A new season ahead!

It is mid February, and it appears that my bees have made it through the winter pretty well.

Today Pattie and I finished a hive inspection that we started yesterday. To our surprise, our bees had already started to gather nectar and produce honey. We harvested (3) frames today and added new frames for them to fill back up.

We also discovered some queen cells which can be seen in the first photo. That means that our present queen is getting up there in age or has been injured and the colony is preparing for a new one to take her place.

I will be setting a swarm trap to catch my own bees, if they decide to split the hive and look for a new home. 

So, it looks to be another exciting year of managing some of God's amazing creatures.

In photo #1, you will notice the large cells protruding from the bottom of the frame. These are the queen cells. They are larger than the worker or drone cells. Queen cells are very special, because you only find them when a new queen is being prepared. We have never seen them in our hive until today. We may soon have a new healthy queen who lays thousands of eggs a day. A healthy queen means a healthy colony - which means LOTS OF HONEY - which we love!

The second photo shows some brand new comb which our bees produced this year. They build this comb very fast when there are good resources available to them for it's production.

Click on images to enlarge

Now, isn't that some pretty comb? Send my bees a text message to encourage their continued good performance in their hive! Even bees need a little encouraging word from time to time. ;^D

Special thanks to my faithful assistant and photographer (Pattie)!

Foragers returning with pollen sacks

Here's a few pictures showing my honeybees coming back to the hive with their legs loaded down with pollen. Some of these sacks are huge. Click on the images to enlarge.

Turn up the volume and listen to my bees!

My poor bees have been cooped up in their house for a couple of days because of rain, and so they felt the need to let off some steam today. They were loud!!!

Assistant Beekeeper

While Anita was here for a visit she had the opportunity to meet "my girls." She wanted to get some pictures and learn a little bit about honeybees and beekeeping. So, she dawned the beekeeper veil and got right into the hive with me! Here she is posing next to hive which our bees call their home.

Anita really enjoyed this experience, and I believe it was one of the highlights of her visit. By seeing and learning a little bit about honeybees, it gave glory to God, Who made these amazing little creatures!

 (Click on image to enlarge)

Honey Colors

Here's a picture of some honey that was harvested at different times and places. The color is determined by the flowers that were visited by the bees when they gathered their nectar.

The honey on the far left was harvested in the spring in the state of New York. The next ones going from left to right are from our bees. The earlier honey is lighter in color and the honey on the farthest right was the most recent. Click on the picture to enlarge.

What bees do on hot summer evenings?

Remember what people used to do before central air conditioning became affordable? They would go out on the porch and try to stay cool. Well here's how the bees cope with the heat - they "hang out."

Frames in the hive

Here are some pictures of one of the components in a bee hive. These are the "frames" which the bees build their honeycomb upon. The first picture is an empty frame before it's installed in the hive. Click on any picture to enlarge it.

A look at the inside of the hive with a couple of frames hanging on a "frame perch" so that we can inspect the frames.

Here's a frame that our bees have done a good bit of work on. They have built their hexagonal cells on the pre-installed foundation inside the frame, but they have also built their own comb down below the frame.

Here's a frame with mostly "capped" honey. Once the bees get the honey "cured" with the right amount of moisture, they put a wax cap on it to preserve it. This frame is about 75% completed.

Here are two frames of fully capped honey ready for harvest (one is laying down and one is standing up).

The end result!