*NEW* B is for Beekeeper

As things usually go when being inspired by life rather than doing things in proper order, the fifth letter in my alphabet series is actually the 2nd. But hopefully no one will complain too loudly, because sometimes there is no controlling the creative portion of my brain.

After a few decades of being interested in keeping bees, I started my first hive this Spring. And now I don’t think there will ever be a time when I stop doing so. I am absolutely in love with the processes involved in caring for a honey bee colony, and find myself looking forward to each hive inspection as it comes, and being sad when I have to close up the hive for the week. These tiny creatures are fascinating and clever and inspiring all at the same time. I’m thrilled to be added to a long history of beekeeping on planet Earth.

Honeybees can thrive on their own without human intervention, but there is evidence to suggest that we have been interacting with them from as early as 7000 BC, based on traces of beeswax found in Middle Eastern pot sherds from that time. It appears that beekeeping on a commercial scale dates back to sometime before 2422 BC; on the walls of the sun temple of Nyuserre Ini in Egypt, workers are depicted blowing smoke into hives while they remove honeycomb. Archaeological finds related to beekeeping have been found on every continent.

I don’t have a planned release scheduled for this series. With 26 letters to chart, it might take me ten years to get through them all, since I have other ideas and plans and designs in the works too. They won’t be released in alphabetical order, but instead, as inspiration strikes. The one thing you can count on is that they will all be round, designed to fit into the same frame, which can be found here on etsy: https://www.etsy.com/listing/178555694/6x6-picture-frame-with-circle-opening?ga_search_query=circle+frame&ref=shop_items_search_2 When you purchase a frame from their shop, they have generously offered a coupon code just for my customers! Enter HEARTSTRING10 at checkout to get ten percent off of your order (this coupon code won't work in MY shop, but only in the SignedandNumbered shop).

You could buy one frame and swap out the letters as you see fit, or a grouping of four or more of them for a nice collection to spell out your last name or a favorite word.

Or, you could finish your pieces as ornaments for an alphabet tree. The options are multiple; use your creativity!

Stitch Count: 80 x 80
Model stitched with one thread over two
on Picture This Plus 32ct. Legacy

Using threads from:
The Gentle Art: Green with Envy, Grecian Gold, Endive, Pecan Pie
Weeks Dye Works: Sandcastle, Cocoa, Deep Sea, Gold, Teal Frost

Conversion to DMC included with the chart.

Frame by Signed and Numbered:
6” Circle Opening Super Vintage Roman Gold

This design is now available in my etsy shop, and will soon be in the hands of my distributors and the shops on my auto ship list. If you prefer to bypass etsy and order directly through me, you can send me an email: beth@heartstringsamplery.com

Tales from the Hive

During the last week of very wet weather, the bees un-capped and ate the honey I was so excited to see with its special wax coating. But that's okay... it's early in the season, and this is Oregon, after all.

The most exciting thing I saw today, other than spotting my Queen again, was a few baby bees nibbling their way out of their brood chambers. In this first picture, you can see pollen packed into cells (different colors, looks glossy in some), nectar (shiny, looks black because of the black foundation on these frames), capped worker bee cells (center of image, looks rough and slightly raised). And up on top of the frame is a dedicated lady, fanning her wings just as hard as she can to try to cool her family down.

And now, for a little Queen-spotting. Can you find her? She has the same coloring as the others, but her abdomen is twice as long, and she's usually surrounded by a circle of attendants.

Here she is up close. And if you squint your eyes and look closely, you can see baby bee larvae all curled up in their cells. They look white and shiny. Once they get to the proper stage of development, the nurse bees will fill the rest of their cells with food and cap them off to finish growing.

My Italian honey bees are SO friendly and calm. Not one single aggressive action toward me yet, and look at this little hitch-hiker that rode back to the house on my hat. Just hanging out, like its no big deal to be on a human's hand. LOVE.

Today, I added back the second story to the hive after taking it away last week. After doing lots of reading and research, I've decided to switch the bees over to foundationless frames as much as possible. So I popped all of the foundation out of the frames that came with the second box and put some paint stir sticks in along the side rails as guides to help keep the wax straight. I moved one frame with pollen and nectar on it up to the center to help give them some encouragement to build up.

Tales from the Hive

In today's hive inspection, I was super excited to see a small patch of capped honey. This means the nectar that is in these cells has aged enough to evaporate out the right amount of water to make the perfect consistency of honey. It also means they don't need to eat it right away because they are gathering enough and/or have enough currently stored.

I spotted my Queen again, which was a thrill. Otherwise, I just looked and watched and tried to identify the different things one sees in a honey bee hive, such as pollen, worker bee brood, and drone brood.

I also scraped enough wayward comb from the wrong places to make a decent ball of wax. I'll put it into a jar with a lid and store it in the freezer, adding to it as I need to, until I have enough to try my hand at rendering.

A Beekeeper at Last

For years it has been a desire of mine to keep honey bees. I don't know why for sure, other than that I find them fascinating and always thought it sounded like such a cool thing to do. I remember as a kid hearing the word"Beekeeper" and having feelings of admiration for whomever held that title.

As a young married adult, with a baby orchard and vegetable garden, the idea took on a more practical nuance, but there was still the original allure of having a hobby that involved insects with venomous stingers. Again, I don't know why. Maybe I haven't been stung enough times.

Fast forward a few years and I started to read stories of the decline of pollinators around the world, and like many, I assumed that Honey Bees were the primary ones in decline. I kept hearing about "hive collapse disorder" and "Varroa Mites". And I thought that maybe I could help save the bees by having a hive of my own (I will later debunk/clarify the truth behind these news stories).

So... this past Christmas, when the biggest box under the Christmas tree was for ME, and what it held was a beginning kit for starting a hive... I think I was even more excited than the kids with their new LEGO sets.

From December until May, any spare moment I got, I was reading and researching about honey bees and how to care for them. I got books from the library, found articles online, watched videos on YouTube. I took a class from Bee Thinking in Portland, which was incredibly helpful. And then I waited.

All suppliers of natural/feral/untreated bees were sold out, so I went to Coastal Farm Supply, where the kit I got for Christmas came from and ordered what's called a "Nuc" (pronounced "nuke", as in short for "nuclear"; not because its an explosive, but because it is the central portion or makings of a new hive). You can order bees in a package, which is just a cage full of worker bees and a Queen, or you can order a Nuc, which is a full-sized box with frames of comb, baby bee brood, and with food stores. Since we live in a place notorious for long and cool Springs, I went with the latter, because I didn't want to have to start out with needing to feed my bees sugar water to just keep them going.

There was supposed to be a one week notice that the bees were arriving, but I got the call the day they arrived. Being a Wednesday, I was practicing music in my living room with my bandmates, and blessedly didn't have anything pressing to do in the afternoon. Making music in the morning, picking up my bees in the afternoon... a day couldn't get much better!

The kids were understandably nervous about riding in the Explorer with a hive full of bees behind them, but the folks at Coastal were amazing and made sure there weren't any tag-along bees on the outside of the hive before loading it into the truck.

I already had the empty kit box all set up in the barnyard, thanks to the help of my Farmboy and some cinder blocks. Because the Nuc came with its own attached stand, I simply moved the empty box to the side, positioned the Nuc, and pulled the foam out of the doorway to let the bees out to explore.

I wanted to open up the hive right away, but figured I had better let them get settled first, so after sitting and watching them for a ridiculous amount of time, I returned to the house and waited awhile. When I saw that they were starting to collect pollen, I carefully opened the top just long enough to add their new upstairs addition. I didn't inspect the frames that they came with, wanting to be sure I gave them some time in their new location before I got too personal with their space.

The next day I suited up (this one), grabbed my tools, and set out to open up the hive and see what I could see. I had never been close to a hive, let alone seen inside, so all I was armed with was the pictures and words from books to guide me. The bees have been doing their thing since the beginning of time, so my philosophy from the outset is to let them do what they know to do, and intervene only on an as-needed basis if I see something that looks like a threat to the hive.

Including, if possible, not using a smoker. Yes, you read that right. When beekeepers use smoke, it isn't necessarily bad for the bees, although some would say that it is... but the reason it helps the beekeepers is that it causes the bees to go into a protective mode; they sense an emergency and start gobbling up as much honey as they can hold, in case they need to evacuate. This ensures that there is food at their new location, should the worst case happen. The smoke also masks the smells of alarm pheromones so that if one bee sends up a signal, the others can't smell it, so they don't attack.

Instead of smoke, I decided to use a sugar water solution in a spray bottle. If the bees seem restless or alarmed, a little spritz of sugar water dampens their wings long enough to keep them from flying, and also keeps them busy licking up all the sweetness from each other and the hive.

I was completely prepared to abandon this idealistic technique if necessary, but this hive was so calm and basically ignored me the entire time I was inspecting frames.

Being my first inspection, I really only was getting my bearings, trying to see if I could identify the different things happening inside. I did see capped brood and lots of worker bees with plenty of nectar in open cells. But the true excitement was spotting my Queen for the first time.

Now, if I haven't entirely bored you to tears, stay tuned, because there are sure to be many more tales from Heartstring Apiary to come in the future. I'm totally in love.