Harvesting Honey from a Warre Hive

Bee Escape in use

Harvesting honey from a Warre hive is not as straightforward as harvesting from a Langstrom hive—or from a top bar hive, for that matter.  There are three essential problems: bees on comb, comb attaching itself to the box, and comb breaking off of the bar. With a few extra tools, these problems are, if not solved, much reduced.

Tools Needed:

• ·         Box full of honey
• ·         Bee escape
• ·         Empty box
• ·         Hive tool—bright yellow is good
• ·         “Ultimate Hive Tool” from Bee thinking, which cuts the comb from the side of the box
• ·         A big platter
• ·         A colander and bucket or bowl

Problem One: Bees on the comb. Photographs of honey harvest always show a beekeeper, calm and pristine, gently brushing a dozen bees off of a honey comb, which is always in one piece, and one beautiful curve, hanging from the bar. In my experience, this is not what happens. My comb, if it holds together, is covered with bees. If I am able to brush some off, many remain and are squashed by the harvest. Bee Death is distressing.  I have wrestled with this problem for years. Early this year, I borrowed a triangular bee escape from a friend, but it was sized for a Langstrom hive and did not work. Still determined, I purchased a circular escape (four dollars, folks! This is a deal!), attached it to a board, and slipped it under my full box of honey, with an empty box—no bars—underneath. Within three days, the bees were gone. Not all of the bees—there were a couple of dozen really fat drones left behind (I don’t think they could fit through the gaps)—but enough so that I could brush them off of the comb. A Bee Escape, sized for your hive, should come with every hive, every “beginner’s kit.”

Tool Rack

Comb Attached to the Box:  This is one that never appears in the bee keeping books, but, along with crossed comb, happens regularly in the hive. Bees build comb out to the edge of the bar and attach it to the side of the box. It makes sense; the comb is much stronger when it is attached on three sides. It can hold more honey. It can reach down and bond with the box below. Attached comb creates a huge honey mess and more Bee Death. I’ve resolved this issue with a clever tool I found at Bee Thinking, the store in Portland where I buy my hives. It’s about a foot long, has a sharp flat blade on one end, which can be run down the side of the box when you turn it over to free the comb, and a turned blade on the other end, which can be fed  down between the combs, turned, and drawn up, releasing the comb. It is a little short and is quickly covered in honey when I use it, but it has transformed the Comb Attachment problem. I use it before I attempt to loosen the bar and  I have been able to lift out whole combs, if not on the bar, at least with my hands.  I can also use it between bars to push aside crossed comb.  It does not replace the hive tool, which I still use to separate boxes and pry out bars, but it fills a lovely niche. Much better than the old bread knife I was using.

                Comb Breaking off of the Bar: This is the dirty secret of Natural Bee Keeping, when you allow your bees to build comb without a foundation. It is never discussed in the books, but Comb Breaks Off. Regularly. If the bar is completely filled with honey, it will break. If it comes right out, then you know that it is not full. It does not matter if you hold the comb straight with the ground. It breaks. Even after I have cut it away from the sides of the box, it breaks. This is where the platter comes in really handy. When the comb breaks, if it is not covered with bees, I can reach in, lift it out, and drop it on the platter, which catches the dripping honey nicely, and move onto the next bar.

Both hives

Once I have harvested all of the comb, I put it into a colander, set it over a big bowl, break it up, and put it in the greenhouse, with all of the windows shut, to drain. It is essential to place the draining honey somewhere where the bees will not find it, as it will be quickly covered in insects if you do not. Inside the house can be a good idea, if the harvest went well and you do not mind a few bees buzzing around inside. They are not interested in you, after all, but the honey.  When it has drained, I pour it into quart sized canning jars for storage. 

Bee Mysteries

Bees are mysterious creatures.  I never quite know what they are about in my back yard, but as long as the hive hums like a well-tuned VW vanagon, I don’t worry too much.

We had a swarm move into a hive this spring. The old home, a huge willow tree, developed cracks then came crashing down in several pieces, so the colony was looking for a new home. My bee box was set up with some old, crossed comb in it, waiting to be cleaned out. I’d harvested the honey back in early February, when I knew the old colony had died, but left the wax for another day, which had just not arrived yet.  The scouts found the already furnished apartment and moved in. A few days later, the whole family arrived, cleared out the worst of the mess, and settled down. Pollen was carted in quickly, but I did not realize, until I opened the hive a week or so later, that they had also relocated all of their honey. The top box was two thirds full, by weight, and the bottom box at least half full, of dark, overwintered honey. There was no way they brought in and processed that much nectar in a week and a half.   I was a little distressed—I wanted to clean out some of the worst crossed comb—but thrilled to see the size and health of the swarm.  Who knew that colonies moved all of their food stores?

The swarm colony likes to camp out. For the first week, there was always a bearded clump hanging off of the entrance board in the evening. I was worried that they were thinking of swarming the first morning I saw this, but there was no other sign of movement, so I shrugged it off. After seeing how full the two boxes were, I added a third, which helped reduce the size of the camp-out, but it never went completely away. Over the next week, more and more bees moved inside at night, probably because it has been raining in the evenings.

Yesterday, we went into both hives. The “new” hive, of purchased bees, had not shown any queen sign for the first two checks, so I recruited a friend with sharp eyes and we cracked the hive. This time, there was considerable honey, pollen, and larvae in the hive, so we cleaned up a bit of weird comb and reassembled the hive. We both turned to the swarm hive, which had the new, empty box on top. “Do you want to drop that one down?” my bee partner asked. “Do you feel brave?” I replied. He shrugged, “It’s going ok so far.” Together, we lifted off the roof, quilt box, and burlap ad peered inside.

The swarm hive was packed with bees. They were building comb, nice and tidy, in the top box, which we lifted off. Bees flew everywhere, but not in a threatening manner. I cracked the second box and lifted it. Bits of honey comb stuck to the tops of the bottom bars. We scraped it all off and placed it to one side, then lifted the last box, also heavy with bees and honey. “What a mess,” my partner observed, looking at the crossed comb in the bottom box. “Yeah,” I agreed. We quickly placed the empty box on the bottom, the lowest in the middle, and the bottom one, which was the messiest, on top. “Harvest that one first,” my partner observed. “That’ll clear it out.” Lid on, no stings, bees everywhere.

Later last night, I went out to settle the chickens and rabbit in and checked on the hives. The New Hive was quiet, everyone tucked in for the night. Once again, the Swarm Hive had a camp out going—one small clump, perfectly circular, in the front of the hive and the other, much larger, on the small pile of honey and comb that we had scraped out. Bees, some laden with pollen, piled up and hummed softly to themselves. This afternoon, the clumps were reduced, but not gone. I think there is a contingent that just likes sleeping outside. Bee mysteries.

Bee News

A swarm moved into our empty hive! After years of sending bee swarms off into the world—I even chased one six blocks to see where it was headed—we had one move in this week. So exciting!

We had a fairly empty hive box sitting on the Bee Bench. The hive died over the winter. I cleared out and strained the honey, but left the empty comb in the box. The plan was to go in again in the next few weeks, clear out the comb, and melt it down. Then I was ill for two weeks, it rained hard every day, and it was still sitting in the back yard when I noticed a few bees moving in and out.  Just looking for honey scraps, I thought.  The next day, there were a few more—a couple of dozen bees, poking around. A bit of old comb fell to the bottom of the box and was shoved out. Scouts?

On Wednesday, a warm and sunny day, I came home around five. When I walked through the back gate, something was different….there were hundreds of bees swarming around the hive box, feeling a little turfy. “Welcome,” I said and dropped down onto the hive viewing stump. What was up? Bees crowded around the entrance, butts in the air, madly fanning. Others crawled down the front. Some pushed dirty wax comb off the edge.  Mark came home and saw a Bee Dance. I wanted to look inside, but they were clearly not welcoming. We wandered back to watch the hive all evening.

After dark, I goggled “bees with butts in the air”   and learned that it was the way marker bees sent their scent into the world for the forager bees to find their way home. Home. They were setting up housekeeping. A pile of wax bits formed under the hive.  I was not positive until Friday, when I spotted cream colored pollen moving in on bee haunches. By Saturday, the hive had settled down to deliberate  hive actions. The flight paths were straight, not mazey. Pollen was coming in on most bees. The fanning was over.  We had a hive.  When I laid a piece of burlap over the bars on Saturday, they were all over the comb inside.

Saturday was also the day we picked up our new bees, because I had placed the order a month earlier, not know a swarm was on the way. After cobbling together a hive bottom from some old wood and a  roof from an old langstrom hive we had around for decoration, we were able to use two of our stored  boxes to create a second hive body.  The bee installation went smoothly and all of the bees were inside a hive within two hours (I suspect some moved in next door) rather than the usual lingering clump for 48 hours.  Within a day, both hives were operating separately, with clear flight paths up and out.  I have not checked on either hive for egg laying; the queen was out of the purchased hive this afternoon and they were building comb.

I don’t know where this gift hive came from. As I have had and observed at least five swarms pass through my yard,  I do know that there are wild hives in the neighborhood. One lived in the ancient and rotting willow next door, which lost a huge branch a few weeks ago. Although I  had not seen any action there this spring, a small hive might have been disturbed and looking for a more stable home. I don’t know. I do know that the universe sent us a gift hive this spring, and  I will do my best to keep it around.

Bees and Chicks

     

Peeps!

      It’s rough being male on the Urban Homestead. Mark went from being outnumbered six to one—one human, a rabbit, two hens, and two cats—to 10,010 to one this weekend. We have acquired four chicks and 10,000 bees.

            Saturday was Chick Day in Dallas, Oregon. Old Mill Feed and Grain takes orders for seven or eight varieties of chicks, guarantees females, and distributes them all in one long “Chickens All Day” festival in early April. There is chicken themed music, a large dancing chicken, chicken hats, and chicks, as well as feeders and feed. The line begins at 7:15 AM. We—myself and three other teachers who have chickens—leave Corvallis around 7:30, armed with our carrier boxes, warm chocolate raspberry scones, coffee, and the Chicken Hat and T shirt.  This year, we were inside the building by the time the rain began—people outside, natives all, just pulled their hoods over their hats and got wet. It’s a lively line, full of families, women who raise chickens for meet and eggs, and a few backyard pouters. This is not a fancy crowd—sweatshirts and boots, pick-up trucks and cheap coffee dominate the scene. We chat while we wait. When the time comes, we move into the chick room, bend over the bins, and pick out the chicks. It’s not always easy; I have a tendency to go for the loudest animals, seeing that as a sign of health and intelligence, and it has backfired on me, leaving me with several high maintenance pets over the years. This year, I resist the chick running over the backs of everyone else and go for size. We are herded out, pick up our free Chick Day mugs—Karin has five or six now—buy our chick feed and peepers, and head home. The car sounds like a jungle of peeps as we all hold two, balanced over old towels that Karin remembers to bring each year. We are all settled in by 10:30 AM, chicks asleep under the heat lamp, me with a second cup of tea.

Lucy checks out the peep installation

         

Queen

   The next day was “Bee Package Day”, put on by Nectar Bee Supply. Usually, we have to head for Eugene for our bees, but, this year, a local apiary organized a delivery next door to the co-op. Go shopping and pick up bees in one fell swoop. We were thrilled. I studied the clouds all morning and we headed out right after a major downpour. I picked up the bee package, came home, looked at the clouds, and decided we had time to install them before the next deluge. Mark put on his new bee jacket with veil attached and acted as photographer while I sprayed down the box with sugar water. The queen box was plugged with the sugar plug quickly. (I lost her once and had to scoop her back into her cage.) I sprayed the bees again, knocked them down, and upended the box over the hive. Bees poured out. Quickly, I placed some of the bars around behind the box so bees would not swarm up, then tipped the box and knocked more bees down into the hive. Bees flew all around. One more knock and 95 percent of the bees were in the hive. I replaced all of the bars, set the bee feeder, which is a chicken watering bottle filled with syrup, with rocks in the bottom so that the bees don’t drown, on top of the bars, placed another box on top, and replaced the lid. A few bees began a casual investigation of their surroundings while I placed the package box next to the hive and covered it with an old langstrom hive cover. The whole process took about fifteen minutes.

           

Bees installed

Spring and all of its new life is settling into the back yard. Sprouting broccoli and asparagus are beginning. Plants are up in the cold frames. Tomatoes are ready to be bumped up into four inch pots. More seeds need to be planted between showers. And the chores of chick and bee feeding add to the complexity of our days. But, with the addition of the bees, the backyard is alive once more—even if it is all girls.

Crockpot Beans and Greens

There’s a brief scene in the Grapes of Wrath when Tom, the main character, is walking through the government camp early in the morning and smells the “strong smell” of beans cooking on an open fire. “I wish I had a plate of them,” he says in passing. “You’d be welcome, if they was done,” the woman replies. The scene gets at one of the underlying themes of the novel—poor folks will always help out and feed poor folks—and I think of it when I come home from school to the scent of beans cooking in my crockpot.

Put four cups of beans and one large coarsely chopped onion and maybe some garlic into the crockpot. The Indian Woman beans I bought from Sunbow are really nice, but black beans or some variety of pintos also works well. Cover with about double the amount of water. Cook slowly for six to eight hours. Near the end, when the beans are all soupy and falling apart, add 4-5 cups of chopped greens, salt and pepper, maybe a can of roasted tomatoes from the basement. I like to add collards and mustards, rather than cabbage (which does not do well slow cooked!) or chard, which is soft and gentle.  Stir it all in and let the greens cook down. Serve with new bread and salad, maybe some salsa, depending upon the beans.

            

Beeswax Candles

cooling cleaned wax

One of the benefits of having a bee hive in the backyard is “free” beeswax. We've been gathering our wax for several years, working out a way to clean it sufficiently. After some experiments, Mark bought a colander from Goodwill, lined it with an old tee-shirt, and melted the comb down over a pan of boiling water. When he lifts the colander, the hot wax streams through the fabric and cools on the surface of the water. Voila! A disc of clear beeswax!  The disc lived in the larder for a year, waiting to make candles.

melting candle wax

just poured candles

Yesterday, we had our first foray into candle making. I’d already learned that all wax work should happen in the back yard, using the camp stove on the potting table. That way, no wax is ground into the floor and the neighborhood bees come by to scarf down any residual honey. We hauled the stove, straining equipment, piles of dirty comb, wax melting pot—small, with a pouring spout—empty votive glasses, plastic candle mold, and reading material outside. It was a warm and sunny afternoon. Mark tended the wax cleaning process while reading The Economist. I set up the wicks and melted down chunks of the beeswax disc. It’s pretty straightforward. Work on a flat surface—not one that tilts! Attach wicks to the bottom of the jars or mold. Hold them tight with a dowel, if you can. Pour hot wax into the molds. Let it cool for about 20 minutes, then poke toothpicks into the center—the wax shrinks as it cools and leaves holes in the candles. Watch for bubbles as warm wax slides into the gaps. Top off. Let cool completely before popping out of molds. Voila! Beeswax candles!

Final Results!

bee SwarmS

The top bar hive swarmed today—twice. It was wild…

Last Sunday, I harvested three bars of honey from the hive. I knew that the bees had been really active for the last month, that two of the bars were cross-combed, which is really tricky to work with, and that the bees needed some space to prevent swarming (or so I thought…), so we went into the hive and hauled out the messy comb. It was a pretty efficient process. Because the tricky comb was down on one end, we could just lift it out quickly and hang it on the rack while we resettled the hive. Then I swept bees off and began the straining process. By the next morning, I had a quart and a half of lovely honey. However, a few days later, I noticed that some of the bees were not going back into the hive at night, but were hanging out in a big clump over the entrance. Did I take out their preferred hang out comb? I wondered. Why are they staying out all night in the rain? Bees are mysterious and my book is no help.

This Sunday was warm, sunny, and a bit muggy. The bees were bopping around in the back while we ate breakfast and started laundry. When I went outside around 11 to hang the first load, I heard the dreaded sound of a swarm—it’s loud! The sky around the hive was full of bees, all darting around in a huge cloud. I waited a few moments then went back to see which hazelnut branch they were settling on. Slowly, they gathered in a long, dripping formation down one of the small leafy center branches. There goes my queen, I thought, and turned into the house to call Rich, who loves to capture my swarms for his spare hives. He was gone, but his wife brought over a nuc (a small hive) and I placed it high on the ladder. Hopefully, the bees would just move in. This was all quite normal; the hive swarms every year and Rich captures them.

About an hour and a half later, I heard the sound again! Had they found a new home so quickly? I walked back to see where they were heading and more bees were pouring out of my hive. No way! I yelled for Mark and we stood, amazed, as they flowed out of the hive and took to the air. Ten minutes later, they were choosing another hazelnut branch. Mark headed back to the house. I stood watching as a second huge clump of bees began collected in the tree. “Where there any left in the hive?” I wondered. “How did they all fit in there?”

Just then, two college girls came riding bikes down the alley in bikinis. They screamed, swore, dropped their bikes, and ran down the gravel road in flip-flops. I could hear them shouting at their guys…”Oh My God!…Bees!…huge!…After us!…Our bikes!” One young guy came hustling over to see.

“It’s ok,” I heard him explain. “They’re just moving their queen. They won’t bother you.” He brought his girlfriend down with him and stood in the road, bare-chested. Bees flew all around him, bumped into him, and he smiled. “It’s so cool.” He proceeded to tell a tale of a swarm on his back porch last spring, and his friend who keeps bees, and how he was scared, but once he understood, he was really interested. “I like this kind of stuff,” he announced. “I used to keep unwanted reptiles.” We stood watching the swarm for ten minutes or so, transfixed by the motion of the bees. I explained that this was really weird—bees don’t usually swarm without a queen and I’d never heard of more than one queen per hive. (I checked in Sue Hubbell last night and she gave short mention of a secondary swarm possibility…)

The swarm formed another long clump on a hazelnut branch a few feet way and settled down for the evening. They considered Rich’s box, but did not move in. This morning, while I was hiking, Rich came by. He took one swarm and left the other in a temporary box in the back yard. Bees were moving in and out of both hives this afternoon in equal numbers while a few flew around the hazelnut, looking for their lost family. I guess I’ll be heading into the hive as soon as the sun comes out to see what’s going on….

Winter Bees

Bees remain a mystery to me….maybe it is because I can’t see what is going on in the hive without tearing it all apart, maybe it’s the alchemy that happens within, or the unexpectedness of a swarm….but I don’t begin to understand them. There has been a hive in my back yard for three years now and I’ve harvested honey, hunted for the queen, and spent long spring hours watching the bees dance and I still do not have a clue.

Last week it was warm and there were bees. When I was raking, a bee had tangled herself up in my fuzzy jacket, pumping venom into the fabric. When I shook her out, she flew into my hair. I was not stung, but it was a bother to shake her out and I moved away from the area. Today was forty degrees out, so I didn’t expect to see any bees and took advantage of the chill to really clean up the area and snug the hive back against the fence for the winter.

While I was raking the last hazelnut leaves, I found a spill of dead bees—a large one about a foot around— two feet out from the hive entrance. Oh dear! I scurried over to the hive and lifted off the top. There were a few dead bees there, as well. That I expected; bees get trapped between lid and bars regularly. I put my ear to the hive—nothing. A few of the bars had a little mildew growing on them. I laid down on the ground and peered up—dead bees on the screen and the hive was silent. Mark came out to see what the problem was while I lifted a bar from the summer harvest side of the hive. There was some lovely clean comb hanging off it and some honey, but only dead bees. Dead bees on the screen beneath. A few dead bees head in comb, like they had climbed in and died. I pulled out three more bars – cream colored comb all wonky and curved, honey, no bees…Bee crisis.

“Wait,” Mark whispered, as I began to scrape down the side of the hive, so that I could move the end bar closer to the center. “Is that a bee?” Sure enough, staggering out from the winter honey side of the hive was one bee, looking decidedly rumpled and grouchy. Another came out of the entry. “There are still bees,” he said, stepping rapidly back from the hive.

Ok…we gathered up the platter holding the comb and replaced the side board, snugging it against the winter comb. I tucked hay between the end of the hive and the board, folded a burlap sack over the bars for insulation, and replaced the lid. I don’t know if that was the Last Bee, or if the queen and her diminished for the winter court are tucked in the corner with the winter honey. I certainly don’t want to let in any more drafts by moving bars. I guess I’ll just have to wait, and watch, until they emerge—or not—to harvest the pollen from the hazelnut catkins.

Fortunately, that’s only a few weeks away…Meanwhile, I’m draining honey from comb in the kitchen.

Bee Pollen In January!

It was warm and sunny on Sunday afternoon, so I went out back to check on the flowering hazelnut catkins. The catkins first appear on the trees in late November, tight like pinecones in mid-summer, and slowly lengthen through December and January, when they develop tiny bright magenta blooms and shed pollen everywhere. These blooms are a sign of spring in the back yard, so I was hunting. While I stood on the garden bed bridge, studying the tree, a bee landed on my arm. I looked at her twice—she had saddlebags full of pollen! It’s January, I thought—where is this coming from? Then I looked up into the hazelnut tree rising above the hive and watched the long catkins moving slightly in the breeze and saw bees dancing among the branches, culling pollen from the tree. Food in January—my hive will be around to pollinate the fruit trees this year.

The quince bush is blooming. The rhubarb is just unfurling a leaf. One primrose is budding. Snowdrops are open in the front yard. Spring is on the way.