Brenda - The One that Got Away

The camellias are still blooming, and they are quite gorgeous.  The color looks like something that is fake, but it's real, I promise you.  The honeybees are working the camellias quite hard as there's not much else blooming.  I think they are using them as a pollen source.  Bees gather it to make bee bread.  Bee bread is a mixture of pollen, nectar, honey, and bee saliva.  The workers feed this to the honeybee larva.  I took some photos of the bees collecting pollen from the camellias.  I'll share those photos and also share a funny story from the Bayou Bee Keeper's Meeting tonight.

A worker bee doing her thing...

Our bee club meeting meets the second Thursday night of each month in a small cafe in town.  There are usually about 25 to 30 people in attendance.  We eat from 6 until 7pm while visiting with one another, and then we rise for the Pledge of Allegiance and Prayer and then the meeting is called to order.  The president of the club mentions things we need to be doing in our hives, sometimes there is a special speaker, there is a 'show and tell' time where people bring things they've made or helpful hints for beekeepers.  Sometimes they bring samples of honey, creamed honey, candles made from beeswax, and even mead.  The floor is opened for questions, and this is where it gets interesting because beekeepers are a strange breed, an eclectic bunch of somewhat eccentric people!

She's on the anther (part of the stamen that has the pollen)

Tonight a newcomer to our club raised his hand and had a story to share.  He last told us that he has violent reactions to bee stings and his throat closes up.  He got stung, called 911 and was driving to the hospital and had to pull over for the ambulance to rescue him as he couldn't breathe.  We told him that beekeeping might be a dangerous hobby for him!

Tonight's story was better.  He told us that he was catching a swarm of bees and caught the queen in the air mid-flight with his hands.  She got away and then he caught her again.  He gently placed her in a nuc and about 100 or so of her workers joined her in the nuc.  But it is cold outside, and he didn't want his new queen and her swarm to freeze.

Can you see the pollen she's collecting in her 'pollen basket' on her hind legs?

So he brought the nuc inside his house.  He thought that it was sealed.  Alas, it was not.  He came home and found that the queen and her little colony had escaped.  They were all over his house.  He caught the queen again.  He told us that this queen was so special to him, so he named her.  He used honey on a spatula to catch (again) all of her worker bees and put them back in the nuc and this time, he put them in a trailer out of his house that had a heater in it, but was ventilated.  He did not want his precious queen to die.

I raised my hand and interrupted his story.  I had to know something.  What did he name his queen?  He told us he named her Brenda.  He once knew a girl named Brenda and she had gotten away from him - twice.  The club erupted in laughter!!  So once he got Brenda and her workers in the nuc, they got really cold.  He checked in on them and saw Brenda laying on the bottom of the nuc and thought she had died.

She's using her mandibles and forelegs to place pollen in the pollen basket

He told us that he spent 6 hours constructing an elaborate bee coffin to bury her in.  He passed around photos on his phone.  People's eyes were as big around as silver dollars!  Well, he said he was about to place her in the coffin for interment, when she rose from the dead.  This story had achieved more than we had bargained for.  People were making sure he didn't put them back in his house.  Others were wondering if he sleeps in his bee suit just to be safe.  The president of the club tried to refocus the members on agenda items before adjournment.

Door prizes were announced a distributed.  I won a pretty neat item, but it wasn't nearly as nice as Brenda's hand-crafted queen coffin, that will go unused - at least for the moment.  He vowed not to let Brenda get away again!

Trouble in One of the Hives

On the second Thursday of each month, the Bayou Beekeepers Club meets at Green's Cafe in Jennings.  The meeting starts at 6pm where we order food (generally fried shrimp or cheeseburgers) and we visit for an hour while we eat.  At 7pm sharp the meeting is called to order.  We stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and then we are led in prayer.  

The meeting generally goes on for about an hour and a half.  We discuss things we should be doing in our hives and learn about events that we should prepare for during each month.  Questions are asked and answered by members of the club.  Reports are given about things that people are seeing or experiencing with their bees.  The funny thing about beekeepers is everyone does things a little differently.  One person will tell you to do something and the next says, "Never do that!"  People have their own way of doing things and it works for them.  We have some very large commercial beekeepers as well as hobbyists who only have one hive.  

The club wants to raise up a new generation of beekeepers so we sponsor Hathaway High School.  In their Ag Department (FFA) they now have a number of hives and have gotten a grant to buy bee suits and equipment.  They recently pulled honey and are selling it and have made a lot of money to help the program.  We're now starting another neighboring town's ag department with bees.  The students really enjoy learning about bees and working in the hives.

Bayou Beekeepers Club in Jennings, LA

There is a funky smell coming from our hives.  The bees are making Golden rod honey and the honey really stinks - just like sweaty gym socks.  If you just walk by the hives, you can smell it.  Our goal is to pull some of this honey before too long as it is supposed to be really good for you.  

But there is trouble in one of the hives.  I noticed when walking past one just last week.  If you look, you'll see honeycomb and honey and devastation coming out of one of the boxes.  "What is it,?"  I asked the president of our beekeeper's club as I showed him a photo of what you see below.

Infestation of wax moths!  We've lost one of the hives.  Wax moths move into a weak hive.  A weak hive is one where the population of bees is down.  It could be caused by a queen not laying as many eggs as she should or other problems resulting in a weak hive.  A strong hive repels and pushes away predators.  In a weak hive, a wax moth comes in and lays eggs in the comb.  The larvae eat the comb, the pollen, the honey and destroy the entire colony.

We'll have to clean the entire box out as we've lost all the bees and this spring, we'll either make a split or we'll catch another swarm to replace this one.  It is unfortunate, but we were told that we need to have more than one box of bees, because sooner or later, we'll lose some.  So how do we keep this from happening again?  That is the big question.

We make sure each colony is strong.  If one gets weak, we may combine two hives so that they have the number to fight off wax moths.  I've read that wax moths hate mint.  I'm looking into planting mint all around the hives.  All I know is that we have quite a mess to clean up in this box so that we can be prepared for the spring.  I don't want wax moths to move in and decimate another hive, so I'm going to learn more about combatting them.

Bayou Beekeepers

On the second Thursday of every month, the Bayou Beekeepers Club meets at a local diner in Jennings called Green's Café.  From 6 to 7 pm we order food.  I generally get fried shrimp or catfish, but this week I had a homemade burger and a root beer.  While we eat, we visit with other beekeepers.  It's usually between 15 and 25 people in attendance.  At 7 pm, the meeting is called to order.  We all rise, and with Old Glory in the corner, we place our hands over our hearts and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.  Then the meeting is opened with prayer.

There are always commercial beekeepers as well as homesteaders and hobbyists in attendance.  The meeting begins with general topics and questions and answers.  We talk about what's going on right now and what you should be doing in your beehives.  Lots of advice is given and people freely talk about what works for them and, also, what doesn't work for them.  We ALWAYS learn something.

Let me tell you a simple, but effective thing we learned at the meeting.  As mentioned in a post back in August, our bees have been making a beeline for the rain barrel on our patio.  They drink the water and bring it back to the hive where they arrive and give the water to the house bees who then spit it on the comb, turn around, and use their wings to 'air condition' the colony via evaporative cooling.  Amazing!

One problem with the bees' air conditioning, however.  Bees aren't proficient swimmers.  They inevitably fall in the water in the process of drinking water and drown.  We go out and rescue them when we see them, but we can't save 'em all.  Numerous bees drown.  The life cycle of a bee is 45 days.  Each bee lost could be making honey, building comb, and doing all the work that busy bees like to do and it takes time for the queen to make replacement bees.  We hate to see them die.

We learned a simple, and cheap, trick at the meeting that alleviates the drowning bee problem.  Simply get pine straw and throw a light layer on top of the water like this:

The honeybees still fly in, crawl down, and drink water.

But if they fall in, now there is a life preserver of sorts for them.  They simply climb atop the pine straw, drink their water and go on about their business.

At the meeting this week, there was a presentation on making candles with the beeswax accumulated while pulling honey.  It was very interesting, showing us how to "wash" the wax, melt it and pour it into molds, keeping the wick in the middle of the candle.  They also talked about making lip balm and chap stick with beeswax.

Always at the end there are door prizes that consist of bee-related items or homesteading gifts.  At this meeting, Tricia won an uncapping fork to use during honey extraction.  We enjoy the Bayou Beekeeping Club.  There's plenty of helpful, friendly folks that are excited about sharing information they've learned over the years.

Bee University

Tricia and I have had a colony of bees that live in a hollow fiberglass column that holds up our side porch.  They have been there for years and years, and we've posted about them many times.  We enjoy their residence there as they pollenate our garden and fruit trees.  There is one major thing we're lacking, though.  Honey.  We would like to be able to keep bees in boxes so that we can access the honey.  We will still allow the honeybees to stay in the column.  They like it there.

In order to learn about the art of beekeeping, we joined the Bayou Beekeepers Club.  The club meets the second Thursday of each month.  We've gone to the last two meetings and have learned a lot.  Since there is a resurgence of interest in beekeeping, the officers of the club have decided to have put on a beekeeping school.

The school is put on in four 2 hour sessions with a visit on the last class to a bee yard in which we'll put on equipment and go into hives to find the queen and observe everything that we'll learn in a hands-on environment.  Last night we went to the first class.  We were issued this book:

There were approximately 30 students in attendance from all over our area.  The teacher went through Power Point slides put together by a local university that began teaching about the different subspecies of bees, the bees' lifecycle, the tasks of the drone, worker bee, and queen, the stages in the life of a bee, etc.  The organizers of the school had fresh coffee and cookies - which is a sure sign of a successful meeting, in my book.

Honeybees are so regimented, so organized.  They work as a community - a whole team with tasks.  Bees live a relatively short time - only a little over 30 days.  They literally work themselves to death.

Here are some wild facts we learned about bees:

A queen bee lays about 3,000 eggs per day.
A bee makes 1/8 teaspoon of honey in its life.

Bees keep the inside of their hive at 95 degrees year-round.

Bee boxes should be placed in direct sunshine.

The main thing bees like in our area is Chinese tallow trees.

The stages of a bee: egg, larvae, pupae, adult

We will be continuing the class over the next month and will gather equipment we need and then get two boxes of bees!  We'll keep you posted with this new addition to Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.