Episode 8: Beautifully Ruthless

Finally, a long overdue recap of my last hive inspection, where I was joined by Liz of TwoHoneys. After lots of fretting and hand wringing, I finally accepted the fact that I needed help and contacted Liz. Sorry again for the lack of pictures, but without Marc, and with my own hands covered in honey, I was not able to get any action shots.

Temperatures had been (and now are again) in the mid to high 90s. In this heat, comb becomes very soft and it is difficult, not to mention risky, to try to work in your hives. Luckily we had a break in the weather early last week, and Liz was able to come over on Tuesday. She arrived at about 4:30 and was exactly as I expected: smiling, kind, and had a truck full of bee-related gear and supplies. I told her about my troubles getting my smoker lighted, and she shared a tip on making starters out of corrugated cardboard. She also suggested getting a torch from Home Depot to make things easier. (All I want for Christmas is...a torch. Oh, and maybe a chicken coop.)

Once we were both suited up, we got down to business with the hive. As expected, the cross comb was pretty bad. Once we had pulled out a couple bars, Liz realized that we were going to be doing some major surgery (chopping off some comb) and that, ready or not, I was getting a honey harvest. The first few bars were all honey, and some of it was cut off so we could push the remaining comb into a straight line parallel with the top bar. We left one comb with uncapped honey inside the hive on the bottom so the bees could take that honey back. The rest that we were cutting off was put into a bucket for harvesting. The comb built on my hair clip fix bar from two weeks ago had fallen off :( Liz told me that she has tried that method before, too, and it didn't work well for her either. To re-attach comb, she just uses large rubber bands around the entire comb and bar.

It became apparent to me once we started working (or, when Liz started working) that one of my problems is my fear or reluctance to hurt bees while moving things around inside the hive. She said that "sometimes, you have to be ruthless" and just get down to work.  So, yes, more bees than I would have like died while were fixing issues that were the result of my inexperience. It made me sad. But she also said that when you keep bees, you're going to kill a few for the greater good. So, in being a bit more "ruthless", I can avoid situations like this in the future.

We carried on further into the hive, pulling the bars apart one by one. We finally reached the brood area and cut out some drone comb which was thrown away. Since the only purpose of drones is to mate with queens, they don't really serve much of a purpose in the hive. Their larger size also makes them targets for one of the worst pests plaguing honey bees: the varroa mite.

I think there were about 3 combs of mostly brood. We looked for the queen while we were working, but didn't spot her. There was worker brood, though, which means that she was there somewhere. This may have been when she slipped out the front entrance. I'll never know for sure. Anyway, apparently my bees are super honey-makers, but my brood nest seems a little weak. Finally, we got all the bars separated and comb straightened out, for the most part. Liz suggested some adjustments and told me that my popsicle stick guides weren't going to cut it, so I need to make a trip to Home Depot this week and get some materials to make better guides. Once it was all said and done, there was honey everywhere. Luckily, the bees can drink it up and put it back into combs for themselves, so all is not lost. Makes me feel a little better about the combs I've broken in the past. Upon closing up the hive, we noticed the unusual activity at the entrance I mentioned in my earlier posts:

 Unprofessional photo taken by yours truly. "WTF" - the Bees

There you can see tons of bees clustered on the front of the hive. I'm still not sure if it was because the queen was outside, or if they were just really upset, but for a while things were pretty dicey and I thought they might hit the road (or the air?) Luckily, they stayed with me and things seem to be back to normal. Unfortunately temps are back up again, but I need to get back in there and see how things are going. I may end up doing it earlier in the morning one of these days. 

Now for the fun part: harvesting the honey. 

 Harvested comb before crushing

One of the cool things about a top bar hive is that you don't need any special equipment to extract the honey. You can either harvest cut comb honey (honey sold to be eaten with the wax, still inside the comb) or use the crush and strain method. To crush and strain, I just got a potato masher and mashed all of this comb and honey into a big, gooey mess. All the instructional videos I watched said you should put down cardboard where you work to help contain the mess. "Oh, I don't need that," I thought "I'm not going to make a mess." Oh, how wrong I was. Somehow, honey goes everywhere, whether or not you intended for it to happen. I'm still finding sticky spots in my kitchen almost a week later. Anyhow, once you have your crushed honey/comb mix, you pour it into a sieve so that the clean honey drains into a pot, leaving the wax and other debris behind.  Something else I scoffed at while watching YouTube tutorials was that there would be bees in the honey. There weren't lots in mine, but I think there were at least two dead and two or three alive that I took out of the pot before straining (a couple of which I later found crawling around my kitchen, covered in honey. Sort of sad.) 

It was so great to be able to meet Liz and learn from her. I hope it is just the beginning of some additional education for me in the world of bees and top bar hives. It was sort of a difficult experience, too, though. I hated seeing so many bees die, especially because of something I could have prevented if I had known better. I know it happens, but to me, each one is still a life. So, I will learn to be a little more ruthless, but I will still try to work as carefully as possible and avoid injuring my bees. They spend their short lives working to make honey and care for each other, as part of one amazing, greater organism. The bees are teaching me so much, and I never want to take a single one of their lives for granted.

Last night, as I was sleeping,

I dreamt - marvelous error! -

that I had a beehive

here inside my heart.

And the golden bees

were making white combs

and sweet honey

from my old failures.

-Last Night by Antonio Machado