New Products: Boo-Boo Balm and Cracked Skin Salve!

I'm excited to announce a few new items to our shop! 

Boo-Boo Balm

When I was little and got hurt, my grandpa Harvey would pull his "medicine" out of his pocket...an empty chap stick tube...pretend to twist it up and apply it to my "owies." Miraculously, it always helped! The Boo-Boo Balm is lovingly developed with Grandpa Harvey in mind, only this one is not empty! A great overall first aid salve for owies, real and imaginary.

Ingredients: beeswax, olive oil & grapeseed oil infused with calendula blossoms, lavender blossoms, comfrey leaf, plantain leaf, and chickweed leaf, and a bend of lavender oil & vitamin E oil.

Cracked Skin Salve

Available in 1 oz and 2 oz tins, our cracked skin salve is great for relieving dry skin, especially in our dry Minnesota winters!

Ingredients: beeswax, olive oil infused with calendula blossoms, plantain leaf & St. John's Wort, and a blend of pine needle oil, German chamomile oil, lavender oil and tea tree oil.


All of our products are hand made in small batches with beeswax from our local MN honeybees! Your purchase not only helps support local business and the material costs of creating memories with my dad and the bees, but helps us help our little pollinators thrive! ;-)

Thanks for stopping in! Hope you have a BEE-autiful day!

The Costs of Beekeeping

Just for fun, I've been keeping track of every expense I've had so far in this new beekeeping hobby! Now I don't have nearly as many expenses as someone starting from scratch, because I've been able to utilize all of my dad's equipment, including his boxes, frames, feeder pails, smoker fuel, extracting tools, etc etc etc...  So, this is by no means an accurate estimate for what it will cost to start up an operation from scratch! But, I love being organized and find it interesting keeping track of stuff like this.

Also, I've spent money on things not required to get into beekeeping, stocking up on herbs, tools and containers required to turn the beeswax into things like balms, salves, candles, etc.  Here's where I'm at so far for expenses alone, not including my dad's investment in bees last year and equipment over his decades in beekeeping...

2016 - First Season (2 colonies):

$0.00 - Bees - My dad bought the bees this year!
$165.33 - Education - Beekeeping class at the U of M, and a couple books
$165.54 - Equipment - My own smoker, gloves, suit, & hive tool, and oxalic acid & vaporizer
$175.27 - Beeswax Products - Supplies & herbs for balms & candles

Total: $506.14 spent. I believe we extracted around 36 pounds of honey total?

2017 - Second Season (2 new colonies):

$257.10 - Bees - Two 2 lb packages
$110.00 - Education - Beekeeping 2nd year class at the U of M
$205.51 - Equipment - More frames, uncapping fork, refractometer, mite kit, winter patties, etc
$550.29 - Beeswax Products - Supplies, herbs, containers for balms and new salves

Total: $1,122.90 spent. We extracted around 124 pounds this year!

Keeping our fingers crossed that we won't have the expense of 2 new packages of bees next spring...hopefully they'll make it through winter and we can split some hives next year!

There are a few things I forgot to add like sugar for syrup, lighters for the smoker, and olive oil for balms, but this is all pretty close. Once you add in the priceless time spent with my dad out in the fields tending to the bees, you can see why we find our honey to be so precious! :-)

Now how is this honey parceled out? My dad and I split it up...first we give a good chunk to my friends who generously allow us to keep our bees on their property and show up into their yard every week all summer long! Last year what liquid gold was left I hoarded in our house to enjoy personally! ;-) My boys have become pretty accustomed to having honey on Ritz crackers every day as an after school snack, haha! And my 2nd grader's lunch of choice is a peanut butter & honey sandwich he brings to school every day! ;-)

This year I'm loosening my grip just a tad since we got a lot more, planning to give a little sampling to some family and friends as Christmas gifts, and maybe...just maybe...sell a little bit. But we'll see once I get my gifts together. ;-)

Thank you for sharing my fascination with bees by reading my blog! Stay tuned for some new beeswax products coming to the site SOON...as you can see I've invested more this year in acquiring herbs needed to create a couple more products!

Honey Extracting Day 2017!

We extracted honey on November 18th! I know, it's pretty late to be getting to extracting but we stowed away the supers right before my dad went on a 2 month road trip! So, now that he's back we got to harvest the fruits of our labor!

I was there for a little over 5 hours, and when I left there was still honey to be strained. The strainer was getting clogged often and had to be cleaned, dried, and replaced, so that part took a while.  But, we harvested probably 4 times what we did last year so it was a great year!

Here's a video of what we did!

I also didn't blog about one other visit I made to the bees last week...I went in and gave them some winter patties.  Crossing our fingers they make it through the winter! I'd LOVE to be able to split a hive next spring!!

Winterizing the Bees!

Dad is back from his 2 month RV trip, so on October 30th we winterized our bees! Temps were in the upper 30's, and it was windy. Not ideal but still the best weather day of the week, so we figured we'd better get this done as winter is moving in fast all of a sudden!

Beeatrice still seems to be the weaker of the two hives...there were some dead bees at the entrance (though I remember those being there a couple weeks ago when I went to feed them), and there were more bees up under the cover in the top box. They all really stayed inside the hives as we worked.

Penelobee's colony, however, we could hear the roar of buzzing inside as we worked, and they immediately started coming out once they saw the vaporizer coming in their entrance.  There were not many up around the lid so I'm assuming they are down low where they should be.

Feeder pails were pretty full on both of them, which we removed and dumped out, so they've gotten all the syrup they are going to get for the winter!

Here is a video of what we did today!

Our next BIG activity will be the glorious day of honey extraction!! This will happen in November, when we can get a date to get together, so stay tuned!

Hap-BEE Halloween from G's Bees!

Hap-BEE Halloween everyone!

My dad is back from his 2 month RV trip, which means we'll be extracting the honey that's been patiently waiting in his garage at some point here within the next few weeks! Yesterday we treated for mites and got them all covered and ready for winter.  Stay tuned for the movie....as you can see, I've BEEn busy prepping for Halloween! :-) Maybe next year I can convince my boys to dress as bees so I can wear my bee suit. Haha!

Progress pics!

Hope you all have a fun and safe Halloween!

Feeding the Bees - October 5, 2017

Last week I went to feed the bees again on September 27th.  Beeatrice's sugar syrup was only maybe 1" down from full. The holes in the pail lid seemed to be plugged with wax or propolus...not sure if that was an issue, or if the bees are trying to tell me they have enough food! But, Beeatrice is light on food so I tried scraping the lid and getting the holes un plugged, and filled it up again.  I picked up a couple more buckets (and the two empty deeps we need to cover the pails) from my Dad's last weekend.

Today I went to check the bees' feeder pails, and also checked the weight of the boxes to make sure they are getting filled up with honey for winter.  Beeatrice's pail was down about 1/3, so she took more syrup than last time.  Must have helped unplugging the holes! I topped hers off.  The top box was pretty heavy, and the other two light.  Wondering if I should try double feeder pails right on top of the frames...though my dad reminded me that we also want to be careful not to over feed, stimulating the queen to start laying eggs again.  We'll leave it as is for now and see what happens next week.

Penelobee's pail was down maybe 3/4, so she's slowing down a little with taking the syrup.  I filled it up.  The two top boxes were both heavy, and the bottom one light, which is what we want to happen. The bees should start the winter hangin' out in the bottom box, and then will move up throughout the winter as they need food. Here's a video from today!

While I anxiously await my dad's return from vacation so we can extract the honey that's waiting for us, I'll just keep on feeding! Till next time! :-)

Feeding the Bees - September 21, 2017

Today I fed the bees.  Beeatrice still had about 1/4-1/3 of a pail full of syrup, so I topped hers off.  Penelobee's was totally gone so I re-filled hers!  Here's a video from the day.

Day 21 of 21-Day Mite Treatment, + Fall Feeding!

Today marked day 21 of our 21 day mite treatment using MAQS! Now that we're done with the strips, we're clear to start feeding the bees for fall! Today was a quick visit with the bees...I just took off the strips and put on the feeder pails (filled with 2:1 sugar syrup).  Here's a video from today...watch below or click here to view on my YouTube channel!

Checking the Bees: Day 14 of 21-day Mite Treatment!

Today marked the 14th day of our 21 day treatment using MAQS (Mite Away Quick Strips)!  Today's task was simply to remove the old strips (optional, but they get crusty and gross so we remove them), and replace with a new strip.  These will remain on the hives now until next week, when I'll go back on day 21 to remove them and start some heavy feeding for fall!

Scraping off some extra wax

Nice ball of wax today from inner covers and a few frames!

Here's a video of what I did today!

Bee sure to stop in again next week! :-)

Minnesota State Fair!

If you live in Minnesota, you have to go to the state fair. And if you are a beekeeper, you of course have to check out the honey and bee exhibits!

 
As an artist as well, I of course love to check out all the bee themed art! This year it was SO fun to see this gorgeous piece, done by my very talented niece, Lucia!!

And speaking of art, inside the Honey and Bee building there is a painting that has been hanging there for as long as I can remember, painted by my mom, of my dad! 

Painting by my mom Rollie Brandt of my dad, Phil Brandt

Mom says, "Yup a professor bought that original for $100 and donated it to the fair. They hang it every year! That was back before Dad could afford a full bee suit! He just had the hat!" We always stop and check out Dad hanging on the wall in the bee building!


It's always such a cool sight to see all the beautiful jars of honey on display!

 Gotta pose in the photo cutout boards....awe, my boys are such good sports!

Next year I hope to actually enter some art in the fair! This year I was out of town on entry day, so hopefully 2018 will work out! :-)

August 25th - Removing Supers, Counting & Treating for Mites!

Today was a big day of beekeeping tasks! We had three things to accomplish today:

1) Remove all the honey supers
2) Count mites (so we know if our treatment works)
3) Treat for mites

We only counted two mites on Beeatrice's sample.  Penelobee we saw one blob that I'm not certain was a mite, so we'll say we had 0-1 on her sample.  We spent two hours with the bees today...it was nice that we had cooler temperatures today and the bee suite actually felt good!

The bottom honey supers were pretty empty...they didn't fill those in like we had hoped over the last few weeks.  But, we still will end up with a lot more honey than last year! Dad will take the frames home and store the frames until we are able to extract the honey later this fall, and now the bees will have some time to build up their winter stores.

Me and Dad! Photo credit: my mom, Rollie Brandt!

Here's a video of what we did! I wish you could hear the buzz of the bees this week, but my GoPro waterproof case blocks the mic a bit too much. I put in a little music though this time so you don't get bored, haha!  Enjoy!

Stuff Bees Do: "Washboarding"

Nobody really knows why bees do this, but it's called "washboarding." They gather on the outside of the hive box and move forwards & backwards.

Stuff Bees Do: Sting

Here's a short little clip of what happens to a poor honeybee when they sting you! Rest in peace, bee! (warning: graphic!)

Honeybee face and body painting!

When you have multiple passions in life, they are bound to overlap now and then.

I work as a face and body artist, and often times I mix that with my love of bees! If you pop over to my other Paintertainment business blog, you'll see that this year I've been posting a painting every day, that coincides with whatever national or international day it is.  Well, "International Honeybee day" is coming up on August 19th, so I did this little painting on my leg today for that!

Back in July was "Don't step on a bee day," so I painted a smashed bee on the bottom of my foot!

I also did a honeybee themed design for a spring themed online competition a while back, and won first place! Here's that design on myself...

Here's another little cheek art design I did this year...I love doing cartoony cheek designs!

I also do henna! Below is a honeycomb design I did on myself!

 And no, this is NOT dangerous black henna...just looks dark in this photo in my dark living room with the Instagram filter! ;-)

So, who knows, maybe someday I'll get to do a honeybee themed full bodypainting! Until then, I'll incorporate them into whatever I can!

As for the bees, we're planning to check on them next week.  Hopefully they are busy filling and capping honey in the supers so we can take them off next week, and let them focus on filling up their stores for winter!

August 5th - Just Looking!

Today we checked the bees between 11:30 and 12:00.  It was sunny and 70 degrees. The bees seemed happy and weren't bearding as much as hotter days!

Today we really just looked. It had been a little while as I was out of town on a road trip for 10 days.  We decided not to take out any full frames as there were still some empty frames in the boxes from our last visit, so there is still room for them to build more comb and finish filling & capping other cells.

We're going to leave them "bee" now until late August, when we'll start pulling off full frames, do a mite check and mite treatment, and then give them time to really fill up those deeps for winter food stores!

My Smoker Fuel "Cocktail!"

Last year, which was my first season doing bees, my Dad had his hip replaced, which meant I had to "go it alone" for a while.  Nothing makes you learn how to use enough smoke on your bees like going alone as a newbie! I was so worried about giving them too much smoke...for weeks I'd end up walking around the field when I was done for 30-45 minutes trying to get the bees to stop attacking my veil. (I couldn't just hop in the car in my suit because my two little boys were in the back seat!). Needless to say, I quickly learned how to get my smoker smoking, keep it smoking, and use enough to keep the bees uninterested in me!

Here's my favorite smoker "cocktail!" A mixture of cedar shavings, dried pine needles, and some commercially sold fluffy "smoker fuel" from my dad!  One year we put our Christmas tree on the side of our house on a gravel pad and kindof forgot about it for a while.  It dried out, needles fell, and then when we had a huge rain, all the needles washed nicely into a big pile! Score! So I filled a gallon ice cream pail with dry needles and now use them in my fuel!  The cedar shavings I got cheap at a pet store.  The fluffy stuff is some smoker fuel my dad had purchased previously, and I mix them all together for some awesome smoke!

  

One of the many little tips I learned while taking the beekeeping courses at the University of Minnesota is to set the smoker on it's side, on the bellows, when you're lighting it.  The bellows act as a pedestal, holding the smoker at a great angle to spread out and expose your fuel, allowing you to stick your lighter in there and get it all going!

 

July 18 - Full Frames!

75 degrees and humid today! We made it out just between rainfalls.  We removed 10 frull frames of honey from Beeatrice and 5 from Penelobee, replacing them with some new frames.

July 11 - Washboarding

It was HOT and sunny! There was some washboarding going on with Penelobee's colony.  Lots of capping is going on, but none are quite full yet.  We added another super to each.

July 4 - Capped honey!

It's the 4th of July and we started the day by checking on the bees!  We added a 3rd super to the top of Beeatrice's stack, and a 3rd super to Penelobee's between the two that were there.  Both colonies had honey in the supers and bees up in the top box!  We saw some capped honey in Penelobee's frames as well. Didn't dig into the deeps today...

June 20 - Adding a deep and supers!

Today was 63 and sunny! We added a 3rd deep to Penelobee (now they both have 3) and a 2nd honey super.  Added two honey supers to Beeatrice.  Bees were up in both covers so they are movin' on up!

June 13 - Mite Quick Strips

This week it was just my Dad checking the bees, so I wasn't there to film.  He put on some mite quick strips, and added one honey super to Penelobee's stack (left).

June 1 - Reversals & Entrance Reducers & Mite tests, oh my!

It's June! In this week's video you can see our first attempt to use the mite counting kit!

Beeatrice - doing well! We did a reversal and removed the entrance reducer.  Did our first mite test, and maybe found 2? Hard to tell! We added some sugar syrup. Need to weed whip next time!

Penelobee - Not quite as strong as Beeatrice.  Didn't do a reversal.  Found maybe 2 mites?  Didn't add sugar syrup...removed the entrance reducer.

May 22 & 24 - Finally adding more sugar syrup

I don't have a video yet from these days...

May 22nd was 63 degrees and sunny, and we checked at 2:15 pm.  It's been too cold and rainy to check on them until now! Beeatrice (Right) - didn't see any eggs but larvae and capped brood, and removed some moldy looking pollen pattie.  Now taking syrup...need to add more! I added a little, 1/2 to 1/3 full.  Need to go make more....

Saw Penelobee (left) and larvae in top box.  Same story with pollen and syrup.  Turned and shifted some frames but 6-8 frames were being worked below.

May 24th I went back to give them some fresh sugar syrup and wipe out the buckets.

May 2nd and May 8th

Here's a video from May 2nd and May 8th!

May 2nd was 60 degrees and sunny. We saw eggs, larvae, capped brood, pollen, new honey and comb! We turned the entrance reducers to the next largest hole, and added a second brood chamber to both colonies.  Both still had plenty of sugar syrup in their buckets, and we saw lots of pollen coming in!

May 8th was in the mid to high 60's, sunny and windy.  We saw eggs, brood, and larvae in both, and spotted queen "Penelobee." We gave both colonies a new pollen pattie...sugar syrups still full.

April 17 - Checking the Bees

Today was 47 degrees and sunny, and we checked the bees at 11 am.  We didn't spot either queen this week. Both hives had eggs, larvae, and capped brood.  Only added 1/4-1/3 pail of syrup to Penelobee's.  They are still cleaning out the honey we left from last year's bees.  We scooted some bee clusters towards the center and flanked them with 2 honey frames that were out of reach.  Didn't see pollen coming in...they are eating the patties and building some new comb!

April 11 - Week 1: Checking for Eggs

Today we checked for eggs to make sure the queens are doin' their thing!

We checked the bees at 3:00 in the afternoon...it was sunny and 49 degrees.  We saw eggs in both hives, on the frames that we had installed that had drawn come and honey in them.  Some new comb was being drawn.  We spotted queen Beeatrice this week!  Added a little sugar syrup to Beeatrice's feeder pail. Didn't add any to Penelobee.

April 4 - Installing the Bees!

Today we installed our package bees! Here's a video of how it went!  We gave the bees a little jump start with some honey filled, drawn comb from last year's bees.