Tuesday 28 June 2016

Buzz buzzz

Yesterday evening we collected our bees! This has been an ambition for years and I cannot believe we have finally done it. We had to go late in the day to ensure as many as possible were back in the hive. Our mentor put a travelling screen on top of the brood box and we put everything in the boot of our 4x4. A few stragglers followed the hive into the boot and sat on the screen for the journey home. They did not enter the car! Once home I put on my suit to sort the hive out. I had to put in the feed tray and reconstruct the hive. When I took the screen off loads of bees flew out and landed on me. They are small and very gentle and at no point did I feel threatened. I managed to get most back in the hive and left them to settle in.
This morning I had a look when I let everyone out and all was still. After taking this photo I sat for a bit as the sun was coming round. Slowly bees started to come out and fly off. Two landed on me. One on my bare hand but they just had a look. I chatted to them as you are meant to and eventually they flew off. I plan to spend lots of time watching for now. On Friday I will open the hive again to check the status of the sugar syrup and to see how the building work is doing. Hopefully there be lots of fertilized cells. I have no chance of finding the queen but as long as I can see activity I will know she is there.
I feel very calm around my bees but know at some point I will be stung. All bee keepers are. I will always put on my bee keepers suit when doing anything with the hive as I am still very much a novice.
I am now looking forward to next year when hopefully I can harvest some honey.
I think it can be safely said that my old work colleagues would not recognize me now! My son in law who lives with us calls me a belated hippy! I guess I am!
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4 comments:

  1. Chris29 June 2016 at 15:04

    What fun! Hope you get lots of tasty honey.

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  2. Aly29 June 2016 at 22:01

    Cannot harvest until next year. This year they will I hope build up the colony and prepare for winter. Any honey they make will be for them. Next year we can take some for us. Loving having them!

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  3. BethB from Indiana30 June 2016 at 05:36

    My hubby kept bees for years and harvested great amounts of honey. We still have jars left to use. It lasts forever.

    He finally had to give it up after having a bad reaction to a sting. It is strange that he'd been stung before and had not had a problem. Our son-in-law was able to take the bees to a nursery where he worked as an arborist.

    There are several fiction books that I've read that have bee-keeping as one of the main subjects, and all were great reads. Let me know if you are interested in the titles.

    I wish you great success and lots of honey from your bees.

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  4. Aly1 July 2016 at 05:35

    Thanks Beth. Am ploughing through several bee keeping books just now and learning fast. Waiting for some sun so I can do my first hive inspection.
    Will not harvest the honey until next year as they will need the store from this year for winter feed.

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