Beekeeping Classes in Eden Prairie, MN Fall 2014

Hello all,

I am so excited to be teaching this fall in Eden Prairie.

Again few beekeeping classes will be offered in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.

They will take place at the Eden Prairie Education Center: 

                                    8040 Mitchell Road, Eden Prairie MN 55344

             Website:    https://edenprairie.thatscommunityed.com/search/beekeeping%22 

                                        Phone(952)975-6900

                                       Mark your Calendar & Register Early

                                            I hope to see many of you!

Beekeepers in action!

1. Exploring Beekeeping

Wednesday, September 24, 2014 from 6:30-8:30pm

Price: $15

Location: Eden Prairie Education Center         Room: 201

                 8040 Mitchell Road, Eden Prairie MN 55344

This two-hour course offers an introduction and brief overview of beekeeping. It will cover: city ordinances, equipment, time and financial requirements, races of honey bees, beehives location, obtaining and installing your new bees, honey plants and bee food needs, pollination, pesticides, as well as helping your honey bees to stay healthy. If you are interested in keeping honey bees, but not yet sure how to start, this class is for you. After taking this course, you will be able to make a well-informed decision about keeping bees in your backyard. Limit: 25

2. Backyard Beekeeping I

Wednesdays: October 8, 22 and 29, 2014 (no classes October 15) From 6:30-8:30pm

Price: $35

Location: Eden Prairie Education Center   Room: 201

                8040 Mitchell Road, Eden Prairie MN 55344

What's the buzz? Join part 1 of our backyard beekeeping class! It is an introduction to keeping bees by learning the basic beekeeping skills: history, honeybee society and biology, equipment, hive products and more! Learn much of what you need to know to start a new hobby -- caring for and enjoying your own honeybees. Limit: 25

3. Backyard Beekeeping II

Wednesdays: November 5, 12 and 19, 2014 from 6:30-8:30pm

Price: $35

Location: Eden Prairie Education Center Room: 201

                8040 Mitchell Road, Eden Prairie MN 55344

Looking to take your backyard beekeeping skills to the next level? In part 2 of our Backyard Beekeeping series, you will learn all about seasonal colony management like fall harvest and processing. We will also discuss bee health and what you can do to keep your hive healthy. At the end of this class series, you will have all the knowledge necessary to create, cultivate and grow a thriving beehive! Limit: 25

https://edenprairie.thatscommunityed.com/search/beekeeping%22

Busy July!

Heaven for my bees!

July is always a busy month, the nectar flow is happening, and bees are happy. They collect a lot of nectar to fill their hives to the brim. They are making preparation for winter, besides gathering loads of nectar, they bringing back a huge quantity of pollen. All this food is then stored meticulously on the frames in the hive. 

Colorful cells: Pollen

On top of picture: capped nectar, called Honey!
On the bottom is only nectar..see not capped yet.

This year I have decided to enrolled our 4 hives in a research project. It is called: Integrated Pest Management (IPM) , Citizen Science Field Study 2014 done by the University of Delaware by Kathy Ciola Evans and Dr. Deborah Delaney.

The goal of this project is to find a way to control pests (Varroa Mites) in honey bee colonies. IPM is a combinations of management which uses biological, mechanical and chemical tools into a program that will reduce the pests while decreasing the use of chemicals. In this instance, a chemical treatment is the last resort to save a colony of honey bees. Before using any chemicals a pest population threshold has to be reached.

How can we do that: by monitoring the Varroa mite population every month! By knowing the pest level in each hive, it can help by preventing the mite population to reach the damaging point of a colony, where the infested colony would have a very difficult time recovering and its chance of dying would be very high.

Right now the "accepted" behavior among some beekeepers is to medicate their bees , whenever it is needed or not. 

Fact: Honey bees have mites, they can live with them if the levels are low. 

So I have decided to use soft treatments made with plants: Apiguard (thyme based) or Hopguard (made with hop) to fight Varroa mites to reasonable levels only when needed.

Gayle taking notes!

In order to do that, I needed to know how many mites I had in each hive. With my friend Gayle, we took each frame of each brood box of every hive, and estimated the overall health of the colonies. We looked at about 120 frames, both sides, and recorded all the info! It was a job! But we did it. Without her help, it would have been quasi impossible to do by myself. 

Thank you Gayle :)

What I discovered in this experiment so far, is that I can inspect the bees, and not know that they are infested with an unhealthy load of  Varroa mites. When we see many mites on bees, it is often too late to treat and save them from certain death, and loosing a whole colony.

By knowing the mite level, one can be pro-active before the threshold is reached.

My results for July using the 72 hours natural drop method (sticky board):

Hive 4: 34 mites/24 hrs

Hive 3: 4 mites/24hrs

Hive 2: 2.6 mites/24hrs                                                                 

Hive 1: 7.3 mites/24hrs

Like I said, I did not see any differences between the hives when looking at the bees. They all seem to work, all have eggs, larvae, pupae, capped brood, nectar, pollen ... But look at the mite count!

After this first count, I treated hive 4 (34mites/24hrs) because it was deemed "critical". I am using Hopguard, a soft medication  because I have my supers on to collect honey.  No need to treat the others because the threshold levels have not been reached.

Gayle's garden where the hives are located

Gayle and I will monitor the mites again in August, and September. 

Natural Drop 24 Infestation Level

0-8-- low

8-15--moderate

15-30--high

30+ --critical

As a general goal, try to keep the mite level below a 1% infestation of adult bee at any time–

24-hr natural sticky fall—about 10 mites

Just Checking In!

Honey bee on Catnip in my garden!

I will check on the colonies later this week, to see if some have made any progress. 

Will the Russian colony #1 have a queen? 

What about the Italian colony #1, will the bees still flying around and buzzing loudly, wondering about a new queen?

Hopefully I will have some good news.  I will keep you posted!

First Day of Summer!

Bumblebee on my Nepeta (catnip) in my garden

This week was "Pollinator Week", there were few events in many parks in St. Paul and Minneapolis. But for me it is always pollinator week;)

After so much rain, I was wondering how the bees were doing. I went to visit them yesterday June 20, 2014 the last day of Spring!

Next week, starting with today first day of Summer should be warm and sunny...just like the bees like it.

Hives at the Farm in Chanhassen

The Italian Bees in Chanhassen on the farm are doing well, especially hive 3 and 4. I put 2 supers on them. They now have 3 brood chambers and 2 supers!

Hive 2 is coming along, I added a third brood box.

The first hive is very agitated, and I did not see any eggs. I had given them a frame with eggs and brood but so far no queen cell built...we will see.

The field was extremely wet and saturated, so much so that my car  got stuck in the mud! Hopefully my friend Liz was there and she called a gentleman who came within 3 minutes with his 4 wheeler and got me out in no time! 

The Russian bees on the Prairie in Chanhassen    

New queen cell

Hive 1 has decided that the queen they made not long ago was not suitable, I don't know why. Therefore they decided to make a new queen cell. I have to wait and see. I am bit worry because this hive has not a lot of bees. In 10 days, I hope I will see a new queen. However it is becoming late to "start" a new colony, I may have to combine this small hive with another.

Hive 2 is just fine, 2 brood boxes, lots of bees and it has 2 supers!

At least one Russian colony is doing well.

Keeping bees keeps me on my toes, there is always something going on and one has to stay vigilant.

Enjoy Summer...we deserve it!

It's Hot, Let's Hang outside for a While!

See all the bees on the outside! ( picture R. Wondra)

A few days ago, it was warm and humid in Chanhassen and the Russian honeybees were too hot inside their hive. They decided to go outside to get some fresh air!

This phenomenon is called: bearding, supposedly because it looks like the hive has a beard! This happens when it is hot, and humid, some bees beard more than others. This has more to do with the elevated temperature inside the hive, the number of bees present, and the space available.

When the temperature decreases the bees go back in the hive. 

It is like us, when it is hot we go on the porch and sit there with a cold lemonade to cool ourselves.

The bees fan their wings, bring back droplets of water to cool the hive, but sometime it is really to warm. If the temperature in the hive is excessive it could kill the brood. The average temperature in the hive is 90-95F (32-35C) anytime of the year!

Ventilation box on top of hive

To help them, I built a "ventilation box". It is a shallow wooden box 6 inches deep, and I drilled few holes around each side of the box , and stapled 10 square of mesh screen. This make some aeration for the bees!

I hope the bees like this new box, and let the air go through, and not put propolis to block the ventilation holes! 

A Russian Queen is Born!

Our new Russian Queen!

June 3, 2014

When I received and hived this package of bees in April, the original queen seemed fine though short in length. However, she looked healthy, plump and walking vigorously on the frame. After few mainly rainy, cold and damp days the queen who would not lay one tiny egg for the life of her...started miserably to lay a handful of eggs. That was good but...

I could see that she was not really enthuse about her job! (who would? Laying up to 2,000 eggs per day!) I gave her few days to take charge, but still it was not very impressive. I suspect the honey bee workers felt the same, and concluded that their queen was rather wimpy.
They had to act fast,  only few eggs had been laid and the bees had to raise a queen from one that was less than 4 days old!Then they make the elongated queen cup, and feed the larva lots of royal jelly.

After about 14-16 days the new virgin queen emerged, found the old queen and killed her. Then her next mission was to fly to the Drone Congregation Area (DCA) where she will mate with 15-20 drones (male bees not from her own colony). It is a place where drones fly most of the time after leaving the nest. The DCA is 30-200 m in diameter and 15-40 m above ground . Drones fly back and forth in this area producing audible sound similar to a swarm of bees. Drones can choose among many DCA near their  apiary. During its life a drone can visit few different DCA. Sometimes more than one DCA is visited by the same drone during one day.

The  newly mated queen, after her dangerous travel to the DCA (she can be eaten in flight by a bird or  hit by a car...) came back to her hive where she will never leave again. In some instance , the queen will have to go back to the DCA, if the weather was poor, or low drone count.  But generally one trip is sufficient as she gathers about 6 million sperm which will be store in a "pouch" in the abdomen call: spermatheca. 

Now what I saw today, (a few eggs and a beautiful mated queen) is all that work behind the scene that many  ignore but to me it is fabulous! How wonderful is that!

Time to let her be!   ;)

What Am I Seeing in My Colonies?

4 Italian colonies in Chanhassen

May 15, 2014

It is 46F (8C) here and winds at 12 miles per hour! It is cold!!! If I feel cold what do you think the bees are doing? No, not knitting blankets .... but they may:)

For one thing they are not foraging to much, not only because it is cold but it is also gray with no sign of the sun, so they are staying inside their hives. Cleaning, feeding the brood, tending the queen and most importantly keeping warm.
The workers keep the brood (eggs, larvae and pupae) between 91-97 F (32-36C) in any type of weather. To achieve that goal, the workers  have to eat a lot, especially when it is cool outside.
However, some queens like the Russian will lay less eggs, or stop if the temperature dips too much; therefore controlling the size of the nest to keep warm.

When I open a colony this is what I look for: The brood pattern
Is there any eggs, larvae, capped brood? Pollen? Nectar?
Is there any  room (cells available) for the queen to lay more eggs?

How many frames are covered with bees?

For a new colony: is there enough food inside the hive? What is the forecast for the next 7 days ?
These few questions will guide the beekeeper during his/her inspection.
Taking notes for each colony is also important because each "house" may behave differently.

The brood pattern means, how is a frame organized? In the middle of the brood box, one should see 3-4 frames looking like  an oval shape of mostly capped brood, with eggs, and larvae. As you take the frames on each side of the largest oval, the subsequent frames ( as you go towards the outside of the box) have smaller ovals.

(Just like a loaf of bread, as you cut the slices become smaller). This pattern is the brood, the nest. Around this shape on the frame, there is some pollen (colorful cells: yellow, white, dark yellow, orange), around this layer: some cells with nectar, and if lucky some already capped nectar cells call honey! This whole pattern on a frame looks like a "rainbow". This is the perfect brood pattern.

If you could see through the wooden box you could see: small brood shape, medium brood shape, large brood shape, medium brood shape and small again. And every frame with pollen, and nectar/honey, around. This is a perfect honey bee nest!
The outside frames are usually all honey and/or pollen mix (their pantry).

I know what I describe requires a lot of imagination...but you will get there.

See the pattern? Brood ( center), pollen (next arc) and nectar/honey Next layer: Beautiful

See the eggs

Left side: Larvae in royal jelly.
Right side: eggs

Honey bee tending a larvae