The New Beekeepers in Town

Since I am not posting recipes at present, I thought I would share with you the big news here at the farm. We have bees!!

A couple of years ago we came home from a weekend trip to find hundreds of dead honeybees in the living room floor. Not being familiar with bees or their activity at all we freaked! Well, maybe I freaked! I was sure that we had a colony in the walls of the house or possibly in the attic. I wasn’t sure where they were, but I was sure they were going to attack us in our sleep.

Turns out they were swarming and looking for a new place to live.  I’m not sure how they died and as much as I want honeybees around here I do not want to live with them!

A few weeks later, while mowing grass, I saw them.  They were flying in and out of an old pop-up camper that’s behind the barn. You may notice it in some of the pictures because one of the hive boxes is set up near it. They lived in the camper until this past spring. Even after a local beekeeper, Michael, came over to set up a few boxes and caught a couple of swarms.

A few months ago we noticed they were there one day then all of the sudden there was no activity. They had moved out. While another box was set up to catch a swarm, not only did a swarm move into that box, but to our surprise, another swarm moved into the camper! We have not opened the camper in years and have no idea what is inside of it now, but one day we are going to open it up to take a look.  I’ll take pictures!

We now have two active colonies on the farm. Greg and I did our first hive inspections over the weekend. With only three stings between us, I think we fared pretty good. Notice the white part on the frames. That is capped honey. Once 80% of the frame has capped honey, we can harvest. We ordered a small extractor over the weekend along with a few other tools, and when the time is right, we will be ready to harvest.

I’m looking forward to this new adventure. We have so much to learn that it’s almost overwhelming but having honey in our backyard is so worth it! I will continue to share pictures with you throughout our learning process.