adventures in beekeeping: movin' on up!
Big news from the bee corner! As you can see, our hives are growing — and getting more colorful. We have added a second “hive super” to all three hives — a “super” is a layer in the hive. Once one layer is nearly full, the beekeeper adds another level to encourage more bee and honey production. After two levels are full, a third is added — this is a honey super. The honey super has a screen barricade that prevents the queen from entering, which means she can’t lay eggs there. Since the baby bee production is limited to the bottom levels, the top floor becomes filled with pure honey comb. That’s where we can take the honey from. As you can see from the photo, our first hive (on the right) already has grown to three levels. We could have honey from that hive in just a couple of weeks! As for the colors, well, we thought the bees needed a little decorating. Our next big task: coming up with a name for our little honey production. Any suggestions? — Angela M.
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adventures in beekeeping: and then there were three
When last we left you, my amateur-beekeeper husband Chad was gleefully exclaiming, “I see larvae!” after peeking in on his hive. Well, that success may have gone to his head, or perhaps he was bitten by some bizarre beekeeping bug, because now we have THREE hives. No, the bees didn’t just multiply like mad. Rather, Chad decided he needed more bees. At first he told me was ordering ONE more hive, but he “mistakenly” messed up the order and we got two. Hmpf. There is some rationale to this: the plan is to make slight variations in each hive, so we can learn which techniques work best. Each one has a different type of “foundation” which allows the bees to build and construct the honeycomb. So now we have three hives and about eighteen thousand bees (and counting!). Hopefully, by the end of fall, we’ll have about a hundred pounds of honey. Stay tuned! — Angela M.
adventures in beekeeping: hooray! we’ve got larvae
Yippee! The queen is in the house! After a week of wondering if our bees were in danger without royalty to guide them, we are pleased to report that our hive’s queen is indeed in residence. Chad darted up to the cottage the other day to check things out. When he pulled the files out of the hive, not only did he find that our little winged pals had been super busy producing honeycomb, but they’re making more bees. That’s right, he saw some baby bees! I swear the pride in Chad’s voice when he called with the news was comparable to our first Isadora-ultrasound. It is very exciting. In the photo above, you can see the honeycomb they are building — isn’t its shape amazing? And if you click here you can see the latest video of the fun on YouTube. More buzzzzzzzz soon! — Angela M.
adventures in beekeeping: hooray! we've got larvae
Yippee! The queen is in the house! After a week of wondering if our bees were in danger without royalty to guide them, we are pleased to report that our hive’s queen is indeed in residence. Chad darted up to the cottage the other day to check things out. When he pulled the files out of the hive, not only did he find that our little winged pals had been super busy producing honeycomb, but they’re making more bees. That’s right, he saw some baby bees! I swear the pride in Chad’s voice when he called with the news was comparable to our first Isadora-ultrasound. It is very exciting. In the photo above, you can see the honeycomb they are building — isn’t its shape amazing? And if you click here you can see the latest video of the fun on YouTube. More buzzzzzzzz soon! — Angela M.
adventures in beekeeping: where’s the queen?
Here it is, one week after installing the bees into our new hive. The time had come for us to check on their progress. We needed to see that they were getting to work, building honeycomb, collecting pollen and nectar. Also, we wanted to confirm that queen was still in there, getting lots of attention and laying eggs (sometimes in a new hive, the queen may leave). I must admit it is a little scary approaching a thriving hive in the middle of a sunny day. I stood back a few feet while Chad got up close and personal with the hive. He carefully pulled out each “file” and inspected it. We couldn’t believe how much honeycomb these little guys had produced after just a few days! It’s so amazing. But, unfortunately, we could not spot the queen and don’t think we saw any evidence of eggs. It’s really hard to tell though, with hundreds of bees buzzing around on each file — as the above image shows. If you click here you can see a mega-sized image. Perhaps you can spot the queen? We couldn’t! We’re trying not to panic though. Chad’s going to check again this week, and hopefully he’ll spot her or evidence of eggs. If not, we may have to order another queen — pronto — and hope our hive survives! — Angela M.
