Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Monday Night Class.

Last night was the final beekeeping lesson for my Mon class - a visit to my hive. Above are afew of them that stayed on for a cuppa and piece of delicious honey cake. It was a beautiful warm evening and the bees were well behaved. I have really enjoyed these classes, hopefully I can carry on teaching next year with the Govt wanting to cut funding to night classes I may have to go private - teach from home. Nearly all the adults in my 4 classes this year have gone on to buy a hive and start beekeeping - I am delighted with the outcome - my aim is to get as many people into keeping bees as I can !
The gorgeous honey cake beehive was made by Sue, one of my students. She used an American mold, brought here in NZ. It was so good ! I also received a packet of seeds from one of the other ladies and flowers from another - spoilt or what ?? Just to share the passion I have for these little creatures is enough for me

A wee bit of smoke, I try not to get carried away with the smoker, I don`t believe it does the bees any good - probably sends them into panic mode and I would rather work with them as calmly as possible. I need to open all the boxes for a good look at what is happening plus check for any nasties. It seems to be a strong hive and hopefully hasn`t been affected with spray like my TopBar - more on that disaster in next post ...

One of the new frames broke as I pulled it out, must have been stuck to one under it ! Bees have half filled it, the students were able to see nectar and capped honey, plus afew drones. The honey tastes very sweet - lots of different floral sources around where I live.
I have been asked for an interview for the local paper next week and also featured in good magazine - I will make those bees famous yet !!
For the love of bees
The world’s honeybees are vanishing and NewZealand teeters on the brink of a catastrophic collapse in our bee population. Sarah Heeringa investigates the strange phenomenon of colonycollapse disorder, discovers amazing facts about bees and surprising new ways we can help them


4 comments:

Cally said...

WOW! That cake! It is totally amazing - how could you break it too eat it?

I was thinking - have you contacted the Council to ask them to put your property on the no spraying of grass verges list?

Lynn said...

I wish I had the cake mold. We are having our Christmas dinner at the bee club meeting this week and I would have loved to make such a great cake. Maybe for the spring picnic.

You are doing great work in the interest of bees in your country. Keep it up!

Cliff W said...

You're an inspiration. Well done and best of luck if the funding from central government dries up.

Christy said...

That is some cake! Your posts are interesting to me as a beginning beekeeper. I'm very much enjoying my hives so far.