Progress

Just returned from a camping vacation to Mt Rushmore. Saw Grand Tetons, Jellystone, Mt. Rushmore, and Arches national parks, stayed with old friends in Torrington, Wyoming, and generally had a great time with Carlos, Bubbles, and CKTF. Was very eager to check out the girls upon our return. They have been hard at work, sealing everything with loads of propolis, pulling comb in my second deep box, and filling it with honey.  There was some weird burr comb in between the boxes that I ripped apart when I removed the top box. The comb was filled with huge larvae which I suspect were drones. Oops. Anyway, I don't really want weirdo burr comb in between my boxes, so all's well that ends well, except for those poor drone larvae.
 I asked Bubbles to take some photos of the frames, which she did, kind of. Carlos got attacked by hornets while we were hiking in Harriman state park and now both of them are not too psyched on stingy things. For some reason I can't upload a photo from my iPad so I will try to figure that out and get some of Bubbles' long distance pictures on here. I added a third box today and a pollen gate. The pollen gate allows me to harvest some pollen to feed CKTF, who suffers from miserable allergies.
 All in all, things are looking pretty good in the hive.

The white stuff is capped honey, ready to be eaten!

Smokin' in the Girls' Room...

A few weeks ago, my colleague Knock Knock and I started singing a Brownsville Station classic Smokin' in the Boy's Room in the Miami Room (what we call our teacher's lounge area), much to the joy of our other colleague Old Foxy. It was a fun way to start a school day, that's for sure. Anyway, the title of this post comes from that incident. I thought I would just post a few photos of one of the more important tools of the beekeeper, be he a maverick backyard hobbyist or a commercial by-the-book apiarist. I am talking, of course, about the smoker. Before opening the hive to check out how things are going with the queen and her brood, you have to blow some smoke on them. Smoke masks the pheremones that bees use to signal trouble (among other things)so when they get smoked the calm down and mind their own beeswax. Here is a link to some guy on youtube who has a collection of smokers. smoker collection  I am going to post some photos of my smoker and the material I use etc. Also a quick shot of my latest wardrobe accessory, suggested by Solar Chaucer.
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