The bee hives

We suited up and went to the bee hives. 

We looked at the frames with bees and honey on them.  One frame full of honey weighs about 4 lbs.  The bees started bearding on the frames.

We also treated for mites. Collected the supers for honey extracting.  We will extract honey next Wednesday.  

With all the bees flying around no one got stung!    Sorry for the blurry pictures......I had my bulky bee gloves on!

My supplies

Here I am with my bee suit on and my bee hive!  Can't wait till spring for my bees. 

First Class

Honey bees date back as early as ancient Egypt.  There is a decline in our honey bees called the colony collapse disorder.  The life cycle of a bees life is relatively short. The queen life span is 2-5 years, worker bees 1-4 months, drones 40-50 days.  

Bees live in hives made by man or bees.  Bees are very beneficial to us, our agriculture depends on the honey bee for pollination.  About a 1/3 of our food depends on bee pollination to grow.  Do you like almonds?   We would not have them unless the bees pollinate them. Over 1 million hives are taken to California to pollinate the almond crop each year.  

Things about honey I didn't know:

-  Honey never spoils.  

-  Honey has antibacterial qualities. 

I saw honey in the frame, pollen in a jar, hive boxes, supers and the bee suit, veil and gloves.

We talked about many of other things, but this is all I have for today.

Getting started

I was at the Tractor Supply Co., saw a book on beekeeping thought it would be fun.   A few days later I got the book "The Backyard BeeKeeper" and started reading.  The more I read the more I thought, "I want to be a beekeeper!".  I ordered catalogs and found a guy in Overland Park to order supplies from and found out that he teaches a beekeeping class at the community college.  So I signed up! I start classes on Aug 21 and I'm excited!