New bee report – Beekeeping in Israel
Stevy with a Smoker
Today is Friday, Israel’s Sunday and a perfect day to visit our new hive. We dropped the kids off at school and drove over to the moshav near Rehovot to check on our first hive. We installed the hive this past Sunday and gave them almost a gallon of sugar/water syrup. The bee breeder told us to return in two weeks and give them another gallon. We took two litres of sugar syrup just in case the bees needed a top-off. This was just a quick trip because Alison has some work to do today so she did not suit up but took some great pictures with my camera.
Bees send out signals in two ways – dance and scent. The dance, is a way of telling fellow bees where the good nectar is and where it can be found. Some people use their hands when they talk, bees do a dance. The other way of communicating, the scent, is the one beekeepers have to be careful of if they don’t want to get stung.
Adding Fuel to a Bee Smoker
If the guard bees at the entrance to the hive think that the hive is being threatened, they release pheromones that alert the other bees to go into protect mode. Even if you are wearing a bee suit, you can be stung if the bees are determined enough. Besides, you don’t want to piss off these little guys, you are there to help them make their honey. Just remember the saying ” If a bee comes to your house, give her beer, you might visit her house one day.”
The way beekeepers disarm the guard bees is to send some smoke into the hive. The smoke does two things, it masks the pheromones that are released by the guard bees and also sends a signal to the bees that their tree that houses their hive might be on fire. The bees react by slurping up some honey into their honey tummies in case there really is a fire and they have to escape to a new hive with their precious honey. Their system is one of survival and they know that they need the honey for tomorrow. Alison and I have asked each other on occasion what we would take if we had to quickly leave our apartment. It wouldn’t be food. The bee smoker is one of the most important tools that a beekeeper uses and we are still getting used to making it work for us. The key is to use the right fuel and adding enough to last your entire session with the bees. You don’t want to turn to the smoker and find that the fire went out because you put too much wood in it. We, being bee newbies, bought a package of smoker pellets.
Stevy with a Bee Smoker and Hive Tools
They are not viable for a commercial operation but for hobby farmers like us, they seemed perfect They look like they are extruded from the same type of machine that makes rabbit food and perhaps rabbit food would have been a more effective fuel for our smoker than the pellets. We gave up earlier in the week with the pellets and switched to eucalyptus leaves, twigs and paper. I have heard of some beekeepers who make a little package of fuel for the smoker and insert it, wrapped in a sheet of newspaper, into a cardboard toilet paper tube. It makes one simple solution to looking for the right leaves and twigs.
I got the smoker really smoking this morning and gave the entrance a healthy dose of smoke. You are supposed to wait at least 30 seconds to get those little bees diving into to their stores of honey. Once they do, they are like couch potatoes sitting and drinking beer, eating pizza and watching TV.
When they are full of honey they are not likely to sting anyone unless you REALLY piss them off. Stepping on members of the family will do that so the key is being gentle and watching where you step.
Next, I took off the roof and checked the crown board underneath. The crown board is like a ceiling to the hive. Bees will glue anything thay can with wax and propolis. If you don’t use a crown board (andmany beekeepers don’t) you stand the chance of having to pry off the roof with your hive tool (2nd most important tool). The crown board also acts as a layer below the roof and provides insulation, both in the summer and the winter. The crown board sits either on the hive or on top of a feeder if you have one installed. We do have a feeder for this new colony and it was totally empty. The bees had polished off a gallon of sugar syrup. I took off the feeder (they reach it via a slot in the feeder) and finally saw the 10 frames.
A Frame with New Foundation
I was able to tell which frames were part of the nucleus not only from the fact that the wood had gone brown, but from the bulging sides of the original frames. They were packed with comb, indicating that there may not have been the correct spacing in the nuc when the bees built the comb. I started by pulling the frame closest to me and saw that they had already started building the comb.
The next frame I pulled had fresh comb filled with drops of glistening honey. The bees take the nectar from the field with their mouths and store it in their honey sacs in their bodies. Their saliva contains enzymes that help change the nectar into honey. The honey is still full of water (80%) and needs to be reduced to about 14-18%. The bees do that by flapping their little wings. Their “air conditioning” also keeps the hive cool in the summer.
A Frame with lots of Bees
We were very happy with the progress, the bees seemed to have a good temperament and they were drawing out the comb at a good pace. Alison and I decided t o return in a week with a super and a queen excluder. This will allow the bees to build a 2nd story without having the queen lay eggs in the area we ant reserved for honey.
Inspecting a Frame
For those that have never experienced it, opening a full bee hive is a real thrill, especially when you hear the loud sound of thousands of bees buzzing around. Although I felt very safe, having followed all the instructions, smoked the bees and wore a complete bee suit, I was not comfortable when a bee landed in front of my eye. I was unsure if the bee was on the outside of the veil or on the inside. I assumed it was on the outside and if it was on the inside, this was not a great time to stop and figure it out. I put the frames back in, poured another two litres of sugar syrup into the feeder and said goodbye to our first colony.
An Open Bee Hive
8 May 2009 16:49 3 Comments
Other Links to this Post
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
By Nicki Weinberg, 9 May 2009 @ 23:17
Hi Stevy and Alison,
I am so happy you are back to blogging again. I had missed it. I didn’t realize you had started in March.
I like your “voice” and style of writing very much. Thank you for the post. It is informative and fun – and so nice to see what you are doing!
By Naomi, 10 May 2009 @ 08:09
Cool! Well done. Can we have a close-up of the comb next time??? Can’t wait to hear about the queen excluder, although I suppose the gays won’t like it.
By Stanley, 10 May 2009 @ 14:01
What have you gotten up to? I didn’t look for 10 minutes and here you are farming in the fields…
Some guys ran a hive in the neighbor’s plot a few years ago and now we have bees around the flowers in our zimmer with no known cultivated hive in sight. How do they manage that? Can originally “tame” bees also live “in the wild” so to speak?
By the way, having finally been released from high-tech prison, I’m open to any suggestions for gainful employment. Just not farming! I’ll stick to that as a hobby, like you.
Your blog is refreshing – the moderate tone makes a nice change from the usual hysteria or cynicism.
Lehishtamea.