The newest addition to The Point this year....Bees!!! Jessi-breakfast cook and Gardener extraordinaire has decided to add even more to her plate. I'll let her take it from here..."I have been interested in beekeeping for several years and have always hoped to have my own apiary when my husband and I finally build our home. This winter a friend came to me wondering if I wanted to take over some of her equipment to keep bees here on the point and in turn care for her bees when she moved to Utah. I dove in head first, attended a course put on by the Montana State horticulture department and began reading everything I could get my hands on.
I was pleased to discover that our little town here in Montana actually has a bee supply store. Western Bee is able to provide everything from instructional books to actual bees. The bees arrive in town once a year in early May. Orders for bee packets must be made by late February or early March. The bees come in a simple screened box with about three pounds of bees, a can of syrup, and a queen caged at the center. Bees should be installed either early morning or late in the day so that they will cluster together to protect their queen and keep her warm. The queen cage is blocked with a small cork that can be removed with a safety pin and replaced with a small marshmallow. The worker bees eat the marshmallow to release their queen, all the while adjusting to her scent and beginning to build comb for her to lay eggs in. I banded the queen cage to one of the frames and placed the open bee box inside the super. Two days later, I remove the bee box and filled the empty space with the remaining frames. The bees were busy drawing comb and collecting pollen.
Since installation our bees have suffered some tough times. Their queen was lame (wasn’t producing eggs quickly enough) so the colony killed her and attempted to build a new queen. I ended up ordering a new queen from Tate’s honey farm and installing her. Less than twenty-four hours after installing the new queen a bear attacked the hive. I was able to rescue about a third of the hive and locate the queen. After re-assembling the hive, I rushed off to procure and install an electric fence. I was able to find a solar powered system and pounded posts for a small square perimeter. Since the fence went up the bear has left the hive alone; but fellow beekeepers have warned that once a bear knows what is inside a hive they may be willing to take a hit from the electric fence. Today the bees are busy trying to re-establish their hive and draw out comb to build the colony. I am hopeful that they will be able to build up the brood and maybe make enough honey to last the winter; but I doubt we will be able to harvest at all this season. The friend whose hive I am caring for has invited us to harvest from her hive so we will have some fresh local honey for Kristen to make amazing things with." Thanks Jessi!
I've been so inspired by the bee project that I will be following in Jessi's footsteps when I return to New Orleans. We can do a taste test with Big City and Little City Honey next summer! Big thanks are also due to Mr. Fountain (a handsome picture of him below)-a true lover of bees and full of all kinds of amazing bee knowledge-who helped us both with all the questions that we had for him.
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