Honey on the comb! Yep, that's what it looks like. You can see that most of it has been "capped," meaning covered with beeswax, but there are a few cells uncapped, and we tasted it and it's definitely honey. At this point it's made from sugar water we were feeding them when they first arrived, so it's not really tasty. We care, but the bees don't; it's food that they can store for the winter. We'll be looking for the honey they're making in the next few months, which will be from the nectar & pollen they're collecting now. It will be a richer color & flavor (we hope)!
Here's the Roommate, showing off a frame that is full of comb, with lots of busy bees working on it. Some are caring for newly hatched bees, some are making and storing honey, some are storing pollen, etc. Click on the photos to see them full-sized (and you can zoom in quite a bit, if you want details).
I'll be sure and keep you updated as our first beekeeping season progresses...
We were lucky to be part of DIY Del Ray's first Urban Farm Tour last Saturday morning.
Though we know we probably won't get much to grow in our ever-shady yard, we were inspired by our neighbors' mini- & maxi-farms. Additionally, we have begun to check into beekeeping, after seeing two separate homes with hives on the tour.
Beekeeping starts in the spring, so we're using our time until then to do some research before we commit $500+ for the start-up costs. Also, you don't get any honey the first year (the bees need it for themselves). So if we start keeping bees in April 2015, we won't see any 'free' honey until August or September of 2016. A long-term investment, and not exactly cheap, so we've been doing some reading & thinking about it. Some of the resources we've been checking out are listed below.
A couple of books from the public library:
Keeping Honey Bees, Sanford & Bonney, 2010
Keeping Bees, Vivian, 1986
We're taking a class in January (beginning bee-keeping) in Remington, at Virginia Beekeeping Supply. That's an in-person class, but there are online classes, and classes a little closer to home listed here.
There's also a local chapter of the Beekeeper's Association for NoVa.
Finally, the best part is looking at all the lovely hive choices! A quick search will retrieve many, but here are a few that have enticed us so far.
Bee Thinking, in Portland, OR - I'm especially partial to their copper-roofed Warre hives!
Valley Bee Supply, a little closer to home in Fishersville, VA
Dadant claims to be the oldest & largest supplier in the US
Of course it's not as easy and buying a cool-looking hive & finding a good spot in your yard. If you'd like to get a sense of what else you'll need (like a nuc), check out Richmond Honey Bee, which has an unbelievable amount of information and you can easily spend hours reading through all his posts & learning.
The Fairmont, in downtown DC, has 3 hives for honey and a new "hotel" for non-honey-making (but expert pollinating) bees. Read all about it in this Post article.
We still haven't committed to this enterprise, but if we do, we'll keep you posted!
Honey on the comb! Yep, that's what it looks like. You can see that most of it has been "capped," meaning covered with beeswax, but there are a few cells uncapped, and we tasted it and it's definitely honey. At this point it's made from sugar water we were feeding them when they first arrived, so it's not really tasty. We care, but the bees don't; it's food that they can store for the winter. We'll be looking for the honey they're making in the next few months, which will be from the nectar & pollen they're collecting now. It will be a richer color & flavor (we hope)! 
