Hive Check 8/1/17

So I decided not to split my hive at the Source. After consulting several books, a couple of long-term beekeepers, and soul-searching, I decided I'd just try to harvest some honey and keep them less cramped. Of course, as soon as I get ready to go, we get some rain. Which is lovely, it makes things a little cooler when I do start, but...

In any event, I went out around 3:45pm. It had just rained a little, was a little overcast, and probably around 80-degrees. The bees seemed happy and lazy, but not overly angry. I noticed that they have started using the crack in the hive as a secondary entrance; I may want to consider getting some mesh and covering that so they only have the one entrance.

I smoked them a little and opened the hive. They were quite content, no aggression or sounding at all grumpy. I started in and was surprised to see they haven't expanded very much. They still had 18 full bars and one half-bar that was just starting to be filled. Most bars are still a combination of brood and honey and pollen, in a pretty good ratio, and with evidence of the queen with several stages of brood development. Only one of the bars was all honey, and it was in the middle -- I wonder if the second entrance makes them want to preserve their honey more towards the middle of the hive? Curious.

In any event, I decided to clean up the hive a little, by scraping some of the comb off the walls. I put that in a bowl to harvest the honey from. I also cut off a strip of a bar that was nearly ready to start cross-combing, and it was mostly honey, so I put it in the bowl to harvest. Unfortunately, when I was examining the full bar with the honey, it started to break off from the bar a little. I tried to get as many bees off as possible and then let it drop into the bowl.

It's so sad. There were several honey-drowning bees and a few of them crushed. Once I buckled the hive back up, I picked up pieces of the comb and brushed off as many bees as I could. I realized that a good couple dozen were going to drown and there was nothing to be done, so I picked them out of the honey. One of them looked larger than the others, and I worried it was the queen! I really don't know, because it was smooshed and elongated because of it, so I'll just have to keep watch the next time I'm in the hive.

I wish I was better at this, and it's little consolation that I have a little bit of honey to process.

Lots of Business Buzzing

SR Hive Check, 7/21
I missed the opportunity to post about a brief hive check I did at Sunflower River on Friday morning, July 21. I went out around 10am. They had a lot of shade at that time, and the hive was pretty busy. I was mostly checking on their progress building in the second brood box. There was still evidence of a queen, and they were busily building more comb, already mostly filling all but the two side frames. I didn't go further in, hoping to just leave them do what they'll do, and next week (probably on August 1) I will see about adding a honey super, just for giggles, and really check out how they're doing.

Ironwood Farms
In addition, Chris finally got back to me about checking on the hives at Ironwood Farm in the South Valley of Albuquerque. I went out there this morning and got a tour. His one hive that remains is descended from the same swarm he caught a dozen years ago! His hives are "messy" in that he's a master of sustainability, and they are made from lots of spare parts, and it made me think that beekeeping can be even more natural than I'm already doing! Anyway, Chris' beekeeper abandoned him a couple of months ago, and it took that much time to get me out there to take a look.

Unfortunately, checking on his hive, I found them to be incredibly cramped and every frame is full! When I opened it up, these cranky bees flew out and swarmed me. I was safe inside my suit, but they covered my veil and made it hard to see, so I decided that his hive was beyond my growing skills. So I chatted with Chris and decided that I would look for local beekeepers willing to come out and likely assist him with a split.

He may have me back once things calm down again, but that was an interesting and harrying experience.

Source Hive Split!
Also, stay tuned! This Thursday, July 27, I will acquire another queen and split my own hive here at home. I'm excited!...And a little bit scared.

Hives Check 7/3/17

Source Hive
Whew, is it hot out there. I went out around 3:45pm to look in on the ladies. It's hot, somewhere in the 90's, with just a gentle breeze. They were plentiful and a little grumpy, once I got into the hive. Loud buzzing. Turns out they have 17 bars of comb! and one more that they are almost completely done making.

The hive, I think, is kind of messy. I probably should have been in there more often. That's on me. I have burr comb on over half the bars, though thankfully none are cross-combing. The queen is a prolific little monarch. I only took a casual glance because they were a little angry (I think because of the heat, and I felt like a five-thumbed troll trying to get into the hive) so I did not see the queen. However, there is larvae, eggs, capped brood, and 18 bars of full comb. I have very little doubt that she isn't there.

In any event, they are getting far too big for their britches. I don't see any swarm cells, though I didn't look too hard. I think it's time to make a split. I haven't done that before, and I'm a little nervous about it. I have an extra hive, I just need a stand and a lid (and a queen, most likely). I will read up on it again and work on that the rest of this week.

SR Hive
We showed up at Sunflower River at 5:30 and soon moved out to the hives. The farm had two new interns who were curious to see the hives, so they followed us, along with Tristan's five year old son Gawain who was finally brave enough to come see the hive. It was still warm out, but the trees in the area gave us a dispersed shade that was actually quite pleasant.

Tristan reported that he's found that the bees have emptied the feeder every five days, and that tells me that they are growing enough that they are relying more on their own reserves. We'll continue to feed them for a while, but only once per week.

Our goal was just to see how the hive was doing with their additional box and just see how prolific they are. After having such a rough start, I wasn't so interested in looking through the whole hive. We just got into the top box and investigated how much they had done since the last time we were there. They had expanded to making 8 frames of comb (though one was barely started and two of them were half-frames, though they were using it). Larvae and capped brood and honey were in them in a good pattern. I saw the queen on one of those frames, so obviously she's doing her work and they are starting to expand.

We let them alone and closed up the hive, leaving them to it.

Overall, a pretty good day!

SR Hive Check 6/20/17

Despite it being extremely hot out at 100-degrees, I wanted to check in on the bees because we couldn't find the queen last time, and I was going to be out of town for a while. So Tristan and I wandered to the back-40 at around 6:00pm and looked in on them. It was getting a little overcast at that point. Well, the shade back there must have been working because, while it was still warm, it wasn't intolerable and the bees weren't bearding.

Because we wanted to work fast and just get things done so we could get back into our boxers instead of wearing long pants, Tristan and I forewent the smoker and just opened up the hive. They were actually pretty tame until the last few minutes.

The top box they have actually done a bit more expanding, but haven't really been filling the comb. And it was strange -- I'll probably get onto the NMBKS list and ask about it -- because the comb was empty, but the sides were a brownish color. I was wondering if they were just starting to fill it with pollen, but I was mostly concerned about disease or something.

In any event, the bottom box was full! They have used all the available space and almost every frame was full of comb that was being utilized. I mean, the end-frames were half-full with comb and underutilized, but I expected that.

First of all, we found the queen! We also found evidence that she's going; capped brood, less drones, lots of larvae. I think they've finally hit their stride! We made sure she was inside the box and moved on, looking at the rest of their frames.

We also saw lots of honey. They have one full frame of honey, and lots of honey at the top of their other brood frames.

In order to encourage them to expand, we took two of the full frames of brood and put them into the center of the top brooder box and added empty frames at the ends of the bottom box. I'm hoping that encourages them to move up and find that they can expand even more, so that later this summer we can start placing honey supers.

In any event, a successful trip to the hives! They're happy and industrious, and they are doing well!

SR Hive Check 6/11/17

I finally made it back out to Sunflower River on Sunday evening, June 11. I met up with Tristan around 6pm and we went out back to look at the hive. The sky was clear and the wind calm, thankfully, and the temperature was somewhere in the 80's.

Tristan checking out the bees!

Our smoker went out after the first couple of puffs, but the bees were all relatively docile and we continued without it. It was Tristan's first time actually getting into the hive, so he did a lot of the work, the both of us alternating looking at the frames.

We found that the second box that we added a few weeks back was still mostly empty. A skeleton crew of bees were working on building some comb in a couple of the center frames, but mostly it was empty of anything. This is probably because for so long the boxes had a large gap and they had a dry feeder for about a week, which probably stressed them out.

Look at that beautiful frame!

However, the bottom box was more or less full. The middle 8 frames were absolutely full, with two full frames of mostly nectar/honey, and the rest full of mostly capped brood.

And that was the problem. We were unable to find the queen, but we saw lots of capped brood...and not a lot of larvae. It makes me think that maybe they have lost their queen. What I am going to do is see where they are in two weeks, look for the queen again, and then decide what we'll do. I'd much prefer to find her, but if there's significant evidence that she is dead, we'll either get another one or encourage them to make some. There were no supercedure cells on any of the frames, so they don't seem to be too concerned about it just yet, so I feel comfortable waiting to see.

We decided to keep feeding them through the summer, as the hive is still small and they have been stressed. So Tristan is upping the number of times he will go out and check the feeder.

Mostly they were busy bees, happy and docile bees, so I'm glad to see the corrections to their hive have (hopefully) calmed them and they are under less stress.

Hive Checks 6/6/17

It's been a couple weeks since I've been in the hives, and I was a little afraid of what I'd find. I've become a little remiss in my checking the hives, and part of that, I realize, is fear. Not really fear of the bees, but of messing it up, not knowing what to do. When I realize that, it's easy to get through, but it keeps me dragging my feet.

Source Hive
Today was a little overcast, but it's my only day this week I can check the hives. It's hot out, finally, after a cool and rainy May. It's also quite muggy, today, for the desert, and that is displeasing. I went out at around 2pm and opened the hive. I actually got the smoker going and kept it lit for a while! I may become a firebug yet. Luckily, the wind didn't start to blow until I was closing up, but there's quite a bit of gust out there, now.

standard brood and honey pattern on most of
the bars

I was amazed at how much they've grown! In two weeks, they have expanded to 13 full bars of comb, and two that are half-made! And all except one of the latter are being mostly used. They are gathering nectar like crazy!

The queen is still at it -- she's fat and happy -- and they are certainly busy. I scraped quite a bit of wax off the sides, and I see that they are bulging out on the ends. I am not entirely sure what to do about that, but where I could, I reversed the bars. I put one empty bar in the middle, giving a bit more room so hopefully they might correct course. I'll research in Les Crowder's book later on for other solutions.

I removed that last can of syrup I put inside to feed them -- it was drained dry -- and the wooden props for it. After examining all the bars, I see lots of honey, so I'll just let them go with what they've collected and see how they fare. Maybe it will slow them down a bit; I haven't seen any swarm cells, but they've taken over just over half of the hive, so I may have to do a split soon!

I made sure to take a couple pictures, as I haven't been doing that. Things are looking good, and you can tell from how much they're working!

SR Hive...Didn't Happen
When I got to Sunflower River at around 5pm, Tristan and I got ready and went out to the hives...to find that the neighbors accidentally overflowed their field and the entire back property was flooded. Great for the plants and bees...not so much for the beekeepers. So I will go on Sunday morning and take a look, instead.

However, while I was at the farm, another neighboring farmer and friend of Sunflower River. He has a farm nearby and has had a swarm he caught twelve years ago. He's been following my bee adventure on Facebook, and asked if I was interested in working on his hives. I told him I'd think about it, but I already knew I'd say yes. So it looks like I'll be getting a few more hives to check this season!

Hive Check 5/22/17

Kat and I checked on the Sunflower River hive yesterday. It was a good day: warm and full of blooming things. It was off and on blustery, so it wasn't perfect, but that's okay. I think it was around 1:30 in the afternoon when we got into the hive.

My main task with today was getting the brood box I added two weeks ago swapped out with the newly routered box, and to see how they were doing. I noticed that the bees were particularly grumpy, and that was probably for two reasons: they had a huge gap in their hive that was probably letting cold and robbers in, and they were out of sugar water. So we're not caring well enough for those bees!

Kat went back to make sugar water while I got into the hive. The smoker -- which I had Kat light this time, because she's better with fire-making -- went out after one puff into the entrance. So I did this without smoke, which I don't think would have mattered, because they were pissed off already.

I checked on the various frames, finding the queen relatively quickly and making sure she was put back when I did. She's still there, but the progress from last hive check to this hive check is almost stunted. I didn't notice any growth, and I wonder how long they've been without food. We'll probably have to feed them throughout the summer at this rate, and I'm happy to do that to help them get established.

One thing of note is that I pulled one frame out and the wind gusted just at that moment, scattering the bees off of it (I'm SO glad I found the queen early and put her back) and onto me! They all fell on my shoes and I realized I hadn't tucked in the legs of my jeans. Sure enough, a bee crawled up my pants leg and I got my first sting of the season on my calf. It was my first bee sting since I was, like, 9 years old, so I was interested to find out how the sting would go. It hurt for five minutes while the venom was being pumped in (I was too in the middle of tasks to go reaching down there and scraping the thing out). But after that it was done: no swelling, no pain after the initial few minutes, just a red dot where the stinger was in my skin. I did stop breathing, but...just kidding. So it was good to get a sense of how I react to bee stings.

Anyway, I swapped out the brood box and put the hive back together. We gave them a full bottle of sugar water, and we stepped away. I'll look at them all again next week just to see how they're doing again, and get on a better schedule.

Goddess Save the Queen! (Hive Check 5/18/17)

It was a little over two weeks since my hive checks. The weather has been strange here in Albuquerque for May. Lots of rain, and lots of cold. Blustery is normal, but the rain and thundershowers were not!

Today around noon I went out to check on my top-bar hive at The Source, mostly looking for that elusive queen. It's nice out, not too hot, but a little windy. I needed to do it, since it'd been 16 days since my last check, so I just dove in.

Things are going great! The bees have expanded to make nine combs total! The one on the end is half-complete, but they've already started putting pollen in it. All except for the one on the end, which is almost all nectar, they have a strange pattern of a little honey at the top (some of it capped) and smatterings of worker brood and drone brood and pollen. Not a great pattern, but it's not super alarming. There's no cross combing, and they are all making perfectly straight comb, so I haven't had to do any repairs or turning around of the bar. I see a lot of black pollen, which is awesome, but I have seen no sign of disease or mites. They're so kind to me!

Most importantly, I found the queen! Finally! She was on the next-to-last bar, so I put her back immediately. Before I closed up, I saw her wandering toward the front again, probably to get away from me. She's nice and fat with eggs, so that really makes me happy.

I placed two empty bars between two of the most productive brood comb, to make them feel like they had room. I'll check them next week and see how they're doing with them. There were no supercedure cells, so I am not fearing them swarming. A good hive check all around!

I replaced the empty feeder, which probably won't last the two weeks, so I'll check on how their honey is doing next time I'm in there and put more in.

Hive Checks May 2 & 3

May 2: Source Hive Check
A little after 3pm, I went out to check on my top-bar hive. It was a mild but sunny day, and the hive was in the shade. It was warm out and pleasant.

My goals today was to replace their feeder with more food, to take care of the comb they were using on the bottom board, and to look for the queen (just generally taking a look at how they're doing).

Replacing the can of syrup was the easy part. I then started going through the combs until I could get my tool into the hive to remove the comb on the bottom. As suggested by one of the instructors in my certificate program, I should just put the comb in the back of the hive and let them take everything out of it before I remove it. Scraping it up was also easy and I placed it back there without trouble, finding pollen and nectar inside. Unfortunately, some of the nectar splattered on the bottom board as I moved it, but I saw bees cleaning that up.

As far as the queen, I couldn't find her with a visual inspection. The bees were busy, having made about 9 bars of comb, with one completely empty and one of them only about half completed. I saw more drone brood than I thought I should, and some capped worker brood, so I think that they must have a queen, but the amounts of worker brood was smaller than I would have liked.

The pollen, though, is beautiful, with tons of color. They have quite a bit of nectar, too.

As I was closing everything up, I realized I need to build a better lid. The one I have simply is too tight to adequately get it on the hive without making a bunch of racket, which the bees don't like. I'll be setting up a day to make hives soon, so I'll make a new one then.

May 3: SR Hive Check

Kat Heatherington thinks these are "action
shots." I think she needs to understand what
"action" means.

Kat and I wandered back to the hive at about 7pm. It was a nice, warm day that was going to quickly become night, so I wanted to work fast. They had lots of sun this late, the shade being more of an afternoon thing, I'm finding.

Kat Heatherington likes
their cute faces. She thinks
they look like cats. I'm sure
they're offended by that.

My goals for opening the hive was to just see how they were doing, look for the queen, and see what they need. Kat's goals was to get a decent picture of a honeybee, which she obviously did.

I opened the hive and found that they were going gangbusters! All but two of the frames was mostly built with comb (so there were 8 frames). Where the old queen cage still was, they had done some cross-combing, but it was very little and easy to remove. The very first frame I pulled out, I came face to face with a very lovely queen, so I put her back in. Seeing lots of brood, and very little drone brood, I decided it was time to add another brood box.

I sent Kat scurrying away for more frames while I looked over the rest of the hive. No problems, and everyone seems happy. All the brood looked good, and I could see them in all phases of growth...it was really cool to see that in my own hive! There was lots of pollen, a good amount of nectar, and I couldn't find evidence of disease.

Once Kat was back, we added another brood box on top, putting a couple bars with some brood in it and filling out the rest of the space with more frames...

...And found out the box doesn't really fit. So add another thing to the list of things I need to make. I will definitely be making more boxes soon.

April 26 Source Hive Check

I was going to check on my top-bar in the backyard yesterday, but it was so rainy and windy I decided to let them be. It's a nice, not too hot, but sunny day. I went out at 11:15am and there was gentle sun on the hive and lots of activity at the entrance.

My agenda for today was is to check on the feeder, make sure the queen made it out of the cage and see if I can detect her, and take a general look.

Feeder: They were still feeding from it, and from the weight check, it felt about half-full. I'm using the syrup that came with them in the package, but I think on my next check (in a week) I will simply remove it and put regular sugar water inside.

I discussed the feeding with a local beekeeper, Jessie Brown, who has had 10 years experience, and she said that it would be best to keep feeding them through the summer, so I will do that. Most sources say that once they start making honey, you should leave them alone, but Jessie said that you can't predict the weather and you don't want to stress them as they are making all their resources for the hive.

Queen: Scooting the bars back until I reached where they were building, I found the queen cage. A quick look showed that it was empty, so the queen must have gotten out. I looked for her quickly, but didn't see her, and will make that my primary goal for next week.

Comb: The bees are going gangbusters making comb! They have about 8 bars they are working on, and at least three of them are full comb now, though I stopped after the first four bars. I think that next week I will look at all of them, looking for evidence of the queen and brood, and see how far along they are. If they have that much comb, I may want to space some of it out, especially if I find that they are doing well with brood.

Unfortunately, possibly where there was some residual wax on the bottom, they have built a layer of comb on the bottom board. I know I don't want it there, but it's the only one that they have put anything in: nectar and what appeared to be pollen! On the one hand, I don't want to take their nascent resources. On the other, it's uncapped nectar, so trying to scrape it up and attach it to a bar is probably a bad idea, as all of the nectar will just run out. So I'm going to check with some folks to see what they think I should do.

My next check will be on Tuesday, May 2.

April 18 Hive Check

I checked on the hives today to release the queen into the hive. I am totally unsure if I did this right, but I went ahead. I will be honest...I was so nervous checking on the bees! Part of it is wanting them to be alright, part of it is me wanting to do things right. I'm sure I'll get used to it, but I'm still running on a bit of adrenaline.

Source Hive
At the Source hive, which is my top-bar in my backyard, the bees were in slight shade at noon and coming and going from the entrance. I gently smoked the entrance, took off the cover, and started moving bars down so that I could get to the entrance bars. They are already starting to make beautiful looking comb! It was quite a sight with them all festooning and working away.

I got to the queen's cage, but they had started building comb AROUND it. Plus, bees were swarming all over her and it was hard to carry once I DID release her. I swept some bees off, though that seemed to make them all mad and the hive got agitated. I was working fast and tried to get the cork out. Unfortunately, it fell in. Not wanting to risk having the queen immediately fly out, I placed the cage on the bottom of the hive. I wanted to put a marshmallow in its place, as recommended, but it wouldn't fit immediately and I decided I didn't want something bad to happen. It was adrenaline talking, I'm sure.

Anyway, it has been five days in the hive with her, and they seemed pretty content the last few days of me watching the hive, so I am hoping that they don't kill her. I sealed up the hive so that they could have their space to continue what they do and I will go back out in a a few days, maybe a week, to check on how things are going and look for the queen.

SR Hive
Tristan wanted to join me this time to work on the Langstroth Hive at Sunflower River. We gathered everything and headed out to the hive. They seemed content to do their own thing, so we got the smoker going and went to look for the queen cage. She was still well, the cage covered in bees. The hive was busy laying down comb and it was beautiful.

This time, I was able to get the cork out of the queen cage and Tristan had a marshmallow ready and stuffed it into the hole. We replaced the frame and the queen cage, and then closed everything up. We refilled the feeder with sugar water and moved the hive slightly, as the box was too far back and the bees were using it as an additional entrance.

Tristan and I discussed making a new cover for the hive, as this one fell apart as we were putting it back on. And we also need to shave the entrance reducer down so that it can be used with this hive.

Everything looked good, and I will come back in a week to see how they're doing, look for the queen (or evidence of her) and remove the queen cage.

The Bees Are Here!

I'll be posting a couple of updates in quick succession, the first about the bees themselves, and the second about my garden. This weekend was abuzz with activity! (Oh yes, I went there.)

We spent all of Friday preparing my backyard into what Kat calls my "urban micro farm." Mostly this was work on planting and drip systems, but kindly, Kat's intern Michael helped put together the last of the cleats on my top bar frames to make it easier to direct where the bees should build comb.

Terra walking out of
the cooler amidst
the swarm

our two 3# packages
of bees! their faces
were so cute poking
out the holes!

Once we had things well underway, however, the time to go pick up the bees was nigh. Kat drove myself, Charey and Michael to Hay's Honey and Apple Farm in Bosque Farms to pick up the two packages of bees from Craig! It was quite an experience wandering into the cooler with Craig, the bees buzzing around. Such a wonderful sound, and I love have honeybees landing on my body and crawling around.

When we had the packages, we left for Sunflower River as a first stop on putting bees in their hives. I was quite nervous. This was my first time handling a package of bees, and I was so intent on getting it right. I read and re-read the class booklet from last year's Certified Beekeeper course on putting packages in a Langstroth Hive, and then I took a deep breath and just did it. We put the bees in the shade while we collected all the things, placing the hive on the back of the property while Jenny, one of the Sunflower River stewards, made the 1:4 part sugar-water mixture to feed them. We started the smoker -- well, Kat started the smoker, as I'm not good at fire-building. I probably will be soon, though. Then we put some honey on the frame cleats, I suited up, and we went to work.

shaking bees into the hive

The book was wrong. Or, at least, it didn't go as planned. I kept telling myself that it was just a guide and the bees would do what was best for them with the queen inside and a feeder around. Still, it was a frustrating first attempt. As instructed in the book, I bounced the package downward onto my hands a few times to get the bees to the bottom of the package. Unfortunately, the package was too small and all it did was piss them off. Next, I had to get enough bees out to get to the queen, whom I had to place while the bees were zooming around, rather than placing her first. To watch that process, which is kind of cool, Kat got a video here. Unfortunately, she stopped filming because a really angry bee stung her right on top of her head. The next time I looked up, the three of them were all the way across the field.

battle royale at the beeyard! The Beekeeper versus Skeletor!

Once I had the bees out and the queen placed, I put the hive back together. Which was the biggest fail, as we had forgotten the hive cover. I shouted back to them to go get it and Kat said, "You didn't have us make one." That stopped me dead and I fretted. Fortunately, the old one, which had broken on one side, was in the compost. So they went back to get it and repair it quickly while I stayed there. With angry bees pelting themselves off my veil. It took a good fifteen minutes for them to fix it and I slowly placed it on top, and then Michael came back and we had a major battle! Actually, it just looks like that from the picture...he was very helpful in handing me things as we were getting things done. Then it was time to place the feeder -- no problem -- and the entrance reducer...crap.

The entrance reducer wasn't long enough, and too thick, to be functional. After some fretting, and accidentally killing a couple of bees, we went back and got some fabric and stuffed it gently into the entrance in order to make it smaller and more defensible. On Tuesday I would return and Tristan, another SR steward and the one who wants to learn how to keep the bees, will figure out another more permanent solution.

Dispirited but holding it together, we packed everything up and left to come back to my house, the Source. Michael stayed, and so it was just Kat, Charey and I. Part of our adventure continued on an uneven path when we exited the freeway and the bee package in the back of the truck tipped. We pulled over and I went into the back to find the feeder can had come out and bees were starting to come out into the cab. I quickly righted it and replaced the can, accidentally crushing a few of the girls along the way. Shoring it up, we continued the last couple miles to home and I took them -- and the swarm of a hundred bees we had in the back seat following me -- into a spot of shade.

replacing the bars...
and being aware of
the crack in the wall
behind the hive

Thankfully, things went better after that. I decided not to shake the girls anymore and just get them out into the top-bar hive and grab the queen, and then put everything back together. It went quickly and well, these ladies quite content to just do their thing and explore their new home. I shook the bees out into the back of the hive (video here), lodged the queen cage between a couple bars at the entrance, placed feeding can on a couple sticks in the back, and then started replacing the bars. I was very careful and didn't kill any more bees, working slowly and carefully. They were all very happy and inquisitive, and we watched for a while until they started using the entrance, and then we left them alone.

they found the entrance!

This called for a milkshake, which we promptly went to the 66 Diner for, before collapsing into a hot tub on the farm after 12 hours of work and adrenaline.

I checked both hives, from a short distance, Saturday morning. The SR bees were going just fine, a lot calmer, and were doing orienting flights. They needed more sugar water, which Tristan did that evening. At my house, the Source hive was happy and doing the same, and I soon felt much better. I will see them on Tuesday afternoon to check on the queen and place a marshmallow on the cage for her to slowly release into her new hive!

While I'm Waiting...

Yesterday, I sat through a Varroa mite class -- the facts about them, their prevalence in New Mexico, and how to test and treat for them -- and it got me a little scared. I don't want my bees to die! So this morning I ordered some Mite-Away, just to hit them with a hopefully less-impactful mite reduction program for when they first arrive. That said, I'm very interested in more organic cures. Les Crowder (top-bar master who lives here in New Mexico) apparently uses creosote in his smoke. Next time I'm on a road trip, I'll gather some and try it. Also, there's a recipe for rhubarb strips that the bees chew up to get out of their way, and that also are poisonous to mites. (Blog post on that here.) So I'll be trying these later, but I'm scared enough to jump to chemicals since I wasn't nearly as ready as I thought for the thought of my bees having bugs of their own!

In any event, I'm feeling a little underprepared. I'm probably not. Hell, the bees are going to do the work of surviving, and all I am is an occasional disruption in their lives. But still, I'm getting as prepared as possible. To that end, while I'm waiting for my bees to arrive (April 14!) I have been working on getting hives ready.

I lost a picture of the bottom-board that Rev created for the hive at Sunflower River, but I do have the boxes with frames that Kat, Tristan and I put together for their Langstroth.

I also went out to inspect the top-bar hive here at the Source, with my trusty assistant Orlando scoping things out for me. He says it needs more rope, but he says that about everything. I have started preparing these frames with cleats, so that the bees have a good start on building comb.

We're also in the process of getting my yard's garden ready. I'm going to have an herb garden, some rows of veggies and some fruit trees, but the most exciting thing is my pollinator garden! To that end, Kat has been helping me figure out a drip system, which will also fill a couple of bowls of water for the bees throughout the day. I'll post more pics of that when it doesn't look like someone took shovels to my yard. Because we have.

I know it's not much, but that's all I have for now. I guess, like me, you'll just have to wait. And wait. Patiently, of course.

A Little About Me, or Why the Hell Am I On the Internet?

Hello! My name is Terra Phoenix, pleasure to meet you. (That picture is me, at BioSphere 2, photo credit to the lovely and talented Kat Heatherington. A sizable portion of the pictures on this blog will probably be hers.)

Since this is a free blog, and created in part to be a journal for my Certificate in Beekeeping with the New Mexico Beekeepers Association, it will focus primarily on how my venture into keeping bees goes. But, considering it'll probably become a habit for me over the course of the next several months, and may end up being my long-term bee journal for myself, I will probably be adding personal stuff, too. I'll try to figure out how to tag them so you can avoid my other ramblings, but you probably can't avoid it. I'm a bit long-winded.

First, a little about me. Originally from Western Washington (grew up small-town, moved to Seattle for college and more-or-less stayed there for 20 years), I moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico a little over a year ago. I am a queer, genderqueer Witch, as far as labels go, and so that makes me a little between-the-margins. That keeps extending into what I do in the world; by trade, I'm a somatic therapist and sacred intimate/sex and intimacy coach. How I see it, I get to be a Priestess helping folks heal and transform their lives. It's a hoot.

In fact, this blog is named after both bees and priestesses. In Ancient Greek, melissa is the word for bee (meli- meaning honey) and in several Mediterranean cults and religions, the bee was considered psychopomps, insects that spanned our world and the underworld. Priestesses of Artemis and Demeter were called Melissas, or simply, bees. And while this is a lovely synchronicity, this isn't how I got interested in them.

I have always been fascinated with bees. Unfortunately, like most other bugs, they scared the crap out of me. I mean, the worst were spiders, and I still struggle to keep my fear response in check when I see even teenie tiny ones. But as a kid, most bugs would get me taking a huge step back. As I got older and, perhaps, a little smarter, I realized that they were important and I ought to be nicer to them because without most bugs, we wouldn't exist. But bees were kind of the exception (and probably the reason I got over my fear). They were pretty, they made honey, and their buzz was simply intoxicating, and so I screwed up my courage and got as close as I could to them when I was younger. Considering I started out life as an academic, studying mythology and folklore, I couldn't avoid things like knowing what a Melissa was, and so bees have always had a kind of...sacred place in my heart. Didn't mean I wanted to keep them, though.

But rewind to about four years ago or so. I was in a relationship with a couple of people (oh, I'm polyamorous, as well) who decided to become farmers. Well, as someone who also kind of hates getting dirty (I'm getting over it) I wanted to be able to plug in. So I was their administrator for the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) and decided that I would keep their bees. So I read books, took a couple classes, got a fancy new white jacket with a veil, and was ready to have bees...and then the farm dissolved. I cancelled the package and continued my urban existence where I couldn't keep bees easily enough. Still, I continued to read about them, hoping at some point to have a place to keep a couple hives.

Now I live in Albuquerque, and part of my conditions of moving here (as I see it) is that I would keep bees for some folks. Sunflower River, to be precise. I was in a long-distance relationship and we figured that was a bad idea, so I moved here for love. (Queue the "awws.") But she's one of the stewards of a farm, and I said, "Well, I could keep your bees...?" Turns out most of the stewards were pretty excited for that, so before I even moved across the country, I joined the NMBKS Certificate Program and got re-oriented toward being a beekeeper. Sunflower River had an old Langstroth hive sitting around waiting for bees. In addition to that, I live and work and practice at The Source, a community of health care and wholeness practitioners, and they had a beehive there that needed some love. It's a top bar. So I get to learn both common hive types, in parallel, in two different micro-climates. How's that for a good time?

In any event, here's my blog. Be prepared for a lot of technical things (May 1, Sunflower River, 5 bars of brood, 4 bars of honey...) as well as some of the more ephemeral stuff that buzzes around in my brain around beekeeping. That is, more ancient bee facts and folklore, stuff about apitherapy (so interested in that) and maybe even dreams that I have. I mean, I'm woo, so you'll have to forgive me. Anyway, my hope is you'll find some fun, maybe some laughs, and generally just enjoy yourself. Feel free to contact me by e-mail (terrakitty at googlemail-period-com) if you have questions. Thanks!