Woodcarving, Beekeeping, and Country Life

Got home today and had to work with the bees. I had not been able to check them for a week. My new hive needed fed and my old hive needed sugar dusted. Mandi decided to pull up a chair so we could chat while I was working. Right after I got started she noticed a . . . → Read More: Bee swarm – 05/05/09

Not really an inspection today as much as a feeding and a quick glance. My strong hive is a survivor from last year. They are doing very well. I didn’t treat them for mites very well last year because of lack of experience and they still came through very well. These are . . . → Read More: Inspection – 04/25/09

Learned a hard lesson today. I came across a solid food recipe for wintering bees and decided to use it in my hives. Everything looked like it should go pretty well but it definitely did not. The recipe I was using called for using 1 cup of corn syrup to 7.5 . . . → Read More: Inspection – 01/04/09

Made my first attempt today at melting and filtering raw beeswax. This beeswax was a mixture of old and new beeswax. It also contained some larva, bees, pollen, and other ‘junk’. I decided to use a double-boiler method and then filter through cheesecloth.

Here you can see the beeswax before it was melted. I crushed some . . . → Read More: Beekeeping – Melting and Filtering Wax

I started my TBHs with 5-frame nucs. I wanted to get off to a strong start and thought this might be the best way. Over time I decided that I did not want the frames in the TBH. They did not work well with the overall philosophy I have. Since the frames were part of the . . . → Read More: Beekeeping – Stop laying in certain frames

Was doing an hive inspection and a friend was taking some pictures. Got very lucky and noticed he got a really good shot of the queen. Look in the lower right-hand corner on the wooden frame and you’ll . . . → Read More: Beekeeping – See the queen!

Had several things on my mind for this inspection. My dad assisted again. It’s nice to have an added pair of hands and thoughts.

How was hive N1 responding to the added brood?

Seems that the N1 bees were doing well. They are flying really well and the frame of brood I put in is 3/4 full of . . . → Read More: Beekeeping – Inspection 05/24/08

Had a pretty interesting inspection this morning. Bees were great except for one angry one. It buzzed my head, circled the girls, chased the wife, and then stung my father-in-law on the lip. Can it get better?

Hive N1 (Naomi) is still pretty far behind Hive A1 (Abi). Found a wax moth larva on a . . . → Read More: Beekeeping – Inspection 05/17/08

Got 5 frame nucs. Bees first full day was Wednesday. Put in feeders on Saturday and added 4 tops bars. Added 2 in the brood area on the ends and 2 in the honey area. Inspected today. Several bees were concentrating on the popsicle sticks in the honey area. I assume they . . . → Read More: Beekeeping – Quick Inspection 05/13/08

Did my first inspection today. Dad came over and helped out. He had nine hives years ago and is used to being around bees so that was nice. This was my first time ever opening a hive and I really enjoyed it. Decided to go without gloves as we fully expected the bees to be occupied . . . → Read More: Beekeeping – First Inspection