Bee Field day

Saturday April 4 was the last meeting of the Butler/Warren Co. bee keepers class. It was Such a beautiful day outside, perfect weather! I didn't know Plano (in Warren Co.) was such a nice place. After being there for the field day I actually told Lindsey that if we ever have to move back to BG I would like to live there. It was a very hands on class, they showed us how to introduce bees into a hive and how to check an already established colony. A big two thumbs up and a round of applause for Greg Drake and Carol Schrieber. They did an excellent job teaching us wanna-be bee keepers what to do and how to do it! Here are some pics...

This is me and another guy lighting our smokers. We had a smoker lighting contest to see whose could stay lit the longest. I tied with someone else for the longest burning smoker, won a little prize, YEA ME!

Checking out some old honey comb. This is not actually "honey" comb, it is brood comb. The brood comb is usually found in the lower part of the hive. It is where the queen bee lays eggs and it is the part of the beehive where new brood is raised by the colony.

I don't remember this next guys name...but he is ok in my book!

Here are three pics. The first is of a package of bees and then the next two is of Carol preparing to get the packaged bees out and into a hive. The second pic is of Carol pouring some water on the bees so that they ball up in the package and are less likely to swarm out of the box. The last of the three is Carol dumping the bees into the hive. It sounds really crazy, and goes against all natural instinct (and what you would think of as common sense, for that matter) But the way you get the bees out of the box is you pour water on them, open a hole in the top, turn them upside down, and literally beat on the bottom to dump the bees in the hive. Then the ones that don't come out that way, you shake the box till they fall out! Never in my life would I have thought it was a good idea to take bees that have been in a box for at least a couple of days, open the box, then turn it upside down so I could beat on the bottom of it...wanting them to come out. Defies everything we ever learned growing up doesn't it?

Here are just some random pics of the hives and us standing around the hives.