Gee's Bees, LLC

We finally got around to bottling up the mead we started back in November,  🥂 Making Mead (geesbeesnc.com)  Surprised at how dry it was,(we thought it would be sweeter) and really surprised at how potent it was. We were feeling pretty good just from our taste testing. We yielded 3 bottles from each carboy and have labeled them Dry, Dryer, and Extra Dry. Not sure what we'll do with it now besides give it away, but I'll probably stick with wobble-pops. B is already picking out recipes for her next go-round.

Saturday's weather was pretty solid, plenty warm enough, 70° and sunny, Greensboro, NC Weather History. Still working towards (4) production hives, moving Hive 23 slowly over to replace Hive 25, which we expect problems from. That will be tomorrow's fun... We've scheduled the Mentees from this year’s Bee School to come over to help and gain some experience and saved inspections from Hive 23, 25 & the Nuc.  We will also start a new ranking system, placing aggressiveness high, and start selecting from queens that behave the way we want and are not so chippy. With a ranking system, we hope we can promote bees that are gentle, calm, have a low tendency to swarm, and are good honey producers.  Benny & Kathy (from the Bee Club) met us this afternoon to take a look at a couple of hives. As suspected Hive 25 (Old 23) was booming and shot up the rankings to Number 1... Description: Super Chill & Super Huge, just what you want. In fact, this Hive was so good, B is conside...

B got stung today. It was a beautiful day and the bees were busy, as busy as a well... Bee. She was outback checking their comings and goings when one flew into her hair. Once entangled in that mop the sting was inevitable. It was on top of her head, but the swelling moved down her face, so by the evening she looked like she had gone a couple of rounds with Mike Tyson. We were able to get the rest of the honey bottled up. The last bucket that we are going to sell at least. We still have a bucket of later Summer honey that we are going to keep for recipes and mead making. This is darker, heavier honey with a bit of an aftertaste, so we decided not to sell it. The girls also got another round of 1:1 syrup. No spirulina this time. They should be bringing in plenty of pollen from the blooming Maples. https://photos.app.goo.gl/tbdyDgVHL2sVXhw8A

Everyone loves learning about the honey bee, and Pearce Elementary School Second Grade Class is no exception. Great group of kids with even greater questions!  A link to the presentation: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1PcYALx4pJgewiawigg562ZOIaek27HiX/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=115842545336106841914&rtpof=true&sd=true Pearce’s Facebook Link

It was just warm enough and sunny, Greensboro Weather (2/19/22), the wind was a little much, but we made do, or at least the bees did. All the hives look great with the exception of Hive 25, this one is a little weak looking. They all have 4-6 frames of brood in all stages, placed in the bottom box. We saw queens in all the boxes, except for Hive 25 which makes it even more suspect. We currently have (6) 8F hives on main benches double deeps with new boxes on the bottom. All have new bottom boards and lids, again with the exception of Hive 25. Those are being used for the second-grade presentations. We also have (1) double 5F nuc set on the pallet to be sold. All hives received a full jar of 1:1 syrup with spirulina. Going forward: Run with (4) Production Hives. Only. Split in 2-3 weeks, using double screen board and triple deeps. Use Bob Binnie's system: Splitting Using a Double Screen Board as a reference, https://youtu.be/Z62UwOLfdMo . Incorporate the OTS & Demaree Method in...

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.

It was in the upper 40°'s today so we ventured out back for a peek at the hives. Actually, it was more than just a peek, it was to check populations along the tops, make sure they still had some sugar cakes and put half a pound of pollen patties on them. They all looked good except for Hive 11. Their population at least at the top looked pretty anemic and we are pretty sure something is going on with that hive. We will have to wait for a break in the weather to do a proper inspection and get a diagnosis, but until then we will keep the food on and hope for the best. Hive 11: Really light on bees, and plenty of sugar brick left. Gave 1/2 lb Pollen Patty. Hive 13: Good population, light on sugar brick. Gave 1/2 Sugar Brick and 1/2 lb Pollen Patty. Hive 15: Great population, light on sugar brick. Gave 1/2 Sugar Brick and 1/2 lb Pollen Patty. Hive 21: Good population, still had plenty of sugar brick. Gave 1/2 Sugar Brick and 1/2 lb Pollen Patty. Hive 22: Great population, light on suga...

We are big fans of the OTS  (mdasplitter.com)  method of rearing queens and splitting a hive. We typically do it in the Spring to help keep swarming down and in Mid-Summer to help knock the mites back and produce fresh queens for next year's Spring build-up. The reason we like it so much is its ease, lack of specialized equipment, and it doesn't require a ton of bee resources. We are a small operation with goals of maintaining six hives: 4 for honey production and 2 support hives for unforeseen, but inevitable situations. So grafting a slew of cells, starter/finisher hives, and mating nucs are not appealing. Plus the lack of fine motor skills put a serious kabash on transferring larvae to a cup. The head beekeeper is not feeling it either, she wants to make honey not bees, so the process just works well for us. We wrote up an OTS Schedule and a process that's in a Google Doc (Gee's Bees OTS Procedure) , but some highlights: Ease It doesn't get much easier than remo...

  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 ...

We bottled up another bucket last might. Fresh out of the warmer - ( 🌡️ Warming Honey) , so it ran pretty quick and clear, Totals were: (36) Plastic 1lb Squeeze Bottles, and about 16lbs for personal use. B put the word out on   Gee's Bees | Facebook . We've already sold a couple. That's good, cause we still need to get rid of a couple of hundred pounds yet.

We were able to mix up some more sugar bricks to put back on the hives that toppled over,  🐝 Storm Damage (geesbeesnc.com) . Ten more pounds of the stuff, just sugar, water, and a splash of Honey Bee Healthy. Next year we may try Kent William's Recipe , pretty much the same with the addition of Citus Acid and Apple Cider Vinegar. Their population look pretty good, so if the queens are still there we should have some viable colonies despite the craziness.

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...

You cant have Bottoms with no Tops. I suppose you can but that would be a different  website .  These are pretty straight forward and we had some rails leftover from the Bottom Board Build , so making the cleats was super simple by just opening up the dado a bit to fit the ends of the AdvanTech. We had enough of this leftover to make (4) Lids, and I think we'll buy the other two ( Migratory Top Feeder - Beez Needz ) the AdvanTech is running $85 a sheet now which is still crazy expensive.  We are making progress getting the girls some new Diggs in time for Spring and making the preemptive swarm splits,  The nucleus method - The Apiarist .

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 ...

  Background: Bottling cold or even worse crystalizing honey is not much fun. Messy and time-consuming bottles that come out cloudy make the head beekeeper a little angry, and angry gals are never a good thing when dealing with bees. Our solution was to purchase a bottling tank. We had our eye on a Maxant Tank (MODEL 600-2 200# or 16 gallons) for a while now and decided to bite the $1,350 bullet plus another $100 for the No-Drip Valve. This is a fine piece of equipment that will last us a lifetime, and solve our crystallizing honey problem by being able to bottle on demand.  The trouble is these are very difficult to come by these days. We tried a couple of dealers hoping that Rossmann Apiaries would help cut back on shipping costs without any luck. We even called up to Maxant and they are having all kinds of supply chain issues. The bottom line is they can’t get the components needed to build the tanks and are sporting a 3 month lead time., (Thanks COVID). By no means a kno...

Finally, got the sugar bricks ( Recipe ) made, it has been really warm, so we have been concerned about them burning through their stores due to activity. This time of year there's nothing to forage, so they are just wasting energy and food. Unlike us where we seem to be storing around our middles with Thanksgiving and Christmas Cookie Season upon us. More foraging is definitely needed... 😉 The house kind of smells good while this is baking, B doesn't agree. She feels the spearmint in the   Honey B Healthy  is nauseating and counters with  Yankee Candles . So now we have competing smells of Wrigley's Chewing Gum and Winter Stargazing Candle Scent that are pretty off-putting. Later in the afternoon, temperatures reached close to 70℉ on December 4th! We donned our bee coats and put the shims and bricks on the hives, the hives look really good. Especially Hive 15... Whoa there's a lot of bees. They actually got (2) bricks. In their immediate future will be an...