Days of a Beekeeper

I have set up 130  queen nuc's this spring as of 4/14/2012, and started checking them today. Boy are those girls really laying alot of eggs, average 3 full frames of brood in the nucs, now spending time moving the nucs (4-5) frames of bees, into the standard boxe's... as allways,,, running out of equipment, so will be making a bunch of bottom boards this week.  Yellow sweet clover is just starting to bloom, so will have a very early honey flow for  Kansas....

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We have installed a pollen trap on a hive of bees in Shawnee, and are really amazed at how much pollen we are getting, average is 4 oz daily, which is quite a bit of pollen, Bev has been storing the  pollen in the freezer, as it is quite moist, and we are really enjoying it. Bev use's it in her morning smoothie...I have tried it right out of the tray, and really taste's good, some of it is pretty sweet..??

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I hosted an Intro to Beekeeping class on Monday April 2nd. Had 12 people attend the class, lots of interest, and several wanting to start bees yet this spring. Good to have younger/new people interested in bees.

Tonite (4/4) have to drive north of St. Joseph, Mo to meet an orchard owner that is transporting some of our bees back from his Apple Orchard by Nebraska City, Nebraska. Have not used any of our bees for pollination since the mid 90's, but allways wanting to help people in need, normal person had all their bees still in California. Spring is about 2-3 weeks early this year.

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The last week or so, has been really busy.... so much to do, so little time...

Got a call from a Orchard in desperate need of bees, so had to meet them on I29 to deliver some bees for them to take farther north. Split bees to get the brood to use for making splits... First batch of queen cells installed on 3/30, should hatch 4/1.. Started another graft of cells to be ready on 4/13... Making more nuc box's. Son in Law busy making frames and box's... 

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We did our 1st queen cell graft today..thank goodness I did it in the am, as we got alot of rain after lunch... Initial  graft was 90+ cells, will look in 48 hrs to see how many actually were started by the bees... Alot of rain this week, so looks like will be doing inside work for now....

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