My Latest Project: Honeybee Painting!

Last month I was lying in bed about to fall asleep and this idea came to me for a painting. I wanted to get one of my dad's old, wood frames (he wants to replace them with fresh, plastic ones, but I think they are COOL and they have his name "P.T.Bee" branded in them), and create a painting of a frame of bees that is framed INSIDE a real frame.

Well, it took no more than a text to Dad and next time I saw him he not only had a frame for me, but a piece of masonite cut to fit!

I used a iridescent white paint for the wings which I think added a cool effect...the wings catch the light just like the real thing!

 Here are a few progress pics...

We missed the deadline to order a new package of bees this year, but I'm so glad we did! Right now the lake is still frozen, ground is completely covered in snow and it's snowing more. Those who ordered bees from our regular source picked them up yesterday, and will now have to keep them indoors until the weather warms up, hoping they don't all die! :-( So, we will be trying a nuc instead this year, which usually are ready early May...in the meantime, the bees are hopefully enjoying their sugar syrup and pollen patties! We'll check in again once April feels more like April!

Thanks for stopping by!

Quick Check...

Today I had a chance to quickly check on the bees to make sure the sugar syrup was flowing, as there's more cold weather coming! I made up a gallon of sugar syrup in case they needed more, and went out to visit. I didn't do any filming this time, but snapped a picture of my peek inside...

They hadn't really taken any sugar syrup, but as you can see here they did eat up a good portion of the pollen patty. So, I slipped another one in on the other side of the opening, in the front of this photo frame, and closed it back up!

Now we go through more cold and snow...still not warm enough to take off the winter covers. We'll see how things look in another week or two!

First Peek of the Season!

Today we were finally able to get out and take a look at the bees for the first time this season! A couple months ago I knocked on the hives and put my ear to the entrance, and heard buzzing in Penelobee's hive.  No sound from Beeatrice. As we had suspected, today we confirmed that Beeatrice's colony did not make it.  However, I'm super excited to say that Penelobee's colony seems to be alive and well! There were lots of bees on the inner cover and up high, looking for more food. There was still some pollen patty left but we gave them a whole one, and put a feeder pail on top today.  It's still too cold to open them up and look farther inside, and too cold to remove the winter covers.  But, once it warms up a bit we'll get deeper into the boxes and see what we have to work with in 2018! In the meantime, here's a video of what we did today!

My Latest Project: Honeybee Afghan!

What do I do while waiting for bee season to start up again? Crochet!! :-D Here's an afghan I've been working on for a while, and recently finished!

Many people on Facebook have been asking me for the pattern, but I'm afraid I made it up as I went along.  I found a generic hexagon pattern online, and made up the bees. I used some scraggly yarn to make them look extra fuzzy, and put a little stuffing in them before sewing them on so they'd be a little three dimensional! :-) I do sell a few patterns on my design website, so if I do ever put together some sort of pattern for the bees, I'll be sure to put it there, or in my bee shop!

New Products: Boo-Boo Balm and Cracked Skin Salve!

I'm excited to announce a few new items to our shop! 

Boo-Boo Balm

When I was little and got hurt, my grandpa Harvey would pull his "medicine" out of his pocket...an empty chap stick tube...pretend to twist it up and apply it to my "owies." Miraculously, it always helped! The Boo-Boo Balm is lovingly developed with Grandpa Harvey in mind, only this one is not empty! A great overall first aid salve for owies, real and imaginary.

Ingredients: beeswax, olive oil & grapeseed oil infused with calendula blossoms, lavender blossoms, comfrey leaf, plantain leaf, and chickweed leaf, and a bend of lavender oil & vitamin E oil.

Cracked Skin Salve

Available in 1 oz and 2 oz tins, our cracked skin salve is great for relieving dry skin, especially in our dry Minnesota winters!

Ingredients: beeswax, olive oil infused with calendula blossoms, plantain leaf & St. John's Wort, and a blend of pine needle oil, German chamomile oil, lavender oil and tea tree oil.


All of our products are hand made in small batches with beeswax from our local MN honeybees! Your purchase not only helps support local business and the material costs of creating memories with my dad and the bees, but helps us help our little pollinators thrive! ;-)

Thanks for stopping in! Hope you have a BEE-autiful day!

The Costs of Beekeeping

Just for fun, I've been keeping track of every expense I've had so far in this new beekeeping hobby! Now I don't have nearly as many expenses as someone starting from scratch, because I've been able to utilize all of my dad's equipment, including his boxes, frames, feeder pails, smoker fuel, extracting tools, etc etc etc...  So, this is by no means an accurate estimate for what it will cost to start up an operation from scratch! But, I love being organized and find it interesting keeping track of stuff like this.

Also, I've spent money on things not required to get into beekeeping, stocking up on herbs, tools and containers required to turn the beeswax into things like balms, salves, candles, etc.  Here's where I'm at so far for expenses alone, not including my dad's investment in bees last year and equipment over his decades in beekeeping...

2016 - First Season (2 colonies):

$0.00 - Bees - My dad bought the bees this year!
$165.33 - Education - Beekeeping class at the U of M, and a couple books
$165.54 - Equipment - My own smoker, gloves, suit, & hive tool, and oxalic acid & vaporizer
$175.27 - Beeswax Products - Supplies & herbs for balms & candles

Total: $506.14 spent. I believe we extracted around 36 pounds of honey total?

2017 - Second Season (2 new colonies):

$257.10 - Bees - Two 2 lb packages
$110.00 - Education - Beekeeping 2nd year class at the U of M
$205.51 - Equipment - More frames, uncapping fork, refractometer, mite kit, winter patties, etc
$550.29 - Beeswax Products - Supplies, herbs, containers for balms and new salves

Total: $1,122.90 spent. We extracted around 124 pounds this year!

Keeping our fingers crossed that we won't have the expense of 2 new packages of bees next spring...hopefully they'll make it through winter and we can split some hives next year!

There are a few things I forgot to add like sugar for syrup, lighters for the smoker, and olive oil for balms, but this is all pretty close. Once you add in the priceless time spent with my dad out in the fields tending to the bees, you can see why we find our honey to be so precious! :-)

Now how is this honey parceled out? My dad and I split it up...first we give a good chunk to my friends who generously allow us to keep our bees on their property and show up into their yard every week all summer long! Last year what liquid gold was left I hoarded in our house to enjoy personally! ;-) My boys have become pretty accustomed to having honey on Ritz crackers every day as an after school snack, haha! And my 2nd grader's lunch of choice is a peanut butter & honey sandwich he brings to school every day! ;-)

This year I'm loosening my grip just a tad since we got a lot more, planning to give a little sampling to some family and friends as Christmas gifts, and maybe...just maybe...sell a little bit. But we'll see once I get my gifts together. ;-)

Thank you for sharing my fascination with bees by reading my blog! Stay tuned for some new beeswax products coming to the site SOON...as you can see I've invested more this year in acquiring herbs needed to create a couple more products!

Honey Extracting Day 2017!

We extracted honey on November 18th! I know, it's pretty late to be getting to extracting but we stowed away the supers right before my dad went on a 2 month road trip! So, now that he's back we got to harvest the fruits of our labor!

I was there for a little over 5 hours, and when I left there was still honey to be strained. The strainer was getting clogged often and had to be cleaned, dried, and replaced, so that part took a while.  But, we harvested probably 4 times what we did last year so it was a great year!

Here's a video of what we did!

I also didn't blog about one other visit I made to the bees last week...I went in and gave them some winter patties.  Crossing our fingers they make it through the winter! I'd LOVE to be able to split a hive next spring!!