hatched queen cells, perhaps we had a queen, albeit a home grown one and in a fairly weak hive, was this good idea?

We decided to buy a new queen.

I picked her up from Union Square on Saturday morning, the attendants were dead, so I was a little concerned, and my fears were realised as by the time we got to Jersey City she was dead.

Trust me, I have never had this many problems with queens before, but back to the bees.

We were offered a replacement queen, and then an exciting opportunity presented itself, we were offered a feral colony that had been retrieved from a branch. They had a queen and were producing comb which had existing brood, we could combine this with the rapidly diminishing colony we currently had. It seemed the perfect solution, a new queen, more bees and a potentially stronger hive.

After some negotiation and the repackaging the bees in a small cardboard box with a screen I went to pick them up.

This in itself was an adventure, I had to locate a parked truck in Manhattan, remove the orange cone on top and there were the bees. There were a few bees on top of the box, interested in what was going on, but after some encouragement to leave I attached the box to the top of my wheelie case and off we went.  We hailed a cab, which was happy to take us, secured the bees in the back and set off for the PATH.

Once on the PATH train the box attracted some attention. There was one guy who was very interested and asked several questions. A couple of people took a look and then took a second look just to check what they saw. One woman asked if I had a tarantula and as we were about to get off the man sitting opposite me says “that’s a first” and I say “for me too”

So having successfully transported the bees to Jersey City we had to add them to the hive. We used the newspaper method, putting 2 layers of newspaper on the top of the super and then adding a new super, we put some slits in the newspaper, which was recommended in some places and not in others.  However, the advice I liked best was the one that said the slits were for the beekeeper and that the bees don’t care either way.

 Once we took the tape off the box and removed the screen I took out the comb and placed it in the super, tipped over the box to drop in the “newbees” and everyone tumbled into their new home. We shook the screen to get the last of the bees in the super, added the base of one of the feeders so that they had some water and the job was done. The bees were very calm, so I hope that is a good sign and that in the next few days they work their way through the newspaper and form one big happy colony.

A Bee C a lexicon of hobbies

So for a long time I have practised Ashtanga yoga, I have travelled all over the world including an amazing trip to Mysore India, I learnt in Turkey, and I have done workshops in Greece, Sharm El Sheik and Goa. When I first learnt I practised in London, and then in Switzerland and I was excited to move to New York where I have access to Ashtanga any day of the week, but when I got to my 50's I decided I needed a hobby beginning with B.

So I took up Bridge. I had learnt as a teenager, my Father taught me to play, but after a 30 year gap I had to start again as a beginner. It is not as big an opportunity to travel as Ashtanga, but it does at least get me out of the 30's for those of you familiar with my New York habits.

But Bee Keeping has been something that I have wanted to pursue for sometime, and so this year I was able to tick another B off the list and become a Bee Keeper.

In becoming a Bee Keeper I also became a Blogger

I am not planning to give up any of my B's but in the spirit of planning ahead I need to think of a C

I am covered when I get to G as I have been tracing my family tree for years and can hence claim Genealogy. Below is a picture of my Great Grandparents with their children, the girl in the top left of the picture is my Grandmother.

Which then takes me to T, which has to be Travel, in fact I would call that a passion rather than a hobby. I grew up in the UK, but have lived in Switzerland and currently reside in New York. In between moving countries I have travelled for pleasure, work, yoga, family tree research and a couple of weddings. This year alone I have been to a wedding in India and am planning another trip to celebrate a good friend's wedding in Italy. In fact my restless soul has caused my Mother to refer to me as the Wandering Jew.

But between G and T there is a bit of a gap and there is a lot of letters to Z.

An accident last year resulted in knee surgery and a significant change to my yoga practice, but thanks to the lovely Constanza ( who I know reads my blog) I have a much stronger practice and I am able to manage quite well without an ACL in my right knee.

The lack of an ACL means that when I get to S I am not going to be able to consider Skiing, or Skateboarding, for which I am very grateful.

So if anyone has any inspiration for C please let me know, but to date I am signing off as

Yogi
Bridge Master
Bee Keeper
Genealogist
and Wandering Jew

It had to happen

So 5 weeks in and on the third inspection I had my first bee sting, but more about that later

So inspection number 3, we have 2 supers on one hive and 3 on the other and we are still seeing a big difference in the 2 hives. With warnings that we were approaching swarming season we wanted to be sure all was well and that our bees had plenty of space to work.

The smaller hive was the one where we lost a lot of bees early on due to an issue with the feeder and they still don't seem to have caught up. With this being our first year it is not clear if they are behind or, if the other hive is ahead, or maybe a bit of both. This first hive still has 2 completely empty frames in the lower box,  although they have started to work in the upper frames and we saw your royal highness the Queen in the second box presumably laying eggs. as there were eggs and larva present. So probably nothing to worry about but I think this hive may not produce as much honey.

The bigger hive was doing very well, we saw lots of activity , plenty of eggs, larva and most exciting of all we saw a bee emerging, you may be able to spot it in the picture below, and the Queen was present.

The other difference between the 2 hives is that the bigger hive has bees returning with lots of very orange pollen, in the second hive the activity is less and the bees are bringing back a lighter more cream coloured pollen, will be interesting to see if we can discern any difference in the taste or colour of the honey.

So, I am still doing the inspections without gloves, it is much easier to manage the frames and it doesn't worry me if the bees walk my hands. However, today a bee walked on my wrist and got caught in the elastic, resulting in it deciding to sting me. I removed the stinger with my finger nail and Lynn provided an ice pack and some calendula cream. It stung ( not unreasonably ) at the time but the ice eased that very quickly and now it is fine although a little tender to the touch. I am still planning to do the inspections without gloves, and I feel that my first sting is a rite of passage, another experience in becoming a real beekeeper.

Becoming an urban beekeeper

Yesterday we did our first full inspection of the hive and I feel I am now really a beekeeper. The bees arrived on April 18th, unfortunately, due to another commitment I was unable to be there to put them in the hive. My bee buddy Lynn, assisted by a friend who has kept bees before put them in the hive. 

We had already made the syrup using a recipe I found 

2 quarts (8 cups) of white sugar (do not use brown sugar or other substitute)3 cups of almost boiling water1 cup of chamomile tea (can use chamomile flowers or tea bags)2 tablespoons of your own honey½ teaspoon of fresh squeezed lemon juicea healthy pinch of sea salt3-4 drops of lemongrass essential oil1 teaspoon vegetable glycerine

The syrup smelt great and we both wanted to be sure we gave the bees a good start. 

The hiving process went well I understand, but we had a problem with one of the feeders leaking and Lynn had to refill it several times. The other hive was good and the bees set out feeding greedily , it seems they liked the syrup as much as I did. 

We opened the hive on the Thursday the 23rd, to make sure the queen had been released from the cage. Both queens were out and we left the hives to do their work. Unfortunately the feeder was still having issues and Lynn had to refill it again. 

So yesterday, May 2nd was our first full inspection. We were both very excited, and as we had not seen any evidence of laying hopeful that the queens were alive and well and doing their job. 

After a few puffs of smoke Lynn opened the first hive and the first sight was the bees crowding round the feeder where they had built a huge amount of burr comb. She removed the feeder and the super surrounding it and then we could clearly see the bees working. The first frame came out fairly easily and she then proceeded to check each frame. There was a little burr comb between some of the frame which she removed, after finding a technique that worked. All of the burr comb was put in a bowl which she we sat outside the respective hives once we had finished the inspections. All of the frames had some evidence of work and when we got to the middle we were rewarded with not only a sight of eggs and larva but the queen bee herself. 

Then I proceeded to inspect the second hive. I had decided to try the inspection without gloves. The book had recommended this and whilst Lynn was inspecting the first hive I had bare hands, several bees had landed on my hands and I was interested to see that they were carrying LOTS of pollen on their legs. They were happy walking on my hand and if I blew gently they flew away. 

This was the hive that had had the feeder issues. There was not as much activity round the feeder and it removed easily. This hive was a lot less busier than the first and the first few frames had no evidence of any work. Once we got to the middle there was a large piece of burr comb between the middle frames. There was a big gap between these frames , where the queen cage and been and the bees had filled it with a piece of burr comb almost as big as the frame. We were able to remove it in 2 pieces and put this in the bowl. The burr comb had a lot of pollen, nectar, eggs and larva and we were both sad that we have to remove so much work that the bees had done. The frame after this we saw the queen. I put the frames back and tried to make the gaps between them a little more even and the inspection was done. 

Although it was a little earlier than the book suggests we added a new super to the first hive. It was clear that they were way ahead of the second hive, and as we are using medium supers, not deeps we were expecting to do this earlier anyway. We didn't replace either feeder as there is now plenty of flowers in bloom in the area. 

For the rest of the day ( after a nice lunch made by Lynn) we built more supers and frames. Lynn had bought cedar supers which we had left au naturel. Lynn waxed the new supers that we built to see if that makes any difference to the look and how well they wear. We also built additional frames so that we have enough supers and frames for 3 boxes on each hive. After that we will have 2 honey supers on each hive. But that is not until much later in the year.