We had some rape
honey this year albeit only a small amount but rape honey
never-the-less. With judicious blending and seeding this could give
a year’s supply of creamed honey.
Seeding? You warm
and clear a tub of honey and then when it’s cool you add 10% of a
creamed honey which has a nice smooth consistency. Provided the
cleared honey would have eventually crystalised this will now do so
at a much faster rate and with the same consistency as the seeding
material.
All bar two of my
2018 queened colonies needed artificial swarming due probably to the
weather. These were successfully completed but it did mean several
under-strength colonies and a lot of hives. Combine this with the
swarms I’d had to take and I was approaching my hive-insurance
limit.
At least four virgin
queens failed to return from mating flights. I don’t know why I
should be so prone to this problem. Any ideas? Inserting test
frames and allowing them to develop emergency queens did allow a
temporary solution. Not the best, admittedly, but a later
supersedure would then correct the problem.
The June gap was
much more noticeable this year and spanned the entire month. I can
measure it by the amount of bee activity at the pond. In the absence
of nectar to evaporate down, the colonies need water as a substitute
liquid for their air conditioning.
It is now the end of
the month and the swarm colonies are being united down to a sensible
number before an end of season unite with my selected queen colonies.
Two of them had somehow rendered themselves queenless so a quick
test frame and they were united with the colony alongside. This was
done with the newspaper method to mask the colony odour as they
nibbled through.
Uniting two colonies using the newspaper method
Hive number 6 is without doubt the best producing this year. No artificial swarm was needed the the queen continued with copious laying. As I write, I have already extracted 5½ supers and there is still much to come
Six
of my colonies had 2018 queens and the remaining two were older. The
oldest was marked white as a 2015 queen but she was still the most
prolific layer producing some very enthusiastic workers. Out of all
of these it was the younger queens which started making swarm cells
along the bottoms of the central frames. Their first attempts were
cut away to try and discourage them but in the end I had to perform
some Pagden artificial swarms and make up nucleus colonies with the
better queen cells. Within a matter of days the number of hives grew
from single figures to rapidly approaching twenty.
We
had a visit from Greg Smith of the Hill Street Chocolatiers who
wanted to see and photograph the little ladies producing the
delicious filling for some of their extra special chocolates.
The
hornet traps don’t seem to have been very effective. I removed the
tin can holding the apple juice as the ascorbic acid effected the
tin-plate producing a most unpleasant odour. Straight juice in the
plastic bait holder was not very effective as I watched a queen wasp
gathering nest material from a wooden door right alongside. I’ll
take them down now and clean them out.
Weekly
inspections continued in earnest as the honey harvest mounted
throughout the month. Fortunately the open-pollenated oil-seed-rape
was much better than the hybrid variety and for the first time if
three years I now have some rape honey. I also have about ten supers
of partially crystallised honey but these are being washed out one by
one as I have the hose-pipe on to water the garden.
I
have been called to several swarms, one of which was in the grounds
of Wimbish Primary School so we had an impromptu outdoor lesson on
honeybees and how to collect a swarm. A lesson I’m sure they’ll
remember for a long time.
Other swarms have been collected in Saffron Walden, Debden, Camps End, and one lucky one which came from elsewhere but chose to hang up in the apiary right alongside its new home.
Six
of the hives have now been spring-cleaned which puts me way ahead of
last year. Several new frames of foundation were introduced and
several 2018 queens clipped and marked.
Hive
2 is a disappointment as the queen was a late hatching in 2018 and
failed to mate successfully. Although she is laying, she is a poor
little specimen, hardly bigger than a worker and is trying valiantly
to keep the colony going. Deformed Wing Virus is also clearly
visible. There are four little hand-size patches of brood and a
small quantity of bees so I’ll move them into a nucleus hive and
keep them going until I can re-queen with a better specimen. This
was one of the beegym hives so the gyms have now been moved to hive
three which is of a more respectable size.
On
the 13th March a most enjoyable evening was held at
Thaxted Day Centre when we had a DIY session on making your own Asian
Hornet trap. Following my demonstration, members of Saffron Walden
Beekeepers each used plastic bottles and coat hangers to manufacture
their own and then went home proudly carrying their evening’s
efforts. My two traps are now baited with home-pressed apple juice
with one hanging in the apiary and the other by the bee shed.
We
had one freak week in February when the temperature was high enough
to start spring cleaning. If you can do gardening in your
shirtsleeves then it’s warm enough to open a hive.
Two hives were completed, being given a cleaned and sanitized brood box, floor and crown board. The amount of brood unfortunately was not as much as I would have expected given the mildness of the winter. Both hives only had four patches of brood; one on either side of the two central frames. The weather turned chilly again so the other colonies will have to wait. Although there was still plenty of stores, most of it had crystallized so for the first time ever I’ve had to offer them fondant. Not all have taken it down as there is plenty of water around for them to use the crystallized. In addition there has also been plenty of fresh forage. The large ornamental plum has been positively alive with workers when it’s had the sun on it and the white bullace was also worked vigorously when that was in flower
Plum tree in flower
Again,
oxalic acid treatment was not as effective as I wished so I’ve had
to follow it up with Apivar. Weekly counts of varroa drop show the
numbers now down into single figures but hopefully I’ll get six of
the hives down to continuous zero before the Apivar has to come out.
Only six of the hives have the chemical treatment as hives 1 and 2 are running another experiment with Beegyms. Stuart Roweth found better results by placing the gyms above the brood frames so I’ve placed two gyms in an eke above the brood in these hives. I’ll let you know the figures as they progress
Winter in the apiary said that one job seemed to simply make another and how true this has been. My old stainless steel smoker which has been going for decades decided to give up the ghost yet again. About six years ago the hinge on the lid rusted through (Yes. A mild steel hinge on a stainless smoker) so I repaired it by making a replica. That eventually gave up so I’ve made a much stronger one but in stainless steel from my scrap metal box. This is much harder to work than mild steel but makes a more robust job. I also found two copper bifurcated rivets and two pop rivets to complete the task.
Stuart Roweth has said he would like me to continue trialing his Beegyms but this time placing two of them above the brood frames. Although my hives are on top-space there isn’t quite enough room so I’m having to make some shallow ekes. The circular saw needed to rip some 12mm battens decided it had had enough, so yet again, one job generates another. I’ve bought a new blade, cleaned and polished the anvil-slides in the blade raise and lower mechanism and adjusted the bevel gears.
Oxalic acid in a sugar solution is dribbled between the frames over the bees as a varroa miticide when the brood is at its least, i.e. after a long cold spell. Whilst it can kill the mites on the bees or in open brood cells it can’t touch those behind a brood cell capping. A writer in BBKA News claimed that brood frames could be removed even in mid-winter, any cappings perforated and then the frames replaced prior to the oxalic acid treatment.
We hadn’t had a long cold spell but it’s a matter of compromise so I chose a day to suit me best. It was a lovely day; 9°C and the sun was shining. Thank goodness I was in full armour. Whilst it was too cold for the bees to be flying naturally, they really went for it, and me; when I took the decision to break the cluster out of their hands and made the decision for them. Having started however, I decided to press on and found three small patches of brood on two frames which I duly perforated with my uncapping fork before re-assembling the hive.
Lesson learned, the other seven hives
were just given a quick 5ml of oxalic acid between the frames and the
crown-boards replaced.
Unbeknown to me however, my back and
hat had collected a huge number of hangers-on; the disadvantage of
being a solo beekeeper. Having completed the work, as I disrobed
and pulled my jacket over my head the
bees on the back decided that my now bare face was a good target for
revenge. Oh well, I suppose it helps to build up sting resistance
early in the season.
One
job leads to another they say.
I’ve discovered that my smoker needs
some serious reconditioning as the hinge is worn and badly distorted
and the interior is really caked up; a workshop job for a wet day.
No
netting has been needed so far this year as there’s been no
permafrost..
Stuart Roweth, inventor of note (and
the Beegym) has sent me the mite-drop statistics for some of his
hives through 1918. Some hives had two and even three Beegyms both
above and below the frames and the results were really impressive.
Rather than having just one gym on the floor of several hives I’ll
try putting several in a few hives, above and below the brood and see
what the figures are like.
The winter honeysuckle has flowered
extremely well this year and the bees have been making good use of it
on the many flying days.
Apple weekend at Audley End House was once again a terrific two days. Unfortunately the Sunday weather was appalling and by lunchtime the footfall had reached the staggering total of 150; Saturday’s total was 1500. We had an excellent team of helpers on both days and as usual the observation hive proved a great attraction.
Sally explains foundation and drawing of comb to an enthralled audience
Back in the apiary the number of hives has been united down to the usual over-wintering eight. The last three were each 5-frame nucs, one of which was the observation hived used at Audley End.
Amongst the 15 frames were several with yellow spacers, indicating old frames to be rendered, so these were removed. All the others with bees were given a spray unite. This was probably not necessary as I was uniting three colonies but I thought it best to be cautious. Colony smell must be smothered to unite two colonies but with three colonies they can’t sort out who the intruders are and peacefully accept their new foster sisters. The spray was a very dilute sugar solution and a drop of oil of lavendre.
One barren queen was removed and the other two left to fight it out as I couldn’t choose which was the better. They are all now in hive 6 and the feeder is fitted.
All hives now have an Ashforth feeder and all the feed is ready. Most of it this winter is recycled honey with just a small amount of sugar solution to help prevent crystallising.Inspections have been reduced in the last part of the season as little could be done. All I needed to do was monitor the varroa drops. This has stayed sufficiently low for treatment to wait until the mid-winter oxalic acid.
The following was written in 2012 by Andy Sivell, and published in his 'Diary of a Nervous Beekeeper' that same year. Although the prices may have changed slightly (and Maplin, sadly, has gone the way of so many high street retailers), both the subject matter and his advice remains as relevant today as it was then, and I'm therefore republishing it – with his permission – in its original format.
One of the joys for someone like me, who’s not very technical, is being told by builders, electricians and assorted handymen how easy it is to do something I find utterly baffling. Need to fix that leaking gutter? “Well, what you want to do is…” they start, before rabbiting on about soffits, fascias and rafters, but without really telling me what they are, where to buy them, or how one bit fits to the next.
"Just get an old fridge, sling some light bulbs in it, and Bob's your uncle: saved yourself the bother of having to read any further..."
I’m now going to add ‘building a honey warming cabinet’ to that category, because if I had a pound for every textbook, magazine article and website forum I read that talked about processing solidified honey in the same breath as remarking that, “you can easily convert an old fridge into a honey warming cabinet” – without explaining how – then I could have saved myself the trouble and bought one from Thornes.
How?! How do you convert a fridge into a honey warming cabinet? How do you ensure that it’s not leaking CFC gasses? How do you know whether it’s safe to drill holes through the sides? How do you wire it? How do you do prevent it from overheating? What I wanted was an idiot-proof guide.
But there wasn’t one.
That is, until now, ladies and gentlemen. I hereby present ‘The Nervous Beekeeper’s if-you’re-not-technical-you’re-in-good-company, Complete Beginner’s Guide to Building a Honey Warming Cabinet from an Old Refrigerator’. It may not be funny, but by golly it’s comprehensive. I’ve assumed that you can wire a plug, but not much else. Oh, and although I actually did everything described here myself, you follow these instructions entirely at your own risk (read the important notes at the end of this blog post). As and when others weigh in with their own advice – or contradict mine – I will publish their notes under ‘Comments’.
Click here for a printer-friendly version of this article, with more pictures and funnier captions (well, more pictures).
Making a honey warming cabinet from a refrigerator – materials list
I used the following (prices correct in 2012):
Whirlpool fridge model ARC 0460 – free
5m 3-core 0.75mm2 round (electrical) flex cable; Homebase product code 386688 – £10.99
(or just buy the 3m you actually need for £1.49 a metre from Maplins, I later found out)
13 amp fused plug – free (attached to fridge)
2x 100W BC daylight bayonet fitting light bulbs JD024T3 – £2.50 each
(Possibly a bit over the top. You can achieve the same result with two 60W bulbs from Toolstation, price 98p each …I found out later)
2x light fittings to suit above; batten holder T2 straight; Toolstation product code 46677 – £1.05 each
DC Brushless fan (as used to cool PCs); size 60 x 60 x 25mm; Maplin product code ZT88 – £7.99 (or pinch one from an old PC. See ‘Wiring the thermostat, fan and light fittings’ below)
Power Pax UK 12V DC 500mA UK PSU (transformer); 2.1 x 5.5 x 12mm output connector, Maplin product code N93JU – £9.99
Electrical connector block – free (lying around garage)
Mastic – free (as above)
Electrical and gaffer tape – free (as above)
1 inch wood screws – free (as above)
Total cost: £45.05 (or less, prices correct 2012)
Step-by-step guide to building a honey warming cabinet out of an old fridge
These instructions are for converting an old fridge into a honey warming cabinet using a pair of 100 watt light bulbs as a heat source, a thermostat to regulate the temperature, and a PC cooling fan to circulate the air and avoid localised hot spots. Wiring is based on UK (United Kingdom) protocols.
Finding a suitable old fridge
Whirlpool fridge model ARC 0460
Refrigerators contain pollutants, and must therefore be disposed of responsibly, often via local recycling centres. These usually don’t take kindly to you skipping up and helping yourself. So how do you get hold of one? Well, I turned to my local independent electrical retailer [www.goddardselectrical.co.uk] Goddards Electrical of Saffron Walden. I guessed correctly that they receive a steady supply of old fridges and freezers from customers buying new ones, and as it turned out were only too happy to throw one in my direction. For several weeks I haunted their yard, searching for a small fridge with no icebox and as much internal space as possible.
R600a stamp on compressor indicates that system uses Isobutane
Old, old fridges still contain CFC gasses, which are highly damaging to the environment. Newer fridges use Isobutane (R600a), which has negligible ozone depletion potential – but is explosive if mishandled! Goddards told me to look out for one with ‘R600a’ printed on the little sticker on the black tank at the back (the compressor). Eventually I found a Whirlpool fridge, model ARC 0460, that fit the bill perfectly.
Prepping and drilling
The next challenge involved trying to establish how much of the fridge’s internal workings to keep. Was it safe, for example, to drill holes through the sides and back? And how should one attach light bulbs and the thermostat to the internal walls?
The black grill across the back is the condenser. The black tank at the bottom is the compressor.
Home brewing forums supplied the first answer. They use old fridges for – well I’m not entirely sure what exactly – but it seemed to involve drilling large holes through the side walls, so I was able to determine that if your fridge has a grill (called a condenser) on the back it’s probably safe to drill through the sides because you’re unlikely to encounter any pipe work. That said, this only really matters if you’re keeping said condenser and attached compressor. I actually completed the conversion of my fridge before deciding to remove both after reading on Wikipedia about the highly flammable, and potentially explosive, qualities of Isobutane [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isobutane]. Sparks from sawing the pipe work could ignite the gas, so a refrigeration engineer advised me to use metal snips to cut the pipes, and to do so outside. The small amount of gas thus released was relatively harmless to the atmosphere. The rest of it just unscrewed. He also pointed out that the compressor contained oil, so it had to be disposed of carefully at my local recycling centre.
As far as attaching things to internal walls was concerned, none weighed that much, so I found that wood screws worked perfectly well.
Fixing the component parts in place
In an ideal world the internal dimensions of the fridge would have allowed me to pack it to the gunnels with 30lb buckets, with just a few inches to spare for the heat source and thermostat. Although my fridge had a commendably voluminous interior, neatly parking 30lb buckets in it in such a way that the light bulbs wouldn’t be touching them, heat could circulate freely around them, and honey wouldn’t spill out of them, proved about as easy as - well, storing a turkey at Christmas. In the end I decided that warming two 30lb buckets at once would be more than sufficient. Which, given that in nearly three years of beekeeping I’ve only managed to produce two-and-a-half buckets of honey in total, probably wasn’t too unambitious.
Heat source/light fitting screwed into side wall and floor. Gap in hole sealed with clear mastic.
That decision made, it was relatively easy to work out where best to place the two light fittings, thermostat, heat sink, and fan (see picture). I placed one light fitting on the floor away from where the buckets would stand, and the other on the wall above and to one side, with the fan high on the wall opposite, pointing down slightly to circulate the warm air. All reference sources agreed that the thermostat should be positioned centrally to more accurately measure the temperature. It also needed to be attached to a heat sink.
At this point I should flag my indebtedness to 'Steve' (not necessarily his real name, although it is), a fellow EBKA member who a paid a heavy price for striking up a casual conversation with me at this year's Essex County Show and letting slip that he’d already converted a fridge into a warming cabinet. His subsequent, and very detailed, written instructions not only bridged huge gaps in my own research, but also included the names of parts suppliers, catalogue numbers and prices.
Polystyrene was cut using a fret saw and smoothed using fine sandpaper. Heat sink was an empty 200g Nescafe Gold Blend jar.
It was Steve who pointed out the need for a heat sink, and who suggested that an empty coffee jar filled with water would serve perfectly. I fashioned a jar holder out of cast-off polystyrene, and attached it with a long bolt to the raised block behind where the compressor would normally sit.
The fan was a standard 9 volt 60mm x 60mm PC cooling fan bought from Maplin, although in the unlikely and frankly bizarre circumstances of my ever building another honey warming cabinet I’d pinch one from an old PC. The problem was that – again – everyone advised me to use a PC fan, but no-one explained how to attach it to the fridge or how to wire it.
PC cooling fan fixed using two long bolts attached to IKEA kitchen shelf brackets screwed into the wall
Attaching it to the one of side walls actually turned out to be surprisingly easy, using two thin bolts and a couple of tiny IKEA shelf brackets (see picture). A very helpful assistant at Maplin then told me how to wire it and which transformer type to connect to.
Wiring the thermostat, fan and light fittings
PC fans tend to have three wires attached to a tiny plug. Transformers tend to be moulded into a three point plug at one end, from which two wires, encased in plastic and fused together, emerge and attach to another – mismatching – type of plug. (I’m not going to pretend that I know the correct name for either plug type, and it doesn’t really matter). Cut the little plugs from the ends of both the fan and transformer wires. Examine the transformer wires closely and you’ll see that one side of the plastic casing has white dashes painted on it. The fan wires are coloured red, black and yellow. Attach the white dashed wire from the transformer to the black wire on the fan, and the red wire from the fan to the other wire on the transformer. Don’t attach the yellow wire from the fan to anything. Test that it works by plugging the transformer into the mains.
Test rig proved hopeless at providing answers, but remarkably efficient at blowing fuses
You’d think that a thermostat would come with a wiring diagram that spelled out which colour wire is attached to what terminal, and how this in turn is connected to the heat source. Think again.
Mine came with an ambiguous drawing of a straight line, punctuated at three points with the cryptic labels ‘Common, ‘Demand’ and ‘Satisfied’, and interrupted by a little squiggle that was meant to represent a switch. Nor could I find much help online. How you wire up a thermostat varies depending on the thermostat, apparently. Best guesses and trial and error resulted in me blowing the fuse in my garage several times. Understandably deterred, I then went over to Deryck Johnson’s house and blew the fuse in his too. My best advice to you therefore is to buy the same make and model thermostat I used, and to wire it exactly as shown in this wiring diagram, which does label and colour-code all the wires. (You do so entirely at your own risk however. Always use an RCD device when connecting to mains electricity). I eventually got the answers from Steve, to whom I shall remain eternally grateful, and without whose help I would now more than likely just be a wispy lump of charcoal hanging by two threads from an electrical socket.
Fully assembled thermostat attached to improvised heat sink (the jar is filled with water)
Wiring the light fittings was one of the few things I could manage completely unaided. There are three terminals, one of which is clearly labelled ‘earth’. Attach the green and yellow wire to the earth terminal and then the blue and brown wires to each of the other two. It doesn’t matter which way round you do it. I mounted the two light fittings ‘in parallel’, the other way of doing it being ‘in series’. The only difference is that ‘in parallel’ both receive power directly from source, whereas ‘in series’ the power flows through one light fitting before going on to the other. I used a connector block to connect the wires from the thermostat to the light fittings.
Initially I used old-style bayonet fitting 60 watt light bulbs to supply the heat, but I wasn’t convinced that they were powerful enough, so replaced them with (much more expensive, and harder to find) 100 watt bulbs. Indeed, 100 watt bayonet fitting light bulbs proved so hard to find (because EU legislation is in the process of outlawing them) that I had to resort to ‘daylight’ bulbs at £2.50 a piece.
Calibrating the thermostat
The only thing left to do after all this was to calibrate the thermostat. It came with a temperature dial on the front, but I presumed that it may not be that accurate. Using a garden thermometer that records highs and lows I therefore set the thermostat to first 30, then 40, and finally 50 degrees Celsius (oC) and recorded the actual ‘on’ and ‘off’ temperatures inside the fridge. From that I established that 50oC on the dial equated to an actual temperature range of 46-54oC.
The big roll-out
Cabinet doubles as naff Christmas decoration
You know you’re being indulged when your enthusiasm for having achieved something obscure is matched by family and friends not even remotely involved in the process. Of course it’s perfectly possible that they were all just relieved to be finally getting their hands on some honey, having been promised it for two years. Nevertheless, while even they could then only muster polite interest in my subsequent dissertation on the journey their honey had undertaken, all agreed that it looked good and had retained its original flavour.
Long before I’d finished I began to think about honey jar labelling. Now I run (among other things) a studio with full design facilities, so I wanted to know what the precise food labelling regulations are regarding label dimensions, font type, letter size and width.
Important: As ‘hilarious’ as these instructions may be this next bit is deadly serious and you should read it carefully, because if it ever comes to it, it is what I will read out in court.
Electricity is dangerous. Hot light bulbs are dangerous. A combination of electricity, hot light bulbs and liquids is potentially fatal. Fridges are not designed to have done to them what is described here. I'm not an electrician. I'm not a refrigerator technician. I'm not even a very good beekeeper. I have no qualifications that have any bearing upon what is described here. You are therefore strongly urged to check absolutely everything written in this blog post with a qualified individual – and to follow their advice over mine. I am not offering advice. I have simply described what I did. I make no claim whatsoever that it was safe, legal, clever or effective.
You should never connect any electrical appliance to mains electricity without using a residual current device (RCD). You should never leave a home-made electrical appliance unattended. You should always consult a qualified electrician before connecting anything to mains electricity. Goddards of Saffron Walden played no part in this undertaking beyond supplying me with a fridge and advising me on how to dispose of it responsibly. ‘Steve’ never claimed to be an expert and was completely unaware that I might use his notes as I have. He did not approve this blog post and had absolutely no say or involvement in its drafting or publication. You have been warned.
This month sees the start of foraging in earnest and also the start of swarming.
Although the oil seed rape was only just down the road the bees only worked it for pollen. The bees foraging for nectar went in the opposite direction. I am now beginning to wonder if modern varieties of rape have significantly reduced amounts of nectar.
Whatever it was they preferred, half the hives worked it vigorously. One hive got up to four supers and the others to two or three.
The colonies which only just made it through the winter have struggled to reach supering size but as two of these have 2016 queens and will be requeened this season.
The first swarm I was called to remove was a poor little bedraggled specimen hanging from a tree near Thaxted Fire Station. It had been there several days and was trying to set up home out in the open.
Thaxted swarm
It was nearly dark when I arrived so it had to wait until the next morning; a night of torrential rain and it was still raining next day. Half of them had been washed down in the night and were comatose mixed in with the recent lawn mowings. It was a ladder job to reach the little swarm and I then swept up as many as I could from the ground hoping that once they were returned to the bosom of their family they would become resuscitated. This did in fact work and most of them recovered. They were a pathetic little bunch when they were eventually hived; just over one frame of 14 x12 in a nucleus hive.
The rape finished flowering two weeks ago and any resulting honey would normally have started crystallizing by now. It’s all still clear which again leads me to conclude that the nectar came from elsewhere. The eventual analysis will be interesting.
I’ve had to perform three Pagden artificial swarms so far with another one to do this week. At the same time as creating the artificial swarm I also take a two-frame nucleus with a queen cell so I have a second string to my bow in the event of a loss on mating flight. The apiary is getting rather crowded now with sixteen hives.
Three flying days in a row now which seemed to herald the glorious anticipation of yet another season but then things turned. Three weeks of arctic winter has kept them all indoors..
All eight colonies have been flying well and vigorously foraging on the Winter Honeysuckle, the Hellebores and now the crocus. The latter have very deep nectaries so the bees have to stand on their heads and struggle to get their reward.
I have been hefting the hives since the new year just to ensure that their stores are lasting them and all seem to remain fairly heavy.
Unfortunately, the winter oxalic acid treatment was not as successful as I would have liked so I have had to give them another course of Apivar. Weekly counts continue and some hives are now down to two successive zeros whilst others are down to single figures.
The field of rape down the road, easily within flying distance, seemed to have resisted the ravages of the pigeons for a long time but eventually the vermin found it and are now tearing it to pieces.
