My Bees :)

It was so great to see them again after so many months of Winter!!

Happy to be out.....

The bees were so happy to be out again.....they flew around like crazy until they settled down!!! :) So great to see :)

Helping with the housekeeping.....

Today (day 2) I will take the hive apart, super by super, and clean it all up and check it all frame by frame....but yesterday I just wanted to leave the bees in peace as quickly as possible and let them fly free and cleanse themselves of a winters worth of poop and yuck and being locked up.......

I did need to clear out the entrance for them though, so I used a stick and unblocked the bottom entrance of dead bees - and there were a LOT of dead bees - this is normal of course as bees don't live very long! But wow it's a lot huh???? YUCK!!!! Once they were all out I scooped them up and got rid of them all so they wouldn't atract skunks or other creatures to the hive more than normal. I'm already worried that Charlie (our pot bellied pig) will be over to steal the syrup I'm feeding the bees!!

Once this entrance was cleared and I put on the lid, it didn't take long for the bees to learn to use the bottom entrance to come and go instead of the top!!! Now the syrup feeder is on and they can build up the hive again before the flowers are out and they can make real honey!

After 5 months of being cooped up.......

..the bees were obviously desperate for a BIG poo!!! Hahahaha this one did a MASSIVE poo on Lloyds leg as SOON as it was out of the hive hahahahahaha!!!

Winter is over.....

Yesterday we got the bee hive out of winter storage in the workshop and put it out by the vegetable garden. It will stay there until mid May when we will put it down in it's usual place by the pond. We can't put it down there quite yet in case it snows again, as the pond is quite high this year and if it snows again there is a chance it could flood down there. The temperatures could still drop again of course but we'll monitor them and we can always wrap the hive or take it back in for a few days but we really wanted to let the bees out for a flight and check their stores - and the forecast for the next week is good enough for the bees to get out every day and night time temperatures are good too.

We were thrilled to find the bees had plenty of honey stores left and there were a LOT of bees in there :) I am so glad we chose to put the bees in the workshop! We will do the same next year! It worked well! They survived a very cold winter and have done well - they thrived!!! They are going into this Spring with a head start and I can split the hive and get a couple of nucs going (two smaller hives started).

I am more than happy!!!

The President's beekeeper.....

politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/04/09/white-house-hit-by-swarm-of-bees/

A swarm caught at the White house.....and hives in Michelle's garden :)