New Pictures

We just took some pictures to day of the bees and the back yard. Hope you enjoy.

This is the watering hole. Keeps them away from the salt water pool.

Picture of our garden.

We do not use any harmful Chemicals, All organic.Except for fire ants. We hate those little buggers.

This is a picture of an Experiment  top entrance

Great Inspection

Today I did an inspection of my two Hives. The last time I did an inspection one hive was doing great. The queen was laying like a machine, beekeepers that have come to help me out said I should start making queens of that one. The second hive I have not found the queen for two and a half three weeks
But today there she was just doing great. She is Golden in color and very long and fat. I do go on beesource chat a lot in the evening and everyone was starting to give me a hard time because I have whined about my missing queen. They tell me I am a worry wart. I guess I am, But missing a queen is a hard thing to go threw for a first time beekeeper. It felt like I did something wrong and she left me. But now I have a new one and she is great. The hives look good. The one with the queen is doing ok, I would of thought that starting out with a Nuc they would be going like gang busters, but that did not happen, I did lose the queen early in the season two weeks after they were installed. So if you look at it that way they are doing just fine, I think a little lite. The second hive lost its queen like I said 2 ½ to 3 weeks ago and have not recovered just yet. I have been lucky have only had maybe 20 SHB and have not seen the verroa Mite yet. But they tell me it is still early. I try to use little smoke when I inspect the hives so this is what I do. Remember I am new at this just a Rookie and this might not work for you. I smoke the entrance and bottom of the hive. I use a SBB. Wait a minute or so, then lift the top and smoke just a little. Wait two Minutes then open her up. No more smoke is used. When I inspect the hives I will mist the bees with sugar water and some HBH,this calms them down fast and lets me work the hive for at least an hour. I am not that fast. Each frame gets a little mist . This could also help with the verroa because the bees are cleaning themselves and others. I was also getting worried because I did not see any drones, but this time there they were with their big bug eyes and fat bodies they do stick out. My next inspection will have a lot of pictures. Also three days ago the bees in the lite hive were in a frenzy just flying every were and making all kinds of noise. I thought it could have been a swarm starting. But lucky me it was not. A big yellow jacket got into the hive and they all attacked it and killed it then they were dragging it out the front door. Me and the wife say them drag it out and toss it over the edge and then giving the team high fives going back to the bar for some more refills. Go home team!!!! It is hard to not root for the home team. We have a salt water pool 75 feet from the hives so we thought we might have some problems with so un wanted swimmers so we set up a small 24 X 12 plastic container with rocks sticks and pine straw on the other side of our garden hopping to get them to swim there, and it worked they love it and very few bees have had any swimming accidents so far. Three of my neighbors have commented that they have seen more bees in there garden this year than ever before. Not sure it is because of our bees but I still take credit. So tonight all is good in bee land. One other thing I did find out just by accident. When I am done with the bees I will go smoke all the shrubs and plants in the back yard and some of the grass area, we have found less mosquitoes and we are now able to sit outside during the early evening and enjoy the yard. Good by for now and remember keep you jacket zipped and your smoker lit and have fun, because they are.

Got a call today asking about the bees

The person who sold me the two NUCS of bees called today asking how the bees were doing . I told him we could not find the queen and some of the bees looked a little lite. He said he will be sending 3 to 5 pounds for me to install. One more thing to learn how to do the news paper install, should be fun. I made this watering hole out of a large plastic bucket, some rocks to fill the bottom, laid pine straw on it . The filled it with water. used some sticks to help keep the pine straw so what out of the water. The bees love it and they stay away from my built in pool.

I have to be one of the luckiest first time beekeepers these two NUCS are so gentle that the neighbors, my family all just walk up to the hives and watch the bees, they should not stand in the flight path and don't go closer then the white fence and so far everyone has been fine , even my two boxers the older one cleio lays under the plum tree and they do not bother her. 

we don't even mind that the blue birds fly and catch some of the bees for there young

I do a hive inspection every Friday afternoon We do no treatment any synthetic chemicals. I will do a bee drench, powder sugar, etc.... The bees I am using are Russian/ VSh . I would love to get some bees from the Purvis brothers in late summer ( The Golden Bee Line ) after reading about the success with this bee I want to try two.If I start two Nucs late summer.

Pictures of my Bees

Another newbe mistake

I decided to look at my bees today after work. A beautiful day sunny and 87. First hive was very active bees bringing in everything . So I got the jacket on and started the smoker I need to keep this thing lit this time, so I started with some shredded phone book and pine straw. Got her going and it staid lit for the first hive inspection. I was looking for the queen, any signs of SHB or mites, tried to find some larva our anything that looks like it. But that is not the best distance for my eye  site so I settled on finding the queen. Found her on the next to last end frame. I think I need  jewelers glasses to see those tiny little eggs. This hobby keeps sucking money from you everyday. but it sure is fun and relaxing. The other good thing about having bees is that if you need some time alone you just need to suite up light the smoker and go spend time with the girls.
Well back to the girls I did not see any SHB or Verroa that is a good thing. I did see capped broad, caped honey, and watched one of the bees bringing in pollen and other bees packing it in tight. this was on 6 of the 8 frames. Wish I had workers that worked like that. The two out side new frames had no activity other then bees walking all over them.Everything looked good to this rookie so I closed it up and went to the next hive . This is were all the fun started. I followed the same steps for this hive as I did for thefirst one. I smoked the entrance. Then I lifted the top and smoked it let it sit for a few minutes. Then opened up. I took of the top hive feeder I only had it half full of sugar water and HBH just in case. about half was taken in a weeks time. I went into the second supper no activity just a bunch of bees hanging out this was a new super only on for about 5 days. So I took that off and was into the main broad Super. Every frame had something going on bees everywhere doing something. Pollen, nectar, drones, workers, But did not see the queen. like I said before, my close up eye site is not that great but I still tried to find larva, or eggs with no luck. I did find a lot of caped broad so I took that as a good sign. Well the bees were getting a little aggravated and started to make a lot of noise so I did what I thought was smoke them but boy was I wrong, all that came out of the smoker was a 3 foot yellow flame, that got my heart pumping and also fried some bees about 12 or so. But that is not the worst part. As I continued to work the bees and try to find the queen I started to smell this ripe banana smell and buy this time the bees were really get riled so as it says in the books and what everyone tells me, I just stopped what I was doing and put the hive back together. I did open each entrance to full open. It looks to me that a super full of bees should be able to take care of that entrance. One other thing both my covers started to warp . Someone on Beesource told me to turn them up side down and they would fit. I did and it worked. So things look good in the hives except for one hive that I could not find the queen.I did not see any queen cells and all seemed to bee working . The last time I looked there was a queen with a blue dot. But as I said the bees cleaned some of that off. So may be she is there but I did not see her. I will check again Saturday. I hope this little blog helps some other rookies so they learn from my mistakes.

First Check of the Bees

Today I took the written exam to get my certificate for a beginner beekeeper. Then I came home and we put up some white lattice just in front of the bee hives to help direct there flight away from the human hang out area. Looks like it worked.We had some clouds in the area ans I was told never to open the hive on cloudy days. I was not sure I should open the hives up and look at the bees. But of course being a new beekeeper I just had to open them up and at least find the queen. So I got all dressed up in the jacket. Got my smoker lite and this time it stayed lit and was still going an hour after I finished. So I started, smoked the first hive and opened the top. The girls ate half of the sugar water not bad for four days. Took the feeder of and there they were. Very calm and just a low buzz and they were going down in the hive, very few flying around. But for some reason I smoked them again and that stirred them up the buzz started to get loud and a lot came up to greet me and started flying, Lesson learned only smoke when you have to.... I started to look in the hive for the queen and found myself just starring in amazement at everything they were doing.Some just had there butts sticking out , others were bringing in pollen, some were even just flapping there wings. and still others looked like they were eating and some just like some of my workers just looked like they were walking around doing nothing . So after I woke up from the daze I moved on looking for the queen. On next to the last hive there she was with that blue dot on her head, Some of the color was missing I guess the girls like a clean queen. after I found her I put the hive back together and put on a second medium because to me this one looked full. Then went on to the next hive. Did the same thing this time the queen was with a bunch of her court so she was easy to find. The same thing the blue dot was half gone. I need to learn to find the queen with out the dot. after finding the queen I put  on the second medium 8 frame small cell and closed it up. They both looked good to me. Next time I will look for varroa mites and SHB hopefully I don't find ether one. I will not use any harsh Chemicals. My list of preventive items is small, powder sugar, HBH, some essential oils. and small cell, screen bottom board, bottom rack. It is amazing at how the bees can live and work in such a complex society with out speech. I wish some of my fellow workers could learn that lesson. LOL !! Have a great day and go out and get BUZZED!!

The Bees are in

I received the bees today on small cell medium frames. Decided to install them and that went great. Not sure I did everything properly but did not get stung and they are alive. I received two 6 frame nucs so I backed my truck up to the hives used it as a work area and got all the equipment together. Jacket, Hive tool, Smoker,Hammer you know those pesky ones need more then smoke sometimes, no it was to take the nails out of the nuc, spray bottle with sugar water and HBH, .  I read  that if you spray them with that mixture they tend to stay calm. It worked !! started the smoker, not very good at that. It just barely stayed lit for the two installs. The hives have been set up so I just had to open the nucs and put in the frames. The first nuc I opened the bees were black as the ace of spades, just what I ordered Russian / VSH . It had some frames of brood, honey but lite on bees, Did not really look for the queen just trying to get the job done.I smoked them when I opened the lid and sprayed them with the syrup mixture they calmed right down went together with little problems. The second have was a little different . It was a six frame also but had a lot of burr comb on top.So not knowing what to do I took the hive tool and separated the frames and cleaned the burr comb of before placing them in the hive.Once again this one was lite on bees.I also put all the frames in the hive and added two new frames to both outside area's. I filled up half of a top hive feeder with 2 X 1 syrup and HBH. Closed up both hives and went on my way. This Saturday I will do a check for the queen and see what is going on.I think I will all so put on a medium to each hive.