Checking in on the bees

Even though I was never super interested in the idea of bees- at least the beekeeping part, I liked the idea of having them, but not necessarily doing stuff to them/with them.  

Hello bees!

However, this is a pretty awesome project so I have been present for virtually all of it.  It is fun, because I do not have to be the expert or even somewhat knowledgable - I just get to listen.  Being a teacher, I am rarely in that position.  It's a delight!

Adding smoke to settle the bees

At Greg's place- he's prepping the smoker.

Smoking the bees at Gregs

Our job this weekend (and I was there when Greg did this too) was to check for brood (baby bees) and for pollen and all that good stuff.  I never got to see a queen, but they are there as evidenced by the eggs and grubs in the cells.

Rearranging the frames - you can see our bear resistant cage

Looking for babies, eggs, etc

Both sets of hives have eggs, babies, pollen and our hive had the beginning of honey!  There was something called a Burr Comb, which is a piece of comb that the bees started building  because there was too much space left between the frames- rookie error apparently.  So they (Greg) peeled that piece off and we had a taste of the new honey.  Who knew there was nectar out and about already!?!  Lord knows there is pollen, so those bees have a lot of energy!  

Frames

The burr comb is the piece that sticks out.  Bees build combs to fill their space.

The other thing we did was medicate the hives for some sort of disease that gives the poor little dudes the bee runs.  Lol.  So this is how we feed them sugar water with their medicine.  

The next step will be to put the next brood box on, as the frames are getting filled up with babies and pollen and honey.  VERY cool.  That will be happening this weekend.  

Sugar water with medicine- Sugar to water ratio right now is 1:1

And off we go into the summer and the bee adventure continues.  And this will be a joy!