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.
Tag Archives: beekeeping
Sunshine Community Garden Site Prep
In a few short weeks, I’ll be starting a hive at the Sunshine Community Garden in central Austin.
The hive is going to be behind the garden’s offices and away from the main planting areas.
The first step was to weed and remove brush from the area.
I then put down a layer of decomposed granite to create a level base. Here’s a shot of me using my amazing upper body strength to tamp a level surface.
I’m using two cinder blocks as a hive stand. You can see that my B.S in Architectural Engineering is finally paying off as I level them.
After getting the site prepared, a wander around the gardens makes me think the girls will be very happy here.
Filed under beekeeping
Swarm Season in Central Texas
With the mild winter Austin had this year, swarm season is already upon us. I decided to create a page on my blog to consolidate information on who to call to report a swarm as well as some general information about them. I borrowed heavily (i.e. stole most of the content) from the wonderful Albuquerque Beekeepers web page.
I don’t have too many folks on the list yet, but the two people I currently do have, Konrad Bouffard and Jim Hogg, I know personally, and they will do everything they can to safely remove the bees. As I find other folks I trust, I’ll update the list accordingly.
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Spring Time = Sting Time
In my defense, we’ve had an abundance of rainy weekends this winter which has prevented me from getting out to check the hives as often as I would like. This early spring has also thrown off my timing, and when I showed up to inspect the hives today, I really thought I would have a nice easy inspection.
Boy was I wrong.
Both hives were busting out at the seams which made them super aggressive during the inspection. I checked Knives’ hive first and the top super was still all honey. I had a heck of a time getting it off because the girls had built comb between the frames of the two supers and used them to raise brood. I ended up ripping up the comb to remove the super killing the poor brood in the process.
This was my first giant fail as a beekeeper. Poor Knives had to overcome so much last summer from the drought, a supersedure, and a pesticide incident, and now I don’t add an extra super early enough.
Instead of sulking, I need to repair the situation because Austin will be in full blown nectar flow in a few weeks if we don’t get a freak late freeze. I added the bee escape to take off a super full of honey and also added an extra box of empty frames. I’ll harvest the honey tomorrow and put the super back on for them to clean up the leftovers.
I then moved on to Marge’s hive, and it was a good thing I did her second. I honestly had a “I may get stung to death” moment after I got down a few supers. She also built comb between the frames for brood which made it extremely difficult to remove the frames and the supers. I was just covered in angry bees and got stung twice on the neck through my veil. Even though I couldn’t go all the way down, I feel that the bottom supers may be empty as they moved up the hive during the winter. I’m going to try and check tomorrow morning when the temperature is closer to 50 degrees. I’m hoping the colder temperature will prevent as many bees from taking to the air, but not be too cold to get chilled brood. Any advice on dealing with a hive gone completely bonkers would be much appreciated.
I’ll end this post with a macro shot of what a stinger looks like after it is removed from your neck.
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Florida Bees
I spent the past few days visiting my folks in Jupiter, FL which is just north of West Palm Beach. One of their neighbors are hosting some hives on their land for a Florida beekeeping during the “winter” months. This particular beekeeper mainly provides pollination services for the various citrus groves in the area as well as farms and orchards on both the coasts.
Right now, a small ground cover weed is in full bloom in the area which the bees are hitting hard. Looking at the blooms individually, they are very small and not an obvious source of pollen or nectar, but when you have 1 or 2 acres of the stuff, it is all of a sudden an excellent food source.
I stalked this one bee for a long time before I finally got a good shot to show all the pollen these tiny flowers are producing. This girl was loaded down with the stuff and wasn’t even taking the time to move all the pollen to her pollen sacs. She was literally covered head to toe with this white pollen.
Bees will take advantage of whatever is available and goes to show that what most people consider weeds are vital for the local pollinators during the lean months before the major spring and summer blooms.
Filed under beekeeping, pollination
Austin City Ordinance Meeting
Last evening, I got to participate in a review of a section of the City of Austin’s Beekeeping Ordinance. A resolution was passed last November basically stating Austin wanted to be more bee-friendly and prioritize removal and relocation of bees whenever possible over extermination.
The current language reads as follows under a section entitled DESTRUCTION OF WILD OR ABANDONED BEES:
Without notice and a hearing, the health authority may destroy:
(A) a colony not residing in a hive;
(B) a swarm of bees; or
(C) a colony residing in an abandoned standard or man-made hive.
The proposed language would add this language to the section:
Wherever reasonably possible, the City shall prioritize the removal and relocation of wild or abandoned bees over destruction.
It is not a large change, but at least Austin is attempting to update their codes in the recognition of the plight bees are facing in this day and age.
Perhaps the best change, in my opinion, is updating the contact list 311 uses when people call in with bee swarms or wild hives on their property. The list currently has extermination services first with bee removal services near the bottom. The new updated list will have removal services first with those that only provide extermination services at the bottom. Priority on the list will also be given to beekeepers and services that will come get swarms free of charge. The hope is to encourage people to use relocation services as opposed to killing the bees.
One of the local news stations was out covering the story that you can watch by clicking the link below.
Filed under beekeeping, education
Final Check of the Season (one month later than I planned)
Austin had an unseasonably warm weekend to ring in 2012 so I took the opportunity to get in one last inspection of the hives. Between rainy weekends, Thanksgiving, our trip to Kauai and the holidays, it was later in the season than I would have preferred, but sometimes you just have to roll with the punches.
My main goals were to verify honey stores, remove any unneeded supers, and flip over the inner covers for better ventilation. The girls were not very happy to have their cozy hives opened up. This was the first and last closeup from the unsuited photographer.
Marge’s hive looked good with the top super still having 6 out of the 8 frames filled with honey. Knives’ hive was another story.
The late nectar flow we had in October was enough to fill two supers full of honey, but the fifth was asking too much. I ended up taking the top super off as there was minimal wax drawn out. Knives had a rough 2011 so I’m hoping 2 supers of brood and 2 supers of honey will get her through the winter and let her kick some butt next spring.
Happy New Year to all my readers and may 2012 bring you good health and happiness.
Filed under beekeeping
Kauai Honey and Mead
After our visit with Matt Moore earlier in the week, we stopped by Nani Moon Mead today and met with owner Stephanie Krieger for a 5 flight mead tasting.
Stephanie produces small batches of mead using honey and fruit produced on Kauai and the other islands of Hawaii. Matt Moore is one of her suppliers of honey which made the visit to Nani Moon a nice bookend to our beekeeping adventure on Kauai.
After the tasting, we decided to go with the Winter Sun which is made with Kauai wildflower honey, starfruit, and passionfruit. Here is a picture of the mead with a bottle of Matt’s BeeWise Honey.
Here is a video of Stephanie talking about her mead and all five varieties she produces.
Filed under honey
Beekeeping in Kauai Part II
After Matt Moore took us on a tour of the gardens, we suited up to go visit the apiary. Before I get into that, here are some facts I learned about beekeeping in Hawaii:
- Kauai is one of the few places left that doesn’t have Small Hive Beetles or Varroa Mite (I think it is ok if we hate Hawaiian beekeepers a little bit for that)
- They do have wax moths and do have to worry about the common bee ailments like chalkbrood and nosema.
- Starting a hive in Kauai is actually pretty hard because of all the restrictions on importing bees. Most folks have to either catch a swarm or make friends with a local beekeeper to get a split.
- Coconut husks make great smoker fuel
I really liked this sign as we walked towards the apiary. The farm is 10 acres with fruit trees all over the place so this is a nice reminder you are entering an area with lots of bees.
Here is a shot of the apiary.
This is Matt Moore taking a cover off of one of the hives.
Matt has an interesting way of removing supers (at least interesting to me). Instead of stacking supers as he removes them, he upends them as shown in the picture. He feels he squishes less bees this way.
Matt’s lit smoker with coconut husk as fuel. It burns really well and produces a nice cool smoke.
Matt and I opening up one of his hives.
We spotted a queen on one of the first hives we opened up. Matt says the golden color is very typical of a Hawaiian Queen.
This was a nice frame of honey pulled from one of the hives.
I was going to make this a two part post, but I still have a bunch of miscellaneous photos from our visit that I’ll post soon. All in all, this was a great visit, and it is amazing how bees can adapt to all sorts of climates and geography.
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Beekeeping in Kauai Part I
Aloha from the beautiful island of Kauai. Gitanjali and I will be spending the next week visiting our 50th State along with our friends Matt and Brenna. I was very curious about beekeeping practices in Hawaii so I arranged to meet up with Matt Moore who is a local beekeeper on the island. He keeps 30 or so hives on a beautiful 10 acre farm just northwest of Kapaa which is on the east side of Kauai. Before taking a peak at the hives, we explored the farm and got a sense of what the bees are currently using for pollen and nectar sources.
This is Okinawa Spinach which is an edible ground cover.
This is another shot of the spinach showing the pollen sac of a bee.
This is Malabar Spinach which is a perennial vine found in the tropics that also has edible leaves.
This is Tulsi Basil which is a variety of basil found in India.
Here we have the flower from a native Hawaiian yam.
I didn’t catch the name of this plant but it was similar to a Bird of Paradise.
While not a good source of nectar, the pollen from coconut trees was very attractive to the bees.
These were just a handful of the flora around the farm that the bees were visiting. With so much in bloom, I figured the girls would produce honey all year, but this side of the island is very rainy and during the winter months, it rains a lot off and on through March. So even though the bees don’t slow down due to colder weather, they do go through a “winter” cycle as the rain keeps them in the hive more often than not during these months.
Stay tuned for Part II. Mahalo.
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Urban Beekeeping in Austin, Texas 