Making nucleus hives or “nucs” is a good way to expand your apiary without spending a lot of money and without the worry of introducing Africanized genetics from packaged bees. (Now that Africanized bees inhabit our more southern states, this is a concern.) You also will be creating queens that are best acclimated to your geographical area. To be successful in making nucs, timing is important. 




Timing

The absolute best time to start a new hive is at the beginning of the spring nectar flow, which is just about now in Middle Tennessee.

Healthy hives naturally cast off swarms at this time, because it takes a lot of nectar to build the wax necessary to establish a new hive. Honeybees will only make new wax when they have an abundance of nectar. In my area, the nectar flow occurs roughly from mid-April to mid-June. I pushed the season a bit by making my nucs this first week of April, but the 10-day forecast was great, the Redbuds were blooming, and I had a few frames of honey left in the freezer for starter feed. 

In making a nuc, essentially you are creating a controlled swarm--but without the queen. So along with taking bees for the new hive, you must ensure that you take newly laid eggs, less than 3-days old. In the new hive, the bees will discover that they have no queen and will go to work making one. To do this, they will choose one or more of these eggs, create a queen cell around it, and when it hatches feed it only royal jelly. Waiting for the nectar flow is important not only because the bees will have access to lots of nectar and pollen for food and wax building, but also because plenty of drones will be available this time of year for the newly hatched queens to mate with.

This timing is also important because bees from your bigger, more established hives will be busy gathering nectar and pollen from nature’s abundance and less likely to rob out the smaller nucs.

How to Make a Nuc

You can see in the picture that my nuc hardware is about one-half the size of a normal deep hive body. In fact, it is a normal deep hive body that I’ve cut in half, nailing on a board to create the side. You can make your own, or you can order them from your favorite beekeeping supply company. For those of you using all medium boxes, you could simply use a whole medium box. I have topped mine with a shallow super, also cut in half, so I can put the starter feed (chunks of honeycomb) on top of inner cover inside that box.  

The hive I take the nuc from must be healthy with lots of bees and a good laying queen. A healthy hive will have a good solid brood pattern and by this time should have lots of eggs, larvae, and capped brood. Drones should also be present by this time of year.

I choose 3 frames, one with the less than 3-day old eggs that have not yet hatched into larvae, one with pollen and honey, and the other with lots of capped and uncapped brood. This is the one time during a hive inspection that I make sure I actually see the queen and not just evidence that she is present. I don’t want to accidentally take her away from the original hive on one of the frames. The frame with the eggs goes in the middle of the nuc box. The honey and pollen frame for feed goes on the outside. The frame with brood at various stages goes on the other side and should have lots of bees crawling over it to keep the brood warm. They tend to want to stay with, feed, and protect the brood. These are house bees, but with a lack of foragers in the new hive, they will soon learn to take on that responsibility. 

If you have still have empty space in your box, these 3 frames go in the center and either drawn comb if you have it or frames ready for the bees to draw out should fill the space.

Ideally you should move the nucleus hives at least 2 miles from the original hives so the bees do not return to them. I’ll admit I don’t always do this. This year 3 of my nucs came from a distant apiary, but the others came from hives on my own farm. I moved them as far as I could from the original hives and left them screened up for a day. I find that since the new bees are mostly house bees and have the brood to look after, they don’t return to the original hives.

The next day, I partially removed the screens. This allows the bees to come and go but makes it harder for bees from stronger hives to rob them.

Fellow beekeepers, have you wondered why Monsanto has purchased Beelogics, a honeybee research company? Or why Bee Culture magazine has suddenly drank Monsanto's Kool-ade and are openly singing Monsanto's praises? (See "Future Opportunity in Honey Bee Health" in the current issue of Bee Culture, written by Gregory Heck, whose title at Monsanto is the "Weed Cotrol Platform Lead in the Plant Biology Program."

I believe it's because they know their chemicals are killing our bees and they want to genetically modify bees as they do plants, a sort of "Roundup ready" honeybee if you will. They would have us believe that this genetic engineering is safe and that horizontal gene transfer does not occur. Studies have been done that prove it does occur. 

Inform yourselves. This is the next big thing in beekeeping that we beekeepers will have to deal with. Here's an interesting link on research by the Pew Trust. 

http://www.pewtrusts.org/uploadedFiles/wwwpewtrustsorg/Reports/Food_and_Biotechnology/pifb_bugs_012204.pdf

On a happier note--I will be making nucleus hives today! I've been up since before dawn--so excited I can hardly stand it, but must wait as the day warms. Read about how it goes in my next post.

The spade bites into the earth and I turn over a shovelful of garden soil. It’s a windy March day, but the sun is warm on bare arms blanched from a winter of layered clothing. A male cardinal sings out his cheery presence, and in the distance, crows scold some unseen interloper.

 I am reworking my garden beds, turning up earthworms and little clumps of grass and weeds as I go. At the end of the row, I lay down the shovel and kneel in the path along the newly forming row and begin to crumble the clumps with my hands, shaking loose the toupees of grass and throwing them upside-down into the path to compost.

The earth crumbles in my fingers and smells clean.

I work my way back down the row on my knees, then stand, retrieve the shovel, and begin turning over another row. I continue until the bed is 4 feet wide and 50 feet long then make another path on the other side, about 2 feet wide, throwing the topsoil from the path back up on this bed that I am creating. I cover both row and path with old straw mucked from the goats’ shed. Behind me are four completed rows neatly tucked into their straw blankets, snoozing out the last weeks of cold weather. The first bed already has onions peeking out of the straw, and further down the row, potatoes will soon make their appearance. Working a little each day, I hope to complete one or two more rows before it’s time to plant the warm-season vegetables. 

My brother has offered me the use of this tiller, but I’ve declined. He thinks I’m crazy for doing all this hand digging. How do I explain to him that I actually enjoy the quiet, solitary labor, and that the roar of a tiller’s motor and the jarring way it lurches through the soil would ruin it for me?

Why do some of us love the work of a homestead and others look at it and think drudgery!

Humans are designed to perform and enjoy work and to reap benefit from it. Along with physical exercise, the benefits include the satisfaction of producing something useful or beautiful with our own labor, the sheer joy of using mind and body, the expression of creative and aesthetic impulses, and the creation of a soul-satisfying life.

Good work is one simple secret to a fulfilled life. We’ve been taught that work is drudgery to be avoided or hurried through just to get it over with, to seek out labor-saving devices to eliminate it, and to delegate it to others or pay them to do it for us. Of course, this may be true of work that is directed by someone else and that must be performed in a prescribed way without our own creative input. Yes that is drudgery!


But the work performed by entrepreneurs, artists, writers, musicians, hobbyists, and yes homesteaders can offer this type of fulfillment. Homesteading can give us freedom and variety in our activities, can provide an outlet for creativity, and can bring joy. Those of us who love this work become engrossed in the life we are creating, lose track of time, and enter that flow state that makes it so enjoyable. It is that place that makes the work itself, and not the finished product, the whole point of our effort.

To find this place, to enjoy where we are and what we are doing right now, we have to unlearn some old habits and rethink some things we may have learned about work.

Physical labor is beneath us. Our bodies actually crave physical labor! That’s why so many people run, go to gyms, play sports, take up physically challenging hobbies--they see the benefits of and enjoy the way their bodies feel with physical activity. The physicality of homesteading chores can condition us, body and mind, at the same time we are producing something of value. Even seemingly monotonous chores such as hoeing a long garden row can become a meditation for the mind while using the body. I cannot count the number of times I have started a task that at first looked daunting and soon become lost in the work and my own reverie. The next thing I know an hour has passed and I actually have something to show for it! The reward for a day spent outdoors using large muscles is a healthy body and a good night’s rest.

Work is something to be endured and hurried through to get to the finished product. On the contrary, work is it’s own reward! Physical labor can be a feast to the senses--especially when performed outdoors. The sights, sounds, and smells of nature are all around us. We can feel the way our bodies move and become part of the landscape. While carrying hay and water to the goats, a month-old kid gambols up, full of curiosity. Before he knows what’s happened, I’ve reached down and scooped him up, holding him against my face to breathe in his sweet smell. His belly is full of his mother’s milk and his eyes are bright and clear. Little nubs of horns appear through the tufts of fur on his head. He wriggles against me until I set him down again. He runs off to check in with his mother as if to undo the indignity I’ve foisted upon him.

Most of our work is, by necessity, about eating, either directly or indirectly. We work in the garden or with animals to produce our food, or we work for money to buy our food. Is it any wonder then that along with being labor-intensive, food preparation can entail the most sensuous and pleasurable of activities? From the field to the fork, we use all of ourselves and all of our senses to produce what we eat. From the outdoor work of gardening; to the color, aroma, and sizzle of cooking; to the pleasure of eating, this work is to be savored. 

Work is something we need to let others do for us. We miss more than we gain by delegating away all of our physical labor. Being engaged in physically producing something ourselves develops resourcefulness and creativity as well as a sense of pride and accomplishment in a finished product. Tell me, which potato tastes better--the one you pick off the grocer’s shelf or the one you dig from the earth with your own hands, slice thin into a skillet along with your own homegrown onions, and sauté in a little olive oil until the potatoes are golden brown and the onions caramelized? 

As I finish my work on this March day, I look again at those little green spires in the onion bed and check the straw over the potato bed. I can already taste their promise.

While we are all anxiously awaiting spring, here is a link you might enjoy.

http://www.homestead.org

it is chock full of articles about homesteading, gardening, cooking, livestock, etc. and well worth a visit.

I especially hope you will enjoy an article about Homesteading in Later Life by yours truly!

http://homestead.org/BettyTaylor/LaterLife/HomesteadingLater.htm?utm_source=Homesteading+Later+in+Life+-+March+8%2C+2014&utm_campaign=3-8-14&utm_medium=email

Beekeeping is about weather watching. On February 18th, the Sandhill cranes flew over my middle Tennessee home on their migration north, the mercury on the front porch hit 68 degrees, and the honeybees broke their cluster, flying madly about the farm. By the next day, the bees were bringing in light tan pollen. The weather service predicted a few more warm days before winter returned. This was the break in the weather that I had been waiting for.  

Our spring bloom is still 2 months away, but this was a great opportunity to check on the bees. I had not opened a hive since last fall, when I’d inspected and prepared them for winter. (See Late Fall Hive Inspection.)

On the first day of the warmup, I visited my 3 apiaries and each of their hives. I was careful not to disturb the brood chamber where the bees cluster in cold weather and where the queen was beginning to lay brood, but I did manipulate the boxes. It has been my habit to run 2 deep chambers topped by one shallow super of honey all year. In all but one hive, I found that the bees had moved up into the 2nd deep brood chamber. I momentarily set asked the top shallow super of honey while I reversed the 2 deep chambers, so that the bees would have room to expand upward this spring. One hive had bees in both chambers, so I did not reverse this hive. Reversing would have split the cluster area and any brood that the queen had laid--spreading it out and making it difficult for the bees to keep it warm. If temperatures dip quickly, as they are likely to this time of year, the brood could have been susceptible to chilling.

I was happy to see the late winter vigor of most of the hives. The bees formed a thick mass over the top frames of the brood boxes and were up in the top shallows getting honey. I did find one dead hive in each apiary, but I was not surprised. Last year was a bad year for me and most everyone else in beekeeping. These hives had never completely recovered and had not produced any honey in 2013. In each of them, I found only a fistful of bees, their heads stuck inside empty honey cells. The cluster had been too small to survive the winter, and nearby, stronger hives had robbed them out on warm days. The few remaining bees had starved and frozen. I could tell they’d been robbed out by the massive amount of chewed up wax discarded on the bottom boards. When the bees in a hive eat their own honey, they do it neatly and systematically, as the bees were doing on this day. When a hive is robbed, the robbers swarm in and tear the wax away, leaving ragged edges and chewed-up litter behind.

Two other hives that had been so-so in the fall were doing quite well, but they both were low on honey stores. I doubted they’d make it the 2 months until the nectar flow began without starving. Fortunately, I had partial frames of honey in the freezer that I’d stored in the fall. I would thaw and add a couple to each hive the the next day. If I hadn’t had these frozen frames, I could have traded a few empty frames with full ones from nearby hives, as these were still stocked well with capped honey.

Finally, I performed a manipulation called “checkerboarding” that I’ve been experimenting with the past few years. The gist of the whole thing is to prevent swarming later in the season by breaking up the honey dome above the brood chamber and thus giving the bees room to expand upward. It also is supposed to increase honey yields. The idea is espoused by Walt Wright and a full explanation can be found by searching him or by searching “checkerboarding” at Beesource.com.

In my setup, the honey dome is that top super of honey. In most of the hives, this super was still full of honey. After I’d reversed the deep chambers, I replaced this super but removed every other frame of honey. I refilled these slots with empty drawn comb that I’d saved, frozen, from last year. Above this, I added a second super of drawn comb interspersed with the frames of honey that I’d removed from the first super--in a checkerboard pattern. The key to this is having the drawn comb on hand.

This is the 3rd year that I’ve performed this manipulation, and with my healthy, survivor hives, I’ve had very good results so far: hardly any swarming and much greater honey yields. Let me say though that this is a controversial topic and that I have not had enough experience with it yet to wholeheartedly recommend it. But so far, my results are very promising.

I also love this method because I’m a lazy beekeeper. I won’t have to go through my hives and cut out queen cells in an effort to prevent swarming later--usually to no avail anyway, and I won’t have to manipulate the boxes again until next year. All I have to do now is wait for the spring bloom to begin and add supers for the bees to fill with honey!

On the second day of the warmup, I observed the bees bringing in tan-yellow pollen! Probably elm and/or maple pollen. Amazing how quickly nature springs to life when the chill is gone even for a day! The appearance of pollen coming into the hives is a good sign that the queen has begun spring brood laying. The workers gather pollen as protein to feed the larvae. According to Mr. Wright, this is perfect time for checkerboarding. I’ve found a great site to stay informed about what plants are producing pollen and when. It’s really for allergy sufferers, but I think it’s a great resource for beekeepers as well: www.pollen.com. You can type in your zip code and get a list of what plants are currently producing pollen in your area.

These late winter hive manipulations now done, I will go back to my weather watching. I will be waiting for signs that the nectar flow has begun. In middle Tennessee that occurs sometime in April. After that, I hope to watch the bees fill super after super with honey! Yes, beekeeping is about weather watching, but it is also about hope.

Question: Can you tell that this is a healthy hive hive just by looking at this picture?

Answer: Yes! Notice the melted snow on the top cover. This cluster of bees is large enough to generate enough heat to cause this melting on their roof! 

It’s early January in Middle Tennessee. My honey bee hives stand silent against the still winter cold. A warm ear against a frosty hive brings the reassuring hum of all those shivering bees, keeping one another warm. If I don’t hear them, a couple of raps on the hive will bring the hum to a momentary, more audible crescendo. 

Because I am dedicated to beekeeping sustainably and without chemicals and to building survivor stock--strong healthy, disease-free bees that can forage efficiently--my work is done for the season. The survival of the bees now depends on whether I’ve left them enough of their own nutritious honey in the fall, whether the cluster is big enough to keep them warm, whether breaks in the weather come often enough for cleansing and water-gathering flights, and depends on the condition of the queen. For now the bees are safe from further contamination by agricultural chemicals, but I suspect these chemicals still play a role in the health and longevity of my queens.

In winter as well as other times of the year, the queen comes first. Inside the hive, the worker bees surround her and keep her fed as they move from the outside of the cluster to the inside and back again, regulating their own warmth along with hers. The queen is not laying now, but in only a few weeks, elm, cedar, and henbit pollen will be available to feed to her larvae, and she will begin anew. (To augment your own observations of what pollens are available and when in your area, go to www.pollen.com and key in your zip code.) 

Although summer worker bees only live about 6 weeks, the bees of winter live several months, making up for this lull in egg laying. Often called “fat bees,” winter bees even have a different composition from that of summer bees thanks to changes in the protein vitellogenin.

On warmer winter days, I’ve seen a lot of activity at the hive entrances and I’m encouraged. The books say the bees will break cluster to do their winter chores when the outside air is about 50 degrees. My bees haven’t read the books, and I’ve often seen them out on sunny, windless days when the thermometer reads much colder. The bees clean house on these days. They drag out their dead, take cleansing flights to relieve themselves of fecal matter, look through the sawdust piles where I’ve been cutting wood (for what I’m not sure? resin for propolis? minerals?), and gather water.

Although water requirements are lower in the winter, bees need water to mix with and thin out their honey stores before eating them or feeding them to their larvae. A lot of condensation can build up inside a hive in the winter time, especially if poorly ventilated, and I imagine they use this water. I’ve also seen them out collecting water drops from blades of grass and other plants on warm winter days.

If the hives were well provisioned above the brood nest in the fall, the bees will move up closer to the stores as the winter progress and will use warm days to move honey closer to the cluster. If it’s too cold for too long and the food is too far away, the bees can starve despite honey still being present in the hive. Taking your losses in the fall by combining weak hives and culling poorly performing queens make bigger clusters, allow more efficient warming, and increase survival overall. The bees use propolis to glue their hives shut for more winter protection. I won’t break their protection to try to feed them in cold weather, so my being judicious in honey harvesting is critical to their winter survival.

Today it’s very cold. The bees are clustered up, conserving energy, and eating less of their honey stores. For now, I’ll go inside and do the same--sit by the fire, conserve energy, and dream of spring.

Raw honey will granulate in time, and it is perfectly fine to eat it that way if you wish. Depending on the floral mix, moisture content, and the temperature at which it’s stored, some honeys granulate sooner than others. Many people prefer granulated honey. You can use it as is in your favorite recipes, spread it on warm toast, or spoon it into a steaming mug of tea or coffee. But if you prefer to drizzle some honey over a warm biscuit, don’t despair! It can be liquified again with a little heat.

Most people just zap a bit of honey in the microwave or heat it in a pan of water on the stove. These methods work well, but you risk overheating and thus burning, darkening and damaging the honey as well as destroying nutrients and enzymes. Beekeepers often use special water-jacketed tanks or heating bands. These are expensive, often unwieldy for small batches and also risk destroying the quality of the honey if not attended closely.

Ideally, to preserve color and quality, you want to hold the honey at about 105 to 115 degrees for several hours, depending on the size of your jars. 

My brother and his wife usually get a case of honey from me every year to give to their friends as Christmas gifts. But by Christmas, the raw honey, pulled in the spring, has begun to crystalize in the glass jars. Ingenious man that he is, my brother substitutes the light bulb in his oven with a regular 100-watt bulb and leaves the jars of honey in the oven over night! (Just remember to replace the bulb again before you use the oven to prevent the bulb from breaking! He also suggests checking your oven first by sticking a thermometer in overnight to see how warm your oven gets.)

If I have only a few jars, I use my chicken egg incubator. I can set the incubator at 110 degrees, leave the lids on, and walk away! I can even reliquify comb honey this way because the wax does not melt until about 140 degrees. In the photo, both jars contain cut comb and honey. The one on the right has been reliquified overnight in my incubator.

Entropy, “4. a hypothetical tendency for all matter and energy in the universe to evolve toward a state of inert uniformity. 5. Inevitable and steady deterioration of a system or society.”


Inert, “1. Unable to move or act. 2 Sluggish in action or motion; lethargic.”

No, this is not going to be a political discussion, although…


I have great compassion for Newbees, novices who are trying to learn the art and science of beekeeping. It was easier for me. I had a mentor, did as I was told, worked, learned, kept my opinions to myself, and eventually branched out, started my own apiary, and did it “my way.” Today it’s harder to find mentors, and for as many beekeepers who are asked a question, that’s how many different answers a Newbee gets back.


The reason for this blog is to give back, pass on what I’ve learned, but it’s not that easy. I get a lot of push back from established Agri-beekeepers because I don’t feed my hives (once established), don’t use chemicals, and don’t purchase all the latest bee gadgets. This past year, I had a bad year, and you know what? This year’s results were exactly equal to the NORM of Argi-beesiness in recent years! And that, a normal year for most beekeepers, was a bad year for me--until now I’ve had excellent results. So now, as an act of faith in myself and what I have learned by observation, I am sticking to my guns, letting my poorly preforming hives die, and rebuilding from the survivors. Stay tuned, survive or fail, I won’t lie to you! If I fall on my face, y’all will be the first to know.

Now for the entropy part. The expanding access to information and the many voices is a blessing and a concern. Quantity doesn’t trump quality. It can just lead to confusion and inaction. If you love bees, just commit! Go for it. Make your own mistakes and learn from them. Give yourself a few years of apprenticeship and don’t expect instant results. Every failure is one step closer to success. Don’t be afraid to fail! And above all, give yourself a period to just observe what the bees do naturally and then adapt to them.

That said, don’t keep bees because you think you’re going to make money. If you want to make money, get a job--any job! Keep bees because you love them. If you love them enough, you may make money from them in a dozen years or so.

Everyone wants to find a warm haven and a hot meal when it’s cold outside. Field mice love to claim a hive corner just a few inches from the warm cluster of bees to winter in, chewing up comb to make way for the debris they haul in for nesting. Skunks and opossums will park themselves at the hive entrance and scoop out pawfuls of honey and larvae to gorge on. You can see signs of them from the clawed up turf in front of a hive.

Now is the time to make sure your hives are protected from these marauders. This week I am making my “last call” to each hive before winter. First I install the entrance reducers to discourage the mice. These were removed before the spring nectar flow to make more room for landing and taking off. I also make sure all the hives have carpet-tack strips attached to the bottom boards (see photo).  These have always worked for me to fend off skunks and opossums looking for a winter snack.

I will not open the hives again until next spring, although I will check on them often. During these checks, I gingerly tip each hive forward from the back to feel its weight. The heft will tell me whether a hive is well provisioned. Before leaving, I put my ear to the back of the hive and gently knock, “Anybody home?” Before I knock, I can often hear the soft hum of wings and bodies moving inside to maintain the cluster warmth. After knocking, I hear a quick spike in the decibel level of this contented hum. All is well. See you in the spring!

Update: Those of you who follow this blog know I lost a lot of bees to pesticides during the nectar flow last spring when they were foraging on neighboring farms. I am happy to report that my surviving hives are all in good condition going into winter. Again this year I have had no varroa losses despite not treating and I have not had to feed any of my hives. Sorry agri-BEE-ness but we survived another year without and despite you. I only hope my bees can survive another spring spraying season!