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Christmas – Bees and Wintering

Gimlet — Sat, 31 Dec 2016 20:06:38 +0000

Christmas is one of the four quarter days which mark the changing of the seasons.

The four quarter days are:

Lady day or the Feast of the Annunciation 25th March;
Midsummer’s day around 25th June;
Michaelmas 29th September;
Christmas 25th December – lest we forget. Fat chance.

They all approximately coincide with either an equinox or a solstice.

Equinoxes

An equinox is when day and night are of equal duration. There are two of them – spring and autumn:

Spring equinox 21st March;
Autumn equinox 23rd September.

Solstices

As for the solstices there are two of these too – summer and winter.

Summer solstice (longest day and shortest night) 21st June;
Winter solstice (shortest day and longest night) 22nd December.

Christmas

Nobody knows the day or the month when Jesus Christ was actually born. However, the Feast of the Annunciation falls on the 25th March which is when Christians celebrate the day Gabriel called on Mary to tell her she was to be the mother of the son of God.

Imagine that!

Figure 1. This painting illustrating the Annunciation is by Italian artist Paulo De Matteis (1662 -1728).

Christmas is exactly 9 months after the Feast of the Annunciation. That’s biology for you.

Christmas also coincides approximately with the Winter Solstice on 22nd December. Also known as The Shortest Day. Now there’s cause to celebrate.

Christmas Traditions

You don’t need me to tell you about the ‘traditions’ of Christmas. Suffice to say, it is cruel that we have to bear it in the middle of the darkest, wettest and most depressing time of the year. It’s enough to push you over the edge!

We can never really know what Jesus might think about Christmas traditions, However, we do know what happened when he discovered the merchants had set up shop in the temple, so we can guess:

Figure 2. Christ driving the merchants out of the temple. An etching by Rembrandt (1606-69)

‘But what about the bees?’ says you…

Us beekeepers are fortunate because there is a lot of stuff out there to be getting on with at christmas.

Treat them

The bees should have been fed and treated for Varroa after the honey was extracted at the end of summer. However, midwinter is the time when the queen bees should be off lay and there should be a short broodless period which is ideal for a backup treatment with Oxalic acid. I say should be because it is not always the case especially in a mild year or where they ivy bloomed late. So long as there has been a bit of cold weather – below 15 degrees – and a decent interval since you last saw yellow ivy pollen going in to the hives – Christmas should be perfect.

Click here for how to do that.

Click here for more about Oxalic acid for Beekeepers.

I should add that midwinter treatment may not be necessary if you are confident that the conditions in autumn were good enough to allow your thymol/MAQS to work properly.

Feed them

While you are out there – check the feed status of your bees. Heft the hives to assess the weight and if they seem light put some fondant on. It won’t do any harm and if they need it later – it’s there.

If the bees seem weak and are clustering close to the top of the frames you could choose to remove the crownboard and place the fondant directly onto the bees where they will find it easily. If you do this – add an eke and pack the space around the fondant with old jumpers, sacking or some other cosy stuff.

Don’t put pollen substitute on yet – too early – wait for February.

Apiary Watch

Make sure the hive roofs are weighted down with stones or tied with ropes – winter has hardly started and there could be gales. And there could be animals.

Maintenance

Mend broken equipment. Treat spare boxes if they need it. Make up new stuff but don’t put wax into new frames till spring or it will just lose its fragrance and go all crispy then the bees won’t work it properly – they’ll draw all that abstract stuff with holes and buttresses.

All your equipment, supers, spare brood boxes etc could all do with a good scrape down – propolis flakes off well in the cold weather. Save all the little bits of beeswax you will be amazed how it mounts up.

Click here for how to tackle your beeswax mountain.

Strip down old frames with black, knackered or holy wax. Holy wax is comb with holes in it. Burn the really black horrible wax – use if for lighting fires that’s the only thing it’s good for.

Save the paler, cleaner wax and render it:

Click here for how to render beeswax.

Then do something interesting with it but take care not to set fire to yourself:

Click here for beeswax polish recipe

Click here for beeswax lipbalm recipe

Click here for beeswax handcream recipe

Click here for candle making

Click here for soap making

Wax Moth

If you are storing used brood frames and you know you have a wax moth problem you might like to take this opportunity to treat them with acetic acid. Acetic acid is not the stuff you put on your chips – treat it with respect.

Click here for how to do that thing

There is also a biological control agent from Vita which uses a micro-organism to attack wax moth. The product is called Certan and the micro-organism is called Bacillus thuringiensis.

Click here for Certan information

Christmas Forage

There is very little floral forage out there for the bees at Christmas. This year there is quite a lot of gorse in bloom. In some years there may be the dregs of the ivy. Also some winter garden plants such as Mahonia or even snowdrops.

Ivy pollen is yellow
Gorse is orange/brown
Snowdrops pollen is orange/brown too
Click here for more about ivy
Click here for how to take a crop of ivy honey.

Happy New Year!

The post Christmas – Bees and Wintering first appeared on Beespoke Info.

Beeswax Mountain – Candle Making

Gimlet — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 08:33:42 +0000

Beeswax is a by-product of beekeeping and there are dozens of things you can do with it. Each time you visit your bees and scrape those bits of brace comb off the top bars or the crownboard – instead of flicking them into the undergrowth, save them in a bucket and when you have enough you can render it into blocks of clean wax which can be stacked in a cupboard and in a very short while it will be bursting out the door.

I’ve been doing that for many years now and the cupboard is full of wobbly stacks of it so the time has come to do something with it. The options include the following:

Trade it in for foundation;
Melt it down and make your own foundation;
Make some beeswax wraps;
Make some lip balm;
Make hand cream;
Make soap;
Make furniture polish;
Make candles;
Set fire to it all.

Trading it in is a trouble-free option and you get free foundation. It’s a bit dull though isn’t it?

If you have time on your hands and like a challenge you can make your own foundation. That said – the equipment for this is very expensive. However, you do know where the wax came from and whether or not you need to worry about pesticide residues.

Lip balm is easily made but an ounce of beeswax makes about 10 pots – not a great option if you have that mountain of wax. And you need to worry about pesticide residues too!

The same can be said about handcream and soap.

Soap is exciting! Click here for more about soap.

Furniture polish uses quite a lot but be careful with all those fumes and naked flames. More excitement. Click here for furniture polish recipe.

But candles… now there’s something that’s relatively easy, creative and will possibly help with that small, multifaceted income. That’s what I thought and that’s what I started yesterday – hand dipping those lovely elegant ones.

Here’s a couple of things you need to know:

For candles it is best if you start with cleanish blocks of rendered wax – don’t start this process with a stack of filthy old combs because it won’t work. You need lovely clean wax – any powdery crud in there will migrate to the wick and block it all up.
Beeswax starts to melt at 64 degrees C;
If you overheat it, it will start to lose that lovely yellow colour and go a dingy olive – don’t let that happen;
Beeswax is inflammable – it will spontaneously combust at around 200 degrees C so beware;
Beeswax may react with anything other than stainless steel or pyrex.

Here’s the equipment you’ll need.

Equipment

Plenty of time;
Patience;
Beeswax and a hammer to break it up;
A 10″ candle will weigh about 70grams so you are going to need 70g x (the number of candles you plan to make) of melted strained wax ready to add to vessel A (see below) plus sufficient wax to fill vessel A before you even start. How you calculate this is up to you but you need to bear it in mind because you won’t be able to dip candles till vessel A is full;
Double boiler or waterbath (stainless steel or pyrex) to melt the wax;
Thermometer;
Fine cloth to strain wax – old tights will do the job;
Disposable or disreputable old clothing including tramps shoes because beeswax is the most recalcitrant material known to man and you are going to end up wearing at least some of it;
Candle wick (comes in various sizes) – size 1″ is appropriate for 10″ long candles which are 1″ at the base. Candlewicks suitable for beeswax candles can be obtained from https://www.thorne.co.uk/candlemaking/candle-wick;
A tall pyrex or stainless steel container one inch taller than the length of your candles, something like a spaghetti holder – we’ll call it ‘A’;
A tall tin, such as those which olive oil come in, with the top cut off so the aforementioned vessel will sit into it – we’ll call it ‘B’;
A pan large enough to accommodate the olive oil tin – we’ll call it ‘C’ unless you are confident that your vessel B will take heating without bursting asunder;
A hot-plate which won’t matter if it gets all spattered with beeswax – not the cooker in the kitchen;
Somewhere to hang your candles – a series of nails or pins uptilted so the candles don’t slide off – use your imagination/s;
The candlestick you want your candles to fit into.

Method

Break up your wax as small as time and common sense allows;
Put it into the double boiler and heat till it melts;
Get vessel A into vessel B and add enough water so that when A is full it will come to about 3cm below the neck;
Put nested vessels A and B into C with as much water as is sensible;
Strain the wax through the cloth/old tights into a warmed pyrex or stainless steel pan then pour into A to about 1 cm from the top;
Put the thermometer into the water in vessel B and you need it quite hot to start with but don’t let it get above 80 to be on the safe side. Alternatively just keep an eye on it – you’ll know when it’s not hot enough because it will start to set around the edges and there’ll be a film across the top so add a bit of heat then;
Cut up your wick into the lengths you require plus about 2″ so you can make a loop;
Dip your wicks one at a time into the wax and watch the air bubbles come to the surface;
Hang on your uptilted nails and before they get stone cold give them a bit of a pull to straighten them;
Be organised and get dipping;
After about 4 or 5 dips, roll the candles with a clean, glazed wall tile or a sheet of glass on a clean piece of marble or a floor tile to further straighten them;
Lower the heat, or turn it off even, but don’t let it get much below 70 and don’t let a film form;
Carry on dipping till you get to the diameter you require – test how they fit in your candle holder;
A bulb of wax will build up on the bottom of the candle – trim it off before it cools.

Click here for how to render beeswax

Click here for beeswax facts

Click here for beeswax lipbalm recipe

Click here for simple beeswax wraps

Click here for beeswax handcream recipe

Click here for beeswax furniture polish recipe

Click here for beeswax soap recipe

Click here for beeswax candlemaking

Click here for emergency home dental repairs with beeswax

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