Are you going to make honey?

Telling people we are going to be beekeepers prompts some interesting questions.  My favorites so far are, "Are you going to make honey?"  (alternative includes "Did you make honey?"), "Does wearing yellow make them want to attack you?", and "Are you going to name them?".  I'm 90% sure the last one was a joke, especially considering that one came from a very fun friend.  So, if these are the types of questions you might have, don't feel bad, you're not alone.  I also am learning.  And Anson learned the hard way that the color of your clothing does matter but that it's dark colors, not yellow, that seems to anger bees.  Also, polarized lenses in sunglasses or scented deodorant or shampoo are no-nos in beekeeping.  We did name our hives: we have the White one and the Green one.

The question "Are you going to make honey?" seems the most common of the questions and I've been asked it several times.  It's similar to asking someone with chickens if they are going to make eggs.  Bees make the honey and essentially we take some once (in some cases twice) in the summer in exchange for a well-kept place to live.  This also gives the bees more opportunity to work and pollinate more plants instead of ending the season early with enough honey reserves to last the winter season.

While I am learning, these things I already knew.  This weekend was filled with new learnings though as my Poppop gave us some hands-on training.  He showed us how to check for a queen, which seems to be a beekeepers main task throughout the year.  One way is of course to find her.  She is longer and has a different shaped body than the rest of the bees.  Another way is to spot her eggs or larva.  If you can spot eggs or larva you know that she is laying and therefore exists.  Our hives both have queens, however the laying pattern of the green hive is scattered and weak so we will have to feed them in an effort to increase the strength of the hive.  I'll do this tomorrow.  The food will be a sugar water solution 1:1.  Or was it 2:1?...  I'm still learning!

Poppop teaching us about the laying pattern

Anson and I are having a lot of fun already!  We've gone outside just to look at the hives about 6 times in the last 24 hours.  This has also increased the cat's interest in the area.  She may have to learn the hard way not to sniff around there!

Driving with Bees

So yesterday was the big day!  We drove the hives the 2 hours from Hampstead to Raleigh with Anson wearing his bee suit the whole way.  It was an experience neither of us will forget any time soon.  I laughed so hard my abs hurt, just laughing out of the sheer ludicrousness of the whole idea.  Who drives a van full of bees?   We must be crazy.  But we are crazy awesome.

Anson and I ready for the drive to Raleigh

Anson with his full bee suit to Raleigh

At first, we noticed about 10 or so bees flying around but this was only about 10 minutes down the road.  At about 30 bees and15 minutes in we decided to stop and see what was going on.  We stapled down the screen blocking the hive "front porch" and kept going.  After about 5 minutes there were another, say, 30 bees.

Maybe 30 bees on the back window after our first stop

We tried again to staple the screen down, Anson much more serious this time, me laughing so hard I was doubling over and pretty much useless.  We got them to where there were seemingly no bees able to escape and continued on to the highway.  Well, not long later the bees appeared again! My Poppop had said this would be an "impossibility"!  We decided to just keep going and hope for the best.  By the time we got home to Raleigh there were about 150 bees.  Anson says that number is closer to 300-400 but it's tough to count, as you can imagine.  We'll just say an alarmingly uncomfortable amount.

I joined Anson in our bee suits and we unloaded the hives and pulled off the screens.  And now we are officially beekeepers!

Little Beekeeper Audrey

I've been my Poppop's little beekeeper-helper for as long as I can remember.  He started beekeeping while living in Connecticut and continued after he moved to North Carolina in about 1989 or so.  I'd spend weeks with my grandparents over the summer and we'd do all sorts of fun activities such as pottery, painting, craft projects like making a paper-mache clown, gardening, learning new musical instruments, and obviously, beekeeping.  

Poppop and Little Audrey keeping bees 1989

Grandma, the paper-mache clown, and me maybe 1991

Last year my husband joined the process to help Poppop extract 600 pounds of what my grandma calls liquid gold.  This year we extracted another 500 pounds.  Poppop had at least 9 hives, 3 of which he had at a friend's blueberry farm for pollination.  This year he's decided to reduce his efforts to 3 hives by selling most of them and giving me 2.  And thus begins my adventures of becoming a beekeeper!  We'll be transporting 2 hives to our house on September 23rd.  

Anson joining the beekeeping activities 2011

The purpose of this blog will be to take you along with me through the learning process of beekeeping and to possibly teach non-beekeepers a bit more about the hobby.  So far my knowledge all comes from what Poppop has taught me.  When he proposed the idea to me of keeping bees myself just a few months ago I immediately joined Reddit's r/beekeeping (an online community), began reading the book Storey's Guide to Keeping Honey Bees and I'm looking forward to joining the local Beekeeper's Association to learn more and extend my mentoring network after the kickball season ends. 

So, I'd say I'm well-informed but certainly a novice.  This excites me mostly, but I'm also somewhat nervous about a few things.  The most concerning aspect being swarms.  It's not that I fear the swarm itself, it's that I don't feel I have the necessary experience to know how to make my hive appealing to the swarm after it's captured.  Thankfully, Poppop has requeened both hives for me, so hopefully this will reduce that possibility.  

Another aspect that concerns me, but much less so, is friends, family or neighbors fearing our bees.  I wouldn't want anyone to be worried about spending time with us in our backyard.  So far, everyone has been something like indifferent, interested or supportive.  Our sweet neighbors to the right even thought to offer to cancel their mosquito spray service.  The neighbors down the corner were pleased to have pollination for their garden and the neighbor's across the street joked they didn't have anything agricultural to offer the street and said they were going to get an alpaca.  That joke is because there are about 3 houses on our street with chickens.  We're a very eco group I'd say!  

Anyway, I informed most everyone nearby besides the house behind us.  This is probably the house I should inform the most as we intend to actually face the hives directly towards them.  Our backyard is fairly small and we do all sorts of activities in it such as yard games, brewing beer, lawn maintenance, friends' dogs play, our cat plays, our cousin's baby runs around the yard, etc so it really wasn't a good idea to have the hives facing inward in that small space.  With Poppop's consulting, we decided the best location would be behind our shed giving the bees 3 feet to fly up and out and little room for babies and dogs to get in the front.  The shed has a nice wooden platform already built to the side of it which we will keep the 2 hives on. 

Shed location for the hives facing the back fence

We've purchased a couple items but the majority of our equipment Poppop is giving us.  He had duplicates of almost everything we need to get started.  This saves us a lot of money and also helps encourage us to pursue this endeavor.  Even still, we're keeping a log of expenses, inventory and eventually other metrics.  What kind of metrics, I don't know yet, but if you have ideas let me know!  Yield would be a good one when the time comes.  

So, this is the beginning!  We're on our way to becoming beekeepers!