What's it like to have a day off?

It's been another busy Saturday, I think for me every day is busy. A day off work isn't a day off. I had several things I wanted to do today. My truck radiator was leaking,  bought a new one which arrived Thursday. Figured I'd do the timing belt while I had the radiator out.  Did not go as planned. I needed a tool to remove the damper pulley, went to the shop and made one. Came back, took off the pulley and broke the crank position sensor bracket. Back to the shop to do some welding. Instead of two hours it took close to six. Wanted to do some work on the engraving table, I did get a table built for it to set on. In the process blew a seal on my framing nailer. That will wait for repairs, I hadn't used it in probably 3 years.  Wanted to do some work on the grafting trays, didn't happen. I do have some blanks cut out but need to bend and install hinges. Maybe Monday evening. I did get a modified Langstroth box made for a club member who received some flow frames as a gift.  I also wanted to cut wood for my incubator but that didn't happen. We're doing a build day at the club tomorrow so maybe then. Even though I didn't get everything done it was still a pretty good day. So thankful for the skills and resources to fix my truck. Thanks dad for those years in the garage.

We're returning to the Dark Ages

I had a bit of an epiphany today. Having a conversation with a co-worker we discussed that the USA is currently involved in a civil war. It's not super violent yet but there certainly is a fair amount of violence. Oddly it comes from the people who most vociferously advocate tolerance yet have none.  Certainly the nation is divided like never before, but there is more. I say we're entering the Dark Ages again and I really believe it's true. If we look back to the 16th century what body had the most power? Then it was the Roman Catholic Church. Today it's shared by academia and news media. And both have become more religion and less objective over the recent years. Academics today focus more on theory than fact. The news media has become more opinion than news. When confronted with facts and evidence which contradicts the current idea, they refuse to accept. Much like when Galileo turned his telescope to the stars, the church and the scientific community would not accept his findings. Today it's not an earth centered solar system, or a flat earth (although there are still some flat earthers). Today it's pseudoscience like global warming, climate change and  greenhouse effects.  These are all religious items and held sacred. Just bring up any evidence against any of these and you'll have a war. And social programs like single payer health care, free college, gun control, and socialist societies. No matter how many times it's been tried, the current socialists simply say that the others just did it wrong. Fortunately for us today the new religions haven't yet amassed the power the church had in Galileo's day. We still have people with enough common sense to know that there are only two sexes. And how to tell the difference. Stand firm, the elite call us deplorables, but we can see the truth that they can't.  I've said this countless times, it's like the story of the emperor's new clothes. The liberals and socialists are walking around naked but either don't realize it or are too afraid to admit it. And if you try to tell them, like the church of the dark ages, they will not accept facts. But we need to keep trying. 

Just some ramblings

More lessons in the world of beekeeping and specifically queen rearing. I think the one item I would really stress is no brood in the cell builder. Three times this year I had queen cells on frames that I didn't see, which emerged and killed my grafts. The first was because I added a brood frame and just didn't think about checking for QC's. The others were when rogue queens got loose, then got themselves mated and started laying. It's a bit more work but I think that henceforth I'll pull and check each frame every time I do grafts. The second lesson, which directly relates to the first. Find a way to secure cages.  This is where the second and third queens got loose. I'm using nicot cups and roller cages but some cages aren't real tight. I suspect that when a queen emerges, bees gather on the cage and the weight pulls it off.  I need to make frames with a bar under the cage to hold it up.  Another item is the temperature in the cell builder.  When I first started I had some good results, late April and through May. Then it got hot in June and I vented the top of my boxes. Three sets of grafts didn't finish. Took out the vents and I had some of my best results in July and August. Recently, just this past week, again I have cells that just don't finish and the over night temps are getting below 60. Since I run all screened bottoms my thoughts are I'm losing too much heat. I put political signs under my cell builders to see what happens. I know that most of the country has stopped their queen rearing, I'm in central Florida and I still see drones in more than half of our boxes. It doesn't cost me anything and I certainly can use the experience so I  think I'll keep grafting at least four to six each week at the off chance I can get a queen mated.  Had one mate last year during Christmas week so it is possible. 

Mini mating nucs just aren't for me

This is my first year trying to raise queens. As I am the type who will do a lot of research and then action, I studied what people were using to mate queens. The one item that nearly all of the queen breeders doing YouTube videos neglect to mention is that for every cell you make you need a mating box. And bees to put in them. That's the largest problem in queen raising, getting them mated. Some people use queen castles, a large box divided in three or four compartments and each has some frames and a queen is added to go mate. Some are using full size boxes and some a form of mini. I also read a very good book that's available on pdf called Practical Queen Rearing, by Frank C Pellett. Written about 100 years ago, still has some great information. In his book Frank Pellett mentions the mini mating nuc, three frames 4 1/2 inches square. At the time of publication  they were forty cents each. Wow! I found that a lot of queen breeders use that same type of mini nuc today, just to get the queen mated.  So I decided to make some double two medium frame mating boxes. Essentially a five frame nuc with a divider board in the middle and opposing entrances. So I have two nucs facing different directions with two frames each. The theory seemed sound, I'm using almost exclusively medium frames so I have at least as much if not more area than the mini's.  The first go around was pretty good. I got 5 of 8. But then different things happened. I learned that I needed to really be on top of what's happening in the nuc. Once the queen mates, she can lay up every cell in two or three days, (assuming there is some food stores in some cells). And if one is not ready they can and will swarm. I had two boxes do this. Put in a virgin, came back two weeks later to find some capped brood and a queen cell. Two weeks might be too long but I have a full time day job and need to be able to juggle queening at the same time. I also learned it's pretty hard to catch a queen in that narrow two frame box. It took me three tries yesterday to catch one and at first she actually flew off.  I was told at bee college to leave the top open and she'll come back.  Did just that and sure enough in about 10 minutes she was back. For both the space in catching and the extra area for her to lay in, I think I'll go to three and four frame boxes. In the off season I'll convert these six doubles I have into four frame boxes, just remove the center divider board, or cut a section out of it so the bees can cross.  I plan to try at least a few three frame boxes, maybe five or six, whatever I can make from a single sheet of ply. They'd be five inches across and easier to catch a queen in. By mid April I'd like to have 40 mating nucs running so that's 120 to 160 frames, plus the actual boxes. A lot of inventory. Might rethink this and shoot for 25 this coming year and 50 the next year. I have almost six months to think about it and get ready. Guess I'll stay busy during the winter.

Colony management, making lemonade

I think this falls in line with management. About 4 weeks back I noticed one of the colonies in my home yard was lacking young brood. Made a note that there might be a queen problem, I found what looked like an open cell.  First thought was they superseded her, (she was over a year old and not very good).  So I left them. Checked about a week and a half later, no brood, no signs of eggs or larvae. Gave them a frame from a different hive. Waited a week, no queen cells on the frame. So I figure there's a queen but just not laying. Again I waited until last Wednesday. No brood, no eggs, no sign of queen. So now what are my options. Something we should all think about from time to time. I had several grafts being made into queens, there are at least 4 virgin queens in mating nucs so getting a queen in a week shouldn't be a problem. And hopefully next year, from March to November we'll have queens all the time. Considered different possibilities, I really wanted a mated queen to put on the box in a cage and check the reaction. One can determine quickly if there is a queen in the box like this. I decided to go to a different yard and pull a frame of brood, at least with brood in the box the pheromones will suppress laying workers.  And the brood will maintain the population somewhat. While in that hive I spotted the queen. She too was a year old, and although still laying, I had planned to replace her in November. Made a quick decision to catch her and see if the first box was queen-less. Took home the frame of brood, put the queen in a cage and checked. Bees immediately came up to check out the queen. Fed her through the holes in the cage, were not aggressive just welcoming. So there was not a queen. Time to make some more decisions. Do I take this queen back to her old home? Do I leave her in this box in a cage overnight? Maybe for a few days? If I leave her then take her away will they suddenly panic and start making cells? (Now that''s something I might try to experiment with).  So here is what I decided. The second colony is very strong with four frames of brood and a lot of young larvae. I decided to leave the queen caged for two days in the first hive, check for any queen cells in the second colony and go from there. Meantime my grafts and virgins can be doing their things. Went back and checked the second box, at least 8 queen cells. I figure I'll leave them alone and create a bit of a brood break. In the first box I decided I'd release the queen after the third day but also after doing an oxalic acid treatment. There is currently no brood in this hive so it should be quite effective. Pulled out the queen, put her in my pocket and gassed the hive. Waited an hour and put the caged queen back in. The next morning I let her out, she ran right down between the frames. I'll check this box in four days for brood. In 11 days or so one of the capped cells will emerge as the new queen, in hive 2. So on day 9 or 10 I'll do an OA treatment there.  Will still be some capped brood but not a lot. Here is a prime example of why a beekeeper should have at least two strong colonies of bees. From the misfortune of losing a queen, I'm using the time to replace a weak queen and treating two hives for mites. Making some lemonade from what could have been bad.

Racist branding

I'm really growing tired of the constant racist branding going on. It's almost gotten to a point where if someone simply notes that another person is a different color then that person is a racist.  Looking up the term in Websters finds a racist one who practices racism, which is defined here;  

1: : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.

2. : a doctrine or political program based on the assumption of racism and designed to execute its principles.  
     : a political or social system founded on racism

3. : racial prejudice or discrimination

So today here's my issue. Last week Megyn Kelly, (she's some TV news personality, I didn't know who she was until this week). Made some comments about Halloween costumes and black or white face paint.  She said nothing about demeaning races, nothing at all which coincides with the above definitions.  Simply about costumes, and what actually constitutes racism. Now that would really be an excellent discussion. What exactly constitutes racism? Since this episode there have been comparisons to another TV personality, someone named Luann who dressed as Diana Ross. I didn't see what she did as Diana, from what I understand there was nothing disrespectful about it. It was some costume, perhaps she really admires Diana and wanted to look like her. But that has been called racist.   I did some searching and couldn't find any comments by Diana Ross, was she even offended?  We're getting too sensitive to what really isn't a problem and making a real problem much worse.  Is there racism? Certainly but not as much and not in all of the places we're lead to believe. 

About 30 years ago there was a black pop star who had this signature thing about wearing a sequined glove. That year I saw a lot of kids, of pretty much every race wearing a glove on Halloween and no-one screamed racism. For at least the past 30 years, costumes have featured president's faces. If someone wears an Obama face is that person a racist? Nixon, and Reagan are OK but Obama isn't?  Let's get a grip here. I also expect to see a fair number of hockey masks, are we demeaning all hockey players? 

It's not always about what someone does but why they do it. Disney has been accused of racism because in cartoons they use black musicians and copy their mannerisms. I'd call that complimentary. If I make a cartoon and include Chuck Berry as a character, at some point he's going to play guitar and skip across the stage, just as any cartoon of Michael Jackson will moon walk. It's only racism if the intent falls in line with the above definition. 

I'm sure Ms Kelly will come out all right, my understanding is that she was making 28 million a year. Most of us working class might make 2 million in a lifetime. But that's not the problem. The problem is we have the speech and thought police everywhere. The most heinous crimes today are offending someone. And the fear that someone might offend someone is beginning to dictate policies in our society and workplaces. Pretty soon simply breathing in the same room with someone will be an offense and subject to discipline.

Getting stung all the time. Why do I do it?

I haven't posted anything here for a while and I'll just ramble a bit. I'm frequently asked if I get stung a lot and my answer is most days in the club yard at least a couple of times. Lately it's been real nice, there's a honey flow on and it seems that you can really do a lot before getting them mad enough to sting. But I digress. It's probably about an 80 percent probability that I'll get at least 1 sting in any of the yards. (I now have bees in 4 locations). The why question though is hard to answer. Does it hurt? Yes, especially Saturday as I worked the hive in shorts and a bee crawled up my leg. I think she just panicked and couldn't get out so I took one in the posterior.  No I don't enjoy the stings. But I do enjoy the bees. I'm constantly intrigued by everything that they do. I've seen that the colonies have good and bad days, that the attitude can change with the weather and availability of food. When I make up a cell starter, putting a bunch of bees in a box without a queen, within just minutes they start to roar. They know there is no queen, no brood, no hope to continue and they get excited. Then just a few hours later, after adding a frame with a few larvae the right age to make queens, you can hear the sounds change. That's pretty cool, maybe that's the control freak in me. And I really enjoy the making of queens, or well not exactly me making them but the process of getting the bees to do it.  Although the excitement has dropped a little, I still remember the first queen that emerged then went out and successfully mated. That was a thrill.  Not quite so much anymore but still amazing that I can take a larvae from a wax cell, put it in a plastic cup and 12 days later a queen comes out.  And if all goes right within two weeks she's laying eggs and if I wanted to I could take one of her larvae and do the same thing.  But I think the most fun part in all of this is Sunday afternoons. We work our club yard every Sunday. There are a few regulars. Sometimes we just take a quick kook in a few boxes, other times, like today, we go through all of them. Most weeks we have a newcomer and that's the thrill. Things go pretty fast but I try to make sure that the newbee holds a frame of bees and gets to see all of the details. That's how we hook them. And then, after coming for a few weeks and showing a real interest I get to ask the question; "Are you ready for bees yet". Which means that next week they'll be taking home a nuc. That's why I do it. I like the bees and eventually plan to make some money selling queens, but right now, the real driving force is getting bees to people who really want bees.

Queen mating resources

As I've gotten a bit better with my grafting and the production of emerged virgin queens, I find myself in a dilemma. For every emerged queen I need a mating nuc, which means essentially 1 frame of brood, preferable a frame mostly capped with some food on it. The problem now, or what soon could be, is that as I'm grafting and getting more queens, I will eventually need 12 to 20 mating nucs. And I simply don't have enough brood frames to fill the nucs.  I'm asking the club if some members would donate a medium ( I use all mediums) frame of capped brood to put in boxes. Considering that I had 9 cells started in mom's yard, I should have some emerged queens Thursday and will need bees.
I will make some mating nucs this weekend and could use bees Wednesday evening. I figure 4 frames this week, and another 4 next week. Not going to do any grafts this week as they would emerge while I'm at bee college. I'll come to you and grab a frame.

Next season, if things work out, I'd like to have a yard where we could have two or three breeder colonies and 30-50 mating boxes. (since they would be doubles it would be 15-25 boxes). I'd also like to get one or two more people in the whole process. Something to remember when rearing queens is that once you start you are controlled by the calendar. You MUST either cage them or move them by day 12-14 because she can come out anytime after 14 days, especially if you grafted a day 6 instead of a day 4 larvae (been there done that). It's late in the year to try and start this now, but March will get here soon enough and the first week of March is prime time to start rearing queens. Once established, as a club resource we could feasibly raise 6-10 queens a week. Those which are not needed could be mated and banked for a time. Trying to figure out what to do with a bunch of mated queens is a problem I can live with, much better than scrambling to find one. 

If you can donate a frame, let me know by Tuesday. If you're interested in queen breeding, let's talk at the October meeting.

A timing belt and a tent

It's not about beekeeping, at least not directly, it is about life though. My wife's car is a 1999 Mercury, she travels all over the county for her job and as I don't know the maintenance history, decided it would be a good idea to change the timing belt.  Our schedules as they are, the only real time I had was Labor Day. Which for me turned out to be a day of labor. I'd removed a bee colony Sunday evening but couldn't get all of them, there are always some foragers out and about. So I promised the homeowner to return Monday morning to collect whatever clustered overnight. Did that, picked up a few more pounds of bees. Took them to the yard and added to the removal. Got home and started on the car, it was about 10:00.  Things were moving fairly smoothly until around 12:00 when the thunderstorm hit. I waited it out for a bit, looked a the radar and saw it was pretty bleak. Called a friend with a pop up tent, an EZ up. No problem, went and borrowed that. Back to the car now under a tent. The rest of the job went fairly well, I did have to go to the parts store for spark plugs, discovered that one of the originals had two pretty serious cracks in the porcelain. Felt pretty dumb too, her car has had an occasional miss for nearly a year, the computer diagnostic said it was the variable timing. There was a time, before car computers, when I would have pulled spark plugs first. A lesson learned, trust my instincts and not computers. The timing belt that came off had several small pieces missing from one edge and a pretty good flap, failure was eminent. A good decision to change it when I did. Thanks to my dad who taught me so much about cars so many years ago. And thanks to my friend with the pop up tent. I finished the job by 4:20 so Vicki could drive it to work at 6:00.

An all Bee weekend

Just doing lots of Bee stuff all weekend, started with Friday. Went up to PSJ with Eddie to take a colony out of a window behind the hurricane shutter. Big colony, a lot of honey but nearly no capped brood, and no larvae or eggs, so this was a queen-less colony and a real rescue. Saturday I spent the day with several other club members at the new Honey Bee Research Lab at UF.  Met some more odd people (they play with bees too). Toured the facility and made some friends. Excited about Bee College this October.  Last week Stuart removed two swarms from the local marina, both in relatively the same area. So we discussed the three removals, the swarms and the window bees and decided to combine both swarms, find one of their queens and re queen the window bees.  Sounded like a plan. Started in swarm 2, found the queen, caught her in a clip and tucked her away.  On to swarm 1. Did not actually see the queen but we found one side of 1 frame fully drawn and capped brood, larvae and eggs on the other side, even found eggs in some burr comb we cut off.  So the caged queen went in the window bees box and we were going to merge the two swarms through paper. Went to get yet another swarm from the marina, pretty easy, scraped them in a box, put on a queen excluder and waited a little while. The bees that we missed went in the box so we're fairly certain we got the queen. Back to the club yard to set things up. Going to merge the two swarms first. Opened the queen less box and there were no bees. Looked around, did not see a swarm. Thought they may have gone to the box with their old queen. Opened swarm 1 and found the missing bees. The box was packed full of bees, they merged themselves while we were gone, added the other box and frames to give them more room.   Always fascinated by these little bugs. Other events in the yard. Loriann got her second box started with some top bars that we hung on modified hangers. And John got a nuc split, two frames and a bunch of bees. They have the means to make a queen, just need to see what happens. I did another set of queen grafts today. While I am having a certain amount of success getting cells, my percentage of mated queens sucks. But I'm sure it will get better.  There are a lot of methods, I just need to find what works best for me.

The queen in the yellow box must go

I started to call her something that begins with a B but thought better of that. I'm sure that you can figure it out.  We typically have anywhere from 7 to 15 beehives in the club yard at any time. With recent additions I believe we are at 9 plus the twin mating nuc. We have a colony in the back of the yard in a yellow box. Been there perhaps two months. Every time I've been in that box they've been pretty nasty. Yesterday we went in and sure enough they came out pretty mean. Stuart thought perhaps they had a high mite load. I thought that's possible and made plans to do a mite wash and OAV treatment.  Yesterday evening, Eddie and I went to Titusville and removed a colony from under a storage shed. There were perhaps six frames of capped and uncapped honey in nice new almost white comb. Eddie took that home. We had to pull up the floor in two places to find the whole colony, the brood nest was fourteen combs, each five inches deep and 16-18 inches long. We cut the comb and put six pieces in an 8 frame box and two in a nuc. The rest I am rendering down. It was late when we got done so we put the vacuum box on a hive stand and the 8 frame on top, then pulled the divider. I like that aspect of the box, it just lets the bees migrate up and I can dump the trash later. The nuc I put at mom's house. I wanted to check them today and re-stack so I figured I'd do a mite wash on the yellow box while there. For those who were there yesterday, if you thought they were bad then you should have seen them today. Maybe it was because yesterday there were five of us and just me today but I was surrounded. Wore sweatpants and a sweat shirt, no stings through the clothes but at least 100 stingers in the fabric.  One got in my veil and I took a hit to the left forehead. Did an alcohol wash, shook off five frames from the second box up, mostly brood frames. I let some of the fliers go and did a pretty good look for the queen, although considering the temperament I really wasn't that concerned. Did not see her. First wash showed no mites, thats zero.  Thought no way right. So I did another. Looked specifically for drone comb, shook off three frames, with drone brood, did another wash. One mite. So much for a heavy mite load.  Took all of the bees from the wash home and counted, 496. From 496 bees I got 1 mite. This queen needs to go. As soon as I have a mated queen she has an appointment with destiny. On some positive notes. The cut out from yesterday was attaching the comb to the frames and bringing in pollen, way cool. I looked for the queen but did not see her. Stopped by mom's on the way home to check some QC's, I caged two capped cells that will come out Friday or Saturday. In a matter of contrast, In the yellow box I had a sweatshirt tucked into sweatpants as body armor. In mom's box I was wearing a T shirt and shorts, no gloves but a veil and they didn't even care that I was there.  I want more of these kind of bees.

Hard lesson on queen rearing 2

Some queen breeders advocate having brood frames in the finisher box. It ensures more nurse bees to feed these larvae. I think the idea plausible.  Also, in the method I'm using, to ensure I get nurse bees in the cell starter, there ends up being one or two brood frames in the finisher. I know that I've read this and heard it in lectures, one must check all brood frames for queen cells. Michael Palmer said it in one of his lectures like five times. Ian won't have any brood frames in his finishers. I forgot. I'll bet every queen breeder forgets at least once.  Had some cells started last week, went in to put on cages and they're all torn down.  Sure enough, on a brood frame was an open queen cell. Missed it from the previous set of grafts. And although it's a controversal subject, I do believe that bees can move eggs so even with the queen excluder they could still raise a queen above it. So yes it's important to check all of the frames for cells. I only lost five queens, would hate to lose 10-30. So I had a rouge virgin running around in the top box.  Looked but couldn't find her. Took a chance and shook everything down to the lower boxes, did another set of grafts and on day two, of eight grafts, I have five cups of royal jelly. I know there is the potential of this rouge virgin killing the current queen. Might not be so bad, she's a year and a half old and they're not the nicest group. It certainly could be worse and better both. Due to my current resources I'm limited in what I can do. I like the idea of a finisher box with no brood, just shake in some bees each week or so. But I don't have those resources.  Will certainly check for cells diligently in the future. Failures are indeed the best teachers.

Real small scale queen rearing

I've watched so many Youtube videos on queen rearing, I have information overload. There are some issues I have with nearly all of them. They're designed to raise a lot of queens.  I've seen Michael Palmer, Jason Chrisman, Don the fat bee-man, Ian Steppler up in Canada, and some others. One thing they all have in common is they have lots of bees. Brushy Mountain did a small scale queen rearing webinar with Larry Conner. Excellent video and great lessons but my definition of small scale and their's are very different. They show pictures of frames with 10 to 40 queen cells. What these videos don't tell us is that for every little peanut, you need a mating box which means at least a frame of brood and frame of comb. Or maybe a frame of food and comb.  Either way for every queen cell a breeder needs a frame of bees and a box.  I think I heard Michael Palmer once say he had over 300 mating nucs, and I know Ian said he ran 100 plus.  Other things they have in common are that you need a queen-less colony with a lot of bees. There are countless videos on how to put together a cell starter. Michael Palmer has a starter that's four boxes tall and overflowing with bees, probably more bees in that thing than I have in my back yard. The first thing one needs to do is find and remove the queen. Right! I played where's waldo with my kids years ago and wan't very good at it then, eyes certainly haven't gotten better. In the video they all simply pull up a frame and say; "oh there she is".  I have a theory about this, if you look at the same things all day every day it gets easier to spot the one that's different. These videos are great and I hope that all of you keep at it. Fact is that in about six years I plan to retire from machine work and breed queens, (will look for a teenager with good eyes and steady hand to do my grafts).  In the meantime I want to learn as much as possible.

So what about the middle aged beekeeper who has one or two hives. He/she is wearing bifocals, doesn't really want to try grafting microscopic larvae but has a colony with seven frames of brood and five frames of honey. Certainly a candidate to split. (I think I just described myself, except now I wear bifocal contact lenses which are awesome).   A simple split is to just put two frames of brood and a frame of food in a nuc with some frames of foundation or comb. Just hope they can queen themselves.  This is done every day somewhere with success. But for the do-it yourselfer, I want to make my own queen, or get my bees to make one for me.

I watched the Fat Beeman do a video where he cut comb with eggs and larvae and squashed it to a frame. Really pretty simple, I don't need to handle larvae and the age isn't really a factor. The bees will choose the one they want. This is just my speed to make a couple of queens.

So what do we need to do this?  First a strong colony, I run all medium boxes so I'm looking for at least three boxes full of bees. Could probably do the same thing with a deep and medium.  I want to mate the queens before doing the split so I'll need some sort of mating nuc(s).  I could make some or make a divider board and reduce a five frame nuc down to 2 frames. Could get bold and modify a 5 frame nuc with a small entrance on each side and split the middle, make a double mating box, sort of what people call a queen castle. Keeping things as simple as possible I'd just need two nuc boxes. Being in Florida, pretty much everything I have has a screen bottom. The cell starter needs ventilation, either a screened bottom or screened sides. Since I plan to do this a lot I made a deep nuc with 2 inch holes in the lower sides and covered the inside with hardware cloth. 

Getting started means I need a queenless box of bees. I don't want to spend hours looking for the queen so here's my solution. One to three days before I want to do my "grafts" I'll shake all of the bees down into the lower box(s), put on a queen excluder and put at least two frames of brood and 2 frames of food in the top box. On grafting day I'll take a frame of food with all of the bees on it and put it in my special starter nuc, then shake all of the bees off the brood frames. Might shake a couple more frames just to be sure I have enough bees. Seal them up in the box with 1 frame of food, at least 1 frame of comb or foundation and a wet sponge in a container of water. Now wait three or four hours. Four hours later, if I have another colony I'll go there for "grafts", if not I'm going straight to the bottom box. Looking for a frame of drawn comb with eggs and larvae. I'll cut strips about three cells wide and 20 long that have the youngest brood I can find. Maybe two or three strips. Lay them on a frame top bar so the cells will be vertical and smash the ends into the bar groove.  It might distort the cells a bit but the bees will fix them if they want. Put this bar in the cell starter and leave them closed up over night.  The next day, 24-30 hours later, I open the box and check for any acceptance. Then put the frame and all of the bees back in the first box above the excluder to be finished. 

Tried this just this past Sunday.  Check out the results.

So next Wednesday I'll put together some mating nucs and put cells in them.  There's a video in the works when this is all done.  Just wanted to get this part out there. Obviously there's no way to use everything they're making. I figure I could probably make some cuts and get cells to put in up to five boxes. I only need two so maybe I'll call around and see if anyone wants a cell.  Stay tuned. 

Hard lesson in queen rearing

I've been self teaching, with the help of YouTube, to breed queens. Or actually rear them, breeding would imply specific genetics and traits and all I'm trying to do is successfully get some mated queens. My purpose is simply to have some for the occasional club member who loses their queen. The thought is that even a poor queen is better than no queen. In any case.  I grafted on Sunday two weeks back, then last Monday put six cells in cages to emerge on Friday. I was going to be out of town and figured the bees would feed the new queens. Found out a hard lesson that it's not so. On Sunday, of the six caged, four emerged and three died.  Although it seems controversial, I think I'll put a little honey in the cages next time if I have to be away.  On a different note. While working the club yard Sunday we found a weak colony with a wax moth infestation in the top box. Moved the frames around and consolidated the best frames into one box. In the process we found the queen. I caught her and intended to mark her but she got away.  Looked in the box today and they have 4 capped and 4 un-capped queen cells. I look at it this way, the old queen wasn't very good, population was down and not a lot of brood. So maybe her daughter will do better.  Along the same lines. Mary, Ed and I went to Indian Harbour Beach Sunday and removed a colony from under an old bird gazebo. Very calm bees, we didn't even light a smoker.  Mary took home a nuc with five frames of comb and brood. I put together a single 8 frame box with brood comb and a frame of honey. Today there are at least five capped queen cells in the cut out (didn't look at all frames) and Mary says there are cells on her nuc too.  Will wait until the 24th to go in again.

Working on Memorial day

For it being a day off I was still busy, but then I'm always busy. With the shop closed I could get some personal machine time and made some more gadgets. Been steadily selling nearly every day. Did not get in the bees in my yard but I did watch them for 5 mins. Steady stream of bees and pollen so that looked pretty good. I wanted to check the colony that was queen-less at the club yard, where we added the mated queen last Sunday. The first frame I pulled was fully laid up on both sides so I closed that back up. Checked the queen finisher at mom's house, I now have 6 caged cells which should emerge Friday. And finally checked the walk off split we did last Sunday that's at my son's house. There are 11 capped cells on three frames. I'll just leave them bee and let things take the natural course. I plan to make up mating nucs Sunday for the virgins that hatch Friday. I will need to borrow at least two nucs, maybe three. Does anyone have some 2 frame mating nucs? Oh and no stings today. A very good day!

Just life events

Sometimes it seems that we can go about our lives on an even keel and then suddenly everything just happens at once.  That's what's been going on for the past month.  I do a lot of things, my regular day job which takes 10 hours Mon-Thu and 4-6 on Fri.  I lead a fitness class Mon-Wed-Fri for an hour and still try to work bees. I am also a lead facilitator in a high ropes challenge course about 100 miles from home. I have T shirts that read; "On weekends I jump out of windows". So I stay busy. Last month things were pretty calm, I sent some of my gadgets out to some people whose Youtube channels I watch and appreciate. I'll be honest, I was hoping that they'd like them and do a video.  Well Ian Steppler up in Canada did a video where he simply showed the stuff and made some comments. Then people started asking about them. But then he did another video where he actually used it. That to me is so cool. There is no higher praise to an inventor than to see someone actually using their stuff.  I really appreciate Ian's Youtube plug as it certainly has generated sales.  During this same time frame, my truck (93 ford ranger) started acting up. Long story short, what I thought would be about a $45 dollar fix and about two hours turned into $550 and two weeks.  But it's running again now and this weekend I got to train some youth on the ropes so life is somewhat back to normal. Except that I get daily e-mails and requests for the queen disk gadget.  That's very cool!

I still choose to bee!

Sometimes these little bugs we keep in boxes drive me nuts. Jamie Ellis says to bee or not to bee. When we either want to or do not want to work bees. Sunday in the club yard was overcast but not raining. Nearly all of the bees were angry but we needed to work them and all in all it was a good day. In contrast I wanted to graft some larvae and in both of my yards the bees were peaceful. (My yards consist of two hives at my house and a nuc split, and one hive at my mother-in-laws house, big yards eh?) Couldn't check the grafts yesterday but today of 10 taken, one cup had fallen off and I found 6 with royal jelly. The cell starter box was pretty calm but when I opened the finishing colony they were downright mean. Even with a lot of smoke I still took stings through my shirt and pants. What a difference in this box since Sunday. I had to put on my hoodie to finish but on the positive side there are 6 cups with royal jelly! I'll cage them next Monday and find boxes the following Sunday. Took about 20 stings today, but I have 6 cells with royal jelly! LOL

Work schedule and sales orders

I sent some of my gadgets to a beekeeper in Canada who did a youtube video and now I have a lot of requests.  Unfortunately my work schedule has me tied up for a few days.  I have about 100 of each item in stock, will make more as soon as possible but I'll ship out whatever I have next week (May 21).  I'll try to keep this page current on stock conditions.

My first blog post

I have beehives in three locations right now.  Just doing this for a year and a half but having a lot of fun.  Teaching myself how to breed queens and having mixed success. I caged four queen cells today and put 10 grafts in a box that I believe is queenless. Looked for the queen and could not locate her but I've been fooled before.  I'll know tomorrow if they cleaned out the cups.