Last Day to View Live Beehive Sculpture at the MoMA

Today is the last day to visit Pierre Huyghe's Untitled (Reclining Nude) at the Museum of Modern Art. I went on Monday to see this sculpture in person and it is a beauty. The sculpture is located in the sculpture garden on the first floor of the museum. I love the sculpture garden, it's a great place to get a cup of coffee and just soak in the art around you.

A photo posted by Mimi (@meemsnyc) on Aug 18, 2015 at 11:03pm PDT

I loved this sign that they had on the door right before you enter the sculpture garden. I must say, the beekeeper in me got super excited to see the colony!

A photo posted by Mimi (@meemsnyc) on Aug 18, 2015 at 8:42am PDT

The live colony of bees is meant to be the women's head and brain. The hive and sculpture is placed under a tree in the center of the garden. Can you see it? Look closely. The tree really hid it well, if it wasn't for the sign on the door, I would imagine some people would have missed this piece all together because you couldn't really tell there was a beehive under the tree unless you were looking for it.

A photo posted by Mimi (@meemsnyc) on Aug 17, 2015 at 11:24am PDT

Here is a closer view of it. The bees were so calm. There were a few flying around but mostly they were tending to the hive. I am so proud of the MoMA for taking the initiative of having a live bee colony on the premises of the museum's garden where visitors can see it up close and personal. In an urban environment like New York City, it's difficult to see a beehive this up close unless you know a beekeeper or know where beehives are located. As a beekeeper in Brooklyn, I have had many people complain about my bees being in close proximity to neighbors and the street. But honeybees for the most part are very docile. I know that some people are allergic to bee sting so it does concern certain people. However, honeybees won't sting you unless they feel like the hive is being threatened in any way, so as long as you keep a good distance away from the hive, they won't go after you.

A photo posted by Mimi (@meemsnyc) on Aug 17, 2015 at 12:29pm PDT

Here is a closer look of the sculpture. I was so impressed by it. It really is so beautiful how the honeybees created the wax comb as a perfect oblong head. It was beautiful. I wish this piece could be a permanent sculpture at the museum. See it today, it's the last day! Here is a link about the sculpture.

A photo posted by Mimi (@meemsnyc) on Aug 17, 2015 at 1:53pm PDT

The Queen is alive!

We're more than half way done with this beekeeping season and things are going as well as can be. Here we are inspecting the overwintered hive.

A photo posted by Mimi (@meemsnyc) on Jul 25, 2015 at 4:02pm PDT

At our last inspection, I didn't see any brood, and was so worried that the hive could potentially be Queenless. But, I was so thrilled to see that the Queen is alive and laying perfect brood! Look at this gorgeous deep frame of brood. It's so lovely. We were literally jumping for joy because I feared that the Queen had died. But she is alive and well and doing awesome.

A photo posted by Mimi (@meemsnyc) on Jul 26, 2015 at 7:04am PDT

Not only is the hive doing exceedingly well, they are making gorgeous frames of honey. Just look how beautiful these frames of honey are! I am getting so excited to harvest! I can barely wait!

A photo posted by Mimi (@meemsnyc) on Jul 26, 2015 at 7:27pm PDT

At my second hive, the other Queen is also laying well! We found lots of perfect brood!

A photo posted by Mimi (@meemsnyc) on Jul 26, 2015 at 12:29pm PDT

Here's a close up of one of the frames. The pollen on the bottom looks amazing, and they have capped honey on top. This is beautiful.

A photo posted by Mimi (@meemsnyc) on Jul 26, 2015 at 5:51pm PDT

Even Oscar the kitty was in the beekeeping mood! He's not afraid of the bees at all!

A photo posted by Mimi (@meemsnyc) on Jul 27, 2015 at 4:01pm PDT

Forgot to Post This Beekeeping Day

I have been so busy this month, that I forgot to post this beekeeping day! Last month, on my birthday, I went beekeeping. I was so happy to see that one of the Queens have been laying lots and lots of brood! This makes me super happy!

A photo posted by Mimi (@meemsnyc) on May 30, 2015 at 4:19pm PDT

The hive was super active. This is how the hive looked after I inspected it. The bees were flying around.

A video posted by Mimi (@meemsnyc) on May 30, 2015 at 11:36am PDT

I love these bees! They are so docile! Really happy bees, and very mellow. Which is quite lovely.

A video posted by Mimi (@meemsnyc) on May 30, 2015 at 5:01pm PDT

At one of the beehive locations, the roses are in full bloom. Isn't this just gorgeous??

A photo posted by Mimi (@meemsnyc) on May 31, 2015 at 10:12am PDT

I just love filming these bees in slow motion. I can watch this footage for hours!

A video posted by Mimi (@meemsnyc) on May 31, 2015 at 12:06pm PDT

Beautiful Day to Beekeep

I love beekeeping this time of year because the magnolia tree where my beehive is located is in full bloom! When I arrived to the beehive this past weekend, I was overwhelmed with how beautiful this scene was.

A photo posted by Mimi (@meemsnyc) on Apr 25, 2015 at 11:46am PDT

I did a hive inspection of the overwintered hive and the Queen is laying really well. Perfect brood pattern. My only concern was that on the left there looks to be two supercedure cells forming. I didn't remove them and let the bees do what they do. If they decide to replace the overwinter Queen, I will let them be, to see what they do. They know more about the health of their Queen than I do.

A photo posted by Mimi (@meemsnyc) on Apr 25, 2015 at 6:41pm PDT

Here is a closer view of the brood. You can see that there is larvae in those Queen supercedure cups.

A photo posted by Mimi (@meemsnyc) on Apr 25, 2015 at 8:40pm PDT

I moved the brood box to the bottom and put two more boxes above it to allow the Queen to go up and have plenty of room to lay eggs. I really love how the blooming tree looks next to the beehive.

A photo posted by Mimi (@meemsnyc) on Apr 25, 2015 at 8:16pm PDT

Here is a video of our other beehive in slow motion. I could watch this for hours.

A video posted by Mimi (@meemsnyc) on Apr 25, 2015 at 3:24pm PDT

The bees were building a lot of burr comb, so I removed all of it. I'm so happy the hives are doing well! I'm still feeding the bees sugar water because we are still waiting for the neighborhood to start blooming. Look forward to the next inspection!

A photo posted by Mimi (@meemsnyc) on Apr 25, 2015 at 10:13pm PDT

Installing a new bee package for 2015

Two weeks ago, I went over to my friend Amy's house to check on her beehive. She installed a new bee package on her rooftop hive and it was looking good. Her kids help her beekeep too! I love that. Teaching a whole new generation of beekeepers!

A photo posted by Mimi (@meemsnyc) on Apr 12, 2015 at 11:59am PDT

Then I went over to my hives to install a new package since one of our hives did not survive. My friend Amy picked up the bee packages from Beehive Barn in Cranbury, NJ. This year, I decided to do the gentle install of the bee package instead of pouring the bees out of the box.

A photo posted by Mimi (@meemsnyc) on Apr 12, 2015 at 5:16pm PDT

To do this, you remove the Queen box and put it in between two beehive frames. Then you leave the open bee package box next to the frames in the deep. The bees will come out of the box to find the Queen. This is a more gentle way of getting the bees out instead of pouring them out of the box. Here is the Queen at the top of the Queen box.

A photo posted by Mimi (@meemsnyc) on Apr 12, 2015 at 6:45pm PDT

Here is the hive all installed! In 3 days time, I come back to check that the Queen bee is released from the Queen box by her attendants. They will eat the sugar plug to let her out. We named this Queen George Lee. Long live the Queen!

A photo posted by Mimi (@meemsnyc) on Apr 12, 2015 at 8:29pm PDT

First day of beekeeping season 2015

On April 4th, it was finally warm enough to open up our hives for the first time this season. I was so nervous to see if any of our 3 hives survived. At the first hive, I didn't see any bees flying in and out of the hive. This is always a bad sign.

A photo posted by Mimi (@meemsnyc) on Apr 4, 2015 at 10:27am PDT

I unwrapped the hives only to find frame after frame of dead bees. The whole hive of frames had mold. And on this frame you can see all the bees clustered together trying to stay warm. Moisture and mold killed these bees. I feel so sad. All these frames along with the honey went into the garbage. I don't want to reuse frames that have mold on them. It might be diseased as well and I don't want our new bees getting sick from it.

A photo posted by Mimi (@meemsnyc) on Apr 4, 2015 at 11:48am PDT

We decided that we were going to purchase a new package of bees to install into this hive. Then I went to our other beehive location. I saw bees flying around and already knew that this was a good sign. One of the two hives in this location had survived the winter! What a relief!!

A video posted by Mimi (@meemsnyc) on Apr 4, 2015 at 3:20pm PDT

I was smiling, grinning actually from ear to ear. This makes me sooooo happy! We had a really harsh winter with lots of cold days and snow. So to know that this hive survived is pretty amazing! Here is another video of a closeup of the hive.

A video posted by Mimi (@meemsnyc) on Apr 4, 2015 at 5:50pm PDT

I moved the hive back to it's original location and removed all the tar paper wrapping. So happy to see the bees flying around!

A photo posted by Mimi (@meemsnyc) on Apr 5, 2015 at 7:07am PDT

Frozen to Death

I received an email from my beehost yesterday and it was extremely bad news. This past Sunday, it went up to 47F degrees. And some of the bees ventured out of one of our beehives. But unfortunately, they were unaware that it's actually winter and snow on the ground.

 

 The bees became disoriented and could not find there way back to the beehive. These warm spells are the worst because they get tricked into thinking it's spring and so they will come out of the hive to forage and look for food. But with the snow all over the ground, they become confused.

Seeing all these honeybees frozen, trying to get back to the hive makes me so sad and want to cry. I feel heartbroken. I really hope there are enough bees inside the hive to keep the Queen alive. I almost can't wait until the end of next month to open the hive and see what's going on inside.

Forgotten Spring Photos

I downloaded photos off of my phone and found some I completely forgot to post on this blog. The photos show how amazing the spring flowers are in one of the gardens where we keep our beehives in Brooklyn. Don't these irises look amazing? I wonder if the honeybees like them.

Here's a view from another angle. Way in the back are the beehives.

A closeup of the irises. So pretty!

Closer to the hive are some blooming alliums. I just love these flowers. They remind me of cotton balls!

Here is our other beehive location. The fun part of this location is that we are always greeted by Oscar the kitty who lives at this location. He loves it when we are doing a beekeeping inspection. He watches us beekeep the entire time.

On this day, we also had to build our bee nucleus that we purchased. I've been wanting to raise bee nucleuses for awhile. I finally went ahead and ordered a kit.

And here is the nucleus completely built. It looks awesome! I can't wait to raise nucs!!

A Heartbreaking Inspection

Last week, we installed two new bee nucleuses into 2 of our hives. Therefore, we were excited to do an inspection to check on the status of the installed nucs. A bee nucleus is a miniature hive that you can purchase instead of a bee package. It usually consists of 4 - 5 frames with a laying Queen, and the frames should contain brood, pollen, and honey. I just love the look of the old nuc frames next to the new bee frames in our new hive!

The new bee Nucleus is looking great, the Queen is laying well and there was pollen in the frames which meant they have been foraging well. However, what's not looking great is the green hive. For the 3rd week in a row, we've seen a pile of dead bees in front of the hive. It's completely heartbreaking. We think it's probably a poisoning of some sort, most likely pesticide spray. We thought by now that whatever the bees were exposed to would have gone away from all the rain we've been getting. But seeing this means they are still being afflicted. Not knowing who is spraying makes this incredibly frustrating. Because the bees are obviously feeding on sprayed plants.

We saw a lot of bees on their backs unable to flip themselves around.

I took this video of the honeybee on her back. When I pulled the cover, she was moving her legs trying to flip over, but she did not have the strength to do so.

I filmed the front entrance of the hive as well. The bees in the front were walking around disoriented and shaking their bodies. They don't normally act like this. It makes me extremely sad.

Here is the inside of the hive. More of the same strange behavior. The only thing we can really do is to wait and see if the bees can overcome this. Hopefully there are still enough worker bees in the hive to get all the tasks done in the beehive. Luckily, the Queen is still alive and laying well. Since she is still alive and healthy, we have hope the hive will bounce back. We had pesticide poisoning happen to our hives before in the past and the hive never recovered from it. The numbers dwindled and they didn't make it through the winter because there weren't enough of them to keep warm. Hopefully this is early enough in the season that the Queen will keep continuing to lay and the numbers will go up.

Next, we went to the other beehive location. Fortunately for us, the beehives are doing amazing. The Nucs have a couple of frames of nicely patterned brood. That means the Queen is laying really well. Look how beautiful this frame is.

Here is a closeup of another frame. This was full of bees, honey, and brood.

We spotted the Queen on another frame. This Nuc came with a marked Queen which makes it so easy to find her. None of our other hives comes with a marked Queen. Look how amazing she looks!

After we finished with the inspections, we headed over to the farmer's market which is a few blocks from the beehives. Our beehost told us that they had a farm vendor there that sold free range eggs for only $4 a dozen!  $4!!! What an amazing deal! The farmer's market near my apartment sells free range eggs for $6 a dozen, so this is a great bargain! You really can't beat fresh farm eggs from a local farm. Incredible!

Look at these beauties! Aren't they gorgeous? Now that I know where to find fresh eggs like that, I'll be stopping by here every time I go beekeeping from now on! Score!!! Great find!

Sweet Golden Goodness!

Last Saturday during our beehive inspection in Brooklyn, we looked at the honey super to see how things were going. We were mainly just checking to see if they had built out the wax on the frames. But to our surprise, in just two weeks time, they had literally built out a whole frame of honey! We were astounded! A whole frame of freshly capped honey! Just two weeks ago, this was a brand new frame with new foundation! This is incredible! They are so prolific and fast!

I had to fight ever fiber of my being to not unzip my hood and lick the darn thing. Hahahaha. The smell is also incredible. If you ever get an opportunity to get up close to a fresh frame of raw honey, do it. The smell is so sweet and intoxicating. Counting down the days until we can harvest these bad boys! I can hardly wait!

Raising Another Queen

This week I ordered new front feeders for the beehives because our bees seemed to not care for the top feeder. The ones I ordered are just plastic cap holders that you screw on top of mason jars. At $3 a pop, this will work just fine. I like to use Mason jars as feeders because you can clean them easily and get all the gunk out that builds up when the jars are in the sun.

The main goal for this hive inspection was to look for Queen cups or evidence of a new Queen. At the start of this season, this hive was Queenless. Then we raised a virgin Queen which died. So we moved fresh brood over to attempt to raise another Queen. Since it's still early enough in the season, and we have another hive that is very strong, we decided to take the risk of raising another Queen instead of buying a mated Queen.

When we looked closer, the hive was brimming with activity, so this is definitely a good sign.

The first frame I pulled from the middle of the top box had a Queen cup. Woohoo! And all that spotty brood are drone cells. That means there is a laying working somewhere in the hive as well.

Here's a closer look at the frame. At this capped stage, the Queen should emerge in 7 days, and then hopefully a week after that takes her mating flight. I saw around 4 Queen cells in the hive so the first one to hatch will kill the other Queens.

 

Here's a look at the new blue hive. It's just waiting for my new Nuc to arrive. I spoke to the Beehive Barn and they said with the cold weather we were having this spring, they are about a week late with the Nucs being ready. I am hoping that we can pick up the Nucs the last week of May. I'm eager to get the Nuc installed so that I can get this hive up and running.

Since the day was a bit overcast, the bees were super aggressive when I inspected. I suspect that most of the bees were close to home because they sensed it was going to rain. I actually got stung 3 times! Twice on my legs, (one sting on each leg).

AND... I also got stung on my neck. Somehow, a bee got into my veil and stung me square in the neck. Oh man, did that one hurt! It got pretty swollen and my neck pretty much "disappeared". I get a really bad reaction to beesting. My doctor says I have a mild allergy to bee venom so I carry around a prescription bottle of Cetirizine, which is an anti-histamine that my doctor prescribed for me for times like this when I really need a strong dose to calm the swelling.

After getting stung 3 times, I went straight home to take a relaxing shower. I found a bee stuck on my clothing. She must have been one of the bees that stung me. Poor bee. If you ask me, she got it worse than I did.

Brand New Beehives!

This was a busy week for us. We received our delivery from Mann Lake of our two new beehives. We bought the apiary kit from them, which includes the basics that you need to start a new hive. A bottom board with an entrance reducer, a telescoping cover, an inner cover, and we went with the 4 medium boxes with wooden frames. I prefer medium boxes over deeps as the brood box because I find that it's easier for me to lift when the box is full of wax, brood, and honey. With the addition of these two hives, we now are the proud owners of five hives in total. Two years ago, when I started this beekeeping adventure, I didn't think my passion for raising honeybees would grow to this level. I think any devoted beekeeper would tell you that it's something you can't quite explain until you try it. Maintaining your own hives is an amazing experience. One that I learn from constantly and a hobby I know I will maintain for many years to come.

Emily, one of our beehive hosts wanted the hive to be sky blue. Since neither Paul or I have backyards to keep our hives, we use her backyard as the host location. She picked out the paint and we spent last Saturday afternoon painting the hive. We use an exterior paint to paint the hives to protect the boxes from the elements of being outside. It rains and snows a lot here, so a good exterior paint helps a lot with the inclement weather.

Paul had a great idea to hang the freshly painted boxes on tree limbs in hopes that they would dry faster. I really thought this looked pretty funny. It reminded me of an art installation.

 

Hanging them on tree limbs allowed the sun and wind to hit every angle of the box. The neighbors must have thought we were weird.

We temporarily assembled the hive on top of cinderblock. This hive will get a bee nucleus which is due to arrive in late May. I really love how the color came out.

And here is a view of all three hives in Emily's backyard. I think it looks pretty awesome!

After we finished painting and installing, next we went over to our other beehive host located a few blocks away. When we arrived, Oscar the kitty was there to greet us right away! Oscar lives here and watches us beekeep every Saturday. If you look closely, you can see his "girlfriend" neighborhood kitty in the background. We don't know who owns the girlfriend but she follows Oscar everywhere! He's not very fond of that.

Here's Oscar inspecting my beesuit.

We installed the new hive temporarily next to the older one. Can you tell it's new? LOL. So shiny! We're calling this new hive Oscar's Honeywell.

I did an inspection to see how well the new Queen is laying. We installed this package this spring, so we are keeping a watchful eye on her.

The Queen in the Carlton Reserve hive is laying perfect brood. She has just about filled this entire frame of brood. This is the pattern you want to see in the hive, because it means she is laying in practically ever cell. Pretty awesome!!

Bee Package Installation: April 2014

This year we were lucky. We only had to buy one package of bees instead of 3 because 2 of our beehives survived the cold NYC winter. I truly believe it was because of two factors. The first being that last year, we bought our Queen bee from a NJ Apiary that raises Jersey Queens from wintered stock. Picking winter hardy bees will help your stock survive the winter. We also wrapped our hives for the first time.  I think both of these factors contributed to the hive successfully surviving the winter. We picked up our package at the Beehive Barn in Cranbury, NJ. You can read all about our pickup here! Then we installed the package into the one hive that did not survive.  Installing a package is pretty simple. Keep a water bottle with sugar water handy, you can spray the bees with it to keep them occupied and to calm them down before you pour the bees in. You remove the sugar water can and set it aside. You remove the Queen box, and then you literally shake the bees onto one of the hive boxes. I wrote a more extensive write up about installing bee packages here.

We keep 9 frames in the box to leave room for the Queen box. At the bottom of the Queen box should be a cork plug holding in solid sugar. Remove the cork plug so that the solid sugar is exposed. The worker bees will eat through the solid sugar to release the Queen.

Here is a closeup of the Queen box. At the top, you can see the sugar. Usually, there will be 3-4 attendant bees inside the box with her to attend to her needs. After your remove the cork, place the Queen box between two frames. In a few days, she will be released by the worker bees. We usually go back to hive after 3 days to ensure that she was indeed released.

Here is the deep box with the bees poured in. We usually leave the bee package next to the bee box because there tends to be stragglers inside the box that don't come out right away. If you leave the box next to the hive, they will eventually make their way in.

Here's a view down the block from where our beehive is located in Brooklyn. I think the bees have a great view! Don't you?

As we were packing up and getting ready to leave, I saw this honeybee trying to drink coffee from this cup. She was half way in the cup with her little legs dangling. These bees made a long journey up from Georgia so they must have been really hungry. No coffee for you little bee, I moved her back to the hive to feed on sugar water.