Beekeeping Mentor - Today

I went to help my Mentor with his bee’s today. It was great. It was my first time truly waring my Bee suit LOL other than to talk a photo. I did not get stung and I felt very comfortable, I give thanks to my Mentor for his great guidance, he just made it calm for me.

it was my first time handling bee boxes and frames. I was surprised how heavy the frames were and the boxes. WOW and the amount of honey in them. They were not even full. I am going to do finger exercises to grip the frames :slightly_smiling:

I was able to spot the unmarked Queen 3 out of 4 times. I was surprised.

Thank to all on here for all the great post. This forum helped me be comfortable with the bee’s as well

He made comment about aggressive bees, He had bag some sort of plant that someone had given him to put in a smoker to help calm them down. He could not remember the name of the plant, he was going to find out but was wondering if anyone would know what that plant would bee. It was dried out and looked like small dried red grapes.

I have used straw from hay fields which smokes real well and does an effective job and doesn’t take much as it burns for quite awhile in a smoker.

yes, he used straw as well, but the this looked like a barry

Not sure about plants, but in the UK we used dried out puff ball mushrooms - very sedating, for the bees, that is! :blush:
Here we go, a reference to the concept:

:smile:
and another one from a prolific bee blogger!

Brilliant. Some people just have an eye for it.Husband is good at queen spotting. Children are the best.
Experience has to teach the rest of us

He used hemp.

It severely calms the bees and makes them really hungry lol.

That is hilarious! Might even be true… :stuck_out_tongue: