Oh, Honey!

Our honey harvesting is over with for 2012-

the final total was 5 gallons from our hive and 6 gallons from Dad's hive!

I was very pleased that our little worker girls made that much in their first year with us,

but I think the fact that we had such an early spring and everything

was in full bloom in March really helped the bees this year.

I'm a nice enough person that I would never want to sell someone honey that was no good,

so I had to make a big batch of biscuits this morning to sample the product.

(It was a tough job but somebody had to do it... ; )

Here are some pictures I took of Hubby and I working with the honey-

These are the "supers" right after we took them off the hive-

supers are simply the boxes that hold the frames in which the honey is stored.

We took half of the honey the bees made this year and

left the other half for them to eat this winter. 

One by one the frames are removed and it's my job to "uncap" them-

the bees cover the full frames of honey with a coating of wax to prevent

the honey from running out in hot weather.

The wax has to be removed, or uncapped, for the honey to be extracted.

This electric knife is made especially for this job and once it's heated to the right temperature, it quickly uncaps the frames without hardly any mess.

This uncapping tub was a new addition to our beekeeping tools this year-

I saw one of these being used on YouTube and had to have one.

It was worth every penny, too- it made the messiest part of the whole process a snap.

The cappings then fall down into the top tub, which catches the wax on a strainer but allows any honey attached to it drain down into another tub below.

Whoever invented the uncapping tub- I love you.

The frames are then passed along to Hubby,

who places them into the extractor and "spins" the honey out of the frames.

As he extracts the honey it is slowly draining into a special pail with a coarse strainer on it,

and will need to be strained once more before it's ready to be bottled.

Meet Lily, our Quality Control Inspector.

The honey passing from the coarse strained bucket into the fine strainer-

And the finished product!

*YUMMY*

If you love honey, be sure to thank a little bee the next time you see one...

did you know it requires 10,000 worker bees to gather a pound of honey?

Happy Wednesday, everyone!

Honey crop 2011

I've been working in a sticky (but sweet) situation for the past couple of days- we helped dad with his bees and now I'm in the process of draining the honey from two large containers into quart and pint jars. In between fillings I've been trying to make the rounds and catch up on my blog friends...

This years' honey crop is about half of last years- 5 gallons compared to 9 last year. Dad seemed to think the dry hot summer left the bees with little to work with.

But I still think it's beautiful... *Sigh*

If you are as fascinated by the interesting little honey bee as much I am, or know nothing about them and would like to know more- click on these links to go to some of my older honey bee posts.

Want to see a video of me "feeding" a honey bee some sugar water? Click here.
Want to learn some interesting and cool facts about bees you might not know? Click here.
Want to learn more about the process of "taking off" the honey from the hive? Click here.

Happy Wednesday, everyone!

For the love of a Honey bee

So many of you asked bee-related questions in the comments of my Liquid Gold post a couple of weeks ago that instead of answering them all individually, I thought I would do another post dedicated to the wonderful honey bee.... I think the more you learn about these fascinating little creatures the more you will appreciate not only the honey you eat but what the honey bee (and all pollinators, for that matter) means to our plants and us.

 First, I'll answer the questions my bloggy friends asked:
Will you be getting more bees? Yes, but not until spring of next year... with winter coming on it's not a good time to be starting a new hive with young bees, unless we come across a swarm of bees in need of a home, but even then we will have to "feed" them through the winter because they will have no established honey supply. So, we will wait... *sigh*
What do you do with the beeswax? There are many wonderful things I could do with it, like homemade candles, soap, lip balm.... however, when we helped Dad with his hive, he preferred to leave the comb intact and put the frames back in the hives for the bees clean out, which in turn helps the bees by giving them an already-made foundation for storing more honey.
What are you going to do with all that honey? Well.... *sheepish grin* Actually it's all gone except for just a little bit.... we made a "Fresh Honey" sign and put it at the end of our driveway, and sold over 7 gallons in less than 2 weeks! The remaining honey is for us and our family and friends to enjoy.

 And now, some amazing facts about honey bees:

• Many people are intimidated by bees of any kind, but what makes a honey bee special (and very non-aggressive)- it knows it must use it's stinger sparingly... a honey bee can only sting once, then it dies.
•  A colony of honey bees in early spring has 10,000-15,000 bees.  A colony of honey bees in summer has 50-60,000 bees.
• A normal colony of honey bees contains only one Queen who may lay 2,000 eggs per day during her busy season
• There may be 50,000 or more "Worker" bees (females) in a colony who do all the work. These are the bees you see out gathering pollen and working in your plants and flower gardens, as well as cleaning the inside of the hive and tending to the Queen. The male bee is known as a "Drone", and there will be usually only a few hundred or less of them in a hive... a drone has no other function in life other than to mate with a queen and then die. Leftover drones that remain in the hive as cold weather approaches are literally run out of the hive by female worker bees who cannot afford to feed the drones from their precious honey supply during winter.
• It requires 10,000 worker bees to gather a pound of honey.
• Bees fly the equivalent of more than twice around the world to gather a pound of honey.
• The average lifespan of a Worker bee during the working season is about 4 to 6 weeks, and she spends it all working for the good of the hive. When she can no longer fly to collect pollen or nectar, she will leave and die outside the hive.
• Bees remove the excess moisture from nectar by rapidly fanning their wings over the open cells in the hive.
•  Honey varies in color from white through golden to dark brown and usually the darker the color the stronger the flavor.
• Honey is one of the safest food - most harmful bacteria cannot live in honey for any length of time.  

And one final tidbit of honey bee trivia: Can you name a famous actor who was also a beekeeper?

*Henry Fonda*

Hope this has made you fall in love with the Honeybee!
Happy Tuesday, everybody!

Liquid Gold

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you might remember last year my Dad brought us two new hives of bees and promised to teach us all he knew about beekeeping. I was so excited about learning from him, since he has kept bees since I was old enough to remember. Hubby was a little apprehensive at first about beekeeping, (don't tell him I told you that) but quickly fell in love with the process of working with them and watching them work as well.

Sadly, late last summer we realized something was terribly wrong in one of the hives.... only young bees were coming in and out of the hive and soon we found several piles of dead bees at the entrance. I was very upset but Dad assured me that it wasn't our fault and that any number of things could have happened. Then, after having a terrible winter this past year, we opened up our one surviving hive early in the spring only to find they had swarmed and were gone.

Needless to say, I was heartbroken.
However, after talking to several local beekeepers, we found out they had also lost several hives in the past couple of years without any warning, sometimes losing what they thought were healthy hives.  This gave me some consolation that it wasn't our fault, but I still miss my little bees....

On a much brighter note, the hive that Dad started for himself last year really took off and now it is thriving. So much so that he called a few weeks ago and told us he was ready to take off some honey. Dad brought the "supers" (the part of the hive with the honey) to the house and we got busy.

Dad isn't really moving as fast as this picture would lead you to believe- the lighting was just bad. *grin*

Oooops! A stowaway on the ceiling!

A frame waiting to be "uncapped".... the bees cap off the honeycomb with wax so the honey won't run inside the hive. (Aren't they smart little critters?)

 Dad's new toy, an electric capping knife. The inside of the knife has a thermostat-controlled element that heats up the knife and melts the wax as it uncaps- making quick work of what once was a painstaking job.

Hubby loads the uncapped frames of honey into the extractor and gives it a spin- slinging the honey out where it will eventually drain to the bottom.

The honey is drained from the extractor into a collection bucket with a strainer on top to filter out any remaining wax.

Then from the collection bucket, it's rendered out into jars.

 

Dad was very pleased with his little worker bees- they had made nearly 8 gallons of honey.

Now all that's left is.... *ugh*... the clean-up... any volunteers?

Since my job was uncapping the frames, I managed to stuff a pinch of honeycomb in my mouth once or twice.

Okay, I had honeycomb in my mouth the whole time. 

(I had to sample the product, you know.)

And yes, it is soooo good....

Oh, and speaking of honey- guess what I got on a trip to the feed store over the weekend?

4 little honey-colored fuzzies.... sigh*

I know...

Do you think I will ever get over my Chickie Love?

Nah, me neither...

Sunny skies

We've had a couple of warm, sunny days this week... a wonderful break from the rain and gloom we had all last week. It gave me a chance to get out on the 4wheeler and take a ride with my camera.

Along the fence, I found a small patch of wild Bittersweet...

Then a bigger one....

Then- the biggest of them all!

I thought I was too late to find any this year... I've seen several species of birds eating the berries and I thought they would all be gone by now. I managed to snip a few vines for decoration.

Today was "free-range day" for all the birds...

I let everybody out to explore and help get rid of bugs. I love to sit in my chair underneath a shade tree and watch them scratch, peck, and cluck then run off with some treasure they've found (usually a worm) before anyone else discovers it.

What could be better than a sweet little fuzzy bottom?

How about two fuzzy bottoms?

How about 20! *squeal*

These are the Silkie babies that hatched out a couple of months ago.... almost grown now.

Dear sweet Hubby? We're going to have to build a bigger coop soon...

Guarding all these chickens just wears Smokey out.

If the eyes are the window to the soul.....

Have a great weekend, everybody!

Bee Bonding

Here is a video of me spending a few moments of quality time with one of my sweet little honey bees-


(Sorry for the shaky camera- I'm not very good at multi-tasking!)
Have a great weekend, everybody!

News from around the farm

Taken after an evening storm on Tuesday, May 26th

After a week of no internet, I'm finally up and running again! Woo hoo! I received a new DSL modem today from the phone company to replace the old one that quit working. It's been tough not to be able to visit all my blog friends, but so much has been going on around here the last week I've hardly had time to dwell on it for too long. Hubby has been off from work this week and we've been busy building animal housing again, this time for the two newest residents of the farm....

I bring you-

Elvis and Priscilla!

These sweet little Boer-crossed goats took up residence here just a few days ago, and have already been keeping us entertained with their funny antics. They are brother and sister twins- Elvis has been fixed so he is very calm, but Priscilla (with the blue collar on) is very rambunctious and at times, pesky. She untied Hubby's nail apron while he was working on their little house and carried his hammer away on several occasions, too.

Dad came by this weekend to help us check our hives and said we were ready for hive #1 to have another "brood box" added, which simply means the queen is doing her job laying eggs and the hive is growing rapidly. (All good signs.) Hive #2 is a little slower and fewer in number, but Dad says they are coming along and will do just fine.

Here is a short little video I took of Hive #1 and thought it was interesting- these are the young worker bees cleaning the "flight deck" of the hive. if you watch very closely and focus on one bee at a time, you will see them going back and forth, back and forth- almost like they're mopping the floor!

And as usual, some news around here is OLD news..... and getting OLDER every day.

*Sigh*

Well, I'm off to make my rounds and find out what's new with you- It's great to be back in BlogLand!

Feeding time and double trouble

It's time to feed the bees.... want to come along with me?

Several of you asked where the hives were located from the house or from the other animals, so maybe this picture will give you a perspective-

This is looking from the barn toward the hives- they're the two little white dots next to the fence.

Once I get to the hives, I open the outside cover which reveals the top inner board.

See the 3 holes on top? The bees get ventilation from those, but can't access it from inside the hive because of the feeder box.

Once I remove the top board, I pour the feed (honey/water mixture) into the feeder box.

I lift up the feeder box just to check and make sure everything is alright.... even though it's early enough in the morning that the bees aren't very active outside the hive, they are already scurrying around inside. I love being around them when they're calm like this.

A few of the bees have already found the feed.

I do this for both hives, replacing the board and cover after I'm done.

Here is a view from the hives looking toward the barn and house- this may give you a better idea of how far away they are.

Once I'm finished with the bees, I make my morning rounds and notice deer tracks in the garden. This is NOT good.

And when I get to the chicken coop, I see this.

(Click to enlarge it- their expressions are hysterical.)

Double trouble?

Definitely.
Two broody banty hens in the same nest box can only mean one thing.... stay as far away as you can!

The Bees have arrived!

Chapter 1 of our Honeybee adventure has begun!

Dad called this morning to tell me the bees were ready and once he picked them up and got them loaded into the new hives he built for us, he would be on his way with them.

Once here, Dad and Hubby worked on getting a level spot dug out in the ground to set the blocks on....

Then the hives were placed on top of the block and leveled.

Dad did such a great job on the hives- they are built so neatly and secure.

Now comes the fun part- opening the "door" and letting them out! Dad pried away the small screen over the opening and out they came....

Now the exciting (and nervy) part- I got to "feed" them! Dad showed me how to take the top of the brood box off and brush all the bees on top back down into the box. Then, I had to place the feed box on top and pour the honey/water mixture in for them. (Sorry there are no pictures of this, but it's hard to do this and take pictures at the same time.) And since we forgot to buy a bonnet, I got to experience doing this WITHOUT any protection on my head- just gloves.

Here goes......

It really wasn't as bad as I thought.... I just tried to keep my cool. I did squeal once when one got in my hair, but I managed to hold it together. (And my bladder.)

This is their new home... I hope they will be happy and thrive here on our little farm!