Brisbane Library Talk

Today I did a backyard beekeeping talk at the Brisbane Library. There were only a few students, so we were able to customize the class to be exactly what the attendees wanted :)

Royal Jelly & Honey Update

I did a quick check on the hives this morning to see if honey production was picking up. So far I have only harvested 50 pounds this year, which is 30% of what I would have expected from all three hives.

The purple hive was doing very well and looked to have quite a lot of capped or ready to be capped honey. Additionally, it looks like the bees have started drawing comb in the Ross Round frames (which they haven't touched until now). I actually ended up putting another super on the purple hive.

The green hive was doing alright, the supers didn't seem to have a whole lot of capped honey, and a lot of the frames in the top super were looking very empty.

Yellow hive appeared to be re-queening itself, I found some queen cups with some royal jelly in them. Here is a pretty good shot (the white substance is royal jelly):

I'm not exactly sure why they would be re-queening themselves at this time of year, whether something happened to the old queen, or perhaps they have swarmed again. In any case, it means we probably won't be seeing very much more honey from this hive this season.

First Place and an Honorary Mention!

I submitted some of my lip balm and honey into the San Mateo County Fair for competition. I didn't do so bad for my first year: My lip balm won first place and my honey got an honorary mention!

The competition categories are quite small, so it's probably not the biggest achievement, but it was still pretty cool :) Here is all of the competition:

The honey is divided into several color grade categories: water white, extra white, white, extra light amber, light amber, amber, and dark amber. Each color category competes separately. Here is the grading chart (mine was in the "white" category):

San Mateo Couty Fair

The San Mateo County Fair went really well! Fellow beekeeper Brigitte organized the booth for the Beekeepers' Guild of San Mateo County this year, and it was absolutely beautiful. The focus this year was bee-friendly plants and gardening, the booth won second place out of all of the agriculture exhibits. Sanda and I manned the booth together on the first afternoon of the fair:

One of my favorite things about the guild's booth is the observation hive. The hive fits 10 frames, and has an entrance so that the bees can still forage during the day (there is a tube that goes from the bottom corner of the hive, through the wall, to the outside). Here is a group of fair goers (and myself) looking for the queen bee:

Coming Soon: San Mateo County Fair

The San Mateo County Fair is running June 7th through 15th! I'll be selling honey from 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM on Saturday June 7th if you want to come by and see me at the Beekeepers' Guild of San Mateo booth. I've also submitted my honey and lip balm for competition. Wish me luck!

What: San Mateo County Fair - Selling Honey

Date: Saturday, June 7th

Time: 2:00PM to 5:00PM

Location: San Mateo Event Center. 1346 Saratoga Drive. San Mateo, CA 94403 ‎

Crystallization Experiment Followup

In trying to get the prettiest honey for the San Mateo County Fair this weekend, I conducted a crystallization experiment with some of my May harvest honey.

The categories were:

1. New Comb: the category that I qualified as "New Comb" was comb with bright white cappings. I believe that the bees capped this honey less than a month before harvesting.
2. Old Comb: the category that I qualified as "Old Comb" was comb with darker cappings or darker honey. There is nothing wrong with this honey, in fact, I prefer the taste of this honey, but due to the types of pollen in this honey, it tends to granulate more quickly.

Within each category, I had 3 sub-categories:

1. Normal: the "Normal" honey, I just extracted and put in the jar. That's it. This is exactly how I sell it when it is bottled.
2. Microwaved: the "Microwaved" honey, I microwaved for 30 seconds at a time until it just started to bubble at the top (approximately 180 degrees Fahrenheit). I never heat the honey I sell, but my Mum claims that microwaving my honey keeps it nice and clear. Heating it also eliminates natural enzymes and counts as "altering" the honey, which is why I never heat the honey I sold. I figure if you'd like to heat it, you can microwave it just like I did here :)
3. Frozen: the "Frozen" honey is honey that I bottled as normal, then popped in my freezer. I've heard that this reduces the likelihood that the honey will crystallize. I think this also counts as "altering" the honey, so I don't freeze my sold honey either. Again, I'm just kind of curious which of these methods might actually work.

Now, it is one month later, and here are the results:

There was no notable difference between the Old Comb and New Comb honey. However, the sub-categories did seem to make a difference.

The Normal honey has a bit of crystallization at the bottom. You can see the white flecks near the very bottom of the container, but most of the rest of the honey looked exactly as it did one month ago:

The Microwaved honey looked the best, all of it looked exactly as it did one month ago:

The Frozen honey, in my opinion, looks the worst right now. Perhaps the cloudiness is due to the bubbles not settling out of the honey, perhaps it is crystallization. This honey has been out of the freezer overnight:

The Normal and Microwaved honey have been sitting in my living room. During some of the high points over the last month, the living room has reached just over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Perhaps that mild heat helped the bubbles settle out of the honey.

Though the Microwaved honey is the clear winner, I will submit the Normal honey to the San Mateo County Fair because the Normal honey is the honey that I sell.

Backyard Beekeeping Talk at the Brisbane Library

Another beekeeping talk! Come check me out at the Brisbane Library on Saturday, June 14th at 2:00PM.

What: Backyard Beekeeping Talk

Date: Saturday, June 14th

Time: 2:00PM

Location: Brisbane Library. 250 Visitacion Avenue, Brisbane, CA 94005

I'm going to be covering:

• Benefits of beekeeping: pollination, honey, wax and other products.
• Honey bee biology and behavior.
• Caring for your bees.
• Beekeeping equipment: what you need to get started.
• General time, space, and legal requirements.
• Additional resources to learn about beekeeping