Announcement

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
     I am proud to present that we have 5 out of the 9 frames in our honey harvest box almost complete which means honey is on its way!!!!!!!!!

Third Box added time for HONEY!

Well it is time to add the honey box. Mitchell has been very anxious to get in his hive and add this third box. It was 94 degrees and the bees did not like us disturbing there home in this heat.

This looks like another swarm but it is the bees on the outside of the hive trying to cool off. Not sure if it is the heat or if they are mad at Mitch :)
They are making lots and lots of honey in the second box and even down into the first.  We are seeing less and less brood.  We are hoping that everything is ok. here is the honey we saw, it was dripping all over.

Other things to note was a drone, Male bee landed on Mitch's suit and we got a good picture to show you.

What a trade off this guy lives longer but come winter he will be forced out.  Another fact is he has no stinker.

 This picture was a few days ago we believe there was a hatch because the hive was very busy.  Many bees climbing out and up the hive to take flight off the roof. They then fly in circles called orientation flight.

This one was taken after the third box was added and the bees cover the box and fan there wings.  This is called bearding again they are trying to cool down.

First signs of capped Honey

Well this is not our honey this is still in box 2 but we are getting close.  By next weekend we will probably be adding the queen excluder (sorry no queens allowed) and box number 3 which we can harvest. The will be very busy these next few weeks.  But here are some photos of what the capped honey will look like notice the snow white color in the cap.  The brood or eggs were yellow. 

 This photo shows honey up top and notice those dark cells that is pollen.

 Notice this photo has honey at the top and capped brood in the middle.  This is what we should be seeing food stored up top and eggs layed in the lower 3/4. with some cells of pollen notice the dark cells at the bottom.

Big Daddy Bee Whisperer First Swarm Containment

Don't panic it was not our bees that swarmed.....We received a call from my brother saying he had a swarm in is back yard.  I went to investigate.

Yep, you have a swarm.  Ok everything we have seen and read says we cut the branch and shake the bees in to their new home.  Nice and easy Bee Keeping for Dummies tells us we don't need a full suit up these bees are at their most genteelness stage. The have no home, food, or brood to protect.  Well I assure you with this many Bees I was taking no chances.

Suite and Smoke for me.  Ok ready lets cut the branch and shake.

Oops, no branch this is the chain link fence, anyone got a grinder.

Well this story does not end well, no one got hurt but I failed a my first attempt to catch a swarm.  I tried shoveling them like Jones Bee store told me,  I tried brushing them in to a box I could catch a few but most just pushed to the other side of the fence.  I was puzzled so I set up my newly bought and painted hive with sugar water in it hoping they would just migrate in. Ten minutes later as we sat and watched the wind picked up and like a twister the all took flight and were gone:(

Saturday inspection

Much of the same stuff happening they continue to build and multiply. A couple of cool things we noticed during this inspection and earlier in the week was a bee trying to eat or climb his way out of the capped comb.  I tried to photograph this but could not get it close enough with out it going blurry.

The other thing we noticed was what happened to that comb that fell off that we should you earlier.

Well it has been in a back for a week or so and now we are seeing the larvae appear.

 

but other than that everything is just moving forward one day at a time.  We did pull the feeding tray even though they continue to lick it bone dry but we figure there is enough plants fro them to generate there own food.

Bee Expenses

Hey guys someone was asking about the price of all the equipment was and the established colony. We got all of this at Jones Bee Company in Salt Lake. It cost us approximately (I don't have the exact numbers) $400 but I will make up some of the money this year and finish it off next year by selling honey. I can make up to 300-400 dollars on a good year worth of honey. Hope this helps. Oh and by the way we will be opening the hive up today. So look for a new post.

Feed the bees and find the queen in the 2 box.

Well Sunday we noticed the sugar water was low or empty and we read keep feeding them as long as they will take it.  It takes a lot of food to build comb out in there hive and since we have added a 2nd box we decided to keep feeding them hoping it will feed us sooner :)

 Check out how much has been built since Sunday on the last post.

 Finally a picture of the queen not blurry.  See her upper center with the long black body. Click on the photo for a larger picture.