Re-queening a hive June 8, 2010

Yesterday I was worried about one of Tim's hives. The bees seemed very distraught; many of them circling outside the hive. I added one of my supers just in case they were getting ready to swarm. Today, Tim came out to check out his hives. He took it apart to check things out.

Tim looking at the frames of bees.

This hive was very strong. Brood was present in most of the frames--a very productive queen. A queen excluder was added on top of the top super. Now, the bees can start making honey in a new honey super.

After the queen excluder comes the honey super.

The bees that had moved into my "temporary" super (from yesterday) are shaken back into the hive. We left my super sitting out in the bee-area over night so all the bees could migrate back to their hive.

Then the inner cover goes on.

Next, Tim helped me re-queen my weak hive. There was very little brood and fewer bees. He brought a box full of queens----and bees to tend to them. One of these queens will now move into my hive.

The queen cage was placed between frames.

Bees love Mint June 7, 2010

This is a visiting bee--not one from our hives.

If you look closely, you will see bees everywhere!

Sugar Water and Gathering Pollen - June 1, 2010

I'm spending a lot of time boiling water and adding sugar! The bees are eating a lot. It is a cold, wet Spring and we don't have enough natural food, yet. I boil 2 parts water and then add 1 part sugar; stirring until it dissolves. Filling pitchers with sugar water--- The bees are out doing their part. Notice the yellow pollen on their legs. And I LOVE the bee flying into the hive. (notice her shadow....) Check out the bee with BRIGHT orange pollen on her legs. This bee has both legs loaded....on her way back into the hive.

We have several water containers for the bees. One is a tray with pebbles in it. It is shallow and allows the bees to "stand" on the rocks while they drink. The other is a bucket with sticks standing in it. They can land on the sticks and drink water. Apparently bees can't land on the water without risking drowning.

Professional Bees arrive May 29, 2010

Tim and Dean are professional bee-keepers. Dean has hundreds of hives in California and is working with Tim here in Colorado as well. Tim is helping me learn to be a bee-keeper, so he brought 3 hives of his own up to our place. As he takes care of his bees, I'll be able to learn from him. What a great thing for me! They brought their "professional bees" to join my two hives of country bees.

The novice bee-keeper made a mistake---I put both supers on my new hives. Tim said I needed to take the top boxes off so that my bees could start making their hives in a single super. We took the top off and looked to see where the bees were.

The queen was in the top hive. We moved her to the bottom hive so that she would be in the right place.

Then all the other bees were shaken out of the top super and into the bottom one.

Dean started checking the hives they brought up the hill. He used the smoker to check them (they'd just been driven by truck to a new location), feed them sugar water and pollen patties, and then sealed them back up.

They have big feeders inside their hives, different from my little quart jars on the outside of the hive.

On the left is a pollen patty. They laid these pollen patties between the supers on the their double hives. On the right is a mite pad.

Here is my hive with only one super--and the sugar water jar on the outside. Tim also pulled some grass and shoved a wad of grass in the entrance. This acted as an "entrance reducer" for the bees.

Now we are set up like we should be! One super, feeders filled and bees in their home.

Checking on the Queen May 23, 2010

We went out to check on the hives and see if the Queen had escaped her cage. The bees seem "at home." Jack decided to don one of the bee jackets and help check on the Queen. I used the smoker for the first time. I collected pine needles and sticks, starting the fire with a small piece of newspaper in the bottom. The bees seemed totally calm, so it didn't seem necessary. We pulled the Queen cage and it is empty! Yeah! She is ready to go to work.

Bee Arrival-May 20, 2010

We have bears in our area and had to build a bear fence around the bee-hives. The electric fence should keep all bears away; maybe the dog and cats, too! Once the bee fence was installed, we picked up our new packages of bees.

Duane and I each have a package of bees in hand. The spray bottle has sugar water in it to spray on the bees to calm them down.

Despite going to a 8-week class and reading several books, I felt it was important to "read-along" as we went through the steps. Bee-keeping for Dummies seemed appropriate!

We checked in the queen cages to ensure the queen was alive and the sugar plug was still in place. She's there!

We dumped the box of bees into the hive. As you can see, there are bees flying everywhere. It is a little nerve-wracking the first time! The bees generally stayed inside the hive so we could just close the lid.

Bee Extraction - Fall 2009

These are the photos from the Bee Extraction in late summer 2009. The eave was opened up and the bees were vacuumed into the bucket. Then the hive was removed. We left the eave open for several days and sprayed it with vanilla water to remove the scent. Hopefully, it won't be a bee-home next year! We saved some of the honey--great taste--and from our own flowers, too. The bees were over-wintered at a lower altitude. This sparked enough interest that the youngest daughter Kate and I decided to enroll in the Boulder County Extension Service Bee-keeping Class. It lasted for 8 weeks, 3 hours once a week. There's a lot to learn.....