Population explosion

2 humans, 1 dog, 17 chickens, and now 20,000 bees (and counting)... The population of Barley Acres has just skyrocketed!

It started as a wouldn't-it-be-nice idea and somehow snowballed to a point where we found ourselves driving 2 hours to pick up two nucleus colonies (nucs) to install in two brand new hives in the paddock that held miniature horses before we came along. 

We're on a sharp learning curve here, with oh so many little critters in our care. There's new equipment! Bee suits! Tools! and fascinating surprises every time we go in to check on them. The one thing we learned, even before getting our new little charges is that bees are like any other livestock -- they need regular care and attention if they are to survive and thrive.

Each hive is named for it's queen -- we thought Vicky and Liz were appropriate. Here is Liz's colony at work:

And here is Vicky -- this colony, incidentally, is the calmer of the two:

On that day, we were looking at how they had expanded from the initial 4 wooden frames they came in to the new plastic frames in the full-size hive. Here's a look from today at how they are bridging that gap:

They seem to be expanding in all directions, though -- not just on the neat rectangular frames we provide. If there's anything working with plants and animals has taught us, it's that they have a will of their own, and while we can guide them, we can't expect them to fit into our plans; we have to find a compromise that keeps all of us happy. I suspect they prefer building on wood over plastic and as a result the bottom side of the top board looks like this. Funny, I think it looks like they are spelling out a message for us here!

Individually, they are beautiful -- doesn't this one looks like she's wearing a fur stole?

This first year, these colonies will be busy preparing their numbers and their food stores for the winter ahead. That means there won't be any honey to share with us. They are doing their part though by working to pollinate the many things growing here and it's actually quite thrilling to be working in the garden and notice one of our very own bees "working" alongside us. 

For our part, we are working to keep them safe -- from mites with regular observation -- and from the multitude of bears in the area, with a powerful electric fence.

And there is no doubt at all there are bears on the property -- including this adorable little guy caught on our gamecam recently:

Wish us all luck and watch for updates as the season progresses! 

As a final note I have to let any subscribers to the blog know that the email notification service will stop working at the end of this month and I can't do anything about it. It was a little service that worked in the background without any input from me.  Let me know if you'd like me to send you a personal email when I've posted something new in future.