The smallest swarm I have ever caught! It’s going to be interesting to see if I can build this colony up and the overwinter them.
#teenytinyswarm2019
Category Archives: Bee Keeping
Traps set!
Thirty plus trap hives all waxed up and set.
With an unusual ten-day golden week coming up, it’s looking like I’ll be camping at the apiary catching swarms.
Bees Wax 4 Sale
Summer 2019
Our hives do not use ready made foundations making 100% of the wax produced by the our honeybees, there is zero chance of the wax being contaminated with paraffin or soy wax . We do use chemicals in our hives, thus making our wax chemical free. Our wax processed via two methods, Solar in the months of July and August, and steam in in the other months.
Two grades are available for purchase, Apiarist and Cosmetic.
Apiarist
This wax is suitable for use in beehives and products such as leather or wood polish. The wax is deep yellow in colour with some impurities. This wax could used in candle making providing you filter the liquid wax beforehand.
20 yen per gram
Cosmetic
Our light golden cosmetic wax is perfect match for any type of cream or balm.
35 yen per gram
And it starts…
With the warm winter, I expected spring to arrive early.
Sakura trees are budded and ready to explode, but will boom later than last year and this years predicted forecast.
Queen cells are already built in the stronger hives and drone brood looks good…
Trap boxes are waxed up and counting down the days.
Counting down the days.
Floored
And it t
Hebo Matsuri – The Edible Wasp Festival
Black hornet festival
Japan’s most dangerous festival
YOUは何しに日本へ？
Landlocked Gifu prefecture is well known for insect delicacies from soy sauce boiled locusts to the more evil hornet larvae.
Held every year on Culture day (文化の日 Bunka no Hi) the 3rd of November in the small mountain city of Ena this festival attracts over 100 hornet-keepers who bring their boxed hornet nests to be weighed and sold to the public. On TV it’s plugged as Japan’s Most Dangerous Festival（日本一危険祭り Nihon Ichi Kiken Matsuri）, The chances of getting stung are fairly high (as I did) , But in reality it’s not that dangerous unless you are allergic to bees.
The festival starts at 10:00 and runs for around three hours. Festival food like venison and wild boar sausages, sticky rice goheibo mochi on a flat stick and dipped in an adult black hornet sauce are available if you get hungry and can endure the forty minute wait.
If you are a beekeeper or have no problem with little flying insects buzzing around your head, I highly recommend this festival. Just remember to bring your beekeeper’s suit if you want to go in the hornet tent. If you have asthma or hate smoke, don’t even think about the tent, the smoke bombs used are rather obnoxious.
Campgrounds and a hot spring (Onsen) are located nearby if you want to rough it. The Onsen was 600 yen and a refreshing break from the buzzing black hornets.
The night before I decided to stay on the outskirts of Toyota city at a reasonably priced hotel and take a sixty-minute drive to the festival in the morning.
Festival Information
- Festival name: Hebo Matsuri ヘボ祭り
- Date: November 3rd (Culture Day)
- Location: 3146 Kushihara, Ena-shi, Gifu-ken 509-7831
Gear used
- iPhone 7 Plus
- DJI Osmo 2
- Nikon D5000 with 50mm
Friends hives, Un-friendly have
Last year my friend’s beehives were ravaged by hornets, so whenever I have the chance I like to check on them for him during hornet season.
Now, This year’s weather has been pretty much disastrous (lucky us) for the hornets on Awaji Island, torrential rain in spring to hinder the nest building followed by a couple of huge typhoons in late summer which drove the final nail into the coffin for the underground dwelling species. As for the hornets who build up high and dry, well…. Even that practice was no match against the tree uprooting wind and the bucket loads of endless rain
- The Japanese giant hornet (Vespa mandarinia japonica) is called ōsuzumebachi 大雀蜂 which is literally “great sparrow bee”.
- The Japanese yellow hornet (Vespa simillima xanthoptera) kiiro suzumebacho (キイロスズメバチ) the English translation is the same as the Japanese name.
Equipment used
Hard
- iPhone 7 Plus
- Quad lock case
- iMac (Retina 5K, 27 inch late 2015)
Soft
- Adobe Premiere Pro
- Keynote
Catching swarms, Camping out!
Golden Week 2018 consisted of me camping out, catching swarms and playing with my
Kicked Out!
Last year around April the owner of the land my Ayuya apiary lives on decided to kick me off her land. What sucks sorry disappoints me the most is the time I lost developing the apiary, money aside I probably lost close to 1,000 hours of work over three years and only got to harvest one hive.
In 2016 I was lucky enough to overwinter six hives which were due to be harvested the early summer of 2017, But because I was kicked out I needed to move them to a new apiary. Sadly three of the hives did not take to the new area, and two were stolen, yes stolen – seriously! – from the new location.
CLEANING UP! What a BITCH! The job of cleaning up that is, not the land owner 🙂
Man I am lucky to have a fellow beekeeper friend who has a excavator.
All complete!
- Loss of money around JPY400,000 (USD 3,600)
- Loss of time 1,000 hours
- Loss of hives 5!
- Lesson learnt – PRICELESS
Holy honey
Capping honey is the final stage of honey production for the bee. After hours and hours of to and fro flight, visiting an untold number of flowers and the uncountable bee hours of fanning the honey the bee essentially does what the beekeeper does when they bottle the honey, they put a neat little lid on the cell.
Autumn is normally my best haul of the year, spring pales in comparison. So after bumper spring haul, great weather
On this warm autumn, Sunday afternoon I set the goal
The apiary a buzz with yellow hornets (wait …. that’s not good) I cut open the first and biggest hive with my trusty bread knife. The moment the knife enters the hive you know if this harvest is going to be good or bad, the disappointing cardboard sound of the blade cutting through dry
The result of the harvest is below, The other hives I`ll leave for the next spring as the a new hives this year and hopefully they’ll sort themselves out over winter.
