Deadlines and Bees.

Exams are coming up, and coming fast. I'm so stressed out about my grades. Everywhere I turn people mention something about colleges and scholarships and good grades - oh and by good, I mean GREAT. Basically, if you have suck-ish grades don't even bother trying to get into a great school....

Man! All this stress to maintain a good GPA. What has happened to the world? I wish I could live in a time where a college degree wasn't that big a deal... Scratch that, I wanna go to college....

I wish there was a time I lived in that didn't put so much stress on the teenage individual.

Much better.

Anyways, this is going to be a hard next two weeks. I need to buckle down and get to work!

Oh, and the bees aren't holding up very well this winter; I might have to let nature run its course and buy a new set of hives this spring. Poor things.

I think It is sad...

...that Vegan's don't eat honey.
They have no idea what they are missing out on. Honestly. Honey is sticky and sweet, and something that could never get tiring to eat. (Well, that last part mostly applies to me.) I mean, I was the kid who squirted honey into their mouth when they were little, I adore it that much.
They can never enjoy honey mustard, or honey with apples and cheese. Or honey-glazed meat (haha, well they don't eat meat to begin with, but whatever.)

Oh. My. God. They can't eat honey period!
Does that mean they can't take joy in buying Burt's Bees products, or Savannah Bee company products!? That they can't experience the lovely soft texture of their skin when they use a honey face mask?
They can't have that amazing Burt's Bees chapstick, or suck on honeycomb, or have that precious Royal Jelly lip balm. And the lotion.
Man.

I have come to the conclusion that life must suck for vegans, because if I spent my life without honey I would literally be depressed.
Those poor people.

Battle scars...and honey.

Stupid me, stupid stupid stupid. I went out to the bees this morning. I was too lazy to dress properly. Of course, I don't have those fancy shmancy bee suits - quite frankly, I find it idiotic to purchase those when you could just throw on some long sleeved shirt, and pants.



But me, I didn't even have those. See, I had just woken up, and was wearing some workout shorts and a spaghetti strapped tank top. Pair that up with some sandals (hastily thrown on) and a bee veil and that completed my "bee suit."

And I had not problems with it either, although I was stupid because everything was black. (Bee Rule: DON'T GO OUT TO THE HIVES IN DARK CLOTHES.) Could I have been anymore stupid?

But of course, the clothes didn't have that much of an affect when I did go out. It was my finger, my damn finger. One of the girls snagged me on the knuckle, and the poor thing was swollen for two days.

Couldn't even bend my finger.

I had to tough it out though, and stay with the hives to finish getting some honey. :)
We didn't end up taking a lot from this different hive, only going for one frame. But it gave us four jars, and it tastes wonderful. It's a lighter version of our old hive's bitter sweet honey.

Harvest Time

The bees did wonderful this year when it came to harvesting :)

The first harvest gave us more than 25 jars! And the second harvest was only a couple of frames that were leftover from the first, but we easily got about 10 jars.

To think, that was just from one hive. If we had four....hmmm hmm. To the farmers market we go!

:)

Bee Adventure

I went to see the bees with my mom today....so much activity!!! We painted two supers, orange and blue (But not for Gators) and took them out to put on the hives.

They needed the supers. Bad. One of the hives began building brood cells between the top super and the bottom box, so when we took off the super it split open the larva cells. In half, so we could see white glistening larva everywhere. Some were even half formed into adult bees. It was fascinating to witness, but also sad because we accidentally killed them.

My hive was queen less. We took a frame from the "larva" hive and gave mine some brood. I'm scared....but I think - and hope, and pray! - that they'll survive. We'll have to order a new queen for them.

So, besides that, everything was good. :) But they do have a case of mites....so we powdered sugared their little bee booties, and keep giving them treatment until they are good and healthy bees!

I love my bees.

One flew into mom's veil.....ahaha - BAD BEE.

A day of rest

Ahh, so little activity!

Hello NEW bee yard.

My bees need a visit. But it seems as if that will never happen, everyday we pick has terrible weather. We need to go out soon to check on them, I think mine needs a Super put on, the pollen flow is fantastic in the new house. We have wild flowers growing in the back, and if you go out and sit in them you can see about a million bees pollinating. Here's some pics Alexis took:

Honey Bee

This book is absolutely divine. It has everything I love in it, a great story, information on flowers, recipes, and of course Honey bees. And the amazing thing is? This woman is the founder of Red Bee Honey Company, and she got involved with beekeeping by accident.

Honey Bee, by Marina Marchese.

Read it. Learn it. Love it.

Reutrn of the bee keepers.

Yesterday I went out to the hives, the first excursion to the hives in a few months. Yes, it might seem like neglect, but honestly it's not! They can survive on their own just fine, just as they would in the wild. my mission was to cut down the weeds around the hives because they're out of control, growing like crazy. Anyways.....yeah, the weed whacking? Didn't go so well...The clippers sucked! But I did get a good peak at my girls! Tons of foragers were flying in and out and hovering around the hive entrances. My girls, hard at work. =]

I also went out another day, just to make sure that everything looked okay out there. As I was walking along the path to the hives, which have a large vegetation growth, I saw some of the bees pollinating the wildflowers. It was a truly beautiful scene. I was content to stay out there for hours. One of the girls got stuck in a spider web so I reached out and gently plucked her from it. Ah, they are such fascinating creatures...My girls.