2013 Chicago Pipe Show

My husband and I just got back from attending the Chicagoland International Pipe & Tobacciana Show which was held at the Pheasant Run Resort in St. Charles, IL. This was our 4th time attending and we had a lovely time, as usual. Pipe smokers attend from all over the world. It was nice to see old friends and to meet new ones. My main goal this year was to buy some decent tobacco, namely my beloved Kingfisher. I did manage to scoop up 3 tins of Kingfisher which was no easy feat as it is no longer imported into the US and it is rather hard to come by. Here are the tobaccos I bought to add to my stash.

From Cornell & Diehl I bought 2 tins of Sunday Picnic, and one tin each of Autumn Evening and Exhausted Rooster. From Iwan Ries I bought 3 big tins of Orlik Golden Sliced and a tin of the new Frog Morton, mainly because it has bits of oak from whiskey barrels in it. I found that rather fascinating. That wasn't all the tobacco I brought back, though. These were free, my favorite price.

4 tins were gifts from friends, and the 2 Sutliff blends and the stuff in the baggie were samples from vendors. Now my tobacco pantry is nicely restocked. That wasn't all the swag I brought back. I bought these cool playing cards which feature all different kinds and shapes of pipes.

This T-shirt was free from smokingpipes.com. They were extremely generous this year, giving away both mens and womens t-shirts in all different sizes, as well as posters and pins. I need to go tell them thank you.

I also participated in the silent auction because, well, I love auctions. I won 2 pipes. This little meerschaum pipe had to be mine because it is the spitting image of my husband. If he wore grapes on his head. You didn't know I am married to Bacchus, did you?

Here's a close up shot without a flash, to show detail.

I also fell in love with this little stylized volcano. I thought it was a very feminine looking pipe with the rounded scallops on the top of the bowl and the shank.

I am already trying to talk the husband into returning next year. It is the type of vacation I truly enjoy, even though I really dislike flying.

My Bargain Norwood Loom

A couple of days ago I was out running errands when I noticed a flyer for a yard sale tacked to a telephone pole. It was close to my home and I hadn't stopped at any sales yet this season, so I turned around and headed back. There were 2 small signs taped to a vehicle in front of the house. I almost missed it. Went inside and looked around. There wasn't much left in the home. It is being foreclosed and the owners are also divorcing. They seemed upbeat and still the best of friends. Anyway I am always looking for sewing items so asked the lady if she had any. No, those things went to her new apartment as she is keeping them. However she did have a loom. Well, I really don't need another loom. I have 2 floor looms already. But maybe it was a table loom? I sold my table loom and rather miss it. No, she informed me it was a floor loom. Curiosity got the better of me and I headed out to the garage to have a peek at it. I immediately recognized it to be an extremely well made loom, of nice solid cherry wood. It was very wide (50" weaving width) but folded up nicely. No, I don't need another loom. I just recently sold my lovely barn frame loom, Agda. Still, I had to ask the price. She thought about it a second and said she couldn't sell it for less than $100. $100!?!!??? Heck, you can't hardly buy a used rigid heddle loom for that. No, I didn't need another loom. But this was such a good deal. Too good, in fact. Rather like an offer I couldn't refuse. I thought if nothing else I would buy it, clean it up and re-sell it. I told the lady I would go home and ask the husband if he would mind another huge loom in the living room. I also needed his manly gorilla strength to get it home. There was no way I could stuff it in the Outback. It would have to be partially dismantled. Long story short, we had the thing in our home within the hour. We had to make 2 trips to bring it all home, but they lived just around the corner. Now I need to clean it up and get it put back together. Here are pictures of the loom from the lady's Craigslist ad. This is exactly how it looked when I found it.

Apparently this is a much sought after loom. Norwood looms are no longer made of cherry and this older style loom is much better made than the Norwood looms currently produced. It has a sectional back beam and chain tie ups. It came with the original manual, extra heddles, a Glimakra swift, warping board and 2 Leclerc shuttles with bobbins. This was my best yard sale find, ever.

Disappearing Queen

Today it got up near 70 degrees F. Perfect weather for a thorough hive inspection. The numbers in my Italian hive have dropped dramatically. The last time I had that happen to a hive I found out they were queen-less. My Carniolan hive is bubbling over with bees. Today's plan is to harvest 4 frames of brood and a couple frames of food from the strong hive. Here is what I had to work with:

The hive in the middle are the Carniolans. To the right are the Italians and to the very left is a box for starting a brand new hive.

I went into the strong hive first. It was easy to harvest brood since the queen had filled up the top super with babies. I double and triple checked the frames I removed, trying to make sure I wasn't also removing the queen. I'm still not 100% positive I didn't. It's like a shell game. Which hive has the queen? The Carni hive looks great. I had to remove their usual oodles of drone comb from the top of the frames and I did not see a single varroa mite anywhere on the larva. That is very good news. At least I am doing something right. 

Then it was time to crack the Italian hive. I swear, that hive can't catch a break. First Nosema and now, as I suspected, they are without a queen. Where did she go? She was there not too long ago. I definitely saw brood when I inspected for the first time after the winter. Who knows what happened to her? And why didn't they just make a replacement? There are queen cups scattered all about the hive but none appears to have been capped. Again, who knows? My fingers are crossed that they will figure out how to make a queen from the 2 frames of brood I just gave them. I tried to buy a queen from Miller's Compound in Roy but she won't have mated queens for 2 weeks.

My last task of the inspection was to try and start up a third hive using 2 frames of brood and 2 frames of food (pollen and honey). That went into the box on the left. Here is what I had when I was finished:

Now to leave everyone alone and let nature take its course. I'll give them time to produce queens, get them mated and start producing brood. Then we will peek back in and see how things are going. I leave you with a picture of this young fella who got separated from his hive.

May all your hives be queenright!

Busy With Bees....Now Some Sewing

Sorry I have been so quiet. I have been scrambling trying to figure out the best course of action to take for my bees this spring. Since discovering the varroa mites I have applied 2 applications of HopGuard, 9 days apart. I was shooting for 7 or 8 days but the weather didn't cooperate. I figure as long as it was somewhere between 7 and 10 days I'll be fine. I will apply one last dose in another week. The screened bottom boards with varroa trap drawers have been ordered, along with nine 8 frame shallow supers. I recently sold one of my spinning wheels so now have the funds to order up the rest of my bee supplies for the year, to include frames and foundation for my new shallow supers, a pollen trap, and a third screened bottom board to use for the new hive I plan to start from a split off the Carniolans. They have proven much gentler than my Italians plus they didn't have the awful dysentery issues that the Italians did. I want to keep those genetics going. Now that things have settled down with the bee girls I had some free time to sew my son's birthday pajama pants. True, his birthday was February 24th. Here they are, better late than never.

A close-up of the mock fly.

It isn't easy to find pajama flannel designed for grown-up guys. This son has always loved spicy food so the jalapeno print is very appropriate. I think PJ bottoms will be my go-to gift from now on. They are quick, easy, and useful. Once I have the pattern tailored to the individual I can sew a pair in a day. Next pair will be for my husband. He's put in his request.

Varroa Destructor Mites

I have finally seen my first Varroa mites, up close and very personal. Because of my recent outbreak of Nosema in my Italian hive I began to suspect the hive was weakened by something. Quite possible Varroa  I hadn't seen evidence of mites for the first 2 years of beekeeping. However it is usually in the 3rd year that colonies run into trouble. That has been the case for my hives. I determined I would dose both hives with HopGuard just to be safe. I also planned to apply more Fumagilin B to both hives. Yesterday I finally got a day I felt was nice enough to make a full inspection of my hives. The plan was to determine if they were queen right, look for mites, take them all the way down to the bottom boards so I could remove dead bees and debris, manipulate the boxes to place empty boxes on top, insert pollen patties, HopQuard and place top feeders with a gallon of medicated syrup in each hive.

I broke into the Italians first since they were the ones I am most worried about. Things look better than I expected. There are lots of bees. They still have quite a bit of honey left which tells me I guestimated correctly by leaving them a box and a half of honey for the winter. No risk of starvation. In spite of the dysentery problem the colony came through the winter in terrific condition. This colony was already down in the bottom 2 boxes. I found some uncapped larva and feel confident the queen is doing her thing. Once I find the brood nest and see baby bees it is my philosophy to not disturb the brood nest further. I don't need to see the queen and don't want to risk damaging her. I placed an empty box on top of the brood nest and the box of honey on top of that. Then the feeder. Before reassembling the hive I removed the bottom board, scraped it off (lots of dead bees and bee poop) then hosed it off with water to rinse off the poop. This hive was not too upset...until I added the HopGuard strips. Then they went berserk. Once the hive was reassembled they settled down quickly and went about business as usual.

On to the Carniolans. They were much more easy going. I repeated the process with their hive. Their bottom board had dead bees and debris but no bee poop. It got a scraping and rinsing, too. This hive likes to build burr comb and drone comb on the tops of the frames. I am actually glad they did because it was while scraping this off the frames (unfortunately killing many drone babes) that I noticed my first varroa. They prefer drone larva so that is often where you first notice them. Imagine having a cat on your shoulder. Now imagine that same cat constantly biting you and sucking your blood. That is what a varroa mite is like to a bee. Look, that one poor drone larva had 2 cats on him.

The HopGuard will help with this mite infestation. Sadly mites are going to be a problem for bees and beekeepers for a long time. HopGuard is considered a soft chemical and is acceptable for use in organic beekeeping. It does not hurt the bees in any way. I will also be using thyme oil in my bee feeders. Apparently mites are repulsed by the flavor of thyme. The nurse bees feed the thyme infused syrup to the baby bees and then they aren't as tasty to the mites.

My hives are now ready for the spring. They are already bringing in loads of pollen on the nice days. I will have to reapply the HopGuard in 3 weeks. That gives the current batch of bee babies time to hatch out so that the HopGuard can be used on their mites, too.

Things are looking very good for my hives. I think I will be getting lots of honey this year.

First Really Nice Day of 2013

Today it definitely feels like spring. The sky is sunny and the bees are out flying like crazy. The sky above my house is filled with happy bees coming and going. Some are visiting my community feeder but most are heading out to feast on the blooms in the surrounding area. I opened up the entrance reducers last night to make it easier for them to get in and out. No more bottle neck at the front door. I just shot this video of the Carniolan hive. You can almost hear them giggling with glee.

I tried to zoom in so you could see all the pollen they are bringing in but the picture got fuzzy so I zoomed back out. Tomorrow, if the weather stays nice, I plan to go into the Italian hive to clean it out, make sure it is queenright and put on a medicated top feeder. Their numbers just aren't what I would expect and I need to make sure it is because they've been sick and not because they are queenless.

Let The Blooming Begin!

It seems spring is springing already. The crocus are blooming and the daffodils and chives are poking up through the earth. Yesterday I noticed my bees were a little more active than they had been. Not only were they visiting the community feeder in my back yard but many of them were heading off, up, up and away. There were many, many bees crowding the front of the hive waiting for their turn to enter because I have the entrance reduced way down for the winter. I knew immediately what this renewed activity meant. Something was blooming. But what? I went for a short walk in my neighborhood and I did not need to go more than 100 feet before I found some likely suspects.

I am not positive but I think those are Pieris. They were in the front yards of 2 neighboring homes. I know what these are. Heathers. They were down on the corner of 48th and Pacific.

And I'll be darned if this doesn't look like a Chestnut tree, but it seems awfully early for that so I'm not sure what it is.

In any event my girls are on the job and bringing in pollen. And where there's pollen, there's nectar. The bees are finding forage. The following pictures are of different bees from my Carniolan hive. They seem to be collecting mostly deep gold pollen which means they are mainly visiting the same plants.

All except these girls, who are carting in some lemon yellow pollen. The rebels.

The Italian bees are bringing in pollen, too, but it is mainly the lemon yellow stuff. This is a very encouraging sign. Pollen in the hive means food for baby bees.