Bee-ing with the Girl Scouts

Today I helped the Girl Scout troop in their first hive inspection. Before we inspected the hive, we got a set of frames ready for the super which we planned to add.

The girls nailed a wedge into this frame to hold a sheet of foundation. On the other frames they either glued popsicle sticks for starters or starter wax strips for the bees to use to get started building comb.


Sierra glues in the popsicle sticks.


Morgan gets the starter strips ready to be waxed into the frames.

Then we opened their hive to find that the queen is laying a lovely football shaped pattern just like one would ideally wish for. They had two purposes for their inspection: To see if the queen had laid eggs and to see if the bottom box had been fully built out.

They were able to see young brood. We didn't see eggs but saw very young brood (tiny c-larvae) so we know the queen is active and doing well. The bottom box was 90% built out. They had already put a second brood box on top of the first one and after I left, I thought perhaps we should have removed it....but we'll see how they do going forward.

Since it's the height of honey flow in Atlanta, we added the honey super that they had prepared to their hive.

Working with the Girl Scouts

On Monday it was really hot in Atlanta - my car said 81 degrees when I got into it at 6:30 PM to go to talk to a group of Girl Scouts. This troop was presenting a "Try-It" to their service unit. The idea was to introduce Brownies and Junior Girl Scouts to the idea of beekeeping and to teach them some about the purpose of bees in the world.

I had to work all day and planned to leave straight from my office to get to the meeting to talk to the girls at 7:15. So I took all of my "props" with me - frames of honeycomb, wax comb with eggs in it, homemade hand cream and lip balm, photos, my bee hat and veil. I opened the back of my car at 6:30 to find that my car had been like a solar wax melter, melting the honeycomb off of the frame. Thank goodness it fell onto a ziploc baggie containing other stuff and didn't ruin my photographs!

I brought honey for the girls to taste. I spoke to a large group of Junior Scouts. These girls are Brownie Scouts. They were a little cautious about trying the honey until they actually tasted it. Yum!

You can see on the table some of the items the girls worked on - they had drawings of a bee to teach the girls the anatomy of the bee, they did some geography (had a contest to see who could figure out the most states with the bee as their state insect!), and they played some games with the girls. I certainly enjoyed my part.


I am mentoring this Girl Scout troop as they begin their own beekeeping. They ordered a nuc of bees which arrived this past weekend. On Sunday I will meet with them to help them do their first hive inspection. If the way they conducted this "Try It" is an indicator of the job they will do with their bees, they will be quite successful at the task!

Working with the Girl Scouts

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!

Added Medium super to Bermuda and Destin

April 28, 2006: Built and painted medium supers. Built foundation frames for one of them (Destin) Will install tomorrow. Better build shallow supers before I leave for the Folk School – they may need them sooner than later.

April 29, 2006: Took FOREVER to light smoker – must get cedar chips. Thought dryer lint might work as well. We used to use that at Girl Scouts.

When I lit smoker and opened Destin, they had built comb above the inner cover. Also saw 3 small hive beetles – or some kind of beetle on the inner cover. Brushed them off but couldn’t find them to kill them. Destin has drawn out the comb on 8 of the 10 combs and is starting on the outer edge – perfect candidate for the new medium. I put it on with great relief.

I looked at Bermuda but it isn’t built out as much – about 6 frames are fully drawn. They haven’t touched 1 or 10 but have begun expanding wax on 8 and 2. I still think I’ll go ahead and add the super just for consistency and because I’ll be at the Folk School for a beekeeper class next weekend and won’t be able to work with the bees.

Early afternoon built frames for the super on Bermuda.

Waited until the end of the day to put on the super. Much easier to light the smoker this afternoon. Must get some chips. They are still busy bees in Bermuda but not as crowded or vigorous as Destin.