Michael Bush on Queen Rearing

It's really cool to finally get to hear Michael Bush speaking after reading so much from him on bushfarms.com. I thought I would give this video a place to live on my blog so I can come back and listen any time I like. I'm not sure when-and-if I will ever get to the point of raising my own queens, but life is an exciting journey and one never knows. (PowerPoint slide link)

Today was very windy, so I never got a chance to look inside the hives to see how things are progressing. I did add medium supers about a week ago because both hives looked as though they have a lot of capped honey in the top medium and they were running out of room. When I got home one day this week I slid the cover back to see if they were building comb, and I could see that they were - that's always exciting. I've ordered six more mediums and frames from my friend Joe Caton at BeeManDirect.com along with some other things - like a bee brush. Ive been grabbing handfuls of grass to sweep the bees away at times, but grass tends to get stuck to propolis and make a mess. I'm slowly gathering the knowledge and tools to allow me to be successful.

I don't have a water source that is very close to the hives, I see the bees landing in my kid's backyard assortment of toys that hold water. So, I am thinking of taking a carboy and inverting it into a large pan with gravel. Once the level of water is stable in the pan I'll add the gravel so that there is ample landing area for bees without the chance of drowning. If I can get this to work properly I'll post some pictures.

I am going to try and get my technology department to unblock my blog so I can share it with my fifth grade students. I really think that blogging, or journaling helps you to reflect on how much you understand about a topic. And, as far as beekeeping, I've got a lot to learn.

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