• learning,  neat tricks

    teeny tiny hive

    Here you see the hands of Ken, adjusting the frames of his little model beehive. The wee box is resting on the much larger, normal-sized beehive. Ken is going to leave the small box on the larger box – there’s an opening in the bottom so the bees can come up into it – so the bees will draw out the honeycomb a bit. He doesn’t want them to store honey in the little demo hive, but he does want them to show what they can do in building up the wax in preparation for honey storage. He brings this hive to places where he talks about bees, so people…

  • learning

    cleanup

    A few weeks ago, I noticed that the bees in my observation hive had all died. This is not surprising, due to the fact that there are not that many of them and they are not able to huddle in a large enough mass to actually survive the winter. That’s what my regular sized bee colonies are doing right now – huddling together in the middle of the hive to stay warm; and, most importantly, keep the queen warm. She’s the one who will kick off the growth of the colony in the spring with her egg-laying, so it is vitally important to the colony to keep her alive. But…

  • learning

    workshop review

    . I was pleasantly surprised to discover recently that one of the people who attended my intro to honeybees and beekeeping workshops wrote a little review on her blog! Thanks Bianca! Inspired Wonder‘s honeybee workshop review. These workshops were geared toward families, so they were not highly technical nor were they designed to tell you everything you need to know to be a beekeeper. I’m more about raising awareness of honeybees and hoping to share the love. I also want people to know the difference between a bee and a wasp. When someone tells me they were harassed or stung by a bee I always ask, ‘was it a bee or…

  • Uncategorized

    uncaged

    . She’s out!! I set up the ob hive today so friends could have a look at the bees, and I noticed that the queen is out of her cage. Didn’t take long – everybody loves candy. She’s the one with the white dot in the picture. Hooray! Now we’ll have eggs and larvae to watch too. .

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    new momma for the girls

    Many thanks to Ken for helping me yesterday with my queen and observation hive! The hive is a bit of a beast - it's so much easier with two people and more experience (Ken's, not mine). Anyway, here's the queen cage with queen and attendants - same one we saw yesterday, only in this pic Ken is uncorking the end. You'll notice the white bit - that's the 'candy' that the bees will need to chew through in order to free the queen. The cork is a precaution - there's so much candy there that Ken also made a wee hole through it to get them started.

  • Uncategorized

    2 more stings

    In spite of the sweat-inducing oven of a coverall you see me wearing, I did manage to get 2 more stings yesterday at the beeyard. Right through the coverall. So I ask myself again, 'why do I wear this?' Hmmm.