As a greener than green newbie I'm hungry for opportunities to learn. As you all know, there's plenty of great resources on the internet and no shortage of good books...But at the end of the day, there's no replacement for simple hands on experience, "seat time" if you would.
My new found friend Bailey was gracious enough to extend me an invite to join him in getting a little work done at one of his bee yards today. We had a great day and the experience was invaluable.
After Bailey made a few passes on his faithful riding mower to fight back some of the overgrowth and spruce up the yard a bite, we jumped right in.
We got into two hives, one was four mediums and the other five. We pulled 2+ boxes of fall honey and made a total of 5 Nucs, replacing the frames we robbed with new frames with starter strips.
I made it about 5 minutes in before taking a sting on my hand and rethinking my "no glove" policy for the day... :-D LOL!
While I was there, I got a little swarm trap advice. All the swarm trap talk on the forum has my curiosity peaked. So, I'm planning on putting out the two Nucs that I just emptied yesterday as swarm traps and seeing if I can't get lucky. As a matter of fact, I just ran to the health food store in town to pick up some Lemon Grass. Hopefully, I'll get them hung in the next couple of days!
Thanks again Bailey...Enjoyed the day! :)