St John's Wort

We have a small hillside of this plant which is in bloom right now. It's commonly known as St. John's Wort which is used as an herbal remedy for treating depression. This is cracking me up. Think about it: if you could get honey made entirely from this plant you could market it as Happy Honey. I wonder if the health benefits really would translate to the honey?

Well, anyway the bees love it:

It seems to be making them very happy.

Walter T. Kelley Book

My Bee Guy loaned me a book that I've been reading through and, because it was a loaner, taking notes. I read a couple of interesting pointers that I haven't come across elsewhere so I'll jot them down here because I will likely loose the notebook I wrote them in.

These all come from How to Keep Bees and Sell Honey by Walter T. Kelley . My edition was the 1976 edition which is still available in used copy but I see that a new, updated version is available.
If you're thinking the name Walter T. Kelley rings a bell, you're right. They're still around and are a successful bee supply company.

The first interesting tip has to do with treating stings. He suggests dissolving a quarter teaspoon of meat tenderizer (the sort with papain enzyme, not something like TenderQuick) in 1 teaspoon of water and rubbing it into the skin immediately after being stung. I've not been stung yet so I haven't tried it. If you do, let me know how it works.

This next one mostly just cracks me up and I am in no way suggesting you actually do this.
When dealing with very mean bees it is suggested that you add a half teaspoon of Ammonium Nitrate (fertilizer) to your hot smoker. This will produce massive amounts of smoke and completely immobilize the bees. It goes on to say that care should be taken lest other bees come around and rob or destroy the hive while they are all knocked out.
Also, by burning Ammonium Nitrate you are producing Nitrous Oxide (laughing gas) which you should "avoid inhaling". Ya think?
Did you see this post in which I break my foot? And this one where I punch my own self in the dadgum mouth? So this is one tip you will never see used in the Frugal Apiary.

It also had some interesting diagrams showing the different dances that bee perform. I'd heard of the waggle dance, of course, but had not seen diagrams showing how bees use the orientation of the sun and different points in the hive to communicate. Very interesting stuff.

Bee Pic- Shy Bee

I like photography. Am I any good at it? No, not really but that won't stop me from inflicting it on you here. *insert evil laugh*

I took a bunch of pictures of this poor bee as she went from flower to flower collecting from the clover. This one is my favorite because it looks like she is peeking out to watch me from behind the petal.

I wonder what she thought of me as I grunted getting down onto the ground and worming my way across the lawn as she moved to snap photos. You know, I'd have probably tried to hid from me too.

Does anyone else hate mowing their lawn? Not for the usual reasons. I mean because you are loathe to cut down all the clover, dandelions and other bee-friendly plants.

Experimental Solar Wax Melter

The wax is really starting to pile up around here. I have some comb from a cut-out, some damaged comb from old frames and some from my Bee Guy:

I read up on it a little and found a lot of plans. If you want to make a quality melter, this looks quite nice. A blog I enjoy reading, BeekeeperLinda, has instructions for using a styrofoam cooler to make a wax melter. 

I thought about making one out of an old tub I found but when reading up on it I noticed that most instructions involved husky wood or some kind of insulation like styrofoam. I figured the tub would be too thin to retain enough heat for melting. Then I was unloading some things that my Bee Guy had given me and I left a cardboard box with old comb in it out in the sun for a couple hours. Some wax that had a little uncapped honey in it started to glisten and the comb on top of the pile was so soft it turned to goo as soon as I touched it. I checked the temperature and it was a mild 68 degrees. Hmm, maybe it's not rocket science. Time to experiment! Out came the tub. The first thing it needed was some soap and water:

 Then I coated the outside with some flat black spray paint (weird. In this picture it looks like I have no fingers):

 I used double-sided tape (and all the cuss words I know) to attach heavy aluminum foil to the inside:

Like so:

I found a piece of glass laying around (I dunno, maybe from an old framed picture?) that fit the box pretty well. It's dang sharp (not cool for someone who walks around looking for disaster) so I cut some cardboard to cover the sides. The duct tape had gone AWOL so I used black tape and it was not the right man for the job. When I get some more duct tape I'll finish the other two sides but this gives me two safe places to grab for now:

This is just a shoebox from the Dollar Store. It has the tapered sides needed to ease your wax out once it's melted:

Next up, a piece of window screen cut to overlap the edges of my box. I'm not convinced it is fine enough to filter the gunk though. I might end up remelting it using some kind of mesh or fabric. I didn't have a long enough rubber band so I tied one to a piece of string to secure the screen to the box:

A little water in the bottom of the shoebox to help the wax release. Then a mound of comb on top of the screen:

And then out into the sun:

How much did this fancy, genuine aluminum-plated melter set me back? Well, I'm not going to count things like the aluminum foil even though it will eventually catch up with me when I have to buy a new roll sooner than I would have otherwise. This melter was made with things from around the house with the exception of the plastic shoebox and I plan to get another of those so total cost: $2.

First Hive Inspection

I'm giddy! Despite my inexperience and all of the things I'm sure I did wrong....IT WORKED!

The girls are all getting along fantastic. You can see just by watching them work that the bees from the cutout  hive are so much happier now that they have a queen. They are coming and going constantly, even in the rain, working their little bee butts off.

This is the way we left it. The Bee Guy's deep super is on the bottom, the middle is the comb I saved from the cutout and the top is the super with some cutout honey sitting on wax paper to keep the girls fed:

I thought the majority of the hive would have moved down into the deep super with the queen but nope, they were hard at work fixing all of the damage to these combs. In some places they've already attached it to the top bar and have begun building new comb to fill in the gaps. It's fantastic:

And the frames in the deep:

Brood in all stages. The queen is happy, healthy and has stepped up production now that she has waaaay more helpers:

 Hallelujah! One of these days I might be able to call myself a beekeeper.

Hive Cut Out

I've said before that I'm not willing to fiddle with a wild hive as long as they are thriving and bothering no one, no matter how bad I want to be a beekeeper. But after all the swarming our hive did, something went wrong.
I've read about  the "queenless roar", the loud noise that comes from a queenless, unhappy hive, but I've never actually heard it myself. After the swarming, we kept hearing what we thought was another swarm of bees. We kept craning our necks, looking up into trees but could never see a swarm. While we were getting a crick in our neck we were also keeping a eye on the hive in the tree. They were acting...different. Not much coming and going to gather.
The more I watched the more I fretted about it until I finally decided that too many signs were pointing to a queenless hive and made the decision to fetch them down. Well, ask someone else to fetch them down.

I don't have any pictures of the actual fetching because I was too busy holding the ladder and praying we didn't drop the whole schmear. So I'll have to tell you about it and you can use your imagination. A long ladder was borrowed from the neighbor and my hapless helper climbed up with a crowbar and a rope. He taped the hole closed because I knew that all that prying and thumping was bound to put a lot of bees in the air and we wanted to avoid that as much as possible since the whole operation was being performed 30 feet off the ground and my helper was...nervous. Then he tied the box to the tree with the rope and went to work with the crowbar. It came relatively easy and then he lowered the box to me on the ground.

I had set up a sort of table with a board on 2 sawhorses and gathered all the equipment together I thought I might need.
I knew the comb would be hanging from the top so we tried to pry the top loose and lift the comb out but, of course, I broke it:

So the front was opened as well to give me better access:

You can see, in the bottom, the remains of when the box was briefly a starling nest. There was also a mummified bird in the bottom. Gross, man.

I got busy and forgot to take pictures. But what I found inside confirmed my suspicions: no eggs, no larvae, tons of drones and only a small amount of capped brood. And lots and lots of hatched queen cells:

So this is where I whipped out my hands-down, most important beekeeping tool. I called my Bee Guy, told him the situation and asked if he knew someone who could sell me a queen at this late date (I actually did the cut-out about mid-June). He told me that he had recently captured a very tiny hive and would be happy to give them to me. So over the mountain I drove to get my saving grace. When I got them home I set the box next to the cutout hive and stared at them thinking of all the things that could go wrong. I finally decided that most of the those what-if's were out of my control, the rest are beyond my expertise and just plunked my hive down on top.
Taking a hive from the Bee Guy means that I'm using his equipment and beekeeping philosophy but that's a small price to pay and I'm OK with that for now.

So here is the Bee Guy's deep super with the donated hive and queen and my cutout hive sitting on top. Afterward, I was reading that it is best to put a single sheet of newspaper between the boxes when combining hives. Oops. The top super is empty except for some of the honey from the cutout so the ladies don't go hungry while they set up shop.

By evening all the bees had come down from the tree and decided that this new house isn't so bad.

Hands-down, Most Important Beekeeping Tool

The frugal beekeeper absolutely must have: A Bee Guy.

(Now, I know that it could just as easily be A Bee Gal but since my Bee Guy is, well, a guy that's what we'll call this tool for the purposes of this post.)

Preferably a Bee Guy who is upgrading all his equipment and unloading lots of the old. I've scored a bunch of boxes, frames, wax to melt and reading material to study. I've noticed that beekeepers, in general, seem to have stuff laying around that they are "meaning to get to" and could probably be convinced to sell it for a fair price if you don't mind a little patching and painting.
Part of being frugal is buying used whenever you can. I've seen some used equipment on places like Craigslist but getting used equipment from A Guy is preferable since your Guy is not going to give you woodenware previously infested with something like AFB.


We don't live in a perfect world so this tool is not without it's cons. For me that means my Bee Guy and I have philosophical differences. He does everything according to the industry standard (brood in deeps, medicate the beejeebuz out of them, etc.) while I am more interested in sustainable practices. So when I'm talking about crazy, granola ideas like foundationless frames, I get some funny looks. But he humors me.
The pros far outweigh the cons though. It's great to have someone to bounce ideas and questions off of and my Bee Guy is so awesome he invited me along to try catching a swarm (unsuccessfully) and he saved my bacon when I discovered my hive was queen-less (that's a story for another post).


My Bee Guy has been an essential part of getting started and I recommend that you get one too. It's simple enough, just ask around. If you don't know a Bee Guy personally, I'll bet you know someone who knows A Guy. Or look for a beekeepers club in your area, that's a whole room-full of Guys (or Gals)!


Cost of A Bee Guy: so far $0. But I'm feeling guilty for being such a sponge. I should probably buy him lunch pretty soon.