Failure: My First Hive Removal

He looked so happy...
He had no idea of
the carnage to come.

My fortune cookie Saturday night read, "Failure is the chance to do better next time." 

Saturday, Noah and I performed our first hive removal. While this could prove to be a good little side business, we didn't charge. One reason that we didn't charge, was because we had no idea what we were doing. The other reason was because I could really use the bees.

Intake and outgoing hose holes

I got up early Saturday morning and, with the help of YouTube, I built a bee vacuum out of a five gallon bucket. It was very simple and only cost about $25 total including the shop vac.

Step one: Get a five gallon bucket, an easy to remove lid, and a cheap shop vac.

Step two: Cut three holes in the lid; one for the intake hose, one for the outgoing hose, and a large one for a vent (to control the amount of suction).

Inside view of of intake and outgoing

Step three: Place #8 hardware cloth over the outgoing nozzle so the bees stop in the bucket and over the vent hole.

Step four: Secure all hoses and hardware cloth with zip-ties.

It's just that easy.

I also placed a loop of foam so that the incoming bees would have a soft landing as they came into the bucket.

#8 Hardware cloth over
outgoing hose end

Then, Noah and I headed to the scene of, what would later become known as, the scene of the massacre.

We suited up completely, since we had no idea how aggressive the bees would be. This turned out to be unnecessary as this was the gentlest hive I've ever seen. Absolutely nothing we did upset these bees. We tore down the outer wall and the bees didn't care. We cut out the comb and the bees didn't care. We vacuumed them up and the bees didn't care. It was amazing.

The hive seemed big at first but, after cutting it out, it only filled one and a half deep supers. However, we suctioned three gallons of bees!

I was so excited. The removal was text book and we now had a hive of Super Gentle Bees.

However the removal was exhausting. It took about four hours and even though it wasn't very hot, it was very humid. Since we took our time vacuuming the bees, I stayed in a squatted position for a large part of the time. Did I mention I'm fat and out of shape.

The last thing we did was to swing by Dr. D's and picked up a frame of eggs, just in case we had accidentally killed the queen. Then Noah headed home and I took the hive to my house.

I was tired and it was beginning to rain slightly, so I covered the vent hole in the bucket with a bandanna, and went in the house for a break. An hour later, I placed the hive on its new stand, and dumped the bucket of bees into it.

Dead. They were all dead.

Three gallons of bees, were all dead. It seems that even though we thought we were using low suction, we had actually pureed the bees.

I was so tired (and defeated) that I just closed the lid and went inside for the night.

The next morning I got up, and retrieved the honey - no point in losing everything... or so I thought. It seems that leaving three gallons of dead bees on the honey overnight somehow tainted the honey and as I was extracting it, I began smelling a foul sour smell. The 2-3 gallons of honey was ruined.

In the end, all I got for of my trouble was a couple of pounds of wax and some much needed experience.

Lessons learned:

For the most part, the removal had gone very well. The biggest surprise was how long it took. Some beekeepers charge as much as $300... I now see why.

As for my bee vacuum: I plan to add a clear smooth bore hose on the incoming side. This will not only allow me to see how fast the bees are being sucked in but it will also keep the bees from being sucked down a four foot long washboard.

Lastly, and I keep learning this one the hard way, being tired (or defeated) doesn't mean you are done working. Had I immediately cleared the dead bees from the honey and took it inside for extraction, I would have had at least $200 worth of honey. It would have only taken another hour but I gave up.

From now on I will end my workday by asking myself, "Are you quitting because you are finished or is your business finished because you quit?"

Mead Note: One month tastes

This is our new stray cat, Buffy
She looks like I feel.

"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough," Albert Einstein

I posed a simple question on Facebook's Mead Makers page. What should I expect a semi-sweet mead to taste like at the one month racking?

Almost all the answers were the same: "You will get a feel for it over time."

While this may be true, it is condescending and the most useless answer I can imagine. 

In fact it takes me back to when I learned to drive a stick-shift. If anyone ever taught you this, they said the same thing: "You have to push the gas at the exact same time you let off on the clutch... you will get a feel for it over time."

Well, that's bull shit! The truth is that you actually give it a little gas before you let off the clutch or it will stale. Sure, over time you "get a feel for it" but that is what is actually taking place.

So if you don't know the answer to a question, don't answer it.

All that being said, I want to make a few notes about my first three meads. I have quit using a paper journal to keep these sorts of notes so I now put them here... read at your own risk:

Mead #1 

We tasted my first mead after a year of aging last Christmas. It was strong but fairly tasteless. To describe it a little better it was very dry and only had the faintest hint of honey. 

Two days ago (after two years) I decided to bottle it and found that the airlock had gone dry. I tasted it. To my surprise it didn't taste like vinegar. More surprisingly, it didn't taste like much of anything. The dry tasteless mead now tasted like it had been watered down. It still tasted fairly dry (though not as strong) and tasted as if it had been diluted with at least 3/4 water. 


I poured it down the sink.

Mead #2

I just made #2 (#2 hehehehe)  mead about two months ago. I racked it at week 4 and tasted it as I did. The alcohol taste was overpowering and I couldn't taste much else.

Since I had only made 1.5 litters on this one, I decided to put it in two screw top bottles (I later read that screw-tops don't seal too well). Just the same, I left one bottle as is and added a 1/4 cup of honey to the other bottle.

After two weeks, I again racked the two bottles into fresh ones (they both had a lot of sediment) and I added distilled water to fill them up. I tasted both.

The "as is" bottle tasted sweet and the alcohol taste had gone away. Looks like this one might be good by Christmas.

The one I had back sweetened was too sweet - like drinking pure honey. I don't think this one will be drinkable.

I corked both.

Mead #3

This mead stopped bubbling after a very vigorous week (I didn't hydrate my yeast and that may have made it stale). So at a week and a half, I racked it. I did not taste it but I will wrack it again in a couple of weeks and make notes of the taste then.

By all means, if any mead makes read this and have any "actual" answers, please leave a comment.

What if my alpacas get flees and other insane thoughts

“It is always darkest just before the day dawneth.” Thomas Fuller, circa 1650

I woke up at 3:30am and my first thought was, “What if my alpacas get flees?” It would be a reasonable question… If I had alpacas!

It all started partly because my wife is afraid that opossums will eat our beloved chickens. In turn, for the past 2 or 3 months, every morning I am forced to hump the chickens out to their pen and every night I have to drag them back in to the brooder. Mind you, the chickens are fully grown.

So I researched chickens and that led me to Justin Rhodes’s farm video tour, who did a video about a family that raised sheep, to get the wool, to spin the yarn, to knit the hats… In The House That Jack Built.

That sounded really interesting, so on a whim I looked up wool and that led me to alpacas who turn out to be great guard animals for… wait for it… chickens!

We won’t be getting alpacas. I live in town and the bees and the chickens are already pushing the limits of the city ordinances. I give the neighbors honey (and eggs when they start laying) but not a lot of people would be swayed with the gift of an alpaca fleece. However, one day when we buy a place in the country… well… who knows.

Here in the real world:

Noah and I visited both of the apiaries Saturday and all the bees are doing well. I also added an empty super of freshly waxed frames to Hive-B.1.1 - that gives all the hives two deep supers at Dr. D's.

I harvested a deep super of honey from the old farm. The odd thing was that there were supersedure queen cells in that hive – though they seemed a little old and there was still plenty of brood. I think it's okay.

I’ll still need to winterize the hives this month but for now, it is still in the 80’s and the goldenrod is in bloom.

Final Count – 8 hives.