Honey Bees

For my birthday last year we ordered a Flow Hive so we could finally get our very own honey bees! We could of course get honey off our native bees but it is a lot of work for little reward and I prefer the taste of the European bee honey.

Our long awaited hive arrived right when life threw us lots of lemons. So as is my way of coping with grief, I stop creating. I had plans of a beautiful wood burnt hive but instead it sat in its box unassembled because it's so much easier to do the pyrography before assembly.

I tried making myself get it done so we could get bees sooner but I just could not focus on doing the design. And when that was finally done I just didn't feel like even starting to burn.

Gardening became my distraction except it was way too hot in summer so I retreated to the air con and slowly worked on the hive in the middle of the day. And it was finally burnt, assembled and oiled. We bought bee suits and all the gear we needed. I fenced off a spot to keep the chickens and Archie away from the bees. Then covid restrictions started happening and we weren't sure when we could get bees. Thankfully we were able to buy a nucleus and we have now been the proud owners of European bees for 3 months!

We won't be able to add the honey super until Spring, but in the meantime we get to observe, learn and get to know our bees until we can do our first harvest.