Sitting on Front Porch

Yes, sitting on the front porch. On a warn summer evening bees do it as well. In reality on a hot day the hive gets hot inside so when all the bees gather at home in the evening, the house bees send the forgers out side so they do not over heat the hive. I have created a screen inner cover and propped the top cover open to let some of the heat dissipate. I will see in a few days if this helps. In the mean time they can just chill on the front porch.

Bee Pollen

The hives are full of color. In the photo you can see the glistening of the uncapped honey. Oh yes it already taste like honey. The pollen is one of the most colorful products in the hive. Each flower will have different color pollen so when it gets packed into the comb you see the verity of color. Most of it varies from a yellow to a red.Many feel that bee pollen is a super food. Pollen contains a lot incredible array of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, enzymes, co-enzymes, and hormones. Click on the photo to take a closer look.

Bee Larvae

We were in the hive again and we did not see the Queen, but there were sure signs that she is around. In the photo we see the bee larvae sitting in royal jelly. All bees eat the royal jelly about 3 days. Since the Queen is fead it for a longer period of time, 6 days. This longer period is what turns her into a Queen.

The larvae in the photos are still in the stage of being feed. After a few days of feeding royal jelly and the some pollen and honey, their cell will be capped. When they come out they will be a bee.

Drone Bee

There are three types of bees in a hive. 1 Queen (female), 500 - 1000 Drones (male) and 10,000 - 60,000 Workers (female). The drones do not have a stinger and have a single task of mating with a new queen once one hatches. The drones are larger than the workers and have bigger eyes.

The photo is of Aleena playing with a drone bee. Note that she has also done the same with the worker bees as well. We were able to get a good photo of the drone.

At the end of summer all the dornes will be ejected from the hive so they do not consume food the Queen and Worker bees need for the winter. In the spring the worker will create some new hive cells slightly larger and feed the baby bee a bit more royle jelly to create a new batch of dornes.

Strawbarries Season

This morning for breakfast Aleena picked about a pint of strawbarries. We will be getting about a pint a day out of the garden for the next week or so. There is nothing as good a berry freshly picked.

Managing a Swarm

We placed a board on the front of the hive, then we dumped the bucked of bees on the board. The bees then send out scouts to find a new home. Since the hive is right there a scout would be bound to find the new hive. Music was provided by Nisha.

Once the bees find the home, the guard bees take a position above the entrance. They stick their rear end up in a defensive position... they now have a home.

This video is of us capturing a swarm of bees. The bees swarm in May or June when the early broods hatches. The great part this they do not sting since they do not have a home. We were able to knock the bee into a bucket.

First Hive Check

It's all about the queen. This weekend we open up the hives and check for the queen. She should be laying brood (babies). In the photo you can see the queen in the center. She is larger than the rest of the bees.

Since we are invading their home we use a little smoke to calm the down. We are dress to avoid any stings. We did not seem to upset

them too much. We removed the first frame and inspected it. Then set is aside. Then we inspected each frame and moved it down. The removed frame was then entered on the other side. This allows the bees to have more room to move around.

Dumping Bees into Hive Video

One of the coolest parts is watching the bees get dumped into the hive. I get lots of questions and it is really quite simple. Since the bees do not have a home they do not want to sting, they just want a home. The queen is in a separate cage that had a cork in the end. We exchange the cork for a marshmallow and place the cage in the hive. In about an hour the bees will eat through the marshmallow and free the queen. Since the hive is closed by then she will not escape. The tin can contains the sugar water that came with the bees. The spray bottle is also sugar water, once it on the wings it harder to fly.

We Got Bees

The weekend of May 1st we got three packages of bee, s0 we are now beekeepers. We have two hives in our backyard and one behind Dan's garage.

Once we dumped the bees in they started right away looking for food cleaning any dead bees out of the hive.

It is really neat to have them around. We are feeding them sugar water until they find enough food. It is really amazing how much they can eat.

Blog First Post

This blog is the share the our family adventures with our family and friends. We have many activities going on, Beekeeping, Music, School, Garden, Beer Brewing & Travels.