Hotham Family Apiary

Well, it has been several months since my last post. That has mainly to do with some personal issues with family,  but rest assured that in the time that has past, I have been busy helping the bees prepare for winter. Late summer and early fall are the times when the bees get ready for the long state of relative inactivity. They have to store up a lot of food to get them through,  and since the beekeeper was busy taking away those hard worked for stores from spring and summer, it is only fair that the beekeeper give something back. I fed my two colonies and the one nuc several portions of Apiinvert syrup. The syrup is a syrup mixture that also contains enzymes that help the bees to convert it to honey for storing for the winter. This syrup is also relatively odorless making it difficult for robbers (other honey bees and wasps) from detecting it. The bees can process the food rather quickly and the job of feeding them for winter is over rather quickly. For my artificial swar...

Honeybees know when to increase and decrease the amount of brood in the hive. Many factors contribute to this behavior; some natural, some man-made. The art of beekeeping often revolves around identifying and properly diagnosing problems. This past week, I was also faced with an interesting situation: a brood free colony. Now, as a beginner, it is sometimes difficult for me to understand what is really happening with the bees I tend after. Often times, during an inspection , I will see something and just say, "hmmm, that's interesting" without giving much of a second thought. Well, as I noticed that one of the colonies was free of brood, I mean completely barren of any signs of brood, I started thinking, "hmmm, this isnt so good" and I began to worry. A colony without brood cant survive very long. After all, the bees need to have a steady flow of new bees to keep up with the attrition. So now I was faced with a situation I hadn't observed before and I need...

 On Tuesday, we lodged the swarm into its new home. Below are some photos and a video of the big move:  

We decided to go ahead and try to split one of our colonies and place a brood nucleus in our backyard.    Within 4 days, the bees had begun raising queen cells throughout the hive. Then I waited for two weeks and then I made an inspection. I was pleased to discover that the queen had hatched, and the bees had begun "dismantling" all the queen cells.Within 10 days, the queen was laying eggs. She is very busy and the bees really thrived in our backyard. They drew out come at a very rapid pace, and the queen was eager to lay eggs in all available cells. Next year, the queen (we named her Babsi) should be running a very strong and successful hive. I was sad to have to move them back to the bee stand, but I needed to make room for our newest project: an artificial swarm.  An artificial swarm is a method of hive splitting that is quite common after the last honey harvest. (By the way, our last harvest of the season yielded 17 kg / 35 pounds)The method is rather straig...

Yesterday, we were able to harvest 21kg (46 pounds) of honey! The majority of the honey, about 19kg, came from one colony with about 2kg coming from another. We were happy to finally see the liquid gold that our bees produced for us, flowing from the extractor and finally into jars for the first time. Removing the wax cappings Copyright Jason Hotham 2016 Almost ready for the extractor Copyright Jason Hotham 2016 Turning the extractor Copyright Jason Hotham 2016 Raw honey flowing through a double sieve into the storage bucket Copyright Jason Hotham 2016 Liquid Gold! Copyright Jason Hotham 2016

So, me being the curious person I am, I decided to have a little look-in today, just to see if my beek mentor's advice was good or not. The short answer: yes. The long answer: yes. The reason I say that,  is because I saw some things I wasnt really expecting, and it took me a while to diagnose the situation. Today, I actually didn't panic, maybe that is because I just finished reading 'The Martian' and I was wondering, what would Mark Watney do. Anyway, I stopped to think about what I was seeing. The below photo shows a queen cell I found in Chewbacca's hive. A queen cell (swarm cell) on the lower right side of the frame. Copyright Jason Hotham 2016 I have to admit, at first sight, I thought, "wow, that will be one helluva queen!" But, having said that, I really don't want my bees to swarm. Naturally, I broke out the cell (after of course finding evidence of the queen) and continued with my inspection. A few frames later, I found another queen ...

This time of the year, the bees are really starting to bust out of the seams of their hives. Stronger colonies are in full swing, while weaker colonies are trying to build up their numbers to at least become stronger by seasons end. Curiously enough, both situations can also spark swarm behavior for both types of colonies,especially in Carniolans (Apis mellifera carnica). Carniolans have a higher tendency to swarm than, say, Italians or Buckfasts, so of course keeping Carniolans can be a bit tricky and nerve wracking. A few words about swarming. The act of swarming is a natural occurrence, and is necessary for the propagation of honey bees. Since the queen mates only once in her lifetime and each colony only has once queen at any given time, the ability to procreate depends on building a colony to a sizable amount and then by splitting the colony in two. Honey bees, of course, have a brilliant way of doing this. The first thing that needs to happen before a colony can swarm is they n...