Frances and the Bee

We had a calm and restful Memorial Day weekend and hope you did, too. On Sunday, we all went out to see the bees.  Mr. Bee was very pleased with how all of the hives looked.  Each one was ready for the next super, which means the number of bees is growing. You can see, below, a fresh super on top of the first hive. It's filled with empty frames and will soon be filled with comb and bees! Before the supers went on, though, Mr. Bee did a lot of housekeeping...well, "hive-keeping". Here you can see that where bees have extra space, they build comb! This is what Mr. Bee had to clean off, and he found that he needed to adjust the measurements for the boards that hold the feeders. My favorite photo so far this year... ...and a peek at the pollen our girls have been storing, yellow, deep orange, and green. Mr. T came out for a visit and stood to the side.  If you're ever near a hive, you'll want to leave space for the working b...

We really jumped right in to this year's beekeeping and Mr. Bee has already been very busy with maintenance. Can I say that spring has sprung?  Is it actually official now? Maybe??   Trees are a major source of pollen for the bees, so they have already been collecting quite a lot. The nectar is not yet at a strong flow, so we have been feeding the bees (using Mr. Bee's clever feeding method ) with a simple sugar syrup to give them plenty to work with until the "nectar flow". If you look closely at the back legs of bee in the top center, you'll see some nice yellow pollen pellets on her legs. It's so exciting!  All three hives are bringing in pollen... ...and all three hives are now building and filling comb with pollen and nectar. The best news is that Mr. Bee also found eggs in each hive, which is VERY important.  It means that the queens were accepted and that each one is busy laying eggs.  We are counting the days until the new bees ha...

We are up and running again for the bee season! We brought the kiddos out to Mr. T's to get the space ready for the bees...and to explore this little part of his yard. Little Miss was pretty happy to collect dried up prairie grass and weeds that had somehow stayed upright during winter. She was also very serious about helping us get ready for our bees. Baby Bee, who I should now call "Little Mr." was happy to touch pine needles and walk around the grove. He's into everything these days, but I was happy to see that he wasn't overly brave on his own here...yet. Everyone helped Mr. Bee pack the dirt... ...and we got it level! We are using frames in our hive with foundation (wax already laid out in tiny hexagons), but natural comb would be built by the bees according to the level of the earth, not necessarily to the positioning of the hive.  So, while it's not extremely vital for the type of keeping we're doing, it's an interestin...