About The Bees

I started this post almost 10 days ago and that was a long, long time ago.  I'm not even sure I can remember everything so I can get caught back up.  Sigh...

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Okay, so we had to move Stella's bees.  I had been told they needed to be moved, but my hope had been to wait and catch a spring swarm from the hive so I could keep some of her bees around here before I had to move the hive to a site at least three miles away.  

I've always been under the impression you could move a hive three feet...or more than three miles because of the way they map the area and locate to their hive.  You can move them to a closer location, like down here, but you'd have to move them away from the area...and then move them back.  No one really wants to do that, especially not the bees.

Turns out you can move them within that range - in this case around 300 yards - but you need to do some tricky work.  You wait until evening, when the bees have all returned to the hive, and move them to their new location, but face the hive in a different direction.  We reoriented them from facing east to facing south.  

The next morning, just before you open the "front door", you pile up a bunch of brush across the opening so that they have to crawl their way out, and this is their second clue that things have changed and they need to reorient themselves.

After everyone has headed off to work, you can remove some the branches and then the rest a bit later. You also need to put a catch hive back at the previous location so that any stragglers or lost bees have a place to go and then at the end of the first day you carry them all back down to the new location, give them a stern lecture and hope they figure things out...but you repeat the catch hive at least one more day.

I think I covered the move on Instagram either in pictures or videos.  The first night after the move I brought down a pretty significant amount of bees.  The second night there were about half as many, but things the third day were starting to quiet down and I'm hopeful we didn't lose too many field working bees. It was extremely stressful and I felt very bad for the bees.  

A week after the initial move, the hive swarmed.  This is normal spring behavior.  It would have been better if they'd have been able to swarm into their normal small tree at Stella's where it would have been easy to pick them up and start a second hive, but alas, they swarmed into the top of Salt's pine tree in the yard where there was no way to get them and they eventually moved off.  

I saw them leave and followed them back to a smaller tree at the big pond and had hopes of picking them up out there, but they didn't stay there long and I didn't see where they ended up. I'm hoping they are tucked safely into a nice old hollow tree nearby and will keep in touch.  In the meantime, the remaining bees are happily working along and have resumed their normal calm demeanor.  They may make one more split before spring is over.  I hope I'll be able to catch them if they do.

Click to biggify

One way to tell if they are happy and things are working properly is if you see bees flying in with pollen to feed baby bees.  The bees flying in with yellow and orange dots on their legs are carrying pollen.  Watching pollen enter the hive was one of Stella's favorite jobs.  I'm enjoying having them outside my door now...but it was more fun to get the reports from Stella.

What follows is a random dump of pictures and IG posts.  I doubt they are in any sort of order, but I need to get this posted and move on.  I have a list of things to try to catch up on the blog including some Lamb Camp pictures, a new puzzle and a Frankie report.  How does everything get so far away from me?!?

This is the "cluster" of the first lost bees pick up - see below...I think.

Wrapping and strapping.  This all went very smoothly.

The pick up to load into the back of the truck.

Placing them in the B Garden

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A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady)

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A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady)

Oh, and since there are no longer two Too Busy Bees, we are going to call ourselves The B (Bee) Team.

A Couple Of Cute Stories

It was actually supposed to be Three Cute Stories, but by the time I walked from the barn to the house, I've forgotten one, so here's two.

Late yesterday afternoon I walked up to Stella's to see her last batch of honey - 48+ jars!  She and I sat and talked for awhile and as the sun went down I said I needed to get back down the hill and do my evening chores.  As we walked out onto her back porch, still talking, Peabody heard me from all the way down at our barn and started yelling at me.  I was late with his supper.  I hollered back.

"Pea-body!"

"Baaaaaaaa-a-a-a-a!"

"Pea-body!"

"Baaaa-a-a-a-a-aaaaaa!"

And Stella and I laughed ourselves silly.  It was amazing he still had the strength to yell that loud in his famished state ;-).  Poor silly Peabody.

This afternoon a friend came out to ride with me.  As we led Hickory and Gato out to the arena I had to explain why all the white buckets I use for riding markers were set out all over....not on purpose.  Well, not on my purpose.  

I'd picked up all the buckets when I mowed last and stacked them next to the extra jump standards just inside the arena gate.  A few days later I found several of them out in the arena.  Not a tooth mark on them, so I assumed the wind had tossed them.  I picked them up once again and the next day...back out in the arena.  No wind, but again, not a tooth mark on them.  

Usually if Hank hauls off something plastic there are plenty o' tooth marks ;-).  He likes "treasures" and if they are small, like a McDonald's coffee cup, he buries them in his Treasure Area aka the creek bank.  If they are big, he makes them small enough to bury.  The bucket situation was quite curious, but by that point, I felt like it had to be Hank.

Tonight, as I was finishing up evening barn chores, I caught him.  One by one moving each bucket back out into the corner of the arena.  I'm not sure what he's thinking as he unstacks each bucket and carries it where he wants it, but he definitely has a purpose.  And when he got them all set out, he walked away.  Things that make you go hmmm.....

Another Stella(r) Day

For those of you with camera phones, you know how you sometimes accidentally hit the button that reverses the view so you can take a picture of yourself and how every last time that happens it scares the dog hair out of you and you think, "Yeesh, is that really how I look!?!" 

You should try it sometime after you forget to fully zip up your bee suit and get stung right on the underside of your nose. 

Don't ask me how I know this.

Two Tired Bees

Random.org picked #12, KatieB :-).

The Too Busy Bees are thinking about a name change!



Stella and I harvested, spun out and bottled 120 jars of honey over the last two days. And we are both feeling every last bottle. Whew!



The honey is all the same color. It just looks different in the pictures due to how the sun was hitting it... So pretty.

Stella went with me to pick up my first swarm four or five years ago. After a couple of these adventures (and picking up swarms is always an adventure, usually good) she said she thought she'd like to set one up at her house.

In August that year she got a call from a friend with a swarm just around the corner. That became "the Audrey hive" and that hive that, on paper, should never have survived (too late in the year, too small, headed into winter with questionable food stores...) became the foundation for all of her hives.



Those bee's daughters, granddaughters, great granddaughters and great great granddaughters produced this honey. They are an important part of Stella's extended family and her great care has seen them through years where most beekeepers lost over 30-50% of their hives. I think they know that and work extra hard for her.



I love how good honey sparkles inside and out.



As we were bottling, I "accidentally" touched the cap on this jar so had to set it aside ;-).



We left quite a bit of honey in the hives. Not only are the two deep boxes on each hive heavy with honey, we didn't take every last drop from the honey supers either. After spinning the frames we did take, we set them back in the boxes so they could clean them up and re-store every last drop. Anything they make from here on out will either be fed back to them this fall or frozen for emergency feeding.

Would you like a jar? Leave the Two Too Tired from Bee-ing Too Busy Bees a comment and we'll draw a winner on Sunday :-).

A Sweet Treat

It's no secret I'm sick of this horribly hot summer weather. I'm obviously stressed about the possibility of an unusual predator in the area that might find my young, old, fat and otherwise defenseless sheep family (who are also sick of this horribly hot summer weather) and their loyal guardian dog who would most likely die trying to defend them.

As I staggered walked out to the mailbox the other day - toting my twice daily bucket of water to dump on the brave flowers trying to hang on through this horribly hot summer weather - I thought to myself "I hope there's something fun in the mail today."

And there was!

Michelle from Boulderneigh (one of my favorite blogs) had a huge drawing last week. I won one of the prizes and she mailed me not one, not two, but four Interweave Knits magazines. I was thrilled. It was just what I needed.

She had done another giveaway a year or so ago (Pay It Forward) where - I might not get this exactly right - the gist of it was you signed on to gift something to someone else, who in turn would gift something on... As Stella, new beekeeper Phyllis and I went around (in this horribly hot summer weather) checking beehives this morning, I knew what I wanted to do.



I'm going to send two jars of honey out to Oregon. Michelle may keep one for herself and gift the other to someone she knows who could use a sweet treat (because she's sweet like that). If you'd like to play along, leave a comment on this post and Sunday night I'll draw two names. I'll contact the lucky winners (make sure I know how to do so if you are "anonymous") and send on a surprise jar of honey to the person of your choice.

The rain, sun (yes, even the stupid hot sun), flowers, bees, beekeepers, bloggers and commenters can all do a little to Pay It Forward...in this horribly hot summer weather (I may have already said that :-).

Too Busy Bees

I'm quite sure there is nothing more fun than layering on long britches, long sleeves, jackets, elbow length gloves and a big hat when it's 94 degrees with 85% humidity. The reward at the end though makes up for it. Mostly.



Stella and I extracted honey yesterday. Her tiny late summer swarm that I was sadly pretty sure wouldn't even make it through the winter has produced almost three gallons of honey already. From one shallow super. I had a medium (larger) super left from the fall and it didn't quite fill two gallons. Her bees filled every square inch of their honey frames. Mine were apparently watching too much tv.

To better illustrate this, imagine we each had two boxes of half-pint jars. My bees almost exactly filled the two boxes (24 jars). Stella's hard working bees filled her 24 jars, plus all the big jars in the above picture.

If you look carefully at the two small jars, can you see one is slightly darker? That's the fall honey - mostly summer wildflowers. Stella's early spring honey is lighter - probably a lot of honey locust. They are just now starting to work all the white clover. It will be interesting to see what that honey looks (and tastes) like. Yep, they all taste different.

So we are hoping everyone stays busy this summer and fills several more boxes for us. The (free loading) Frog Pond Honey Factory has joined forces with Stella's hives on the hill to become Too Busy Bees. Janbaby came up with the idea for our logo...but I haven't had time to sketch it out yet.

That's the thing about being too busy ;-).