A Year in the Life of a Beginner Beekeeper

Part Six: Newspaper Combining, Drone Culling, and Honey Harvesting, Oh My!

Happy (almost) 6 months of beekeeping to us!

It sure has been an interesting half a year tending to these thousands of tiny, intelligent insects. We’ve made many plans that the bees have completely disregarded, but it has helped significantly to let go of control a little and learn to roll with the punches.

August was full of fun experiments, not-so-fun Varroa destructor discoveries, and a lot of bee-watching in the blossoming knotweed surrounding our apiary.

Combining the ground swarm with our original hive using a newspaper combine

A few days after hiving the ground swarm, we found an emergency queen cell on the deep frame of brood that we provided. This meant that the ground swarm’s queen was either incapable of going on her mating flight or never returned. This tiny colony could not possibly survive the winter, so we decided to combine it with Kha-bee-si using the newspaper method.

Within 48 hours, the newspaper was perfectly chewed away. We also located fresh eggs, larvae, nectar, and pollen in Kha-bee-si. Sweet success!

Varroa mite detection, unplanned comb culling, and treating Big Girl

A week after getting Big Girl, we opened her up and did a full inspection, complete with a sugar roll test for varroa mites. As expected, there was a healthy brood pattern and tons of active bees (some guard bees still hadn’t recovered from the move, so they were very active). The sugar roll produced 17 mites, so we decided to place two strips of Formic Pro treatment between the two brood boxes.

Two weeks later, when we were switching out the placeholder medium frame and returning the deep frame of resources (from the ground swarm’s first home) to Big Girl, we found that the bees left us a fun surprise: no drawn comb on the foundation, but a ton of drone brood-filled comb in the empty bee space below. They work quickly! So, Tim and I attempted to place the comb in an empty frame, rubberband-ing it in place, to add it to Kha-bee-si’s hive.

However, when we punctured a few cells as we were setting up the frame, living varroa mites came scurrying out. We punctured a few other cells to test our theory that they were also chock full of skeezy mites, and lo and behold, they were, so we made the executive decision to cull the comb. Those mites were not living another day in any of our hives! It was heart-wrenching to have to remove and dispose of so many baby bees, but it was for the greater good of the colony, and the apiary as a whole. The crazy thing about this situation was that the fresh comb was built right on top of one of the Formic Pro treatment pads.

Another two weeks passed and we checked the sticky board under our screened bottom board. Kha-bee-si only dropped 5 mites in a 72-hour period, but Big Girl dropped nearly 120 mites! I instantly started panicking, but was reminded that Formic Pro kills mites beneath the cappings, so as the bees emerge, the dead mites drop onto the board. Still, I did not feel comfortable with this count, so we started another Formic Pro treatment, two weeks after the first treatment was removed. We want our winter bees to be healthy and ready to take on the harsh conditions.

Rotating Big Girl in line with Kha-bee-si

After all the drama with the rogue comb removal, we decided to freshen up Big Girl’s digs and move her in line with Kha-bee-si. We removed the boxes, inspected them, rotated the hive stand 35 degrees, then rearranged the boxes facing the new direction. We switched out the screened and solid bottom boards, oriented them in the correct direction, and added a new inner and outer cover. The returning foragers were confused about the move at first, but their Nasanov-ing sisters helped them find their way back. Within an hour, it was back to business as usual at the front entrance. Now we can see the entrances to both hives from the house!

Our (modest) first honey harvest!

I can tell that Tim is hooked on this beekeeping thing because he suggested that we get our own extractor and extract at home. We purchased the extracting kit from Betterbee and also picked up another 6 gallon pail, some cheesecloth, and a few essential uncapping tools. If you're considering your first harvest, make sure you have the right honey harvesting equipment to make the process smoother and more enjoyable. When we had the one hive, we didn’t expect to get any honey, so we have been cautiously optimistic about taking anything from either hive, in fear that we’ll leave them with too little to survive the winter. However, we determined that we could spare 4 frames from Big Girl, and pulled 4 from the uppermost super. We set up our extracting operation in the garage and got to work!

We picked some classic jars and designed a label to go on the 10-12lbs that we extracted. It’s fun to see an end product after months of hard work, but our sole focus is on ensuring that our colonies are stocked up and ready for the northeastern winter, so we likely won’t harvest any more of their stores.