March: !st Opening of the Hive

Brian became interested in getting some beehives with bees after speaking with a few coworkers about the benefits of beekeeping. He got this vision of our family harvesting gallons of honey and bottling it for gifts at the Christmas Season. He sold me this idea of how this would be the greatest, cheapest, and most thoughtful gift that could ever given. I said fine but told him to learn some more before making a decision.








So Brian bought a book called, "Beekeeping for Dummies" and read it cover to cover. He then went to an all day beekeeping seminar held here in the valley. He went ahead online and purchased 2 hives and then consulted with a buddy about purchasing bees. They were able to have two crates of bees (each 10,000 bees including 2 queen bees) delivered to Eugene where his friend picked them up.









They assembled the hives and then added sugar water as a food source while the bees got settled and started collecting pollen. Then Brian returned to fill the sugar water every 3-4days.









What we were most looking forward to was the inagural opening of the beehive. Brian and this friend Glenn opened it and were able to identify the queen bee (as marked by a green dot). They also saw that some of the casing had honeycomb in it and tiny bee eggs were being layed by the queen bee.






Around mid-afternoon every day the hives were busy with activity. They were buzzing with bees who were so heavy with the pollen they were collecting that they were crash landing at the opening of the beehive. Brian, when opening the hives, would spray the bees with sugar water, thus preoccupying the bees while he went about his business. Bees will leave you alone if they don't perceive you as a threat to the hive.









We are watching the hives closely for the production of honeycomb and honey. Brian says that we are very near the stage now for an additional hive as the new baby bees will be hatching soon. Bees have a lifespan of 6 weeks so there is a rapid turnover.Brian assessed each slat and created more room for each slat by removing the case that the bees were delivered in.



I have to chuckle at this whole experience because I swore I would have nothing to do with this. But already, I have been out to the hive in a jumpsuit to take a closer look and I take the kids over to the hives to see the activity. Check out how in one of the pictures they are all protected and the kids are no more than 15 feet away watching. Crazy! More bee pictures to be forthcoming!