Beekeepings

A couple years ago, my Dad and I started a crazy hobby, BEEKEEPING. This is one of those things that I never thought I could get into to, but I did and I love it.  My dad started keeping bees when he was in high school and before his mission for the church he sold his hives and was able to pay for his mission with it.  We started off with just 2 hives at my grandparent's house and now we have close to 8 hives.  It has been a lot of fun to share this special hobby with my dad and grandpa.

My dad, grandpa and I bringing home our bees.

Here is me in my fancy bee suit, doesn't it look great on me!

Painting the hive boxes!

The first time we brought our bees home we really were not prepared.  We brought our bees home, and still had to put together the hives boxes and paint them.  The only bee suit we had was my dad's old one from when he was a teenager, and I was the only one that could fit in it.  I was responsible for putting the bees in the hive.  My dad coaching me as I shook the bees into the hive box.  Bees were all over me and they were buzzing in my ears.  It was a different experience at first, but it was fun. 

At first everyone helped me out..

But soon one by one they left me

It was up to me to shake all the bees into their new home!

This is our mess of honey, we were all pretty sticky afterwords!

Of course the best part of beekeeping is the sweet rewards...HONEY! Honey harvest day is always a day to look forward throughout the year.  It is also a very busy day.  First we take off the honey supers and bring them into the garage.  Then we take this heated knife and take off the wax. Then put the frames into this big extractor and then turn to make the honey spin out. After all the honey is out of the frames we take the honey heat it up on the stove and then strain it to get all the wax out.  To be honest this is a super exhausting day.  It takes all day but in the end it is worth it.  We end up with more honey than we could ever eat in a year.