Britt's Beekeeping, Part 3: The Queen Bee

A good friend of mine recently made a trip home to Boise to visit her family and had the opportunity to learn about some local honey beekeeping efforts. She's been talking about getting a hive for her yard here in Seattle for some time, so was an eager student as she learned about many of the details of bees and beekeeping. She took incredible pictures, which she posted on Facebook, and added very informative captions for each one. I thought they were so great that I asked if I could highlight them here on Skruben as well. She said "great!"  Here is the final installment of Britt's Beekeeping...

The Queen Bee:

When the queen is introduced to a hive, she's inserted in a small mesh box with a fondant plug. After the two days it takes the workers to eat their way through, they're used to her scent and she's welcome rather than killed as an intruder.

There are multiple breeds of honeybees. The hive is a blend of a couple of different swarms and this queen is from a generally placid breed. She should produce happy, mellow bees.

One thing to look for when checking a hive is too many drone cells. The queen only takes one 2-3 day long mating flight in her lifetime, so not many are needed. A drone can mate within one week of hatching. Once he does, he dies. He's got no stinger and buggier eyes.

Typically, brood cells - and the queen - are in the center of the box. The outer frames are the honey cells.

She will lay about 1500 eggs a day, so she's pretty mobile. She does nothing else after her mating flight.

Here we are, looking for the queen. It takes a month for a queen-less hive to produce a queen that can lay. By that time, the drones can outnumber the workers and the hive is often irreparably out of balance. This is why it's important to keep an eye out for the queen.

Still looking for the Queen. Three bee hoods make for a tricky huddle.

There's the queen! Though she can live for several years, most beekeepers "retire" their queens after one. Some are set into smaller boxes as back-up queens. Others are just squished.

Now that she's been marked (with an enamel paint pen), she should be somewhat easier to find during hive checks.

Once these frames are full of honey, a queen excluder will be added on top and a new box will be added. Her hips are too wide to fit through the excluder, but the workers can easily move up to the new box.

Any honey above these two boxes, which the bees need to survive the winter, may be harvested. Depending on how the summer goes, there might be a harvest this year!

Britt's Beekeeping, Part 2: Honeycomb

A good friend of mine recently made a trip home to Boise to visit her family and had the opportunity to learn about some local honey beekeeping efforts. She's been talking about getting a hive for her yard here in Seattle for some time, so was an eager student as she learned about many of the details of bees and beekeeping. She took incredible pictures, which she posted on Facebook, and added very informative captions for each one. I thought they were so great that I asked if I could highlight them here on Skruben as well. She said "great!", so here is Part 2 of Britt's Beekeeping...

Honeycomb:

Here's pretty new honeycomb. Two weeks ago, only the black starting plastic was there.

Here's more established comb.

The rubber bands are holding in rescued comb from a hive in a house's walls.

Burr comb is excess honeycomb -- not particularly useful to the hive. It makes it tougher to move the frames in and out. They're often used for drone cells, as well.

Britt with burr comb.

These are all honey cells. Once they're full, the bees cap them with wax. They build comb on both sides of the frame.

These darker cells are filled with worker bee larvae. They're nearly ready to hatch.

That more bullet-shaped cell 8:45 of center is a drone cell, I believe. They are larger and more conical. If the queen disappears, the workers can start laying drone eggs. Since the drones do nothing but mate with the queen and be fed by the workers, a hive overrun with drones is bad news.

In this picture, you can see the little larvae pretty well - the half-moon wormy shrimp dudes. They're about 10 days along, I think. The eggs, which I didn't spot, float in royal jelly when they're laid.

In the next installment of Britt's Beekeeping...Part 3: The Queen Bee

All photos courtesy of Britt McCombs

Britt's Beekeeping, Part 1: Bee Basics

A good friend of mine recently made a trip home to Boise to visit her family and had the opportunity to learn about some local honey beekeeping efforts. She's been talking about getting a hive for her yard here in Seattle for some time, so was an eager student as she learned about many of the details of bees and beekeeping. She took incredible pictures, which she posted on Facebook, and added very informative captions for each one. I thought they were so great that I asked if I could highlight them here on Skruben as well. She said "great!", so here is Part 1 of Britt's Beekeeping...

Bee Basics:

This is the hive.  There are two stacked boxes which contain frames that can be slipped out from the top.  Smoking the hive makes the bees crave honey so they stay down in the combs and are less likely to sting, or leave.

This is the bees' ground floor entrance to the hive.  

There's another entrance in both boxes. The top one leads to the sugar water (simple syrup) feeders.

This is the sugar water feeder. Right now, they're drinking almost a gallon of sugar water every two days. The more of it they drink, the less they'll eat the honey.

The bees eat honey. The pollen they collect is fed to the larvae. A bee produces about 1/4 teaspoon of honey in her lifetime.

The yellow-legged bees have full pollen sacks. They can visit up to 2000 flowers a day, but only carry 50-100 flowers' worth at a time.  The most productive worker bees may wear their bodies out after 2-3 weeks. Worker bees can live 2-3 months in the active season.

On the warmest days, some workers stand at the entrance and fan with their wings to lower the hive temperature to 93 degrees Fahrenheit.  Over the winter, bees can live longer. They huddle around the brood (egg) cells and take turns vibrating their bodies to maintain the 93 degree environment.

Workers have multiple roles in their lives. The youngest produce wax flakes from chest glands that other workers chew and soften to build the combs.  All these workers are imperfect females, meaning they can't lay eggs that become workers.

Bees also produce propolis, which is a very very sticky, dark orange, resinous substance that they get from plant sap and they use to hold things together in the hive. It has to be loosened to lift out the frames.  A full frame weighs about 8 pounds.

In the next installment of Britt's Beekeeping...Part 2: Honeycomb

All photos courtesy of Britt McCombs

Seattle Bride's Best of 2012

We had a wonderful time last night at Seattle Bride Magazine's annual "Best Of" event.  It was held at the the waterfront at the Seattle Aquarium.  We were thrilled to be nominated, for the third year in a row, in the category Most Creative Favors.  Thanks to Seattle Bride Magazine for their ongoing support of the Seattle wedding and events industry!

Calendula

One of the many enjoyable aspects of soapmaking is formulating new recipes.  I try to choose ingredients that are beneficial to the skin or performance of the soap, while being beautiful at the same time.  My favorite botanical ingredient that does all of these things is Calendula officinalis.

This flowering plant is also commonly called pot marigold (though it has no relation to the ornamental marigolds you buy at the garden store).  The plant contains a wide variety of natural compounds such as carotenoids, flavonoids, mucilage, polysachharides, saponins, glycosides and sterols. Many people make teas or poultices out of calendula to treat skin problems and promote healing.

In cold process soap, calendula petals are unique among flowers because their beautiful color holds strong against the intense chemical reaction that brings most flowers to their knees.  Most flower petals turn brown or black when exposed to the heat and alkalinity of saponification.  Many customers ask me to use lavender buds in soap, but I have to give them the disappointing news that their soap will look like it has dead flies in it, if I do. Calendula petals don't do that.

We grow our own calendula in the back yard and harvest and air dry the petals.  I like the richer orange variety for use in our soaps and my daughter LOVES to help me pick all of the petals off of the freshly cut flowers.  It's like a kid's dream come true..."yes honey, please DO chop the heads off and tear off all the pretty colors!"  Bliss.