The Joys of Beekeeping

By Pat McGinty 

It’s extracting time!!!!!  For beekeepers that were fortunate enough to have plenty of nectar-laden flowers in the vicinity, the extraction process has been going on for a couple of weeks and will continue into early September depending on when the beekeeper can get the job done. What is extraction, you ask? Extraction is the process by which all that honey the bees have been storing up in the supers (you remember, the boxes above the brood boxes) becomes fair game for the beekeepers despite how the bees may feel about it. And the bees don’t give it up easily.

As you may remember from last month, the supers are added to the hive sometime around June. Once the bees have filled (or nearly filled) the second brood box with honey for their winter storage they will start looking for other places to put it, so the beekeeper adds the supers. The bees, figuring they will be sitting pretty with all these food stores, obligingly start filling the super frames with honey. If these are new frames they will first have to be drawn out (wax cells built to hold the honey) which will slow down the process so it is always a good idea to use previously drawn out frames if you have them. This year I used a mixture of both but without much nectar flow (see last month’s column) it didn’t really make any difference in the amount of honey being stored in my hives (yes, I am whining.)  However, the little girls are so organized they had teams working on both types of frames even if they wouldn’t be needed.  

The months of June, July, and August are the time when the colony is busy storing a lot of food. In April and May, the queen has been laying eggs at an incredible rate (2,000 per day minimum) and those new bees, for the most part, are now the food gathering team (give or take some turnover since bees only live about three to six weeks depending on the workload.) I am talking thousands of bees travelling thousands of miles and gathering nectar from tens of thousands of flowers. No easy task! The bees have brought the nectar back to the colony, passed it on to the workers in the hive who then store it in the wax cells and fan it until the moisture level is about 17 percent water. When they are satisfied it has reached this point they put a wax seal over it to keep it that way. Then comes mid-August (sometimes sooner) and the beekeeper arrives to collect the capped frames of honey from the super. This is where it can get interesting.  

This is probably not the time a beekeeper wants to go hive harvesting without a good bee suit, because the bees do not give up their hard work willingly. Every beekeeper has his/her own way to harvest honey; I use a large plastic storage box with a lid.  As I remove each frame from the super I brush off the bees (no, they are NOT happy about it) and as quickly as possible place the bee-less frame into the box, moving the cover as little as possible.  Other beekeepers have empty super boxes and, after brushing off bees, put the frames in the empty super and cover it so the bees can’t get back on the frames. Still other beekeepers go out a day or two early and replace the inner cover of the hive with a cover that lets the bees get into the brood boxes but not back up into the supers. Then they put another cover on top of the supers that has the most awful smelly stuff imaginable on it (a skunk would run away) which causes the bees to empty the frames out pronto. After a day or two they go back to the hive and just walk away with the filled supers. Now the frames are ready for extraction.

Some beekeepers do their own extraction and others use extraction services because the cost of an extractor isn’t cheap. The extraction services are often done by commercial beekeepers who have the beekeeper bring the capped frames to the extraction site and come back to pick them up a couple of days later. There may be a dollar cost for the service and most services keep the wax caps that are removed so the honey can flow freely in the extractor. I, for one, prefer to do my own and it is a hoot. Not to mention my kitchen is never the same afterwards. This is my experience.

I borrowed my bee-buddy, Steve’s, extractor. It is a manual extractor that holds four frames.  I also borrowed his electric de-capping knife. I had already been on YouTube and made my own de-capping tank (this catches the caps and any residual honey.) I had my grandson, Gregory, to help and I am glad I did. First we moved the kitchen table out of the way and put a large tarp on the floor (this does not help the cabinets, refrigerator, or stove, however.)  The extractor was set up near the kitchen sink and the de-capping tank next to the stove, because it was closest to the electrical outlet. I had about five supers of frames to extract.  Gregory would take a frame, slice the caps off of both sides, and hand the frames to me.  I would use a “scratcher” to open any caps the knife missed and load the frame into the extractor. When the extractor was loaded I started the spin by using the handle on the top.  I would spin three minutes one direction and then spin three minutes in the opposite direction. Then I would check the frames and if they were mostly empty I would turn them over and do the same process for the reverse side of the frame. The extractor, by the way, only holds about a gallon and a half of honey so at the same time you are extracting, honey is flowing out a valve at the bottom of the extraction tank, through a filter, and into a bucket. Five hours later we were finished (I was physically finished a lot sooner, but that is what grandsons are for.) My kitchen was the sweetest smelling (and stickiest) place on Earth and I had about eight gallons of honey and more draining into the bottom of my de-capping tank. It was heavenly; then the cleanup started. 

The extraction tank and the frames were the easiest to clean because you never get all the honey out of either.  So out to the bee yard I went with the extractor and 40 mostly empty super frames and spread them out near the hives. Two days later the bees had cleaned them up spic and span and everything was ready to put away. The kitchen was another story. A bucket of warm water with vinegar, and two hours later 98 percent of the stickiness was gone. I fully understand why beekeepers doing their own extraction have special rooms or sheds to do it in.  

So the good news is the 2015 honey is available; the bad news is the cost has gone up due to the lack of nectar flow and thus less honey. The latest reports are showing the wholesale price at $7 per pint so expect to see at least $10 per pint from your local beekeeper or outlet if not more since the finally tally is not yet in. 

For those of you that want to know more about beekeeping don’t forget the Backyard Beekeepers Association has a monthly meeting you are welcome to attend. The September meeting is a Field Day to be held Saturday, Sept. 12. We will be visiting a commercial bee yard as well as a hobbyist bee yard to learn about the differences in beekeeping styles, what to look for in a healthy hive, and what kind of hives are being used in the area. We will meet at Beemaniacs, located at 7619 W. Woolard Road in Deer Park, at 10 a.m. We will be around bees so it is recommended to dress accordingly; if you are a beekeeper bring your bee suit and, if not a beekeeper, wear clothing that covers you well including some kind of hood for your head. No perfumes or sweet smelling scents unless you want a lot of bees crawling all over you looking for nectar. Backyard Beekeepers Association, Bob Arnold, and Beemaniacs take no responsibility for the unprepared. If you can’t make the Field Day our Oct. 15 meeting will be back at the Deer Park Library, and honey tasting is on the docket, among other interesting topics, including “Winter Preparation Peggy’s Way.” If you are in to social media you can find us on Facebook at backyardbeekeepersassociation.

Look forward to seeing you soon.

Weeding Between the Lines

By Jim McGinty

It’s been a long, hot, dry summer again, and the garden here at Rancho McGinty is looking a mite peaked:  the Red Lasoda and Red Gold potatoes performed wonderfully, and we’ve been rationing them for our favorite fried potato meals. The cabbage trial is winding down, with Golden Cross cabbage as the first to be harvested – the heads are about softball size (perfect for two or three diners), and the leaves have a slightly sweet taste -  excellent steamed with bratwurst. Doyle blackberries, once again, took top berry honors regarding sweetness AND production – we are still harvesting the berries, and I’m thinking the three plants have produced two or three gallons of sweet, sticky goodness. Our bush and trellis green beans are just starting to produce (we started the poor guys a tad late this year), while the Silvery Fir tomatoes in the Earthboxes on the deck are loaded with red, ripe fruit – sliced and served with bleu cheese dressing – worth the wait. 

This month is garlic-planting time, and I prefer to wait until the cooler end of September for the task: I have been preparing the garlic bed with mounds of last year’s maple leaves, this year’s grass clippings, and lots of aged goat/sheep/horse/cow manure.  I’ll rototill that mess under with the Troy-Bilt tiller, smooth out the hummocks, thoroughly wet the area, and plant.  I like to plant the individual cloves (pointy end up, please) about 6 inches apart, and the rows about 18 inches apart (I’ll need room next summer to walk between the rows, weeding and clipping off the garlic scapes). Once I apply a six-inch-thick layer of maple leaves and/or pine/fir needles over the bed, that’s pretty much it for this year – it’s an easy crop to grow, but homegrown garlic is SO much better tasting than the “mild” product in the grocery stores.

With autumn rains (hopefully) in our near future, now is an excellent time to wander around the property looking for new, perfect sites for planting fruit trees and berry bushes: full sun, some wind protection, good-ish soil, water availability, and protection from deer predation are all important. September and early-October are very good months in which to plant trees and bushes, but you’ll want to provide water right up until the ground freezes, especially after months of drought. Speaking of fruit trees, remember to prune your plum trees right after this year’s harvest, so as to insure a larger crop next year, and be sure to pick up any apples that have fallen to the ground around those trees, as they are a vector for a number of very bad apple-tree pests and diseases – your chickens and pigs will be glad to help you with any of the “drops.”

Now is the time to critically look at your tomato plants, regarding the First Frost of Doom that is rolling downhill at us on a daily basis: will all those flowers turn into actual red tomatoes, or will the fruit still be green and nasty when they turn to mush at 33 degrees F? Right about now, many tomato aficionados will start thinning the plant’s flowers and smaller green tomatoes in favor of larger red fruit – some folks will remove older branches or even sever the plant’s roots half way around the main stem to stress the plant, and thus, encourage a speedy harvest. Tomato lovers are a focused bunch – don’t get in their way.

GARDEN CALENDAR:

On Sept 8, our local garden club will meet in Camden Grange at 7 p.m. for an interesting gardening-related class, and we’ll no doubt grouse and complain about our year’s experience with drought, high temperatures, out-of-control weeds, and refugee white-tailed deer – and we’ll also discuss what we did (or what we did not do) to alleviate all those problems. Gardeners are very adaptive people – and we love to learn from the experience of others, so come visit with us (the public is always invited to our meetings), learn something, or teach something, and we’ll eat snacks and start rumors about absent club members.

On Sept. 23, I’ll teach a class on garden-season extension techniques at the Newport College Center (1302 W. Fifth St., Newport) from 6-8 p.m. We’ll discuss how to increase your gardening season by two to four weeks, using hoop houses, floating row cover, hot frames and other devices. You can call the Center at 509-447-3835 to ask questions and to register for the class.

On Sept. 30, I’ll teach a class on seed-saving techniques, again at the Newport College Center, from 6-8 p.m. We’ll talk about methods of saving seed from year to year, and how you can keep your grandmother’s special sweet-corn variety from going extinct. You can call the center for more information and to register for the class.

That’s it for this month: stay hydrated, and dress appropriately for all those ultraviolet rays out there in the garden – we do NOT want to see a wrinkled, first-degree sunburn-peeling you at the garden club meeting!

August garden club tour after-action report

Is this beautiful or what? The Hoener's stylish garden fence and bicycle planter

We convoyed to the home of Rhonda and Wayne Hoener for a most-excellent tour of their veggie garden: raised beds made from repurposed bed frames, picnic tables, and corrugated metal roofing.  Many tour participants were just gob-smacked by the "funky cool" garden art and artifacts Rhonda used all around their property (everyone checked out the Hoener's outdoor deck bed). Rhonda and Wayne went all out for our unexpected treats and snacks selection (though there were entirely too many squash and zucchini-based food items, for SOME tourists), and we all asked for recipes. 

Metal roofing formed the raised beds around the perimeter of the garden.

Garden keepers admire the plantings and ask questions of Wayne, third from left, and Rhonda, at right. Rhonda said her father had collected the bedsteads decades ago from an old hotel. She found the perfect use for them!

Prior to the tour, our garden club blog-meister, Su Chism, was presented with a limited edition, vintage club tee-shirt, for her efforts on our behalf - thank you Su!

The August tour was our last for the season, and our next meeting on Sept. 8 will be in Camden Grange, with an educational class, snacks and treats, assorted rumor mongering, and general good timage.

Also, please mark on your calendar:  Oct. 13 will be our last meeting for 2015, and our annual Harvest Dinner - this year, our club will provide the meat portion of the dinner (depending on road kill selection), so you are invited to bring side dishes and desserts and bread-related items, hopefully from your garden.

If you have comments on your own recent gardening experiences, or cool pictures (or both!), please e-mail them to blog-meister Su (schism@aimcomm.com) – remember, we're all in this together.

jim

Fall planting, anyone?

Gardeners, what do you plant this time of year?

I'm planning on garlic sometime next month, and I'd like to try buckwheat or oats as a cover crop in some of the beds we've emptied. Is it too late to get in a last crop of a green for the rabbits? Maybe leaf radishes or something.

What do you think?

Su

It's still summer...

Even though I just saw the first batch of Canada geese heading south.

Our kitchen is full of tomatoes right now, and I hope it continues for a long time. We're busy canning, freezing and drying them – and eating them, too.

Look at this weird plant that popped up in the garden.

Google says it's snow-on-the-mountain or ghost spurge (Euphorbia marginata) and toxic, though attractive. No idea where it came from. The milky sap is irritating to the skin and can even be used to brand cattle. The pods explode and send seeds several feet, so we'll be removing it before that happens, since we have no cows to brand. (Cattle-owning club members, let me know if you want some seeds.)

Here are some random pics of our rather dry garden.

Volunteer amaranth

Somebody get the ladder out before those rattlesnake beans reach the size of basketballs!

The Lincoln peas look terrible, but keep producing.

August garden update

So far, so good: our cabbage (three varieties, mostly small, two-person sized heads), leeks, potatoes, and shallots look mighty fine. We've fried up a mess of fresh potatoes, onions, and garlic and that was some mighty fine eatin' (jus' tryin' my drawl, yawl). The everbearing strawberries are still producing like gang-busters, and the blackberries (which I predicted would never amount to much, having seen the three baby crowns when they were first planted) are just coming on with a LOT of berries. Blackberry smoothies made with Dreyer's Vanilla Bean ice cream are in our immediate future. ☺

I've been adding more organic material (last year's maple leaves and this year's sheep and goat poo) to the new eastern garden area, where the next crop of garlic will be planted in late September, and it's time to rototill. I'm going to Rain-Bird/tripod soak the area overnight to cut down on the inhaled dust (by both the Troy-Bilt and me), and then till in one more layer of composted horse and cow manure (donated by club members Steve and Jo Byars, bless their hearts!).

Sounds like a lot of work - I better have a nap first.

jim