Acorn Community

Bees rock! They buzz around all day, pollinate our crops, then go home and make wonderful honey. We keep two hives here at Acorn. I like to think that we have happier bees than most. We constantly have new crops in bloom, whereas almost all commercial bees have a clover exclusive diet. We do use clover as a cover crop and the bees like it, but with so many open-pollinated varieties, they’re not restricted. As a result,  they make THE BEST honey.

Airy has been teaching me the basics of bee-keeping. We dress in all white, with our fancy hoods, and gloves. Bees don’t register white, but see color (especially black) as threatening. We get our smoker filled with sawdust and light a match. The smoke doesn’t hurt the bees; but encourages them to stay down in their hive- rather than coming and investigating their intruders (us).

Last month we cracked each hive, and checked the bees for health. If they have little holes in their wings its a (bad) sign of mites. Don’t worry though, our bees look very healthy! Then we took just a little honey from one hive- not too much, they need it to survive in the winter. When we cracked open the other hive it was clear they needed more space. So we added another box. Annnnnnd, Airy identified the queen (which, according to a book I perused at Sandhill, makes her a master beekeeper)!!!

We got suited back up today, and went back out. We replaced the panel we took the honey comb from, and checked the other hive to see if they had accepted their new box addition. It looks like they have started sterilizing from the bottom, and they’re working their way up. Hopefully, by next spring the bees will be utilizing their new box to produce honeycomb.We’ll go back out next month to check on their progress. Then around February, we’ll supplement their homey storage with some sugar water to pull them through winter.

Bees do a lot for us and without them, we’d bee in a lot of trouble.