How to Get Comfortable with Bees

beekeepers have bee suits, gloves, a smoker when they can keep them lit and kitchen towels to work with bees. (charlotte ekker wiggins photo)

How to Get Comfortable with Bees

It’s almost like magic one of our club’s new beekeepers noted watching me work bees without gloves. The truth is, once one gets over the fear of bees, most everyone can do the same.

But first, it’s important to get used to the bees. Here are the top 10 things a new beekeeper can do to get used to being around bees:

1. Observe from a Distance: Spend time near the hive, observing the bees from a safe distance. Place a bench close by so you’re tempted to observe whenever you can. Watch their flight patterns, how they interact with each other, and how they enter and exit the hive.

2. Wear Protective Gear: Always wear appropriate protective clothing, including a beekeeping suit, gloves, and a veil, to minimize the risk of stings. Feeling protected can greatly boost your confidence.

3. Attend Beekeeping Workshops or Classes: Join beekeeping workshops and classes in your area. This hands-on experience under the guidance of experienced beekeepers can provide invaluable insights and help build confidence.

4. Start with Calm Bees: Work with calm bee breeds or colonies known for their gentle behavior, especially when starting out. This can help ease anxiety and build confidence in handling bees.

5. Work during Calm Weather: Choose to work with the bees during calm, sunny weather when they are less likely to be agitated. Avoid working with bees during windy, rainy, or extremely hot conditions.

6. Move Slowly and Deliberately: Bees are sensitive to sudden movements and vibrations. Move slowly and deliberately when working around the hive to avoid startling them.

7. Listen to the Bees: Pay attention to the sounds the bees make. The buzz of a contented hive is different from the buzz of an agitated hive. Learning to differentiate these sounds can help you gauge the mood of the bees.

8. Practice Patience: Beekeeping requires patience. Take your time when inspecting the hive, handling frames, or performing any task related to beekeeping. Rushing can lead to mistakes and agitate the bees.

9. Start with Simple Tasks: Begin with simple tasks such as hive inspections, feeding, and adding supers. As you become more comfortable, you can gradually take on more complex tasks such as splitting hives or harvesting honey.

10. Learn to Use Kitchen Towels. Many beekeepers depend on a smoker to keep their bees busy. I prefer to drape kitchen towels over my colonies, especially when they are small. The towels keep them covered so they don’t notice a disturbance.

By following these steps and gaining hands-on experience, new beekeepers can gradually develop confidence working with their bees. Patience, observation, and respect for the bees are key principles in beekeeping.

For more beekeeping, gardening, cooking and easy home decor tips, subscribe to Garden Notes.

Charlotte

Top 10 Tips to Plant for Pollinators

spring 2024 was a good montth early this year and bees were building up. (charlotte ekker wiggins photo)

Top Ten Tips to Help Pollinators

Spring is a good 4-6 weeks early in mid-Missouri. I keep track of when crocus and the first daffodils bloom, then compare to National Phenology Network's reports of when lilacs bloom. My old-fashioned lilacs, by the way, are also in bud a good month earlier than last year.

Since spring is making an early show this year, here are ten things to consider as you plan your garden to help pollinators:

1. Plant a Diversity of Native Flowers: Choose a variety of native plants that bloom at different times throughout the year to provide a continuous source of nectar and pollen for pollinators. How many? Start with at least 26 trees, shrubs and flowers blooming at the same time through the growing season. Honey  bees need 2 million flowers to make 1 pound of honey.

2. Avoid Pesticides: Minimize or eliminate the use of pesticides, especially those containing neonicotinoids. Hang bird houses so birds provide natural pest control. If you have to use a product, don't use it when flowers are in bloom.

3. Create Pollinator-Friendly Habitats: Designate areas in your garden specifically for pollinators, providing shelter, water, and nesting sites such as bee hotels or piles of wood and leaves. Better yet, leave fall leaves on the ground until you see bumble bees flying around your garden. Most bumbles nest in the ground.

4. Plant a Bee-Friendly Garden: Select flowers with open, accessible blossoms that make it easy for bees to access nectar and pollen. Think daisy-shaped flowers like zinnias, sunflowers, and coneflowers. Pollinators are also partial to most herbs.

5. Provide a Water Source: Pollinators need water, especially in hot weather. Create shallow water dishes with pebbles or sticks and rocks for bees and butterflies. Bird baths make great pollinator drinking areas, too.

6. Avoid Hybrid Plants: While hybrids can be beautiful, they often lack the nectar and pollen resources that pollinators need. Opt for heirloom and native plant varieties.

7. Plant Native Trees and Shrubs: Native trees and shrubs provide valuable habitat and food sources for pollinators including native bees. Choose species like willows, fruit trees, and native flowering shrubs. 

8. Practice Sustainable Gardening Techniques: Implement practices such as mulching, composting, and natural weed control to create healthy soil and reduce the need for chemical fertilizers and herbicides.

9. Educate Others: Spread awareness about the importance of pollinators and the threats they face. Encourage family, friends and community members to create pollinator-friendly habitats in their own gardens and green spaces.

10. Support Local Beekeepers and Pollinator Initiatives: Purchase honey and other bee products from local beekeepers who practice sustainable beekeeping methods. Get involved in local pollinator conservation projects and advocate for policies that protect pollinators and their habitats.

    My limestone garden was selected Yard of the Month in 2020 by our local Horticulture Society based on these principles.

    For more gardening, beekeeping, cooking and easy home decor tips, subscribe to Garden Notes.

    Charlotte

Learn About Bees. Take a Class!

My bee buddy david draker, left, and I have taught beginning beekeeping classes for many years. this year we are turning the class over our new great plains master beekeeping journeyman, a beekeeping program out of University of nebraska at lincoln training beekeeping educators. (christine richards photo)

Learn About Bees. Take a Class!

If you’re one of those who think beekeepers are basking by fireplaces resting over winter, think again. Winter is when most beekeepers are catching up – on reading, hive repairs, classes, and planning plantings. We don’t get to spend time with our bees, that’s true, but winter is anything but relaxing. Before you know it, bees are leaving hives to forage for pollen and start their spring increases all over again, if you’re lucky. National numbers suggest we are now losing one out of every two colonies over winter. 

So why would anyone want to keep bees? Actually not everyone should be a beekeeper. If you’re thinking you are “saving bees,” native bees are the ones that need help, not honey bees. Plant native trees, shrubs and flowers to provide unique food sources native bees need. Bees are important. One out of every three bites of healthy food are pollinated by bees, honey and native ones.

1. When I started keeping honey bees, the first question I was usually asked was what was I going to do with “all of that honey.” I didn’t start keeping bees for honey; I wanted bees to help me with fruit tree pollination, one of the many reasons someone also might want to be a beekeeper.

2. If you do want honey, it can be several years before bees collect enough extra honey you can have. It takes 2 million flowers to make one pound of honey. In the Midwest, colonies need between 50-80 pounds of honey to get through winter not counting extra honey for you. Keep planting!

3. If you are thinking of starting a business, there are other hive products that can be the foundation of a cottage business: beeswax, propolis, bee pollen are all bee products used in from lip balms and soaps to tinctures. Some people also do well selling actual bees.

4. Some of the students of our local bee club beginning beekeeping classes decide not to keep bees because it’s too expensive, takes too much time, they’re afraid of being stung…Those are all excellent reasons not to keep honey bees. Taking a class may help you realize that before one spends a lot of money to buy equipment. Success comes in many shapes and sizes.

5. Actually we don’t need a ton of beekeepers, we need good beekeepers following best management practices and mentoring others.

6. Where I live, the Rolla Bee Club supports beginning beekeeping students throughout the year at monthly meetings from lectures to hands-on practice with bees at teaching apiaries. They also host beginning beekeeping classes January-March. The first class January 27, 2024 is full; registration is open for the second beginning beekeeping class February 24, 2024 and for the Second Year Beekeeping class March 23, 2024. Check with your local bee club for their classes; most offer classes over winter when they are not busy with bees.

If you don't have a club close by, pick up a copy of A Beekeeper's Diary; Self Guide to Keeping Bees. It's the workbook we use for our beginning beekeeping classes. It will quickly give you an overview of how to get started and hopefully save you some money.

If you do nothing else, take a beginning beekeeping class; you will be amazed at all beekeeping requires and how fascinating bees are. Did I mention they are an important part of our food chain?

Charlotte

Sugar Cakes Recipe

My bees now have both winter protein in winter pollen patties as well as sugar cakes for winter food. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Winter Bee Feeding

When I first started beekeeping, the more experienced beekeepers only talked about using sugar - mush bags, sugar cakes, candy boards - all carbs for winter supplemental feeding. I understood the concept, that this was to supplement stored honey supplies in case bees ran out mid-winter.

However, even honey, real honey, contains pollen, which is a protein source, or food for bees. More specifically, nurse bees need protein to trigger their glands to produce royal jelly so they can feed bee larvae. Studies show that under-nourished bee larvae grow up to be unhealthy bees. With the other bee stressors including pesticides, pathogens and poor foraging areas, good nutrition has become a priority in my apiary.

For two winters now I have been feeding my winter bees both sugar cakes and winter protein pollen patties in addition to giving the a medium super full of honey at the beginning of fall, then replacing empty honey frames with more frames of honey end of November. At this point in a relatively mild winter, all of my colonies are now in the top box showing very healthy colony numbers on warm days so I worry less about them pulling through winter because the cluster is too small.

So let’s take a look at a few of my hives and what I found under the inner cover when I inspected them on a sunny day that was 67F in early January 2019. I am located in mid-Missouri.

What do you find in your quick winter hive inspections under the inner cover? (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

This is a second year queen that went into winter with very strong colony numbers. All colonies were treated with formic acid strips end of August to knock down varroa mite numbers going into winter. I treated because my varroa mite count was 10 mites per hundred when voluntarily tested by the state and analyzed by the USDA Bee lab in Maryland.

This colony has once again finished their winter protein patty. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Even with replenished honey frames, my colonies seem to gravitate to the top of the hive on warm days.

This particular colony was like the rest, the colony had consumed the winter pollen patty so I replaced it.

Another winter protein patty quickly added before I closed up the hive. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Here’s another hive check. This colony is in its third year and also had finished their winter pollen patty so I added another one.

Homemade sugar cakes with winter pollen patties. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

I make my own sugar cakes and now add Honey Bee Healthy to the mix in early winter, and pollen substitute for the sugar cakes I add to the colonies in January and February. Here is the recipe:

Charlotte's Bee Winter Sugar Patties Recipe 

5 lbs or 11 1/4 cups sugar
7 1/2 ounces of water (make sure it's exact)
1 teaspoon white distilled  vinegar (don't use apple cider vinegar, attracts small hive beetles)
1 tsp Honey Bee Healthy

For January-Feb use, I will add
1/4 cup Bee Pro protein to each batch
​
​Add Honey Bee Healthy and vinegar to measuring cup; then add water to 7 1/2 ounces. Mix well. Spread in bread pans and re-used fruit clam shells.

Leave overnight in cold oven to dry out. Once top is dry, remove and turn over on a cookie sheet to let the bottom dry out for a couple of days. If you end up with still moist patties, re-mix and add a little more sugar, then dry again.

If you don't need to use immediately, store in sealed plastic container.

Sugar patties not only provide supplemental feeding but also help to keep moisture out of the hives.

Now to yet another colony check, this one the smallest colony with a first year queen.

Smallest colony is also consuming winter protein patties. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

As beekeepers, especially ones who keep bees for honey, it’s easy to focus just on the carbs or sugar. For a colony to be healthy, however, and be able to collect flower nectar as both flight fuel and winter food storage, or honey, they need to be healthy and that means they first need pollen, which is protein.

I will be interested to see how my colony numbers are coming out of this relatively mild winter with the colonies getting both the nectar-substitute in the form of sugar cakes as well as protein patties.

These are the size of the protein patties I shape for each colony. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Since small hive beetles also winter over inside the colony cluster, I keep my winter pollen patties small, about the size of the palm of my hand. The larger colonies may get two pollen patties, one each on the edge of the cluster and I checked the pollen patty bottoms to make sure there are no small hive beetle larvae getting established.

Do you feed your bees both sugar and protein pollen during winter feeding?

Charlotte

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How to See Teeny Tiny Eggs

Plastic magnifying sheets and magnifying glasses are handy to have. (charlotte ekker wiggins photo)

How to See Teeny Tiny Eggs

One of the challenges in beekeeping is seeing the teeny tiny eggs queens lay. Maybe the sign of a pin head in the first few hours, it’s a critical skill to help monitor the health of a colony.

Over the years I’ve tried a number of options including reading glasses stronger than my prescription. Not the best option since safely moving can be challenging and its not easy to remove the glasses under a bee suit.

Here are a couple better options:

1. Magnifying plastic sheets. These are inexpensive and easy to use to better locate the tiny eggs. I found several available on Amazon for $1 each. The magnification is 3X.

2. Magnifying glass with light. These are also relatively inexpensive. The light helps with seeing the eggs when the sunlight is not in the right spot. Home and garden centers and craft stores have several options,

What about black foundation? These can still be challenging but they do help with better seeing the eggs. The one challenge I have is my bees don’t like the frames so it takes some convincing and sugar water to get them used.

Charlotte

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Bee Club Basics 2nd Edition

Second reference book in a three-set series is out. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)

Bee Club Basics 2nd Edition

The second edition of “Bee Club Basics, How to Start a Bee Club” is now out. It’s a helpful guide for those who want to start an educational non-profit. It will also come in handy for those wanting to re-invigorate their current bee clubs. The COVID 19 pandemic has made us all multi-functional so we can meet online or safely in person.

To be successful beekeepers, it’s helpful to have a supportive community. Having a bee club that invites beekeepers to meet, share information and lend a helpful hand is critical to the success of a beekeeping community.

In particular rural areas of the country, where internet service is not reliable, there are still some basic meeting principles that work in bringing people together.

Have you willed the coffee to finish like the rest of us? (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)

I founded a bee club where I live in 2014 at the request of my beginning beekeeping class students. The forms I used to start this club including a club charter, then club by laws and other samples in between, are included in this book for easy reference. They are all collected in the back section for easy access and copying.

i also asked Michele Colopy, LEAD for Pollinators, a non-profit offering beekeeping organizations management advice, to review this edition.

And should you like to see the advice in action, you’re welcome to our club meetings. We put into practice the advice in “Bee Club Basics 2nd Edition” and use the enclosed samples ourselves.

I’ve established a dozen nonprofits since 1979. I know how challenging it can be for a new person to tackle the process. This book makes it more manageable and offers tips from someone who has some experience navigating non-profits. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me with your questions.

This 286-page paperback joins “A Beekeeper’s Diary, Self-Guide to Keep Bees 2nd Edition” as part of a three volume reference series I’m writing. Currently there are no other reference books like mine on the market. Kim Flotum, Bee Culture magazines retired senior editor last year, said I was “revolutionizing the way beekeeping was taught.”

All I am trying to do is to help other fellow beekeepers.

Charlotte

Using Glass Feeders Inside

Homemade feeder, left, compared to Boardman feeder, right. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)

Using Glass Feeders Inside

One of the changes our state association made to recommended best management practices a couple of years ago was to no longer feed colonies outside the hives. Outside feeding encourages robbing and the spread of viruses carried by bees with compromised immune systems due to Varroa mites.

One of the more popular outside feeders are Boardman feeders, plastic or metal trays that hold sugar syrup-filled glass jars a half inch off the surface so bees can feed from the punctured tops. This design also has horizontal legs that hold the feeder at the hive front.

Even though those are no longer recommended on the outside of hives, the feeders can still be used by putting them inside the hive.

Boardman feeders used inside a hive to supplement feed. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)

And in the event you’re short of a feeder, you can make your own. The idea is to hold the jar lid off the ground so bees can access the upside down jar. A square piece of wood with two glued smaller pieces on either side will hold the jar so bees can feed.

So no need to throw out the Boardman feeders, they can still be used just not at the hive entrances.

Charlotte

Award-Winning Beginning Beekeeping Book

“A Beekeeper’s Diary Won First Place in the 2022 “How to” Category. (Independent Press Award graphic)

Award-Winning Beginning Beekeeping Book

A potential new beekeeper asked me earlier this week about my award-winning beginning beekeeping book. “Have you used it yourself,” she asked.

After 10 years of teaching beginning beekeeping classes and 8 years of running a bee club, I still do, I told her. “A Beekeeper’s Diary Self-Guide to Keeping Bees” has been used in all of my beginning beekeeping classes, starting with the many check lists I’ve developed over the years to help new beekeepers keep track of all of the decisions they have to make.

Even though I know the book is helpful, there’s some pleasure in hearing others think it’s a good product.

The second edition has a very handy detailed index. (Becky’s Graphic Design)

The Independent Press Awards in 2022 is the latest award. They chose “A Beekeeper’s Diary Self-Guide to Keeping Bees” as the best in 2022 the “How to” nonfiction category. The Independent Press Awards bring increased recognition to the thousands of exemplary independent, university, and self-published titles published each year.
​"A Beekeeper's Diary Self-Guide to Beekeeping" has also been approved by Great Plains Master Beekeeping out of University of Nebraska as covering scientifically-based best management practices. The Great Plains Master Beekeeping program started in Nebraska and now includes Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, Nebraska and Kansas.
The diary reinforces information new beekeepers receive in beginning beekeeping classes and guides them through the decisions they have to make to get started. The diary has places for documentation, an important skill for good beekeeping. “It’s easy to skip this step in the first year but by your second year you will be thankful that you have those records.”
If a new beekeeper can’t get to a beginning class, the diary will help fill that gap. I like to be practical!
As much as I appreciate the awards, the best reward is to have a struggling beekeeper say “now I get it” after reading the book!

Charlotte

Beekeeping Pry Bars

Beekeeping “hive tools” are basically pry barns. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)

Beekeeping Pry Bars

A “hive tool”, the basic beekeeping tool, by any other name would be a small pry bar. The basic hive tool is to help a beekeeper get into a bee hive by prying through the tree-sap based glue bees make to seal up the hive.

In the three examples in the photo above, can you tell which one was sold as a “hive tool” and which one was sold as a pry bar?

The difference between the silver pry bar and “hive tool” is 1/4 inch. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)

Look again, the difference is only 1/4-inch in length and can be a savings of several dollars per hive tool.

The two small pry bars on the right were purchased at a local home and garden center in the tool department. The all blue one has a blue paint coat all over the bar and cost $10. I use marine blue as my signature color for garden benches and my hive tools. It’s an easy way to discourage hive tools from disappearing when working in other apiaries.

The middle, all silver small pry bar is getting a signature yellow paint on it. The original one belonged to my bee buddy David and was inadvertently given away at our last club meeting. Cost of the middle silver one, not counting the paint job, $5 each.

Here are two popular hive tool prices original and on sale. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo) o

And on the left of the top photo, an original beekeeping “hive tool,” purchased for $13.

So if you’re like me and tend the loose a hive tool or three during a season, checking your local home and garden tool section may save you a few dollars.

And if you’re just starting your beekeeping journey, pick up a copy of “A Beekeeper’s Diary Self-Guide to Keeping Bees” 2nd Edition. The award-winning book will walk a new beekeeper through the process and provides some basic bee biology information, too.

Charlotte

How to Make Supplemental Sugar Patties

Bees consume sugar when they run out of stored honey. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)

How to Make Supplemental Sugar Patties

I am getting ready to make another batch of supplemental sugar patties for my honey bees. These sugar patties keep bees fed when they run out of honey, something that can happen in February and late winter, early spring.

Bees cluster inside hives during winter and will move to the hive top for supplemental food. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)

Springs can also be very wet preventing bees from foraging in nature so I like to have extra food on hand, just in case.

A bowl, a spoon and a container to put the mix in is all you need to make sugar patties.

It is very easy to make homemade sugar patties, especially the way my beekeeping friend David showed me.

David uses aluminum pie tins so I will start with those quantities. For one pie tin, either 8" or 9," pour 2 cups sugar into a bowl. Spray with 40 squirts out of a spray water bottle. Mix with a wooden spoon or your hands. Pack into the pie tin. Allow a couple of days to dry.

When using clear suet containers, you will need 1 cup sugar and 20 squirts of water from a spray bottle. Mix. Pack into a suet container. Allow to dry.

David said sometimes he adds a drop of lemongrass, food grade essential oil to each patty. I skipped that step in making mine.

The first sugar patties I made I dried in an oven warmed to 100F, then turned off. Not sure that is necessary unless conditions are very humid.

To feed, place in a top feeding shim under the inner cover to supplement winter honey supplies.

One of my bee colonies eating one of David's homemade sugar patties in a pie tin.

Once bees have a pollen supply from the garden they will stop taking the sugar. The sugar patties can be saved for later use or added to water to make sugar syrup.

Flick the patties once in the hive to make sure they aren’t too dry. If they feel like a brick, spray gently with water to rehydrate them without wetting your bees.

Charlotte

Beekeeper Bee Pins

These 1/2 inch wood bees are perfect to pin new beekeepers. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)

Beekeeper Bee Pins

Have you ever wondered when someone becomes a beekeeper? I have. Enough so that in our bee club one doesn’t get to call themselves a beekeeper until they have successfully helped at least one bee colony through winter.

There are people who “have” bees; the beekeeping community even refers to them as ‘‘bee havers,” people who for whatever reason get bees and then get sidetracked.

To be a bee “keeper,” you are learning a new language, quickly becoming an amateur biologist and trying to merge yourself into the world of bees. One doesn’t dictate to bees; to be a successful beekeeper, one learns to take cues from our bees. And it’s a continuous learning process. No two years of beekeeping are the same.

During the 2020 COVID quarantine, the one thing we heard repeatedly from club members was that they had successfully helped their bees through winter and were wondering when they would get “pinned.” Not knowing what the pandemic future would bring, we mailed the bee pins that year. The one Kathy Krupp is wearing on the left side of her shirt is on an embossed tag so that it didn’t get damaged in the shipment. Some people choose to wear them together, others will just wear the half-inch painted wooden bee pin alone. Regardless, it’s fun to watch people looking at shirt collars at club meetings to see who has a pin.

New “beekeeper” Kathy Krupp now coaching other potential new beekeepers. (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

The wooden bees themselves are shipped already painted. I add glued tie tacks to keep them secure. To make them more friendly-looking, I will also spend a few minutes painting in eyes, sometimes looking in various different directions.

David Draker pins his protege Sharon Contini with her “bee” pin! (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)

The effort is minimal and so worth it when you see the faces of people who now get to call themselves “a beekeeper” getting their official bee pin!

Charlotte

Multi-Purpose Beginning Beekeeping Guide

Autographing diaries before they get shipped. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Multi-Purpose Beginning Beekeeping Guide

The second edition of the award-winning “A Beekeeper’s Diary Self-Guide to Beekeeping” is now available.

The 310-page large print 8.5x11 inch paperback is available in print with black and white photos and ebook 70% color photos. The book covers the first 3 years of beekeeping and supports beginning beekeeping classes with helpful guides and checklists; stands alone as a helpful guide for those who can't make a beginning beekeeping class but still want to start keeping bees, and includes an extensive helpful index.

This 2nd edition includes 310 pages in large print for easy reading.(Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

A Beekeeper's Diary 2nd Edition is also now a study guide for Great Plains Master Beekeeping's (GPMB) online Apprentice to Journeyman test. The GPMB educational teach-the-teacher beekeeping program is out of the University of Nebraska at Lincoln and is now including Missouri in their 7-state program.

Handy check lists guide beginning beekeepers through the options. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

The beginning beekeeping book and diary includes basic beekeeping information and guides appropriate to Midwest states.

The diary also includes space for notes. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

The diary retails for $34.95 and is available where most books are sold.

Autographed copies are available here.

If you are just starting your beekeeping journey, welcome!

Charlotte

Which Side Up?

The notch on a hive inner cover sits under the outer cover. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Which Side Up?

Of all of the things in beekeeping that can confuse new beekeepers - and there’s a healthy list of confusing things - which way the notched inner cover sits on top of the hive is close to the top of the list.

The inner cover is a hive lid that sits under the hive outer cover. It usually has a hole in the center to help bees move air through the hive to keep it cool in summer. During winter, ice and snow can close up the hive entrance prohibiting bees from taking cleansing flights when temperatures allow.

For that reason, I like to use notched inner covers on my hives during winter. The two-bee space notch gives bees an alternate hive entrance and exit in the event snow blocks the bottom entrance.

The inner cover notch can serve as a top hive entrance. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Some inner covers are made without notches. If you don’t have one you can easily make one by removing a half inch of the inner cover border to create a notch.

Without the notch, bees may die caught between the lid and inner cover. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Without a top notch, bees can get caught between the inner cover and the lid and die.

Yes, they may still have access through the inner cover center hole to move back down into the hive but some don’t make it.

For more tips on beekeeping including how to start, get a copy of “A Beekeeper’s Diary Self-Guide to Beekeeping 2nd Edition.”

Charlotte

A Beekeeper's Diary 2nd Edition

A Beekeeper’s Diary Self-Guide to Beekeeping @nd Edition cover. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

A Beekeeper’s Diary 2nd Edition

Just in time for winter reading, “A Beekeepers'‘s Diary 2nd Edition” will be available through Amazon and other book retailers as well as Bluebird Gardens for autographed copies.

The book is based on 9 years of teaching beginning beekeeping and is approved by the Great Plains Master Beekeeping program out of the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. The book was my original master beekeeping project. I switched to writing a beginning beekeeping class that compliments the book when our state association wanted a basic class that helped to give beginning beekeepers the same consistent information.

The first edition of this book, published March 2021, won third place in the Independent Book Publisher’s Award in home and garden, an honor I am told considering this is an international competition.

The same information is in the second edition as well as a detailed index and more photos as well as detailed check lists to help new beekeepers.

Charlotte

Queen Bee Marking Pens

Organizing queen bee marking pens in a gardening apron. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Queen Bee Color Pens

There are few things most beekeepers like more than finding new ways to do something. I certainly fall in that category so it was with great interest that I spotted this gardening apron turned into a queen bee color marking guide.

Queen bees are marked with a special color to indicate the age of the queen. There is an international queen bee marking code based on 5 colors and the last number of the year:

White: year ending in 1 or 6

Yellow: year ending in 2 or 7

Blue: year ending in 5 or 0

Green: year ending in 4 or 9

Red: year ending in 3 or 8

This system helps the beekeeper know the queen’s age while making it easier to spot her in a crowd of moving bees.

Now if all of your queen bees are the same age, you only need one marking pen. They’re special pens, by the way, not a marker you buy at your local big box store. And if you have different-aged queen bees, then you need different colored pens.

This is where the gardening apron comes in. This particular beekeeper has set up a system on the gardening apron to keep track of his marking pens. Sounds simple enough but once you’re out in your apiary handling bees and need to grab a marking pen - this marked gardening apron will make the pens very convenient and easy to find.

Charlotte

Wax Moth Protection

Paper towel pieces with Para-Moth crystals ready to keep wax frames free of wax moths. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Wax Moth Protection

There was a time when wax moths were the main challenge for beekeepers. Today wax moths can be an early warning that the colony is not healthy since wax moths are opportunistic and move in when a colony is struggling.

There are two wax moth species, the Greater wax moth (Galleria mellonella) and the Lesser wax moth (Achroia grisella). The Lesser wax moth looks like a smaller, juvenile version of the Greater wax moth.

Both species eat beeswax, particularly unprocessed wax, pollen, remains of larval honey bees, honey bee cocoon silk and enclosed honey bee feces found on brood cells walls.

Wax moth cocoon, left, two adult wax moths and the frass they leave behind.(Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Both Greater and Lesser wax moths will damage wax frames in storage. Since wax is more valuable than honey, beekeepers want to protect the waxed frames for reuse.

One of the easiest ways to protect wax frames is to use Para-Moth crystals.

Making Para-Moth crystal packets to put into totes to protect wax frames. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Cut paper towels in half and place one scoop of Para-Moth crystals in the paper towel piece center.

Pull the paper around the crystals and tie with a bread tie.

Place inside totes full of wax frames to keep them safe from wax moth damage.

Make sure all bees are out or the Para-Moth will kill bees.

To use the stored wax frames, remove the remaining Para-Moth crystals and air out the wax frames for a good week before placing in the hives.

Charlotte

Wear a Veil

My removable veil I use on a pith-helmet like hat to prevent stings. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Wear a Veil

Some of the pictures are a bit disturbing, images of beekeepers with swollen faces because they were stung. There’s an attitude among some beekeepers that they should be able to work bees without protective equipment. Some of it is bravado; most of it is ignorance and the combination of the two is a dangerous option.

A recent popular online video of a young woman in perfect makeup without a suit has literally gone viral although her claims of being an experienced beekeeper has understandably been questioned. Her appeal, in my opinion, is that she’s attractive and making beekeeping look benign. People already are fascinated by the idea of beekeeping; she and her husband has just make it look good.

Here’s the bottom line. If you are going to work bees, wear head protection. It can be as simple as mosquito netting over a baseball hat or the easier to maneuver pith helmet shaped hat draped with netting.

You are working with arthropods that sting when threatened. Why wouldn’t you take precautions just in case you hit a cranky one?

I’ve been keeping bees for 11 years. There are days when I know I can work my bees without gloves but I always have something on my head - a veil works well for those quick hive visits, a bee jacket is better if I have to spend any time with the colony.

If the weather is good, it’s a wonderful days with my bees but I don’t risk having a sting where I don’t want one.

It’s such an easy step to take. Please be a responsible beekeeper.

Charlotte

Lifting Hives

This motorized hive lifter can be operated by one person. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Lifting Hives

If you spend any time around beekeepers, the topic of backs - and more specifically bad backs - will come up. At the end of a growing season, beekeepers have a lot of weight to lift thanks to hopefully busy bees storing and dehydrating nectar into honey. One typical medium frame of capped honey can weigh between 3-5 pounds.

The weight, and wear on backs, is partially responsible for beekeepers moving from 10-frame hives to 8-frame ones. That small transition can lighten a hive box by 10 pounds each per box.

There are a couple of available hive lifting tools that contribute to adaptive beekeeping. One is a manual one requiring two beekeepers to pick up a handle on each side of a hive. I have one of those; it is constantly being borrowed by my beekeeping friends but requires a second set of hands to use.

I recently saw another, more expensive bee hive lifter at Central Missouri State University’s open apiary in support of Heroes to Hives Missouri, the first state chapter of this military veteran beekeeping program. This one is motorized and surprisingly lightweight. The “Bee Hive Lifter” can be operated by one person, making it a more practical tool in an apiary. The manual version costs about $1,000; the motorized version $1,500.

Probably not a practical tool for the hobby beekeeper but anyone going into business and moving a lot of hives may want to add this to their equipment list. Beehivelifter.com, made in USA.

Charlotte

Watering Bees

Preparing one of my bird baths with twigs to give my bees a safe landing spot. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Watering Bees

It’s been getting record hot where I live. In addition to making sure my plants are watered, I concentrate on getting my pollinators, including honey bees, drinking water. Honey bees use water for a variety of things from air conditioning the hive to making food.

Now when I talk about providing bee water in beekeeping classes, usually someone will pipe up that they have a pond within so many miles of their hives. My question to them is, would you want to drive the 2 miles to water or would you rather have a handy watering hole nearby.

Bees are no different. It’s better to have water close by so they can easily access it versus spending extra energy for the water carriers to fly off and carry water back to the hive.

In my apiary, I have concrete bird baths situated within a few feet of my hives. That way bees have easy access to the water and don’t compete to get it. I also prepare the bird baths with sticks and rocks so the bees have a safe spot to land. Leaves falling in? Even better, the leaves and other garden debris offer amino acids that are critical for bee health.

In addition, those bird baths are now favorite watering holes for a variety of pollinators including butterflies and moths. They also use sticks and rocks for safe landing spots.

Not everyone has the room to add bird baths so there’s an excellent alternative: Boardman feeders, the very same we beekeepers use to feed bees sugar water.

Boardman feeders with glass jars on top of frames make handy inside water drinking stations. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Clean out the glass jars and refill with water. Then turn over for gravity to remove the air and place in the Boardman feeder over the bee frames. This way bees have access to water without having to leave the hive and no one can disturb it.

Also a good way to repurpose those Boardman feeders since outside feeding is no longer recommended. Feeding outside encourages robbing, facilitates Varroa mite movement and sometimes can heat up fast.

Charlotte

Shipping Queen Bees

Clearly mark the package so handlers know these are live. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Shipping Queen Bees

If you ever get queen bees shipped, or have a reason to ship queen bees, this is the best example of how to ship them.

First, make sure the carrier you use knows they are on their way. A call to the local post office is usually enough. Provide the shipper’s address and the estimated delivery time. Also provide your phone number and ask them to call you as soon as the package arrives. A little jar of honey at Christmas time helps them to remember who you are.

To help this process go smoothly, this shipment included instructions on the outside of the box.

Not only does this have my phone number but a note that a call was made.(Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

If you are shipping queens, make sure your package is well-marked like this one. There is a label for the handler, a label for the post office and a note for the receiving beekeeper.

Another label reminds the recipient to get these in the hive as soon as possible. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Inside, the queen bees are traveling with several worker bee attendants. It’s not unusual for a couple attendants to be dead upon arrival but check that the queens are still alive.

The white circles at the top of the queen box are a source of sugar to keep the bees fed on their journey. This will also buy time for the queen bees to get acclimated to their new home by spreading their pheromones for a few days. Usually by the time the sugar is eaten the queen has been accepted and the colony looks forward to welcoming her.

Queen bees with attendants and sugar plugs inside the shipping box. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

The queen boxes have been carefully glued to the cardboard so they don’t move around during shipping.

Two more labels to wrap up the shipping. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Some shippers use only corks in the queen boxes, which means the bees need to be fed upon arrival. These bees have a candy plug that the bees will remove themselves.

And finally, an incentive to leave a good review. Unfortunately when I tried that link it did not work so don’t add something with a link without checking it.

Charlotte