"World's Greatest" Bee Farm

Check out the Brushy Mountain Bee Farm for a neat video on the "World's Greatest" Bee Farm. There is also some good information on the importance of honey bees in our world today.

This morning I am worried about my bees. Last time I checked on them they did not have nearly as much honey put up as I was hopping for. After some reading I think I understand why. In the honey bee world, the younger bees stay in the hive and do "house jobs" while the older bees go out and forage. Some of the house jobs are caring for the brood and building wax for honeycomb. In order to build wax the bees eat honey, and lots of it. So the older bees are foraging and storing honey, but since the hives were heavy with new frames (frames without wax) the younger bees were eating it to create wax. A chicken and the egg sort of thing, they need honey to make wax and wax to make honey. So now we are headed into winter and I don't think my bees will have enough honey to survive. The  answer is to start regular feeding. I ordered a feeder for each this week, and will now be feeding them sugar syrup to help them survive and make honey. I can also medicate through feeding, and I'll be reading more on this to learn what I need to be doing there. In the mean time, I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope my girls are though enough to make it.

On the brighter side, we hit a landmark yesterday: two eggs in one day! This (small) event is significant because it means now we have two hens laying! Pretty exciting stuff around here :-)
KJ