Swarm is doing well.

So, the swarm that was collected on May 9th is doing quite well. We have split them into two hives and introduced a queen in the new split, which is also doing quite well. I am very happy to say that both hives are quite docile and very easy to work with. I’m a newby so the more docile the better as I seem to get stung at least once every time I get into a hive.

My bee garden is slowly growing. I planted English Lavender a week ago and I’m hoping this will do well. If it does, I will be planting much more. I also LOVE hibiscus flowers. I currently have one in a pot that is doing quite well, but the small one I planted has been dug up by an unknown.  My next project in the bee garden is to get a honeysuckle bush.

Keeping my fingers crossed, I will be getting two new nucs in the next month.

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Swarm

So, I saw my first swarm this last weekend. This was a treat because I was told this was a primary swarm, meaning thousands of bees.

We were not sure at first if we got the queen, but by the way they were all rushing into the Nuc, we knew we had her. The great news is I only got stung once. Swarms are calmest during a swarm so with as many bees as there was I’m glad I only was stung once.

Now we are hoping they all stay in their new home and not swarm again.

Getting Started

Yes, I’m behind the eight-ball. Sometimes I can get overwhelmed and not know where or how to start. And trying to cram all the information in at once is even more overwhelming.

So, now that I’ve got all that out of the way, I figure what better way to learn the process than to start with the bee. Get to know the bee. Find out what drives the bee. How important are bees to our world? That’s the question that had the most impact on me, how important are they? Once I started, I was quite shocked, even scared to know that elimination of the bees could have such an impact on our society.

I watched this TED talk by Marla Spivak, which started my though wheels in motion. What could I do to make a difference? All the sudden I did not just want the honey from these bees, but I wanted to save them. We have all become such a lazy society that we have forgot what it takes to keep our food supply going. Here’s this amazing TED talk by Marla Spivak. I hope you enjoy as much as I did.

So, now that are you thinking? Do you have a change of heart, even a change of urgency in the downward spiral our country is taking with our food supply. We have moved so far from nature that we cannot see that our foods are what is causing cancer, diabetes, thyroid disease, and the list goes on. So how can we change this? One person at a time. It is up to us. It cannot be any simpler than that.

So my journey begins with the bee.

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