Japanese Girls are Hotter

Remember the photo of the Giant Asian Hornet in my last post?  Just look what they can do to a honey bee hive. 

 Payback's a bitch.

Queen Bee Wat(t)son

You know about phantom rings?  Like when you hallucinate hearing your cel-phone even though it isn't actually ringing?  Or your butt goes all tingly because you think your phone's vibrating even though it isn't in your back pocket?  Now I hear bees all the time, even when they aren't there.

Here's a video that Christian made one time when we went to collect bees.  I'm wrong about one thing though--I said that the newspaper gets taken away, but that isn't so.  The bees just chew through the paper, so there isn't any need to remove it.  This lady has a nice explanation on her blog.  In fact, I found tons of blog posts and videos on combining weak hives with strong ones.

You might also wonder why I AM SUCH A DWEEB  in this video.  Probably I would have come across more naturally, but I had already explained this to him once, and he asked me to do it again for the camera.  Wheras the first time I was just telling him about it,  the second time I was trying to remember what I had said and repeat it.  So there. 



Oh, and just so you know that I know, Watson only has one T.  I didn't title the video.  So the spelling nazi's in the audience can pipe down now.

Since the shot of the combined hive in my dorky little film is kind of far away, here's a photo that I found which shows everything quite clearly.

Photo from http://plantertomato.typepad.com/

Scabby McStingsalot and The Dork Forest

Jackie Kashian does an educational interview about beekeeping for her podcast show, The Dork Forest.  They discuss everything from bears to knitting to bee diarrhea.  How can you bee-t that?  

There's this one drawback to bee stings that I never really considered when I started--I kind of look like an intravenous drug user.   My hands and spine especially are covered in little scabs and marks, and my hands are slightly puffy more often than not.  Sometimes I can't help but scratching them, especially the ones on the back of my neck because they feel like little zits.  And then I get little tiny pocky-marks like tweakers do when they are going through withdrawl.  Eww.  TMI.  Sorry.

The other day I had to get the bees out of the hive myself.  I had on a veil, long sleeved shirt, jeans, knee socks, and gloves, and I'll be damned if one didn't crawl up my pants leg and get me on the knee.  Five of the little bitches (they are all female, after all) clustered on my right hand glove and stung me AT ONCE on a 2 square inch area on the back of my hand.

I let them sting me because, hey--that's the goal, right?  But after a certain point I did re-lid the hive and run away.  They chased me around the yard and the porch for 10 damn minutes!  Oddly enough, when you're running to escape an angry mass of guard bees, bee stings don't hurt nearly as bad.  Go figure.

Back to The Dork Forest...I don't know what possessed me to do this, but after listening to the podcast, I looked up the website and sent her this email:

Hi Jackie, My friend sent me a link to your Dork Forest episode about beekeeping.  I have rheumatoid arthritis, and I use bees as medicine, which means that I sting myself with live bees.  I got 20 stings this morning.

I keep a blog about it if you are interested:  http://istingmyselfwithbees.blogspot.com

I'm also attending an apitherapy conference at the beginning of November to learn more about it.

I hope it isn't presumptuous of me to write to you--I thought it might make a good topic for your show. So if you think that you might be interested in doing an interview for your show, I think it would be TOTALLY COOL!!

And I got this reply shortly afterwards:

I am watching your short film!!  It's fascinating.

jackie

OMG.  What if I actually got to be on The Dork Forest?!?!? I feel like I need to do a magical dork dance while wearing a dwarf hat to make it happen.  Maybe this dwarf hat, which I am almost finished knitting:

P.S. If you want the pattern for this gnome, go here.

Banana Rama

In college I briefly dated a guy who drove a brand new silver sports car with a license plate that said "Gon2Rav".  I was mortified every time I got into the car, which thankfully was only about 5 times.  The other flashing red warning sign was that he once told me that he wore cologne with pheromones in it so that girls would like him more.  Who actually says that?   I mean, even if you do, why would you tell someone?  What a weirdo.  Besides, men's cologne makes me want to gag.

Honeybee alarm pheromone however smells like artificial banana flavoring.  I kid you not.  Banana Runts and banana twin pops?  My favorites.  I smelled one of the stingers that was in my arm the other day, which is how I found this out.  Turns out, I am hardly the first person to make this observation.

Alarm pheromone is emitted when a bee stings another animal.  Or sometime the guard bees disperse it when they detect a threat to the hive.   The other bees smell it and will congregate enmasse to the origin of the scent and get all agro.   This is what they did to me this morning as I was trying to collect the bees from the hive.  Two got stuck in my hair, and I had to throw the hive lid down on the ground, abandon the jar, and run to the house yelling for Sam to get them out.

The pheromone is a chemical called isopentyl acetate.  It isn't a coincidence that it smells like artificial bananas--it's what they use to create the flavoring agent.  In the olden days of aviation it was used to stiffen and wind-proof the canvas which covered the frames, and it is still used for model airplanes.  It's also used to test gas masks and respirators.  This all according to Wikipedia.

I've also found that artificial banana is one of those flavors, along with black licorice and coconut, that people either *love* or *hate*.  There isn't much in between.  Banana runts are either people's favorites, or they find them utterly disgusting.  I wonder why that is, or if there's a correlation between sensitivity to that substance and something else...  Don't worry though, the food product actually comes from banana oil or it is synthesized.  There is no alarm pheromone extract in your banana twin pop.

Field Trip!!!

In preparation for the fast approaching honey harvest, Samuel and I did a run to the bee keeping supply in Chico to pick up Earl's honey extraction equipment.

We started out from Oakland, having had a lovely brunch with some friends.  As we started up the 80 it couldn't have been a more beautiful day.

About the time we hit Fairfield, I learned something very important.  A billboard announcing that Huey Lewis and the News and Hall and Oats are going to be playing at Thunder Valley Casino.   After a little further internet investigation, I can inform you that Lynyrd Skynyrd, KC and the Sunshine Band, The Doobie Brothers, and Peter Frampton will also be making appearances at Thunder Valley for your entertainment.  Ah, the casino/cruise circuit.  A step up from the state fair.  All that's missing are Styx and REO Speedwagon.

Something else happened in Fairfield too.  The clothing came off.  Oh Jeez!!!  It's easy to forget how balmy the temperature is around the water!  Despite playful comments from both Christian AND Earl about the apparent tartiness of my jean cut-offs, I was glad to have chosen them for the trip.   Both of Sam's long sleeved t-shirts came off, as did my wool sweater and long-sleeved button down shirt.  Not long afterwards we read one of those digital bank signs that switch from time to temperature, and it read 101 degrees.  Luckily it was a dry heat.

It was also a beautiful drive through lush farmlands: corn, tomatoes, peach, almond, and olive orchards, huge fields of sunflower and onion in full bloom.  And something that I hadn't really noticed before--beehives around every one.  Not just one or two, but one or two every 20 rows or so.  That's a lot of bees!!!



Chico is 3 hours and some change from Oakland.  For some reason I thought it was right around Sacramento.  I think I had been getting it mixed up in my mind with Davis.  Lucky for me, I LOVE to ride to new places.  I know that Chico isn't exactly a *destination*, but the heat, the fields, hanging my legs out the truck window, seeing the mountains on each side of the valley, and just getting a feel for the landscape that's within a few hours of my home... I wish that our cars got better mileage because I would be out exploring ALL THE TIME.

The bee supply warehouse is tucked away in an industrial park, which was a little hard to find.  It's called Dadant & Sons as you can see from the picture, and it's a chain--there are locations all across the country. 

All those wooden things that you see wrapped in plastic to the right of Samuel are pieces of hive boxes.

I wish that I had gotten a shot of Samuel and the Dadant man getting the honey extractor into the truck.  The box was literally an inch to high to fit under the roll bars so they had to get the forklift and bring it over the top.  Despite it's large size, it was lightweight, so it wasn't as dangerous as it could have been. 

 

Before heading back we stopped in downtown Chico for some lunch at a Mediterranean spot with a sign in the window that claims to have the best gyros and falafel in town.  That may be true, but if it is, I would hate to see the other establisments.  However, they did have a water mister mounted to their awning, which might have been the one saving grace of the place.  Afterwards we washed our mouths out with some Jamba Juice and headed towards home.

On the way back I intermittently read Samuel's copy of Game of Thrones.  He was about half-way through.

Here we are back in Port Costa.  

Earl's back was bothering him, and my shoulder and wrist have been flaring pretty badly for the past week, so we were both a little useless when it came to getting the extractor out of the back of the truck, so we got some local help from the Warehouse.  Turns out he has a bum shoulder too, so lifting the box out over the rails the same way that we got it in was out.  Head scratching ensued.

Duh.  Take the honey extractor OUT of the box first. 

A while ago I was able to help Earl with a small honey extraction from the hive at his house.  The extractor that you see in those photos holds 6 super frames and must be hand cranked.  This new one holds 20 frames and can accommodate deep body frames as well as the shorter supers.

And as we pulled up to my door, having performed our duties, Sam ripped his book in half so that we both could keep reading.  Now that, dear readers, is a true friend.

Building Frames

As Earl intends to harvest the spring honey in late July, we have to get the honey supers on the hives.  Honey supers are shallow boxes that sit on top of the hives.  The brood boxes (where the eggs get laid) are deeper and sit on the bottom.  Each honey super contains 9-10 frames, and within the past few days we put together 15 boxes (which means we built 150 frames).

The first step is putting grommets into the side pieces.   It isn't really different than doing it in fabric--the grommet (technically it's more of an eyelet since there isn't a back to it) goes onto the setting tool, which is aimed into the pre-drilled hole.  Hit it with the hammer to set it.

 

This box with the springs on it is a jig.  Earl places all the grommeted side pieces between the boards on the end.  The springs hold them in place.

Then he puts the tops  and bottoms in the slots (it's a lot like Lincoln Logs)...

 

...and secures them with the staple gun.

Look at this creepy spider that I found when I was grommeting in the basement by myself.  I was so squicked out.  I don't know what kind it was, but it had a shiny black widow type body except it was very dark brown with lighter dark brown markings.  It looked *very* poisonous so I sprayed it with about 6 squirts of OFF insect repellent, which did the trick.  But then I realized that I sprayed something that was supposed to go into an insect colony with insect repellent...  We are not using these boards.   

 

Then you nail two carpet tacks into one of the sides and attach wire to the one closest to the top.  The wire gets laced through the grommets and secured on the other tack.  This is Earl tightening the wire.  If it isn't taut, you can't secure the foundation comb to it.

First we were cutting the wires one at a time, and then I decided to put my yarn skills to work.  This was much more efficient.  I measured out half of the necessary distance and put a peg at each end.  One full wrap is the right amount of wire, and you wrap as many as you need and then cut through all the wires at once.

 

The wired frame gets put into this jig, and the wooden strip on the bottom of the top piece gets broken off.

 

The foundation comb (made of beeswax) gets inserted in the grooves of the frame.  The wooden tool that you see Earl holding has metal bits heat up and melt the beeswax onto the wires.  Then the wooden piece that was broken off gets stapled back on, and voila!  You have a frame!!

May 4 at the Hives

On Wednesday, Earl, Sam, and I tended the hives.  We started the day by checking on our neighbor's hive that Earl built.  If I were a bee I'd want to live here :-)

Then we went over to the apiary (fancy word for a bee yard).  Here I am striking a red hot pose in the bee veil.

 You might have noticed that I am always wearing a white shirt (the same white shirt to be honest) every time.  That's because the bees don't bother you as much if you are in a light color.  If you're wearing black, they register you as a threat to the hive (think bears) and are more likely to come after you.   Pika, the dog gets stung all the time, which is why she's chilling in the wagon (also the ticks can't get her there).




Here's Sam (in the pink) and Earl (in the white) smoking their hands.  It helps keep the bees from stinging you there since the hands are often exposed.

Because the hives have started to establish themselves, we removed the feed jars as well as the top box.  So you can see that at the beginning the hives were two boxes high (look behind me in the above photo), but now they're only one.

Because they had so much space to expand when the second box was present, most of the hives built combs outside of the frames.  There were some really beautiful configurations.  Here're some pictures of the coolest ones.  You can also see the feeder jars which we removed.

But we had to remove the wild comb so that we could put the lids on the boxes.

When we replaced the lids we left them open a little to vent.

These shorter frames are the honey supers.  They sit on top of the brood chamber (the big box on the bottom).  You can see where the honey is in this frame!

 

The wire that you see between the frames is the queen excluder.  That gets placed between the brood chamber and the honey supers so that the queen can't get up to there to lay eggs.  All the eggs and larvae remain in the brood box and the honey gets put into the supers.  This means that there aren't larvae in your honey :-0
 

 

Last, this little thing is called a queen cage.  It's how the queen is delivered to the bee keeper.  It gets put into the hive, and the bees chew through a sugar plug to get her out and integrated into the  hive.

Turns out my iphone has a timer!  Who knew?  Here we all are together!  In the background you can see all the boxes with only one box now except for one hive which has 2 honey supers on the top.

Intro to the Smoker

On Saturday I helped Earl to check the status of the hives.  Well, I helped with 3 hives, and then he had to take me back (luckily I don't live far away) so that I could take X to his friend's birthday party in San Francisco.

Before opening the lids, he smoked the bees with this thing that looks like an old-fashioned coffee pot with bellows stuck to the back.

Here he is putting some tinder and burnables in the can.

It's ready to smoke!!

We noted the temperment of each hive: calm, nervous, or aggressive and the population low, moderate, heavy, very heavy.  It seems like those two things are related to each other--the denser the population the more agitated the bees, and when the hive gets too crowded, they will swarm and migrate.  This is why you see hives that are stacked several boxes high--you add a box to make more room so that they won't fly off to make a hive somewhere else.


Here's a moderately populated hive.  The wood slats that you see are the frames on which the honeycombs are "drawn".  See how there are tons of bees on some of the frames, but not others?  If the hive was heavily populated, all the frames would be drawn upon.  Drawn means that the bees have created their own honeycomb on top of the template comb.

We also looked for the queen in each hive.  The queen is kind of like the Highlander--there can bee only one.  She has a longer tail than the other bees, and when she skitters around on the surface of the frame, all the other bees get out of her way.  The workers and the drones only live for about 6 weeks, but a queen can live for 5 years.

The queens are also marked (hopefully) with some paint which makes them easier to find.  Can you imagine trying to find the queen wandering around in a cluster of bees like the one in the picture?  

I also saw the little larvae curled up inside the hexes of the combs!  I wish that I could say that they were cute, but...

Feed the Bees

This morning Earl took me out to the hives!!!!  He has recently expanded his home operation to some beautiful secluded land in the neighboring town of Port Costa.

Earlier this month his hives arrived, so he's still establishing the new colonies--about 24 new hives.  When a colony is developing at the beginning, you have to feed them sugar water as they have yet to fully explore their surroundings and find all the good spots for pollen and nectar.  You take a quart jar that has tiny holes in the lid,  turn it upside down, and set it on two pieces of wood that will allow the bees to get underneath the jar and drink from the slow drip.  Earl says that a hive will finish off a jar in about a day and a half.  You can see the two sticks I'm talking about in the picture below.

You can also see some comb that is on the stick.  Earl had to knock that off--I can't remember why.  Earl would lift the lids off the hives and remove the empty jar, then I would come behind him and put in a full jar and close the hive. 

Check me out in Earl's beekeeping veil :-)

I did get stung once on the leg through my jeans, so I guess that makes 5 times that I've been stung in the last week.




Earl also pointed out the poison oak, which is in bloom.  Thank goodness I know what it looks like now so that I can avoid it!  Apparently the bees like it though.  I wonder what kind of honey it makes...

And he also showed me the poison hemlock that grows all over the place.  I would have thought that it was Queen Ann's Lace if he hadn't told me otherwise.