Bees

[smokinhusker]

Outstanding! I like the Christmas Gift idea...so neat! I sure do miss the honey we had as kids growing up...I buy local now.

 

[alblancher]

Chef Jimmy asked this question in another thread I would like to see what everyone interested in Bees thinks about his questions?

• 
  
• Chef JimmyJ
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Probably not but I didn't know if you where out burning the back 40 or something! Harvested another 13 pints of honey from my one remaining hive yesterday. That gives me 26 pints so far for this season and hopefully at least one more harvest to come!

13 Pints from One Hive...I don't think I have eaten that much Honey in my life so far. Do you sell it or use it up in Recipes? That is too cool! I don't think I have the Nerve to tend a Hive. Too afraid of being Stung! Plus don't you Southern boys have to worry about Africanized Bees...JJ

Does anyone have any good recipes for fresh Honey?   I have been told by many local beekeepers that consuming at least a Tablespoon of local honey everyday goes a long way to clearing up and preventing allergies caused by local pollens. Spring honey from Privet and early summer honey from Tallow trees is very light in color and taste.  I love it on homemade biscuits, pancakes and in green tea.

Some of the later season honey is darker in color and tastes more like a natural cane syrup or molasses.  This honey is loaded with vitamins and comes from plants like  goldenrod.  This honey is great baked into things like fig cookies and pecan pies.

I put honey on my shredded wheat cereal for breakfast, use a bit in my oatmeal and homemade yogurt, It's also good drizzled on cookies.

Any other ideas?

As far as AHB we are constantly reminded by the State of what to look for when tending our hives.  When compared to Small Hive Beetles, Mites, Foulbrood, Wax Moths and other problems AHB has not become an issue down here.  I understand that there is a lot of work being done to eradicate AHB before the get established very well in the state.

 

[alblancher]

BTW, 

properly protected and a slow, careful, deliberate approach when working your bees prevents most stings.  They will sting through the suit if the suit is tight or wet with sweat but my biggest concern is having bees get under the veil and stinging me on the eyelid or lip.    When one gets into the veil  I'll grab him with my glove and slowly walk to a safe place and remove him.  They don't like fast jerky movement and they don't like dark colors.

I've been stung many times through my clothing or by my carelessness but most stings are just irritating little pin pricks.

Fascinating hobby,  I'll go stand by my hives, out of their flight path, and just watch them.

 

[pineywoods]

The man I bought my hives from doesn't wear a bee suit or veil and he has talked me into doing that more than once while opening hives with him and I usually end up with multiple stings doing it. With a bee suit consisting of a jacket with built in veil and separate gloves I haven't gotten one sting. The day we were opening my hives to inspect them before I brought them home he stopped to go put on a veil because of the amount of stings he was getting. It was funny right up until the time I had to take my gloves off to tape up the openings in the hive for transport they need to make duct tape you can work with while wearing heavy gloves

As for the Africanized Honey Bee (AHB) we do have some in the southern part of the state and because of that the state recommends that you not allow hives to re-queen themselves. If you were to get an AHB queen then the entire hive would become an AHB hive. AHB's still produce honey it's just that they are a lot more aggressive.

We have a state bee inspection program here and my hives will be inspected tomorrow.

 

[big andy a]

I'm a rookie at this bee keeping but last year a neighbor was asking around for a place to put another hive and I offered our place.  We have the hive behind a large wood pile with our koi pond nearby so they are really going.  It is amazing to stand close enough to see the returning bees with their bright yellow pollen sacks as they swagger into the hive like returning heros - well I guess they are!

Curt.

 

[moikel]

Remember bee keepers as a kid. They would put the hives on dads farm that backed onto 19000 acres of forest reserve on the Murrumbidgee River. The flowering gums were a favourite.Often sold here by tree type.leather wood,yellow box,iron bark.

I eat it with pecorino style cheese bit of an Southern Italian thing. I dont bake cakes but there are a few recipes for orange & honey cakes.

Makes you wonder about how long something as pure as beekeeping has endured,despite industrialization,pollution changed eating habits .Its thousands of years,there is a message in that somewhere!

 

[rabbithutch]

There will be a special recall election because those bees are 'beeing' exploited and drone't have sufficient representation from hive leaders!

:bluesbros:

 

[rabbithutch]

YIKES

I wanna do the bee dance just looking at the pics.

Ouch! My eyes! Somebody? Please erase that awful image!:th_crybaby2:

 

[roller]

There is nothing like home made gifts...I have made over 100 1/2pt jars of jelly the past month...I have given over 1/2 of them away to friends already..

 

[thoseguys26]

13 pints! WOW  ------   100 1/2 pt jars GEEZE

I can't wait to get my first honey. They've just started to build up the second super at our house. This is a great thread, didn't know so many people had honey bees.

I've learned so much so fast with my new hobby. I'm very glad to have seen this post because I feel much more confident reading about all the expert bee keepers here.

Please share any recipes that you have. And please subscribe to this post so we can ask questions and share our experiences, recipes, and bee adventures.

I'm in CO, not sure if climate / location makes bees act different but at first we were all suited up sorta afraid of being stung but now we don't smoke and only wear eye protection (goggles) when opening the hive and checking on the bees. We've had them for four weeks, no stings.

 

[pineywoods]

I had an interesting day yesterday in the state of Florida you are supposed to register your hives and they come out and inspect them once a year to make sure you don't have any bad diseases and check for AHB's. The amount you pay is based on the number of hives you have which in my case is 10 bucks and as I told my wife just having a bee expert open the hives and go through them with me is well worth more than that. Originally when I went to get my hives the man I was buying them from and I opened them to inspect them and mark the queens. We had one hive we didn't find the queen but figured even after having gone through every frame twice we must have missed the queen since there was lots of brood and everything else looked so good in fact he told me to put a super on as soon as I got home since they were already working 8 of the 10 frames. I've opened the hives each of the two weeks I've had them and never found the queen in that hive. I didn't see as much brood in them either and asked the man that I got them from and he said the big flows are ending and I may have to start feeding. Fast forward to this week and the inspector was coming out so I waited to open the hives until he got here yesterday. We happened to start with that hive and there was zero brood in it lots of bees, pollen, and honey but no brood we went through the frames three times and no queen to be found. So I called the man I got them from and he told me to come get another queen right away and rob a frame of brood from another hive to put into that one. All the other hives looked great and we alcohol tested some bees to test for mites and found zero not even one. I went and got the new queen and put her in and will open the hive Sunday to make sure that she is out of the cage.

Several other things I found out

I had supers on two of the three hives but the bees weren't working the plasticell frames I was told to add sugar water to the top feeders and this would prompt them to start working those frames. We also added a super to the third hive.

I wanted to start feeding pollen and went to buy a stand alone pollen feeder and the man I bought the bees from who also sells bee keeping supplies told me rather than buy the big expensive feeder for just three hives why not just use and old hive which he gave me. He said just put a lb or two of pollen in the rear area of the hive with no frames and make sure that I had the front angled down so water wouldn't run in. Then he suggested since deer like the pollen and I have so many of them to screw the lid down. If you should decide to try this place the feeder hive about 25 feet out in front of the hives if possible then when weather permits leave the lid off during the day for a couple days. If after a week they still haven't found it take a frame out (make sure the queen isn't on it) and take it over and shake the bees into the feeder. Once they discover it they will communicate to all the other hives what they have found.

I was also told a free standing sugar water feeder would promote more bee numbers. If you feed on the hive they will draw out the hive more but if you make them fly to the sugar water that will prompt more brood laying therefore more bees. So I put the sugar water into the top feeders to prompt them to start working the supers and next week I'll make free standing liquid feeders to try to get them to produce more numbers of bees to try to speed up when I can make splits.

Take this information for what it's worth I sure don't know that much about bees but this is info I got this week from the inspector and the man I got the bees from who has had bees for over 40 years and makes his living from them 

 

[diggingdogfarm]

Some of your comments brought a big smile to my face, reminds of some of the tricks in a humorous book I read a long time ago...way back in the early 80's.....
Mastering the Art of Beekeeping by Ormond and Harry Aebi. They , at one time, held the world record for pounds of honey produced per hive.
They had lots of questionable tricks up their sleeves!!!
Anyway, it's a fun book to read.

~Martin

 

[smokin trees]

Anyone ever hear of someone using dried honey crystals in their rubs?


Joe.

 

[diggingdogfarm]

I'm sure it's been done, but dried honey is some pretty expensive stuff....and that which isn't as expensive is from China.

~Martin

 

[alblancher]

One way to get a hive to produce a lot of honey is to pinch the queen.  You requeen after the main honey flow.   Thats one of the things to look for, if a hive is producing a lot of honey but you don't see the amount of brood increasing you have a queen problem

Honey crystals?  I'll have to look into that.

 

[thoseguys26]

How do you re-queen?

 

[pineywoods]

There's more than one way to re-queen but since I had plenty of bees and no queen in there I got a queen that was in a cage. The cage has corks on each end and a piece of what they call candy inside. They put both the cork in the end nearest the candy and then put the queen and a couple worker bees in the other end then put that cork in. When you get it to the hive you take the cork out of the candy end and run a toothpick through the candy and pull it back out that leaves a little hole that seems to stimulate the bees to work the candy faster. You place the cage in between two frames in the hive with the uncorked end pointing up at least somewhat. By the time the candy is eaten the bees in the hive have become used to the new queens pheromones and will accept her. You put the cage in almost straight up in case one of the worker bees die they won't trap her inside the cage. After about 3 days you open the hive and check the cage to make sure she is out if for some reason she isn't then you open the other cork and dump her into the hive.

 

[smokin trees]

One way to get a hive to produce a lot of honey is to pinch the queen.  You requeen after the main honey flow.   Thats one of the things to look for, if a hive is producing a lot of honey but you don't see the amount of brood increasing you have a queen problem

Honey crystals?  I'll have to look into that.

honey crystals....yessir...

...let me know if you find something.  i think i heard myron mixon say he used it as a "secret" ingredient.

 

[scarbelly]

Try here - saw this a while back when looking for something else 

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[baja traveler]

Harvest Day!

The brother and I opened the hive today, and pulled fully loaded frames out one after another. It's been slightly over a year since we did it last, that's way too long, so I'm going to push for a 6 month schedule. Don't know the quantity yet, but the bin we put the frames in weighed 50-60 pounds!