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Bees Update: The Hive is Split

Posted on May 7, 2018 by PriscillaMay 7, 2018

by BeeRad

A big thanks to Perry Welch for driving 4 hours round trip to help us split our hive. Dennis, Lori and her daughter Molly, Julie/Brad and our daughter Elianajoy were on hand to watch and learn.  What an experience as we saw 2 queens and about 12 queen cells – a rare opportunity!  This was probably the 12-15th time I inspected a hive and it was my first time actually seeing the queen, and I even spotted one myself. Pretty cool!

We did not find any eggs or uncapped brood, but we did see some capped brood. Based on the development timeline, this means a queen had not laid any eggs for likely at least a week, possibly two. This combined with so many queen cells made us wonder if the hive had already swarmed. Based on this assumption, we left the lower deep in place along with the two queens we spotted (perhaps they were newly born queens??).  We also left a frame with queen cells just in case. We added a 2nd deep on top. We hope this hive has a strong local queen and continues to grow. We’ll inspect it in a week or so and look for new eggs.

The upper deep from this hive we relocated to the south west position to bee a new hive. We removed the queen cells from all the frames. Perry added a new purchased queen into this deep.  I will remove the cage in 2-3 days.  I’ll inspect again after another 5-8 days and look for new eggs being laid in this hive as well.  If either split hive looks to be losing bee population over the next few weeks, I’ll add a frame of capped brood from one of the nucs to help support it with about to hatch bees.

Lastly we looked at the two nucs installed two weeks ago.

On several occasions over the last week, we have noticed a lot of bearding (when the bees congregate on the outside of the deep) on the front face. It was probably a mistake that all frames I installed had fully built out comb (I thought this would help). But Perry said many of the young bees are in their stage of life to produce wax and build out comb and if all the frames already have comb there is nothing for them to do. So good learning!

Perry suggests always having at least 3-4 new frames so they have a place to build comb. So tomorrow, May 6, I will add a 2nd deep with new frames and inspect both hives to check the laying pattern.

It’s great to see our apiary filling out, now with 4 hives in place. Here’s the updated schedule:

Install Upper deep on hive 1, inspect

May 6  at 945a

Class for Waldorf kids, all welcome

May 7  1230-120p

Install 2 packages of bees

May 12: 1pm

Inspect each hive 2x/mo

May 26, then ongoing in June

To-do items:

  • Paint 2nd coat on outside of deeps a light grn or yellow  (1 still needs primer)

  • Strip / repair frames in bag on top shelf

  • Prepare for mite counts/treatments

– BeeRad

Posted in Bees

Bees are in the Hives!!!

Posted on April 23, 2018 by PriscillaJuly 11, 2018

We got more bees! Dennis, Matt, Julie, Elaiah and Elianajoy helped install the two nucs into hives #1 & #4.  Both looked very strong with lots of bees and lots of brood.  We were even able to see lots of developing larvae.

There are sticks by the entrance – this helps the bees orient to their new home.  I’ll be removing the sticks, and putting the white nuc boxes back into the shed later this week.

So take a minute to check out your friendly bees next time you are at the garden.  Approach the hives from the side and you are unlikely to have any issue.  Looking closely, you’ll probably see bees entering the hives loaded with pollen (orange sacs on the hind legs).

Bee trivia: should I put water out?  No, we are lucky to have the creek so close, so the bees have plenty of water.

–          BeeRad

Posted in Uncategorized

We’ve Got Straw

Posted on April 18, 2018 by PriscillaApril 18, 2018

Many thanks to the Waldorf School for unloading and stacking the straw delivery.

Sorry about all the straw on your clothes.  And hair.  🙁

Perfectly Stacked!

Posted in Uncategorized

First Work Day of 2018 Season

Posted on April 18, 2018 by PriscillaApril 18, 2018

This is just part of the crew that moved all of the compost into a neat pile up against the fence.  For the season, please place all of your weeds and plant material as close to the fence as possible to keep it out of the pathway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Work Days

Rosedale Bees Update

Posted on March 20, 2018 by PriscillaMarch 24, 2018

by Brad Volin

A HUGE thanks to Devin for joining me this past Sat for the Post Mortem. We examined all 3 hives and concluded that 2 definitely died from mites.  The 3rd was inconclusive. I will post the results and pictures on a google doc soon so everyone can see the data we collected and learn. This is ‘good’ news, because one needs to know the problem in order to have the correct solution.  So now we know to bee quite vigilant with the mites this year.  One way we will do this is to do ‘mite counts’ 3-4 times during the season.  This will tell how how aggressively to treat. See more here  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nwtozaBZCMk87W380lofEhvwr9f5aYPt/view?usp=sharing

Devin was also very helpful in organizing the shed and doing a preliminary inventory.  There will be a few things we need but overall we are in pretty good shape with equipment.
Additionally, the budget of $800 was approved for the bees! This will allow us to expand the apiary to 6 hives. We have purchased 2 nucs from ToBeeorNotToBee. We plan to purchase an additional 2 packages through Devin/Perry  (thank you! – most suppliers are already sold out). I will have a google doc soon on the proposed budget, and request all Bee Committee folks take a look and approve.
Speaking of which, thanks to everyone that read the Bee Guidelines and Principles doc. So far, we have 4 votes for approval, and no dissenters. This will guide our work through the season, so please take a minute to read it.  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NPvc0BJhmuqJknXM51T_Va70cIwq62z7ff0x739iOhI/edit
Upcoming Activities:   specific dates/times to come soon, but in general here’s what is going on:
  • Shed inventory and hive prep: ~ 2nd week of April
  • ‘Install’ 2 nucs into hives: ~ 4/21
  • Split existing hive into 2 hives: ~ end of April (depends on availability of new queen)
  • ‘Install” 2 packages into hives:  ~ early May
Installations MUST be done the day the bees arrive, so we won’t have any flexibility there. After installations, we’ll be inspecting the hives every ~ 2 weeks.
You can see there will be a lot going on.  Think about how available you might bee to participate.  These activities represent incredible learning opportunities. Let me know if you are even somewhat interested, as then we’ll try to coordinate times as best as possible to maximize attendance.
Thanks to everyone that has been involved.  Please mention what we’re doing to fellow gardeners, and others in the community.  More are welcome.
More info to come soon.
– BeeRad
Posted in Bees

Rosedale Bees Activity

Posted on March 2, 2018 by PriscillaMarch 2, 2018

by Brad Volin

Spring is in the air!!  The days are finally getting longer and although we’ve had a recent cold snap, believe it or not, the first nectar flow is flowing which means the bees are getting active. Click here for more info.

In fact, Devin and I will be inspecting the hives at the garden this Sat, Mar 3 around 3pm.  If you are interested in any way, come on down.  It is supposed to be beautiful.

Other activities over the next 2 months in the Bee Committee include:

  • Shed organization.  We’ll install some shelves and bins to tidy things up a bit
  • Build some more deeps (the stackable boxes that form the bee hive)
  • Monthly weight check  (that is one thing we’ll be doing this Sat)
  • Feedings as needed 1-4x/month
  • Inspection/management of each hive

o   Possibly splitting or re-queening hives

If you are interested in any way, please let me know.  We welcome tourists and gawkers, as well as bee helpers. This is a great way to get involved and learn, even if you don’t know anything about bees.

Hope to see you Saturday!

–          BEErad

Posted in Bees

Bee Happy

Posted on November 7, 2017 by PriscillaNovember 21, 2017

by Brad Volin

Bee Happy you have a furnace and heat in your house! Unfortunately the bees don’t. So they have to keep themselves warm all winter. In fact, Queen Bee needs to stay at a balmy 92 degrees. How do they do they warm themselves? Actually, the same as you and I: by shivering! That’s right, there are literally 10,000+ bees in each hive, and they climb on top of each other and surround the queen on all sides and use body heat to keep her warm. But don’t the flapping wings cause problems? In fact they would, so bees have evolved in an ingenious manner such that they can detach their wings and activate their muscles to generate heat without actually moving their wings. Thus they can stay very close together and generate heat while in a ‘cluster’ to keep her majesty warm and alive all winter.

One can imagine how hungry they must get exercising so much, and yes, they must eat. Throughout the winter, the cluster moves around and the bees take turns eating the stored honey. The amount of honey consumed varies in different parts of the country and generally tracks with how cold it gets. Here in Denver, hives generally need around 60 pounds of honey to survive the winter. You may notice that each of our hives is made up of two stacked boxes (each box is called a ‘deep’). Typically, if both deeps are full of capped honey (the bees fill cells in the honeycomb with honey and then cover it with wax for storage) by fall, the hives have enough honey. If the bees have filled both deeps during the summer, additional boxes (this time called ‘supers’) are added, and the honey in these supers are ‘excess’ honey that the bees don’t need. This is honey that can be harvested by the beekeeper. The only difference between a ‘deep’ and a ‘super’ is that the supers are not as tall. That way when they are full of honey they are not as heavy to move. Our hives didn’t produce any excess honey this year but we are hoping they do next year!

If the deeps are full of capped honey, not only does it provide nutrients and food for the shivering bees all winter, but it also helps insulate the bees from the outside cold. If the deeps are not full of honey, there is less insulation, as well as less food. You may notice the two hives we have on the east side of our orchard (we call them hives 2 & 3), have pink foam insulation around them. These hives were not full of honey so the foam will help insulate the bees. We may even need to supplement the hives with sugar water later in the winter or spring since they don’t have quite enough honey to last through the entire winter. On the other hand, the two hives on the west side (we call them hives 4 & 5) are not wrapped in foam. These hives are full of honey and that is enough to insulate them, and keep them well fed for the duration of the winter. The hives do have duct tape on the seams to help keep the wind out. Again, a big thanks to Devin Egger and Bee Mindful, for donating these two hives.

Lastly, the single hive that had been by the tree (we called it hive 1) has been brought into the shed because the bees left back in August. There are many reasons why bees leave – our best guess is that because this hive survived from the prior year, the queen was older and did not produce quite enough brood (bees) during this summer and eventually the queen and subsequently the entire hive unfortunately died.

Winter is often the toughest time for bees and many do not survive. We are hoping all 4 of our hives survive and winter over. That may allow us to add additional hives next Spring by splitting, and/or it may allow us to get enough honey so that there is excess and all of us gardeners can have some – yum!

Thanks to everyone that helped with the bees this year. A lot of people were involved and we had fun together and all learned a lot. We are looking to have more people involved in the coming year. The only thing you need is a curiosity or fascination for bees. We plan to have get-togethers in the garden every month. Some will involve the hives themselves and some will involve other things. So you can bee involved even if you don’t want to get close to any bees. We’ll have fun and learn together. Email bees@rosedalegarden.org if you are even possibly interested, even if only for a one time event. We don’t need any major commitment.

Have a warm winter, don’t be afraid to walk over near the hives and see if any bees are buzzing. For most of the winter, the hives will look silent and you may think there is not possibly anything alive inside. But on a sunny warm winter day, you’ll likely see some buzzing (they have to go out to poo periodically!).

See you in the Spring!   – BeeRAD

Posted in Bees

Garlic Tasting Event 2017

Posted on September 6, 2017 by PriscillaSeptember 10, 2017

Rosedale Community Garden

4th Annual Garlic Tasting Event

When:  Saturday, September 30, 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Where:  Harvard Gulch Golf Course Clubhouse, located at 660 E. Iliff in Denver

Enjoy an evening of live music, gourmet garlic tastings, and samplings of a garlic-inspired tasting menu.

Tickets are advance sale only and space is limited.

Register now!

Rosedale gardeners have planted and harvested 13 different varieties of gourmet garlic. That’s more than 2000 individual cloves!! Carefully hand-planted one by one last Fall; lovingly tended all Winter and Spring; hand-harvested, cleaned, tagged, and bundled. Now you get to try them. Did we mention that it was all done by hand?

All Rosedale gourmet garlic varieties will be available for sale.

EXPERIENCE…

…the difference that gourmet garlic can make in your cooking.

Come taste and compare our garlic with regular, supermarket garlic.  You will never go back!  Taste the difference our gourmet garlic makes in garlic bread, garlic pizza,  soups, and more.  Try it roasted and raw.  Even in garlic ice cream!!

Register now!

LEARN…

…about planting, harvesting, storing, and using the many varieties of garlic. Garlic experts on hand to answer all your garlic questions.

And best of all, Rosedale gourmet garlic varieties will be available for sale.  Take some home for your own garlicky, gourmet dishes.

JOIN THE FUN

Tickets are $20 and include 2 beverages (wine and beer), garlic tastings, and sample foods.

Live music by Krewe De Groove.

Register now!

All proceeds benefit Rosedale Community Garden and help us buy things like:  organic compost, organic straw for mulch, tools, water to keep our gardens growing, and many other items large and small.

Thank you for your support.

Posted in Garlic, Uncategorized

Natural Remedies

Posted on September 18, 2017 by PriscillaSeptember 23, 2017

Trishia, who has been doing great work tending the herb garden this season, shares a few natural remedies using herbs and medicinal plants.

Download (PDF, 45KB)

Posted in Uncategorized

What to Plant in August

Posted on August 21, 2017 by PriscillaSeptember 14, 2017

Posted in Uncategorized

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