A weed killing - beekeeper’s dilemma.

Are dandelions a wildflower, an exotic weed, or a honey bee forage plant?  What about knapweed, or Canada thistle? Not that long ago, I would have said without hesitation “exotic weeds”! And while most days I still feel that way, I have come to see these plants in a new light.

Early Spring Dandelion

I have been trained as a land manager, and a big part of that is noxious weed control. In my current position, I maintain a herbicide applicators license with our state Department of Agriculture, and administer the noxious weed control program on the state lands within our administrative unit. Roughly 65,000 acres. 

To that end, several times a year I go to training sessions and seminars to learn the latest trends and developments in the weed killing world.  Often this means listening to enthusiastic presentations about the latest and greatest chemicals the industry has to offer.  There are chemicals for everything these days, and if you take everything the vendors say as gospel, chemicals are the answer to all our troubles.

Luckily, there are more than just chemicals in the weed killer’s arsenal. There is also grazing, mowing, bio-controls (weed killing insects) and of course hand pulling. This is what we in the business call Integrated Pest Management (IPM).  As a weed manager IPM is very important, as over reliance on one method or chemical will result in a new generation of super weeds.   

So, we can all agree that noxious weeds are bad and must be dealt with. Or can we?

A beekeeper may see things differently. The first blooms of spring are hugely important to honey bees. This is a time when honey bee colonies are very weak and food sources are scarce. The end of winter / beginning of spring is when honey bees starve.  To a honey bee emerging from the hive on an early spring day and seeing (or sensing) a dandelion in full bloom and ripe with nectar, must be pretty amazing after months of cold weather and no blooms.

Later in the summer after all the native plants have long since quit blooming and bolted, knapweed and thistles continue to thrive. Long into the droughty days of autumn, these exotics provide excellent nectar and pollen that bees use extensively. These plants provide much of the honey we harvest in the fall; in fact many people actually prefer the honey from some very noxious weeds such as knapweed.

So what’s a beekeeping - weed manager to do? For me it’s a tough question, but for now I will continue to fight noxious weeds with every tool I’ve got. The damage to native ecosystems from noxious weeds is tremendous and costly in many ways. Noxious weeds as a rule are poor feed. They out compete native plants and create monocultures. Noxious weeds effectively remove thousands of acres per year from production of livestock and wildlife.  

That being said, if I ever get a chance to place some bee hives near a field with knapweed, I’ll do it!

KJ

What happened to my honey?

One day craving honey, you open the cupboard and reach for your jar of honey but in it's place is a jar filled with a cloudy solid mass. What happened?
Your honey crystallized, but don't worry. Putting your honey back into liquid is super easy.
Actually, you should take it as a good sign. It proves that you have raw unfiltered honey the way it ought to be. If your honey does not crystallize, it means that it's been ultra-filtered and pasteurized as is the case with much of the mass-marketed honey in the grocery stores. Take a look at the honey next time you're in a supermarket. Chances are it's so clear, it's like looking through yellowed glass. That's the product of ultra filtering under high pressure. This process removes all the ultra fine particles of pollen, propalis and minerals from the honey.  The downside is that all those particles are part of what makes honey so good for you. Then to make the honey easier to handle and to make certain it does not granulate or crystallize, the honey is heated. Honey that is heated over 145 degrees for 30 minutes will not crystallize, but it's pasteurized (read: DEAD). All the living enzymes and beneficial bacteria are killed. So, when you remove all the pollen, propalis, minerals, enzymes and beneficial bacteria that give the honey it's healthy attributes, you reduce the honey to simple sugars. It's nothing more than fructose, glucose, sucrose, water and a handful of other minor components. Honey flavored water essentially. So it that light, what's the point? Make sure your honey is pure and raw or you're getting duked.
Now, the actual time it takes honey to crystallize depends on the variety of flower that the honey bee collected the nectar from. Honey from some flowers will crystallize in a few short days while others take nearly a year. That's because it has to do with the ratio of fructose to glucose is in the actual nectar of the flower, since only the glucose forms crystals.


Warming honey on the wood stove

If you happen to have honey that's crystallized already, what do you do? Just warm it gently and let it turn back into liquid. I did this recently on our wood stove. All you need is a large pot with some water in it. Into the water you place your jars and heat the water to about 100 degrees. Let it set for a while and just like that your honey will be restored to it's nice liquid state.
So, if your honey has crystallized don't worry. And if you've had the same jar of honey for years and it's never crystallized, now you know why. In either case, use it and enjoy it. Appreciate it and never forget the effort that went into that jar of honey. After all, tens of thousands of honey bees literally worked themselves to death making that honey.
Thanks for reading.
KJ
Most of the technical information in this post came from the Beekeeper's Handbook by: Diana Sammataro and Alphonse Avitabile.

Keeping the Bees Warm and Dry

This fall I had been reading about Moisture Quilts on Honeybeesuite.com and liked the idea but wanted to make a few changes. The idea is to provide insulation and ventilation to the bees and also absorb the moisture that is produced by the bee cluster. I think one of my colonies died last year due to lack of ventilation, as the moisture condensed and dripped down on the cluster.  Also, in addition to providing ventilation, insulation and moisture control, I wanted to build in a space for feeding the bees, not included in the original moisture quilt. Usually the top covers of the hive fit down close to the top of the honeycomb frames, leaving only enough room for a bee to walk across the top of the frames. This is about 3/8 of an inch and is referred to as "bee space". In the summer, if there is anymore than bee space between anything in the hive, the bees fill it with comb. So as a result there is no room to feed unless you add an empty box for that purpose. Lastly, I wanted to use wire screen to hold the wood shavings insulation, rather than burlap like they used originally.
So, one day this fall I set out to build some boxes that would meet these needs, this is what I came up with.


Construction Phase 1

First off, I cut some pine 1x6's to length and drilled 3/4" holes in two sides for vents. Next I glued and nailed the boards together to make three boxes. Then I cut 1/4" wire screen to fit inside the boxes and stapled it in place. I positioned the screen in each box so that it was about three inches down from the top, and also made sure the folded edges of the screen covered the holes just to make sure no unwanted hive guests moved in. Finally I painted the boxes and left them to dry.

Construction Phase 2

The next day, I placed the boxes on the hives. Things were looking good. The portion of the box above the screen would hold pine shavings for insulation and moisture control, the portion below the screen would be for feeding, and the holes would provide the venting. I started to load up the first box with pine shavings, but soon saw that fine pieces of the shavings were going to filter down onto the bees. I guess 1/4" screen was a little too coarse. I didn't like that, so I cut a couple old T shirts in to sheets and placed the cotton sheets on top of the wire. This should allow the moisture to travel up to the top of the hive and condense and then drip down on to the shavings, and not the bees.



Modified Moisture Quilt in place.

Here is the modified moisture quilt in place. When I last checked the bees, all three colonies were looking good. They had plenty of honey to eat and were clustered nicely. As we head into December, I'll check them again and see if I need to feed to help them through the hard times. As spring approaches, I'll feed protein to help the colony get a jump on the brood rearing and building up the population for the bloom.   Speaking of honey, how is your honey store? We still have a few jars left of our Johnson's Garden Honey available. They make great gifts for anyone interested in local, homegrown goods and health foods. Shoot me a note at KyleJohnsonMontana@hotmail.com or comment on this post if your interested. Remember, honey is non-perishable and easily shipped!
That's all for now, thanks for reading.
KJ

Our first honey tasting

This Columbus Day weekend Whitney and I had the pleasure of taking part in the 13th Annual, Apple Cider Making Party at the GHJ Tree Farm! It was a beautiful day on the farm in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California where I grew up, and a wonderful time to catch up with family and old friends. It was Whitney's first Cider Making Party, and my first in many years, so it was a truly special day. Look for a blog post all about Cider Pressing coming soon.

While there we had our first (unofficial) honey tasting. One of the reasons I have always been pro honey bee is my good memories of having bee hives and honey when I was young. Years ago my Dad used to sell comb honey at his road side stand along with apples in the fall and Christmas trees in the winter. In more recent times, the bees were maintained for pollination, but not honey. Eventually with the onset of Colony Collapse Disorder and other pests and diseases, the bee hives went away.

Around the same time that Whitney and I became interested in bee keeping, my Dad also decided to return to bee keeping and purchased a package of bees. His first attempt didn't survive, but since then he has been successful, and this year for the first time in many years he harvested honey!

Our honey on the right and my Dad's GHJ Tree Farm honey on the left.

One amazing thing about honey is the variation that can occur between hives. Color, taste and aroma (as well as length of time to crystallize) all depend directly on what plants the bees were feeding on when they filled the comb. Honey truly is a local crop, meaning that what is in the jar is a true representation of what is available within 3 miles of the hive (and often closer when flowers are plentiful). Like ours, my Dad's honey supers were pulled off the hive in the Autumn, so it is a summer honey, as opposed to a spring honey some people extract. Due to our location, our honey is likely a mix of wildflowers, flower gardens and vegetable gardens. It has a full rich flavor, that may come as a surprise at first but is very enjoyable. The GHJ tree farm honey, I suspect has much more wildflowers (weeds) and tree pollens in it due to the remote location. To me this dark amber honey had a light crisp flavor that instantly reminded my of Dad's honey of my youth. To mix things up further, we added a craft third honey, from Snyders Honey in La Honda, CA.


The two Johnson honeys on the right and Snyders Honey on the left.

Again, the light color had no impact on the flavor, which to me was mild and very pleasant, but taste is subjective so one person's sweet is another's mild.
What I do find interesting is that Americans seem to prefer lighter colored honey, so when the big honey houses bottle their batches, they mix it all together and shoot for a nice light to extra light amber like the Snyders Honey above, which is why that's what we are accustomed to seeing in the stores.
Honey colors are expressed in terms of mm according to the Pfund scale, so an Amber like ours has a range of 86 - 114mm, while a Dark Amber like my Dad's is >114mm and an Extra Light Amber like the one of the left is 30 - 50mm. In order to grade honeycolor , one uses a specially tinted piece of glass that has the scale printed on it from light to dark. Source:http://www.honeybeesuite.com/the-color-of-honey/. Does this matter to the honey taster? Nope not a bit, I just find it interesting.
In any case, our first Honey Tasting was a lot of fun, made even more so since we could visit with family while enjoying! Take care everybody, and thanks for reading. KJ

Welcoming Fall

I heard on the radio one morning this week, it was the first day of Fall. How could that be? It's still 85 degrees! There are still wildfires burning, we haven't seen any rain in months and there aren't even any clouds in the sky! How could it be fall? I was shocked, and yet I started to notice a few things. First off: it was 39 degrees and barely light when I went to work. In the woods I saw leaves turning red, orange, and yellow. Geese are flying south and the elk are bugling. It really and truly is fall in the northwest.
All of a sudden it seems the garden is done and wilted, and the lawn grass is crisp and dead. And, even though I still need more firewood, it's time to start getting ready for hunting season.  Hunting season is a special time for us. Not just because of the meat in the freezer and the chance to pursue game, but more because it is a season, a mindset and a feeling. Now is the time for studying the maps and choosing hunting spots. Should I try a new place or return to an old favorite? It's a time for trying out new equipment bought over the off season and breaking out the stuff I haven't seen in a year (new for this year: an internal frame for the wall tent... SO exciting!). And it's also time to break out the sweaters and slippers. Funny as it sounds, there is great comfort in reuniting with an old flannel after months apart. Best of all, it's time for crock pot dinners and hot toddy's. There is nothing on earth like coming how to a house full of the aroma of a good venison stew cooked all day in the crock pot. Couple that with a fresh baked loaf of bread from the bread machine and you've got a perfect fall evening made to order. Perfect save for one thing. After the stew and bread have been enjoyed to the max, now is time for a hot toddy.
Google it and you're bound to find countless recipes, but for me the perfect Hot Toddy needs only four things. Warm water, Honey, Lemon Juice and Whiskey. Here's how I do it: First off, fill the kettle and place it on the stove. Next, take a good deep mug and pour in a shot (or two) of blended whiskey. Return to the kettle and top off the mug with hot water (not boiling). Add a cap full of lemon juice, and finally a healthy tablespoon of honey. That's it! So nice and relaxing and it's healthy too! A tablespoon of honey every day has many health benefits from soothing sore throats to helping with seasonal allergies. The whiskey may or may not be healthy, but as long as you don't over indulge I doubt it's doing any harm.
With that I'll sign out and wish you all a happy Fall. As a clever guy once told me: "Fall is one of my four favorite seasons".
KJ

The First Honey

 If you remember A bee adventure, then you'll know this day was a long time coming. Over a year ago we decided to give beekeeping a try, after honey bees colonized our porch eaves. In the months since I've posted about the ups and down of learning the trade. Now for the first time, I would dare to call myself a Beekeeper. Last weekend Whitney and I extracted honey for the first time, I guess you can tell I was pretty excited!

A frame of capped honey comb

Honey bees are unique in that they will keep packing away food stores far beyond what they need for survival. A smart beekeeper always makes certain that the bees have enough for themselves, then harvests the extra. Above you see a frame of capped honey ready for extracting. Bees cap the stored honey in the fall and then when it's needed, they chew the capping wax off for the colony to eat.  

Cutting off the capping wax

Before you can spin the honey out of the comb, you must cut off the capping wax to free up the honey in the comb. This wax will get melted and cleaned and Whit plans to try her hand at making lip balm this winter. Stay tuned for that!


frames ready to spin

 The uncapped frames are loaded into the extractor and spun. The spinning forces the honey out of the comb and onto the sides of the exctractor. The honey runs down the inside and pools in the bottom of the extractor.

the very first drop of honey

Eventually the honey pools enough and drops into the filter cloth. This was an exciting moment! Many long  months of reading, researching, hoping and planning, all came down to this. The very very first drop of honey. (que clinking glasses!)


Success at last!

After being filtered, the pure raw honey is poured into jars and capped. There is no heating so the honey remains totally pure and natual and will store indefinately as long as it's kept clean. This first jar was a huge acheivement, I can't even describe how proud I was and still am. Since pure raw honey is actually alive (non-pasturized) it's health atributes are unmatched, but should never be fed to young kids. The color of the honey can vary greatly and is attributed to what flowers the bees were visiting. Since we don't know where every bees went, we'll call ours "garden honey".

After the first jar, the honey kept flowing and we were able to store plenty for ourselves and will have some to sell and give as gifts. All in all this was a huge day for me. All the work and preperation finally paid off. Not unlike my first successful deer hunt, and that first taste of fresh tenderloin. Pure joy and achievement.
Now already I am planning and researching how to over winter my bees so that next spring they are even more healthy, happy and productive!
Thanks for stopping by. KJ

Supering up for Honey

Happy Memorial Day!

I had hoped to celebrate the holiday with a ride in our 1943 WWII jeep, but I ran into some trouble replacing a wheel bearing, so that had to wait. I did manage to plant a couple of trees on the place and do a little beekeeping.

The first two colonies looked like this above. These are the ones I got earlier this spring: http://www.kyleandwhitneymt.blogspot.com/2012/04/bringing-home-bees.html

They are expanding nicely and working hard to build honeycomb in the upper deep box. This is the honey they will need to survive the coming winter. Things got more exciting when I lifted the lid on hive number three.

The picture doesn't show it well, but this is the top of the upper deep box, bursting with bee activity. By the way, this is the colony that we vacuumed out of the ceiling last year: http://www.kyleandwhitneymt.blogspot.com/2011/07/bee-adventure.html

This hive is well ahead of the other two and is nearly done packing honey into this box. This is really exciting because it means the bees have finished gathering the honey they will need for next winter and are ready to start filling supers for us! I wanted to show off some pictures of honeycomb capped and beautiful, but the camera had a dead battery, so that will have to wait. For now take a look at the picture at the top of this post. The smaller white box on top of the other two is the super. It's called that because it supersedes the brood chamber. This is where the extra honey will be stored, and what we will extract this fall. Honeybees are unique in that as long as there are flowers to visit and room for to store honey, they will keep right on packing it in. From now until this fall, these little beauties will be hard at work storing honey for us. When this super is full, I'll add more. Now that's exciting. In the mean time I have to get to work preparing more supers, so that I'm ready for the honey flow. With luck each hive will end the season with two or three supers. Sweet!

 KJ 

Thinking about Bees

I recently watched a movie that's had me thinking about bees all day.
The movie is Queen of the Sun and I recommend anybody interested in eating healthy or the health of the natural world watch it.
I've heard it said both in the movie and elsewhere that 40% of the food we eat depends directly on the honey bee for pollination. That sounds impresive but it's a little hard to picture until you consider the foods on your plate. Take for instance my breakfast today: 3 eggs scrambled, 2 pieces of Wheat Montana toast with plum jam, and 2 California mandarins. Now consider what would be missing without the honey bee. The mandarins are gone, as are the plums for the jam. So, now we're down to toast and eggs, but wait a minute. The eggs came from our hens which are fed a mix of layer crumble and cracked corn. The first two ingredients of the crumble are corn and soybeans both of which require pollination. Better cancel the eggs. So what am I left with? Dry toast. Since grains do not require pollination from insects, they are one of the only foods that would be available without honey bees. Pretty sad looking breakfast, not to mention diet.
But wait. What makes the Honey Bee so special? I've read there are 4000+ varieties of native bees on this continent. Here's the deal. Agriculture today is done on a huge scale. In order to feed the millions, farmers must get the most from the land in the most efficient manner possible. So to accomplish this, they plant one crop at a time, in fields that may be hundreds or thousands of acres. That way when it's time to harvest, it's all ready at the same time, streamlining the process to save time and money. Now consider this: in order to develop fruit, each and every bloom on that crop plant must be visited by a pollinator. But can't the local bugs take care of it? Not when you have hundreds or thousands of acres of one crop that all mature at the same time. There is no way for the native pollinators to survive when that one plant is not in bloom. So we bring in the honey bees to get the job done. The greatest example of this in the entire world is occurring right now in central California. Every year in mid-February an estimated 750,000 acres of almonds bloom for three weeks. An estimated 1.5 million honey bee colonies from this country (roughly 3/4 of the bees in the US) and bees from other places are trucked in to pollinate the almond crop. This is bee keeping on a mass scale. These migratory beekeepers log over 100,000 miles a year pollinating crops, following the blooming season. From California to Washington, from Florida to Maine and all places in between migratory beekeepers make modern agriculture possible.
So is there a problem with all this mass pollination? The problem is this: bees are social critters that interact with each other for survival. When bees from across the country and places beyond, all come together in one place like the Central Valley of California to pollinate the almond crop, they bring with them every little virus and parasite that occurs in their local environment. The problem gets worse when there are not enough bees in the US, so beekeepers import bee hives from other countries. Now you've got bees from Australia mingling with bees from North Dakota. Can you say Colony Collapse Disorder? (CCD). US honey bees today are hounded by a rash of diseases and parasites that were unheard of just 10 - 15 years ago because of this shift towards mass pollination. It is this mix of threats that make up what is known as CCD.
I read once that beekeeping is simply the act of keeping bees. And that may have been true years ago, but today that's not enough. Today beekeeping is much more about keeping bees healthy and and alive. But the amazing part is, it is actually the bees that are keeping us alive.
Thanks for reading. KJ

Honey Dreams

Today, I am home nursing a cold. As I sit here by the fire with my hot lemon and honey, I am dreaming of a day this fall when we will extract and bottle our own raw honey. I am optimistic that each of our hives will produce 50 LBS or more. That will likely be a sticky unruly learning process, and I'm sure you'll hear all about it! Until then though, I thought I'd share a few cool tid-bits about honey with you all.
Raw honey is the bee's food. The only reason bees store honey is to survive the winter. The honey bees travel the country side collecting nectar from flowers and bringing it back to the hive. They also collect pollen and water according to the needs of the hive. The water is later extracted from the honey by the bees before the honey is capped with wax. The pollen remains in the honey and aids in filling the nutritional needs of the hive. Pollen is a source of protein, this is important since bees are the descendants of wasps which are carnivores.
Raw honey is not only a natural sweetener but is also considered a super food because it is a powerful antioxidant full of rich nutrients. Also it is a a natural antiseptic, an antibacterial and is used in many places as a healing salve for burns and wounds.  Raw honey is good for soothing sore throats and helps calm a cough, like I have today. Also raw honey contains B complex vitamins, which include riboflavin, niacin, pantothenic acid, thiamine, pyridoxine, biotin and B12. It also contains vitamins A, C, D, E and K, as well as traces of minerals like iron, calcium, copper, potassium, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium and zinc. It also contains enzymes and amino acids.Source: Livestrong.com
So why do I keep repeating raw honey and not just honey? Pasteurized honey has been heated to 140 degrees F for at least 20 minutes which kills all the living organisms in the honey, leaving mostly sugar. While you'll still get the sweet, that's about all. So make sure when you buy honey is says on the label raw or un-pasteurized.
Raw honey will never spoil, and can be kept indefinitely, as long as it is clean. Never put a dirty spoon in the honey jar! The food particles from the spoon will interact with the bacteria in raw honey and mold. I said raw honey will never spoil but it will crystallize. In fact, only raw honey will crystallize. So, if the honey in your cabinet is crystallizing, you can be sure its raw. Crystallizing is a natural process that ocures with all raw honey, and the rate of the process is determined by the type of flower nectar that created the honey. What do you do with crystallized honey? Just heat it slowly on low heat, a sauce pan half filled with water on the stove works well to put honey back into solution. As long as you don't get it over heated there is no change in the honey. Or, just eat it that way. Evidently many people prefer crystallized or whipped honey.
I have read that in her life a honey bee will produce 1/12 of one teaspoon of honey. The 60,000 or so bees in a beehive may collectively travel as much as 55,000 miles and visit more than two million flowers to gather enough nectar to make just a pound of honey! http://www.honey.com/
So enjoy honey with respect of all that went into it, the honey bee litterally worked her self to death making it! With that I'll sign off. It's time to stoke the fire and refill my mug!
Cheers. KJ