I willl write more about the harvest (we used the crush and strain technique) another time. We are very proud of ourselves for starting 3 months ago, learning lots, and hopefully in a few days, we will enjoy eating our first harvest. We have very little honey, just a few kilo. To give you an idea, a kilo is one jar that is sold in the supermarket. At this point, it is not the quantity that we are after, it is the experience. Wea re hoping that we will have lots more in the spring harvest.

I went down to Nir Galim today and bought a “bee brush”. A bee brush is just a long brush with a few rows of long synthetic bristles that is used to brush off the bees in the super when we take the honey. Since we do not have a spinner to remove the honeyy we will need to find someone who will spin the few frames for us. We are hoping to harvest about 2-4 kilos of honey. I also bought some very small jars today to accomodate our very small harvest.

The bees are doing great at Yashresh. I just wish we had started earlier in the season. I figure that if they continue at this pace we will have just a jar or two from Yashresh, in time for Rosh Hashana. The good thing is that they will have drawn their comb and we will be ready to catch the flow in the spring. It is tempting to scratch the capped honey with the hive tools and taste the honey but that veil gets in the way.

Capped honey

On this trip Alison and I pulled a few frames and photographed the pollen. The frame I chose to display here actually has three types of cells on it. On the left is capped honey, then to the right of that is capped brood, and beyond that is the pollen. We  did not look for eggs. Can someone verify that this is indeed pollen?

It was VERY hot today and we were wearing our bees suits wich make it worse, so we did not stay long. I did manage to photograph some capped honey and some open cells. It is pretty neat seeing the little cells glistening with honey before is is dried and capped.

Feeder with ants

David Zvi and I went to visit hive #2 today and found the hive hosting a ton of ants. We were going to add some sugar syrup to help boost their growth but when we got to the hive we found that the top feeder was almost full. In this hot sun we expected the syrup to go in just a few day but here it has been almost two weeks and the feeder is almost as full as it was two weeks ago. Also, you can see in the photos that there are lots of tiny ants. I did not see any inside the hive but there were so many in the sugar syrup that they almost covered the surface.

Closeup of feeder with ants

Can anyone tell me how to deal with this? Why are the bees not taking the sugar syrup? Is it normal to ignore the syrup? When I mentioned the ants to a local beekeeper, he was not concerned. I know that bees are in danger of drowning and that is why I put the pine needles in the box but I was surprised to see ants that drowned in the syrup. I decided to move the hive about five feet and brushed off as many ants and I could. I also dumped most of the syrup and a lot of the dead ants and filled it with fresh syrup.

I was pleased to see the amount of comb that is in the hive. Almost all the foundation has comb on it and almost all of the comb is filled. I will wait another week before putting on the queen excluder and super. I would like to get rid of the ants. Even though they don’t seem to be affecting the hive, I don’t like the fact that the bees did not touch the syrup water.

Capped brood and larvae

As I spend more time with the bees I take the time to get more acquainted with their ways. I took a close look at one of the older brown combs that came with the nuc. I was able to peer inside the comb and see the growing larvae. I tried to take some pictures and I hope you can make out the difference between the capped brood and the larvae inside the cells. The bee breeder mentioned that this queen lays her eggs in an ellipse. You can see the shape on the frame that David Zvi is holding.

David Zvi, who took pictures on our visit to hive #1, assisted today and was great. He got right in there and lifted a frame or two. Not a fan of bugs, he held steady and quickly grasped how the hive works.  For some reason, the bees were really buzzing this afternoon and they were all over us. Notice the bee above his head!

I would appreciate any advice from the experienced beekers on the condition of the hive. Please leave a comment so others can learn from your advice as well. Thanks!

David Zvi & Yael

After hearing amazing things about Yael from Suri and Allan Robbins, we finally get to spend some time with her.  On the left is a photo which I believe David Zvi snapped.

Epstein Family - Beekeepers

This afternoon we all drove out to visit our hive at Beit Gamliel. It is our forst hove and doing well. It needs another level so I prepared the frames and foundation last night and we installed it today. We decided to put a super on for honey which means that we are locking th equeen out of the penthouse suite. She can continue to lay eggs in the lower brood box and the worker bees can store honey in the upper super.

I was not expecting to need another super for at least a few weeks, so I was pleasantly surprised. Tomorrow I was planning on feeding the other colony but these guys need a super right away. I don’t know if it is the sugar water I give them every week or if it is the Israeli sun and the excellent location – these guys are flying.

The girls had a great time, it was Zoe’s first time out with her bee suit. They were not afraid and were great assistants. They will be ready for their own hoves next year.

• 450 beekeers in Israel
• 3,600 tons of honey are consumed annually in Israel
• 73% of hives are kept by beekeeprs in apiaries of up to 150 hives
• 17% of hives are kept by beekeeprs in apiaries of up to 500 hives
• 10% of hives are kept by beekeeprs in apiaries of over 500 hives
• 20-30 kg is the average yield per hive for small-scale beekeepers
• 50-60 kg is the average yield per hive for large-scale beekeepers

More details available from the Israel Ministry of Agriculture.

Stay tuned for pictures…