Sunday, July 14, 2013

busy as the bees...


The summer days are zooming by.... hard to think that we are half way threw July already. Between wedding plans, puppies, and just enjoying the time of year... I feel like I fall into bed at night and up again.. and fall into bed at night. Little Debbie has settled in very well... and is already attending puppy classes. The only trouble is, when you are the teacher, you can't be the student... so Kathleen has stepped in and is working with my little girl in the classes...
She's good little worker and in true Lab style.. offer that little "cookie" and she'll do about anything. Here she is with Noble, (Mary and Scott's CCI puppy)...
Kathleen must have some pretty good treats in her pocket... she got two for one on this command!!!!!
Our little bees seem to be "buzzing" along. Ed and I try to get in and check them once every two weeks or so. The weather hasn't been the greatest, so I "worry".. though I know that bees have "done their thing for centuries".. certainly long before I wanted them around, and I have a feeling they know what they are doing....
Been staying on top of the yard work and gardens... one, because it looks nice to do that and two, with the wedding just a week away.. we want everything to be in A1 order. I was hoping that we might have the front walk in by now, but it just hasn't worked out on the list of things to do...
Back to the bees. When we last checked they were doing a good job on getting the second box filled up with comb and such.. so I thought it would be time to add a third box. This box (in my opinion) will be a honey box and will give them a place to put extra stores. Though sometime the queen can go up there and lay brood, but we're hoping she will be happy with the bottom two and leave this one for honey.
Our bottom two boxes are large, this one is a medium... everyone says that the large boxes when filled with honey are very heavy and so most people chose to use the medium size for the honey boxes. We decided to follow their advice, and put together this medium. For the first year, it is also advised not to harvest this box, but to leave it for the winter. However, if they do fill it and don't use it, we can take it next spring....
Off to the hive.....
Look out girls, here we come. I am very pleased at how easy going this hive is... we don't bother them much and go in and out as quietly as we can.. and handle them gently.... people are surprised that you can go into the hive like this and not really upset them ....
Too bad this picture isn't clearer.. but this is a frame that has pollen stores in the corner (where it is yellow--- like the black eyed Susans which are in the field right now).. and the rest is brood... the "white" things are little bee lava which will be capped over when they get a bit bigger... and there are some empty combs where we have probably had some hatching's in the past week or so....
This frame shows capped lava, which means the little bees are transforming into their bee bodies and will hatch from here.....
This frame is being "built out" with new comb... hard to see, but if you look closely, it has a "puffy" look to the foundation, so the girls are working on building up wax here....
Move out of the way ladies..... after playing around in the bottom box, we need everyone to move so we can put the second box back on and begin to check around in that one. Killing a bee is bad... not only does it mean you loose one, but then it can put an alarm threw the hive that they are in trouble. So you want to handle everything carefully and make sure that no one gets hurt.....
In the second box we found good honey stores....
the upper part of this frame is filled with honey.. and it's all capped over which means, if we could harvest it, this is what you take. Capped honey is honey that is all "finished" and ready to use....










I'm thinking the second box could be built out more, but we decided to put the third box on... with all of August, September and possible the first part of October.. they will have time (I hope) to work on this box too...


this has certainly been a very fun project, and I am hooked. If we can get them threw the winter .. there is no doubt we will be having another hive next summer..... who knows, one day I may be selling my honey at the local farmers markets... that would be fun!!!!