First Hive Check

 

Bee Whyld bee yard

The Bee Whyld team ventured out on Monday afternoon to do the first hive check. The new hives have had a few days to settle in, and foraging bees are already busy bringing rich, Yukon pollen in. 

Brood box brimming with honey bees

We were happy to find all the hives brimming with bees. These hives are early splits from the Vancouver area. It is apparent these colonies are quite a few weeks ahead of our Yukon ones.

Jess smoking bees before removing the top box

With Liz’s New Zealand beekeeping tips and tricks, everyone became pretty adept at opening and inspecting the hives. The smoker came in handy to keep the bees calm.

Joel holding a full honey frame

Those industrious worker bees have been busy collecting nectar and have already created full frames of honey. These frames will remain in the larger brood boxes. This honey will be left for the bees to eat.

Courtney searching for the queen on a very busy brood frame

Frames that are situated in the middle of the box tend to be brood frames. Brood patterns were examined while keeping a watchful eye out for the all-important queen bee.

One of our beautiful queen bees in the centre of the picture

It’s always exciting to find the queen bee. These are beautiful hybrid queens. They do not have a solid black, or orange, abdomen. A hybrid queen can produce orange or black drones. There were plenty examples of both.

Younger larva in top left, older larva bottom right, capped pupa in centre

Frames are gently removed with hopes of spotting the queen. If the queen remains elusive, then signs that she is hard at work is enough. This is evident when eggs and larva in various stages of development are present in numerous cells.

Feeding the bees

Finally, before closing up the hive a sugar/water mixture is poured into the in-hive feeder. This is to sustain the bees until the Yukon flowers are in full bloom.

There is simply something magical about spending an afternoon surrounded by thousands of buzzing honey bees.

Bears and Bees

Courtney and Joel with setup split hives

Two of Bee Whyld’s hives came through the winter particularly strong. When this happens, there is always the chance of an early swarm. To prevent this occurrence, and to hang onto our bees, we split both of these strong hives.

To split, a couple frames full of brood (capped larva), along with the attending nurse bees, were moved from the strong hive into an empty brood box. Frames with honey and pollen were also added, including the bees present on these frames. A queen bee, still in her cage, was the final addition. These two new hives were moved to the farm.

The following day, the doors were removed from the queen cages allowing the workers access to eat through the ‘candy’ and release their new queen. She will begin to lay eggs and a new colony will be in fair shape by the time the Fireweed blooms.

Or so we thought … Unfortunately, someone had other plans …

 

Yukon black bear

After a call about a bear in the hives, Liz was recruited to check the damage. Armed with her bee suit, a fresh super of honey, and a large can of bear spray, she ventured out.

This is the scene that greeted her upon her arrival.

 

Bear devastated honey bee hives

Despite popular belief, bears aren’t after the honey as much as they are after the protein-filled larva. Honey is simply a sweet bonus.

Damage assessed and slowing putting it back together

Numerous frames were broken and the foundation removed. Some were licked so clean you would not have known there had been wax, larva, pollen and honey there only a few short hours before.

All the brood has been eaten by the bear

Here is one of the partially gnawed on frames. A lot of the wax and honey are gone, as is the entire brood. The yellow is some remaining pollen.

Lots of dead bees litter the area

You can also see piles of valiant worker bees that died trying to save their hive. Even though the bees would have attacked the bear’s face. They are not much of a match for a hungry bear.

Smart bees saved their queen under the pallet

Beginning the job of cleanup, Liz spotted a small group of bees under the pallet. If one of the queens survived, there would be hope of putting at least one hive back together. As she gently scooped the bees and placed them in a reconstructed box, the queen bee flew up and landed on her face screen! Despite a very cautious attempt, the queen flew away before she could catch her. With thoughts of simply returning the surviving bees to their original hive, the clean up continued.

A queen cage

Under an overturned lid … a queen cage … a wet, dirty, no doubt traumatized, but still alive, queen inside. Liz opened her cage and into the hive with the remaining bees she went.

Their new home

The surviving bees and queen in a reconstructed hive safe from bears (I hope) in my yard.

The queen bee 

A day later, dry and clean, our queen with her attendants and other workers surrounding her.

The season has just begun and hopefully this colony can make a complete recovery after a disastrous start.

Beeswax Candles

Most people are familiar with the lovely ambiance of a burning beeswax candle. Aside from pure enjoyment, there are other reasons that should make beeswax your candle of choice.

There is the beautiful soft light and delicate fragrance exclusive to a beeswax candle. But, on a more practical note … a beeswax candle will burn longer, hotter and burns negative ions. This means it is literally cleaning the air you breathe. Paraffin candles, by the way, are a petroleum product.

History

Beeswax candles have a long and important history with humans. The Egyptians are given credit for the very first beeswax candle, and this around 3000 BC. Through many thousands of years it remained the cleanest, and most pleasant smelling, source of light.

Wax Production – a honey bee’s perspective

Wax flakes on a worker bee's abdomen

The important job of wax production falls to, of course, the amazing worker bee. At some point during her first three weeks in the hive as a house bee she will produce wax. She has eight glands on her abdomen (last part of her body) that produce very thin pieces of wax.

Capped and uncapped honey comb

Comb hanging from a frame

Obviously bees are pretty happy with a dark hive and do not require wax for candles and light. Wax for them is the perfect storage solution. They use the paper-thin pieces of wax to make comb. Comb is beeswax shaped into perfect hexagon cells. These cells are used to store honey, pollen and propolis, or used by the queen to lay eggs.

Bee chain hanging from frame on left

Like everything in a beehive, it’s a community affair and building comb is no exception. A bee chain is created. The wax producing bees hand the wax pieces to the construction bees. Construction bees chew, soften and shape the wax. It is then handed to the engineer bees that place the wax to create those amazing, perfect hexagons.

Comb with a couple layers

A look down at some tunnels

Some engineer honey bees tend to be a little more artistic and design some beautiful comb structures! Since worker bees are all female … they like to coordinate the color of wax. A light colored cell will receive a light colored cap, and a dark colored cell will receive a dark colored cap. Makes perfectly good sense to me!

Wax Production – a beekeeper’s perspective

Beekeepers generally only harvest the wax caps (or cappings) that were cut off the frames to allow the honey to be spun out. The rest of the wax cells are left on the wooden frame/plastic foundation and stored for next year. This way, the bees can do a little cell repair work and put their time and energy into filling the cells with honey.

Sticky bits of wax and honey

Cappings are usually a pretty sticky mess of honey and beeswax. A bit of a daunting task to separate, not to mention, extremely messy! The first step is to soak and rinse as much honey off the wax as possible. This is definitely an outside job. Honey is a very good compound if you want to plug drainpipes!

With that accomplished, the wax needs to be filtered. The wax cappings are heated in a solar oven and filtered through paper towel. You are left with a clean, filtered block of beeswax ready to be made in candles.

Finished beeswax candle

This is the fun part! Beeswax should always be melted in a double boiler as it is quite flammable. Once in a liquid state and at the proper temperature, it is poured into a candle mold with a wick and left to dry and harden. Once removed, the wick will be trimmed and it’s ready to enjoy!!

Not only is honey a precious commodity, beeswax is may be even more precious! Wax production is very labor intensive for bees. Honey bees must consume between six to eight pounds of honey in order to produce only one pound of wax!!