Saturday, March 14, 2015

Best BEEginnings Yet!

Today's Old Style Life-Skills Series workshop BEEginning with Bees held at the Taghhannuck Grange Hall was BEEzy and inspiring!
 Todd Shearer showed us his top bar hive...
...with honeycomb the bees had built last summer 

...and filled with honey. 
 Jen Worden showed us her Langstroth hive...
 ...with a homemade candy box she uses for feeding the bees during winter.
Joe Benete demonstrated using a stethoscope attachment to listen for vibrations of living bees in the hive...
...and a special board he designed for wiring foundation wax into the frames.
We learned different techniques for installing a new package of bees,

...how to use a hive tool for cleaning and prying the frames,
 ...how to use a smoker, and many other tricks of the trade.
After a honey of a pot-luck lunch, we hand-dipped beeswax candles and made a batch of Alton's bee-candy for feeding the bees.

1 comment:

NewTwist said...

I learned so much during this workshop. It was very crowded this year which made for a massive pot luck. I can't wait to get my bees.