Beehive Post-Mortem

Today, my father came over and we opened the hive. I've been morose all week about the death of my bees, and I wasn't looking forward to going inside the hive again, but it had to be done. I wanted to know more about how the bees died, if possible, and I wanted to harvest the honey.

There had been absolutely no activity this past week around the entrance, so I expected the worst, and sure enough, we saw right away that there were no bees inside. In fact, as we made our inspection, we found only three live bees. The amount of dead bees littering the bottom of the hive was much less (which is a mystery), but because of that, the cause of their death became apparent right away. All along the bottom inside boards of the hive were tiny red circles. Varroa Mites. I was devastated all over again. These mites are a huge problem in the beekeeping industry, and most large operations spray with poisons to kill them. I won't do that, so it's possible that I will continue to have infestations. 

I picked up one of the three live bees, and sure enough, there was a mite stuck to its side.

Can you see the tiny red dot?

This mite is slowly sucking the life out of this bee. So incredibly sad. I never noticed these mites on the bees. They have a 10 day life cycle, and this infestation was so aggressive, it killed the hive fairly quickly. I'm not entirely sure how to help my bees resist this creature in the future.

We cleaned out the hive, finding the dead queen, right near the door. One of the combs had a queen cup on it, which means that the worker bees had been unhappy with the current queen's laying (and no wonder, as she was slowly dying), and they were getting ready to raise a new queen. They never got the chance.

We cleaned all the bars, harvesting beautifully colored honey, about 10-15 pounds of it.

It's crushed and draining in a special bucket made for this purpose. In a few days, I'll open the spigot and fill some jars. I did save a bit of the honey in comb, for us to eat right now. I feel good about chewing the comb, knowing that the bees did not die of pesticide death. Chewing comb reminds me of being a kid; this was our version of chewing gum.

The hive will remain closed and empty through the winter, and the bars will be cleaned and stored in the garage. In spring, I will get a new colony and try again.

Adam and Tom are having a celebratory dinner with fellow opera folks, as the closing performance was today. I'll cook Kate a hot dog, and drown my bee sorrows by indulging in this delicious fellow. That's better than downing a pint of ice cream, any day.

World Soil Day

Happy World Soil Day!

You can watch the great video, "Symphony of the Soil," for free this week: WATCH

There's some really interesting information at the Food and Agriculture of the United Nations site.

Today would be the perfect day to start a compost pile in your backyard. It need not be complicated.
THIS would be a good place to start.

Another way to celebrate would be to visit a local, organic farm. For more information on where to find a farm near you, see HERE.

And if all else fails, go for a walk - in the dirt, not on concrete. Find a trail near you, check out an open space or a park. Get out and connect with your soil!

Back Yard, Mushrooms, Bees, and an Intruder

Tom and I spent a good deal of time this weekend finishing up the sheet mulching in the back yard. We are not quite done; we ran out cardboard.

We realized that this has been the biggest sheet mulch area yet. Tom has blisters, even though he wore gloves, and we consumed a good bit of Ibuprofen the last few days. Now, we wait: To find more cardboard, for the rain to stop, for the mood to hit us again. It'll be good not to use the wheelbarrow for at least five days.

The rain showed up in earnest today. It's been interesting to see what kind of mushrooms come from this new pine mulch.

One day closed....

the next, open!

Remember those mushroom plugs we inoculated into logs? They've done absolutely nothing. But the mulch grows every kind of mushroom I can think of, with absolutely no help from anyone.

The rain made it through the row covers and into the raised beds just fine, and I really notice a difference in the size of the kale and spinach seedlings - they grew a lot just in the time those have been up. So they must be benefitting from the increase in temperature under there.

As for the bees: I went out again yesterday, before the rain started, to see if there was any hive activity. There are a few bees going in and out, but they act strange - sort of drunk. Loopy. Not quite making it in to the hive on the first try, falling down, rolling upside down. There were several more dead bees on the landing. I'm going to wait a week, and if there is no positive change, I will clean out the hive and store everything for winter. (I can't wait too long before harvesting the honey in the hive, or wasps/mice/wax moths will get it.) I'll try again in the spring with a new colony; I'm a confirmed beekeeper, now. However, I continue to be quite upset about this event. It's a bit like losing a pet. I really cared about the hive. I think about the beekeepers (like my dad, and many many others) who have lost hive after hive, the same way, and it hurts my heart.

To add insult to injury, as I was sitting at the hive, this guy came out from under the house.

Yep. It's a rat.

Argh. I've had it with nature, for a while. Time to get back in the work/school routine.

Sad News

A friend was over today and was interested in the bee hive. So we went over to look at it, and I noticed two dead bees on the landing board. No other activity. I got a bad feeling. Immediately I thought about working in the garden the last couple of days, and I'd seen a marked decrease in bee action in the flowers. And those dead white things we kept finding, what I thought were larvae. I quickly got my hive tool and the smoker and we opened the hive.

Right away I knew something was wrong. There were no bees. In a top bar hive, you start inspections at the back of the hive, away from the entrance. Usually it's the less busy end of the hive, but there are still always lots of bees there. Not today. I started moving bars out and looking at them, and still no bees. Then we started to see dead bees and dead larvae littering the bottom of the hive. Bees are fastidious creatures, there should be no mess. Then, the worst part: We got to the brood comb (or where the brood comb should be), and all we saw were tiny wax cubicles with dead larvae in them. No eggs. No sign of the queen (though I didn't look very hard). There were even some bees who had started to hatch, and died halfway through the process, half their little bodies sticking out of the comb.

There were bees on two bars. There should be 30, 000.

Naturally, I was, and am, devastated. I have no idea what has caused this. There is no sign of webs, insects, mice, robbing. There is bar after bar of honey. Some of the bees have disappeared, and many are dead in the hive.

Two weeks ago, this was a thriving, busy hive. What happened?

My working hypothesis right now is that it is some sort of toxicity problem. I have emails out to all my beekeeper groups and friends. I am scouring the web. Since there is no sign of disease or mites, it really all points to pesticide poisoning.

I will post more about it as I know more. I am just sick about this, and don't really know what to do next. I'm frustrated, and mad, and most of all, very sad.

Hoop Houses

Guest post by Tom today, talking about the latest construction project at Poppy Corners Farm – hoop houses!

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Elizabeth had planted some winter crops, and while we're able to grow things in winter, we wanted to protect them from the frost we often get, and maybe cut down on our deer losses somewhat. Enter hoop houses – lengths of floating row cover fabric stretched over a frame over the raised beds.

Construction of the frame was rather straightforward and pretty inexpensive to boot. I picked up 10' lengths of 3/8" rebar and 1/2" Schedule 40 PVC pipe. The frames needed two lengths of rebar and five length of PVC for each of our 4x8' raised beds.

Next, I used a hacksaw to cut the rebar into 2' lengths. You only need to cut the rebar about half-way through, then you can just bend at the cut and it'll break off nicely.

Use gloves – it'll leave sharp ends. You can buy the rebar in 2' lengths to begin with, but you can get one 10' length for about the price of two of the 2' lengths. I didn't mind using the hacksaw.

Starting at one corner of the raised bed and proceeding about every two feet, I hammered the lengths of rebar about two inches out from the raised beds, and about even with the top. Next, I slotted one end of the PVC pipe over one piece of rebar, then bent it over and slotted it over the rebar on the other side of the bed.

As you can see, the tops of the hoops are around 4' tall. I could have tried trimming off some of the length of the PVC pipe to get a shorter hoop, but I was a little concerned about how much stress that would put on the pipe and the rebar.

A little more sawing, pounding, and bending, and the frames were complete!

This is really starting to look like a farm.

Elizabeth then stretched the row cover fabric over the frames, securing them with binder clips.

The hoop houses should let enough sun through for things to keep growing, as well as raise the temperature underneath several degrees. It should let rain through as well.

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Elizabeth here. I'm very pleased with this project, and had several neighbors stop and talk about it and how it might help with frost and deer. I am so happy that folks are interested in what we do here. There's a group of older ladies who walk by every so often, and one of them found me in the yard yesterday and offered me her 1916 copy of "The ABC and XYZ of Beekeeping," a still relevant and necessary book for beekeepers today. I was so touched. She said she wanted me to have it because she admires me! I was extremely proud and grateful.

I spent some quality time yesterday moving cardboard and mulch to a spot in the front yard that used to be grass, but now is mostly used as a path to get to the side yard, and so is quite muddy. I sheet mulched it as usual, without the layer of compost; I figure I don't really need to improve the soil here, since it will just mainly see foot traffic (although even cardboard and mulch will add a significant amount of organic matter). I put a fairly thick layer (6") of wood chips on top of the cardboard, because we've seen now from experience that it all compacts rather a lot as it decomposes.

Today I started on the back yard. I didn't get very far; we need a whole lot more cardboard. I'm always amazed how much this process requires, and also pleased at the amount of material we can take out of the waste stream and decompose here, naturally. So, I will have to go dumpster diving to find more. I did this before at a local recycling place, which has since closed! argh! But I got a lead on a dumpster behind a Rite Aid... I just realized how crazy that last sentence sounds. I'm getting nuttier by the minute!

Happy Thanksgiving, all, and Happy Gardening!