Thursday, April 26, 2012

More bees??

Guess we have enough bees here now. I have to talk to the owners of the farm down the road to see if they want more bee hives. Yesterday I removed bees from a ceiling in a closet about 5 miles from here. We dropped the bees into the box of bees I took out of a basement a few weeks ago. Used  newspaper between boxes so the bees can adjust to each other in the same hive, otherwise they might just kill each other.

Lindsey lives in the house where we took out the bees, just days before told me she moved downstairs because she was afraid of bees. Well yesterday she helped me with removing the bees, she did not even get stung. She took a lot of photos and video as I was removing the bees. Guess what I forgot to put the battery back in my camera. Hopefully she'll send me some photos on CD and I can show you some of the action. This video of me installing the bees into a hive Lindsey took with my camera in my back yard.

So I checked the big hive that Kitty and I cut out in Hillsborough several weeks ago, they were pissed I got 3 stings in the legs through my jeans. Both 10 frames deeps are nearly full of honey and a little pollen. Thinking I need to get them a queen on Saturday as no eggs or brood were seen.

My split nuk that I pulled from the mother hive on March 15th got a queen on Friday, finally. They had 4 deep frames of honey and I gave them 5 new frames. The top bar hive I can now see three combs from the window and I checked one comb it was full of eggs!

So we have 5 hives here in the yard and one at a farm currently, not seeing getting anymore as I'm now too busy to work anymore hives. And I believe I have one hive that needs a queen and this newest one we'll have to wait and see if it needs a queen.

The garden report. April 21 I noticed waterlilies blooming in the pond, never seen them before May before. Also on April 21 we ate our first Sugar Snap Peas, last year on May first I took photos of the flowers not the peas!

Rain we have had lots of rain, first April in years we have had this much rain. Barely missed a frost on Monday night hope we are done with that.


The reason you have not seen any posts from me lately is we moved Meg's mom and step father last weekend, it is still not finished. No help from her brother who lives 30 miles away nor the 3 step siblings. Nice to have some help, would it have been nice.

4 comments:

NotSoAngryRedHead said...

Wow, that's a lot of bees.

Moving is awful. Hope the rest of the family pitches in!

Victoria Williams said...

That video makes me want to slap bees away from me while I watch it! And I'm really not afraid of bees. I'm impressed you get stung so seldom. We've been getting drenched here lately, and we needed it. Hope the move goes OK.

Phillip Oliver said...

With all the news lately about bees disappearing, this is great to hear!

Skeeter said...

Good for Lindsey to become brave with the bees! Sorry you were stung later on but I reckon that is part of the job of bee keeper! I know what you mean about family members and friends helping out. They always seem to show up for the "party" and time the departure of the event before clean up (Work) begins. They never seem to be around when help is needed either. I forgive but I dont forget....