Keeping Bees in Towns and Cities.

After a walk at Morton Arboretum we stopped into the store.  They had the book "Keeping Bes in Towns and Cities" promentently presented on an end cap.  This new book has a 2 page feature on our bee keeping in Downers Grove.  It has a couple of photos, one showing Aleena and the bees.  Aleena was tickeled to be in a store and see her photo on a book.
It is a great book that really captures the essence and joy of bee keeping.
Link to page showing Aleena

An author in England, Luke Dixon, wrote a beekeeping book; "Keeping Bees in Towns and Cities".  It is a wonderful book about beekeeping and urban environments.  It captures the joy of beekeeping really well.

He had included two pages my efforts and have included a couple of my photos.  Here is a link to the page in the book that show the photo of Aleena.  The page before also shows a photo of the hive with the snow.

Link to page in book

Award Winning Honey

 I had submitted honey to the Morton Arboretum Honey competition and received third place in the Dark honey category.

I am just learning about how they judge honey, but they have many points from taste, water content, any sugar cristals to finger prints on the jar. 

The Smoker

It took me some time to get my smoker to work well and not burn out just as you get into the hive. I had tried several fuels from cotton, pine nettles and pellets.  What works best for me is twine.  I ball up 30 feet of it and light it with a propane torch.   It is cheap, simple and easy.  One ball will last just over one hive inspection and then I put in the next one.

Uncapping stand

 I built a stand to hold the frames as remove the capping wax.  Each frame 2-3 lbs and akward and sticky, so this really helped in the process.

Propolis

Here is a good photo of the bees filling a gap with propolis.  In the photo you see the brown goo between the lower hive body and the queen seperator.  Propolis is a resinous mixture from tree sap and other plant extracts they collect.  Click the photo to get a better look.

Two Tyeps of Honeybees

 Of the three hives I have, one of them has bees of a darker color.  They both are honey bees, but of a slightly differnt type.  The light color is an Itilian Honeybee and the darker one is most likly Carniolan.  The queen bees must be from these types of honey bees so all the worker are of they type.

An afternoon out drinking

 The bees like a close watering hole.  Collectivly they drink a fair amount of water.  I seem to be filling up thier bird bath more than the other ones.

Early Start

 Just at the end of March, I checked the hive.  There already has been a hatch of brood, and collections of nector and pollen.  So I added a supper to give them more room and start to collect honey for me.

50 Degree Day

It got up to 50 degrees outside today, not bad at the end of Jan.  Some of the bees poked their heads out and stretched their wings.

It seems that 50 degrees is what they look for to venture outside.  Any colder and I do not see them out at all.

It has been a warm Dec & 1st 1/2 of Jan. Today we got up to 50 degrees. As the sun heats the front of the hive the bees come out. Have placed some water infront of the hive and some honey for the them to eat.

Presidential Bee's

During my friends to trip to Washington DC he was able to capture a photo of a bee hive on the White-house south lawn.

My stand for the bee hive it not that nice.  Also note they do not use any deep hive body's.  I think I am going to go that route for any new hives.

The different flower the bees visit results in different color honey.  On the right is from Summer/Fall 2010.  Middle was Spring/Summer 2011 and left is Fall 2011.  It is cool with the Honey come out as dark as used motor oil.

Honey Sale

Today Aleena decided to sell the honey. From the stand in the front yard between 11 am and 5 pm, she sold 31.5 lbs of honey and 24 lip balms. She worked really hard all day long. It sure draws a larger crowd than a lemonaid stand does.

Marked Queen

My new queen bee came in via UPS. She is marked with a blue do so it will be easier to find her. Each year they mark queen with a different color so you can identify when she was born.

Blue is the color for 2011.

Solar Oven

I created a solar oven to melt bees wax. The wax is filtered through a cloth and then into a pan of water. It floats on the water and is easy to remove.

The melting point for bees wax is around 145 degrees. On a 87 degree day we were able to get the oven upto 178 degrees. So the wax melted very well and we now have filtered wax.

Capturing a Queen

Aleena & I went through our large hive yesterday looking for our queen.  The brood pattern did not look very strong, so she is not a strong queen.

After looking through all the hive body frames, all 27 of them, we found the queen on the last one.  The fact that she was on a frame that was not built out much shows she was not working as needed.

I placed a open jar over her.  Once she climbed on the jar, I slid the lid on and sealed it.

On Thur, I am expecting the delivery of my new queen from GA.

High Winds

Last night we had a major storm with tornado like winds of 90 - 100 mile per hour winds (National Weather Service confirmed).  Our block will lose 4 -6 trees since the storm tore them apart.


The only damage to the bee hives was that the lids were blown off.  I am sure there was some rain got in to the hives. I do not know how much damage that caused for the hive, but there was some activity today.  Once we have had a could days of nice weather, I might go in to check them out.


What I find amazing is that a 6 foot tall hive did not get blown over by 80 mph winds.  It was all the propolis and weight of the honey that held it together.

Pollination

The bees do a great deal of pollination in the plants around our neighborhood. This results in better production of berries, fruits and vegetables and more flowers.

This year our strawberry crop is out of control. We usually pick a small bowl of strawberries a day, now we are picking a strainer full every day. That results in a lot of strawberries smothies just to keep up. We also had neighbors notice the improvement in the flowers in thier yards.

We we feel that we are reaping the benefits of the bees prior to getting the honey.

First Honey

I was able to take 4 frames of capped honey out of the super. I am just guessing but I expect each frame to hold 2-3 pounds of honey.

I am doing this for a couple reasons.

• To give the bees more space and make them happier
• To give have them start on new frames of honey and increase production.