Matt Osborne, Territory Manager – South Central PA & Northwest MD
What inspired you to start beekeeping? How did you get started? I’ve been on a bit of a homesteading kick for several years now. My grandfather kept bees on his farm and I have great memories of eating honeycomb as a child right out of a jar on the kitchen table. Of course, I loved the sweetness of the honey, but I also liked chewing the wax like chewing gum.
How long have you been keeping bees? What was your first experience like? I started with my first hives four years ago.
How many hives do you have? I have two hives.
How do you prepare your hives for the winter What steps do you take to ensure they thrive? Getting them through the winter has been my greatest challenge. My first year, I lost both my hives. I learned through talking to another beekeeper that I needed to start feeding them in early August as the pollen supply dwindles. By feeding them sugar water in the fall, it keeps the bees from consuming all their honey stores before winter. During the winter, if they don’t have sufficient honey stores, you need to feed them dried sugar cakes to help them through.
What’s your process for checking on the health of your hive throughout the year? Throughout the warmer months, I check the health and status of the hive monthly. I make sure the queen is laying eggs, check on the honey supply, the size of the colony, and make sure the mites numbers aren’t too high. Mites can kill a colony if left to grow to high a number. I lost a hive this year to a mite infestation. Now I need to learn how to treat for mites.
What’s the most fascinating behavior you’ve observed in your bees? I find the whole honeybee life cycle fascinating – from the nursery bees feeding and raising the larva and future queen bees to the worker bees building new comb and cleaning up a preparing old comb. There are guard bees to protect the hive from robbers (human, animal or other bees) and foraging bees. A bee fulfills all of these roles until reaching the level of a forager bee. Then, they forage until they are too old to return to the hive.
Have you learned anything surprising or unexpected about bee behavior? During the summer, a honeybee lives 5-6 weeks, but over the winter, it lives up to 3 months to ensure the hive begins anew in the spring. The queen is fed exclusively royal jelly and lives 3-4 years. Royal jelly is a secretion made by worker bees that is used as nutrients for the queen and can be used as a dietary supplement for humans to help with gastrointestinal issues.
Do you have any tips for keeping bees calm and preventing them from becoming aggressive? Typically, you smoke the bees before and while you are in the hive. Some say the smoke calms them. I also have heard it makes them think there is a fire and they tend to the honey and the brood and are not concerned about other outside threats. Either way, it works. When I’ve been in a hurry and didn’t bother making up the smoker, I’ve been reminded why the smoker is needed.
How do you know when it’s the right time to harvest honey from your hives? You only harvest honey when they have made enough to share. You won’t take honey from new hives that haven’t built up a strong colony yet. Usually the second year is when they have built up enough honey to share. Around the end of June, you check to see if there is enough honey to take some. Commercial beekeepers pull honey a second time in August, but I have refrained from taking a second harvest to make sure the bees have enough honey stores for winter. I may harvest a second time once I have more confidence in getting my bees through the winter.
What’s your favorite part of the honey harvesting process? Why? I get satisfaction from helping my beehive to become strong and healthy enough to be able to harvest honey from them, and of course, eating and sharing the honey. The rest of harvesting is a sticky mess with a lot of cleanup.
Do you have any special techniques or tools for extracting honey? I cut and scrape off the caps, then cut some comb out of the frames and put into jars to fulfill my childhood memories. For the rest, I cut and scrape the caps and place the frames in an extractor. The extractor is a large stainless steel tub that has framework to hold individual frames vertically. There is a crank handle on top you turn to spin the frames and centrifugal force pulls the honey out of the combs and it drains from the bottom where you filter and bottle it.
Thank you, Matt, for teaching us about your hobby and sharing your pictures!