Memphis Area Beekeepers Association http://memphisbeekeepers.com/ P. O. Box 38028 Germantown TN 38183 /////// Meeting Location: 7777 Walnut Grove Rd. | Memphis, TN 38120 July 10, 2017 at 7pm – MABA July 2017 Meeting – Bob Russell//Red Belly Bee Farm JULY The nectar flow has or will be coming to an end. Your bees will be search for nectar as best they can. They are beginning to prepare for the winter and get as much stored up as possible. As the beekeeper, you will be harvesting soon. some may want to test and treat for mites this month. Not a great idea if you have honey supers on as you don’t want to contaminate your supers with any chemicals. It would be best to first harvest your honey then treat for mites either chemically or with powdered sugar. If you are finding that the bees are not storing honey in your upper supers, you may be honey bound. Move the middle frames of honey UP to the next super replacing the lower ones with empty frames to encourage them to move up and fill more supers. What’s Happening Inside The Hive? The bees are much less active. The honey flow often ends, and the beekeeper will notice that stings are more frequent! This is because the foragers have less to do, and consequently spend more time at home guarding the hive. Swarming is still possible, but much less likely. Bees are now searching for water to cool their hive, and will fly for miles to find it if necessary. They place small drops of water in the cells and use their wings to fan the air over the cells. Beekeeper Chores: Many beekeepers harvest the honey in July. Take the frames in which the honey cells are capped. If the weather has been rainy, the bees may not have been able to remove enough moisture to ripen it yet. In this case, many of the honey cells may still be uncapped. Leave the honey frames on the hives through a hot, dry period, and check again. Water availability can be a concern. If water (a stream, pond, or other clean water) is not within a half mile, provide a source. This can be a slowly dripping faucet or large container of water with pieces of wood floating in it. Look for varroa, especially in your strongest hives. Hives with the most bees have the most drone brood, the favorite spot for these mites. Uncap at least a dozen capped drone cells, remove the pupae, and examine them carefully. If you have varroa in these cells, remove the honey harvest as soon as possible and treat with Apistan or Checkmite. If you do not find varroa, repeat this examination in the following weeks. Sticky boards placed on the bottom boards are more accurate indicators than drone brood checks. If over 15 mites per day are falling to the sticky boards, they are reaching dangerous levels. Hives can be successfully requeened in July and August. However, it is harder to find the old queen in a hive packed with bees in midsummer, compared with the much smaller hive population in April. It is a good idea to feed the bees to encourage acceptance of the new queen, if requeening is done when the bees are not on a honey flow. Observations and Ideas Scout the area near the hives to see where your bees are finding water. They may be a nuisance to neighbors if your bees have fallen into swimming pools. Some beekeepers plant crops in the spring to supplement their honey production in July and August. Buckwheat, vitex and sunflower are plants that can provide nectar in mid-summer. At KSU we have found that buckwheat is a relatively drought-resistant nectar source. Taken from: http://www.ksbabeekeeping.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/beecalendar.pdf It is honey extracting time and the club has extractors to loan ask at the meeting. Using a Honey Extractor to Harvest Honey A honey extractor producing the liquid gold from the honey bee is one of the greatest joys of beekeeping. Working your bees to produce this unique food product is definitely rewarding. So how do you use the extractor to harvest your honey? The two frame honey extractor we used in harvesting honey this year belongs to our beekeeping association. If your extractor doesn't have a stand, you will need to figure out a way to stabilize it during the extraction process. I have my Dad's old Black & Decker Workmate. It made the perfect stand for the extractor. Once you have an extractor, get your honey frames from your hive. This is one time you will open your hive that you shouldn't smoke your bees much. Smoking taints the flavor of your honey. [You will probably have a greater urge to smoke your bees during this visit, because they generally aren't happy when you are robbing their hive.] There are several methods to getting the bees off the frames of honey so you can take them to your honey processing area without bees. [This is one of the few times when you as a beekeeper will want to be separated from your bees!] After gleaning all your frames of honey, it's time to head to the processing area to get the honey out of your frames. Hopefully you have a capping knife to melt/cut off the caps from your frames. You can use a regular knife for this, but care must be taken, even with a heated capping knife not to tear the wax from the foundation. After the caps are removed the frames are placed in the extractor where they are spun out. The extractor we used was a two frame hand operated honey extractor. Spin the frames until the honey is extracted from one side, about 75 - 100 cranks at a pretty high speed. Take care with wired wax foundation to be sure you don't cause the foundation to come apart. After 5 or 6 frames we had to open the honey gate at the bottom to begin draining off honey into the waiting bucket with the filter screen tied off on the top. After all the frames had been extracted and the honey extractor drained, the cappings were added to the filter in the top of the bucket so the honey on them to be recovered. Let your honey rest in the bucket for 24 hours so bubbles can rise to the top. In the meantime prepare your jars & labels to receive your liquid gold for personal consumption and to sale. Tips on Harvesting Honey 18 Things a Beginning Beekeeper Should Know to Help Things Run Smoothly on Extracting Day The following suggestions are offered for the benefit of beekeepers with a few hives who do not have a permanent honey house. They are meant to supplement the information in books where everything seems so simple and easy. Many beekeepers, including myself, have learned some of these self-evident truths the hard way. Honey is sticky. It will drip. Every doorknob, shoelace, telephone and radio button that is touched while uncapping or handling wet frames will become sticky. Walking spreads the honey around on the floor. Solution: A bucket of water to rinse hands and a dishtowel are essential in the extracting room, especially if you are married and want to stay that way. Turn on the fan and radio, and get everything else ready, before getting all sticky. The garage, basement, barn or porch are usually better places to extract than the kitchen, providing you can keep the honey clean. Watch the kids. Bees in the extracting room are attracted to light. Straggler bees left in the supers will find their way into the extracting room and will tend to fly towards a window or light bulb. Solution: A small exit near the top of a window will allow them to return to their hives if they are nearby. If the hives are not nearby and you have a lot of bees in the room, hanging a few drawn frames near the top of the window with a caged queen will provide a place for them to settle and create a nice nucleus colony when you’re done. A vacuum cleaner hose is an alternative. Don't extract directly under the only light bulb in the room. Bees away from their hive are not inclined to sting. Bees carried into the extracting room in supers are normally extremely gentle, with no brood or queen present. However, they are very adept at stinging the finger that accidentally crushes them while picking up a frame or super. Beware. Household items can serve as good alternatives to supplies found in beekeeping catalogs. A serrated bread knife makes a good uncapping knife. Use a sawing motion. No need to heat it. Change directions if it catches the wood. Some beekeepers really like using a hot-air electric paint stripper to quickly melt the cappings, but I haven’t tried it. Kitchen strainers, nylon paint strainers, and women’s nylon stockings can serve as good honey filters. Clean ones, of course. Tupperware and Rubbermaid both make good plastic containers to hold honey and cappings. Honey is acidic, so don’t use items such as aluminum and galvanized steel that will react with the honey acids. Stick with plastic, stainless steel or glass. While there is a good household substitute for most extracting equipment, there is no good substitute for a good centrifugal extractor. Let the honey settle.