My new shipment of honey bees arrived last Wednesday, one week ago from tomorrow. \u00a0If you recall, my Postal Carrier made an early stop at my house to deliver them. \u00a0She had a major case of the heebie jeebies at the thought of driving around all day with 12 pounds of bees buzzing contentedly in her truck.<\/p>\n
MFH (My Favorite Husband) and I spent quite a bit of time last Wednesday setting up the new hives and tucking the bees into their new homes. \u00a0All was well.<\/p>\n
When you start a new hive with package bees (which is what we are doing) you need to be aggressive in feeding those bees. \u00a0They need to make comb. \u00a0They need energy to fly. \u00a0They have a lot of work to do to establish their new home. \u00a0They think, Food. \u00a0Food. \u00a0Food. \u00a0Food.<\/p>\n
Bees eat a lot! \u00a0I was prepared to feed the new bees. \u00a0I have done this before~starting with package bees~so I knew the drill. \u00a050-50 blend of sugar\/water. \u00a0It is a very thick syrup. \u00a0I bought a 25 pound bag of sugar from Wal-Mart. \u00a0I though that would last me a little while.<\/p>\n
Wrong.<\/p>\n
I was back to Wal-Mart again today. \u00a0I bought ANOTHER 25 pound bag of sugar.<\/p>\n
See, I have a one gallon glass pickle jar that I use as a bee feeder. I fill the jar with 10 cups of boiled water, add 10 cups of sugar, mix until dissolved and let it cool (we do not want the bees to burn their little bee tongues!). \u00a0I have drilled very small holes into the lid of the pickle jar. \u00a0I take the jar outdoors and prop it upside down on a couple of bricks. \u00a0The bees then fly up underneath a space in the bricks and lick the sugar water from those little holes. \u00a0It is like an upside down hummingbird feeder.<\/p>\n
They drain that jar almost every. single. day.<\/p>\n
So, I am using 10 cups of sugar every. single. day. \u00a0That is a lot of sugar! \u00a0That is why that 25 pound bag did not last an entire week.<\/p>\n
I will have to do this for at least a month. \u00a0Maybe two. \u00a0I will check on the new bees periodically to see how they are doing in setting up their new home and determine when I can stop feeding. \u00a0Sure hope they are fast workers! \u00a0Sugar is expensive!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My new shipment of honey bees arrived last Wednesday, one week ago from tomorrow. \u00a0If you recall, my Postal Carrier made an early stop at my house to deliver them. \u00a0She had a major case of the heebie jeebies at the thought of driving around all day with 12 pounds of bees buzzing contentedly in […]<\/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],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2370"}],"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=2370"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2371,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2370\/revisions\/2371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}