Category Archives: Meetings

2024 | July Meeting – Honey Extraction

Eric is our beekeeping pro and there is almost no tool he doesn’t have. He invited us to see how he extracts honey. This is an example of a more convenient way to harvest honey, especially if you have a lot of hives to take care of.

How to remove bees from honeycombs?

There are some tricks that beekeepers can use to remove bees from their honey supers, such as working with a fume board, but be very careful and read the instructions to avoid a nasty surprise with your honey. Eric sprayed a liquid bee repellent on the felt inside the board. The bees do not like the smell and most of them would leave the hive within 10 minutes.

There are also several bee escapes (diamond, triangle) that you can buy or quickly build yourself that will empty the honey supers over night.

How do I uncap the honeycomb?

Eric runs his frames through an uncapping machine that works really fast with little impact on the structure. You won’t have a lot of wax with this method. If you just have a few hives, the uncapping knife and a uncapping fork will work great.

Honey extraction

Eric actually used an electric extractor for 9 medium frames. It has about 16 speeds. Independent from manual or electric, take a few minutes to build up speed. Eric prefers plastic as wax foundation tends to burst at top speed. He would let the extractor run for 10 minutes, slow it down to a stop then reverse the spin direction for a few minutes more. Depending on the balance, top speed is not always required.  With wax foundation, he’d never go top speed.

Check the tank from time to time as the honey may rise to the point where the frames are in the honey. Before this happens, it is advisable to drain the honey for the next spin.

2024 | May Meeting – Queen Marking, Checking the Split

Manny, thank you so much for opening your little paradise in Carmel to us.

Dear beekeepers, we had a fantastic meeting with Manny in May. He documented and demonstrated his double-screen split via video. Afterwards, we visited his wonderful bee garden and looked at the young split.

His bees are the most docile bees we have ever seen. Manny and Sante started working hand in hand. It was amazing to see.

Did you know that there are also small queens? Manny has one that is barely bigger than a worker bee. We found her anyway. Her daughter is the one we marked green in the photo. Green is the color of the year 2024 and by the way, it symbolizes hope. Let’s hold on to it.

2024 | April Meeting – Hive Split

We had a wonderful in-person meeting on April 27. Sante invited us to participate in a hive split at his apiary. There were two beekeepers present who were 9 and 10 years old, great job!

Unfortunately, the participants were not able to follow the meeting online, as the reception was simply too poor. What was left of the data is attached with a revision and additional information.

Beekeepers are having a very busy time at the moment. The swarming season has just started. Please check your colonies weekly for swarm cells (usually at the bottom of the frames). Give the colonies space so that they can have other things on their minds than looking for a new place to stay…

Here is a useful link if you want to report a swarm and need assistance  https://nocobees.org/report-swarm/ .

2024 | February and March Meetings – Online

Since the bee season had not yet started, we met digitally in 2 online workshops in February and March and brought our knowledge together.

Winter prep

The final treatment against Varroa around Thanksgiving seems to be particularly important for the survival of bees in winter, as is feeding.

If you want to take an academic approach, weigh your equipment – I have also started doing this and will add my work-in-progress-list in the photo galery.

If the bees consumed around 6.6pd per month, you should feed 5.2gal from August to October. On warm winter days, you can use the weight check (tilt check) to determine how much feed has been consumed and feed more if it is really necessary.

Perhaps there is someone who would like to do this with me next winter. I’ll keep you posted.

Spring Clean-Up

Last but not least we talked about spring clean-up, especially removing old dark combs and varroa control with drone frames.

To do this, place an empty frame with a bar in the middle in position 3 (see picture) in the hive. This division will allow you to cut out the more developed comb sooner. Remember that mites prefer drone brood for egg laying. Forgetting to cut out the drone combs can significantly increase the Varroa population.

2024 | January Meeting – Mead Workshop

We were very excited to have Jody Hankins as our host to share her recipe and techniques for making mead for our January 2024 HVNB meeting.

Jody introduced us to two contrasting flavors, one very dry and one very sweet wine, which we were invited to taste to see what the extreme results might be. It was delicious.

We also learned that different batches of honey give the mead different flavors from year to year. So, it is likely that mead tastes different depending on the harvest and location.
During the workshop, Jody took us through the mead making process and explained how to control the sweetness or dryness of a wine. Now it just needs to sit and ferment.

If you make mead, please let us know how it turned out. My equipment just arrived and I’m ready to go. Anyone want to join in? Stay tuned, maybe we’ll be able to taste the first results this fall!

Below is a list of the equipment and Jody’s recipe.

Essential equipment

  • Buckets/carboys/other vessel for mixing and storing
  • Hydrometer – for measuring potential alcohol
  • Yeast
  • Sodium metabisulfite or Campden tablets (for sanitizing)
  • Any additives for the mead recipe you plan to use
  • Fermentation airlock
  • Auto siphon with a pinch clamp for racking off and bottling

Optional equipment

  • Wine thief (to move liquid for ease in sampling)
  • Clear graduated cylinder or tall glass for taking hydrometer measurements (you will need at least 5-6 inches height of liquid in order to take a proper measurement with the hydrometer – it needs to float)

Jody’s basic mead recipe 

It will take approximately 2-3 lbs of honey per gallon for the starting solution depending on the desired potential alcohol

For each gallon of honey/water at 11% potential alcohol, add to batch for fermentation

  • 1 tsp. yeast nutrient (I typically divide this and add half immediately, second half added 2 days after fermentation starts)
  • 1 tsp acid blend
  • 1 ½ tsp citric acid
  • ¼ tsp tannin
  • Yeast (1 package of yeast is sufficient for up to 5 gallons, my favorite yeast is a wine yeast Lalvin brand D47)

Optional: Prior to bottling/storing add ½ tsp potassium sorbate per gallon to inhibit further fermentation

Yield: 1 gallon batch of mead will yield approximately 5 bottles of wine (750 mL is the standard wine bottle volume)

Let’s stay connected and join our newsletter for more information.

January 2024 survey: results and upcoming February meeting

Thanks to everyone who took part in our survey!

The next meeting in February 2024 will take place online and will be dedicated to the topics of emergency feeding and the bee calendar/ planning your 2024 bee season as a collaborative digital workshop.

We will comply with the request not to hold the upcoming meeting in February on a weekend in order to reach as many of you as possible.

By the way, there are several volunteers who can imagine mentoring “newbees”. Please “newbees” and mentors, get in touch with us and we will connect you.

Another pleasing point is that, according to the survey, we have a very balanced ratio of women to men. More information in our next newsletter (sign up here for the newsletter).

Enclosed is a survey for the topic of the next March meeting – what would you like to discuss in March – you can vote for it.

Link to survey: What are you up to in March 2024? (survey closed)

Thanks for your input!