Sugar Pie Honey Bunch

Today Jim inspected the new bees to see if they are healthy and making honey. The supers by the pond have lazy bees..so far they've just been luxuriating in their new homes.

It's another story at the scrapyard by the barn, where a super was put "temporarily". As you can see, those bees know that they are not living at water-side resort, but in a honey factory in a working-class neighborhood. The bees have started making honey, but for some reason were working to make new comb instead of depositing their labors into the cells provided for them. Jim scraped off the comb to discourage this (we want the bees to spend their energy in making enough honey for them AND us), and re-arranged the frames in the supers. Hopefully the bees will like this situation.

For reasons unknown to modern man, the lyrics "sugar pie honey bunch", sung by the Temptations, ran through my mind as I was photographing the inspection. I am not a baker, especially pies, so I had to look up a recipe for honey pies. They all looked too gooey to me, and since I have an orchard I decided to share an apple pie recipe that uses honey from food.com.

http://www.food.com/recipe/honey-apple-pie-66198

I haven't tested the recipe and cannot vouch for it, but it looks good!

Marcheta  *can't help myself

Flight of the Honey Bees

There's a lot of buzz in the air created by the wings of honey bees as they form swarms and leave their homes (hives) that have become too crowded. This is good way for bee keepers to "hire" more workers for their honey factories. :)

I don't know a whole heck of a lot about honey bees, other than we've kept them before,  lost our entire operation to foulbrood disease, and now Jim wants to keep bees again.

It's been years since we kept bees, so Jim is listening to the advice from bee keepers Bill Bebee and Bob Nelson. Both men are local hive keepers and honey producers. Bill is a supplier of bee equipment and Bob is pretty handy at capturing swarms.

A few days ago, Bob and Sue took Jim and me on a tour of their property, which borders a creek, to show us their various bee yards and the bee traps that they have placed in trees to capture swarms that come barreling down the water way each Spring. 

I took a few pics of traps only because when we were at the Nelson's the bees had not found traps yet. It was a case of bad timing, because later that day weary renegade bees spotted the temporary homes placed in trees and decided that it was a good time to stop over to rest their tired little wings. Sort of like checking into bee hotels :)

Sue took these pics and emailed them to me. One of these swarms is destined to take up residence here on Nazor Rd, where plenty of fruit trees will welcome them with open arms...I mean, limbs :)

 

 I took a few minutes to look up bee swarms on the Internet, and like this article from Growing Small Farms by the North Carolina State University's Cooperative Extension because it has plenty of pictures that illustrate the steps in capturing swarms.

 

 

Marcheta *staying clear of this "sting" operation!

Helping the Newbees

Buzz Lightyear ain't got nothin' on honeybees.

 

At least, that is what I think now that I've witnessed extreme co-operation from a swarm of wild honeybees that went from homeless status to adapting to condo living in less than a single day.

 

Here's the scoop:

 

Last week, Jim captured a swarm of bees at our cider orchard (located on our other property). He was prepared because of our earlier trip to Bebee's Bees for supplies. When Jim found the swarm, he came home to get one of the supers he has ready and went back to see if the bees would rather have a nice, comfy, wax-lined home or if they would prefer to toil and make one of their own in a tree somewhere.

 

 

They chose the ready-to-move-into condo.

 

Smart move!

 

 

Jim moved the super to the place where he is making a new beeyard; step 1 accomplished. He has several supers ready and as we get more bees, the apiarin neighborhood will expand.

 

 

The survival of the new bees hit a snag when the super-duper cold front moved in last week. We saw Bill Beebe at Bucyrus' Lil' Farmers Market on Saturday and explained the situation to him. Jim felt that the bees might die because they did not have time to start making honey and wondered if he should feed them. Bill informed Jim that his hunches were right on the money, and gave Jim instructions on an easy way to feed the bees.

 

 

When we got back home, I made a simple syrup of half sugar and half water and put in a zip-type plastic bag. I put the bag on a plastic deli tray for support.

 

 

At the super, with our cat D.C. assisting, Jim went to work.

Jim cut slits in the bag of sugar water and laid it on the top of the bottom part of the super.

 

 

Within seconds, the insects made a bee-line to the sugar water buffet.

 

 

 

Then Jim put the top of the super back in place.

 

 

 

 

 

Through communication that we humans haven't mastered yet, the bees inside the super summoned home the bees that had gone foraging, letting them know what the buzz was about and to come in from the cold to fill their hungry little selves with the newly found windfall.

 

 

 

 

 

Watching the bees take care of themselves AND their fellow honey makers is one reason that I love nature and the natural world. Can you imagine our world if humans worked so closely together to help each other, as bees do?

 

Marcheta *to infinity and beyond!