Beekeeping--a new beek's journey!PIC HEAVY (first week of Oct)

[valmom]

Very cool! Your bees seem pretty happy and industrious. I sat outside near the hive this afternoon just watching them come and go. Busy as bees

 

[GOOGLE NIKOLA TESLA]

awesome! no suit or gear!! nice!thats how we do it up this way lol. i do have to say i atleast wear the vail thing when i first dump the package into the hives cause its too crazy and stressful for the bees, i guess a nuc is less drastic, but after that i just open the hive with no protection. if you show you are not scared and handle the bees nicely they do seem to leave you alone,(sometimes there are iirrate bees that get you) i have been stung a few times and its not even bad, but im not allergic either so i am thankful for that.
everyone should try to do this, to help preserve the honey bees so they dont go extinct! that was my first reason, to help protect the honey bees.

we never used a smoker and dont even have one, the more i learn from my own experience, its not needed at all.
i am also now stacking 3 large hive bodies this year, instead of the recommended 2, this ensures the bees have the room to grow and have storage, i lost a hive because they starved from running out of food in only a 2 hive body with supper, it suxed. now with 3 large ones they should have a ton of room to grow and store food.

i love when the bees land on your hand and bask in the sun, its wonderful! to think something so small can have so much complexity is unbelieveable and live in a working society, wow!

the fruit trees have so much mini fruits growing!! especially the peaches! woo! i thank the bees, even the mason bees really helped, i watched many of them work as well(they are the very small bee multiple shapes and beautiful colors, rainbow to chrome colors), u guys should look them up, they are there own personality, and fly and breed solo, no colony but they are very productive. there hive model is pencil like openings that allow the mason been to lay its eggs in sucession and close the pencil opening for the baby bees to grow and complete the cycle. supposdely they pollinate tens of thousands of flowers from just 1 mason bee! you can easily build there hives as well, like pieces of wood with elongated pencil holes drilled in it. i might try this out next yr, and help keep the mason bees alive as well.

nice work lorihadams!!!!
awesome pictures!!!

 

[Ohioann]

For those beeks in eastern Ohio you missed a good small conference today in Cadiz Ohio. A good Keynote address and three opportunities to go to workshops. This was sponsored by the Carroll County, Harrison County, Jefferson County and Tuscarawas county Beekeepers Associations. This is the first year they have tried it and I hope they will do it again next year. Join your local county bees association..lots of good info. Next Saturday JUNE 11 The Ohio State Beekeepers Association Summer Meeting will be held in Salem Ohio 8 am to 4 pm. Registration at the door. More details at www.ohiostatebeekeepers.org
I won't be able to go on the 11th as I have a previous commitment but it looks like a good day.

 

[hillfarm]

sweet.

 

[lorihadams]

I am thinking that I will open up the hives about wednesday to check on the baggie feeders....shouldn't need smoke or anything but I'll probably put another feeder in it. Should be quick and easy to do, I won't examine the frames I'll just put new feeders in.

The VA state Beekeepers meeting is Father's Day weekend I think and it is also my birthday weekend. I don't think I'll be able to make it this year but next year we will have more time to plan for it.

I looked at mason bees last year and thought that would be a good father-son project when we get the garage space finished. We should be able to make a home for them pretty easily. If you want pollinators and don't want to fool with bee hives then mason bees are a good way to go!

 

[lorihadams]

6/12/2011

We got everything together and headed out to check the hives at noon Sunday. Hubby helped me this time and my neighbor gave me a pair of blue nitrile gloves that are reusable and pretty thick and worked pretty well but I sweated like crazy in them.

Everything looked pretty good and I am pretty sure that a new batch of brood had hatched out of the weaker hive, lots more bees this weekend. They had spread out to the two adjoining frames and were starting on the next ones. Here are some pictures, we lightened up on the smoke this time and were able to locate both queens as well. Here is Hive #2, the weaker hive

Here's Hive #1, the stronger hive. They have started to go into the upper deep that we added last weekend and are starting to slowly draw out some comb but nothing much to report in the upper yet. The lower deep looks really good and they are finishing the last two outside frames. Lots of pollen and brood in this one. I had to do some cleanup on this one, they had drawn out some comb on the bottom of one of the frames so I got that off and there was some connecting burr comb in there so I got that off too.

And for fun, here's my son smoking the bees in the clover in the yard

 

[lorihadams]

Oh, the queens are in the fifth and twelfth pictures near the tops. The second one is harder to see because she is going into one of the openings but if you look hard you can just see the yellow dot.

 

[tamlynn]

Very cool! I love all the pics.

 

[dragonlaurel]

Thanks for the great pics. Glad your hives are doing well. I found the queens in the 4th and the 12th pics. I might have missed it in the 5th?

 

[lorihadams]

You're right, I'm a dork and can't count....it's the 4th and 12th.