Dandelion wine

Well yesterday was a nice day outside so we decided to go to a local field with a friend and her kids. Thought we could let the little munchkins runaround and we could pick some flowers to make wine. Kids lasted about 30 mins before the crabbies started in. we picked enuf flowers for a 5 gallon batch. But after getting home and spending 3 hrs trimming away all the stalks from the heads, I decided that i had enuf and just started a 3 gallon batch.

Here is the steps i took and a couple pics to follow.

1 Remove all green from flowers ( would make it taste bad)

2 Boil 3 gallons of water and pour over the flowers petals.

3 cover with a cloth for 2 days ( Im at the end of day 1 tonight)

More pics and details to follow in the upcoming days

Skeeter pee ready for bottling

Hive check no 1

Decided to check the hives today. All have eggs and nice even comb being drawn out. The center hive is going way faster than the first tho. Well see in the end. Bees were out today collection pollen from the only flowers blooming now..

 This is the second hive. Look at how much pollen patty they've eaten !!

And i wonder why people are afraid of honey bees ? This lil girl landed right on my chest and crawled to my finger. Look at how much outa focus pollen she has !

Here you can see a landing board with pollen laiden girls

Now here is my watch ducks. They like to watch me look for bees in the yard. Lol 

Wine testing

Well i just bought a Vino-Meter and tested a batch of my skeeter pee. ( lemon wine) Well what i thought was 10-12 % avb Is more like 17%-18% !!! Whoa didnt know that it was that potent. Its only 4% away from Malibu Rum.

Its really fun making your own brews..... Ill post more when i get to bottling what i make and starting a new batch. We might go out this weekend as a family and pick dandelion's for wine.... Weather permitting that is.

Queens are out !

Well to day was nice out and i decided to check queen release. So i donned my suit and smoker and poped the tops.  Well the girls were much more calmer. No gloves so i could feel better. And not one sting. One cage was on the bottom of the hive and i had about 20 bees on my hand. As i took the cage out i stood and watched them crawl on me. It was so cool to see them lick the sugar water from my skin. I noticed there was a couple with pollen on there legs.

Any who all 3 "lady's" were released. I didn't go looking for them that's for next weeks adventure.....

 Here they are at work before i checked for release.

Planting trees for earth day

Well to celebrate earth day we planted 4 trees. 2 plum, 1 Bing cherry and a spruce sapling. With love and care we hope to have fruit next yr. Now the bees have something else to pollinate for us. We also have 2 Apple trees in the yard, our neighbor has 3 in hers as well.

Will be interesting to see if we get better fruit due to the bees in the yard. As a side note i fed the bees again and noticed the queen was released from Walter's yellow hive. So i think ill check on the hives tomorrow afternoon. Just a quick pop open check for queen release and strip out any comb that's been built outa whack.

The bees were out in full force today. flying all over getting there landmarks figured out. I looked out my window and saw our neighbor checking out the hives only 8 ft away. Shes a brave soul lol.  Just glad she thinks its nice i have bees.

Bees have arrived !!!

Starting the blog a day late, but hey better late than never !

The bees came into town late fri night. Thanks to Handsons honey. They drove to California and back in one week to get our bees and everyone else's.  We picked our 3 packages up on sat morning. One of which is my uncles. He pays for all of it and i get to play with and manage his bees.

So Saturday morning arrived and my wife had a lunch break at work at 8 so she was able to come with me and pick up the bees. Seeing all of them was a cool sight, there was a 2 car garage FILLED with them! So i drove them home and got everything ready. I wanted her to see the bees go in the first time with me. So i waited till 1 pm when she got done.

So1 rolls around and ive donned my gear. (minus smoker) And attempted  to hive the first batch. Well i found out that i really should have had a smoker from the start. One stung me on the hand and then the rest got the pheromone. I had to quick just get them in. Then My wife brought the smoker and that helped alot ! Just a little was needed. So the 2 other packages went in just fine. My 2 have quart feeders inside and my uncles has baggie style.  Just to see if there is a difference in consumption.

This morning i just looked at the hives and saw a small amount of  activity but it was still cool. Now its close to 50deg out and there flying all over getting their bearings. What a great sight !

It earth day so we decided today would be a good day to plant our fruit trees and my lil girls pine tree.