Category Archives: beekeeping

August 6, 2012 · 10:41 PM

Harvest at Sunshine Gardens a Bust

I was super excited to pull 8 frames of honey off my hive at the Sunshine Community Gardens on Sunday. I had high hopes for some delicious honey produced in a pesticide free environment teeming with flowers and vegetables. What I got instead was a super thick almost goo like substance that has a sweet taste but doesn’t smell like honey.

After almost 36 hours, it is still sitting in the first 5 gallon filtering bucket laughing at gravity.

The “honey” that actually made it through the first coarse filter is barely even going through the nylon strainer bag. I brought it to the Austin Urban Beekeeping Meetup Group this evening and the general consensus is that it is dumpster honey.

For those unfamiliar with this particular variety of honey, it is when your girls decide to ignore all the beautiful flowering plants around town, and go straight to a dumpster of a restaurant or other business where high fructose corn syrup is plentiful. You may recall the Brooklyn hive whose honey turned red after hitting up the local maraschino cherry factory.

So this batch of honey is going in the garbage. I plan on sending a sample to A&M to do an analysis just try and get some clue on what happened, but it certainly not how I wanted my inaugural harvest from the gardens to turn out.

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Tagged as austin, beekeeping, honey, sunshine gardens

July 28, 2012 · 3:26 PM

What’s hot for beekeepers now?

Fashion forward beekeepers are wearing these cute little numbers around the apiary. Who says you can’t look good while inspecting a hive?

Speaking of cute, Knives 2.0 produces the most beautiful friendly bees I have ever come across.

Today I put a bee escape on both hives at Baab-Brock farms in preparation for a honey harvest tomorrow. I plan on also pulling honey out of the Sunshine Community Garden the following weekend. If my hives are any indication, the recent rains have kicked off another strong nectar flow and the girls are taking advantage of it.

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Tagged as austin, beekeeping, fashion

July 25, 2012 · 10:45 PM

Knives 2.0 Loves Propolis

You may recall that I had to requeen Knives’ hive in early spring. I was unable to get a BeeWeaver queen that early so my beekeeping friend Jim Hogg got a bunch from his friend who breeds his own. He uses Minnesota Hygienic Queens which he then breeds with his own stock. I’m not sure what the final combination ends up being, but these are the most gentle bees I have ever seen. I could probably inspect their hive in a smoking bear suit, and they would still just go about their business. However their gentleness is outmatched by their propolis production. These bees glue down everything. And then they glue it down again to be extra sure.

I tried to take some pictures, but they really don’t do the girls justice.

So while inspecting this hive is a bit sticky, I’ll take the mild inconvenience over hot bees. I’ve also found that I hardly see small hive beetles in this hive while Rue’s right next door always has some running around. They probably find it incredibly difficult to find a corner or crack to hide in since everything is gummed up.

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July 15, 2012 · 9:03 PM

Honey in the Gardens

Due to the July 4th holiday, it’s been two weeks since I’ve been out to check the hives at the Sunshine Community Gardens. The girls have certainly been busy filling up the top most super with honey.

The honey looks darker than the honey I pulled off from Baab-Brock Farms. I think a pollen analysis is definitely in order when I harvest 8 frames from this hive. I’m very curious on what the girls have been feeding on either from the gardens or the surrounding area.

Since all eight frames were drawn out with wax and honey on the top super, I went ahead and added another one. I’ve always loved my frame grip for inspecting frames because it allows me to leave one hand free for other tasks. I also find it makes a handy frame spacing guide when adding on a new super.

It is very important to get frame spacing correct otherwise you may find yourself having issues down the road as the bees will try and fill any large gaps to get the proper spacing in the hive.

Here is a shot of some nicely spaced frames ready for the girls to start working.

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Tagged as austin, beekeeping, rosemary, urban beekeeping

June 30, 2012 · 2:45 PM

Summertime Inspection

After it hit 109 on the mercury this week, I was dreading the weekend inspection, but we had a small respite today with a possibility of some much needed rain.

Rosemary is trucking along, and I may need to add a 5th super this week. She is slowly but surely building up her honey stores, and I am very curious of what this honey from the community garden will taste like. It looks much darker than the recent South Austin harvest perhaps from all the sunflowers in the area. If I am able to take some honey from this hive, I think a pollen analysis is definitely in order.

She is also still laying tight brood patterns and is still a very gentle hive.

Before heading over to Baab-Brock Farms, we stopped by the Dai Due booth at the Austin Farmer’s Market. I’m a big fan of anything Jesse prepares especially since he sources everything he can locally. I traded 2 gallons of the recent spring honey harvest for some of his delicious Venison/Pork Hot Dogs. You may see my honey in one of his breakfast creations at his stand so stayed tuned for updates.

The inspection at Baab-Brock Farms was straight forward. Both hives are doing well and still have a lot of honey packed away. I tend to be conservative when it comes to harvesting honey because you never know what the Austin summer will bring plus I’d rather not feed my bees in fall or winter if I can help it. Both hives are also bringing in a lot of pollen.

I’ll end this week’s post with a shot of something that represents the sound of summer in Austin.

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Tagged as austin, beekeeping, urban beekeeping

June 24, 2012 · 5:37 PM

Brought to you by the letters H and S

In my third year of beekeeping, I believe I have found the magic formula for an enjoyable honey harvest.

Use a bee escape
Remove frames from hive
Harvest honey
Enjoy a delicious meal and a honey and spirits based beverage
Bottle honey

Even though it has been near 100 degrees for the past few days, the bee escape did its job, and I had minimal bees in the supers for the harvest. I was able to pull two full eight frame supers off my Baab-Brock Farm’s hives.

My spring time harvests have typically been a very light floral honey, and this harvest was no exception.

The bee escape does remove all the bees from the super so pests will try and take advantage of the situation. In my case, I had to deal with small hive beetles but there was no place for them to hide.

After the harvest, you do need to wait to let the honey separate from the wax if you are using the crush and strain method. Brenna found a delicious cocktail recipe that uses both honey and scotch called the Penicillin, and it cures what ails you.

We probably pulled close to 50 pounds of honey today.

Here is a great shot that shows 3 seasons of Worker Bee Honey with today’s harvest in the middle.

There is still a bunch of uncapped honey in both hives so I expect at least one more honey harvest before the Texas summer kills everything. I only hope we will get some good fall rains again this year so that our fall nectar flow is as good as our spring one.

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Tagged as austin, beekeeping, honey harvest

June 18, 2012 · 9:42 PM

Dial H for Honey

I’m convinced that Baab-Brock farms is ideally situated for creating massive honey producing machines. Even during the drought last year, the two hives I had were able to gather enough honey for their own winter stores.

I always tell folks not to expect honey their first year as a beekeeper as a general rule of thumb. Rue has decided to break all those rules and pack away honey like it is going out of style. She has seriously filled up three supers worth of the stuff.

Here’s a frame of honey.

And another.

Oh look, here is another one.

Not to be outdone, Knives 2.0 has refilled her honey super that I harvested less than 3 weeks ago.

I’m planning on a massive honey harvest this upcoming weekend because these hives are about to be taller than I am. Rue is already at 6 supers, and I’ll need a ladder soon if she keeps on growing. I can’t believe this hive started in April.

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June 17, 2012 · 8:21 AM

I caught my first tube today….sir.

I’ve been in Florida for the past few weeks so I’ll be checking the hives today and posting updates. Until then, I’ll direct you all over to an entry on making surf wax at Baab-Brock Farms.

The Honey Must Flow

Before I get to the exciting honey news, Rosemary is trucking along, and I decided to remove the entrance reducer and add a third super to the hive.

She is starting to store honey in the frames so I also removed the feeder and will hopefully be done feeding this hive for the season. This is a good thing with her propensity for building wax on the inner cover with the feeder on. Nothing too bad this week, but I’m glad to be done with holding my breath every time I open the hive.

Moving on to Baab-Brock farms, Rue surprised me with her third super entirely filled with honey.

They are just starting to cap it so it is not quite ready to harvest. There must be a good flow on for them to basically fill out a super in a week’s time. My only concern with harvesting out of this hive is I was feeding them up until the 20th. While the bulk of this wax and honey has been drawn out in the past week, there could be a few frames of “honey” they may be the syrup I was feeding them.

The hero of this week is Knives 2.0 for having 2 supers filled with honey in various stages of curing. I was able to pick out 8 frames of capped honey for harvesting. I didn’t get a chance to use the bee escape as I was out of town for most of the weekend. I was concerned about brushing the bees off the combs, but Knives 2.0 makes some chill bees so it was a non-event.

One of the days I’m going to buy an extractor, but until then, it is the crush and strain method for me.

Here is a shot of all the wax in the first straining bucket.

After it strains through the first bucket and then a fine mesh, it is ready to bottle.

Please pay no attention to the cat. Worker Bee Honey is bottled in near cleanroom facilities.

Bottling in Worker Bee Honey clothing is essential for extra flavor.

After all the honey drains, you are left with wax that needs to be melted and used for various fun projects. Stay tuned for those in future posts.

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Tagged as austin, honey harvest, urban beekeeping

May 20, 2012 · 8:25 PM

I can almost taste the honey!

All the rain in Austin has kept the area green and blooming for the past few months. Rue’s bees are coming back to the hive almost white they are covered with so much pollen.

We suspect it is bindweed, but who knows. Regardless, the bees certainly seem to love it and are bringing tons of it back to the hive.

I was able to take the feeder off of Rue’s hive as well as remove the entrance reducer. She is starting to store away the stuff so that tells me the hive is bringing in plenty from the outside world. She is also laying beautiful frames of brood.

The most exciting news is over with Knives 2.0. They are packing away the honey in the upper supers. Here is a frame of uncapped honey.

Here is a frame where they are already capping it off.

I only have 2 bottles of honey left from spring 2011 so it will be fantastic to pull some honey off my one established hive. I’m not counting on any honey from Rosemary and Rue unless we have a rainy summer. We shall see as the season progresses, but after last year’s drought, we’ll be thankful for any excess liquid gold they can produce.

Category Archives: beekeeping

Harvest at Sunshine Gardens a Bust

What’s hot for beekeepers now?

Knives 2.0 Loves Propolis

Honey in the Gardens

Summertime Inspection

Brought to you by the letters H and S

Dial H for Honey

I caught my first tube today….sir.

The Honey Must Flow

I can almost taste the honey!

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