A Team Effort

Yay! Our queens are laying. Cam, Deb Gore and I checked on the hives today. We saw eggs on about three frames in both hives which is great. We also spotted the queen in hive #2. The bees have been hard at work storing pollen and building honeycomb. Over the next week, the eggs will hatch and the nurse bees will be feeding the babies. We'll look for them in a week at our next inspection. We topped off their sugar syrup feeders and gave them pollen patties (for protein) and closed them up. So far, so good!

On the Learning Curve

Whew! I've had my bees on the brain all week. I had to mix up another batch of syrup for them (with the Honey B Healthy from Gunnar) and top off the feeders. I checked back today and they still have plenty so that's good. And guess what else I saw? The queen! She was on hive #2 and was a lot bigger and darker than the others. That "baby's got back!" I was thrilled to spot her.
I'll be doing the first real inspection on saturday with Deb Gore who's going to give me a hand. I was over at her place today and got to see her queen and some eggs. Awesome! Her hives are thriving.

Got Bees??

OMG. We survived the first day.... Cam and I fared better than some others (Toby, Jon, Davis and Evan). Apparently my bees were NOT happy about getting stuck in a box, shipped to Spokane and then dumped out into their new hive in our Back 40.... Did u know that mad bees somehow know to attack the head of their enemy? Now you know!
The day started off well with a trip to 'bee school' for the demo after a yummy breakfast at Chaps. We saw the instructor dump 10,000 bees out of a box and into the hive without wearing a veil or gloves or anything! No smoke either. And no stings. He made it look so easy. Unfortunately when it was my turn it didn't go so well and we hd a unprotected audience! In retrospect, it would've been better to smoke the bees and maybe spray them with syrup. Shoulda, coulda, woulda.... After the excitement died down, I returned to put the second package in hive #2 and it was fine (after what seemed like a year of trying to get the cork out of the queen cage).
Since then, they've mostly been quiet and keeping to their hives since the weather's been cold and rainy. I popped out today with the help of an experienced beekeeper (Gunnar, one of our GHC FP docs). We gave them more syrup and things seemed to be ok. Both queens have been released and they're starting to build comb. The first real inspection will have to wait until the weekend. If we can spot eggs, I'll know we're in good shape. Fingers crossed!

One Day To Go!

We made some last-minute preparations for the bees today. Toby 'helped' me make some bee food (sugar syrup). We fired up the smoker for the first time. The pine needles and pine cones worked great and are in endless supply. The last thing was to put the hives into position. Tomorrow is the big day!

Stocking Up

Toby helped me pick up 30lbs of sugar at the store for the new bees. I need to make up some sugar syrup for them. The hives are painted and ready to go. We just need to set them in the 'back 40.' Only three more days! Looks like the weather should be decent: 50s and mostly sunny. Not much is blooming yet, just crocuses and forsythia, some early daffodils. They'll definitely need some help to get started.

Nine Days to Go!

Who's that newbee?? It's Cam! We went out to Tate's this week for some last minute supplies. Cam has his suit now. I also got a smoker and the lids for the two hives which we'll need to paint. I picked up cinder blocks too so we're almost ready to go. The bees are coming a week from Saturday!