Many Happy Returns

September 30, 2017September 30, 2017 Lazer Creek ApiaryLeave a comment

If you read my blog from two weeks ago, you’ll know that at that time we did not have a single bee anywhere in our yard — not even on a feeder bucket. Well, we left the bucket out and on Thursday we found a handful of bees feasting away. There were a few more yesterday, and even more today. All of the foragers are young bees, which supports our premise that the old field force was killed off. The timing would be about right for nurse bees to have graduated to being foragers.

Another exciting thing about these bees is that there are some black bees mixed in with the regular Italians. Black bees have a reputation of being aggressive, but they are also known to be resistant to varroa mites. We would love to add some of those genetics to our bee colonies. Black bee numbers were decimated in the early 1900s by tracheal mites, and some thought they had been completely wiped out, but researchers have found some in Europe and in the United States. The ones on the bucket are certainly not aggressive as hubby and I have both coaxed some onto our hands to get a closer look. Of course, that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be aggressive around their hive. We plan to leave feeders out over winter even though we don’t have any active hives in our yard. If we can support the local bee population, we are still achieving one of our goals. If we attract another swarm — well, that would be icing on the cake!

While I was watching the bees and listening to their happy buzzing, I noticed leaves on the Flame Azalea in our memory garden. This particular azalea was planted in memory of my aunt as its vibrant colors just reminded me of her. The plant is also a native plant, not a modern hybrid, and Aunt Joan was so very English in all the best ways. I’m not saying she was old-fashioned, because she wasn’t. She was an inspiration, multi-talented, and full of life. I know the azalea is just a plant, but I felt a sense of loss when it died. While I still thought about Aunt Joan every time I looked at the bare twigs (I couldn’t bear to dig it up), that didn’t cheer me up much! I am so happy to see new growth and am looking forward to next spring when it bursts into oranges, reds, and yellows again.

Without much hope, I thought that if the azalea could come back, maybe the Japanese Maple would too. Now this tree marks the resting place of our daughter’s cat, so it doesn’t have quite the emotional connection for me that the other plants in the memory garden have, but when it died, I felt like I’d let our daughter down. The last thing she needs to see when she walks over there is a dead twig! Lo and behold — new buds and one new leaf.

The idea of a memory garden started when a co-worker gave me tulip bulbs to plant in memory of my father. Tulips do not typically regenerate in the heat and the sandy soil of central South Carolina, but these tulips have returned every year. I enjoy seeing perennials pop back up every year anyway, but that joy takes on a different facet when it is combined with happy memories of those who were so loved so much.

The memory garden will be hard to leave behind when we finally move to the farm full time, but we are trying to root cuttings from all the shrubs to take with us. If that fails, we’ll buy new shrubs of the same kind to put in the memory garden we have already started down there. That garden already has English blue-bells and daffodils planted in it. It’s going to take some time to convince the summer weeds to stay out of there, but we’ll win that battle! My parents, Aunt Joan, and hubby’s parents all loved gardening. What better way to remember them all than to dig in the soil and create something beautiful?

Lazer Creek Apiary

We’ve been robbed! (By hornets)

September 24, 2017May 14, 2020 Lazer Creek ApiaryLeave a comment

One of the challenges with commuting back and forth between our current home and our future home is our inability to always react to warning signs when we see them. It’s frustrating, but currently unavoidable.

Back in August when we were in a nectar dearth, we noticed some big, ugly hornets around that we had never seen before. We also had one formerly strong hive that had been abandoned. We wondered whether the two were connected, but we had to head back to the land of the paychecks and just hoped for the best.

Eurpoean Hornet - Vespa Crabro — Eurpoean Hornet – Vespa Crabro

As always, one of the first things I did yesterday was check bees. Four of our 25 hives had no or little activity, while other hives were very active gathering resources. Bees were returning with huge bags of pollen and traffic in and out was heavy. I knew I couldn’t check all the hives, so the four worrisome ones became my priority. Sadly, three of the hives were devoid of bees or any manner of resources. At the bottom of one of the hives we discovered a dead hornet. Mystery solved: the hives had clearly been robbed by European hornets — the largest hornet in America.

The hornet in the picture clearly hasn’t been dead long, so we assume the critters have been moving from hive to hive. Before we drive back today, we’re going to make sure every hive has an entrance reducer and that all reducers are using the small entrance. This will make it far easier for bees to defend their homes. The hive in which we found the dead hornet — and it was at the back, far from the entrance — was a very strong hive when we last checked it. Our records also show that the queen was young and producing well. One of the other hives was less strong, percentage wise, but had two brood boxes on it, so there should have been plenty of bees in that one to defend from invasion. The third hive was not strong and was queenless last inspection, but with queen cells about to hatch. It’s debatable whether than one failed because of the hornets or because of the transition to a new queen.

The last hive I checked was happily doing well, and I did see the queen actively running around looking for a good place to lay more eggs. They have pollen and nectar stored, and they now have an entrance reducer. Still, if we assume that the hive we lost in August was also because of the hornets, we’ve lost four hives to hornets in just over a month. We need to do whatever we can to combat them. For us, pesticides are not an option. We’ll do more research about them before we come back and hopefully have some ideas to try. The good news is that we haven’t actually seen any this trip — maybe Hurricane Irma blew them to another state!

Speaking of the hurricane, we’ve been able to restore order to the bee yard. Just like the kitchen cabinet reno, we saw this as an opportunity to re-organize and take inventory. It’s amazing how putting a positive spin on things makes restacking bee-boxes fee a little less tedious. It was a harder to clean out dead hives and frame that as a learning experience, but we will install entrance reducers at the first sign of fall dearth from now on! (Or maybe anytime huge hornets are in the neighborhood.) Other good post-hurricane news is that hubby, with the help of our wonderful neighbor, was able to successfully to take down the wind-blown tree that was in danger of falling on the power line. Thanks again, BH! Additionally, the two NUC boxes in the foreground of the picture are the only ones that were crushed by the falling tree. We have so much to be thankful for.

Hive equipment · Lazer Creek Apiary · Supplemental Feeding

What’s going on?

September 17, 2017 Lazer Creek ApiaryLeave a comment

Last week, I mentioned that our one hive in the city was abandoned right after the eclipse. The bees were a swarm capture, and they were doing really well, so it was a surprise to walk up there one day and find no bees whatsoever. What’s currently more surprising is that there are no bees to be seen at all in our yard.

Over at my husband’s workplace and the stores around there, bees are searching for resources in trashcans, showing that there is a definite nectar (sugar) dearth five miles from here. Our neighbor at the farm is seeing the same thing — bees are going after what is left in soda cans. This is something we haven’t seen before, and we assume it has something to do with the high winds and the torrential rains from Hurricane Irma.

In hopes of attracting some bees to the back yard and maybe capturing a fall swarm, I put out a syrup bucket early yesterday morning. Our thought was that even if we don’t capture a swarm, we are helping local bees survive until the ubiquitous Goldenrod recovers enough to provide them what they need leading into winter. After two days, we don’t have a single bee on the bucket. I sprayed some extra Honey-B-Healthy around the bucket this morning as that is as enticing to a bee as good cheesecake is to me, but still no bees. I just have to wonder whether the media-induced frenzy about mosquitoes has led to the death of all feral hives within 2 miles of our home, especially considering the EPA-confirmed pesticide kill we experienced last year.

Bees routinely fly up to two miles to find resources, and even further if that becomes necessary. Of course, like us, they will “shop” locally if the “stores” offer what they need. Bees five miles from here are dumpster-diving for sugary drinks with lots of added chemicals; it makes no sense that we do not have a single bee on our zinnias, clover, garlic flowers, or syrup. Here’s hoping that changes soon…..

Better news is that we have very little damage at the farm.

Tree in hive components

Tree in bee yard

Our neighbors had already checked for damage right after the storm, but hubby was actually able to go down and check things out for himself this weekend. One pine came down in the bee yard. While it crushed a few empty hive boxes, it missed all of the hives , and all the hives are happily buzzing now that temperatures are back in the 80s.

A huge, rotten pine that was hung up in a tree along the street edge of the property also came down, smashing the H-brace at the creek end of the fence. We have worried about this tree since before we bought the property because there was no good way to bring it down. It was tall enough to hit the power line if it fell badly, and rotten enough to be a real danger to anyone trying to take it down. Luckily it did what hubby always hoped it would do and split in the middle, dropping half the tree to the ground and (unluckily) the rest of the tree onto the fence. We are just happy that it didn’t damage the power line,.

We have a few other, smaller trees down along the fence and two trees along the driveway that need to come down. We’ll tackle them next weekend when we are both down there — it’s going be a two-person job to bring them down safely.

All-in-all we consider ourselves to be very, very lucky to have not sustained more damage than we did. Our RV suffered no damage and the power wasn’t off long enough to let the ice in the freezer melt. (A country tip for checking to see if the power goes off — put a Dixie cup of water in the freezer and place a coin on top of the ice before you leave. If the coin is still on top when you come back, everything is good. If the coin is on the bottom, you probably want to throw away any food that’s in there!)

Now we’re just hoping the systems currently in the Atlantic stay in the Atlantic! Family in Texas is still drying out from Harvey and we’ll be cleaning up from Irma for a while. Florida simply doesn’t need any more wind or rain for a while. Our hearts go out to all of those who have sustained damage to their homes and businesses and our hearts are full of gratitude to all the people who have given so much to help those in need.

Hive equipment · Lazer Creek Apiary

Battening down the (bee) hatches

September 10, 2017 Lazer Creek ApiaryLeave a comment

With family in Texas still recovering from Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma a threat to family in Georgia and South Carolina, we’re a little anxious over what the next few days will bring, but also counting our blessings as so many others are in far more dangerous situations. We also have even more opportunities to realize how many wonderful people we know, from friends and family who took time to help hubby secure our hives when they certainly had enough of their own property to take care of to the friend who has opened up her pastures to shelter evacuated horses.

Hubby drove down to the farm to secure the hives and hive equipment as much as possible. He, his brother, and a friend pounded pickets into the ground on either side of each hive and strapped each hive down. The bees appear to know what’s coming because no bees were out foraging, even though they love the buckwheat that is right outside their door. They’re all abuzz inside but didn’t even check out what the guys were doing.

Even my Beverly-Hillbillies-reject lawnmower got it’s own ratchet strap. It’s not pretty to start with, but it’s still better than cutting all the grass we’ve been able to get growing with the push mower. Of course, a bigger concern is our RV. It’s also not the prettiest in the world, but we’ve put a lot of work and a lot of love into our home-away-from-home, and we already have so many good memories of our first 18 months with friends and family at our future full-time home. Still, the RV is of secondary concern to the bees, as they are not only our business but also living creatures that are just trying to get ready for winter.

We’ve already lost our city bees. They were crawling all over the outside of the hive in confusion as we headed into the eclipse a couple of weeks ago. Right after the eclipse, they went back inside, but the guard bees were very aggressive. We came back from the farm the following weekend to find the hive abandoned. A yard without bees is so very strange these days — I still walk up to the hive when I get home from work hoping to find new occupants!

Our thoughts go out to everyone who is in the path of the storm. Put safety ahead of material goods and we’ll see you when the skies clear.