Blog Posts – Page 10

2014-02-142023-02-07

Making bees wax polish

I have this 1lb block of bees wax (or is that beeswax?) and it is pink / red tinged with propolis so I decided not to use it for lip balm like last time.

Now last year, on a whim I bought a couple of boxes of wax tins with the theory of making some polish. I figured to make some polish at some point, seemed like another nice side hobby / feature of beekeeping. There are so many : woodwork, food handling, advertising and selling honey, etc

The thing that held me back was trying to find turpentine which I read was the other ingredient. Everywhere I looked it was turpentine substitute. Finally I found the real thing and it wasn’t cheap, about £8 per 500ml bottle, no wonder they have turpentine substitute, it is only about £1.50 for that much.

With the red wax that I didn’t have another clear use for I decided it was time to bite the bullet, so I bought the turpentine.

Today when I finally decided to get to doing it I looked on the internet for ratios and to check ingredients. At this point I found LOTS of recipes, lots of different recipes with very little in common. Turpentine, beeswax, carnauba wax, olive oil, essential oils, soap flakes, water, linseed oil, other non-turpentine solvents (arghh !).

Various recipes here and a no solvent recipe with olive oil

In the end I decided to make two batches, each with a different recipe and see how it would turn out.

Recipe 1

1 part Bees wax
1 part Turpentine

Then I decided to cut it with linseed oil to make it go further (based on a recipe, not just to make it less expensive), not to mention that I already had some of this to hand; I have bought bottle after bottle for treating the outside of wooden hiveparts to protect them from the weather.

Recipe 2

1 part Bees Wax
1 part Turpentine
1 part Linseed oil

I would have liked to use…

Recipe 3

1 part Bees Wax
4 parts Olive Oil

…but I didn’t have enough olive oil in the house. I also thought about using essential oils, but I figured that might not work for the usual carpentry buff who might buy it, and I would need to use a fair bit to get over the smell of the turpentine (phew!).

I melted the bees wax in the bain-marie (not to hot or it will degrade). A bain-marie is just one saucepan that fits inside another saucepan with boiling water in. So the inner pan can never get warmer than 100C (212F), because the water boils off. Then I added the turpentine and mixed it in. On the second recipe I further added the linseed oil, which incidentally made for a much better looking product.

I made myself a paper funnel to help pour the hot polish into the tins. Note for those who might try this, if you do so, bind it with selotape, like I did the second time. The first time I held the cone in shape with my hand, hot turpentine and wax soak into the paper a bit and paper is not the best insulator in the first place. Only a bit Ouch! And I only missed a bit, cough… well the chopping board looked like it needed a polish anyway 🙂

On the first batch I just poured the polish in and filled the tins, by eye, to what I felt was a sensible level. On weighing this later it was fairly consistent in weight, but not the 100g they are supposed to weigh.

On the second recipe / attempt I thought I should try to get them to be the right weight and so carefully weighed them on the electric scales. Getting all 100g in was not that easy, it was right up to the lip of the tin. But I managed it

Good plan doing it on the scales and getting it right to the lip with exactly 100g of polish in, right?

Wrong ! Filling hot molten polish into tins, obviously in hindsight, makes the metal tin expand. What happens when the metal cools and contracts? That’s right, less space for the polish and so it overflows… Darn ! This photo was actually one that overflowed not very much, but I forgot to take a photo earlier on the one that went across the counter and headed for the cupboard. Luckily you can just scrape it up with a knife and re-melt it again.

In the end the linseed version came out a better colour. I can’t speak to how wel it will work as a polish, not having experience in using beeswax polish before as a comparison, but its made a nice sheen on the chopping board 🙂

2014-02-142023-02-07

Hive down… Hive down…

I visited my hives today and there as been a sad loss. One colony at Hastinwood apiary has perished from this world.

The outer insulated cover I made was blown off and was found 30 feet away. Meanwhile the hive was blown so it fell into the stand. At this point the lid came off, not sure how, more wind probably and the rain went in the hole in the crown board causing the bees to die from the damp I guess, or just leave. Still had food and fondant, what a shame :-(.

Of the other colonies, one I could not see bees in (but I didn’t go past the crown board), two have started feeding on the fondant the rest are still alive. So I have 8 colonies, unless that one where I could see no bees is gone too.

2014-01-272023-02-07

Using a quilt while feeding with a candy board

An interesting piece on winter feeding just with fondant, and a moisture quilt to ensure it doesn’t dry out; which also retains moisture from wintering bees.

I quite like the model of using the moisture for a purpose rather than just seeking get rid of it. As I have experience bees struggling with hard dried fondant before I can see sense in the model.

http://www.honeybeesuite.com/how-to-use-a-quilt-with-a-candy-board/

2014-01-142023-02-07

Sting time again

It’s that time of year again where I check on the bees and they get stroppy at me and the obvious result ensues. I should learn to wear a veil, tsk tsk…

Anyway, I had a semi inspection at the weekend; I had looked in on Christmas eve after the storm blew through and there had been some disruption. At the Hastingwood apiary the roof of a WBC had come off sometime during ‘the weather’ and was lying 10ft away upturned and full of rain water. Fortunately I had put hessian sack on top of the crown board over the hole, although it was soaked at least it mean it hadn’t been raining directly into the hive and onto the balled bees. Also the constructed insulated hive cover I had built had been battered by the wind and lost its lid.

Back to this weekend, I went and strapped up the hive covers with lots of duct tape. I also looked in on each hive and fed them fondant. Some of the bees were doing very well, some less well but fine colonies for saying it was the middle of winter. The first hive was doing very well, I found this out party by accident. On lifting the roof it would seem the crown board was stuck to it; so I was left looking at bees covering about 7 frames, but me without a veil, and they were getting cold. On top of that the crown board was still stuck with bees attached to it.

After dealing with that one, the next had nearly as many bees all trying to come out the the crown board hole at once. The next was the one which had lost the roof a couple of weeks before. I was concerned because these bees are very productive and calm during handling. They were still in there and I am sure glad of some fondant.

I had a bit of trouble with the last hive. I had left the feeder on top because they had not touched the sugar syrup previously. I know I am not supposed to, but they had not taken any syrup down, like the others did. Also if you have ever dealt with a feeder full of syrup you will know what a treacherous beast they can be, waiting to spill all over your trousers at the slightest provocation. Either way it needed taking off, not helped by the fact it was glued down with propolis. I had resolved to kill two birds with one stone after loosening with the hive tool, remove the feeder by flipping it, emptying it onto the floor; the plan being to quickly put the crown board on in its place with minimal time for the bees to get upset / chilled. Fate had other plans.

Flipping the feeder off worked, however in the process the hive was dislodged on its stand; one corner slipping into the middle of the stand the other corner going up in the air. With me without a veil the outcome was inevitable. On trying to right the hive, it brought my face into range and one caught me on the left cheekbone. Curses ! The problem with getting stung in the face is that you aren’t able to see the sting to scrape it out, unless you happen to have a mirror with you. I scraped where I thought the sting was with my hive tool, and things were starting to get ‘interesting’, me without a veil, smelling of alarm pheromone and one hive open and the others disturbed from their inspections and getting interested in the outside. I virtually threw the crown board on top, shoved the hive back into position, put the fondant on and packed up.

The next apiary was mixed in population, some burgeoning, some quieter, but still alive. Although I wore a veil for this one, it was the last hive that got me again.

At the last apiary the job could not have been quicker. Insulation cover off, lid off, inner insulation off, bees coming out the crown board hole – fondant on, inner insulation on, lid on insulation cover on and done. 40-50 seconds.

All told 9 hives, all alive, success so far. Hopefully I wont need to go back to them for at least a couple of weeks, depending on the weather, and even then only to check on the amount of fondant they have made it through.

End of the story, but I wont learn, at least not enough to not get stung.

2013-12-182023-02-07

More on biological Varroa control

So, as I haver been telling everyone who will listen, I am planning to trial biological control of varroa on my bees this coming year.

‘Hypoaspis miles’, also known as ‘Stratiolaelaps scimitus’, are a mite found in leaf litter naturally. They have been readily used for a number of years in controlling parasites on other ‘pets’ including rats, tarantulas, snakes and snails (and recently red mite control with chickens), also in controlling pests on crops such as strawberries.

Their use has been recognised in conjunction with controlling varroa since at least 2008 that I have found. They have also be successfully tested at Buckfast abbey and in conjunction with Devon BKA.

They do not predate on bees, larvae or eggs, and their numbers die out naturally when they run out of food (aka the varroa mites).

Anyway enough of me, here is a link to a video all about them, including more details and real world trials on bee hives. Enjoy…

Bio control for the Varroa Mite

2013-12-162023-02-07

Some light reading

I have purchased two Snelgrove books, “Queen Rearing” and “The introduction of queen bees”. I am expecting them to be anything but light reading; but also to be very inspiring, instructive and useful.

2013-12-142023-02-07

Winter Antics

Well it has been a while since I posted, highlighted by me wiping out my site but managing to get most of it back by the wonders of google cache. So what have I been up to in the bee world, well I have :

– been reading Snelgrove
– bought far too much bee woodwork from Thorne‘s sales, given I don’t want to increase from 10-12 hives
– bought an electric staple / nail gun and put plywood trim on plastic excluders to give them bee space
– found that said nail gun made putting together super frames very quick and easy
– put together lots of supers and dremel’d my initials into the side (hives do get stolen)
– fed my bees lots of sugar syrup and treated them with Api life var
– insulated inside the cover with hessian sacking
– insulated outside the hive by cutting up sheets of solid insulation board (20mm celotex) to make a cube shape that fits over the side, with correx on top with an overhang to keep the rain off.
– last but not least bought myself a 9 frame radial manual honey extractor. Finally, using my “honey money” to pay for it.

And next?

– Well, more woodwork assembly, coating with linseed.
– I am going to try to get hold of some acetic acid to protect the supers and other foundation from disease and wax moth.
– The big experiment next year is to try hypoaspis mites, a biological control for varroa mites. A naturally occurring mite that usually lives in leaf litter, which feeds on varroa mites.

Wish the bees and me luck.

2013-09-152023-02-07

What’s eating my bees

Apparently 3 hornets

and several hundred varroa mites

Yesterday I went to top up the feed on my bees, after a week of varroa treatment. I took out the board and saw hundreds of varroa, above is a close up so you can see the details.

Today, I went back to drop off more syrup to the site and in the rain found three huge hornets. I photo’d them to check they were not the Asian hornets we are told to be on our guard for and because I don’t think I have seen any before; they were huge. Knowing that their diet would consist of my bees, I then dispatched them; with surprising difficulty, they are quite hard to squish as it turns out.

2013-09-022023-02-07

Feeders and hacked floors

2013-09-022023-02-07

Missing, Presumed dead

So I went to visit one of my apiaries today and noticed one of the hives with no activity at the entrance. On opening her up there was nothing inside; no brood, stored pollen or honey. All that was left was half a handful of dead bees in the bottom and a whole lot of powered cappings on the floor. Now there were a lot of wasps around, but this hive had had the smallest of the three entrances of the hives there and the one with the front door wide open was thriving in spite of the wasps.

So what had happened? Robbed and killed off by wasps? Marie celeste style absconding? Colony collapse disorder? Mass pesticide-induced bee loss by losing their way while out foraging?

I guess I will never know; but I will surely freeze the frames before using them again incase it was disease related. As there were next to no bodies I doubt it…