Wild Comb

Seven days ago, I peeked into the hive by carefully lifting the roof off. What I saw had me reaching for my camera. The girls were building wild comb around the feeder, inside the empty top super.


















I realised that I should've placed the crownboard under the feeder inside the empty top super, instead of right on top of it. That way, the bees would've been forced to keep their activities within the brood box and the super above it. But bees do what they've always done, they move up to the top of the empty spaces and they build there.


Seven days later, they'd created a magnificent space-age castle.

















I was kind of nervous about going in there to destroy the wild comb. What happens if the Queen is in there? (Well, that's if She even survived the brood box exchange I did 14 days ago?!) What happens if it's too tightly stuck down? What happens if there's too many bees and I get stung to death? What if ... oh for god's sake Margo, get on with it!

So you can appreciate that I took a few extra precautions.

I pulled on two layers of clothes, then my bee suit. I tied my hair completely out of my eyes and gave my reading specs an extra clean. I gloved up, lit That Blasted Smoker and edged my way nervously down to the hive. It didn't help that the day turned out overcast and cool, when the Met Office had predicted a sunny 21 deg. Typical!

Hacking my way through clouds of smoke, I carefully took off the top. Attached to the bottom of the see-through crownboard was a "V" shape of bees clinging together. (More worries - does that mean preparation to swarm?! Must ask for advice ....) I gently shook them off, and leaned in to remove the feeder. Of course, my carefully laid plan to bring down a container for all the feeder and comb bits had been completely forgotten. Thankfully, I heard Guy arriving at around that time and he ran for a large container. I couldn't believe how close he kept coming to the hive, but he was the one who took the picture above, of the glorious architecture the bees had created.

Carefully, bit by bit, I pulled off and scraped off the wild comb. They had built it with an interior room, which was filled with bees - a terrifying sight. It's almost like it was a new hive, a special chamber. I gently pulled it off, a little saddened to have to be so destructive. But they are expending their energies on new comb, when they should be focusing on the brood box and super below them, within the structure I've given them on the frames. And so the wild comb had to go.

It's sitting in my kitchen now; it's so clean and white and pure. There's nothing in it, except in one small corner where Guy and I were able to dip our fingers into the most delicious wildflower-flavoured honey.

















It will become my first beeswax candle, methinks. It is pure, bee-made wax. Not human-manufactured foundation, not processed in any way, or wired.

It's wild comb and it is a thing of magic and beauty.

So once I'd taken it off, an easier process than I'd expected, I took a deep breath and laboured on. I removed the super and placed it gently next to the hive, on the upturned roof. Between the super and brood box, significant towers of drone cells - some once again destroyed by my separation of the two boxes. So that's why, as Mary said yesterday, it's better to use a Langstroth or deep National hive - no separations like this, only deeper frames. There's a logic there one begins to learn as one goes on.

Now I could work my way through the frames in the brood box. Gently, one by one, I removed and inspected them. All I could see were frames filled with honey and pollen. At first I was nervous - I could see no Queen activity. No brood at all. Then into the fourth frame, I began to see fat, juicy white larvae.

And - oh joy - on the fifth frame, I spotted the Queen herself! My heart leapt skyward as I watched her moving down the frame. As I looked, I saw her lower her abdomen down into a cell. Yes, for the first time ever, I saw a Queen bee in the very act of laying eggs. Guy was so intrigued by my excited running commentary, he kept coming closer and closer with his camera.

He got a picture of her, not very distinct, but she's there nonetheless. She is a new Queen; she's not the Black Queen who first came with the colony. That one must be long dead. How sad. The new one has a more ginger-striped body. Her thorax was very distinct - a large round oval. She moved differently to the other bees and I held the frame very gently for a few more minutes, quite entranced, before carefully placing it back in position.






















I'm afraid I only checked one more frame - 6 out of the 10, before giving up. The bee numbers were prolific; they were all over the frames, the hive box, my hands, my body. They say that when they sting you in great quantities, they can sense the venom and it draws them on to sting in even greater numbers. I was sure they were stinging me and I just couldn't feel it. I felt so conscious of the length of the intrusion, I stopped inspecting the frames, and smoked the box once more to remove bees from the hive frame so that I could place the super box back in position on top.

The super felt incredibly heavy. It's honey - it's all honey. It's as if these bees have been trained - brood in brood box, honey in the super above. How weird!

* * *

Yesterday was another day at "Bee School"; a fascinating day spent learning about bee diseases, but it certainly left me feeling completely grossed out. It was important for all of us new beekeepers, because we got to meet 2 very important people in our bee-lives - our Regional Bee Inspector, and our Seasonal Bee Inspector. These are the people who make sure the spread of disease is limited; the people who're working to try and slow the detrimental effect of humans who move bees, who move clothes and tools and spores from one hive to another - accidentally, innocently, unknowing. So we had a lot to learn, and it involved significant numbers of rubber gloves, plastic aprons, tweezers, reading glasses and close-up inspections of minute larvae in diseased combs. Yucky, but valuable.

And lovely as always to see the other NewBees, and to get the chance to chat to other beekeepers; find out their progress and discover that some of them are even running the London Marathon today. Braver men than me, that's for sure! :)

* * *

But there are more wonderful things to come; in the form of volunteering work at the Grand Designs Show in London in 2 weeks' time. It looks like it's going to be huge, and fascinating - even for Guy - and we're all looking after a small Bee Garden in one of the garden product stands; a chance to talk to people about bees!

LOL - you'd think I could shut up sometimes. Me, the Ultimate Bee Geek.

Jacks Honey

Pure Magic Liquid Sunshine

Can there be any finer moment than this?

Note: I must just add that, while this really is the very first drop of honey I've tasted from my very own colony of bees, it doesn't constitute part of a "first crop". It's a very small section of a frame I've taken out of the Brood Box today, and shouldn't really be eaten in any great quantity, because it is tainted with anti-varroa Apiguard treatment. But it was simply too tempting to resist and even though other beekeepers have said they can taste the Apiguard, neither Guy nor I could taste any medicinal after-taste.

I've managed to bottle about 3 teaspoons full. But, oh my goodness, what an incredible feeling - to be tasting the harvest of your hard work - achieved together with your hard-working bees! This is a new feeling for me, and filled with intense satisfaction!

* * *

On another note, it's been a bee-filled weekend. I spent a day volunteering yesterday on our Association's "Bee Taster Day", introducing 20 visitors to the very first joys of beekeeping. Typically, it was only I who got stung on the face :( although luckily not too badly. I also had the pleasure of meeting a fellow South African.

Then today, Guy and I spent a long, lovely afternoon in the sun, in the garden, building our second hive.

After that, it was a truly stressful interaction with my bees as I had to open the hive, take off the super and move all the frames, one by one, from the old brood box to the new. I found this incredibly stressful, only because it stressed the bees out so dreadfully.

For hours afterwards, groups of bees huddled in clusters outside the hive, and in the entrance way. Dozens crawled across the ground; the few bees that actually managed some flights straggled their way in and out of the hive. It was all most distressing and I really do wonder if it was so important to remove the old brood box and disinfect it against disease and invaders.

The disinfecting was, I must surreptitiously admit, the fun bit. I got to use my blowtorch to blacken and scorch the wood. Once scorched, I used sandpaper to sand it all down, and it ended up looking beautifully aged and browned; quite a lovely effect that brought out all the gorgeous red cedar wood grain. I would love to have all the furniture in my dream house finished to look like that!

Afterwards, I spent hours rearranging all my Bee Storage in the Shed. I seem to have tons of stuff now - extra roof, extra crownboards, boxes filled with empty glass jars for the upcoming honey harvest, bags filled with empty egg boxes for the smoker, bags and bags of bee suits, wellies, gloves, tools, nail boxes, all sorts of things. This time, it's all of Guy's car stuff and tool stuff and wood stuff shrinking further and further into the corners :-D

For once, I think it's me winning The Shed Wars!

Paint by Numbers

Must remember to put StickyBackPlastic floor down to check for varroa!

Once I get the new hive, things still to do:

1. Move frames into new broodbox on new floor.

2. Scrub old floor.

3. Use cool new flame-thrower weapon (actually a small handheld blowtorch) to scorch the old brood box; helps to clean it out and combat disease.

Guy and I had breakfast in bed yesterday, and were musing over names for the hives. Other people have such cool names for theirs, but "The Death Star" just doesn't really cut it for mine :)

I thought about the Greek alphabet, so we'd end up with the "Alpha" and "Omega" of hives. Hmmm, does seem a bit pretentious, wot wot.

Then I thought, "hey what about counting in Japanese ... Guy will love that reference to karate".

Imagine the conversation, though.

"What's the name of your hive, then?"

"Ichi"

"Itchy? You called your hive Itchy!? What's the second one called, then?"

"Ni"

"Knee? You called your hive Knee?!"

I dunno. Maybe not ....

Late Developer

It's 10 degrees in the shade, and 20 degrees in the sun; I've taken to curling up in a chair at the end of the garden, right next to the beehive, and soaking up the sunshine when it deigns to appear. For a long while now, I've noticed a large number of dead bees lying on the ground in front of the hive. I also noticed several bees had died in the progress of very messy, very yellow cleansing flights - could this possibly indicate diarrhea? I hope not. How awfully sad :(

This weekend Guy and I went on a long round-the-houses shopping expedition to Park Beekeeping in Greenwich, who never appeared to be off the phone long enough for me to get a call in. We arrived at a tiny, closed-looking industrial unit and met Gordon, who mournfully told us it would be a minimum two-week wait for a new National hive. "Never," he said "never have I known such an upsurge in interest in beekeeping. I just can't keep up with the demand."

Good for bees, bad for me. My planning has been abysmal. While the other NewBees in our first-season beekeepers' circle were sorted enough to order their new hives at Christmas, I've been floating about like the proverbial short-visioned grasshopper. Ah, well! I'll catch up, I always do. After all, I've always been a late developer.

Guy has been wonderful in terms of making a new, rather fancy-looking base for the existing beehive, and he found the perfect piece of pavement to support it on the level underneath. So I bought him a beesuit, and yesterday he had the first opportunity to try it out. It was such a joy to go down to the hive with him; beekeepers together.

We squabbled amiably about exactly how we were going to do it, then gently and ever-so-carefully just got on with it. We moved the hive about two feet away, and laid down the pavement tile, then positioned the base carefully on top of it and slid the hive back in position. It looks very posh now. Complete.

While we were doing this, the weather started to clear and warm up. I had thought it would be too cold to check inside the hive, but I looked at the suddenly-blue sky and decided to take my chance. That Blasted Smoker is no longer That Blasted Smoker; it was lovely to calmly and quietly be able to manage it; and it lasted just long enough to do what had to be done. How pleasant to have conquered that minor challenge :)

I've taken to spending whatever patches of free time I can find to think strategically through exactly what it is I'm going to do when I open the hive. If you ever find me quietly sitting in a corner muttering what sounds like a meditation chant, it's only me, practising in my head, "smoker, top off, crown board off, first frame out, check next frame, check for brood, check brood pattern, replace frame correctly, next frame, search for queen , etc ....".

What usually happens goes something like "smoke, top off, crown board off, where's my hive tool, oh right there it is, now first frame, don't forget to shake the bees off, check for brood, remember to count, look for queen, ouch bugger, one frame aside, next frame, remember which end is in which way, hold on lugs, turn over vertically, check for brood, ooh look queen cell, ouch bugger, oops what's that dropping off the frame, ouch BUGGER!"

This time the bees were very present; loud, defensive, everywhere. There were thousands of them; in the last few weeks, I've had the sense of them literally boiling out of every crevice of the hive and, on looking inside, so it is. At least 5 of the frames have brood in them although the smallest I could really spot were larvae; so the Queen had been present between 3 and 9 days ago. I spotted at least 3 Queen cells being built, as well as isolated drone cells. I could not find the Queen.

Frame 1 still had nothing on it, minimal work being done on Frame 2. Frames 3 - 6 were loaded with a mixture of brood and honey; parts of the foundation had disappeared though and all of them were blackened with use. Frames 7 and 8 were heavy and dripping with honey; frames 9 and 10 less so. The candy fondant feed had only been nibbled at.

I had to step away from the hive several times, as the bees were very defensive and stung me at least three times through my trouser leg and many times on my gloves. I was a little unnerved, to say the least, but I was determined to persevere and complete a full check of all the frames. Halfway through, I finally resorted to using my new pristine-white manipulation cloth and it definitely helped to calm and control the bees.

Finished with the frame inspection, I placed my newly purchased dummy board into the brood box, to fill the space up properly, and to hopefully block cold air getting in and thus encourage the bees to use that first Frame they've never liked to draw out. Then I stepped away to fill a super with frames of new foundation, and came back to slide it very carefully, slowly and gently into place on top of the main brood chamber. This will evolve the colony into a brood-and-a-half size. On top of that I placed my polycarb crownboard and the baker's fondant halfway over the hole in the middle. Then I closed up the hive and left them to it.

For a long while after, I sat quietly in the sun and watched the ladies getting used to the wide new porch in front of their entrance. I watched bees licking sap off the bark of the tree next to me, and licking each other for whatever reasons they have - greeting, bonding, communicating. I even had a bee with loaded pollen baskets land on my leg, and I managed to get a photo. I've had tremendous fun learning to use the Macro functions on my camera while working with the bees.

It has been such a cold Easter, some reckon that the bees are three weeks behind their normal schedule of activities. Perhaps, once again, I'll get lucky in timing the advent of a second brood box with nature's late-developing spring.

After all, in spite of every prediction to the contrary, my bees have actually managed to survive the winter. Who knows what could happen next!