Wild Honey

We continue to forage for food for us and the pigs. We have now stopped gathering grass for hay, as it is drying out, and have moved instead to river cane (which the pigs LOVE) and willow branches. We are also starting to collect some of the numerous wild plants that are edible for us, including a big bag of mint.

But, the score of the week has been delicious HONEY. A hive had made itself at home in a meter box type thing for the local water system. We were asked to remove them. Abe opened it up and removed all the brood comb and most of the honey, and placed it inside a bee box we had at the house. He then closed the lid of the manhole and set the box over the hole. He put dirt all around the two, so that the bees would have to go through our box to get out.

We went to check on them after a couple of days, and they seem quite happily moved into their new home. After a while, once they have had chance to clean up, we will move the box away from the manhole.

While Abe was in there though, he took out some of the honey comb for us. We have had such a bad year with water and flowers that we won't be robbing our bees. These guys however have plenty of flowers as they live down at the apple ranch (where we will now be moving all our bees). The honey is dark and wonderful. We removed it from the comb using the sun's heat, so it is still raw, and boy is it good.

for more photos click here.

A blog from Abe and his Bees

I was fortunate enough to be able to remove a hive from a house down in the village last weekend. It was a wonderful and amazing experience, and it left me with such an appreciation for bees.

Armando's nephew (Luis) is a pro keeper. He has about 30 hives, which he rents them to the orchards. He came down last weekend for Easter, and someone down in the village asked him to remove a hive that was in their roof. Apparently, it had been there for several years.

Well, he didn't have any equipment, but he knew I was interested in bees, as he has been looking for used hives and "splits" for me for some time, now. So, he proposed that we remove the hive together, using my equipment. The deal was that I could have the hive, and we could split any honey, if we found any.

So, I saw it as an awesome opportunity. I have to admit, I was a bit nervous when we arrived at the house. I had never been around bees like that, and I didn't really know how I would react.

We climbed up to the roof and started removing pieces of tin where the bees were coming out of the roof. It soon dawned on us that they were not in this part of the roof, so we went to another part, removed more tin, and later learned that they were not in the roof at all, but down below the insulation just above the sheet rock. It so happened that this was right above a closet, which made it hard to work with the limited space and light.

In any case, we started tearing down sheet rock and quickly found the hive. IT WAS HUGE. It measured about 4 feet long and 3 feet wide. There were so many bees, I could hardly believe it.

We started pulling down combs, one by one. I was on the ground sorting them into "honey" and "brood" piles. Once we got most of the hive down (who knows how long it took, at least 2 hours), we started tying the brood combs to my tops bars and putting them in a box I brought up to serve as a temporary hive.

The honey combs went into a 5 gallon bucket that we quickly filled, so we got another, and it filled up as well.

As things started to calm down a bit, we began looking in the hive I brought, which by this time had tons of bees in it. We were looking for the queen, and I am proud to say that I was the one that spotted her! She seemed ok, but had honey on her, and as the day progressed, she moved less and less. The workers didn't really help her much, which worried us a bit.

We scooped up as many bees as we could, and then we took the hive up to our house. I dropped Luis off at Armando's house so that he could start processing the honey.

I arranged my barrel hive up here in a nice spot under an oak tree with a real nice eastern exposure. Getting the bees into the hive was very easy, I pretty much just poured them in. I ended up with about 6-8 heavy brood combs, all tied up to the tops bars and arranged in the hive really nice. The bees took to the new hive quite well, and I noticed they were even helping the queen a bit, though by this time she was barely moving at all.

Anyway, by the end of the day, we processed about 4 gallons of honey that we split between us. We also gave some to Armando and Estela, plus some to the people whose house we destroyed earlier that day! :)

I did end up getting stung once. When I was pulling down comb, a bee walk right onto my veil, which was pressed up against my face. She stung right through the veil on the tip of my nose. It didn't hurt much, and I just kept on working, and when we were done, Luis pulled the stinger out for me. The next morning I woke up with a big, swollen nose, and I now look like a sesame street character.

All in all, it was a great day, and a wonderful experience. I felt like a pro by the end of it (especially when I spotted the queen!), and I am excited to do it again soon. We will see if the hive survives, as I have doubts about the queen.

So, there you go, my first bee experience. I have been eating the dark, rich honey every since we robbed it, and I can't get enough of it. Luckily, we have a lot, plus a lot of clean wax as well. Leo loves the honey, so we are all just pigging out around here on Dad's latest adventure!

UPDATE 4-13
Yesterday I opened up the hive to look for the queen and also tie a few bits of comb to the top bars. As I was going through the hive, everyone looked really good, but I didn't see any signs of a queen. There was a small piece of comb leaning against the back of the hive, and when I picked it up, the back side was covered with thousands of bees. I thought that I had finally found the queen, but instead were 4 large queen cells. So, the hive is making a new queen, and if my calculations are correct, she should hatch sometime around April 20-25.

More Photos

Top Bar beehive

Something very exciting happened this week - we got our prototype top bar beehive made.

We want to start keeping bees as soon as possible, for both honey and pollination, and this method seemed like the best suited to us and our way of life. It is cheap, easy to do, and other people that use the top bar system say that they see a marked reduction in bee diseases. It seems to be the "organic" way to keep bees.

In short, the hive consists of half a barrel on 2"x4" legs, a frame around it on which rest 23 bars for the honeycomb, and a roof. We will be writing a full how-to over the next week or two, which we will post at http://velacreations.com/beehive.html

All we need now is to find a swarm of bees. Usually they swarm - which is when a new queen leaves the old hive with a group of bees, ready to make a new hive - in Spring, although people say that bees do swarm as late as this here.

For more photos, click here.