Initial Hive Inspection Complete

I finally got with my mentor and conducted my initial hive inspection.  I am extremely pleased with how it went.  After my less than ideal installation of the Nuc, I am glad that I redeemed myself.  I feel much more confident in my abilities.  Larry (my mentor) offered some good suggestions and made sure everything went well.  He pretty much let me take control and just have at it.

Ronan lit the smoker and we both suited up and headed up to the apiary.  Jen joined us to take some great photos.  You will get to see them below.  I started out smoking the entrance and the outer cover.  Several people have asked me what the smoke is for.  There are several theories to exactly what it does.  First it masks the smell of the bee's pheromones, so they cannot communicate any warnings throughout the hive.  This is why I smoke the entrance first.  That is where the guard bees are.  Second, when the bees smell smoke, they react as if there is a fire.  They gorge themselves on nectar/honey in case they need to leave the hive (in the event of a real fire).  This keeps them busy and also makes them slower. 

Let the smoke do its thing.

 Once the bees were smoked and in the hive, I began my inspection in earnest. Larry pointed out that I had made a minor mistake when I installed the Nuc.  I did not ensure that my frames were snug together and equally spaced from the sides.  This can become a problem later because the bees will draw comb between them and stick them together.  Larry just wanted to make sure I didn't get into a bad habit.

The bees working.

Larry pointing out my mistake

From there, things went great.  I went frame by frame in the top box.  The outer frames had not really been worked.  Some comb had been drawn out.  I did determine that my bees could care less that I am using small cell foundation.. They drew the cells out to the size they wanted.

Drawing out comb.  A great sign!

Frame full of nectar

Lots of capped brood.

As I moved through the upper box, to my surprise I came across the Queen.  I was positive she would be in the bottom box.  I was more than excited to see her.  Since I didn't see her during the install, I was not sure that she had survived.  I knew she was in there once I started inspecting the hive because I saw eggs and larva.  Larvae means she was around between 4-9 days ago.  Eggs means she was there within 3.  It is always a good thing to find the queen and make sure she is doing her thing.  She is marked blue because she was mated last year and is in line with the international color coding.  I won't keep you waiting any longer...here she is.

Find the blue dot.  Isn't she pretty

Look at that fat abdomen full of eggs

Another little fun event was when Larry pulled a drone off a frame.  Drones have no stinger so can be handled without any fear of being stung.  He just plucked it off and handed it to Ronan. 

Larry shows the drone to Ronan

Ronan shows there is nothing to fear

That about sums it up.  After inspecting both the upper and lower box, I reassembled the frames.  All of the Nuc frames from the top box got put into the lower box.  Bees tend to move up and not out toward the edges.  I put the Nuc frames that were full of nectar and pollen on the outer portion of the box.  All of the brood was kept together toward the middle.  That gives them plenty of room now to move up into the upper box and begin expanding the brood chamber.

The final picture I will give you is an overall shot of the Apiary.  Not much action in the photo, but I like that it shows how much stuff is there even though it is only two hives.

The humble BEEginnings

I am in the process of editing and uploading video of the inspection.  As soon as that is done I will post it up.  I hope you all come back and check it out.

Installing my first Nucleus Hive

Well you've seen the photos, now it is time for the video.  There are quite a few cuts and splices.  Partly because the videographer was still learning, but mostly because I wanted to spare you watching me getting stung, changing gloves, and fumbling through some stuff.  As I get more experience both working with my bees as well as better video set up, the quality of the videos will only get better.

Please like and subscribe to my videos to ensure that they keep being produced.  I hope that you all can learn along with me and perhaps not suffer some of the same mistakes I am sure to make.

I plan to do a hive inspection this weekend.  Once I upload the video I will post it here.  Thanks for watching. 

Lots of information, pics and a video.

Hello again everyone.  First off, wee have a video showing my Nuc.

It was fairly warm the day after I got it so they were flying.  I did see some pollen coming in so they wasted no time finding food in the area.  This is what it looked like in the apiary

You can see some bees around the entrances in this next picture

So there they stayed for a few days.  I wanted to get them installed before the snow on Saturday so they could get accustomed to their new home.  Ronan and I suited up and drug the rest of the family up to take pictures and video.  I would love to say that it was a resounding success.  Unfortunately that was not the case.  I did not have appropriate gloves.  At one point my sleeve rode up my arm because of my watch.  The little girls wasted no time finding the exposed skin and let me know that they did not appreciate me moving them from their cozy Nuc. In all I think I was stung about ten times on my wrist.  I was able to get them moved over and into the hive body.  Here are some pictures.

Ronan all suited up and ready to go (Better protected than me)

Prepping the hive bodies

Removing outer cover (notice gloves covering skin)

Removing inner cover (I can see the bees)

Looking for Queen on inner cover (She wasn't there)

Look at how pretty the girls are

Successfully removed from Nuc

Placing frame in hive body (This is just about the time my sleeve rode up my arm)

The beginnings of a new home

Really nice look at a frame with capped brood and possibly food stores outside of that.  The Horseshoe shape is what we look for as a sign of good health (Note the new gloves)

My oldest son has a friend and is not so sure about their relationship

Last frame in the box.  Notice that the edges do not have wax drawn all the way out.

Father and son working together.

I hope you enjoy the pictures.  They say more than I could.  There is a video that I am editing together.  Once that is complete I will post it.  Since then, the bees have been making good use of their new home.  They are foraging and bringing in lots of dark orange pollen.  Most likely from dandelions. 

In the front yard

She is at the bottom

The most recent news comes tonight.  Ronan and I were checking out the hive.  They were moving around with the descent weather.  A few foragers were bringing a new pollen.  Kind of a a dark cream color. I will try to get a picture of it.  If any local beekeepers know what it might be, let me know.  We also thought we spotted a drone walking outside the hive.  Unfortunately, as we leaned in to look, Ronan got in the flight path of a worker and ended up getting stung just below the right eye.

Not too bad.  All in a days work.

 We were not wearing any protection because we were just observing without going into the hive.  Jen has now put a stop to that and Ronan will always be wearing at least a veil.

That is about it for now.  I got an email stating that my package bees are delayed even longer because of the weird weather they had in Georgia.  I hope they won't be too much longer.

Bees have arrived

It has finally happened.  I got my first delivery if bees today.  It is a nucleus hive from my mentor Larry.  He brought them over tonight and we placed them on top of the hive body that they will be transferred into.  They were buzzing a little and when we opened the front, about eight of them came to the entrance.  That is a good sign.  Unfortunately it is too cold to transfer them to the hive body.  With any luck I a can do it tomorrow.  I will be sure to post pictures and hopefully a video of the transfer.  I am super excited as the hobby has begun in earnest now.  Pretty soon I will be posting videos of hive inspections and bee activity.  Stay tuned and follow along.

Lots of News and Lots of Pictures

Hello again everyone.  A lot has happened since my last post.  I have completed the Carroll County Beekeeping Association Short Course.  Here is the proof.

I learned a lot about keeping bees in Central Maryland.  Although the last day of classroom was all about everything that can kill my bees, I remain resolute.  The good news is that with proper management, things that stress bees can be overcome.  This includes Integrated Pest Management such as my screened bottom boards, hive beetle traps, and miticides.  I think Oxcalic acid will be my miticide of choice.  A little more of an investment but will save my bees in the long run.  A good article on it can be found here.

The capstone for the Short Course is a field day at Bear Branch Nature center.  Unfortunately it was too cold to actually get into the apiary to look at live bees.  Ronan did get a chance to practice lighting our smoker though.  He did a good job and got it lit on the first try.  Good start for the young beekeeper. 

Inside there were several tables set up with information and hands on stuff.  I had some good conversations about feeders and Ronan got quizzed by our Mentor's wife.  I think he fared pretty well.  He also got to try out an extractor.  We won't have honey for a while but at least he knows how to use it. 

After we got home, there was a package waiting for me from Jen.  She told me to go ahead and open it.  It is a beautiful leather diary with some high quality paper for me to keep track of my apiary visits and document the visits to my hives.  I can't wait to use it.  I feel like I need to take a Penmanship course prior to using it though.

The other exciting news is that my bees will be here sooner than expected.  I was originally scheduled to get my bees around April 10.  The March shipment was a week early and there is every reason to believe that the April one will be as well.  That means I could have them in less than two weeks.  I am also purchasing a Nuc from my mentor and he seems to think they will be ready to go any day now.  Because of that I have finally got my hive boxes set up in the back yard and are just waiting for bees.

Before long, those entrances will be buzzing.  I can't wait.  Jen plans on planting wildflowers all in the back.  The top picture shows the lilac bushes along the fence (which are budding) and the second picture shows the apple trees.  Hopefully my bees will have plenty of food. 

Beautiful weather means a new video outside

Quick update everyone.  I took advantage of the great weather to do my smoker tutorial.  It was successful and I hope everyone finds it useful.  I did learn that I can't say tutorial without it coming out like "tour"torial. I wasn't going to do another take because of that though.  Unfortunately I didn't see any bees taking a cleansing flight although the temperature was warm enough.  I did get a chance to smell the farmers laying down fresh manure though.  Let's just say the smoker did it's job and masked the scent.  You can find the video here.  I have also been putting the eyelets in my frames and crosswired one of them.  I will do a video on that next.  See you next time.

Latest Unboxing

Hello everyone.  Sorry for the delay.  It has been a good few couple of weeks.  A lot has happened in regards to beekeeping.  First thing is that I got all of my hive components painted.  My wife Jen selected the color and I think it looks fantastic. This first picture is an in progress shot

It doesn't do the color justice. I just wanted to show the progress a little.  This next picture has all the pieces ready to go.  They are stacked that way just so I ensure they didn't stick together.  It does a better job of showing the color.  They are a pale almost robin egg blue in person.

The next big news is that we got another shipment from Brushy Mountain Bee Farm.

It had a surprise for Ronan in it.  It was his "Wee Bee" Suit.  It is a perfect fit and he is very excited.

It also contained another hood for me, that zips to my current jacket.  That enables me to have the separate veil for any visitors to use.  This is both of us suited up.

Also in the package were eyelets and crosswire for my frames.  This is a vital component if I ever intend to use an extractor.  It will keep the honeycomb from blowing out. The video of the unboxing can be found here.  I apologize in advance for the poor framing.  I am still trying to figure this all out.  Hopefully by the time I am working with the bees I will have it down and will provide some great videos.

We are excited to get started. I purchased my first package of bees last night and I will pick them up on April 9th or 10th (weather allowing).  Then we are up and running.