And you thought your house was crowded

This is what you like to see when you open a hive.  Unfortunately we are not seeing many hives like this right now.  Most hives have not made it through the winter.  I am pretty confident that the varroa mites did me in this year, or should I say- my lack of doing the varroa mites in did me in. lol

Well, I have special plans for the varroa mites this year and I hope they don't enjoy the season.

Our first packages of (purchased) bees are scheduled to start arriving at the beginning of April.  These packages will be used to build our hive numbers back up.  Lord willing, we will learn to keep more hives alive in the future and will not have the need to purchase the package bees.  They are not cheap and are hard to get in the numbers required.

Mini-Master beekeepers

Stewart is an expert as carrying small equipment and scraping the inner covers.  He is a hard worker.

Victoria specializes at being Victoria :)

I think she had snuck into the van to enjoy some fresh from the hive honeycomb!  You've never tasted honey until you've had it fresh from the hive.  The challenge is getting it into your mouth without getting bees in your bee veil.

Geneva is just sweet as honey

I took her out for a visit to the hives in our home yard.  She was fascinated and spent a good amount of time studying the bees when I took the inner cover off the hive.

I would be remiss to leave out the hardest worker in the family.

The Bee is an amazing example of God's creation!

Cassidy and Adrienna

Cassidy and Adrienna both had one hive last year.  It came from a swarm Cassidy spotted at Mr. Wilson's (more on Mr. Wilson in another post) bee yard.  Mr. Wilson being the ever giving person then gave it to her.  She shared the hive with Adrienna and they also gave part of their proceeds to their younger sister Geneva.  The hive was placed in our back yard to make it easier for them to maintain it.

Adrienna admiring her bees

Cassidy holding a frame of brood and bees in Mr. Wilsons bee yard

Both Cassidy and Adrienna are very helpful in the bee yards.  They can transport lots of equipment too and from the truck.  They are also handy for holding frames, looking for the queen, and for reassembling some hive equipment after the work is completed.

Our first blog

This is the first blog our family has attempted.  I hope to use this blog to share some of the happenings for our family beekeeping business. 

We currently have been blessed with 8 children.  My two oldest sons also own and operate their own hives.

Garrett age 16 with the honey harvest from his hives last year.  This is the second time we pulled honey from his beeyard last year.

Garrett has purchased equipment to move up to 50 hives this year.

Hunter age 14 before the second honey pull of the year from his beeyard.

Lord willing, I will give more updates on the rest of the family members and progress reports on our beekeeping activities..