Anthophora Urbana

We've discovered a different bee flying around the farm. This one is definitely not a honey bee. The Anthophora Urbana  is a solitary bee that lives in small holes in the soil. It drinks nectar and collects pollen but does not make honey.

Anthophora Urbana

This bee seems only attracted to to the yellow squash flowers and one, single wildflower type bush. It makes a loud, buzzing noise while drinking nectar. When approached by honey bees on the same flower, it will buzz loudly and point it's hind legs straight out. Here's a video of it twitching around on the flowers out front.

There are a few other updates for the farm. Cucumbers are starting to produce. We're growing the Little Leaf and Salt & Pepper varieties this season. Another large patch of our yard was converted to growing space yesterday. Part of where our old crepe myrtle trees were is now home to 4 rows of okra.

Little Leaf Cucumber

Salt & Pepper Cucumber

New Garden Area

Clemson Okra

The Hive Checkup

Today was checkup day for the hive. It's to guarantee that the queen was released and the bees are sticking around. I removed 2 pieces of burr comb the bees had built next to the queen's cage. This is partly my fault as my queen cage placement left a larger gap between the two frames.

The queen was roaming around on the 2nd frame I pulled for inspection. The bright blue dot on her back makes her easy to spot in the sun light.

It was a bit intimidating opening the hive without a bee suit on. So much that before I could lift a frame, my nerves got me and I donned the jacket and veil although still wearing jeans and flip-flops as required by backyard farmers everywhere. I'm already hooked and intend to rear our own queens and split our hive and expand to 3 or 4 hives.

Hive entrance before opening

Inner Cover with a few dead bees

Top View after opening

Our queen was released!
(She's in the center with a blue dot)

The "Bee Keepers' Encyclopedia"

Pieces of burr-comb

WE HAVE BEES!

Today, we made the drive to R. Weaver Apiaries to pick our first package of bees.

3lbs of Buckfast Bees

After removing the queen from the package, Kenz held her cage so I could snap a quick photo. The bees were calm after a spray of sugar water and Honey-B-Healthy.

Our bee queen has a blue mark for easy spotting in the hive.

We even have a short video of how brave Kenz was today. I missed pressing record as she walked up to the entrance of the hive. Before the lid was on the hive we had thousands of bees flying around us.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw2PGedEq-E