Honey

Our very first honey. We are very excited. I have taken heaps of pictures of the whole process - from taking frames out of the hives, the extractor, etc. But a lack of time has seen me only choose 2 pictures.

Here is the honey flowing through the honey gate of the extractor into another bucket. We are only filtering it roughly via an ordinary kitchen sieve.

And here we have our very first honey, filled into jars. It's the best ever honey. Obviously. ;)

Busy bees

The bees are having a field day. The days have warmed up since the snowfall. We had temperatures in the mid twenties and lots of sun. Everything has grown like crazy. Tons of plants are flowering.

The bees are busy flying to and fro the hive.

For the first time today I saw bees that were more than laden with pollen. They are covered in pollen!

Busy bees

As soon as there is a sunny break in the weather - and no wind - the bees are out in force. It is such a beautiful sight. All these busy bees foraging.

Here they are enjoying a gin & tonic...uh... some sugar water (1 part sugar, 1 part water).

 We've been feeding them this syrup since Autumn, as the weather gets rather cold and they need some help to survive the Winter. That's why it is so uplifting to see all these bees out in the sunshine.

Chocolate Mint

The chocolate mint is flowering madly at the moment. It has beautiful flowers and attracts tons of bees.

I haven't found a good (culinary?) use for this particular mint yet. Any ideas? What do you do with it?

Busy bees

The bees have been very busy during all these sunny days. It's a great pleasure to see them buzzing about. All you can hear on a quiet day is the buzzing of the bees. We will have another look inside the boxes very soon to check that everything is okay, and how much work they've done.

Busy as a bee!

Now I know where that expression comes from. Have you ever watched the entrance to a bee hive? It's amazing to see all the activity. Especially on a sunny day.

Yes, we finally have bees! Yippeaahhh... *happy dance*... etc.

That's the bees' new home. Sunny first thing in the morning, protected from the worst winds, slightly shaded in the afternoon to protect them from the worst of our summer's heat.They are still in their 'travelling' boxes, called nucleus.This is a nuc from Kangaroo Island. These bees are guaranteed disease-free, very docile and placid, and have a tested, mated queen. Let's hope all is well in the nuc, as one frame has broken off. They seem to be busy inside the box, cleaning up (2 dead bees already thrown out of the hive). Hopefully, there aren't too many squashed bees, due to the broken off frame.This is the nuc from Roy, a beekeeper around the corner who catches swarms. He told us he's catching 1-2 swarms a day at the moment. Spring being the time, when bees tend to swarm. His nuc also has an opening at the top for a bottle with sugar syrup, to feed the bees.Anyway, we'll transfer the KI bees and their frames into the proper hive box in the next few days. Roy's bees are still a few weeks away from transfer. Exciting times! :)