about my bees and a bit of everything
And what are we actually doing! Well, right now we should be cleaning our super frames, checking our kit and deciding about buying a new hive. We are not doing any of that. Firstly work is too busy, second we have to buy two new …
So, look at us! we are all smart and fancy for the next season with our new look blog site. Why did we move? We wanted a bit more control over things for the future and since everything else is about to get going again, …
We have been really busy in the last few weeks from returning from France, the bees have been feeding on sugar solution as the weather has kept them out but there has been little or no forage due to the warm weather. We have been buying sugar in many kilos! Darn that sugar tax!
The bees are ok, we have noticed that they get very grumpy when they are hungry – think thats called hangry actually, Hubby gets it too. They bat into the suits until we leave them alone or provide food. It won’t be long before we are closing up for winter though.
All the family stuff has exploded back into our lives after a summer of no uniforms, activities or schedules. Now cubs, rainbows, swimming, music and gymnastics are back on our weekly agenda making time to see the bees down to only one of us at a time. We don’t want this and are thinking of ways to get around this – more on that another time.
We also arrived back to find news that the apiary is gong to have to move. The local residents have bought a boat, and want access to their lake which at the moment is the flight path of around 250,000 bees in high summer so not a runway you want to get entangled in. It has been suggested we move further around the lake so we can enjoy an even longer walk to the hives with all our kit. Still thinking about that one too.
On another note the bees have supported something else. Boy beekeeper has got a Blue Peter badge for writing about his beekeeping! Now when I was younger, just a short number of years ago you understand, a Blue Peter badge was the Holy Grail, and Hubby and I were just as excited as him to find he was awarded one.
So chuffed!
We have harvested our late summer honey this week. Last time it was a lovely amber colour but this time to our surprise it was a beautiful tawny brown, with a strong and fragrant taste. I am starting to sound like a wine taster, but …
You might have lots of enormous bumble bees hanging around your garden at the moment, like us. Much much larger than honey bees, bumble bees – or what we think of as bumbles might be any of 24 different types.
Pictures from the boy beekeeper. Its the school holidays it was at least 15minutes of an activity that kept him busy!
Just in case you are interested check out these pages for more information and ways to see if your garden or yard is bee friendly. All the bees are essential, not just the honey bees.
So remember that we had a hive under the hive? We took the hive apart to look at it and it was like this. We also had some advice that another queen under here was unlikely since queens, bit like tomcats, don’t fancy living close …
The moment has arrived! We are honey producers. It seemed very complicated but actually if you follow the process it’s not so bad. We had to get the frames from the hive, well that sounds easy. Lets not mention the tens of thousands of bees …
The moment has come to harvest! We are so excited we have done so much research into what to do.
We need all this stuff:
The jars have arrived.
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You might recall that in my last blog the bees were grumpy and in the one before that I mentioned about queen cells and maybe not being able to see the queen? You might have been wondered if there was something going on. Well, yes …
