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Those look poo poo-hot, son. I'll be down to Corvallis later this week to get my big bag o' parts.
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Mar 17, 2009 07:29
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Crazy Armed Pilot posted:Its easy to find a place for hives. I am not going to keep mine at my house (rental, and will be moving half way through the summer to another rental). Ask around, someone with a garden would love to have your bees in their yard. I was complaining about not being able to keep bees at my place and I had two of the chemistry professors on my floor competing against one another to get to have the bees on their property. So what's the updated scoop on when we get to go out to Silverton and pick up these bees? Can we take the little truck or we going to have to put them in the passenger compartment of one of our cars? 
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Mar 27, 2009 06:16
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Crazy Armed Pilot and I took our boxes out to our local box-of-angry-bees dealer today, to be filled with angry bees sometime in the next week. The guy showed us around his operation and let us watch him queen a few hives with some fancy Hawaiian queens. CAP and I were unscathed in our regular shoes, jeans, t-shirts, fleece jackets and fancy hoods while fellow goon hedgiejugglr, tagging along for the afternoon, managed to get stung despite wearing some borrowed pro gear. CAP took some pictures that he'll probably post before too long. Tomorrow I have to head back out to crazy bee-land to drop off four gallons of sugar syrup, so that our precious bees have something to eat in their shiny new home.
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Apr 3, 2009 07:12
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I've been making sugar syrup all afternoon. I bet you didn't know that twenty pounds of sugar could easily be dissolved in three gallons of water, did you? I hope three gallons is enough because I am loving DONE with making this sticky bullshit. Now I have to take it out to crazy bee dude and hope the jugs don't rupture in my car.
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Apr 3, 2009 22:59
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Crazy Armed Pilot posted:Just put the bees in there they will clean it up They're so helpful.  Post those pics of us dressed up like idiots.
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Apr 4, 2009 01:05
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Crazy Armed Pilot posted:ETA: Anyone want that boat in the background, he tried to sell one of his five that we saw to walrusman and I, but we declined. 1) no place to store a boat 2) nowhere to use a boat 3) no vehicle to tow the boat from (1) to (2) 4) no particular desire to own a boat 5) spent all my money on bees anyway
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Apr 4, 2009 18:11
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Crazy Armed Pilot posted:The advice to me was not to. Call him. If he keeps being a dick, I can go jack some of those drums of honey. I might need to borrow your forklift...
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Apr 17, 2009 07:16
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landis posted:Is this why there has been naught but teasing in this thread and no drat PICTURES?! Yeah, basically. We were supposed to have our nucs by LAST Friday, at the latest. This guy is giving CAP and me some major box o' bees blue balls. 
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Apr 17, 2009 15:46
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Well, CAP and I went last night (FINALLY) and picked up our bees. We snuck in under cover of darkness, threw the two boxes in the bed of his pickup, tossed an envelope of money in the cab of a dilapidated pickup and sped away into the night. CAP took some pictures and I'll be taking some more when I head out to check on them, so look forward to some awesome pictures in a little while.
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Apr 22, 2009 20:24
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Here we see my beehive in its natural habitat: my backyard.  Well hello there.  Let's pop you open and take a look inside, shall we?  This is the feeder that Crazy Armed Pilot and I have used so far. The bee dealer said they didn't like it too much, but your mileage may vary. They seem to be pretty content with it so far, insofar as they've eaten all the syrup from it. They're pretty much self-reliant at this point, but I think I'll keep the feeder in the stack for a little while longer.  They've already made some comb on the feeder bottom. Hi friends!  As you can see, the four dark frames are the frames of brood that the dealer put in as part of the nucleus hive. He said since they didn't take too kindly to the style of feeder that we used, he also had to add some extra bees after the fact. Whatever, they all look like bees to me. As you can kind of see, they are expanding out quite handily, and they've already started drawing out comb on the second frame to the left, and the second to the right as well. My bees kick rear end. They get that from me. When those frames start getting close to full, I'll slap another deep on top, and see what happens then. Today when I inspected the hive, I wore a fleece jacket and jeans with a pull-over hood and some nitrile gloves that I guess CAP probably stole from a lab someplace. I didn't bother to smoke them; I figured that early in the morning, they'd be docile. I was right, until I started trying to pull frames to look at them; then they got pissed, and very defensive. My next step is going to be to learn how to use the smoker. After that, buying some gloves I trust is probably in order. As it was, I was only able to partially pull a couple frames. However, they seemed to be doing fine, so that's good news. This is just a pretty picture of bees, so here ya go.  Happy beekeeping!
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Apr 24, 2009 18:13
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Well, I apparently have mono, so I'll be taking a few days of semi-voluntary unpaid leave from work. However, I still feel well enough to poke around at my bees, as long as it's nice outside and I sit down and take breaks every five minutes, so it gives me an opportunity to get to know them a little better. Since I dug up some leather gloves, I am much more comfortable pulling frames and having faith that I'm not going to get the poo poo stung out of me. These pictures were all taken from 20+ feet away with a 55-200 lens, because I only have one hood.  Here we see my hive, still just one deep strong, with a bunch of bees coming and going. They're so goddamn cute. It's like a little airport out front. They were extremely busy today, and I even noticed a couple distinct colors of pollen on their legs as they came home. I heard in the class that CAP and I took, that hazelnut pollen is gray...even though hazelnuts are supposed to be over by now, I could swear I saw some little gray legs this afternoon. There were also a few different shades of orange, from a deep reddish, all the way down to a bright yellow. I didn't get any pictures of this, but it's kinda neat.  Here I am, smoker in hand, hive tool in pocket, ready to piss off some bees. I'm leaving the feeder on top for now, because CAP is doing it and I tend to trust his judgement on things like this.  Smokey smokey. This is the first time I've used my smoker, and I must say, I was impressed. The bees were significantly more docile and seemed less inclined to kill me. I had some minor difficulty getting it fired up and keeping it lit, but some dry leaves, a couple twigs and some newspaper seemed to be a good combination. A++ would smoke again.  When I talked to CAP a couple days ago, he said his bees had drawn comb on all ten frames already. He's been feeding his a little more than I have, so that makes sense I suppose. Here we see the last frame that they've drawn any appreciable comb on, which leaves two (the two to the left in this picture) still to be filled. Get to work, lazy bees!  At least the frames they've filled look like they really mean business. I don't know if you can tell in this picture, but there are larvae in the open cells, and you can tell that a fair few of them are capped. Awesome.  This is the frame the farthest to the right. It's looking decent right now, but they still have some work to do. Seeing how much work they had left to do, and seeing that the weather is going to be iffy for the next few days, I decided to help the little fellows out. I whipped up a small batch of syrup -- maybe a gallon, or slightly less -- and fed that to them a couple hours ago. I'll go back out tomorrow and check on the level, and if it looks like they're eating it, I'll head to the store and get supplies for a couple more gallons. Gotta keep them happy so they'll make me honey!
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May 1, 2009 00:31
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Simkin posted:You could probably get in contact with a local beekeeping group and tell them that you have a swarm - the one around here has a list of people that are willing to go out and catch rogue colonies, and give them a good home. That looks like a pretty happy little hive to me, rather than a swarm. I'd just leave them. I might be getting ready to put my first honey super on soon. My bees were going apeshit today. I might throw on my veil and go check them once the sun goes behind the trees.
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May 27, 2009 00:31
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I put my excluder and my first honey super on a few days ago. The bees seem to be doing well, very happy and busy, but the weather here has been suboptimal and I blame that for the lack of comb drawn out on my frames. I need newer pictures...I'll try to get some early next week.
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Jun 12, 2009 03:31
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It got cool enough that I decided to open my hive tonight and check on the progress in the first super, and that can only mean one thing: PICTURE POST!! Before I send a lot of sweet sweet pixels your way, let me just say that my bees kick rear end. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who says you can't get honey your first year is a goddamn moron, and I have several partially-capped super frames to prove it. I hope CAP goes and checks on his hive soon, because I bet it's doing even better than mine.  An artsy low-angle shot showing a frame that is mostly capped on both sides. I forget which frame this is.  Me pulling a frame to inspect the delicious progress within. I'm glad I elected to wear my gear, because my gloves saved me from at least three stings, and the bees were generally agitated tonight. It's been hot and they have a lot of honey to protect, I supposed. I'd be pissed too.  This is comb that's drawn out and basically full, but not capped yet. You can see it's pretty much to the full depth of the frame, but they need to fill them a bit more before they cap it I guess.  A partially-capped frame, from somewhere near the middle I think. The comb is a little thicker on one side because I screwed up the spacing and they built it thicker to accommodate for my error. I don't think it hurts anything.  Honnnneeeyyyyyyyy.   A couple more partially-capped frames.  This is just a pretty picture with light shining through the comb and honey. I think this is the second frame from the right, which means they're making significant progress on at least eight of the ten frames. There's some comb and honey on the far outside frames, but I'll give them a couple more days to beef those up before I throw on the next box -- especially given their documented penchant for building up rather than out. Oh god goons, I'm so excited. Between this and my robust-looking tobacco I'll be plenty busy this fall. edit: shrunk the pics a little more walrusman fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Jul 6, 2009 |
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Jul 6, 2009 05:39
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My plan goes something like this, based on advice from people I know who've done it in the past, and subject to extensive revision if it turns out not to work as well as hoped: 1) Use hot knife to cut caps from comb. 2) Place sheet of cheesecloth across top of clean container (big rubbermaid tub, etc.). 3) Lay frame cut-side-down on same. 4) Wait a few hours. 5) ??? 6) profit  7) Honey.
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Jul 8, 2009 01:21
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I just put my second honey super on. I was right on the edge since not all the frames are fully capped and one frame is still pretty anemic, but it's supposed to be hot for the next couple days and that seems to be when they do their best work. I wouldn't want them not to have enough room.
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Jul 16, 2009 02:07
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This is the best use of that emoticon in history. I wouldn't worry about the dogs too much. Mutual apathy will quickly become the order of the day.
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Jul 18, 2009 19:20
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topenga posted:will it be harder to get them removed without killing them? Yes. Significantly. It's very unusual, to my understanding, for them to just chill out in the open for weeks at a time. They like secluded little cavities that they can fill up with comb, not just any old place where they can start chillin'. Very odd indeed. Pics plz.
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Jul 30, 2009 00:50
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I checked my bees last night, and was also somewhat disappointed at their (lack of) progress. I guess the local beekeeping club's timeline was accurate when it said honey flow stopped at the end of July; that would definitely coincide with my observations. The last time I checked them, which must be at least two weeks ago, they had almost filled the first super, and made virtually no progress on the top one. Last night I cracked it open and...yeah, pretty much the exact same thing. They have wickedly glued the frames in place, to the point that I think I damaged a couple trying to pull them. There is a ton more propolis than at any time previous, but those little bitches need to be making me honey, not propolis. They were also surprisingly docile last night, which I had heard was unusual for August. At any rate, I have one super virtually full of honey, and a very strong population of bees, so I can't complain too much. So, people who have done this before: how do you go about stealing the full frames from the bees without pissing them off too much?
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Aug 6, 2009 18:46
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melodywise posted:Congrats on your hive being strong! How many supers are you running on it? Cool, thanks for the advice. Just two supers: the one that's essentially full, and the one that's essentially empty. For it being my first year, I think they did fairly well. I can't wait until next year, when the comb will be all drawn out already and they can concentrate on making more honey.
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Aug 6, 2009 23:39
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Maximusi posted:Do you guys have any 'tricks' to make the bees draw comb on the super? Mine's been there a whole month, and still no progress whatsoever. I really want to put a frame of bees in there, that really helped draw out the second brood box. The problem is that the frames are too big for the super. All the progress that they made on my super, they did in the span of about two weeks. After that it slowed way down. I don't know of anything special you can do to make them like the super more; it just sort of happened for me.
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Aug 10, 2009 05:40
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topenga posted:My bees are gone! Yay! They'll be dead in a few days; I wouldn't worry about it. You could have scrubbed the whole affair in bleach and cleansing fire and the bees would have remembered exactly where their home was, and come back there. Moving a hive in the daytime is always going to lose a few bees, because some of them will be out, you know, being bees. I've read that bees will remember where their hive is to such an extent that, if you were to move it even just to the other side of your yard, they wouldn't be able to find it. They'd just sit there and buzz at the former site and get extremely confused. They say if you want to move a hive for a short distance, it's better to follow this procedure: 1) come in at night, when they're all inside, and block the entrance 2) move the hive to somewhere completely outside their range, so they get disoriented and can't find their way back to the old location 3) leave the hive in the new location for a couple weeks, until the memory of the old location is completely gone 4) come in at night and block the entrance again 5) move the hive back to the place you wanted it originally Yeah, it takes a couple weeks to safely move a beehive across the yard. I thought it was fascinating when I read about that. Congrats on a bee-free backyard. I'm still enjoying the comforting buzz and delicious smell of having my hive back there. I love my bees.
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Aug 10, 2009 18:08
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I'm using an excluder and they don't seem to mind it. It took them a day or two to get used to it, but they made honey just fine. This is the first I've really heard about excluders causing problems. Are my bees freaks? Am I a freak?
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Aug 11, 2009 17:43
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Should I harvest honey today? If so, how many frames should I take? I haven't looked in my hive for a couple weeks but they had one super full and one barely touched, the last time I looked. My beekeeping club's timeline says honeyflow has been over for about three weeks. So, should I go for it? I will post a trip report, promise.
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Aug 23, 2009 20:27
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There are three frames of honey draining into a tub on my kitchen table as we speak. I took pictures but I'll have to post them later due to being very tired and needing to go to bed.
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Aug 31, 2009 07:53
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Simkin posted:My friend's theft of honey from his bees has prompted me to consider that I should ... misplace some of my bees' hard work. They'll not miss just one frame, right? I assure you they will. They were highly displeased when I stole those three, and I was glad I had my full gear on.
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Aug 31, 2009 15:10
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Socratic Moron posted:because I live in an Ohia Lehua forest, when they bloom, I can't have enough supers. ung  I've harvested seven frames of the ten that my bees filled this year; net result, about 25lb of honey so far. It's the best honey I've ever had, and I've been sharing with my friends and earmarking it for Christmas presents, in addition to eating it on toast, peanut butter sandwiches, and the like. Unfortunately, the harvesting method that we developed, which is the only one that works for us without an extractor or infinite patience, involves smushing up the comb. But that does mean that I get to play with the wax left behind, so...candles!
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Sep 21, 2009 18:45
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I pulled my last three frames of capped honey today, and removed my second super (the one they never really built much on). I'll take the other super off once they've had a chance to clean the honey off the harvested frames. You can definitely tell the bees are getting ready for the winter, because the top super, which a month ago was full to bursting with bees, had three bees in it today. The full super had just a few on each frame. The deeps looked chock-full of bees though, so I'm not worried that my hive is dying or anything. I have to go crush and strain this honey now, and maybe I can take some pictures before my hands get too sticky.
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Oct 2, 2009 03:16
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If anyone was wondering exactly how much honey three full-ish frames will yield using a crush-and-strain method: That much. For scale, the largest jar on the right is a pint, and the next couple from the right are 12oz...which conveniently hold exactly 1lb (by weight) of my delicious honey. The rest are smaller jars for gifts for people I don't really like.
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Oct 3, 2009 06:24
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Maximusi posted:I hate you. I'll be lucky if I get one frame. My bees suck. I pretty much had ten -- one full super, give or take. The other super was pretty barren. Hopefully next year, with comb drawn on the deeps already, they'll be able to make even more.
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Oct 3, 2009 07:47
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The caps and crushed comb that I was getting ready to render? Well I looked in the bowl and discovered it was floating in what looked like clear, gorgeous honey. So I threw it back in the strainer overnight, and I bet I got close to another quart of honey out of it. I'll be rendering the wax today; I need to buy a big pot at Goodwill because everything I've read says never use a pot you ever want to use again for anything else. I've got a lot of wax, but not nearly as much as I thought I did, because I strained a ton of weight out of it overnight. God I love my bees.
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Oct 5, 2009 17:31
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I had a film of honey (actually probably a couple cups worth) and a broken, sticky mess of a frame that I couldn't get back in the hive this morning, left in my big rubbermaid tub that I used to carry the frames inside. Rather than throw it away, I decided to leave the tub near the hive and let the bees steal back what they could. Bad idea. Two hours later the honey on the bottom of the tub was full of dead bees, probably half from drowning and half killed by the hundreds of yellowjackets gorging themselves on the honey. I was surprised not to see any ants, actually. So yeah, I'd read that too and I had planned on cleaning my wax that way...but after seeing how much of a mess it made with unwanted pests and dead bees, I decided to just strain it a few times and then render it. The first batch of rendered wax is cooling on top of a pot of water as we speak; hopefully it'll be nice and pure once it hardens.
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Oct 6, 2009 00:16
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Yeah it really broke my heart. Despite my gruff exterior I'm a giant softy when it comes to animals, and I've really started to grow attached to my awesome bees. They're cute, goddamnit, and I'll fight anyone who says differently -- not to mention the massive amount of honey they so graciously made me. Seeing them fighting bravely against the more mobile and better-armed yellowjackets really made me proud of them. It was like WWII in the Pacific, except on a 1:10,000 scale. God, I'm such a woman. On a lighter note, I was able to chop up a damaged frame and make a decent entrance reducer. Should give them the upper hand against invading yellowjackets and excessive cold. On an even lighter note, my rendered wax looks great. The first batch...  which is about half the total, came out very nicely. The hole in the plank is from the beer bottle I used to hold down the cheescloth bag of whole comb and keep it from floating. The second batch is cooling right now, and it will be sans hole because I had to render it a second time. For some reason the crud wasn't as easy to skim and the finished product wasn't pure enough for my liking.
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Oct 6, 2009 04:29
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Ummm... You know, I'm not actually sure. I got a nuc from a local commercial beekeeper and I was told that all his nuc queens were brought in from Hawaii. I should probably know, but I couldn't tell you for the life of me. Maybe I'll call him and ask, haha. The second batch of wax actually turned out a little lighter than this one, which is odd. Maybe the second render session had something to do with it. Now I need to start looking for lip balm and candle recipes. Does anyone have any advice as far as that goes?
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Oct 6, 2009 07:41
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I don't really need to make "many" candles...just one so I can say hey bitch, look at me, I made a beeswax candle. Thanks for the lip balm tips; still gotta do some reading as far as that goes. Also wonder where around here I can find essential oils...
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Oct 6, 2009 18:22
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loving poo poo-loving goddamn son of a bitch yellowjackets... Suggestions?
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Oct 21, 2009 07:14
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Some of them enter the hive. Others get stopped by the guard bees and some fly by, take a look around and then leave. When I took my second super off last week, the interior of the deeps looked decidedly sluggish; I didn't know if this was a function of it being mid-October, or a sign that they needed attention. This is not good news at all. edit: I do have a makeshift entrance reducer on there, and it seems to help. walrusman fucked around with this message at 20:30 on Oct 21, 2009 |
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Oct 21, 2009 19:11
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| # ¿ Apr 30, 2024 11:05 |
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1) Go to Wal-Mart's craft department and buy a yard of cheescloth. 2) Make double- or triple-thick layers of cheesecloth, place a lump of waxy stuff in the middle, and tie it up into a bag. 3) Place said bag in a pot that YOU NEVER WANT TO USE FOR ANYTHING ELSE AGAIN, EVER. Cover with hot water. You'll also need to use something to keep the bag from floating, or else it won't work. A big rock would do the trick, but I used a beer bottle. 4) Heat over medium heat (don't boil, because it wrecks the product) until the wax starts coming out. You'll know when this happens, because the surface of the water will get a film of yellowish transparent goo on the top. This is your good stuff. 5) With the wax will also come some other gunk. Mostly, it will be kind of a whitish sludge that you might mistake for hardening wax if you don't know better. (I thought that at first but I figured it out.) Use a butter knife, again probably one that you don't want to use again for anything ever, and gently skim this crap off the top and wipe it on a paper towel. When you're done, this paper towel covered in wax-soaked bee proteins will be one hell of a fire-starter. 6) There's not a specific time to stop, just when you think all the wax is out of the bag. I forget how long it took me, exactly, but it couldn't have been more than half an hour. When you think you're done, turn off the heat, and set the pan aside to cool. Because there's so much water, this might take a while. Go watch TV or post on the forums. 7) When the wax is hard and the water is cool enough to touch, simply poke around the edges with your fingers until the wax starts coming free in a solid disc. Set that aside, and fish out the now very gross bag of waste. You can toss that, but again, it'll burn like the sun so you can use it as a fire starter. And voila, wax rendering made easy.
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Oct 26, 2009 19:20
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