:: Designing Digitally for Bella Blvd ::

It's introduction week over at Bella Blvd and I am thrilled to be back with them once again; this time as a digital designer! 

Head on over to the blog today to learn a bit about both myself and fellow designer Stephanie Buice. 

We are getting closer and closer to Spring here in the midwest & I couldn't wait to highlight that in my first layout. A photo of one of my honey bees was perfect to use with the adorable bee elements in the Sweet Sweet Spring collection. I combined them with the beautiful watercolor inspired IF She Blooms elements. I really wanted to utilize the layers in photoshop to create a collage type design. I love that the digital world allows me to change things like the opacity of the elements and mix in colors to further customize the layout. I can't wait to share my designs with you all as I further explore the world of digital scrapbooking!

Supply List Format:

Collection Name: Sweet Sweet Spring

( borders & daily details, embellishments)

Collection Name: IF She Blooms (borders & daily details, embellishments, abcs & 123s)

Chipboard Scripts : Hello

Find all of the new Bella Blvd digital products HERE!

My First Honey Harvest & A Look Back at My First Year of Beekeeping

It was the end of May when my friend Billie & I installed my first two packages of bees. I remember being nervous about handling that many bees and hoping to just get it all right. Little did I know that it really wasn't that many bees in those boxes and by the end of the season we'd be working with a whole lot more!

I quickly had to learn how to re-queen one of my hives & this hive then became known as my "weak" hive. Man did this hive give me fits. or teach me alot of beekeeping lessons; whichever way you want to look at it.

I was lucky enough to watch another local beekeeper catch a swarm.

And thanks to many leads via friends on facebook (thank you!) Billie & I went on a few attempts to catch wild swarms ourselves. One where we literally got to see it fly away as we unloaded our equiptment. Man was that an amazing site! At one point I even got enough guts to catch a swarm on my own!

Only to have it to fly away the next day. Hopefully they at least found a good home in our timber some where and will be great genetics for my future bees.

Then there were the "log bees". What a cool experience that was! Our bee mentor & amazingly talented friend Bill came with me on this one. We retrieved a beautiful hive of bees from an old log.

These bees are currently in my "weak hive" and are doing great!
Speaking of the amazing "Bee Bill"; as my kids like to call him. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for your willingness to share your knowledge with Billie & I. And for coming over on a whim when one of us is freaking out over a bee situation. Hopefully you don't regret the night we starting asking you questions at the Bee Club meeting. LOL! Seriously though; Thank you!!!

It's been so amazing to watch the bees work and learn so much about their importance in our lives.

Yesterday both Billie & Bill came over to help me do my Fall inspection. My larger hive is in great shape so we felt it would be alright to take a frame of honey to extract. The rest the bees get to keep!

It's so beautiful!

I brought the frame inside and last night before bed began the extracting process.

First, the wax cappings get scrapped off, using a warmed up kitchen knife.

The cappings and the honey are put into a sieve to filter out the wax pieces.

I let all of this rest overnight to slowly drain into the bowl. 

This morning I filtered it one more time and put it into the glass jars. I was able to get just under a quart of honey from one frame. That to me is pretty amazing stuff!

Ella and I put the frame out on the fence line this morning so the bees could finish up the last little bits. 

I'm so happy I made the decision to get into beekeeping and even more thankful to my "bee buddies" Billie & Bill. Hee! Now, let's have a drink to celebrate! 

Oh! And for the record : I only got stung once! 

:: Bee Adventure # (Oh, who's counting) | Retrieving Bees from an Old Log ::

It's been an adventureous & educating month in the bee area of my life that's for sure! A few days ago a friend and I had the opportunity to retrieve a small hive of bees from a log that a tree company had delivered to a local business. After chainsawing a section of the tree out we loaded it in my truck and brought it to my house where we could work on getting it open. This was quite the process! We carefully cut the comb from the log and used rubberbands to hold them into the hive frames. (I can't believe I didn't get a photo of them. I will do that asap!) We were not able to visually see the queen so we left the log, the hive box, and my truck which was covered in bees alone for the night. Well all except my husband who decided to go out there after dark to show a friend the log and got stung! The man who is so afraid of bees and was allergic to them when he was little. Well, he said it hurt like hell but no swelling. The good news : he has hopefully "outgrown" his allergy over the years & the even better news : He can stop being a wuss around them and start helping me. Yay, he says that's NOTgoing to happen. LOL!

:: What's better than a Bee Swarm for an Early Birthday Gift !?! ::

What's better than a Bee Swarm for an Early Birthday Gift !?! 
Cause it's still my birthday "week" remember! ;)
Thanks to the wonderful world of Facebook, a friend and I were tagged on a gals post requesting a swarm removal. After our last two attempts not going in our favor I was convinced that third times a charm! My friend had to work so I had to go it alone. Oh shit! I'm not gonna lie. I was so nervous to do this on my own. I asked my oldest son Coe to come along to document it for me and to be my moral support.
The homeowners were so amazing. They let me drive my truck right under the tree where the bees had taken up residency.

Just to clarify. I'm not a huge fan of heights and while this swarm was relatively low I still had to stand on a ladder in the back of my truck with thousands of bees above my head, hold on to a wooden box, and try to scoop piles of those bees into said box. Needless to say, my hands were shaken & I was sweating like a you know what in church.  

I nervously babbled and talked the entire time to keep myself calm and I'm sure the homeowner thought I was a nut. Hee! 

 I sprayed the bees down with some sugar water and started to scoop them into the box a bit at a time.

Just breath & keep going ... You got this...

 Yep, all those black specs are bees. Lots and lots of them.

 The homeowners were kind enough to let me take off a few branches (and helped me) to get them all. I told you they were awesome people!

After literally scooping and brushes bees out of the back of my truck and into the box, I think we had our queen and most of the swarm. Success! So far so good.

I placed the caught swarm ontop of my weak hive with some newspaper separating the boxes until tomorrow morning when my mentor is coming over to help sort things out.

Welcome to Home Sweet Home Honeys Bees. Please stick around!

Part 2 Coming Soon! 

Thank you G Family for being so kind and helping save the bees!