Bee Keeping

[short cut sally]

Zen, all I can say is I hope the "girls" are properly attired when he "peeks in" on them I'll be thinking of you when I meet him....

[Zen]

I just realized something.
This thread is useless without pictures

[GLC1968]

Shelly - that is SOOO cool that you got a free swarm! I can't wait to hear how that pans out over time. Make sure to keep us updated (and yeah, pictures!).

Zen - This was from the inspection two weeks ago. We don't have traveling bee inspectors (as far as I know, anyway) but my H does open our hive and take notes on how things are going once a week. He often takes photos:


I thought he had a photo of the queen, but I can't find it online. He may not have uploaded it yet.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Ooooh, wonderful photo!

Shelly, GLC,.....have you guys been stung yet?

My daughter who worked with honeybees at Cornell used to get stung almost daily and told me after a while it was no big deal.

GLC- how old is your hive? Do you have more than one? Any honey yet?

[short cut sally]

GLC that was a really cool pic...
I am gonna have to get out of the stone ages and buy a digital camera and download pics...Along with that will have to come an education as it's something I've never been exposed to. I've been meaning to since I joined here, but haven't felt the need to.
I am going to check the hives tomorrow. It will be warmer and not so windy. Tomorrow is also the day to see if the packaged bees have released their queen yet..
I refilled the sugar waters last evening. Lifted the lid ever so slightly on the swarm bees and they are still in a ball. Granted it was later afternoon and you're not supposed to "work" them then, but I just peeked. I'm gonna have to call my 2 mentors and see what I should do. I do agree with Lisa they are trying to stay warm, I just wish they would take to the frames (What GLC's pic. is of) that I put in so they can start making their combs for laying. tomorrow when it's warmer they may spread their wings and explore the world then I can fill the rest of the box with the frames that belong in there.
Lisa, I bought a bee suit and heavy wear leather gloves. Was told I will be stung several times. The gentleman that I spent a day with, handled his hives with no gloves, and was constantly going "ouch" but he just flicked his fingers and kept on working. He said he rarely wears gloves unless they are really agressive. He said "you'll get used to the stinging".
I'll let you know tomorrow about the "queen release"..or the possibility of...

[GLC1968]

I've not been stung, but I keep my distance when the hive is open. I grew up in a 120 year old house that had two massive bee hives encased within the walls on the front of the house. I got stung almost daily in the summer back then, so I'm not too concerned.

My husband is the beekeeper right now and no, he has not been stung yet either. He rarely wears his suit anymore. Usually it's just a long sleeve white tee, khakis and his bee hat. He doesn't even bother with gloves! He's very gentle with our bees and they reward him with similiar behavior.

We've only had our bees for about 6 weeks now. They've filled about 3/4ths of the bottom box and are just starting to fill the frames in the middle box. They definitely seem quite happy there (thank goodness!). We give them sugar water free choice and my H has to fill it every couple of days. We've been questioning the sustainablity of this, but I guess it's pretty necessary as they get established. Once they've filled the hive, they won't need supplemental food because they'll just eat the honey. Right now, they can store all the honey they make and eat the sugar water. We have not harvested any honey and we don't plan to for the first year. Right now, it's all about getting them established. We also have no intention of ever selling any honey, so we can be very careful about how much we remove so that the bees always have plenty left for them.

Apparently, commercial honey growers make more money off the honey than it costs to replace the bees.


Shelly - definitely be careful not to disturb them too much in the beginning. As much as we like to look, we are being very careful to only open the hive once a week and only when it is reasonably warm out. My H knows a guy who lost all his bees in the first two weeks because he kept checking on their progress and it annoyed the bees. If they don't feel safe, they'll leave!

[Zen]

If my landlord kept peeking in on me I'd move too.

[OakLeaf]

Apparently, commercial honey growers make more money off the honey than it costs to replace the bees.

Really? I only know what I've read, but I'd understood that honey is a break-even proposition at best, and commercial apiarists make their money by renting the hives to farmers who need them for pollination? That one of the many stresses on bees that they're thinking contributes to CCD, is the hives getting moved all over the place all the time?