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.

Bee Gloves

Have you ever heard the saying: If life hands you lemons, you'd better hope it hands you sugar and water too or your lemonade is going to be awful? Or something like that. I forget.

Anywho, someone kindly gave me a pair of (gently) used welding gloves but there were a couple of problems. First, they're black. I'm not sure what the bees will think about that. We'll see.
Also, they are a men's size XL. My hands are most definitely not XL.

So I turned the gloves inside out and traced around my hand with a white pencil. I sewed along the line with my regular, hobby sewing machine and it did OK. Now they fit just right for my hands.
Then I cut a couple chunks out of some paint drop cloth I had laying around and sewed up some gauntlets to attach to the gloves.

They ended up being crazy-long. The gauntlets go all the way up to my armpits. I just pull the excess fabric of my jacket up and blouse it so there isn't a space for a bee to crawl inside and get crushed. I'll leave them that way for a while and see how they work before I decide if I should shorten them. I did accidentally punch myself in the mouth while I was trying to pull them up though. Seriously. You know...maybe I should cut them off; for my own safety.

Voila! Lemonade gloves. Cost of lemonade gloves: $0.

Update: I can't say if the black gloves are more bothersome to bees since I don't have any lighter colored gloves for comparison. I've used them a couple times now and noticed one bee had left a stinger in the gloves on both occasions. That doesn't seem too excessive to me so I'm going to call them a success.

Beekeeping Jacket Tutorial

Have you priced bee jackets? I did and the diy juices started flowing. I had originally thought to just get a light colored windbreaker-style jacket. But since I was shopping out of season I couldn't find one among the flip-flops and shorts. So I started looking for a shirt that I could change up to fit my needs. If you have the same thing in mind, you'll need to look for a shirt that has several things going for it:

-white or light colored

-collar for your veil to tuck under

-it should be a couple sizes larger than you normally wear

-heavy material such as twill or cotton duck

-washable in the event that you get bee alarm pheromone on it or it's just plain dirty

You'll also need:

-elastic (enough to fit around your hips and both wrists)

-thread

-sewing machine

Here is my victim:

For this tutorial, I'm assuming you have a sewing machine and a general idea of how to use it. The first thing to do is find the lowest point on the shirt where you can cut a straight line across. Marked in this picture with the measuring tape:

And cut the thang:

I also decided to make mine into a pull-over style because I reasoned the elastic on the bottom would tug at the buttons causing the front to gap open, making little doorways for irate bees. Not good. So I sewed the placket shut following an existing stitch line, stopping at the second button to leave room for my large-ish head.

You can see in the next picture that I've serged the cut edge but that's not necessary, just zig-zag stitch along the edge or take a little quarter inch fold to tuck in the raw edge and minimize unraveling. Now measure up 2 inches (or more is your elastic is very wide) to make a casing for the bottom elastic:

Sew close along the cut edge stopping to leave yourself a 3 inch gap to thread the elastic. Wrap the elastic around your bahookie right above your hips in the area where the bottom of your jacket will ride. Snug it up to a comfortable fit and mark that measurement. Now give yourself a couple inches for overlap and ease and make the cut. Use a safety pin to thread it through the casing:

Join the ends of the elastic securely:

Now tuck the elastic in and sew up the gap in the casing.

Sleeves:
Turn the shirt inside out and sew up the placket on the sleeve opening. This takes a bit of manipulating to get the small opening sewn shut. Take care not to sew the sleeves shut *ahem*:

Turn the cuff back, like a French cuff and sew along the edge making a casing as you did in the bottom of the       jacket. Don't forget to leave yourself a space to thread the elastic through:

Measure the elastic using the same high-tech method used for the bottom of the jacket, thread through and sew up.

That's it! Here is my finished "jacket". I slip it over my head, button up to the neck and tuck my veil under the collar.

Cost of my diy jacket? The elastic and thread I had laying around the house and the shirt came from the thrift store for $2.99. Pretty good savings compared to the $50 cost (before shipping) of a new jacket.

I'll let you know how it works.

Update: I've worn it for a hive cutout and inspection and it's done the job. I wear it with the veil I made and a baggy pair of pants. Admittedly, my bees are sweethearts so I can't say how you would fare while working a hot hive. 

Sting count in my jacket:  0

Bee Veil Tutorial

I'm rounding up tools of the trade, starting with the equipment I need that I'll wear. The most important seems to be the veil. Even if I go with the simple Alexander style that doesn't require the purchase of a separate hat, the price is around $17 (not including shipping). So what's a beehaver with no budget to do? DIY, of course. And while I was at it, I took pictures to share with you here.

Materials Used:
- straw hat
- 2 yards black tulle
- small strip of elastic; about 20" (optional)
- toggle (optional)
- cording; about 6' (optional)

I kept my fabric doubled lengthwise, just like it comes off the bolt. I can still see through it fine and I'm hoping this will keep it a little stiffer so it doesn't come into contact with my neck when the wind blows.

The brim of my hat is 50" around. So the tulle needs to match that measurement on your hat plus a couple inches for the seam and a little ease. I'm cutting mine at 52":

Your tulle should look like this now:

The back of the veil needs to be shorter than the front. I've decided on 15" in the back but I'll be folding up the bottom to make a casing so I'll need 17" at the back.

Fold tulle in half lengthwise. Measuring down from the top, along the raw edge, mark at 17" (you can see I just stuck a pin at that measurement). Now measure along the bottom, from the fold you just made, and make a mark at 5". Make a line from mark to mark (or just lay a yard stick down) and cut along the line:

Your tulle should look like this now:

 You're done cutting! At this point you could sew the ends together at the back to make a big loop and just glue or hand-sew the top of the tulle to the hat where the crown and the brim meet. Make little tucks in the fabric as you go to gather the excess and make sure that any stitches you make are close enough together that a bee can't slip through. Now the bottom tucks into your collar and that's it!

I wanted to be able to wear my hat without the veil, so mine is a little more customized. Here are the extra steps:

I used a sewing machine but you could also do these steps by hand using a running stitch.

For an elastic casing to slip over the crown of the hat:

Along the top edge, sew a line of stitches 1/2" from the edge:

For a casing to run a cord around the bottom edge:

Fold bottom edge up 3/4" and again 3/4". Sew close to the top:

Wrap the elastic around the headband of your hat and snug it up to the fit you'd like; cut the excess. Use a safety pin to thread the elastic through the top casing:

 Pin the ends of the elastic to keep them together:

Now use another safety pin to thread the cording through the bottom casing. Keep the tulle smooth, do not allow it to gather. Stop midway and make a little snip in the casing for a loop of cording to poke through. I also threaded the cording through this little scrap of leather with holes punched in it (I was worried the toggle might chew up the flimsy tulle):

 Now align the edges of the back (17" short edge) and sew 1/2" from the edge. Make sure the ends of the elastic and the cording are sticking out so that you catch them in the seam as you sew:

Trim the ends of the cording. Now all that's left is to thread the loop of cording you left sticking out of the snip through the toggle:

Now slip the elastic over you hat and try it on. The cording gathers up the bottom of your veil using the toggle so it tucks up nicely under the collar of your shirt.

So how much do you save by making this yourself?

Standard price for the Alexander-style hat: $17.95
Let's not forget shipping and handling. Cost of of shipping varies ($7.15-$14.96). Assuming you shop at the company with the most reasonable shipping cost, you would pay $25.10!

I paid $7.99 for the hat and $2.53 for two yards of tulle. The toggle I ripped off an old coat and the elastic and cording I had laying around (you could even use shoe laces for cording). For a grand total of $10.52.

Less than half of the price. Not too shabby.

I'll let you know how it works!

Update: I've used it now for my hive cutout and the first hive inspection and it works awesome.
Sting count:  0

Bee Brush and Hive Tool

When I bought my smoker I also purchased a bee brush. I've never held one in my hand and so I assumed it would have ever-so-soft bristles. While the bristles are a little longer than the average brush like you might get with a dust pan, it feels like they have the same amount of rigidity to my hand.
If I feel like I need to add another to my tools, I'll just get a dust pan and broom from my local Dollar Store, cut all but one row of bristles off, call it a bee brush and save myself $3.95.



I also ordered a hive tool at the same time (and have already broken it) for the bargain price of $3.90 . However, my new best friend, The Bee Guy, tells me that the exact same thing is available at Harbor Freight for .97 cents. Dang it.

Smoker

I toyed with the idea of trying to build a smoker using an old coffee pot as the base and a tin can to make the nozzle. I could find an old leather purse at the thrift store and cut it up. That leather plus some wood scraps and a spring could be made into a bellows... BAH.

I'm pretty handy but I've learned to recognize a project that is just going to be ridden with angst. If this sounds like the kind of project you'd enjoy, a few others have tried it and you can find some of their projects here, and here.

As for me, that just sounds like a good way to end up with no skin on my knuckles and a bunch of time lost. So I decided the small sum in my PayPal account would be best spent on a smoker.

Here's what I learned:
-I try to buy used whenever I can, but Craigslist for my local area has absolutely no beekeeping supplies. Check in your area.
-prices seem to be pretty standard across the beekeeping supply companies. If there is a discount supplier offering crazy-awesome deals, I haven't found it.
-shop shipping charges. For example, I initially checked with Brushy Mountain and found that they only ship with UPS, which is considerably higher than USPS (they also do not accept PayPal). I eventually ended up ordering from Mann Lake (which does accept PayPal) where they have several shipping options to choose from. They also offer free shipping on orders over $100. So if your PayPal account is healthier than mine and you have several things to buy, this is a good place to check.

My smoker arrived in good time and I used the complimentary pellets to try it out. They make excellent smoke, but you know me...
I stopped along the road where some pine trees grow and filled up a cardboard box with the dry needles on the ground under the trees. They also make great smoke and you can't beat the price with a (pine) stick.

Bait Hive and Swarming

Having all these bees where I can look but not touch is driving me crazy. Even so, I think a healthy hive of wild bees should be left alone if they aren't bothering anyone. 

The box where they live is rather small and, at the time this was written, the conditions were great for swarming. So a tree stand (the sort you can hunt from) was suspended in a tree to hold a medium box laced with lemongrass oil as a lure. Lemongrass oil makes an excellent lure (a few bees checked it out immediately after I set the box up) and the easy on the pocket book price makes my frugal heart happy. 

And swarm they did. Can you spot them?:

A little help?:

And again. Here they are getting ready for more shenanigans:

They swarmed out a total of 3 times that I saw. Could I get to them? Heck no. I should have taken the first picture with something for scale. That swarm is at the top of an oak tree at least 60 feet tall. That was the way it went every stinkin' time. Did any of them so much as look at my bait hive. Heck no.
Meanwhile, I had broken my right foot and a toe on the left (I told you I was clumsy). All I could do was sit on the porch watching them fly away and try not to weep.