Raising Bees is About Raising Bees!

I started raising bees because I decided not to raise chickens.

I wanted chickens and you can have them in my county as long as your chicken house is more than 20 feet from your neighbor's house. I measured and my location for the chickens would be exactly 25 feet from her house. But raising chickens would mean getting chicken-sitters when I went out of town and that didn't seem fun and there's always the chance that you'll get a rooster and he will disturb the neighborhood. So I put the idea on hold.

When I heard about the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers' Short Course, I thought I'd take it and learn to raise bees for the honey and give up the chicken plan.

This little free swarm has emphasized what I have learned about keeping bees. Raising bees is about raising bees. I so want this little swarm to make it and feel horrible that all my moving around of the hive box resulted in their killing the queen. I have no investment in their honey production - I just want them to become a little bee family that makes it.

Today I am going to remove two frames of young brood from Mellona and add them to this new hive to strengthen it. Hopefully if they don't have a queen, they can raise a queen from the frames I give them.

I'm also going to take out the old, old comb in the new hive. This comb was the center of a nuc I got last year and is thick blackened old comb. The new bees wisely avoided those frames and moved into the new frames on the sides.

Wish me luck as I "mother" a new beehive on this Mother's Day.