More 🐝 Talk

Had a road trip today to go to a bee shop! Our bee mentor told us about it!
Had a bit of trouble finding it but that was down to how Him indoors programmed the sat nav. Once we found it we logged it as a favourite. We will be going back.
It was fun sorting out what we wanted in French but the young man was very patient and not bothered by us being English! Always helps.
It was just as well I am now very familiar with a bee hive. We have come away with a complete hive! We also stopped on the way home to buy two blocks to stand it on. It is now all set up and I have sprayed the inside with bee charm! I have to repeat this for eight days to try and attract some of my bees to take up residence. Should they decide to swarm the idea is it encourages them to go in the new house. Time will tell.
We have come away with the catalogue so we can browse at our leisure.
We need to build a heat box for melting the wax so that it can be cleaned for use. This shop also hires out honey extraction kits at a sensible daily rate but it is very far away. There is a chance we may buy a cheaper one ourselves.
The long term plan is we will stay with the two hives as that will give us more than enough honey. We want to use it more in cooking and make mead! When we get to swarming season next year if we manage to collect the swarm we will sell it. That money will then be used to buy more bee keeping things.
I really love having my bees! They are fascinating to watch. They are so busy just now with all the fruit blossom. The trees are buzzing! They often land on me when I am working in the garden but do not sting me.
We have a good friend who first got us interested in bees. He has still not started and is envious of how far we have come. He has a house over here too but has not made the move to live here permanently. In England they live in an apartment. Hopefully we can encourage him now.  I would encourage others to keep 🐝