Some Bee Pics

Since in my last post I mentioned that we now have our own bees I thought I would show you the pics of how we got them.

This is a shot from the left side of the porch on the market. Behind the picnic table is the 2 beehives. The black rectangle thing is Robin's bee care box.

I am thinking that I am going to have to move them a little further away from the market. I really don't want anyone getting stung. They aren't around the market much but you never know when that could change.

Here is a close up of the 2 hives. You will notice the mason jars on each one. The 2 hives were very young and didn't have time to produce enough honey to sustain them through the winter. So to help them out I have to give them a jar of sugar water each. On the cold days it lasts longer but on the warm days they grow crazy! For awhile I was changing the jars everyday!

We are moving these 2 hives to the home farm in February so that they will be settled in by spring and the bees will pollinate the blueberry bushes that we have.

This is where our bees were living before they came to our hives. They were in my cousins house. Mr. Godfrey and Robin went over and VACCUUMED them out! That's right. A vaccuum.She said it was an old Hoover.

This is the outer edge of the hive and it kept going on behind the wall which is in the bottom right of the photo. They would vaccuum bees, pull down honeycomb, and go back further to repeat the process.

 This is a picture of the same spot as the previous picture. It's just further back in the wall. There were places in there where the bees built the hive around the pipes and wires. It was just awesome to see.

This is a picture of the bees being brought out to the home farm. Robin had the hives set up and ready for them to call home. They were a little upset at the car ride and then being dumped out in a strange new place.

These are simply sycamore sticks leaned up to the hive so the bees would crawl up the sticks and into the hive.

This is just another shot of the bees heading "home". Isn't that a scary sight?












I have to paint some more hive bodies so that they can be added to the existing hives and the bees will continue to fill it. As long as there is an empty spot they will try to put honeycomb in it. When Mr. Godfrey brings them to farm the hive opening has to face a southern exposure. I'm not sure why but hopefully I will learn that in the bee class. I have the spot picked out that isn't in the middle of where I mow or where anyone is in danger of getting stung. It will be near the blueberry bushes but also centrally located so that they can pollinate everything that we will be growing.

I am sure I will be blogging quite a bit once I start the bee classes. I hope you guys are interested in bee keeping!