Beekeeping.... it's a learning experience.

A few weeks ago I went out to the hive to find a pile of dead bees in front of the hive. I suddenly felt so sad and sick to my stomach. I quickly opened up the hive to find that EVERY last drop of honey that was there had vanished and there were barely any bees there approximately 500-1,000.... when our hive had consisted of about 5,000+. There were dead bees in the comb and the bees that were there were dragging out dead bees as fast as they could, they had piled up on the porch of the hive. We are not 100% sure what happened but we suspect a pesticide. We had added a super a few months prior because our first super was full of honey. They had not worked the comb in the top super and there were no bees there so we removed it. I began feeding the bees a mixture of sugar water & honey. We are now attempting to merge a super from one of my father in laws hives to our hive. We have placed a piece of newspaper between the two and the plan is that they will slowly chew through to each other, slowly getting acquainted. The hive that we are merging has about 3,000 bees in it and is FULL of honey. I am hoping they accept each other & this gets them through the winter.

Our sweet honeybees!

We opened our hive up for the first time since we got it on Saturday, and we have HONEY!  This excited me just a little....... well maybe a lot. It doesn't take much & if that makes me crazy then I'm just crazy :) lol. I can't wait to harvest our honey. I also can't wait to make candles and I have recipe for lotion made from beeswax, that I'll be trying. Today we will be a adding a super to our hive which means.... MORE HONEY to come!

So excited.

Busy as a bee

Our honeybees are active today....

Honeybees

My little honey makers seem to be settling in at their new home. We are going to try to go into the hive this weekend to see how they are progressing, can't wait!

Honeybees

Today we added the second addition to our little farm, our honeybees! I'm so excited about them. It is so amazing to me how they work, work, work & make honey. My father in law is a beekeeper, we split one of his hives today & took home some of the original bees that have been passed down from generations. I can't wait to start beekeeping!!!! I already love our honeybees.

Save the bees!

One of my father in law's many bee hives. We will be getting a hive this year & I'm so excited to learn more about bees and beekeeping.

Honey bees bringing in the pollen!

Bee Happy

Green leaves are finally here!