Beekeeping Week 4

I had always wanted to learn how to keep bees, mainly for their honey.  This year I decided to take the plunge and get some bees and see what would happen.  I had no clue that I would soon become obsessed!

It all started when I mentioned it to a great family friend, Pam (who is like a surrogate mother to me) how I was interested in learning about bees and how to care for them.  As a Christmas gift Pam signed us both up for a 6 week beekeeping class, complete with written exam to become a South Carolina certified beekeeper.  I learned a lot in the class, but it really lacked in practical skills.  So when I brought the 2 boxes of bees home on March 21 it was a huge learning curve.  Austin was there to help me, and after a few mistakes with foundation and spacing, we are back on track.

Today, we did our weekly hive inspections, mainly to check to see how they are coming along and to check the health of the bees.  Mostly I’m pleased with their progress, they are producing brood and building up stores of pollen and honey (!).  The down side, one of the hives is not as far along as the other one.  I’m thinking of taking a frame from the healthy hive and switching it with an empty frame from the weaker hive.  This will not only boost the number of bees in the weaker hive, but also give them some more brood.  I’ve got to talk to some beekeeper friends to see if this is a good idea, but hopefully if they give me the go-ahead I’ll be doing this next week.

I never thought that I would enjoy keeping bees as much as I am, but they are so interesting!  The way that thousands of individuals come together to make something work for the greater purpose of the hive is just awesome!  If only the world could take a lesson from these little creatures, instead of being solely out for themselves,  work together to make it a much better place.  Until next weeks update, bee happy!