Gee's Bees, LLC

We put together some deeps this fine Spring-like day in mid-February. Managed to cob the table saw together enough by bypassing the switch in order to get some grooves cut inside some deep boxes in order to promote the bees to make propolis envelop in their brood box. We've been following some work by Dr. Marla Spivak that there may be some benefit to propolis and viral protection. We'll see, wasn't much of an investment in time so not much to lose. So now that the boxes are grooved, glued, and stapled, we then set out to get them dipped  Eco Wood Treatment . We also got a chance to get the bottoms dipped,  🔨 Bottom Boards , and the lids,  🔨 Lids . All but one lid that was placed on Hive 21 after being toppled by the tree falling incident,  🐝 Storm Damage , we will have to remember to get that dipped when we get a chance to get into some hives. Speaking of which, hopefully, the weather might cooperate enough this weekend. Forecasted to be 58° on Saturday may ...

Time to feed the bees... It was mid-fifties and they were flying pretty good, even some orientation flights? Not sure if they are reorientating or have/had some brood cycle through? Thinking the former, I can't imagine brood emerging on February 9th. Populations look pretty good especially the nucs, not showing any harm from being blown over a little over a month ago,  🐝 Storm Damage (geesbeesnc.com) . We want to get them big and strong, so we can split them by taking a nuc out of them and recombining in time for the new queen to be laying and the honey flow. We need to have our timing down perfectly, so the goal is set pretty high.  The weather is supposed to reach the mid-sixties come Saturday and then crash again on Sunday with a chance of flurries. We might get the chance to take a peek this weekend and get an actual assessment of how they are building up.

  A storm is approaching, making all-weather outlets a twitter.  Winter Storm Izzy  is supposed to drop up to 14" of snow on us Friday Saturday  Sunday. Complete pandemonium with rain, snow, sleet, or ice. Or nothing at all. Media is the media and death and destruction sell newspapers or promote clicks. So if there isn't a problem they will create one. Written through a COVID cough. Regardless, after the tree falling incident , we decided we should strap down the hives. So the can be Weebles  https://youtu.be/qq0OQBdIhsc . Except they may fall down, but hopefully won't split apart. Oh, and another book finished:  The Lives of Bees: The Untold Story of the Honey Bee in the Wild by   Thomas D. Seeley Matt Gee 's review Jan 12, 2022   ·    edit it was amazing Read 2 times. Last read September 23, 2021 to January 12, 2022. My Private Notes:   (shown only to you) Great account of bees in the wild and how we can implement practices ...

The weather still is weirdly warm, and the bees are busy & loud, In fact, I heard them on them from the screen room this morning ad was able to make out plenty of activity while eating lunch watching from the kitchen window. All this prompted me to take a stroll back there and have a look. They are some busy bees bringing in pollen. I swear they are doing orientation flights... All on January 6th!

We got a pretty warm and sunny afternoon and decided we could poke our heads in Hives 21, 22a, & 22b the ones that received the brunt of the tree falling on them a few days ago,  🐝 Storm Damage (geesbeesnc.com) . They actually looked pretty good, their numbers were higher than what we thought they would be and boy were they angry. The Sting 'O Meter goes to 5 which is no way to start off a New Year. We got the end of the stand propped up on cinder blocks, and all of the hives moved back into position. Hive 21 feels pretty light, so we will get some sugar cakes back on their heads. The weather should be on the warmer side, so we may offer some 2:1 syrup shortly. 

There has been a flurry of posts lately, I guess you can equate that to a flurry of activities. Unfortunately, this one wasn't planned and isn't good. Not a good start to 2022 seems like this is a theme for the last couple of New Year’s. We’ve had a couple of days of crazy weather over the weekend it was 75° with a cold front moving in overnight we had some gusty winds that snapped the top of a tree off, taking out 3 hives. We headed out this morning to get them upright, but the damage may have been already done. The girls still kicking were not happy to see us, and we both were lit up a bit, but we can let that slide… They had a rough night. We’ll have to see if any of them make it. It looks like they've been laying in the rain for a while, so our hopes are not too high. We did beat the snow, a few inches of the stuff, just to add insult to injury. Lesson learned we will be strapping down the hives from now on. Then at least the boxes will stay together if something catast...

Starting the New Year off right, catching up on some half-finished projects namely assembling up (6) 8-Frame, Bottom Boards. The rails have been cut out for about 6-months now, sitting in a pile in the corner of the Bee-Shed collecting dust, so it was high time to get these assembled and ready for the season.  Our design is pretty much shamelessly copied from  Roger's Shop , he had a great video putting these together using cedar fence pickets for the floor and we used furring strips for the rails to help combat the crazy lumber prices of late. We opted for the simple version (without the front face),  Custom Beehive Bottom Boards & Hive Stand - YouTube .  We'll get these dipped after we make some lids and perhaps some Snelgrove Boards . We can also buy some replacement deeps and make it a dipping party as long as we have the  Eco Wood Treatment  mixed up. It felt like it could be the start of the season already. Pushing 75° we actually worked up a bit ...

It turned cold again... grrrr! Hopefully, those bees have enough population in the box to cover the brood. Starting (as always) to second guess myself with moving that brood above the excluder to make more room for that queen to lay. The last thing we want are frames of chilled brood right before the flow. While we are taking the time to worry a bit, I also hope these frosty temps don't burn the new flowers.  I spent some time working on an updated version of the entrances to the new mating nucs I have rattling around inside my head. Shamelessly taking the Guardian Bee Hive Entrance thoughts and adding some robbing screen details. Hopefully combing both protection against Small Hive Beetles and Robbing.  The design of the entrance plate so far: ... and the frame to mount it on the hive: I haven't got the frame actually printed yet to test the form, fit, and function yet. Hopefully today. Well, it came out pretty cool. Made the entrance plate proud by 1/8", but other th...