Bee Productive

Long live the queen!  At least...well...I can only assume the queens still reside in their hives happy and healthy since the rest of the colony continues to build in their new home.  I have not seen the queens yet.  The blame lies in my novice nature with the bees.  I can find workers, drones, larvae, and bees in all the stages of their life...just not the queen.  I am sure she will pop up soon enough and when she does, I hope to capture a picture for all of you to see!

On another note, I am appreciating the feedback for names on the hives.  So far I have had names like "Beeopolis" and "Bernsting"...and "Michigan"...keep them coming!  Also, being a novice blogger, I finally enabled comments...so post them in order to ensure all the good (and bad) names make it for consideration!

This week marked a momentous (yet premature) event in the big hive's history.  I collected about a pint of honeycomb from the roof of the hive.  The bees were already building on the roof and that is wasted effort since I want them to build in the hive.  They are making progress in drawing out the frames in the hives, but they were spending way too much energy on their ceiling honey stores...so like a good beekeeper, I stole it!  I hope this encourages growth within the frames which will equate to easier collection in the future.  You will know as soon as I get my first crop of honey!

This is an old picture from the day I first opened the hives.  All of the comb you see was at least twice the size...which means WAY too much attention was being given to this sweet temptation.

Raw honeycomb at its finest.  When you can see the honeycomb shapes so clearly that means they were never fully capped and therefore full of honey.  Yes, we had some nectar mix in with the honey.

CLOSE-UP!

Some cappings were compromised on the extraction from the hive and thus began a natural honey flow.

The final product.

Next I must melt and filter this wax for further use.  I am thinking maybe candles or soap.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures from this adventure.  There were no stings...but there was a nice (maybe crazy) lady who basically sat and watched me work the bees this week.  We spoke like old friends...I estimate her to be about a 70 year old black woman.  She was sweet as can be and asked me questions about the bees as she sat by the canal and enjoyed her afternoon snack of mixed nuts and San Pellegrino water on the outside of the fenced-in garden.  At the end of the conversation I asked her for her name and introduced myself.  She said, "I know who you are!  I've known you since you were a baby!  You probably don't remember me, but your mama and daddy and wife have bet a lot of money on my name!  I'm Gladys."  It was weird, yes, but refreshing because she was really enjoying her day.