Bee lessons learned

This year has been quite a learning experience as a beekeeper. I'm happy to tell you that our hive survived the winter and is going strong. We also had a new addition to the family, if you will. A friend of my mother called us about a month ago and told us there was a swarm in the neighbors yard. We ran over there and captured them in a large rubbermaid tub. We put them in a short box, which was all we had at the time, with the intent of expanding their living conditions a little later on. The next week we got a deep box and added it to the bottom. 

That was a mistake. We add boxes to the top of hives all the time with no problems. Apparently it confuses them if you add boxes to the bottom. The next time we checked on them there was a large cluster trying to get in where the old entrance was, now the middle of the box (you can see it in the photo). We also left a gap in the frames (the spot were we poured the bees into the hive). They built all kinds of crazy wild comb in that spot, and filled it with eggs and brood. The next time we opened the lid it shredded the comb and destroyed their next generation of workers. They haven't done well since then. I've been feeding them, but I'm not sure they're going to make it. 

Now for some good news. Our original hive has really taken off this year! So much so that we split it into two hives a couple weeks ago. This involved finding the existing queen, and dividing the frames equally in two. We bought a queen for the new hive. They always say that the queen determines the attitude of the hive. I always though that was one if those things that you notice once you've been beekeeping for decades. Not so. This new queen is a grouch. I opened up the hive to take out the cage the new queen came in and got stung on the ankle in about 20 seconds. They are very aggressive! We'll be using the smoker a lot with these guys. 

We got a mini beekeeping suit for Ethan this year. He is super excited about it. He has almost always been with us when we check the bees, but he used to have to stay in the car. Now he gets in there with us, moving frames around, and working with the tools. He's lovin' it! It's pretty cute. 

So we are on track for success this year. Even if we do lose the swarm we will still double in size, and hopefully in honey.