Sad. Just sad.

I have lost Apollo, my original (and only) hive. Upon opening it this afternoon, I saw only a few handfuls of very sluggish bees. There is a little evidence of wax moth activity, but the hive beetle trap had been doing its job. There are a few queen cells, one of which was partially hatched, but it appears poor Apollo has been queenless for a while.

Now I have to decide if I want to start this venture all over again next spring. I have a few weeks to ponder that question. Package bee orders must be placed in November/early December. Otherwise, I can order a couple of nucs from local sources early in the new year.

I did freeze a couple of frames that had drawn comb and a little honey in them. Maybe that will help a new colony next year.

Sweet Harvest

After a summer of being a relatively bad bee mom, I lit the smoker, suited up and carried all my equipment out to check on Apollo. Apollo is my original and only hive.

Digressing for a moment here...I'd intended to start a second hive this summer and ordered a nuc from Pigeon Mountain Trading Company in Dalton, Ga. Due to the cold winter, the bees were much later in their production cycle this spring and delivery was delayed for many weeks. As the weeks passed by and I had travel plans during the summer, I decided to cancel my order. Let's just say customer service at Pigeon Mountain is extremely poor and their representatives are rude and make multiple excuses. I forfeited my deposit as expected, but Pigeon Mountain did nothing to try and retain my business. I will NEVER buy anything from them again. And yes, I did some research and found a bunch of complaints on file against them with the BBB. Live and learn. I'll stick with Brushy Mountain Beekeeping in N.C.

So, back to Apollo. The hive has three medium supers and a shallow honey super on top. I removed the shallow today and then was pleased to look down into the top two mediums to see that they are brood heavy and the queen is laying in a healthy pattern. Lifting the hive from the back, I could feel its weight. Heavy = full o' bees!

I took four frames of honey for harvest and left some for the bees. But now that nectar flow has tapered off with summer ending, the girls will need food. I'll start giving them simple syrup and then, when the weather turns colder, I'll make sure they have pollen patties and fondant for winter.

Linda Tillman, who writes an excellent blog on beekeeping, made a YouTube video of her "crush and strain" method of honey harvesting. This is a simple method for the backyard or beginning beekeeper.

First, using a serrated knife, I cut or scrape the honey from the frames into a pan. Then, I crush the honeycombs with a pestle.

Next, I pour the contents of the pan into a two-bucket strainer system. The top bucket is lined with a fine mesh bag with a metal strainer plate below.

The contents of the top bucket are strained and the filtered honey drips into the lower bucket, which is equipped with a gate. When the honey has finished filtering, I will fill individual bottles from the honey gate.



It's a hot and sticky process, but the results are so worth it! I love my girls and thank them for the hard work they do to help our environment and provide such a beautiful perfect food.

Fond of Fondant

It's a beautiful and mild (60 degrees) winter day in Roswell...and with colder temperatures and a "possible weather event" coming later this week, I thought it would be a good time to give my bees a little winter boost in the form of fondant.

Fondant is a simple sugar candy. Here is my recipe:

2 cups white sugar
2 Tbsp. light corn syrup
1-1/2 cups boiling water

Combine and heat ingredients, stirring until sugar dissolves. Then, heat — without stirring — until the mixture reaches 238 degrees on a candy thermometer (or until medium ball stage).

Pour into a bowl and let cool to touch. Beat the mixture until it's light and pour into a wax paper-lined mold.

As you can see here, I let the fondant cool a bit in a wax paper-lined loaf pan.

Later I removed it from the pan, lifting it by the wax paper. I put another sheet of wax paper on top and rolled the fondant out into a thin sheet, which I then cut in half. The bees will get half the fondant today and, whenever they finish it off, I'll give them the other half.

As soon as I placed the sheet of fondant on top of the frames, the bees were on it. (The darker substance on the left is a pollen patty that I placed in the hive a few weeks ago for a protein source.)

When I replaced the inner cover, a few of the girls peeked out at me and the sunshine. And then it was time to replace the outer cover and seal up the hive so the bees can eat and get back to their important work.