I am an Apiarist~more commonly known as a beekeeper.<\/p>\n
We used to live in Colorado. When we were living in Colorado, I developed an interest in Beekeeping. \u00a0I thought it would be a lot of fun to have a few hives in the yard and collect the honey from the bees. \u00a0The only problem with that dream, was the bears.<\/p>\n
We had quite a few bears in our neighborhood. \u00a0They were awful about coming up onto our deck and eat the bird seed right from my bird feeders. The had broken through screens in our neighbors homes and eaten fruit left out. \u00a0They were mischievous. \u00a0I knew that having bees was out of the question.<\/p>\n
Then we moved to Mississippi.<\/p>\n
No bears! \u00a0Cool Beans!!!<\/p>\n
Soon after our move, I mentioned to my husband my desire to have honey bees and he did not say “no”! \u00a0So, for my birthday that year, he bought me hives, tools, jackets, veils, gloves, smoker…oh! \u00a0And bees!<\/p>\n
Most people purchase their bees over the phone or online and the bees are delivered through the good ol’ mail. \u00a0(Our postal carrier will no long deliver the bees to our house. \u00a0We must drive into town and pick them up at the post office. \u00a0Chicken.) \u00a0My last shipment of queen bees I had delivered UPS! \u00a0They did a much better job of delivery than the USPS~just a side note for you.<\/p>\n
Beekeeping is physical work. \u00a0A full super of honey weighs about 60 pounds. \u00a0Picking those up off the hive, carrying them up to the house, taking all your supplies from the house to the apiary and back to the house…it really is hard work!<\/p>\n
In the Fall and Winter you need to feed your bees. \u00a0A bee will fly any time it is 50 F. or warmer. \u00a0We live in Mississippi, the SE part of the United States and our winters are warm. \u00a0That means our bees are flying, looking for food all winter. \u00a0Obviously, there are not many things in bloom in the winter, so we must provide them with food or they will starve. \u00a0A hive full of bees that have starved to death is a very sad, sad thing.<\/p>\n
What do you feed bees? \u00a0A 50\/50 mixture of cane sugar and water. \u00a0You have to boil your water so that it will absorb all that sugar. \u00a0Then you let it cool (we do not want the bees to burn their little bee tongues, do we?). \u00a0I use cheap tupperware containers and fill them with the sugar\/water solution and put on the lid. \u00a0In the lid, I have poked very small holes. \u00a0I take the containers to the apiary, and flip them upside down on top of the hives. \u00a0The sugar\/water drips out very slowly and the bees eat the solution. \u00a0It is like a glorified hummingbird feeder. \u00a0Kinda.<\/p>\n
Beekeeping is a year round job for us. \u00a0People up north wrap their hives in burlap and\/or foam board insulation to keep the bees warm. \u00a0We do not need to do this. \u00a0We do do some hive modifications to keep them safe. \u00a0Today, we tucked them in for the winter and they should be safe and sound and ready to fly in the spring.<\/p>\n
Sleep tight, bees!<\/p>\n
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I am an Apiarist~more commonly known as a beekeeper. We used to live in Colorado. When we were living in Colorado, I developed an interest in Beekeeping. \u00a0I thought it would be a lot of fun to have a few hives in the yard and collect the honey from the bees. \u00a0The only problem with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11,6,8,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1938"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1938"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1939,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1938\/revisions\/1939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}