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 The old queen that he had marked and clipped must have died and been replaced by a new queen.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)

Clew Bay Honey’s First Birthday

Message from Timothy Stevens beekeeper to among many others the Polranny Pirates. ‘Hi everyone. Sorry for such infrequent posts. Things tend to get a bit hectic in the summer with me. So here is a quick update no photos I’m afraid as I scratched the lens on the camera I use. I hope to get that sorted out soon and start getting more pics up. I celebrated my 1st year in business on the 20th of June. The year has truly flown for me. To think last year I was registering for tax and getting my company name sorted. The list of what has been achieved from then to now is massive. I started this with 19 hives and now have over 35 full hives and close to 40 nucs(half hives). I am well on line with meeting and surpassing my own goals for this year for growth. All I need now is 3 good weeks weather in July (a big ask I know) and I will be able to get honey into a few more shops.’ Congratulations to Timothy and hopefully the Polranny Pirate Bees will surpass themselves in supplying Clew Bay Honey! I’m going to Amsterdam now and I’ll be away for a few months. Most likely it will be very quiet on the blog for a while. The bees will be busy making honey and I shall miss all the fun.

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

Meanwhile back in Achill

Yesterday Timothy swung by accompanied by Jude a colleague from the Westport Beekeepers Association. They had been replacing an aggressive colony at Achill Secret Garden with a more docile one. The hive now gets a new residence in Glenhest far from the madding crowd. Timothy also had installed a starter hive at Sheila McHugh in BullsMouth (another colleague of mine from the Achill Writers Group). He has now four and possibly five addresses in Achill of which three on Achill. That means that we will get our own ‘run’ in the future. Now Timothy gets in later and later because he has so much to do before Achill. Yesterday it was nine at night. The bees were grumpy and the midges out in full force. Still, the second hive has a honey box now too. The stores were sufficient and things were generally going well. One of the bee’s favourite summer flower is in bloom: white clover. The picture shows the first ones but soon the garden was covered… till Mike Wilson came yesterday to cut the grass. But there are still plenty left. The most enthralling ode to white clover is in Soma Morgenstern’s ‘In einer anderen Zeit’. If you read German it is well worth the effort. I found it ‘unputdownable’.It's in the library of the Polranny Pirates.

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

The weight of the stores

Timothy the beekeeper is detecting a problem in his hives: the feed stores are low. He checked the stores by weighting the frames in his hands. In Polranny they seem alright for the time being, but it might come to pass here too. I quote freely from his recent entry on Facebook Clew Bay Honey: ‘Most years have a gap in nectar producing plants in the summer. This is called by beekeepers in Ireland "the June gap". Normally bees store enough spring honey to get them over this gap and into the main honey flow. This year it is very possible that I shall have to feed the hives instead. This leads to an interesting problem: making sure there is no feed ending up in the honey that is harvested in August. If I feed too much I risk mixing and if I feed to little the hive dies… ‘ But today the sun broke through the clouds and the bees are in a feeding frenzy. I’m already stung when I went to spy on them. Photo Karin Daan

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 shopping basket of the worker bee

The worker bee never leaves the hive without her shopping basket. Nature attached it permanently to her hind leg. When she sticks her head into the flower the pollen gets stuck to her head and thorax. With her front legs moistened with nectar, she gathers it up and brings it to the pollen comb. There the pollen is combed, pressed and put into the basket. The nectar gives the pollen in the basket its colour. That’s how the beekeeper knows from which flower or honey source the bee has been foraging from. Once the pollen is in the hive it’s gets stored by the home worker bees. They mix it with honey and pack it firmly into store cells. The mixing with honey has to do with keeping it safe from going off. Photo of the bee with pollen on her hind legs: Timothy Stevens. Drawing by me.

The life and times of worker bees Part 3 Foragers

After the learning stages in and close to the hive the worker bees venture out into the great big world to find the honey source and bring pollen and nectar home. As Timothy the beekeeper already said: the bee is stupid but the hive is clever. And so the worker bees dance the story of the best honey sources to each other generation after generation for tens of thousands of years. They perform tremble dances to let the home front know that foragers are returning with the goodies. Worker bees also scout the ‘nesting’ place for the swarm to go to when the time has come for the queen to leave the colony and start a new one. Photo Timothy 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.

The nucleus or nucs or colony of bees

Bees live in a colony. Timothy the beekeeper calls a small colony a nucleus or nucs. There are three different kinds of bees in a colony: drones, workers and the queen. Each nucleus contains one queen bee: the only egg producing female bee in the hive. Depending on the season there are up to a few thousand drone bees: fertile males and tens of thousands sterile female bees, the worker bees which produce and shape the wax honeycomb on the frame. The queen has a spermatheca, a reproductive organ to receive and store the sperm from drones. Using the sperm selectively she actually choses which of the eggs she lays is fertilized. Drones develop from unfertilized eggs while future queens and worker bees are born out of fertilized eggs. Queen, drones and workers are different from each other. The trained eye of the beekeeper can tell them apart.

Anaesthesizing the bees

The Styrofoam starter hive was placed on top of his neighbour to make room for the brand new wooden hive that will be the bees permanent home. Timothy the beekeeper gives every year a different colour to the hives he makes himself. This one should have been a bright pink as he assured me it was this year’s colour. But it had a brown tarnish: ‘Store bought,’ he said. What a pity. I love a bit of the old pink. The lid was off the Styrofoam box but before he was able to move the swarm from the one hive to the next Timothy had to give them a dose of the anaesthesizing smoke from the bellows.

In a beekeeper’s suit

Timothy the beekeeper was going to replace the Styrofoam starter hive with a proper wooden one where more storeys could be added to. It meant an unexpected house move for the bees. It was something that would upset them. To view the procedure from close up I had to be dressed accordingly: in a beekeeper’s suit. To be inside the suit was not as sweaty and claustrophobic as I expected. Highly recommended as alternative to a niqab or burka.photo Karin Daan

Bees in Achill Secret Garden

As honey source is the ultimate condition for keeping bees Achill Secret Garden is the place to be. On the last day of April on their daughter’s thirties birthday Timothy the beekeeper installed no less than 4 starter hives in the seaside garden of Pirate’s friends Doutsje and Willem. The garden with all its flowering plants and shrubs is a haven for hungry honey bees. Doutsje and Willem improved and beautified an existing hundred year old seaside garden on the east coast of Achill Island. Since 1967 they have been working non-stop to make this garden the pride of the island. During the past winter they have cleared a section where wind damaged trees darkened the ground. Timothy chose this place for his beehives. It is far from the house and the visitor’s route through the garden.

Quiet is a beguiling word

All looked wonderful with the sun shining and the bees a-buzzing. The sheep were safely put behind bars and forgotten. The next upset came from Facebook of all places. That happens when you make a blog and link the blog to FB every now and then. Lilian Voshaar a Polranny Pirates’ friend and environmental activist in the Amsterdam district called De Pijp wrote: ‘I wonder if there is enough to eat for the bees through the year. Here we try to make the best of it by advising different plants for different seasons to accommodate insects.’ To which Timothy Stevens the beekeeper answered: ‘I shall be keeping a very close eye on stores for the bees. I am not certain that there will be forage in the height of the summer in Polranny and June may prove troublesome. This is one of the main reasons that I have only installed two hives to see if the location can stand that and if it can I shall increase the number. From late this month the hives will be seen every week and inspected every two. I also intend to pay close attention to the pollen coming into these hives and others I have placed close by to see what the bees are foraging on.’ Well! Never a dull day!

In the Green Zone

The hives were now neatly tied up and weighted down with a rock. As an extra precaution Timothy the beekeeper said that when he was coming back he was going to put a sheep wire fence around the hives making it a kind of compound where no terrorist sheep could penetrate; a bit like the Green Zone in Bagdad. The next day the damaging sheep had disappeared. Later I was told by Polranny Pirates’ friend Annie Masterson that Johnny her grandson and Michael, Peggy’s son had moved the offending sheep quietly like, under the cloak of the night back to the pen where they belonged. After that all seemed quiet on the western front.

Fit to be tied

I was so upset about what the sheep had done to the hives that I was fit to be tied. I was sure the exposure of the inside of the hive to the elements would lead to the death of the whole swarm. What would that do to Timothy the beekeeper? Only one day after he managed the hives and so deftly and knowledgeable cared for his beloved bees. I was sure he would deem me unfit to host his bees as I could not even protect them from fecking sheep! Timothy would pack them up and take them away leaving me all alone. Then I knew that the bees had entered my life big time. But Timothy was unimpressed: ‘No harm done’, he said. ‘This is sheep country. Something like this is to be expected. It could have been worse. I should have tied the hives up properly.’ What a relief!

The bellows

Before they left Timothy the beekeeper showed the workings of his smoke producing bellows. It was a beautiful gadget of unditerminable age made out of copper and was full of dents. It was obvious that it had seen a lot of action in its working life. A friend had given it to Thimothy. The leather on the bellows had badly deteriorated but after it was replaced by part of an inner tube it worked again. The smoke is supposed to have a calming effect on the bees and is produced by smoldering hay or straw. Amanda photographed it all on her smartphone. Notice that the wooden starter hive is not tied up to the hive stand nor weighted down by a stone. It would cause great drama the next day...

The Queen receives her crown

Finishing the whole procedure with a florish Timothy the beekeeper put a bright green dot on the queen’s head. The green dot was het crown and made her stand out from the other bees. ‘There you are! In two weeks I will come back to check on their progress.’ And with that Timothy and Amanda left me alone with the bees. I was over the moon with having the bees in the Polranny Pirates’ garden. It was as having a vegetable patch: making the space useful and adding something to its core value.