Putting on that game face; getting ready to wrangle these wild bees! I’m glad I brought a second bee suit! P'Banky (a grad student friend from the lab) was going to help me do this in shorts! Short Shorts!! Let’s just say there are places from which I don’t want to help someone remove a stinger!
Ok so we just made it to the mountain and we’re on our way to meet The Honey Hunters! They’ve found four Apis cerana (Asian Honey Bee) colonies and they’ll catch them for us for 1000 baht (about 30 USD!) ตื่นเต้นจังเลย I feel like I should tip…I wonder how much it’s customary to tip a honey hunter.
Many moons ago, when I was a wee tot, I would help my dad at his apiary. Being the angsty child I was, I really didn’t enjoy it all that much. Hot, humid summer days spent in a full-body suit and elbow-length gloves didn’t particularily make for a fun time. But, dad was old-fashioned, and I enjoyed home-cooked food, so, well, there I was, helping.
As much as I didn’t enjoy it at the time, there were a lot of important lessons learned through those arduous summers, but none other than the one day, when we were gathering honey-laden frames. The honey bees were getting increasingly aggressive, which, in turn, increased my frustration. Lifting frame after frame from the hive, I had killed a not-so-small number of worker bees. At first dad had glared at me, but as I continued to squish those poor insects in my frustration-fuelled haze, he came over, and put his hand on my shoulder and said, simply, “take care of your bees, and your bees will take care of you.”
It wasn’t until many, MANY years later that I realized the importance of that statement. It took on so many meanings, as I matured (well, my wife would argue my level of maturity…), and grew older. The flowers the bees gathered from were nothing special, but there was something about the flavour and delicacy of the honey that left many people gushing over it. My dad would smile, and nod his head, everytime someone complimented the honey. We had repeat customers who would buy only from him, and he smiled. He loved those bees, and the honey showed that love.
Take care of your bees, and they’ll take care of you.
This week, we celebrate the humble insect pollinators who work hard to keep us fed.
Some of nature’s tastiest treats such as apples, strawberries and raspberries are all reliant on insects including bees. Globally, the free service provided by pollinators is said to be worth around $153 billion per year.
The steady decline of these important insects over the years raises concern about our ability to feed a growing population.
However, by researching the causes and consequences of threats to insect pollinators, we can help develop strategies to help them to thrive.
Researchers have discovered that neonicotinoid seed treatments are driving a dramatic increase in insecticide toxicity in U.S. agricultural landscapes, despite evidence that these treatments have little to no benefit in many crops.
During the past 20 years, insecticides applied to U.S. agricultural landscapes have become significantly more toxic — over 120-fold in some midwestern states — to honey bees when ingested, according to a team of researchers, who identified rising neonicotinoid seed treatments in corn and soy as the primary driver of this change. The study is the first to characterize the geographic patterns of insecticide toxicity to bees and reveal specific areas of the country where mitigation and conservation efforts could be focused.
According to Christina Grozinger, Distinguished Professor of Entomology and director of the Center for Pollinator Research, Penn State, this toxicity has increased during the same period in which widespread decline in populations of pollinators and other insects have been documented.
“Insecticides are important for managing insects that damage crops, but they can also affect other insect species, such as bees and other pollinators, in the surrounding landscape,” she said. “It is problematic that there is such a dramatic increase in the total insecticide toxicity at a time when there is also so much concern about declines in populations of pollinating insects, which also play a very critical role in agricultural production.”
Bee and honeycomb pins now available in the shop! The honey is actually transparent resin over a cutout, so it gives a pretty, stained glass effect! We’re as busy as bees packing for Otakon this week—our first con in a year and a half! Who will we see there? #bee #honeybee #honeybees #honey #honeycomb #enamelpin #pingamestrong #pincollector #cloverpuff #cloverpuffart https://www.instagram.com/p/CSFw7AgtSvs/?utm_medium=tumblr
Cooler weather has me thinking about hot tea again. This time around I decided to go with something I’ve already tried and know that I like. Despite the fact that lemon balm can be quite abundant and readily available, I don’t really drink it that often. Yet, considering claims made regarding its calming nature, this is definitely the year to have it.
getting rid of insects in the home the green witch way
while insect visitors like ants, wasps and spiders aren’t always welcome, killing these little creatures is never ideal, and can interfere with the energy of your home. whenever possible, here are some natural + humane alternatives to pest removal.
✳ants:leaving lemon rind near their points of entry to your house is an effective deterrent; they will avoid the smell. you can also use baby powder, which they don’t like to walk on.
✳wasps:if there is a wasp nest around your home, placing several cotton balls coated in peppermint essential oil around the affected area, like the corners of the front porch, will bother the wasps enough to stay away from the area. the closer you can place the peppermint to the nest, the better.
✳spiders:chestnuts have a chemical compound on their surface that acts as a spider repellent; additionally, chestnuts don’t go bad for quite some time, so they can provide long-term spider deterring. place a handful of chestnuts in the corners of your home.
✳bees:honeybees are precious and should be kept alive at all costs. if there is a beehive near or on your home that is causing bees to enter your home, or you or someone you live with have a bee allergy, the most effective humane way to prompt the bees to build a hive elsewhere is to smoke them out. do this at dawn, as it gives the bees time to relocate before sundown. using rotten wood, paper or cardboard, create a burning pile underneath or nearby the hive, set it alight, and immediately vacate the area, as the bees will start exiting the hive. make sure all your windows are sealed. you may need to do this over the course of a few days to ensure they leave, and often times bees won’t return to an area where they’ve been smoked.
the majority of insects will be deterred by peppermint essential oil or vinegar, as a general rule.
getting rid of insects in the home the green witch way
while insect visitors like ants, wasps and spiders aren’t always welcome, killing these little creatures is never ideal, and can interfere with the energy of your home. whenever possible, here are some natural + humane alternatives to pest removal.
✳ants:leaving lemon rind near their points of entry to your house is an effective deterrent; they will avoid the smell. you can also use baby powder, which they don’t like to walk on.
✳wasps:if there is a wasp nest around your home, placing several cotton balls coated in peppermint essential oil around the affected area, like the corners of the front porch, will bother the wasps enough to stay away from the area. the closer you can place the peppermint to the nest, the better.
✳spiders:chestnuts have a chemical compound on their surface that acts as a spider repellent; additionally, chestnuts don’t go bad for quite some time, so they can provide long-term spider deterring. place a handful of chestnuts in the corners of your home.
✳bees:honeybees are precious and should be kept alive at all costs. if there is a beehive near or on your home that is causing bees to enter your home, or you or someone you live with have a bee allergy, the most effective humane way to prompt the bees to build a hive elsewhere is to smoke them out. do this at dawn, as it gives the bees time to relocate before sundown. using rotten wood, paper or cardboard, create a burning pile underneath or nearby the hive, set it alight, and immediately vacate the area, as the bees will start exiting the hive. make sure all your windows are sealed. you may need to do this over the course of a few days to ensure they leave, and often times bees won’t return to an area where they’ve been smoked.
the majority of insects will be deterred by peppermint essential oil or vinegar, as a general rule.
Absolutely amazing seeing a hive that uniform and that long. This is about as big as that big old hive I took out of a down town church some years back to give it a different perspective. And ALL THAT HONEY!
I think this might be my earliest swarm to date, because my first is usually around the middle of April.
I moved them in to a bigger box and they’ve already pretty much filled it up. I put their 2nd deep super on top just a moment ago so they can continue expanding. The new box already had most of the frames built out so they should be able to get right to it. Look at all those babies!!!
Dirt Cheap Beekeeping episode 1: What I’m gonna tell you.
First of all, beekeeping as a business or professional organization will always be “for profit” in this wonderful world of ours, so buying directly from companies that make bee equipment is generally a pretty bad deal. It will almost always be super expensive. Making your own equipment is typically much easier on the wallet. Only problem is that it will take time on your part. Then again, it’s good practice for when you are actually KEEPING the bees.
Firstly, you’ll need somewhere to out the bees once you get them. I always try to start out small swarms of bees in nucleus hives, but if you want to keep them for longer or have them make lots and lots of honey, you’ll need to have larger hives. For the nucleus hive plans I have above, you’ll need a 2x4ft piece of wood. I use plywood because it’s cheap, as about 5$ per whole hive, but it needs to be painted if you plan on keeping it outside. Plywood will fall apart and rot if not treated. To make a larger hive, simply take the dimensions of the top, bottom, front, and back, and increase their width according to how many frames you want them to fit. Each extra frame will add 1-1/16 inch to the total width. I’d advise adding 5 to start. More experienced builders may make “long langstroth” hives that have more than 10 frames in one box.
Once you have hives made, you have several options for obtaining bees. The first and most widely known method is to buy “package” bees from an established beekeeper. Now depending on both the bees and the beekeeper, this could be very expensive, so for most people it is not an option. The second option, and my personal favorite, is to locate and capture swarms! A swarm is just a big ball of bees that lands on a tree or bush or fence or really anywhere. Bees “swarm” when they grow too big for their old hive. Half of the population leaves to go find another home, and that’s why bees swarm. To capture a swarm, you can set a “baited” hive very close to them (preferably touching them) and hope they move in. You can also put a pillowcase around them and shake them in to it if you don’t want to carry around a hive. You then just pour the bees in to the desired location. Another more effective method of capturing swarms is by setting “bait hives” or “swarm traps” outside. These are just normal hives that have been “baited” with lemongrass oil or other swarm attractant such as Swarm Commander. Both of these things smell like honeybee “nasonov” pheromone, which is what bees use to tell where their home is. Though when using bait hives, you’ll need to keep a close eye on them so that once bees move in, you can get the box and move it to your bee yard to be kept before they get used to the old location. Another method to obtaining honeybees is to perform “cut-outs” on trees or houses depending on how comfortable you are doing that. It’s a lot more effort, but usually comes with more bees, pre-built comb, and lots of honey/brood. While using any of these methods to get bees, it is always a good idea to make sure that you find the queen bee. No matter how many you miss or how much you stir up the bees, if you catch the queen, they’ll all come back exactly where you want them. You can use a queen clip that is pre-built and purchased, or you can use an old Mason jar with holes poked in the lid like I do. You just need to make sure that the queen stays out of direct sunlight and in a place where bees can easily get to. You also usually want to make sure that you capture some normal workers along with the queen, so that they can feed her and take care of her. If you caught a queen from a swarm, place her gently in the capture device in the bottom of the hive, and then set the hive as close to the rest of the bees as you can so they can smell her and move in.
The rest is just keeping them normally! Once you have bees, all you need to do is take care of them and make sure they stay safe and happy~
I’ll go in to more detail on all of this in the near future. I’ll also break it down in to individual steps so that you don’t need to deal with a wall of text like this again. I’ll tag everything in this series with #DirtCheapBeekeeping #DCB and #DIY so that you can find them easily.
I’ll level with you here, I completely forgot about this. XD
If you want to get in to beekeeping but don’t want to drop 200-500$ on bee hive kits and bees, this will definitely be a great post for you! It’s a bit run-on and poorly organized, but it has lots of great info for getting started.
Go to your local library or bookstore and find a couple books on beekeeping. It may sound silly in the modern day to go *read books* but they’re honestly chock full of super useful info that you oftentimes can’t easily find online. Worth a try tbh.
As usual, my ask box here is always open for questions, comments, concerns, and whatnot as you see fit. Don’t be shy! There are absolutely no stupid questions, though I must warn you that depending on the question you may get a stupid answer.
Have you ever seen bees being kept inside the house? It looks like there’s a “tunnel” for them to get in & out thru the window.
via The People Against Modern Farmhouse
I love these SO MUCH and want to build myself one at some point. Observation hives are so cool. (Though you really need to keep them in a dark room or keep a cover over them when you’re not watching them to avoid stressing them out too much.)
To defend against predatory wasps, honeybees create a defense wave known as shimmering. Participating honeybees need to respond with perfect timing when it’s their turn to shimmer. The strength and intensity of the bees’ shimmering is based on the predators flight speed and proximity. Wasps rarely come closer than 50 centimeters from the hive when shimmering is in action. It’s unclear why wasps are intimidated by shimmering, but researches believe they are just confused on how to attack. . Video: u/Dodecahedron7 . . #bees #shimmering #science #wasps #honeybee #honey #honeybees #nature #honeybees #savethebees #garden #beekeeper #wildlife #education #educational #natgeo #naturelover #naturelovers https://www.instagram.com/p/CBDu2sZHWeG/?igshid=tgdh6lgyeaiv
