The 8th Annual BYC Easter Hatch-a-long!!!!

[Happy Chooks]

It's that off topic thing creeping in again, gotta laugh

 

[brucifer]

It's that off topic thing creeping in again, gotta laugh

C'mon...we've got to find a way to put a hatching egg in there somehow...lol

That dark blackberry honey does look delish though. My sister lives in Ft. Bragg (Mendocino county), and one year I was up there and made some blackberry syrup for her. We have blackberries here is GA, but they are nothing like the ones that grow in the Pacific northwest. (Okay, now that definitely IS topic drift...

)

 

[Happy Chooks]

Quote:
Hey.................bees lay eggs too. And it takes 21 days to hatch a bee, just like chickens. (except drones and queens, they are different time to hatch)

 

[ronott1]

This is a social thread right?

I saw Bee kits at Costco last weekend. Very tempting....

 

[Yorkshire Coop]

C'mon...we've got to find a way to put a hatching egg in there somehow...lol

That dark blackberry honey does look delish though. My sister lives in Ft. Bragg (Mendocino county), and one year I was up there and made some blackberry syrup for her. We have blackberries here is GA, but they are nothing like the ones that grow in the Pacific northwest. (Okay, now that definitely IS topic drift... )

There you go, bees lay eggs

Hey.................bees lay eggs too.  And it takes 21 days to hatch a bee, just like chickens. (except drones and queens, they are different time to hatch)

I never knew this, Learn something new everyday here! I get what queens are but what do drones do?

 

[Yorkshire Coop]

This is a social thread right?

I saw Bee kits at Costco last weekend. Very tempting....

It sure is Ron, I was only jesting on the off topic thing

Very tempting for you there on the bee kits............

 

[Happy Chooks]

I never knew this, Learn something new everyday here! I get what queens are but what do drones do?

Drones are males. They do not gather pollen or nectar, and they eat a lot. (they don't have a stinger either) They are basically flying sperm to mate with a queen. (and freeloaders) A queen mates once in her life, then never leaves the hive again, unless they swarm. The drone dies shortly after mating. In the fall, the drones get kicked out of the hive to die as they are extra mouths to feed during the winter.

In the honeybee world, you do not want to be a drone.

 

[ShrekDawg]

Yup. Summer population gets really high. I couldn't even tell which hive they swarmed from. You think chickens are hard to photograph, try bees! My avatar is one of my pictures too.

Wow that's amazing!!

And my favorite picture I took of my bees. It only took about 50 attempts to get this ONE picture:

Raising bees is awesome. My wife wants us to start doing that, but my favorite honey is what is produced an hour or so north of where we live, and that's the kind I like. There is nothing else that matches the taste of sourwood honey. We take the trip once a year to the Blue Ridge Mountains to get sourwood honey. It usually sells out early, and last year we missed the harvest. Speaking of honeybees, a couple of years ago I was also surprised because I saw what looked like a blue honeybee. The bee was smaller than a normal honeybee, and it had a blue and black striped abdomen instead of one that is yellow and black striped. Come to find out, that bee is being used as a pollinator and not for honey production.

I know Australia has blue bees. I've never had sourwood honey, but oh my gosh, the honey is the best! Ours is mostly blackberry honey, but other plants contribute too, so it's "wildflower" honey. California is not the best for honey production, but I did get 2 harvests last year, totaling about 5 lbs of honey. See, now y'all got me talkin' bees!

Well worth the 50 attempts! That's a fab pic

I took this photo a month or so ago when our pear trees were in bloom. Alas, the insect in the photo is not a skinny honeybee, but a hoverfly that mimics a honeybee:

It's that off topic thing creeping in again, gotta laugh

C'mon...we've got to find a way to put a hatching egg in there somehow...lol That dark blackberry honey does look delish though. My sister lives in Ft. Bragg (Mendocino county), and one year I was up there and made some blackberry syrup for her. We have blackberries here is GA, but they are nothing like the ones that grow in the Pacific northwest. (Okay, now that definitely IS topic drift... )

Hey.................bees lay eggs too. And it takes 21 days to hatch a bee, just like chickens. (except drones and queens, they are different time to hatch)

This is a social thread right? I saw Bee kits at Costco last weekend. Very tempting....

There you go, bees lay eggs I never knew this, Learn something new everyday here! I get what queens are but what do drones do?

It sure is Ron, I was only jesting on the off topic thing Very tempting for you there on the bee kits............

Drones are males. They do not gather pollen or nectar, and they eat a lot. (they don't have a stinger either) They are basically flying sperm to mate with a queen. (and freeloaders) A queen mates once in her life, then never leaves the hive again, unless they swarm. The drone dies shortly after mating. In the fall, the drones get kicked out of the hive to die as they are extra mouths to feed during the winter. In the honeybee world, you do not want to be a drone.

Wow rough life for the drones! Lol And I had no idea honey changed taste based on what pollen/plant they used!!! I am terrified of bees

 

[Yorkshire Coop]

:/ Being a drone does not sound good at all. All very interesting to know and I hope I have drones that chase me if they don't have a stinger

 

[Happy Chooks]

And I had no idea honey changed taste based on what pollen/plant they used!!!

Yes, the different nectar sources available, changes the taste and color of the honey. This is clover honey on the left: