Our Bees Are Here Early!

We got our 2 bee packages early!  I picked them up after work today and then Jeff and I installed them using the lights of my car :)  Everything went well, we followed our own tutorial video made our first year (Youtube video on installing bees our first year).  Today I was emailing with my girlfriend and she said, "Thank you for the honey, my face is so smooth".  I thought, 'what a weird thing to say'....  So I wrote her and said, you put it in your tea, NOT on your face!  And she said that you do both.  Once a week she used a brush and applies a thin layer of my honey to her face.  She lets it stay on for 20 minutes and then rinses with warm water.  She says her face is as smooth as a babies bottom!  I was going to post a link to a site that describes this but there are a million and they are all generally the same.  The antibacterial effects of honey as well as the anti-inflammatory properties make it the best facemask!  There is even postings that it cured bad acne!  Oh, what I would have loved to know as a teenager!  haha!

At first we put 2 full hive bodies together.  Once we watched our video we remembered that we only want one hive body to start...

This is a drone comb that I don't need yet.  It is used to encourage the queen to lay drone (male) eggs here.  The mites then attach to the larvae.  I take this whole thing and freeze it killing all the bees (no offense guys, but we don't need male bees) and the excess mites which is a natural way to keep the mite population under control.  Another thing we do is dusting the hive and bees with powdered sugar to get the mites to fall off and go to the ground where they die.

I love bees, I know its crazy!  This whole project started not so much for the honey as my desire to see them all enjoying the garden in the morning.  My favorite thing about having a huge garden was spending the morning with them while harvesting dinner.

We are trying to pick the best comb for the starter body and I needed one with space for my queen who comes in a small package where she lives until the sugar plug is eaten and she is released to her new loving community.  If she gets out early, the loving community may actually kill her!  Scary times!

Jeff is filling the feeder with sugar water.  5 pounds of sugar with 1/2 gallon of water to make a yummy spring syrup!

Shaking the sugar syrup!

Somehow I lost the inside of my cap so I had to keep pushing it up my head.  You have to wear a face mask because getting stung on the face causes enough swelling to make it hard to see!

Taking out the queen and her helpers!

Taping the queen's cage to the comb.

We are about to dump the first 10,000 bees into the hive - then the darn battery on the phone wore out!  OH well!  Goodbye!

Harvesting Honey!

My friend Jeff was kind enough to not only help me with the honey, but also stopping to pose for these pictures!  We had one heck of a time.  Definately not a good idea to pick a nice sunny warm day to harvest.  The bees went with us everywhere and we had quite an adventure.  I ended up processing 53 pounds of honey!  All loved ones, be ready to get honey for EVERY holiday this year AND next!

The bees are back!!!!!!

I installed 2 new bee colonies tonight (thanks, Stuart!). Everything went well although on my own I didn't get any video or pics. They were pretty tame after the 45 minute ride home and didn't get too fussy.  The weather helped because it is cold and wet and they prefered to stay in their new homes rather than hang out to sting me.

The turkeys are doing well and growing feathers fast.  They are the funniest animals to watch.  Last night we took half of thier space back because we caught them huddling in the wrong corner - they will die without the heat lamp.  Tonight they were happy and full of fight as I changed their newspaper and checked thier food and water.

John picked some new goat soap up at Oak Leaf Dairy after closing the store - it makes the house smell like a slice of heaven. What a way to start your morning; with awesome smelling soaps that love your skin as much as you do!

Be well!

Harvesting!!!!!!!!!!

We spent the day harvesting wool from the bunnies and honey from the bees (not at the same time, that would bee messy)!  We had a very busy and productive day.  John got the largest pumpkins I have ever seen from a farm in Woodstock, CT.  There are plenty of beautiful mums bursting with blossoms.  I love the fall, and I hope to love it even more when this honey my bees made in my own backyard TACKLES my allergies!