Bees have always fascinated me. It probably goes back to the days when we lived in the country and had fields to wander in. Plucking the flowers to present to Mom while observing the insects buzzing by. I remember learning that plants feel pain too as evidenced by their wilting once they were plucked and their nutrient source was broken.

Fast forward to attending an informational session presented by Shedd Farley of the Farley Center in Verona, Wisconsin. Shedd spoke of how the center came to be and the programs offered in their mission of Peace, Justice and Sustainability.

One program is their New Beekeepers Program which offers an in person class following a year in the life of the honey bee. I kept his talk in the back of my mind thinking someday I would take the class. I decided to sign up for the class in January 2020 not knowing what a different year 2020 would be. This is a ripple effect that actually started with their newspaper article that was published many years ago.

Farley Center Beekeeping Program Mentors are Patrick Norby and Matt Kersten. They did a fantastic job answering all our questions and offered insight based on their bee keeping experiences. The year started with package install and ended with honey extraction day and fall clean up. I shared a few photos on my Facebook page from last year. I will be starting to blog our bee keeping journey for this year. So I hope you follow along!

I am excited to share the bee package install videos below. Om Bee One hive is the first video that starts with commentary from my parents, the B and B part of the endeavor (Barb and Bob). The Gnome Sweet Gnome is the second video and gets right into the install.

Although I have produced over 400 paper crafting videos for my Youtube channel, these are the first two beekeeping videos. I was not sure what to expect for video quality since filming is outside and I am a distance from my camera phone. So please be kind and I’ll improve the production value as I go along.

I’ll be sharing more bee videos and bee blog posts as we move through the seasons for educational and scientific purposes since the horizontal Layens hives are not as common as the vertical Langstroth hives. Women bee keepers on the internet are even less common; let’s fix that with sharing my videos and posts:) We used Langstroth hives during the Farley Center class but I decided on using Layens hives instead after doing much research on the internet and reading books. I had time in 2020 so I made plans;) One bee keeping Youtube video a day, keeps the doctor away, haha!

I hope you enjoy the educational and real world experience of honey bee keeping from Zone 4 in Wisconsin, USA!

Super Awesome Bee Keeper Shirley