Swiss Cheese

I was originally planning to limit my musing on this blog to bees, but changed by blog title a few days ago to broaden the content.

I just had to share my latest giggle.  As many of you know, I am a artisan cheese maker - and have been making cheeses for the last 4 or 5 years.  For the first time, I have attempted to make a swiss cheese - Emmental to be specific.  It starts out like most hard cheeses - heat the milk, add the culture, add the rennet, separate the curds from the whey, press the cheese, brine it, and finally cave it at around 52 degrees and 80% humidity.  And so it goes with swiss, except that after a week of caving, you take it out and sit it on the kitchen counter for 2 or 3 weeks at room temperature.  This allows the gaseous bubbles to grow inside the cheese from the initial culture that was added.  The funny thing, is that as the gas bubbles expand the entire cheese starts to blow up - and the top and sides round out like a huge toasting marshmallow.  This picture doesn't truly capture the expansion, but it's pretty funny to look at.

Put another log on the fire ...

It was wildly gusty yesterday - so gusty that I was a bit afraid to open the hives for inspections since bees are not too keen on wind.  Given my busy weekend ahead, though, I had to do it on Friday, or I wouldn't have time for a least a week.  As expected - as I approached the hives - Roxi's girls were a mile a minute - the line at the front door was at least 40 deep.  Maybelle's hive, on the other hand, was steady and - well - punctual - as though everyone had been given a arrival time and dammit don't be late!

I decided to start with Maybelle's hive - it's a bit like stretching before a big run - really gets the pistons firing.  Maybelle's girls had drawn out 6 of the 8 frames in wax, but had not yet filled the comb with nectar and pollen.  I have to wait until 80% to 85% of the frames are drawn out before adding another box to the hive - so Maybelle's troops - at a respectable 75% fill rate - were not ready for an addition.  After checking that there were no beetles or mites messing with the hive and that the brood pattern was nice and regular, I topped off the sugar water feeder and closed Maybelle's hive.

Roxi's hive, however, did not disappoint.  When I pulled out the first outer frame in the brood box, I saw Roxi right away.   She was laying eggs as quickly as her fuzzy, queenly bee legs would allow.  I saw her again in frames 3, 4 and 7.  It's pretty amazing how quickly she gets around the hive.  Brownie points to Roxi's girls - they had almost completely drawn out all 8 frames - so it was time for another box.  As much as I know they will love the extra real estate tomorrowing morning, Roxi's bees were severely PO's at my disruption of their crib.  I was very glad I had double checked all the closures on my bee suit.  They were pelting me with impunity!  This picture sums up their feeling perfectly.

As I gave the two uneven hives a backward glance as I was leaving, I was reminded of those water gun games that I used to play at carnivals when I was a kid.  You know, the ones where the starter bell chimes and you try to aim the stream of water into the clowns mouth and be the first one to get the ping pong ball to the top of the tube?  Adding each box to a hive is a bit like that, but instead of a stuffed animal, you win a treasure trove of honey if you win.

The Naming of the Hives

After Sunday's installation, I left the hives alone for two days so the bees could settle in.  Curiosity got the better of me Tuesday, so I went for a visit.  I used the excuse that I wanted to add another gallon of sugar water to the feeders, but really, I wanted to assure myself that my bees hadn't decided to abscond.  I'd had a bad dream about that exact scenario the night before.

Worry unfounded ... all the bees were present doing bee things.  What was striking to me was how different the two hives were/are.  I've named the hive to the left Roxi's hive.  Roxi's hive is like Little Italy in NYC at the turn of the century.  They're loud, they gesture a lot, and they like to hang out on the front porch drinking red wine and climbing all over each other.  "Whatsa matta you?  Get dat pollen in the house NOW!"  There were always at least 20 bees trying to get into or out of the hive at any time.  And the guard bees ... sheesh ... the guard bees were like Abe Vigoda in the Godfather - ain't no one getting in or out without knowing the secret handshake.  I saw Abe take down a wasp that was trying to enter the hive - it was a violent brawl.  I'd give it an M for mature audiences.  Here's a picture of Roxi's front porch.

Maybelle's hive (to the right) is a whole different country.  The residents of hive Maybelle are very, very mellow and methodical - no pushing at the front door - and never more than 7 or 8 at a time - but they are constant.  Now that I think about it, they're like Brits - very good at queuing.  "Mind the gap!" Here's a quick snapshot of the House of Britannia.

The guard bees were equally as rough in hive Maybelle, though.  Keeping with the movie analogies, they were as tough as Dicky Eklund in The Fighter.  Dicky actually pulled a small yellow jacket to the ground and rolled twice.  Can't imagine that that yellow jacket is coming back any time soon.

But, what was most notable about all the foraging bees was the size of the bright yellow pollen balls on their legs - they were huge!

I can't open the hive and do a proper inspection until Sunday, but will probably swing by tomorrow to check out the buzz and hang out on the porch with the girls.

HIVE INSTALLATION!

April 10th finally arrived.  After four months of selecting my bee breeder, assembling and painting the hives, gathering tools, designing my honey label, reading a lot of bee books, and finding a swanky, high tech bee suit to go with my wasabi colored wellies, my bees arrived in Austin for an early Sunday morning pickup.  I ordered the bees from BeeWeavers, a 5th generation family bee business, headquartered out of Navasota, Texas.  They have a great track record of producing mellow bees that are resistant to many apiary diseases and parasites.  They also haven't used any chemicals on their girls for well over 10 years.  Since my hive is going to be completely organic, the BeeWeaver bee breed fit the bill.  (Try saying that 3 times quickly).

My girls had been trucked in the night before, and I was at the designated pick up house promptly at 7:30am.  It was VERY surreal to see 300+ bee boxes scattered throughout the yard all buzzing loudly.  As you can imagine, many bees had escaped from their boxes so the air was teeming with honey bees drunkenly bumping into everyone picking up their new colonies.  It was a good, last minute call on my part to use my son's Mazda SUV for the pickup - instead of my Mini Cooper - because I had a dozen or so escapees zooming around the interior of the car during the drive home.  Fortunately, they really liked the hatchback window and not the front windshield.

I decided to buy nucs for my hives instead of package bees because every experienced beekeeper I spoke with (they call themselves beeks) said I'd have greater success at keeping the hive alive with a nuc than with package bees.

Nuc stands for nucleus hive and it differs from package bees in a significant way.  Nucs are boxes that contain 4 hive frames, about 10,000 bees, and an established queen that have been working together for a few weeks.  There is already brood (babies), pollen, and honey in the frames - so you more or less start with a reduced, yet fully working hive.  This is how a nuc arrives:

Packaged bees, on the other hand, consist of an unestablished queen (ensconced with her attendants in her own screened queen box) nestled within a larger screened box containing 3 pounds of bees.  Believe me - there are a LOT of bees in a 3 pound box.  During shipping, the packaged bees get used to the queen through their respective screened cages - heavy pheromones are at work during these early days.  Only when the package bees are shaken into their new hive are the workers able to release the queen by chewing through a candy door.  Once freed, the new team can begin filling up the frames from scratch.  This is what three pounds of package bees looks like - guess where the queen is?  Where is Waldo comes to mind.

Installation of a nuc is easy.  You just put the four frames in the hive along with empty frames to fill out the rest of the hive box (called a brood box), pop the top feeder on that, fill it with sugar water, install the cover, and WALAH - the installation is done.  All went without a hitch - and I was lucky to actually see the queen bee as I installed both hives.  I opted for marked queens when I placed my order thinking that it would make hive inspections much easier.  Queens are marked with a dab of paint on their backs.  It stays on her for her entire life.  Color coding is used to designate the year she was mated and installed.  For example, queens installed in 2011 (and any other year ending in 1 or 6) are marked in white like this:

I have pictures of me installing the hives (thanks to photographer Tom!), but I haven't been able to find my USB cable to connect my camera to my computer, so can't yet post the pictures.  Have no fear - I've ordered a new one.  Hopefully it shows up in my mailbox today!