Amen to that Bob, sometimes I love to just sit and watch the bees coming and going from the hive for a couple of minutes and ponder in wonder that I can be this close to a process of nature that was designed so precisely by the Creator and am grateful that I can observe it up close and even reap some of the benefits of the hard work of these amazing little insects.
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I was watching a stuffy done on honey bees
They can recognize the face of the bee keeper ( does this translate into different behaviour??? You guys might know )
They can count and do simple calculations as well as anticipate distance
Pretty impressive for such small creatures
I need to find that video repost it
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They have crazy good communication skills. One of my dad’s students who was an ex-vietnam vet probably sufffering from PTSD, who found his niche with bees, and knew more then entomologists from the university whose job it was to study bees.
BUT you had to translate from his way of saying stuff to the ‘entomologist’ language which I believe a professor did and published a few papers without giving him any credit. He basically lived with them but he knew all the nuances. He could talk about bees for 3 hours seemingly without taking a breath. 
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Here’s a funny story, talking about bees recognizing their beekeeper.
So my first year of keeping bees, in particular on that first winter, I would be occupied with my usual wintertime tasks, that is cutting and splitting firewood. A couple of the warmer days, I would notice a few of my bees buzzing around me as I was cutting firewood and wondered - are they being friendly? Do they recognize that I am they guy that feeds them sugar water when the flowers die?
Then another warmer day I was splitting wood in my woodshed - they were so many of my bees that congregated in there that I honestly felt uncomfortable being in there without a bee suit.
I wondered are these guys following me around and just being friendly or what? Nothing was in bloom, just a warm January day. I did a little research and found out maybe the bees weren’t there to get my attention after all - a little research showed they were probably taking advantage of my freshly cut and split wood to gather propylis to insulate and weather strip their hives with - smart little buggers lol!
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I just thought you should know the royal bee keeper informed the bees that the queen has died and the new master King Charles is now their owner.
Interesting tradition…
Also the royal bees are something I never heard of ( not that I know much about bees ) they are dark English bees, native to the UK and from what I read its uncommon to keep these so called London Mongrels…
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When I was a kid, I thought that would be a great job, until I found out they only pay room and board. They only have 7 hives, plus whatever bishop of canterberry has to make mead with.
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A deck for bees 100 kg of honey
How to make a deck for bees. All about our decks. Kolodny beekeeping. PRP Emelyanovka.
These guys make decks for bees according to Anastasia’s recommendations, which are described by Vladimir Megre in his first book from the series “Ringing Cedars of Russia”. Now these decks are named after the Siberian Anastasia.
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Marat, l have one of these. Also following the books guidence.
They did not survive this year. I fed no sugar, only treat with oxalic acid. But they built nice comb for next years swarm
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There are no such big tree trunks where I live. Therefore, I have to dream about a deck for bees assembled from hardwood tree boards.
Once I came across a note in the old Soviet magazine “Beekeeper” that collective farm beekeepers are boycotting the transition to frames and hives, and continue to use exclusively decks.
Аnd now, when I tell my friends beekeepers about the decks, they claim that it’s just fun, pampering.
Those beekeepers who built the decks believe that honey under the top cover for bees is an inviolable reserve that guarantees their mental stability. Therefore, honey can be taken only from the side of the lower lid. Also, under no circumstances can you move the decks from place to place.
And the ideal way of beekeeping, probably, can be recognized as completely contactless beekeeping, i.e. to allow bees to completely fill the nest with honey and provide them with new housing. But this is aerobatics in beekeeping.
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Dear Chris, today is the celebration of Saint Ambrose, who the beekeepers here have as their patron saint, well, here I am attaching the text that explains it.
The reasons why beekeepers have chosen St. Ambrose, explains
an event from his childhood. Legend has it that Ambrose, when he was still a
a swarm of bees settles on the head of a baby, asleep in its cradle in the backyard. Pestunja,
who was guarding him, started screaming and calling for help. Ambrose’s father, an experienced beekeeper, is
ordered them to leave the child alone, and so the swarm rose after a while without stinging the child
a single bee. After this event, the father named the child Ambrosius. Ambrosia is Greek
the term for manna, which was said to be food for the gods and gave eternal youth and
immortality.
The distinctive, characteristic signs that show us the image of St. Ambrose’s are: a beehive, a book, a feather,
pigeon.
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A little up date we might have some sun shining in the valley today, temps. are up to 46°f . I was wondering how Yehovah’s bees were doing so I went out and checked them out. The long layens hive box was off level so I leveled it and I notice the top lid was open a little, this is not good so I opened it up all the way to see why. My top boards that cover the frames so the bees can go over the frame to work had buckled up lifting the heavy hinged cover. Some bees came out to visit me. I quickly pull a spacer board out and got the bees in side the hive. I saw that there were more dead bees out side the entrance and they were not drones bees.
The bees started coming out the entrance and started to fly around. All the rain we have been having and the 100% humitity is why I am sure the boards buckled up and lifed the lid. If this would have been open durning the sub degree freezing weather they would have not survied I am sure.
Thank you Yehovah for having me check on your bees.
I did check on my other hive that has been struggling down in the cherry orchard. Knocked on the hive but no bees came out to greet me. This hive colony was a much smaller then the other one. We will just have to wait and see if they made through the winter months of cold we had here this year. I did leave both colonies with plenty of there own honey and bee bread to eat for the winter months.
Bob
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The temps. is at 50°f and just like clock work the bees started to come out and fly. It is best not to stand around by the hive unless you want bee poop on you. They have not pooped all winter and they have to go really bad. Lol.
The other hive no sign of life yet.
The other hive as more insulation in the roof lid and is in a colder area down below the house.
Bob
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The Yehovah’s bees are doing great in this colony, but not so in the other one, all dead. So I am harvesting the honey out of the hive. Lots of honey left over pounds and pounds.
Here is one of the 11" X 17" layens/ langstroth frames.
Decap both sides and let the honey drip down.
I will ask for The Great Yehovah Almighty God to bring me more bee Swarms this year. God is good.
The bees this year that made through this past winter will need at least couple of supers boxes added the top of the hive this year.
Hopefully I will make a split with this colony. And fill the other side of this layens hive box it is designed to hold two big colonies.
Bob
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1/2 gallon of raw honey ready to eat. Just in time too, we were on our last jar. Thank you Yehovah God for the honey Your bees left in the hive.
Out of this hive we might get a gallon or more honey. I am not trying to get everything off the frames because there is a big hive of bees with thousands. So the frames are going in a nuke box so the hive can clean up the frames and use what they need. They have been out flying looking around for what they need.
I will give them some food off the frames.
Another 1/2 gallon jar filling up with the golden yummy sweetness.
Bob
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I’m going to get a slice of bread and some honey right now. You make a good commercial for honey.
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My son and I just had a snack of bread butter and honey after seeing bobs pictures 
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Thank you for showing these decks, I have never seen those before and they look very interesting. I am leaning towards building one of these for my next beehive, I like the all natural keeping and harvesting
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Kids and I just had peanut butter and honey on crackers:+1:
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Bob, you are truely blessed with those bees. Here, beekeeping has became a bitter, rather thain sweet operation.
In Slovenia, we have a breed of native bees, famous worldwide for its hard working and its modesty. They overwinter with litle food and are a bit smaller thain yours, grey black in colour.
For keeping the breed “clean”, its the only breed alowed to keep in our country. You get fined if they find out ypu even got a bit of yelow (influence from ltaly).
Sounds good and noble, but such intensive breeding over the last few decades has weakend the breed so much it seems its almost imposible to do natural beekeeping anymore. No varoa resistance whatsoever. And together with destroyed habitat, overpopulation with bees and other factors, lm slowly giving up. I will still try, but have litle comfidence of sucsess
Edit, this breed is great for comercial beekeeping thugh… pumping sugar and poison in the hive. Does human greed realy not have boundries?
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