Some of you might be curious as to how my honeybees are faring this morning. I installed the honeybees yesterday. They’re in a brand-new location far from the apiary in Georgia. They also have a new queen…
Warre hive around 5:30 a.m. All the honeybees are inside.
This morning, around 5:30 a.m., I checked on them and as I suspected none of them were flying around outside. I didn’t panic and think they had absconded.
See all the honeybees in this large cluster? They’re around the queen.
When I removed the observation window cover this is what I saw, the honeybees clustered around their queen. You can’t see her in that pile but she’s there. I’d say that they’ve accepted her.
Our Warre hive is hidden by foilage
My Warre hive is partially hidden by all the foliage, if you’re walking down our dirt road you’d eventually see the hive but without an invite there would be no reason to be on our road. Fallen trees block the dirt path that leads to woods, which is still on our property.
Later today, I’ll be heading to Richardson Farms with the sole purpose of acquiring more plants that I know honeybees love. Also on the list will be herbs that repel mosquitos; Argeratum, Catnip, Citronella, Horsemint and Marigolds.
A few weeks ago, I’d already found the perfect spot. Shade most of the day and the sun peeks in on part of the hive in the mid afternoon. Also, there’s honeysuckle in the undergrowth behind the hive and my does it have the area smelling sweet.
Honeybees are awesome
Since I was waiting to take my Warre Hive outside, the honeybees didn’t arrive in the hive immediately. Instead, I found a shaded spot to rest my honeybee package while I got their area ready. My daughter and I were fascinated with the honeybees. In the above photo I’d sprayed them with sugar water and was watching them use their little tongues to clean the sugar water off themselves and each other. 🙂
It took about three hours to get the Warre hive situated. I had to dig up dirt that also had several roots/clay mixed in to make the task more challenging. After that was finished, I flattened the dirt to make it firm. The leveler showed me that the hive was now level, I also made drainage tunnels since that rainwater would not well up around the hive. Much thanks to my father who lent a hand, if it weren’t for him this process would have taken much longer.
Installing the honeybees into their Warre Hive
After donning my bee suit, I lightly sprayed them with sugar water and shook the package honeybees to make sure they fell into the bottom. I really didn’t need to spray them with sugar water. Michael Bush, suggests that this isn’t needed. Next time, I’ll install the honeybees without and see what happens.
Honeybee: Meet the queen!
I removed the feeding can that was included with the package honeybees and also grabbed the queens cage. What you can’t see in the above picture, are the queens attendants. There were four in the cage, one was dead. I removed the plug and replaced it with a marshmallow, and then placed it into the Warre hive.
Warre Hive: Installing my package honeybees
Since I now had the hive area just the way I wanted, it was time to install the honeybees.
Warre Hive – package honeybee installation
And I must say the installation was easy. I shook them out into the Warre hive a few buzzed around me. It’s hard to describe the feeling, seeing and hearing a living vibrant community of 10,000 – 12,000 honeybees buzzing about you, it was almost zen-like and a tad bit intimidating for a first time beekeeper but I remained calm. I’ve seen numerous videos and know this usually isn’t a big deal, and I was right. I had a few that buzzed and landed on me, they flew away after they were satisfied. Perhaps they were thanking me for releasing them from their tiny prison?
Afterwards my daughter and I hung out with the honeybees for at least three hours. About an hour ago, I strolled out to the hive and was pleased to see that they were doing well. There was only about twenty honeybees outside. I walked up to the hive, without a bee suit, and hung out with them for a while. I’m one happy beekeeper.
Earlier this morning, I received a call from the US Postal office that my honeybees have finally arrived. I don’t have any pictures since I haven’t picked them up from the Post Office.
I’ll be getting them around 11:00 a.m EST. Hopefully, I’ll be able to post pictures sometime today. My daughter is almost as excited as myself. I’ll be picking her up from school early, so she can accompany me when I get the honeybees. She begged to come along.
I held off setting my Warre Beehive outside, but I’ll be doing that once I return home. I ordered my honeybees from, Draper Bees I called them yesterday. One of the owners (the son) chatted with me a while and told me that if I have any questions to give them a call.
Next year, If I do have to purchase honeybees, it’ll be local however if you do have to order package honeybees I have no problem recommending Draper honeybees. Their customer service is excellent and they’ve done an amazing job keeping their customers updated through emails and posts on their Facebook page.
Not only did my daughter make Honor Roll this quarter. This time, she went all the way to the top by making Distinguished Honor Roll. She’s made honor roll all four quarters of the school year and I’m so proud of her!
In her school, distinguished honor roll, is a step above regular honor roll. This achievement is given to those who have a 4.0 grade average; all A’s. As her parent, I do believe it’s my job to make sure she does her best in school.
At her Lutheran school, the headmaster repeatedly tells them that once they’re finished with their education at our school, they’ll be able to compete globally. One of his daughter’s has taught in Africa and she’s told him, along with others, how much further in advance many countries are when it comes to education. I’m happy that with our schools program he’s not content to settle with just doing good enough with those within the USA. He’s not the only one concerned about US education, so am I. Check about quote below…
In a report issued in 2010, we found only 6 percent of U.S. students performing at the advanced level in mathematics, a percentage lower than those attained by 30 other countries. And the problem isn’t limited to top-performing students. In 2011, we showed that just 32 percent of 8th graders in the United States were proficient in mathematics, placing the U.S.
Although my daughter is not 100% home schooled. I still do a lot of “home schooling” at home. It’s a pure win situation; My daughter enjoys it since she knows mom will help her if she does struggle and it keeps me in the loop by staying so involved with her schooling.
If you can hear pacing, that’s me waiting on my honeybees. This weekend, much to my disappointment my honeybees didn’t arrive. You really shouldn’t be surprised, because if they had arrived one of the first photos you’d have seen this morning were my honeybees. According to my supplier, I should receive them early this week.
The good news is, I have everything ready for my honeybees, the few last minute items needed have been acquired and so now the waiting begins…
(drums fingers impatiently.)
I have to give a shout out to Roger Williams, president of the Central Maryland Beekeepers Association. He’s always responded to the emails I’ve sent to him. He’s always giving me additional information that has been extremely helpful. While he’s not technically my bee mentor, I consider him to be one because of all the helpful advice I’ve received from him! Thanks Roger, for helping this new beekeeper feel at ease.
Once, I get to the level where I have a lot of hands on beekeeping experience I’ll definitely volunteer to help out a new beekeeper. The thing is, if you’re going to volunteer to be a mentor, you really should do that. If you don’t want to, don’t offer to be a mentor.
In our household, although we eat simply, we consume a large variety of foods. My only requirements is that the foods we consume our whole foods.
What are whole foods? Whole foods are unrefined or unprocessed or minimally processed before eating.
At times, people automatically assume that vegetarians/vegans are “healthy” sometimes those following the diet automatically assume that also. That’s not always the case, especially if they follow the “standard vegetarian/vegan diet” which can be just as unhealthy as a Standard American Diet.
I see many veggie sites that regularly promote processed/pre-packaged foods and while it’s fine to have it now and again, including it regularly is not the smartest thing to do if you’re goal is to improve your health.
Salad: Dark leafy greens with lentils
Yesterday, I ate greens throughout the day since that was what I was craving. In the above dish, I “spiced” it up a bit by adding some of the seasoned lentils I’d made on Saturday. In addition to the lentils, I added some sunflower seeds, raisins and balsamic vinegar. The greens consisted of spinach, kale, collard and dandelion greens.
