The Bingaling Buzz
May 2013
(05-16-13) It has been a good month for capturing swarms... 3 so far, I gave them all good homes. I also did 2 splits this month, 19 colonies up and running!
(05-14-13) Inspections, fed syrup and pollen patties today; and converted all deeps to 9 frames. It was a long day, glad I had William to help with the heavy lifting. :^) |
Swarm captured south Mount Vernon
|
April 2013
(04-24-13) Finally, my 4 Nucs arrived - installed in their new homes, and placed them in the Clear Lake & Sedro Woolley bee yards.
(04-20-13) We had a "Field Day" at WSU Research Center in Mount Vernon, Beekeepers gathered around Sue Cobey to listen and learn from her expertise on beekeeping & colony health. Quite a few new apprentices were in attendance. (04-11-13) It was a good day to be out on the Samish Flats and on Bow Hill doing my inspections and feeding our bees - 5 healthy hives there doing very well. |
Sue Cobey shares about beekeeping...
|
March 2013
(03-17-13) Happy Saint Paddy's Day - I'm making sugar syrup today to feed my bees... Oh, and celebrating 1 year retired Renton Fire & Emergency Services!
(03-11-13) First night of SVBA Apprentice Beekeeping Class, I'm helping out with the class - Bill Marcus & Bob Price are the primary instructors... A lot of material to cover in four - 2 hour classes, but lots of fun working with new beekeepers. :^) |
I brought in some of my dark bees...
|
February 2013
(02-13-13) This month Bingaling Bees is starting to produce Natural Honey Soap - containing palm, coconut & olive oils with small amounts of honey and beeswax (variety of scents).
(02-04-13) Also, continuing to perform winter inspections of the hives; lost one more colony (sigh), cluster must have been just a little too far from their honey stores during the cold snap. The hives on the flats haven't wintered well. |
1st batch - Bingaling Natural Honey Soap...
with a lemongrass scent
|
January 2013
(01-11-13) This week as it began to get colder, I went out to all the yards to install inserts in the screened bottom boards and remove ventilation shims on the inner covers, to tighten things up for our bees. I also checked honey stores and added a couple of honey frames to those hives in need. I also gave a beekeeping presentation to the Kiwanis in La Conner this week...
|
Winter inspections on the Samish Flats
|
December 2012
(12-18-12) I went out today to check the bee yards I missed earlier in the week. This time of the year, it's mostly just weighing the hives to see how fast they're consuming their honey stores, and cleaning the entrances. I use a luggage scale to record a "tipping" weight, and compare to last month's weight. It's a great non-invasive way to get a feel for what's going on in the hive.
|
My luggage scale to get tipping weight
|
November 2012 (2nd Half)
I discovered a yellow jacket problem at one of our hives while I was collecting some bees for the beekeeping presentation I did for the folks at the La Conner Retirement Inn. I had fun sharing about Honey Bees and beekeeping, I think the presentation went well; but then I had to go back the next day and put entrance reducers on all the hives to help them combat yellow jackets.
|
I had fun talking about honey bees...
|
November 2012 (1st Half)
Well - I checked all the colonies, pulled out the empty frame feeders and installed my new mini wind breaks... This warm wet weather is already making the colonies eat up their reserves pretty fast, I've noticed 2 or 3 hives are significantly lighter in just a month. Hope we have a good winter for the Honey Bees... :>)
|
I built & installed new mini wind breaks
|
October 2012 (2nd Half)
I still need to pick up some empty frame feeders from the hives and replace the deep frames that were pulled out earlier. There are a couple of colonies I'll have to keep a close-eye on come Spring, they're just a little too light on their weight. I had some fun on Halloween passing out candy in my new bee hat...
|
Couldn't pass up 40% off a bee hat
|
October 2012 (1st Half)
I've been busy inspecting the colonies and doing essential oil/sugar syrup drenches. It's a pretty labor intensive process spraying each frame of bees in each of the hives, but will help with Nosema C. and the Varroa mites; and hopefully enable everyone to make it through the Winter...
|
Bees hanging out after drench...
|
September 2012 (2nd Half)
Once again, I've borrowed the club's extractor to finish up the honey for 2012. It was a nice surprise to squeeze out 30 more pounds from the supers removed before the Fall feeding began. I'm still looking for a new extractor for next year's honey, and need to stop and visit Hank at Belleville Honey here in our area to check out extractor prices.
|
Bingaling Honey, ready to be labeled
|
September 2012 (1st Half)
Well, I moved four colonies to the North Cascade foothills right after Labor Day and we're still looking for new locations that might have better year-round foraging... If you live in Skagit County and are interested in hosting Honey Bees, give us a call. We begin feeding sugar syrup next week to prepare all the hives for the coming winter...
|
Loaded up four hives early in morning...
|
August 2012 (2nd Half)
Wow! Extracted Honey and sold it all in the same week... I was a little disappointed in the quantity the bees put up in the supers, but I think next year will be much better with most of the colonies being in their 2nd or 3rd year. Also, it'll help that I'm moving some of the hives in the next couple of weeks to higher elevations where the year round foraging should be much better?
|
Capping scratcher to prepare the comb
|
August 2012 (1st Half)
I had the opportunity to volunteer in the Skagit Valley Beekeepers Booth for three mornings during the Skagit County Fair this month. We answered a lot of questions about bees, beekeeping and honey. There seems to be a lot of interest from the general public; of course, it helps that Club President - Bill Markus brought in and set up the observation hive. It was a lot of fun...
|
SVBA booth at the Skagit County Fair
|
July 2012 (2nd Half)
I worked hard this last week in the yards with inspections and discovered about 16 frames of capped honey in the supers of 5 colonies. I'm down a colony, had to combine it with another hive because it had a drone laying queen. Also, I managed to capture a swarm the last day of the month that was in the middle of a brush burn pile, made for an interesting challenge...
|
Blodgett Swarm (photo by Julie Hyry)
|
July 2012 (1st Half)
We now have 20 colonies up and running after our latest swarm capture from Bennett Road. I received a few stings on my hands after not putting on my gloves and the bees took advantage of that fact when I shook them off one of the top branches of a very tall plum tree (quite a few landed on the back of my right hand). I will try and remember to put my gloves on next time.
|
Swarm capture in their new home
|
June 2012
I'm still feeding the bees sugar syrup to help the new packages to get a good start. I also attended an interesting 'Queen Rearing' class at WSU - Skagit, instructed by the renowned Sue Cobey. I hope the nectar will begin to flow soon and our honey bees will begin putting up lots of surplus honey. :>)
|
Queen rearing class at WSU - Skagit
|
May 2012
It's been a great month! I'm still feeding everybody syrup and patties. I've captured 3 honey bee swarms and installed them in their new homes. We now have 18 colonies in 7 yards. All the new hives are doing very well; and I'm continuing to learn a lot about keeping the 'hives right'. :>)
|
West Kamb Yard and me in my new jacket
|
April 2012
I've been busy the first part of this month getting lots of bee hives placed in new yards. Installed 14 - 3lb packages on the 20th, had a little problem with the last 2 hives. It really was a combination of tired hot bees and a veil mishap, got stung a few times on the back of my neck. We now have 15 colonies up and running in 6 yards, and I have a new bee jacket to prevent any future mishaps... :>)
|
Pulver yard, 3 new hives
|
March 2012
I'm still feeding the bees fondant, and making contact with new bee yard property owners. Also, still building the new hive boxes and frames, removed the mouse guards from the colonies, a quick clean of all the bottom boards, and I'm starting to prepare the new yards for the new hives we're starting next month.
|
 Bee candy on top the frames... |
February 2012
Started feeding all the hives bee candy (fondant) since a couple of colonies were getting light on stores. Good insurance to help make sure the bees make it to Spring. It's like fudge without the chocolate. Weather has been cold, wet & windy... We'll see if I can keep five hives alive and well until Spring arrives...
|
 Bee Candy - Winter Food for the Bees |
January 2012
Winter inspections - discovered some moisture problems, removed newspaper insulation. Made sure that that the bee candy I made is in place; because a couple of hives were getting light. I'm building & painting deeps, & assembling frames... keeping busy getting 16 new hives ready for our new residents in April.
|
 Stenciling deeps & supers |
December 2011
Changed out the wind baffles that weren't working and built temporary windscreens at each yard; also wrapped hive boxes in six mil black plastic to assist bees with maintaining warmth of hive through the Winter. I'll remove everything in March when things begin to warm up a bit.
|
 Bees all tucked in for the Winter... |
November 2011
Placed a
few more pallets and concrete blocks in the yards in preparation for new
colonies in the Spring. I also checked on the new experimental wind baffles,
may have to do some modifications; they have moved a bit in the high
winds.
|
 New wind baffles in place |
October 2011
Finished up Winter preparations at the yards and we did "Honey Bee - Beekeeping" presentations for four - 2nd grade classes this month at Little Mountain Elementary. We covered a lot of material, hope the kids enjoyed it; I know I had fun and I'll fine-tune it to make it better next year... :>)
|
 Honey Bees & Beekeeping presentation |
September 2011
A busy month - fed the bees 2 to 1 sugar syrup, built & installed new mouse guard/reducers. I checked to make sure each colony has 60 pounds honey and a couple of frames of pollen for the winter; but there are some very aggressive bees in the Cairo colony at the Benson yard. I'm wondering if something has been bugging them or the queen needs to be replaced?
|
 El Dorado before move to Pulver yard |
August 2011 (2nd half)
We finished up extracting honey at the end of the month; 1st extraction about 26 pounds; 2nd extraction around 7 pounds - not much; but great for a 1st year colony. The bees have been busy building their wax comb the 1st year. Hopefully, we'll get a lot more honey next year off these five hives and a little off the 16 new ones...
|
 wax cappings strained off... |
August 2011 (1st half)
I discovered 6 frames in the honey super, close to being ready to harvest on the Amsterdam colony at the West Kamb Yard. Tomorrow, I'll pick up a new queen for the queenless colony next to it. Lots of honey in the brood boxes though...
|
 Amsterdam hive has surplus honey! |
July 2011 (2nd half)
Picture shows a great example of 'bearding'; my bees thought the Bejiing colony was a little warm, so they hung out outside for awhile to lower temperature for the brood inside. Everybody was back inside after 15 minutes when I opened a crack by sliding a super back a bit.
|
 Bearding on the Bejiing hive |
July 2011 (1st half)
The honey supers are on, but the bees are not showing much interest in building comb. I Removed the feeders and installed drone frames to control Varroa mites through IPM program. Also, lost half of Bejiing colony to swarming during 1st week from the Pulver Yard, swapped the brood boxes and frames on rest of the hives and nipped that in the bud.
|
 Lots of larvae in the hives... |
June 2011
Worked the new colonies... removed the entrance reducers & the solid bottom boards. Made some new feeder floats, now it should be much easier to refill without killing some bees. I will need to reconfigure the reducers and bottom boards before next September.
|
 |
May 2011
Ok - finally have all of our bees in all four of our colonies (about 40,000 bees total). I will confirm that the queens have been released from their 'queen cages' on the 4th or 5th. This will be a very busy month for the new bees while they gather nectar, pollen and build out their comb in the new homes.
|
 Installing bees at Pulver yard |
April 2011
I've placed four empty hive brood boxes in two apiary sites. One site is off Pulver Road near the Skagit River and the other site is off Benson Road on the Samish River flats. Now, we are all ready for the bees to be delivered and installed next week. Then, we are in the bee business. :>)
|
 Benson yard on the Samish flats |
March 2011
Finally finished all the bee hives, lots of honey frames left to assemble but the hive boxes are done... Taking another beekeeping class, this one local - Skagit Valley Beekeepers Association - fine tuning, getting good stuff for this area (instructor - Bill Markus).
|
 Hive boxes ready to go... |
February 2011
I have two hives completely painted (2 coats each of the 10 boxes), two more hives left to paint go.... figured out what I'm going to do for the four hive stands. I bought sacks of sugar, but I'm still waiting for 125 sheets of plasticell on back order from Western Bee Supply in Montana.
|
 lots of bee supplies... |
January 2011
I think I finally figured out how I'm going to build the mouse guards, and hive construction is complete. I have also been buying more tools and supplies; slowly getting everything I need...
|
 tools and more... |
December 2010
Building bee hives for my bees, two deeps, and two supers per hive; also this week - I ordered 4 packages of Italian Honey Bees from Belleville Honey for April 15th delivery. Still figuring out sites for last two bee colonies...
|
 build, build, build... |
November 2010
Took delivery from Western Bee Supplies, in Poulson, Montana - a 500 lb pallet of equipment & supplies; and finished up my classes in the WSU Apprentice Beekeeper Course. I used my new truck to haul all the supplies home from the pumpkin patch. :>)
|
 The new honey bee truck... |
October 2010
"Bingaling Bees" - just starting out... lots of classes to take... lots of research to do... equipment & supplies to buy... hives to build... & bees to install... and a LOT to learn!
|
 Geniune Bingaling Bees |