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.