Leveling the Hive

When we installed our top bar bee hive (made by my father) ten years ago, we picked a nice site in a place that got morning sun and afternoon shade, was sheltered from wind, and mostly hidden to passersby. We also leveled the site before putting the sawhorses and hive in place, resting them on concrete blocks to keep the legs up off the soil.

Over the years, the earth has settled and shifted. This is due to many factors: One, this is earthquake country; two, we have 100% clay soil which swells and shrinks during wet or dry periods (and in California, it’s either very wet or very dry, not much in between); and three, I’ve been adding mulch in that area for years, which has probably worked its way under the legs somehow. So it’s not a surprise that our hive began to list.

For a long time, we would ‘solve’ this problem by shimming up a side (you can see our first shim on the left). That was an easy ‘fix,’ and would hold for a while before needing to shim it up on the other side. Sometimes I would even put an especially large piece of bark under one of the sawhorse legs. It wasn’t an exact science, but the thought of moving the whole thing and re-doing the area was daunting.

But finally, this fall, the hive started to lean in earnest. This was worrying, not least because if it started to gain some momentum, the whole thing could have just slid off the sawhorses, which would have been a colossal mess and would probably really freak out the bees (and make them very aggressive and/or want to leave), or even harm them. Was it leaning over that far? Probably not, probably I’m exaggerating. But what was definitely happening was that our bees started to beard every night, even on cool nights.

Bearding is when bees hang out at the front of the hive, on the ‘front porch’ so to speak, and make a big hanging mass of bodies which looks like a beard on the hive. This usually only happens when it’s super hot out, and the bees can’t keep the hive at the 93 degrees they prefer. They remove some heat from the hive by removing bodies. Smart, right? But bees can also beard when they run out of room, or if there is poor ventilation in the hive.

See the picture at the top of this post? That’s a beautiful comb, from our top bar hive. Since top bars don’t use frames, like Langstroth hives, the bees build on a bar which rests on the top (hence the name). What this allows is for the bees to build the way they like. And bees like to build their comb in catenary curves. When the hive is level, the comb perfectly fits the shape of the hive box, allowing for something called ‘bee space,’ which means there’s just enough room at the edges and bottom for the bees to move freely around the colony.

Gravity plays a big role in how bees build comb; they naturally build in line with the pull of gravity. When a hive is level, they create an ideal comb. When a hive isn’t level, the bees are confused. They build asymmetrically or in a funky shape. The comb can encroach on other combs, and create a mess. It can also lean with the hive, and honey is heavy, so the comb can slide off the top bar and create an enormous sticky pile of wax, honey, and bees at the bottom of the hive.

My working theory, while viewing the leaning hive, and the constant bearding, and after hearing how Tom, when working in the hive, found lots of comb stuck to the sides and bottom (so the bees weren’t building comb correctly), was that the unevenness of the hive was past the point where a shim would help. We just needed to redo the entire area. This was a bummer, because it meant we had to move the hive.

Just like there’s an ideal time to work inside a hive (sunny warm afternoons, when a good portion of the bees are out foraging), there’s an ideal time to move a hive, and that time is never. But, second best is when it’s dark and the bees are tucked in for the night. So, since I’m not allowed to work anywhere near the hive due to my allergies, we recruited my dad to help.

Mom and Dad came over for dinner, and once it was dark, Tom and Dad went out to the hive and discussed the operation. Tom brought out our other sawhorses and set them nearby. They both made sure to cover arms and legs securely to avoid stings. Mom went out with a flashlight to help light the scene. And then there was nothing for it but to move it, that heavy hive, over to the side several feet. Job done! And no one stung, and no fuss from the bees at all.

I checked on them periodically the next day, and they were very confused. But by the second day, they had a new pattern of exiting/entering all figured out.

Then, the following weekend, the real work began. Tom started by removing eight inches of mulch and leaves until he found bare ground. Then he bought 240 pounds of construction-grade sand and wheelbarrowed it over to the space. Wet, level, wet again, level again, rinse, repeat. Then he bought bigger concrete footings and set them in. Level, pound, level again, pound again, rinse, repeat. Finally the sawhorses went back on the blocks. And then, my dad had to be pressed into service for the second time (will work for cookies!) and helped move the hive back in place in the dead of night. And voila! A newly leveled hive.

The bees had absolutely no confusion the day after moving back, which was interesting. They must have good memories. Or deep instincts that reminded them that they oriented to this position originally.

So, that oughta do us for another ten years. Unless the big one comes, and then we’ll have other things to worry about anyway.

Winter Honey

In response to our unseasonably warm afternoons, Tom and I opened up the hive yesterday for our first check of the year. We wanted to take off the entrance reducer, make sure the bees had enough room, and clean out any old stuff from the winter, as well as preemptively treat for varroa mite. All our plans kind of went out the window the minute we opened the hive. The bees were there, all the way at the back of the hive, and all the bars were full!

To explain why this is so unusual, you need to understand hive logistics. In November here in CA, a hive is opened one last time before winter, to make sure the bees have enough honey for the coming season. At the same time, beekeepers reduce the hive space, which helps the colony conserve heat during cold weather. In Langstroth hives (the ones you’re used to seeing), that means taking off excess boxes and keeping the colony down in the bottommost one or two. It’s a little different in our top bar hive. It’s only one long box, designed a bit like a hanging file system. The bars, about two inches wide, hang from either side on a ledge in the long, narrow box. In summer time, the entire box is filled with these bars - there is no excess room. But in winter, the bars are reduced, and something called a ‘follow board’ is put in behind the last one to make a sort of ‘false’ back to the box. This keeps all the bees up in the front end of the hive, compact and snug, with all their food available to them within a short distance. If I remember correctly, the queen lays her last batch of eggs about a month before the winter solstice. Those bees live a bit longer than usual to help the hive make it through winter. Then the queen starts laying again shortly after solstice, to have new bees ready to go in January as the days start lengthening. Therefore, depending on the weather, the hive can gain quite a few thousand members in late winter, in preparation for spring.

Since it’s still solidly winter, we didn’t expect the bees to have expanded the colony quite as much as they had; finding a full box was a surprise! Not only that, there were four entirely full bars of capped honey, with many more half-full. We took out the full bars, but then we needed to replace those four bars plus the bars we took out in November. I had three bars ready to go back in the hive (they need to be cleaned first, and I glue in a little strip of beeswax at the top to ensure them a good building pattern), but today we need to get the rest ready to go in. We may as well open up the whole hive and let the bees do their thing. With this warm weather, the brood will eventually fill the bottom half of every bar, with stores of honey and pollen at the top to make feeding the babies convenient for the nurse bees. The numbers will increase very rapidly.

Tom’s gone out to get more mason jars, since we have about 20 pounds of honey to bottle up. I don’t believe we’ve ever taken honey this early before. Likely, the bees made it before the first frost, and it’s been ripening all winter. It’s a deep, rich color, unlike the honey made from spring flowers which tends to be lighter in both appearance and flavor.

Meanwhile, the garden is taking off. I’ve been spending a good deal of time clearing out the flower beds in preparation for some new plantings. I believe I’ve written previously with regards to refreshing certain borders. This is a long process which includes cleaning out detritus, taking stock, moving plants that aren’t appropriate for the area, amending the soil, and researching what will do best in the space, with consideration given to which ones will provide the best habitat for insects and wildlife. I’ve recently watched this video of one of my favorite entomologists, Doug Tallamy, and have renewed my vow to make our garden a welcoming place for the ‘Little Things that Run the World,” providing more native plants on which the native insects evolved to depend. Dr. Tallamy has written several books that I can recommend heartily, my favorite being “Bringing Nature Home.”

I’ve also been moving certain big plants around, trying to create the structure that I am longing for in the lower canopy. Tom and I spent a happy hour on my parent’s hillside, cutting very large branches to use in our upcoming trellis project, which should help provide height. We are grazing daily in the garden, eating as we work, and I’ve cleared out the last of the spinach and planted a crop of head lettuce. I think I mentioned that I bought a thermometer for the greenhouse so I can monitor the conditions; I’ve added a bowl of water to see how that affects the humidity. I’m excited to get things moved and planted in there, in preparation for the coming season. This nice weather makes me antsy to do more.

The sad fact is that we’ve had very little rain or snow in California this winter, and the latest maps (from NW Climate Toolbox) show that as of early February, we are running near or below 50% of average precipitation for the state. This does not bode well for the upcoming year. It reminds me to be even more thoughtful while revamping the flower beds, and to carefully choose the right plant for the right place.

Pollinator Paradise

Let me take you into the garden and show you an area of which I am quite proud: A pollinator garden in a south-facing location. I have pollinator beds all over my garden, and each seems to have a ‘moment.’ Well, right now, this one is having that moment.

Let me be absolutely clear: I do not have any particular ‘magic’ that makes a space turn out like this. Anyone can make this happen. There are a few perennials here (both natives and exotics), and a lot of annuals (both natives and exotics). I add perennials whenever I notice a place with a large hole, and the annuals are added four times a year by seed. Mixed with compost, they are scattered in any open spots. Each season gets different seeds. For instance, in November, I plan to scatter all the California native seeds like poppies and clarkias and phacelia and tidy tips. Then those will bloom in early spring. Doing it this way, I have almost continual bloom. The perennials fill in where the annuals cannot. This whole area gets regular irrigation, but that’s about the only input other than the compost that is added with seeds or plants. A couple of times a year, I go in and cut down a bunch of dried up plants, and it looks a little bare for a few weeks. Then the new flowers have a chance to take over.

Why do I go to this trouble? If you can even call it ‘trouble,’ it’s hardly anything planned (I just know that everything needs to handle full sun), and I’m never sure what’s it’s going to look like. Well, for one, it’s beautiful, and that gives me joy. I can cut bouquets as gifts or for my own house any time of year. There’s a living root in the ground at all times, which improves the soil. But the biggest reason is this: It’s a great diversity of plants, therefore a great diversity of forage, for the pollinators.

Beekeepers in California are inundated this time of year with warnings about ‘summer and fall dearth,’ or, a scarcity of pollen and nectar. Due to the fact we don’t have rain for many months (usually May-November), we can expect most native landscapes to look dry and bare right about now (summer is our dormant period, not winter); and most landscaped yards have very little that insects can use (grass, oleanders, mulberry trees, crepe myrtles - they do nothing for pollinators). And sure enough, in the September issue of my beekeeping association’s newsletter, there was a mention that we should begin feeding our bees pollen patties. Likewise, in the UCANR publication “Beekeeping in California,” there is this paragraph: “If they are going to build up quickly the next spring, colonies should go into winter with large, well-fed populations of young fat bees. In many locations in California there is not enough pollen to sustain adequate brood rearing through August and September and colonies should be fed pollen, pollen supplement, or a substitute.”

I have to say this bothers me.

When I started out with my first hive, I vowed that I would do as much as I could to provide for my bees. Would you adopt a new puppy, only to let him find what he could? Would you buy some chickens without also buying some feed? Why should it be any different with a colony of honeybees? Shouldn’t we plan to have as much forage as possible for them, as well as an adequate, year-round drinking source? It’s one thing for a colony of bees to establish themselves in an area with plenty of food, but it’s another to bring them into a bare yard and expect them to manage with whatever they can find. Most beekeepers feed their bees sugar water and/or strore-bought pollen patties during times of dearth to keep them alive and happy, and this works fine. It’s certainly better than letting them starve. But what nutrients are missing in those man-made foods? Wouldn’t it be better to have a large diversity of different flowers available for them, for as much of the year as possible?

Tom and I just stood out here in this pollinator patch today, watching and listening. This garden is alive. I think of the spiders who feed here, and the other predatory insects like mantids. Lizards! Birds! This is a healthy ecosystem and it’s not just about my honeybees.

My fellow beekeepers who start hives with no plan to feed them (other than making sugar water or buying pollen patties) are really missing an opportunity. I want to encourage them, and any landowner, or anyone who even rents property, to invest in feeding the ecosystems naturally. Many of us feel helpless in the face of habitat loss for things like the monarch butterfly. Well, here’s something we can do! Here’s how we can combat just a tiny bit of climate change. Here’s how we can help. Plant flowers. It is that simple.

P/S If you’d like a list of perennial plants and herbs I have planted at Poppy Corners, I can send you my plant inventory. This has common names, Latin names, and bloom times. I very much relay on perennials to get me from January through December, annuals are just icing. For annuals, I tend to plant California natives for early spring bloom; sunflowers for early summer bloom; cosmos, nasturtium, and zinnia for late summer blooms; and tithonia for fall bloom. I also rely on my annual vegetable plants to really help feed pollinators. Anything in the cucurbit family (cucumber, squash, melon) is a hit, as well as pepper flowers. Fruit trees can help with those early spring months. Ornamental trees native to your area will also help with different times of year. For winter, I rely on native perennials in our area, though winter bloom is nearly impossible in places with lots of snow.

Honey Tasting

Each month, my beekeeping association has a general meeting with a guest speaker. Lately, the folks at UC Davis (our local land-grant university) have been coming to give the talks. We had a great one in July about the latest research in varroa mites (given by Dr. Elina Nino, Program Director for Apiculture), and last week, Amina Harris was our speaker. She is the director for the Honey and Pollination Center. UC Davis is really leading the way in a lot of interesting agricultural studies (have you seen the latest on nitrogen-fixing corn? very exciting) and their participation in apiculture is ground-breaking. Ms. Harris' program is the only one I know of for honey tasting, which is similar to wine, coffee, or beer tasting. But the reason for it is very different. UC Davis wants to help determine if the honey coming into the US is adulterated.

You may remember my post about this very issue. Imported, adulterated honey is a huge problem for our country, and the people manufacturing it keep getting around the chemical tests that have been developed to detect the fake stuff. So, Ms. Harris reasons, if we get humans on the case, with developed palates, we can begin to add another dimension to the testing of imported honey. 

So, she gave us a quick lesson in tasting, and it was fascinating. You can take an official course at UC Davis in this art, but it ain't cheap. So it was fun to have her explain some basics.

First off, she divided all honey into four categories: Fruity, Floral, Buttery, and Brown Sugar. Within those categories there are other sub-categories with about a million flavors for each. She gave us each three samples of honey to demonstrate the first three categories: Blackberry, Orange Blossom (citrus), and Eucalyptus. Let me just state right here that in order to know what the origin of your honey is, you have to have an awful lot of property with dedicated plants. Like three square miles of predominantly eucalyptus trees, because that's the foraging range of bees. I can never state what kind of honey mine is, because my bees forage on such different stuff in my neighborhood. I can guess what they are eating in different seasons, but it's just a guess. So I could never market my honey as one certain kind.

We were instructed on how to smell the honey, and what to think about and look for as we tasted it. I have to say, I'm not so good at this. I never have been. I think I have a good palate and a good sense of smell, but when it comes to describing the way things taste, I'm terrible. I'd be simply rubbish at taste-tests. All honey smells like honey and all honey tastes like honey. However I will say that when you taste test three different honeys side-by-side, you can easily tell the differences in them. But would I be able to say which flower made which honey? Doubtful.

Anyway, surprisingly, I enjoyed the eucalyptus honey the most, because it had the lightest flavor (and Ms. Harris would say 'light' is not a flavor). And yet it had the darkest color, so you would assume it would have a more robust flavor. This honey tasting stuff is pretty eye-opening. Also, you can taste the pollen in the honey (if it's real and not heated) - although less pollen gets into the honey than you would think. Also, that idea that local honey helps with allergies? I've said it before, but it bears repeating: Most allergens come from wind-pollinated trees, and that means that pollen won't be in honey. So really it won't help with your allergies. However honey has a LOT of other health benefits (if it's real, and if it's untreated or heated); it's anti-viral, anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, and it never goes bad. Did you hear about that honey they recently found in an Egyptian burial site? Still good.

And this is the perfect place to insert my mantra about buying honey: We should always buy local honey from a local beekeeper. It will not be cheap, in fact it will be much pricier than the stuff in the bear at your local Safeway. But this way you are sure to get the real stuff, unheated and untreated, simply filtered (to remove any wax or bee-parts) and bottled. Go to your farmers market or local health food store to purchase your honey. 

Today is beer-making day, pickle-relish-making day, and sriracha-making day. We ran out of sriracha a long time ago and miss it terribly. Homemade is so good! If you haven't made it, I highly suggest you do. I'm not a hot-sauce person, but I love a slug of sriracha in my Asian noodle dishes (and Adam will eat it on everything). You can find the recipe here. 

This is becoming a regular Spring occurrence...

We noticed lately that digs had become a little crowded for our honeybees. When we opened the hive a couple of weeks ago, they were living cheek-by-jowl. And they've been bearding at the entrance a lot, even in bad weather. So, we knew a swarm was imminent. Today dawned clear and sunny; the bees decided to make the most of it.

I know I've said it before, but it always bears repeating: A swarm is a miracle of nature, and if you're lucky enough to witness one, it's important to stop a minute and experience it. Tom is home on spring break this week, and I don't have class till this evening, so we were both home to experience this one. It was awesome. It always amazes me how fast things move - from decision making to clumping all together on a nearby branch in under ten minutes. The hive mind in action. 

This time, the bees settled in a much more accessible place; in the ceanothus bush behind the train shed. Reachable for humans and tools. We called my dad, who has an empty hive ready to be filled, and he raced over with a cardboard box and his bee jacket/hood. We all suited up and proceeded to cut some branches from the ceanothus, and then just deposit them in the box. Easy peasy.

Dad just shook the bees off this branch - there was another smaller clump in another spot.

The bees fly around for a little while but eventually settle in to the box, because the queen is in there, and they want to be with her. Then it's just a matter of taping up the box and quickly taking it to the new home. At that end, you shake the box of bees into the new hive, and they settle in pretty quickly. It's surprising how easy this process is, if the bees are in a place you can reach them.

I hope the bees do well in their new home!

Now, Tom and I need to take advantage of our emptier hive and get in there and clean up some old comb and take out some honey. That's tomorrow's project.