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Gone, gone away

When I analyze my beekeeping time—the hours I actually spend in the apiary—I estimate fully 40% is spent looking for my hive tool. You probably believe that’s an exaggeration, but I think not.

I start the day reminding myself not to lose the damn thing and I don’t—not for at least fifteen minutes. But then I get all wrapped up in the moment, thinking, assessing, planning. Before you know it, I reach for the hive tool but it’s not there.

Now, my favorite place for all of life’s little treasures is my right rear pocket. Everything goes there, including the hive tool. Unfortunately the pocket is way too shallow for such service, so the tool invariably falls out. Still, I cannot break the habit. I’m programmed and everything goes there.

So I start searching the ground. I pat down my other pockets. I retrace my steps back to the house. When that doesn’t pan out, I begin re-opening hives. I get down and look beneath the hive stands. I survey the weeds and the grass, I re-pat my pockets.

Finally I go looking for my husband. He sees me coming with a certain look on my face and before I even ask the question, he says, “No. I haven’t seen it.” How annoying.

“But I had it just five minutes ago,” I complain. “And now it’s gone!” Whenever I say that word it reminds me of the song Gone by John Hiatt: “Gone like a Nixon file, gone, gone away.”

So I wonder aimlessly around the yard, tracing my route over and over. Pretty soon I’m looking in places I haven’t been for weeks. Seriously, it had to go somewhere, right?

Today after I spent an hour circling like a disabled airplane, I spent another hour rehashing the hive tool’s final moments. It pried open a box and separated a few frames. It bent the metal tab on a queen cage and forced the feed can from a shipping crate. It flipped a slug from my shoe. The last thing I remember: it got wiped with a wet rag—a rag I didn’t lose.

My husband keeps telling me to paint the hive tool pink. He has this idea because once about six years ago in a fit of annoyance, I spray-painted an ax pink. Pink because it was the only color in the garage—a color that’s always available because no one ever uses it. In any case, I haven’t lost the ax since.

So today after I finally found the hive tool lying in the grass about ten feet from the hive (I swear I did not go there) I considered the pink paint. But alas, I couldn’t do it. I’m sorry, but I just can’t be a beekeeper who uses pink hive tools. What would people think? Worse, what would the bees think? Certainly they’d sting me to death for less.

So I did the next best thing; I wrapped the hive tool with pink survey ribbon. Now, I know this is going to annoy me no end, all those dangly ends slipping down between my fingers and getting caught between the frames. The ends will stick to the propolis that sticks to my hands and I will be moaning and groaning and invented new words. But that’s a problem for another day. For now at least, I know exactly where my hive tool is.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

Tools decked out in pink.
Tools decked out in pink.

Bee suit-related stress syndrome: why they drive me mad

I have real issues with bee suits. Last year, I wrote a post about why (supposedly) they are white. I did not say the need for white suits is a myth, even though I wanted to. I forgo calling something a myth unless there’s scientific evidence to support me, but regarding bee suit color I can find nothing.

So for the moment I’m going to segue from the realm of science in the province of opinion. I firmly believe the color of your clothes makes not one scintilla of difference in the behavior of bees. The idea that dark clothes makes bees think you are a (pick one or more) bear, skunk, raccoon, dog, opossum, wolf, or insectivorous bird is ridiculous. Bees are not stupid. Bees know we are living things by our breath. If you really want to see bees get riled up, open a busy hive and blow on them. Ohmygod. No matter what color you are wearing, they will fire out of the hive like they came from a Gatling gun.

But we humans, thinking we are ever so brilliant, run around in these ridiculous white suits thinking we’re pulling one over on the bees. Believe me, the bees find this amusing.

I, for one, look perfectly ridiculous in my so-called white suit, which is hardly white but stained with 15 colors of propolis and 25 shades of pollen. None of it comes out, no matter how often I wash it. And the more I wash it, the softer it gets, until I may as well not bother because the bees can sting right through it.

Recently, a few companies starting making colored bee suits, but they come in pastel shades of pink, yellow, purple, and blue. I suppose these colors are deemed light enough to “fool” the bees. But even these are no match for propolis, which is dark and brown and sticky and waterproof.

So for my next bee suit I’m going to buy dark brown or black coveralls. They will have lots of pockets, no zip-fly in the front (remind me why I need this?) . . . and they will fit.

Since I’ve never been able to find a suit that worked for me, I finally bought the jacket and pants separately. The pants I ordered in the smallest size the company made. These are pants that my adult daughter and I can share–I can get in one leg while she gets in the other. I’m not kidding. If I wear these pants (by myself) the crotch comes to a place just below my knees, so I can walk only with mincing baby steps or risk falling on my face.

While I’m thinking of it, why do zipped hoods collapse against your face? Why are hive tool pockets so short the hive tools fall out? Why do suits not have a hanging thingy on the inside where a normal jacket has one? Why is the elastic around the wrist so tight and the elastic around the ankles so loose? Why haven’t bee suit makers heard of female beekeepers?

I used to fantasize about the perfect bee suit, now just the thought of something barely serviceable gives me palpitations. Dream on.

Rusty

I love bees, but beekeeping? Not so much.

Anyone who knows me knows I love bees. It’s obvious. But I have moments when I wonder if I like beekeeping. Today, for example.

I have queen bees living in my underwear drawer. I do this every year because, if new queens cannot be installed immediately, they need to be kept in a warm, dark, dry, draft-free environment. The underwear drawer fits the bill and I’ve done it every spring for the past four or five years. But now they’ve been there nearly a week.

Trouble is, the weather is nasty. It is rainy, windy, thundery, and cold. Every time I think it might clear, it just gets worse. I’m tired of queens living in my underwear and they’re tired of it too. So today, I decided to take a chance and work in the apiary between downpours. (Okay, not so bright.)

Everything went fine for a while—maybe five minutes. The hives I want to re-queen are populous and weather-bound. Scads of bees live there. Nearly right away I could see this wasn’t going to work. At the first hive, I sorted through frame after frame after frame searching for the overwintered queen, but I found nothing. Too many bees. The odor of alarm pheromone was enough to make me swoon. I got stung a few times, spilled sugar syrup down the front of me, and accidentally pulled a top-bar off an old frame. I was trying to pry the rest of the frame out of the hive when the downpour came.

I was then hot, sticky, irritated, drenched, stung, and grumpy. Remind me why I do this? On the third hive I finally found a queen and snatched her up. I put the hive back together but couldn’t get ten frames into a space where ten frames just came out. How does that work?

I decided to scrape wax, but when I reached in my pocket to change tools I realized it was brimming with bees. That’s right—bees in my pocket. I had caught the queen with a queen catcher and stashed the entire thing in my pocket. Apparently, dozens of her loyal subjects followed her in.

Intent on clearing the pocket, I set down my hive tool. Only I didn’t really because it stuck to my hand. Really stuck. I shook it loose and it went flying in to the brush where I couldn’t find it. Salmonberry vines clung to my clothes and ripped the back of my hand, but I finally spied the tool. When I bent down for it, I immediately get stung in the thigh by the pocket brigade. I uttered words I had only ever read.

That was the moment when I wondered if being a beekeeper is something I really want to do. Maybe I should just admire bees from afar and settle for bee art up close. I could learn to like bee art.

Long story short, I got everything put away—that is, everything that’s not headed for the wash. I got the hives back together just as a clap of thunder warned me back to the house. There’s only a few bees left in the pocket. The rain and wind continue and, yes, the queens are still in my underwear.

Rusty
HoneyBeeSuite

“Stocking stuffers” for your favorite beekeeper

With the holiday season upon us, I came up with a few inexpensive items for your favorite beekeeper. Each one of these items will get plenty of use, I promise.

  • Flower and herb seeds. Most beekeepers like to attract bees to their gardens and patios, so seeds for bee-attracting plants are always a good choice.
  • Burt’s Bees Res-Q-Ointment. This is great for stings. Even if the beekeeper doesn’t use it, it’s a nice thing for him to offer guests, neighbors, or the postman.
  • Spare hive tool. Nothing does a disappearing act quite like a hive tool. I’ve lost them in the grass and left them inside hives, at the bottom of buckets, or in the back of the truck. You can’t have too many. For extra visibility, paint it yellow.
  • Velco ankle straps. I hope this is self-explanatory. Bees stinging your ankles is one thing, but when they start crawling up your legs inside your pants—ewwwwew!
  • Duct tape. I use this for everything around the bee yard. For a temporary fix, there’s nothing like it.
  • Mason bee condo. Every beekeeper needs a few mason bees around, especially in the early spring before the honey bees are out and about. Plus, mason bees pick up the pollination chores on a few things honey bees are not found of—like pear trees.
  • Essential oils. The basic ones for beekeeping are lemongrass, spearmint, and wintergreen. A few others make great feeding stimulants. Try anise, tea tree, rosemary, or thyme.
  • The Queen Must Die: And Other Affairs of Bees and Men by William Longgood. This is one of my favorite bee books and a perfect read for a long winter’s night. You can even give this to your non-beekeeper friends and they will be converted by spring.

Rusty

The types of hive tools

Hive tools come in several different designs. They are absolutely indispensable to the beekeeper. It’s the one item you will never open a hive without.

The most common design in the U.S.—and the one that comes with most beginner kits—is somewhere around 7-10 inches (18-25 cm) long. These usually have a curved end meant for scraping and prying, a flat end for prying, and a nail-pulling slot somewhere in the middle.

Frame lifter hive tools are 9-14 inches (23-36 cm) long and have a hook at one end and a little offset which allows you to lift out frames. The other end is designed for scraping and prying. This is my favorite.

The so-called Italian hive tool is about 12.5 inches (32 cm) long, very narrow, and it said to be good for cutting top-bar comb away from the sides of the hive.

Besides the stated purposes, you will find many other uses for hive tools. I have my favorite one marked with the depth of various supers so I can tell them apart in the field. I also use it to cut duct tape, flatten yellow jackets, release corroded tie-downs, and clean mud from my boots. After your first season of beekeeping you will find you never lay it down. You use it so frequently it seems like an extension of your arm. And sometimes it gets so sticky you can’t let go of it, even if you want to.

Most beekeeping suits have special pockets for hive tools. There are also holsters available that attach to your belt. Hive tools are easy to lose, so it is a good idea to check for it before you leave your beeyard. Some folks paint them bright colors or tie cords through the holes so they are easier to see. But if you are prone to losing things, you should have more than one. It’s nearly impossible to keep bees without one.

Rusty