Winter Farm: Bees!

Winter Farm is now the proud keeper of a colony of bees. My sister-in-law's family is having to move overseas with the military, so we gladly inherited their bees.

We'd been thinking about getting bees for years now, but the whole process seems a bit mysterious and daunting to me, so once I found the time to read all the books and gain a full understanding, we were going to get bees. I'm glad they arrived now since I doubt otherwise I'd ever feel I'd prepared enough to start bees on our own. This has lit the fire under me to START LEARNING!!!

I'm am awed by these tiny creatures. They can't live independently but depend on the whole colony for survival. They each perform different tasks, which change as they age, and they wear themselves out to the point of death after 6 short weeks (except the queen). Those poor drones live their whole life searching for a queen to mate with, and should one be the lucky winner he sacrifices himself in the process. I love watching the pollen collectors returning to the hive with their legs loaded with sacks of pollen. I'm quite intrigued by the bees.

I have yet to open up the hive to check on how things are going on the inside... I'm still trying to figure out what I'd be looking for and what I'd do if there is a problem. Whenever that day comes, I'll share it with you. My hope is to encourage their natural process without interfering any more than necessary.

When our newly arrived bees were under attack from some local bees who wanted to steal their sugar water, I put a reducer in their opening (made the doorway to their hive smaller and therefore easier to protect) and took the sugar water away (I'd rather them eat their own honey than be attacked)... and this simple act made me feel quite proud! Approaching them calmly to give just the bit of aid a human can give and to not get stung was a sweet bonding moment for sure. Thankfully there have been no attacks since.