Building a hive mentality!

In 2010, approximately 70 Municipal Governments and many Provincial Governments in Canada officially issued Proclamations and dozens of celebrations, festivals and events took place across Canada. The first ever “Day of the Honey Bee” was a huge success. It attracted quite a bit of media attention and as a result, even more people were made aware of the threats to the Honey Bee. Now, more people than ever can appreciate how incredibly important these wonderful pollinators are to our way of life.

This year, over 150 Municipal governments have issued Proclamations for “Day of the Honey Bee” May 29, 2011. That is more than double the success we saw last year. Numerous Provincial Governments are also declaring the day. Eventually, it will become a federal day of Canada, like Flag Day, Daffodil Day or St. Patrick’s Day. It currently remains as a Motion in the House of Commons.

We are following suit here in Calgary!

We are teaming up the Hillhurst-sunnyside Farmers Market to host not only the First Outdoor Special Market of the 2013 season, but the un-official Day of the Honeybee! We will be offering honey sticks, a photo booth, information about honeybees, and a costume competition during the markety from 3-7pm. Then at 7:30pm, we will be offering an opportunity for you to watch the film, Queen of the Sun for FREE with popcorn and other snacks offered! Come on down and enjoy what urban agriculture and beekeeping has to offer!

Hey everyone! THE BEES ARE COMING!

If you ordered bees through the Community Hive Collaborative Purchase of Honeybees and Equipment, you can expect to get your bees on the 26th of May! We are very excited to be inviting in 96 colonies of bees to the city of Calgary, as well as 18 other colonies for beekeepers in the surrounding area. So many bees, and all of them coming from loving and reliable beekeeping outfits in BC and Sask this year. BC’s bees are coming from Bill Stagg of www.sweetacreapiaries.ca and the Sask. bees are coming from www.tonylalondesales.ca.

You will be contacted in the next week about the location of hive pick-up. Here are general details:

Great news! Your Bee Nuc(s) will be ready for pick-up on Sunday, May 26 at Chiron Farm

This year there are two times for picking up your bees.

1. Pick-up & Go: if you simply want to pick up your bees and be on your way, please arrive at Chiron Farm between 11am and 12pm on Sunday. Recommended for seasoned beekeepers.

2. Hiving Demo: if you would like to see Eliese’s hiving demo, please arrive at Chiron Farm at 1pm on Sunday. We will be finished up and have you on your way by 3pm. Recommended for 1st timers and those wanting a refresher.

Please note that there is no street parking at Chiron Farms, only a limited parking lot.

Any equipment that you did not receive on the CHCP Equipment distribution will be made available for you on the 26th. Please bring protective equipment and wratchet straps if you are expecting a 9F Colony from Tony Lalonde.

If you are on the hunt for bees, you can join us for the Swarm Catchers Training Session on June 7th. More information about how to participate here!

On April 26, the Fairmont Palliser’s two bee hives were moved back to their urban setting. Nestled in the quite community of Inglewood just east of the Fairmont Palliser, the ‘Honey Bee Hotel’ and ‘Miss Bee Haven’, as they are affectionately known by our colleagues, survived the winter with tremendous success. Under the maintenance of Eliese Watson of Apiaries and Bees for Communities, the two hives are ready for another year of honey production downtown Calgary. Executive Chef Paul Peddle is already planning on ways to incorporate this year’s honey surplus into our menus in the Oak Room lounge and the Rimrock Restaurant. Last fall guests were treated with our very own honey comb on our charcuterie boards, which was extremely popular. A true testament to Chef Peddle’s commitment to building a menu around locally sourced sustainable items. This will be the Fairmont Palliser’s third season with bees and we once again are buzzing with excitement for what the season has to offer, hopefully with a few less bees stings.

As members of the Bees4Communities Project, A.B.C will be taking care of these colonies and using them as educational programming centres for new and budding urban beekeepers here in Calgary. As a part of the program, the Fairmont Palliser receives report cards on their 2 colonies development monthly. See the report cards for April below:

Honeybee Hotel colony:PAL_HBHRC_April2013

MissBeeHaven colony: PAL_MBHRC_April2013

The Dandelion flow produces a very particular and delicious honey that you can selectively harvest. If you are interested in harvesting dandelion honey, now is the time to begin taking note.

How to Harvest Dandelion Honey

You will want to inspect your colony and take note of your combs that are already full of honey and capped, this will be honey from last year. I like to mark with a pencil on the top-bars so it is easy to remember on next inspection. What I like to do is to super my colonies as mentioned here but instead of empty frames, use empty fully-pulled combs in the bottom box, no frames with any honey stores in them. This means that the bottom box is ready for the nectar flow and the easiest to access by the bees foraging for storage. I want to keep the top box honey full with the brood. this way, when I come back at the end of the flow in 10-14 days, I am able to mark and harvest or wait until they are 60+% capped.

How to Harvest Pollen

Pollen trapping is done in the spring when you have very strong colonies with good pollen stores already in place. You dont want to keep the pollen trap on for longer than 7 days during the honey flow, and unload them daily. You can see how much pollen that can be taken in this video from Georgia:

How a pollen trap works?

Here are some good illustrations and detailed instructions on how pollen traps work.

How to build your own?

Click here for info

SWARM SUPPRESSION

If your goal is honey production, it is very important that you make sure that your brood nest is expanded enough that you have no concerns of honey locking and your queen has room to lay. Currently, your brood nest is on the top box. Eventually you will open the top entrance (end of dandelion flow) and begin supering up. You are going to want to make sure, that when doing this, you remove much the honey stores from the bottom 2 boxes and insert empty drawn combs, so the queen continues to have room. Moving the honey up to the supers will aid in moving the bees up too. Always add filled frames in to the middle of the supered box and never super without moving combs from the boxes below up. This will encourage your bees to move up quicker.