Langstroth Hive has Arrived

The Langstroth hive that I ordered from Long Lane Honey Bee Farms because it was a complete beginner's hive, fully assembled with two large supers (for the hive), one small super (for me), 30 frames ready to hang with wax inset and painted with a top has arrived here at 2-Dog Farm.  All for a little over $200.  I have scrubbed my top bar hive with bleach, killed a few overwintering japanese beetles in it and have it ready to go as well.  I will move both the Langstroth hive and the top bar hive into a permanent bee yard and set up a solar water fountain for them close by.

Yesterday I was up on top of our roof cleaning gutters.  We have sprung a leak in our kitchen ceiling.  This is the same place that the roof debris from winter storms gathers and sits.  Our gutters were completely clogged with leaves and sticks.  I am not a great heights person:  I have a fear of falling but it was a warm sunny day and you could see the creek below the bluff and it was such a gorgeous view.

Still waiting to get out to plant vegetables.  My clover is doing great.  Hope the nitrogen it adds to the soil really makes the garden take off once planted.

Beekeeping Symposium

Auburn University and the Alabama Cooperative Extension System hosted about 420 beekeepers from across the state on Saturday, 2/4/12.  In my opinion, it was wildly successful.  They had three tracks in each of the break-out sessions geared to the beginning beekeeper, to the backyard hobbyist and the more commercial beekeeper.  Vendors from several companies brought plenty of material for sale and the food was great.  I learned much and appreciated, in particular, Dr. Tew's dynamic opening session.  Beekeeping Symposium.

Auburn University is about 4 hours away from our home and the drive down through heavy, torrential rain and then again on the way home was made slightly better by the warm and sunny weather that greeted us in Auburn.  75 degrees and sunny is hard to beat.  Mike did antique hunting while I attended the beekeeping classes and then met me for lunch in Auburn's AgBusiness arena.   There was a live beehive demo during lunch that was great.  Beekeepers are friendly folks and love to mentor newbees like myself.

One of the county extension apiary agents will be in contact with me before I make the decision to burn my hive due to American foulbrood.  They were doubtful that this disease would manifest itself in a first year hive.  Only 2% of all hives contact foulbrood.  So I hope the apiary agent helps me rule out foulbrood so I can reuse my hive.

After all the Auburn sessions, I am ready to invest in more hives and bees.  My package bees from Draper's arrive the week of April 23rd.  I want to order two more top bar hives and at least one Langstroth_hive, which is geared more toward commercial beekeepers.  Commercial beekeeper is my description for any beekeeper who wants more honey than they can use themselves and they want to make a profit in producing it.

Mike and I stayed one night at the very well run The Hotel at Auburn University. I highly recommend it to any other travelers to Auburn University.  We managed to do a little sight-seeing; we found the Toomer's Corner trees that the man poisoned, Toomer's Corner Oak Trees in the news, and the famed Jordan-O'Hare football stadium and last but not least, Tiger Rags, where you can find unique Auburn Tiger T-shirts not found anywhere else.

All in all, excluding the heavy rain downpours, it was a great weekend!  I am armed with knowledge and ready to establish a new bee yard!

Auburn University Beekeeping Symposium

My dearest hubby and I are motoring down to Auburn University to attend a day long symposium for beekeepers.  I can't wait to hear about the honey bee's evolving role in the green movement, to get more information about Alabama's new master beekeeper program, to understand the role of bee colonies and have a sustainable backyard (bluff for me) where bees play a vital role.  Plus I get to pick the brains of some of the state's best entomologists and plant pathologists.  Can't wait.

In the meantime, I've placed my spring order for new bees and their queen.  Instead of an Italian honeybee queen, I've ordered an American hybrid called All American Queen.  I've also broken a "rule" of the local beekeeping society by ordering my bees out of state:  Draper's Bees.  We'll see.  The last ones failed to clean their hives soon enough to eliminate the cells infected with foulbrood. I'm hoping this hybrid will do a better job.  From the Draper web site, here is their description of their All American Queens:  Gentle, do not boil out of the hive when it is opened, low swarming tendency, quick build up of the hive, adapted to all weather conditions, keep a very clean, neat and orderly hive.

Red Clover

The next seven days in North Alabama are to be wet, wet and more wet:  http://www.waff.com/weather.  If I can manage it between rain showers, I'm sowing red clover seed in my pasture/garden area. Clover is critical to fix nitrogen back into the soil after vegetables take it out; you can also fix nitrogen back into the soil by planting peas.  Clover is a good food source for bees.

City dwelling people feel red clover is a weed.  If one defines a weed as a plant growing in an unwanted area, say a city lawn, then that is correct - it is a weed if it is growing in a lawn of zoysia grass.  However, clover is one of the most important plants known to man.  It is a much maligned plant in recent years; however, there is an old American saying that "a man who plants clover is a king".  Without clover our soil would fail to grow healthy food for us.  All mankind would suffer.  It is an easy cover crop to grow here in the South and it is a favorite food of foraging animals like deer and cow.

Additionally, red clover is a medicinal plant for humans.  Read this article at the University of Maryland web site regarding Red Clover as alternative medicine.  If nothing else I hope you try growing some clover just for the fun of it.  It is an easy plant to grow and the clover flower while small is still very pretty.

Getting started with beekeeping

The most frequent question I'm asked is why would a woman want a hobby like beekeeping?  First, let's take the sex-ism out of beekeeping.  Women, men, teenagers and children can all enjoy a hobby as fascinating as beekeeping.  Second I don't consider it so much a hobby as an effort to become self-sufficient and know my food intimately.  After last summer's fiasco of chicken house sickness, I was totally ready to get back to what I know from my childhood -  I know how to raise my own food and process it.  Sure you make mistakes but you have many resources locally and via the internet.  Here are just a few:

United States Department of Agriculture, USDA, has a free printable 50 page backyard beekeeping publication at http://www.aces.edu/pubs/docs/A/ANR-0135/.

John Maynard who is the bee inspector for the State of Alabama will answer questions.  As a note, every Alabama beekeeper, even if only one hive is started and is for personal use, must register their hive with the State of Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries.  It costs very little ($10) and your apiary receives a certificate of registration good for one year.  You are encouraged to brand your hives and register your brand with the state as well.   If your hives or equipment are stolen, your mark identifies it as belonging to you and it can possibly be located again.  Let's face it, beekeeping equipment can be expensive and the hives have value.

Your "hobby" is closely monitored due to disease.  Alabama is one of the few states not reporting colony collapse.  Most states that allow cross border migratory transport of hives to California are experiencing this problem  Alabama does not allow colonies to go to California to help pollinate the almond growers trees.  It could be caused by the stressed state of the returning bees or by something being passed to the bees.  Hard to say right now the exact cause of colony collapse but I'm very glad Alabama is a closed border state.

A wonderful resource for the beginning beekeeper is their local beekeeping club who provides great mentoring and knowledge sharing.  In Alabama, check out http://www.alabamabeekeepers.com to find a club near you and join it.  At this site are numerous copies of their newsletter, Stinger, that provides a wealth of information.  I spent about a year researching different sites and finally taking a couple of beginning beekeeper classes offered by our local beekeeping association.

Finally most of the beekeeping companies market their wares in great catalogs.  You can go online to http://www.dadant.com or to http://www.gabees.com or to http://mannlake.com to find solid information about the ins and outs of beekeeping.

The second most common question I'm asked is why did I select a top bar hive or kenyan hive.  I am a small woman.  My husband is allergic to everything outside (bees, ants, etc.)  So I am a single operation beekeeper.

A commercial hive, the hive that most people think of as a hive, weighs anywhere from 100 pounds full of honey in a large hive to 75 pounds in a medium sized hive to 55 pounds for a small hive.  Plus you must constantly monitor and move the top down or up depending on the location of the hive and the queen.  My back just won't take it.  The kenyan hive is at my waist and you can work with the hive without moving square foundations up and down back and forth.

There are drawbacks to the kenyan hive, also known as the top bar hive.  First the honey is only comb honey.  You cannot borrow the club extractor (assuming you did join that beekeeping club or association) as the extractor works with frames.  A top bar hive does not have frames, only a bar across the top where you will extract the honey by cutting the comb and then squeezing the comb for the honey. This is the old fashioned way of getting honey.  You also will not get as much honey from the top bar hive.  So one has to decide which is most important - what is your reason for beekeeping?  For me, it is a backyard, grow it myself movement.

The final question I'm asked is "Is it expensive?"  The answer is maybe.  Like anything you do, it can be done inexpensively or expensively.  Your choice.  The full bee suit, gloves and veil will run about $90, the smoker another $45 (tobacco burnt in the smoker will kill mites that are parasitic to bees), woodware (the hive) can run $285 and up.  You must purchase a hive tool, which costs a few more bucks.  It is always suggested to have two hives.  Bees and the queen may be purchased or collected from the wild.

Our club keeps a swarm list for anyone who wants to collect the bees for free.  The problem with this method is not knowing the nature of the queen.  If you buy a certain type of bee, it should have a certain personality.  For example, I have Italian bees and queen for their less aggressive nature.

I did not buy the full bee suit but did feel that the veil and gloves would be good.  My hive ran about $300 but is guaranteed to not rot for years and years.  I also bought my colony and queen for about $100.  All told I have spent  about $450 on the bees, including my club membership dues and the state registration of my hive. Did I do this because I wanted something cheap for sugar? No, I did this because I wanted to know where my food is grown.  Could you do it cheaper?  Absolutely!