The Milkweed Diaries

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Checking on the Bees

We started our adventures in beekeeping this spring with two hives--about 40,000 bees!

We picked them up
from
Mountain Apiaries in Madison County, strapped the hives into the back of our pickup truck, and drove them home.
They've been doing their honeybee thing ever since.


We've been suspecting that the bees needed more room in their hives, so we checked on them today and it turned out that they had almost completely filled the frames in their brood box, so it was time for more space. We added supers to give each of our two hives a second story to keep expanding the colonies.

So here are some shots of the bee proceedings!
















































A big thank-you to Christopher's Uncle Larry and Aunt Betty for their generous support in sponsoring a hive, which helped us get started with beekeeping this year!





1 comment:

jack-of-all-thumbs said...

Best of luck with the bees. I started a new colony this spring after losing my first colony last fall (after three and a half years). They're a bit of work, but a boon to the garden/orchard. And they're fun to talk to.