Making Boys Busy with Bees!

Opening the package of bees(Edwards)

Bee Day: On March 23rd and 24th, the boys and Mom installed two bee hives in the backyard.

Mom even bought cool jackets to wear while doing inspections on the hive. I can't wait to try one on!


The bee man(John) lives down the street, he comes over when needed to help inspect the beehives. He helped the boys and Mom install the nucleus hive.



Dumping the bees out of the box

The building of the beehives and frames are done in the garage by Edward and Thomas with Mom(her encouragement) and power tools. Mom painted them!

Since January the boys and Mom have been taking the bee keeping class, they now have a certificate of completion. Mom would love to become certified as an official bee keeper!


Mission accomplished: Edward's bees installed!

 "I think that would be so cool!" -Mom

She wants to raise a whole bee "colony" since she has already almost finished raising her children "colony"!

It sounds really complicated to actually get the certification and learn the whole bee keeping world!

It has left Mom in awe over God's creation, she says she doesn't know how you can study bees and not believe in God, the way bees work is so intense and intricate. Even the Pope mentioned bees in his Easter sermon this year. There is one Saint who talks a lot about bees in one of his spiritual books, I can't remember who right now.

Frame loaded with bees, brood(the white cap cells where the babies grow), necter, honey(in the right hand corner) and bee bread(what they feed the larvae)

The name of Mom's bee company is officially "Abbee's Honey", after St. Abigail, one of the patron saint of bee keepers.


Thomas inspecting(very intensely) the bees. He is looking for the queen bee!

The beehive with ten frames, approximately 15-20 thousand bees in this one box. This beehive was purchased as a nucleus(miniture hive with the bees already on the foundation with drawn comb). Edwards was purchased as a box of loose bees and one caged queen bee.

It's a lot to learn, it's a lot of work, it's a lot of fun!