Beekeeping

How to Set Up a Beehive

April 26, 2013

China—On his way to second place in a bee-wearing contest in Hunan Province, a contestant disappears beneath a carpet of insects lured by a queen bee in a cage. A scale he was standing upon tallied his total take: about 50 pounds of bees.

On the heels of my post yesterday on why all The Bees Are Dying, I thought I would show you guys how to set up a beehive. It can be a very scary idea setting up and caring for bees so I thought I would do a quick YouTube Tutorial. Let me know if it [...]

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Colony Cycle of the Hive

July 12, 2012

Beekeeping follows seasonal cycles. Last time Liz and I opened the hive, Liz gave me a quick tutorial on the seasons of the hive. Here in Cincinnati the yearly colony cycle can be broken into four seasons: Spring-build-up Late Spring & Early Summer- honey flow Late Summer-Dearth Fall- honey flow The flowering of plants [...]

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Booty From The Robbery

June 16, 2012

Not that kind of Booty, GEEZ, get your mind out of the gutter! After our successful robbery. I had to process the treasure. I was pretty excited with my bucket of golden goodness, and may not have thought the whole process of extracting the honey from the cleanliness prospective. Let me just say right here [...]

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There Was A Robbery In My Backyard

June 14, 2012

SHHHH, It was me! Yep Liz and I robbed the hive. Not a full-out robbery just a small we’re going to borrow this and not give it back kind of robbery. ?? Does that even make sense? Liz was the ring leader and texted me to meet her at two o’clock, she wrote “wear gloves, [...]

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Checking the Hive After the Swarm

May 7, 2012

We did a check on the hives and wanted to find out which one swarmed. All the hives are flourishing, even the captured swarm has started building out comb. We went through the “swarm” hive and could not find the queen or any evidence of new brood (eggs). Which is not unexpected since they had [...]

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My First Bee Swarm!

April 29, 2012

On Friday morning when I was writing my post “Why I have Bees” I thought I should add a photo of the Blackberry flowers because the bees help in their pollination. So, I grabbed the camera, put on my down coat and headed out to the orchard. It was a beautiful sunny morning, but chilly [...]

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Why I Keep Bees!

April 27, 2012

Why do I keep bees? Our last home sat on 47 acres overlooking the Ohio River. The home was built-in the 30′s and the original owner had cattle, sheep, and chickens. The chicken coop, which was huge, still stood on the property. That was one of the reason I decided to start keeping chickens. [...]

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My first jar of honey

April 22, 2012

Liz stopped by to do a check up on the hives. It had been one week since she installed her three hives and she wanted to make sure all was well. She has been receiving call after call over the last week about bee swarms. She routinely goes out and captures swarms and then places [...]

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Bees Arrived!

April 14, 2012

Liz arrived this morning to place the bees in their new homes. The back of her SUV was filled with at least 15 wooden boxes, each filled with 3 pounds of bees and a Queen. VERY COOL! The boxes are referred to as “packages” and in each you have the worker bees and a Queen [...]

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Bee Boxes Set up…waiting for bees.

March 30, 2012

Yes its true, I thought of myself as NOT a very good beekeeper. I was finally willing to admit I had failed miserable and it was time to admit defeat. (which if you know me , you know is very hard for me to do!) Lucky for me, I have a dear friend Dee who [...]