Winter buzzing of the bees

Honey bees are insects. They do not hibernate in the winter but, they do go dormant in the cold weather. When our temps begin to lower the bees' internal metabolism slows down. When the temps go lower than 45'F their flight muscles move so slowly they cannot fly. The bees spend all their time and energy staying warm. They form a small ball about the size of a melon and use their kinetic energy to keep the center of the ball at or about 93'F. The outer layer of bees will expend their heat and move toward the center while those toward the center work their way to the outside.

During this time they must eat very small amounts of honey to stay alive and produce heat. Honey bees are VERY fastidious, for this reason they do not defecate inside their hive. During the cold days they will hold their waste and wait for a warmer sunny day to fly away from the colony and clean their gullets. In Northern climes beekeepers are concerned with the possibility of their colonies contracting dysentery due to the long periods of time with below freezing temps.

Our weather here in North Carolina brings us periodic relief to cold temperatures during the winter months. Christmas weekend we had 6'+ inches of snow fall here in Granville County but, today the temps at 53'F+ and the forecast is for temps above 65'F for tomorrow.

The video was taken this morning as the temp was reading 51'F. The bees are flying away from the hive, clearing their gullets, exercising their muscles and removing any trash from the hive. In January, they might even venture out and find a wee-bit of the black pollen from the red oak.

How sweet the sting...

One of the traits of the Africanized Honey Bee(AHB) is its aggressive behavior. The slightest noise or justling can cause a stinging frenzy. Huge numbers of AHBs will react to the attack/sting phermone in the air and sting anything and everything within as much as 1/2 mile around the hive. A news report from Mexico will give you insight into the character of this "freak" of nature.

At this time N.C. has been able to keep the african apis DNA at bay. If we are not vigilant, that could easily change. The NCDA and research at NCSU are two of the tools being used to unravel this threat to apis mellifera. Should the AHB species invade the gentle hardworking honey bee of N.C., it would drastically alter the apiary hobby and business climate of the state. There would be hundreds maybe even thousands of hobby bee keepers that would abandon the art of bee keeping. This would reduce the number of bees pollinating in this state by hundreds of millions of visits to flowering plants. At some point, this could influence the quality of fruits and vegetables we consume.

Busy for a Friday...

Off to teach an American Government class today and then on to check on several construction projects. The weather has been temperate for January thus, it has been great to be outside. For those who love honey, I am working hard to planning for the spring honey flow. If all goes well, we should have an additional half a million bees flying before April.

Tupelo Honey

If you have never consumed this nectar straight from the throne of God, you do not know what you are missing. If you happen to live in the Triangle and are interested...I have about 40lbs on hand at the moment. Van Morrison knew what he was talking about regarding passion and honey.

Plentitude!!

A few photos from the Wake Forest Farmers' Market Sept 1.

(HT: Russ for the great photography)

Bounty!!

A few photos from the Wake Forest Farmers' Market Aug 25.

(HT: Katy & Russ for the photos)

Quick Catch Up

Saturday was our first day selling at the Wake Forest Farmers Market. The crowd was good and we sold all but 1.5 quarts of the honey we took with us. Many candles and several bars of soap were purchased. We are looking forward to this Saturday;)

Another hot and busy week is shaping up in the work department. We are now framing a large post and beam porch. The heat was draining today, but we had a good rain this evening. The forecast is for more of the same the rest of the week.

I love reading the book of Proverbs, I always learn something each time.

Mystery and Progress

Thursday evening I returned home from a long and hot day to find my mailbox and post destroyed. Being in a rural area this is common. Farmers pulling wide and large machinery would not notice hitting a wood post. It would shatter by momentum of mass alone. A state contractor was mowing the shoulder on Thursday afternoon, an "accident" could have taken place with the large mowing arm. The last possibility would be a wayward auto. Here, the ingestion of "demon rum" would be needed as we live on a very straight road just after a four- way-flashing-light intersection. If it was a car or pickup, they have a ding in the paint this morning.

Saturday morning I was up and out early to purchase the needed materials for new mailbox and post. The "local" bigbox is about nine miles down the road in Henderson. I was in and out in ten minutes and my pocket was $91.00 lighter. I hate paying $91.00 dollars when I make a mistake, it hurts worse when there is an unknown reason for my spending. The new post will be bright safety red with a black jumbo size mailbox. The brass address numbers from the previous post survived. If you are ever in the area, sitting at the intersection of Salem and Huntsboro Rd, turn north, we are the driveway with the bright red mailbox post with the big black mailbox. Drop by for a visit, we will add some water to the soup;)

Just for your information. Kiddliwink Apiary will be selling honey, bees wax candles and honey based soap at the Wake Forest, NC Farmers Market starting Saturday, August 18. Come join us, get a sample and support local sustainable farms.

(HT: To Shelley for getting us in the farmers market)

Liquid Gold

Saturday was extracting day. Early in the morning I went out to check my stores. It was eight supers with over 400lbs of spring honey. I knew it would take lots of work and most of the day to move the honey from the comb to storage buckets in my kitchen. The eight supers were stacked on each other to form a tower that was almost six feet high. I rocked the super tower to check the weight and decided it would be to much to move by dolly. We moved them one box at a time into the kitchen. I then removed the wax cappings with a special electric knife and placed the frames in the extractor; a quick spin and the liquid gold flew into the barrel, down the sides to the convex bottom. From there a "gate" on the front of the barrel is opened and the honey flows into a mesh strainer lined with cheese cloth. This straining will remove any bits of dirt, pollen, or bee parts left behind. The strained honey is stored in a five gallon bucket until needed for jarring. The process was repeated again and again until I worked through all the supers. My wife Shelley worked along with me as we processed the honey from comb to people food.

Along the way, you get honey on your hands and on the floor and on the work surfaces. As we would finish with a super, we would clean a bit and move on. At this time Kiddliwink Apiary is a micro-company, so we use the equipment that is on hand. That means we have an old two frame hand crank extractor, an ancient electric capping knife and the rest of the processing utensils come from our kitchen. For all of these reasons it takes a bit of time. By 4:30pm I was almost finished.

I stepped out on our back porch to move the last two supers. I removed a cover, pushed back a plastic bag and saw hundreds of bees. Several hundred bees had found an opening after I had tilted the super stack earlier in the day. I now had two supers with 60-70lbs of honey and two hundred or more bees in my house. I had visions of bees flying all over and the family being stung. I went to my bee equipment, grabbed my smoker, filled it with wood chips and started a good fire. I closed the smoker and puffed the bellows until I had good rich smoke pouring out. I was going to smoke the bees in the top box down to the bottom, grab the top super, extract it and do the same for the remaining box. There were two problems with my plan: 1. The smoker would fill the house with rich wood smoke. 2. The last box would hold ALL the bees, still in the house.

I then called for Shelley to find a spray water bottle and a fly swatter. I sprayed the bees as they climbed to the top and Shelley swatted them. I did NOT want to hurt these girls, but I had no options. Shelley was a trooper. She entered the fight wearing a light summer dress and a pair of flip-flops. I would squirt and she would swat. After a 10 minute fight I grabbed the top box and moved to the kitchen. Shelley stayed behind and continued the fight. After it was all said and done, many of the bees ended up "escaping" and we worked to shoo them outside. By 6pm we were finished with the "hard" work. Gravity and time would complete the straining. At this time we have five gallons still straining from the extractor. We could "rush" this along by heating the honey, rendering it thinner...it would strain faster, but it changes the flavor and kills many of the natural nutrients and immune builders in the honey.

All that to say this, Kiddliwink Apiary now has spring honey in a limited supply. If you are in the Triangle call us at 919-690-8487. If you are in another part of the world, leave a comment.
Pricing is very simple, $12US per quart, $7US per pint and $4US per 1/2 pint + shipping and handling.

FOLLOW-UP: Our first sell of the season was yesterday, July 25. A friend purchased 1/2 gallon of spring honey.