And How are the Bees Doing?

Well, there is a long answer and a short answer to that question:

Short is: I still have a colony of bees that I am readying for winter.  No, honey for us this year, but lots of other bee keepers say that is no surprise in the first year.  The long answer is below, here are some pictures of me with my little bee-keeper assistants to ready you for it.

Little Louis Fox & Mrs Fox ready for an inspection     Photo by Una

Little Louis Fox ready to check his bees    Photo by Una

Little Una Fox puts the queen guard back on the hive   Photo by Louis

So, long story is:  I got more relaxed with inspections and things seemed to be chugging along ok. The colony built up in size and so I added my supers to the brood box and waited for the bees to do something.  They didn't take much interest, so after speaking with my 'bee guru' (Malcolm) I added some frames of drawn comb because, apparently, bees can sometimes be a bit uninterested in the hard work of making the wax honeycomb to store the honey in.  Lazy bees!

By the time I had collected the drawn comb from Malcolm my bees had made a start on drawing the frames of foundation that I had given them in the super. Clever bees!

Bees on the brood frames    Photo by Una

They were soon busily storing honey in the new super.  And I thought I was well on my way to a successful first year of honey production.  I checked them weekly through June and July, tore down any queen cells I found to prevent them swarming.  We had a couple of episodes of bearding. Bearding is when the bees all come out and hang around on the side of the hive, making you panic and think they are going to swarm.  But they didn't.

I was a very happy, excited, quietly confident beginner bee-keeper, when I went down to the hive one sunny morning and I immediately knew there was something wrong.  There were very few bees outside the hive despite it being past 11 on a sunny morning.  I couldn't check them until later that day when I discovered there were very few bees inside the hive either.  After a bit of panic and calling a few experienced bee keepers for advice I had to accept my lovely gentle queen had left me.

A fellow bee keeper popped over with a frame of brood (baby bees) in case I needed to rear a new queen.  How nice is that?  Friday evening, just pop over to some woman I don't know's house, give a stuttering wreck of a bee keeper a frame of precious brood in case she needs to re-queen a colony of bees!

Fortunately there was a new young queen in the hive.  I didn't find her straight away, but once I had seen her, I then had to leave the hive undisturbed for a few weeks to give her the chance to fly off, mate and (hopefully) return to the hive ready to spend the rest of her life laying eggs.  This has all seemed to happen in order.

But my new queen is not so chilled and calm as my old queen and the mood of my colony is very different.  They are quicker to become agitated when you inspect them, louder, the guard bees quicker to try and see you off and a lot more persistent in their job.  The difference in the nature of my two colonies is huge and I miss my old queen.

Since then my new young colony have eaten all the honey stores that were in the super, hence no honey for me.  They've also had to fight off marauding wasps that tried to eat their honey stores.  This they have done admirably, but then considering their temperament I'm not surprised.

I'm undaunted.  I'm getting this lovely lot ready for winter and planning to get a new colony next year and maybe try re-queening.  I've already got my name down for another bee keeping course, Bee Improvement for All, this in the hope of better swarm management and a gentler colony.  The next big challenge is getting this colony through the winter.  I'm treating them for varroa to get them as healthy as possible and starting to feed them so they can make enough honey to store through the lean winter months.  Wish me luck

Our Hen's are laying

Mrs Fox's eggs - when our hens first started laying there was quite a wide variation in the size of their eggs.

First 21 Days of a Bees life

TED Talk showing Anand Varma's incredible time lapse photography of the first 21 days of a bees life.



He also talks about research into finding other ways to control varroa than chemical treatments.

First Inspection

It was quite nerve racking.  I needed to; try and find the queen, look for brood (eggs and young) and for any queen cells (sign the colony might swarm), check the general health and temper of my new colony.

I also needed to change the old floor of the brood box* to the varroa floor, which sits better on my hive stand.  

The colony is quite strong so I added a super* onto the brood box.

The inspection took two attempts, one on Thursday 28th, then Friday 29th May.  I was so nervous I only managed to check the first 4 frames, before I decided to get on with moving the floor and adding the super.  The bees were pretty negative about my intrusion and the brood box so crowded, I felt I was killing more bees than I was gaining any information.

So, in the hope that there would be more room in the brood box, I checked the remaining frames the following day.  The bees weren't much more welcoming the second time, and I didn't catch sight of my queen.  But I was a bit calmer and I felt I got more out of it.  My colony seems healthy, the queen's laying and, other than a probable moth larva, healthy.

Bee keepers are lovely people, generous to those of us 'newbees'.  In the last weeks I have fired off slightly panicked emails to 4 or 5 of them and received suggestions and support, and it's to them I owe the success of these first few weeks.  In particular, Malcolm, the very experienced gentleman bee keeper I bought my bees from, he has been SO kind.  Responding to my emails, letting me 'help' him with his bees for a morning and answering my never ending stream of questions.

After a morning of bee keeping at Malcolm's I came back home to do my first confident inspection, and I found my queen.  Yay!  However, the bees didn't seem to be taking much notice of the super with it's frames of brand new foundation.  Boo - lazy little bees!

*The super is the structure that holds the frames with foundation (a thin sheet of wax) that the bees build the honeycomb on, which will eventually contain honey.   It sits on top of the brood box, which is the structure that holds the queen, her eggs and young.  After consulting with Malcolm, he suggested I add some drawn frames to the super, these are frames that have the wax honeycomb built on them already.  The drawn frames allow the bees to get straight on with storing honey and encourage them to do the same to the frames with just foundation.

Yesterday I went down to the hive to pop the drawn frames (that Malcolm had very kindly dropped off on the weekend. - See LOVELY people bee keepers!) into the super.  My clever little bees had already started drawing out the foundation themselves, three frames of it well under way.  It is hard to describe how pleased I was without sounding like some kind of nutter.  Suffice to say, I told my bees they were very, very, clever.

The kids have named our queen Bess, the workers are all called Buzz and the drones are all Dave.  Which leads us to much hilarity as we stand at the side of the hive saying:

"Morning Buzz", "Morning Buzz", "Morning Buzz","Morning Buzz", "Morning Buzz", "Morning Buzz", "Morning Buzz","Morning Buzz", "Morning Buzz", "Morning Buzz", "Morning Buzz",

"Morning Dave",

"Morning Buzz", "Morning Buzz", "Morning Buzz", "Morning Buzz", "Morning Buzz","Morning Buzz", "Morning Buzz", "Morning Buzz", "Morning Buzz"...

 What can I say, it's a Bee Keeper's joke!  And an inaccurate one as you wouldn't really see Dave outside the hive unless he was dead.  But it makes us laugh.

I am a Keeper of Bees

I have been fascinated by bees for years.  I lived in California, over 15 years ago now, and a friend allowed me to help with her bees once and that was it, I've wanted to be a bee keeper ever since.

After moving to Ash Cottage one of the first things I did was sign up to the local bee-keeper's association and take their introductory course.  It finished a few weeks ago.

Friday was my birthday I had a wonderful day; went for breakfast with my mum and sister, Anna, received most of my bee keeping gear as gifts, spent the day in the garden, and ate the yummiest birthday cake EVER.  After a birthday party with friends on Saturday, both little foxes headed off for sleep-overs with their friends so that Mr Fox and I could get up early Sunday morning to pick up the bees.

A fellow bee keeper in my association was selling off some over wintered queens with their first colonies.  So we drove to pick up my first colony of bees.

The bees after returning to their hive the night before are sealed into the broodbox.  Can you see the blue sponge stuffed into their entrance to stop them getting out?  That was all there was between us and 50,000 bees in the confines of old Betsy, our 15 year old Volvo estate.

Bees are naturally woodland animals and like dappled light.  But they also need the warmth of the sun on the hive for much of the year in our temperate climate.  Although we have a large garden, we do also have 2 dogs and 2 children, so the hive has been positioned at the edge of the garden, close to veggie patch which will, at some point, be fenced off from the rest of the plot.

Once in the garden we decided to face the hive entrance into the hedgerow along the side of the river that is the western boundary of the garden.  This should encourage them to fly up as they come out of the hive, sending them as quickly as possible above head height in the garden and so avoiding collisions between bees and people.

Once in position and the sponge removed from the entrance, they were very active and have continued to be so for the last two days.  Non too friendly for the first 20 minutes they have since appeared to be quite happy to let us stand just to the side of the hive entrance to the north - they mostly seem to fly off to the south towards the fields at the back of our garden.  Watching them come and go from their brood box is all I've been able to do since Sunday.  I'd been told not to open the hive for a couple of days but just let them settle.  They were inspected before being closed up on Saturday and there were no queen cells - so, today I need to do my first inspection.

Best Birthday Cake EVER!

Little Rituals

Monday's coffee in Rob Ryan enamel mug

I recently read a lovely post on my Bloglovin' feed called Little Rituals by Gillian from Tales From A Happy Home.  Gillian's post was about the small daily rituals which, after moving home, are the things that make your new house your home.  And it set me to thinking; I LOVE our new house and in the short 9 months that we have been living here it has become the home of my dreams, for the rest of my life, absolute heaven.  I don't mean to gush, but it has.

And Gillian is right, it is the day to day rituals, things that you only do in your own house that make it your home.   So, here is a very ordinary day, Monday to be exact, but one that brought me much pleasure.

Little Louis seems to always get up first, and too early.  He comes into our bedroom and wiggles around in our bed, making snoozing impossible, but, I have a new trick up my PJ sleeve.  I send him off to let the chickens out of their house.

Little Una Fox has a barking dog alarm clock which goes off just after 7am, over, and over, and over again.  Mr Fox gets up for work, and brings me a cup of tea in bed before he goes - Isn't he grand!  I don't feel alive until I've had my tea, washed my face and applied my Fushi Oils.  They are an indulgence that I decided I deserve now that I am in my 40's.

 
But my day begins proper, much like Gillian's by the sound of it, after I drop the Little Foxes at school - now only a 90 second walk rather than a 30 minute drive away. On my return I have my best coffee of the day.   Fresh ground, made in an espresso pot bought before the Little Foxes were born.  The cup I use is very important.  It is usually one of a choice of 3, but each cup has a slightly different meaning for me.  The one I went for on Monday means - "a day in the garden".

Even though the school run is now such a brief excursion I still get greeted by our two dogs, Bea and Beau, like I've been gone for days.  Sometimes this ends in disaster, as I trip over them extracting a yelp from the victim and a non too savoury word from me.  On other occasions disaster eludes us and we have a bit of a love in, the dogs and I.  Tails wagging, neck scratching, jockeying for position and general over-excited chaos on a small furry canine scale.

Then we do our tour of the garden.  When Mr Fox is home he and I walk the garden, but otherwise the dogs like to accompany me.  We check the chickens,...

and this is why we check the chickens; evidence of a fox having taken a rabbit in our garden last night

I gaze at my apple trees for a bit, and dream of my orchard.  Planting the three apple trees was all quite a palaver, so to see the blossom on them now is wonderfully reassuring.

We also take in the veg patch and green house where I've sown seeds that I'm hoping have germinated.  Little green seedlings are a cause for celebration.  Hopeful watering of all other seed trays and plants in pots elsewhere in the garden brings my garden tour to a close.

I sit at the computer for a bit once inside.  I'm still not sure where my favourite spot for sitting at the computer is in this house.  I've been moving it around.  But I quite like the table in the back room at the moment.

I check emails and Facebook; friends are so scattered these days, all over the world from the US and Canada to Australia and Bangkok.  Do a bit of writing, upload some photos.  Then remember that I am supposed to be doing the shopping online not getting distracted.

I do agree that a home is not a home until you've broken in the kitchen.  And most of my toil in the garden is all about edible crops.  At Ash Cottage the kitchen wasn't in too bad a state when we moved in.  But shortly after our move, one by one, everything functional broke down, including the cooker. So, we bought a reconditioned Aga, built on site it was great to watch it grow in my kitchen, and as we are talking rituals, it has become something of an idol to be worshiped.  I do a fair but of cookery exchanging (my marmalade for her pesto, sloe gin for elderflower cordial, that kind of thing) with my friend Jennie and last weekend she leant me her ice cream maker.  I've made a batch of blackberry ice cream and with the spare egg whites a batch of meringues.

Where one woman's rituals is another woman's chore, in Tales From A Happy Home, Gillian writes eloquently, and supplies beautiful pictures, of her house-work; bedding changed and beautifully made up beds, washing on the line.  With the greatest respect to this lady I'm not going to do that.  I go by the adage that no woman on her death bed would say; "I wish I had spent more time doing the house work".  My house work is done as quickly as possible, the bare minimum, "a bit of dirt never hurt" as my granny would say, in her spotless house(!).  It's a quick, kitchen - post breakfast detritus cleared, bathrooms - given a quick swipe (yes, swipe not wipe), beds made, kids clothes picked up off the floor and stuck in the washing machine, then get back out in the garden.

Today, I wanted to get the second bed of potatoes into the ground.  Which involves moving huge piles of soil from an old compost heap onto the veg beds on the other side of the garden.

Can you spot the potato?

This quiet, simple, sometimes strenuous, repetitive to the point of meditative activity is why I love gardening.  Sharing a chat with my elderly neighbours over the garden fence, exchanging tomatoes for runner bean plants.  A quick snack for lunch, and a couple of drink and chicken watching stops mean that I am little more than started on the potato beds when it is time to pick the Little Foxes up from school.  Gardening eats time.

On a Monday the children have no after school clubs, so they come straight back home and go say "Hi!" to their chickens.  As it was such a beautiful day they persuaded me to turn the sprinkler on for them to play in after tea.

I had to stop my toil to watch them screaming and jumping into the cold water, a beautiful end to the day.  Straight into the shower for those two, PJs, hot milk and a madeleine while they wait for daddy to come home.  Mr Fox usually puts the children to bed while I do our dinner.  That is his most important ritual and sometimes I join him to listen to the bedtime story.

As Gillian asked; outside my open bedroom window I can hear birdsong and cars.

And I can hear the creaks and groans of my house bending and stretching her old bones.  I talk to my house, she is a she. I like to think our inhabiting her is something that she is a willing participant in after some years of neglect.  That we are gently restoring a lady in her middle years (I don't like to call her old!) to something of her former glory.  Each day we live in her, no matter how ordinary or normal, is nourishing her as much as she shelters and protects us.



 

Bees

I have just finished the Beginner's Bee Keeping course with the Bishop Stortford Bee Keepers Association .  It has been lovely to put the kids to bed of an evening and then drive over to Hopleys Garden Centre in Much Hadham to listen, learn and talk about bees with others as enthusiastic (if not more so) as I.  The course was great and I met a lovely group of people, both BSBKA members, committee and fellow "newbies"; thank you all!

In the second week we all made a hive, split into teams we each worked on a different section of the hive.  The team I was in made the brood box and frames.  It was great to realise that with basic carpentry skills I will be able to build and maintain my bees' home.  And doing something with my hands, made the course come alive for me.  I've been babbling about bees to anyone who will listen ever since, reading up on these fascinating creatures, and getting more and more excited that I will soon be a bee keeper.  At the end of the session, whoever emailed first could buy the hive we'd all built.  I was home in a flash and emailed my interest, so here she is in the garden at Ash Cottage.

Thank you John for delivering it - look at that dappled light in the photo.  Apparently bees are into a bit of dappled light.

So, I have the hive and frames, I'm hoping to pick up my first colony of bees on the May Bank Holiday weekend.  I have been browsing the bee keeping suppliers websites for about 4 weeks now in various states of confusion.  I am just about ready to purchase what I think are the absolute essential things I'll need to have for the bees arrival: 

Bee keeper's all in one suit (v. important!), 

smoker, 

J shaped hive tool, 

bee brush, 

1 gallon contact feeder,

...that's what I've got on my order, is there anything else that those of you with more experience than I would say I have to have?

I thought it was the honey and doing my bit for the environment that would be my main interest in bee keeping, but I have become fascinated by the creatures themselves.  Bees are amazing.  Don't get me wrong the honey is still a big attraction.  Little Una Fox gets repeated bouts of tonsillitis.  We use Manuka honey to treat it, and if we catch it early enough it prevents going to the doctors for antibiotics.  I am hoping to switch to raw honey from our own hive for the same result.

And then of course there are all the delicious things you can make with honey.  Sarah, my fellow newbie noticed The Guardian had an article on the Ten Best Honey Recipes  the other weekend, I fancy making the Madeleines.

So soon I will be a bee keeper! < small scream of excitement >

To the land where the honey runs

In rivers each day

And the sweet tastin' good life

Is so easily found

A way over yonder

That's where I'm bound

"A Way Over Yonder" lyrics by Carole King