bee inspection

[bibliophile birds]

we had a bee inspection yesterday and i got some great pics i wanted to share!

we lost 2 more hives. one swarmed and one starved. we had 2 hives that were really close to swarming, so we split them, which keeps us at 12 hives. we've got 2 more that will probably need splitting in the next few weeks and a couple wild swarms have already been spotted! i think we are going to get 2 full honey harvests this year!!!!!

our bee party! (i'm not in any pictures cause i'm taking them)

HONEY!!!

the dark caps on the right are honey. the brown caps on the left are brood. the white stuff is brood that they haven't capped yet.

these last pics are all from one of our hives added last year. it's the most amazing hive i've ever seen. they are just KILLING IT!! we're splitting it in 2 weeks because they already have a new queen nucleus!

Joe, our bee guy, never wears gloves...

that's a lot of bees

go girls go!

 

[k0xxx]

That is so neat! I would love to raise Honey Bees, but I am very allergic to their sting. Great photos!

I have seen very few Honey Bees over the last couple of seasons, so I placed some Mason Bee nests around the orchard this year.

 

[big brown horse]

Hey, thanks for sharing!

Bee keeping is not too far away in my plans.

 

[Up-the-Creek]

That is great! Isn't bees fascinating??? My dad and brother are supposed to go in a few weeks to capture a wild hive, they are inside an old church wall. My brother will be taking them home with him to add to his. My dad has 3 hives, he had more but he had some swarm. Great pictures too!

 

[The YardFarmers]

Good for you on the bee hives and I really liked the pictures.

What was the bee inspection for? Was it for some gov't agency or just something you were doing for yourselves?

We were happy that our 1 hive on the YardFarm survived the winter. Maybe we'll have honey this year too! Our bee friend is putting out 2 hives for us at the field we traded produce for this year. He is making the hives, we are buying the bee packets for the hives.

 

[bibliophile birds]

What was the bee inspection for? Was it for some gov't agency or just something you were doing for yourselves?

basically, it was just for ourselves. we lost the vast majority of our bees over the last few years and had restocked all the hives last summer. we just wanted to have our bee guy (who happens to be the local inspector) come out and tell us how they were doing after this INSANE winter. that had the added benefit of giving us state certification, so it was a nice perk (it's not required here, unless we want to sell bees, which we don't).

glad to hear yours pulled through too!

 

[modern_pioneer]

I want some bees....... sigh

 

[valmom]

What lovely bees! And so many I'd love to have bees. It is one of the things on our list...So many things to do, so little time/money.

 

[The YardFarmers]

Modern Pioneer-

Maybe try contacting a local bee club and see if anyone close to you would set one up at your place for you. We really wanted bees because we thought our gardens weren't doing as well and we weren't seeing as many bees around. Plus we think it is important to have more backyard hives with all the bee problems going on. We were lucky to learn about our bee friend right in our own village. He was interested in having another hive close by and we share the costs. We weren't interested in taking on another project by ourselves, getting the equipment, etc- so this is a nice arrangement for us and we can learn about taking care of bees at the same time.

Check out the Internet or your agriculture college and see what connections you may be able to work out. Good luck!