How to build strong bee hives for honey production – Ed Holcombe
This is from the notes I took at an excellent session at the Heartland Apiary Society gathering in Cookeville, TN July 8-10, 2010. I’ve tried to accurately record the instructions that were given, but it is quite possible that I’ve gotten something wrong. Caveat Emptor and all that.
Everyone won’t agree with all of this – that is a given among bee keepers – but I’ve tried not to interject my opinion at all.
To make a good honey crop requires:
1) A large population of foraging bees during the honey flow.
2) That they not swarm.
It is assumed that the bees are healthy and disease free, and have a manageable load of mites or other parasites.
Requeen within the next 6 weeks (EI between July 10 and August 21 more or less) if your existing queen has already performed through one or more intensive brood production periods. It is important that your queen is performing at her peak potential during the fall build up. Without a strong hive population going into winter it will be impossible to build up sufficiently to exploit the short nectar flow that is available in the south.
Never let any hives fall below less than 15 pounds of honey available in the hive – ever.
Note: Dates given are rules of thumb based on mid-south weather, but even in the mid south they are only guidelines and judgment should be exercised by the bee keeper – that’s really the trick isn’t it?
To prevent swarming
Feb 15 – Inspect hives.
March 10 – Population build up should be apparent. At this time (before bees have worked all the way to the top of the hive) reverse hive bodies – but only if at least 4-5 days of decent weather is predicted.
April 1 – Arrange hives so that all brood is in the top brood box except for one frame of capped brood plus one frame of mixed brood in the bottom brood box – remainder of frames in the bottom box to be empty drawn comb. This manipulation is to make room for queen to lay.
Reverse hive bodies about every ten days – three times by April 25.
April 11 – if weather permits do a thorough inspection and remove any queen cells – As long as fresh eggs are found indicating a queen which is laying. Continue to inspect and remove swarm cells every 10 days for the duration of swarm season.
April 20 – add honey super whether they need it or not.
April 25 –main brood chamber should be on the bottom.
Don’t use a queen excluder until June 15.
June 15 – add a queen excluder wherever you want it regardless of presence of brood above the excluder – make sure that the queen is below the excluder.
July 6 – any brood above excluder will have emerged and cells will be filled with honey – honey may be harvested at this time.
I started some seeds today in my “plant work room” and I thought you might be interested. I start seeds in regular plastic nursery trays that I get from a local greenhouse – and that I save from store-bought plants. I do recycle my plant containers from year to year - If you reuse containers like this you really should wash them thoroughly in a weak bleach solution and dry them in the sun before storing them away for reuse. Or so I’ve heard – I might try that some day.
just planted flat
This year I’m planting in commercial soil mix, because I just don’t have any compost that is ready right now to make into home made potting soil. Anyway, fill your containers with soil and plant your seeds at the recommended depth. Most of what I planted today is in the cabbage family, and needs to be about 1/2 inch deep. I just use a finger to poke holes about that deep, drop 2-3 seeds into each one and then sprinkle with more soil to cover. I’m using pretty small divisions – 72 plants per tray – because I plan to plant out these cold season plants under row covers or in the greenhouse as soon as they are big enough to handle. If I thought that I would have to hold them for a while I would probably start them in larger divisions to begin with.
BTW, I am also test germinating some seeds that I saved last year – by planting 10 seeds per container to see how many come up. Assuming that some of them germinate I can just multiply the number of seedlings by 10 to get the success rate as a percentage. Other than using 10 seeds per container they are done exactly the same way as everything else.
Using a spray bottle to water the planted trays gives good control.
I’ve found that the least messy way for me to water trays is by misting with a spray bottle – every other method that I’ve used results in muddy water running everywhere and only a little soaking in. Check soil moisture every day until you’re sure that it has stabilized where you want it – moist, but not dripping wet.
Note that you need to label your trays – I use recycled pieces of plastic mini blinds.
A plastic seed starting chamber like this is very handy, but not absolutely required. You will have to remove it soon after your plants emerge, but until then it helps to keep the soil evenly moist and the air warm and humid. If you don't have one of these just lay a sheet of plastic right on top until you see plants starting to emerge.
Then cover with one of these plastic domes if you have one. If you don’t have one of these you can simply drape a piece of saran wrap over the tray, but if you do that you will have to remove it as soon as you see plants emerging from the soil. The cover holds the moisture in so that you shouldn’t have to water again until it’s removed.
My simple grow light setup uses regular 4' shop lights and bulbs - not expensive "grow" lights.
I use plain old 40 watt flourescent shop lights to start my plants indoors and it works great. As you can see the fixtures are just sitting on top of props that I have made out of one by six scraps, but you can use whatever you have. You want the lights to be as close to the plant trays as is practical or your plants will grow tall and leggy. Now that compact florescent lights are widely available you could also use those in any lamp fixture that you have. You can easily get CFLs which are equivalent to a 100 watt incandescent light – should be great for a smaller operation.
Last year I built a very simple bottom heat system which has made a tremendous improvement in my success rate for starting all kinds of seeds. If you don’t have bottom heat, then try to keep the soil as warm as possible 24 hours a day. On top of a refrigerator or an upright freezer is a good place or on a shelf right over your water heater or a heat appliance. The regular average room temperature of your house is probably not warm enough for best results. The lights also won’t really work to keep the soil warm because they won’t be on 24 hours a day. If you look at this planting soil temperature chart you will see that most plants want the soil temp to be around 80 degrees Fahrenheit for best germination. If at all possible use some form of bottom heat.
A simple analog light timer is all y0u need for starting your own plants, but you need one that is big enough to handle the load of all of the lights that you are going to plug into it.
For good results you must have a timer to control your lights. Erratic lighting or 24 hour day lengths will be bad for many plants. Be sure that you use a timer which is rated high enough for the total wattage of lights that you will be using. Set the on period to correspond with or extend the actual daylight hours – in other words don’t try to have your plants day and night be opposite of the real day and night otherwise ambient light will interrupt their sleep just like it would yours. I set mine to go on at sunrise and off at about 8 PM. I currently have the day length set for about 13 1/2 hours, but when I start planting tomatoes and peppers in a few weeks I will increase that to about 16 hours of light per day.
Once I start this process every winter I love to get out in the plant room to visit and check on my plants. The warm moist air and the smell of clean soil and growing things along with the sun light coming through the windows really takes the edge off of winter for me. That and a cup of coffee is a great way to start the day. Round up some seeds and soil, and see if it doesn’t lift your spirits as well.
My humble plant work room. Really just a small well insulated room on the side of my garage with 4 windows, and a concrete floor that I don't have to worry about getting dirty. The light bench is sitting on top of 5 steel barrels full of water for thermal mass which help to moderate the temperature. You can see the rope light that powers my bottom heat there at the lower right. On the far end of the bench I have just enough counter space to pot things up. I love it.
This post is probably not going to be very interesting unless you keep honey bees – Or want to become a bee keeper. Sorry about that, but there will be more gardening content coming soon.
Queen Bees – The heart and soul of a honey bee colony is the Queen. Every hive has just one (with few exceptions) and if she is healthy, good natured, and productive she will pass those traits on to all of her daughters – the worker bees – and all will be good.
A bee keeper needs new queens to replace failing older queens, and to establish new hives and grow their operations. If a hive becomes queenless for very long it’s production and health will suffer, and eventually the colony will die. Hives with old queens are more likely to “swarm” – an event where the hive splits itself and half of the bees flying off to make honey for their selves instead of for the bee keeper. So replacing old queens with new ones every year is also a way of preventing swarms.
Queen Rearing – Most bee keepers order new queens by mail (when they are available) for about $20 each plus shipping. Others raise (or allow the bees to raise) their own queens one at a time like nature does. These videos are of what is called queen “rearing” – producing viable queens in batches.
At a value of $20.00 each the ability to rear even small batches of queens could make a big difference in the economics of a small apiary. Being able to have queens when you need them instead of having to wait for one to come through the mail, and having some control over genetics are also factors in favor of learning this craft.
Wax cell cups for raising queens
In the first video very young (probably one day old or less) worker larva are being removed from a frame of brood comb and placed into wax cups using a wire grafting tool. BTW, all workers are female. The larva are very small – about the size of a comma. Wax cups roughly the size of a small thimble are either manufactured or are home made by dipping a wet wooden peg into liquid wax.
1) Grafting larva into cups
In the next video, the grafted queen cups which have been mounted with hot wax onto cork shaped pegs that fit into a special frame are being placed into a “cell starter” hive. A cell starter is a regular hive with the queen removed that has a very high population density of bees – especially young “nurse” bees – and plenty of food stores – honey, and pollen. Probably the bee keeper removed hive body boxes from the starter hive to crowd the bees together. The high density of nurse bees and food will assure that the grafted larva will be fed plenty of “royal jelly” which is produced by the nurse bees. The queenless state of the hive will motivate the workers to raise new queens just like they would in nature if something happened to the old queen.
Worker bees are raised in comb cells just like honey comb which are horizontally oriented while queens are raised in cells that hang down vertically. Apiarists have learned that some of the worker larva that are the right age placed into a queenless hive in cells that are vertically oriented like queen cells, will be raised as queens – which is what all of this manipulation is about. The only differences that make a worker larva become a queen is the diet of royal jelly that they are fed as larva and the shape of the cell that they grow in. In a few days the cells can be removed from the cell starter hive, and either another batch started, or the queen can be replaced, and the starter hive can be returned to work making honey.
2)Installing grafted queen cups into a cell starter hive
In the next video the bee keeper is collecting nurse bees that he will use to make up “mating nucs” for the newly hatched queens. Nurse bees have never been out of their home hive, and won’t try to fly back to it once the Nucleus hives are set up. Also the nurse bees – after being without a queen and her pheromones for a few hours – will be very accepting of a new queen. If a queen is introduced into a hive that already has a queen she will usually be killed. The young nurse bees will also be the right age to produce wax comb in the empty mating nuc.
If you carry a box full of bees away from it’s colony all of the mature field bees will quickly return to the home hive, but the nurse bees will not readily abandon brood comb which contains baby bees. So the bee keeper has separated brood comb covered with nurse bees a short distance from their hive(s) and allowed the field bees to leave. Once he is finished with this operation I imagine the brood will be returned to it’s home. I think he is spraying them with sugar or honey water to keep them calm.
3) Collecting Nurse Bees for Mating Nucs
In the next video the nurse bees are being measured into the empty mating nucleus hives. It looks to me like he is measuring about a cup of bees into each one – 1700 bees more or less.
4) Ladling nurse bees into mating nucs
In the next video the newly hatched virgin queens are being marked for identification to prepare them for going into the mating nucleus hives. Queens can be labeled with tiny numbered stickers – or simply with a dot of color which indicates the year of her birth. Either way she will be marked for life, and a marked queen is a lot easier to find in a hive full of bees.
Notice at the beginning of the video the queen cells have been placed into small cages. This was done off video after the queen cells were capped (sealed) by the nurse bees, and before the adult queens emerged from the capped cells. If they weren’t confined in cages the first queen to emerge would kill all of her sisters before they came out of their cells.
After the queen cells were caged they might have been put into an artificial incubator, or most likely into a “cell finisher” hive which is just a strong normal “queenright” (with queen) hive that keeps the capped cells at the correct temperature and humidity until they hatch.
You will notice that queen bees are not inclined to sting or fly.
5) Marking Virgin Queens
In the next video the marked queens are being dipped into honey water to mask their scent and help the nurse bees to accept her before being inserted into the prepared mating nucleus hives.
After installing the queen the beekeeper is closing the entrance, and making an entry in his voice memo recorder which I’m sure will be later transcribed into a written record. Record keeping is an important part of this kind of operation.
The small size of the mating nucs make it possible for such a small number of bees to control the temperature, protect it from invaders, and become a full fledged although small colony. The sides of these particular nucs are glass which will make it very easy to monitor the progress of the queens. The top section of the nuc has a space for food (probably sugar candy) so that the little family of bees can get its house in order without worrying about gathering food for a few days.
Any small hive can be used as a mating nucleus, or even a full sized hive, but the nucs in these videos look like they would be perfect for this kind of operation – and would be especially handy if they were to be taken to a remote location for mating.
6) Installing Queens into Mating Nucs
Once the queenright nucs are placed into the apiary and the entrances opened the workers will get busy setting up house, and within a few days the queen will fly out for her mating flight.
On her mating flight the new queen may fly several miles away and hopefully will mate with several strong healthy male “drone” bees, and then return to her little colony. She will only do this one time in her life, and her body will retain the sperm to fertilize all of the female eggs that she ever lays. Drone eggs are not fertilized oddly enough.
If the queen doesn’t return – she could be eaten by a bird, hornet or other predator, or she could be killed by sudden bad weather – the hive is basically doomed.
The queens that do return will soon start laying eggs, and soon the little colony will outgrow the mating nucs. The successful queens can easily be evaluated by comparing how much brood they produce, and the best ones will be either sold (for about $20 each in the United States) or used within the apiary for replacing old queens or establishing new hives.
In the next video the worker bees from the nucleus hives seem to be being combined along with one queen to form an artificial swarm for the establishment of a new hive. A package of honey bees that you can mail order is exactly like this artificial swarm.
7) Reuniting bees from used mating nucs into an artificial swarm
The bee keeper in these videos is obviously extremely experienced and competent, and is demonstrating his own tried and true method for queen rearing. The fact that he is speaking German (I think) really doesn’t matter, because as they say – a picture is worth a thousand words. If anyone who understands would like to translate a bit in the comments I would very much appreciate it.
BTW, I certainly do not intend to imply that I’m an expert on queen rearing – I’ve never done it yet. However I intend to give it a try once I build my apiary to the point where I have enough resources – probably next year which will be my third keeping bees. I am posting this because; Reader response to the other articles that I’ve done on beekeeping has been quite positive so I think quite a few people find it interesting. And, producing an article like this helps me to learn.
Pay attention. This may be the most valuable tidbit of gardening wisdom anyone ever hands you. Of course it also might not be.
When to plant – every seed packet you pick up has a little map on the back with 4 or 5 colored zones and planting dates for each zone. Or they have cryptic advice like “whenever soil can be worked”, “after soil has thoroughly warmed”, or “after all danger of frost.” Forget all that. Plant when the soil is the right temperature. Period. Depending upon how sheltered your garden is, or if it has shade in the morning or afternoon – or if it is in a greenhouse or cold frame – those dates are just about meaningless. But, the soil temperature will almost never lead you astray because the ground temperature changes slowly – it is slow to warm up in the spring, and slow to cool off in the fall. Not wildly swinging with every warm or cold front.
Seed Germination time in days at different temperatures
degrees F
32
41
50
59
68
77
86
95
104
parsnips
172
57
27
20
14
15
32
onion
136
50
13
7
5
4
4
13
spinach
62.6
23
12
7
6
5
6
lettuce
49
15
7
4
3
2
3
cabbage
51
17
10
7
6
6
9
carrots
50
17
10
7
6
6
9
celery
41
16
12
7
peas
36
14
9
8
6
6
radishes
29
11
6
4
4
4
3
asparagus
52
24
14
10
11
19
28
tomatoes
43
14
8
6
6
9
parsley
29
17
14
13
12
sweet corn
21.6
12
7
4
4
3
cauliflower
19
9
6
5
5
beets
14
9
6
5
6
turnips
5
3
2
1
1
1
3
lima beans
30
17
6
7
okra
27
17
12
7
6
7
peppers
25
13
8
8
9
snap beans
16
11
8
6
6
cucumbers, summer and winter squash
13
6
4
3
5
eggplant
13
8
5
watermelon
12
5
4
3
muskmellon
8
4
3
As a general rule seeds that can germinate at a lower temperature are also more resistant to rot.
If you study this table you will begin to understand why those melons never came up – too cool/wet and they rot, too warm – they just never germinate. You will also understand what “as soon as soil can be worked” means – a lot of things can be planted in 41 degree soil (or colder) and will just take a long time to come up unless the soil warms first like in the spring time – in which case they spring up quicker. You can also understand this – if it will germinate in very cold soil then the plant will probably tolerate some cold spring (or even winter) weather. So – onions, lettuce, spinach, and those which will germinate at 32 degrees can be planted any time after the weather cools down in the fall and they will basically come up when the time is right and be fine – especially if they are sheltered in a cold frame.
If you are starting seeds indoors you can see why it’s so hard to get tomatoes to come up in that sunny (but cold at night) window – those little plugs of soil do cool off quickly unlike the soil in your garden. Those tomatoes, peppers and other warm season tropical plants will get off to a galloping start if you can consistently keep them a bit warmer – like with home made bottom heat made from rope lights.
On the other end of the chart – when it is too hot for the seeds to germinate, most plants start to stress or die from heat, especially if they aren’t kept watered. So those cool season crops need to be planted when it is cold so that they can make a crop before it gets too hot. Warm season crops will do great if you plant them when the soil is just barely (or almost) warm enough, and then cover them with a fabric or plastic row cover or cold frame. Cucumbers really will come up in 3 days if you do this.
BTW, one of those digital kitchen thermometers works great for checking soil temp. If you don’t already have a cold frame then cut the bottom off of a 2 liter coke bottle and leave it in the garden pushed into the ground like you were covering a plant with it – check the temp under that in a day or two, and you will want to get a cold frame. Of course you can also cover your seeds with the bottom of a 2 liter bottle (or plastic milk jug) until they come up.
If you take this one thing seriously and plant your garden as early as possible, but when the soil is warm enough you’re gardening prowess will leap forward by the equivalent of 20 years of experience. I sure wish someone had handed this to me 20 years ago!
Need planting information for something that isn’t on the chart? Search using this customized Google search engine. Try searching for – zucchini soil temperature – for example.
Gardening Search Engine – all results are from top US Agricultural Universities.
If you’re thinking about building a greenhouse here’s an opportunity to learn from my misfortune.
This is bad.
Only 3 inches of ice and snow did this to my hoop-house.
I think I’ve discovered a design flaw in my 50 dollar greenhouse.
Fortunately After removing the snow from my collapse greenhouse it's almost as good as new. But, I think I can prevent this from happening again.
This isn’t a great thing to find on a winters morning, but on the other hand a minor fail like this is just the thing to help improve a design. Fortunately I got the snow off of it before any real damage was done – this time. If I didn’t live in the (usually) sunny south it wouldn’t have taken me over a year to discover this design flaw. So – to anyone who’s been inspired by this blog to build a greenhouse… Sorry about that.
Here’s the thing – as long as rain or snow runs off and doesn’t accumulate which it usually doesn’t – all is well. It’s even OK for a little bit of snow to accumulate on top, because it just falls right off of the steep sides, and no harm is done. But once the peak starts to sag then it doesn’t run off like it needs to, and it can build up more weight making it sag even more, which allows more to collect, more weight, more sag… Until you get an ugly surprise.
So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to run a 2×6 ridge pole right down the middle at the peak of the greenhouse so that the snow (or rain) should slide off before it builds up enough weight to do this again. I hope.
I will also have to beef up the end frames a little bit to accomodate the extra weight of the 2×6 and of any snow that does accumulate on top. If I were starting over I would probably either:
Use more ribs and put them closer together
Use larger pipe for the ribs – probably 1 1/2″ PVC conduit.
Both.
BTW, there are many hoop houses in my area and in areas that get lots more snow that work fine and don’t collapse when it snows or when the wind blows – including a HUGE commercial operation about 10 miles away that grows hydroponic lettuce year round. My design just needs a little refinement.
For example:
Ontario Canada
If you never fail it’s probably because you never do anything.
As soon as I can I’ll post pictures of the improvements.
When I built my 50 dollar greenhouse over a year ago one of my goals was to be able to have something fresh to eat out of the garden or greenhouse every day of the year. Well, it’s been about a year now, and it hasn’t even been very hard to do.
Here is what I’ve learned so far -
Despite what you might have read, lettuce spinach and other salad greens are not really particularly quick crops. Sure you can have a pretty little stand of plants in about 6 weeks or so under good conditions, but in cool weather they don’t really get productive until they are almost 3 months old. Yes you can harvest a few salads out of the thinnings, but the young plants aren’t going to yield an every day supply unless you can plant a pretty large area.
When it gets cold, growth slows way down. However, on sunny days the temperature under glass (or plastic) is balmy, and I’ve continued to see steady growth all winter long. What should be done in the fall is to have a lot of greens grown out as much as possible before it turns so cold that growth slows down.
It’s quite difficult to get those cool season crops to grow productively in Tennessee until late into our rather warm autumns, but once it gets to be jacket weather they do great. Same thing in the spring – once the nights get warm they fail or go to seed. So the easy thing to do is to seed dirrectly into a cold frame or green house in September, then seed again every few weeks all winter long and you can have fresh lettuce and spinach from before Thanksgiving until June. Last year I had tons of productive growth by late winter/early spring.
You can not only grow, but garden in relative comfort all winter long in a simple greenhouse like my $50 hoop house.
These crops are almost completely freeze proof – especially spinach. I’ve had temperatures down to 5 degrees with only minor damage to lettuce and none to spinach inside of a frost encrusted cold frame, and even less damage inside of the hoop house for some reason. It’s easier to keep them growing in cold weather than to keep them from bolting (the elongation associated with going to seed which triggers instant bitterness) in early summer.
One of the beautiful things about cool weather gardening is the absence of insect and weed problems. There are usually a few of both, but not to the point of being a problem. Also having productive plants growing in January is really therapeutic to a gardener with cabin fever.
This picture was taken on Nov. 5 - with a little bit of effort (and a cold frame) your garden can be productive almost year around.
I’ve only mentioned cool weather plants in this post, but it’s worth mentioning that in my area most gardens go to the weeds by early August when they don’t have to. If you want to have a 4 season harvest you have to plan and plant in all 4 seasons as well. I’ve found that the late summer – early fall is probably the most challenging time because it is hot and dry, and insect pests are at their peak, and it just isn’t very much fun. Nonetheless with just a little timely effort you can keep your garden productive by planting the right thing at the right time and also yanking out old plants once they stop being productive.
Doesn't that look delicious? Forcing rhubarb results in an earlier, tastier, more tender crop. The container used to force this rhubarb probably should have been taller - note that the tops are curled over. Sure is a pretty color though.
Rhubarb is a perenial plant which grows back from the root crowns every spring. The large leaves contain high levels of oxalic acid and are poisonous, but the celery like stems are wonderfully tart and tangy. Children like to eat them fresh right out of the garden, but nearly everyone likes it used as a fruit in sweet deserts – pies, crumbles, or just stewed with sugar. My Mom (a marvelous cook of course – thanks Mom!) used to make it into a pie with strawberries. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. Don’t worry too much about those poisonous leaves – they apparently taste so nasty that there is not much danger of anyone eating them anyway.
Here in TN I can barely grow rhubarb – although last year was so cool and rainy that it did pretty well. It really does much better farther north where the weather is normally cooler and wetter. When I was a kid we lived in Indiana for a few years, and the back yard of the old house we lived in had a marvelous big bed of rhubarb that just took care of itself.
In good conditions rhubarb will pretty much take care of itself. They do like rich soil with lots of organic material and high fertility, and even moisture though.
Forcing rhubarb as in the first picture above is something that I had never heard of until recently, and I’ve never tried it yet – but I will. Apparently forcing rhubarb is a widespread practice in England – I ran across it on a UK gardening blog that I subscribe to. I’m afraid that the English are much more sophisticated gardeners on average than most Americans are – they seem to use many techniques that we don’t. We should try to do better I suppose.
Anyway, from what I can glean forcing rhubarb is very simple to accomplish – as soon as growth is seen (maybe even before) cover the crown of a well established plant with a large, rather tall container such as a bucket or trash can. Optionally insulate around the “forcer” with straw or some other mulch to warm the micro-climate and encourage growth. In about 8 weeks you should have an early crop of tender juicy tangy rhubarb.
Don’t try to do this until you have a well established healthy plant to work with – certainly not the first year!
Don’t force the same plant two years in a row as the process stresses the plant by putting most of the energy into growing the forced stems instead of keeping the rest of the plant strong.
Those cone shaped bee hives are called skeps, and I’m pretty sure that the two simple wooden boxes are bee hives too. In most (if not all) of the United States the law requires that bees be kept in “modern” hives which can be opened and inspected. This marvelous picture is one of many extraordinary images that you can see at The Bee Photographer – www.thehoneygatherers.com. BTW – that is not me in the picture.
I’ve really enjoyed my first summer keeping bees – Working with, observing, and learning about the bees has been very interesting and enjoyable. Before I started I read a lot about the subject, but inevitably experience teaches things that I didn’t pick up on during months of study.
You have to feed bees - And it is more expensive than you would think – ideally bees feed their selves, but if you are trying to increase the population of your apiary you will probably have to feed sometimes – BTW most hobby bee keepers feed their bees syrup made out of plain old granulated sugar. I haven’t kept up with it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I’ve bought $50 (or more) worth of sugar to feed my 1 1/2 hives of bees this year.
When I feed my bees syrup I use a quart jar with a few small holes in the lid.
Bees make honey of course, but they also eat honey. So if you harvest too much, or if it just isn’t a good year for honey production you might have to feed your bees – even after they are well established. But when you are first starting out and concentrating on growing more bees rather than producing honey it’s almost a sure thing that you will have to feed. Bee keepers have a saying – You can grow bees or you can grow honey, but not both. Don’t plan on producing a lot of honey for a year or two.
My mail order "package" of bees.
I started bee keeping by ordering a “package” of bees by U.S. Mail. Despite placing my order in January I didn’t get my bees until May 10 – a whole month into the TN honey gathering season. Also being my first year I didn’t have any drawn comb so my bees had only an empty box for a home and had to start out building wax comb instead of raising baby bees and gathering honey. If one could start with a “nuc” – a small, but complete hive – earlier in the season the hive would get a much better start, and you might not have to feed them much – if at all.
Getting stung is pretty rare – I’ve only been stung 2-3 times, and once was because I put my hand down on a bee. I know that it varies, but my Italian bees are very mild mannered so far. Something that I didn’t really know before is that even when you open a hive and take it apart to inspect – almost all of the bees just keep on going about their business. Unless you really get them upset they don’t all fly out and mob you – that never happened to me. Very few of them ever try to sting you, and they don’t search for a gap to crawl into your clothes to get at you. I did several full inspections while wearing regular clothes along with a veil and gloves – without getting stung. Some bees aren’t so mild mannered, but my commercially raised Italians are.
You don’t really need a lot of equipment – Like any hobby you could spend a lot of money on a bunch of paraphernalia that you don’t need, but there is really no need for most of it.
What you do need:
Veil – A veil keeps bees away from your head and neck, but a mosquito head net from a hunting supply store will work for less than $5.
Gloves – many experienced bee keepers don’t wear gloves, but your hands are the most likely place to get stung and you will be more confident if you wear gloves at first.
Bee hive – A home for your bees. But this does not have to be expensive. A simple top bar hive can be built very cheaply, and will work just fine.
Bees
A plan – there was a time when honey bees could be kept successfully with very little human intervention, but because of the globalization of parasites and diseases that is no longer the case. You need a plan for how you are going to deal with those issues – especially varroa mites. You don’t have to know before you start, but by the end of your first summer you will, or it is likely that you will lose your bees within a year or so. Read all you can.
What you don’t need:
Honey extraction equipment – processing a lot of honey probably won’t be a problem for at least a year or two, and lots of bee keepers do what is called “crush and strain” which doesn’t require anything that you don’t already probably have.
Bee suit – Long pants and long sleeves to tuck everything into will work fine – along with some gloves and some kind of veil. A roll of tape to secure cuffs and sleeves with will make you more confident, but won’t really be needed most of the time.
Hive tool – a putty knife, screwdriver or pocket knife will work. I still don’t have a hive tool.
Feeder – a quart jar works fine.
Frames and foundation – top bars with popsickle sticks will work great for your bees to build comb from.
Chemicals, supplements, medications – You might have to treat for varroa mites, but I personally don’t buy the philosophy that you should arbitrarily dose your bees with antibiotics and other chemicals whether they need it or not.
If you are starting out with a package of gentle commercially produced bees like I did you could totally do without almost all of the protective garb. A “real” bee suit will boost your confidence, but a $2.00 pair of work gloves, a $2.00 mosquito head net from any hunting supply store, a standard “hoodie” – sweat shirt, and long pants will work fine. You don’t have to have a smoker – It is nice for getting the bees to move out of the way, and you will want one sooner or later, but in my opinion you don’t really need it until long after you have installed your package. New packages are especially docile.
One hive isn’t enough – Starting with one hive is fine – two is probably better, but if you plan to keep bees from now on you will need more than one hive. Fortunately, your colonies can reproduce and turn one hive into many if you want to. The problem with keeping only one or two hives is that if you lose one or two hives (not unusual) you are out of bees, but as long as you have one healthy colony left you can use it’s offspring to repopulate a failed hive. So, multiple hives allow your operation to be more sustainable.
It is difficultto be “chemical free” your first year - Most commercially produced bees don’t have very much resistance to parasites and diseases, and it is likely that you will choose to treat them, however there are effective alternatives to expensive synthetic chemical treatments. There is also a lot of bad information about alternative treatments – so choose your plan of action carefully.
Bee hives come in all shapes and configurations and can be an attractive addition to a garden.
Honey bees don’t really care what kind of “house” they live in. If you are building your own hive – woodenware as bee keepers call it – there are good reasons to use a standard configuration, but the bees won’t care if you don’t. For centuries mud covered wicker skep hives like the ones in the top picture were used all over Europe. Skeps are against the law in most parts of the U.S. however, because they are difficult to inspect.
Online forums are a great source of information – However, anyone can contribute to the conversation even if they don’t know what they are talking about. I highly recommend that you check some of them out, but take everything with a grain of salt. BeeMaster.com is one of my favorites, but as with any forum be prepared to filter.
There are good reasons to plant turnips even if they aren't on your list of vavorite vegies.
Turnips will almost never be the answer to the question of “What is your favorite vegetable?” so maybe the title of this article should be “Cover Crop Plantin’ Time in the Mid South” but it just doesn’t have the same alliteration thing going on. BTW, it’s the last week of August, and a few harbingers of fall are already apparent – goldenrod in bloom for example.
Anyway, your summer garden is looking disgraceful (you know it is) and it’s high time to put all of those disease and weed ridden plants out of their misery before you get a visit from the homeowners association. Hopefully you are planning to grow a fall garden, but even so some amount of ground is probably going to be vacant once you tidy up – which is where cover crops come in. Any good cover crop will suppress weeds, prevent erosion, improve the fertility / organic content of your soil, and in some cases even put food on your table. One of the main things that cover crops do is to absorb soil nutrients into their tissues as they grow so that they don’t leach away during the rainy winter. But (to me) the main reason to plant cover crops is that they save work, because all of those advantages are gained with no more effort than it takes to sprinkle a few seeds on the newly bared ground.
The most popular fall / winter cover crops in my area are: Turnips, Crimson Clover, and Annual Rye. They are area favs for good reasons, and they all have their unique advantages. Rye probably does the best job of suppressing weeds, and adds lots of organic matter to the soil when you work it in early next spring. Crimson clover adds nitrogen in addition to organic matter. Turnips main claim to fame is the fact that they also yield food – all winter long in some cases. Ask around (at a farmers co-op for example) to find out what works best in your area.
Whichever cover crop you choose to sow buy your seed by the pound (at a farmers co-op or or Real Garden Center) unless your garden is awfully small a little paper packet isn’t going to be enough seed. Anyway, a pound of turnip seed should only cost 3 dollars or so, will last just about forever in the freezer, and contains enough seed to plant the entire state of Rhode Island – it’s one of those things that you should just keep on hand. If you keep them in an empty shaker bottle such as spices comes in it will be very convenient to just sprinkle about – a good tip for all kinds of salad green seeds.
The other thing you should do with any of these crops is to completely ignore the planting dirrections. One of those little packets will tell you that you need to plant turnips 1/2″ deep in loose fertile soil which has been enriched with lots of organic mater – which is true if you are hoping to win a ribbon at the fair, but for the purpose of a cover crop just sow your seed thickly (thin later with a hoe if you want to harvest roots) on top of the ground after you have pulled the old plants and weeds. You do need to use a rake or cultivating fork to break up any crust that you might have, and you will probably want to rake it out just to be neat – but that’s all. The main thing is to throw those seeds down and everything else will take care of itself. If you water one time after sowing the seeds you will probably see sprouts in 3-4 days.
But, you say “I’m planning on mulching/tilling/fertilizing/planting something else long before those cover crops will be done.” Don’t worry about it – when the weather cools off and you get ready to do any of those things just do it – until then your cover crop will be improving your garden for you, and if you don’t get around to those things until next year it will look like you planned it that way.
This is one of the best times of the year to work in your garden – get out there!
There are any number of ways to get your cool season crops for your fall garden started despite the intense heat of August. In fact some of them will be just fine direct seeded into the garden as long as you keep them well watered. However, you will still have to contend with peak populations of insects.
This simple trick will protect your tender seedlings from the intense sun, while still letting in plenty of light, and keeping out the bugs.
You probably already have some of these mesh flat trays - If you don't you can get them for cheap at most nurseries.
Just turn one upside down over your plants.
Then drape a peice of screen cloth over the top - you can buy screen by the foot at any home center.
You can weight down the edges of the screen cloth with boards or you can fold it under the flats. You can also water right through the screen cloth. You can even use this trick if you’ve direct seeded. By the time your plants outgrow the inverted flats they will be big enough to survive the sun without the protection.
Try to pick an overcast day to remove the screen on if possible – otherwise do it in the afternoon when the sun has passed it’s highest intensity. Remove the mesh tray a day or two later.
* Digging a hole in hard ground for a tree or shrub? Dig a starter hole and fill it to the top with water - come back later and you will be amazed at how much easier it is to dig. After you dig fill it with water again, and wait for it to soak in before back filling and planting - the more stable soil moisture will give your tree a better start.
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* When planting trees don't mix a lot of organic matter into the soil or the tree might grow a compacted root ball in the improved soil without sending roots out into the surrounding ground. Just dig a hole and put the loosened dirt back in - then add compost or rotted manure as a mulch on top of the ground.
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* If you get your beds ready before time to plant, consider covering them with a plastic tunnel to both warm the soil, and to keep it dry so that when the right day for pea planting (or whatever) rolls around you won't be delayed by frozen mud.
* When shopping for spring seeds buy some for the Fall garden while they are available.
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* When planting tiny fragile seeds cover with fine compost, potting soil, or peat moss so that the emerging plantlets don't have to fight through crusty soil.
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* When starting seeds indoors you will get much quicker and more reliable germination by keeping the soil warm - about 70 F. But, once plants emerge they can get leggy under artificial light if you keep them too warm.
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* When starting seeds under fluorescent lights you should keep the lights as close to the tops of the plants as possible - but even then the intensity is far less than real sunlight. Move your plant starts outside as soon as weather permits.
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* When starting seeds keep the soil moist and warm until the plants emerge, but then try to let the surface of the soil dry out a bit between waterings.
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* Check the germination rate of your seeds by putting 10 each between sheets of wet paper towels, keep moist and warm. In a week or so you will see how many you need to put in each spot.
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* One of the most important factors to successful gardening is to plant at the right time. Nothing else matters if you get this wrong.
