Life is a team sport

 

Living where and how we do, it’s important to have a partner you can rely on. James and I have been living this life style since 1996. The first twelve years we lived with out power, telephones or running water. Well that’s a lie, we did have a hand pump on our kitchen counter that delivered cold running water to the kitchen. So yes, we had a outhouse and outside shower.

It was then we became a great team, we did pretty well everything together. We worked together, cut firewood together and sawed lumber together. The only thing we didn’t do together was cook. I cooked…he ate. It’s still like that. When times were tough and one of us was hurt, the other one had to pick up the slack and get things done.

We have since moved to a less remote area but it still has its challenges. There is still 7 or 8 cords of firewood to gather each year, we are still trying to finish fixing up the old church we live in. Yards to keep up and let’s not forget about the bees. I don’t care what anyone says…bees require work, sometimes a lot of work. Thankfully the first year I got into bees, James slowly started taking an interest in them. So for his birthday in year two, he received his own bee jacket and gloves. He is more my helper when I need it. I still do the majority of the day to day work but he’s there to help build hive stands and assemble boxes and help pull honey. The bees are more use to me than him, so they remind him every so often who’s boss. 

This summer was a difficult one. Probably one of the hardest yet. Of course we are 25 years older then we were when we started this journey, so that doesn’t help. It started with me hurting my knee, which turned out to be water on it. I kept going but it wasn’t fun. Then James fell getting out of a fishing boat and smashed up his hip big time, thankfully he didn’t break it. This was months ago and since then things have gotten worse. Now his sciatica is acting up and out of no where, carpal tunnel has reared its ugly face. The poor guy is not used to be down for the count. We have always called him the energizer bunny. Now he can hardly grab or pick up anything. Getting old is certainly not for sissy’s.

Slowly but surely we have managed to get everything that was on our list of things to get done before winter, done. The only thing left is the last of the firewood for 2022/23 winter. We don’t need much more, so hoping by spring we can finish that up. But we might still managed to get it done before too much snow sets in,,,but we will get it done.

James having fun at -30C

Here it is December 28. Another year almost gone. Up to this past week, winter has been kind to us. But then -39C hit us hard. We knew it was coming so had time to prepare, but are we ever prepared for that? And when did -39 get so cold, burrr. I am pretty sure it wasn’t that cold 25 years ago. 

Anyways, what’s knew for next year? Well first thing is…we are hoping the bees survive yet another winter in Dome. They got brand new winter coats this year so I am hoping they work. So if all the hives survive, we will be doing splits on all the strong ones. I would like to keep one more hive and have a total of six.  As far as for us…. Getting the garden beds done, finish firewood and whatever else comes our way.

New winter coats

After the big dump of snow a week ago

 From our hive to yours….Happy New Year 🥳  May 2022 bring you much happiness and good health                   

Breaks my heart

 WARNING, RANT IN PROGRESS.

Back in early May, we got word that our club had been successful in receiving several grants for our youth mentoring beekeeping program. With all the trouble finding packages of bees we had to resort to finding Nucs. It was late in the beekeeping world to source out bees but we needed to get the kids started in early June.

When we met a dead end finding nucs in BC we went to Alberta. There was a bee breeder there that had come recommended from the Alberta Honey Producers. So contact was made and we arranged to buy 10 nucs, 6 for the mentoring program and the rest for personal use.

The communication between this fellow was almost impossible to deal with but we forged on and we finally got word that they would be ready for us around the 9th of June. After more frustrating phone calls that were never returned....we finally got word

I spoke with the guy in the afternoon, he was in the lower mainland and was heading back to Alberta as soon as he was finished up doing whatever he was doing. So I sat up all night waiting for the phone call. Early in the morning James and I decided to drive to Valemount (2 hours east of us) hoping we hadn't missed him. We sat and waited...nothing. So I made an attempt to call him and his wife answered. Oh he was still getting the bees ready and it will probably be later. So we headed home. 

11:30pm that night, the phone rang and it was Monica. She had just received a call from him and he was 5 hours away. So at 12:30 I left home, met up with Monica in McBride and we headed once again to Valemount. By time we got to Valemount it was now 2:30AM. We sat there chatting and drinking coffee trying to stay awake. We were giddy from not sleeping for over 24 hours. We finally got a phone call from him at 5:30 that  he had arrived.

It was a gong show to say the least. He had a helper who had a full bee suit on in the truck......she was scared of the bees and was struggling to get the boxes out of the truck. But while loading the 10 nucs in the back of my car....she made slip that the bees had just come off of the blueberry pollination. My heart sunk, I felt sick. I had gotten bees fresh off pollinating blueberries before and they all died. When talking to him when ordering the bees, he never mentioned that. He led us to believe they were doing splits and would be introducing new queens. Never in our conversation was there a mention he was taking them down to the coast to put them in the blueberry fields. He told us he was delivering all these nucs down there. I was so angry and still am.

Anyways we got home and got the bees all settled into their new homes. At first they seemed to be doing fine. Immediately after getting them settled in, Morgan (my student) and I did a mite test. They seemed to be good, I thought I had done a good job of testing them but couldn't find any mite. So I thought...hey, this is great.

Setting up Morgan's hive

Doing its first mite test

A few weeks later, I noticed they weren't building up as I thought they should. They then developed Chalk Brood, it wasn't serious but I was still concerned. Over the next month, I was still noticing they weren't doing good. The population remained small. Then I noticed there were hardly any nurse bees so the brood was not being attended too. I really didn't want Morgan to lose his bees, I didn't want him to feel like he had done something wrong, and I didn't want to feel like I failed Morgan. So I decided to take some frames of brood and nurse bees from one of my strong hives and add to Morgan's. I was optimistic this would save the hive. But sadly I was wrong.

 Our inspector, Barry Clark, came out to do the yearly inspections and found them in a sorry state. We ran another mite test and they were high. We also found eggs with no royal jelly in the cell for them, few nurse bees and they were still fighting chalk brood. We decided to take some samples of older capped brood to send off to the lab for analysis.

By the time the results came back the hive was almost dead. Other than chalk brood all other tests were inconclusive. Because we really didn't know what was wrong, we decided not to combine them with one of my hives to save them. They died shortly after that.

I then had to have the difficult job of telling Morgan that his bees were dead. It broke my heart when he asked about the Queen who he had named after his sister. I fought back the tears, but he took it better than I thought. I made sure he knew it had nothing to do with anything he or I did. Sadly they were sick bees and we did everything we could to save them. 

Sadly the other 9 hives are also struggling. Some are doing better than others but we suspect quite a few of them will not make it through the winter. 

 This past weekend I attended the BCHP conference and there was a presentation on blueberry pollinating and European Foul Brood. The Dr. discussing this subject said that the disease they found in the bees after coming off the blueberry fields have European foul brood type symptoms. They also had chalk brood.

So after listening to the presentation, it only confirms to me that people need to be aware right off the bat when bees have been in the blueberry fields. I would like to see something put into place where breeders have to let their customers know this before buying them. 

 Ok....rant over!

On the upside. All of our youth who lose their bees due to this will get another chance next year. As long as we can find good healthy local nucs. 

All the leaves are brown

 October 24 2021

I don't understand how this could of happened. Last time i looked it was July. Today it is Oct 24

The summer came and went fast. I had hurt my leg and summer left me behind while I struggled to do simple things. Gardening and tending the bees took way longer than normal. But i did manage to look after both and neither were neglected too badly. The greenhouse produced way beyond my hopes and our bees did the same. I am going into winter with 5 instead of 3 hives. So pretty happy about that.

There were boxes of honey sitting in the basement way longer than they should of. Right now its hunting season, so instead of getting things ready for winter, i spend my days cooking and doing dishes. Thankfully over a period of 3 days i managed to find enough time to get the honey extracted. There was more than i thought so i was pretty pleased.

Looking back over the summer.

This summer was very hot and extremely dry. The threats of forest fires were very real this year. For us, not so much but for others it was devastating. We did however, have several fires in our general area but nothing that threatened us....too much. 

During the extreme heat i worked at keeping the bees comfortable by making sure they had plenty of fresh water and topping their hives with a piece of 2in Styrofoam insulation. Instead of just having one good size water bowl in the bee yard, I set up four and went over twice a day to make sure they were full.  Another thing I did to help keep the internal temperature down in the hives was to add their vented winter attic boxes on top. I left the insulation out of the attic. It was more of a place for some of the hot air to rise and escape out of the hive. It seemed to work. The rest of the time they seemed comfortable. There was only 1 or 2 days that we seen them bearding out front of the their hives.

Not pretty but it helped having the empty boxes on top

With that heat and very dry conditions, it brought little or no nectar coming in. When there is a long period of dry hot weather, plants try to same energy by cutting back on producing nectar.  We sat and watched both our bees and wild bees land on the flowers but moved quickly from bud to bud. So assumed there was little or no nectar for them. During these times honey production can be reduced by as much as 30% of normal. So I was very thankful that they had collected a huge amount of Dandelion nectar in the spring and for cooler temperatures that eventually came.

Well, i think i will leave it there for now. Eventually i will get caught up. Cheers

Hive # 3.5

 I number my hives so it makes it easier to talk about them (mostly to myself) and to keep  records. At first I put numbers on the brood boxes but then I would change out boxes and soon those numbers disappeared. I need to find a way so I can physically number them again incase I lose my mind one day and can't remember which is which. 

Hive 1 is easy, the bees are quite dark, way darker than the others. Hive 2 battles with some chalk brood each spring. Hive 3 is our very fertile queen hive. Its big and bold. But I love our bees, they are always so calm and the only time I get a sting is when I accidently pinch one on the back of my knee or on my finger.  

This spring hive 3 was bursting at the seams so I decided to try my hand at doing a walk away split. Meaning, removing all stages of eggs and larvae and not checking for the queen. (but I decided to look for her and not take her) I set up the new hive with 5 frames. Eggs, nurse bees, larvae, pollen and honey.  I told James it would be hive # 3.5 until it produced a queen and she started laying. Within a short period of time, I found queen cells. A month later...we found lots of eggs. I was leery about the quality of the queen since the bees would make a emergency queen and they aren't necessarily as good as a swarm queen. 

Small green hive is 3.5 when we first did the split

But it seemed 3.5 inherited her Mums fertile genes. In no time it was huge. It made me so happy to see the queen turned out to be a winner. James asked me....so guess that is hive 4 now... but I just couldn't bring myself to change its name. I wanted to remember that this split had come from Hive 3. So now it is lovingly called Hive 3.5.

While checking to see how much honey they had made in Aug, I discovered they had almost filled a full deep super. So I was pretty happy.

Now we wait, and hopefully they make it thru the winter and emerge strong in the spring

#3.5 at the end of summer

Catch up Part 2

 When i sit and write this it is now July 25th. Already i am thinking about getting things ready for winter. I started to can today and we  harvested one of our cabbage out of the greenhouse. In another week or so,  I will be pulling honey. I think the bees did pretty good this year but until I take apart the hive I won't know for sure.

In early June while doing an inspection, we found Hive 3 was bursting at the seam. Not being able to get some queens, I decided to try a "walk away" split. I had never done one before but decided to try since I didn't want to lose any bees to swarming. So somewhere around the 10th of June I went in hive 3 and took some frames of eggs, open brood and capped brood, along with the nurse bees on those frames. I always number our hives so since was taken from hive 3, it became hive 3.5. Once it produced a laying queen, it would become hive 4. I left it alone for about a month, other than checking to see if there were any queen cells. There was a few so i was happy. After a month i decided to check inside for eggs.....and it was loaded. The queen in 3.5 must of inherited her mothers awesome laying genes! I was so surprised at the amount of eggs. 

On the 24 of June, James and I went over to the bee yard after supper as I felt we needed to do another split. We checked again for queen cells and found quite a few. So we quickly grabbed those frames and made another split.  Within 2 weeks, that queen had hatched, got bred and started laying. So I was over the moon happy.

On the 25th of June, James came running in the house, SWARM SWARM. He had been cutting lawn across the road and he spotted a small swarm in a tree about 15ft up. So we went back over there, set up a ladder, set up another hive box, grabbed the cardboard nuc box and set out to grab the swarm. Thankfully I got it and dropped it into its new home. But later that evening, when I checked on it....it had gone. Guess it didn't like its new home. Oh well easy come....easy go.

    

collecting the little swarm

Scrambling trying to find enough frames with drawn out comb.

We went thru some really hot weather. Temperatures we are not use too. The poor bees were bearding and going thru tons of water. So I decided to add vented attic boxes to the top of each hive, plus styrofoam insulation  on top as well. It seemed to work really well, little or no more bearding or fanning.

I am mentoring a young fella right now, he is 11. Our club has a mentoring program for young people who are interested in keeping bees. I was lucky to have someone here in Dome Creek who wanted to learn. Morgan is fearless when it comes to his bees, he is always got one on the end of his hive tool or sitting on his finger.. His hive is kept in my apiary until next spring at which point he can take them home.  Below is a picture of him.

Morgan the bee whisperer

Morgan with a creative frame of honey

3

We were glad when the heat wave ended as there were so many fires and the smoke somedays was pretty bad. Since then, we have some rain, which has been good and once again the bees are crazy busy bringing in food for winter. 

Our mosquitoes this year have been pretty darn nasty, too the point, we don't want to go outside. And why do they love the greenhouse and bee yard so much...WHY

So on the brink of cabin fever one day, I said to James....lets take the quad and go for a ride in the clear cut across the highway. So we packed the quad and headed out. There are quite a few fairly new clear cuts with some fireweed in it but it wasn't until we hit the older one that we hit the fireweed jack pot. I turned and said to James....I want to bring the bees here next July. Pack them up, bring the electric fence and a tent and stay the whole month. I could become a Bee Shephard!. Apparently it was a easy sell, cause he was all over it. We could get firewood, pick wild raspberries and escape for 30 days. But still close enough to run home and water the garden and greenhouse but far enough....just to be away.  Sounds like my idea of a great holiday. 

Well.......here it is almost the end of July. Time to pull honey off the hives and do another inspection and a mite test before winter. Plus its time to get more preserves put in the root cellar. And all them little projects that need to be taken care of before old man winter makes an appearance. So i guess i will end this here. Happy August everyone. See you soon

 

Catching up. Part 1

Spring has come. There are some Pussy Willows out now and the long droopy flowers (Catkins) of the native Hazelnuts and Alders and I suspect the Pollen the girls are bringing in are from both of these trees.

Spring can bee a busy time for those beekeepers who hibernates all winter and leaves everything until the warmer longer days come. I did manage to get up off the couch and get boxes assembled and painted and ready to accommodate splits or swarms during the upcoming season. But  mostly....I waited.

On the 16th and 17th of April, the weather was warm and sunny, so i took advantage of that and peaked inside each hive to see if the girls still had food. All the hives still had some honey left  and a little of their candy boards, so needless to say i was happy. 

April 14th

May/June2021

Time got away on me and here it is the 15th of May. The bees are in full swing now. They are bringing in tons of pollen now. In a week or so all our fruit trees will be in full bloom. But for now, there are only a few dandelions, some remaining pussy willows, skunk cabbage and something else that has green pollen.

We have a couple interesting projects going on in the beeyard. First of all, clean up. Once the winter wraps are off, there always seems to be bits of styrofoam, Tuck tape and little pieces of lumber laying around. So we finally got that all cleaned up and put away.

The bees had been doing good and hive 1 and 3 were a whole lot stronger in population than hive 2. So i decided to rob some brood from hive 3 to top off that one. While checking for swarm cells i noticed that Hive #3 needed to be split. It was bursting at the seams.

By June they had brought in a lot of dandelion nectar, i was surprised. But then, we had left most of dandelions growing in our lawn at the house and the bee side and only cut where it was needed. The bees loved it, and i loved looking over the sea of yellow flowers in the yard. We also have this ground cover growing in the lawn that have bright purple flowers in it, which we noticed the bees loved as well.

After about 2 1/2 months, we finally made a trip into Prince George to do a grocery run. But more importantly a trip to Art Knapps to buy plants. We had decided to add another Cherry tree to the orchard, but also some blueberries. It was exciting to expand our orchard and next year, i think we might add another blueberry and perhaps another kind of berry to the family.

We also thinned out our strawberries and replanted them in the second box in the orchard. Next year we will take over the 3rd and final box with more strawberries.

And i am sure the bees are enjoying have more fruit trees to pollinate so close by.

Speaking of Pollen. We are involved with a small research project that requires collecting small amount of pollen then sending it off to be analyzed to determine what kind of pollen it is. Our bees hated the pollen traps but we did managed to collect a small amount to get sent off. We kept track of what was in flower during that time. So it will be pretty neat to hear the end results. Our bees arent bringing in much pollen right now. But they should start again in August. 

Dried pollen the girls collected

Bringing in some Dandelion pollen

Alder Catkins

Skunk Cabbage flower

Well i am going to end this blog post here. It is now almost the end of July and i need to get the next post written.

Lesson Learned

 I have been keeping bees for 6 year now. I learned most of what I know or at least kind of know, from reading, You Tube and talking to people. I received my 1st nucs 6 or so months before we all got together to see if there was enough interest to start a Bee Club. 

Most of my equipment came from a friend who had given up keeping bees many years before, but it got me going. In the large pile of equipment was a smoker. 

                                                                        

                                           

I had watched many videos on lighting a smoker, but I never mastered how to actually keep it going. I attempted only a couple times over 5 1/2 years to use it but mostly it sat on a shelf in my bee shed. 

Last year i finally found I could keep it going long enough but I still didn't use it much. I have really calm bees and thought...I don't need to use this. However I did find it was really great at chasing the bees off the frames and a whole lot less evasive than brushing off the bees.

                                                      

And so the story begins....

Two weeks ago my neighbour received her first package of bees. They had arrived after a long trip from Chile. We expected them to be cranky and tired after being cooped up in their tiny wooden house for days, but they surprised us. We carefully opened the box and dumped them into their new house without incident. They were calm and relaxed and was only interested in settling in. The following week, i went over to do a mite test on them. Once again they were calm and only interested in bringing in their pollen and setting up shop. Even after rolling the 300 bees in powdered sugar, not one sign of getting cranky.

So last week, which was about 2 weeks after receiving the bees, we decided to check for Brood. I didn't even bother grabbing my gloves or bee coat, as I was there to assist my friend. I had told her a week before, if you ever get a bee inside your veil, don't panic. Carefully and slowly, unzip your hood and remove it and let the bee fly out. 

When we got in the beeyard, she said to bee, should I put my hood up and I suggested she should as it never ends well when bees get in your hair.  I never really noticed that she had black leggings on. Anyways, she slowly removed the lid and pried off the inside cover. Just then she noticed that she had a bee inside her hood. So she backed away and removed her veil and I got the bee out. When she went back to the hive, I suggested she remove the centre frame because that is probably where we would find the brood and since it was a coolish day, we wanted to make this quick. As she pried the frames apart.....the bees exploded in furry. They were mad and they took a real dislike to her black leggings. I said to her walk away, and keep on walking. I looked at her legs and they were covered with bees and sticking out of the fabric were some of the stingers that had broken away. I was horrified and felt so helpless. I yelled across the field just to keep walking. After what seemed like an hour she had managed to get them all off of her legs.

                                                                                 

I told her to go in the house and put on some lose fitting pants and I went home to get my bee coat, my  gloves and "the smoker"

As i returned she came out of the house, still smiling and announced that they had counted over 30 stings on her poor little legs.  When I had gone back to the house I grabbed our bee clubs Epi Pen, just incase. Thankfully she was ok and didn't need it.

We got the smoker lit and 2 or 3 light puffs of smoke drove them down, I popped out the centre frame, which was covered with newly capped brood and put the hive back together. In under a minute it was done. That was enough for us to see that day!

I talked to my friend off and on all evening, asking how she was. The swelling had gone down after a few hours, but others symptoms started to set in. She started to get really cold and I only assumed that might of been a little shock setting in. Later that night she threw up several times. Over the next days the itch started in. I did take over some allergy pills for her and that seemed to help some. She also told me she was walking around the house with a paste of baking soda and water dabbed all over her stings. 

I couldn't believe how this effected me. I stood there feeling helpless of not being able to do anything to help her and seeing all those stingers pumping their venom into her legs and somehow feeling a little guilty for loving beekeeping so much, that she wanted to do it too.

So, this leads me to why I am writing about this in my blog. There is a reason the smoker was invented, (in 1873 by Moses Quinby) A lot of people believe the smoke makes the bees calm. This is not true. It does several things. If the bees get protective and release their alarm pheromones, the smoke actually helps mask the smell so the other bees don't follow suit and attack. It also sends a message of fire. During a fire, bees will engorge themselves with their honey, to prepare to leave their home

Not only does the smoker protect us from cranky bees but also to save the bees from dying after they sting you while protecting their home. 

2021 is the year i will be using my smoker more often. Even though my bees are very laid back and calm, a person never knows when something will cause this all to change. 

                                                           

Remembering (me being a sentimental old fool)

Today, my blog post has nothing to do with my bees, or does it?. My Poppa Forrest was the one who planted the beekeeping seed deep down in my soul. So i guess in a sense, it has everything to do with me becoming a beekeeper.

My Poppa Forrest (left) and his Dad

 Although both my Grandparents were farmers, I spent most of my time on my Grama and Poppa Forrests farm. Those were some of my finest days growing up. I was pretty small when they still had dairy cows and use to ship milk but i do remember walking next to my Poppa while he wheeled the 2 milk cans down the driveway and down the road to the Milk Stand in front of the neighbours driveway. I also remember the cream separator that stood in the milk house. The milk house was one of my favorite places, especially because it had this big double cement sink and a cement trough along one side that was filled with cold running water. The milk cans were placed in there to keep cold until they were filled and ready to ship. I use to love watching Grama stand and separate the milk from the cream. When they were all done everything was washed in the that big cement sink with a cleaner which smelt just like iodine. And to this day i still love that smell and the memories it brings back.. I also think about the wood handle scrub brush with the stiff blue bristles that made the most amazing noise when you scrubbed out the sink with them.

Another favorite thing I loved was how all the wood in the barn was so worn from use. All the calf pens had smooth wooden latches that you would slide across to lock and unlock. I loved the feel of that well worn wood in your hand. I remember having the job of closing the stanchions on the cows necks as they came in for milking. The wood all around them were worn smooth from age and the constant rubbing from the cows necks. I can still remember the way they felt, it was like someone had spent hours sanding an expensive piece of furniture.

Hanging on the wall as you went in the barn was an old wooden cupboard. Poppa would keep all the things he needed for the cows, like medicines, teat cream etc. It was a long narrow cupboard and it had darkened with age and dirt. I remember being told how it hung in one of our distant  relatives barber shop in the Peace River area and had been built out of dynamite crates. You could tell my Poppa loved it. As a kid i was intrigued with the old metal key hole it had in the door, the key was long gone.

Parked in the lean to next to the barn was my Poppas old red Farmall Cub tractor. I remember the day when i was old enough to finally be able to drive it. There was many hours driving around the field during haying season. I remember whenever i had to sit and wait for something, i would open the glove compartment that was located in front of the steering wheel. Inside was years of dust and hay and to this day i can still remember what it smelled like, a combination of oil, grease and hay. Hiding in the bottom of the glove compartment was a small key chain that held a little plastic skull. I use to always sit and look at it, wondering where it came from and why it was in there. The skulls lower jaw was on a spring and you could open and close it. The other day i mentioned it to my Uncle and he also remembered the little skull, but had no idea where it came from, but it had been there for as long as he remembered also.

A few days before my Grama and Poppa sold the farm and retired, they had a garage sale. It was a sad day as this was the place I grew up, this was where my really special memories were made. I spent a lot of the day there, just wandering around and touching things, for the last time. The worn wooden gate latches and the smell of the hay loft. Then I ran my hand across the hood of the old red Farmall one last time and wondered if i should take the little skull key chain that lived in the glove box.  Later that day, my Poppa asked if i would like to have the old medicine cabinet that hung on the barn all them years. It is my most prized possession. He also tucked a milk can with their route number still painted along the top and a cream can in my car. 

This was in the early 80s when they sold the farm and both my Grandparents are gone now. Since then, I have moved way too many times and each time I would get rid of more of my belongings. But one thing has never changed, wherever I go, that little cabinet and the milk cans goes with me. And even though it  hasn't hung in a barn for over 40 years, everytime I open it I can still smell the vaseline and iodine which once  sat on the shelves so many years ago.

A new year filled with new possibilities

 Happy New Year everyone. I am a little late, as it is now almost the end of January. Winter has been kind to us so far. Hardly any snow and the temperatures have been fairly mild. But we all know how nasty and mean February can be at times....so I am not letting down my guard yet.

So what's new for us this year?

In December, I was asked if I would like to participate in a data collecting project with our bees. BC Honey Producers have partnered up with BroodMinder to study how honey bees live and how they survive the winter. The project is huge, with equipment set up in hives all over the world. There are 3 sensors, 2 are placed inside the hive which read temperature and humidity and a scale that sits under the hive. I didn't get my equipment until the first week of  Dec so the only sensor I could install was the scale, which sits under the hive. Once a week (or more), I would take my IPad over to the bee yard and download the data, then head back to the house and upload it to the BroodMinder page. It was take that data and put it on a graph. See below. The scale was installed on the 7th of Dec, so you can see once the hive sits on top of it it went up to around 200lbs. The increase in weight shortly after we installed it was due to snow on top of the hive. The lower graph shows the  outside air temperature and the temperature right under the scale. It was really fun to watch and i can hardly wait until Spring to get the 2 other sensors installed inside the hive. As winter goes on, you can watch the weight go down as the bees stores diminish. Its a very cool project.

I have my fingers crossed that our bees survive the winter and come out strong in the spring. If so I will really be in need for doing a bunch of splits. So once the weather improves, I will need to start putting boxes and frames together and get them painted. 

Which leads me to my next project for 2021;

I am hoping to try my hand at Queen Rearing. It can be hard to get queens sent to me since living where we do, our mail only comes 3 times a week. So I decided to try and  make my own. I have most of all i need to start (except knowledge) but i also will need Mother Nature to provide good weather when we need it. Once the new queens hatch, the weather needs to be nice so they can go on their maiden flights to get bred. So nice weather, lots of Drones and a bit of luck the Queen finds her way back without getting eaten by a bird or getting lost. So we will see how that goes. 

Anyways, nothing much happening right now in the bee yard. I seen a bee come out of the hive and I tried to convince her to go back inside, but she flew away. Sadly she probably didn't make it back. 

Well I better go read up on Queen Rearing and figure out if this is something I am capable of doing. I hope everyone is having a good winter. Stay safe and we will chat again soon.