The Start of Something Great

So our packages arrived early this year. I was preparing everything for Monday, but Beemaid called to say things were already in. I headed over to my friend place to pick up the package and was shocked to discover that the packages were square this year. I had seen square packages before in my research years ago, but I've only ever seen bees come in tubes. This should be fun, but first things first, I gotta get the hive set-up. Due to the ever expanding garden my wife is making, I've had to relocate my bees into the far NE corner of our yard. This serves two purposes, first it lets my wife's garden expand and second it keeps it as far away visibly from crazy French lady. I know it's now allowed, but we'll try and keep things low profile as to save By-law's time. Next on my list is to make sure my neighbour doesn't have his hot tub's filter clogged up with dead bees like my first attempt years ago. We now have a rain barrel that's somewhat in between the hive and hot tub, so I needed something that would allow the bees to access this water easily without drowning. Dollar store pool noodle to the rescue! This is a super easy way to let the bees have little "lily pads" in which to land on, using a kitchen knife I simply cut 1/4" pieces off and threw them into the rain barrel. Will this work? I guess only time, and my neighbour, will tell.
 

Now it was time to make some feed. As I'm installing a package, the bees will need some serious food to get things rolling especially with the cold weather forecasted for the next few days. Feed is really easy to make, take a pint of sugar and add it to a pint of boiling water. Stir to dissolve. I then put it in my frame feeder, seen here on the left side, and my bees shall be eating like Kings until the dandelions are in full bloom.

 With everything set, I retrieve the package from the garage. With the square package you have to first pry out the feeding container, taking care to get the queen cage out. Once you've gotten the queen out safely and ensured she's alive and well, you can then thump the package on the ground to clump the bees and then turn it upside down and pour them all out. I have to admit, the tube packages make this process super easy, but the hole in the middle of the top of a square means you need to tilt the box back and forth and you'll never get all the bees out. After getting as many out as I could, I put the box in front of the hive entrance and hopefully by night fall all the lady's will have found their way inside.




















One thing I will need to purchase for future inspections is a long sleeve white shirt. Today I donned the only white shirt I owned which happened to have short sleeves and inevitably it came back to bite me, or should I say sting me, in the ass. While attempting to get all the bees out of the box, one poor girl must have gotten stuck up my sleeve and panicked like most girls do around my armpits. It was an odd feeling, as it's been years since I was last stung, a slow pulsing throb that something has gone awry and at the same time it was comforting and calming. I'm an urban beekeeper again. I went in side to grab a knife and scrape the venom sack off, always scrap never pinch it off with your fingers as that will inject more venom making things a bit worse.




















In a few days I'll inspect them to see how they're making out, until then I'll keep you posted as to how our Westie will adjust to having the hive in the backyard.....this could get interesting.

EXTRA EXTRA!! BEES LEGAL IN EDMONTON!!

That's right folks, as of this morning on Tuesday April 28th, 2015, Bee-keeping is legal within city limits in Edmonton, Alberta.

Here's an article about the new YEGBees group that started up in Edmonton, and due in large part to them, a bee pilot and new bee by-law were passed to allow bee-keeping.

As for me, I've been busy reorganizing my backyard to get ready for this momentous occasion.  I even happen to have a package of bees coming on May 4th.  So stay tuned for the official reboot of this Blog as I'll actually have daily/weekly things to post about my backyard urban bee hive!

TO THE BEE-MOBILE!

Back from Europe

Hey Guys!

I'm back from our trip.  It was great, and although I didn't go out of my way to find any beehives we past lots of apiaries selling honey in France.  We also noticed honey bees EVERYWHERE! Lavender was the best place to find them.

I think it's officially looking like bees will be legal next year in Edmonton, so I'll need to get all my ducks in a row to start up again in Spring. Until then, here's a great article about one of my favourite bee-keepers, Eliese Watson.

The Waiting Game

Hey Newbees!

So I'm still waiting to hear back from the city about the pilot project. My inside source says they'll be making decisions this week, so everyone keep your fingers crossed.

In the mean time I'll have to start figuring out how to sweet talk my crazy French neighbour who complained on me.  One of the requirements of the pilot project is to have approval from all neighbours within 25m of your property line. I think I'm going to have to come up with a grandmaster strategy to get her on board. If you have any suggestions, post them below in the comments!

I do have some delicious delusions of grandeur regarding the pilot even if I'm not selected, although it will depend on whether or not the pilot is for this year or next. It does seem a bit late the in beekeeping season to have people start up hives in their backyard?

Just a heads up I will be away for the month of August, don't fret!  I'll be in Europe with my wife for our 10th anniversary.  If I find a computer I may even post some pictures on this blog, perhaps a picturesque hive in the English countryside........

Alive and Kicking

Hey Newbees! That's right, I'm still alive. I've been quite dormant for the past few years, laying low and keeping an ear to the ground.

What was I listening for you might ask? The answer is Legalized beekeeping! It looks like the City of Edmonton is finally on board with giving bees a chance. All the hard work put forth by Patty Milligan and others has finally paid off. The local food movement has grown so large the city can't afford to ignore them. Recently @YEGBees has started rattling the sabre. Their work put a pilot project before the city council and has been approved. So anyone looking to participate in the pilot project can go to this LINK and fill out the form. Let's get this ball rolling! Also, following in the footsteps of my social media hero, Chris Hardwick @Nerdist, I am committing to put up a new post once a week from now on. People need a source for urban beekeeping info and sadly I have to admit that I have been MIA.

Extraction

Hey Folks,

Due to some technical difficulties, and the release of a certain yearly Xbox hockey game, it's been quite some time since my last post. However, in that time I finally got all my honey extracted. Here's a bit of a quick run down of how the process works.

On a fine Labour Day weekend, we headed out to the bee yard to grab whatever frames of honey were ready for extraction. Early that week I had received and assembled my 2 frame extractor and was excited to test it out. Out at the bee yard, our friend Mandy donned the bee suit to act as my assistant in removing the bees the frames before we put them into a separate box.

Mandy, looking dapper in her bee suit.

We were soon joined by our other friends, along with my smallest bee keeping assistant yet, Piper. She was super excited to see the bees and to find out where honey comes from because she absolutely loves it. I know understand why Patty Milligan loves all the school programs she does. It's so exciting to see young kids who aren't afraid of bugs.

Piper in a homemade veil.

Once all the frames we collected to headed back to my garage to start the extraction process. The first step was to use the honey punch to pierce small holes in all the cappings. I had read a few reviews online about the honey punch and it's ease of use and must say that they were all true. As apposed to the other ways of removing the cappings, ie. heated knife or scrapper, this was super quick and for the most part mess free.

Once the cappings were thoroughly punched, I put the frames into the extractor and applied good 'ol elbow grease and this is when the problems started. After 1 good spin the gears started to skip and it wasn't possible to build up the centrifugal force needed. A few minutes of problem solving discovered a few issues, the only remedy being to order a new gearbox from the manufacture. Lucky, that 1 good spin did manage to extract about a liter of honey and after sitting in the sun for a bit we opened the honey gate and let it flow out.

Wonder how long until I want a motorized extractor.....

Arrrrr, we've struck gold Mateys!

After I received the new gearbox I extracted the rest of the frames and got around 8 liters of honey. All that from around 8 frames because there weren't as many fully capped frames as I had hoped this year. Either way, I am happy with the performance of my extractor and really look forward to putting the fully drawn comb back into the hive next year to have the bees fill it up next year.

That's a lot of honey.

Thanks to all my friends who came out for my first extractor party. It will be the first of many. Also, if you still haven't gotten your name in for honey do so quickly.

Summer Vacation

Hey Everyone,

I'm back from my summer hiatus with a little bit of news. Forgive my lack of posting, but to be truly honest I don't really think posting just for the sake of posting is productive. The summer has come and gone. Yes, I've come out and said it, the days are getting shorter and the weather cooler. The bees haven't been at all pleased with how the weather has been, at least here in Edmonton. We had A LOT of rain this summer, not exactly what you'd call great nectar gathering weather. Mario's hives have done, for the most part, poorly. Although he did say he got 54, that's right count them 54!, frames of honey from a single hive. Yowzas!!

So here are a few of the things I made mental notes of during my few inspections over the summer. I've done a few things to my Langstroth this summer. First I blocked the top entrance off for 2 weeks and then I added a modified bottom board. Here is a picture of what the hive looked like a few weeks ago when my in-laws were up to collect some cut comb honey.

Quality time with the girls.....oh, and the mother-in-law.

The first thing you may or may not notice is that the bottom board I modified now places the long side of the box to the front. This serves two purposes: 1) It positions the frames in such a way that when standing behind hive the beekeeper doesn't have to reach or make any weird contortions to remove the frames. I found this absolutely wonderful. 2) The bottom entrance is now larger which allows for better airflow and less bee congestion.

Another issue I had to deal with was the top entrance. I do like the idea of having it as it provides great ventilation for the bees, however after winter it became the main entrance for the bees. This is due to the fact that all the new bees emerging from winter orientated to it because the lower entrance was blocked with debris and an entrance reducer. Even after I have cleaned out the hive and removed the reducer the bees were still using this entrance. It will come down to personal preference, but the issue you will come across with having a top entrance is that when you do inspections there will be a higher volume of bees flying around. This is due to all the foragers who are returning coming to where the entrance was. I didn't really like the extra commotion, so I simply duct taped the upper entrance closed. After a week, all the bees had re-orientated to the lower entrance and it wasn't an issue anymore.

I'm sure all of you that missed out on honey last year, or those who want more, just want me to get to the part about how much honey my bees made this year! From the looks of it, I'll have around 10 frames of honey. Some of you may think that pales in comparison to Mario's single hive 54 frames, and it does, however considering that last year I extracted 2 liters of honey from 2 frames I should have plenty to go around. I managed to find a cheap 2 frame extractor from a company out of Vancouver with free shipping and it should be arriving soon. Once it's all setup, I'll extract my frames and get it all bottled up and ready for delivery.

HONEY IS FIRST COME, FIRST SERVE!! If you would like a jar this year, please email me at newbees@telus.net. Also, I do have a single frame that I can make cut comb honey (honey still in the wax), if you would like a square of comb honey please let me know because quantities are limited. Donations are welcome :-P


My Mother-in-law holding a honey frame, minus two pieces of cut comb.

That's all for now, stay tuned for the Calgary top bar saga in the next few days. I will also be posting pictures and tales of how my adventure with the extractor go.

Until then, bee cool!