I have to say this has to be one of the most challenging times of the year for me as a beekeeper. I spent the spring, summer, and fall caring for my hives — feeding my bees, treating them for pests like Small Hive Beetles and Varroa — and now I just have to sit and wait to see if they over-winter well. I estimated that by the time things got really cold each hive had about 100 lbs of honey stored away in the hive bodies and the super.

My wife went back to the compost pile and then came in telling me that there were dead bees on the ground (actually in the snow — we got about 21″ of it this past weekend). I wasn’t sure what to think. I know the bees throw out the drones in the fall in preparation for winter but I wanted to see what she meant exactly. Well — yes there were dead bees in front of the hives in the snow. And I picked up one of them and it was a worker — not a drone. That made me worried. So I opened up one of the hives and took off the hive top feeder and listened carefully. Deep in the hive I could hear the buzzing. I was very relieved. Also, looking at the top super I could see that there was a ton of capped honey in the cells. And, two bees came flying out to see who was messing with the hive. I immediately closed everything up (and took the hive top feeder with me back inside to clean up) and walked away. The sun shines most of the day on the hives which, in my mind, is good as it keeps my little girls warm (hopefully). Tonight is going to be the coldest yet for the year — a low of 18 — and it doesn’t look like it’s going to warm up any for quite a while. So I have to sit inside and worry.

Julius and Martin.

Julius and Martin are my bee masters from Gulu. My work of sharing the importance of having to produce quality honey does not stop at the village. I will make effort to bring the leaders down occasionally to Kampala to show and explain why we need to pursue excellence in what we are doing.

Before I came, keeping bees in the the North is just to produce enough honey for their own consumption and many did not realized that it can be an income generating activity.

Bringing them to the city will somehow motivate them to realize the potential and many aspect of moving forward after being in insurgency for so many year, thinking that there is little or no hope for their future generations.

I had been working with them for three years now and I do feel their sense of wanting to progress. What amazed me was the speed in which they picked up the skill from honey hunting to honey farming.

Proud to have their honey certified, packed and sold at the largest supermarket (Shoprite) in Kampala. At the same time, in support of an Orphanage (Kids of Africa) paying forward for the future generations.

Once that is achieved, they are able to pat themselves on their shoulders and showing the world that they can also be part of the world food chain by producing high quality honey for the world to embrace.

Their trip to the city this time included a short session on how to transfer bees from one location to another. According to them, this is the first time in Uganda beekeeping history that they are able to learn how to do that. They had done short distance transfer but never in their life ever thought that we can transfer bees 120km apart.

They first learn to observe the temperament of the bees before handling them.

They will be part of the team to transfer the colonies to Timothy Centre within the next 3 weeks. It seems that we are unable to fulfill my planned schedule of completing the task before Christmas. Anyhow, the show must go on.

Timothy Centre will be the FIRST-ONE-OF-ITS-KIND apiary in Uganda where bee farmers coming for training will be able to understand the different kinds and methods of beekeeping around the world. They will then be able to fully understand what sort of method best suits them. Rather than just having to listen to others, always thinking that the most expensive and modern hives is the way to go.

Sealing the hives before transportation.

For the time being hives that are going to be deployed at the Centre will be the Traditional Log Hives, Rattan Hives, Kenyan Top Bars and the Langstroths. Timothy Centre will also serves as an information Centre where NGOs who have beekeeping projects, wanting to introduce it as part of their curriculum, to have a better understanding on the way forward in initiating it to their farmers.

Packed and ready to go.

Modernization of beekeeping industry in the North takes time. The current situation requires a lot of effort, especially apiary management. Why the need for these farmers to learn how to relocate hives is that most of the hives were placed in an awkward position where it is so difficult to work on them safely and gently. Others had their beehives located too far apart between every hives, making it time consuming for farmers to work on them.

Taking a quick break to have a shot to show their fellow village folks back home of their adventure.

Our findings for the honey industry here is this – there is no such thing as whether modern bee hives produces better, higher quality honey compared to traditional log hives. All nectar collected from the bees and being converted to honey are good quality honey. It is the process of how the farmer approach the hive, handle the bees and extracting the combs. Most of our honey harvested are from the traditional log hives and yet they are able to meet EU honey legislations.

Bee hives arriving at Timothy Centre apiary.

The other misconception about beekeeping in Uganda is that farmers were being told that it is one of the simplest form of income generating activity. They simply place a modern beehive on a tree, just wait for the bees to come and deposit honey and collect them during harvesting season. So many quickly jump onto the band wagon but later realized that it was not true, Finally giving it up totally losing their hard earned money to those who sold them the idea.

Too many hypes on modernization but little emphasis on sustainability.

Julius and Martin with the team from Timothy Centre.

Two new neighbours for Timothy Centre apiary.

Julius, 68 and Martin, 45, and the other 300 farmers that I am working with do faced many obstacles but somehow we are determined to face them one at a time.

The only time we failed is the last time we tried. We have not try the last time yet.

Three weeks with Jonathan passed by in a flash. Today we started to pick up where we had left off before he came. It rained quite a bit in the morning and our schedule was delayed a little. All the hives were soaking wet when we loaded them on the truck. Hopefully we are able to complete our work before Christmas and spend a relaxing festive season. Francis will be escorting the bee hives to Timothy Centre. Tomorrow he is getting married.

Packing beehives into truck to be deployed at Timothy Centre.

Off to Timothy Center, Masaka.

Really appreciate Jonathan for taking time to come from Singapore to capture moments of my work in still life. He had also shared a lot on the art of photography. Its all about inspiration and being able to capture the feeling and moment there and then. The final challenge is to capture the African bees closeup at 5pm. The timing for opening up beehives during the day is crucial. The weather must be cool in order for the bees to stay calm.

Come next week, when Jonathan leaves for Singapore, we will resume the transfer of bee from Kampala to Timothy Centre at Masaka.

Sending a little bit of smoke signal telling the bees we are coming in peace.

Waiting for the bees to calm down before signalling Jonathan to come forward for the shoot.

First time for Jonathan to come so close to a colony of African bees.

Another magical moment for Jonathan's profile. Up close and personal.

So, my wife has given her blessings and I’m off to acquire my first set of bees.  It was too late in the season for package bees, and too late for a nuc, but I had my thumbs up and I wasn’t giving up.  I found a queen breeder that lives in Groveland, Fl, and I called him up and discovered to my pleasant amazement that he also sold complete colonies.  I ordered my starter kit from Brushy Mountain Bee Farm, and set off to learn all I could about beekeeping management and how to care for honey bees.

I have to pause and tell you, I still set off and learn about beekeeping management, and what I can do to take care of my girls.

So, the time came for me to pick up my first colony of bees, I read beekeeping for dummies (excellent book by-the-way), and I read First lessons in beekeeping by C.P. Dadant, so I was getting mentally prepared and psyched about picking up my bees.  The only thing was, how am I going to get a colony of bees to my home, I didn’t own a truck at that time, nor did I have a trailer.  But, I can come up with some good ideas, and I had a mini van.  I knew the dimensions of the colony, I had a starters kit, that came with two deeps and two medium supers.  I found a cardboard box that would accomodate the dimensions that I would need, I bought some plastic screen the kind you use for a screen door, and I affixed it to the box…on the sides and a lid that I made that also had a screen.  I planned how  I was going to get the colony into the box, and then attach the lid and duct tape it shut.  Finally the day arrived for me to pick up my colony of honey bees, I took out the back seat of the mini van to give me plenty of room, and I set out for Groveland.  I knew I had to arrive early in the morning so that most of the foragers would be home, and to beat the heat.  When I arrived, I was way early, but I was on time, I met David Miksa and his son Ted and discussed the plan of attack. David decided to leave the cardboard box in the mini van and the two of them lifted the two-story hive into the box…. and they spilled the colony, bees where everywhere, and none to happy about the spill, but they managed to all get into the box.  I shut the lid that I had fashioned and duct taped it closed.  So, here I am a new bee in beekeeping, in a mini van, with an angry colony of bees in a cardboard box.  During the spill several bees where on the outside of the box, but they kept to themselves and I made it home without being eaten alive by angry bees.  It was a fun experience looking back,  Every so often on my ride back home I would watch in the rear view mirror to see if any of the bees found an exit.  So, I would pull over the side of the road and check the box and reinforce where I thought they might bee.  I unloaded the bees and placed them in the back yard on a slab of concrete, on a stand that I had made, and that was where my first apiary was for the first season.  Here is a photo coming up, and here is where I’m going to pause with this nights post.

I was telling about how I got into beekeeping in the post titled “for the love of bees”, and this is the continuation of that.

So here we where in this nice large house with an equally impressive backyard.  At some point early in our first few months of just moving in, my wife says, “lets plant a garden, with vegetables and fruits”.  I thought that was the coolest idea, I lived at a boarding school from when I was in the 5th grade until I graduated .  The school was called Thornwell, and it was in South Carolina.  The school was established in 1875 and was originally an orphanage, for Civil war orphans.  While living at this boarding school, I learned some farming skills.  The school had a milking barn with at least 100 or more cows, that we milked.  We also had beef cattle we raised, and an extensive Farming operation.  The Farm, along with a large endowment, kept the school opened and running for many years.  I have kept in contact with some of the Alumni from that school, and from what they tell me, the school has gone down hill.  The farm has since closed and the farming equipment sold off.  Those in charge of the  endowment, invested the money  poorly, and totally mismanaged it, and the endowment is gone.  I guess, like they say, “that is another story”, but I learned the love for the land, farming, and caring for livestock, at an early stage, because of this school.

That brings me back to the garden in our back yard, in our new home that my aunt had bought….and who we paid rent to.  Angela and myself set out and planted a huge garden, we had corn, tomatoes, bell peppers, cow peas, green beans, sweet peas, cantaloupe, honey dew, pumpkin, cucumbers, and lots of spices. Most everything turned out wonderful and we tended the garden daily. I watched the tomatoes plants grow and produce lots of tomatoes.  The bell pepper plants did well, with a variety of colors.  The corn grew tall and I found those to be wonderful to watch grow.  I built my own trellis for the cow peas, and sweet peas and they also did well.  The cucurbits: the pumpkins, cantaloupe, honey dew, and cucumbers also took off, with beautiful foliage, followed by female and male blossoms.  I had planted a large pumpkin variety and I couldn’t wait to see big fat pumpkins in the garden.  The fruit of the cucurbits, would start and look promising, but the fruit would always abort.  ”Why wouldn’t the cantaloupe and pumpkins and cucumbers do well”, I would ask myself.  Not being one to give up easily, I asked around and researched.

Garden as the sun is going down

Pollination in the way of bees, was the reason, we didn’t have enough feral bees, bumble bees and the like, visit them.  So, I set out to see how I could bring the pollinators to our garden.  I discovered that I could buy orchard bees, bumble bee, and that I could make artificial homes that would attract solitary bees.  Then I came across honey bees, Apis melifera, wow what an extraordinary bug.  I knew that honey bees existed, but somehow I never knew about beekeeping and beekeepers; How could I have missed that.  The more I read about honey bees, beekeeping, and a strange word apiary, the more I got hooked.  Every night I would gather the children around the computer, and tell them about bees, and hobby beekeepers, and about package bees, and nucs.  The children asked lots of questions, and we dreamed of honey bees, and becoming beekeepers……just one small problem, my wife thought that she was allergic to honey bees.Here are some photos of my then garden:

Isla and Avery collecting veggies

cow peas

So, if Angela did have an allergy to honey bees, then that meant I had to dream and enjoy photos of beekeeping online.  I did not give up hope on my dream, I read that honey bees can be very gentle, and that having honey bees in the yard doesn’t spell trouble.  So, I kept reading, kept researching and kept learning.  Finally I was getting my wife on board, besides she wasn’t absolutely sure she was allergic to honey bees.  Then one day, a honey bee somehow got into the house…really….and it stung my wife, and she didn’t have a true anaphylaxis reaction (she did however have a local reaction).  That was when she conceded, and allowed me to have a single colony of honey bees.

It’s time for a break, and this is where I’m going to end, for this post.  I’m going to write some more later.  Happy beekeeping!

Now that you have met the family, I can get to the business of my beekeeping experiences, and make, (what I hope to be), intellectual blog entries, that are informative and entertaining.  I’m not much of a writer, and this is my first blog, so please bear with me. I’ll make many grammatical errors, use phrases and probably  expressions out of context, and may even get off on tangents; hopefully, I won’t bore you.  The only promise I can make is that I will do my very best, and that’s all one can do. So, if you don’t mind, I don’t mind, lets see where this blog leads.

With that said, I can get to explaining how I got into beekeeping, how I got my first bees, where I first placed my bees, where they are currently placed, how I developed as a beekeeper, and how I am still developing as a beekeeper.

How did I get into beekeeping?  How does anyone get into any hobby?  I guess you find something that interests you, and you get involved with it, or maybe it finds you.  That’s a funny statement, “it finds you”, that sounds counterintuitive, as though the hobby walked on it’s own two feet and actively searched you out.  Well, that is how I got into beekeeping, and it’s how I discovered that I had a passion for Apiculture.  I guess to explain this, and for you the reader to understand how it “found me”, I would have to start at the beginning.

In the beginning there was a little bug….no that is much too much “from the beginning”, let me tell you, how it actually started for me.

My wife and I had been renting wherever we have lived; renting apartments, renting trailers, and finally we started renting homes. It was nice renting a home, we didn’t have the hassles of upstairs or downstairs neighbors that comes with living in an apartment.  It was also nice having a backyard, it gave our children a place to run around in, and it was safe neighborhood.  Our first house we rented was a bit small, and the outside of the house was a funky color blue, but it was a home, and it felt like it was ours.  Our landlord, never came over, and that further gave us the “feeling” that we owned our own home.  The rent was right and it felt like we where living the American dream, you know…being a homeowner, at least that was our American dream.  Our credit isn’t the best I’m ashamed to say, so owning a home of our own was a distant dream, it still is. So, here we are in our home, with a fire place even, and I must say that it was pretty cool for a first house. Unfortunately, all good things must eventually come to an end, sad but true.  In this instance, the landlord wanted to sell all the homes that had renters living in them.  Like I mentioned earlier, our credit is bad, but we wanted to keep our home, we had grown attached to it.  It had it’s problems, it was what you would call a “fixer upper” and big time.  It was a little bitty house, it had a large crack in the wall that ran all the way up to the ceiling, and the landlord wanted way more than it was worth, but he was willing to work with us. Besides, we where already in the home, had a great routine, and the children loved it, and it was a great peaceful neighborhood. Anyhow, the owner was going to allow us to rent to own, if I remember correctly he wanted a large deposit, that we didn’t have of course.   So, it was off to my Mother to see if she could “help” with the deposit, and as luck would have it, we got lucky.  Actually, I don’t believe in luck, I believe in God…. all the gifts I have, all the blessings I’ve received, and all that I will ever be, is because of God, and that is what believe in my heart.  Whenever you read luck, in my writings, it’s actually the blessings of the Lord, that I attribute these things to.  As I was saying as luck would have it, (God’s never ending blessings and love for me and my family), my mother and aunt where moving to Miami to live in my other Aunts home.  I guess I should back up a little bit here and explain a little.  My mother and her sister ,my aunt, and my aunts husband, my uncle Bob(who BTW, was one of my idols) where all living in Gainesville, Fl.  My uncle was a retired Lt Commander in the Navy of over 20 years, and was an extremely intelligent man.  He also made some really good investments and owned a lot of real estate, needless to say my aunt and uncle where comfortable, financially.  Well, unfortunately he became ill, had been ill for sometime and had progressively had gotten worse, and passed away (God rest his soul…he was in my eyes a wonderful man).  So the two sisters,( my aunt and my mother), decided to sell their Gainesville home, and move into my other aunt’s home in Miami.  So, as luck would have it (yea,you know who I mean) they where heading to move to Miami, and decided to visit my family and I, here in Orange City.  They took one look at the house, we where living in and the over, over, did I say over, yes I did the over priced home, that the owner wanted for the house, and decided to help.  My aunt said something to the effect “We will just have to find a house you like, and  in this price range (I don’t remember the actual price range), and we will have to buy it”.  Well, it didn’t take long for my wife and I to realize that my Aunt was being very generous, and not looking a “gift horse in the mouth” didn’t ask any questions.  We just diligently looked high and low, for a home in the price range my aunt had given us.  We found lots of homes; nice homes, really bad homes, some OK homes, and some great homes that where just out of the price range, that we had been given. My mother and aunt where even able to find homes via online from Gainesville,(they had not yet moved to Miami), and they would send us the address and we would take a look at them and describe to them how they looked.  Pretty soon, it became evident that they, my aunt and mother, would have to come to Orange City and take a look with us, and boy did we look.  What we found was that for the price range that they had given us, there where no homes that where worth investing into.  So, they raised the price range, and we found our dream home, and it was the most perfect home we had looked at, and we had taken a look at many homes, and had almost given up.  The home was big, (at that time it was just the four of us…my wife, my two little ones, and myself, and my son every other weekend, holidays and two weeks in the summer….I had my son every other weekend religiously.  The back yard was huge, I’ll have to place a photo here so you can see:

That is one views of our back yard, and two other views. The point was that it was a nice size back yard.

These photos where taken after we had the bees, I was going to hold of showing you these photos, but they are good views to show the good size of our back yard. Happy Thanksgiving everyone, I’m going to close here with one more photo at the bottom of this page it is the garden photo, before we had bees, before I even thought about beekeeping, and Clarice our oldest child is standing in the corn patch section of the garden.  This is a good place to stop for today, and I will pick up here, in my next blog post.

Cleaned up version of our Wallace Family Apiary logo

Honey bees are very gentle, and are fun to watch.  Here I place a little honey on my hand, and the bees lined up to the feeding trough.

I came up with this logo, for our Family Honey Logo.  It’s simple and eye catching…at least I think it is.  It appears on our pens (which I have two boxes full of these pens), and it also appears on our honey labels.

So, that’s everyone, and the posts that follow on our blog, will be of us doing our bee thing.  The coming weeks, I’ll be doing the rest of my chores to make sure that the “girls” will “winter” well, and then in the Spring the fun really begins.

Here is Zachary helping with a live bee removal job.

This is Zachary, who learned to light his own smoker, this year for the first time, and enjoys examining the frames of brood and honey bees.

This is Brittany my 16 year old, she is also very helpful in the bee yard.

Little angels of hope.

Here are the first batch of angels made out of 100% natural beeswax, getting ready to take their maiden flight to Singapore.

Our little angel candles are all natural substance made by bees in contrast to paraffin, a chemical byproduct of the oil industry. The burning characteristics of beeswax candles differ from those of paraffin. A beeswax candle flame has a “warmer,” more yellowish appearance than that of paraffin, and the color of the flame may vary depending on the season in which the wax was harvested. It gets its aroma from the honey and pollen packed into each honeycomb cell. Every individual angel is created from our hand poured mold.

Beeswax candles burn with the spectrum of the sun emitting a brighter, longer burning flame. It is a well established fact that while burning, beeswax candles naturally emit negative ions which clean the air and invigorate the body.

Beeswax is produced in the bee hive of honey bees of the genus Apis. Worker bees (the females) have eight wax-producing mirror glands on the inner sides of the sternites (the ventral shield or plate of each segment of the body) on abdominal segments 4 to 7. The size of these wax glands depends on the age of the worker and after daily flights begin these glands gradually atrophy. The new wax scales are initially glass-clear and colorless, becoming opaque after mastication by the worker bee. The wax of honeycomb is nearly white, but becomes progressively more yellow or brown by incorporation of pollen oils and propolis. The wax scales are about 3 millimetres (0.12 in) across and 0.1 millimetres (0.0039 in) thick, and about 1100 are required to make a gram of wax. Typically, for a honey bee keeper, 10 pounds of honey yields 1 pound of wax.

Western honey bees use beeswax to build honeycomb cells in which their young are raised and honey and pollen are stored. For the wax-making bees to secrete wax, the ambient temperature in the hive has to be 33 to 36 °C (91 to 97 °F). To produce their wax, bees must consume about eight times as much honey by mass. It is estimated that bees fly 150,000 miles, roughly six times around the earth, to yield one pound of beeswax (530,000 km/kg). When beekeepers extract the honey, they cut off the wax caps from each honeycomb cell with an uncapping knife or machine. Its color varies from nearly white to brownish, but most often a shade of yellow, depending on purity and the type of flowers gathered by the bees. Wax from the brood comb of the honey bee hive tends to be darker than wax from the honeycomb. Impurities accumulate more quickly in the brood comb. Due to the impurities, the wax has to be rendered before further use. The leftovers are called slumgum.

Beeswax is also used commercially to make cosmetics and pharmaceuticals including bone wax (cosmetics and pharmaceuticals account for 60% of total consumption), in polishing materials (particularly shoe polish and furniture polish) and as a component of modelling waxes. It is commonly used during the assembly of pool tables to fill the screw holes and the seams between the slates. Squeezebox makers use beeswax as an adhesive, when blended with pine rosin, to attach reed plates to the structure inside an squeezebox. Beeswax candles are preferred in most Eastern Orthodox churches because they burn cleanly, with little or no wax dripping down the sides and little visible smoke. Beeswax is also prescribed as the material (or at least a significant part of the material) for the Paschal candle (“Easter Candle”) and is recommended for other candles used in the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church.

It is also used as a coating for cheese, to protect the food as it ages. While some cheese-makers have replaced it with plastic, many still use beeswax in order to avoid any unpleasant flavors that may result from plastic. As a food additive, beeswax is known as E901 (glazing agent)

Beeswax has been used since ancient times; traces of it were found in the paintings in the Lascaux cave and in Egyptian mummies. Egyptians used it in shipbuilding as well. In the Roman period, beeswax was used as waterproofing agent for painted walls and as a medium for the Fayum mummy portraits. Nations subjugated by Rome sometimes paid tribute or taxes in beeswax. In the Middle Ages beeswax was considered valuable enough to become a form of currency.

These next few posts are going to introduce all of the family members, what we’ve done to help the Wallace Family Apiary.

US

Mom is taking the photo, but she will be in the next picture. This pose was where we put on our Wallace Family Apiary shirts and hats, to deliver an order of Honey. Top left- Sara, Myself (Santiago), and Brittany. Bottom row our far left-Zachary, Avey, and Isla. We have one more child Clarice, but she is a college student. I’ll post a photo of her soon. Anyhow here we are, and like I said, tonight and the next few nights, I’ll introduce them, and show them involved in a beekeeping activity.

Avery holding a frame of honey

My daughter, Avery  is holding a frame of capped honey, and this little girl is a BIG HONEY EATER,  just like her Dad!!

Yesterday, Sunday 11/22/09, I visited my closest out yard.  I have 6 colonies at this locality, and they all are healthy and have adequate stores.  I did have to give one colony a frame of open and capped worker brood, along with two frames of capped honey.  I think that the additional bees and stores will help this colony “winter well”, and will aid in this colony having a good start come spring time.  The colony that I robbed of the brood and honey stores, could afford the loss and will also “winter” well.  Again, having inspected these six colonies, they where found to be in satisfactory condition and of equal strength.   Next weekend, I’m going to visit my other out yard that holds 13 colonies, and is located on an orange grove.  My last out yard holds three  colonies, and they have already been inspected and found to be healthy strong colonies.  If you do the math, you will discover that I have 22 colonies, I had 30 but lost 8 to what I attribute to poor genetics.  The remaining 22 colonies are survivor colonies, and have adequate hygienic traits or some form of mite resistance, I know this because I use NO CHEMICALS IN MY HIVES.  I subscribe to the belief and the idea that bees need to bred from colonies that have such resistances as to not need chemicals.  I refuse to put a single drop of antibiotics, a single strip of miticides, or anything that is not found in nature….naturally.

This ends this blog post and will post after another beekeeping project, inspection, or any other beekeeping management that I do.

This is a blog about my beekeeping hobby, and all the fun my family and myself have with beekeeping.

After a week of rest, we went back to organize our first colony of bees for our relocation exercise. The process is tedious but it is better to be safe than sorry. The colony will be placed in a bee proof cage for double protection. The bee hive itself will also be sealed except a small portion which we will only cover it with wire mesh.

All this were being done the night before because we have to wait for the foragers to come back. If not, when morning comes, some of the foragers will be left behind. We try to relocate the whole colony if possible.

It will be a slow two and a half hours drive from Kampala to Masaka. Setting off at 5am, hopefully with no traffic jams, reaching Timothy Centre by 9am. We have to abide to the schedule in order that we can quickly release the bees when we reach our destination.

Francis preparing to seal the top part of the hive.

Any gap that is more than 49mm must be sealed. If not the bees will escape.

We leave the last few bars free from tapes so that the bees can breathe through it. A fine wire mesh is place instead.

Wire mesh neatly covering the last few bars.

Francis is pleased that the whole process was done without aggravating the bees.

The colony is going to spend a night in my car.

Preparing to place the beehive inside the bee-proof cage.

Helmut came to assist while I was taking all these photos.

Colony safely inside my car.

The next morning at 5am, the journey starts. Luckily there wasn’t much traffic. We need to get out of town as quickly as possible just in case if there were any mishap or the bees somehow escape. We will then be endangering the public. Keeping our fingers crossed all the way.

Reached Timothy Centre around 9am. A black cloth is used to cover the cage to reduce the light from entering the hive. The bees will then be less active, less stressed.

Karl and his staffs were already waiting for our arrival.

The bees are going to their new home.

Timothy Centre bees haven.

The colony has reached its destination.

The bees are settling in for now.

Due to the aggressive nature of Api Meliferra Scutellata, relocation of these species, great care must be taken. One cannot slack in any of the procedure. Most important aspect when handling these bees is to minimize as much direct contact with them. The amount of smoke being introduced must be just right. Many Ugandan bee farmers are still having this idea of smoking too much, thus aggravating and suffocating the bees.

Once the bees are settled in, we release them. As for the tapes, we shall remove them as we perform our regular hive management. We do not remove all the tapes immediately, if not we will experience the whole colony pouring out, attacking anything within 100m.

Soon all these colonies will be transported to Masaka to start the training school. We will have to do a pre flight check to make sure we understood the stucture of each and every one of the hive in order to have them transferred without any hiccups.

Helmut and I had been keeping bees in our garden in Kampala for the last 5 years. All good things must come to an end. He will be leaving Uganda soon and I had taken the task to adopt his bees. They will come in very handy for my training school at Timothy Centre, Masaka.

An amazing friend that shared the same passion as I. In fact his experience in beekeeping is far more greater than mine for he has been based in a few African countries and he had always kept bees.

We went to his place around 1930hrs but the rain had disrupted our schedule and finally at around 2045hrs, the sky managed to clear and we proceed on with the checks.

Francis, my bee master, who will be the overall in charge of the training school at Timothy’s, assisted me is making my rounds. So far I am very pleased with his performance and the way he handles the bees, although there are still a lot of rooms for improvement.

We had to perform our harvest and check in the night because Kampala is really saturated with residential housing and we do not want the bees to disturb the neighbors should they became cranky.

There are a few reasons why we are harvesting some of the honey. When the volume of honey is reduced, the bees tend to be less aggressive because they have less honey to protect. At the same time, the hive will be much lighter for us to transport them for the 2 hrs drive.

Comb honey is highly in demand from the expatriates community because these “Muzungus” honey lover truly appreciate fresh comb honey harvested directly from the hive without going through any processing or filtering. Honey at its purest!

The fascinating sight of having the comb honey being sliced open, watching the liquid gold flowing down onto the platter, makes one wonder how nature had created such a small yet dynamic insect, being able to interact socially amongst themselves without a single conflict.

Although African bees are known to be very aggressive, they still do display its gentle side, provided we as human being, listen to them more attentively and not try to force ourselves onto them during harvesting. No clashes will occur.

The result – beautiful comb honey with little or no casualties on both parties. Many a times, bee farmers are too eager to get the job done. They approached the hive with only one intention…… get the honey and go. Whether the bees are destroy or not is secondary. To me, this is honey hunting.

Whenever I harvest honey, I will always think of this friend of mine, Joanna Yue. We used to play squash together back home occasionally and will always share her squash knowledge when we played. She once told me that in order to play good squash, I have to think of the process, not the outcome. So long as I set the process right, the outcome will be right.

In beekeeping, I applied the same principle. Thinking of the process, by listening to the bees, observing their movement and behaviour, practicing patience. The outcome will see me having that beautiful comb taken out from the hive successfully with little or no stings. I do feel a great sense of achievement whenever I managed to harvest fresh comb honey without agitating the bees and being able to keep their temperament at bay.

Every road that we walked, every path that we take, it’s all about life experiences. It’s just a matter of how one adapt to the situation and environment. Even a young lady nearly half my age, had shared a life skill so valuable that I am applying it now.

Anyone care to have a taste of fresh comb honey?

It’s the first chance I’ve had in about two weeks to feed and look into the hives. Overall things look good. The hives sound strong and appear to be doing well. I’m feeding them 2:1 sugar syrup in order to get them to store as much food as possible for the coming winter. What I’m not sure about is when to stop feeding them. They’re still making it up to the hive top feeders (the temperature during the day still reaches 65 degrees Fahrenheit) so I figure I should continue to feed them. I do plan to put in an order for some fondant in order to supplement their feeding. I’m starting to get nervous and worry about them as the weather is definitely getting colder.

Les ruches envahissent Paris. Après le traditionnel jardin du Luxembourg et son école d’apiculture, on a vu le Conseil régional d’Ile-de-France, et plus récemment le Grand Palais, l’Opéra, et bien d’autres installations plus modestes mais tout aussi bourdonnantes. La banlieue n’est pas en reste. Les apiculteurs deviennent la coqueluche des grandes agglomérations.

La raison en serait la pollution. Non pas celle des villes, mais celle des campagnes. Peut-être parce que de nombreux services municipaux des parcs et jardins, à Paris et dans de grandes villes, réduisent leur consommation de produits phytosanitaires, l’air urbain est plus respirable par les abeilles que l’air des champs. On nous affirme que le miel de nos ruches citadines est exempt de toute pollution urbaine. Bonne nouvelle, qui ne compense guère la mauvaise, à savoir que les abeilles ne sont plus persona grata à la campagne.

Ce n’est pas la première fois qu’un tel phénomène se produit. Telle petite ville de Bretagne a conservé ses haies dans son espace bâti, la partie cultivée les ayant perdues à l’occasion d’un remembrement trop brutal. Résultat : les oiseaux sont plus dans la ville que dans les champs, et les citadins sont heureux d’entendre leurs gazouillis au printemps dès 5 heures du matin. La nature en ville, quel bonheur !

Les paradoxes de ce type sont nombreux. Les zones les plus artificielles deviennent des conservatoires de biodiversité. Une illustration intéressante de ce retournement de situation est donnée par les parcs zoologiques. Au début, on est dans le spectacle. Des animaux sauvages, voire féroces, sont donnés à voir, pour procurer des émotions et éveiller votre curiosité. Nous sommes dans l’exotisme, la découverte de ce monde qu’il nous est donné de conquérir, de domestiquer. Le prix à payer est lourd. Pour la nature, bien sûr. Des aventuriers se lancent dans ce business, braconnent à volonté, tuent les mères pour récupérer des petits. Ce sont les grandes chasses qui ont nourri le cinéma à une certaine époque. L’épopée des grands explorateurs et l’aventure coloniale sont implicitement présents dans ces zoos dont l’objectif premier était de montrer le maximum de bêtes sauvages dans le minimum d’espace. Les conditions de vie des animaux étaient souvent déplorables. Elles interdisaient dans les faits leur reproduction, et provoquaient une forte mortalité. Il fallait donc prélever dans la nature, encore et encore, pour satisfaire la curiosité[2] et l’envie de frisson des populations de nos contrées. Le volet scientifique, naturaliste, était bien secondaire, surtout dans les nombreux établissements privés, plus proches du cirque et du parc d’attraction que de l’observation des mœurs animales.

Les choses ont bien changé. Des conventions internationales régissent la manière de prélever des animaux sauvages dans la nature ; la loi, en France et dans de nombreux pays, impose des garanties sur le traitement des animaux en captivité, de manière à leur laisser l’espace nécessaire pour une vie en bonne santé et pouvoir se reproduire. Et il se passe un autre phénomène, du type abeilles en ville. Ces zoos sont devenus des conservatoires de la biodiversité. Ils détiennent et protègent les derniers spécimens d’espèces en danger, parfois même en voie de disparition. C’est le triste constat de l’appauvrissement de certains milieux, ou de leur évolution en peau de chagrin, comme des forêts primaires durement touchées par le défrichement.

Une partie du patrimoine génétique, animal ou végétal, qui y prospérait, a été quasiment éliminé, et ne subsiste aujourd’hui que dans des parcs, bien loin de leur milieu d’origine. Ces parcs sont devenus les dépositaires de ce patrimoine, de ce qu’il en reste. Ils ont créé des réseaux d’échange, de manière à préserver la diversité génétique, en croisant tel mâle vivant à Los Angeles avec telle femelle de Saint Petersburg. Le petit nombre d’animaux restants oblige à une gestion très fine de ces unions, pour éviter toute dégénérescence.

Des abeilles qui se plaisent mieux en ville que dans les champs, des haies urbaines comme buttes témoins des haies des champs, des parcs d’attraction plutôt malsains devenus des hauts lieux de la biodiversité, voilà bien des curiosités. Nous pourrions nous réjouir, si elles marquaient des avancées. Hélas, elles ne sont souvent que le reflet de dégradations à grande échelle, à peine compensées par ces quelques réactions. Espérons juste que celle-ci, malgré leur caractère dérisoire par rapport aux reculs observés, joueront un rôle régénérateur d’une nouvelle perception de la nature et de ses apports, et fondateur d’une nouvelle culture, du développement durable, évidement !

Source Natura Vox: Miel.

026323 การเลี้ยงผึ้ง Apiculture

การเลี้ยงผึ้ง พันธุ์ผึ้ง อุปนิสัย ชีววิทยา พืชอาหาร ปัจจัยทางสภาพแวดล้อมที่มีผลต่อการเลี้ยงผึ้งและแมลงผสมเกสรอื่น ๆ การเลี้ยงและการผลิตน้ำผึ้งเป็นอุตสาหกรรม โรคและศัตรูของผึ้ง การป้องกันกำจัด มีการศึกษานอกสถานที่

(Beekeeping, honeybee strains, habit, biology, host plants, environmental factors affecting honeybees and other pollinators, beekeeping and industrial honey production, diseases and enemies of honeybees and control measures. Field trips.)

(026323 มหาวิทยาลัยเกษตรศาสตร์)

I’ve been feeding my bees a 2:1 sugar syrup mixture to get their stores of honey up in preparation for the winter. At this point I believe that both hives have somewhere around 90 – 120 lbs of honey in the hives which should be more than sufficient for the coming winter. The last thing I want to have happen to my girls is for them to starve. I just saw a hive today that died because of starvation (and it’s not even winter yet!). We went out to Larriland Farms today to pick apples and to get some other things and they have an observation hive in their barn. The hive looked really good earlier this year but when I saw it today all of the bees were at the bottom — dead. I could see that there was no honey stored in any of the cells and there were bees with their heads down in the cells also dead. It was a very sad sight .

I asked the checkout person about it and she said that she was told that the bees died because of the cold this week. It didn’t make sense to me as bees in that kind of hive would be able to manage their temperature better than those in a Langstroth since they’re so compacted. But the lack of honey in any of the cells indicates that the most likely cause of the hive’s demise was starvation. It made me very worried about MY girls.

When I came home I whipped up a batch of 2:1 syrup, added a teaspoon of HoneyBHealthy, and went out to refill the hive top feeders as well as remove the 1/4 inch spacer between the hives that I had placed in order to treat them with ApiGuard. Unfortunately I was only able to get one hive done due to time constraints — the other one I’ll do tomorrow. When I opened the hive to remove the space (which is situated between the two deeps) the bees became VERY agitated and immediately stung me three times on my left hand. On top of that they flew at my veil continuously. Unfortunately I had to remove a bit of burr comb in order to put the hive back together. I also took out the queen excluder from between the deeps and the one shallow super that I’m leaving on top of the hives and I put in an entrance reducer.

Overall the weight of the hive components makes me think that I’m looking at about 90 – 120 lbs of honey in each hive total. I just hope that it remains completely accessible to them throughout the winter.