My Everyday Photos

I am seriously getting behind on photo editing. I will probably never catch up. So tonight I am combining two days of honeybee images into one blog post. Ken is the beekeeper, not me. I just really enjoy watching the process as it unfolds and I have to tell you, beekeeping is FULL of drama. There is always some new question and the answer is invariably ‘Well we don’t really know. What do you think?’

Last Monday, Memorial Day, Ken had enough time to open up all five of his hives to see how they were doing. A friend said the honey flow is early this year so a person needs to be ready to add supers to the hives and to watch out for swarms. Of the five hives only one is kind of behind and that is the one that was a swarm late last summer so its stocks were low and it was lucky just to get through the winter. If it survives this winter, it should do well next year. Of the other four, three are going along alright, not yet needing a new super but one of them was nearly full so he moved around some of the frames and put the new super (another box for the bees to store honey) on it and was pleased but still concerned that the bees could swarm. He had one extra hive so he set that up just in case.

Two days later while I was in town, he was playing ball with the dogs. At one point Luna refused to retrieve the ball so he went to see why and sure enough, there was a swarm of bees right above the ball. Smart Luna. She’s been stung and has a healthy respect for bees. So he suited up again, cut the pine branch full of bees, put it into the empty hive and closed it up. The next day he had to go on a road trip so before he left he wanted to get the branch out of there and replace it with frames for the bees to use for building comb. Suited up again, he picked up the branch and brushed the bees into the box with frames. If all went as planned and if the new queen was in there, the bees would stick around start making brood and gathering honey. I checked yesterday and the bees are still in there! Now he has six hives.

Perfect day for this kind of work

Sky keeps busy with her stick

A small gob of wax attracts bees to the honey

Firing up the smoker again

Smoking the bees makes them retreat into the hive and eat honey and leave the beekeeper alone. At least, that’s what I’ve been told.

The swarm of bees are all gathered around the queen on this pine branch

Ken brushes the bees into the hive

Going in and out is a good sign.