Skip to main content

Don't Worry BEE happy, Part 3, The Aftermath


Part 3: The Aftermath
The bee keeper was very careful to assure the bees were moved safely from their happy home to a new nice white box, their new happy home. He commented that they were the most docile he had ever encountered. This may not have been such a good thing, as during subsequent check ups they weren’t found up to much of anything productive. They had let their brood (baby bees) die, weren’t doing much comb building and he didn’t see sign of the queen at all!

In attempts to rectify the situation he brought out another hive to do a combine. He attempted to combine them together so that the bees from the house would have a queen and get to stepping!

Another week pasted as we watched and waited to see if the combine took. When he examined them he found that there was in a queen in the box from the house bees after all and separated them again.  

They have been sucking down the sugar water that I have been filling up for them every few days and one hive seems to be much more active than the other. I’m not sure what this means at this point but they are still eating the syrup so there’s still hope in my mind.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

3 keys to my organic garden

When I first started gardening organically I was armed only with books and magazines that swore it was not only possible but beneficial to garden with out chemicals and pesticides. As a gardener for many years using what it thought were the conveniences of chemicals it was hard to convince even myself that this was even remotely possible. However, now that I have been hard at it for the last 6 years I feel like I have a pretty good handle on what I believe to be the 3 keys to organic gardening. Attracting beneficials: I have found this to be my favorite thing about organic gardening because it give me a perfectly legitimate excuse to justify buying flowers that don't produce veggies that we can consume. The right ones, however, do attract the "good" bugs that an organic garden SO needs. It is common knowledge that lady bugs are good for the garden but the why of it is not always clear to everyone. Lady bugs are very effective "bad" bug predators. Aphids are th...

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle! (Repurpose!)

Reduce! Reuse! Recycle! (Repurpose!) Three words that speak volumes.   Around the farm, these concepts have been applied for decades. My husband, Eric, has an impressive local family history. According to the land deeds recovered while organizing paperwork from the other house on the property, his ancestors purchased this particular plot in the 1930’s.    The family was in the area for quite some time before that, however, and are rumored to have been numbered in the Stevens Party who came over via none other than the Stevens Trail. Frances Lenninger, a local Vina historian and author wrote in her book, Vina’s History in Photos and Stories, that Eric’s great-great-great-great grandmother, Matilda Foster, came over the trail from Iowa in 1848. This photo (Left) of Sam Henry Stephens, Eric’s great-great grandfather was taken in front of the Vina Hotel circa 1910. As locals during the time period prior to the great depression of the 1...

Don't worry, BEE Happy!

I have long wanted to join the ranks of the beekeepers. With all the gardens, flowers, blossoming trees and garden veggies that need the little flyers for pollination out here, I knew they would be happy out here on the ranch.  I have done a little research about them but haven’t taken the leap to start me an apiary. However, as I often find is the case out here, they choose us! Early this Spring I was weed eating on the North side of our house, a pretty low traffic area, and discovered to my surprise bees were frequenting a hole in the side of the house where my husbands grandpa had installed the hot water line for the bath tub many years ago. At the time I thought, “this weed eater is going to make them mad, I should steer clear” and did so.  Later that evening, suddenly realized the ramifications of what I had witnessed and I nearly shouted at Eric, “there are bees in the side of the house!”  My son’s wall is directly on the other side of this area so our first thought...