B-Day

Finally got my prep work done, watched plenty of youtubehowtos, and amazon shipped the stuff I ordered to become a beekeeper.

Thursday evening was go time.

I found a cheap veil/smock combo online.  It shipped from Hong Kong and it sure enough fit like it was made for a little Chinaman.

I ordered this box with 10 prefab beeswax frames.   

I built a base box and a lid.  As I was putting things together and reading I discovered that I should have ordered a queen excluder and an extra set of frames and a whole bunch of other stuff that wasn't in the budget for my bee experiment.

Here's Jonesy carrying the lid to the hive box.

 And here's the final setup.  I set the legs into cups of water in an effort to keep the fire ants out.

Jonesy assisted me and documented everything with photos and video.  (check out my youtube channel to see the complete play by play) While we were getting things ready we heard Annie and West coming down the creek bed.  Apparently they told Mama that they were, "Going outside."  Not really a lie, just not the whole truth.  They had followed Jones and I from a distance and after a call to Mama to let her know where they were I let them stay to watch from afar.
One of the many things I did not order was a bee smoker.  I made due with Swishers and a small smokey ground fire a couple yards upwind.  I removed the extra rods and tackle from the storage bin the bees were shacking up in and then separated the combs from the inside wall.  This was when they really got to buzzing.  I shook the comb off into the new box.  Then dumped what bees had fallen into the storage bin into the new hive, put the frame box and lid on and that was that.  We kept the biggest pieces of comb to taste and take to the house.  Some of it was capped honey, some of it was capped bee larvae in various stages of development.  After we were back in the house, one baby bee emerged ready to go, but Mama didn't think it was a fascinating as I did so that one only breathed free air for about 30 seconds.

Extracting the honey.  We got enough for a few biscuits.

Unfortunately when I went to check on the bees yesterday evening they were gone.  Or at least not many out of the hundreds I moved were in my hive box anymore.  There are still lots of bees in the area. I must have lost the queen during the transfer or she didn't like her new digs and vamoosed .  Probably should have sealed them in for a few days like some of the guys I saw on youtube.  Not one to be dissuaded, I moved the hive box into a clearing and left it set up with a sugar water feeder.  Jones found another swarm in a hole in the hillside nearby so hopefully some of them will decide to make my hivebox their new home.  I'm going to keep at it, but I'll hold off buying anymore beekeeping junk until I get some bees to stick to the hive.
 If I sell the honey I've gotten so far at $34.59/oz I'll just break even, but the time with my kids in the woods is priceless.