Bees Go in the Hive

Next is to transfer this box full of bees and the queen into the Hive.  The queen is in her own cage and has to stay in there or the bees will kill her.  The hole to her cage is plugged with a marshmallow that the attendants to the bee eat and then release her. Tim suited up and we headed out with me reading instructions.  Our placement did not go as smooth as we hoped, but all were in and seemed to be doing good. To put them in, you remove several of the frames, attach the queen (after finding her in the mass of bees and keeping them caged up.)  We didn't lose too  many.  After attaching the bee, you dump all the bees into the hives.  This was not an easy job.  They huddled all together.  We replaced all but one frame (carefully so we didn't squish bees) and left the rest to find the hive.  Most of them did.  We lost a small clump because it got too cold.

The Bees have arrived!!

We picked up the bees an April 29th.  Before picking them up there was work to do.  Tim read the book "Beekeeping for Dummies", attended a day long seminar, and talked to many people.  We ordered a start up kit of hives and some equipment and bees.  We picked up the hives on Conference weekend.  Tim wanted Deep Hives and we thought that was what we were getting.  We got Medium Hives instead.  This has been a concern for us.  Tim has talked to several different people and most everybody thought we should go with the deep hives.  We finally talked to the people we bought everything from and they said they were switching to the medium hives for their business and to try them.  So we are.  They were painted white and ready to go when we picked up the bees.  On the day of pickup, we picked up the Rhino from the Springville Museum, Crista and then Bees.  Crista and I enjoyed watching the people come out of the warehouse carrying their bees. Some were little kids and not afraid.  We saw two grown men dancing and slapping around.  Some put the bees in trucks in the bed, and others in the van with all their kids.  Ours went in the back of the Cruiser with the Rhino and Crista.

Beekeeping Adventures

Wow! Time flies!!  I have all the pictures from last year events in a folder on my computer desktop.  My goal is to get those pictures onto the blog.  Unfortunately, they will be in random order, but fun to share.  This year we are learning to be beekeepers.  I want to document all that we learn and the process.