Embarking on a Brand New Adventure!

Thanks friend for join in on our new adventure of becoming bee keepers! We are so excited and understand it is a huge responsibility being the ones in charge of caring for them. Thanks for all your tips! We are members of our local bee association which has been a huge help to us. I wish you the BEST weekend and can't wait to see you next time - Becky and Josh

I'm an experienced beekeeper! Here are my tips: -if you wear a baseball hat inside of your veil, it keeps the mesh off of your face -if you see a lot of drone comb or queen cells, that could be a sign that they are getting ready to swarm. you can crush the queen cells and drone comb with your hive tool and that will help signal to them not to swarm. -There is an organic method for controlling verroa mites using drone comb. you can get a green drone frame and put it in with the brood. wait a couple of weeks until they fill it with larvae and cap it, then take the frame out and put it in your freezer to kill the larvae. verroa mites prefer to lay their eggs on drone larvae, so this is basically like making a trap crop inside the beehive. -be sure to put a mouse guard on in the winter! i have had several colonies killed by mice. -Always use wooden frames with the black plastic foundation. it looks like the frames josh added didnt have foundation. while the bees might build comb in between an empty frame, that comb can easily fall out when you are doing your inspection if there is no foundation. Also, the wood frames are better than plastic because the plastic frames have little cracks that hive mites like to hide in. Black foundation is easier to see the eggs on than the yellow foundation -When you add a new frame, it helps to take extra wax from cleaning the frames and rub it onto the foundation. The girls will be more likely to build the comb ON the frame instead of getting creative! It also helps to spray down new frames with sugar water so to attract the ladies to it. -Good job cleaning the tops of your frames! :) -Make sure your frames are evenly spaced. They need a certain amount of room to crawl around and build comb. an extra 1/4 inch makes a big difference to a little bee! -You can catch swarms easily by setting out an empty hive and putting lemongrass oil at the entrance! I did that this year and it worked amazing! Can't wait to see your beekeeping adventures! It's a lot like gardening; hard work but a lot of fun!

A GREAT YT channel to follow is "Just Alex". A very fine young man who's THOROUGHLY documented his recent beekeeping adventure and his videos are not only entertaining but extremely informative regarding all he learns along the way about feeding, care & moving them but also about the diseases they're prone to and how to mitigate them.

I love that Josh is as excited as you about the homestead and trying new things! Great job, Josh.

I have a bee joke: A guy walks in to a store and asks for 12 bees so the store keeper brings the bees and the guy says hey there are 13 bees in here, the store keeper responds its beecause the 13th bee is a freebie

I am also a seasoned beekeeper. A couple additional thoughts/tips: 1. Don’t stand in front of the hive, you are in their flight path 2. It appears you are in a fairly rural area and you might have bears. I suggest you ratchet strap your hives and consider an electric fence. I lived in suburbia on a half acre lot and never thought I would have bear problems. He hit my hives three times! Once they find them, they will be back. 3. Each day, usually during mid day the newly hatched bees will take an orientation flight. You will see hundreds of bees circling around their hive. Don’t panic, this is normal. 4. This is late in the season for starting a new colony. Don’t be so anxious to take honey from them the first year. They will need their own stores of honey for the winter. 5. Beekeeping is not a cheap hobby and you will have many discouraging things happen. It takes at least three years to gain the knowledge you need to manage your colonies. 5. Bees will be bees, they will do what they want. I wish you the best of luck. The favorite part of beekeeping was sitting on my deck in the morning and watching them emerge from their hive into the sunlight. It was like watching stars! My favorite beekeeper to learn from is Frederick Dunn on youtube. Wishing you lots of luck! Oh, one more thing. Flowers and clover are great but the bees get the bulk of their pollen and nectar from the trees blooming in the Spring.

I was at work a few days ago and one of our lot people told me that there was a swarm in one of our trees. I immediately went outside to look. Sure enough there was a wild swarm in a tree. I immediately called a local beekeeper. He was at our store within 15 minutes. It was great watching him gather the swarm and take them away to a safe place to start a new colony.

He can put a magnet in his pocket which will allow him to just hang to give tool on the outside of his pants instead of putting it back in his pocket each time.

If you have crop fields around you ask the neighbors to let you know when spraying the fields so you can close up your hives.

When Josh moved the bees into their new hives, did they have a house swarming party?😂😅😂

oh Becky, I love how you called that one bee "sweetheart" ❤

So glad you have calm bees. Just be aware that even the calmest bees have bad days. To be safe, Josh would be wise to put his suit legs over his boots. Those little hummers can work their way into boots and before you know it - you have sore ankles 😬

You and Josh are a terrific team! And, Josh is a VERY BRAVE MAN!! Best of luck with the bees.

It is awesome that Josh is willing to share beekeeping with us. I appreciate it, since I know YT is not his thing.

THE 7 BEST FLOWERS TO PLANT FOR BEES: Bee balm (Monarda spp.) ... White wild indigo (Baptisia alba) ... Purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) ... Black-eyed susan (Rudbeckia hirta) ... Joe-pye weed (Eutrochium purpureum) ... Marsh blazing star (Liatris spicata) ... Wrinkleleaf goldenrod (Solidago rugosa)

Beekeeping is a lot of work and not much room for error. Do your homework, join a local society, and put in the work. Good luck to all of you.

We keep bees- 3 hives, along with 4 horses (at the moment) 7 ducks (at the moment) and 2 dogs. You’re going to have so much fun! And honey!

Always a good idea to let your closest neighbors know you have bees, in case of a emergency!! Awsome job Josh! Honey I can see Becky wheel turning! Congratulations!

I feel like deer could nudge the bee hives and knock them over. So much fun thx for sharing!! 🐝🐝🐝🐝

I put out little saucers of water for the neighbor’s beehives. I have a pond and a birdbath but they seem to prefer the shallow water. So fun to watch. Looking forward to bee updates 👍