Summer Mystery

My honey bee colony that managed to survive last winter's brutal cold has now expanded to three. The hive that attempted to swarm earlier had made two queens.

This year's bee yard has three honey bee colonies.

Honey bees harvesting algae from the sides of a stock tank.

I have several watering stations and in this hot weather the honey bees frequent them all. There are two bird baths, a water lily pond and a stock tank. (I no longer keep livestock but the tank is kept filled with water for the vegetable garden.) The worker bees are especially fond of the algae which forms on the insides of the tank. Researchers claim that the freshwater green micro alga chlorella is an important source of protein and nutrients for them. My honey bees love it! Strangely, the native bees don't seem interested at all.

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Now to the subject of this post: A couple of weeks ago I proudly showed off my vegetable garden to a neighour friend. I had worked extra hard with weeding and watering. My two 18 foot rows of beets and swiss chard looked lush and promised many tasty harvests. Then, a few days of showers saved me from having to water the garden and I focused my attention elsewhere. When the weather cleared I took a stroll out to the garden with my weeding kit. Surprise!! My lovely beets and swiss chard were no more! My precious three to four inch seedlings were simply gone! They were all nibbled completely down to the ground. Since I had been running my rotor tiller between the rows, the ground was soft and weedless, so deer tracks should have shown up. There were no visible tracks of any kind. So I don't think the deer were to blame.

In previous years, Boat-Tailed Grackles were my main garden pests. In fact, I no longer plant sunflowers because Grackles and Red-winged Blackbirds devour too many seedlings. Grackles also pulled up and ate all of the leaves and stems of some pond lillies I once tried to grow. Anyway, grackles are at the top of my suspect list. But also, there are wild turkeys, rabbits, groundhogs and deer.

I may just plant tomatoes and flower seeds next year. Fussing with garden fencing or nets just doesn't appeal to me any more.

A father Boat-Tailed Grackle with his youngster.

This rabbit has lost the sight in it's left eye.

My dear, did you dine on my garden greens?

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Here are a few snaps of my perennial border at the moment. Some plants have already had their day and others are yet to blossom. (A bit like people, really.)

The stand of bee balm (Monarda) spreads a little more each year.

Creeping Bellflowers make elegant and long-lasting cut flowers.

Phlox blooms wait until the evening to release their lovely scent.

A very tiny native bee (at top of flower) took a long drink of lily nectar.

Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em

-- mosquitoes, that is. These days the little buggers here are unbearable without a good repellent. But my choice of mosquito discouragement does not come from a pharmacy. It resides among my beekeeping equipment. The smoker works just dandy for chasing away biting insects. Back in the good old days, when we harvested firewood from our woodlot, dad always started a small fire to 'smudge away the mosquitoes'. Worked beautifully! When the chainsaw was started, it seemed to produce just enough smoke to keep the operator protected as well. I like to pass my hat and gloves through the smoke. The fuel I burn is wood shavings (the same bedding preferred by pampered ponies) and I must say it is not unpleasant. Fondly reminds me of campfires and fishing trips.

My trusty old smoker reliably deters mosquito attacks.

The 'off switch' is simply a few blades of grass stuffed into the spout.

For shorter term weeding/watering chores, the veil is the thing.

My jam feeder continues to be a hit with the sweet-toothed set. If I don't refill it quickly enough, a female Baltimore Oriole peers into my kitchen window as if to say, "Hey, where is my waitress?"

The alarm calls of this Gray Catbird sound much like a distressed young kitten.

Honey bees hover as a Baltimore Oriole takes a hearty helping of jam.

The abdomen of this honey bee is looking stretched pretty full.

Barn swallows were declined in recent years but I'm happy to see that last year and this year they are again constructing their mud nests. There is a pair nesting in the barn and a pair starting a nest on a rafter of my garage. They add mud and then let it dry for a bit before adding another layer. When they take little breaks from nesting and hunting mosquitoes (yay-y-y for Barn Swallows) they like to perch on my clothesline and burble sweet conversations with each other. In flight, they are acrobatic marvels! I absolutely love them!

A Barn Swallow's nest under construction in my garage.

Perched on my clothesline, a Barn Swallow burbles a message to it's mate.

Please, pretty please Ellie May, do not harm my bird friends!

Happy Canada Day

Happy Canada Day (previously known as Dominion Day), fellow Canuks! I hope you are all managing to keep cool in this heat wave.

Since I enjoy visiting other blogs so much, I thought it was time to contribute a few words from my patch.

In the last week of May, I picked up two honey bee nucs from our local supplier. I gave one a top feeder containing 50/50 sugar water and the other reclaimed honey. Both seemed equally acceptable to the bees.

My newly housed honey bee nucs on May 28th.

The right hand hive's top feeder contained 50/50 sugar water.

The left hand hive's top feeder contained reclaimed honey.

My lawns are now awash with the white blooms of Dutch clover. At first glance, it looks like patches of snow. One would expect to see honey bees all over these blooms, but raspberry flowers are currently receiving most of their attention.

Raspberry blossoms are high on their favourites list.

This morning I noticed that the bees weren't foraging at all, but were instead concentrating on cooling their hives. They were fanning like mad and clearly in need of better ventilation. So I removed the trays on the screened bottom boards, reversed the vent boxes under the roofs to expose screened openings, opened box ports and widened the bottom board entrances. Whew! The fanning bee beards shrunk immediately. When I checked on their progress I was surprised to see that these industrious little ladies had filled all of their frames with honey, pollen and brood. Emergency! In the relative cool of tomorrow morning, I'll reopen their hives and give them each of box of empty frames. So many blossoms, so little time!

Our heat wave is causing the bees to stay at home and fan their wings.

Much better ventilation after I opened some hive vents!

Yikes! I should have given them another box of frames before now.

Even the inner cover was crowded. Help is on the way, girls!

Buzz'n And Flutter'n

I'm continuing to monitor my honey bees with the sugar shake mite count. So far, I have found zero mites. July and August is the time when mites reach their highest levels, concurrent with the peak volume of honey bee brood cells that varroa mites reproduce in. I'll continue regular mite sampling checks until the hives are wrapped for the winter.

But I noticed that the great majority of returning worker bees are favouring the top entrance over the bottom board entrance. And traffic jams were occurring during peak foraging hours. So I gave each top box an additional two entrances. Bee traffic is flowing much better now.

When I added a box to each hive, I used thawed frames of honey near the box sides and empty frames for new comb and brood in the center portion. Some of the honey was dripping a bit and the sweet scent lured a hummingbird. She spend a few minutes searching for the source, then gave up and returned to the flowers.

My honey bees are making good use of the two additional entrances.

A hummingbird is drawn to the sweet scent of newly added honey frames.

The nest of Yellowthroat warblers now contains three newly hatched babies (all legitimate, not a cowbird among them). They are growing incredibly fast, thanks to their devoted parents. In only a couple of days their tiny naked wings have sprouted pin feathers. The parents seem to have gotten used to my occasional and brief inquisitive visits and only issue token scoldings.

Only days old, these Yellowthroat warbler babies are growing remarkably fast.

A tree swallow delivering food to his youngsters.

Feral Ginger Thomas is not chatting but licking his lips after a hearty meal.

Neighbourhood Buzz

Almost overnight a new subdivision has sprung up on the property beside ours. Well, when I say 'subdivision' I'm not really talking about dwellings for humans. It's actually a new honey bee yard of hives from a local honey producer. I'm guesstimating there is about thirty colonies in this one. The banquet of nectar and pollen forage that I've planted over the years for my bees will now suddenly have to be shared. And after all, my bees have gone far beyond their owner's real estate boundary themselves over the years. They will happily fly within a two mile radius of their hive if a sweet scent beckons or if a sister passes on the grocery tip with a sample and a directional dance.

A few days ago I bought a honey bee nuc from local bee breeder, honey producer and provincial honey bee inspector, Brent Halsall. He mentioned that in one of his mating yards, only one of eighteen queens returned from her mating flight. He suspects that king birds known to be in that particular area scoffed down the others. Queen rearing is a bit like spinning a roulette wheel!

When I brought the bees home and moved the four frames from their little nuc box to a permanent wooden hive, they were wonderfully quiet and docile. Not a hint of the usual confused and angry hum of bees being uprooted and forced into new digs. I think the reason for their good humour was that their young queen had time to acquaint with her entourage and they were nicely bonded as a unit.

The next day, I took an hour and half drive to the beautiful Rideau Lakes district to collect two more nucs from fifth generation bee breeder, Debbie Hutchings. Debbie said that this year was extremely challenging for her honey bee operation. Last winter was the coldest on record in Eastern Ontario in about sixty years and didn't moderate until very late into Spring. And as if cold, rain and strong winds weren't bad enough, her bees also suffered from vandals, agricultural pesticides and dragonfly predation. Apiculture anyone?

My hollyhocks are pumping out lots of protein rich pollen.

An Italian honey bee from the neighbouring bee yard.

Another Italian visitor. She is golden and larger than my honey bee stock.

Debbie Hutchings, a 5th generation honey bee breeder also teaches beekeeping,
raises sheep and drives a township snowplow.

Young bees take their first orientation flight before becoming foragers.

The sunbonnets on these hives were once part of my sister's privacy fence.

A new beeyard installed nearby.

 

Where Is The Buzz?

You may be asking, "Yes, we've seen plenty of 'flutter', but where is the 'buzz'?

Well, I'm really missing the buzzing myself. These days when I walk past a luscious, pollen laden dandelion, or a sweetly scented apple blossom, I look for but do not see my lovely honey bee ladies harvesting the bounty.

After my disastrous winter die out of all six of my hives, I ordered two replacement nucleus honey bee colonies.  The cold and windy Spring has delayed queen rearing in this area, but it shouldn't be many days now until my new bees will be ready for pickup.

My brother, Robert, had wanted to acquire honey bees when he was a boy living on our family dairy farm. Dad said, no, they might sting the milk cows. Truth be told, I suspect Dad just did not want to add any more work to his already gargantuan list of chores.

Anyway, in the summer of 2009, my wonderful cousin, Peter, gifted me with two colonies of Italian honey bees as well as with hive tools, an extractor and with his expert mentorship. I was instantly hooked. In 2010 I bought a couple of Russian strain honey bee nucleus hives. The Italians were golden coloured and a bit reluctant to venture forth on cool mornings while the Russians were darker coloured, more active in cooler temperatures and more inclined to swarm. Both strains were sweet tempered. The bees currently on order are small dark bees whose ancestors were brought over from England in the middle 1800's. The great, great granddaughter of that beekeeper continues to raise those bees to this day. She says they are gentle, little dark bees that winter in small clusters and explode their population in Spring. I can hardly wait to welcome them home and watch them hard at work and buzzing their happy songs as they keep me company in the garden. No, I have not been drinking Pollyanna juice. I just adore bees.

Master beekeeper, Peter, checks the brood pattern.

Peter's Italian honey bees harvesting globe thistles.

Two frame extractor from Peter. Robert made a new crank and bucket clamps.

Alkanet flowers and a honey bee carrying black pollen.

A working lady harvesting nectar from a licorice mint bloom.

One morning I saw the girls doing a kind of line dance on this bottom board.

Our honey bees produce a delicately flavoured wildflower honey.