Honey-Bee Girl

Bee Yard Pictures!

2009-05-27T21:17:00.000-07:00

Here are some updated pictures of the beeyard!

There are several levels to each beehive. These have a bottom board, then the hive body (where the bees have been working since the beginning.

It contains honey and pollen, but mostly brood and larvae), a honey super (we added this a few weeks ago, the bees will fill it with honey for themselves for the winter), their hive-top feeder (which holds sugar syrup for feeding bees before their nectar flow is strong), and then on top my dad has another honey super stacked for storage (the bees don't have access to it yet.

Once they fill up the first honey super, we'll allow access to the second one, which they'll fill with honey for us!) On top, are the inner and outer covers.

The bees swarm around the hive every single day (if it's not raining) at 4pm. That must be when all of the forager bees return.

My Dad took these pictures today, while I was at work. Thanks for the pictures, Dad!

Allow Me to Catch You Up...

2009-05-23T09:17:00.001-07:00

We have two hives. Hive 1 and Hive 2.

Hive 1 was started back on April 6th with a package of bees. It was frigid and freezing for the next couple of days after they arrived so my dad decided we should go ahead and install them - indoors! It was quite nerveracking, to say the least. Not only was I not used to dealing with bees, but I now had to deal with them for the first time while inclosed inside a garage. Things went rather well, other than the fact that I dropped the queen's cage promptly upon taking it out. For the next few days, bees swarmed around the garage, especially banging against the windows, longing to fly out into the sun. I was very nervous. This wasn't really how it was supposed to work.

So, after a few days, my dad moved the hive outside to it's designated spot, filled the hive up with sugar syrup and left them alone.

It's been six weeks now, and Hive 1 is doing GREAT! They've drawn out all the wax on their brood box and are moving on to the first honey super, the queen is GIGANTIC and active and we have tons of capped off brood, eggs, and larvae. We have some honey, pollen, nectar, wax, everything! Those bees are working like crazy! It's WILDLY fascinating to watch bees. You can get right up next to the hive, and as long as you aren't messing with the hive, they won't even try to sting you. Hive 1's bees seem very docile, as well.

We had some trouble with ants getting into the sugar syrup and we nipped that in the bud by sprinkling borax around the hives and setting them on stands, in water. It seems to have worked.

So far, my dad has been stung 10 times. I haven't been stung once. I'll tell you why.

I never go near the bees without copious amounts of smoke.
I never go near the bees without a veil, and gloves. I can go without long sleeves, etc. But I must have the veil and gloves.
I send the bees love. (Ever seen 'The Secret Life of Bees'?) I love my bees. If you love your bees, your bees will love you back. My dad, on the other hand, calls the bees "beetards." See, it makes a difference.

Hive 2 is a bit different. More on Hive 2 later.

2009-04-06T06:11:00.001-07:00

They're heeeeeeeeeere.

Two Days. O_O

2009-04-03T18:40:00.000-07:00

Really and technically, more like 33 hours. O_O

I'm so sorry for the lack of updates, but it has become apparent to me that I'm quite unbelievably busy all of a sudden. :-O But, I do come bearing pictures! Or one picture actually.

My beautiful beehives!

These are, of course, just the hives. All stacked up. I will only have the lower deep hive body on the hive at first. Package bees are coming in two days, and I'll be getting a nuc in about 30 days. I'm SO EXCITED!! And I'm not readyyy!

I'll keep y'all posted. Maybe.

As Promised!

2009-03-03T13:28:00.001-08:00

What on earth is this thing?

The way they're snapping pictures, I must be pretty cute in it!

Here we are! I labeled the picture to help y'all out. The lovely little dear modeling the veil is my sister. She was happy to oblige.

My dad is going to build the beehives, and we now have all of the wood needed for the frames, and the wax foundation! Hive-top feeders do just that - feed the bees before the nectar flow is strong.

Queen excluders go between the hive bodies to keep the queen from laying eggs in the harvestable honey. And of course, the smoker and veil will keep the bees from stinging me to death!

"Don't you know beekeeping within city limits is illegal?" .... "Yes, and I'm almost sure I don't care."

2009-03-03T12:54:00.000-08:00

This is a desktop wallpaper using a quote and pictures from my favorite (cancelled) show, Pushing Daisies.

Click for the Large Version

I had completely forgotten about this! Isn't it relevant though?

I found this when I started digging through my sister's picture files (looking for my bee supply pictures, which I found by the way and I'm about to post). Apparently she made it back when Pushing Daisies was still on, and in it's heyday. Isn't it great?!

The pictures are from Season 2, Episode 1 - "Bzzzz" and the quote is from an episode in season 1, I forget which. Click the link for the large version to use as a desktop background.

The Bee Stuff Has Arrived!!

2009-02-28T20:20:00.000-08:00

Oh yeah! The bee stuff got here last Tuesday!! I've got lots of great pictures, but they're all stuck on my sister's camera, haha!

(*hint* Sis? My pictures, please?)

;-)

Beekeeping Class - Week 2

2009-02-20T13:29:00.000-08:00

This Tuesday was our second beekeeping class. They moved the class to a much larger room, and this time there was no time for cutting up. The instructors spent the entire two hours cramming absolutely as much information into our heads as they could. We were all taking notes too fast to be joking. ;-)

One thing I learned, or decided really, was that it is better to start with two hives rather than one, so that, you can compare and contrast the behaviors of both hives, and if you experience problems, you can use the other colony to help. I have decided that I'm going to raise two hives now. (Ah!)

Another update, I went ahead and bought all of the equipment I'll need for two full hives. The package bees are coming around April 6th, and I'm going to purchase a nuc for the second hive. This way, I will be able to experience starting up a hive both ways.

I bought my supplies from Bushy Mountain Bee Farm, and it's only the bare essentials (but it's still ex-pen-sive!). My dad is going to build the actual hives. I now feel like I can start a bee colony. I found out the answers to my questions from last week. But, I have no idea how to harvest honey, but I don't need to know that yet, right? ;-)

Beekeeping Class - Week 1

2009-02-11T12:01:00.000-08:00

Last night I dragged my dad along with me to my first beekeeping class at our local Botanical Gardens. He was slightly reluctant, but he came around, because I needed someone to accompany me.

We got to the gardens 15 minutes early, and walked out in the night air for a bit, it was beautiful and spring-like out, and the gardens are gorgeous at night! Well, what we could see of them through the locked gates. We perused the lobby of the class building, walked up random stairs, and got in trouble with security. Nothing unusual there.

When we finally meandered up to the classroom, my dad made himself right at home quickly - the first aspiring beekeeper we met worked at his favorite woodworking store, the second was a lady from our church. Also, of course, we ended up sitting in the "class clown" section of the room, where we fit in splendidly. We spent a good bit of time laughing at the lovely 1970's beekeeping documentary, which featured a woman with giant glasses and a Mickey Mouse sweatshirt. The banter went something like this:

"But Mickey Mouse is timeless!"

...

"That hair isn't!"

Que loads of suppressed laughter.

My dad even made the entire room of 60 people burst into laughter at one point. Ahhhh. It was fun. I love my dad.

Even with all of this going on, we learned a ton, met many new beekeeper friends, and now know what we will be learning throughout the remainder of the class! It's going to be a great, and very informative experience!

This class is from 7-9pm every Tuesday night, from now until the end of March. Which is good, because my bees are coming on April 6th!

I have loads to do before then. Loads to learn, loads to do, and I haven't even bought any of my equipment yet!

Here's what I'm most concerned about.

1. I have no idea exactly what equipment I need. (And I need to figure this out fast, because I'm running out of time!)
2. I am nervous about my colony dying, or swarming away.
3. One thing I'm not really sure about, is when to add extra supers, and how many to start with... etc. Is is possible to give the bees too much room?

If there are any beekeepers out there that would like to answer these questions, by all means, FEEL FREE! Thank you.

So, this marks the beginning of my beekeeping blog. I'll bee updating whenever I feel an update is needed! Thanks for stopping by, and I'd love to hear your comments, whether you're a beekeeper or not. :-)

-Honey Bee Girl

P.S. As author of this blog, I feel I have the right to exercise the use of every bee-cliche in the book. So, you'll bee needing to get used to it. ;)

Bees are Beautiful

2008-12-23T09:46:00.000-08:00

I've already convinced myself of this. Now, in the spring, if I can only convince my girlish reflex to stop being afraid of stinging, crawling things I'll be in good shape.

This is a blog for documenting my beekeeping endeavors.