Due to a mini vacation and rain, it has been over a week since I last fed the bees in the backyard. Today’s weather forecast was clear so I mixed them up a fresh batch of syrup. It took almost an hour before any bees were at the feeder and despite them having a few hours to rally the girls to come clean up, they are mostly ignoring it. There are at most a few dozen bees at the feeder at any moment. There are still 5 hives in the yard, so I would expect more bees than that. The Goldenrods are in bloom, so the Fall honey flow might be in full swing.
Before putting any hives on my property, I spent a large amount of my free time reading about what to expect and how to be a good neighbor with a few hives. Bees need water and will use a source of water whether you like it or not. Bees like dirty water, chlorinated water and salty water. I did a google satellite search and didn’t see any pools anywhere near my house, so I didn’t think that would be an issue I would potentially encounter. Just to be on the safe side, I keep the fountain full with a few goldfish to give the water some flavor. There has always been a very active presence at the fountain. Anywhere from a dozen to a few hundred bees actively fetching water from the found. This gave me the impression that I was providing a good water source for my bees.
It turns out that a neighbor behind my property has a pool. I cannot see it from my yard, but I learned this when the owner called me about “a lot of bees” constantly visiting her yard to sun on her deck and enjoy the salt water in the pool. She was very friendly and understanding, despite being inconvenienced. Her and her family have even been stung while trying to enjoy the pool. Bees dislike being splashed, even unintentionally.
When she said “a lot of bees” , I had a mental image of thousands of bees draining her pool. Something like this.
“A lot of bees” is a relative term. It turned out to be 4-5 bees at a time, but a steady stream of them coming and going during the hotter parts of the day. Thankfully, it was not like I envisioned. The phone call was friendly, so I hand delivered a jar of honey and let her know that we’d try to do a better job of enticing the bees away from their pool. It was later in the day when I visited and didn’t see any bees going to the pool. There was a bee flying around the yard looking for something. It was interested in us, so I encouraged her land on my finger instead of anyone else. Bees in the field are usually friendly and I was trying to show that you don’t need to swat at them if they are hovering around you. In fact, you’re more likely to get stung if you do swat at them.
Given the low amount of bee traffic to their pool, I put out a giant ice bucket full of water in the back of my yard and connected it to the drip irrigation system to help keep it full. I plan to make the water more attractive for the bees by adding some lemon grass. Bees are attracted to lemon grass oil, so a 40 gallon bucket of lemon grass “tea” will hopefully reduce the bee visits to the pool to an unnoticeable level. I do plan on moving some of the hives off to other locations as soon as I pick up the pickup in two weeks. I don’t think it’s possible to stop all bee traffic to her pool because there are a few beekeepers in the area and it is a nice pool.
The bees got a flavorful treat this evening. Alissa was canning blueberries and some of them leaked. The water turned dark blue. Instead of dumping the water down the drain, I used it to make a batch of syrup for the bees. They seemed to like it better than regular syrup and more of the ladies turned out for the feeding. I also refilled the quart jar on the NUC on a Top Bar Hive with some of this blue water. I’m hoping they draw out some blue-ish comb. If they draw out any blue tinted wax, then I’m going to start experimenting more with different natural colorings. I think the ladies of that hive either don’t like blue or were not too pleased with my attempts to put the jar on the screen that they were obstructing. They send a representative bee to state their objections above my left knee. No noticeable swelling yet.
Here in NC, we’re in the middle of dearth. The only thing the bees have to eat is what they can find and what they stockpiled during the last flow. I am fortunate to have my hives located where I do. More urban areas tend to have more in bloom because people landscape their yards with non-native plants that bloom throughout the year. I also happen to have several garden nurseries and home improvement stores within the forage range of a bee.
I wanted to give them a little food boost to help them draw out more comb in preparation of the fall flow. Yesterday, I put out 10 lbs batch of 1:1 sugar syrup (10 lbs sugar, 10 lbs water). I was at work and asked my wife if there was any activity at the feeder. “There are a few bees”, she responded. I expected her to see more than just a few bees. The feeder was completely empty of syrup when I returned from work. There were still a few small clusters of bees, a few yellow jackets and a spider with a butt the size of a quarter. I put the local newspaper to good use and played whack a mole with the yellow jackets. After I killed four of them, the rest had scattered. I’m not sure what the spider was doing, but it would hide whenever it saw me.
I put out another batch of the same size this morning. There were about a dozen bees crawling around looking for any leftovers from yesterday’s feast. There were a lot of ants crawling around in the dry feeder. I refilled the feeder, drowning many of the ants. I put away the now empty stock pot and fetched my camera to take some pictures. I was back outside in about 10 minutes and took the below video. Thousands of bees feasting. I couldn’t see a single ant anywhere near the inside of the feeder. I did notice a few crazy yellow jackets landing and trying to feed.
The main honey flow has come and gone. Now there really isn’t much for the bees to gather for the next month. They’ll use what they’ve stored up until the next honey flow. Many of my hives are still relatively small because they started as swarms and need to build up. For this reason, I plan on feeding them syrup. I boiled 10 lbs of water, removed from heat and then added 10 lbs of sugar. I gave a quart of syrup to the weak hive by the raspberries and to the split with the purchased queen. Antheia already has a top feeder in place and I’ll give her a gallon or two in the morning. The hive at the community garden will also get a gallon or two.
I think I’m going to make a few pollen patties. I don’t think any of my hives really need them, but I have the pollen, never made them before and it doesn’t hurt to give them more pollen. It may even get the hives to build up quicker. I need more of my hives to be good and strong if I have any hopes of being able to make a starter hive for raising queens. I still have not even unwrapped the grafting tools.
I have been wanting to experiment with making candy for the bees. There are several recipes available online, but I chose to follow Robo’s Emergency Feeding. I scaled down the recipe to 1/10th because I only have two hives and my electric stove burners probably couldn’t handle a much larger batch.
2.5 lbs sugar
4/5 cup water
1 4/5 tsp. vinegar
Bring the water and vinegar to a boil and mix in the sugar a little bit at a time. Continue to stir occasionally and let the temperature climb to 270F. Remove the pot from heat and wait for the sugar to stop boiling. Very carefully pour the molten candy in to the mold. I recommend using silicone bakeware to allow for easy cleaning and removing the hardened candy.
I took a short video when the sugar was boiling and almost at the right temperature.
I remember being told by a few beekeepers that no matter how friendly a hive may seem during a honey flow, when the winter is looming they will be quite grouchy. Both of my hives were very friendly during the summer, but recently I have to suit up to refill the entrance feeders, or I get stung. Nothing like having tens of thousands of miniature food critics that are not happy with the free service. I’m on crutches, so I am not as quick or graceful with the changing of the food as I was a few months ago.
To avoid alerting the hives to my presence when I remove the bottle, I tried leaving them a plastic bin filled with 2:1 sugar water. I placed it on a concrete block next to the hives because I didn’t want them to have to fly to far to get to it. I even put a bunch of small sticks in it so they would have a nice place to land without the risk of drowning. They never noticed it. Instead, it turned in to the most popular club for ants. It was packed with the little red bastards with a hundreds more waiting for their turn to climb up the block and in to the bowl of sugary goodness.
I made a second attempt to feed the bees and was not going to give another free meal to one of the many ant hills squatting on my property. This time, I placed a small bowl of moist sugar on the water fountain that the bees frequent. There was no way that they would not notice this and the bees would have to ford two bodies of water to reach the sugar.
My other concern was yellow jackets. They like sugar as much as bees and one vs. one wasps are tougher than bees. A strong colony of yellow jackets can invade a bee hive, kill lots of bees and rob them of their honey. When I went back out to check on the bowl of sugar a short while later, the bees found it and there was a lone yellow jacket. The honey bees politely informed the yellow jacket that the sugar had already been claimed.
I took this opportunity to try and get a few good shots of the bees in flight. It took many tries, but I did manage to get some in focus shorts of bees flying.
In preparation for the beekeeper workshop and the two hives that will be started this year, I ordered a pair of UltraBreeze Bee Jackets from Honeymoon Apiaries. I find the heat and humidity of the south to be too much when wearing shorts and a tshirt, so breathable bee protective clothing is a must. I have spent countless hours reading the Beemaster forum and these suits and jackets were highly recommended for warmer climates.
Welcome to my blog about beekeeping. I am completely new to the hobby and currently have no hives. Like all who have started down the similar path, I am at step 1. I hope that my successes and failures will help others to enjoy their hives.
