Inspection

Today we inspected my hives. They were doing really well and were drawing out their foundation really good. They were also storing quite a bit of nectar/honey. I couldn't spot any eggs, but I'm not very good at it. Here's the pictures.

Smoking the frames. This is after we removed the frame feeder.

A frame of foundation that the bees are starting to draw out. They even have some nectar/honey in it.

Me holding a frame.

As you can see this frame had quite a bit of capped brood. The brown/tan capping are brood.

Holding another frame that had been drawn out, this frame had some double layered comb on it.

I broke the double layered comb off and found that the bees had stored quite a bit of nectar/honey under it.

Another frame. The bullet shaped cells near the bottom beside my glove are drone cells.

A frame of brood. It had a tight pattern so I'm happy with it.

I spotted the queen in the second hive so I had D.J. take a picture of her. She's the one that is bigger than the rest of the bees.

All of the above pictures were taken by D.J.

Danny

Installation pictures

Awhile ago I installed my other nuc but I haven't gotten around to posting any pictures yet so here they are.

Taking a frame out of the nuc.

A frame of bees. I'm not sure what was in this frame because the bees made it difficult to see what was in it.

I'm not sure what to do with this frame. The bottom is missing but the comb seems to be held in place quite well. Any suggestions?


A picture of the whole frame.

A bee trying to avoid the chaos back at the hive.

All pictures were taken by my brother D.J.

Danny

Cyber Dog!

Today I took Sam into the basement of the house because it was hot outside. D.J. was on the computer and Sam finds the cursor on the computer very very interesting. Here's a few pictures.

Cold

Hello right now I'm getting over a cold so I haven't been able to look at my bees much.

Danny

Bee pictures

Yesterday I got some more pictures of the bees so I decided I'd post some on here. Here they are.

A super macro picture of a bee with its pollen baskets full.

The entrance of the hive that we transfered the nuc into a few days ago.

A bee waiting to be unloaded.

The entrance of the remaining nuc.

A pollen loaded bee climbing up a blade of grass. The pollen loaded bees would sometimes crash into the grass in front of the entrance because of their heavy load.

Danny

Installing Pictures

A few days ago we installed one of my nucs. It was pretty fun, the only problem was that I forgot my hive tool and the bees had really glued the frames together. Here's the pictures.


Opening up the nuc.

Dad moving the division board feeder.

Me putting a frame of bees into the hive.

Dad and I putting a frame of brood and bees into the new hive.

Closing things up.

As you can see Sam is a cat killer. Or maybe our cat is a dog killer.

Danny

Getting bees!

Even though the title of my blog reads Beeginning Beekeeper, I haven't posted much to do with beekeeping. Well, yesterday my adventure began. We headed to Miles City to get the nucs. No, I don't mean a nuclear bomb. When we arrived in Miles City we went shopping. After finishing our shopping, we went to Simpson Honey Farm to get the nucs. The nucs hadn't arrived from the bee-yard, so Mr. Simpson gave us a tour of his operation. After looking at all his equipment the nucs arrived, so we loaded them into our pickup and headed for home. When we got close to our house the migratory cover on one of the nucs was beginning to slip off so I crawled through the back window and put the cover back on. A little while later the cover on the nuc slid quite a ways off and a lot of bees were escaping, so I jumped back into the back and was begining to put it back on when one of the bees got irritated and popped me on the cheek. I quickly scraped the stinger sack off and put the lid back on the nuc. After I got back in the pickup a scraped the rest of the stinger out. The cover started sliding off again so I put it back on and Dad tied it on better. Here are some pictures.

The nucs in the back of the pickup.

Me unloading a nuc.


Dad moving a nuc.

Me standing by my two nucs.

When I install them I'll post some more pictures.

Danny