Frances and the Bee

...which is tomorrow! We've been setting out the hives, feeding sugar syrup to the bees who made it through winter, and getting our new top bar hive finalized.  I'm looking forward to sharing with you about our "Bee Day"!

Welcome to another beekeeping season! This photo may not look like much, but we're really excited about it. Our hive has made it through the winter!   ...at least so far. Will this cold weather ever go away? See that happy beekeeper above? Mr. Bee was listening to their familiar hum. Once the weather warms a bit more, we'll start feeding these bees some sugar syrup until there is plenty of pollen and nectar available outside. We have also placed an order for two more packages of Italian honeybees, to arrive (hopefully) in late April. That will make three hives total.  For one of those hives, we're going to try a different hive style, called a top bar hive.  I'm looking forward to sharing more about this we have everything ready and I can get some photos. I'm looking forward to seeing if Little Miss Bee will try on her suit this year and join us aside the hive.  In the meantime, look how Little Mr. Bee is handling the cold weather: I thought I...

I'm (finally) getting you a photo of this year's harvest.  Introducing... our 2014 honey! Here is a photo to compare this year to last year (on left). Although they look similar at first, this year's honey is much lighter and sweeter, more like store-bought or clover honey.  We do miss the slightly pungent hint of buckwheat in last year's batch, we're so thankful to have this sweet reward. Please stay tuned for updates on our winter preparation for the hive.

I'm sorry I've been a bit behind with my updates.  Since I've last posted, Mr. Bee has been busy getting the hives ready for winter and it's become rather chilly outside. We've had high temperatures in the forties lately. After a lot of thought and consideration, we did decide to only winter the strongest, middle hive. We harvested our honey last night...in the kitchen.  We'll be putting everything in jars this week, so I'll share photos of the result soon.  We got about six gallons this year!  That's in addition to the six gallons that we're estimating we've left for the bees. While I'm busy trying to remedy all the stickiness in our kitchen and get some photos of our harvest, I'll leave you with a list of what we've been doing lately.  These photos are by Mr. Bee, on his phone.  I hope they come through your screen clearly. We replaced the screened bottom board with a solid-bottom winter board. There are only three small holes...

 This may be my new favorite photo from this year: Each bee is in action, one leaving, one coming in with pollen, one checking, one watching... In preparation for the end of the season, Mr. Bee brought out a scale and weighed a super full of honey and some individual frames.  We're trying to make sure we have a more educated guess of how much honey we'll be leaving for the girls to try and make it through winter. A frame of honey from our hives weighs approximately four pounds.  I think it's very possible that a frame could weigh five pounds or more, but our bees didn't draw the comb out far enough for that. We'll be leaving two boxes of brood on the bottom of each hive and up to three boxes or 90 pounds of honey. We would like to harvest more, but when a Minnesota beekeeper wants to keep bees alive through the winter, there are sacrifices to be made. Soon I'll have some photos of our harvest and this year's honey.  We're waiting for s...

A couple weeks ago, after days of rain and grey skies, we found a bunch of mushrooms around Mr.T's yard. They looked so alive and colorful, each so different, but all so delicate.  Days later when we returned, many were already spoiled.  Here are some interesting fungi:

As many of us prepare for the school year and autumn, our honeybees are still quite busy with the same tasks they've been at all summer.  The only difference is that we are seeing more and more honeycomb. Although pollen and nectar are a bee's main source of food, she and the others will get honey in the comb to get them through winter, when nectar and pollen are not available. Why honey?  It can last forever. Really, forever.  Honeybees get the humidity/moisture levels in the honey to 17-18% and then put a cap on it. We know that honey preserves amazingly at this point. Above you can see some capped honeycomb.  Below, you can see that this honey is not capped, meaning that the bees know it is not at the correct level of moisture. If harvested before it is capped, honey is certainly above that level and can ferment.  Bees are so smart, aren't they? You may be thinking, "If honey can last forever, why does it crystallize in that little bear bottle...