Removing Supers & Counting Mites

Well, I haven't blogged much this summer for a couple reasons...I've been super busy with work and family camping trips, but also the bees haven't been doing much! We never did end up getting any honey in the supers this year. Oh well. The bee experts were really shocked we got any honey our first year with our first bees, and we've been happy with a little each year after...but now we can only hope they make it through winter so we can see was a second-year colony can do!

So on September 20th I removed all of the supers. At this point the honey flow is all over, and there is no point in keeping them on the hives. In the fall we want the bees to be storing honey in their deeps to eat over winter. My dad was on a road trip so I went alone this time! I spent about an hour and 15 minutes with the bees and sweat my butt off, haha! But I used weeds to brush all the bees off of every frame in the supers, and loaded them into my Jeep with just one hitchhiker. I wore my suit home just in case!

I counted mites, and ended up with about 2 mites per colony. Not too bad but we may treat anyway to be safe. I'm a little behind on everything this fall, but started feeding today too. I made some 2:1 sugar syrup (heavier syrup for fall), and put a pail on each colony.

A couple days later, once I had a chance to go buy more sugar, I brought back more syrup. Beeatrice still had some but Penelobee had emptied the pail. This time of year you should feed hard and fast, with 3 pails right on the frames. But, I only had 3 pails on hand. So, I filled up Beeatrice's pail, and then put two full pails on Penelobee's. I'll probably go back tomorrow to check and add some more!

So, no fun extraction day videos for this year, but here's one from what I did on the 20th!

Checking for New Queen Acceptance

Today I stopped by for a short visit with the bees. It's been 10 days since we re-queened Beeatrice's colony, so the hope was to confirm she was accepted and is laying. Luckily, I saw eggs so we know she is in there and all is well! Woohoo!  I didn't look farther so as not to disturb them too much or injure her. Penelobee I just took one peek and saw more capped brood & larva, so left her "bee" too! :-) I refilled both pails of sugar syrup and that was it for the day! Here's a little recap of the day!

Checking for Eggs, Queen Acceptance & Re-Queening!

On May 4th we checked the bees for queen acceptance and eggs! First we opened up "Beeatrice" and unfortunately didn't find any sign of the queen laying...no eggs, no larvae, and after much searching, no queen.

We opened up Penelobee's hive and saw a frame with some eggs, larvae and capped brood! Woohoo! We also spotted the queen herself.

We refilled the sugar syrup pails, gave each one 1/2 of a pollen patty, and closed them up. Dad drove all the way to Cottage Grove to pick up a new queen, and back again, and we got her installed! We'll have to go back in another week or two, and check again...fingers crossed we'll see some eggs next time!

Here's a movie of our day!

2019 Beekeeping Season Begins! Installing the Bees...

Yesterday we installed the bees!! Dad was nice enough to go pick them up in Stillwater on Tuesday while I was at home trying to figure out the best way to care for my newly neutered (giant 77 pound) puppy! So, that was great...he brought them over on Wednesday and we installed that evening!

Here's a little movie of our evening, you can watch below or see it HERE on our YouTube channel! Scroll down for some photos too. Here's to the 2019 season...long live the queens! :-D

The resident & visiting kiddos got a kick out of the bees in their cages!

Photo bomber! My camera stand broke so I had to prop it up in this tree, haha!
Here we are going through the old frames, deciding what to use.

Getting ready to dump them in

In their new hive!

Installing the queen cage

All done!

Mystery Reader Day 2019

Every February our boys' elementary school celebrates "I Love to Read Month!" One of the festivities is "mystery reader" day, when parents, unbeknownst to their kids, volunteer to show up one day dressed in full costume to read a book to the kids! Each parent is assigned two classrooms to visit where they read their book, and afterwards the costumed parents go on a little parade throughout the building. Naturally, this year I just had to volunteer to read a bee-related book! This was also a great excuse for me to get the new shirt/veil that I've been wanting to get, since mine was a little grimy, and a new pair of gloves because one of mine somehow became ripped after I put them away last season!

I borrowed this cute book called "Bee and Me" from my parents to read! It was just the right length for the 10-15 minutes I had, has some fun moving images as the pages turn, and in the back has a couple pages of interesting bee facts that the kids enjoyed! And of course, EVERYONE has a story of being stung by a "bee," so it was a great chance to talk about how friendly honeybees actually are! I could spend an hour at least teaching kids about bees, but this was a fun event and I had a great time!

Showing the kids how much honey one bee makes in her entire lifetime!

I brought along my smoker and the kids really loved smelling the smoky puffs of air that came out if it!

All the readers dressed up!

 I really wanted to show a few pages from "Bees: A Honeyed History" which is an AWESOME book, super huge and gorgeous illustrations of all things bees!! But, time just went too quick....maybe next year!