Checking out the ladies...

We checked out the bees today.They looked good. Several frames of brood were capped meaning that new bees are on the way. Since this is our first hive, we don't have a lot of experience, but we think that were not that many bees.

We think that those bees are looking low in number, but as the bees start hatching the numbers will improve. Hopefully, they will increase the number and start building up the colony. Even if we don't get honey this year, we hope that we can at least get the frame built out in the first two boxes.

Anyways, it was exciting and we hope that the bees continue to grow and build.

While we were out there, we checked on the garden. The vegetables look good...can't wait. Have a good weekend.

Happy Farming!

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

Congratulations to our contest winner - Bovee Brigade. Thanks to all who responded. We appreciate it.

We were going to check on the bees this evening, but it was a little overcast. We will wait until a sunny day to open up the hive - that way more are out and about.

The garden is looking good. We have blossoms on some of our tomatoes and our beans are growing nice and healthy. Some our peppers and tomatoes are looking rather puny, but hopefully they'll perk up soon.

Looks like some good rain coming in this weekend and then some beautiful, growing, sunny weather.

Happy Farming.

Vanquished The Foe

Prickers no more!

We were able to get out back behind the fence this evening and cut out all the bushes growing in through fence and cut them back. Thus, they will stay out of our garden.

We followed a dirt trail out back through the woods and found the back of our house. We were a little afraid (maybe more than a little) of snakes out there. Since there were a lot of blackberries coming ripe, we thought there may be some animals out for a snack; there were no animal snacking on the berries or us, thankfully.

Hopefully, we will be able to collect some blackberries and make some nice jam. We love blackberry jam, and it is so simple to make/ Maybe when we get a batch going, we'll fill you in on the details.

By the way, the bees seem to be all back on track without any intruders attacking this afternoon.

Happy Farming.

This could be trouble...

We may have a problem with our bees. There seemed to be something strange going on. We hope it is ok, we put this post on a beekeeping forum:

"Yesterday I noticed them clustering around the entrance. It seemed that they were all around each other. Today, they were all over the front of the hive and bottom board. It seemed as if 6-8 bees were all clustered around another bee trying to chase them off. They seemed to be attacking and actually fighting - trying to tear wings and being mean. I'm a little worried - yesterday I did changed the entrance reducer to the lowest setting. Also, I was told by another beekeeper to go out tonight after dark and put entrance reducer all the way closed, but there were still about 50 bees outside. They weren't flying and they weren't attacking, but they were a bunch out there just milling around. FYI...I did open up the hive Thursday night to inspect the queen - she was laying eggs; the hive was open 5-10 minutes.Any ideas? Should I just let time take its course?"

We have spent a part of day trying to find an answer as well as looking online. We don't know, but we are hoping they will just fight them off. We will check tomorrow and let you know. We will try to get a pic.

Happy Farming!

Another Checkup

We got another chance to check on the bees today.

They were doing great. There was comb built up on 4 frames, and we saw eggs. The eggs normally have a life cycle of about three weeks to become worker bees. Did you know workers bees are all female? The males really are only there for reproductive purposes - the rest of the time they sponge off the female's work. If only....

They finished off 3/4 off the sugar water - not sure if we need more or not, but we put in another gallon.

The queen was active, and we know she is laying eggs. Hopefully we will see the brood cells capped soon. There also appeared to be a lot of cells of honey - none capped yet.

These bees are so amazing - if you've ever thought about having a hive we certainly recommend you to take the plunge. Just watching them come and go from the hive is great entertainment, but opening the hive and seeing what is going on in there is a whole new level of excitement.

Happy Farming!

Let's See the Queen Bee

There's the queen!

After waiting for the longest weekend over to be ever, we finally checked on the queen. We used our smoker to calm the bees and then we pulled out the queen's cage (top picture). It was empty.

Since the cage was empty, we decide to look for the queen on one of the frames. we found her on the second frame. There she is with the big white dot on her back.

The bees have been quite busy the last four days. They have built up some comb on four of the frames. Things are looking good for them.

Our garden is off to a good start. Our plants are still looking healthy, and our bees are doing what they should. We sure can't wait until they can pollinate our vegetables.

Happy Farming!

You're Installing What? Where?

Ok. Call us crazy if you wish, but we are putting a hive of bees in our backyard.

It is a new adventure, but we are really looking forward to it. Of course we would not go into this without any experience - we recently helped another beekeeper install bees in a new hive. It is his first time too.

We have read a lot, watched some DVDs, and researched online. We ordered our hive and beekeeping supplies from Mann Lake (yes, we got cool hats)and our bees from Bee Weaver.

We picked up the bees on Thursday, April 30th, 2009. After picking up our bees, we made sure our hive was set up correctly. We put in 7 frames and a feeder frame which we filled with sugar water. We sprayed the bees several times with sugar water as we prepared to install them into their new home.

A typical bee package comes with a queen and 3 pound of bees - at nearly 3,000 bees a pound there is some 9,000 bees in that first package. It was a little scary, but we were prepared.

The first step was removing the queen. We pried her cage off and set her safely on the hive. Then we removed some of the frames and dumped in the bees. Carefully, we replaced the frames carefully placing the queen's cage in between two frames. The queen is kept in place by cork covering some candy. We removed the cork and poked a small hole in the candy which will help the bees eat through and release the queen. Finally, we closed up the hive.

We will check back in a few days to see if the queen is out!

Happy Farming.

First Things First

Here it goes.

Welcome to our blog.

One of our goals in life is to have a farm and garden, but at the current time we are "trapped" in suburbia. In order to escape this madness, we have decided to set up a garden and a bee hive in our yard. This is not our first garden, but certainly our first hive. We our truly a Farmer Want to Be, and with bees. Farmerwannabee - get it?

In order to keep you updated, we hope to blog often about our garden, our bees, and our life in general.

So, we finally got the garden planted today. We have been industrious lately. We tilled our whole yard in order to reseed the lawn, and it set us back a little bit in our garden plans - and we may have started everything a bit late.

Our dog has a tendency to eat any growing things, so we had to set up a fence. We used 4 ft. welded wire and T-posts. It actually went along a lot faster than we thought. We were having difficulties with the air stapler, and we were about to switch to an old electric staple gun - luckily we double checked the psi on the compressor and that fixed the problem.

We started peppers (bell, jalapeno, banana), tomatoes (better boy,roma), squash (summer & zucchini), watermelon, and cucumbers inside a few weeks ago - we planted those to start.

Along with that, we planted peas and green beans (pole & bush) from seed, as well as a few plants from a local greenhouse: lemon boy (yellow tomatoes), habaneros, cherry peppers, & cherry tomatoes.

We watered them in and now it is wait and see time.

I will post more about our bees and getting them installed in the hive later.

Happy Farming!