Winter

Winter

Monday, April 5, 2010

Working with Bees

My Beekeeper

Here is my brave, bee keeper husband. I of course
am the cowardly one behind the camera. After my
bee sting episode earlier in March, I am too afraid,
the bees know this and I have to over come my fear.
We took the top off because we knew that some
black widows had moved in. (Who are now deceased.)

This is the top box looking down, we moved this
one off the one that holds the brood. Getting in
this one that holds the brood is touchy business
because the queen should be there too. They get
kinda grumpy when you are messing in the box
where the queen lives.

The queen is down in this part can you see all of the
bees? They were pretty calm and we had to see if
more black widows had got this far into the hive
but they were black widow free.

This one is all capped, and looks pretty good.
I thought it looked good for so early in the spring.
This is a young hive just barely a year old.
One of the things I noticed the bees were agitated
today as we were all walking around and then later
I heard that we had a earthquake down in Baja
California. I had read that bees know and have left
the hive just before a earthquake. Now I wonder if
they knew before hand. I shall keep my eyes on the bees.

This is a drone. Notice no stinger, and larger than
the regular worker bees. We noticed something,
A week or so ago when my husband got into the hive,
he found queen cells which he destroyed. He noticed
at that time that there seems a bunch of drones around.

We noticed yesterday, that these girls are killing
the drones. It was kind of weird to see them killing
drones and then dragging their dying bodies off
the edge of the hive and dropping them off.
I could make all kinds of cracks but I won't.
but lets just say, bees are so very interesting, and
I will soon be over my fear.
Have a nice Monday.

5 comments:

Sue said...

Good Morning Kim,
WOW! this was so interesting, when we had bees, which we brought to the farm for our produce, we just left them to themselves.We were not equipped to handle them in their hives.

I have really been talking to my dh about us taking some classes so we can do it right. I am told that if you eat local honey, your allergies won't be as bad.

Just like animals, we can learn so much from God's other creation.I am so looking forward to you sharing more about your bees.

I had to smile when you told of your husband working the hive, as I would have been in the same boat if I had gotten stung, and my dh would have so willingly taken over for me like yours did. lol Aren't we blessed? I know you will be back soon busy as a bee at the hive, as I would. You did a wonderful job of taking pictures.

I also have noticed that when we have hurricanes or other storms that our birds will leave or go in hiding. When I heard this morning that Ca. had the earthquake, I though of my blogging friends who live there and hoped all was well. I am thankful all is well with you.
Well, as always I have written my usual long letter. lol.
Have a great day !
Hugs,
Sue

Janean said...

kim, hello!

earthquake bee evacuation...very interesting. i don't blame you for being nervous after the sting-thing.

have a wonderful day!!!

Dog Trot Farm said...

I find bee keeping to be so fascinating, thank you for the informative post. Just thinking about the Black Widow spiders gives me the shivers! Good luck with your bees.

Farm Girl said...

Yeah, the black widows keep moving in and we have to keep checking to kill them. I always think with a hive of bees they would kill them themselves, but they just don't.

Terra said...

I agree with you that bees are very fascinating with their hives and rules.