68 An unexpected visit

In two days I’m going back to Holland and don’t expect to be back before November. That means, no more Bee Blog entries. And suddenly Timothy the beekeeper was there again. He was called to Achill Secret Garden for a suspected swarming. He dropped by to see if any of my hives needed extra room. One last drawing I had to make although it doesn’t really add anything new to the blog. It turns out that one hive that came from a split hive in Belfarset is struggling. The other Belfarset split is doing swimmingly and got a new Pink honey box. The old Polranny hive whose splits are now in Belfarset needed another honey box too also Pink. It gives colour to the garden as if there isn’t enough yet and while on a visit somewhere one will instantly recognize one of Timothy’s apiaries. This year’s colour is Bright Orange. But first the last of the Pink has to be divided before I will see Orange on any of my hives. Timothy posed the question on feestboek: which colour will it be next year. I’m for Turquoise. I’ll keep you posted. (68 colourful hives 13-06-16)

67 A new apiary

My neighbour Annie Masterson had been on to me for more than a year now. Her grandson Alan, who took over the apiary of his Grandfather had no time to come down to Achill to take care of the last hives that were left. Alan had already taken a number of the old hives, restored them and places them with his in-laws in Galway, but the ones left over were suffering. Alan should get in contact with Timothy the beekeeper, but never got around to it. Now Annie Masterson herself was taking action. She told me that when Timothy was again in the Achill area I should bring him around. He had already been up the boreen once and had discovered that the two hives were both dead. Now was his chance to put in a few starter hives and bring the apiary to life again. With his van full of splits put into styrofoam starter hives it should be up and running in no time. Timothy was a bit unsure what his role would be. Would he be managing Alan’s or was it going to be his own? Annie Masterson made no bones about it. She showed him a box full of brand new frames and other beekeeping implements and said. This is your. Do with it whatever you want. I learned something new here: there are two sizes used in beekeeper land: Commercial and National. Apparently Timothy uses National and the apiary at the Masterson is Commercial. But according to him it doesn’t pose a problem. For now the old home made hives are replaced by pink and green painted starter boxes. He will take it up from there. One of the commercial size handmade hives in 1974. (67 hive CM February 1974)

64 Old and New in Polranny

We go back two weeks to 15 May. Dutch photographer Con Mönnich was back in Polranny after 42 years. He did sme catching up with old memories. A lot had unrecognisably changed and it took a while for him to find back his bearings. One of the places he revisited was the farm of our neighbours the Masterson. Sadly 20 years before Pat Masterson had passed away. He was a great lover of bees. When he was home from constructing the motorways in England he often sat in front of the hives enjoying the rituals of the bees. His children left Polranny; his apiary was neglected. Grandchildren wanted to pick up beekeeping again, but they live up the country, have small children and busy careers. Beekeeping has to wait. In February 1974 Con photographed one of Pat’s homemade hives. I remember there were a great number standing together in a clearing of a mixed stand of spruce and apple trees well protected from the wind. When Con took the photo it was cold and there was no activity around the hive. On the picture you can see how lovingly the hive is constructed with a small balcony and overhang to protect the entrance to the hive. When Con came back to the house in Polranny the weather was beautiful: warm and sunny. The bees were enjoying the warmth and were busy gathering nectar and pollen. Timothy the beekeeper was inspecting the surviving hive. All was well. Some things never change. (64 old and new in Polranny CM 15-05-2016)

63 What happened

Of the two hives we had one died over the winter. Timothy send me this answer when I reported to him in February when the sun came out that there wasn’t any activity in one of the hives. ‘Both hives should have adequate feed as both are on double brood box and received substantial autumn feed. However it is quite possible that one of the hives had died out. This is a normal process with beekeeping with winter mortality rates in Ireland averaging about 10%. I expect this rate to be quite lot higher this year (30%+) with a combination of the bad summer for queens mating and pollen gathering followed by the mild and damp winter. It is very difficult to keep the hives dry this winter as there is no real let up with the weather.. Winter deaths in hives can have several different causes from disease (nosema, varroa or acarine) to bad stores (fermented stores etc.) or queen issues (failing queen, unmated queen, attempted supercedure that failed, loss of queen).’ As it turned out one hive was dead and one was thriving. Timothy even put a new storey on top. But he couldn’t find the queen. The old queen that he had marked and clipped must have died and been replaced by a new queen. This time around he came with a van full of starter hives and brood boxes intend on literally making the most of the thriving hives and the consistently good weather spell we’ve been having. The sketch is of the inside of the van and the antique smoker Timothy restored for daily use. (The Beekeepers Van 27-05-16)

Dividing the hive

Timothy Stevens the beekeeper came around do a very special procedure. I was quick with the sketchbook. Afterwards he send me this report: 'Today I was looking after the beehives I have in achill both on the mainland and on the island. Peti Buchel drew some wonderful drawings of some of my activities today. I have a beehive located at her house. Since losses were so high this winter I have been doing a few splits. A split is where you break a hive into two or more pieces. In this case I broke the hive into 3 peices. 1/3 of the hive stayed at the apiary(bee yard) and the other 2 parts went to another apiary a few miles away. A hive of bees normaly only has one queen so when they are split like this 2 of the 3 parts will have no queen. These two parts will know they don't have a queen after only half an hour or so and will begin the preparations to produce a new queen. this means picking a few very young larvae(baby bees) and feeding them a very rich diet of royal jelly(food like a mothers milk), this will allow the young larvae to become queens instead of workers. I am using this to increase my number of hives that i have. each split is a full brood box(bottom box of a hive) and is strong enough in bees and brood to be able to produce a few quality queen cells. It is important when doing something like this that everything is very strong and you have ample bees to feed the young queens. If you don't have enough bees to do the feeding the queens will be very poor quality called scrub queens and are unlikely to be able to mate and take over the hive. When I got to the next apiary i repeated the process on the strong hives there and the splits made in this apiary came back to Peti Buchel garden. Hopefully the weather stays as good as it has been the last month or more and I will have a wonderful season.' The sketch is of the original hive divided in three.(dividing the hive 27-05-16)

The varroa mite

Beekeeper Timothy Stevens has put a new entry on Facebook that I like to copy here. 'Here is a very lucky or even unlucky photo. It shows a bee foraging on bramble. On closer inspection you can see a varroa mite on her. It looks like a purple disk on her side. The mite has wedged it's self in between the plates on the bee. This is the real face of one of the major reasons honey bees are dying and why almost all wild hives are dead. Because of these little mites I have to treat my hives to kill the mites. I have never seen a mite on a bee outside the hive. On a brighter note the weather today has been very good and if this continues I should receive some honey in return for my years toil. I usually remove the excess honey on the 10th of August however with the weather being so cold it has held the blackberry back and put my schedule back as well.'

Honey and wax harvesting in Ancient Egypt

In contrast to many other customs in Ancient Egypt the harvesting of honey and wax are a bit of a mystery. There is a picture on the wall of a temple about how the hive was evacuated. Smoke was blown into the back of the hive and the bees escaped through the entrance in the front. The rest is conjecture, but in Egypt traditions rarely change and it is pretty safe to suppose that neither has beekeeping. To harvest the honey the combs are gathered in a cow skin. Next the combs are crushed by treading on the skin. Through a hole the honey now flows into a container. What is left in the skin is washed out with a bit of water. Finally the honey passes through a sieve made of blades of grass. What’s left in the skin is the wax. The wax is heated to melting point in a water bath to prevent it from catching fire. Impurities floating on the surface of the liquid wax can be scooped up. Afterwards it is strained and put into a bag press. It has been estimated that for every kilo of honey somewhat more than sixty grams of wax can be won.

Beekeeping in Ancient Egypt

Apiculture was popular in the whole of Egypt but particular in the Delta region. Hives were made of mud or reeds covered with mud. Empty hives were also used as wall insulation of houses. The cylindrical hives were stacked horizontally, sometimes up to 500 together. The harvesting was done twice a year: in spring and autumn. Because of the climate there seem to have been no winter hibernation. The hives were transported to where the flowers were. They had to be moved again when the farmers were clearing the ground by fire after harvest or when the Nile water rose and it was necessary to bring the hives to higher ground. The moving could cause some logistic problems especially when there were many hives involved. It is all written down in queries, prayers and petitions and mercifully kept for prosperity. The drawing is of fields on the banks of the Nile and two huge statues near Luxor

Bees in Ancient Egypt: Divine nature

The people living on the shores of the Nile enjoyed the fertile shore and all that nature brought. But they were also sensitive to and reliant on the seasons: especially the rainfall in far-away central Africa where they had no power over nor knowledge of. And then there was the desert directly adjacent to the crops, where nothing could grow but harboured all kinds of scary things, both animal and human. No wonder that the religion of the Egyptians was nature fixated; not like our own religions that are human centred. Everything they had no power over the Egyptians considered sacred: possessed of divine powers, even the house cat. And the bees, which brought honey: the only sweetener the ancient Egyptians had. The picture was taken inside one of the many decorated tombs of ancient Egypt. A farmer is kneeling in front of his beehives. Again: thanks to Polranny Pirate Bert the Egyptologist

Queen Cups

The worker bees had been busy with the succession to the hive’s crown. Apart from the queen cell we also discovered several queen cups. The incumbent queen didn’t lay any eggs in these. A friend told me this morning that her mother, Mrs Feldbrugge from Zuidhorn in Holland, had six beehives in the back of her garden. A beekeeper put them in for her, just like Timothy Stevens did for the Polranny Pirates. But after a while she got very interested, followed a course in beekeeping and from then on took care of them herself. I’m sure I won’t go that far… Unlike Timothy she wasn’t keen on swarming. Too much trouble with the neighbours in the village when they were visited by an unwelcome swarm. She destroyed any queen cup and cell she found on a frame.

A Queen is waiting to be born

Theory gets always different when you see it in practice. On post 34 Virgin Queen of this blog I put a drawing of a queen cell that I made after a photo from the internet. This time I put a photo on the blog of a queen cell in one of my hives. Exciting! Will this become the new queen? Will there be more queen cells, potential Virgin Queens, palace revolutions? Will there be a swarm leaving the hive?

The weather

Finally the weather turned and the bees and I are out and about in the garden, And if that isn’t enough the flowers have joined us too. Everywhere things are in bloom. Not the planted variety but the things that grow in the grass whether you like it or not. According to Timothy the beekeeper worker bees visit around a 100 flowers a day. It would seem that there is enough for everybody. But after the cold spring the bees are in a feeding frenzy. They do not tolerate anybody else around and least of all me. I used to put one of those easy to fold chairs out in front of the hives about ten meters away and watch the activity as I would watch the tv: but not anymore. A defending bee is send out and first starts to annoy me and if I stay put to attack me. Now they even come after me as I’m weeding my veggie patch, well out of sight and the way. This picture of the new additions to the hives I took just before I was stung in the eyebrow. And me writing a blog about the little feckers… No gratitude!

The honey box that tops up the hive

In spite of Timothy the beekeeper’s dire predictions it was time to put a second storey on the one and the honey box on the other hive. How to get the worker bees to put the honey where you want it? It had puzzled me since starting this blog. The solution is quite simple really. A plastic screen is put between the third and second storey. The holes in the screen are big enough for the worker bees to creep through but too small for the drones and the Queen. That way the home staying workers oblivious of everything except the task at hand to continue storing supplies, can access the top floor. The drones however cannot avail themselves of those honey stores and the queen cannot lay eggs on the frames.

Drone cells

Timothy the beekeeper was here yesterday to have a look at the hives again. There was a southwesterly gale blowing and the bees were pretty upset. I put on the bee suit to be on the safe side. Indeed the bees were not amused when the hive was openend and they massed around me. The weather has had a negative impact on them. Nevertheless I could see real growth when the lid went off. On this picture the drone cells are clearly visible on the frame. They are the yellow balls. According to Timothy that is a seasonal feature. How he knows that those balls have future Drones inside and not worker bees, I'm sorry to say I didn't ask.

The life and times of worker bees Part 2 The Ottoman Empire

The next stage in a worker bee’s life is guarding the hive. They also take on the task of receiving pollen and nectar from foraging bees. The society of bees is both highly structured and well functioning. Even the occasional palace revolution is embedded into the structure of perpetual order. Few societies both in the animal and human world are like that. Most societies thrive on chaos both from within and from without. The Ottoman Empire is the only society comparable to that of the bees, to my mind. As in the hive in Ottoman society everybody knew his/her place and thrived in it. Individuality was not encouraged and justice didn’t mean in fairness and reasonability but in stability without change. No wonder the Empire lasted 450 years and only came to grief when the chaos around could no longer be kept out. The photo I took in 1966 in the Central Taurus Mountains of Turkey, home ground of the erstwhile Ottomans and famous for it’s honey. On a plateau stand about a hundred hives close together.

The life and times of worker bees Part 1 Carers

Worker bees, not surprisingly, do the work to keep the hive healthy and happy. As Timothy the beekeeper said: bees are stupid but the hive or colony is intelligent. And well organized. Worker bees don’t all do all the work all of the time. Worker bees start their working lives feeding the queen and larvae and doing cleaning duties. For the purpose they have Royal Jelly producing glands. But when they get older and the glands stop functioning they build comb cells for the eggs to be laid in. Photo Amanda Stevens

Rain and Damp

Rain and damp have plaqued these shores for the last 5 weeks. I'm worried about the bees. Are they warm enough? Can they find a honey source? Are the hives thriving? I was very glad to hear that Thimothy the beekeeper was due for another visit. He came late in the day. It was dry but overcast. The bees were still active but not like earlier in the day when they were going in and out of the hives in large numbers. Now the midges were out and for the first time this year they were stinging: much too early for my taste. Apparently when Timothy was here the last time and I was in the Burren, he had discovered that mites pestered the hives. He had put tablets of poison in the hives that he was now taking away again. But there was also good news. The hawthorn had come out in bloom like I had never seen before. Timothy took a photo of one of his bees feasting on the hawthorn blossom.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch

I was away staying with friends in the Burren. When I came back after a mere five days, not only did the County Council in name of the Irish Water Board install a water meter next to the gate to the Polranny Pirates hideaway, but Timothy the beekeeper had also put an extra storey on one of the starter hives. You can never lift your heels for a second without the world you left behind changing completely. I missed out on all the fun! Now I have to wait for the first water bill in a long time to be put into the mailbox and Timothy to come back to do the second hive.

Labeling frames

I could witness the move of the nucleus of one hive to the other from close up thanks to the beekeeper suit I wore. Now I noticed that each of the frames had a sign written with a red marker pen. I asked Timothy the beekeeper what it meant. It was his system for marking the function of the different frames. F stood for Foundation, S for Store and DB for Drone Base. I wasn’t far advanced in the knowledge of the Apiculture in our Apiary to fully understand the meaning, but there is always room for improvement on my part. It was time to take off the beekeeper's suit and go surf the internet.

Moving house

Timothy the beekeeper was satisfied with the work the nucleus of bees in the Styrofoam hive had done the past weeks. They had industriously been filling the combs. Now it was time to proceed with the good works in their new abode. When you move house you take all the good stuff with you and transplant it in a new environment: the same with the bees. The frames well cleaned of excess bees wax go in one by one in the same order. And of course the position of the queen bee will be checked.