Charlotte's sweet beekeeping adventures at Bluebird Gardens
One of the challenges of beekeeping is finding the one, very important queen in a hive.
Fellow Fort Leonard Wood Beekeeper Cheryl decided to mark her queens with these magic makers. She captures the queen in the blue jar, then adds a dot with the sponge on the queen's back.
It would be so much easier if the queen was more like the little princesses I know and wore a teeny tiny tiara.
Charlotte
Honeybees are very fastidious. They like to keep the hive clean.
As the 2012 summer drought continued, baby bees died in the nursery because bees couldn't find pollen.
When temperatures are over 90F for any length of time, flowers shut down to survive and stop producing pollen.
Worker bees removed the little mummy-like bodies and left them on the hive deck. Sad to see but relatively harmless to the rest of the colony
Charlotte
Yellow jackets and bees are not the same.
Millions of years ago, wasps and bees were the same species.
No one knows why bees became vegetarian and started to make honey. Both are important garden pollinators.
Before I had honeybees, I had a healthy population of wasps pollinating my compact pear tree.
Charlotte
If you've never tried honeycomb, it's delicious and fun to eat.
When eating honeycomb, you're eating the waxy structure bees build to hold honey.
The best honeycomb is very light, soft, and harvested just days after being built. It's very similar to chewing gum.
I gave my first little supply of honeycomb to a relative who served it during a family pajama party.
Charlotte
Once comb is filled with nectar and dehydrated to 18%, the oldest bees cap cells with wax.
Bees make honey to give them food through winter. When they need to eat, they chew through wax caps to get to the stored honey.
Melted wax caps become those highly-prized for a variety of home and beauty products including clean-burning beeswax candles.
Charlotte
Well, not exactly.
One of the things I do before opening my hives is tuck my pants legs inside my socks. It helps to keep bugs form the garden out as well as bees.
After I'm done, I sometimes run errands and I don't always remember why people give me funny looks. I'm sure it's not for my fashion statement!
Charlotte
Can you see the little dark pink tongues lapping up water? Honeybees depend on water to make nectar that becomes honey.
They seem to prefer water with flavor.
I tend to find them hanging out in bird baths seeped with twigs and leaves. Must give the water a better bouquet...
Charlotte
When opening hives and using a smoker, it's best not to set the smoker on
a bale of hay.
Duh.
I was using the hay to give the hives a little winter cover. Not a bad idea, as long as I don't first set the whole place on fire.
Charlotte
Bees produce several waxy comb versions.
Comb for baby bees and honey storage measures five cells per inch.
Comb built to hatch drones, or male bees, are larger measuring four cells per inch, more the size of a ladybug.
When honey comb is damaged, bees build new comb in the larger cell size. I also find burr comb on the bottom of frames.
How do you suppose they know what size to build?
Charlotte
If there's one flower bees love, it's clover.
There are several varieties, including white clover and pink clover.
When pink clover is first in bloom, the little flower heads are brown with bees.
I've always loved having pink clover growing in my garden, even before I had bees. They are not the best cut flowers but they are one of the first flowers to turn green, signaling sspring has arrived.
Charlotte
Fall purple asters are a favorite pollen source of a number of native bees.
Furry bumblebees can often be found foraging along side honeybees.
Although they are among native bees that don't make honey, they still collect pollen as a food source.
They are also very cute to boot!
Charlotte
When I got my first two beehives, my bee supplier gave me this book on "First Lessons in Beekeeping." Although it's an older book, the principles of beekeeping are still the same.
I asked Don to sign it for me. His dedication reads:
"It's always exciting to get your first hives. Good luck!"
The book made it clear, it was going to take a kaleidoscope of information.
Charlotte
After Gertrude hive lost her queen, the poor hive struggled. Since it wasn't doing well, wax moths moved in.
When a hive is healthy, guard bees will make sure no wax moths get a foot hold.
It took several months of digging out wax moth larvae-filled comb and freezing frames to get rid of them. I gave the frozen wax moth larvae to my birds, they loved the special treat!
Charlotte
It's interesting to see what flowers bees visit every season. In fall, my honeybees were all over Autumn Sedum flowers.
Although bees prefer yellow and blue flowers, they don't seem picky when pollen starts to be scarce.
Charlotte
Carpenter bees are large, solitary bees. They build a nest inside wood structures like my deck.
You can distinguish a carpenter bee from a fuzzy bumblebee because carpenter bees have shiny back sides.
Carpenter bees are also among native wild bees that don't produce honey but they are just as important as pollinators, nature's match-makers.
Charlotte
This was the first time I ever spent an afternoon in my garden getting to know my honeybees up close.
After seeing them enjoy sugar water, I decided to try to hand feed them.
It only took them a few minutes to find my sugar-water filled hand.
It was the same sugar water I feed hummingbirds, four parts water to one part sugar.
I wasn't stung once.
Charlotte
Now don't go asking other beekeepers about their bee bars. This is a term I use to describe the sugar water feeding stations I have around my garden.
Using gravel and small rocks, I fill plant saucers with sugar water, then sit back and watch.
Bees like yellow and blue flowers but when it comes to getting a drink, the colors don't seem to matter. Looks like the buzzing crowd is having a good time, doesn't it?
Charlotte
Isn't this fun?
It's the new display at Route 66 Farmer's Market in Cuba, Missouri for Bluebird Gardens honey. Kelly Stroh does a nice job with her signs. The two top honey jars are by a local potter.
Drive into Cuba, MO and you'll see the farmer's market on the left, right after a car wash.
Open Fridays and Saturdays.
Charlotte
It's amazing to think something half an inch long and maybe 1/4 inch wide is responsible for every third bite we eat. Honeybees are small but very sophisticated.
Scientists continue to study how these tiny creatures live together in colonies of 40,000, dividing labor and easily adjusting to different chores when needed.
During their lifetime, they can produce food for new bees; wax comb where honey is stored; generate a wax-like substance from tree sap that wards off hive diseases, and royal jelly, which changes a bee into a queen. They also keep my garden growing by pollinating flowers, especially blue ones.
With honeybees, size really doesn't matter.
Charlotte
My honeybees are tiny so sometimes I see more details about how they work through close up photography.
Both honeybees and their cousins, wasps, pollinated my compact pear tree flowers spring 2010, the first time my pear tree produced fruit since it was planted in 1985.
By brushing against favorite flowers like bluebells, honeybees pick up pollen in their leg pouches. As they move from flower to flower, honeybees move pollen that triggers fruit production.
It's still amazing to me one third of all the food we eat is dependent on this little insect's travel schedule.
Charlotte
Beekeeping Information & Tips
