Belanger Family Honey

July 31, 2019 After nearly four years as beekeepers and rolling the dice we finally hit snake eyes or should I say bear claws. That’s right ... we had our first encounter with a bear . Yesterday we received a text from one of the landowners where some of our hives are located that the wind had blown over our hives. Beekeeper 1 was busy building a new shed to house bee supplies so beekeeper 2 (that’s me) and two sidekicks headed out to survey the damage. Sadly, it was not wi...nd that got to the hives but a hungry bear that toppled four hives and proceeded to lick clean the frames on one hive. Bears knock over hives and kind of destroy them in hopes that the bees will evacuate the hives so when they return they aren’t interrupted by bees stinging them while eating their lunch of our honey. Fortunately, the brood boxes on all four hives were intact, it simply took standing them back up and re-erecting the hives. Unfortunately the hive boxes being the time of the year were very full of honey so were very heavy and the bees were extremely agitated, actually very angry, understandably so due to the damage inflicted by mr bear. I quickly told sidekick 2 to head back to the truck and stay put as sidekick 1 and I tried desperately to reorganize the hives. These bees weee having none of this. They were vicious in their defense of their hives. It wasn’t long before they were stinging through my pants. After nearly 2 hours of working in the heat and against the angry bees, I managed to get the hives back together save the one destroyed box. I went home with only about 15 stings on my legs . Fortunately I believe the queens are still there, I was NOT going to open these angry hives to check so I’m assuming until we know for sure. In the meantime we’re on the hunt for electric fence to put around the hives as now they know there’s honey in them there woods.

May 14, 2019 This is what it looks like when your hubby has beehives and you try to hang clothes out to dry. Got to gear up! For some reason they love my hair . I can handle the bees anywhere near me but in my hair - so I wear the veil.

September 1, 2018 We've spent the weekend processing honey (we've processed so much we may have burnt out the motor in our extractor ). We start by using a heat gun to open the caps of the honey cells (after trying many different mediums of uncapping over the last couple years we've found this to be the fastest and the neatest - believe it or not). We then put the frames into the extractor which centrifugally pulls the honey from the frames. It pours out of the extractor and... into a pail. We then put it through a series of filters to get rid of any wax residue and bee bits until it's clear golden honey that we put into the final containers. Benefits of raw local honey: delicious and healthy alternative to sugar people with allergies have found it helps to decrease their sensitivity to fauna triggering reactions is antibacterial and anti fungal high in phytonutrients so provides antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties excellent for a sore throat can help suppress coughs it tastes delicious!

August 30, 2018 Have you ever heard the saying "you are what you eat?" There is no creature for which this is more true than the honey bee. Amazingly, queen bees are genetically exactly identical to worker bees. But they’re fed a different diet from worker bees their whole lives, from the time they are tiny larvae, until the day they die. What is this magic food? It’s not broccoli! It’s the oh so appropriately named substance, royal jelly. Royal jelly is an excretion from the... glands of worker bees high in fats, proteins, sugars and vitamins - I think of it as a honey bee’s version of breast milk. While all larvae are fed royal jelly for the first three days, of life, larvae chosen by the worker bees to become queens are bathed in royal jelly in special, larger elongated ‘queen cells’ throughout their development. You can see the milky white substance inside the cells surrounding the larvae (you can also see eggs in the cells beside them) many many people feel there's health and skin benefits to royal jelly (you couldn't pay me to rub that on my face). For us - the benefit is healthy hives with lots and lots of honey producing bees and happy queens

August 29, 2019 Reader beware ... it's bee sex talk time!! Do you see how much bigger the bee on the left is than those on the right? This is a drone. A drone bee is a boy bee. Their only job is to mate with the Queen. They don't do any other readily recognized bee behavior like sting, gather nectar or pollen, nursing baby bees or even hive construction. Oh no! These lucky guys exist solely to get. it. on. with the virgin queen. ... Drones from numerous hives gather at "congregation sites" sometimes gathering up to 25,000 drone bees. The Queen then mates with multiple drones in mid air. This ensures that her female offspring will have multiple fathers with a variety of genetic origins. Incest, it seems, isn't even smiled upon in the bee world! The virgin Queen travels to the congregation site where the drones locate her using visual and all factory cues. Once the scent is sniffed, it's a feverish fight to penetrate her. Often called a "drone comet" the swarm of drones chase the Queen through the air. Only 1 in 1000 will successfully mate with the Queen. While a drones mating flight typically last about 30 minutes, the actual insemination can be over in mere seconds. (Here's hoping that scenario doesn't sound too familiar ) A drones penis which only emerges when mating is specially designed to disperse and impressively large load of semen with tremendous speed and force. This is achieved through the contractions of abdominal muscles which basically inflates the penis via pressure. As drones have to penetrate midflight their penises also boast claspers at the base to help grip the queen. Once gripped he straddles her and tries desperately to ejaculate into her open sting chamber. As this happens, the drone becomes paralyzed and does a backflip off the Queen (I kid you not!!- I couldn't make this stuff up!!) The drone ejaculation is so powerful that it's audible to the human ear. And did you know that this exchange is so powerful that the penis ruptures from his body remaining inside the Queen to prevent semen loss before her next encounter with the next drone. The drone, his life's purpose having been achieved, now dies. Unlike other bees that are territorial, drones are welcome in any hive. Shout out to ravishly.com for the detailed info about bee coitus.