A BEE thread....for those interested in beekeeping.

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Have not posted here for some time but a quick update on our hives that we started for the first time in April. We lost one Queen in first hive but fortunately before she left/died she had laid eggs and the hive raised a new Queen for themselves. We thought the other hive was going really strong and everything there was OK. When my husband checked that hive NO Queen. Called about purchasing another Queen from the person we got the bees from and he said it wouldn't work, they would kill a new Queen. So we decided to wait a week and check again. Then one Sunday we were up in the garden 50 yards or so away from the hives and I could hear the bees really loud. Told my husband that we needed to go check since I shouldn't be able to hear them at that distance. Sure enough the Queen-less hive was swarming. We ran into the house checked the Internet on what to do. My husband went out and checked again looking for the Queen to no avail. About 1/3 of the bees had gone up into the Oak tree which is near by. Once we checked the hive my husband went up into the tree and got the swarm down and back into the hive. Then we found a new place closer to home that was still selling Queens (this was mid-June and they stop selling at the end of the month) so Monday morning my husband went and got a new Queen. Long story short, put her in and they accepted her and the hive is going real strong and has more bees then the other. So for now all our bees are happy and so are we that we didn't loose a hive on our first try at beekeeping.

Sandee
 
I've been putting off checking my hive just because of other things. Well yesterday I made sure I checked it since its been almost two months since I put the honey super on. So glad I did. All the frames are 3/4 of the way filled with capped honey. I put another super on and in a couple of weeks if that I will be able to collect the honey from the first one woo hoo. This has been a great year for the bees.
 
I know some blacksmiths who make mead. My parents once traded them a few gallons of honey for a few gallons of mead. I hear it isn't hard to make, but the flavor of the honey has a huge effect. Not sure what kind you should use I just know the batch of mead made from our honey (made from weeds and a backyard orchard or two) wasn't as good as their other batch when they bought the honey.
On the note of not being good... there are 'quick mead' recipes out there too. My friends tried one once and invited us to a tasting-bleh! Sure it takes 1/10 the time, but the flavor reflects that. i can't recommend it.
Sorry I can't be more help. I have tasted mead plenty (oh, so good when mixed with hot apple cider on a cold winter night!) but never made it myself.
 
years ago, my Anthropology of Ancient Europe teacher told us he was certain that Europeans would have gotten along so much better if they'd had something better than mead to drink! he said it was so disgusting that your only option was to go out and massacre some village, just to make you forget the taste.

he was joking of course, but i've never been tempted to try it.
lol.png
 
Not much happening here. We've got to check the farm hives soon.

We finally had the time to check the backyard hive. Jacob saw live larva, which is good. I'm concerned because there was a white "worm" crawling on the opposite side of the frame. Jacob thought it was a maggot but it looked longer than a maggot to me. I tried to get a pic but my camera refused to cooperate. The bees were getting a little aggravated with us so we left them alone since we didn't have the smoker out. I'm thinking we'll take a closer look once the smoker is going.

Speaking of the smoker - can anyone gives us some tips on keeping the darn thing lit?
 
Ugghh! We've got beetles in the hive -and what I'm assuming is their evil spawn. HELP!!

No sign of a queen - no brood or anything. There are still are a lot of workers and Jacob spotted a bunch of drones. Can we save the hive? Sure would appreciate any suggestions. We are first year keepers so we've never dealt with this before.
 

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