The Honeybees are here!

Newest addition to the Little Macdonald Farm: HONEYBEES!

(Sorry, Mom, that it took so long to post these pictures)


Last year we decided to get honeybees and in the fall we were given one hive on some friends' property in Mapleton. In January Caleb entered a "Bee a Beekeeper" essay contest. He wrote a 500 word essay and won 2nd place... so he got his own hive and bottom super (box) plus the hood, veil and some other tools. He was really excited! We bought two hive packages in April so we have 3 hives at our house, four all together. Here are some pix of us (okay, Eric and Caleb... I'm just the photographer) putting the bees into their new homes.


The boys had fun painting the hive boxes in the garage.




Before we hived the bees, Caleb sprayed them with sugar water so they would be a bit more tame and not want to fly away.




Here's Caleb's hive: approximately 12,000-14,000 honeybees in that box!



Here is the queen. She comes in her own little cage. The workers eat through a little candy plug to release her after about two days. By then, her scent has permeated the hive and they accept her as their new queen. Yep, she's the QUEEN BEE!



Here is Eric dumping all the bees into their new home. He left the little box next the the hive boxes and by the next day they had all gone inside.



This is a new frame where the bees with build out the comb and fill it with honey. Each box (called a super) has 10 frames hanging like file folders.



Putting the inside cover plate over the hive. After they fill out the bottom frames with honey, nectar and eggs, we'll put more boxes (supers) on top. Anything above two boxes is the honey we'll harvest in the fall.



Here are the two beekeepers and their newly-installed hives. Caleb's hive is the one in the middle.



This little girl is just finding her way in through the front door. BTW, all the honeybees are female except for about 10 male "drones". In the fall they kick them out and its just "the girls" over the winter. In the spring the queen will lay a few more drones. They are an amazing little society!



Here is Caleb in his new beekeeper suit. Too bad it didn't arrive in time to install the bees... he was stung twice. (okay he was wearing old jeans with a hole in the knee and would he listen to Mom to go and change??) He was tough about it. He is really excited for his bees to do well, he even prays for them to be healthy. Cute, eh?!



Here are our friends that we can blame for starting this whole bee thing. Lisa and Scott stopped by after we had just installed ours to see how it went. They have bees on their property and after Eric helped them a few times, he was hooked.


And if you aren't bored yet, here are a couple of videos of the "hiving" process.