Winter sets in

Well, its here, snow and fridged nights of negative digits. The bees are outside this year. It was just to hard to maintain cold temperatures in the storage house to keep the bees in hibernation. They would become active and eat all their food reserves and starve out before I could get them out. Despite a heavy loss of hives, this year for honey was fantastic! The pollen and nectar flow started slow with the cool damp weather. Clover and raspberry blooms were good, but basswood and goldenrod were exceptional. It seems if you have cool nights and warm sunny days, the nectar really flows. It’s funny, I watch the hives in the early morning when there is only a few forage bees coming and going from the entrance, I can’t help to think- come on, day light is burning get going! I have to remind myself, this is bee time, not human time. Come mid day though, the activity starts to pick up. Afternoons and before sundown, it is rush hour! From what I understand, most of the nectar from the blooms of flowers in my area don’t start releasing nectar until ambient temperatures warm up the plants, so the bees work when the plants are working. Night time is when the real work begins in the hive. At night, the bees are moving and storing nectar and pollen from the days foraging’s, all to get ready to do it again the following day. Honey bees are what scientist say have a altruistic quality where they prioritize the survival of the colony over there own individual needs. There is no such thing as a bad hair day, and honey bees are not known to attack unless threatened. They all work together, in harmony for one common goal- survival. They are however only looked at as just bugs, and ones that sting! The only redeeming factor being that they create something we like to eat. Honey bees have short lives and a short time to prepare for winter. Every month, every week, every day, every moment, and every bee counts towards survival of the hive. It makes a person pause and think, maybe these “bugs” have evolved further than mankind and just think if humans could take some lessons from the honey bee maybe we would stop killing each other and make our hives strong and prosperous .

Honey Cornbread

2 1/2 cups Self rising cornmeal

1/2 tsp. Salt

1/3 stick Butter

1/2cup Corn

1/3 cup Buttermilk

1/4 cup Honey

1 Egg

1 tsp Butter for skillet

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Mix dry ingredients in one bowl and the wet in another. Heat the a cast iron skillet on a burner and melt the 1 tsp. of butter. Combine all the ingredients in one bowl and mix well. Pour the batter in the cast iron skillet and put the skillet in the pre heated oven of 450 degrees for 20-25 minutes. when top is golden brown and tooth pick doesn’t stick, pull out of oven and let cool. Enjoy!

Getting ready for winter

The season of change

I currently store most of my hives inside for the winter. I keep the bees in single deeps for the most part. I try to make a certain weight with feed and plenty bees for each hive, also making sure that they are as healthy as possible. However, there is always concern during the winter months (6) if they are going to make it. I have had some fantastic success with this method, however last year was not one. I know what happen and such as life a learning experience. This past summer was a rebuild on the most part, and considering the dry weather, I was able to get a a nice honey crop. At this time the bees are 95% ready for winter with one more check before I put them to bed. Plans for next season are in the works.

Health benefits of Honey

Honey is a biproduct of nectar. The enzymes of the honeybees intenstenale tract converts the nectar into honey. The bees take moisture out of the nectar so it does not ferment and is the consistency of syrup. It is capped with wax in the honey comb and is opened when needed. Honey has a complex composition of elements(organic acids, peptide enzymes) that vary from plant to plant and from region to region. Studies have shown that honey acts like a inhibitor to bacteria, fungus and to several virus’s. Back before antibiotics and pharmaceuticals, honey was used on wounds and diseases of the gut. Through out the ages people from around the world have prized honey using it for food and medicinally. Stone age paintings of over 8000 years have shown pictures of people with what archeologist believe to be honeybees.

Honey recipe- Butternut squash soup

1- Butternut squash 2- Celery stalks 6 cups Chicken broth

2- tablespoon of Butter 1/2 cup Honey

1- Onion 1- Potato

2- Garlic cloves 1/2 teaspoon dried Thyme

3- Carrot diced 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon - Salt and pepper to taste

In a soup kettle, start melting your butter first. Add your onion next and cook until the onion starts to soften at a low heat. Add your vegetables next along with your broth. Add your honey and seasoning when the soup starts to warm up. If you like the taste of garlic, add at the end. Bring the soup to a boil and let simmer for a hour. This recipe also works well in a crock pot on low heat.

The bees are hibernating, but the work continues...

It is nice to get a break from day to day bee work that happens in the spring, summer, and fall. But, the work continues of making and repairing equipment during the off months. I enjoy the work because along with the work you think of the strategies or plans you set out to do the next spring. What worked well and what to never do again cross your mind. I was extremely happy with the some of the break throughs we had this year. One being- raising the the amount of virgin queens to mated queens , to make up nucs. For me I had a couple new techniques that helped. A egg incubator, and making weekly grafts. Previously, I had a lot of froze unhatched queen cells that never hatched out because of cold spring nights or not enough bee heat in the queen mating nucs. The incubator solved that problem and I put hatched out virgin queens in the mating nucs. Also, I decided to just do more grafting with the idea, that if only 50% made it back mated, I would be good. So, it worked, and I think I ended up at 60-70% by the end off the season. I am hoping by making more adjustments, to get over 80%.