Honey Bee Update

My adventure in Bee Keeping has been such a JOY! I've enjoyed every single thing about learning about a hobby that I knew NOTHING about until this year. Now that I have brushed the surface in my research, I am so fascinated. I get so giddy excited when I spy a honeybee here on the property while she is working (Only females are the worker bees, Did you know that?). The kids are the same way..first they see a honeybee, then they squeal with excitement, then they yell "Mom I see one of our honeybees!!" Seriously it's so gratifying to see them get to excited about such little things. 

 

So this post is to bring you all up to speed on what I've been up to while visiting the hive over the past month. In these first pictures you will see the children devouring whole comb raw honey!! They were SO EXCITED, THRILLED, OUT-OF-CONTROL CRAZY HAPPY people when they heard me announce I had some honey for them (of course I was included in all those reactions as well.) Here is the little story on how we got honey already: It was time for me to add on the second deep (brood) box to the hive and apparently no one told my bees the "rules" of building comb. They built the comb up above the frames, making it impossible to add the second box. So after consulting someone who actually knows what they are doing, I smoked them down into the hive, scraped off the extra comb (which was filled with honey!) and brought it in to share. 

My plan was to take some picture of their comb building extraordinaire, and I was thrilled upon discovering we would actually get to try some honey. I took my camera out and was prepared to capture this all on my camera. I turned on my camera, got it all focused (remember I'm all suited up with gloves and all), with the perfect shot ready...then I read "NO MEMORY CARD" on my screen. Yep...tis' true.

 

 

 

 Fast forward a couple weeks, I wanted to check the hives for eggs, capped brood, and emerging bees. I really wasn't positive that I would know what I was looking at, but I thought I would at least try. I was so happy that I could actually see all the things I was looking for in each hive! My queens are doing their job. This information was thrilling! I know the picture is horrible....but I was trying to hurry. You can see they had one again built the comb up a bit above the frames. The first time is was extreme.

 Again the quality of picture is so terrible! I was a little anxious about trying to make out each item I was looking for, not lose the queen, make the bees mad, etc. I just wanted you to get a very general look at what the frame looked like. This entire frame was all capped over with brood (new bees) and honey.

 Fast forward a couple more weeks, I was now told I'm ready to add my honey supers!  This is the honey the bees make that is mine to keep. Up until now they have been solely making honey that they will eat on during the winter months. Both of my lower deeps are not 100% full, but both of them are at about 70%. Even though I just installed the package this Spring the dry weather, and with the honey flow being so great, I was told my hives being very diligent I just might get some HONEY THIS YEAR! I also have discontinued feeding them their sugar water mixture for those same reasons I list I listed above. I am hoping that since more and more flowers are blooming, and things in the garden are flowering, that the bees will have plenty of things to pollinate and keep them nice and busy making honey!

I'm linking up to Homestead Revival's Barn Hop this week...go check it out!

Hive Update....

It was time to make another trip to the hive today. I needed to once again check on my "queen status" and replace their sugar water. Today it was Zach's turn to be my helper.

 This was only the second chance I've had to use my smoker....I think I need more practice. Each time it goes out on me before I get done with my first hive.

Here I am putting the smoker to use, well I'm trying to anyway, it's not really smoking well.

I took out the case that's holding the queen and Zach is holding her while I take out the old sugar water container. He likes checking her out. Neither of my queens were out yet....I cleaned out a little of that "candy" I told you about and she should be out by today I'm hoping.

Here we are taking out the old sugar water container (which was empty) and replacing it with a new one. The bees needed a little convincing from my brush to get off of it. Zach wanted to be right in on the action. I love that all the kids seem to be very interested in helping at the hive.

After replacing the sugar water, I went to put the queen holder back in and it dropped all the way to the bottom....opps! In order to get it out I had to remove two frames and then grab it. It actually worked out great because I got to admire all this beautiful white comb they have been busy making! (It's not the best shot but I was trying to juggle the camera, not smash any bees, and take picture while thinking about how to fish my queen out of the bottom of the hive.) You get the idea , right?

I will need to check once again tomorrow, just to be sure my queens are out, if not I help them out by removing all the "candy" that is left. I'm ready for her to be out in both hives and start growing the hives. ONE QUICK NOTE: I was so excited that I got to see one of the honeybees from the first hive I checked had came back to the hive with it's little pollen pocket full. Zach got to see him too!
What a thrill that was! I got to see it on a Documentary called "Tales of the Hive", but it was way more thrilling to see it in person! Great in detail documentary by the way..I would highly recommend it
it to a new beekeeper or to show to your kids for schooling purposes. I got a copy from my local library.

BEE Mama....

On Sunday, I became a BEE Mama....yep that's right my bees finally arrived for me to take home! As soon as we got home I got all suited up (with my helper) and went to work installing my bees. 

Here is a little play by play (photos taken by Justin)

BEE MAMA=ME

 Me and Lance my hive helper

 The first things I did was remove the top wood panel and take out the sugar water can.

 I tried to get the queen package out right away but there were just to many bees, so I shook some of the bees out first. Sounds easier than it was...

 Now I remove the Queen package from the box and remove the plug that is over the "sweet candy". Now the workers bees will eat through that candy to let the Queen out. This can take 3-5 days. During that time the bees will get used to the Queen and realize she is their leader. If you introduce the Queen right away they would kill her immediately.

 In this picture, I am inserting the Queen between two frames. The queen package needs to face up so she can crawl out once the bees eat through the candy.

 I put in their sugar water feeder, then I'm done with the first hive.

 Now it's 4 days later (today)....and it's time to check the hive once again.

 #1: To see if the Queen has been released. #2 To check their sugar water supply

I took yet another willing helper to the hive with me...Caleb wanted to go this time.

 This is what we found out.

 #1 The queen was still inside the holder in both hives.

#2 They have enough sugar water to last them another 2 days in both hives

The little white tube looking thing is where the Queen. They all gather around her, they are attracted by her scent, and feed her while she is in there.

 Here is the sugar water feeder, which is their main food source right now. It is an equal mix of sugar to water.  The young bees won't leave the hive much until the temps reach 70 degrees. Also there are not many sources of pollen for them to eat right now. They do enjoy dandelions....which is why we didn't spray our yard this year kill them. The pesticide would also kill my bees. (Which I never realized till bee school). It is something to consider if you have honey hives near you before you spray any kind of pesticide at all.

 Both hives seems to be very active and healthy at this point. I even saw that each hive is building their comb already!! Yahoo that's what we want!

 There isn't a ton of action at the entrance of the hive at this point. We did see a few bees coming back to the hive, and a few guard bees patrolling the area. I hope within the next couple weeks as it warm up more we will see some traffic jams at the entrances because everyone will "bee" working hard!