Tuesday, April 20, 2010

My husband the bee keeper....


For a couple of years now Brian has wanted to take a bee keeping class.  I talked him into taking it a while back, and he was stoked!  We decided to start with two hives since it is the same work as one hive.
Here is what the hives look like pre-bee....actually those frame things take up the entire inside.  He took a few out to put in the new bees.

Here is Brian and one box of bees.  This box has 3 lbs of bees, and there are approximately 10,000 bees in this box.




I am not to be left out....I have my own box of bees, and some of my bees were on the outside of the screen!  It is a good thing I love bees.
 






We spray sugar water into the hives so the bees will go straight to feed when we dump them out of their cages.  Yep, we literally dump them out!

 




Here is the box of bees....see that little tiny box attached to the top?  It is the cage with the Queen.  



Here is better perspective of how small the cage for the Queen is.  We take the cork out, put in a small marshmallow, and she feeds from one side and the workers feed from the other side.  By the time they meet in the middle to free the Queen, they have got to know her and are less likely to kill her.
 

We put feeder jars at the opening of each hive, and for now we had to stuff grass in the rest of the opening to help keep the bees inside.  The ones that escaped work their way thru the grass to get inside.

We are almost ready to put the lids on the hives.  We are putting a food patty in there...it is mixed with pollen and other yummy bee stuff.  They will feed off that and the sugar water for a while until the plants start producing lots of nectar.

We will check on the Queen tomorrow to make sure she got out of her cage.  If not, we let her out.  I can't wait until we open them up because I want to see what the workers have been doing.  I wish I could have taken the class with Brian, but I had something else going on that day.  The life of bees really are fascinating!  This year our goal is to help both colonies be strong enough to make it thru the winter, then next year will be our first honey year.  I am very excited!

Until later....Karen and Brian the bee keeper, and Tripp who is the mustang bee keeper!  Ha ha!
By the way, I don't like wearing things like the net thing we have on...it is called the Bug Baffler...and I told Brian I didn't need it because I am the bee whisperer.  :-)  He made me wear it anyways.  Ha!


3 comments:

Michelle said...

That was facinating! Thanks for all the details. =)

Angela said...

Thank God Brian made you wear your bee bonnet! Jessi told me a joke she thought was stupid the other day but it made me think of Brian (NOT because she thought it was stupid but because of the topic. Ready? "What bees produce milk?"



Ready for the answer?




Are you sure you are ready?





Scroll down a bit more.........







Boobies!

HAHAHAHHA.....That was for Brian!

Karen C. said...

LOL!!!!! Tell Jessi she is silly! :-)