The pictures are kind of blurry, my apologies for that. These were taken about 5:00 a.m., my bee photographer (ten year old daughter) was still asleep. The next time I check inside the hive, I’ll make sure my daughter takes pictures. It was challenging holding my Nikon D80 and maneuvering the bars to get a good picture.
Nurse bees tending to larvae inside Warre hive
If you look closely, you might see the “white things”… those are the larvae.
Honeybees flocking around water droplets and pollen
In the above photo you see the honeybees slurping up some water and you’ll see that there is pollen (dark reddish brown/orange dots) scattered along the bars.
The second box is almost full of honey. I enjoy watching the honeybees. I’m usually not opening up their Warre hive. When I’m not taking apart the hive, on my visits I’ll squat beside and observe them without wearing a bee suit. Our honeybees are fairly docile, they go about their daily tasks and ignore me completely.
Earlier this morning, I realized that I hadn’t looked inside my hive since I went inside the Warre hive five days ago. Which is fine by me, I want the bees to do their own thing. I observe them daily, I’m just not inside their hive.
Since I know the queen has been busily laying eggs, I decided to check to see how they were faring. While opening up the top box of my Warre hive, I noticed a large amount of honeybees inside the first box. They were nurse bee and they were busily tending to the larvae. Oh that’s a good sign! The nurse bees were milling about feeding the larvae. I must say it was quite fascinating to watch them.
I did notice that two combs (in the top box) were merged at the end and so I took a butter knife to gently pry them apart. I have pictures, I’ll try to post them later today.
In one of my earlier posts, I mentioned that the honeybees have found a great nectar source, so they have been ignoring the feeders. I did add water to one of the feeders so they can have a steady supply of water, but I won’t be adding any more sugar water.
Angry Honeybees
While checking the comb I banged one of the bars that the comb is attached too. Whoops, sorry honeybees! Naturally they didn’t like that and I had a small swarm of highly pissed honeybees checking me out to see what the heck I was doing. I was safe inside my bee suit, and after a bit of bouncing on my head and a few squirts from my spray bottle that contained water, they were fine. They went about grooming themselves. I looked at them a bit more before closing up the Warre hive and trudging back to the house.
Fun Fact: Did you know that the honeybee queen has a smooth stinger? Unlike the worker honeybees that have a barbed stinger, so they’ll die after they sting, she won’t die since her stinger is smooth. You might wonder why she’s different? The newly emerged queen kills other queens (by stinging them) before they come out of their queen cells. Remember, there’s normally only one queen per hive.
Since acquiring our honeybees, I check on them daily. I love watching them. I must say they add additional joy to my already sparkling days. Life is too short, to spend it grumbling/complaining. I make the most with what’s been given to me.
Bee watching is fascinating…
While it’s true that I have gleaned a lot of knowledge about honeybees from my years of research about them that experience is completely different than actually having your own hives. Since introducing honeybees onto our property, my knowledge (and love) of these amazing creatures has increased! I’m enjoying my adventures in beekeeping immensely.
Warre hive; early morning activity
When I check out the honeybees, I rarely open up the beehive and I’m not always peeking into the observation window. I just like watching what they do.
Warre hive early morning activity; working the comb
From my observations I’ve found that around 6:00 a.m., most of the honeybees are still inside the hive (for now).
If you were to think they’re sleeping at that time, you would be wrong. As you can see they are fairly active with their inside hive duties.
As the day progresses, you’ll see the foragers come outside the hive to gather nectar (some collect water) and I enjoy watching them return to the hive. The guard bees are at the entrance to greet them and make sure they actually belong to the hive.
It’s amazing watching a healthy and busy beehive. And for me, it’s another sign of how truly awesome our God is.
Thanks to the added insect repelling plants and neem solution my daughter and I are able to sit outside and watch them without being bit!
Although I’m veggie, I do make non-veggie dishes. My daughter isn’t veggie, although she mainly eats veggie dishes. Also, most of my loved ones are non veggie.
I must say my willingness to prepare non-veggie dishes for those I care about has actually worked in that they eat more veggie dishes. It wasn’t the goal, it just happened that way. The non veggie dishes I make, although not 100% veggie are healthy, and there’s always a veggie component.
I hear some veggies parroting how non-vegetarians aren’t healthy and that’s simply not true. Non vegetarians/vegans can be healthy too, it’s all about the choices you make. As I’ve mentioned many times, there are plenty of unhealthy vegetarians/vegans/raw foodists, etc.,… those that are unhealthy are making poor food choices.
But back to my food post…
Late yesterday afternoon you could find me making baked crab balls. In total, it took about 1.5 hours to make…
Four pounds of backfin crab meat
The shells were picked out of the backfin crab meat. That process was tedious!
Seafood: Baked Crab balls. Adding more Crab balls. My daughter had a few, she loves them!
I then moved onto the other extremely slow process of making all those crab balls. The crab balls were baked not fried. The balls were all crab meat with just a touch of seasoning, I wanted to let the sweetness of the crab meat shine and judging by the reactions it did. Before my pre-veggie days one complaint I had about eating some restaurant crab cakes was the amount of filler included. It made you think, “Where’s the crab?”
This dish was made for a 50th birthday party for my Lutheran pastor. The dish received a lot of compliments and I made enough so that people could freely get a lot. Which is how it should be you know? When I prepare for a gathering, I tend to make a lot since I don’t want people to worry about people holding back eating so others can get some also. Eat until you get your fill. I really love cooking, but I don’t eat too much.
Seafood: Wrapping up the baked crab balls
In total I made over 100 baked crab balls. It took a lot of time.
There are three layers of crab balls in this pan; 40 walnut sized balls on each row, separated by aluminum foil.
My daughter received about ten of the baked crab balls, but the bulk was wrapped up and taken to the party today. However, I promised her that I would make some for her tomorrow. Of course, this means I have to stop by the store tomorrow and purchase more backfin crab meat and that’s ok, she’s worth it. I’ll be sure to make enough for my father too. My mom works tomorrow and even though she’s left plenty for him to eat. He deserves something special too, right. After all, I only have one dad!
…would tell you straight away that the food would be really good. As they say, never trust a skinny chef! LOL!!! For one thing, he was really fast and the dishes were served in no time at all.
My only regret is that I didn’t make homemade tarter sauce. I thought I had the needed ingredients at home, but I didn’t. This morning, on my way to work I purchased tarter sauce <shudders> those that know me well know I rarely purchase prepacked food. I’d say 90% of the food in our house is made by me.
The past few weeks I have been searching the internet for hive plans. I decided this time around that I didn’t want a Warre hive. I love my hive, but I want to try out other hives also.
Kenyan Top bar Hive
The Kenyan Top Bar Hive is really appealing to me, but I since I’m getting nucs at the end of June, I know this isn’t the best option. The nuc will be in a traditional Langstroth box. I still wanted a Top Bar Hive and did a search to see if there was such a thing as a “Rectangular top bar hive” I thought this would be ideal since I could easily transition Langstroth frames into the hive.
Tanzanian Top Bar Hive
Turns out there is, and it’s called the “Tanzanian Top Bar Hive!” This weekend, I’ll be purchasing the wood and hopefully I’ll have time to build my own Tanzanian Top Bar Hive. Since I love the observation window, I believe I’ll add one to my Top Bar Hive. My daughter is excited since I told her that she can help.
I’m also thinking of ventilation tray at the bottom of the hive. Something I can “open” during the summer months and close once the weather gets cool.
Yesterday, I told my dad Happy Father’s Day. I also said that I didn’t need a special day to let him know how much he’s appreciated. He’s awesome every day of the year. I knew I was forgetting to post something…
To all those awesome fathers out there, you’re appreciated. I’m thankful for my father and I’m still a “daddy’s girl”. I’ve enjoyed following him around since I could crawl and that still hasn’t changed.
This year, for Father’s Day, my daughter and I got my dad things that he can use when he’s outside puttering around. Like most within my immediate family, he likes useful things and doesn’t really do anything with “frivolous items”. In fact, his items (which I ordered online) will come tomorrow. I didn’t order them earlier since I knew he’d be out of town on Father’s day!
