A Few Fruit Trees

Well, I don't really know where to start. Once again, I'm headed into uncharted waters. I've never done this, never experienced it and have only my faithful American Bee Journal and Bee Culture and the most important resource, My Uncle Ted to help me figure out how to actually do this.

Well let me back up a little. Yesterday morning I got a phone call from someone who was looking for a nuke for a friend of hers. I missed the call and had to call back. I told them to have him call me and I'd see what I could do. Now I have to admit, I started to have a great conversation with myself and it kind of went a little like this. . ., "What the heck do you think you are doing? You have no idea how to move a hive, much less what you need to pollinate anything. What makes you think you can pull this one off? Then the other side of me said, "You know this could be a real learning experience, an adventure. We are not talking a million hives, just one little bitty one." About that time the phone rang and I had to put the conversation I was having with myself on hold and it turned out to be the gentleman who needed some bees. Very nice man seems that he has had his cherry trees for a number of years and never really have been able to get a good crop from them. I asked him if he would be interested in trying to start a colony since he told me that he had several other fruit trees. He didn't seem to buy that idea too much. He asked if he could just have them come over for a couple of weeks. About this time I was starting to think that my poor girls were going on a big sleep over. Well it made the task seem a little easier. I told him I'd have to think about it and talk to my husband, since I wasn't sure about how this would all work out.

Later that night Jim came home and just as I was explaining it to him the phone rang and it was this very nice gentleman again. Jim said, "How much are you going to charge him?" I kind of cringed a bit and said; well I sort of said maybe if the cherries come on, he could give me some. Jim just shook his head. I quickly went into the whole story of it being a learning experience and that if this worked out I promised that I'd get better at the charging thing.

I ended up calling Uncle Ted, he told me what to do, gave me some great ideas and between Jim and I we came up with a plan. So its just minutes until we start out and I'm feeling a little nervous right now. I'm starting to imagine that my bees will not live through this adventure and that I'm being a really bad mom. What kind of person can I be doing this to them. They just got here three days ago and now here I go, loaning them out like yesterdays newspaper . . . . .







TaDah. . . We are home.

And we did some things right and we did some things wrong.



I kept asking Jim if he had it all figured out and he assured me that he did. We moved the truck out to the yard and loaded up the hive. Uncle Ted told me to put a screen on the top so that they would have ventilation. We put the Cover on as well. The screen had an opening in it so that it still got ventilation and Jim used the Dewalt and screwed down the hive to the bottom board and put screws in a hive entrance cover so there would be no escapees. We loaded up the hive and he strapped it all down. I had a stand that wasn’t being used and we loaded that in as well. (Oh, I forgot to mention we used the smoker to get the bees down from the feeder, before we put the screen on. It was really neat to see how much comb they had managed to draw out in just a few days.)

Here is what we did wrong thing. After we got everything loaded up and drove away, Jim looked over at me and said, “Did you grab the smoker?” I of course looked at him and said, “No, didn’t you?” Then he said, “What about the hive tool and the brush?” This was about when I figured out that this was something I’d have to remember not to forget to do the next time . . .

Like I said, a learning experience.

We arrived and Don was ready and pretty excited to see the girls show up. We unloaded them next to his barn near his fruit trees. Jim had to use a chisel and hammer to come up with an entrance reducer and I put feed in the feeder and put a big rock on the top. I took a few photos and one last look back and drove away.



Boy I feel like I abandoned them . . ..

Things are looking good!

First day in the yard and the bees look like they are doing well. The weather though is suppose to get pretty bad the next day or so, 32 degrees either tonight or tomorrow.

Keep your fingers crossed:)

Home at last:)

Home Sweet Home

Well Saturday morning arrived, we woke up early and Jim made pancakes. We knew that we had a pretty big day ahead of us, looking back at it now, I don’t think we realized just how big.

It started out pretty normal, we opened the packages and started shaking them into their boxes. I had a little bee feed made up and we poured that in the first few hives. It took about an hour for the first five packages. We got all 20 hives taken care of and then started on the nightmare of feeding them all. Poor Jim he had to haul about 15 pails of bee feed. I made it up on the front porch while he took one pail out at a time. Now we are talking about 50 lb. pails of feed. Each feeder takes about 3 gallons of feed, and we have 30 hives. Let me tell you it doesn’t sound like a great deal to some of you, but walking over 800 feet that many times in a bee suit in the warm weather just about ended out relationship. Although later that evening he said that he really enjoyed working outside, initially when we got inside after feeding all the girls, he collapsed in his chair and quickly drank two full bottles of water. It was a great deal of work.

But its all done for the day. I looked across the yard at the bees flying everywhere and thought to myself, “Yes Martha, it is a good thing.:)”

Saturday we got a phone call saying that the bees were a bit delayed and wouldn't arrive till around 6:00 p.m. Since it's a two-hour drive one way, I knew right away that the delay would put us home pretty darn late. I also had someone who had agreed to meet me up at the delivery location to mark all 20 queens. (No way were they going to hide from me this year) So that meant a phone call to him to explain the delay. He's a really great guy so that was fine.

Waking up that morning to a beautiful day made me feel like it was all going to work out just fine. The day started to get a little rainy looking after lunch, and because we don't have a cover on the back of the truck we decided to see if we couldn't find one. I know what a time to try to find a cap for the back of the truck. It turned out that we were not able to find one, but we did order one and in about 10 days it will be here. Jim became creative and as usual rigged something up to work.

We headed out and arrived a few minutes early. I brought my bee jacket and Jim didn't, the reason I did was because I thought that Paul and I would be marking the queens out back behind the honey house and I wasn't sure what would be back there. As we drove up we found the truck had just arrived and they were in the middle of unloading all the bees. I can't explain it any other way than to say, there was a roar of a buzz coming from inside the truck and then in the honey house. I've never seen that many bees in one place at once. Over 900 packages of 3lb. bees. Now I did a little research and found in the Beekeeping for Dummies book that each 3 lb. package contains between 12,500 - 15,000 bees. The poor things I'm sure were a little cranky riding in the back of a truck coming from California, but I listened to the truck driver explain how the temperature in the back of the truck was monitored and when it got a tad to warm a sprayer went on automatically to keep the girls pretty cool.

Paul showed up and Jim and I and a friend of Paul's started an assembly line of marking all the queens. Now let me explain, the reason it was a bit tedious was because we had to write the package number on each queen cage, so that we could make sure that the package got the queen that they have known to be theirs back. (If they get the wrong one, they could kill her) Each package had to be opened, so that means we had to spray down each package with sugar syrup, we had to remove the feeder and then take the queen cage out and replace the feeder before all the bees escaped. Once we got all the queens out we took them over to a workbench and I pulled the cork out, passed them to Paul, he marked them and then passed them back to me. We had a few escapees during the adventure, but they were all captured and then all the queen cages were re-introduced to their own packages.


As we drove home the thunder and lightning flashed all around us. I don't know how we managed to avoid the heavy rainfall. We just ended up getting a few sprinkles here and there. The last couple of miles were the worse. As soon as we arrived home I jumped out of the truck, opened up the garage and made room for the boxes to sit on the floor.

It was a really really long day, but we made it.

Just two more days:)

Well just when I thought I had everything I needed, I realized I was short wax foundation and more feeders. I spent more time running back and forth to the Bee Supply place than I really could afford. My days just seem filled up to the max and at the end of the day I'm not too sure about what I've really gotten done.


Yesterday I spent time going through the hives I split on Saturday. Some of them looked pretty good and some of them didin't look so good. It figures. . . .


The good news is that I'm considering going to the farmers market in Toledo. They currently don't have anyone selling honey or honey products there, I'm a little nervous about the committment so I'm not 100% sure. It's a pretty big financial committment.


On a lighter note, I've been working on a new business card and brochure to promote the girls. Hopefully I'll have it finished in the next week or so.

Bee utiful Weather

Ok, I know it's been awhile. But I've been insanely busy. I quit my regular job last week and the bee work has taken up every single minute that I have left. I don't know how I thought I could possibly get ready to add 20 hives and work two jobs. Jiminy Cricket . . .

I don't even know where to start at this point. On Saturday April 15, 2006 we took the five hives I had left (I ended up loosing hive number 1) and dividing them so my five became 10. I thought I really had it together until we started seeing how many bees were in both brood boxes for each hive. I couldn't find the queen. I just couldn't find her and I got so frustrated with the whole situation, that we ended up taking the hive apart. There were 7 and 8 frames of brood in each hive. I don't know what I did right; I still don't have a clue. Anyway we took 3 or 4 frames of brood and divided what was left of the honey between the two and then put a box of empty frames on top of the two hives and then put feeders on both of them. I initially went in and was going to rotate the boxes from the bottom to the top but honestly my boxes were full of bees.

I did take a break in the middle of it all and made an emergency phone call to Uncle Ted and he told me that if I couldn't find the queen and there was that much brood in the boxes to divide them and check the hive in three days. I'll look to see if there is a supersedure cell growing and if that's the case I'll mark the hive as not having a queen. I probably will end up getting queens when I pick up the twenty hives on Saturday. My 25 hives have now grown to be 30.

What that means is that I ended up going to the local bee supply store and picking up 5 more telescoping covers, 5 more feeders and five more queen excluders. I already have enough brood boxes and bottoms. But my bill ended up being over 200.00 once again.

To get back to the weekend, well we spent from morning till night painting and building the rest of the woodenware that I needed to have in the field. I'm telling you, I'm exhausted. Jim just looked at me and said, "Thank goodness, I had a couple of days off." (I don't think that me meant that in a really nice way)





So this morning I went to the supply house and when I got home I painted the covers so that I could take them out to the field. Oh and I built the new "Bee-mobile," (also known as a garden wagon to the unimaginative.)
Here is a picture of the little beauty:

Life at Lifestyles

Well I left my day job, and I'm thinking after a full 24 hours away that it's the best thing I've ever done. I was offered a pay cut and so was every single employee where I work, I was told pretty much if I didn't like it I could leave. . . I left. I understand that businesses need to make a profit, but not on the backs of their employees.
More time with the bees. . . .

One Week Delay

Well yesterday I just got a phone call from the "Head" Bee Wrangler, (I hope he doesn't mind being referred to that way, it was that or Head Beeboy, i.e. Cowboy) and I found out that the queens aren't in the best shape for shipment right now and that I will now look forward to seeing them arrive on the 22nd.

I have to admit that at first I was a bit down, until I realized that I'm really not ready enough for the arrival. Poor Jim has been putting metal on top of the top covers and now swears that he will never willingly do that again. He just ended up going back to Lowes to pick up more paint and I think nails.

The good new is that we did place 8 or 9 of the new homes out in the field. Because of all the paint fumes I really wanted them all out at least a week ahead of time. They really do need to air out.

Jim was heading out the door and stopped to let me know that one of the "girls" had gotten a tad lost and ended up in the house. I shooed her outside and hopefully she will find her way back home. I'll check the feeders this afternoon to make sure that all is well.

More pictures to follow later.

Good Morning

A woman calls her boss one morning and tells him that
She is staying home because she is not feeling well.
"What's the matter?" he asks.
"I have a case of anal glaucoma, " she says in a weak voice.
"What the hell is anal glaucoma?"
"I can't see my ass coming into work today


Well this just about sums up how I feel today. Last night the reality of taking on all these hives and what it was going to mean as far as time and commitment goes actually hit. Between running from job to job and then trying to figure out how to come up with the time we need to get stuff done is stressing me out to the max. My brother sent this to me yesterday in an e-mail and when I got it I looked at it and thought, "How the heck did he get a picture of me in my purple fuzzy slippers . . .

Till tomorrow.

10 days left.

Good Morning,
Only 10 days left till the world changes, as we know it. Kind of like having a pajama party for thousands of complete strangers. At the end of the night you will either love them or hate them.

Our To Do List:

Embedding the wax for 250 - 300 frames

Paint the remainder boxes

Order Wax to finish out the rest of the deeps (so I suppose I've got to count how many don't have wax at this point)

Pick up the frames from the father in law

Lay out the rest of the boxes in the field


Rotate and split the 6 hives (hoping to be able to split 4 of the six)
(Ooops I forgot, Steve said not to split them until mid May at that point I'll have to remember to order four or 5 extra queens from Paul.)

Pick up some more bee feed. 13 pounds of sugar for each hive. . .that only makes 3 gallons of feed. Last year each hive probably went through about 10-15 gallons. (Starting without drawn comb:( )

Now that might not sound like a whole lot but most of it has got to be done this weekend. With the hours we work it doesn't leave much time for chores at the end of every day.

I'm sure I forgot stuff, but I can't keep thinking about it, I get a real big headache.

Have a Great Day!!

The Bees are coming!

Last night, Steve called to tell me that the delivery and pick up date will be on the 15th. He said he was sorry that it was going to be a week later but it just ended up happening that way.

Here is the weird part. For some reason I thought they wouldn't be here until then anyway. Steve said that he had told me that they would be here on the 7th. Boy if I'd have know that I would have been triple stressed last weekend thinking that they would be here next weekend.

So it's a good thing that things worked out the way I thought they would.

Its 40 degrees today and looks real clear and sunny out but the weather says it is suppose to rain and only get to a high of 42.

Tornado on Friday March 31, 2006

Ok, for some reason I forgot to mention the horrible storm that hit here on Friday night. Jim and I had gone out to dinner and all of a sudden Jim realized his phone was ringing and I heard him say, "I'm surprised to hear from you." The connection must have been bad because then he said that it was Scott, his brother in law, asking him if we were in the basement. Jim said, "They must be at the house looking for us." The next thing I know Jim was back on the phone and I heard him say something about a tornado and Palmyra. We happen to live in Palmyra and I got a little nervous. The next thing I know, Jim is paying the check and we are making a mad dash through the most drenching downpour of rain that I have ever seen. I kept thinking, "Did I marry a madman?"
It turns out that Scott had heard over the scanner that a possible tornado was seen in Palmyra and he wanted to make sure we were in the basement. What a scary ride we had home. Ok, I was scared, Jim was fine. When we pulled up into the driveway we thought we had lost power because there wasn't the usual every light in the house left on scenario that we usually come home to. But Jim must have been the last one out the door and he is much better at doing that than I am. The heavy log chairs on the front porch were moved from one end to the other and things were scattered all over. We both immediately looked over at the hives and they were all standing tall. The weather is so unpredictable. One minute it snows and the next its sunny and warm. Welcome to Michigan.

Tree Planting and Hive Home Finding

Yes I passed my Yoga Certification, honestly I was totally stressed over the test part but the part I wanted to learn most about was specifically how I could practice Yoga myself. I feel good about that part. I know that flexibility is a major issue with me and hopefully this will help. Coming up on fifty is a good thing I keep telling myself.



When I got home, Jim had been pretty busy and was ready to plant the five apple trees I brought home last week. He also decided that we better start to figure out where the hives were going to be in the field. So off we went. As usual Jim did most of the work and I got some really great pictures of him doing the work. He really hates the camera, but I convinced him that it was really important that we document everything. . . .:)




I went to the local nursery and they told me that since we have primarily clay, (great) that I should stay away from any fruits with pits. So there went my dreams of cherries and peaches. But I did get a very nice variety of five different apple trees. I would like to get a couple of pear trees as well, but for now I think Jim thinks I should be happy I got the apple trees.


Originally we looked at putting the hives right behind the hives that are already there but after we looked at it we decided to place them in front of them. It wasn't real easy trying to find out the best place for them. All in all I think we did pretty good. Steve Million told us that we could put a few hives on his property as well so we only need temporary housing for about 3 of the hives for now. . . . .I wonder how you move them once you get them set up . . . mmmmmm I feel a call to Uncle Ted coming up.

So much to learn.

Hive #6

It's pretty boring trying to come up with something exciting to say. This is hive number 6.

Hive #5

This is the hive that all of a sudden three weeks after we got it last year I noticed was full of drones. The entire hive by the end of May was drone drone drone. Uncle Ted had to walk me through how to kill it. Dish Detergent and water. Boy was that a sad day. I picked up a new queen at the summer Semba picnic and took some brood frames from a couple of the other hives. Looks pretty good now.

Hive #4

Here are the pictures, not much to explain. Pretty good honey production last year.


Don't forget these individual hive blog notes were all taken on the same day. I'm just real slow at posting. My life has been a tad busy.

Yoga Certification

Just have to jump in quickly right in the middle of uploading photos to let you know that I'm away this weekend pretty much and the "assistant" beekeeper has been buzzzzy. Poor Jim, he has hauled wood, nailed wood, built frames, loaded wax, and embedded wax to help make my dream a reality. While I'm out this weekend getting certified to teach yoga, Jim has been keeping things on a real steady course. I suppose it's time to promote him to Bee-Keeper don't you think? :)

Don't worry, I tell him every single day just how much I appreciate everything he does.

Namaste

Debbie

Yoga has been a great learning experience for me. We have an amazing instructor, Paula from Minnesota, and a great class. Do I ever plan on teaching? Well I won't rule anything out. I never know where these little feet will head, but for now, I'm trying to find a way to de-stress. . . . It's been so great being able to learn at my own pace, not feel challenged to like I have to keep up. Just being me. . . .

Hive #3

Hive #3 - These girls pretty much did their own thing all year. They weren't real productive and they weren't the tail end of things. They just sort of hung out and seemed to enjoy life.
Jim jokes with me a whole lot about how I'd go out there and pull a tree stump out and just watch them fly in and out. This was the hive I'd end up watching more than most. That's because the tree stump was pretty nearby and they were pretty calm and never really noticed me hanging out. . . I don't know how to explain how amazing it is seeing them come in and out and watch them navigate in heavy with pollen on their legs. Or how to explain the "guards" checking out each and every bee. Once in awhile I'll catch a wasp trying to make its way in. At first they wander in and try to act like they are no different than the rest of the girls, then when they are pretty much detected they end up trying to evade the homeowners. Before you know it, the wasp either gets real smart, or the girls gang up on her and give the wasp a real education. . . .