Collecting the NewBees

Tonight, the kids got fries and milkshakes in the car after gymnastics. Then we trekked out to Woodinville and the foothills of the cascade mountains. Driving along the forested roads, with mansions peek out between the trees, we were in a world away (or 30 minutes) from our urban Seattle life.

Matt from Cascade Apiary meet us in his driveway. There were several dozen nucs and a whole bunch of 3lb and 4lb packages too. Night was coming on and the warm air from the sunny spring day was disappearing as quickly as the light. This meant the bees both in and out of the packages and nucs were settling in for the dark hours. The noise from the nucs was astounding, a constant exciting hum, like rain quietly rustling dry leaves.

The trailer has most of the bee's, some had already be unloaded. By a quick back of the envelop, there are still around half to three quarters of a millions bees, in the 3lb packages, 4lb packages, and nucs shown below.

Our bees, before being loaded into the trunk for the drive home. 

Bee food - check

Making a one to one sugar solution for the bees that arrive tomorrow. This is 4qt of water and 16 cups of sugar. And results in ~6.5qts after boiling. Hopefully this will encourage the package to Chow down and stay. And also stimulate drawing or comb on the frames.

Hive prep Part 2

On a rainy day with the family visiting, the 4yo and her cousin helped paint the hives.

Hive prep

This weekend, we started cleaning up the boxes and frames. Prepping for the bees arriving next month.

Step 1 has been to scrape off the crud; old brittle comb, propilis, dead bees, and other detritus, like wax moth and spider webs. Step 2, shown below, is using a paint stripping heat gun to sterilize the surfaces and joints.

We brought exterior paint from the remnants shelf at Benny Moore's. $5 for a gallon of blue, and $6 for two quarts, one purple and one green. Next, we'll clean the outsides of the boxes and paint them. We'll also clean the frames too. Our cleaning solution will be washing soda (if we can figure out where to buy it).

Cherrywood Bee Farm becomes Borealis Bee Farm

We sold our hive in Austin before we moved in the summer of 2016. Now mostly settled in Seattle we a renaming the blog and starting over. We just ordered a package of bees from Matt at Cascadia Apiary. So excited to start beekeeping again, and to harvesting delicious honey.

Now we need to clean and sterilize our old hive equipment and get the kids suited up. Here is a pic from 2012 of our son in his suit that is now probably too small.

Pre-winter hive check

The bees are mellow and enjoying the late fall warmth. There are lots of bees, some brood and a fair amount of honey. I intend to feed with 2 to 1 sugar through out the winter. Switched back to deep on bottom, medium in the middle and another above the queen excluder. Moved hive from wobbly base to the original hive base.

Hive Check

Hive 2, it will always be #2, has flourished in the absence of the old hive.
Layer 2 - medium. About half brood, and half honey.
Layer 1 - deep. Some brood, some pollen and honey, but only top 2/3 rds of each frame has comb.

I switched layer 1 and 2, so now the medium is on the bottom and the deep is above this. To try and encourage the comb to be expanded down in the deep.

I added an empty medium over the top of the queen excluder. And I will feed them up over the next 6 to 8 weeks to prep them for winter stores.