Little Tikes Bee Water Cooler

Aksel left a plastic toy car out in the rain today. Once it cleared up a bit, the bees were out looking for water to drink. The word must have spread through the hive that the little car was the place to be this afternoon -- there was a steady stream of bees drinking from the shallow pools of collected water.

January Bees

It's been really cold for the past few weeks so we haven't seen any bees lately. Last week, Karl tapped on the hive and got a lot of buzzing in response so we took that as a good sign. Then yesterday, the afternoon temperature got up to 53 degrees. When I went out at lunchtime, there were several bees flying around in front of the hive. While I stood watching them for a couple minutes, a few of them zoomed away, but mostly they stayed close to home. A few dead bees were pushed out and were on the ground in front of the hive opening, but not many. Hopefully these are all good signs that our hive is going to make it through the winter.

Thirsty Bees

The heat and humidity in Washington is stifling -- we had our second day in a row of triple digits, and it's not really going to let up for a while. We also haven't had any rain for weeks. I never would have imagined that I would ever feel sorry for an insect, but I am feeling so bad for our poor little honeybees these days.

Karl set out a bucket of water with an old rag hanging in it that wicks water up on top of our shed. It's quickly become a popular hang out spot for the girls.

White House Bees

Our neighbors down Pennsylvania Avenue, the Obama's, are keeping bees, too.

Tour of the Front Porch

Around 6 pm last night, Karl attached a Flip video camera to a fishing pole to shoot this video of our bees hanging out on the second story front porch. Thankfully, the bees don't hang out like that all day. I know it's harmless, but I just don't like to walk under a pile of bees.

Earlier in the day, Karl built a screen top to replace the original wooden one. The screen will allow fresh air to get into the hive more easily and hopefully will keep it a bit cooler. We aren't buying the bee air conditioning unit yet. He also built a feeder into the new lid. A quart mason jar with pinholes punched into it will sit upside down into the hive. Bees then can lick the lid to drink the mixture of 1:1 sugar water. Hopefully feeding the bees this way will help them keep the hive cool while encouraging them to build comb.





When Karl took the hive apart to check thing out, the super on top of the queen excluder is a large one and was full of bees and honey. Karl estimates the whole super weighed over 120 lbs. Here it is on floor.
















Bees had built comb on top of the queen excluder so he scraped that off and put it aside. The kids were able to taste honey that was left on that comb. They loved it!








Finally, we didn't see the queen, but we did see a lot of larvae in the second super just under the queen excluder. There is plenty of room for a lot more bees in that super.

Looking for the Girls

The new game the kids and I play on our walks these days is Spot the Honeybee. Aksel and I went to a park about 6 blocks away and there was tons of clover in full bloom. Aksel has a good eye.



Within a few seconds, he had spotted one hard at work.



On the way home we passed a huge flowering bush. Bees were everywhere. Could be ours.

A Hive on a Porch

It's about time I posted pictures of the hive. We live in a city in a row house that has a second floor sleeping porch. The porch is on the south side of the house and runs the length of our back room -- it's about 5 feet wide by 20 feet long.

Karl placed the hive on a stand on the far end of the porch. There is a slit through the exterior wall through which a little tunnel built on the landing platform allows bees to go in and out.








The following picture is of Karl installing the nuc into the hive on May 1st.


After just a week, Karl opened the hive to make sure the queen was there and all was well. The bees already had made quite a bit of honey. You can see where the honey is already capped.



Can you spot the queen? It's sort of like a Where's Waldo book.

20,000 New Pets

So we're keeping bees in the city.  On our second floor sleeping porch.  Yes, I think we may be crazy.

Karl's dad, Bill, has been a beekeeper for as long as Karl can remember and this was something that Karl and I had been thinking about doing for a couple of years.  Karl took a class through the Maryland Beekeepers Association earlier this year to get a feel for what he needed to do.  Bill then generously gave us one of his hives and spent a week with us rebuilding our porch so that it would be structurally stable for this whole endeavor. 

We've had our bees for ten days and so far so good, I guess.  When the weather is decent, there are a couple dozen bees flying around the opening to the hive at any given time.  I can live with that.  I did get a bit freaked out yesterday when I went outside and there was a LOUD buzzing sound.  I looked up to see a couple hundred (at least) bees swarming around the hive opening and then landing on the wall of the house.  A patch of wall at least 18 inches square was thickly covered with bees.

Fearing our poor bees were beginning to swarm, I had Karl come home and survey the situation.  He called the guy we got our bees from, a very experienced Maryland beekeeper, and he talked us off the ledge.  It seems that a bunch of baby bees may have been taking advantage of the beautiful weather and decided to test their wings all at the same time. Within a few minutes, we were back into the normal routine of our few bees buzzing quietly above our heads.  Phew.