Starting with a new colony can be nerve racking, especially if you have never been a bee keeper before. The startup costs can be intimidating with the unknown of what to do and what can happen. Our first year was basically an adventure through the unknown. We had to learn techniques and tricks to navigate our new found love. We needed to establish how we wanted to go about caring for our bees and respectively harvesting honey from them. It came with quite a few stings but never enough to scare us off.
As we begin our second year into beekeeping, we are only falling more in love with all things bees. We have noticed that our unknowns are becoming well knowns. When we visit stores, we often always end up thinking about what "the girls" need.
We have begun planting more flowers for our yard and worrying less about what looks pretty and more about what would benefit the bees. We continue our weekly checks, even if that means that we just observe the activity at their "door".
We have to check for pesky hive beetles who can take over a hive relatively quick. During the summer months, when we receive a lot of rain, we see an increase in ants. Ants are also an annoying pest. Since ant poison kills bees we have to be careful with what we put out. We trace around the hives with cinnamon to help deter those rascals.
I believe one of our favorite things about beekeeping is that there is always something to learn. We have had the pleasure of working with other beekeepers and learning their knowledge and tricks from their years of experience. We hope to continue to grow our colonies and our knowledge. We invite every one to grow with us and follow along as we venture further and further into the world of bees.