The weather forecast says we have at least six days of unseasonably warm weather coming our way, so I zipped up my bee suit and checked on my ten beehives. They looked stronger and better than I expected, especially considering we have already had a couple of nights into the 20s and one into the teens.
Two days prior, I noted a few honeybees and a yellow jacket loitering hopefully around the place where I open feed the bees, which simply means I pour sugar syrup into an appliance designed to let the bees float on wooden rafts while they sip up the sugar syrup and take it back to their hives. I mixed up a gallon of syrup and filled the tray. Several dozen bees at a time have been taking advantage of it when the sun shines.
There are no blooms, so the bees have little to harvest. No nectar or pollen, only water or resin from trees, which they use to make propolis. (Propolis is a sticky the bees use to caulk any holes or cracks in their hives.) By feeding them sugar syrup, they have something they can bring back to the hive. It also keeps them from using up their honey stores, which they will need when it is too cold for them to leave the hive.
Bees have a pouch, or crop, where they store nectar—or man-made sugar syrup—and can then spit it out for another bee at the hive to store it in comb and turn it into honey. They also have a second stomach, sometimes called a “true stomach,” where they will send some of the nectar if they are hungry. Unlike the crop, the true stomach is where the food will be digested to sustain the bee.
Pollen Patties
While I was in the hives, I gave each a one-pound winter pollen patty. This is an artificial source of pollen, although the Global brand of patty I used contains some real pollen. The bees use honey, sugar, or (preferably) nectar as a source of carbohydrates and pollen as a source of protein. By giving them a pollen patty, they should have enough protein to raise more bees both heading into winter and when coming out of it.
The hives still have some brood, so it is too soon to treat them with oxalic acid (OA) vapor to kill any mites. I will do it in about a month near the winter solstice. It is best to dose them with OA when there is no brood in which the Varroa mites can hide.
Not only was I pleasantly surprised at how many bees were in each hive, I was happy to note that I appear to have only one weak hive. A month ago, I thought I had two weak hives. I am keeping my fingers crossed I come out of the winter with most of my hives alive and well.
Seeing a few yellow jackets surprised me. Somehow, the cold snap didn’t kill them. They must have had an underground hive. I have also seen a few grasshoppers, something else I can’t believe survived this far into the calendar. It has been an unusual fall.
I’ve sold $290 worth of honey already this month, pretty good for a non-touristy period. I am afraid I may run out before my next harvest in June.
Woodenware
We beekeepers call the hive bodies, lids, bottom boards and other wooden beekeeping equipment “woodenware.” I build most of mine in the winter or early spring so I have it on hand before I need it.
I have an excellent system I use to glue and staple my frames with an air gun that shoots narrow-gauge staples and another one that shoots tiny 18-gauge nails. However, I haven’t found the perfect way to nail together the hive bodies.
Most of the time, I use a hammer and just drive the nails in with four or five good whacks. This is time-consuming. I have tried using a driver and a #9 screw, which works pretty well. It is faster and easier than hammering, but I find the screws more split the wood more often than a nail.
Last time I went to Harbor Freight, I bought a small air-powered device called a palm hammer. I had never heard of it, but darned if it doesn’t look like it may be the perfect device for hammering beehives together. Designed to fit into a small space where a nail gun or hammer won’t fit—like between floor joists—it does not shoot a nail like a nail gun. You hold the nail and press the palm hammer down on the nail head. The air power makes a small internal hammer reciprocate, driving most any size nail.
It took me driving about a dozen nails to get the hang of it, but it is a handy, speedy device. I built one hive super with it for practice, but I can see myself using this all winter. I have 30 hive bodies and supers to make, and that is more than 500 nails.
More Firewood
The neighbor who promised me some firewood poles—also known as tree trunks—came through. He dropped off nine logs that were 8 to 24 inches in diameter. The load included maple, lots of oak, and what I believe to be a sycamore. I have never burned sycamore before, so I am withholding judgment until I see how it does. I already know it is easier to cut than oak.
There was so much wood, I had to cut two logs up just to make room for the truck to back up with its second load. The oak was so tough to cut; it made me want to sharpen my chain. Then I cut the sycamore, and the same chain seemed just fine. I guess that is the reason they call oak a “hardwood.” But nothing burns like oak, except locust and maybe hickory, two other local hardwoods. I get some locust logs—mostly smaller than these tree trunks—but rarely see hickory.
Even cut into rounds, the wood is heavy enough that I won’t be lifting them up to the splitter. Instead, I will be reconfiguring the splitter to its vertical position and rolling the logs to it. It means more bending over, but less lifting.
I’m not good at estimating how many cords of wood are in a pile of uncut logs, but I am hoping to get close to two cords out of them.
