🐝💗Our Backyard Beekeeping Journey!💗🐝

[drstratton]

I had a library card in Longview at just a couple of years old. We moved away when I was 8 years old. Many years later as an adult I was living in Longview again. I went to the library and was telling the ladies how my mother took me to the library as a child and how I was reading at age 4. Those ladies looked up my library card and reissued the same one to me! How cool is that!

That's very cool.
When my oldest was in 1st grade they could only check out 1 book from the school library. His teacher quickly learned that was not enough for him and they allowed him to check out 5. He was not reading books for 1st graders and would have been happy if they'd let him check out 10 or more.

 

[drstratton]

This is on the assumption that everyone here knows about angry birds. Well they have nothing on angry bees...lol I'm glad we bought good bee jackets and I can wear my husband's thick jeans. They wanted to eat me!

We wound up combing 2 hives today. We just didn't like how they were looking. The new queen in hive #1 was laying very spotty, the pattern just wasn't good or strong. The girls were not happy, but this will give them a better chance at surviving the winter.

Nectar, pollen and bee bread. Bee bread is a combination of pollen and nectar. It's a very important food for the bees.

 

[drstratton]

We combined using a piece of newspaper between the hives, placing small slits in the paper. That allows the bees time to get used to the pheromones of what will become their new queen. Sadly when you do this, you have to kill the queen of the weaker hive.

Sorry I didn't get a picture of the paper setup, I was trying to get things put back together as quickly as possible.

We still have 2 more hives to inspect, but we decided to let the first 2 calm down a bit.

 

[drstratton]

We finished inspecting. The other 2 hives, hive #2 & the swarm hive are very strong. Lots of bees, nectar, honey, larvae, eggs & capped brood. There is no need to combine them. Now we will just continue to feed them syrup until the daytime temps drop consistently below 50°. Hopefully we'll make it to the end of this month. The next 15 days look good. Once the temps drop, we will start feeding them sugar bricks and will continue to do that until spring when the nectar starts flowing again. I sure hope they make it through winter.

Info on using sugar bricks. They serve a dual purpose. #1 feeding the bees. #2 they absorb condensation in the hives. The bees generate a lot of heat, they will keep the area where they are clustered at 95°. It can make for a damp environment on the hive boxes in cold weather. I will share pictures of the process when we get there. Our next bee club meeting will be about making and using them.

I'm really loving this journey. I've learned so much. That being said, today made me a little sad, but sometimes you have to make the hard choices, to get the best results.

 

[drstratton]

Forgot to share this beauty!

 

[SageHill]

Yeah - no matter what livestock tough decisions have to made eventually. All for the health of the herd/flock/swarm whatever - include us. Good job. It's fun watching from a distance (couple thousand miles ) when bees come around me I softly semi-freak out. Of course that makes it worse I must be dropping a load of "sting me now" pheromones.

 

[drstratton]

Yeah - no matter what livestock tough decisions have to made eventually. All for the health of the herd/flock/swarm whatever - include us. Good job. It's fun watching from a distance (couple thousand miles ) when bees come around me I softly semi-freak out. Of course that makes it worse I must be dropping a load of "sting me now" pheromones.

The honeybees don't freak me out unless they start chasing me when I don't have my veil on and that's only happened 2 times. When there is a good nectar flow going, they are not interested in you at all, they are too busy and don't have time to mess around. Yellow jackets are another story, those totally freak me out...

It's good that you are so far away, I'd feel bad if my bees stung you.

 

[SageHill]

My driveway seems to be the death ground for bees, I have no idea why. I find dead and dying bees in the evening and morning. It's a big concrete driveway -- per code big enough for a firetruck to turn around in.
This is one of many...

Any idea why? They got kicked out of a hive somewhere? It's their time? They got lost?

 

[drstratton]

My driveway seems to be the death ground for bees, I have no idea why. I find dead and dying bees in the evening and morning. It's a big concrete driveway -- per code big enough for a firetruck to turn around in.
This is one of many...
View attachment 122059

Any idea why? They got kicked out of a hive somewhere? It's their time? They got lost?

More than likely it's just their time. They go until they can't go any longer. I've read that bees won't go back to the hive when they know they're at the end, that way they don't burden the other bees, by needing to be removed. Drones are the only ones that get kicked out and that's before winter.

 

[SageHill]

More than likely it's just their time. They go until they can't go any longer. I've read that bees won't go back to the hive when they know they're at the end, that way they don't burden the other bees, by needing to be removed. Drones are the only ones that get kicked out and that's before winter.

OK! Now I don't feel so bad for them. Though the ones who aren't dead yet still sting (Sage got unlucky a few months ago).