Tonight I went to a troop meeting for the Girl Scout troop I am helping this year. This was such an enthusiastic group of girls. I talked about beekeeping for a while, showed them some pictures and introduced them to the effort you make when keeping bees. They have already ordered a nuc of bees from P.N. Williams, a beekeeper in Atlanta who supplies a lot of people with their bees.After the talking part of the meeting we built frames for their hive boxes. I had a set of deep frames that I won at my first beekeeping class, so I gave them to the girls with plastic foundation and they nailed and glued them all together. We also nailed a 10 frame set of shallow super frames.
These girls all used the hammer well and are so proud of their good work.
We put the finished frames in the deep box that they will use when their nuc comes.
Here are most of the happy beekeepers-to-be....they are busy as bees as they build their frames. I had a great time with them and we ended by tasting my honey. I look forward to working with them again in April. They gave me a big group hug when I left!
You or the Scouts should consider getting a hive scale and taking daily measurements of the weight. There is an interesting article this month in American Bee Journal about how changes in hive weight can tell scientists all sorts of things about climate change. NASA even has a program that you can contribute your scale data to. Learn more here.
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