My Bees

My honey bees came today!  I tried to get some good shots of them swarming around the hive but they are too small and my phone ran out of space.  >_<

I did manage to get these though...

Newly painted and just set up

The whole set up (it's a little messy in this pic)

My bees!  They're balled up around the queen.

Beekeeping Lesson #4

You do not realize how much work goes into extracting honey, it takes hours.  If I had more hives it would take days.  I'm inclined to just use these little square boxes (forgot what there called) and let the bees make it all from scratch.  That way all I'd have to do is cut the comb in pieces and be done with it.  

Anyways, before you extract honey from the comb you have to get the honey supper away from the hive without any bees attacking you.  After all, your stealing there precious food source.  If they notice it's gone they'll come after you.  Now there are many ways to do this, but I think it's easiest to...

• Get a bee escape board, place it under the top supper, and wait about a week for most of the worker bees to funnel down to the rest of the hive.  The bee escape makes it so they can't climb back up.  
• Remove the supper (about 50 pounds of honey) and rush it inside.  The bees shouldn't be able to come after you but why risk it?
• Lay out all bee equipment.
• Remove the top layer of wax (caps), this you can use later for candle wax or lip balm.
• Place the frames into the honey extractor and turn it on (works best in a heated room at about 82 degrees F).  Honey extractors are pretty expensive so it might be best to borrow one.
• Pour out honey onto a strainer to get any loose bits of wax out.
• Put into jar and enjoy. 

One interesting fact I learned was the difference between raw honey and "regular".  Raw honey still has pollen in it which is good for you.  "Regular" honey from the commercial beekeepers has been heated at 170 degrees F, which kills all of the helpful enzymes and then they remove the pollen.  I don't know the whole process but it seem like a waste to me.  

Beekeeping Lesson #3

In this lesson we covered all that can go wrong with a hive (mites, moths, foulbrood, bears, raccoons, skunks, ext.).  So depressing, especially the skunks.  I don't think any live near me, but they scratch at the front of the hive, wait for the bees to investigate, and eat them!

A lot of the medicines/treatments you give the bees are all natural but then there are some treatments that have neurotoxins in them.  Obviously, I'm never going to use those.  The natural treatments don't even require much investing like, coating the hive in powdered sugar and giving them candy canes.  Candy canes!  For some reason I can't get over the fact that candy canes are good for them to eat.

Side-note... My bees are ordered and come this Wednesday!

Beekeeping Lesson #2

Still so much information to learn.  Just when you think you know all that a honey bee it does some new amazes you. In this weeks lesson we focused mostly on the hive.  I'm glad I finally know what each part is n for and why.  Starter beekeeping kits provide you with a deep super and no honey supers.  I'd always wonders why people let themselves get ripped off.  But, it turns out that when a colony is just starting out they only build up the comb as much as they can keep warm.  Having extra supers would only cause the bees to get chills and end in a dead colony.

Another thing that really intrigued me had nothing to do with hives and instead with seedless fruits.  Did you ever wonder how they made them seedless?  It's not natural.  To get something seedless requires no pollination by bees of any kind.  Which means no bees are allowed anywhere near the plants.  Just recently some company tried to get honey bees outlawed in a large part of California.  Three major queen bee breeders were in that area.  No breeders equals no bees and where would that leave us?

Oh, bought the hive!  It's currently in pieces, but on Sunday we're going to set it up in the back yard and paint it.

First Beekeeping Lesson

Went to my first beekeeping lesson today.  There is so much to learn, bees are such intricate little creatures.  It astounds me at how much they can accomplish in their short lives.  Did you know that in its entire life a single be makes only 1/12 a teaspoon of honey but in a year hives produce an average of 70 pounds of it?  Before today I never wondered how bees made the wax for their combs or how different species of honey bees not only differ in personality and honey production but also have different abilities.  For example, there is a Russian bee that's able to get rid of mites by itself without the help of treatments.  But, you could just as easily have Italian bees and dust them with powdered sugar to get rid of mites.

There's major conflict going on right now as well.  Bees are dying out because of all the pesticides used.  Without bees we could not produce enough produce to survive.  I think farmers should consider that when spraying their crops.

Anyways, I can't wait for my next lesson!  We are going to work with actual hives learning how to assemble them and whatnot.

New Hairstyle

Got my hair curled today and I think I'll keep this hairstyle for a while.  It didn't take to long to curl, less than half an hour but I was watching the first episode of The Walking Dead so I can't say for sure.

From people's commentary I thought this show would be too gory for my taste but it's not even close (after watching five seasons or so of Supernatural I'm kind of desensitized).

On another note, I start beekeeping classes this Friday!  I'm so excited!