A Book of Bees Read online

  That said, a new beekeeper still needs basic equipment, and there is no better place for him to start than by asking the major advertisers in the two magazines mentioned above for their catalogs. After these have arrived, he can compare prices and shipping rates. He will need the following tools:

  1 bee smoker

  1 hive tool

  1 pair of frame grips

  1 bee veil

  Gauntlet-style bee gloves, a bee suit and a bee helmet make the job easier; they will keep him from extra stings, but they are not strictly necessary. He can substitute work gloves, an ordinary hat and a second layer of work clothes securely fastened.

  For each hive he is going to start, he should order:

  1 bottom board

  2 hive bodies

  1 inner cover

  1 telescoping cover with metal over-cover

  20 deep frames for hive bodies

  20 sheets of wax foundation to match frames

  1 feeder

  Nails for fastening the knocked-down hive parts together

  Tinned wire for frames

  Later on he can decide whether he wants to have his bees make comb honey or whether he wants to extract the honey they will produce. This decision may be deferred for a while, because package bees started on foundation do well the first season simply to set their house to rights and produce enough honey for themselves to get through the winter; they seldom produce any extra honey for the beekeeper. But the size of the supers he will order later depends on his decision about comb or extracted honey.

  In my part of the country I need, on the average, three supers for every hive; since I do not produce comb honey, I use what are called medium depth Illinois supers. Comb honey supers are shallower than these.

  Buying a hive of bees is, in some ways, like buying an Irish Setter puppy: it changes one’s life. But having two, or even three, hives of bees is not like having two or three Irish Setter puppies. The first hive is a Big Deal. The additional ones are not. Two or three hives are no more trouble than a single one, and in fact they make the whole task simpler.

  Bottom board parts

  Accidents can happen to queen bees, and in a single hive the bees will die out if they lose their queen unless they can raise a new one quickly or have their beekeeper give them one. Ordering queens by mail may take several days, and by the time she has arrived the bees in the queenless hive are often so demoralized they will refuse to accept her. But if a “queenright” hive, one with a healthy, fully fertile laying queen in it, is sitting next door to the queenless one, the beekeeper can take a frame of eggs and young bees from it, give it to the queenless hive and, in most cases, the bees will raise a new queen for themselves. In addition, frames of honey and young bees can be interchanged if need be. This is why, when I help new beekeepers get started, I always suggest that they begin not with a single hive but with several.

  On winter days, when the snow is blowing, I like to go out to my barn and build up a fire in the woodstove. After it is warm there, I spend the day putting my beekeeping equipment to rights. My introduction to carpentry was assembling beehives. It is not difficult.

  The first thing to do after receiving a shipment of beehive parts is to sort out the similar pieces and see how they fit together.

  Bottom boards from different manufacturers differ slightly, but most come with several grooved boards that fit into one another and that, in turn, are held in place by side rails and two strips of wood that meet the rails at the back.

  Hive body showing inner cover parts and telescoping cover

  The bottom boards, as well as the other hive parts, will fit tighter if they are glued in addition to being nailed, but simply because of the added time needed I do not glue mine (I should probably spend less time repairing them if I did so) but instead merely fit the bottom board parts together and nail the rails to the ends of the grooved bottom with galvanized sevenpenny nails. I treat the undersides of the bottoms and the exterior of the rails with creosote, and scatter the finished bottom boards outside to allow the chemical to weather for at least three months before using them with the bees.

  It is easy to see how the hive bodies fit together with the matching dovetail ends meshing neatly. Most beekeeping supply companies also drill nail holes along the corners made by the interlocking dovetails, so it is a quick job to drive in a row of sevenpenny nails to hold them in place. After the hive bodies are nailed together, I drill a ventilation hole in each one, and, since I buy commercial grade equipment, I paint all knots with shellac to help seal them.

  Inner covers also vary in construction from one supplier to another, but all come with wooden rims that must be fastened to the main part of the inner cover. Once these are on the hive, they will be pried up frequently, and often come apart unless they are both glued and nailed.

  Telescoping covers also come in an assortment of manufacture but once assembled all should be additionally protected by a metal over-cover.

  In this country, for reasons I have never understood, it is traditional to paint beehives an unimaginative and antiseptic white. White is reflective, and if the hives are placed in the direct sun, that may be a kindness to bees. But hives, even white ones, can become too hot in the sun and should always be set out in a place where they will receive some afternoon shade. So placed, there is no reason to paint them white if a beekeeper prefers another color. Karl von Frisch, Nobelist, zoologist and student of bee behavior, discovered that it helped bees to find their own hives if those placed in a row were painted different colors; in addition, he found that they rather fancied blue. When I was traveling in Mexico I was delighted to see beehives painted in deep vibrant colors—red, green, blue and black. Whatever the color, the exterior parts of hive bodies and the telescoping covers should be painted to protect them from the weather.

  Frame parts

  The frame parts, because they are so many, often look bewildering when they are first unpacked, but once they are sorted into piles it is obvious how they fit together. They include “end bars,” which make the sides of the frames; “top bars,” which suspend them; “wedges,” which fit against the top bar to secure the wax; and “bottoms,” which complete the frame. I prefer to use what are called “split-bottom” frames. The two split separate lengths of wood that make the bottom serve as a holder for the wax foundation.

  I have to assemble so many frames that I have a jig, in which I can put together ten at a time. The jig holds twenty of the end bars, ten on each side, at the correct distance, while I nail the top bars in place with 1¼-inch nails. I use an upholsterer’s hammer for driving these and the other small nails into the frames, and find it makes the job easier. Then I flip over the jig and nail the two split bottom pieces into the grooves cut into the bottoms of the side bars, using ⅞-inch nails. I remove the frames from the jig, and drive an additional pair of 1¼-inch nails at an angle just under the ears of the top bar on either side to give additional strength to the frame. When filled with honey, each frame may carry as much as five pounds suspended from these top bars; without that extra angled nail at the point where stress is the greatest, they can pull apart.

  The wax foundation I buy comes with vertical wires put in place at the factory every 1¾-inches. The wires help hold the fragile wax straight in the frames. But in addition, to keep the soft beeswax from sagging in warm weather, I put in cross wires. To hold those in place, I partially drive two ½-inch nails into one of the end bars, near the holes that have been drilled at the factory to accommodate the cross wire.

  After the frames have been assembled they are ready for the wax foundation. The wax is brittle in cold weather, and shatters easily, so I always wait for the barn to be warm before I handle it.

  I rest each frame on a special frame holder as I insert the wax and wire it, but for assembling just a few a board cut to the inside dimensions of a single frame would be enough to make a level surface for working with the sheet of wax. There are small hooks, extensions of the vertical wir
es, on each sheet of wax, and these are placed at the top of the frame after the foundation sheet is slipped between the split bottom. The wedge, the last remaining frame part, fits snugly against the top bar and holds the wire hooks in place. Seven-eighths-inch nails driven at an angle will keep the wedge secure.

  All that remains to be done is to cross-wire the wax foundation sheet to the frame. I have a commercial wiring device that makes the job easier when working with a number of frames, but for assembling just a few its purchase is unnecessary. A homemade holder for the roll of tinned wire would do just as well. A length of wire is pulled through, starting on the side where the ½-inch nails have been driven. One end of the wire is secured to the top nail, which is then driven home. The wire is threaded across the frame through the hole on the opposite end bar, back again through the hole just below it, then through the hole on the first end bar. It is pulled tight before it is fastened to the second nail. It is important that this wire is taut; its purpose is to prevent the wax from sagging. I use a pair of needle-nose pliers, bracing them against the ear of the top bar to gain purchase as I tighten the wire before wrapping it securely around the second ½-inch nail. I hold it in place with one hand, while driving in the nail and then breaking the wire with the other.

  Frame with wax foundation and wire in place on frame rest

  The wire is now in place, but it must be melted into the wax foundation before it can reinforce the sheet of wax. To do this, I use an electric wire embedder run from a transformer, which sends a current of electricity through the wire strong enough to melt the wax around it. For a few frames, a simpler, less expensive “spur embedder” can be used. It is a hand-held tool with a small wheel at the bottom. It is kept in a pan of hot water, which will heat the wheel enough to slightly melt and embed the wax as it is rolled across the wire.

  When all these pieces of wood, wax and wire have been put together, one has a beehive.

  Assembling fragrant new pine beehive parts and working with delicately scented creamy white beeswax in a snug barn made warm by a fire in the woodstove is an altogether superior way to spend a cold snowy day. It is so much fun that it is stretching matters to call it work.

  In between storms, winter in the Ozarks is often clear, bright and sunny. Sparkling fair weather like that makes me think up outside work to do—work that didn’t seem strictly necessary the day before, during a snowstorm. On those days, I’ll sometimes pack up a lunch, fix a thermos of coffee and drive around to my beeyards to see how the bees are wintering. It is good to assure myself that all the telescoping covers are tightly in place, and to check whether cows have knocked over any hives. But the truth is I just miss the bees, and I want to see them.

  The snow has drifted up against the hives, and I stoop to brush it away from the entrances. In one yard, a tree limb has fallen across a hive, knocking the cover askew. I haul off the limb, adjust the cover. In another yard, I find a pile of dry bee bodies in front of a hive and look in the snow for a clue. There I find splayed openhanded prints, complete with the indentations from a “thumb.” An opossum has been here. He has reached into the entrance of the hive with that clever paw of his, stirred up the sluggish bees, and, after they have flown out one by one to defend themselves, he has caught them and sucked them dry of honey and soft body parts, leaving behind the dry husks, which look like the debris left over after a human shrimp feast.

  By midday, I am at one of my favorite beeyards. The bees in this yard usually make more honey than at any other. There is not much left of the farm on which it is located. The people who own the land have retired and moved to town. Their house was torn down several years ago, and the pasture has been rented out for hay. No one has fertilized the fields for a long time, and wild things are reclaiming them. There are blackberries and sumac all around, but I have other beeyards where they grow as thickly, and the bees there do not produce as much honey as they do here. I don’t know why this is such a good beeyard. The only time I ever believed that I knew all there was to know about beekeeping was the first year I was keeping them. Every year since I’ve known less and less and have accepted the humbling truth that bees know more about making honey than I do.

  This is a pretty beeyard, too. The hives sit in a grove of pine trees. There is a mulberry tree behind them, with a blackberry thicket growing up underneath it. The land slopes away gently to the south, and from the knoll where the beehives are I can see for miles across a stretch of woods and overgrown fields. I like to stop here and eat my lunch—in the summertime I can make a dessert of ripe blackberries or mulberries. The bees have pollinated them well. My fruit today, though, will have to be a store-bought apple. I scrape away the snow at the foot of one of the pine trees and sit down, leaning against it so that the sun is on my face, and open my lunch.

  The line of beehives is to my left, and they, too, are facing south. The sun is warming the front of each hive, tempting the bees out for the euphemistically termed “cleansing flights.” Bees are exceptionally tidy little animals and will not defecate inside their hives. On a winter day warm enough for them to fly out, the snow in front of their hives is spattered with yellow droppings which have been retained inside their bodies. If they do not have a flight day every few weeks, they will sicken rather than eliminate their metabolic wastes within their hive.

  The textbooks say bees cannot fly unless it is 10° C. or more. The bees have not read the textbooks and often fly out for their cleansing flights on days like today. The snow is melting only in protected spots where the sun warms it, so the air temperature can’t be much above freezing, but the bees in this sheltered pine grove are able to fly. They won’t be able to stay out long, however, away from the warmth of their cluster. One lights on my bare hand and walks along it. I open my palm, transfer her from one hand to another. I can feel each of her six legs as she walks across my skin.

  Last summer, some friends came over for a visit. I had been restacking bee equipment, and there were bees flying around drawn by the odor of the honeycomb. Although the bees were not paying attention to them, my friends were apprehensive and retreated behind the doors of the cabin. Their six-year-old daughter chose to stay with me while I finished putting the equipment away. She was wary, but not yet as fearful as her parents, so I put a drop of honey on my arm to draw a bee. In a few minutes one had landed and extended her proboscis. I showed the girl the bee’s long grooved tongue, which she was using to suck up the honey. The child was delighted and demanded her own drop of honey. I obliged, and soon we each had a bee feeding on our arms. When the drop of honey was gone, the bee began to investigate the rest of the girl’s arm, carefully picking her way among the hairs growing on it. The child began to giggle.

  “I can feel its little feet,” she said. “They tickle, but I like it.”

  She wanted a drop of honey on her other arm and soon another bee found that. We lured several more, and after they had all flown away she ran laughing into my cabin to tell her parents what it felt like to have bees walk on her skin. I remember that child as the bee walks across my hands and think she would enjoy sitting here with me today. At last, my bee decides it is time to return to her sisters, and she flies back to her hive, the third one from where I am sitting.

  In the comparative midday warmth the bees are attending to other sanitation chores. Winter bees live several months longer than summertime ones, who may wear their wings to nubbins and die in six weeks, but over the course of the winter there are always a certain number who die. On a day warm enough to tend to them, the worker bees carry out their dead sisters and drop the bodies some distance from the hive. It is a sign of a healthy hive that the colony is strong enough to take care of this necessary task. Leaning away from the pine tree, I can see the front of every hive in the row, and all along it there are workers carrying out their few dead, each struggling with a weight nearly as great as her own.

  Bees evolved along with the flowering plants back in Cretaceous times, probably somewhere on the continent
we now call Africa. From their tropical homelands they spread gradually into temperate regions. When human beings came along, they learned to appreciate bees, and have been allied with them at least as far back as there are records (a rock painting in the Cuevas de la Arena near Bicorp in Valencia, Spain, dating from 7000 B.C., shows a man gathering honey from bees) and have helped them spread to places far from the tropics. But bees are conservative creatures, and maintain a steady tropical warmth within their home no matter what the outside temperature may be. In wintertime, they must generate heat to keep it the way they like it. Even during the early winter, as the light wanes each day and the queen lays no eggs and the bees raise no young, they will not let the temperature sink much below 20° C. within the cluster. In January, after the queen has begun to lay eggs, the bees raise the temperature an additional ten degrees or more, to keep their young brood warm.

  Bees generate heat within the cluster by simply metabolizing fiercely. Honey is a dense, heat-producing carbohydrate food. One tablespoon of it contains sixty-five calories. And bees are efficient converters of those calories into heat, which they preserve by forming a tight insulating cluster to hold the warmth. One researcher measured bees’ heat-generating capabilities and found that at 10° C. a single bee can produce at least one-tenth of a calorie of heat per minute. Presumably a colony of even small wintertime size of twenty thousand to forty thousand bees is capable of producing thousands of calories per minute.

  Bees in a cluster in their hive

  Depending on the outside temperature and the number of bees in the colony, the cluster may extend across several frames, with bees linking one part of it to another across the end bars.