Last Chance to Order Bees You Chicago Fools! What are you waiting for! To the phones!

Here We Go Again

Well, it's getting late in the pre-season to order bees if one wants a buzzing hive in April.

It's always good to remember that if you lost your colony to a bad winter you can replace them if you act fast. I discovered last year that ordering bees is a tough business. When ordering in Illinois it's a good idea to get step up with a Bee Keeping Club ... see my first couple posts for clubs in the Chicago area. They usually do a group buy and even pick up the bees from the supplier. It's a great deal considering gas prices these days. You need to do this in January or February - after that you will have trouble getting bees without having to buy hive equipment and other crap.

Don't know who this is but she has a great smile!

So this year I contacted my favorite bee supplies and package seller in Illinois and have not yet heard back from them. They like to sell their packages to people who are buying their hives ... I can't blame them one bit. So, I have to get my bees from another location this year. I will be traveling to Wisconsin this year to pick up my package of bees with a marked Queen.

 I ordered my bees from a Dadant  supplier in Watertown, WI. Here is their phone number if you are interested in ordering a 3 pound package for yourself. Just hurry you nerds!!! It's already a bit late in the game! Direct line to the Watertown supplier : 1-920-261-5363
If you prefer to call Dadant to have them direct you to the nearest source : 1-888-922-1293

I hope all of you are doing great and I look forward to you commenting on how stupid I am again this year! Except for you Ronald. You better not even try to write something dumb or I'll throw a pound of my new bees (when I get them) at your face!

This is my cool cousin Murdoc and he taught me how to throw bees to the face!!!

"That's a ball of bees to the face for anyone who wants to get sassy!" ... that's the line my counsin Murdoc uses before he throws a ball of bees at a sassy punk's face!

All joking aside - it's good to be back and hello to everyone!

This really STINGS! My Bees are gone ...

This really stings!

After a very mild Autumn & Winter I discovered my bees have died of starvation. It is a costly lesson for me and I can't help but think that there might have have something I could have done to help them. It's a tuff lesson after enjoying watching the growth of the hive over the spring and summer months.
I have photos from the months when I didn't post which I will add soon.

It's a rough situation. Failed my first year of bee keeping. The only good news is that my new package of bees will not have to build comb at the beginning of the spring season and can concentrate on building the population right from the get go. Hoping for a great 2013. Hoping for a sweet as honey year for everyone!

BLB = Bees Love Basil & BLB = Bees Love Brittany

Well I just found out today that bees love basil flowers. I also have learned that they don't like tomato plants. How did I come to this conclusion? Because I saw it with my own eyes, that's how! You don't believe me you say! Well, here are the pictures to prove it!

See that bee there - well, I didn't put it there! It flew over there on it's own!

Oh well, I can hear it now ... "He glued a bee to the basil plant!!! That bee wouldn't visit a basil plant!!!"

Oh yea really? Then how do you explain this next photo!

I know what you're thinking : "Man, you can barely see that bee in this photo! That could be a baby squirrel eating that basil for all we know!" Sure that's a possibility, but if it really were a baby squirrel why does it have ....

WINGS!!!

That's right sucka, it's a bee and it lovezzzzzzz basil!!!!

In case you're curious -

All these photos were taken in the rooftop garden about twenty yards away from the bee hive,

and once again, no one was stung!

Singin on tune - in June

Some random images of the hive in action a few days ago.

Little bee taking a drink

What's all the buzz? Us of course!

# 011 : Free Beekeeping Book of the Month - or - Beekeeping Books For Cheapies!

What's the best kind of book? (dramatic pause) A free book!!!

I've been letting my bees settle in. I am not disturbing them. Aside from adding a couple pollen patties and some sugar syrup I haven't opened the lid of the hive. I'm doing this in the hopes that it will have them believe that only good things happen when the hive is opened. That said it's been very slow and peaceful on bee hive front.

This week I'm adding a weekly section called "A Beekeeping Book For Cheep Skates!" I'm aware that I misspelled 'cheap' but the letter 'e' was on sale this week so I picked up a bunch for a fraction of the price of an 'a'.

Here is the first of many free beekeeping books I hope to share thanks to Google Books and expired copyrights : I'm starting with one of the best free books you will find on the internets! ENJOY!!!

 

Bees & Honey or First Lessons in Beekeeping

Bees & Honey or First Lessons in Bee-Keeping

by : Thomas G. Newman

Revised by : C.P. Dadant

Click the book or the above link to download the book in PDF format.

Have a great weekend everyone and hug (or think about hugging) your mom on Mothers Day!!!!!!

Remember Momas are the rays of sun that guide us out of ruts to happy times!

#010 : Thunder, Light'nin ... Not So, not so Fright'nin

Well we recently had some severe weather in Chicago. Just another feather in the cap for the bees. This has been an eventful month for the bees! As you might have read in my last post there were all kinds of weather related set backs. On Thursday night we had 'HAIL'!!! Not the prayerful kind. Nope. We had the kind that falls from the sky and it was pretty big On Chicago standards. Some hail was the size of grapes! The bees did not like it one bit! But I have to admit - that very night was one of the most beautiful nights of the year and I took some photos to share that beauty. I won't writ much about it. It was comfortably warm and the sun was near setting around 7pm when I took the following photos.

Some days it's a unique experience to just be standing on the roof. I have a short video of all the cloud movement unfolding that I will try to post some time soon.

Enjoy your bees!!! 

Enjoy your weather!!! 

It's oh so nice when you can enjoy them together!!!

Peace,

G

#009 : My ladies like the hive top feeder of course!

So here it is. There has been some horrible bee weather goin on in my sweet home of Chicago. Add to that the building where I have my hive is being worked on. There are a couple of guys grinding the mortar joints sending clouds of dust billowing towards my nectar suckers. It's been coooold! It's been winnnnnddyyy!! It's been raininnnnngggg!!! It's been dusssssssty!!!! It's been noooooisy!!!!! Everything bees hate. Chi-Town has been rough on these bees for a three weeks.

So why am I so happy??? Because my bees 'bee' lovin it biotches!!! Today the Windy City laid aside the huffin and puffin - she took a deep breath and gave the rain and cold weather a rest. The result was the first warm and pleasant day since I first installed the bees.

I witnessed something really cool today - what was it you might ask??? Something really coool! No, not Ronald getting stung by a bee. That would be SUPER COOL. Instead today I witnessed the bees doing some spring cleaning. Ronald, you can learn from these bees! And by that I mean to clean up so you don't smell soooo bad!!! Just joking!

The bees were cleaning out all the dead bees and miscellaneous garbage in the hive. If you were in the hive Ronald they would have kicked you out!!! I also had a chance to open up the hive top feeder to see if the bees were using it. I was pleasantly surprised to see they were lovin that too!

So I took a close up shot with Betty and Barb lookin at me like they were saying : "Hey who the heck just opened the hive!!! Let's sting that sucka!!! Oh, wait it is Gregory ...  hey Greg, what's up? This weather is great. Thanks for the sugar syrup - it's really good! ... Now close that lid before we sting you!!! Just kidding!"

 My bees have a great sense of humor. :) They must take after me! Ha! Just kidding!

So on that note I will end this blog entry. I will get more interesting stuff up on this blog space thing when I have someone will to get close enough to the hive to take pictures while I'm inspecting or something.

Here are some great links I recently found that will really help with your beekeeping :

Bad Beekeeper : This is a site that is as interesting as it's author.
It might not see like there is much info on this site but if you look and dig around you will pleasantly surprised. Just so you don't have to dig too much here is the link to his link page.

http://www.badbeekeeping.com/weblinks.htm

Bee Master's International Beekeeping Forum : Just a great source of information and wonderful people.

http://forum.beemaster.com/

Here is apple pie a la mode

I think pie is nice, Apple pie is sweet as can bee.

Ice cream on top makes a la mode you see.

Take care of those bees everyone and enjoy them this time of the year when they are too busy building and eating syrup to be angry and sting you!