Bees 1 Week Inspection

On Monday, we opened the hive up for the first time since we put them in there. It was very exciting! We had no idea what they would look like. But everything looked good. They had a good amount of comb drawn out on 3 frames and a bit on a 4th frame. We saw some eggs, pollen and even sugar water that they had put into the cells. Here's the pictures I took:

Here is one of the frames. All the bees are clustered on the comb.



Here are some of the bees clinging on to each other. This has a name but I can't remember what it is called but they do them when they are making comb.



Here is an upclose picture of the comb and inside the cells you can see eggs. They look like tiny grains of rice. Sort of just to the bottom right of center there are 3 cells in a triangle that all have eggs in them.



In this picture you can see the pollen in the cells. It is dark in color.



Here is the 1 week inspection video. It's weird for a few seconds then it gets clear.

Hiving the Bees

Yesterday was the big day! The bees came on Saturday and they were in their little box. Last night we finished painting the hive and put them into it. It was exciting and scary! We only had one veil (the funny looking hat beekeepers wear) and wore it. The hubby was very brave but also got stung on the back of his head. Poor thing.

Here he is shaking the bees out of their box into the hive.



Here is the queen in her cage.



Here they are all in the hive.



Here is a video of them being shook into the hive.

Easter Pictures

Ok, here's our Easter Pictures (we just took them nothing special). And the little lady is wearing the dress I made for her!!

New Adventure

So the hubby has decided to start a new adventure! I am excited but at the same time very nervous about this one. He bought a hive and next week our bees will come so he can be a backyard beekeeper! Now to be honest, I am pretty afraid of bees but everyone says that honey bees are quite docile. So we'll see.

I read an entire book called Beekeeping for Dummies this week. I think they are fascinating creatures. But that still doesn't make me want to stick my bare hand down into their hive. I am excited about the honey. I am also excited about the wax and that the hubby wants a hobby! So, here we go again. Pretty soon we are going to have to move to a farm.

(here's the hubby in his sexy beekeeping hat thing)

First Egg!!

Today one of our chickens layed its first egg! We're not sure which chicken it was but it was the first egg for us too! We haven't cracked it open yet so we don't know what the yolk looks like. I think we're just too excited to crack it. I want to wait until tomorrow or until the next egg comes so then we'll have 2 just in case. Two of the hens are "squatting" which is a sign they are ready to lay. The third is still not really squatting. Squatting is weird. Usually the hens run from you when you get remotely close to them. Now when you get close, they will just squat down and let you pet them. The book says that this is so the rooster can do his job. But we don't have a rooster so no baby chickens! Here's a picture of the egg. (ours is the brown one, the white one is one from the store)

Henrietta the Chicken

Henrietta the Chicken has turned out to be Henry :( See for yourself.

Here's Henry:


Here's Pecky


Do you see the differences? Henry's comb (the thing on the top of his head) is way bigger and he is even getting his waddle. You can't see this in the picture but Henry is twice the size of Pecky. So we are taking him back. No, we are not killing him. Even if we did, we would only get 2 bites out of him.