This past Saturday I attended the Bee Fun Day at the fairgrounds in Lawrence, KS. We heard excellent speakers on beekeeping techniques like soap making with honey and hands-on practices for good bee management. After a great lunch, we watched two people who volunteered to tie a queen bee in a cage to their chin, then to dump her hive on a cookie sheet on the lap of the person. In a matter of minutes the bees migrated to the…
Recently, my son-in-law informed me we had a swarm of bees near our bee yard at our farm hanging from a low branch. My son and I jumped into our bee suits and went to work, quick, before they could fly off somewhere. We placed a hive box under them. I took a big stick and smacked the branch–hard. The bees fell in a heap on the box. We let them rest about a half hour. They settled in nicely….
With a box of bees with a mated queen currently costing $225.00 I’m going to try to attract some swarming bees this spring who are looking for a new home. I’ve placed a cotton ball with a few drops of a bee-attracting lemon scent inside this box called a nuk with some empty honeycomb frames. Early spring is the best time to catch them so they will have time to establish a strong colony to go through the winter. They…
About five weeks ago I wrote a blog about seeding clover for my bees to feast on in order to make delicious honey. Last weekend I searched for any sign that the sowing of clover seeds in February snow was a success. If you look closely, you can see some tiny clover leaves peeking through the ground cover of dead grass and fall leaves. All three hives made it through that -20 degree weather. I feel very fortunate, because many…
In this sub-zero, record-breaking weather I am afraid my bees might freeze. So the other night before the thermometer plunged to -20 wind chill, I went to the bee yard with some blankets. I couldn’t cover the front because they need to get air, even though it’s so cold. I was alone and feared I’d not be able to secure them well. I prayed for “an extra pair of hands”. When I got to the farm, a son-in-law was just…
This past weekend I attended a Fun Day for beekeepers. In order to show how bees cluster to their queen, two brave souls volunteered to let bees make bee beards on them. The speakers tied the queen of each hive in a small box under the chin of the volunteers. Then they dumped the queen’s hive on a tray under the volunteers chins. The bees clustered around the queen. This picture is the result! My books are available from Amazon.com…
Miracle of miracles, my bees made it through the terrible -20 degree temperatures this winter. They are busy gathering pollen and gearing up for warmer weather. Hopefully, this year I’ll be able to harvest some honey. I think I hear someone saying, “How did they survive such cold? Bees are so fascinating. When cold winter hits, they gather around their queen in a cluster. The warm bees move to the outer edge and the cold ones move inward. I fed…
My bees don’t have a lot of flowers to work on, so I decided to make them a wildflower garden. I tried planting some wildflower seeds I bought from the hardware store last spring. Nothing came up but weeds. Then I learned from a car salesman at work that those seeds are not indigenous to this area. He told me to buy Aromatic Aster, Showy Goldenrod, Purple Beardtongue, and Wild Bergamot seeds from www.mowildflowes.net My next project was to buy…
Are you familiar with that saying, some days you’re the dog and some days you’re the fire hydrant? That’s how I felt last Saturday. A friend and I had planned for a long time to extract honey from her hives. I haven’t gotten any from my hives this year, but she had, and I had an extractor. For 40 years I’d stored that thing in my basement in its original box. I belonged to my dad. He’d planned to reestablish…
Last Sunday night the ladies of our church met in the heat in our church garden to enjoy fellowship. We had a lady who brought her butterfly presentation and I was invited to share about bees. We enjoyed yummy desserts made from our garden produce also. These are some of the facts I shared with the women and girls: A queen lays up to 1,500 eggs a day for two to three years. She only leaves the hive once on…