8/17

We woke up earlier than usual to work with the bees in the morning. However, our effort in waking up early were all in vain as we could not start working with the bees right away due to the rain; the rain makes the bees testy. While we were waiting for the rain to stop, Kwao told us about his beekeeping experience in Vermont using langstroth hives.

Things I learned from Kwao:

• In Vermont, people only work with the bees part of the year when it is warm, and leave the bees on their ownduring the long winter. In comparison, beekeeping in Jamaica is done all throughout the year because it is warm all the time.
• It is better for the bees to have a super cold winter rather than a warm winter. During warm winters, the bees can get confused and wake up from their hibernation and eat up all of their honey.
• In langstroth beekeeping, all of the drones are eliminated by killing them off and poking the drone cells with aneedle to make sure that all of the bees in the hive are worker bees. Langstroth beekeepers try to eliminate the drones because they serve less functions than the worker bees. While the worker bees collect nectar, pollen, water as well as nurse the larvae, circulate air throughout the hive, produce wax and build new combs, the drone just stay in the hive and eat up the honey. The primary function is to provide sperm for the queen. Thus one problem with killing off all of the drones is that it decreases genetic diversity and can lead to inbreeding.
• Beekeeping in the US can be very tough as majority of the pollen and nectar collected by the bees come from GMO plants, making the bees more prone to colony collapse disorders.
• In langstroth beekeeping, the combs are saved afer harvestug of honey and reused for many years. This prevents the wasting of honey to build new combs over and over again during each season, but it also creates a toxic environment for the bees as fecal matter, pupae skeletons and bacterias build up in the cells. In comparison, in top bar beekeeping, the combs are harvested along with the honey and the bees are obligated to make new combs every season.

After it stopped raining, we tried to move the bees in the smaller hive into the bigger hives that Joshua and I had cleaned out after they had been robbed. Later in the afternoon, we went to the upper apiaries again to transfer the swarm we had caught yesterday in to a small hive. We also strengthened the weak hives by increasing their population by adding combs from brood nest of other hives.

8/16

Everyone had a late start today because we were all tired from yesterday's bee fair. Emma and I made feed after lunch by mixing cane sugar with water in a 1:1 ratio. We need to feed the bees because it is dearth period right now and they are having trouble finding food. Then later in the afternoon, Kwao, Emma, Joshua and I took what we made to one of the upper apiaries to feed the bees and to inspect them. During inspection, we look to see if te queen is laying eggs, because if there is no queen, the hive will die out. We also add spacers in the brood nest so that there is enough space for the bees to keep building new combs. This prevents crosscombing, which happens when the bees draw their combs at wierd angles to the top bars, which then causes the combs to drop and break when the hives are opened. We also inspect to see if the population in any of the hive is getting too large. If the population becomes too large, the bees in the hive can make a new queen and warm. The bees in the upper apiaries are doing better than the ones in the lower apiary. Their hives have a lot more honey that are ready to be harvested and their brood nests (part of the hive with eggs, larvae, and capped cells that houses pupae) are bigger. This is partly due to the fact that there are more fruit trees higher up in the mountains. It is also partly due to the fact that since Kwao hurt his leg, the upper apiaries have not been inspected in a while, allowing the bees to keep their honey and use it however they see fit. During the inspection, Joshua spotted a swarm and we caught it in one of the empty top bar hives. At first I was afraid to disturb the clump of bees on the tree, but I learned that bees hardly ever stings people when they are trying to catch a warm because they want to find a new home quickly. On our way back, Joshua wanted to eat ginnips so we stopped at a ginnip tree to pick the juicy fruits off of it.

8/15

Today I went to a bee fair. It was a five hour long car ride each way, and we left really early in the morning. At the fair, Agape got a lot of people intrerested in starting top bar beekeeping by giving mini presentation using the demonstration hive that Enoch, Kofi, Amanda, Deja and I had helped prepare thte night before. From Agape's presentations I learned a lot about top bar beekeeping:

• Top bar beekeeping is more affodable compared to langstroth beekeeping because while a three story high langstroth hive costs $15000 to build, a five foot long top bar bee hive only costs $2000. Thus you can make roughly 7 top bar hives with the amount of money to make one langstroth hive.
• Top bar  beekeeping is more women friendly as it does not require heavy lifting that the langstroth beekeeping requires.
• More wax is collected from top bar hives than langstroth hives.
• A top bar hive tends to produce less amount of honey compared to a langstroth hive, but even if you can only collect 80% the amount of honey that you would collect from langstroth hive, you can build 7 times the amount of hives so overall, it leads to greater honey production.
• No foundation is necessary for top bar hives. Thus bees can produce more natural combes with the right sized cells, which leads to healthier bees who are more immune to diseases.

Overall, I learned that people in Jamaica are very friendly and nice. For a small fair, we were able to get a lot of poeple interested in top bar beekeeping. I also got to see other beautiful parts of Jamaica during the ten hour car ride.

8/14

Today we made wax from the bee hives we had collected from the robbed hives the other day. We first seperated the dark combes from the light combes so that we can make wax with different colors; the wax made from dark combes have a dark yellow color while wax made from light ones have a creamy color.Then we boiled the hives with water in a pot.Then we put the boiled "hive stew" in a pillow case that was thrown over a plastic bucket with a hole at the bottom to filter the substance. I added pressure onto the pillow case to drain out the wax from the combes throughly. After filtering, it was cooled for it to solidify.

Later during the day, I cleaned out two robbed hives. Joshua helped me carry the two 5 feet long top bar hives to the compost sight so that I can dump out the dead bees. Then I wiped down the inside of the troughs and the frames with lemon grass so that the "war/attack mode" phermones of the bees that they had emitted when they had been robbed could be eliminated.

8/13

I started making candles with beeswax that were collected and filtered from the beehives. We can make regular candles with nothing added, colored candles, scented candles, and colored and scenteed ones.Personally I like the regular ones the best because they smell like honey even with doing anything to them. To make the candles, I first had to wick strings through the silicon candle molds using wicking needles made from my hair pins. Then I melted the beeswax and poured it into the molds. Then they had to be cooled before the finished candles could be pulled out from their molds. Through the candle making process, I learned that patience is a golden virtue that is highly desirable when making them. I broke so many candles because I was too impatient and pulled the candles out of their molds too soon before they had completely solidified.

In Jamaica, you learn things by getting hurt. I learned that I should not take hermit crabs lightly, when I picked a big bright red and purple one up and got pinched by it to the point where my thumb was bleeding. I learned that  I should never touch trash cans with my bare hands when my hand was bit all over by fire ants that crawl all over the smelly bags. I also went swimming at the beach for the first time. It was really refreshing, and I also had a lot of fun playing various games with the boys. But also got pricked by sea urchines and learned to never go into the water without wearing sandals. I also learned to never touch the mosquito nets placed above my head when the fans are moving when
I tried to cover one of the holes with a towel and cut my hand when a fan blade hit it. I am never this clumsy at home but I think I'm a magnet for danger here in Jamaica.

I also went into the hives for the first time today. We went once in the morning and once in the evening to place feeds we had made the other night night by mixing brown sugar and water. We have to put feeds in each of the hives because right now there is a scarcity in the amount of nectars/food that the bees can collect right now. One big problem that occurs as a result of such scarcity, is the robbing of hives for honey by robber bees. When we went to inspect in the evening, we found two hives that had been robbed. It was not a pretty sight as all of the bees in each of the hives were completely murdered and chewed up by the robbers. It looked like a mini aftermath of hiroshima as I saw piles of black carcasses that looked as if they had been charred up at the bottom of the hive trough and or stuck on the combes. I also saw one hive that had been infested with wax eating moths. Their larvae were crawling all over the place and the combes were plastered with webs that they produce. Other than the wax eatig moths, other predators of bees include spiders (that eat bee larvae) and termites (that suck the blood of the bees). Joshua showed me one drone bee with a red termite on its butt; I learned that termites like to infest on drones more than worker bees because drones have bigger bodies and it is easier for them to reproduce in their big cells. When I went to inspect the hives in the morning, I learned that there are three types of bees in each hive: worker bees, drones and a queen bee. Worker bees are all females without reproductive functions and they are also a lot smaller than drones. They nurse the larvaes and also collect water, nectar and wax. Drones are males bees and are alot bigger than worker bees. They cannot sting people as they lack stingers; the worker bees and the queen are the only ones with stingers. The queen has a longer abdomen compared to drones and worker bees, and young queens have lighter colored bodies than older ones. The healthier younger queens also can lay more eggs than older ones;  the difference can be as great as 800 and 3000 eggs per day. The hives with younger queens have brooding nests that are more packed with eggs and larvae, and hives with older queens create brooding nests that have lots of empty cells inbetween each egg/larva cells. Next time I will make sure to wake up early so that I don't have to work in the sweltering heat.

8/12

I woke up to the sound of waves crashing ashore nearby, which made me realize that I was really in Jamaica. I had expected to have trouble sleeping from jetlag, but as soon as I had gotten into bed lastnight, I completely blacked out and did not wake up even once throughout the night. Because I had only arrived yesterday, Agape did not expect much from me today. Thus it was a pretty easy day. After eating breakfast, jetlag hit me so I took a nap in the hammocks until noon. After eating, I had to go to Anotto Bay to get a cell phone for myself so that I can call my family anytime. Then Emma and I visited Strawberry Field, which is right next to our farm, to get access to wifi so that we can start our blogs. I am slowly starting to adapt to the Jamaican slow rythem of lifestyle. It is so quiet and peaceful here and it feels really nice to get away from the rushed lifestyle that I live in back at home. Jamaica is a perfect place to take a moment to stop and relfect on myself and my life.

8/11

After arriving at Kingston's Norman Manley airport, I got picked up by Kwao and Emanuel. It was already dark outside and the 90 min. car ride to the farm felt like the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland.  We were going pretty fast up and down the narrow roads in the mountains, dodging cars and huge holes in the road. With the windows down and the chaotic noise of countless cars honking at us, it felt exactly like the ride. However, even with the thrill of the ride, I was half asleep in the car as I was tired from the long hours of plane flight. Travelling to Jamaica  from Japan had probably taken at least one whole day with four transfers inbetweeen, and had completely drained my energy out. After arriving at the farm, I was greeted by the rest of the Adams family and two other interns Emma and Hannah; Emma is from California and Hannah is from New York. I will be sharing rooms with them during the internship. While I ate dinner, I was attacked by mosquitoes and I deeply regretted the fact that I started taking the goldenseal capsules only three days before leaving for Jamaica instead of a week before; my blood is probably not bitter enough to ward off the bloodsuckers.