Sunday, January 16, 2011

Rendering wax

Ellie and I finally got around to rendering the wax that we had in the freezer from our honey harvest. We had hoped to use the wax to make a candle or two.

Since our wax from the crush and strain harvest still had some honey left in it, as well as other nondescript bee items, we had to melt it down and somehow filter it. A popular way to do this is to use the sun to melt the wax, which then filters through a paper towel into a bucket. But being in San Francisco, we rarely have enough sun for such a device.

We opted to use a second-hand crock pot instead. The first step was to dump all of our frozen, mushed-up comb in the pot and wait for it to melt.

This is what it looked like after it melted. I wish there were some way to make this a scratch-and-sniff picture, because the smell was awesome.

We then strained the melted wax and honey mixture through a pair of knee-high pantyhose, which Ellie will never be able to wear again, that we had wrapped around a ziplock container. Actually they weren't Ellie's. We bought them especially for this process and got a deal; three for a dollar.

The bee-gunk doesn't pass through the nylon and the wax and honey separate in the container. As it cools, a nice block of clean wax can be seen on the top of the honey.

I'm not sure if we'll have enough wax from this to be able to make a candle since I bought an enormous candle mold (3" x 5"), but we have a nice start.

Monday, January 3, 2011

Go Cardinal!

Congratulations to the Stanford football team and to my bees for winning the Orange Bowl!

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Maraschino Bees

The New York Times has an awesome story about bees in Brooklyn, NY that have been puzzling beekeepers by storing a bright red liquid, which is reported to taste like cough syrup, instead of honey. It turns out that the bees have been foraging at the local maraschino cherry factory, and the nectar they were storing was full of Red Dye #40.

You can read the story here.

Monday, November 22, 2010

More Results

Will a hive that has a mite count of 70 do better than a hive with only one mite? Will the hive with fewer mites be the only one to survive the winter?

I'll know the answers to these questions next spring.

After turning my hives into gas chambers with formic acid, I did a mite count to determine the current levels of infestation. Droogie 1, always the over-achiever, had one mite on its sticky board after 24 hours. Droogie 2, however, had 70. I think the difference is due to the number of boxes on each hive when I treated them. Droogie 1 only had two medium hive bodies, while Droogie 2 had three medium hive bodies. I think the formic acid may not have been sufficiently concentrated to be effective in Droogie 2 due to the increased volume of the hive.

So I'm encouraged by the numbers in Droogie 1, have learned an important lesson (only treat with two mediums on the hive) and will be able to see how the bees do with the rainy season and cooler temperatures now upon us.

This brings my first amazing season of beekeeping to a close. Wintertime is good for ordering and assembling new beekeeping supplies, and I plan to take advantage of a rainy weekend to make candles with the wax Ellie and I have in our freezer left over from the honey harvest. I'll definitely post some pictures when we've made them.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

How 'bout them mites?

It's been quite a while since I've posted anything about my bees, but lately I haven't been seeing much of them. That's because I decided to treat them with formic acid for the mite problem and the treatment requires them to be undisturbed for three weeks. I was very fortunate to get some pads for free from a beekeeper who shares the beeyard. He also let me borrow the extra woodenware that is needed to place the pads on top of the hive. Thanks!

So they've been treated and I removed the formic acid pads last Friday. I'm going to do a mite count this week to see how it worked. When I visited them today, there was lots of activity at the entrance of each hive, more activity than the neighboring hives, which leads me to believe they are doing well.

Sunday, October 31, 2010