I hope y'all are having the best day! This is a beek geek update...stuff keeping me busy these days. I will be attempting some informative bee posts as I learn more.
all my photos, but I had to screenshot them all to make them load upright🙄
One of the new hive boxes. Figured I might start decorating some for fun
We picked up 5 new hives, full brood box and 2 mediums full of capped honey on each hive! It was late August when we got them. Close to winter, but I am hoping since they had 6 weeks before frost to continue storing honey for the winter that they will survive here. In the spring I should be able to split the colonies. Fingers crossed! I will also be feeding them with candy boards and pollen patties over the winter. I'll do a post about over wintering them next week!
I am also taking a course on Beekeeping at my Algonquin college. I was super nervous at first but I am 3 classes in and loving it. There is a ton of info being thrown at us in a short period of time, but I think I am catching most of it.
Canada's capital highway is empty at this hour on Sunday's apparently. It makes the drive from the country a bit shorter
My class is in building H!
We extracted our first honey harvest a few weeks ago as well! I think we got about 30lbs of surplus honey as we left each hive a super full for themselves for the winter. We have a simple 2 frame manual spinner that worked great. Looking forward to next year, really hoping the bees survive our crazy winter weather! I have big dreams of expanding my apiary!
Frames of capped honey waiting to be extracted. They are a thing of beauty, we try to preserve the comb as perfectly as possible so they can use it again without too much repair work
My daughter helping my husband with decapping. The hot knife makes the job much easier
Hive check with 2 of my beek girlfriends at the beginning of this month. Meeting some pretty cool peeps on this beekeeping journey
So far, I am finding this beekeeping thing to be incredibly intimidating and equally empowering, if that makes any sense. I hope that I become a beekeeper that is successful in keeping happy, healthy colonies. I practice gentle techniques and treatments and above all, I will always do what is best for my bee ladies. Happy bees, happy hives is what I am striving for! I hope to document my progress this year here and will search for more beeks here on Steemit!
Thank you for reading! Take care of you and yours ❤
