Tag: Bees

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I got a crazy amount of stuff done last night after work. I was uber productive!

  • Checked on and watered bee hives at work (2 in community garden)
  • Drove home
  • Checked on and watered bees at the house
  • Boiled burr comb (extra comb the bees build in the hive boxes) and turned it into wax patties for candles this fall
  • Cleaned up front yard.
  • Moved new table made from a tree trunk slice into the front yard
  • Added three orange feet to the table
  • Took out compost, garbage, and recycling
  • Browned sliced almonds for dinner salad
  • Shocked and treated hot tub
  • Emptied hot tub water (only water left in pipes/pump has been treated)
  • Pulled hot tub filters
  • Replaced tires on band saw
  • Installed Wolverine sharpening guides and chisel grinder in shop
  • Patched nail holes in trim of basement tool organization board and printing press break
  • Installed 2 GoPro mounts in shop
  • Put final touches on two hand forged workbench holdfasts each (one for the bench tops and one for the legs) for a couple of friends who are getting into woodworking
  • Worked on a couple of YouTube films
  • Applied a the first coat of Silver Tip Epoxy to a canoe paddle
  • Finished an Audio book
  • Updated my bee hive performance/health tracking journal

Update on the Bee Hive in our yard

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These are the weirdest bees…

The hive is in full south facing sun all day and protected from wind. They took 6 weeks to draw out the 2-3 new frames in a 10-frame super even with me feeding syrup and when I put the second super on in July not a single frame has been drawn out, even with two lower frames put up top. The frames have plastic foundation, so maybe they hate it. No burr comb either. Weird.They are super protective – not African-ized, but pretty damn mean.  I wrote the keeper that I got the nuc from and he sent me a note in return saying that this is “normal behavior” for his survivor bees.  It is not a lack of resources or the queen: she is a brood making machine with very few drone cells. They are just kind of mean.

After three months I should have 20 frames covered with drawn comb, pollen, brood, honey, the works.  I didn’t think I would pull any honey from them this year and planned to get them strong for a spring split in 2019. The no honey thing was a correct estimation, but not just for me, there is very little honey or pollen in the hive – maybe a frame and a half a frame of capped honey the rest is currently uncapped and capped brood.   Instead of 20+ drawn frames, I have 9.5. It is like they did not have enough pollen or nectar, which is no where near the case:  They were all over the blackberries, our 40’ of lavender, flower garden, and 70+ sunflowers,  so I know they had plenty of the flow this year.  I am going to have to feed them with fondant over winter and am condensing the hive into a single super for winter.
The source of the original nuc doesn’t treat at all, so I am finding that they have a pretty high mite count with some wing deformation (DWV?).  No AFB or chalk brood though. No robbing or ant issues.  The aggression and the possible DWV may be linked and may be the issue with comb drawing and honey production.
There is a hive of Italians right next to the new bees that was an early spring package. Same type of frames and two westerns of honey were taken off them, though am not happy with mite count and will definitely treat them as well over winter.  I blame the new bees for the high mite count this year.
I think that I will see how the new hive does come spring with the Apivar, beetle treatment, and all-winter feeding.  If they haven’t calmed down or if they show any sign of weakness, that hive will be getting a new certified Russian queen.
Any bee keepers out there have any thoughts or comments?

Film Friday – BEES!!

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My wife bought me a package bee hive box kit for Christmas last year, which reinforces the fact that I have a wife that is kind and considerate and pretty damn adorable.

Anywho, I thought that installing a new hive would be a terrific opportunity to document all the steps to install bees into a new hive box.  I went with a nuc hive instead of packaged bees and a new queen. That is for a later video. The whole process of bringing a new hive into the apiary also allowed me to show all the steps in prepping the pre-built hive boxes/parts and I was able to build and showcase a couple of steel hive stands that I have been thinking about and designing in my head for years.  I will also make a video on the design and build of the hive boxes and parts, but that will have to wait until this winter.

I love bees and I love being a beekeeper. The honey isn’t bad either…

Spring has Sprung!!

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Holy Crap, it has been sunny and over 70F for two solid days here in Seattle for the first time in 6 months! Flowers and trees are blooming.  Mason, bumble, and honey bees are flying about.  My grass is green.  This all makes me sooo happy.  In a couple of weeks, we are taking a little referral bonus from my J-O-B and doing a front and back yard makeover to include a little fruit tree planting, grass for the back yard, and veggie garden.

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Footnote:  I cursed us all.  12 hours after I posted this, there was a huge thunderstorm in Seattle.  Lightning, buckets of rain, power outages…  Probably all my fault.

2017 New Year’s Resolutions:

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Stuff I will do in 2017:

Eat my veggies
Lose weight – back to 175!
Go to the gym regularly
Box more
Write more: Blog, letters, notes, fiction, non-fiction
Take a lunch at least 4 days a week at work
Show up to yoga at least once a week
Take a pottery class
Take a Blacksmithing class at the Pratt
Read 1 book every 2 weeks – minimum
Play my uke, banjo, and guitar with others
build a skin-on-frame canoe
Run and bike
Start a guitar building class
Pay off all credit cards
Go Sailing
Give lots of $$ to Heifer and MFS
Make movies and post: Adventure, craftsmanship, and family.
Lessen my Social Media presence (Blog doesn’t count)
See my kids and granddaughter more
Be involved in popitics more: financally and time wise
Work on my Genealogy database a little
Finish the house remodel
Finish the garage/shop/GROP build
Make Stuff!!
Ride my skateboard because I am not too old or too fat
Road trip in WA more
Have two hives of healthy, happy bees
Kayak lots!
See my friends more
Take my wife on vacation
Plant a spring garden
Fix up the front and back yards
Climb more inside and outside
Have an awesome Griswald-like Christmas light display!

Birthday list – 2016

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In about 4 weeks I will celebrate the 14th anniversary of my 29th year.  I want cake (moist yellow cake with chocolate butter-cream frosting), snuggling, two fingers of a great scotch after lunch, lots of tiny cups of coffee all day, a nice glass of wine with a steak for dinner, laughter, and a few well thought out gifts. I will not be working that day and I plan to pamper myself with a haircut and a strait-razor shave.

Below is my birthday wish list for my wife, family and children.
Gifts that Keep giving:

  1. Heifer International:
  2. Doctors Without Borders/MSF
  3. Go give blood and send me a post card
  4. Habitat for Humanity
  5. Diabetes Research

Books:
Campaign Furniture by Chris Schwartz
Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenous Life
I could stand a Kindle Paperwhite
A volume on handplanes or a tome on traditional woodworking
Bees of the World by Mitchner
A Lost Art Press volume of The Essential Woodworker
Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow
James Krenov’s Cabinet Maker’s Notebook
Two Classic books on Shaker Furniture: here and here.

Stuff:
Forging class at the Pratt starting in October
Letters from my kids – written on actual paper.
A 3-Day Rally School Course
A bottle of Pre-Shave Oil from The Art of Shaving – Lavender
A couple of thoughtful cards
The iWatch 2. Simple black – the cheapest one
German Wheat Beer is always welcome
Zombie shooting targets
An Ash Pack Basket (Sling-style harness)
Amber 2ga. Plugs (bonus points if they have insect inclusions)
2ga. Dark Jade plugs
The AKcooltools Stainless/bronze Clamptite and the lg roll of stainless .041 wire
24 Provence lavender plants for my front yard
Tiffany blue silk tie and matching pocket square
These new bad-ass cufflinks
A Global Sashimi knife
Classic Cartoon DVDs (Wanrner Bros., Tex Avery, Bugs, Tom&Jerry, Loony Toons, Road Runner, etc…)
Christopher Ward Quartz Trident with black rubber strap

Booze:
A fine Anejo Tequila
Hakushu 12 Whisky
A bottle of Fronsac or Canon-Fronsac (Château Lafond, Château La Vieille Cure, La Dalphine…)
Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey
Porto (Cálem 2011 Vintage, Ramos Pinto, or a Taylor’s)
Glenfiddich 21

The Bees in Our Back Garden – 2015

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The lavender is in full bloom in our backyard.  Last year I counted five different types of bees that visited it during the late summer.  So far, I have counted seven different types, but I think one might be a type of yellow jacket.  I looked online, but it is inconclusive.  I went full-nerd and ordered a couple of books: Bees of the World by Mitchner and Bees of N. America (Princeton Guide).  I will take some more pictures and see how many types I can find every couple of weeks.  As a side note:  I often wonder given my nerdiness how I have both managed to procreate with the female of our species and how I have a wife that is so damn adorable…

Bees in the yard_France June_ 2015_ (36) Bees in the yard_France June_ 2015_ (34) Bees in the yard_France June_ 2015_ (30) Bees in the yard_France June_ 2015_ (21) Bees in the yard_France June_ 2015_ (15) Bees in the yard_France June_ 2015_ (13) Bees in the yard_France June_ 2015_ (10) Bees in the yard_France June_ 2015_ (7) Bees in the yard_France June_ 2015_ (5) Bees in the yard_France June_ 2015_ (4) Bees in the yard_France June_ 2015_ (2) Bees in the yard_France June_ 2015_ (1)

Turkish Honey

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The Turkish know how to present a breakfast spread! My hotels on two recent trips to both Ankara and in Istanbul had a fresh honeycomb (Petek Balout in Turkish) for breakfast every morning. Slabs of raw, dripping, delicious goodness. Honeycomb was also available in the street markets and in a couple of places where I had dinner. I got to enjoy some pistachio baklava and honeycomb with my morning meal AND while walking down the street. Awesome!

Honey Comb Turkey 2015 (1)

Honey Comb Turkey 2015 (2)

Honey Comb Turkey 2015 (3)

Honey Comb Turkey 2015 (4)

Honey Comb Turkey 2015 (5)

Honey Comb Turkey 2015 (6)

Honey Comb Turkey 2015 (7)

Being the proprietor of a urban wildlife kibbutz

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I was home in Seattle taking care of a couple of things and my mom mentioned skratching noises on the roof… hmmm… DAMMIT! WE HAVE SQUIRRELS IN THE ATTIC!! They chewed between the gutter and the shingles and have been living the easy life all fall and winter in my attic. I called a contractor to fix the initial damage and the secondary water damage on the soffet.

In addition to the squirrels, I also have the urban wildlife equivalent of a kibbutz in the attic: Rats and bees have also decided to move in. There was a swarm on the eve of the front porch this summer, but my mother said that they sort of went away. What that actually meant is that I have a small colony that has settled in the eyebrow eve above the front door.

Then there are the other furry residents…

While going over yard design plans with my gardening contractor, I noticed that we were being observed from above by two beadly little eyes. I tagged a medium brown rat (8″ body) with my son’s pellet rifle as it was making a run at the hole in the soffet – Headshot. It makes my heart happy that I could send him off to his eternal reward.

I almost welcome the bees, but rats and squirrels…  I bet they had dinner parties, board game nights, and cross species orgies to cement the truce and draw up the boundaries of their respective territory in MY attic.

I swear by the GOT god’s, old and new, and by the hairy feet of Bilbo Baggins, that if I build another house it will be concrete and steel.  I found myself cruising for property again this morning and there is an old titan missile silo for sale near Yakima that is speaking to me.

Rats in Attic 2015

Beekeeping – Making New Queens

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A couple weekends ago I worked the hives, checking their overall health and seeing if any were thinking about swarming. Swarming = bad. If there is more than one Queen in a hive, the ladies will either duke it out and both could die – dead hive bad – or the hive will swarm, taking possibly more than half of the precious worker bees that make all the yummy honey. There are some things that can be done to prevent swarming:

1. If two queens are found or if there are new queens about to be born (they have a uniquely shaped chamber that other bees make specifically for queens) AND the hive is doing really well, you can manually split the hive into two hive boxes.
2. If the hive is not doing great, remove the old queen and let the new one be born.
3. If the hive is doing fine and you don’t want another, then you can snip the new queen chamber in half – assuring that the original queen will preside a little longer.

Sometimes though, you will need a new queen if old one not producing, she dies unexpectedly, if the hive is aggressive, etc… When this happens, you typically buy/order a new one from your local bee supply store, online, or from a local apiarist who makes a little side money raising them in specially maintained hives. I had never actually witnessed the process of “Making Queens”, so when one of the older gents with Syndicat Apiculteur, held a lecture after the hives were checked, I sat in and tried my hand at it.

The simplified version:

1. Take a fresh brood comb out of a gentle hive that is doing well and has historically been a great honey producer.
2. Prepare “Queen Cups” with Royal Jelly.
3. Gather lights and tools and an assortment of magnifying glasses.
4. Uncap the comb and prop it under a light on a 45 degree stand.
5. Make sure no bees are in the room as an uncapped brood comb WILL piss them off and you WILL get stung.
6. Remove any stingers from skin while quietly cursing.
7. With a small dental scoop, remove one larva per cup. Look for a small one no larger than 1.5mm.
8. When cups are filled, place in special “Queen Frame”
9. Place frame in hive with no Queen – there is more to it than that, but for the sake of brevity…
10. Add a sugar water mixture to a feeder frame next to the “Queen Frame” in the hive.
11. Check back and when the queen cells are fully closed and the new queens are growing, place a purpose built cage over the cell and wait for them to emerge.
12. Re-queen some hives or sell them to your nerdy bee-keeping friends.

Bee - Making Queens 2014 (1) Bee - Making Queens 2014 (2)

Bee - Making Queens 2014 (3)

Bee - Making Queens 2014 (4)

Bee - Making Queens 2014 (5)

Bee Larva into cup

Queen Cell 4 Queen Cell

queen cell2

Weekend Update – 4/14/14

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Really good weekend with just a couple of bumps…

Out late Friday night in Toulouse
Slept in Saturday morning
Stamps-With-Foot made yummy breakfast – great croissants!
Surfed the Interwebs and lost an hour or two to Pinterest
Worked on a dining table bench for about an hour
Used smoothing plane and made tissue paper-thin shavings 🙂
Drove to Toulouse for 1st outdoor beekeeping class – waking up the hives from the Winter
Warm sunshine, blue skies, perfect weather!
Hives were in good condition and got to split one hive that was doing really well – already completely filled the hive box with pollen and honey.
Stopped by Lumber store on way home to buy some dust masks.
I can’t be trusted in Lumber/Hardware stores…
Bought 60 Euros worth of lumber, glue and screws
Forgot dust masks…
Came home to cuddle wife
Wife accidentally kneed me in the baby-maker and ¼ of a second later, put weight on the same knee, smashing the boys…
Rolled around on the ground in pain for at least a full minute
Limped outside
Mowed lawn and turned the compost
Limped a little while doing so – boys still hurt.
Helped wife make steak fajitas
Was on guard for any errant knees…
Drank a glass of wine and snuggled while watching 6 episodes of the last season of HIMYM
More Pinterest and sleep
Slept till 10:00 and leisurely breakfast
Went into Village to market and found a very nice oak printer tray for 10 Euro.
Immediately bought it without haggling over the price
Spent an hour in shop patching a small section of bench where plane slipped while joining two boards.
Found where a cat had marked some lumber when garage door was open night before.
Said hateful things about cats.
Had lunch with a friend that is healing from a cracked collarbone
Came home and finished putting together the teak patio
Bought wrong oil for the patio furniture – Grrr…
Fixed one of the broken arms (from move) on the Adirondack chairs
Had coffee in the shade
Hung hammock and tested it out.
Place feels like home now!
Sweet wife made dinner and we ate for first time on our new patio table – first of many meals
Snuggled in hammock with wife and listened to birds, neighbors, bees, etc…

Very happy

2012 Gift to Heifer

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As a follow up to a previous post about our plan to give Heifer International a menagerie of animals as our charity goal for the year: we just got a confirmation e-mail that our $250 donation for one goat, one pig, and a share of rabbits was received. I have stashed change and $1 bills back since July to have for Heifer so that they can continue their mission of giving, training, and hope. It will provide animals and knowledge that will change lives for the good.

My mother gave a gift of bees in my name for my birthday and I have talked a couple of folks at work into donating a little something this year. Other than the families that this will help, the highlight of this process was my son’s involvement. We talked to him about Heifer, the work that they do, and into donating what he would have spent on our gifts to the cause. I am so very proud of him and we will send him a copy of the mailer we will get in the next few months explaining just where the money went and what our gift has done.

I wish we could have done a LOT more and we will do so next year. Please take a moment, do a little research into the charity, and give what you can.


Our Summer Garden

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It has been a sweet summer in our small garden.  Stamps-With-Foot has really stepped up and has been planting, weeding, watering, picking fruit, staking dahlias and has even once turned the compost and added chicken manure.  I have been both shocked and impressed.  She even talked me into having some corn planted in the raised boxes this year.  She bought the starts, planted them, made sure they were well hydrated and is now about to harvest 15+ ears of yellow sweet corn.  Her squash has been prolific and we will have more soybeans this fall than we will know what to do with.  Happily surprised at my bride’s greening thumb…

So far this season, we have harvested 25 heads of garlic, 10 sweet yellow onions, 30+ yellow and green squash, a few Roma tomatoes (still very early in the season), 4+pints of raspberries (late summer crop just starting), 3 pints of wonderfully sweet blackberries, figs, apricots, 1 apple (more to come), a gallon+ of cherries, spinach, 5 beets, more Swiss and rainbow chard than I care to remember, 2 pints of small strawberries, a pint-ish of blueberries, and we have supplied three households with rosemary, sage, pineapple sage, thyme, basil, Thai basil, Moroccan mint, and spearmint.  We have been trading produce with some other members of our family for eggs and with two sets of neighbors for veggies and flowers.  Stamps-With-Foot mentioned the other day that she felt like Marie Antoinette with her little Austrian Hobby farm in the shadow of Versailles.

The amazing amount of flowers (except for the lavender and roses) have all been cared for by my sweet wife and a neighbor from across the street.  Both front and back yards have been perfumed since early spring.




What I Want Thursday – 8/2/2012

/ Matt Talley / 1 Comment

Below are the things that I find are present for me today:

1. More time with my children.

2. I want to stick to my new diet and workout schedule and not fall off the wagon and back into the cookie/café Mocha/lethargic/big-belly abyss.

3. For my wife to finish some long ago promised sewing tasks for me.

4. More book shelf space at home. We read more and more on our kindles and have sold many, if not most, of the paperbacks that have filled our lives for years and we are still completely out of space for our books. There are stacks on the floor in both of our home offices, to-read piles on each night-stand, fiction and history filing the living room book case, literature lined up on the basement hutch, cookbooks on the bottom shelf of the china hutch, and single volumes littered across the normally unoccupied spaces of our small home. We more shelves, not less books!

5. A finished kitchen

6. Painted lawn furniture

7. Filson Medium Travel bag. My son and I went to the Filson factory store and I fell into love/lust over this piece of luggage. I know that sounds weird, but I fly a LOT – I am a Platinum SkyTeam frequent flier member and a Gold OneWorld member. Quality, attractive, roomy, useful luggage is a necessity.

8. A cigarbox electric Ukulele for playing blues with a slide.

9. A proper car camping/glamping kitchen set up.

10. A few books: Passions:The Wines and Travels of Thomas Jefferson; The Lodge Cast Iron Cookbook; Paris Between the Wars 1919-1939: Art, Life & Culture; Ernest Hemmingway bio and a two books of his letters (1&2), etc…

11. A Truck bed full of wooden wine/port crates/boxes for a couple of open projects at home.

12. To give Heifer International a menagerie of animals. That is my charity goal for the year. I want to save, gather, raise, find as much cash as possible to give to Heifer International by the end of 2012 for the purchase of bees, goats, cows, water buffalo, chickens, trees, training and hope. It will provide animals and knowledge that will change lives for the good. I will add a link or a tab on my front page to a fund status page/counter and update it as the gift grows.