On Friday morning, I was talking to my Sister-in-law and she happened to mention that her Dad was going to take the honey frames off his hives with his friend and beekeeping mentor Bob. So, I hurried up and called and asked if I could help. In the frame of a couple of hours, I finished laundry, kind of cleaned the house, and packed up stuff to spend the night. Oh, and of course packed up my bee suit (well, actually Jack's suit :).
Luckily, I got there before they had started. As soon as I arrived, I was told to put on my suit and head out to the bee yard. My Father-in-law has 9 hives right now and has been beekeeping for over 20 years. Bob has many many hives and has been beekeeping for over 30 years. Needless to say, I was hanging with the big dogs!
What an experience! Bees flying everywhere, some working and I am sure some pretty angry about being blown out of the supers by a leaf blower. The hum was so loud. The bees were so fascinating. God gave us as humans such a blessing in the honeybee. There is no other animal or insect on earth that pollinates 40% of the food we eat, gives us wax to use, propolis to keep us healthy and as we are just beginning to learn fight cancers, and of course honey! Honey, with it's antiseptic, antibacterial, anti fungal, and antiviral capacities. Truly amazing! Thank you God :)
I learned so much, that afternoon. Such as what a deformed bee looks like, how to look for mite excrement, how to pull out brood to look for mite infestation, how much a hive needs to weigh to get it through the winter, how to winterize my hives, how to treat for mites, how/when to feed bees, how to properly take honey supers off, and how to do a proper inspection of a hive. Also, I learned how to build frames properly and put in foundation. Best of all, we took 8 supers of honey off--full! That is about 250-300 pounds of honey!!!! We have yet to extract the honey. We hope to do that this week or so.
Even more exciting, my Father-in-law asked me to help with maintaining his hives in the future and he jokingly said he was going to will them to me :) I have to say, I loved every minute of it.
Another happy event that happened this weekend was my Mother-in-law's birthday. My Sister-in-law and I made dinner for her and we had a great time with family.
Beautiful, cool weather, wonderful family get-together, working bees, and a 3rd WVU Mountaineer win. Life is good and blessed!!!
I pray all who read this are enjoying their blessings and this wonderful time of the year. I hope to write soon about honey extraction day. God bless :)
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