Gee's Bees, LLC

It's a tease, I know that. Soon the polar vortex will swoop down and give us the coldest temperatures of the winter. I think this will be it, Old Man Winter's last hurrah, but also know better than to get too cocky. More schizophrenic than that crazy Aunt with all the cats, we are going to go from 61° and sunny to 35° with snow and rain this weekend. It looks like we are not going to get the once forecasted low of 12° that was predicted not so long ago. Now it looks like we will bottom out in the twenties for a couple of nights. Nothing these bees can't handle. It was nice enough to take a peak. We wanted to make sure the gals had enough sugar brick left to hole up for the next couple of weeks, and I'll do my best to leave them bee. We even took the opportunity to dig into one of the stronger hives. They had eaten a good portion of their sugar brick, so we could manipulate frames without making too much of a mess. We found the queen navigating a frame of brood. She had ...

I'm usually not one to shy away from work. Who am I kidding, the older and fatter I get the more a beer and my recliner look enticing. I've also noticed my internet time has also been sharply curved from porn and sports to bee research and two-finger typing on this silly site. Some would argue that this is a good thing, but I'm still not sure. Regardless, it keeps me out of the bars during the day at least. The nucs have a fresh coat of primer on them and soon will be painted a cheery yellow and a light blue that looks like white no matter how much QB says I have to look at it in the right light. To further my way down the slope of checking my man card at the door, I described yellow as cheery. Demasculation aside, I hate painting (he said in a whiny voice) and those little freeloaders better appreciate their new houses and reward us with a boatload of honey!

After a couple of hours cutting up some old 1/2" plywood we had kicking around the shed Beth put one together. Gotta say it came out good enough for the bugs we hang out with... at least functional. We followed the cut-list from beesource.com  - https://goo.gl/EC2CTH . A few modifications, like having the entrance run the entire width of the box to accept a modified reducer, and I want to run the Hive Cleats all the way around the top to have more land if we want to use a top feeder in the future. Calling this a success, they just need a couple coats of paint and these should work for a few years at least. We do want to put some thought into a hive top feeder to fit. Getting closer to being ready for the Summer Solstice (it's cooler to say that than the beginning of July) to practice some OTS Starts after the flow.