My 1st package of bees and the wife going crazy

I have this up on youtube, but thought I would also post it here I hope you enjoy it.

Bees for the Backyard

Well, my bees arrived from Cedar Glenn Aperies on May 1st, and I was able to hive the package that afternoon. The UPS delivery man was not impressed with my humor, since I acted like I was going to drop them. Any how, the type of bees that I ordered are called New World Carniolans since everything I have read, said they would be gentle and easy to have in a city setting. These bees lived up to that reputation and I was able to hive the package without wearing protective clothing. In this first photo I had just tapped the package of bees on the ground and sprayed them with a liberal amount of sugar water.

In this next photo, you really can't tell but I am getting ready to put a marshmallow into the queen cage since this one didn't come with a candy plug. After that I sat the cage in between the 6th and 5th frames and started dumping bees into the hive.
In this last photo I dumped the bees into their new home. which they seemed to like because on May 6th I had to place another gallon of sugar water on top the hive. My reasons for starting beekeeping are for the pollenation that only bees can do and not too mention that I love honey.

Why and how I am getting started

Hello everyone, this is my first blog ever so give me a little time to try and figure this thing out. With that out of the way, I would like to give you a little background on my situation and why I am starting a garden. First I am not some nut job that is saying we need to be ready for a post Apocalyptical era or am I a Global warmer saying we need to reduce our carbon foot print. I am a father of an Autistic child and someone who lost their aunt to contaminated food: That is why I am starting a garden and trying to get back to basics. Since I live in the city of Chicago and have limited yard space to work with, I am doing couple of different techniques to maximize my garden size and to boost my crop yield.

The first is really easy anyone can do it and doesn’t require land and can be done by apartment dwellers, its called container gardening. All it requires is: a few pots some dirt and sunny spot in the apartment. The kind of dirt I use is: Miracle-Gro 1 Cu. Ft. Garden Soil For Flowers & Vegetables which cost around $5.00 plus I augment with a composting system. As for the container size I am including this link to OSU’s web site to answer any questions that you might have http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/1000/1647.html . I also plan on trying to grow cucumbers by starting them out in pots then transplanting them into the upside down planters (like topsy turvy) and I will let you know how that turns out.

The second system that I will be employing is called square foot gardening this is done by creating a 1x1 foot grid pattern in either your raised bed or onto the ground that you’ll be working. This system is great for a couple of reasons. One is if you are doing a direct sow you waste fewer seeds since you place the seeds the appropriate distance apart from each other. An example would be, say I am planting lettuce I wouldn’t place the seeds a ¼ inch apart then thin to 4 inches. Instead you just plant them at 4 inch intervals so in your grid you would plant 3. What I have done is planted my lose leaf lettuce in to 20 inch pot so that I may plant them at about 3 inch intervals. If you are putting plants into the ground well then you would just place one plant into a square.

The other reason I like square foot gardening is that since everything is closer together it make weeding a much easier job. I am also no longer leaving all of my gardening tools outside, which my wife love’s since it’s really her stuff I leave out there. In my blogs I will also be sharing photos of my garden along with recipes and on Tuesday the 28th I will be hiving a package of bees so that we can have some pollinators for the garden.

So I hope that you come back to visit me once the summer gets going and especially after the 28th to see if I got stung and how hard the wife will laugh at me if I do.