Snow Day!

So it’s the first snow of the season, and my girls are safely tucked away inside their hive!

My girls are safe inside!

The other day I found a few of them clinging to the outside of the hive frozen. Sad..But it happens I suppose. I cleared off the hive the best I could but it still keeps coming down. So here’s to hoping I still have a hive this spring!

New Jersey Beekeeping Law – What You Need To Know

I understand that it has been quite some time since my last lengthy post.

But, fear not! I am back and as you can tell from the title this post is about beekeeping law in New Jersey. I have been wanting to write about this for a while now because amongst all the questions I get when I first tell people that I’m a beekeeper, one of them is surely about where beekeepers stand legally, and actually it was one of my dads first questions when I set up the hive.

So to find out the answers I looked for the most reliable sources I knew, someone who has a lot of experience with these kind of things.

Tim Schuler!

Tim Schuler teaching a beekeeping course

I once again drove out to his house and sat down with him, by a very warm pot-bellied stove not to mention, to learn even more about beekeeping. As always it was a great time, and Tim was very helpful and receptive during the interview. This time however, I was lucky enough to do an audio interview and recorded him as he explained what the State of New Jersey expects in responsible backyard beekeeping and what he personally looks for in the backyard apiaries of New Jersey.

The first question I asked Tim was if there were any general laws in New Jersey that are in regards to beekeeping and where they can be kept, what a beekeeper needs to do for them, and hive maintenance. Here is what he had to say:

I also did a little researching and found some general guidelines laid out by the State of New Jersey (in PDF form)

I asked Tim if there were any pointers or things people in urban areas can do in order to keep a healthy hive, he told me this

The next question I asked Tim was how would the beekeeper be responsible if their neighbor got stung by any of their honeybees, he replied:

Finally Tim gave some good tips on how to be a better neighbor when keeping bees and how to dissolve the fears of non-beekeepers:

New Jersey Beekeeping Law

In the next week or so I will be researching New Jersey beekeeping law. What are the accepted behaviors for those in an area where the law is a bit grey. I will also be speaking to some experts such as Tim Schuler about the conflicts that he personally has experienced.

Keep checking in, I’ll have something up soon and have a good weekend!

Fare Well Post

This post is to say that I am going to be officially out of Online Journalism 1 within the next 2 weeks.

Sad. I know!

But that doesn’t mean the end of Backyard Buzz. I know post updates have been few and far between these days. It’s because it has been really busy around here and at home.

But fear not, I will have more up soon!

New Google Map of Honeybee World Origins!

I made a map via Google Maps and plotted out points of origin for the top five honeybee races that I feel a beekeeper not only needs to know about but the ones a beekeeper will most likely run into while on his beekeeping journey.

I will post the map here and on the new page “Major types of honeybees”

I hope you enjoy!
View Locations of the Five Major Honeybee Races in a larger map

Becoming a Backyard Beekeeper: Part 3

Whew! Busy week/weekend folks. Here is the much-anticipated third part to the becoming a backyard beekeeper series!

Thus far we have discussed how to gain knowledge about beekeeping, where to put our hives, and how a network of support could help keep us on the right beekeeping path in part one of the series, and in part two we saw some of the hives there were to choose from.

In this part of the series I’ll be talking about the all important part of actually getting the honeybees!

Having bees to put in a hive would help, now wouldn’t it?

Obtaining and Installing Your Bees

Hiving your first colony of honeybees is an important part of becoming a beekeeper. Like any an expecting parent (except you have about  11,000 “children”coming) it is OK to be a bit apprehensive. You will only need to hive a colony into a particular hive once since bees are perennial and will live in the hive you provide for them for generation from generation. The exception to this, of course is if the colony dies from disease or starvation.

Obtaining the bees

First things first is to determine what race or honeybee you want. There are four major strains of bees and four hybrid races, each with their own pros and cons and different looks as well. However, I only  outlined five races that are the most prevalent for beekeepers to buy and those most likely to be encountered. They have their own page here. It is essential that you know which race of honeybee will best suit your style, local environment, and level of beekeeping mastery.

Hallo there!

To mail or not to mail

Now that you have had a chance to check out the types of honeybees that are desirable and available, it’s time to choose how to obtain those bees.

There are two ways you can go about buying honeybees: buying them from a commercial supplier, usually from across the country, or find a small deal/supplier around your area (theres usually more beekeepers out there then you know) and buy a Nuc off of them.

A disadvantage to buying bees from a commercial supplier across the country is that the bees need to be shipped across the country in the mail. Believe me the local post office will not like a 3 pound box of buzzing, stressed out bees.

This is why i suggest trying to find a local beekeeper supplier and inquire about their sales of a nuc.

Buying a “Nuc” and installing your girls

Nucleus with a robbing screen on it

Some of you may be asking yourself what a “nuc” is. A nuc, or nucleus is a small wooden or cardboard hive that houses about 3-5 frames of brood and bees, as well as a young queen. All you do to hive in the nuc method is just move the frames of bees and brood into their larger, more permanent home. It’s just that simple. If you use the nuc method of hiving your bees it is a lot less stressful on the bees themselves and is easier than the mail method. Which requires you to shake the box of bees into their new home, all after they have been in the mail for an unspecified amount of time. Personally I bought a nucleus and went to a bee farm to pick it up and they actually switched the frames out for me. I sealed up the exits to my hive and drove the whole thing home. Just like that, nice and easy. When you first install the new colony, you want to leave them alone for about two weeks. Don’t open the hive move the hive bodies around or anything. You could even shove some grass in the entrance to reduce the chance of them coming out prematurely.

I bought my bees from Harvey’s Honey. They have a huge farm in Monroeville, NJ where they sell everything from raw, locally harvested honey, Italian queens, nuc’s, and hive supplies. They are good people and run an honest business, not to mention if you’re almost anywhere in New Jersey and looking for a nuc, then this is the only place to get them!

Here is their phone number (856) 358-1010. And this is their e-mail harvhoney@aol.com.

Well thats it for this edition of “Becoming a Backyard Beekeeper”!

And just a littler reminder, this isn’t an exhaustive list of everything there is to hiving honeybees. Just the methods I know, and have used. As with anything, there is much knowledge to be gained in the pursuit of a hobby or past time. Which is why I always like to stress the importance of taking beekeeping courses from master beekeepers usually at universities and other places of higher knowledge.

So farewell! And keep your ears to the ground for the next post in this series!

Morning Bee Blog Stroll

-Bee News-

Surfing around the Internet has yielded more honeybee news!

• Häagen-Dazs, Twitter, and Bees [Tech Crunch]
• Mircobot bees? [DVICE]
• Surprised ants get blown away by guard bees [BBC-Earth News]
• Honeybees sterilize their hives [BBC-Earth News]
• World traveling, ex-San Francisco club owner returns to home, and the Honeybee [The Philadelphia inquirer]
• Propolis could be used as a natural, non-toxic food preservative [Natural News]

Becoming a Backyard Beekeeper: Part 2

 

Back again is my running series on how to become a backyard beekeeper! How about a refresher on what I covered last time?

My dad holds a beautiful frame from the upper deep

Part one was about finding a location for your hive, reading and researching everything you can find that has to do with becoming a beekeeper, and beekeeping resources such as websites and your local beekeeping association.

Now to begin part two….

Part 2: Choosing Your Hive.

Now that have done your research on honeybees and found a great spot to place your hive, the time to order a home for your future bees has come. When it comes to types of hives there are a few and depending where you live and how you’ll be doing your beekeeping. Although there are many differing styles and preferences among the worlds beekeepers, I will only be referencing the two that I feel are the most practical.

Types of hives:

• Langstroth hive- The standard for 75% of the worlds beekeepers, the Langstroth hive is probably the most recognized of all movable frame hives. It consists of standardized sizes of hive bodies (rectangular boxes without tops or bottoms placed one on top of another) and frames in order to yield a large place for bees to live and draw out comb for brood production and pollen and honey storage.

My hive is a Langstroth hive

Pros:

-Yields great deal of honey.

-Vertical stacking of boxes means small foot print

-Can be used anywhere the beekeeper wishes, i.e., small gardens, big backyards, rooftops, etc…

Cons:

-Heavy lifting when hive bodies are full of brood, bees, and honey

-Bees have to use ready-made wax foundation put in by the beekeeper that could be contaminated, thus contaminating the honey and wax crop

-The killing of some bees is inevitable when replacing frames, hive bodies, and the inner and outer covers.

• Top-bar hive- The top-bar hive or Kenya hive is a hive designed more with the bees in mind. It uses a series of wooden bars set parallel to each other over top of a trapezoid-like, sloped-sided hive box. The top-bar hive is not a vertical one as the Langstroth is, in fact it’s the total opposite in the sense that it spreads out horizontally. Its intended focus is for more use in providing a cheap means of beekeeping where resources might be scarce, such as developing countries. However, it is gaining a following in industrialized countries as a means of providing the honey bee’s an all organic place to live and make honey.

Video provided by ecoversity, features the inspection of a top-bar hive.

Pros:

-Yields a lot more wax than the Langstroth hive

-Is a hybrid hive providing natural comb production but also manipulation of frames for gathering of a honey crop

-No heavy movable hive bodies, complex parts, or steps to hive expansion

-Ease of inspection excites beginner beekeeper, and disturbs bees far less than that of a Langstroth hive

Cons:

-Only two methods of honey extraction: Crush comb, in which the totality of the comb with the honey on it is cut off the bar and crushed and sieved through a strainer to get the majority of the honey out, and Cut Comb, where the whole comb is cut off and eaten as such

-Not thought to be ideal for climates with harsh winters seeing as the bottom of the hive is often only covered with a screen and not a full bottom board.

-Significantly less honey production than a Langstroth hive

-Takes up more room that the vertical Langstroth hive

Whichever hive you deicde to choose just keep in mind that there are others, however they are all mostly similar to the look and construction of the Langstroth hive, just differing in size, bee space, and number of frames.

Also keep in mind which hive best suit’s your needs and space arrangement.

I happened to order my hive from the folks at Better Bee. Although, that was before I found all the different sites selling all different kind of hives. Such as Rossman Apiaries who sell a cypress hive that is said to last long and hold paint better than the traditional eastern pine hives. I’m definitely looking at those for my next hive.

Well, thats all the posting I have for tonight, spread the word of backyard beekeeping and stay on the look out for another post soon!

Interview with Tim Schuler, NJ State Apiary Inspector

Backyard Buzz Exclusive Interview: New Jersey State Apiary inspector Tim Schuler

Inside of one of Tim Schuler's hives.

As state apiary inspector, Tim Schuler’s job is to aid New Jersey’s beekeeping industry by inspecting hives for signs of disease or parasites, ensure that colonies being brought into New Jersey from other states for pollination work on farms do not bring disease or parasites into the state, and works with the New Jersey education systems to help encourage more interest and knowledge in the realm of honeybees. A 23-year veteran of the New Jersey Department of Agriculture Schuler was named state inspector in the summer of 2007, and has been working hard on the job ever since.

While the interview was taking place Tim and myself were in the process of getting his hives ready before he left the area for a vacation. Two really interesting parts of the interview was when we talked about the future of CCD and the number of commercial beekeepers versus the growing number of hobbyist beekeepers in NJ.

Tractors ready to be used for the process of making the food we enjoy everyday.

Interview:

Backyard Buzz: Have you, in your experience, noticed a shift from commercial beekeeping in NJ to a growing number of hobbyist, or is it the total opposite where there happens to be a decline in the hobbyist section of beekeeping?

Tim Schuler: Well, there are more colony’s in New Jersey that are managed by commercial beekeepers, but there has been a huge increase of backyard beekeepers, or hobbyist beekeepers if you will, within the last 4 years. It all started back in 2006 with the colony collapse disorder and all the hype and the media about honeybee colonies dying off. With CCD in 2006 there was a huge amount of people who wanted to do something for the environment and to help out the plighted honeybee. It’s not expensive to do it, and they can do it in their own backyard.

The Hives before we loaded them on the flatbed truck

BB: What bit of advice, that you think is indispensable, would you give to backyard beekeepers, or those who are on the fence about becoming a beekeeper?

TS: I highly recommend that people thinking about becoming a beekeeper to take a beginner’s beekeepers course, and that’s not just because I teach one. I find people who just can’t even communicate with me because they don’t even know the terminology. And it’s very hard for me being in the position of state apiarist to help them if they don’t even know what I’m talking about. An introductory or a beginner beekeeper course gives them the tools, they’ll understand the lingo, they’ll know how to open a hive, what a smoker is, and you know that isn’t the end of their education, that is only the beginning. They’ve got to go even further than that in order to master the craft.

BB: What do you think is the future of CCD and do you think that we as beekeepers will ever find the root to the problem?

TS: There are a lot of researchers looking for the problem whether they find it or not, well I don’t know. By definition a disorder isn’t necessarily caused by just one thing, it’s a multitude. So, I’ve heard of some researchers and writers call it the perfect storm in that year [2006] and in those operations. Where everything that could have went wrong, went wrong at the same time. I don’t know if they could even duplicate all the causes the same way. The bottom line is that it has been good for beekeeping as a whole because it has got a lot of people interested in beekeeping and brought a lot of research dollars into beekeeping.

This was the method we used to move all 5 pallets we collected that evening.

Some of the main cause’s of CCD are lack of forage, you see a lawn like that? [Schuler points at a perfect looking lawn across the street] There is not one weed in it, you know the perfect, manicured, Egg Harbor Township lawn is like a desert to a pollinating insect. We spend money on fertilizer that pollutes the water and systemic pesticides, all of that is bad all the way around. So when we use these pesticides the honeybees are bringing them back to the hive. The last thing that could be stressing the bees into CCD is a series of diseases and virus’. All three of those is being sought out by researchers, as to how they could cause the problem.

Since there was about 6 hives about to be moved, it was a good idea to smoke them.

BB: Personally, where would you like to see beekeeping not just in NJ but in the country as a whole, go in the future?

TS: There is a mindset John, that commercial beekeepers are bad for beekeeping, and yet as I go around the state of New Jersey looking for disease and parasites, where I find the biggest problem is in backyard beekeepers hives. Because they are ignorant and they don’t know the right way to protect against disease. They think they are the best thing for beekeeping, and the commercial guy is the worst thing, but the commercial guy has the cleanest outfit. I think there is room for everyone, without commercial beekeeping we won’t be able to afford food. I think that there is no better place to get honey then the guy that is spinning it out by hand in his kitchen, and he harvested it right from his backyard and you happen to live next to him.

The truck in the lower right corner is a flat bed which we used to haul the hives to their wintering beeyard

I’d like to keep seeing it [beekeeping] grow, but for NJ I would like to see beekeepers be able to lease publicly owned land and put a bee yard on it. Because honeybees are very good for the environment as a whole, and they pollinate plants and befit wildlife and I’d love to see that happen. I’d love to see our beekeepers organization grow. I’d love to see enough funding to see another full time bee inspector work with me. And I’d love to see answers as to why colonies are having difficultys. Not just honeybees, but even native pollinators, they are having problems also. I’d like to see public awareness for these issues keep growing.

The sun didn't wait for us beekeepers to finish our work. Alas, tomorrow is another day.

End.

Overall, I had a blast with Tim yesterday and today (he had a sale booth at Pumpkin Run Car show where he had a small observation hive and sold his wares). We worked for about an hour and a half moving about 30 hives to a field in Vineland, NJ where they will winter until the spring season starts back up.

Every time I hang out with Mr. Schuler I learn bucket loads of new information and news going on in local beekeeping.

I hope you too learned a lot and become interested in beekeeping. Stay tuned for Becoming a beekeeper: part 2

Interview and Photo Essay With NJ State Apiary Inspector Tim Schuler

Tomorrow, I’ll have the great opportunity to work with, and subsequently interview and photograph Mr. Tim Schuler.

The New Jersey state Apiary inspector. So hang on there bee lovers, I should have everything posted and finished before 8 pm. Hopefully.