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    Hive Gallery

    The Hive Gallery features photos of beehives, honey bees, honey . . . whatever readers have sent me. Explore

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    Cookbook

    Not for you, for them. Find recipes for all those tantalizing treats like sugar cakes, pollen substitute, and grease patties. Explore

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    Find links to the most popular posts on how to do everything from building a frame to moving a hive. Explore

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    Glossary

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Take the dog hive challenge

This is where we come to the rescue of urban beekeepers who want to keep their hives out of the public eye. A few years back I wrote a post called, “Out of sight, out of mind” where I explained why concealing your hives from passersby might be a good choice. Recently Frank, from I know not where, responded to that post with the idea of concealing a hive in an altered dog house.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I think it’s a clever idea. As I explained in that post, passersby are not in much danger of getting stung, but they often get upset at the thought of getting stung. I still get lots of mail from bee-fearing individuals who want to know how they can force their neighbor’s to get rid of their bees, or worse, how to kill their neighbor’s bees.

Because there is so much creative talent out there, I thought I would ask. The challenge is to come up with a design for a faux dog house that could be used to conceal a bee hive. From a distance, most people are not intimidated by a dog house, in fact, they pay little attention. Along the lines of Frank’s idea, I’m thinking of something that has a hive opening at each end and some kind of back door or removable roof that would allow beekeeper entry.

I’m not limiting the design ideas to just dog houses. I’ve seen pollinator housing that looks like birdhouses, and chicken coops that look like storage sheds, so anything that you might ordinarily see in an urban or suburban yard might make good camouflage.

So if you’d like to sketch an idea, I will publish any I get. Or, if you already have such a thing, send a photo. This is just for fun, but who knows? Someone may use your idea to keep their bees safe from the neighbors.

Also, anyone wanting to add their photos to the Reader Hives gallery or the Sunflowers gallery, please e-mail your photos to: rusty[at]honeybeesuite[dot]come.

I’ll have the pollinator plate

Guess who’s coming to dinner? It’s a Pacific tree frog looking for an easy snack. Yesterday I was in the garden, still trying to catch a leafcutter in the act of cutting, when I decided to look for petal pieces in the pollinator housing. The housing is nearly full already, but I came face to face with this little guy. Cute huh? I wonder, though, how many pollinators he can eat in a day.

Pacific tree frogs make an incredibly loud sound for their size, and when they all get going at once, it is deafening. They are tiny. In the bottom photo you can it’s only about two drinking straws wide. I’ve heard they are the species that is most often recorded for background sounds when creepy nighttime noises are needed in the movies.

Anyway, I left him there. I like frogs almost as much as bees, so he (or she) gets to stay.

Pacific-tree-frog-in-pollinator-housing
This tree frog found a perfect hiding place. Just sit in one place and the food will come to you. © Rusty Burlew.
Pacific-tree-frog-in-pollinator-housing-2
The frog is sitting on a piece of branch and probably feels right at home. © Rusty Burlew.

Notice Board . . .

In case you missed it: A Song of the Bees

How to recognize a nectar dearth

“How can I recognize a nectar death?” is a common newbee question and a hard one to answer. I think most experienced beekeepers know which plants are in flower in any season, which bloom follows another, and how long each lasts. They are attuned to variations in the weather from year to year, and they know if things are early or late.

Here in the coastal Pacific Northwest, we can expect the summer dearth to follow the blackberry bloom—an event that coincides with the beginning of the dry season. But if you dropped me in the middle of Texas, Alberta, or Kentucky tomorrow afternoon, I wouldn’t know the plants, the weather patterns, or the rhythm of the seasons. Read more

How much honey should I leave in my hive?

How much honey will your bees need for winter? Good question. But before I answer, here’s a question for you: How much heating fuel will my household use this winter?

Well, you say, that is complex. It depends on where you live, your local climate, and the size and geometry of your house. It depends on what type of furnace you have, how warm you like it, and how many people live there. It depends on how much insulation you have, and whether you have wind breaks, and what color it is. It depends on air leaks and ventilation and the materials it is made from. It depends on whether the seasons are early or late. And on and on.

Your bee colony has different issues, of course, but just as many. The climate and weather, the amount of ventilation, the structure of the hive, the number of bees, the kind of bees, the number of warmish days and the number of abnormally cold ones are some obvious examples. The fact is, you can’t predict exactly how much honey a colony will need, so it is better to estimate on the high side.

I checked dozens of sources this morning and found an amazing amount of agreement on general guidelines. Bees in the southern U.S. may thrive on as little as 40 pounds, bees in the middle states need about 60, and northern bees may require 80 or 90. Those are average numbers for average years and average hives. What’s average? Another good question.

In all but the warmest areas, I recommend that a beekeeper leave 80 to 90 pounds. In nearly all cases, this will assure a good supply of natural food for your bees, and it will save you messing around with syrups and sugars and supplements. In short, it is good for them and good for you.

The Mann Lake catalog used to have estimates for the weight of full boxes. According to them, a full ten-frame deep weighs 80-90 pounds, and a full ten-frame medium weighs 65-75 pounds. Discounting the weight of the structure and dividing by 10, a full deep frame holds about 8 pounds of honey and full medium holds about 6 pounds. (If you evenly space nine frames in a ten-frame box, a full frame will weigh a bit more.)

According to Caron and Conner (2013), the ideal fall colony will have brood in the center of the lowest box. This will be flanked with frames of honey and pollen, and the two outermost frames will be filled with just honey. The second deep will be filled to the brim with honey—all ten frames.

Applying the math to their ideal colony, you will have 12 deep frames completely full of honey which gives you (8 x 12) or 96 pounds, plus any additional that is stored on the pollen frames.

This setup should get you through any winter, but in the more temperate states, you could easily replace the second deep with a medium, which would give you (6 x 12) or 72 pounds of honey plus any additional on the pollen frames.

A common error that new beekeepers make is harvesting the honey supers without checking the brood boxes for honey. You cannot assume the deeps are full just because the honey supers are full. Often the bees use one or both brood boxes for brood and pollen during most of the season. Not until late in the year do they start moving the honey closer to the brood nest. If you take the supers without checking, you could be leaving your bees with almost nothing for the winter. So above all, remember to look before you take.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

A-full-frame-of-honey
A full frame of honey. © Nancy McClure.