Bees...Or A Crappy Spring

We thought the Girls were going to do okay when we popped the box open in April.  We didn't get back in there until the beginning of June. 

We thought we were going to need to put another super on because we had seen the Girls swarm a couple of times.  Turns out, they weren't swarming because they didn't have enough room.  I don't know enough to know why they were swarming but I do know they didn't leave us with a queen. There were no larvae and we had a ton of drones instead. 

Ken and I went and collected a swarm and dumped them in.  Not sure yet how they are going to do but it can't be any worse than getting in there and not finding any larvae!  So, with our new Girls, here's hoping!

The Girls' First Winter

With much trepidation we opened the hive on Friday.  It was a pleasantly warm day and as good as any to see if The Girls had made it through their first winter.  And, they did!  Not having anything to compare it to, we aren't sure if they did well or not but we do think they are going to make it.  The top deep still had plenty of honey and they are really starting to pack the pollen in.  We also saw fresh larvae so while we didn't see a queen, she must have been there working hard.  The bottom deep, well, it did not look so great.  There was a bunch of mold on some of the comb and it looked pretty beat up.  We cleaned up some of the frames and put that deep on top so they now think they have some place to grow.  Or, at least that's the idea.  That's it for now from the beehive at Jones cottage...more to come, we hope!

Sorry Girls!

With Dylan arriving at the end of August, our minds were elsewhere when we should have been removing the super (very top box) from our hive.  And, then it's just so darn easy to get sucked into baby stuff and enjoying two months off when you haven't taken hardly any vacation time all year.  So today while my mother-in-law was here with Dylan, Andrew and I took the super off.  It was kind of damned if you do or damned if you don't type of situations.  I was worried about the Girls being able to keep the hive warm enough this winter if we left the box on (about 93 degrees).  But, we've waited so long that opening the box could be a problem for them since it's about 51 degrees and it opens them up to attack.  I've seen quite a few yellow-jackets around the hive lately.  Oh well.  Time will tell.  We won't know until next spring but hopefully by then we'll have some more of this baby stuff figured out ;)

Amazement

There's a story I've heard many times about my great-grandpa Ray M. (everybody seems to call him that, M being for his middle name of Milton).  Anyway, Ray M. would visit my grandparents when my dad was a kid for a couple of weeks.  The house had a huge picture window with a lot of hummingbird feeders.  Ray M. took a red baseball cap and put black dots on the hat with a permanent marker. Then he would sit outside very still and quietly in front of that picture window so he could see his reflection and watch the hummingbirds try to "feed" off of that hat.  I decided to channel a bit of my inner Ray M. this morning.

I pulled up a lawn chair and a cup of coffee and watched the Girls.  I just can't believe how amazing they really are.  In what seems to be a completely uncoordinated process, they create an amazing hive.  There is no particular in and out...left side of the hive isn't incoming and right side isn't outgoing.  Inevitably, one of the Girls gets knocked ass over tea-kettle as she tries to land or take-off but she just brushes herself off and goes on about her business.  They are still bringing in pollen...some have bright orange baskets on their legs....some with light yellow baskets.  Others appear to be scouts, out looking for more.  I saw a couple others doing the job of an undertaker...bringing out a Girl who had completed her life's work...taking her far away from the hive.  It's kind of like watching a camp fire...you sit there and zone out to a certain extent and ponder the meaning of life.  Not too shabby a way to drink a cup of coffee on a beautiful morning!

Proud Mama...of a Bunch of Girls

As some of you know, this was the first year that bees joined the Jones Cottage.  And, what a year it was!  We had some crazy swarming behavior in June.  Still not sure what exactly happened there other than the Girls made a new queen. At least we are pretty sure they did...either way they have continued to produce more bees (need a queen for that) and honey.

Sunday was the day that we "robbed" the hive.  Our hive consists of two deeps or hive bodies and a super.  A super is like a deep other than it's not as deep.  Between the super and one of the hive bodies we had a screen called a queen excluder.  Basically, queens are too big to fit through the queen excluder and therefore, she doesn't lay any eggs in the super.  So, the worker bees store honey in the super and that's what we "rob."  Boy did they do a good job.  It is likely we could have added a second super had we realized just how good our hive was doing.  We are new and since the spring was so wet, we never anticipated a brand new hive doing as well as ours has done this year.  

Turns out the top deep was full of honey too.  The bottom deep appears to have mostly brood.  So, we think the Girls are set for the winter.  We pulled the super, scraped all of the honey and wax off of the frames (10 frames hang down in each box for the bees to make their wax, brood, honey, etc), and put the super back on the hive.  The Girls will clean the honey off that we couldn't get and may even start making more...so we'll see if we get any more between now and the end of September when we pull the super off for the winter.  

Andrew has been working with all of that for the last couple of days.  The final count is approximately 9.5 quarts of honey and 1.5 cups of beeswax.  The honey tastes great and the wax smells amazing.  But then again, I'm the proud mama...I might just be a little biased!

Photos kindly taken by my friend Kathleen Thorpe

Click on the picture for a better look!  And, no, they haven't started making maternity beekeeping suits :)

Keeping up with the Joneses...All 10,000 of Them!

We have been talking about this for a few years...and it was just talk.  Apparently this year is the time to increase the Jones household.  Their plush accommodations have been waiting for  2 months.  Luckily it didn't take 9 months to bring these little babies home.

Yesterday was the introduction of honeybees.  We ordered 3lbs of them from Ruhl Bee Supply in Gladstone.  They were delayed by a day due to poor weather driving up from California but they finally made it.  We even managed to get them into the hive without either one of us getting stung!  That was even with not knowing really what we were doing and not using our veils properly...we both ended up with a couple in the veil.  No big deal though.  They are at their calmest right now.  This fall when the want to protect their honey stores...that will be a different story.

And for the question everyone, who hasn't had bees themselves, is asking..."Why bees?"  My flipant answer is always, "Why not!" But, let's be honest.  There's more to it than that.  

I do not harbor back to the land yearnings as my husband suspects.  Nor do I want to turn our small city lot into GreenAcres which he also is very concerned about.  No, neither of these things are the reason.  But, I do have agrarian needs.  I do worry about things like colony collapse and bee decline.  I am wise enough to know (I hope) that my one hobby hive is not going to be enough to stop the devastation.  

I do know though that I am setting a precedence for my children...the idea that nature is not to be afraid of...that nature is a nourishing part of our soul.  Its important to us. Important to remember that we are not healthy when we try to shut nature out of our lives.  We depend on nature and visa versa.  

I look forward to learning about my Girls, their habits, and their needs.  I look forward to teaching my child about nature and respect. Our bees will be just one little part of the natural world that can bring peace and interest into our lives.  So when people ask, its "Why not?" and so much more.